“I’m here,” came a familiar voice.
“Flo, it’s Lew.”
“Bad news for you, Lewis,” she said. “Bad news. She’s gone.”
“She’s gone,” I repeated.
“Got a phone call about an hour ago. Guy said you’d given him the number. Asked for Beryl. Said he was a lawyer friend of yours, that he was going to get an injunction against her husband, going to get him to tell where Adele was. I asked him if he wanted to talk to Beryl. Said no, asked me the address. That’s when it hit me.”
“He wasn’t a friend,” I said.
Dwight had probably called from my office sitting in my chair.
“That’s what hit me. You would’ve called, told me he was gonna get in touch. You would have told him where I live.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Beryl had left, gone off to a motel or somewhere. I said she got in a cab and went off, didn’t tell me where. The son of a fuckin’ bitch hung up. I told Beryl, told her to get her things together, that we were taking her someone safe. While she got ready, I got the car out of the garage, drove around front, went in to get her and—”
“She was gone,” I said, seeing if it was worth super-gluing a broken little plaster duck I kept on my desk for luck.
“Gone, walked away. I looked for her. Drove all over. Nothing. Lew, I think it’s time for the cops. That shit’s after her and she’s running scared.”
“Maybe you’re right, Flo.”
“I’m sorry, Lew. I fucked up.”
“No you didn’t,” I said, putting the two halves of the duck on my desk. “You figured it out. Flo, I think you might want to get out of there.”
“Lewis, I want that bastard to show up here,” she said. “I want it so bad I’d pay big dollars for the joy. I’m holding a very large weapon in my hand and if I see him coming to my door, I’m shooting a hole right through the door and him.”
“Not a good idea,” I said.
“Lewis, I’ve got money and one hell of a great lawyer. Lord, let him come.”
“He’s driving a pickup truck—Ford—with a tow winch,” I said.
“One more question,” she said.
“I’d say ‘shoot’ but under the circumstances …”
“You’ve got a sense of humor hiding behind that sad face, Lewis. Question is, does he have my address? Are you sure? I’m not listed in the phone book.”
I looked at my mess of address and business cards on the floor and said, “I think so.”
All Dwight Handford had to do after he read my file on Adele and found out I had taken her to Flo’s was to get the address out of the address book on my desk.
“How long does it take you to get here from your place?”
“Fifteen minutes, maybe a little more,” I said.
“He called a lot more than an hour ago. What’s keeping the bastard?”
“Good question, Flo. Maybe you should get out of there for a while.”
I knew what her answer would be.
“Beryl was scared, real scared. That man’s hurt her. He’s sure as hell hurt that kid. He is one dangerous asshole.”
That I knew, but I said,
“Lock up tonight. I’ll keep calling.”
“You going to look for Beryl?”
“I’m going to look.”
There was a sound of footsteps coming slowly along the the concrete walk outside my office. I hung up and went for my tire iron. When I had it in hand, I faced the door. Someone pushed it open. I hoped the someone didn’t have a gun. He didn’t.
“Ames,” I said.
He looked at me as unmoved as he always was and said, “I came to work on the air conditioner some more.”
He looked at the air conditioner and so did I for the first time since I had come into the office. The front of it was caved in.
“You go berserk?” Ames asked, calmly nodding at the tire iron and then looking around the room.
“No,” I said. “Someone came in. Beryl Tree’s husband. He was looking for something.”
“Find it?”
“Yes.”
Ames nodded as if it was all clear to him. Maybe it was.
“Never fix the air conditioner now,” he said. “Don’t think there was much chance of it yesterday when it was still sort of alive.”
“We’ll give it a decent burial,” I said, sitting at my desk and biting my lower lip.
“Somethin’ hurtin’?”
“Beryl’s husband. Last night. Told me to stop trying to find his daughter and to get Beryl out of town. He performed euthanasia on the air conditioner and made this mess.”
Ames nodded and said,
“I’ll have to work out what I owe you some other way than the air conditioner.”
I wanted to tell Ames again to forget it, but he couldn’t forget what he thought he owed me. He had to pay it off to keep his self-respect.
“I’ll think of—”
The phone rang. I had a pretty good idea who it might be. Once again I was wrong. I picked it up.
“Hello.”
Ames started to pick things up off the floor. I didn’t stop him.
“Fonesca,” said Harvey the computer genius. “He tell you? I wanted to be sure you got the message.”
“Who? What message?”
“Your partner,” said Harvey.
Ames held up a black oblong something. I couldn’t figure out what it was for a second. Then I remembered. It was the name plaque that had been on my wife’s office door. Ames turned it over, looked at the name, rubbed it gently against the sleeve of his well-worn flannel shirt, placed it faceup on the desk and began to clean up the room.
“My partner?”
“When I called you earlier, he answered, took the message,” Harvey said.
“Give it to me again, Harvey. That wasn’t my partner. I don’t have a partner.”
“Then who … forget it. I don’t want to know.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That I had some information on Melanie Sebastian. Her car was found at the airport. Could have been there for weeks in the long-range parking, but Carl Sebastian reported it missing. Routine check found it. I found the report on the airport computer.”
“So she flew away,” I said.
“Don’t think so,” said Harvey. “I went into the records looking for a Melanie Sebastian, or a Melanie Lennell or a Melanie anything who might have flown out anytime between this morning going back to Tuesday. Nothing. Didn’t expect to find anything. Then I tried females with the initials M. L. or M. S. Nothing. You have to show ID when you get on a plane, you know.”
“I know, but how closely do they look.”
“Some do. Some don’t. You want the rest?”
Harvey was enjoying himself. I wasn’t. But I needed him. I watched Ames and listened to Harvey.
“Then I checked all the women who had paid for their tickets in cash since no credit card of hers showed an airline ticket purchase. Nothing. You know what I did next?”
I was reasonably sure, but I didn’t want to spoil Harvey’s surprise.
“Taxis from the airport to anywhere with a woman passenger. Town this size with most people getting picked up or having their own cars waiting, business at the airport isn’t all that hot for taxis even on the best of nights or days.”
I felt like blurting out “car rentals” but I said,
“And you found nothing?”
“Nothing. Then rentals cars. I got her, pilgrim. Last Wednesday night. Lady got a red Neon from Budget. Showed an ID, left a cash deposit. You have a pen and something to write on?”
I had a green-and-white push-button pen in my pocket. The word RHINOCORT was in green against the white. I had no recollection of picking it up. Everybody advertises on pens, gives them away. I haven’t bought a pen in five years. I found an envelope in the top drawer and said,
“Ready.”
“Georgia plates. License number 66884J. Now, you’ve got t
hree questions, right?”
“Right,” I said as Ames, with a handful of junk, stood surveying the room to see what items larger than a paper clip he might have missed.
“Gonna get a broom,” he said.
I covered the mouthpiece of the phone and said, “DQ will lend you one.”
Ames nodded and left as Harvey said,
“Question one: How many days did she rent it for? Answer: Ten days. Question two: Where did she plan to return it? Answer: Back at the airport right here in town. Question three: Whose ID did she show? Answer: Caroline Wilkerson. Driver’s license. You ever see a photo of Caroline Wilkerson in the Herald-Tribune ?”
“I’ve seen the woman up close, this morning.”
“I matched computer images from IDs of the two women,” said Harvey. “You’d have to be blind to think it was the same woman.”
“So,” I said, looking at my watch.
“So, someone with the touch, knowledge and a halfway powerful computer and a color printer could strip in a photograph of Melanie Sebastian over Caroline Wilkerson’s and then relaminate.”
“You know people who could do it?” I asked.
“I know some and I’m sure there are a lot more out there. I don’t think we’ll track her that way.”
“Thanks, Harvey.”
“I’ll keep looking,” he said.
“You’ve done enough.”
“This is fun. I need fun.”
“Then have fun. Call me if you turn anything up.”
We hung up and I looked at my wife’s nameplate. I remembered it on her door. I remembered her walking out to greet me with a smile, her hair pulled back, her … Question: How did Melanie get Caroline Wilkerson’s driver’s license?
I did know a lot now. Melanie Sebastian was driving a new red Neon. She was probably still within driving range of Sarasota unless she planned to: (a) drive back from somewhere two or three days away; or (b) return the car to some other Budget office. I was sure Harvey would keep track of that. And (c) was my favorite: She was still in the immediate area. Why?
I reached for the phone and the Melanie Sebastian file, which Dwight had gone through and dumped. It didn’t look as if he had taken anything. Why should he? He wasn’t looking for Melanie. I was. He was looking for Beryl Tree. I dialed the number for Caroline Wilkerson. It rang six times and the answering machine came on. It was her voice. The message was simple: “Please leave a message.” I did. I asked her to call me. Just in case she had tossed my card, I left my number.
Ames returned, broom and dustpan in hand, and went to work. I watched him. Once he had been worth about three million dollars, by his reckoning. Now he was cleaning the floors and tables in a bar and sweeping my floor and he said he was content. I believed him.
“Ames, I’ve got to find Beryl Tree.”
“She’s not at Flo’s?”
“Ran away. Her husband tracked her down.”
I pointed to the mess to indicate how he’d located her.
“We’ve got to find her,” he said as he swept. “I like the lady.”
“Then we better start looking for her and her daughter.”
“Adele,” he said.
“Adele,” I repeated.
“Nice name,” said Ames. “You feel up to it? You look kind of sickly.”
“Dwight came to see me last night.”
I got up, rubbed my sore stomach.
“Bad man,” said Ames, sweeping the floor.
“Very bad. I’ve got to get myself in shape fast,” I said. “I’ve got a date tonight.”
Ames stopped sweeping and looked at me. Just looked.
“A lady?”
“A lady,” I said, tucking the envelope with the tag number of the red Neon Melanie Sebastian had rented into my shirt pocket.
“You sure you’re up to it?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “But I’m going to try.”
I looked at him and he looked at me and then at my wife’s name plaque.
“It’s worth trying,” he said. “You know what trying does?”
“What?”
“Keeps a man alive,” he said.
7
BERYL TREE COULD BE in any one of five dozen motels in Sarasota, not to mention more in Bradenton. It would take too long to find her that way. No, the best way to find Beryl was to find Dwight or Adele or both.
I had called Carl Sebastian and told him I had some news.
“Yes?” he said eagerly. “Where is she?”
“I’d like to come by and see you,” I said.
“Sure, of course, but I have a dinner meeting tonight. Let’s see … It’s almost four. Can you be at the bar in Marina Jack in half an hour?”
“Half an hour,” I said.
He hung up and I got dressed. I wasn’t sure of how I should dress for my date with Sally Porovsky, but considering what I had in mind, I settled for clean blue slacks, a light blue button-down shirt and a red knit tie. Then I headed for Marina Jack’s.
It took me a little over five minutes to drive to the parking lot, find a space between a blue Mercedes and a digesting pelican, and head down the pier. The docks jutting off to the right and left of the pier were reasonably full of small to medium pleasure boats that bobbed with the tide. Gulls swooped, cackled and searched for food. A few pelicans sat on the dock or on empty boats, wings tucked into their chests, scanning the water without moving their heads.
A pelican circled above, saw something and dived awkwardly with a plop into the water just beyond a white boat with the name Dead Souls painted on its stern. Someone, I think it was Dave, told me that pelicans keep their eyes open when they dive and the eyes of the bird aren’t protected. Eventually, if they live long enough, pelicans go blind.
In front of me, in the circle in front of the restaurant, valets were parking cars, moving around cars that were already parked to wherever cars could be parked. I walked up the steps behind a man, woman and teenage girl. The girl walked the sullen walk of a teen who found neither her parents nor her prospects interesting. The walk said that she planned to keep letting her parents know that she did not plan to enliven dinner with her wit. I read a lot into the walk and when I moved past them while the father checked in at the reservation podium, I got a look at the girl’s face and knew I was right. The girl was just about the age of Adele Tree. I wondered where Adele was and who she might be having dinner with.
I wondered how the couple in front of me would react if the sullen girl was missing the next morning. Anguish, yes. Confusion, yes. Denial, yes. And guilt, always guilt. You can tell yourself it wasn’t your fault. A thousand shrinks with a thousand mandolins could tell you it wasn’t your fault. But it was. You can always think of something you should have done, could have done.
Carl Sebastian blustered and bragged, but a gargoyle called guilt rode on his shoulders, head back, laughing and showing sharp teeth. A small taunting demon of guilt hid within the purse of Beryl Tree, peeping out to whisper of things that could have been done and weren’t. I knew the demon and the gargoyle. We weren’t friends, but I knew them.
The place was noisy. The bar was to my right and beyond it was the dining room and beyond the dining room was the bay and a view of Lido Key about a half mile or so away.
Carl Sebastian was at a table in the bar. He sat alone, a drink in his hand, his eyes on me as I approached. I sat.
“What do you have?” he said.
I felt like saying “a sense of humor” or “a desire for civilized interaction,” but I didn’t.
He was dressed in a perfect-fitting white jacket, a black shirt and a white tie and, from what I could see, a perfectly creased pair of white slacks. There was even a black handkerchief in his pocket.
I looked at him and smiled. I think it was a smile.
“You’re in pain,” he said. “Your chest—”
“Nothing to do with your situation,” I said.
“I’m sorry,” said Sebastian, starting to put a hand up to ch
eck the wave in his white hair and then changing his mind. “I’ve just been … don’t know. I can’t work. I can’t … would you like a drink? I’m just having Bloody Mary mix with a slice of lemon. They don’t have V8 tonight.”
“I’ll have the same,” I said.
Carl Sebastian looked up over my shoulder, made a slight gesture with his left hand and a waiter appeared. Sebastian ordered my drink and another for himself.
“She’s probably still in the area,” I said.
“Good,” he said.
“She’s not using her credit cards or checking account.
Of course she could have used her cash to open another account under another name, but I don’t see the point. Mr. Sebastian, I don’t think your wife wants to be found. Not right now. She’s not running, but she doesn’t want to be found. I have some reasonable evidence that she plans to stay around for a while. I think she may come back on her own, call you or get to you through a friend. That’s what they usually do.”
He shook his head no.
I sat listening to the noise and looking to my right at the sun on the water.
“I don’t want to think about who she might be with,” he said. “What she might be doing. I can’t sleep. I can’t work. Find Melanie for me.”
I shrugged and looked at the Bloody Mary mix with a twist of lemon the waiter had placed in front of me.
“All right,” I said. “She rented a car. I may be able to track it down, find it, find her through it. There are other leads.”
“The good Dr. Green,” he said with as much sarcasm as he could muster.
“Maybe,” I said. “You still think he might be with your wife?”
“Yes,” he said emphatically, looking into my eyes.
“He says he’s gay,” I said.
“I know,” said Sebastian. “He’s lying.”
“Pretending to be a homosexual?” I asked after taking a drink.
“Why not? He gets the homosexual trade. He gets women who feel comfortable with a homosexual who wouldn’t be with a—”
“Straight guy, like you and me?” I said.
“You’re mocking me, Fonesca,” he said.
“Sorry.”
“Shall I continue or do you want to smirk for a few seconds?”
Vengeance Page 10