by Tim Ellis
It was close to midnight.
“I’ve never been so bored,” Rae said.
“You’ll get used to it.”
“I hope not.”
To their surprise, Oscar Gibson appeared on the sidewalk in front of his house, looked left and right, and then began walking to his right.
“Now what?”
“We follow.”
“This is going to make a hell of a noise when you –”
“On foot.”
“Oh! Both of us?”
“We’ll look like a couple.”
“How’s that? I’m a gorgeous twenty-one, and your an ugly a hundred and ninety-seven.”
“In the dark, I’m a young Clint Eastwood.”
“Yeah right.”
Rae had to climb across to the driver’s side of the truck to get out, because her door squeaked so bad.
They followed some distance behind on the opposite side of the road. Tom put his arm around Rae’s shoulders to make it appear they were a couple.
It wasn’t long before Gibson turned into the driveway of another house.
They continued walking, as he disappeared into the house. There were lights on, and a couple of cars in the driveway.
“We’re going to look a bit conspicuous standing out here,” she said.
“Yeah.” He could just about see Allegre’s truck. “You stay here. I’m going to walk back and park the truck between the two houses. That way, we can sit in the truck and watch both.”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll be able to see me at all times. When I’ve parked the truck up, you walk back, and we’ll be able to see both houses.”
“What if he slips out the back way?”
“I don’t think we have to worry about that.”
“Okay.”
He walked back the way he’d come and kept glancing over his shoulder to check that Rae was still there. Then, as he approached the truck and glanced back one last time, she wasn’t there. Shifting position, he craned his neck, but still couldn’t see her. He phoned her on his new cell – there was no answer. Where was she? He had no alternative but to walk back. When he got to where she should have been, he called her name – there was still no answer. Now, he was getting worried.
There was no movement to his left or right, Behind him was another house shrouded in darkness. Then, he saw a slight movement in the lighted window of the house that now contained Oscar Gibson.
Surely she wouldn’t have gone in there on her own. Would she?
He made his way across the road. There was no gate. He squeezed between two cars. As he approached the house he saw her peering into the window.
“What the hell are you doing?” he hissed.
“Shush,” she hissed back. “They’ll hear you.” She pointed in the window. “Look.”
There was a poker game in progress. Half a dozen men were hunched at a round table. Tobacco smoke hung in the air as if it had drifted in from the sea. Crushed beer cans littered the floor, and there was a stack of money in the centre of the table.
Oscar Gibson wasn’t one of the men at the table, and neither Tom nor Rae could see him in the room.
***
She’d hidden beneath the water, breathing through a reed.
One time, her, Jimmy, Rebekah, and her sneaky little half-sister Lilly, had gone to the movie house. She’d only been allowed to go if she took the slimiest tattletale in the whole world with her.
It was an old movie, and the children in it were running away from an evil stepfather – just like she was – well, nearly. They’d broken the reeds and used them to hide under water from their stepfather, who had large, staring eyes that frightened Sally half to death.
At the time, she’d whispered to Jimmy – even though Lilly had squeezed herself between them, “Do you suppose that really works, Jimmy?”
He smiled at her, as if he’d actually tested those reeds himself. “You bet they do, Sally.”
“One day, I’m gonna hide under the water just like that.”
Lilly snorted like a hog. “No, you ain’t.”
“I will too.”
“If’n you do, I’ll tell mom.”
“If’n I do, you won’t be around to tell anyone, snotnose.”
“I’ll follow you everywhere, an’ I’m gonna tell mom you called me snotnose.”
“No you won’t.”
“I will too.”
“Shush,” Rebekah said. “I’m tryin’ to watch the movie here.”
Rebekah was sitting on the other side of Jimmy, and Sally couldn’t see what was going on with those two. She knew Rebekah wanted Jimmy, but Jimmy wanted Sally. The trouble was – as her mom had said one time – Jimmy was a man, and that was explanation enough.
“Men have no control over their bodies,” her mom said.
“Why?”
“Ah, Sally! Now you’re asking the time old question that ain’t nobody knowing the answer to. If you could get to the root of that little old dilemma you’d be as rich as Billy Bob Gates in his Micro Tower, that’s for sure.”
Now, Sally wasn’t one to let the grass grow under her feet. She went right on out to ask Jimmy.
“My mom says you ain’t got no control over your body. What you gotta say about that, Jimmy Seraphin?”
For answer, Jimmy pretended to be a marionette, flopping about like the strings had busted.
Sally laughed. The more she laughed, the more Jimmy flopped about, and the more she laughed. In the end, she wet herself.
Locked in laughter, they fell together into the tall grass, and Jimmy had kissed her.
“What you got in your trousers, Jimmy Seraphin?”
“That’s me not being in control of my body.”
“Show me.”
He pressed his cupped hands to his groin. “Will not.”
She jumped on him and straddled his waist. Facing his feet, she undid his trousers.
“Why ain’t you fighting me?”
“I’m fighting you with everything I got, Sally Stackhouse.”
“I get more fight out of . . . Why’s it sticking up like that?”
“You did that to me, Sally.”
“Me? I ain’t done nothin’.”
“That’s why us boys ain’t got no control over our bodies, because you girls walk around doing nothin’.”
Sally scratched her head. “How’s that? If’n I’m doing nothin’, how come you got hard like that?”
“My mom says it’s a mystery, all right.”
“I got just the thing for mysteries.” She flicked his widger hard with her finger.
Jimmy bucked like a bronco and threw her off. “You tryin’ to kill me again, Sally Stackhouse. There weren’t no call to do that.”
“I bet you got control of your body back.”
“You bet.”
“Well, there you are then. Next time your thing gets hard, hit it good and proper. I flicked it with my finger, but I guess bashing it between two rocks would work just as well.”
She ran home, laughing.
“Two rocks! You’re one crazy girl, Sally Stackhouse.”
Yes, she was crazy – crazy for Jimmy Seraphin – but she didn’t want him getting the wrong idea about her.
As she bobbed up out of the water, she wondered whether Jimmy was thinking about her the way she was thinking about him.
Come and rescue me, Jimmy.
Her tears mingled with the stagnant, smelly pond water dribbling down her face.
It was dark. There was a quarter moon, and the stars were blinking off and on like the electricity was going to go off any minute.
She held her breath and listened.
There was a cricket rubbing its back legs as if it was trying to start a forest fire, but that was all she heard.
She slithered out of the water, and after squelching the water out of her ears, lay there listening to the night.
Her heart was jumping about like a Mexican jumping bean.<
br />
Come and listen to my heart, Jimmy.
One time, her and Jimmy heated one of those beans up in a tin lid on a fire, and watched it jump.
“It jumps like that ‘cause it’s got a bug inside,” Jimmy said.
“You’re fibbin’.”
“No, I ain’t. The man who delivers our groceries opened one up and showed me. He said it was a baby moth.”
Sally picked that bean right out of the tin lid, and threw it on the ground. “I ain’t killin’ no baby moth, Jimmy.”
“That’s why I love you, Sally Stackhouse.”
And I love you too, Jimmy. Did I ever tell you?
She couldn’t hear a damned thing with her heart pounding in her head.
Soon, her heart slowed down. Her eyes began to close. She was so tired. If she stayed where she was, she knew she’d just fall asleep. Henry wouldn’t have to chase her anymore; he’d just come along, pick her up like a sack of corn, and throw her into the back of his Jeep. She’d get lots of sleep in that hole.
She stood up, got her bearings, and started running.
Slowly at first. She was stiff as a rusty, old jalopy after standing in that pond for nearly the whole day.
As her clothes dried out, and the night breeze rustled through her hair, she ran faster and faster.
I’m comin’ home ready or not, Jimmy Seraphin.
Thursday, September 20
Tom grabbed Rae’s arm and dragged her away from the window. “Come on,” he whispered. “Let’s get out of here before we get caught.”
“But where’s Gibson?”
“I don’t know, but we won’t find him by skulking in someone’s garden.”
Once they were on the sidewalk again, he said, “That was a really stupid thing to do.”
“I wanted to –”
“It’s not about what you want. You had no idea what was in that house. You might have been killed, sliced up, and disposed of before anyone could have found you – if they ever did.”
“You have a strange mind.”
“I have the mind of someone who’s seen the dark side of human nature too many times to be surprised by what people are capable of.”
“Are you angry?”
“Damn right, I’m angry. It’s my job to protect you, but if you go off doing your own thing whenever the mood takes you . . . well, it’s time you went back to make Franchetti’s coffee or whatever it was that you did at that newspaper.”
“Sorry.”
He strode off back to the truck. She followed behind like a naughty child.
“And why didn’t you answer your phone?” he threw over his shoulder.
“I put it on ‘silent’. I didn’t want it going off while I was in the garden.”
They climbed back into the truck. It took him some time to calm down. Once he had, he said, “Don’t ever do that again. You’re a trainee reporter, twenty-one years old, and have no experience with investigative work. You don’t do anything unless I sanction it first. If you do, you can go back whence you came. Is that clear?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Undaunted by her telling off, Rae said, “Where do you think Gibson’s gone?”
“I have no idea.”
“Maybe we should knock on the door and ask those men where he’s gone.”
“That’s exactly what I mean. Think it through. What’s wrong with what you’re suggesting?”
She pulled a face and shrugged. “I don’t know. It seems like a good idea to me.”
“I’m not a PI.”
“You don’t have to be a PI to knock on doors and ask a few questions.”
He shuffled in his seat to face her. “All right. You knock on the door, and they say, ‘What’s it got to do with you?’ . . . What do you say?”
“Well, I’d like to speak to him.”
He adopted what he thought was a criminal accent, but sounded more like someone from a foreign country. “He doesn’t want to speak to you, so fuck off, bitch.”
She laughed. “They wouldn’t say that.”
“There’s a lot of possibilities. They say, ‘Yeah, come in.’ Once you’re inside, they drug you and take turns raping you.”
“You’re making it up.”
He shook his head in disbelief. “Don’t you ever read the newspapers? Or watch the news? Crimes against women and children are at an all-time high.”
“Okay. We could go and ask his wife.”
“Apart from the fact that it’s after midnight, I think it’s fairly obvious that he’s told his wife he’s gone to Joe’s for the Wednesday night poker game and not to wait up for him.”
“But why isn’t he there playing poker then?”
“He’s probably told the guys he’s got a bit on the side. Goes in the front door and out the back.”
“Then what?”
“He either has a backup car, or someone came and gave him a lift. The other possibility is that he does have a bit on the side.”
“Maybe we need to go round the back of the property and wait for him to come back.”
“Good idea.”
She huffed. “Are you sure? I thought my ideas were rubbish.”
“They usually are.”
He switched the engine on, and drove slowly along De Haven Street. At Weeden Street, he hung a right, another right into St. Francis Street, and at the end of Sanford Street, he parked up. They could now see the rear of the property housing Joe’s poker school. Sandford Street was a dead end, and he didn’t want to get trapped by getting any closer.
They settled in to wait.
“I need to go.”
“You know where the bucket is.”
“I can’t.”
He reached round and grabbed the bucket. “Let me show you how it’s done.”
“Don’t you dare.”
But he did dare. The sounds of sighing, and a full stream of liquid splashing and swilling about in the bottom of the bucket, filled the cab of the truck.
“Oh God! It stinks. Wind down the window before I’m sick.”
He passed her the bucket. “Your turn.”
“This is a joke, isn’t it?”
“No joke. Imagine if you will – you get out of the truck and squat in someone’s garden. The owner of the property has just left his bed for a late-night snack and spots you urinating on his lovingly tended orange blossoms. He grabs his shotgun, storms out, and threatens to stick said shotgun where the sun doesn’t shine, and let you have both barrels. Meanwhile, Gibson arrives back, but because there’s a commotion, he decides to go a different way. We miss him, and our cover is blown.”
“You just make it all up.”
“I have a million other scenarios that say you should pee in that bucket.”
“Well, I’m not going to.” She opened the passenger door.
He gripped her arm. “Stop.”
A car pulled up on the other side of the road, pointing in the opposite direction to the way the truck was pointed. It was ten to three in the morning. Gibson climbed out. The courtesy light illuminated another man in the driver’s side of the vehicle, but they didn’t get a good look at him. Gibson loped off through a garden on Sanford Street, returning to the house where Joe’s poker school was still in full swing. The car continued along the road past them and turned right on Riberia Street.
“Crap!” Tom said. He switched the engine on, swung a hard right on Sanford Street, reversed, then headed after the car. It was a good job they were so far behind the car, because the noise from muffler was enough to wake the dead.
Rae dropped the bucket out of her side of the truck and closed the door.
He spotted the bucket rolling about in the street through the side mirror, but it was the last thing on his mind. The car was nowhere in sight. He reached the junction with King Street, looked left and right, and just caught a glimpse of tail lights heading right towards the Bridge of Lions.
“Did you get the license plate?” he asked her.
<
br /> “Was I meant to?”
***
There was hardly any traffic on the roads. He hung back, but was conscious that he might lose the car if he didn’t keep it in view.
“Write down the license plate as soon as you can see it,” he said to her.
The driver carried on along Anastasia Boulevard, over the bridge, and onto Anastasia Island.
Tom followed.
There was a quarter moon, which ricocheted off the Atlantic Ocean to their left, and as they left the city and the light pollution behind, the A1A became increasingly darker.
They’d been driving for a good hour, and as they reached a place called Summer Haven, the opposing forces of night and day were locked in their daily battle. Tom knew the day would win again, but the battle had only just begun. He had never been to Summer Haven before, but he knew that the rich and famous had bought second homes here. Some had taken up residence, while others rented the beach houses out to vacationers, who flocked to Florida like migrating birds.
At last, the car – a new Chrysler 300 SRT8 – pulled into a mansion with metal electronic gates on Beachside Drive.
Tom spotted a CCTV camera on a pole pointing at the gate. Security lights lit up the grounds, and a voice entry system was fitted to the metal gate post. If anyone wanted entry, they had to announce themselves.
“Maybe this has nothing to do with what we’re investigating,” Rae said.
He watched the gates close. “And maybe it has everything to do with it.”
She began fidgeting. “I’m desperate.”
“Where’s the bucket?”
“I don’t know.” She pretended to look around the truck. “It seems to have disappeared.”
“That bucket cost me a dollar ninety.”
She climbed out of the truck and squatted in the gutter.
“I thought I was going to burst,” she said when she slid back into her seat.
“The bucket would have been a better option. This is not the type of place you pee on the sidewalk.” He pointed to the CCTV camera. “You’re probably the star attraction on a dirty movie now.”
She grinned. “I always wanted to be a movie star. What’s next?”
“I think we’ve done all we can for now. We’ll go back home and get some sleep – after a big breakfast, of course.”