Big Goodbye, The (14 page)

“How we gonna play this?” Clip asked.

“I’m open to suggestions,” I said.

“Got none,” he said.

I depressed the button on the Handie-Talkie and spoke into it. “Come in Nancy Drew,” I said. “Nancy Drew come in.”

“Cute,” she said. “You gotta plan?”

“I guess you could call it that.”

“Am I in it?” she asked.

“You have the most important part,” I said. “Walk over to Lauren, tell her she’s in danger and that I asked you to take her home, then do. Clip and I are gonna try to jump the guy who’s following her.”

“Are you sure I’m ready for such a
big
assignment, Jimmy?”

“I believe in you, Nancy. I really do.”

“Seriously, Jimmy, why won’t you let—”

“Dammit, July—” I began, but stopped when she turned off her radio.

“Go see if you can find her,” I said to Clip. “I’ll keep an eye on Lauren until you get back.”

“Okay,” he said, “but I think she can handle herself just fine.”

Watching Lauren as she continued to wander around aimlessly, an unseen weight pressing down on her, I was filled with conflicting thoughts and feelings. How could one person make me feel so many different things?

Searching the vicinity around Lauren to see if July might actually be doing what I had asked her to, I saw movement in the tall stalks of bamboo next to the path in the far corner. Lauren was heading directly toward it.

I eased in the direction of the bamboo thicket, moving slowly, staying in the shadows, and was about halfway there before Lauren reached it. If the person in the thicket was July or even the guy following her just trying to get a better look, I didn’t want him to know I was here, but I wanted to be close enough to respond quickly if something went down.

And it did.

As Lauren reached the thicket, a man sprang out of the bamboo, pounced on her, and drug her back in with him.

Chapter 30

It all happened so fast I wasn’t sure it had happened at all. It was quiet, too. Neither Lauren nor her attacker had made a sound.

I raced toward them, jumping over the benches and tables in my way.

The dim ground was mostly grayish sandy dirt with only the occasional patch of dampening yellowish grass, and in several places crooked oak roots broke the surface of the soil, slowing me down and making me stumble.

When I reached the place where they had disappeared, I didn’t slow down, just plowed into the thicket as fast as I could. As I came through, I tripped over something on the ground and fell face first into the dirt, bamboo branches slapping me as I fell.

As soon as I hit the ground, I rolled over and raised my arm to ward off an attack, but none came. As I sat up and looked around I heard small moans. I had tripped over Lauren. She was lying on the ground a few feet away from me, but whoever had pulled her in had vanished.

She wasn’t moving that I could tell, but it was so dark that she could have been bleeding to death from a slit in her throat and I wouldn’t have known it.

I scrambled over to her, feeling her face and neck.

She was breathing, her pulse pounding in her throat, and I couldn’t feel or see any injuries.

“Lauren,” I said. “Are you okay?”

“Jimmy?” she asked. “Is that you?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you grab me?”

“No,” I said, getting to my feet and helping her up. “I tripped over you.”

“I was okay until then,” she said. “I think you broke a rib.”

“Really?” I asked, reaching down and running my fingertips along her side.

“Not literally,” she said. “I was kidding.”

“Oh,” I said. “Sorry.”

We stood there awkwardly for a moment, breathing our labored breaths into each other.

“What’re you doing here?” she asked.

“A lousy job of protecting you.”

“Where’s Harry?” she asked. “Is he—”

“He’s fine,” I said. “Walt and Ray took him home.”

“Didn’t I tell you not to follow me?” she said.

“Yeah, but you didn’t mean it. Besides, aren’t you glad I did?”

She smiled. “At the moment,” she said. “But I’ll be good and mad later.”

“Did he say anything to you?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“Did he try to do anything to you?”

She shook her head again.

“Why didn’t you scream?”

“Why all the questions?” she asked. “I don’t know why. I was scared. He had my mouth covered. I can’t remember. It happened so fast.”

“So he just dragged you into the woods, dropped you, and ran off?”

“I guess, Jimmy. I’m not sure. I’m in shock at the moment—ask me later.”

I heard a rustling in the leaves and bamboo branches behind me and turned around, reaching for my gun.

“Don’t shoot me, motherfucker,” Clip said, holding up his hands, which were nearly invisible in the dark night.

“I can’t even see you,” I said.

He laughed, then stopped abruptly and said, “Don’t make a colored man feel bad for being dark.”

“Where’s July?”

“She’s coming,” he said. “She’s right behind me.”

“Stay here with Lauren, I’m gonna see if I can find the guy.”

As I was leaving, July appeared behind him, her white face only slightly more visible than his. She was breathing heavily, and had a confused, slightly quizzical look on her face.

“You okay?”

She nodded, but quickly averted her eyes from mine.

“What is it?”

She shook her head. “Nothing,” she said. “Guess I’m not cut out for fieldwork after all. Just go.”

“Watch them,” I said to Clip.

I ran out of the bamboo and back into the park, my eyes scanning the darkness and the lights that dotted it. I was searching for movement.

I saw none.

Giving up on seeing him, I closed my eyes and stood there in the stillness and quiet, only the sounds of crickets in my ears, and listened for him.

My attention was first drawn to the small splash of a fish jumping in the lake, then to the deep guttural groan of a bullfrog or a gator—I wasn’t sure which, and to the rustling of bamboo stalks further down the woods from where he had snatched Lauren.

I took off toward the sound, the dried acorns and brittle oak leaves crunching under my feet sounding like car tires on an oyster shell parking lot.

The noise must have warned him of my approach. When I stopped at the edge of the woods, the yellow and green bamboo stalks in front of me were still and quiet.

After waiting for another moment and not hearing or seeing him, I decided to get ahead of him and circle back. I ran along the path about twenty feet further, then turned into the woods, heading back in the direction I had heard him.

This time it was he who heard me. He shot out of the bamboo like a jackrabbit, running across the park toward its exit, darting around the objects in his way.

Rather than chase him, I ran straight up the side of the park, sprinting toward the gate. It worked. I got there before he did. When he saw me, he stopped abruptly and ran the other way. I followed.

Running down the slope toward the water, I was unable to gain on him.

As he neared the water, Clip appeared to his left, which caused him to pause for a moment. I caught up with him then, and when he started to run again I was right behind him.

We were beneath cypress trees now, the lake just a few feet away. When he got near a small group of cypress knees sticking up about two feet out of the ground, I shoved him and he tripped over them and went head first into the lake.

He immediately tried to swim away, but I dove on top of him, wrestling him to the shallow bottom and holding him there until he submitted.

When he surrendered, I pulled him up and pushed him toward Clip, who was standing at the water’s edge. Not wanting to get wet, he sidestepped the man and pushed him to the ground.

I waded out of the water, panting and gasping.

“Stick him in your trunk,” I said between gasps, “and we’ll have a little sit down with him after we get the ladies home safely.”

Lauren and July called to us from a short distance away.

“Where are you guys?” July asked.

“Smile for them,” I said to Clip, then yelled to July, “Just follow Clip’s smile.”

For the first time since we had been in the park, a small breeze blew in, rippling the surface of the lake and waving the Spanish moss in the oaks above us as a few loose leaves drifted to the ground. The edges of the breeze held the slightest hint of the approaching winter and I shivered slightly in my wet clothes.

When the two women walked up, Lauren stepped around July and kicked the man on the ground in the ribs. He yelped but still didn’t look up.

An acorn falling from one of the tall oaks banged into the roof of the pavilion and it made a loud popping sound like a small caliber revolver. We all jumped. Clip drew his gun and spun around toward it.

“It’s an unarmed acorn,” I said. “Don’t shoot.”

Lauren laughed, and for a moment, just a moment, everything seemed okay.

“Let’s go have a talk with this guy,” I said. “July, would you make sure Mrs. Lewis gets home safely?”

“Sure,” she said, her voice distant, distracted.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked. “You seem a little shaken up. Did something happen out there?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I just wish I had been able to help more. Wish you’d let me do more and not be so damned overprotective. I’m going. I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

She walked away, Lauren remained with us, and we all stood there in silence for a moment.

“What the hell is going on?” I said.

“With her?” Clip asked.

“With everything,” I said.

He smiled. “Maybe you should hire a detective to find out.”

Chapter 31

“If I want someone watching me,” Lauren said, “I’ll hire someone I
haven’t
slept with.”

“Would you be able to find anyone?” I said.

We were walking toward my car, which was back at the school.

She didn’t say anything, just looked down and reached into her pocket. When she looked up again there were tears in her eyes.

“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean—”

“The point is, if I need help you’re the last person I need it from.”

“Why?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “If I need help, I’ll hire someone. My husband is very wealthy.”

I smiled. “He certainly is,” I said. “Have him use some of it to hire someone soon.”

“Didn’t you catch him tonight?” she asked.

“We caught someone,” I said. “But I doubt it’ll end your troubles, will it?”

“Will you just . . . ”

“What?” I asked.

“Call me a cab.”

“No,” I said. “It won’t kill you to slum a little. Now quit being so silly and get in.”

We rode to her house in silence, my mood dropping with my adrenaline levels, anger and awkwardness joining my jitters and the thick tension in the car.

I wanted to pull the car off on one of the side roads, park, and force her to tell me what was going on. Thinking of that made me want to do other things in the dark, parked car, too. I wanted to overpower her, take off her clothes, smell her, feel her, taste her again.

When we reached downtown and neared Beach Drive and the waterfront mansion that had been in her husband’s family as long as their bank, I said, “Why’d Harry drop out of the race?”

“He didn’t,” she said. “And he’s not going to. And anyway, I told you to stay out of—”

“Actually, you asked me to
help
Harry,” I said, “which is what I was doing tonight when he made the announcement.”

“You’re right,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“Please drop me off here,” she said when we were still a few houses down from hers. “Please. I don’t want to have to explain anything to Harry or . . . anyone else.”

“Who?”

“His campaign manager and head of security.”

“Harry knew we were looking for you,” I said. “Besides, sounds like there’s not going to be a campaign.”

“Please,” she said.

I pulled over and parked in front of a red brick home with a huge plate glass Florida room overlooking the bay. The enormous old oaks in the yard were dark and wouldn’t be lit from beneath again until after the war.

“All I want to do is help you,” I said.

“That’s all?” she asked.

“Well,” I said, “maybe not
all
, but I
do
want to protect you.”

The neighborhood was quiet the way wealthy neighborhoods are, the bay calm, the faint slice of moonlight streaking across its still surface, the green channel markers stretching across its length, flashing like a small airport runway in the middle of the night.

“I shouldn’t have asked you to help Harry,” she said. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I think it’s best if he gets someone else.”

“It’s not Harry I’m concerned about,” I said. “Why am I the last person to help
you
?”

She reached for the door handle. “I’ve got to go.”

“Why?” I asked. “Why won’t you let me help you?”

She opened the door, the light coming on to reveal our dirty and disheveled conditions, and got out. “I just can’t,” she said, eased the door shut, ran down the sidewalk, up her driveway, and back into her prison.

Chapter 32

By the time I reached the empty warehouse in St. Andrews, Ray and Clip were already working on the guy who had grabbed Lauren.

The dusty old building was dark except for the single floodlight illuminating their work area and empty except for a few wooden crates and some trash scattered throughout. Standing there in the darkness, only the occasional burst of sound echoing through the vast space felt more like being on a Hollywood sound stage than a vacant warehouse in the Florida Panhandle.

Not wanting to break their flow, I hung back and studied the little man from the cover of darkness the way he had Lauren earlier in the evening. He was a small man with pale skin and the beginnings of a potbelly.

He sat in a straight-back wooden chair, his hands tied behind him, his body slumping forward against the rope around his chest.

His face was red and puffy, his right eye swollen shut, and a steady trickle of blood dripped from his left nostril. It was obvious they had already put him through his paces, and I wondered how much more he could take.