Cal recovered and said, “Get in here, Ryan. We have work to do.”
“In a minute,” Ryan said. His eyes never left my face. “Greatbones. I can do wonderful things with them; get the lighting just right . . . haunting. I’m going to shoot in black and white. When do we start?”
“Did you take the pictures of Holly? You made her look real nice. Not like she normally looked at all.”
He laughed. “No one comes to me to look normal, honey. I create the secret someone they always wanted to be . . . their inner fantasy. Holly Dolly was born to serve and submit, while you . . . well, you’re something more interesting. You, I’ll do in leather, the full treatment, whip, thigh-highs, all black and catlike. A predator.” He growled at me.
“Ryan, shut up. She isn’t here for that.”
Ryan reached for my left hand. “No ring, so it isn’t a bedroom shot for hubby. Are you coming to work for us?”
Cal’s hand locked around his brother’s forearm and he jerked Ryan into the office. Cal turned back to me and said, “Get out of here now.”
I didn’t move fast enough so he gave me a little push. I was barely out of the way when he slammed the door.
I went about ten feet down the hall before I stopped. I really wanted to know what they were talking about.
I tiptoed back to the varnished brown door and then leaned into it, straining to hear. Nothing.
There was the sound of a phone ringing but I couldn’t make out another thing until there was a crash.
Cal’s voice came through clearly now. “You stupid fuck. Get the hell out of here.”
Before I could move, the door was jerked open. Cal stared at me. “What do you want now?”
The ice in his voice froze my brain. I couldn’t think. I looked just beyond him to Ryan.
“It’s me. She wants me.” Ryan gave me a reptilian smile of joy and pointed a finger at me. “I told Cal you came looking for me.”
Ryan started for the door but Cal held out his arm to stop him. “I said, ‘What do want?’” Cal’s outstretched arm held Ryan away from me.
“My keys?” My heart was pounding. “I forgot my keys.” Cal looked down at my hand and right at my keys.
“Oh,” I said. Cal said, “Was there anything else?”
“Stupid of me. Sorry.”
Behind him Ryan slapped at Cal’s hand and said, “Oh, she wants me . . .”
Before Ryan could finish Cal catapulted into action, slamming the door to 204.
I stared at the door in shock. I could hear them now, yelling and cursing at each other.
Their anger jolted me into action and I sprinted down the hall. I flew out the door.
Aunt Kay’s eyes opened in surprise and she rose from the bench. I motioned to her. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
A hard sun beat down and heat radiated back off the concrete—it had to be a hundred degrees. “Hurry,” I said.
Aunt Kay couldn’t wait until we were in the truck; she wanted to hear everything word for word and she wanted it right then.
“Don’t talk.” It was a day to move quickly from air conditioning to more air conditioning, but quick wasn’t one of her dance steps. When we made it to the truck she demanded to know everything.
“I think Cal takes care of the escort service and Ryan looks after the modeling agency. He takes the sexy pictures that wives give to their husbands and does portfolios for models.”
“And they get girls for their escort service that way?”
“Probably.”
“I bet this Ryan convinced Holly that he could make her famous, that posing for nasty pictures was just a step on the road to success. Didn’t Marilyn Monroe start out that way? She did those calendars. You remember. There was one where she was stretched out on red satin. She was famous for that picture. I can see how Holly would fall for Ryan’s line.”
Her breath was coming in pants.
I said, “This is too much for you. You should be home resting and getting your strength back.”
She scowled at me. “You trying to slack off on me?”
“No, but I am a little worried you might die on me.”
“You let me worry about that.”
She fanned her face and took a few breaths before she went on. “That Ryan passed me as he was going in. He didn’t look well to me.”
“He spends too much time on a tanning bed and he’s too thin, plus he was high as a kite. There’s a lot of scary stuff being manufactured out there right now. Something chemical. Ice maybe, which would explain his bad breath and his thinness and why he was high at this time of the day.”
She asked, “Why . . . why does it explain all that?”
“You don’t eat on ice and don’t drink enough, so bacteria builds up in your mouth. Gives you stinky breath and eventually rots your teeth.”
We’d been lucky to find a bit of shade from the bank across from the pizza joint—the sun hadn’t moved far enough around to rob us of that protection. “Isn’t it strange that Holly named her baby Angel?” I said as I cranked up the air and slid the windows down.
Aunt Kay considered that question. “Maybe it’s because we always think of babies as angels. First thing we say is, ‘What a little angel.’ Maybe Holly called her baby Angel and then found Angel Photography. You know Holly. She’d think it was a sign, finding Angel Photography.”
She fastened her seat belt, slipping her right arm through it so the shoulder strap was behind her. “Do you think they know where Angel is?”
I had no answer.
Just as I was about to hit the streets I slammed on the brakes and put the gearshift into reverse. “Let’s see if we can find their rides.”
“Why?”
I shot backwards into the slot we’d just left. “Just in case we see them again.” Somewhere in my brain I’d already processed the fact that I’d made a huge error. While I never wanted to see either of the Vachess brothers again, I didn’t think it was likely to happen.
It was a fair-sized lot and I cruised slowly through it, considering all the cars until I came to a red Mustang. I pointed out the window. “That’s Ryan’s.” The license read HOT PIC.
Aunt Kay craned her neck. “Which one is Cal’s?”
“It must be modified so he can drive it,” I said.
“Then get out and check in the cars.” She was already undoing her belt.
“Forget it.” I headed for the exit. “Getting caught listening at the door was bad enough. If they find me inspecting their cars . . .” I didn’t want to think about that outcome. “We’re done here.”
She tried to swivel around and look out the back window. “Let’s wait here and see if Ryan comes out.”
“Not on your life. He already thinks I came hunting him. Meth heads are paranoid and dangerous and there’s a new type of meth on the street that makes people truly crazy. There’s no predicting what he’ll do if he finds us here. Cal was clear he didn’t want his brother anywhere near me.”
She frowned. “Why?”
“I don’t know but I’m pretty sure he has a very good reason. No telling what’s going on with that Ryan. He’s one sick scumbag. I’m done with him.”
If only it had been true.
CHAPTER 18
After we’d put a block between us and the Vachess brothers, I said, “Now what?”
Aunt Kay started digging in her bag. She came out with an envelope, squinted at it, and then handed it to me. “This is the address where Holly lived before she moved to the Jade Towers.”
I glanced at it and handed it back. “Newtown, a different world from where she ended up, that’s for sure.” I hit US 301 and headed north. “She’s been gone from this address for ages. We’re not likely to find anything.”
She gave me a look. I was guessing it said, “Since I’m paying for your time, and paying well, shut up and drive.” Apparently chauffeurs aren’t allowed to have opinions.
In Sarasota, well, in all Florida, the price of real estate is dependent upon how close to the water you are. Holly’s old apartment on Adler Street was far from the water and from the Jade Towers in price and safety. In the northeast corner of Sarasota, almost to Bradenton, the Newtown area hadn’t gone upscale yet as had everything else with a Sarasota address.
In this part of town there was still a bar on every corner, adult video stores and strip clubs. By day, it was acceptable. After dark it was what it had always been, a place to move quickly, preferably at a run, to avoid encounters with fellow members of the human race.
I parked right in front of the address and studied the horseshoeshaped complex. An abandoned couch, lying on its back with the cushions falling off, clogged the narrow courtyard. Trash piled up against the buildings and was tangled in the dying bushes flanking the steps to the central hall of each unit. With buckling concrete and broken windows, the whole thing was all just passing time until the next urban renewal project.
I had a good look around for danger. An old man sat nodding on a broken-down kitchen chair in the shade of the building across the street, but other than that nothing moved in the heat.
“Why don’t you wait here until I see if there’s anyone who remembers Holly.”
A high-riding car cruised by, taking a good look at us. Even though all the windows were up, the music of rap throbbed from the muscle machine. The old man across the street didn’t even lift his chin off his chest.
Aunt Kay fanned her face gently with her little Chinese fan and looked out the window.
I said, “There won’t be an elevator, just three flights of stairs.” She sighed. “All right, but don’t give up too easily.” She opened herpurse and took out a photograph. “It’s the last one I have of Holly.” In this picture Holly was in her brunette days. It hardly lookedlike the Holly I remembered, but then maybe this was the real Holly and the one I thought I knew was the false one. Certainly the Holly working for an escort service wasn’t the Holly I’d met. I turned the print over and read the name of the photographer on the back.
Watching me, Aunt Kay said. “I already called them while I was waiting for you to show up. They took that picture three years ago and no one remembers Holly.”
“I’ll leave the motor running so you’ll have air.”
“I’ve lived in Florida all my life; a little heat isn’t going to bother me.” Her window slid down. “No sense in polluting the air and wasting gas.”
“These conditions are dangerous.” Aunt Kay looked like just about anything could kill her. “We’re going to break another record today.”
“I’ll be all right.” She pulled her cropped slacks up over her swollen knees and sat there with her hands planted on her thighs, Buddha-like and immovable.
I lowered my window for her. “There’s more water in the back if you need it.”
There was no security system in the building and no super either. There wasn’t even central air in this crumbling structure, so all the apartments had air conditioners hanging from their windows at the front of the building.
The front door was wedged open to catch any breeze, but even so the hall was stifling and breathless, filled with the odor of stale cooking and garbage. I was boiling in my own sweat by the time I reached the third floor and knocked at Holly’s former apartment. No one answered. I knocked at the neighbor’s across the hall. Nothing.
Now this was annoying.
I knocked at the other two doors on the third floor. If anyone was home they weren’t interested in a visitor.
I went down to the second floor and started there, working my way down the hall and coming up with two annoyed people who didn’t know Holly and weren’t interested in knowing me either.
On the first floor, the sounds of a couple arguing had me tapping lightly on the door. The door swung violently open and a man, barefoot and wearing only boxers, glared at me. “What?”
I showed him the picture of Holly and asked, “Do you remember this woman? She lived in apartment 302.”
“No,” he said. The door slammed shut.
No one else was home on that floor and I arrived back at the street dripping with perspiration and totally pissed off. Aunt Kay was going to insist I come back at night, when people were home from work, and do it all over again. That was not my idea of a fun evening. More than that, this was no neighborhood to be in after dark.
An aged Honda, the trunk covered in Jesus fish, pulled in beside the sidewalk and died. A pretty young woman wearing a white halter dress got out of the car. She smiled over the roof of the Honda at me. Her smile showed impossibly gleaming white teeth.
At last, someone genuinely glad to see me. I gave a little wave and said, “Hi.”
“Back at you.” She opened the back door and dragged out a huge shiny vinyl bag covered in buckles. When she slammed the door shut she was already moving.
I intercepted her. “I’m looking for Holly Mitchell.” I pointed to the middle building. “She lives in 302; well, she did a bit ago. Do you know her?” I waved the photograph in front of her.
She slung the bag over her left shoulder and frowned at the picture. “No, but then I just moved in and it isn’t exactly the kind of place where you know your neighbors.” She walked around me and hit the sidewalk moving fast.
“Wait,” I called to the already retreating bare shoulders.
She swung to face me, walking backwards away from me in her high-heeled sandals.
I followed her. “Is there anyone in the building who might know about Holly?”
She hesitated and frowned. “Yeah, the witch who lives on the main floor, she thinks she owns the building. Sunny her name is, a bartender at the Flamingo two blocks over.” She pointed to her left. “It’s a horrible place, but then so is Sunny.” She was moving again.
“Would she be there now?”
She considered it and said. “I don’t know. I don’t have anything to do with Sunny. Bartenders aren’t the kind of people you want to know, are they?” She gave a jaunty little wave and spun on her toes before jogging for the front door.
That girl knew how to survive in neighborhoods like this.
CHAPTER 19
With flyers and dead leaves piled up in the small alcove at the door, the Flamingo bar looked abandoned. There was a big sign on the glass that said the Flamingo would be going out of business come Saturday. FOR SALE signs already covered the building but there weren’t going to be any takers. The only thing that was going to happen to this property was a bulldozer and another high-rise and, given the economy, that would be years away.
Another sign said that the Flamingo offered happy hour from eleven in the morning until closing time. You can’t get happier than that.
At the door of the Flamingo a drink-ruined and urine-soaked man held out his hand to Aunt Kay. “Can you spare some change?”
I stepped in between him and Aunt Kay. “No.” The volume of my voice left him in no doubt about of my feelings.
We stepped into a dark interior that smelled of unwashed bodies, stale beer and every tub of grease that had been eaten in the place. The three drinkers, strung out along the bar, looked up as the door opened and then went back to staring into their glasses. The flickering fluorescent went unnoticed, the buzzing noise just one more small annoyance in lives made up of a long list of such things.
The décor was put together from garage sales on the wrong side of town and featured lots of dark faux wood and plastic. The whole place should have been taken back to the dumpster it came from, though I sort of coveted the flashing pink flamingo over the bar.
The bartender matched the decoration, worn
out, cheap and plastic. Her straw-blonde hair was a reminder of a fright wig from Halloween and her deep smoker’s bark almost drowned out the hurtdog-wailing that was passing for music. She leaned on the bar with both tattooed arms locked in front of her. This unfortunate pose exposed the parts of her speckled breasts that her one-size-too-small top wasn’t already showing off. A smiling sun was tattooed on her left breast. It didn’t improve the picture.
For a brief moment, I wondered if I was looking at my future. I fought down that gruesome thought, not sure if I wanted to live with the answer. There was one ray of sunlight. At least no one could see my tattoo, not even me.
Aunt Kay didn’t know about bars, didn’t know you should wait for a second at the door to feel out trouble before you make your move. Unaware that you need to get the vibe of the place and carefully pick out who you choose to drink beside, she rumbled right over to the bar and planted herself in front of the tender.
The bartender looked at Aunt Kay as though she might be peddling bibles. “Whadda you want?” Tips probably weren’t a big part of her income.
Aunt Kay set her big old purse on the bar. “Are you Sunny?”
The tender looked to me and then back to Aunt Kay before she gave a quick nod.
“Well, I just want a word, dear.”
Before Sunny could say she wasn’t a visitor’s guide, I added, “We’ll have two sodas.” Sunny gave me a searing look. For a heartbeat I thought she was going to point us in the direction of the door, but instead she shoved two glasses into a pan of ice and shot some soda at them. She frowned as she dropped the glass in front of me. There was something about me that turned her right off, but then, I have that affect on a lot of people.
Aunt Kay gave the bartender one of those sweet smiles that made you want to sit down for warm cookies and cold milk. She picked up the glass Sunny thumped down on the bar with a grateful “Thank you,” like she’d been handed a treasure.
I edged the glass towards me and stared down at the brownish liquid.
“Oh, this is just what I need.” Aunt Kay held the sweating glass of soda up to her cheek. “It’s so hot out there.”
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