Dave and Kathy were sitting in her living room, listening to chamber music on her stereo and finishing a bottle of wine that was left from dinner. They were both feeling mellow and at ease, from the company as much as from the wine and food.
"You cook a mean putanesca, lady," Dave said.
"Reckon it's in my genes," Kathy responded.
"You’re probably right," Dave agreed. "Hey, I said I’d help with the dishes. Let’s go, Denardo."
Kathy protested playfully as he dragged her to her feet and into the kitchen. "You know, this kitchen could sure use a coat of paint," she complained, as the harsh fluorescent light revealed years of grime on the walls.
"Why don't you get Lizzie to see if Donald can paint it for you?" Dave suggested.
"That's a fine idea," Kathy said. "I'll call her in the morning and see if I can catch him there."
She washed and Dave dried, and then they said goodnight. Kathy had houses to show in the morning.
Day 9, Morning
Billy parked his truck behind the one that he now thought of as Donald’s company car at about 8:45. He rang Lizzie’s doorbell. It was one of those old-fashioned ones with a knob that you twisted. He liked that; it made a pleasant, tinkling sound. Lizzie let him in, glancing worriedly at the street in front of her house. She was sure her neighbors would see the two old rattletrap trucks and think they were filming a revival of the Beverly Hillbillies in the neighborhood. She gave Billy a cup of coffee and fed him a ham biscuit while Donald finished the van.
"Donald is just beside himself with excitement," she said. "He's determined to go all out to show you how well he can do. He's spent the whole morning telling me how to get to the first ten houses on the list. Did you make him memorize directions, or something?"
"No. I'm kind of surprised. He just glanced at the list and didn't even want a copy of it at first. I was worried that he'd lose it, or that he didn't get the whole idea. Donald looked at me like I thought he was a simpleton when I told him he could use the list to make his rounds. He show you the list?"
"No, he just recited everything from memory, like he was going over lessons."
"Strange," Billy mused. "Should be an interesting morning."
Donald finished the van, and he and Billy clattered away in Donald’s truck. Billy was impressed that Donald indeed knew the first stop was the Leatherby’s house and found his way there with no hesitation. He pulled up to the gated entrance to the Marshe Landes without a single wrong turn.
Billy noticed Donald didn’t have any notes, nor was he referring to the map. He was instead reciting street names and directions mixed in with a steady, jabbering commentary on everything that crossed his mind. It got on Billy’s nerves a little, but he kept his mouth shut, thinking that he only had to put up with it for a day or two. Billy wondered if it was some kind of memory trick Donald had learned in truck driving school, this mumbling directions to himself.
Billy and Donald both climbed out of the truck at the gatehouse. Billy introduced Donald to the guards and made sure they put his name and license plate number on their contractors’ list, so that Donald could come and go as he needed.
While Donald drove on to the Leatherby’s, Billy explained about using the service entrances to the back yards, and how to find them, usually by looking somewhere around the driveway to the garage. Donald stopped his truck by the Leatherbys’ service entrance, which actually let them into the garage. Donald did a double take when he saw the big, black Mercedes S600.
"Whoa, Billy! That’s the car."
"Pretty slick," Billy agreed.
"No, Billy. It's the car I saw before. I know the bumper sticker."
He went on to recite the license plate number, which surprised Billy, since Donald was standing beside the car and couldn’t see the plates when he rattled off the numbers. Billy asked him where he had seen the car.
"Don't know. Can't 'member, but it'll come to me sometime. Always do," Donald said.
Billy reminded himself that he just needed Donald to drive around and check traps. Thank goodness, he didn’t have to understand what made Donald tick. He watched as Donald put fresh bait in the trap. The guy was a natural, Billy thought, like he’d been baiting traps all his life.
The rest of the morning went quickly. Not once did Billy have to give Donald directions to the next stop. He was amazed. Sometimes he even had to check the list himself, but Donald had it memorized. Billy soon realized he was wasting his time riding around with Donald.
"So, Donald, you ready to try it by yourself tomorrow?"
"Reckon so." Donald rattled off the next ten customers on Billy’s list. He started giving the directions to the first one before Billy stopped him.
"How you remember all that?"
"I can't remember it," Donald admitted, sheepishly. "I just look at the pictures and get it all from there," he said, as if that explained everything. "It’s all right, ain’t it, Billy? It’s okay I look at the pictures?"
"Of course," Billy said, pretending he knew what Donald was talking about.
Donald was quiet as they drove back to Lizzie’s to retrieve Billy’s truck. He was thinking about the pictures. He had never understood why people carried on so about remembering stuff when you could look at the pictures any time you needed to. Well, almost any time, he corrected himself. Sometimes the pictures got out of order. They were still clear, but you couldn’t tell where they went -- like the car; he had forgotten all about that picture until he saw the car and it reminded him. Now he had the picture, but he couldn’t figure out where it came from. He was pretty sure it was important, though.
Donald dropped Billy off and drove out toward Kathy’s. He hadn’t met her yet, but Kathy was another friend of Lizzie’s. Lizzie had lots of friends, and they suddenly all wanted Donald to do something for them. Kathy had called him at Lizzie’s this morning to ask him if he could come by her place this afternoon to see about doing some painting. All of a sudden, he had all kinds of jobs. He had forgotten to ask Billy about free enterprise. Then he realized it didn’t matter. He had to get that hospital bill taken care of. Once that was done, he could get back to the question of free enterprise. Right now, he thought he’d stop and get some fried chicken for lunch. It was too early to go to this Kathy lady’s house.
Ski Cat was still chuckling to himself about how he had made Fat Tony lose it. Right in front of Little Toby, too. Little Toby let on that he thought Ski Cat and Fat Tony were both as crazy as two flies in a bass drum. Ski Cat hadn’t done anything to change his mind. The "One Minute Manager" hadn’t made it to Ski Cat’s level in the hierarchy yet. Ski Cat thought it was useful for his subordinates to think he was insanely violent. Kept 'em in line; gave 'em an incentive to jump when he said jump.
Although Ski Cat would never let Fat Tony know, he was excited about this new job. He didn’t have to sit on that stinky couch any more, and having all those druggies around made him nervous. Talk about insanely violent. At least now he was out in the world with the civilians, where he was the only dangerous one. He liked that better. Out here, he didn’t always have to be watching his back.
Ski Cat went over his orders again. Find Connie Barrera. Tony gave him her picture and her address: Unit 3A, Riverbend Condominium, in Thunderbolt. Find her, watch her, but don’t touch her under any circumstances. They had to find all her partners first or she would blow the whistle on them. Ski Cat didn't know what it was that the woman was holding over Fat Tony, but whatever it was worried Fat Tony a lot. No way was Fat Tony going to let her tell the cops what she knew.
First thing, Ski Cat had to make sure she wasn’t just hiding out in the condo. That was a challenge. Even dressed like normal people, with his dreadlocks covered up so he looked respectable, he still couldn’t just sit on her doorstep and watch. He stood out too much. He had tried her phone and gotten a machine. She had a nice voice, he noticed. It went with the picture. That answering machine didn’t mean she wasn’t home, though.
Her c
ar was parked there. He had driven by a couple of times in a nondescript Toyota with New Jersey plates that one of his boys had "borrowed" for a couple of hours, while the owners took one of those "Book" tours. Some people didn’t have any sense at all, Ski Cat reflected. Of course, that was why he could sell drugs to them.
All Ski Cat had been able to tell from his drive-by was that the unit had two entrances -- one on the ground floor and the other from a second floor deck that was on the left-hand end as he faced the front. The building had two units in it and faced the Wilmington River, just a couple of hundred yards away.
Right out there was where Ski Cat had earned his nickname. There had been no condos here then -- just shrimp boats and the docks where they had unloaded their catch. Thunderbolt had changed a lot since then. He saw some folks fishing from a shiny little white plastic boat out there in the river. He needed a boat; then he could sit out there and crab, and watch Connie’s door without anybody thinking anything about it. His cousin Leon still had his father’s old bateau, leaky as ever, but still serviceable.
Ski Cat called Leon on his cell phone and got Leon’s lady. Leon was out in the yard working on his truck. She hollered at him to come inside and talk to Ski Cat. Pretty soon, Ski Cat had his boat, delivered to the public ramp just north of the Highway 80 Bridge. In exchange, Leon got a case of beer, and he agreed to take the car back downtown before anybody missed it.
Ski Cat got himself a cooler and iced down his own case of beer. He had also picked up a package of chicken necks for crabbing; Leon kept lines and a dip net in the boat. Ski Cat was set for his surveillance now. He might even catch some crabs.
He was glad to see that Leon had a relatively new outboard on the transom of the boat. Ski Cat wondered idly how many different engines had powered the old boat. Nobody even knew how old the bateau was. Ski Cat’s old man had found it floating upside down not too far up the river from here. That had been before Ski Cat was born. His daddy had been fishing from the bank at Bonaventure Cemetery at the time. He had jumped in the river and pulled the derelict boat ashore. He dried her out, made some crude repairs, and the boat had served him well for a lot of years. It had significantly improved his family’s lot, enabling him to tend trotlines and trap crabs commercially until he got too old. When none of his boys wanted the bateau, he had given her to his sister’s son, Leon.
Leon lived out on a marshy spot of land near Wilmington Island that you could get to on a dirt road, as long as the tide wasn’t too high. Nobody knew for sure who owned the little spit of land, but it didn’t really matter. There had been Wilsons living there longer than anybody could remember and nobody else would want it anyway.
Ski Cat had lots of time to reminisce today, and a lot of memories to see him through. He had anchored the boat with an old brake drum in a spot where he had a clear view of Connie’s condo while he tended his lines. His eyes never left the condo, and no crabs came along to distract him. Ski Cat thought crabs were a pain to pick anyway, but it was nice to be out on the river in the old bateau with plenty of cold beer. Ski Cat was thinking maybe he should retire; he could do this every day.
Tony and Jimmy had spent the morning calling in favors. Jimmy had Connie’s and Rick’s telephone records for the last two months spread out on his desk. Connie’s cell phone records paid off like a broken slot machine. Jimmy thought cell phones were great because people used them without a thought and the billing records left a clear trail of calls dialed and received. He found the air charter service and the Shelbourne Hotel, both from Connie's cell phone bill. She had also called a lawyer named Belk who had an office in Thunderbolt.
Jimmy went to see Sam. They talked it over and thought about it for a while. Sam called the Shelbourne and asked for her, but they had no guests registered under the name Barrera.
"She could 'a just been callin' somebody stayin' there, Jimmy. There's no way to know for sure. Long as she feels safe, she'll probably stay put, so we shouldn't jump too quick. Once we check the air charter company, we'll know a lot more," Sam reasoned. He called Tony to find out what Ski Cat had discovered.
"Ski Cat says her car is parked in front of her place and he's keepin' a good watch on it," Tony reported. "No one's come or gone from there all day."
"Have Ski Cat watch until dark. If nobody's been spotted by then, tell him to break in and search her place. Tell him to look for DVDs and anything else that might give us a clue where she is," Sam ordered. "Also, we need to know if she's in this by herself, so anything he finds in the way of address books or personal phone books might help."
Jimmy was ready to send Ski Cat to Miami, joking that he looked a little pale, but Sam and Fat Tony wanted to wait until they were sure where Connie had gone. Besides, there might be other people involved. They didn't know enough to start chasing around yet. Tony had determined that the air charter service had flown an unknown woman to Miami yesterday for cash. Only the pilot had seen her, though, and he hadn’t come back yet, so they couldn’t be sure it was Connie.
Day 9, Afternoon
Donald washed down the last of his fried chicken with what was left of his 20-ounce bottle of Coca-Cola. He started the truck and pulled out of the grocery store parking lot onto Victory Drive, headed for Thunderbolt.
He wondered what this Kathy lady would be like. So far, all Lizzie’s friends were really nice, just like Lizzie. He sure was lucky she was his friend. It was funny how things like that happened, Donald thought.
He turned off into Thunderbolt and slowed down to 20 miles per hour. The road along the river was narrow, bordered and shaded with ancient oaks dripping with Spanish moss. People trying to pull out into traffic couldn’t see very well, not to mention that there were pedestrians this time of day.
He drove into the parking lot of Kathy’s condo and found unit 2B. As he turned into a visitor’s parking place facing out over the river, he noticed somebody crabbing from an old bateau anchored just on the other side of the narrow channel. Donald thought that would be a mighty fine way to spend the day. He wondered if they were catching crabs, and then thought that it probably didn’t matter; just being out on the water would be good enough.
He shut off the truck and walked over to ring Kathy’s doorbell. He was surprised and pleased when Dave Bannon opened the door and showed him in. It looked like all Lizzie’s friends knew each other, too. Nice folks.
"Hey, Dave, I come to see a lady name Kathy. She call me this mornin’ at Lizzie’s about doin’ some paintin’ in the kitchen," Donald announced.
"Kathy's busy, out selling houses. She asked me to meet you here, but she ought to be home pretty soon. Come on in and look it over."
They went into the kitchen so Donald could see what needed to be done. Donald’s eyes were drawn to the sliding door that opened out onto the deck. He spotted a pair of binoculars that Kathy kept on the counter for watching birds and boats. Impulsively, he picked them up and focused on the bateau he had spied while he was parking the truck. He was shocked to see that the man in the bateau was looking back toward him, also with binoculars. Then his shock turned to a chill as he recognized the man.
"That’s Ski Cat," Donald blurted. "Why he lookin’ at us?"
"Who’s Ski Cat?" Dave asked, perplexed, as Kathy walked in the front door and called out to them.
"Ski Cat right there. That’s him," Donald elaborated, alarm ringing in his voice. He was so intent on Ski Cat that he was oblivious to Kathy’s greeting. "Ski Cat mean. He sell drugs and hurt people. He live next door to my Mama. Scary, bad dude," he summed up, clearly upset.
At that point, Donald realized the lady who had just come in must be Kathy. He pulled himself back to the task at hand and introduced himself to her. He apologized for his outburst, Ski Cat momentarily forgotten.
"That's okay, Donald. Thanks for coming by. Think you can put a coat or two of paint on these grimy walls for me?"
"Yes'm. Reckon I can. Used to work with my father before the Army. He made a livin' bein' a handyman
. You just get me some stuff to work with, and I take care of it."
Then his thoughts shifted back to Ski Cat. "Why you all reckon Ski Cat watchin' us?"
"Donald, tell you what. We'll just tell Kathy's brother, Joe, about Ski Cat. Then we won't have to worry about him anymore," Dave proposed.
"Why? Who Joe? What he do about it?"
Donald relaxed about Ski Cat when he found out that Kathy’s brother was the same Sergeant Denardo he had met the other morning while he was in the hospital. He couldn’t quite recall why the police Sergeant had come to see him, but he remembered that Lizzie had introduced them. That Lizzie, she knew just about everybody.
For some reason, Black Caesar came to mind. Donald was so busy helping all Lizzie’s friends that he didn’t have time to work on his Black Caesar costume. All her friends were paying him to help them, though, so he could get that hospital bill taken care of pretty soon. That reminded him that he was going to paint Kathy’s kitchen.
She would most likely pay him for that. He wondered how much she had in mind. "Probably take me most of the afternoon and part of the evening to paint this," he mused aloud.
"I'll get it all cleared out for you this evening, and get the stuff you need. That way you can come on out here and get started when you're through checking your traps tomorrow," Kathy told him. "Hundred fifty dollars sound about right?"
They agreed on the price, and Kathy gave him a spare key. That way, she didn’t have to be there when he came. She would buy paint and all the other stuff he needed tonight and leave it in the kitchen for him. He could just come and go when he got ready. Donald left, thanking Kathy. As he walked to his truck, he saw that Ski Cat was still out there. That worried him, but he thought there wasn’t much he could do.
Donald thought about going to watch Delia’s ghost-walk again tonight, but he thought better of it. His head still looked funny. It might scare the tourists; besides, Delia would no doubt recognize him, and that would probably make her nervous. He decided he would stay in his room and finish reading the book Lizzie had given him. Maybe that would help him relax and he could come up with some new ideas for his costume.
Deception in Savannah: A Humorous Novel of Murder, Mystery, Sex, and Drugs Page 12