“Okay,” I said, “you guys know where I’m staying?”
“Yeah,” Norman said, “we know.”
“When I get a call from you telling me what I want to know, I’ll leave these wallets at the desk for you,” I said. “I want to hear from you tomorrow. Understand?”
“Yeah,” Norman said. “What about my gun?”
“You can get another gun, Norman.”
“It ain’t mine,” he complained. “I couldn’t bring one on the plane. I borrowed that one.”
“Then you’ll have to pay for it,” I said, “if I don’t hear from you by tomorrow I’m handing these wallets over to the cops, the detectives. Understand?”
“Yeah,” Norman grumbled.
“If I hear from you and I think you’re lying, I’ll turn them over to the detectives.”
“Hey,” Eddie said, “how are we supposed to convince you we ain’t lying?”
I grinned and said, “Try hard. Now get out of here. They’re closing the park up soon.”
Norman looked from me to Cathy.
“Go on,” she said, “but if I see you outside the park I arrest you for real. Get it?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “Come on, Eddie.”
“I don’t like the way this job went, Norman,” Eddie was saying as they walked away.
I had the feeling Norman felt the same way.
After they were gone, Cathy looked at me and said, “Now what?”
“Put that in your bag,” I said, handing her the gun. “Now we get out of here before we get locked in.”
She put the gun in her bag.
“And these,” I said. I handed her the wallets and she stowed them, too, then leaned back against the partition.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“I’m a little shaky,” she said, grinning at me. “That’s a little more physical than I usually have to get. I’m not used to wrestling with a hood from Jersey.”
“How about a private eye from New York?” I asked.
She pointed her finger at me and said, “Don’t get any ideas.”
“Come on,” I said, taking her by the arm, “let’s find someplace to have some coffee.”
39
Outside the main gate there was no sign of our two friends. We caught the shuttle, getting off at our respective parking lots. She gave me directions to a nearby Denny’s, and we met there and went inside for coffee.
“Feeling better?” I asked when we were seated in a booth.
“Yeah,” she said, “I’ll make it. What was that all about, Miles?”
“I’m not sure,” I said, “but I hope to find out tomorrow.”
“You mean you really think they’ll call?”
“Oh, they’ll call,” I said. “They want their wallets back. Speaking of which, let’s take a look.”
She handed them over, and I went through them until I had their driver’s licenses and a couple of credit cards.
“Get this,” I said, laughing and reading the licenses. “‘Norman Bates.’ I bet he got teased about that growing up.”
“Why?”
“Norman Bates,” I said to her, “was Anthony Perkins’s name in the movie Psycho.”
“Oh,” she said. “That’s an old movie.”
I didn’t say anything. Maybe she was younger than she looked.
“The other guy is Edward Brewster,” I said. I went through Brewster’s wallet and came up with some more ID. “On this one he’s Edward Boston, and on this one E. J. Bellows.”
“Which one is real?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “He’s probably got bank accounts in all of them. He won’t want this wallet turned over to the detectives.”
I put the ID away and pocketed the wallets just as the waitress brought our coffee. Cathy had also ordered a patty melt.
“So what happens when they call you?” she asked around a mouthful.
“Hopefully, when they give me the name of the man who hired them, it’ll be familiar.”
“And if it isn’t?”
“Then I’m back to square one,” I said, “without a hint about where to go from there.”
“Will you tell Becker about this?”
“Will you?”
“I should, I guess,” she said. “Do you want me to?”
“I don’t want to ask you to lie.”
“I wouldn’t be lying,” she said, “I just wouldn’t be telling him—or anyone—what happened tonight.”
“You’d do that?”
“If you asked me,” she said, looking at me over her sandwich, “nicely.”
“Cathy—”
“I’m hungry,” she said, biting into her sandwich again, but she kept her eyes on me. “Does that happen often?”
“What?”
“You know, after a fight with some hoods. Do you get . . . hungry?”
I felt her foot on my ankle and had the sudden revelation that we weren’t talking about food here. . . .
You don’t have to hit me over the head with a hammer!
40
When I woke up the next morning in Cathy’s bed, she wasn’t there. I rolled over to the side she had slept on and it was cool. There was a note on the night table: “Had some errands to run. Be back soon. If you’re still here, we’ll go someplace for lunch.”
I rolled over onto my back and put my hands behind my head. I had followed her back to her house after Denny’s, and she had shown me just how hungry our little tussle with the hoods from Jersey had made her. Come to think of it, I had been pretty hungry myself.
Come to think of it, I was hungry, and I wasn’t ready to wait for lunch, considering it was only ten o’clock. I didn’t know what kind of errands she had to run, but I had some of my own.
I got up and decided not to use the shower. I had to put on the same clothes I’d taken off the night before. I’d shower back at my hotel and climb into something fresh.
The house was a small, two-bedroom affair without the usual family room that Florida houses had. It sort of reminded me of Ray Cortez’s place.
I peeked into the second bedroom and saw what was obviously the room of a little boy. There were some toys on the floor, and on the dresser was a Hulk Hogan doll standing next to a G.I. Joe attack trak, or something. On the window-sill stood three of the four Ninja Turtles, but I didn’t know them well enough to identify them. On the wall were some photographs of the little boy with Cathy. Shane had his mother’s blond hair and pale skin, and he was a good-looking lad.
I nosed around a little more before leaving, without touching anything. Lots of pictures on the walls, and then I spotted the bag she had been carrying yesterday. It was on a chair in the living room. I remembered I still had her lipstick in my pocket, so I took it out and went over to drop it in the bag. The bag was light when I picked it up—too light. I dropped the lipstick in, then stuck my hand in after it and felt around a bit.
The gun was gone.
Either she had tucked it away someplace or she had taken it with her. Why would she take it with her? She was off duty today. Was she taking it to her superiors, to turn in? And if so, how could she do that without saying where she got it?
I’d have to ask her all of these questions later. I looked around for a pad and pencil and found them next to the cordless phone in the kitchen.
I left her a note that said: “Had some errands of my own. Call you later.”
I left the house and got in my rented car. I had to go back to the hotel to change, and to check for messages, and to try to figure out what my next move was going to be. Should I even stay in Tampa looking for Sandy Meyer, or just forget the whole thing and go home? When I heard from Norman and Eddie, what they had to say was going to go a long way toward answering that question.
I tried not to think any more about the gun on the way to the hotel.
41
Patrick was back on duty when I got to the hotel.
“Only one day off, Patrick?” I asked.
“Oh, hello, Mr. Jacoby,” he said. “I need the extra money.”
“Any messages for me?”
“I don’t think so,” he said. He checked, then shook his head. “No, sir. Are you expecting something?”
“Yes, Patrick,” I said, “something very important.”
“Well, as soon as it comes in I’ll let you know.”
“Thanks, Patrick. Uh, there’s nobody up in my room, is there?”
He looked alarmed and said, “Not that I know of, sir.”
“I’m just kidding, Patrick,” I said, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t real careful when I got to my door. I listened for a while, then opened the door very quickly and stepped into the room. Feeling silly, I closed the door behind me, laid out some fresh clothes, and took a shower.
When I got out of the shower, I grabbed a towel off the rack, and as I did something fell out. It was a hotel pad. I dried my hands and picked it up. Holding it up to the light, I could see that there were some impressions on the top page that looked like numbers.
I put the pad aside where it wouldn’t get wet, dried myself thoroughly, got dressed, then picked up the pad again.
I went to the writing desk, got a pencil, and ran the point sideways over the impressions, back and forth, until the phone number was highlighted. I didn’t know the number, but one thing struck me immediately—the prefix was the same as my client’s, Jerry Meyer. It was odd, but I didn’t remember that having occurred to me when Geneva had given the number to me. Also, I had written down the number but not the name of the person I was supposed to call.
I went over to the bed, sat down, and dialed.
“Charles Haney and Company,” a woman’s voice said.
Haney had not been the name Geneva had given me.
“I’m sorry?” I said. “Who is this?”
“These are the offices of Charles Haney and Company,” she said patiently.
“And what is that?”
“It’s a stockbrokerage firm, sir.”
“Where are you located?”
“In the World Trade Center.”
“Thank you,” I said, and hung up.
Jerry Meyer’s office was also in the World Trade Center.
What the hell was going on here? As anyone who knows me is aware, I don’t believe in coincidence. That I had come to Florida just to receive a call from someone with offices in the same building as Jerry Meyer could not be a coincidence.
Okay, so now we know what it’s not. Somebody tell me what it is.
I decided to have breakfast downstairs in Denny’s so Patrick could find me if I got a message, but first I tried to call Geneva to see if she could give me the name of the guy who had called, but there was no answer at her place. After breakfast I’d probably catch her at Packy’s.
Over breakfast I went over the events of the past few days to see if there was a way they would all fit together.
Jerry Meyer hired me to find his wife; he was followed to my place by someone who then started to follow me; when I braced that person, he backed off and I let him go, not making a connection at that point; I come to Florida, start looking for Sandy Meyer, and the same guy shows up dead in my room. So, a connection between my search for Sandy Meyer and the dead guy. My assumption was that he was killed and dumped in my room to frame me for the murder. That would keep me from looking for Sandy Meyer. So far, it all connected.
Ray Cortez’s murder connected, also, since I was only looking for him to ask about Sandy Meyer. The common denominator in all of this was Sandy Meyer, only Sandy was supposed to be just a missing wife.
Of course, in New York she was a missing wife. What the hell was she in Florida, other than a postcard model? What had she gotten herself into between the time she’d left Meyer and now? Something that had resulted in the death of two men.
The more I thought about it—along with the fact that so far four men had tried to make an impression on me in one way or another—the more I thought it might make sense to dump the whole thing in Detective Becker’s lap. Let him look for Sandy Meyer in connection with two murders. I’d go back to New York and tell Jerry Meyer to contact the Tampa police about his wife, who had somehow gotten herself involved in some very heavy shit.
One thing was wrong with that. Right from the git-go I’d had a funny feeling about Meyer, but a trip to Florida had caused me to overlook it. Why did I get a call from somebody in his building—somebody who was in the same business that he was in—and then why was the phone number stolen from my room? What kind of sense did it make for the killers to dump the body and steal a phone number?
The only person who could answer all of these questions was Sandy Meyer, and I was just egotistical enough to think that I had as much of a chance—or better—of finding her as Becker did. Besides, I wanted to talk to her, and he’d probably end up arresting her. If he did that, I’d probably never get to talk to her, and my curiosity was extremely aroused. I mean, just to know why a killer would steal a phone number from my room . . .
I decided to hold off on bringing Becker into it, at least until I heard from my friends Norman and Eddie.
After my pancakes and sausage I went back into the lobby. Patrick saw me and shook his head apologetically. I pointed up, indicating that I’d be in my room. It didn’t make much sense for me to do anything else. My next move depended on what the Jersey hoods had to tell me.
42
When I got back to my room the phone was ringing. Normally, when you’re staying in a hotel and the phone rings, you can pretty much guess who it will be. There are only so many people who know where you are. This was different. It could have been any number of people, from Geneva to Cathy to the Jersey hoods, or the Tampa cops, or just Patrick from the desk. Lots of implications to just picking up a ringing phone.
I picked it up and said hello.
“Jacoby?”
“That’s right.”
“Brewster,” he said. “You know me, right? From yesterday?”
“How could I forget? You got something for me?”
“I got a name.”
“Okay, give.”
“This is the guy who hired us,” Brewster said. “I didn’t have no contact with him, understand?”
“I understand.”
“Okay,” he said, and, then again, “okay, then . . . then here’s his name.”
It really went against the grain for him to name his employer. I could almost sympathize with him.
“I’m ready,” I said.
“Okay,” he said, and, again, “his name’s . . . you’re gonna give us back our wallets, right?”
“You’ll have to pick them up downstairs at the desk,” I said.
“How do we know we won’t get nabbed by the cops?”
“Hey, Jersey,” I said, “you were nailed by the cops yesterday and we let you go. I don’t want you. I want the man you work for.”
“Ain’t no man.”
“What?”
“It ain’t a man who hired us,” he said, “it was a woman.”
That was interesting. Could it have been Sandy Meyer herself?
“Well, who is it?”
“Her name’s Angela Worth.”
“Angela Worth?”
“Yeah,” he said, “you know her?”
“I’ve met her,” I said, shaking my head. Angie Worth was the aging calendar model I’d talked to at C & C Novelty in Sarasota. Why would she hire two hoods to scare me off, and import them from Jersey to boot? Wait a minute! When we talked she had said she was from Jersey. Remembering that made it fit a little better, but not much.
“What do you know about her?” I asked my informant.
“Not much. She used to be married to Ed Riccio.”
“Ed Riccio?” I asked. “Who’s that?”
“Who was that. Ed Riccio used to run Newark, until he was moved out.”
The Mafia.
“Moved out . . . forcibly?”
“Permanently. Angie was his widow
, and she was allowed to move to Florida.”
“She leave on good terms?”
“Considering they killed her husband,” he said, “she didn’t rock the boat.”
“So if she needed a favor . . .”
“Now you got it,” he said. “All of it . . . all I got to give you.”
“Sure,” I said.
“The wallets?”
“Down in the lobby,” I said. “The desk clerk will have them.”
“I got your word?”
“You’ve got it,” I said, and hung up without saying goodbye.
Hell, so I’m rude. Sue me.
Fifteen minutes later the phone rang again.
“Miles?”
It was Cathy.
“Hi.”
“What happened to you?”
“I had some errands of my own to run,” I said.
“I came back and I expected . . . oh, never mind. What are you going to do today?”
“I was heading to Sarasota.”
“Want some company?”
I hesitated. Did I want some company? I didn’t know for sure.
“Cathy, what happened to the gun?”
“What gun . . . oh, the gun we took off those guys last night?”
“That’s right,” I said. “Did you turn it in?”
“No,” she said forcefully, “if I had done that I would have had to explain why I didn’t make an arrest.”
“So what did you do with it?”
“I ran it,” she said, “the serial number, I mean. It came up empty. No wants.”
I could have told her that.
“Do you still have it?”
“Yes,” she said. “Do you want it? I could bring it over to your hotel.”
“No, that’s okay. Just put it in a safe place. When is your son coming back?”
“His dad is bringing him back tonight.”
I wasn’t sure, but I thought that the boy was coming back today. I wondered whose idea it was for his father to bring him back later, his or hers.
“How about that company?” she asked.
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