“He brought me some good ripe bananas,” Granddad said, peeling one. “I bet if you sweeten up a little, you’ll get a present too.”
Harry held out a white paper sack. “This was going to be your chocolate croissant. But considering your mood…”
I snatched the bag away from him. “All right. Maybe I was a little hasty. Maybe I need a cup of coffee or a diet Coke.”
He handed me an icy can of diet Coke. “Like this?”
“You’re good,” I admitted.
“I went to an Internet cafe to do some research,” Harry said.
“What kind of research?”
He picked up a sheaf of papers from the kitchenette counter. “These are all the BUC listings for yachts for sale for over two million.”
“Wow,” I said, glancing through the papers. “This is great.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Harry said. “There are plenty of big, expensive boats for sale in Lauderdale. All over South Florida, in fact. But there are currently only two Sea Urchins for sale in the whole state. One of them is in Fort Myers. Which is on the west coast. The other is in Jacksonville.”
I took the croissant out of the bag and broke off a piece and nibbled at it while I thought. “This isn’t good.”
Harry sipped from a Styrofoam cup of coffee and watched me. “I also checked the boat ads in the Sun-Sentinel. Nothing doing. And I picked up one of those boat-shopper magazines too. Still nothing. Does it absolutely have to be a Sea Urchin? What about a Feadship? Middle Eastern sheiks and rap stars own Feadships. They had one being refitted at the shipyard in Thunderbolt last year. They’re pretty swell.”
“All I know is, the guy has a thing for Sea Urchins,” I said. “Maybe he would flip for another kind of yacht. I just don’t know where to start.”
“Okay,” Harry said. “Where does that leave us?”
“We still need to find out where Reddy’s living,” I reminded him. “Sabrina said it was only ten minutes from Mark’s, on Las Olas.”
“I know where that is,” Weezie volunteered. “I saw it while we were driving around doing our shopping yesterday.”
“The road is called Galt Ocean Mile,” Harry added. “It’s lined on both sides with high-rises, and it runs all the way down to Hollywood and Hallandale. There must be fifty or sixty buildings that would fit that description. We need to be able to narrow it down more than that if we’re going to find the guy.”
“You’re right,” I said, sitting on the bed beside Weezie. “We’ve got to go at this from another direction. Maybe just find ourselves a Sea Urchin. We know they’re pretty rare. So if we find one, chances are we might find Reddy nearby.”
“What are you suggesting? That we search every marina in the area? That could take days, weeks even,” Harry said.
“Maybe we could just call some marinas and ask them if they’ve got one docked there,” I said.
Harry shook his head. “You obviously haven’t met too many dockmasters. They don’t keep that kind of information on hand, and even if they did, they’re not going to tell that to some stranger over the phone.”
Granddad put his bowl of cereal in the little sink. “You kids let me know when you need me. I’m going back to my room. They’re having mudslides in California. Wild-fires, floods, droughts. You couldn’t pay me money to live out there.”
Weezie looked up from the newspaper at me. “So. Do we have a plan of action?”
“Guess not,” I said glumly.
“Okay if I take the car then? These ads have me salivating. Florida’s a great place to buy mid-century modern stuff. It’s really starting to take off in the shop now, and it’s hard to get in Savannah.”
“What’s mid-century modern?” Harry asked.
“Stuff from the fifties and sixties,” Weezie said. “My hip young clients, especially the ones from the art school, love the stuff. And Florida’s a great place to buy it because old people come down here to retire, they bring their stuff with them and die. Eventually. That’s why they call it God’s waiting room.”
“I heard that,” Granddad said from the other room.
“Isn’t that kind of ghoulish?” Harry asked.
“Not for me,” Weezie said. “It’s just recycling. And it keeps me in business.” She picked up her tote bag and held up her cell phone. “Call me if something comes up and you need me. If not, I’ll be back around noon.” She gave me a quick, surreptitious wink.
I followed her outside.
“What’s with the wink?” I asked.
“You know,” she said, smirking. “I just wanted to give you guys some space.”
“Which guys?”
“You and Harry.”
“Why would we need any space?”
“I’m not blind, you know,” Weezie said. “You should be thanking me, not subjecting me to this inquisition.”
“Were you spying on us last night?”
“I was adjusting the drapes in the room,” Weezie said nonchalantly. “I just happened to see some movement out of the corner of my eye.”
“You were watching us making out? That is so freakin’ creepy!”
“It was an accident,” Weezie said. “An innocent coincidence.”
“I’ll bet,” I said.
“I could have killed that stinking Snuffy,” she said darkly. “Just when things were getting hot.” She fanned herself. “Ooh. I’m getting turned on just thinking about it again. Remind me to call Daniel tonight.”
43
Harry and I whiled away most of the rest of the morning playing gin rummy. We discussed varying tactics to find Reddy, but rejected all of them as a waste of time. Then we took a break for lunch with some tomato soup and grilled-cheese sandwiches, and in between watched two hours of cable-television fishing shows and one hour of a chef on food television whose gimmick was that all his recipes were made from Spam.
Occasionally Granddad would break the monotony of the afternoon by wandering in to update us on the mud-slide situation, or to complain about the fact that the local NBC affiliate didn’t carry Golden Girls reruns like the station in Savannah did.
Harry and I strictly avoided conversation about the previous evening’s activities. Although one time, his hand did brush mine while he was taking a card from the discard pile, and I blushed violently.
“Relax,” he said in a low voice, meant only for me. “I’m not trying to get into your pants.” He glanced toward the connecting door. “At least, not right at this moment.”
“Weezie knows,” I said, staring down at the cards in my hand.
“She knows I intend to get into your pants?”
“She saw me trying to get into your pants last night,” I whispered.
He laughed. “She was watching?”
“How can you think this is funny?”
“Not funny. Amusing. And why are we whispering?”
“I do not want my eighty-year-old grandfather to know about this,” I said.
“Too late.”
“What?” I slapped my cards down on the table faceup.
“So that’s where the Jack of spades was,” Harry said, raking the cards together into one pile.
“What does my grandfather know?” I wailed.
“He knows you’re a woman of strong sexual appetites,” Harry said, getting up and rummaging in the sacks of groceries. “You want an orange or something?”
“He saw us? Last night?”
“Apparently,” Harry said. “But don’t worry, I think he’s cool with it.”
“Oh my God,” I said, burying my face in my arms. “What did he say?”
“He didn’t say anything. But there was a condom on my pillow when I got to my room last night,” Harry said. “Ribbed, for a couple’s mutual pleasure.”
“This is the end of civilization as we know it,” I said. “My grandfather and best friend spying on me while—”
“Who cares?” Harry asked. “You’re single. I’m single. We’re consenting adults.”
&nb
sp; “You still haven’t told me how old you are,” I said suddenly.
“I liked that guessing thing we were doing last night,” Harry said, putting his hand on my knee, then sliding it up my thigh. “I thought we could finish up tonight.”
“No!” I said fiercely, slapping his hand away. “We are not making love with my grandfather listening in from the other room.”
“What about if I get us a room someplace else?”
“No! He’d know what we were doing.”
“When can we do it, then?”
“I don’t know. Maybe…after we get back to Savannah. Anyway, what makes you think we are going to do it?”
“Oh, we’re going to do it. I’ve known since the first day you showed up at the Breeze Inn and started trying to boss me around that we’d end up in bed together. It was just a question of time.”
He crossed his arms over his chest with such a look of smug self-satisfaction that I wanted to kill him right then.
But my cell phone started to ring, and he was, literally, saved by the bell.
“Did you get lost?” The voice was familiar, but I couldn’t place it until I saw the caller ID on the phone’s readout panel. Sandra Findley.
“Hi, Sandra,” I said.
“I thought you were going to keep me up on any new developments.”
“Sorry,” I told her. “There really hasn’t been much to tell. I had drinks with Sabrina Berg yesterday. She’s a real pistol. It turns out she actually went on a sort of date with Reddy. He took her back to some condo he was staying at, but she’d had a few drinks that night, and she’s not sure exactly where he took her. So now we’re sort of spinning our wheels down here, hoping to come up with a lead.”
“I think I’ve got something that might help,” Sandra said. “Mother’s accountant called me this morning. She wanted to know if I knew of any reason why Mother is paying two American Express bills.”
My pulse gave a little blip and I turned to Harry and gave him the thumbs-up sign. “It’s Sandra,” I said. “From Vero Beach.”
He returned the thumbs-up.
“When I confronted Mother about it, at first she acted as if she didn’t know what I was talking about,” Sandra said. “But after I showed her the copy of the statement the accountant faxed over, she finally admitted that she’d given Reddy the credit card. It was supposed to be so he could take her to lunch without having to be embarrassed by her always paying. Can you believe it? She also claimed she’d forgotten she’d ever given him the card. I don’t know whether that part is true or not. She has gotten pretty forgetful. My brother and I are going to have a long talk with her about finances any day now. But I did want to let you know about it before I call Amex and have the card canceled.”
“Wait,” I said, interrupting her tirade.
“When I think about that slimebag, running around charging things right and left to us, I just see red,” Sandra continued. “You should see the bill from Burdine’s! He bought himself $800 worth of underwear. And a $300 pair of sunglasses.”
“Sandra,” I said urgently. “Wait. Please don’t cancel the card. Not yet.”
“Why the hell not? He’s discovered Palm Beach too. He’s been in every store on Worth Avenue. Armani, Escada, Saks, Chanel, Dior. He bought himself a $1,400 gym bag at Louis Vuitton. Did you even know Louis Vuitton made gym bags?”
“Well, uh, yeah. In my former life, I had a Louis Vuitton backpack,” I confessed. “But I bought it with my own money. Of course, Reddy’s probably carrying it now. If he didn’t sell it along with the rest of my stuff.”
“He’s got to be stopped,” Sandra said. “You should see the restaurants he’s been eating at. Most of them I can’t even afford.”
“Just don’t cancel the card yet,” I repeated. “If you cancel the card, he’ll figure out somebody’s after him, and we’ll never catch up with him. Look, could you fax those credit card statements to me?”
“Yeah, I could do that,” Sandra said. “Where are you staying?”
I made a face. “A motel called the Mango Tree.” I scrabbled around on the nightstand until I found the motel’s laminated rate card. “Here’s the fax number,” I said, dictating it to her. “Just send it to the attention of BeBe Loudermilk.”
“All right,” she said reluctantly. “You’ve got two days. And then I’m canceling the card, no matter what.”
“Two days,” I promised. “And then you can come down here and cut it up yourself.”
“That’s not the only thing I’m gonna cut,” she said.
I put the phone down, and then it was my turn to feel smug. “Reddy has been on a spending spree. With Polly Findley’s American Express card.”
“And?”
“Sandra is faxing the statements over here. So we can see where he’s been and what he’s been doing.”
“I like it,” Harry said.
“Me too.”
Fifteen minutes later I strolled over to the Mango Tree’s office.
The man standing behind the desk wore only a pair of bright yellow polyester slacks. No shirt, no shoes. He was nearly bald, with exactly seven strands of hair coiled sideways across his gleaming head. He had skin that looked like oiled mahogany, and black-rimmed Buddy Holly glasses. Mister Mangoville. Some kind of sitar music was playing on the radio and he was swaying along to the music, in a world of his own.
“Yes?” he said, looking up, annoyed by the interruption.
“I’m BeBe Loudermilk. In unit fifteen. Did a fax arrive for me?”
He frowned. “Loudermilk?”
“Unit fifteen. I’m expecting a fax.”
“Ghita!” he shouted.
A dark-haired young woman emerged from a curtained area behind the counter. She wore contemporary American clothing—blue-jean shorts, an oversize T-shirt—but she had an exotic beauty that transcended her trashy surroundings. The man chattered at her in a language I didn’t understand. She disappeared, then reappeared with a handful of papers. He snatched them from her and rifled through the pages.
“Forty dollars,” he announced.
“What?”
“Eight pages. Five dollars a page transmission charge,” he said.
“That’s crazy. You can’t do that. It’s price gouging.”
The music played. He closed his eyes and swayed. Back and forth. Like a snake charmer. I stared at him, but he didn’t see me. We were at an impasse.
“Put it on my bill,” I said finally.
“Cash,” he said, without opening his eyes.
“I’ll be right back,” I said, stomping out of the office.
Weezie was in the room, unloading a large cardboard box. “Wait till you see,” she crowed. “I hit the mother lode. Can you believe, I’ve been at one sale, all this time? The trunk of your grandfather’s car is full. I had to stop at the UPS store to have the rest of the stuff boxed up and shipped back. And I stopped at some antique shops on A1A and sold off a bunch of other stuff. I quadrupled my $600 investment, in like, fifteen minutes.”
“That’s great,” I said, putting my hand out. “Give me forty dollars, okay?”
She gave me the money without a question. That’s the thing about a best friend. They’ll spy on you one day, then loan you money the next.
I went back to the office and slapped two twenties down on the counter. Mister Mangoville opened his eyes, looked at them, and tucked them in the pocket of the yellow pants. Only then did he slide the papers across the counter to me.
Back in the room, I arranged the statement pages in chronological order across the bedspread. “Here we go,” I told Harry and Weezie.
Whatever you wanted to call him—Reddy, Randall, Rodolfo, or even Roy Eugene—the man was unarguably a discriminating connoisseur of consumer goods.
All the stores that Sandra Findley mentioned were on that Amex statement, along with dozens of restaurants and shops I’d never heard of.
But it was the smaller charges that caught my eye.
�
�Look.” I pointed at a line item of $52.80 for a gas station on DuPont Boulevard. Five days later, there was a charge of $32.37 for the same station. And the name reappeared four more times.
“And here,” I said, pointing to restaurant charges at a place called the Sand Bar. I grabbed the phone book and looked it up. The address was also DuPont Boulevard.
By now, Harry had his map unfolded on the bed.
“DuPont is actually right at A1A. And it’s not that far from Galt Ocean Mile,” he said, stabbing the map with a stubby index finger.
“Where else is he spending money?” Weezie asked. “This is fun.”
“Two more charges to the Sand Bar,” I said, scanning the pages. “Three more charges, all around twenty-five bucks each, at a place called the Beach Market Deli.”
Weezie had the phone book now, leafing through the business listings. “Also on DuPont Boulevard,” she said.
“He’s playing golf now too,” I said. “Here’s a charge to a place called the Grande Oaks Golf Club.”
“Again, DuPont Boulevard,” Weezie said. And then she wrinkled her brow. “Hey.” She leafed back through the phone book. “All these places he’s been charging stuff, they’re all at the same street address.”
She picked up her cell phone and dialed the last number she’d looked up, the Grande Oaks Golf Club.
“Hello,” she said. “Can you tell me where your golf course is located?”
She listened, nodded, and hung up the phone.
“That explains a lot,” she said. “All those businesses, they’re all part of the same resort. The Bahia Mar Hotel and Marina.”
“Bahia Mar Marina?” I pounded the bed in glee. “That’s it. That’s where he’s hanging out. He’s nailed!”
I looked over at Harry for confirmation. But he had a weird look on his face.
“Did you say the Bahia Mar?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Weezie said. “Bahia Mar. It sounds so old Florida. I can’t wait to see the place.”
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