“The pool is one story above ground level and not built into the beach,” Terry explained. “The patio and the pool are actually on the second floor.”
I could see broad stairs on either side of the pool leading to the beach.
“On beach level are all the services, the kitchens, the laundry and mechanical.”
We went to the bar and Terry started stocking a fridge with beer bottles as he said, “This is a cakewalk.”
“It makes me nervous when people tell me something is going to be easy.”
“Not a problem,” he said, racing through the system.
“Most of the sales are by chits rather than cash. You fill in the product and the customer signs a chit. Just don’t forget to get their numbers.”
He slipped around the end of the bar and danced towards the door to the hall, waving me on. “I’ll show you where you get supplies.”
In the locked supply room he picked up a box cutter and slit the lid of a carton of Johnnie Walker. “Might as well take these back with us.” He took out two bottles of scotch. “The clipboard over there is where you sign out stock. Put down two bottles of JW and sign your initials.”
I did as instructed.
Terry locked the door behind us and took the two bottles of scotch to the downstairs bar. He put the two bottles on the bottom shelf under the counter and pushed them way back.
Now call me paranoid, but I’ve been done over too many times in my life not to notice little things like that. Alarm bells began clanging in my head. Terry and I’d always worked well together the season he’d spent at the Sunset but we weren’t bosom buddies or anything.
“C’mon,” Terry said, already on his way. “We’ll take the elevator up to the fourth floor. The offices are there along with three suites for members who stay over.” “Sweet,” I said, following him. “Home away from home.” He pushed the button for the elevator. “Absolutely, and when you play one martini, two martini, three martini floor, there’s always someone to catch you and drag you off to bed.”
Chapter 39
All of the large elegant guest rooms with baths overlooked the gulf.
“With guests staying overnight, there has to be staff on hand all night so there’s also three small staff bedrooms up here.”
“Who lives in?”
“Me, as head of bar services, the chef and Julian Fotheringham-Bliss, the general manager. The staff bedrooms look over the front of the building.” On the run again, Terry said over his shoulder, “I’ll take you to meet Julian Fotheringham-Bliss and you can sign the paperwork.”
“Whoo! That’s quite a handle.”
He stopped at the door to the offices, his hand on the door, and grimaced, “Don’t let Old Peculiar bother you. He may chase you but he couldn’t do anything even if he caught you.”
“Are there any members I should watch out for?”
“All of them. We have whiners and seducers, complainers and lechers…the whole nine yards.”
“Oh, lovely.”
The offices look out to the tennis courts and the squeak of tennis shoes and the thunk of balls was constant. I don’t know how they could stand it in there. And Terry was wrong. The wolfish glint in Fotheringham-Bliss’s eye told me this dissipated man wasn’t past being dangerous. Smarm might just give way to force in this guy. Could he wrap a cord around a woman’s throat and choke her to death? I decided then and there I was never going to be alone with him. The other thing I guessed right off was that the man was a drinker. Big-time! His face was cross-hatched with the fine net of purple veins of the dedicated drinker and his coarse uneven skin was covered in a damp sheen.
“Terrence said you were a great bartender, but he didn’t tell me how nice you are to look at.” Julian Fotheringham-Bliss’s deep, cultured voice spoke of England, a high-tea accent, but it was a beer-stein body I saw when he stood up and came around the desk. Overweight, bloated even, he was just above my height, maybe another inch, making him about five foot eight. The well-cut dark navy blazer and gray slacks didn’t hide the extra pounds. His tiny feet were encased in highly polished loafers with tassels. He offered me a perfectly manicured hand, damp and hot to the touch. He covered my hand with his other one, an uncomfortable and intimate gesture.
“A beautiful woman behind the bar is sure to put the bar revenues up.”
I pulled my hand away from his and had the worst urge to wipe my palm along my leg. I looked at Terry and raised an eyebrow.
“Paperwork,” Terry said. “She needs to sign.”
Julian frowned at Terry. “Sit down, Ms. Travis. You may go, Terrence.”
Terry gave me a soft lift of his shoulders. “Come to the downstairs bar after,” he told me and hustled out the door.
I gave Mr. Fotheringham-Bliss what he needed for his personnel records, turning aside the personal questions he kept slipping in. He was good at the come on but I’ve been fending off men since I was twelve and I’m a pro at survival. I’ve even learned to do it without giving offense…unless I want to. Still his interest in me set my skin prickling.
We agreed I’d start with the lunch shift the next day. As I rose to leave I asked, “Did you know Bunny Lehre?”
He looked as if he’d just bitten into something nasty. “Why do you ask?”
“Something she mentioned.” Liar, liar pants on fire. “She said she had a seasonal membership here.”
“Well,” he said. He licked his fat lips. He didn’t like my question but couldn’t seem to decide if he wanted to tell me to mind my own business or keep on my good side a little longer just in case he got lucky. Yeah, that was likely to happen when hell froze over. I rolled back my shoulders and gave him a big smile, putting my two biggest assets right out there where he could see them. He straightened and smoothed the edges of the papers I’d just signed. “Yes, she was a member here.”
“Not the nicest person, was she?”
“She could be unreasonable.” His eyes flicked up from my chest to my face and then moved down again. “Wanted me to fire one of the groundsmen. Said he was insolent. I promised to fire him as soon as I could find a replacement. She didn’t understand how impossible it is to find maintenance staff. And while the guy is no charmer he is a good worker, willing to work weekends and extra hours.”
“And did you? Fire him I mean.”
“There was no need.” I waited.
He looked up at me, gave a small sigh and said, “She died the next day.”
I shivered, well and truly freaked.
The downstairs bar was empty except for three middle-aged guys in tennis whites with towels around their necks sitting at a table with cold drinks. There was no sign of Terry. I checked behind the bar while I waited for him. There was half a bottle of Johnnie Walker on the bar but no sign of the two bottles I’d put my initials to.
I went down the hall to Terry’s small office.
“That’s all the stuff I can get,” I heard Terry saying as I approached the door, which was slightly a jar. I stopped and listened intently. “My supplier has run into difficulties.”
“Man, I need a little extra,” a man’s voice wheedled. “You know what I mean.”
“I’m going up to Tampa tomorrow. I’ll have something for you tomorrow night. Now you better get back. They’ll miss you.”
I moon-walked backwards away from the door.
Davis McDaniels, who worked in his father’s bank, the Cypress Island Bank where my money was, came out the door. He looked startled to see me. Concerned, he looked back over his shoulder towards Terry’s office for reassurance that I couldn’t have overheard anything.
“Hello, Davis,” I chirped. He’d been a few years ahead of me in high school and at one time he’d given me a pretty hard time. “I’m used to seeing you at the Sunset. Are you a member here too?” I asked.
“Sure. The Sunset is w
here I meet clients. It’s frowned on to talk business at the Bath and Tennis.” More relaxed, he gave me a small smile and asked, “What are you doing here?”
“Tending bar.”
“Good. You’ll know what people drink.”
“How so?”
“Same people as the Sunset pretty much.”
“That will make life easy.” But my hopes of someone from the Sunset standing out because they were also at the B&T died. I started moving around him for the door. “Is Terry in there?”
“Yes,” he said, looking over his shoulder a gain as if to confirm it. “Yes, he is.” He raised his hand in goodbye and left. I watched him go, a germ of an idea planted in my head, besides the idea that the guy in charge of my money was putting his own up his nose, at least I hoped he was using his own money. I’d been around the track enough times to know what the snippet of conversation I’d heard meant. Oh, yes, I was making plans.
Chapter 40
It happened again. Driving slowly, telling myself there was nothing to see, I crept past the entrance to the beach rental. A hundred yards beyond I pulled into another driveway, turned around and went back.
This time, I didn’t drive around the circle. This time I parked at the foot of the stairs facing the north side where the tree had fallen. The loss of the tree had left a gap in the tropical underbrush between the houses. I sat staring at it, willing myself to get out of the car. When pride conquered fear I got out of the Miata, had a good look around and went gingerly through the gap. I wanted to see what was next door.
A large black woman was shoving a canvas carrier bag in the back seat of a clapped-out old blue Ford parked near the plantings, well away from the mansion. She straightened. “Well I’ll be damned, Bodillia Jones,” I said.
The woman, her hand on the door handle, looked over her shoulder at me. Beneath crazy bleached blond hair, her smooth black face lit up in delight.
“Sherri,” she screamed and then charged at me with her arms out.
Bodillia and my mother had worked together as maids out at a motel on Tamiami Trail and on those days when I was sick or when there wasn’t school, I’d hung out at the motel. Hid out was more like it since the owner of the motel didn’t allow staff to bring their kids to work. Bodillia had helped my mother conceal my presence and while they changed beds, I watched television in an empty unit or rode up and down the corridors on the laundry carts, listening to the laughter and chatter among the maids.
I loved Bodillia, a woman who lived to laugh and who brought joy to everyone around her. No matter how tired or ill or unhappy she should be, she laughed and she made you laugh right along with her. Nothing life threw at you seemed too bad when Bodillia was around and just seeing her brought a smile to my face Bodillia had a complicated life. Her first husband died in a freak accident. Stan was afraid of heights. When he and Bodillia moved into a broken-down old house and started doing it up, one of the things that needed fixing was the roof. Even though afraid of heights, Stan gamely took on the job of laying down new shingles while his brother rebuilt crumbling plumbing inside. Stan fell through the roof. All the time he’d been worrying about falling off he should have been worried about the rotten boards under him.
Two husbands later, Bodillia still remembered Stan as the love of her life, whispering to my mother that all men are not created equal, at least not when naked, that Stan equaled any two men. I was about ten when I heard that exchange and their fit of laughter that followed gave me something to mull over.
Now Bodillia pushed me away from her, still holding me by my shoulders and shaking me gently. “Where you been hiding, Honey?”
“Nowhere. You know me, I never stray far. I just started tending bar at the Butt and Titts. What are you doing here?” “I clean here one day a week for Mrs. Haverty.” I looked at the modern concrete bunker-type house rising three stories behind us. “Just one day a week in that monster?”
“She’s too cheap to pay for more. I go like spit and barely hit the high points. There’s five bedrooms and four full baths in that house.”
“Huge,” I agreed. “A lot different from next door.” I jerked my head towards the rental. “Someone will buy it and knock it down soon. Then they’ll put up a monster like this.”
“There’s no one over there since that lady died, you thinking of moving in?” Bodillia grinned, knowing it was way out of my price range.
I started to say, “Not a chance,” but what came out was, “Maybe.”
She wrinkled her nose.
“You got something against that house?” I asked. She jerked her head towards a dilapidated old garage hidden in the overgrown area between the two properties. “Well, the guy that lives over the garage, the gardener, handyman, whatever they call the fruitcake, he gives me the creeps, no way I’d live next to him.” She screwed up her face and shook her body in mock horror. “It would be like living next door to Charles Manson.” She jerked her head at the Haverty mansion. “And the Mr. and Mrs. aren’t a whole lot better.” She threw her head back and barked with laughter. “Best you stay where you are, Honey. That’s my advice.”
I went into Cypress Island Bank. The receptionist was new to Jacaranda. That was the trouble with all the changes, there were all kinds of people I didn’t know and couldn’t ask direct questions. With someone born in Jac I’d just ask them what I wanted to know and they’d pretty much tell me. Now she told me, “I’m sorry, Mr. Davis McDaniels isn’t in.” No news to me. It wasn’t him I wanted to talk to but her. “Can someone else help you?” she asked.
“Well,” I hesitated. “It’s just that I need some investment advice. My friend Bunny, Bunny Lehre, said I should talk to Davis.” She showed no reaction to the name so I pressed on. “At least I think it was Davis. Could it have been his father?”
“Mr. McDaniels Junior looks after individual investment portfolios.”
“Did you know if he looked after Bunny’s?” I asked.
“You’ll have to ask Mr. McDaniels that question.”
“Bunny was so sweet, did you know her?”
She frowned. “I only knew her to see her when she came in.” And plainly she wasn’t disappointed Bunny Lehre wouldn’t be coming in anymore.
“Well, I should make an appointment with Davis.”
“I can do that now for you if you’d like.”
“I’d better do it with my calendar in front of me or I’ll get it wrong.”
She smiled, her first human reaction.
“I’ll call. Thank you for your help.” I put the strap of my purse over my shoulder. “Didn’t I hear that the Cypress Bank was expanding to North Carolina?”
She looked taken aback. “I don’t think so but Mr. McDaniels does have business interests there.”
Right, that was enough for me. I went up the street and opened a new account at the only other bank in town. A tweaker and possible murderer was not getting my money.
Clay called to say goodnight. After some sweet talk I said, “I’ve got a temporary job out at the B&T.” Silence roared down the line.
“Terry Wainwright was in a bind and since nothing is happening here, it’ll be forever before things are back to normal at the Sunset and you know how I hate doing nothing, I said I’d give him a hand.”
“You could have come up here.” His voice was light, neutral.
“And watch you work every hour God sends? No thanks!” More silence. Then he gave a big tired sigh and said, “Well, you’ll be happy now, you’re back in a bar.”
“That’s a…,” I started to tell him it was a stupid thing to say. Instead I said, “That’s me, I like to be where the action is.”
“Yeah, well, have a good time. I’ll talk to you in the morning.” And then he was gone.
After a night of no nightmares, not even a bad dream, I awoke to bright sunshine and clear skies, with a gentle breeze blowin
g in from the west. My mood had lightened and I felt that maybe I was getting back to my old self. I was supposed to start work at eleven o’clock. I kicked myself for signing on at the B&T on this perfect golf day. Nothing I was going to find out would make being inside with weather like this worthwhile.
What did it have to do with me after all? But some outrage left over from seeing Gina lying there on the wet pavement kept me committed. I put on the black skirt and white blouse that I needed to serve at the B&T and drove down the beach.
I drove slowly down the beach, window rolled down, enjoying the sunshine and just glad to be alive. Where the road left the beach and curved inland, flowering vines, with a few new blooms, waved in the green canopy above me. How the hell could anything so delicate have survived Myrna’s vicious winds and already be blooming again? Already hibiscus flowers crowded up against the narrow road nearly brushing the sides of the Miata when we met other cars on tight corners.
Repair crews were still working on parts of Beach Road, dragging broken limbs out of the underbrush and running them through a shredder. If large numbers of downed branches are left to dry after a wind brings them down, they can become a fire hazard, forest fires being the third plague of Florida after hurricanes and tourists.
Just before the turn into the beach club I stopped for a huge turtle that had ambled out onto the road. Or maybe it was a tortoise. How can you tell? Whatever it was, it was taking its own sweet time which was fine with me. A white pickup coming in the other direction also stopped. We waited. One of Clay’s classical music discs played softly, the sun filtered through the leaves overhead and dotted the road with light. The turtle inched forwards. I stretched and smiled and felt good. Maybe things were going to be all right after all.
The door of the Jacaranda Pool Maintenance truck opened and a slim guy, dressed all in white, hopped out. He ran over to the turtle, now just over the center-line, and picked it up by a shell that must have been at least eighteen inches across. The legs of the turtle started going like sixty. Carrying it awkwardly, holding it well away from his body, pool guy transported the turtle to the other side of the road and deposited it safely in the underbrush. He dusted off his hands, gave me a big smile and a wave and jumped back into his truck.
Sex in a Sidecar Page 13