Cooler Than Blood

by Robert Lane

  “Tell me.”

  “You know she’s waiting—every minute, every second—for her phone to ring. She deserves more than a stopover at her bar.”

  Screw it. Everybody was telling me they deserved more from me. I stood and took some dishes into the kitchen. I wanted to move, as if it would help me not think about what Morgan had said. I did need to confront Susan. Sabotaging her at the bar like I had, when I knew she’d be frantically busy and the bar scum would be mentally undressing her, was pure horseshit. What was I afraid of? My commitment to Kathleen, or that Susan had higher expectations of me? Either way, avoidance was a convenient route.

  I do that sometimes—take the easy way out and pretend I’m better than I am. It’s an old act and one that was never very good to start with.

  CHAPTER 16

  Susan didn’t answer the door, so I strolled around through her white gate. She sat on the end of her dock with her elbows on her knees, her body curved like a quarter moon. I felt bad for invading her time. She would never want anyone to see her like that. A quiet moment on a Sunday morning. Not such a tough girl. Not at all.

  She turned when I was still a few paces from her.

  “I didn’t hear you,” she said. She bolted up straight and picked up her coffee mug. This was a woman more comfortable with action than repose. She wore a sea-green T-shirt and khaki shorts. No jewelry. No shoes. Her eyes barely peeked out from under her bangs.

  “I tried the door. I thought I’d give you a progress report.”

  Progress report? Progress report? Every time I got within the scent of this woman, my circuit board misfired.

  I sat next to her. Not too close. Not too far. Her umbrella was up, but the sun paid it no attention. It penetrated the fabric as if it were a minor nuisance, nothing more than a piece of facial tissue blocking a blowtorch. I wouldn’t have been the least surprised if the umbrella had burst into flames. Such a delicate balance: any closer and we’d burn, yet if it weren’t for the sun’s gravitational pull, we’d float away as ice crystals. The entire planet is on the razor’s edge.

  The sun’s presence was nothing compared to Susan’s.

  “Well?” she asked. Her eyes flickered to me then instantly returned to the waters of her canal, as if she weren’t done with whatever meditation or thoughts I’d disturbed. Or maybe she just didn’t want to look at me.

  I told her about my encounter with Boone and the local sheriff, and my conversations with Tuesday and her employees. She held her gaze on the water while I talked. There was little I could do to make it sound like anything other than what it was—an unsatisfactory progress report. When I finished, a juvenile brown pelican—it still showed white underneath—violently dove into the water to our left. The brown pelican, the pelican most common to the Americas and considered a large bird, is actually the smallest of its breed. When the splash came, Susan reflexively turned her head; I didn’t. Our eyes locked, and this time she didn’t shy away.

  “I’ll find her,” I said.

  “It’s been days, Jake. Time can’t be our friend. It rarely is.” It rushed out fast. I wondered how afraid she was of those words. How long they’d been dammed up in her mind.

  “We’ve got a lead on some property the Colemans own. I’m going there now.”

  “I appreciate what you’re doing.” She started to return her gaze to the water but caught herself. “I didn’t know who to call, and the police see no crime in her disappearance.”

  “McGlashan’s been helpful. I think he views her absence as being connected to her encounter with Billy Ray, but he can’t devote official resources to the cause.”

  Susan asked, “Why?”

  “Due to her age, he—”

  “No…you,” she said and held my eyes. If another woman on the planet had such perfectly matched hair and eyes, I hadn’t met her. If another woman on the planet owned a Grady-White and looked like that in a short, black dress—I didn’t want to know. She gave a slight starboard tilt of her head, which was unbecoming of her fast-forward style. Her hair, untied, followed to that side. “I mean, I called you in desperation, and now…all the time and trouble. I’ll reimburse you for your airfare—”

  “Susan.”

  “You don’t even know her. You—”

  “Susan.”

  “You don’t even know me.” She looked down at the water. I’d never seen her down and sensed it was unfamiliar territory for her as well. “We had one night, just a dinner really, and you didn’t even say good-bye, and what was—”

  I put my arm around her and pulled her into me. She smelled good. Fresh. Just out of the shower. She resisted; I insisted. I felt her relax as her breath left her and her body melted into mine like a chord that had finally resolved. Her soft left breast pushed in against my chest.

  Now what?

  Totally lost. Out of gas and no paddle. I felt I should contribute something, so I tossed out, “I couldn’t bring myself to say good-bye. That’s why you called me. That’s why I came. I will find Jenny.” It came out with the sap of a junior-high love song, and not a particularly good one. She pulled away. I brought her back and kissed her high on her forehead. I released her just as she gave me a playful shove accompanied with a smile.

  “We’re good?” I asked.

  “Find her, Jake. She’s a beautiful young woman, and you’re the only wrecking ball she’s got.”

  “Tell me about you.”

  “What about me?”

  “I know you’ve met my friend Grouper—”

  Susan coiled away from me like I had a nasty cold. “I don’t need you patronizing me.”

  “I wasn’t patronizing. I—”

  “The hell you weren’t. Like you’re the only guy who ever walked into my life?”

  “I was just—”

  “Here’s a newsflash about your friend. He’s married.”

  My turn to snap to attention. “Grouper?”

  “Mr. Pete himself. Tied the knot in Key West, and neither one of them remembered it the next day. Even now he’s lucky if he thinks about her one day a week.”

  “To who?”

  She leaned over and graced my forehead with a kiss, and then just as quickly, she was gone, but her body wash was still there. “Figure it out yourself after you find Jenny.”

  Our eyes locked for a couple of beats. I wondered why she kissed me. I knew why she kissed me. Time to hustle. “Fair enough.” I got up to leave, and when I did, Susan’s left hand floated up with me, but her face remained straight out toward the water, like a sculptured figure torn in two directions. I took her small hand. She squeezed and just as quickly let up on the pressure. I let go. It’s hard to believe there are things we don’t want even though we crave them so very much. I left without another word.

  Morgan was cross-legged in the passenger’s seat when I opened the door and climbed in.

  “No headphones this time?” I asked.

  “Once we’re off the island. I’ve been enjoying the ospreys. The mates are calling each other.”

  I waited for more, but that was it. Most people listen; Morgan enjoys. On the turn before Matanzas Bridge, I hesitated about whether to take a sharp right and see whether the Grouper tale was true. It would have to wait. My phone buzzed. I glanced at it and saw a confirmation from Garrett.

  Morgan asked, “What time does he get in?” I had told him that Garrett was coming after he’d concluded as much from my end of the phone call as we’d checked out.

  “Six.”

  “Plans for tonight?”

  “Dinner downtown.”

  “What are Jenny’s odds?”

  I glanced over at him and saw I had his full attention. Morgan is fully engaged when talking with another person—a human operating at top efficiency. Despite my efforts, I largely feign interest when listening to other people. If conversation’s an art, I’m the guy with crayons who struggles with stick figures. Morgan had posed a question that had assaulted my mind countless times over the past few d
ays, and each time I’d met it at the gate and turned it away. No more.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “My guess is she either died in the first twenty-four hours, or she’s still out there. With the first scenario, we’re only pursuing revenge.”

  “I wouldn’t do that.”

  “You and I are different in that regard.”

  He changed tack. “How did you find out where the Colemans’ land is?”

  “Mary Evelyn came through. Not the FBI, not army intelligence at MacDill, but an Irish-Catholic secretary.”

  “Not even a fair match.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “How’d she figure it out?”

  I glanced in my rearview mirror as a white pickup crawled up my ass. I don’t like tailgaters. I don’t like a person toying with my—and other’s—lives. “I told all three that Randall mentioned something about Wesley. No one found any person named Wesley in the Coleman family circle.”

  “But our friend lives outside the box.”

  I chuckled at my own thought and said, “Don’t they all? Mary Evelyn told me she stared at the word Wesley and then a map of Florida. On a whim, she ran a search and came up with Pasco County. It was outside of her initial search radius.”

  “Wesley Chapel,” Morgan said. It was a small town off I-75 just north of Tampa.

  I cut him a look as the white pickup zipped passed me on my left. “Randall Coleman bought remote acreage there about two years ago. We scout it at dawn.”

  He nodded and stuck in his earplugs. My thoughts charted their own course. What if Jenny was gone—dead for days? Revenge was fine with me, even though it’s a postmortem act. I get it. Believe in it. Revenge is the great voice, the Magnavox of silenced victims.

  CHAPTER 17

  “She’s all yours,” I told Garrett as we walked down Beach Drive in downtown St. Pete. I had just collected him from the airport, and we were meeting Kathleen and Morgan for dinner at Mangroves. Kathleen had swung by and picked up Morgan after she’d visited Sophia.

  A brunette, who appeared to have dropped serious money in her quest for Ponce de Leon’s dream, had just strolled past with a dog that looked like my running shoe with a beard. She had given Garrett her undivided attention. He wore, as always, jeans and a tight black crew neck T-shirt. Garrett had alopecia totalis; apart from eyelashes and eyebrows, hair would never find his body. His ancestors were a passionate mix of French and Louisiana Creole. At six three, his bronze body—some guessed Cherokee—resembled what most people recalled a Greek god looked like in a sixth-grade textbook. They’d just never met one.

  “Who?” he asked.

  “Fluffy’s friend.”

  “You squeeze Boone hard enough?”

  “You think Florida makes me soft?”

  He didn’t reply as we sidestepped a two-man combo outside a restaurant. I nodded at the black man with the eye patch and the clarinet. He reciprocated with a tilt of his head. Morgan and I had drained several bottles listening to—enjoying—his Southern roots.

  Garrett said, “Tell me you’ve got a plan.”

  “Even better. I do have a plan. If our trip’s a bust, I got a couple of guys I’ll park for surveillance. I won’t take the chance that we drive out and they saunter in a few hours later. Anything from your man up north?” Garrett had hired a firm to keep tabs on the Colemans’ property in Hocking County, seeing as how I’d failed to reach a peace treaty with the descendents of the Iroquois.

  “Nothing,” he said. “You’re picking this up, right?”

  “I am. Forward the bill to me. Keep them on it twenty-four/seven.”

  “Already done on both counts.”

  Morgan and Kathleen were at a high four-top that fronted Beach Drive, Straub Park, and the waters of Tampa Bay. Kathleen faced the concrete wall of the restaurant. I didn’t know why she’d chosen that particular chair. She knew better. Garrett and Morgan did the man-hug thing. Morgan wore a buttoned-down shirt and white linen pants. Despite his proclivity for wearing baggy shorts and a T-shirt every day, Morgan always donned long pants when dining out. “A man should never be seen in a restaurant,” his father had told him, “in anything other than long pants.” His parents, he’d said, insisted that he and his sister dress up whenever they rode at anchor and took the tender into a port for dinner.

  I’d asked him once why he felt compelled to obey his deceased father’s dictum, especially while dining outside in the summer. “It’s his wish,” he replied, as if puzzled by my question. Morgan never referred to his parents in the past tense. It was a simple, short conversation, yet I felt that in some manner my question had let him down.

  Kathleen rose to greet Garrett. She had on a tastefully body-hugging deep-brown dress and a single layer of pearls. Her hair was tied back. When I stepped in to give her a light kiss, she reciprocated with parted lips and open eyes. Lord, help me. I pulled her closer and hovered my mouth over hers. A faint smile formed on her lips, and she blew out a puff of breath that I took in.

  Yabba dabba doo.

  I took a seat and crossed my legs. I had the bird dog spot, overlooking the other patrons, the street, the park, and the water. “We took the liberty and ordered a bottle,” Kathleen said. “You can drink tonight, can’t you? Morgan said you were checking out a lead tomorrow.”

  “That’s correct,” I said. Her smile still lingered from our kiss. I stared at an age line just starting to crease her skin at the edge of her lips. It was oxygen to a fire. “It’s less than an hour from here, but I don’t know what we’ll find.”

  The waiter came with a bottle of Cab, and Morgan did the honors. He proclaimed it safe for consumption, and the waiter proceeded to fill three glasses. Garrett kept to water. I uncrossed my legs. I couldn’t stand it any longer; she had to know.

  “Let’s switch,” I said to Kathleen as I stood up.

  “I’m fine. Really.”

  “Pronto. You know the drill.”

  I’m not comfortable at a table with a lady unless the lady has the best seat. The situation isn’t tolerable. She knew this. I wondered why she even had claimed that seat when all four were available. She rose and gave Morgan a smile. I cut him a look as he took a long sniff of his wine. Morgan smelled and chewed his wine as much as he drank it. Garrett let out a chuckle.

  “Everybody having a good time?” I asked.

  Morgan brought his nose out of the glass. “I never noticed your chivalrous trait. Dr. Rowe insisted you wouldn’t last more than two minutes having the better seat than her.”

  I swatted Dr. Rowe on the ass as we traded places. “And how did I do?” I kept my attention on Morgan.

  “Little under a minute,” Morgan said, glancing over at Garrett. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “He’s got some wires crossed.”

  “It’s physical,” Kathleen interjected. “He literally can’t sit still unless I have the best view. He’ll fidget like a schoolboy who’s soiled his pants. It’s quite entertaining to watch.”

  “Nice to know the company I keep is so cheaply amused.”

  “And appreciative of your idiosyncrasies,” Morgan said.

  It was dark by the time we split one serving of banana cream pie with graham cracker crust and dark chocolate crumbles on top. When the waiter placed it in the center of the table, it was the only time in my life I wished my three friends would simultaneously die—or just conveniently faint. I decided to spend the night at Kathleen’s, so Garrett and Morgan took my truck back to the island.

  We rode the elevator to her ninth-floor private entrance. The money was from her ex. He had died just prior to Kathleen filing; she gained millions by not divorcing him. He was murdered three days before he planned to turn state’s witness against the Chicago mob, the “Outfit.” We had reason to believe the Outfit also wanted to silence her for information they erroneously believed she possessed. She knew nothing, but they decided not to take any chances. Garrett and I made the same decision—not to take any chances. They dispatched t
wo men to deliver a warning. We packed them limping back home, and in doing so, we may have inadvertently, and falsely, signaled that Kathleen did have knowledge of her deceased husband’s business affairs. They doubled up and kidnapped her, but with Morgan’s help, we found her before they accomplished their mission. After we left four dead bodies on a deserted state park beach, we made the decision not to look over our shoulders for the rest of our lives. Colonel Janssen located a body and facilitated the identity change. Lauren Cunningham, who had approached me at the bar at the pink hotel more than a year ago and—not that I harbor any resentments—fed me nothing but lies in an effort to run from her past, died on that Florida beach. Her headstone was above Lake Michigan. Lauren Cunningham became Kathleen Rowe.

  That had been the only time Colonel Janssen had intervened in my extracurricular activities.

  I told Kathleen not to fear repercussions from the mob and that she was secure with her new identity. Nonetheless, I kept a constant glance over my shoulder. She was careful not to express too much concern, although I suspected that she harbored nagging paranoia. I wished she would be more honest. She might have thought the same of me.

  As we entered the dim foyer, I said, “You and Morgan got a kick out of that, didn’t you?”

  “We did. He put me up to the test. He was surprised he’d never noticed your chivalrous nature before but said he could see how it was so much like you.”

  I thought of the young girl I’d seen diving into the pool for the bone. “What kind of treat do you give a dog for doing easy tricks?”

  She kicked off her shoes—I don’t know how she did it that fast—and dropped several inches in height. She started to let down her blond hair. “Allow me,” I said. I kissed her slowly, and our stale breaths were scented with wine. Of the rough lips and bourbon times.

  I didn’t stop with the hair. I was patient. I left the pearls on. The hand-scraped walnut floor collected our garments and served as a thin mattress. I like making love to Kathleen on a hard surface. It doesn’t allow for her body to shy and shrink away from mine.