The Way You Look Tonight

by Richard Madeley

  But the bright light that now suddenly flashed in his windshield mirror wasn’t green.

  It was red.

  A moment later, it was underscored by the clipped, on-off whoop and wail of a siren.

  ‘State driver ID, licensed cab-driver ID and county certification, please.’

  The cop was close to his own age but it was hard to be sure. His uniform cap was pulled down low above the blank lenses of reflective Aviators.

  He nodded to the patrolman as he reached up and flipped open his sun-visor, calmly removing documents from the built-in wallet.

  ‘Here you go, officer. I think you’ll find everything is in order.’

  His personal stuff was in the unlocked glove box to his right.

  Including the new knife, the rope, and the half-empty bottle of chloroform.

  And his gun.

  He told himself to stay cool. This was just a routine check.

  ‘Thank you, sir. Step out of the car, please.’

  He loathed being told what to do, but managed to resist the temptation to reach for the gun. He could take this cop here quickly and easily, with his bare hands, if it came to it.

  He’d been pulled over at a lonely spot. The waters of the Atlantic and the Gulf hustled in on both sides of the narrow two-lane highway. There was no dry land for buildings of any kind here in these shallow swamps on the edge of the Everglades, studded with bleached, drowned pines. The dead trees cast thin, gloomy shadows over the two men as the sun settled lower, getting ready for its big finale.

  ‘Move behind the vehicle’s trunk and remain there, please. I need to take a look inside.’

  ‘Whatever you say, officer. I hope I wasn’t speeding. I wanted to catch the sunset at Sloppy Joe’s.’

  The cop grunted and bent inside the cab through the driver’s door. After a moment he grunted again and opened the rear door, peering around at the footwells and along the empty parcel shelf.

  ‘Open the trunk, please.’

  He popped the trunk and the cop made a careful inspection of the spare tyre, the jack and the toolkit. Apart from those, the space was empty.

  ‘OK. Close it, please.’

  He obeyed. Instinct told him something else was coming, and it wasn’t going to be a ticket.

  ‘You drive for . . .’ the cop looked at the paperwork he held in his hands: ‘Pelican Cabs, Key Largo, right?’

  ‘That’s correct, officer.’

  ‘So how come you’re up here, halfway to the Everglades?’

  ‘I had a one-way fare to Key Biscayne today, officer. Kind of a freelance thing, strictly between us. Off the books. You know how it is.’

  The cop grunted once more. Christ, was this guy a terrific conversationalist, or what?

  ‘So you’ll have been out of radio contact with your base most of the day.’

  Where was this leading? ‘Uh . . . yeah, I guess so. The range on these sets ain’t so hot once you’re off the Upper Keys. Why?’

  ‘Because otherwise you’d know by now we’ve kinda deputised you taxi drivers, as of this morning.’

  ‘No, I hadn’t heard that, officer. What’s the deal?’

  The cop removed his shades and began cleaning them on the end of his necktie. Without them, he looked older. A network of fine lines spread from the outer corners of his eyes and there were deep vertical creases flowing up towards the forehead above the bridge of his nose, too.

  Too much Florida sun over the years.

  ‘The deal is this crazy bastard we’ve been after for weeks now in the Keys. The psycho who’s running around down here killing women. There’s still a news blackout on how he snares them, but the Sheriff’s decided to cut you boys in on that part of the story. He figures maybe you can help us.’

  Oh, this was good. This was almost too good. Why did he always want to laugh, at moments like this? It would be the death of him, one day. Somehow, he managed to look concerned.

  ‘A psycho, officer? My Lord. How exactly can we help?’

  The cop pointed to the cab’s dash-mounted two-way radio.

  ‘By using that thing to call in if you see anything suspicious.’

  ‘Hell, we do that anyway, at accident scenes and suchlike, you boys know that . . . but is there anything special we should be looking out for right now?’

  ‘Yeah. Friend Fruitloop wedges three-inch nails under his chosen victims’ front tyres, when they’re parked up. That means they’ll run flat later, around about a mile or two after setting off to wherever they’re going, and that’s when the son of a bitch takes them. Maybe plays the part of a knight of the road rescuing a damsel in distress. Who knows.’

  ‘Jeez . . . he sure sounds like a calculating bastard, officer.’

  ‘He is. Now, you see any car, any car at all, that looks like it’s in trouble at the side of the road, you call right in and you report it. Right then and there, if you please. But you reckon it has a flat, you tell us that faster than you can fucking blink, OK?’

  ‘Sure . . . but excuse me, what if the girl’s still inside the vehicle?’

  ‘Sheriff’s still working the exact details on that scenario. But we protect our women here in the southland, do we not? So you act like a good citizen. At the very least, you keep an eye on her from a safe distance until we arrive. If it were me, I’d park my sedan right up close next to hers and offer her my gentlemanly assistance.’

  ‘And if friend Fruitloop were to put in an appearance?’

  The cop smiled faintly as he replaced his sunglasses.

  ‘You done military service?’

  ‘Sure. Korea. Special operations. Two years overseas.’

  The cop’s smile broadened a little.

  ‘Then I’d say . . . feel free to use your initiative, sir.’

  24

  ‘Looks like somebody’s got themselves a ticket there. Cab driver, too. He oughta know better.’

  Stella glanced out of the right-side passenger window in time to see a patrol car, its red roof-light flashing, pulled up close behind a dirty white taxi. The policeman was standing with his back to her but she could see the taxi-driver’s face as they flashed past the little tableau. It was only a fleeting glimpse, so brief that the image was almost as frozen as a still photograph, but she had the definite impression that . . .

  ‘I don’t think he was getting a speeding ticket,’ she said thoughtfully.

  ‘Huh? What? How d’you figure that, ma’am?’

  ‘Well I only got a glimpse, but it looked to me as though the driver was trying not to laugh.’

  Largo Lodge turned out to be agreeable enough. A dozen or so white-painted wooden cabins with little verandas and pretty, bougainvillea-covered porches were dotted around a much larger twin-storeyed main building. This turned out to house en-suite bedrooms upstairs and, on the ground floor, a reception area with a smallish restaurant and bar. There were a few heavy pine tables inside under cover, but most were laid out haphazardly in the open, on the sandy beach that looked out across the Gulf.

  Stella’s driver, once he’d toted her bag to reception, had driven off without another word.

  ‘Charming. Probably gone to buy himself more crisps,’ she thought, as she signed the hotel register.

  ‘Would you prefer a cabin, ma’am, or a room right here in the main house?’ The desk clerk was a freckled, overweight man in his fifties with a velvet-soft southern drawl and the kindest eyes Stella thought she had ever seen.

  ‘What would you recommend?’

  ‘Oh, the cabins, ma’am. They’re three dollars a night extra but they all have unobstructed sunset veranda views. And you’re more in your own space in a cabin, I always think. It’s the low season right now so I can do you an excellent deal. You can pretty much take your pick. There’s only one other that’s occupied, if I’m to be honest.’

  Stella fumbled in her handbag for the card she’d been given that morning. ‘Would that be a . . . let me see . . . a Mr Foster?’

  The man looked surpris
ed.

  ‘Why indeed it would, ma’am. But I—’ He suddenly closed his eyes, and his shoulders sagged.

  ‘Oh Lord. Where are my wits when I want ’em? You must be . . .’ He turned the register around so he could read Stella’s signature. ‘You are Miss Arnold, right?’ His kind eyes were now filled with anxiety and self-reproach. ‘Mr Foster was expressly clear with me that the moment you arrived I was to direct you to him at once. He was most insistent. I do believe he may be here in some official capacity. Oh dear, oh dear . . .’

  Stella tried to reassure him.

  ‘Look, it’s quite all right, I’ve only this minute checked in, haven’t I? You’ve done nothing at all wrong. Where might I find Mr Foster, please?’

  But the clerk remained flustered. He gestured nervously towards the beach restaurant, visible through sliding glass doors that were firmly shut to allow the air-conditioning to keep the building cool.

  ‘He’s out there right this minute, at the beach restaurant. Young guy sittin’ on his own wearing Bermudas. Changed out of his coat and tie as soon as he checked in. He’s government issue or I’m a Frenchman. I hope we’re not in any kind of trouble here. This is a respectable hotel. I’ll have your bag taken straight to your cabin. You’re in Conch – last one before the ocean. Oh dear oh dear.’

  Nervous, disconnected sentences stuttered out like tickertape.

  Agent Foster, Stella thought, as she was shown to her cabin, must have quite a forceful personality.

  Despite the clerk’s agitation she decided to unpack first and freshen up. She was still wearing the navy skirt and cream blouse she’d put on in Boston that morning, and they were both creased and grubby from the flight. Also, she noticed with some embarrassment, there were dark perspiration stains under both arms of her blouse and even down the back.

  She dropped the clothes, including her underwear, into the laundry basket in the bathroom and decided to take a quick shower.

  She was towelling herself dry a few minutes later when the phone on her bedside table rang. She hurried over to pick it up.

  ‘Stella Arnold.’

  ‘Agent Foster. What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘I . . . I beg your pardon? I was—’

  ‘You were what? Taking a siesta after your arduous three-hour flight down here in first class? You were specifically told to check in with me the moment you arrived.’

  Stella snatched the phone away from her ear and glared furiously at the receiver. She was tempted to slam it back down on its cradle but somehow managed to resist the impulse. Instead, she counted to ten before returning it to her ear. By now Foster’s voice had gone up a semi-tone and he sounded angrier than ever.

  ‘. . . Hello? HELLO! Are you still there? Jesus Christ . . . hello?’

  Stella took a deep breath. ‘Yes, I’m still here. Be quiet.’

  ‘What? Now see here, you have to—’

  ‘No, YOU have to. Be quiet, that is. To start with, I did NOT fly here first class and neither am I having a nap, although if I chose to, I certainly would. All right? As for seeking you out the moment I got here, if it was that urgent and important, why weren’t you waiting for me in reception? Instead of sunning yourself in your Bermuda shorts out there on the beach, hmm? Agent Foster?’

  The line popped and crackled with static before he answered, in a slightly more measured tone.

  ‘OK, OK . . . I can see we’ve got off on the wrong foot here. I—’

  Stella decided to match his more conciliatory tone, but without giving an inch. ‘No, Agent Foster, you got off on the wrong foot.’ She paused for emphasis, before adding curtly: ‘I’ll be with you in five minutes. Will you ask for some menus, please? I’m absolutely starving.’

  Stella took her own time and it was closer to twenty minutes before she chose to walk outside to the hotel’s beach restaurant. Her hair was still damp from the shower and she had only bothered to put on a little mascara and a swipe of lip-gloss. Her sunburn of a few days earlier had evolved into a healthy-looking tan.

  The sun was now extremely low on the horizon, although it still radiated a surprisingly fierce heat in a way it never would this late on an English evening. But there was no sign of the reds and pinks and yellows in the western sky that Stella had heard accompanied so many Florida sunsets. Maybe all that was a bit of an exaggeration, a self-serving myth to draw in the tourists. Currently, the heavens were a uniform azure blue.

  She could see at least a dozen tables set out on the soft, white sand. Most were empty, although one or two had seated couples, sipping beers and cocktails and waiting patiently for the free light-show to begin. But all the tables had glowing hurricane-lanterns above them, their aluminium casings painted in jolly greens and reds and attached to hooks screwed into the tops of tall, thick bamboo poles that had been driven deep into the sand. The flickering lanterns were beginning to sway in the strengthening evening breeze.

  The hotel had its own inlet and dock cut into the southern half of the beach, and as she watched, a speedboat nosed its way carefully into the little harbour, its outboard burbling quietly on low revs. She saw a slim, tanned woman in a yellow bikini emerge on deck from the cabin and throw a mooring rope ashore in one practised movement. A waiting attendant deftly caught it and quickly tied it off onto a metal cleat.

  There were a few other motor boats rocking gently at their moorings; maybe they were for hire. Stella made a mental note to find out: if she got a chance it would be fun to go out on a fishing trip, and certainly a lot cooler than staying ashore. It was still oppressively humid, although down here by the water the breeze felt a little fresher.

  Agent Foster was sitting at the table nearest to the ocean. It had to be him, she decided; he was the only solitary diner there and she could see two absurdly large menus in the shape of lobsters had been placed on both sides of the table. But he wasn’t wearing Bermuda shorts; he was in khaki chinos and a white cotton shirt. He must have gone in to change after she’d mocked him earlier.

  She was in white too; she’d put on the simple lace dress that Sylvia had given her the morning she left Bancroft Road.

  ‘Unless they’re sending you to Alaska you’ll need something smart and summery,’ the younger woman had told her. ‘This is a bit on the short side but you’ve got terrific legs, so you can carry it off.’

  Stella was finding it difficult to walk on the soft, shifting sand so she slipped off her sandals and carried them in one hand as she made her way across to the table.

  She couldn’t see Foster’s face because he was reading a paperback, holding it high to catch the last of the sun’s rays behind him. The book completely obscured his features. The novel, she noticed as she drew closer, was A Tale of Two Cities. For some reason it surprised her that an FBI man should be reading Dickens.

  ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,’ she called when she was a few feet away from him.

  He lowered the book.

  ‘It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,’ he replied.

  No crew-cut. A short-back-and-sides, rather, and although his brown hair had been combed back from his forehead it was sneakily trying to tumble back down into a fringe above his right eye. He looked, she thought, more English public schoolboy than American agent and he couldn’t be all that much older than her. Thirty, at most.

  ‘I always forget the next part,’ she confessed, holding out her hand. ‘Something about it being the spring of hope and the winter of despair. I’m Stella Arnold. How d’you do?’

  ‘Lee Foster.’ He stood up, took her hand in his own and gave it a quick shake. ‘Yes, that bit comes after the stuff about the season of light and darkness, blah-blah. But to be honest I reckon Dickens was squeezing the lemon pretty dry in that opening, anyway. He’d done the job with his best of times, worst of times line. He should’ve left it there.’

  He hesitated. ‘Look, Miss Arnold . . . I’m sorry I was so, well, terse on the house phone just now. I ha
d a long flight from LA and a truly annoying message from C. Farris Bryant waiting for me when I landed in Miami.’

  Stella sat down opposite him, unwilling to let it go just yet.

  ‘You weren’t terse, you were extremely rude,’ she said flatly. ‘I’m supposed to be here to help, not to be insulted . . . Bryant’s the state governor, isn’t he?’

  He nodded. ‘Yup. And he’s in a real fix, thanks to these killings.’

  He put both hands into his trouser pockets and leaned back in his chair, staring at her. She realised that he was sizing her up, and she folded her own hands in her lap and waited.

  ‘Now look here, Miss Arnold.’

  ‘It’s Stella.’

  He hesitated, and then said, with quiet emphasis: ‘I’ll stick to Miss Arnold, if that’s all right with you. I don’t believe we’re going to know each other long enough to get on first-name terms. Anyway . . .’ He removed his hands from his pockets and folded his arms on the table in front of him. His body language could not have been clearer: he was shutting her out.

  ‘Anyway . . . here’s the thing. I have no real idea why Washington sent you down here but to speak plainly, you’re in my way, Miss Arnold. Hoover’s drafted me in to oversee this investigation because I have a track record on this kind of stuff. I catch repeat killers. I’m good at it. I’ve been in California wrapping up my third multiple murder case and J. Edgar hauled my sorry ass across the continent to handle this one.’

  He tried and failed to attract the attention of a distant waiter before continuing.

  ‘So, I get here to find a goddamned writ from the state governor telling me I have to work with a kid who’s not even out of college. An English kid, too. I’m sorry, but it’s all way out of the ballpark, Miss Arnold, and it’s not going to happen, OK? Anyway, I answer to J. Edgar, not C. Farris or any other fucking politician. Excuse my French.’

  He sat back, waiting for her reaction.