by Elaine Viets
Danny Boy Cerventi was behind the bar. With his drinker’s potbelly and scrawny arms and legs, he looked like a spider with a bad haircut.
“Danny Boy looks about the same,” Phil said. “His hair is just as black.”
“It’s dyed,” Helen said. “I can see that across the room.”
She and Phil gently pushed their way through the beery, cheering crowd. Helen found an empty barstool by the register. Phil stood behind it. Helen could see Danny Boy’s bloodshot eyes and the roadmap of red veins on his nose. He wiped his hands on his dirty apron and said, “You brought the old ball and chain tonight, Phil.”
Helen ground her teeth at that remark but remembered they were here on a case. Once they found Mark’s murderer, she’d never have to go to this dump again.
“I’ve been telling Helen your burgers and fries are the best in Lauderdale,” Phil said. “She wanted to see for herself.”
Danny Boy grinned, revealing stained, ratlike teeth. “Is that what you’re both having—burgers and fries?”
“Medium rare for Helen and walk it through a warm kitchen for me,” Phil said. “Two orders of the fries and two beers.” Helen nodded. Beer wasn’t her first choice, but she knew better than to order white wine in a dive.
She was surprised by the photo of Mark Behr on the wall next to the cash register. That was him, wasn’t it? She leaned in for a closer look. Time hadn’t faded that glorious fiery hair. It was definitely Mark, raising a frosty mug of beer in a smiling toast.
Another picture in a heavy oval frame hung above the register, a brownish photo of an old man with a black handlebar mustache.
When Danny Boy returned with their food, Helen said, “Is that your grandfather up there on the wall?”
“Sure is,” Danny Boy said. “Bought this bar with the money Granddaddy left me in his will. That’s how the bar got its name. I keep his picture here to honor him.” Helen heard him slur “picture” as “pick-shure.”
“He has a terrific face,” Helen said. “Makes you want to order a beer.”
“Good idea,” Phil said. “I’ll have another beer. What about you, Helen?”
“I’d better switch to club soda,” she said. “I have to work in the morning.”
“Work,” Danny Boy said, “the curse of the drinking class.” He laughed uproariously at his own joke, as if he’d just heard it for the first time.
“I hate to drink alone,” Phil said. “Can I buy you a Heineken, Danny Boy?”
“Don’t mind if you do,” Danny said. “I like a little Heinie.” He leered at Helen and spritzed soda water into a glass for her, then filled two frosted mugs with draft beer. He moved with the slow, precise movements of a longtime drunk. He slid one beer toward Phil.
“Perfect draw,” Phil said, holding up his mug and admiring the golden brew. “Not too much foam on that beer.”
“I’ve had some practice,” Danny said, and winked at Helen. He gulped down the beer, then drew himself another. His hand slipped on the tap handle. The beer was getting to him. Helen hoped he’d be drunk enough to answer their questions.
“Who is that handsome man in the photo next to the cash register?” she asked.
The smile slid off Danny Boy’s face. “An old friend,” he said. “Mark Behr. That photo was taken at his thirtieth birthday party. He had one hell of a party here that night. I still have the video to prove it. He’s dead now, poor bastard.”
“Was he an actor?” Helen asked.
“No. Mark was good-looking enough to be one. He was a mechanic, believe it or not.”
“He could definitely drive my car,” Helen said, and grinned at Danny Boy.
Phil frowned. He didn’t like Helen flirting with the drunken bartender. Too bad, she thought. We’re on a case.
“Mark drove a lot of ladies wild,” Danny Boy said. “He used to hang out here at Granddaddy’s. It’s sort of our clubhouse, except they pay me for the beer.”
Danny Boy laughed hard again—too hard—then turned serious. “I got outta high school, but I never left high school. I don’t need a reunion. My friends are here ’most every night. That bald guy there in the gray shirt? That’s Bobby. He used to be a plumber. Damn good one, too, until the economy tanked and he lost his job. Now he’s my day bartender. Hey, Bobby!” he yelled over the boozy crowd.
Bobby was sitting two seats down at the bar. He raised his beer in Danny Boy’s direction, then went back to watching the game, his arm draped around a bottle blonde on the stool next to him.
“Jack there with the Marines tattoo works for the phone company,” Danny Boy said. “I like him anyway. Hate the phone company, though. Hell, Jack hates it, too, but he won’t admit it.
“See the guy in the khaki uniform at the end of the bar? That’s Tom, another old friend. Tom still has all his hair—it’s just grayer. He installs hurricane shutters. I got lots more friends, but those are the only ones here now. South Florida’s not known for what you’d call a work ethic, but these guys break their butts all day. They come here to unwind.”
Except for Bobby, Helen thought, who stays here after work.
“Did you always want to own a bar?” Helen asked.
“Me?” His hard, harsh laugh had a sorrowful sound. “Old Danny Boy here was gonna be a filmmaker. Not a moviemaker, nothing common like that. I was going to be an artiste.” He crooked a pinkie in a mincing gesture. “Danny Boy was going to win awards at Sundance. I had that kind of talent. I’d make films with messages. You know what they say in Hollywood: If you wanna send a message, get Western Union. Wonder if they still say that. Do people even know what Western Union is, except for old farts like me?”
Danny looked lost for a moment. Sweat rolled off his forehead, and his badly dyed hair stuck to his scalp. He poured another beer with shaking hands and took two deep drinks. Danny put down the nearly empty mug and asked Helen, “Know what happened to my film career? I work three afternoons a week before the bar opens for a video-duplication service, dubbing wedding and anniversary tapes onto DVDs. If I hear ‘Proud Mary’ one more time, I swear I’ll machinegun the whole wedding party.
“That’s my big film job. I don’t get any Sundance awards for my work. Mostly I hang out here, drinking beer with my friends, killing time until it kills me. Turns out my career as an artiste peaked the night of Mark’s birthday party. That’s the last movie I ever made. The last picture show for me and Mark both.” Danny gave a high-pitched giggle.
“What happened to Mark?” Helen asked.
Danny looked like he’d been punched. “Sad case, Mark.” He shook his head. “He was the best and brightest of us, and he put a bullet in his brain. Shot himself in the head. Just as well, I guess. If he lived, he’d be as old, fat and fucked as the rest of us. We’re all fifty-five now, and none of us are what you’d call beauties.”
“Hey,” Bobby yelled. “Speak for yourself. I look pretty damn fine, and Tiffany here thinks so, too.”
Tiffany had bright yellow hair, short shorts that exposed veiny legs, and a tube top that showed a flabby cleavage. She giggled girlishly, and Bobby patted her double-wide rear end.
Helen saw a flash of movement in a back doorway and whispered to Phil, “I need the restroom. I’ll be right back.”
Danny didn’t even notice that she’d left.
Helen recognized the doorway. Mark’s last birthday cake had been carried through it by the sequined, shoulder-padded woman in the old video. The doorway opened onto a short, dark hall ending in a back room. The restrooms were in the hall. Helen thought she saw someone she knew in that room. She used the restroom, then peeked in the back room. The small room seemed even more crowded because of the hulking customers crammed in it. They looked like bodybuilders.
Helen recognized Tansi from Fantastic Fitness. Her bright green sweats made her look like the Geico gecko. The lizardlike bodybuilder was talking to an iron pumper the size of a furnace. Helen didn’t see anyone drinking anything.
Bobby the day barte
nder blocked her way into the room.
“May I help you?” he asked. His tone was not friendly.
“I thought I recognized someone back there,” she said.
Tansi didn’t look up.
“I’m sure you didn’t,” Bobby said. He escorted Helen back to the bar, then took a seat next to his date, Tiffany.
“Where’s Danny Boy?” Helen asked Phil.
“He went for another keg.”
“I saw Tansi in the back room,” Helen said. “A bunch of bodybuilders are in the back. Bobby steered me away from there.”
“Think Bobby’s up to something?” Phil asked.
“Definitely,” Helen said. “None of those bodybuilders are buying drinks.”
“I’m guessing they’re buying something else,” Phil said.
“I’m back, Phil,” Danny announced, lugging an aluminum beer keg. He put it behind the bar and hooked it up to the beer lines. “Damn kegs are getting heavier. Either that, or I’m getting old.”
“Not a chance, buddy,” Phil said.
“Aw, don’t lie,” Danny Boy said. “I got a mirror. You know the one good thing about being this old? My sister Linda finally got off my back. She’s a bigwig in Sunset Palms government. My sister the big shot. Got her photo taken with Jeb Bush when he was governor. Keeps it in her office. Sis is always after me to be somebody like she is. Too late now.”
His face collapsed suddenly. Danny Boy put his head on the bar top. His drunken laughter turned into tears—the harsh, hard sobs that men make. “It’s too late for me, and it’s too late for Mark.
“Too late,” he cried.
“Hey, there,” Phil said. “You okay?”
Bobby stood up and lurched behind the bar, his yellow-haired girlfriend following. “He gets like that sometimes,” Bobby said. “He’ll snap out of it, won’t you, Danny?”
Bobby put his arm around Danny Boy and said, “You’re tired, Danny. Go home and take a nap. Tiffany and I will watch the bar for you while you rest. You can close out the register in the morning when you feel better.”
“Go home,” Danny Boy mumbled. “Good idea. I’ll go home.” He untied his apron and reached under the bar for his keys.
“Give me your car keys. I’ll drive you,” Phil said.
Danny Boy refused to surrender them. “No way,” he said. “I’m in charge here. I’m giving myself the night off. Bobby said it was okay.”
Phil tried to wrestle the keys away from Danny Boy, but Bobby stopped him. “He drives home like that every night,” Bobby said. “He only lives two blocks away. He can’t get into any trouble in that little distance.”
Helen and Phil watched Danny Boy crunch his way across the gravel parking lot toward a beat-up pickup, crying drunkenly, “Too late. Too late. It’s all too late.”
CHAPTER 28
Helen counted sixteen people lined up outside Fantastic Fitness at five thirty the morning it reopened. Sixteen surly people, judging by their body language.
Helen shivered at that chilling memory, though the thick air felt like lukewarm soup. She parked the Igloo near a white Crown Victoria that screamed “unmarked police car.”
Was Homicide Detective Evarts Redding on the scene? She might need him if the crowd turned unruly.
Bullet Head, the club member who’d slammed his fist against the door five days ago, planted himself in her path. His beefy sidekick blocked the rest of the sidewalk. The pair made Helen walk around them. She noted with satisfaction that the knuckles on Bullet Head’s right hand were scabbed.
The gym blazed with light. Odd. Usually the lights weren’t on inside until Fantastic Fitness opened. Bullet Head and his friend crowded behind her as she unlocked the front door and punched in the access code.
They started to push inside, but Detective Ever Ready confronted them at the door. “Back up,” he said. “Gym doesn’t open for another half hour.”
Bullet Head and his pal stopped shoving but didn’t move.
“I said back up,” Ever Ready said, “or I’ll slap the cuffs on you. Give the cleaners room to leave.”
Five brown-skinned men and women in navy uniforms, clutching buckets and mops, hurried to a pale van. Helen slipped in after the cleaners, and the detective locked the door.
“You’re here early,” Helen said.
“I’ve been waiting to talk to you,” Ever Ready said. “Sit down in that cubicle.” It was not a friendly invitation.
Helen sat. The desk was polished and the room smelled of lemon wax. Helen didn’t see any of the fingerprint powder the crime scene workers had been using the day she discovered Debbi. The suffocatingly clean room could barely contain Helen, plus Ever Ready’s pillowy gut and towering outrage.
“I asked you for Evie Roddick’s address,” he said. “I’m still trying to get hold of her. I can’t find her. Her husband says he hasn’t heard from her, either.”
“I thought he said she moved out,” Helen said.
“He did, but one little lady doesn’t disappear off the face of the earth.”
“Maybe she’s in danger,” Helen offered.
“Maybe she’s the danger,” Ever Ready said. “Maybe Evie Roddick wanted to kill Miss Dhosset.”
“Evie couldn’t hurt anyone,” Helen said. “She’s too small.”
“Exactly why she’d want the victim dead. She’s small and sneaky. Evie Roddick didn’t need muscles to kill Miss Dhosset. The medical examiner says the victim died of a fatal overdose of steroids, oxycodone and fat burners.”
“So Debbi’s death was an accident. Or suicide,” Helen said hopefully. “Suicide would make the most sense. She was upset when she couldn’t compete in the bodybuilding contest.”
“Bull,” Ever Ready said. “Miss Dhosset was in her twenties. Plenty of time to compete again.”
Debbi had said the same thing, Helen thought. Am I actually agreeing with him? Not for long.
“Evie Roddick murdered her,” the detective continued. “The fact that she ran away after Miss Dhosset died tells me your Evie killed her.”
My Evie? Helen wondered. How did Evie get to be mine? “I haven’t seen Evie since I left the gym.”
“Exactly,” Ever Ready said, as if she’d proved his point.
“We don’t live near each other,” Helen said. “I’ve never seen Evie anywhere but at Fantastic Fitness.”
“Then you call me, missy, the minute Evie Roddick shows her face here again. She’s guilty. I know it. And I know you and that manager Deter—”
“Derek,” Helen corrected.
“Whatever his name is. You’re covering up for her. Find her, or I’ll lock you both up.”
He marched out of the cubicle, massive gut vibrating with each step. It wasn’t six in the morning yet, but Helen was shaken by the homicide detective’s threats. He seemed determined to railroad Evie, and if he couldn’t get Evie, he’d go after Helen and Derek.
The righteously ripped Derek was waiting for Helen at the reception desk. The early morning light gilded his muscles.
“Is Detective Redding gone?” Helen asked.
“At last,” Derek said and sighed. “He said he wanted to give you what he called ‘a piece of his mind.’ That man doesn’t have any pieces to spare. He’s after your hide.”
“Yours, too,” Helen said.
“I know it,” Derek said. “He made that clear. Be glad you weren’t here these last few days. He terrorized the staff and the customers.”
“I thought the gym was closed,” Helen said.
“He tracked the customers down at their homes and offices,” Derek said. “He made the staff come in for questioning. I’ll be lucky if we don’t lose all our staff and our members by the time his investigation is over.”
His coffee skin had a gray tinge. Derek looked weary. “He let me bring the cleaning crew in at midnight last night. They just finished.”
“Place looks good,” Helen said. “You got the broken glass repaired in the weight room, too.”
Derek looked uncomfortable. “Helen, before we open, I want to talk to you. You need to work out more if you want to keep this job. Everyone at Fantastic Fitness has to be fit. You look good, don’t get me wrong, but you have to take off a pound or two around the middle.”
Helen glanced down guiltily at her gut. One piece of gooey butter cake and a couple of fries shouldn’t have made that much difference. She conveniently forgot last night’s beer, burger and fries.
“I had to make a quick trip home to St. Louis,” Helen said. “It’s hard to lose weight when you travel.”
“I understand, but I need to see results soon. I’ll help you work out, okay? End of lecture.” Derek flipped on the pounding music. “Turn on the TVs, please.”
“Which channel?” Helen asked, then realized it wouldn’t make any difference. Debbi, the only person who cared, was dead. Helen turned on CNN. Might as well please the living Heather.
“Battle stations,” Derek said. Helen took her place behind the reception desk and pasted on a smile.
The fitness fanatics pushed through the doors, eager to mortify their flesh in fat church. Soon the weights were clanking, the bikes were whirring and the treadmills were turning. Basketballs bounced off the floors and racquetballs off the walls. Watching that rampant energy made Helen feel tired, and her night at Granddaddy’s Bar didn’t help.
At six ten, Bryan, Shelby’s sizzling-hot husband, walked in with “What a Waste” Will. The two men were so deep in conversation that they handed over their cards without a nod to Helen. She checked them in, and they continued their intense conversation all the way to the men’s locker room. Their faces were chiseled and their bodies were breathing sculptures.
Those men were too beautiful in a city known for hunks. Was Bryan having an affair with Will? That could be why he left an open condom packet in his car. But everyone knew Will was faithful to his partner. He was just friendly.