The Cardinal's Sin

by Robert Lane

  “No shit, Sherlock. Which one?” Riley had demanded.

  “Brig-a-fuck-a-doon.”

  “Gotcha. Hey, thanks for the heads up. Now give me my phone.”

  “We’ve been over this. They can trace you. No phone.”

  “How long we gonna be here?”

  “Until I knock on your door.”

  “Yeah? Will if I don’t let you in, congratulate me. It means I’m finally showing signs of intelligence.”

  Karl had stepped in before Riley got wound up. He was always calming her emotions and outbursts, like throwing a blanket on a fire. He believed his wife’s bravado stemmed from her diminutive statue but he wasn’t the type of man who gave thought to such trivial things. He simply loved her every way times ten.

  “You know I didn’t. It’s just another precaution. We might even have fun with it.” Karl replied to his wife and gave her a kiss. Their first kiss had been had been outside the pre-fabricated junior high classroom in Marion, Indiana when they were fourteen years old. He folded her, all five feet and one inch and a little south of one-ten, into his chest.

  She jerked back. “Boobs?”

  “Fakys. I’m thinking this might be a pristine opportunity for you to see if you swing both ways, you know, snuggle up to daddy big tits, might find it rocks your boat. Make a real sorority girl out of you.”

  Riley smiled, glanced up at her husband and said, “I don’t think so, baby. You’ve been rocking my boat ever since the day you grabbed my shoulders, stuck you lips on mine, and than dashed off faster than the Easter bunny being chased by a pack of starving coyotes.”

  While not poetic, and certainly not the finally crafted lyrical notes she would, if presented the opportunity, have chosen, nonetheless, it was a fine thing for Riley Anderson to say to her husband as they were the last words he would hear her say. The last words she ever heard him say were coming around the corner like a de-railed freight train.

  Karl Anderson, who towered over his wife, gathered her back in and lifted her off the floor. He faced the open patio door. Riley, before looking up to his face, eyed the grocery bag on the kitchen counter. She wondered how she should prepare the fish, but knew that Karl would likely step in and cook dinner. Maybe she’d slice up the French loaf, make garlic bread and croutons. Karl Anderson loved crispy croutons. Later, she would wonder if she hadn’t glanced at the damn groceries if she would have seen the panic—the sadness—in her husband’s eyes a split second sooner, and if that split second, of all the seconds the banged-up world had ever known, would have make a difference in their lives.

  When she did glance up, Karl Anderson was not looking at the object of his heart, but at the open patio door where a rotund unwelcomed guest stood blocking the salt air, the sun, the view, their future.

  Karl, like a Polish weight lifter, jerked his wife over his head, took a giant leap towards the side patio that fronted the pool below, and heaved his wife over the patio rail and, with luck, into the pools’ deep end.

  “Run baby run,” he screamed while he prayed that once in her life the little fireball would do the sensible thing and listen to him. That was assuming he didn’t miss and Riley went kerplat on the concrete pool decking. Karl spun and dove for the shelter of a desk. Like a runner on third knowing he was cooked, he closed his eyes, thinking it would be less painful when the bullet found him.

  It wasn’t.

  “Tsk, tsk, tsk,” the Fat Man said upon entering the villa. He glanced behind him. “Find her. Go.” Two men were with him. The one that had shot Karl sprinted down the concrete stairs.

  “Mr. Anderson,” the Fat Man took several steps into the room. “Might I be mistaken or have you sprouted a pair of shapely—although the right one seems to be slightly off kilter—breasts since out last meeting.”

  “Eat me.”

  “Yes, yes, yes. If only you knew. Why not now Johnnie, while he’s still breathing?”

  Johnnie Darling, who resembled the product of an incestuous relationship, slithered around his boss, and snapped away with a Nikon D810.

  “Fat little shit,” Karl Anderson blurted out. His left hand grasped his Tommy Bahama shirt that Riley had sprung on him yesterday as a present. He tired to stem the bleeding that was turning the gold silk shirt into a rust colored premonition of death.

  “Why the animosity?” The Fat Man tapped his cane on the floor. “Is that what the end brings you? It is different with all of us. You should understand. Our minds are so similar in some departments, but apparently—and this, most unfortunately does not bode well for you—sadly different in others. But what a marvelous picture you make, especially now that you’ve made yourself such a conflicted creation. You know how I feel about art. It stimulates our senses. That which we are rarely exposed to, that we dream about and participate only through the voyeurism of our dreams, stimulates the most. So considerate of you, and, I might add, so utterly unselfish, to be our objet d’art.”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  Click. Click Click.

  The Fat Man prodded Karl Anderson’s shirt with is cane. He nudged the blond wig off to the side, taking care to keep some of it on Karl’s head.

  Click. Click. Click.

  “Hmm. This is exquisite. Exquisite indeed. Death comes to what? A man? A woman? We don’t know, Johnnie, what Mr. Anderson is trying to be. Perhaps one of your own. Death does not care, does it Mr. Anderson?”

  Click. Click. Click

  The Fat Man stepped around Karl, and toddled into kitchen, his back to Karl, “I thought we were getting along splendidly. The beauty of numbers, their unlying simplicity, their brutal honesty. It’s disappointing when those we trusted, our confidants, turn and drive a spike into our hearts. So sad. All of this, brought about by you.”

  Karl groaned.

  The Fat Man picked up the bag of groceries. He positioned a chair before Karl, sat, and bent over, his face close to Karl’s.

  “Look at me,” the Fat Man said.

  Karl did not. Karl Anderson decided to go deep inside himself, to choose his place of death, to envision the dimpled face of his sweet Riley as the last thing he would see. Did I throw her too far? I was afraid of coming up short. A short putt never goes in—oh God, please, I hope she hit the water.

  “I said,” the Fat Man poked Karl’s chin with his cane, “look at me.”

  Karl did not.

  “Very well then.” He propped his cane against the side of the chair.

  Click. Click. Click.

  The Fat Man gave a dismissal gesture with his hand. “Be done Johnnie, until the closing shot. Why Mr. Anderson? Why couldn’t you let me go? I told you that if you kept our secret you would live. If not, you would create this egregious situation. What part of that simple statement did you not comprehend?”

  Karl curled into a fetal position and coughed up blood.

  The Fat Man opened the grocery bag. “Now you understand, don’t you? And your little Riley? My! What a throw that was. My guess is that she’s bleeding out on the pink pool paver bricks. Pink. Pool. Paver. Bricks. What do you think, Karl? Or is it Pink. Paver. Pool. Bricks? Remember our number games? Of course you do. I got it right the first time, didn’t I? Words with the fewest letters lead the way. We resort to the alphabet for a tiebreaker. ‘Pink’ before ‘pool’ as ‘i’ comes before ‘o.’ Remember? We constructed whole sentences in such a manner, although paragraphs were beyond the scope of even our minds. I will miss your stimulating company. I digress. Riley.

  “Perhaps that wasn’t her fate; there’s always the cabana, a somewhat softer ending. You know which one I’m talking about, don’t you Karl? Yes, that’s right. The one were the lady in the black bathing suit was spreading oil on her breast yesterday as if she were making love to them. Remember now? Judging by the trajectory, I think that is where your little trinket might have landed. Johnnie, would you be so kind as to glance out the door. Take a few shots of Mrs. Anderson. Show them to Mr. Anderson in you viewfinder.”

  Johnn
ie Darling went to the side patio door and peered down. He shook his raisin head at the Fat Man.

  “Not there? Really—quite an amazing throw then. I’m sure Eddie will rope her in. Pity for her that she didn’t hit the bricks. Didn’t think of that, did you Karl? Really, have you nothing to add?”

  Karl tightened his position, his arms and legs drawing into his center, as if in death, life compresses into you, growing small, dense, and close. Then, like a flickering flame reacting to a kindly puff, it is gone.

  The Fat Man opened the bag. “I greatly admire your courage to control your last moments. Superb, actually. One never knows until the bitter end what kind of strength lies dormant in a man. With you, it is bottled animosity and structured silence. Think of the picture in his mind right now Johnnie. The greatest art is that which we never see. Pity. Are you tuned-in Karl?”

  The Fat Man unwrapped the fish. “I shall dine on your wife’s shopping tonight. Let’s see Johnnie, French loaf, fresh produce, kiwi—excellent—such an integral component for a Caribbean salad. Yellow tail snapper. Enough for two, which means just enough for me.” He wrapped the fish and stood as he he’d lost all interest. “I fear we’ve overstayed our visit, and we do want to be going before the police arrive; although I told them to give me an hour. One shot, Johnnie. With both instruments. Don’t cheat and rely on the camera.”

  The Fat Man turned to leave.

  “Shwell ill you.”

  He turned and was surprised to see Karl Anderson’s eyes nailing his own. “Pardon me.”

  “Riley. She’ll kill you.”

  “I think not. Johnnie.”

  Johnnie shot Karl Anderson once in the forehead. He circled the corpse twice and settled on a position. He took his time with the Nikon. Johnnie Darling always took his time with the last shot.

  Click.

  CHAPTER 2

  Every thing’s a game. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. Sometimes you don’t know what game you’re playing.

  I was twenty feet outside the wake of my boat, Impulse, getting ready to cut my Connelly slalom back across the double wake. I’d been clearing both wakes by launching off the first, and hugging my knees as high as possible before letting the ski slap the water. I rocketed off the first wake and spotted the manatee in my landing zone just as I made out another boat zeroing dead into Impulse and Morgan, who was at the helm.

  What the heck?

  As Morgan swerved to avoid a collision with the oncoming boat, I threw the ski out to miss the manatee. My takeoff had been fine, the landing—not so much. My head and chest slammed into the water and my legs flew up behind me, bending my torso in a direction in which it was not designed to bend. My body somersaulted. When I broke the surface in the bay, my house was less than a half-mile off to my left. The boat that had been tracking us like a torpedo, was idling up to Morgan. I glanced to the right and—wouldn’t you know it, there was my house again.

  Little dinged up. Got my bell rung. It happens.

  Legs—check. Neck pain—the usual. No major problems. It was just my head, an over-rated component of the body, that was malfunctioning. I leaned back in my vest, my face sticky with salt, and took in the blue Florida sky, allowing my mind time to get off the mat.

  Morgan pulled Impulse up along me. The other boat was a deck boat with a wake board tower and a female head peering over the wheel. A wide red strip on the side begged for wax. Stringer’s boat?

  “I needed to cut sharp,” Morgan explained. “No choice. You fall? I didn’t see.”

  “Flipped over a manatee.”

  “Out here?”

  “Have a chat with it, will you? What’s with the kamikaze boat?”

  “That’s my no choice. She wants a few words.”

  “Now?” I glided the ski over to Morgan. He reached over and snatched it out of the water. I lowered the ladder and climbed over the transom and onto the deck. Impulse was a center console Grady White, but Morgan and I installed a tow bar that spanned her twin engines with a ring in the middle.

  “Apparently it’s important,” he said.

  “Stringers boat, isn’t it?”

  “It is.”

  “He on it?”

  “No.”

  “Crap.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone.

  Morgan smiled. “You’ll find out if the new water proof case is what it’s billed to be.”

  I shook my head in disgust. It had not been my intent to test the new cover. I was rough on phones and merely wanted the toughest case. It flicked to life. After drying it, I placed it on the console in the shade.

  I took a healthy swig from a bottle of water, and yanked up my swim trunks. Morgan maneuvered Impulse along side of the wake tower boat as it sat rolling in the chilly waters of Boca Ciega bay. A double-barrel early season cold front had blasted through last week and the eighty-degree water temperature of the summer had been tamed to the low seventies. I pulled a couple of veteran fenders from under the front seats and tied us together while the woman on the other boat was content to watch.

  “Kill the engine,” I told her.

  “You Jake Travis,” she demanded and did as instructed.

  “You with the IRS?”

  “What? No.”

  “D.E.A.?”

  “The wh—no, nothing like that.”

  “St. Pete parking? I’ll pay—”

  “Listen to me. You have to find my husband before he kills more people.”

  “You’re husband’s a killer?”

  “No. Before the Fat Man kills more people. I’m pretty sure he murdered my Karl, even though he changed his name to Colette and we were going to make a run for it as a gay couple.”

  “Your husband had a sex change?”

  “Not really. A fake you know?”

  “Fake?”

  “Boobs, wig, shit like that. People do it all the time. Games and stuff. But that wasn’t our angle. You need to stop him.”

  I leaned against the rear bait well and took another swallow of water. My block palace was to my left, bridge to my right, sun high, water low, ten toes. I wasn’t nuts, but this lady was driving me there.

  The lady? Petite. Maybe a c-note in weight. A bikini top I failed at not staring at and shorts that covered a waist that never bothered to grow. She had a nasty bruise on her right shoulder; just all shades of purple, red, and black, like a tattoo with no form. I could probably ball her up and toss out of my life. Not a bad thought. She ruined my Sunday morning ski and drink. It’s rude to interrupt church time.

  Morgan brought out a bottle of Taittinger from a cooler and gave me an inquisitive nod that I affirmed. He popped the cork—a gorgeous sound to hear on the open water—and poured two glasses. I offered mine to Pixie, wanting to be polite and at the same time wondering why.

  She stared at it. “Are you listening?”

  I shrugged and took a drink. I’d been looking forward to my Sunday morning Champagne ski run since last Sunday.

  “I am listening. The Fat Man killed your husband who was trying to become a woman. Correct?”

  Pixie shook in her head in disbelief. “How can you stand there? He’s a monster, a brutal killer. My husband is gone and your drinking champagne?”

  “I offered.”

  Pixie jumped over the sides of the boats, charged up to me, snatched my fine crystal flute and tossed it into the bay. It bobbled like a sad cork. You don’t think corks can be sad?—you didn’t see this one.

  “We were supposed to be in protective custody.” She started in while I pondered my glass drifting out of my life. “Someone knew. He’s connected, beyond what we ever suspected. I’m pretty sure he killed Karl and know he’s killed countless more. And you can bet your wet ass he’s coming after me. Are you my guy, cause if not I’m not burning any more time here. God damn it, I am talking to you.”

  I turned to her. “Have a seat Pixie.”

  “It’s Riley. Riley Anderson.”

  I extended my hand and we shook. He
r hand was like a small stone that got lost in mine. “Jake Travis. Have a seat, Riley Anderson.”

  PRAISE FOR ROBERT LANE’S JAKE TRAVIS NOVELS

  The Second Letter

  Gold Medal winner of the Independent Book Publishers Association’s Benjamin Franklin Awards, Best New Voice: Fiction

  “…a winning hero in Jake Travis, someone who is super killed, super fit, glib, oddly bookish, funny as a stiletto.”

  Phil Jason, Florida Weekly

  “Lane’s story makes a worthy new entry into the suspense genre…a book whose high stakes action, mystery, and sparkling characters could easily remain relevant for years to come.”

  Foreword Clarion Reviews

  “There’s a new mystery kid on the block. Lane not only provides thrills, but does it while keeping his sense of humor…the reader could not ask for more.”

  BookLoons

  “…filled with believable, likable characters, witty dialogue and page-turning drama.”

  Blueink

  Cooler Than Blood

  “Lane delivers a confident, engaging Florida tale with a cast of intriguing characters. A solid, entertaining mystery.”

  Kirkus

  “…entertaining and enjoyable.”

  SceneSarasota

  “…gripping and highly enjoyable…Jake is at once a classic noir character…a fascinating protagonist.”

  Foreword Clarion Reviews

  “…evokes the underbelly of West Coast Florida with authority…every bit as satisfying as a Myers and Coke at the end of the dock at sunset.”

  Les Standiford, author of Water to the Angels, and Last Train to Paradise

  Be sure to read these previous stand-alone Jake Travis novels from Robert Lane:

  The Second Letter

  Cooler Than Blood

  Learn more at http://www.robertlanebooks.com

  Visit Robert Lane’s Author page on Amazon:

  http://www.amazon.com/Robert-Lane/e/B00HZ2254A/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1