Vengeance

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  I wanted to get rid of the gun I was carrying. I also wanted to get rid of the eight thousand dollars in cash. I wasn’t worried about being picked up by the police for speeding or making an illegal turn. I’m too careful a driver for that, but Detective Etienne Vivaise might be looking for me again.

  I drove to Carl Sebastian’s high-rise condo building. I thought I might wake him up. I didn’t. He answered the buzzer in the lobby after a full minute and asked who I was. I told him. He buzzed me in. When the elevator doors opened, he was there in a white robe, freshly showered, a V8 in hand. He looked nervous, anxious.

  “You could have called,” he said, “but if you have information about Melanie … I was up at four this morning. I can’t sleep. I can’t do anything.”

  “Today,” I said as the elevator closed behind me. “I’ll find her today. I’ll talk to her. After that, it’s up to her. If she says no, the choice is yours.”

  He ushered me into his apartment and closed the door.

  “You’re sure you can find her today?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “When?”

  “Before the sun goes down,” I said.

  He took a sip of V8 and nodded. His hand shook just slightly.

  “I suppose I can’t persuade you to tell me where she is so I can …”

  “We have an agreement,” I said.

  “You’re right. You’re right. Just tell her I love her, want her back. She can make the terms. If I’ve done something wrong—”

  “I know what to say,” I said. “I need another five hundred dollars to close out the case. I’ll give you a fully itemized bill for expenses.”

  He looked at me and said,

  “You really know where she is?”

  “I really know.”

  “This isn’t a con to get an additional five hundred out of me?”

  “Keep the five hundred and I stop looking as of this minute,” I said.

  He drained the glass of juice, thought for a second and said,

  “I’ll write you a check.”

  “Cash would be better,” I said.

  He put down the glass on the living room table and plunged his hands into the pockets of his robe. He looked at the portrait of his wife over the mantelpiece. I looked too. Then he sighed and said, “All right. Cash.”

  I stayed in the living room, standing, looking at the portrait of Melanie Sebastian, while he moved to his office.

  He came back in about three minutes, a folded wad of bills in his hand.

  “I’ll write out a receipt,” I said.

  “No, that’s not necessary. Find her today, please.”

  Sebastian was himself again. I didn’t count the money. I placed the wad of bills in my pocket and left.

  The sun was out. The clouds were white and billowy and moving slowly. I drove over to Sarasota High School to watch the baseball team work out and play an intersquad game. There were about two dozen parents, girlfriends and people like me with nothing else to do in the stands.

  I didn’t see my angel in the blue Buick. Maybe he wasn’t a baseball fan. The coach stopped the game from time to time to point out some problem, show the shortstop the right move for a double-play ball going from first base to second base and back to first, demonstrate to the center fielder how to throw home from the outfield so the ball could be cut off by the pitcher.

  It wasn’t like sitting in the stands watching the Cubs on a weekday afternoon, but it helped keep me from thinking too consciously about the gun and the money in my pocket.

  I left after an hour. I had a Chicago Bulls baseball cap in the dresser in my room, but I hadn’t thought about bringing it. If I stayed out in the sun too much longer, the top of my head would be sunburned: one of the several disadvantages of being almost bald.

  Time moved slowly. So did I and so did the blue Buick. By eleven-thirty I had killed as much time as I could. I headed for the post office on Ringling.

  The lot was almost full. I parked. A hot-dog cart stood on the sidewalk doing minimal business. I bought a dog from the dark, deeply tanned woman who wore an apron and a smile. She was a tall, slim brunette about forty.

  The dog wasn’t kosher and the bun wasn’t steamed. I put extra onions and mustard on it and stood eating while I watched the front of the post office.

  The blue Buick waited at the end of the parking lot.

  “How’s business?” I asked.

  “Saturday’s not the best,” she said. “During the week, working people line up sometimes. On Saturdays, you know, I catch ’em coming out of the post office.”

  “Then why come on Saturday?”

  “I’ve got three kids and a husband on disability,” she said. “It gets me out of the house and brings in maybe fifty to a hundred and fifty clear.”

  “You want to double your business?” I asked as I worked on my hot dog and watched the door.

  “No,” she said. “I want to keep living just above the poverty level.”

  “Kosher hot dogs, fresh steamed buns, good buns.”

  “Cost too much,” she said.

  “Double your business,” I said.

  “You want to guarantee that?”

  “Life’s a risk,” I said, finishing my hot dog and throwing my napkin into a garbage bag she had set up.

  “I’ll stick with what I know,” she said. “High profit. Low maintenance. If I spend more on merchandise I’ll need more volume and I’ll have more customers than I can handle.”

  She had a point.

  “See that car, the blue Buick at the end of the parking lot?”

  “Yes,” she said, shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand.

  “Two dogs with everything, a bag of chips and a Coke,” I said, taking out two fives and handing them to her. “No change.”

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “I’ll watch the stand while you make the delivery. You can keep an eye on me.”

  She got the dogs together, wrapped them, pulled out a Coke and a bag of potato chips and put it all in a brown paper bag. I stood watching as she hurried across the lot and knocked at the window. The window came down. She handed him the package and pointed back at me. I waved. He took the bag and rolled up the window.

  I had missed the arrival of the blonde, but there she was. She was wearing a white skirt and blouse and her long hair was in a single braid that hung over her left shoulder. She was carrying a red purse over her right shoulder and looking around.

  A few people passed her going in and out while I stood watching and the hot-dog lady returned. All the men looked at her, pretending not to look. The women were more open in their glances.

  I moved around a pair of parked cars and approached the waiting woman, who had spotted me. She was a beauty. She wore no makeup and was probably in her late twenties. Her eyes were blue, her skin clear. There was even a good chance that the color of her hair was natural.

  I held out the envelope. She took it without a word, put it in her purse and walked away. So did I.

  I got in the Metro, pulled out onto Ringling and headed east. The Buick was a tactful distance behind me. I imagined my angel working on his second hot dog, cheek full, dropping relish on his lap as we drove.

  There is a definite advantage in being the one who is followed rather than the one who follows. A good driver with a lot of nerve who knows the city could have lost the Buick in ten minutes even if the pursuing driver was good at what he was doing. A decent driver with imagination could have lost him in fifteen minutes. Lewis Fonesca, who couldn’t speed and was unable to take chances in a car, took a little longer.

  I went down Ringling to Tuttle, turned right, drove to Bahia Vista and went back to the Trail, where I turned left and then right to get to the parking lot across from the medical office building. I drove up the ramp wondering if the Buick would follow me or just wait for me to come down. My guess was that he would have to follow. I could park and walk over the ramp to the hospital, but I needed the car. I could go
out the other exit or try to sneak past him. I went to the top of the garage and then headed down, trying to decide what I should try. Worst case, I’d have to think of something else to do.

  By this time he had to know I was trying to lose him. I went up and down for about five minutes till on my fourth or fifth pass by the front exit I saw four cars waiting to pull out. There was a slight space between the first and second cars. I forced my way into the open space. The Metro was small enough to do it with a little cooperation from the driver in the second car. The driver was a heavy old woman with glasses who had to strain her neck to see over the windshield. She didn’t seem to notice what I had done. I was sure the blue angel knew. He was now four cars behind me waiting to get out. When it was my turn, I turned right and then right again and drove the half-block to Osprey. Instead of turning either way, I went into the parking lot of the medical complex on my right. The lot was full. I drove to the rear where I knew there was a driveway to the buildings in back, found a space, parked and got out. The Geo couldn’t be seen from the street.

  The Buick came to the corner and hesitated. Then he turned right and moved up Osprey looking for me.

  When he was out of sight, I went back to the Metro and got out of the lot before he came back. When I was reasonably sure I had lost him, I drove behind the Southgate Mall to the large Dumpsters. I took the gun out of the plastic bag, removed the remaining bullets, wiped the weapon clean, dropped it in my McDonald’s bag and, when I was sure I wasn’t being watched, dropped the bag into the nearest Dumpster, acting as if I were simply a good citizen getting rid of his lunch garbage.

  Eventually, I took the bridge across to St. Armand’s, drove straight up. Longboat Key, up Gulf of Mexico Drive and past both Pirannes’s high-rise on my left and the Sunnyside Condos on my right, where he docked the Fair Maiden. I drove on, hoping I had put John Pirannes out of my life.

  I drove over the short bridge at the end of the key and went through the far less upscale and often ramshackle small hotels and rental houses along the water in Bradenton Beach. Ten minutes later, I spotted the sign for Barrington House and pulled into the shaded driveway. I parked on the white-crushed-shell-and-white-pebble lot, which held only tow other cars.

  Barrington House was a white three-floor 1920s stucco-over-cement-block building with green wooden shutters. There were flowers behind a low picket fence and a sign to the right of the house pointing toward the entrance. I walked up the brick path for about a dozen steps and came to a door. I found myself inside a very large lodge-style living room with a carpeted, dark wooden staircase leading up to a small landing and, I assumed, rooms. There were bookcases whose shelves were filled and a chess table with checkers lined up and ready to go. The big fireplace was probably used no more than a few days during the central Florida winter.

  I hit the bell on a desk by the corner next to a basket of wrapped bars of soap with a sketch of the house on the wrapper. I smelled a bar and was doing so when a blond woman came bouncing in with a smile. She was about fifty and seemed to be full of an energy I didn’t feel. I put down the soap.

  “Yes, sir?” she asked. “You have a reservation?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m looking for Melanie Sebastian, a guest here.”

  Some of the bounce left the woman but there was still a smile when she said,

  “No guest by that name is registered.”

  I pulled out the photograph Carl Sebastian had given me and showed it to her, the one of Carl and Melanie happy on the beach. She took it and looked long and hard.

  “Are you a friend of hers?”

  “I’m not an enemy.”

  She looked hard at the photograph again.

  “I suppose you’ll hang around even if I tell you I’ve never seen her?”

  “Beach is public,” I said. “And I like to look at birds and waves.”

  “That picture was taken three or four years ago, right out on the beach behind the house,” she said. “You’ll recognize some of the houses in the background if you go out there.”

  I went out there. There was a small, clear-blue swimming pool behind the house and a chest-high picket fence just beyond it. The waves were coming in low on the beach about thirty yards away, hitting the white sand with a moan, bringing in a new crop of broken shells and an occasional fossilized shark’s tooth or dead fish.

  I went through the gate to the beach and looked around. A toddler was chasing gulls and not even coming close, which was in the kid’s best interest. A couple, probably the kid’s parents, sat on a brightly colored beach towel watching the child and talking. Individuals, duos and quartets of all ages walked along the shoreline in bare feet or floppy sandals. Melanie Sebastian was easy to find. There were five aluminum beach loungers covered in strips of white vinyl. Melanie Sebastian sat in the middle lounger. The other four were empty.

  She wore a wide-brimmed straw hat, dark sunglasses and a two-piece solid white bathing suit. She glistened from the bottle of lotion that sat next to her atop a fluffy towel. She was reading a book or acting as if she was, knowing I was on the way. I stood in front of her.

  “War and Peace,” she said, holding up the thick paperback. “Always wanted to read it, never did. I plan to read as many of the so-called classics as I can. It’s my impression that few people have really read them, though they claim to have. Please have a seat, Mr. Fonesca.”

  I sat on the lounger to her right and she moved a bookmark and laid War and Peace on her lap. She took off her sunglasses. Her face was beautiful, somber. Her body was lean and taut. Normally, I would have enjoyed looking at her. Normally.

  “We spent two nights here after our honeymoon in Spain,” she said. “You would think Carl might remember and at least call on the chance that I might return here, but …”

  “I’ve been paid to find you and deliver a message,” I said. “Will you talk to him?”

  She sat for about thirty seconds and simply looked at me. I was decidedly uncomfortable and wished I had the sunglasses. I looked at the kid still chasing gulls. He was getting no closer.

  “You’re not here to kill me,” she said conversationally. “You could have done that in your office, or at least tried. But that would have been awkward.”

  “Kill you?”

  “I think Carl is planning to have me killed,” she said, turning slightly toward me. “In fact, I’m sure he is. Considering that it’s Carl, he doesn’t have much choice. But I can see that you’re not the one who’s going to do it.”

  “Why does your husband want to kill you?”

  “Money,” she said, and then she smiled. “People thought I married Carl for his money. I didn’t. Mr. Fonesca, I loved him. I would have gone on loving him. He was worth only about a hundred thousand when we married, give or take a percentage point or two in either direction. I, however, was worth close to eleven million dollars from an annuity, the sale of my father’s business when he died, and a very high-yield insurance policy on both my parents.”

  “When you left, you cleared out all your joint bank accounts, credit cards. I checked. Your husband has almost nothing. I checked that too. His business is in debt and he’s on the edge of bankrupt.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “Computers are frightening things. Almost as frightening as people.”

  “I hope Carl paid you in cash.”

  “This morning. After I found out about his situation. It still doesn’t make sense, Mrs. Sebastian.”

  “Call me Melanie. Your first name is … ?”

  “Lewis. Lew.”

  “It makes perfect sense,” she said. “I know Carl has been telling people I’m having an affair with Dr. Green. Lew, I’ve been faithful to my husband from the day we met. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same about him. I have ample evidence, including almost interrupting a session between Carl and Caroline Wilkerson in the buff in our bed five weeks ago. I was supposed to be out of town. I came back a day early to surprise him. It seems the man almost ol
d enough to be my grandfather married me for my money. After I carefully closed the door without Carl or Caroline seeing me, I went out, stayed in at the Hyatt, did a lot of thinking. On the way out, I took Caroline’s driver’s license. I wanted to give her something to think about.”

  “You have reasons for divorce,” I said. “But …”

  “My word against theirs,” she said. “He’d drag it on, find a way to hold up my assets. I haven’t the time, Lew. So I did a little digging and discovered that Caroline was far from the first. I don’t know if he is an old man afraid of accepting his age or if he simply craves the chase and the sex. I know he had no great interest in me in that department for the past year.”

  “You waited five weeks after you knew all this and then suddenly walked out?”

  “It took me five weeks to convert all my stocks and my life-insurance policy to cash and to withdraw almost every penny I have in bank accounts. I didn’t want a scene and I didn’t want Carl to know what I was doing, but, obviously, he has known for several days.”

  “And you think he wants to kill you?”

  “Yes. I don’t think he knows the extent of what I have done, nor that I’ve cashed in the insurance policy,” she said. “Carl claims to be a real estate dealer. He has averaged a little over twenty thousand dollars on his real estate deals each of the years we’ve been married. As for his investments, he has consistently lost money. He thinks that when I’m dead he’ll have millions when, in fact, he’ll have only a few thousand dollars in his bank account, an apartment he won’t be able to maintain, and a 1995 paid-for Lincoln Town Car. Not much for a nearly seventy-year-old man with an image to maintain.”

  “And he’s trying to kill you before you hide your money?”

  “Yes, but it’s too late. I’ve put all the money, but what I’ve kept with me in cash, into boxes and I’ve sent the boxes to various charities, including the United Negro College Fund, the Salvation Army and many others.”