by Tom Corcoran
“Who is this Colding?”
“A sleazeball,” I said. “He cons the girls into his back office so he can ogle their bare titties. They put up with it for fear of their jobs.”
She clenched her fist. “My kind of guy. After we fry the bigger fish, I’ll hook his ass.”
“They’ll all lose their jobs,” I said.
“They’ll own the grocery.”
The two roads that connect Bay Point to the Overseas Highway straddle the land triangle occupied by Baby’s Coffee. Just north of that triangle, at the end of a gated, unnamed stretch of gravel, is a broad field of antennae and triple-story white buildings. Years ago I heard it was a Navy Communication Station. I have never met anyone who works there, don’t know anyone who has been down that one-lane road. Based on acreage, it’s a huge government presence, and it’s been there for decades. It became a piece of scenery that I quit noticing. Hell, I had passed it two days ago without a second thought.
If that was the Mansion, its presence and size could be the reason for all the hush-hush, and the source of all the mysterious, unmarked vehicles.
It was on a damn long gravel road.
I knew that Cecil Colding bullied staff he thought to be socializing, so I played customer, went straight for the grocery’s candy bar rack. Beth Watkins studied the bananas on an end cap display. The place smelled of garlic and the Clorox used to disinfect floor mats and cooked coffee. I saw only Mikey Bokamp and Honey Weiss on the job and no other shoppers. Honey, behind the deli counter, wore a dark red T-shirt with the Sugar Daddy logo. I got the joke. Again unzipping, Beth wandered farther away, pretended to peruse the granola bars.
Mikey sidled over from the pastries section. “I expect you’re here to talk with Alyssa, but she’s back there reviewing her time sheet, or whatever, with Uncle D.” She pointed at Beth. “Is that the one you had trouble with two nights ago?”
“No, she’s the one I had fun with last night,” I said.
“I thought you looked ready.” She looked at Honey then turned serious. “We would have heard if you found Sally, right? The boss hired a new girl who starts tomorrow. She’s some mama’s baby but she’s got the devil in her tush. And nipple rings, I think. Cecil took forty-five minutes to interview her.”
Alyssa exited the narrow door of Colding’s office, her face beet red. Flustered and ashamed, she looked downward and hurried to the register.
I tapped my fist on Mikey’s forearm. “Hang with me on this.”
“What a deal,” she said. “I can’t have your front, I got your back.”
“What’s her last name?”
“Navarro. Alyssa Navarro.”
I took my purchase to the register, making sure Mikey stayed close. We got an odd, disapproving look from Honey. Distracted, hugging herself, Alyssa didn’t recognize me at first.
“You still want a free lunch?” I said.
Alyssa shook her head. “Look, I just got warned. If he walks out and sees me having a ‘gab fest,’ I’ll get docked.”
“Right,” I said, “you’ve got all these customers to take care of.”
Alyssa checked the office door. “The clientele is last in our job priorities.”
“How about lunch at Boondocks?” I said.
A flicker of disappointment. “I have to work until three.”
Mikey said, “I get off work in twenty minutes, but I’ll cover you ’til three.”
“Cool,” said Alyssa. “I’ll ride my Vespa. See you in a half hour.”
Outside, Beth said, “How does she eat cereal with that barbell in her tongue?”
“I expect her meals are yogurt-specific. Might be a problem at Boondocks.”
“I say she gets tuna salad. I hope that thing doesn’t short out her electric toothbrush.”
Cecil Colding flung open the grocery’s front door. He barged toward us like a confused farm animal. “I told you not to come around pestering my help.”
“That you did, Cecil, baby,” I said. “I heard you loud and clear, so I came into your slopchute today only to buy this Payday bar. Here’s the receipt, Cecil, so get out of my face.”
“You fucking weasel,” he said. “You talk to me like that, I’ll shove that candy bar down your goddamn throat.” He lunged for the Payday.
I stepped back. “Whoa, big guy, that could hurt. This is worse than having an automatic weapon pointed at my gut in the middle of the night. I could even die.”
“I’ll leave that up to you,” he said. “Just don’t do it in my parking lot. It’s sure to fuck up business.”
“Don’t ever lose sight of that bottom line, Cecil.” I turned to Beth. “Which law did he just break?”
“Florida section seven-eight-four-point-oh-one-one,” she said. “Second degree misdemeanor assault with the intentional threat to do violence coupled with an apparent ability to do so, and doing some act which creates a fear that violence is imminent. But he can get only sixty days max.”
Colding eyeballed the silver leathers. “You travel with your attorney?” he said.
“She’s not a lawyer, but she’s a highly-credible witness.”
Beth jerked the stub of her banana up and down suggestively and waved her receipt.
He kept staring, approaching drool stage. “And you’re too pussy to slug it out?”
“Not at all,” I said. “It’s just that smacking you around would be a pain in the ass. It’s hot out here and I could break my hand. Why should I worry about the challenge of a schmuck?”
“Oh, poor boy, break your hand,” said Colding.
“And I’ve got stuff to do because I’m still curious about Sally Catherman. You didn’t ask how that was going.”
“She’s an ex-employee, that’s all I know.” Colding turned and charged toward the store entrance in a half-controlled stagger. He pounded the heel of his fist on the door’s aluminum frame then yanked open the door. I assumed that his act was mostly for show and didn’t think he’d be stupid enough to get physical with the three women inside, but I decided to hang close for a couple of minutes.
Beth grinned widely.
“You had a moment of triumph there?” I said.
“Not what you think,” she said. “That deli woman admired my riding leathers.”
“So did the bellowing butthole,” I said. “I expect it’s universal reaction.”
“You are the man with the golden tongue. Where to now?”
I wanted to retrieve my Catherman money from Frank Polan, but I didn’t want to implicate Beth. I envisioned a prosecuting attorney asking her, a year from now, “When he counted out $4,000 in hundred dollar bills, Ms. Watkins, did you wonder about the source of all that cash?”
“Look,” I said, “I’ve got a couple errands to run that might bore the piss out of you. Maybe you could go to Boondocks, get a good table and hold it for us.”
“Alex, tune up your bullshit dispenser. This ride today is pure ‘out-of-the-way.’”
“One errand might get weird,” I said.
“Weird is that you don’t want me there. Just tell me her name ahead of time, okay? I’ll be cool. I just don’t want to be introduced and not know she was the cause of my broken heart.”
“I have to see a man about money,” I said.
“Have we got a conflict?” said Beth. “Say, between this money and a certain highly-credible witness?”
“Call it potential. With downside to said witness.”
She covered her ears with her hands. “Can the witness pledge blindness and a shaky memory?”
20
I called ahead to make sure Frank Polan was home.
“You coming by with a couple of lovelies?” he said.
I watched Beth climb aboard her Ducati. “Only one, but she’s very good looking.”
“Did I hear a truck?” he said. “You’re by the highway?”
“Ten minutes away,” I said.
“I’ll clean up the big boat.”
“We won’t have time, Fr
ank. We’re moving fast today.”
“Just as well,” he said. “Waste of time if you only have the one, so I know why you’re coming by. I still have most of your cash.”
Colding had told me to stay out of his grocery store. To avoid a possible trespassing beef, I asked Beth to look inside, to ensure that Cecil wasn’t browbeating or physically beating his employees. She checked, backed away from the door and shrugged.
All was quiet.
I had one stop to make before going to Polan’s. I had stashed Catherman’s envelope in my helmet and forgotten to remove it. It held Sally’s car registration, a copy of the picture page of her passport, her drivers license renewal notice, and three copies of a head shot photo. I hoped that its contents hadn’t turned into a sweat-saturated mass of fiber and bled-out, unreadable inks.
I peeled back the lining pad and found what I needed, as legible as my thumbnail: Catherman’s address printed on the upper left corner of the envelope. Scabbard Road, and why hadn’t I been able to recall that? I’d dug out the address when I had seen the tow truck haul Sally’s Miata away from Mangrove Mama’s.
“Bob Catherman lives five minutes from here,” I said to Beth. “Before we go to Frank Polan’s, I’d like to see how Bob lives.”
“Is this the life of a private eye?”
“I think so,” I said. “But I left the instruction book in my other briefcase.”
I’ve never understood why people with loads of money are compelled to buy cute mailboxes and live on streets with cute names. The folks assigned to name streets on Cudjoe must have been enthralled with swashbucklers, despots and their related gear. We ran south on Cutthroat and west on Jolly Roger. The short streets that ran northward to dead ends off Jolly Roger alternated with stubby canals that gave each home in the area salt water access. We passed Arrgh Lane and Eyepatch Street before finding the right area.
To assure myself that we were observer-free, I scouted the streets just east and west of Scabbard. There were no Dodge Chargers parked on Gangplank Lane, no Chevy Impalas on Grog Road. No other faux-stealth sedans on either street, but rolling slowly on Grog we found a spot where we could look through a spacious yard for a cross-canal view of the Porsche Cayenne parked under what had to be Catherman’s home. The elevated house was no palace compared to its neighbors, but the boats tied alongside his seawall spoke of wealth and adventure.
I pulled out my Canon PowerShot, zoomed to optical max, and took several photos of the Catherman Yacht Club. A center-console 38-foot Fountain with three Mercury 275 Verados on its transom; and what looked to be a 28-foot Skater—probably the smallest model made—but it carried two Mercury 300 OptiMax outboards.
“Living the life,” said Beth.
I agreed. “That Fountain is a seventy-mile-an-hour monster, but it can be used for deep sea fishing. That little Skater is even faster—but strictly a hot rod. Impractical and expensive.”
Beth showed a sly grin. “Bet it’s great for trolling.”
I reminded myself that she worked in a male-dominated profession. She had heard it all.
“For the money that bought those boats,” I said, “we could lay back in the most luxurious hotel in Paris, eat the best food and drink the finest wine for about two years.”
She held her right hand to her heart. “Any chance of making it one boat and one year in Paris?”
We rode around to the house on Scabbard, pulled in alongside the Cayenne. Aside from the hot boats floating out back, nothing under the house or in the yard gave clues to the pastimes or personalities of the home’s occupants. No kayaks or flower plantings or decorations. The only indication of Sally’s “legal” ground-floor apartment were mini-blinds in a two-foot-square window facing the street.
Bob Catherman descended an outside stairway and walked toward my motorcycle, nodding in admiration.
“You’re a man of fine taste,” he said. “I didn’t have time to check out this baby at the post office the other day.”
“You had other matters on your mind,” I said.
“Still do.” He paused and regarded Beth, pretended to be admiring her Ducati. She kept her eyes down, feigned attention to her gauge cluster.
In his navy Bermuda shorts, yellow button-down shirt and tassel loafers, no socks, Catherman looked like an oil executive on vacation. “Look, Rutledge,” he said, “I owe you a mess of apologies. One is for that first day I knocked on your door. I treated you like a hayseed. I shouldn’t have been so high and mighty.”
“We’re even. I reacted as if you were a sleazy solicitor full of promises and horseshit.”
He shrugged it off. “Another apology, obviously, is for last night. I can’t even begin…”
“Then don’t. It was awkward for all of us, but I don’t believe for a minute that you’re a window peeper.”
“Your meter runs down about this time tomorrow, right?” he said. “I assume you’ve been talking to Sally’s fellow employees.”
“The young women in Colding’s are torn up by all this,” I said. “It’s been a task to gain their confidence, and I think there’s more to learn. I would hate to see my efforts tank before I get to dig deeper.”
He kept his eyes on Beth. “What are you saying?”
“Let’s not upset them more than we have to,” I said. “I’d appreciate your shopping at Murray’s Market for a few days.”
Catherman faked a chuckle. “What am I, a loose cannon?”
“Just the sight of you will stir them up. No disrespect intended, you’re also a man with emotions. We boys think we can stifle them, but we can’t fool all of the women all the time.”
“Gotcha,” he said, “and well-put.”
“Couple of fine boats out back.”
“And I wish they were mine.” Catherman pointed to a work site two homes to the north. “My neighbor is having new davits installed. I’m temporary parking, but it sure classes up the real estate.”
“Bob, about that subject,” I said, “you made several offers on Dredgers Lane three days ago. I’ve known my neighbors for years, and several of them are making plans that amount to life-changing moves. Are those offers good to go, or is there something we all need to know?”
“All on the level,” he said, “though we can’t close all the deals on one day. There will be appraisals and due diligence and such. I’m sure you’re more up to speed than some of those… your neighbors.”
“Could be true,” I said.
He shifted his eyes back to Beth on her Ducati. “Can I ask one favor?”
I tilted my head, non-committal.
“Maybe I don’t have to say this, what with our working arrangement.” He paused to form his phrasing. “If something—anything—pops up that’s, say, south of the law, my daughter in a jam, but not only that, I’d like to get a call before you notify the cops.”
I couldn’t imagine the mess of guilt and helplessness and denial in his mind. Yet something about his phrasing caught me wrong enough to instantly ease my mind about accepting his nickel—to work, in truth, for Sam.
“You bet, Bob,” I said. “I read somewhere that good private eyes always report first to their clients.” I was fairly sure I’d seen it in a detective novel written eighty years ago.
Missing the sarcasm, he checked his watch. “I’ve got a lunch meeting in five, just up the road at Square Grouper. I’m going to have to let you go.”
“Do you mind if I ask, is Sally your only child?”
“Yes, she is, Alex. I’ll wait for your call.”
So patient, so social and businesslike, I thought, as he runs task delegation to a new low.
Frank Polan’s home was a half-mile from us, straight across Cudjoe Bay, but a two-mile ride on the island’s streets. I planned to make it quick. I didn’t want to be late for lunch at Boondocks.
Even people who own homes in the Keys dream of a place like Polan’s. His double lot is low on the ocean side yet faces northwest, away from the neighbors, for plenty of sunset cockta
il hours. There’s a boat ramp, installed before rules about such things changed, a T-shaped dock with two elegant boats alongside, a dozen mature palm trees, a scattering of shaped shrubs and, always a sign of sophistication, an outdoor shower. As a small matter of fastidious obsession, he keeps his home in great shape. I imagined that five or six weeds a year might sprout in Polan’s pea rock and be annihilated within fifteen minutes of their discovery.
We parked our motorcycles under the house behind Frank’s spotless SUV and a mid-sized, freshly washed, two-door Mercedes. Climbing the stairway to his open deck, Beth paused to unzip her riding suit and admire the placid bay view. The earlier clouds had scattered. Two kayakers paddled westward along the far shore near the waterfront homes we’d just passed on Jolly Roger. An elderly heron atop a dock piling watched a lone cormorant skim the flat water.
“I could stand it,” she said.
“Wait until you meet Frank. He’ll flat steal your heart.”
“You own the damn thing,” she said. “I hope you’ll defend it.”
I almost tripped up the steps.
“Or at least get a good price on the flip,” she added.
Frank had heard our arrival. “The slider’s unlocked,” he called out. “Come on in.”
The house smelled of chicken that Frank had grilled on his porch, on a small propane-fueled hibachi, and of broccoli he was steaming in the kitchen. The cold air in his living room fogged my sunglasses but I couldn’t miss, dead center on the Persian rug, a workout rowing machine.
“It’s a light lunch I have three times a week,” he said. “Six ounces of chicken and eight ounces of broccoli. Which, of course, I pee out everything except the good protein and antioxidants.”
“Chicken’s a known oxidant,” I said.
Polan’s voice a drawn-out, distressed whine: “No.”
“You could know this but you refuse to recognize the existence of the Internet,” I said. “You’ve never heard of H-two-cluck side effects?”