Cooler Than Blood

by Robert Lane

  “How so?”

  “He was like you, the day you came in. Didn’t even know I was there. Hey, why’d your bronze buddy kick his chair around and face away from the table?”

  “He was done eating.”

  “No, he wasn’t.”

  Kelly promised not to mention to Dangelo that I’d sought her out. I promised not to mention to him that she had confided in me. Not that she had that much to spill. I wondered if my time would have been better spent trailing Dangelo, but I had cast my lot.

  I escorted her back to her car. When we got there, she turned to me, flipped her head, and let her hair fall over her right eye. I said, “You never inquired why I questioned you about Dangelo.”

  “No, I never did, Jim.”

  “It’s Jake.” It came out with more irritation than I felt.

  She smiled. “I know, doll,” she said. “You need to stop taking things so personally.”

  She shut the door before I had the chance to serve up a retort. I’m glad she did. I had nothing to say.

  I drove back to St. Pete and met Garrett at a bar on 4th Avenue South, not far from the Dali Museum. The joint looked recently remodeled, yet it was empty. Someone was losing his shirt. I nursed a beer while we compared notes. Garrett produced a photo album of the traffic in and out of the Winking Lizard. It was the usual suspects: Captain Tony, Cue Stick, and Special. I felt as if we’d spent the entire day swimming against the tide.

  “Did you check the sign?” I asked.

  “Two screws. Barely hanging in there. Five minutes tops.”

  My phone buzzed, and I took it out of my pocket. It was a text from Binelli.

  owned by long sally industries

  under fed investigation for

  racketeering chicago

  local address long sally’s bar grill

  “We just launched,” I said.

  “What’d you get?” Garrett asked as he stood and pushed his barstool in.

  “Dangelo’s St. Pete location and a possible umbrella name.” I passed him my phone. “The plate from our ride yesterday.” He handed me back the phone.

  I brought up the address on my phone. “Six blocks north. You ready?”

  I followed him out the door.

  We drove but couldn’t get within three blocks of Long Sally’s Bar and Grill. We would have made better time if we had walked. I paid the cover to an enormous man in suspenders who was hunched over on a high, backless stool. He held a wad of bills in his hand like it was Monopoly money. No taxes due on those greenbacks. We advanced two feet into the room and were enveloped by a gyrating, rollicking crowd. Whatever the room’s occupancy level was, they were fifty over. A band was crammed onto a small corner stage, and the trumpet player stood front and center, blowing his cheeks out. They looked like miniature pumpkins under his eyes. He nailed a few notes clean off the register. Somewhere Maynard Ferguson smiled. A girl in a purple shirt with one of its straps down by her elbow brushed up to Garrett. She shouted something about a drink. I couldn’t imagine someone holding Jenny in such a populated place. Still, I’d decided to circle back in the morning. Garrett caught my eye, and I nodded. He hated crowds more than I did.

  “Refunds?” I asked the man on the stool. He didn’t even blink.

  CHAPTER 30

  I hoisted the kayak over the seawall and went to the end of my dock to join Morgan and Kathleen. I was surprised to see her there so early in the morning.

  The plan was for me to hit Long Sally’s at the opening bell and take a self-guided tour. Garrett was searching for other establishments under Dangelo’s umbrella. We would then draft a small army and stake out every joint we could possibly tie to Dangelo. It was grunt work. But if Jenny was being held in one of his places, we would crumble the walls. If we stumbled upon Dangelo’s money in the process, that would be fine. If not, c’est la vie. I wasn’t his contract worker.

  Morgan sat with his bare feet hanging over the side. Kathleen was perched next to him, sitting on her crossed legs with her head buried in a book. She wore a white sundress. No shoes. When you live on water, on an island, shoes are the first things you shed. After that, layers of other things, less physical, are shed as well, and you’re left to wonder where and why you picked up the unnecessary baggage. The fabric canopy partially shadowed them, as the sun was still low in the sky.

  “You motored out this morning just to get your morning dock-reading time in?” I asked her. Steam rose from their coffee cups.

  “I’ve expanded my experiment.” I leaned over and gave her a kiss. “The students will not only record where they read a particular work but also how much they attribute their immediate surroundings to the overall enjoyment.”

  “A little subjective,” I said.

  “Beautiful stuff,” Morgan said. His hair wasn’t tied, and the breeze lifted it off his shoulders. There was a light chop on the bay that had been just enough to challenge my kayak. He continued, “Most of my early reading was done on a moored sailboat or while I tacked azure waters. To this day, I can still see the shallow water off Nevis that we were anchored in when I finished Jones’s trilogy. Speaking of, did you feed her?”

  “I did, but I need larger baitfish. I’m not sure it’s worth her trouble.” Morgan had named the dolphins of our bay after Caribbean islands. I didn’t posses his gift—or eyes—of being able to identify them from a half mile out. It came easy to him; he’d once told me that by age ten he knew more dolphins than people.

  “She beat you back,” Kathleen said. “Morgan fed her off the dock.”

  “Charming.”

  “Do me a favor?”

  “Anything.”

  “Bring a chaise lounge out. The dock’s a little hard.”

  I fetched one of the cushioned lounge chairs along with a side table that I kept on the grass. She settled in, put her head in the book, then looked up and out over the water.

  “Oh my,” she said. “How does one ever leave?”

  “That’s the point.”

  I left them sipping their morning drugs and strolled down the dock to look for Garrett. I glanced at the sea grass, and a stingray propelled itself just beneath the surface. I rinsed under the outdoor shower, dried, changed, and was cracking eggs on the stove’s surface when Garrett came through the side door.

  “Eggs?” I asked.

  “Thanks.”

  “Toast?”

  “Sure.”

  “Holzman?”

  “Texted me at two thirty-seven this morning. Half a dozen pictures plus a shot of her condo and car. I printed them and have them in an envelope. Let’s arrange a meeting with Dangelo or knock on his door. Either way, Jenny’s free today.”

  I whipped up eggs in a bowl and added some milk and chunks of sharp cheddar along with onions and tomatoes. “I’ve been thinking,” I said. I had been thinking while I’d sat in my kayak and taken in the stillness and enormity of the Gulf of Mexico.

  “We function best when you don’t.”

  “We pushed too hard last time and subsequently created our own problems, and we—”

  “We never know where other paths would have led,” Garrett cut in. He wasn’t fond of the one I was taking now.

  “Granted. But what does he do when we play our hand, and what does that cause us to do? How does that get Jenny free without repercussions, and what might those repercussions be?”

  “It’s not a chess game.”

  “Everything’s a chess game.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “We hold.”

  “No such move in chess.”

  “There is now.”

  He didn’t say anything but spread jelly on his toast. He surrendered halfway through and stuffed it into his mouth.

  “We believe Jenny is alive,” I said, feeling compelled to further press my case. “We don’t think her life’s in danger. We find her as quickly as we can without creating ancillary problems. Finding Jenny and subsequently creating issues for Kathleen isn’t acceptab
le. To locate her, we need more manpower. We’re making this harder than it is. What did you find under ‘Long Sally?’”

  Garrett waited a beat to adequately register his protest. “Three other clubs south of here—in Bradenton and Sarasota—and West Coast Tool and Die five minutes up the road on 22nd Avenue. All registered under ‘Long Sally Industries.’”

  “Fine. I’ve got a couple calls to make. Leave in ten?”

  “Waiting for you.”

  I took a seat on the porch and dialed PC and McGlashan. I left a pair of voice mails. Even though Rutledge was the lead, I had a favor to ask, and I liked my chances better with McGlashan. I was fishing without bait, but I’d accidently foul-hooked my share of fish before.

  A man and a woman went by, each in their own kayak—one brown, one green. The kayaks. Kathleen and I, during her yoga months, tried to kayak together, but our speeds weren’t compatible. “I’m not doing that again unless you pull me,” she’d finally laid down. The next morning I tied a rope, and she sat in her kayak under a white parasol and read a book while my paddle rolled the stagnant water of the canals. When we returned, Morgan darted into his house and came out with his camera. It’s the only picture of Kathleen and me that hangs in his house.

  PC rang back within a minute. I gave him the address of a bar in downtown St. Pete that was two blocks from the Winking Lizard. I asked him and Boyd to meet us in thirty minutes. We would split up from there.

  McGlashan brought up the rear. I stood, brushed a gecko off the screen door, and took his call on the patio.

  He started right in. “You know Rutledge’s the lead, right?”

  “And when I want the official line, I’ll be sure to call him.”

  That earned a guttural comment, followed by, “You any closer to finding her?”

  “I can’t get over the car, wiped clean like that. Did you or Rutledge ever question the occupants of the apartment complex across the street? You know the one I’m talking about? It would take a few minutes, at minimum, to clean a car that well. Maybe someone saw something.”

  “I think you’re grasping at straws. The case is—”

  “Did you?”

  McGlashan went silent, and an osprey flew over my head. No doubt he was the same one who crapped on my boat and now he had my head in his hawk eyes. “No one did, did they? I’d app—”

  “It was Rutledge’s call. He didn’t see any sense in it. Girl ran twice in one week. He thinks—”

  “Will you?”

  “Will I what?”

  “Ask around. Drop in on the complex. It would save me a lot of—”

  “And I owe you?”

  “No shoes. No phone. You can stuff your runaway theory. The only question here is whether anybody gives a damn.” I regretted it as it came out. McGlashan had been more than cooperative with me, and I certainly didn’t need my loose mouth alienating him.

  “My son’s coming home in two days, and I got a mountain of paperwork to clear before I take some time off. I’ll see if Rutledge can do it. He really should have done it in the first place.”

  “I appreciate it,” I said. But his was a conciliatory remark and not the commitment I was looking for.

  He hung up. Maybe he just didn’t do good-byes. Maybe no one did anymore, and I’d just missed the memo. I went back inside the screen porch. There was a thimble-size crumb of scrambled eggs left.

  “Kidding me, right?” I said to Garrett.

  “Morgan’s fixing more. Was that McGlashan?”

  “It was. Said they may or may not question the occupants of the apartment complex across from where Billy Ray’s Honda was found.”

  “That’s worse than either a yes or a no.”

  “I realize—”

  “Your adoptive little brothers?”

  “Meeting us two blocks from the Lizard. We’ll scout every one of Long Sally’s operations. We’ll split up. Someone in Dangelo’s organization is taking care of Jenny. Feeding her. We follow them, and they lead us to her.”

  “Dangelo wants us to do a quid pro quo,” Garrett said.

  “Your point?”

  “If he finds out that we’re hitting his operations, he might change his mind. Not to mention we don’t have the manpower for twenty-four-hour surveillance.”

  I shrugged. “We won’t get spotted. If we do, we’ll tell him we suspect persons that he may do business with. At the worst, it forces the action, which isn’t a bad thing. He doesn’t have his money—he won’t renege on us. And if we find Jenny before the money, we’re done.” I didn’t respond to his observation regarding our lack of resources for around-the-clock surveillance. I was still working on that.

  Garrett started to say something but pulled back.

  “What?” I asked him.

  “Nothing.”

  I marched out the side door as Kathleen strode down the dock.

  “Eggs?” Morgan’s voice came from behind me.

  “I’ll take a plate with me,” I said as Kathleen came up beside me. I was eager to get going. I paused my step and asked, “How’s the grand experiment?”

  “You have time?”

  “Always.” It was an obligatory remark. Like when someone says, “I love you,” and you shoot the words right back, fearful of any hesitation between the comments.

  She paused then said, “I presented my theory, and it multiplied. Oprah recommends a book, and thousands of people read it and rate it. They’re far more likely to like the book than if they found the title from an online review. All types of controlled studies can emerge. The same books will garner higher reader praise if read during the summer months than in December. Where you read, my personal interest, is becoming an oddity with no money behind it. What your expectations of the book are and how they were formed are taking center stage.”

  “Certainly applies to more than books.” I glanced past her at a sailboat.

  “It does. Like those wine tests you told me about where people always rate an expensive bottle of wine better than a lesser-priced bottle, even after the contents have been switched. You don’t want all this right now, do you?”

  “I was—”

  “I’m late for my meeting.”

  Meeting? Was I supposed to know about this? I said, “Catch you later.”

  Kathleen leaned in and up and gave me a kiss on the lips. “You have a great day—keep your motor going.” She waltzed into the house. I had the feeling I had still missed a few chapters, but I didn’t have time to go back.

  CHAPTER 31

  Garrett, Morgan, and I piled into my truck. Morgan drove as I wolfed down a paper plate of bland scrambled eggs. I had forgotten the pepper, which really bugged me. Morgan was appropriately donned in a shirt and bona fide shoes. He’d overheard our plans, and I was grateful for the extra set of eyes. But he didn’t carry any pepper, so what the hell good was he?

  We pulled into the deserted parking lot where PC and Boyd were waiting for us. We all gathered beside my truck, and I gave marching orders. I provided PC the address of West Coast Tool and Die.

  “Walk in and tell them you’re looking for a job,” I instructed him. “Get a good look at the place.”

  “What am I looking for?”

  “Basement. Interior rooms. Just give me a feel for it. Think of where someone could be held against their will.”

  Morgan said, “When at sea, and we wanted to hide someone, we’d put them in the hold of the ship. Some boats were designed with that in mind. I would think—”

  “That’s what we’re looking for,” I said. Morgan, on more than one occasion, had brought whole families to the land of the free.

  “We just need a quick in and out of these places,” I said, aware of my accelerating speech. “We don’t need to camp out. Scout for steps either up or down. Maybe a side door that leads to the adjoining building. If that building is vacant and owned by Sally properties, it’s under consideration. After today, the only property that will require constant surveillance is one that could pos
sibly be housing her.”

  I turned to Garrett. I had decided to go with an alternative plan. I’d grown weary of our slow progress and ineffectual actions. That, plus the lack of pepper, had placed me in an aggressive mood. “You and Morgan take the truck south. I’ll rush up the middle, put pressure on Dangelo. By nightfall, he’ll know it’s a new game.”

  “What happened to ‘hold?’”

  “No such move.”

  Garrett said, “You’ll need wheels. I should have driven my rental.”

  “I’ll requisition Kathleen’s car.”

  “Should be no problem,” Morgan said. “She has that meeting at the Vinoy that runs most of the day.”

  “What kind of meeting?” I asked. She would have walked to the Vinoy, as it was only a few blocks from her condo.

  “Publishing study of some sort. She not tell you?”

  “I might have missed that.”

  Garrett let out a chuckle. Did she tell me? I called her, but she didn’t pick up. Screw it. I needed her car. PC and Boyd took off to West Coast Tool and Die. Garrett and Morgan dropped me off at Kathleen’s condo garage.

  I entered the code and saw her bronze two-door Lexus convertible in its assigned spot. It didn’t even reflect the overhead light. I took the elevator to her unit and grabbed the fob out of the Silver Springs antique porcelain dish. What the? I’d given that to her. Bought it for her one night at an eclectic art shop a block down on Beach Drive. And she tried to tell me I’d never purchased anything for her before. I’d have to set the record straight. I left a note, sent her a text, and locked the door behind me.

  Long Sally’s Bar and Grill was hungover from the previous night; it didn’t open until 11:00 a.m. I felt dressed up with nowhere to go. I put gas in the Lexus and ran it through one of those car washes where they dry it by hand. It was a sure sign that it would rain within twenty-four hours. I felt bad for the Native Americans all those years ago. I doubt their rain dances helped much. What they should have done was wash their horses instead. It would have guaranteed precipitation and a healthy crop of corn.