Traffic was Saturday morning light, but it was still the Trail, which stretched north for a few dozen miles and south for a few hundred miles right into Miami.
Lew and Darrell tried their third motel clerk, showing the photograph and Lew coming up with another ten-dollar bill, which he fully intended to get reimbursed for from Earl Borg.
As they had come out of the motel, Lew looked across the four lanes of the Trail. Between the traffic he saw Ames in front of the Blue Gulf Motel, his right hand up. He had found them.
It was time to go.
Lilla was dressed in jeans and the clean Abercrombie green shirt they had bought yesterday at Goodwill for fifty cents. Her hair was tied back.
Matt and Chet said they were going to Disney World this morning, and then back home. She didn’t believe them. They were terrible liars and sometimes like on television they walked across the room from her and talked, thinking she couldn’t hear them.
What she did know was that she had more than enough of the two of them, thank you. She wanted to go home. She also knew they were nervous. They had kept smiling at her all through pizza the night before. They had the same smiles today. They had a real one that was lopsided, all on one side of the face. She hadn’t seen that one for a long time. Then they had the one they had used last night and this morning, when they remembered it, straight across, cheeks up, line of teeth screaming out for a dentist.
She knew that they were going to meet someone in a park. She knew Chet and Matt were both carrying guns in their pockets. The guns weren’t unusual for them. Far as Lilla knew, they hadn’t shot anyone with them. But maybe she was wrong. What they did do in and around Kane were very odd jobs and beating people up for the Wikiup Men’s Club, where girls from as far as Gainesville, college girls, came to wiggle nude for truckers and old guys.
“Let’s go,” said Chet.
Chet was wearing jeans, a white T-shirt and a dirty white cowboy hat. Matt was wearing jeans, a blue T-shirt and a dirty blue cowboy hat. Both of them wore boots. They were in their hog-dog costumes. There hadn’t been a hog-dog or a dog-dog for a long time, at least a year and it had been a lot longer since the man, Earl Borg, had stopped coming. The brothers had run the fights by themselves, but people didn’t like them and they didn’t take care of the animals. Dogs and hogs died. Dogs and hogs cost money.
Lilla took the handles of her bag, which had also been purchased at Goodwill for two dollars, and stood up.
“Simple,” Chet in white whispered to Matt in blue, “We check the parked cars. We know there’s no place in the park to hide, but you stay in the car with Lilla. I go to the trash can. Somebody’ll be there. If he pulls a gun, you put your gun to Lilla’s head.”
“I know, Chet,” Matt said wearily.
“Does it hurt to go over it again?”
“A little.”
“Well then, just you suffer for a while,” said Chet. “Everything goes right, I get the bag with the money and wave to you. You let her get out of the car. Whoever’s there will look at her. That’s when I shoot him. You see him go down, you shoot Lilla.”
“I’d rather not kill Lilla, Chet.”
Chet sighed.
“Lilla and whoever’s gonna be there never did us harm,” Matt went on.
“They will if we don’t shoot ’em.”
“What’re you two talkin’ about?” Lilla asked.
“Business,” said Chet. “Let’s go.”
Matt opened the door and walked out, Lilla behind him, Chet behind her. When Chet closed the door, Ames stood up, shotgun in hand, behind the blue Kia parked in front of their door.
“Hands where I can see ’em,” Ames said calmly.
“What’s this?” asked Lilla, shaking her head, getting angry. “This the gunfight at the all right corral or something? You, Wyatt Earp. We got no money.”
“About twenty bucks,” said Chet. “It’s all yours.”
He started to reach down.
“Hands where I can see them,” Ames repeated. “This isn’t about the money in your pocket. Child, come over here and get behind me.”
“No,” said Lilla.
Then she saw a man get out of a car parked in a space behind the yellow-slickered gunfighter. The man with a baseball cap pulled down on his head came slowly. Through the rear window of his car she could see the face of a black boy about her age. He was smiling.
“What you want?” asked Matt.
“Two things,” said the man with the cap. “Lilla comes with us.”
“No,” she said.
“Young lady,” said Ames. “These two plan to kill you.”
“No. Why would they … ?”
“Money,” said Lew.
“My father wants me dead?”
“No,” said Lew. “These two want him to pay forty thousand dollars to get you back alive.”
“Back? I’ve never been with him in the first place,” she said. Then she looked from Matt to Chet and said, “Forty thousand dollars. You told me about this, we could have asked for a hundred thousand and you wouldn’t have to be thinking about killing me. I give up on you two.”
“Someone’s going to see us,” said Lew. “Lilla, walk over to my car now and get in.”
“I don’t—”
“My friend will shoot,” said Lew.
Ames nodded and aimed the gun at Chet’s head.
Lilla sighed and bag in hand brushed between Lew and Ames. Ames’s arm moved and Matt started to reach back.
“Don’t,” warned Ames.
Matt didn’t.
“Get in your car,” said Lew very calmly. “And drive up I-75 as far north as you can go with the gas you can buy. Do not stop in Kane. Do not return to Sarasota. Do not return to Florida. We will find you and my friend here will blow your heads off. Now, the guns. Slowly put them on the ground and get into your car.”
They did as they were told. Lew picked up the guns. Lew had already searched the Manteen brothers’ car. No guns, no drugs, no alcohol.
Matt was in the passenger seat, Chet in the driver’s seat, his arm resting on the open window. Ames, gun at his side now, stood next to the car looking down at Chet who had tilted his hat back.
“If we come back, you old fart, you’ll be long dead of old age,” said Chet.
“Be best if your brother drives,” Ames answered.
“Why?” asked Chet.
Ames lifted the shotgun high and brought it down hard in one move.
“Your arm is broken.”
Chet screamed in pain.
“Move over and drive your brother to a hospital,” said Ames to Matt. “Maybe up in Tampa. Atlanta if he can make it.”
Chet, moaning, rolled into the passenger seat as his brother came around and got behind the wheel.
“You break my arm too and who’s gonna drive us out of town?” Matt asked, voice quivering.
“Just you drive away,” said Ames.
“If you stop at an emergency room—” Lew began.
“In Atlanta,” added Ames.
“—your brother broke his arm in a baseball game,” said Lew.
“We don’t play baseball,” said Matt.
“And it doesn’t look like your brother’s gonna take it up now,” said Ames. “Drive.”
Matt drove. Chet moaned. The car pulled out of the motel driveway and made a screeching left turn, just missing a red truck.
“Should have killed them,” said Ames at Lew’s side. “They were going to kill the girl.”
“I’ve seen enough dead people,” said Lew.
“So have we all,” said Ames.
Earl Borg answered the phone on the third ring. He could have answered the sound at the first ring. He had it on the small table next to his almost silent treadmill in his office-den. He had been running and listening to Bach’s violin concerti. Blindness had gradually turned him into a lover of classical music. Before his loss of sight he had no interest in music of any kind. Now, he had speakers in every room and his
stereo system had access to almost three dozen commercial-free classical music stations in addition to the huge collection he had accumulated.
Blindness had also made Earl Borg acutely aware of texture. All the furniture in his apartment was chosen not by color but by how it felt and smelled. He had a decorator, who kept him from forgetting that other people were only barely aware of what he felt and smelled.
Pebble stone and mosaic tabletops, leather chairs, fine shelf-sized marble and wood sculpture were always within reach.
It was good, he frequently thought, to be able to afford everything he wanted. All it took was good investments and years of barely legal and quite illegal business deals.
At the first ring, Borg had pressed the cool-down button on the treadmill. On the second ring, he had muted his sound system. On the third ring, he picked up the phone.
“Yes?” he said.
“She’s safe,” said Lew.
“Did they—?”
“No, they didn’t touch her.”
“Good. Are they dead?”
“No.”
“I would have preferred them dead,” said Borg. “I thought I made that clear.”
“You gave me wiggle room. I wiggled,” said Lew. “We did break Chet’s arm.”
“That’s some satisfaction.”
“They’re on their way to the Georgia border and when they cross it, they won’t be back.”
“No, they won’t. I’ll get someone else to find them and complete the job.”
“You want to see your daughter?”
“No,” he said. “Take her to her mother. There’ll be two blank checks signed by me at your office by five o’clock, one for you, one for that charity.”
“I don’t need money,” said Lew.
“You’re rich?”
“Financially comfortable,” said Lew.
“Financially but not otherwise?”
Lew said nothing.
“The checks are drawn on a new account that has exactly forty thousand dollars in it, the amount those two idiot spawn of mine wanted. Divide it between the two checks any way you like. Goodbye.”
Borg hung up.
Lew looked across his desk at Lilla. Ames was standing behind him, Darrell Caton at his side.
“I got it,” Lilla said, hugging herself. “He doesn’t want to see me.”
“You’re better off,” said Darrell.
“He can’t see you and he doesn’t want you to see him,” Lew said.
Lilla looked young, younger than thirteen, only a little older than the kid in the hog-dog circle, the kid who had lost a brother named Fred. Earl Borg was certain Fred was not his son.
“Your father’s a blind man,” said Ames.
“Blind?”
“Doesn’t want you to see him like that,” said Ames.
“Yeah,” said Darrell, “like he’s Jesus Christ on wheels.”
“He’s a mean bastard,” she said.
“That too,” Darrell agreed.
“You don’t even know him,” she said, turning to face Darrell.
“No, do you?” Darrell shot back.
“Take me home please,” she said.
“Never saw my father either,” said Darrell. “Don’t think I missed much.”
Darrell smiled at her.
“Great,” Lilla said, sitting back in the corner. “Now I’m bringing a black boyfriend home to Kane.”
Darrell laughed and said, “Fonesca, this girl is funny. What you say we stop at Denny’s or something before we take her home?”
And they did.
17
LEW AND AMES HAD DRIVEN Lilla back to Kane and dropped Darrell at home.
When Lew opened his door, the almost-full moon was balanced on the tops of the low storefront and office buildings across 301.
Behind him, as he closed the door he could hear Ames’s motor scooter chug out of the DQ parking lot.
Lew undressed, put on clean, blue jockey shorts and an “LOVE SCHNAUZERS” T-shirt that he had picked up at the Women’s Exchange. Lying in bed, pillow upright against the wall, he opened Mountains of the Moon, the Rebecca Strum book his sister had handed him when she and Franco had dropped Lew at Midway Airport. Both his sister and Franco had hugged him. Franco had kissed his cheek. Angela had touched his face.
Lew looked at the neat pile of VHS tapes next to the television set. Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Marlon Brando, Al Jolson, John Garfield, Kirk Douglas, Jane Greer, called out to Lew to join them, step out of his chaotic world into their well-ordered one. Later, maybe later or tomorrow. Tonight was Rebecca Strum.
He opened the book. It wasn’t thick, less than two hundred pages.
He read:
There’s comfort in the darkness, a nonjudgmental stillness that banishes time. And that darkness can be found simply in the closing of one’s eyes.
But when she opened her eyes, Beck, his eyes bright, glowing yellow like a black cat on a starless night, stood at the foot of Ruth’s bed.
In his hand was something glinting from a light that had no source. The thing in his hand was a knife. But this was impossible because there was no way to hide a knife in the Dachau camp, no way for men to get into the women’s compound, and no way for Beck to be there because Beck was dead.
Lewis read half of the book and then placed it on the chair next to his bed. He pulled up his blanket, turned to his left as close to the wall as he could get. Behind the wall he could hear the strum of distant traffic and a pair of voices arguing on the street or in the DQ parking lot. He slept.
In the morning, Lew pulled on his pants, picked up his zippered morning case, used the bathroom and shaved, and went back to bed. At two in the afternoon he put on his jeans and an oversized black T-shirt with the words I WANT TO BELIEVE in white letters on the back. He had watched from his window until there was no one in line. He got a double cheeseburger and a chocolate cherry Blizzard.
Dave, face a copper-crinkled permanent tan, took his order. Dave owned the place but spent little time here. Whenever he could be, Dave was out on his boat, deep in the embrace of sun worship and salt air. Occasionally, Dave even fished.
“Make it to go,” said Lew.
“Will do. So how’d you do? Chicago, I mean.”
“Fine.”
“Fine,” Dave repeated, running the Blizzard machine. “So you found him?”
“Yes.”
“Short of help today,” said Dave.
Silence except for the traffic behind him and the sizzle of meat ahead of him in the dark. Then Dave appeared with a white paper bag.
“I threw in a small fry.”
“Thanks.”
“You don’t want to talk now, do you?”
“Not today,” said Lew.
When Lew finished the meal at his desk, he wrapped the remnants, went back to bed, ignored the ringing of the telephone and finished reading the Rebecca Strum book.
It didn’t tell him anything he didn’t know. It did tell him how he might express it. He fell asleep.
And that was Sunday.
On Monday morning, Lew sat across from Ann in her small office near the Bay. He had brought coffee and biscotti from Sarasota News & Books a block away and now she sipped and said, “So you saw the dead and walking wounded in Chicago,” she said.
“I did.”
“And you survive.”
“I survive,” he said, looking at the Cubs cap in his lap.
She dipped her biscotti in the coffee and leaned forward to take a bite and keep from dripping on her dress.
“I enjoy and am comforted by biscotti with almonds, the sight of long-necked water birds, the bright flowers, the night sky, the waves, all the clichés that always turn out to be truths once you are initiated.”
“How do you get initiated?” asked Lew.
The colorful, bangled, triple-rowed stone bracelet on her hand clacked as she lifted her cup.
“You don’t,” she said. “You become or, if they’ve caught you ea
rly enough, you pretend. Did you pretend?”
“About being an Episcopalian?”
“About accepting. Think about it. Or, better yet, don’t think about it. You’re giving thirty-five thousand dollars to Sally for her children’s education.”
It was a statement, not a question.
“Yes.”
“Will she take it?”
“I don’t know. I’ll find out tonight. I’m bringing Chinese to her and the kids for dinner.”
“And you are afraid that if she accepts, she will take the money with thanks but your relationship will change too,” said Ann. “No matter what you tell her she will feel that she owes you.”
Ann dunked the last piece of her biscotti and popped it into her mouth.
“She doesn’t owe me. I owe her.”
“But you are afraid she’ll feel that way, just as you … didn’t you say you had a backup biscotti in the bag?”
He held up the bag and she took the biscotti.
“What was I saying? Oh, yes, she’ll feel that way just as you feel that way about Earl Borg. Drink your coffee. Eat your biscotti. Millions of children in Third World countries would fight for that crunchy pastry. Think of them.”
“When I do, I can’t eat,” said Lew.
“I just upped my biscotti quota to three a week. It’s almost time, Lewis.”
He looked at the clock on the wall over Ann’s desk. On the desk were framed photographs of Ann’s children and grandchildren, all smiling, all bearing some resemblance to Ann.
“When I look in the mirror, I see my mother’s face,” he said.
Ann had started to rise, but sat back down.
“You look like your mother?”
“Yes, and I talk like her, laugh like her.”
“And that distresses you?”
“Yes.”
“We’ve never talked about your mother,” Ann said. “Is she dead?”
“No.”
“Is she in Chicago?”
“Skokie.”
“Did you see her when you were in Chicago?”
“No.”
Ann sat silently, hands in her lap.
“She’s in a facility,” he said.
“A facility? The hour is over, Lewis. Take down the wall and speak.”
“She is in a mental facility,” he said. “She’s been a depressive all her life. Four stays in hospitals. This time she’s in complete dementia. She doesn’t recognize anyone, but—”
Always Say Goodbye: A Lew Fonesca Mystery Page 21