“I was just wondering, Fremden. Does your new dog...uh...per chance...grunt?”
My suspicions that Nancy had a screw loose multiplied tenfold. “What?”
“I keep hearing grunts,” she said. “Is that new mutt of yours a grunter?”
I shut the door behind me. The click of the lock was followed by a distinct grunt.
“There it is again!” Nancy said.
I glanced toward Laverne’s place. A pink snout was sticking out from behind a Koonti palm.
Oh, crap on a cracker!
“It was me,” I lied.
“You?” Nancy’s piggish nose wiggled in dismay. If I hadn’t been under duress, the irony would have made me burst out laughing.
“It sounded like it came from –” Nancy started to turn and look toward the Laverne’s place. I shot out a hand, put a palm on her puffy cheek, and firmly guided her face back toward me.
“Haven’t you heard about the new craze?” I asked, scrambling to come up with an idea on the fly. “It’s like...uh...laughter yoga, see? But it’s called grunt aerobics.”
Nancy stared at me blankly. “Grunt aerobics?”
“Yes. You see...uh...you grunt while you’re working out. You should try it. It uh...builds lung capacity and...uh...wards off influenza.”
To drive my lie home, I smiled, did a jumping jack, and grunted. “See?”
Nancy nodded approvingly. “Grunt aerobics. Very interesting.”
I glanced over at the bushes by Laverne’s place. Randolph was staring at us, open-mouthed, as if we were looney-tunes.
I shook my head softly.
Tom’s right. I am totally a magnet for the absurd.
I INSTRUCTED NANCY in the fine art of grunt aerobics as I led her back across the street and to her own front door. She hung on every detail, and only let me go after I promised to fertilize my lawn by the upcoming weekend.
Before Nancy’d interrupted me, I’d been on my way to see Langsbury’s attorney to give my deposition. I glanced down at my cellphone.
Crap! I should’ve already been there by now!
I made my excuses with Nancy, sprinted back across the road, jumped inside Maggie, hit the ignition, and reversed down the driveway like Mario Andretti. As I shifted into drive, I set my sights on Gulf Boulevard and punched Laverne’s number on speed dial.
“Laverne! You’re pig’s out!”
“Randolph?”
“Uh...yes! Do you have any other pigs I don’t know about?”
“No.”
“Laverne, the point is, I saw Randolph in the bushes between our houses. Go get him and put him back in his pen, quick! Nancy Meyers almost saw him!”
“Oh, no!”
“And when you’re done, go and talk to Jake. Maybe he can help you figure out what to do with Randolph. I can’t help now. I’m on my way to meet an attorney.”
“You’re not suing me over Randolph, are you?”
“What? Geeze Louise!”
“Laverne.”
“Yes, I know! I mean...no! I’m not suing you. I’ve got to go see someone about something else.”
“If it’s J.D., tell him I miss him.”
“It’s not J.D.”
“Oh.”
“Listen, Laverne. I don’t think you understand the urgency here. You need to get Randolph back in his pen before Nancy turns him into a backyard barbeque.”
“Randolph likes barbeque.”
“He’ll be on the spit.”
“That’s gross, Val. Randolph doesn’t slobber.”
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath to calm myself, and waited for the traffic on Gulf Boulevard to clear so I could hang a right.
“Laverne?” I asked, when my jaw had unclenched sufficiently that I could form words again.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult Randolph. But if he wanders around loose, he could get hit by a bus.”
A loud gasp came across the receiver.
The line went dead.
Either Laverne finally got the message, or she’d been hit by a bus herself.
Chapter Nine
As I motored east on Central Avenue toward downtown St. Petersburg, it struck me just how much the skyline had changed in the past five years. When I’d left for Germany, St. Pete had still been a sleepy little tourist town – the kind that attracted what we jokingly referred to as “newlyweds and nearly deads.”
Back then, the neglected city parks had been crammed with hordes of seniors languishing away on green benches, earning St. Pete the unenviable moniker of “God’s waiting room.” But as I drove into town today, I could see St. Pete had switched gears. Big time. In fact, it had stretched its cosmopolitan wings far enough to garner the envy of Tampa, its larger – if not somewhat lackluster – cousin across the bay.
But, like the handful of ancient seniors yet inhabiting the city’s low-rent housing towers, other remnants of St. Pete’s past still clung desperately to life.
The few thrift stores and junk shops still able to find venues had moved six to ten blocks further west down Central Avenue. Most now split the rent by sharing space with local artists and three-table coffee shops. Familiar restaurants, once the only choices among a handful of offerings, now faced so much competition they’d been forced to spruce up their menus and service or their tables remained empty throughout the day.
I checked the address I’d written down. I’d been right. The offices of Angela Langsbury’s attorneys were in one of the smattering of old, gray skyscrapers that stuck out around downtown like a hobo’s remaining rotten teeth. Constructed mostly in the 1960s, the dull, uninspired buildings didn’t have enough ambition to stretch much beyond ten stories. As a result, they were quickly being overrun and dwarfed by the dozen or so posh new condo towers currently under various stages of construction.
I took a good look at the skyline and tried to memorize it. As fast as the city was changing, it would never look exactly this way again. The snapshot taken in my mind, I set my sights on a new goal – finding a parking space.
My run-in with Nancy, combined with an impromptu lesson in grunt aerobics, had set me back about fifteen minutes. Downtown was an easy, straight shot east from the beach on First Avenue South. I’d made good time. The trip had taken less than twenty minutes. Unfortunately, finding a parking spot added ten more. By the time I reached the offices of Gallworth & Haney, I was nearly half an hour late.
“Hi, I’m Val Fremden,” I said to the receptionist as I burst through the door. “I have an appointment with Ms...uh...Dimdum.”
“Ms. Dimson was expecting you,” the receptionist said.
As I studied the face of the irritatingly attractive young woman, I had a feeling the raised eyebrow she was shooting at her computer screen was actually meant for me.
“Right. Sorry. I ran into traffic.”
“Have a seat,” the stunning blonde said sourly, as if she found my mere presence somehow disgusting.
I waited on a couch and pretended to read magazines for nearly twenty minutes. But lifestyles of the rich and ridiculous didn’t interest me. I fiddled with my phone, but didn’t have anyone in particular to call or text. In comparison to the portraits of the posh people lining the waiting room walls, my life, I realized, was kind of mediocre.
Geeze. Maybe even sub-par....
The oppressive ostentatiousness of the room pressed down on me until it became unbearable.
I stood up to leave.
As I did, a buzzer sounded. A tinny voice came over a speaker in the ceiling.
“Ms. Dimson will see you now.”
The receptionist’s pretty but unpleasant face popped in the doorframe. Her pert, perfect lips parted and said, “Follow me.”
I trailed behind the slim, beautifully dressed woman feeling like a slob who’d just crawled out of a dumpster. She led me down a hall and stopped in front of a door with a gold-plated nameplate. Etched in it was the name Darlene Dimson.
The recepti
onist rapped quickly three times, opened the door, and without another word, left me to fend for myself.
I took a tentative peek inside and nearly gasped. Darlene Dimson was one formidable-looking woman. Scary, even. She was thin and pale. Her narrow face featured a long, pointed nose offset by a pair of dark, sunken eyes like a raven’s. Atop her head sat a mass of blood-red hair, fashioned in a knot that reminded me of a cinnamon bun. Or maybe a huge blood clot.
“Hello? Ms. Dimson?” I said. “Thanks so much for rearranging your schedule to see me.”
“Right,” she said sourly. “Come in. Let’s not waste any more time, shall we?”
No doubt she was ticked off about my being late. I tried to make nice by complimenting the picture of a halfway decent-looking man in a silver frame on her desk.
“Who’s the handsome guy?” I asked.
Dimson looked me up and down with those black, sunken bird eyes. “Timothy Amsel.”
“Mr. Amsel has a son?”
The raven eyes narrowed and shot right through me. “You know him?”
“No. I just saw a picture of his father in the paper. You know, with the mayor.”
Her face relaxed the slightest smidgen possibly discernable by the human eye. “Tim Amsel doesn’t have a son. That’s Mr. Amsel himself.”
Really? What kind of egomaniacal jerk has a picture of himself that’s thirty years out of date?
“It looks like a college graduation picture,” I said. “What school did he attend?”
Dimson looked pained, as if she were in the middle of having a stroke.
“How about we stick with the deposition, Fresno?” she said.
“Fremden. Sure.”
“I prepared the document. All I need you to do is sign it.”
“Shouldn’t I be interviewed? I mean, I thought I was supposed to...”
“You want to write your own deposition?” Dimson hissed. “Fine. Write it on your own time. I’m doing this pro bono.” She checked her watch. “I’ve got another appointment to get to.”
“Well...uh....”
As I fumbled for words, Dimson glared at me in disgust.
“Ugh! Just take this one with you, Frampton,” she said. “If you don’t like it, type up a new one. I really don’t give a shh...sugar. Just make sure I have it back by Monday morning. The hearing is at eleven.”
“Fremden. Well, I...uh....”
Dimson stood up and blew out a sigh. “Look, Framsen, I thought pre-preparing the document would be the easiest way, but you obviously have other ideas. Like I said, get it to me by Monday.”
“Okay.”
“I trust you can you find your way out.”
“Yes.”
And I can’t wait to leave.
THE BEADY-EYED BROAD had given me the bum’s rush. When I got back to my car, I still had an hour left on my meter. I considered walking the six blocks to Chocolateers for a chocolate-covered cherry fix. But then I realized J.D.’s offices were just around the corner. I needed to make some headway in finding Goober.
J.D. owed me a favor. It was high time to cash it in.
I tucked the deposition folder under Maggie’s driver’s seat and hot-footed it over to see Laverne’s ex-boyfriend, Mr. J.D. Fellows, Esq.
It’d been a while since I’d been to his office, and I’d forgotten how posh it was. The furniture and art were even fancier than at Gallworth & Haney, but somehow it lacked the other place’s cold ostentatiousness. Maybe it was because the receptionist was actually nice. She offered me a coffee, and before I’d had a chance to take a sip, J.D. came out to greet me wearing one of his immaculate, tailor-made Armani suits.
“You always make me feel like a fashion ‘don’t,’” I quipped.
J.D. rocked back on his heels and spread his arms out to his sides. “Not exactly the image that comes to mind of a guy who’d break into your house to steal a tacky figurine and a handful of marshmallow ghosts.”
Normally the epitome of what one would expect from a top-drawer business professional, J.D.’s unusual candor surprised me so much I actually let out a little laugh.
“That’s something new,” I said.
“I’m working on it,” J.D. said with a shrug. “Laverne says I’m too stiff. How’d I do?”
“Not bad. Is that a new suit?”
“Yes. As you may recall, Laverne sold three of my best suits in that ridiculous neighborhood yard sale of yours.”
“Oh. Yeah. Sorry about that.”
“Somewhere, some preschooler’s looking good for kindergarten graduation,” he joked. “At least Laverne gave me the entire fifteen dollars she got for them.”
We exchanged eye rolls and burst out laughing.
“Life is weird,” I said. “You know, never in a million years would I have put you and Laverne together. But somehow, you two click.”
“Clicked,” J.D. corrected. “As you know, we’re not together anymore. But I hope to earn my way back into her good graces.”
J.D. looked down at his Gucci loafers and shook his head. “But you’re right, Val. I never would have put us together, either. But as Laverne says, the heart wants what the heart wants.”
I blew out a breath between my pursed lips. “That it does.”
I followed J.D. into his office and blinked twice. Every time I’d ever been in it, I felt as if I’d been transported into another dimension, where everything was off scale and out of whack. When he and I’d walked down the hallway, the top of J.D.’s silver-haired head had come to just above my elbow. But once he took his seat in his custom-made mahogany desk, he towered a good two feet over me as I sat cowered in the short-legged chair opposite him.
I wonder if this is how Alice felt when she was in Wonderland....
“I remember the first time I was here,” I said to the mighty J.D. up in his impenetrable tower. “You helped me track down the heir to Glad and Tony’s will.”
“I remember, too. You wouldn’t take no for an answer. You were spunkier then.”
“And you were grumpier.”
J.D. chuckled. “I suppose I was. Some changes are for the better. But not all of them. Take a look at that one.”
J.D. pointed out the window and scowled.
“I used to be able to see the boats in the harbor,” he grumbled. “Now all I can see is somebody’s lousy balcony. That new Ovation condo tower killed my view.”
“Sorry.”
“What can you do?” J.D. shrugged and put away his sour face. “Anyway, what brings you here, Val?”
“I’m ready to cash in my You-Owe-Me. You said you’d help me find Goober, remember?”
“Yes. Of course. What have you got so far to go on?”
“Not much. Can I borrow a notepad?”
J.D.’s silver eyebrows shot up.
“Uh...sure,” he said, and handed me a legal pad.
I took it, wrote out the word PObbLE, and handed it back to him.
“Do you have any idea what that could mean?”
J.D. studied it a moment and sighed. “I’m an attorney, Val, not a cryptologist. I give up. What is it?”
“It’s a note I found inside a gift Goober left me.”
“What kind of gift?”
“Does it matter?”
J.D. shrugged. “It might.”
“It was in a tobacco tin...hanging on a redneck dreamcatcher.”
“A redneck dreamcatcher?”
“I didn’t say it was a nice gift.”
J.D. did his best to stifle a smirk. “Okay. What else do you have?”
“Well, I know Goober disappeared somewhere between Lake Wales and St. Pete nineteen days ago.”
“Did he say anything to you the last time you saw him? Any suspicious behavior?”
“Not really. But I know he’d gotten a check for ten grand about a week before he disappeared.”
J.D perked up and leaned across his desk toward me. “Ten grand? For what?”
“I don’t know. I asked him, but he said if he
told me, he’d have to disappear. And then...geeze...well, he did.”
“Strange. Did he say why he’d have to go?”
“No. Well, yeah. One thing. But it was a joke.”
“What did he say?”
“He got a letter from the AARP. He said he had to go because they’d found him.”
J.D. rested his head on his fist. “The AARP finds everybody eventually.”
“That’s what I told him.”
“You have the tag number for the RV?”
“No. But I’ll call Cold Cuts and get it from her.”
“Okay. And what’s Goober’s real name again?”
“Gerald Jonohhovitz.”
“Can you spell that?”
“Sure. But it may not matter. Tom’s already run it through all kinds of databases. He didn’t get a hit.”
“Maybe he spelled it wrong.”
I shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Or maybe it’s an alias.”
“That’s what I’m worried about. What if he’s...you know, running from the law?”
J.D. leaned in toward me. “Well, then, that’s where an attorney comes in handy. We cover both sides.”
I nodded. “So what do we do now?”
“I recommend we interview Goober’s other known associates.”
“You mean friends?”
“Uh...sure. Winky, Jorge, anybody else you can think of.”
“What should I ask them?”
“Don’t worry about that. You set up the meetings...say tomorrow afternoon? We’ll do it together.”
“On a Saturday?”
“My social calendar’s opened up since Laverne and I split up.”
“Oh.” I started to say something, but hesitated.
“Was there anything else?” J.D. asked.
“Just one more thing. Did you hear about Sunset Beach? Some developer wants to tear down Caddy’s and Winky’s donut shop and build a condo tower.”
“Yes, I’ve heard.”
“Aren’t you upset? It’ll be right next to your house. I was kind of hoping you could help me start the legal work for some kind of protest. You know, questioning the environmental ramifications?”
J.D. looked at me solemnly. “Sorry. I can’t help you there.”
My jaw tightened. “Why not?”
Cloud Nine- When Pigs Fly Page 5