Fatal Reservations (5 page)

“You’ve pretty much ordered everything on the menu already,” Eric added with a laugh.

“One thing I have to ask,” I said to Lorenzo once the waitress had bustled off with our order. I tried to think about how to word the question so he wouldn’t take offense. “Did you have any kind of premonition that Louis attacking you last night was going to happen?”

He looked so distressed that I wished I hadn’t said anything, hadn’t appeared to question his special vision. “I’m not trying to be fresh or rude,” I said. “I’m really serious. Did you have any sense something bad might happen with the Artistic Preservation group? Or Louis himself?”

Lorenzo mopped his forehead with a limp white hankie. “Of course things have been terribly stressful at Mallory Square for the last—let’s say, even the past year or so. I felt every bit of that anxiety.” He patted his chest.

Which didn’t really answer my question, but I hated to press him harder. Let him tell the story in his own time. I spread a spoonful of pimento cheese on a saltine cracker for each of us and waited. Eric and I began to eat. The cheese and pimentos were a lovely combination of creamy and tangy, and the crackers crispy and salty. I could eat an entire order of this and nothing else and feel perfectly happy. Lorenzo’s fingers trembled as he picked up his cracker. He set the treat back down on the small plate and peered over the railing to the street below.

“How does the organization work down at Mallory Square?” Eric asked as he loaded a second cracker with cheese. “It always looks like barely controlled chaos.” He waved his cracker at me. “By the way, I never imagined I liked pimento cheese, but this is amazing.”

“It’s too complicated and convoluted to tell you everything,” Lorenzo said. “Basically, we elect a board of directors to set up the performer guidelines and negotiate the contract with the city. The organization leases the space from the city,” he explained. “Across the years, the biggest conflict has been over seniority. If you’ve visited Mallory Square at Sunset you might
have noticed that some of the positions are worth a lot more money than others.”

“If you score a square of space near the water,” I suggested, “your traffic will tend to be better?”

“Of course,” said Lorenzo. “When the sun actually dips into the water, tourists want to be right there on the edge, where they have the best view. Performers who’ve been around a long time don’t want the space to be portioned out according to who gets there early in the day to set up. They want a primo space reserved for them.” He sighed and crossed his hands neatly, reminding me of a big tuxedo housecat. “The newer people don’t like this.”

“I see the potential problems snowballing,” Eric said. “I suspect that many of the performers are living on a shoestring, so tips matter a lot?”

“You got it.” Lorenzo huffed. “There’s more. One of our other hot issues has to do with voting. When an important vote is about to be decided, some people have been salting the membership with new members who will vote the way they want them to. You can only imagine the ways the rules can be twisted.” He heaved another big sigh. “These people aren’t Harvard-educated, polite politicians. They’re street performers. Cagey. And ruthless.”

Eric nodded, keeping his gaze on Lorenzo, concentrating with every cell. I could definitely see why his patients found his empathy compelling enough that they were willing to spill their toxic secrets to a complete stranger.

“I’m not on the board or anything, but I try to stay involved, push for changes if they’re needed. My hope is that we keep everything transparent. Just like our government.” He grimaced. “Not that that’s been
working out so well in Washington. Or even Tallahassee. But people don’t like that—me saying we have to establish meaningful rules and follow them, quit relying on backroom politics. Some of our performers who have been around the longest are starting to feel entitled, and that grates on the newer people. We all pay the same fees—well.” He stopped and frowned. “Some of us don’t pay at all.”

“What do you mean, some don’t pay?”

“Right now, you only pay if you’re selling something—a physical object like food or T-shirts or souvenirs. But that’s got to change. It’s all got to change. But if people are going to die over it . . .”

“So you think Frontgate’s murder was related to what’s going on with this organization?” Eric asked.

Lorenzo’s lower lip quivered—he looked exhausted and hopeless.

I reached across the table to take his hand, which was moist and hot. And I suddenly felt like I was intruding on his privacy. I let go and tried to smile. “I wanted you to meet Eric because he was also wrongly accused of a murder. Of course he was innocent. But he learned some important lessons about the process.” I turned to Eric. “Could you give him some suggestions?”

“Definitely,” said Eric, “if he’s interested.”

I cut the fried green tomatoes into pie-shaped slices and slid a few bites onto each of our plates. Nobody but me was eating much—Lorenzo was too upset. And Eric was completely focusing on the other man.

Lorenzo finally shrugged. “Advice is welcome. How could it make things worse?”

Eric said, “When I first fell under suspicion, I didn’t tell the police everything I knew about the crime
because I was trying to protect someone. It had to do with my obligation as a psychologist. The obligation that I felt to keep the secrets of a patient private. But I also thought I was protecting myself. I believed that keeping that secret would keep me out of trouble. Wrong. My judgment, I’m sorry to say, was not that great. In fact, it stunk.” He wrinkled his brow. “Maybe you have some of the same feelings about your clients.”

“Of course I do,” said Lorenzo. “I’m helping people with heavy burdens. They’ve carried them around for years, some of them. And they’ve told no one until they come to my table. They are so desperate to unload the weight. To get some guidance. You may laugh, because I sit at a booth on the pier with crowds of tourists and crazy circus performers all around, while you sit in a fancy office with a waiting room full of expensive magazines and classical music. But my work is a big responsibility.” He clasped his hands over his heart. “I feel it here every day.”

I was afraid to look at Eric, thinking that he might find Lorenzo’s parallel between tarot cards and psychotherapy ludicrous. But when I snuck a glance, his face was utterly serious. “Listen,” Eric said, “you have to tell the police whatever you know. This business of the artist performance committee or whatever—it sounds very complicated. And there are obviously sides being taken and I’m guessing maybe your side is not popular? And the fellow who attacked you last night—you should tell them your theories about that. Why has he singled you out? These are fringe people with histories of drugs and violence—some of them, anyway. They’re not your usual upstanding citizens. You have to be careful.”

Lorenzo nodded.

“Why are the cops coming after you?” Eric asked. “What exactly was your connection with the dead man?”

Lorenzo swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and shook his head. “No connection, other than sharing the public space at Sunset.”

I met Eric’s gaze and he lifted his eyebrows, as though he, too, thought Lorenzo was holding something back. “Who was Bart Frontgate?” Eric asked.

“He was a juggler,” Lorenzo said stubbornly. “I only knew him in the context of our business connection.”

“Then help us understand why the cops are after you.”

Lorenzo’s shoulders lifted in a tight shrug.

“Do you have a lawyer?” Eric asked. “You’re going to need one.”

“I don’t mean to be rude, but I think I’m going to be sick.” Lorenzo pushed to his feet and clattered away from our table. He crossed the porch and shot down the stairs. Within minutes, we watched him clop down Petronia Street and disappear into an alley.

4

“The only thing that makes a soufflé fall,” he was talking almost to himself, “is if it knows that you are afraid of it.”

—Ruth Reichl,
Delicious!

Once it was clear that Lorenzo was not coming back (and how much more clear could he have been?), Eric and I did the best we could with all the food I’d ordered. The fried chicken with a thin crisp waffle and spicy maple syrup was my favorite, although Eric was crazy about the cheese grits and the kale salad.

Finally he pushed away from the table. “Two hundred thousand calories later, I can’t eat another bite.”

I called the waitress over and asked her to bring samples of her most popular desserts and wrap up the other leftovers so I could take them to
Key Zest
. Palamina didn’t strike me as a big eater, but Danielle was always happy to graze. And I could use some auxiliary opinions.

“What do you think’s going on with your friend?”
Eric asked after our server had whisked the plates away.

“Like I said to Miss Gloria this morning, he’s a practicing Buddhist. He’s gentle and peaceful. I can’t believe he would murder another living being.”

“But how well do you really know him?”

All the food I’d eaten, in combination with Eric’s tough question, was making me feel a little queasy. “Not that well. But I knew you very well and you still kept secrets about a murder.”

“That’s my point,” Eric replied. “There’s obviously something he isn’t able or willing to talk about. You don’t think he’d murder someone, but you never know what will happen when someone’s pushed hard.”

I shook my head. “I don’t see it. If one of the Sunset performers killed Frontgate, it’s more likely it was the crazy man who attacked Lorenzo last night. Now, there’s a guy who is capable of violence.”

Eric frowned and tipped his head in the direction that Lorenzo had disappeared. “Bear with me here. Just for starters, is Lorenzo a local? If not, where did he come from? What do you know about his background?”

“I don’t know too much. His name was Marvin growing up. Once he became an official tarot card reader, he decided that no one would want their cards read by a man named Marvin. Hence, Lorenzo.” I snickered but then fell silent. Nothing about this situation was funny. “And I know that he visits friends in Connecticut in the summer when it’s the slow season down here. But I’ve never heard him talk about his family.”

Eric’s face had grown very solemn. “And that’s the thing about this town,” he said. “Many folks end up here because they don’t fit in anywhere else. And so
you have no idea whether they’re running from something or whether they just love this island.”

“Really? That’s your theory? He’s running?”

He flashed a lopsided grin. “Lots of times it’s something as simple as not wanting to grow up. But lots of folks don’t have normal families. Current company excepted, of course. There’s always the exception that proves the rule.”

“Oh, I was definitely running from something, too,” I said. “Maybe you’ve forgotten, I had no idea where my life was going. I just knew I couldn’t spend the rest of it in my mother’s back bedroom.”

“Speaking of which,” said Eric, “how is your mother?”

“Of course you remember that Sam had surgery and Mom went up to see him through it?” My mother had come down to winter in Key West last December, and to everyone’s surprise—especially mine—had instantly landed a plum catering position. She flew north only to nurse her new fiancé, Sam, through his hip replacement. “The docs had Sam up and walking the evening they put in the new hip,” I said. “It’s kind of amazing what they make people do right after surgery. I’m sure in the old days he would’ve stayed in a hospital bed for a week.”

“And suffered for it,” said Eric. The waitress brought two brown bags of leftovers, two kinds of dessert in plastic containers, and the bill.

“Anyway,” I added, once she’d left with my credit card, “Mom wants to stay up north long enough to make sure Sam can fix himself a cup of soup or cup of coffee, and then she’ll be back down to finish her season at Small Chef at Large. Jennifer’s got her covered for three weeks, so there’s no hurry. Except that it’s
fifteen degrees and snowing every other day in New Jersey.”

Eric groaned. He’d come from my hometown, too, and he knew what winters were like. “I bet she can’t wait to get out of there. But for you, maybe it’s a smidgen of relief to have her out of town for a bit? She’s larger than life.”

“No comment.” I grinned and took a bite of the key lime cake, which was both light and sharp, and then the fried blueberry pie. I jotted some notes in my phone.

Eric glanced at his watch. “I need to get going. Don’t you get involved with this case, okay?”

“Only if Lorenzo needs me.”

Eric chewed on his lip. “Not loving that answer.”

“Only if he’s flat-out desperate, and I’ll call the cops first, okay? Thanks for everything. I bet talking to you helped him a lot.” I kissed him on the cheek, gathered up my stuff, and followed him out into the perfect Key West day—a little sun, a little wind, a few clouds, and air that was as warm as bathwater. I zipped back to the
Key Zest
office feeling edgy and tired. Last night’s commission meeting had worn me out, and my worry about Lorenzo was piling on top of that.

And now that I was closer to the office and unable to push the feeling aside, I realized that I wasn’t quite comfortable with Palamina Wells running the staff meetings while Wally was out of town. “Not quite comfortable” didn’t really describe what I was feeling. “Worried sick” was more like it.

Oh, this first month with Palamina was definitely miles better than my time working for Ava Faulkner had been, with her nasty digs, impossible demands,
and poorly disguised threats. But what if I couldn’t live up to Palamina’s expectations? I had never written for a New York City magazine, as she had for years. I felt less sophisticated in every way. Plus,
Key Zest
didn’t feel quite the same with her installed in Wally’s office and him Skyping on the computer screen—at least until his mom was stable. Eric would say I working myself up over nothing. I tried taking a couple deep breaths.
Whoo-ha
,
whoo-ha
.