He began to put the rifle back together.
“Good feel,” he said as he worked. “Old Western-styled 45/70 with a twenty-six-inch tapered octagonal barrel with deep-cut Ballard-type rifling, nine-shot tubular magazine, adjustable Marble semibuckhorn rear and Marble carbine front sight.”
I sat across from Ames and watched quietly while he finished, put a cap on the oil can in front of him, wiped his hands on an oily piece of dark soft leather, and lay the gun gently down in front of him.
“Here about the dead lady?” he asked.
“Maybe. Probably. I want to take a look at Midnight Pass. Like to see it?”
“Want me to carry?”
“Don’t think it’ll be necessary but it can’t hurt to bring something small.”
He stood up and showed me that he was wearing his belt with the built-in pistol.
“That should do it,” I said.
Ames nodded, picked up the rifle, and left the room, closing the door behind him. When he came back a few minutes later, he was wearing his yellow slicker.
“Looks like it might rain some more,” he said.
I looked at the window. It was definitely getting darker.
“Then let’s go,” I said.
The rain started when we were no more than five minutes out of downtown. It stayed light and steady but the wind began to pick up when we made the turn on Stickney Point Road, turned left on Midnight Pass and headed down the two-lane road.
It still wasn’t heavy when I made a right turn into Sarasandbay Cove, a private, spaced-out quintet of huge houses facing the water. I had been here before, serving papers on a plastic surgeon named Amos Peet, who was being sued for malpractice. Women who didn’t like the way things had turned out were constantly suing plastic surgeons. Usually the insurance companies settled, knowing that if it got to a jury, the plaintiff would walk away with a very large check. So, insurance for a plastic surgeon’s practice was higher than the annual salary of a Sarasota fireman. So the plastic surgeons charged more and more. It costs about two thousand dollars to get eight hours of cardiac-bypass surgery and six months of follow-up, and four thousand dollars to get an hour of plastic surgery. I had served papers to Dr. Peet on behalf of one of Tycinker, Oliver, and Schwartz’s dissatisfied clients.
Amos Peet had been a gentleman about it. He had been through it all before. He did not blame the messenger. He offered the messenger a cup of coffee.
I remembered him telling me that he was about two hundred yards from Midnight Pass. I wasn’t interested at the time. This time I was. I parked next to a short, thickly leafed clutch of trees.
Ames and I got out of the car. It still wasn’t raining hard, but it was getting darker and the threat of something more was out there. I didn’t mind being soaked. I liked going back to my office, getting out of my clothes, toweling down, and getting in bed in a fresh pair of boxer shorts and a T-shirt.
A little distant thunder, a slight increase in the rain, and a noon as dark as night. We went behind Amos Peet’s house and headed in the direction of Midnight Pass. Ames led the way through the miniature rain forest. My sneakers were muddy long before we got to the clearing and the open stretch of rocks and shrubs.
“You think this is it?” I said.
“Don’t seem like much,” Ames said. “Can’t even build on it.”
“It’s worth millions,” I said. “Maybe a lot of millions.”
A trio of small crawfish scuttled behind a rock on the gravel to my left, and the wind picked up. The rain was steady and getting stronger and the sky was almost night black. Lightning crackled out across the Gulf. Neither wind nor rain made it any cooler. It was humid and hot. A steamy mist was forming close to the ground.
I couldn’t see Kevin Hoffmann’s house from where we stood, but I imagined it surrounded by fog. Inside that house lay William Trasker, and I didn’t seem to be getting very far in earning the money the Reverend Wilkens had given me.
There was nothing much else to see. It didn’t look like it would take millions of dollars to study the narrow strip of land to determine if it could be dredged. I didn’t know why it would take millions more to keep the Pass open once it was dredged.
“They could just put in a canal,” I said, kneeling and picking up a handful of stones and cracked seashells.
“Not that easy,” Ames said.
Ames had a degree in engineering. I didn’t know what kind of engineering but I was sure he knew more than I did.
“Erosion, pressure from drifting land, storms, level differences to be considered,” he said. “Not that easy.”
“Maybe this storm will turn into a hurricane and God will part Midnight Pass and everyone will rise up in jubilation,” I said.
Ames didn’t say anything. In fact, he was no longer standing next to me. I turned and saw him about fifteen yards away, looking toward the thick bushes and heavy-leafed trees swaying and rustling noisily in the wind.
Then the shot came. I wasn’t sure it was a shot at first, just another cracking sound that could have been an old rotted tree weighted down with water and breaking at the trunk. It was the second shot that convinced me, partly because I saw the spray of mud, wet leaves, and pebbles fly up about ten yards in front of me.
I went down on my stomach and heard a third shot, but this one sounded different, a lot different. I looked up and Ames was holding a sawed-off shotgun. It was aimed at the bushes in the direction from which we had come.
Ames fired off a second blast. Leaves exploded. Standing upright in his yellow slicker, Ames cracked open the shotgun and was reloading it with shells taken from his pocket.
I expected another shot from the dense blowing trees and bushes. I was a good target. No shot came from whoever seemed to be trying to kill me, but Ames was advancing slowly toward the direction of the shooter. Ames fired another blast, stepped to the edge of the thicket, and fired again.
Maybe I heard something or someone moving in front of Ames. Maybe a frightened animal. Maybe nothing but more sounds of wind and rain.
“He’s gone,” Ames said over his shoulder, reloading again.
I got up, mud-covered and brushing debris and something that looked like a centipede hanging from my chest.
“We going after him?” Ames asked.
“Yes,” I said. “We’re going after him.”
Shotgun held with barrel forward in his right hand, Ames hurried back the same way we had come. I was right behind him. Ahead of us a car started.
Something crawled up my leg. I swatted at it.
Mud crept into my shoes and squished with each step. I couldn’t do anything about it.
We moved faster. When we were in sight of my car, we could hear the shooter’s car turn a corner and kick up gravel.
I was going to have to explain to Fred and Alan why the front seat of the rental car was covered with moldy, junglelike decay. Maybe I could clean it up a little myself before I returned it.
When Ames had closed his door and was sitting with shotgun in hand, I turned the car around and went in into thunder, lightning, and rain in search of the person who had shot at me. I hit Midnight Pass Drive no more than fifteen seconds later.
Ames looked right. I looked left. Not a car in sight.
“He pulled into one of the driveways,” I said.
“Looks that way,” Ames agreed.
“Which one and in which direction?”
“We can start trying ‘em,” Ames said.
We started toward the left, the logical direction if he was trying to get off the key and not get trapped at the dead end to the right at the end of the key. We found some cars parked on paved paths, found driveways leading into developed communities like the one the plastic surgeon lived in, found homes with high walls.
There were some cars parked in many of the places we looked, but no one sitting in them. He could have been hunched down or leaning over. We could have gotten out and started checking and feeling the car hoods to see if they were
warm. And as much faith as I had in Ames, there was always the possibility that the shooter would be waiting for us behind a tree, a rock, a wall, or an SUV.
“No point, is there?” I said, after we did stop to check out a Jaguar and a Ford Explorer parked side by side in a driveway.
“No,” said Ames.
The curtains of the window of the house in whose driveway we were standing parted and an old woman looked at us, horror in her eyes. Before her in the rain stood a tall old man in a yellow slicker cradling a shotgun in his arms and next to him stood a shorter, thinner version of the Swamp Thing.
The curtains closed.
Ames and I got back in the car and headed for home.
“You all right?” Ames asked, tucking the shotgun in a deep pocket he had created inside his slicker.
“He missed,” I said.
“Question was, are you all right?”
“Yes,” I said.
For a supposedly suicidal man, I was doing a remarkable job of surviving.
I dropped Ames at the Texas Bar and Grill and told him I’d be back later, that we had something to do. Ames didn’t ask what it was. He never did.
The rain was no better when I pulled into the DQ parking lot. There were no customers. The girl at the orders window had her head in her hands, her elbows propped up on the counter. She was watching traffic slosh by.
When I got to my office and opened the door, I kicked off my muddy shoes, took off my shirt, pants, underwear, and socks and dropped them in a heap along with my drenched Cubs cap. I padded carefully to my room, picked up my last clean towel, wrapped it around myself, and grabbed my soap.
I pushed my wet clothes out of the way with my foot, left the door unlocked, and went outside on the landing. No one was there. It didn’t matter.
No one was in the rest room either. It looked clean and smelled good. Marvin Uliaks had done his daily cleanup. I locked the door and ran both faucets of the sink full blast, cupped my hands, and covered myself with water. I repeated this four or five times before I started using soap, lots of soap. Then I rinsed twice more with cupped hands and began drying myself.
I was clean. The rest room floor wasn’t.
While I was drying, I saw myself in the mirror. Someone had tried to kill the man in the mirror, the unremarkable man in the mirror.
It hit me. If he or she had succeeded, there would have been some kind of funeral, probably paid for by Flo, and people would actually come to the funeral-Ames, Flo, Adele with her baby, Ann, her husband, Sally, Dave, John Gutcheon, maybe Billy the bartender at the Crisp Dollar Bill, Marvin if he could get a ride, and maybe even Digger, though I doubted that. Then, if someone tried to find them, some of my family in Chicago would show up. My father would insist on an Episcopalian minister.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
I finished drying and wrapped the wet towel around my waist, took my soap, and headed back to my office. My plan was to write a will saying I wanted to be cremated and have my ashes buried next to my wife in Illinois.
When I got back to my office and opened it, the lights were on and the window air conditioner that Ames had put in about a year earlier was humming.
Detective Etienne Viviase was standing in front of the small Stig Dalstrom painting on the wall. He turned his head to look at me.
“Wanna get dressed?” he asked.
I went into my room, threw the towel over my chair, and found something dry to put on while Viviase talked from the other room.
“Called the FBI,” he said. “Told them about Kevin Hoffmann’s Social Security-number theft, suggested he might be covering up a crime.”
“And?” I said, tucking a gray cotton shirt into my worn jeans.
“Nothing much yet, but they did find out his real name.”
I hopped around, putting on my socks.
“His name is Alvin York Dutcher,” Viviase said. “He’s fifty-five, born in Mill Valley, California. One older sister. Parents long gone. Young Alvin York spent two years in the army. Sniper in Vietnam. When he came back, he picked up an arrest record. Small stuff. No convictions. Then…”
“Then?” sitting on my cot and tying my shoes.
“House was robbed a few miles from where Alvin lived,” said Viviase. “Very rich retiree who owned jewelry stores all over the country, South America, Europe. Victor Sage.”
“I know the name,” I said, brushing back what was left of my hair with both hands.
“Two men in masks. Got Sage to open his safe. Sage’s wife was asleep upstairs. Got away with millions in cash and jewelry.”
I stepped back into my office. Viviase was still looking at the Dalstrom painting.
“Reminds me of you,” he said.
“People tell me,” I said. “Alvin York?”
“Alvin York Dutcher left home a week after the Sage robbery. Kevin Hoffmann came back to life in Atlanta, Georgia, about two months after that.”
Viviase turned toward me. He could have told me this on the phone. He could have not told me at all. I waited.
“You went to see Dr. Obermeyer this morning,” he said. “Dr. Obermeyer called in with a complaint. I caught it on the morning list. He says you’re harassing him.”
Since Obermeyer was right, I said nothing.
“He says you threatened to have someone break his hands if he didn’t let Trasker out of Hoffmann’s house.”
“I never threatened to break his hands, head, legs, or heart,” I said. “You might want to check the doctor’s record. He loses a lot of indignation when he’s reminded of it.”
“I need a statement,” he said. “Obermeyer and his receptionist have already given theirs.”
“Your office or…”
“Just write it out,” he said. “You know the drill.”
“Anything else?”
“No,” he said, putting his notebook away. “You?”
“Someone just tried to kill me,” I said.
“Where?”
“Midnight Pass. Shot at me three times. I got away.”
“You think Obermeyer tried to kill you because you threatened him?” asked Viviase.
“Unlikely,” I said. “What about Hoffmann’s man Stanley?”
Viviase pulled out his notebook again and flipped through the pages. When he stopped, he read, “Stanley LaPrince. Born in…He’s thirty-six. Born Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Finished high school, two years at Louisiana State, joined the army, Desert Storm action, bunch of medals. Discharged after he shot three unarmed Iraqi soldiers. Made the mistake of doing it in view of a Reuters reporter. Hooked up with Hoffmann about three years ago, maybe more.”
“So, are you taking me in?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “I’ll tell Obermeyer there’s not enough evidence to charge you, which is not quite true. I don’t like Obermeyer. I don’t like Hoffmann.”
“And me?”
“I don’t much like you either, but I’m getting used to you. You’re pissing someone off, Fonesca, and we both know who. My advice? Midnight Pass vote is tonight. Spend the rest of the day watching movies and go to bed early.”
Viviase left and I picked up the phone. Dixie was back at work at the coffeehouse. She told me Harvey, my regular hacker, was back in town and at work. Since there was no cost for Harvey’s services, I thanked Dixie.
“Anytime,” she said. “Got to run. Cappuccino machine is making weird sounds.”
I called the law offices of Tycinker, Oliver, and Schwartz on Palm Avenue and got connected to Harvey.
“Harvey here,” he said flatly.
Harvey would have been movie-star handsome if he didn’t have his recurrent love affairs with alcohol. He was still a handsome man with blond hair. He was a little on the pudgy side. He had developed an intense addiction to the Internet. He had a small office at the law firm where he did work, both legal and questionable, for the partners and work for me as part of my retainer.
“How are you?” I asked.
“All the
parts still seem to be connected,” he said. “I’m filled with iced green tea and staying busy. What can I do for you?”
I told him. Part of what I asked him to do was to confirm something I’d already found out. The other part was something new. He said he would call me back, probably in less than half an hour.
“Oh, Tycinker says he’s been trying to reach you.”
“I know why,” I said. “Talk to you later.” I had papers to serve on Mickey Donophin and one day to serve them. There was no point in calling Tycinker and telling him my troubles. He wouldn’t want to hear them. If I backed out, I’d have to turn the papers over to Dick Provner at the Freewell Agency and Tycinker would be less inclined to use me the next time he needed papers served, and less inclined to continue our arrangement, which included the services of Harvey the Hacker.
I took my wallet, keys, notebook, and pen out of my wet pants pocket, picked up the pile of soggy clothes, and dumped them in a white plastic garbage bag from the box Ames had placed in one of the bottom drawers of my desk. I put my red, mud-covered shoes in a corner. I’d deal with them later.
The rain had stopped. The sun was out. The phone started to ring. I let it. Then I heard Hoffmann’s voice on the answering machine saying, “Fonesca, if you’re there, pick up.”
I picked up the phone and said, “I’m here.”
“Turn off the answering machine,” he said.
I turned it off.
“It’s off?”
“It’s off,” I said.
“I don’t trust you,” he said.
“I’m not asking you to,” I said. “You called me.”
“I have a business offer,” he said. “You’ve been bothering Dr. Obermeyer. He has a weak heart. I think he may have gone to the police. I can convince him to withdraw any complaints he may have made.”
He definitely sounded much different from the fun-loving baseball collectable man who had threatened to beat my head in with a bat and may have just taken three shots at me. He sounded different from the man in the Double Tiger Productions T-shirt who had offered me ten thousand dollars to spend a weekend in New Orleans. He sounded like a kinder, gentler, and maybe more nervous Kevin Hoffmann.
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