Hawk Channel Chase (12 page)

“It’s okay to walk on the pea rock,” he said. “I’m not as fussy as I used to be.”

“That’s good news, Frank. It’ll reduce your stress.”

“But what the hell,” he said. “Try to stay on the stepping stones. You want a smoothie? I bought this very expensive blender, and I use organic fruits. It keeps down my sugar and makes me younger. Or I got beer somewhere, maybe in that fridge in the downstairs guest room. You can go look. I never have to buy beers. Visitors leave them behind.”

“Thanks, but no. Your place looks great,” I said. “You can’t afford a yard man?”

“Oh, sure, I got the service, it comes once a week. But I keep my hand in. I replaced my treated wood with that new composite. I mean, I had it done. One less upkeep hassle. No more stain, no more sealer I gotta buy… You’re right, it drops my stress level. But how do you stop this shit rain? Wouldn’t our lives be better with no birds? We should teach every last one of them to fly to Iraq. They could birdshit the terror boys into submission.”

Because I had come to ask a favor, I changed the subject. “You used to wear those big rubber Birkenstocks.”

“They got too heavy and they boiled the tops of my feet. These Surfwalkers are like foot condoms, if they made rubbers with mesh which I’m glad they don’t because of my opinion on rug rats. But I’m glad I bought these. I mean, what the hell.” He waved his arm at his yard and boat ramp. “I can afford what I want.”

“That’s why I’m here,” I said.

He took off his pith helmet. His hair was so closely cropped that his skull had a deep tan. “Come into the carport, out of the sun. I don’t make loans for under fifteen percent. You should know that going in.”

“I want to give you some money to hold for me. About four grand.”

“You don’t trust yourself not to piss it away?”

“Nothing like that,” I said. “It’s somebody else I don’t trust. I figure, if I need someone to sit on my cash, why not a millionaire?”

Polan got an odd look on his face.

“Of course,” I added, “that may be the exact person not to trust.”

“You’ve got a point, there.” Polan finally cracked a grin. “Maybe I can put it to work for you.”

“Or just hold on to it.”

“Okay, I’ll do that. It’s the least I can do, and I always want to offer the least I can do. I’m that kind of guy. Come see my new backcountry boat, the Everglades. It draws maybe sixteen inches. A bit more with all your topless models aboard.”

I almost made the mistake of following him to the dock. The view of Cudjoe Bay was a postcard dream, and Polan’s array of boats, kayaks, jet skis and sailboards was equal to a five-star resort’s. I stopped short, begged off, and explained to Frank that I had an appointment in Key West in an hour.

I kept some pocket money and gave Polan forty Ben Franklins. While he was double-checking my cash count the cell phone buzzed my hip. The little window flashed Bobbi Lewis’s personal number.

“Frank,” I said, “can I borrow your phone?”

“It’s up in the kitchen, the first sliding glass door. Go around to your right, but…”

“Take off my shoes before I walk inside?”

“If you don’t mind.”

“Stress you haven’t addressed yet, Frank?”

“Not really. I just washed the floor. I’m a very clean man.”

Bobbi grabbed my call on the first ring. “Liaison.”

“You want to liaison with me?”

“Alex? Why are you calling from a Lower Keys exchange?”

“I came to Cudjoe,” I said. “I had to talk to a man about a possible job.”

“Here in the Keys, Alex, so close to home? Won’t that cramp your international lifestyle?”

“Aside from the November Bravo Rule, my style requires only frequent bank deposits.”

“The November Bravo twins,” said Bobbi. “No babies, no brides.”

“Actually triplets,” I said. “I’ve quit photographing bodies, too.”

“No Bobbis?”

“You heard what I said.”

“What else are you doing up there?”

What the hell did that mean? “Nothing. Talking out details.”

“Are we still on for six-thirty?”

“How about eight?” I said.

“See you at seven.” She clicked off.

“What’s with this money?” said Polan. “I won’t ask how you earned it, but the story’s on the paper. You got a safe buried under your bedroom floor?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Look at the dates. You’re holding old money. These bills are from ’96 and ’99 and nothing newer. Which might be smart on your part. A friend of mine, getting divorced, his wife tried to put the screws. She told the tax office about his secret money stash. They went to look, made him open his safe. It was old money. He told them he saved it before he got married. They couldn’t prove that he was hiding income. He got to keep it.”

“But law enforcement might see it another way?” I said.

“Bingo,” he said. “But I’m okay with it.”

I assured Polan that his home was a masterpiece of clean.

“Okay,” he said. “I won’t spend your money on a power washer.”

I rode toward Key West feeling as if I had done nothing to earn a penny of Catherman’s money. Beyond blowing the speed limit and badgering a slimy store owner, I had turned up diddley. Worse, I couldn’t think of anything else to do except chase down Sally’s classmates, maybe an instructor or two. Someone who might have clues to her habits or good friends. Or her bad habits and enemies. Maybe real private eyes have a secret checklist or standard routine that gets them results. Maybe I was still running at Bahamas pace, on a Bimini clock. A neighbor had been found dead and I hadn’t taken a moment to think about it. My love life was floundering and I couldn’t drum up an opinion. I wasn’t in denial as much as disgust. One thing I knew for sure. At some point in the near future I would dump that spooky grin off Cecil Colding’s face.

Astronomical note: during early autumn the afternoon sun is directly in your eyes when you ride toward Key West between mile markers 23 and 21. You can’t see ahead at all and you don’t have time to look behind. Crossing the bridge onto Upper Sugarloaf, I decided my best approach would be to stop for a think session. Stop the Triumph and stop worrying about being followed. There’s a chance that I dreamed up this strategy because I was about to turn into Mangrove Mama’s.

The restaurant bar was behind the dining patio. I pulled around back and found the missing car.

Catherman had said, “The only orange Mazda Miata in the Keys. You can see it a mile away.” But no one could see it stashed in this parking area, two-thirds surrounded by trees and shrubs, three-quarters hidden from the highway. Blinded by the rollback-style tow truck’s flashing halogen roof rack, I failed at first to notice the small car from twenty yards away.

The Storms Tow Jobs driver defined a modern-day biker. He was a bulked-out, ex-weightlifting, beer-drinking pirate with a
POW-MIA
logo bandanna head-wrap, full-arm tattoos, and a short leather vest over a black Sturgis T-shirt. A stout chain linked his trucker’s wallet to a frayed belt loop.

I parked the Triumph, walked over to watch. “What’s up?”

“If it’s yours, you’re too late, dude. It’s ours for the time being.” He tilted his head toward the restaurant. “These people called. It’s been sitting here for three days.”

“A friend of mine reported it stolen.”

He shook his head, turned back to tightening straps. The name carved into the back of his two-inch belt read H
ARLAND
. “I can spot stolen a hundred yards away. This thing, it’s closed up and locked. No cut top, no broken window, no jimmied ignition. Your friend maybe took drunk, got fucked up, forgot where he lost it. Or she, whatever. It happens. Bad for them, good for me.”

“Where you going to haul it?”

“Our locked lot on No Name Key,” said Harland. “Tell your friend not to try to liberate it. Our guard dogs are plain ugly. We time their feedings by a random computer-generated schedule. It keeps them healthy and hungry. And… even if your friend’s car is stolen, we still get our fees.”

I was tempted to ride to Catherman’s home, to tell him the news. But hurrying wouldn’t change things. He couldn’t get the vehicle processed and released any sooner than Harland wanted it to happen. And keeping it in secure storage might preserve evidence, if there was any to be found. With the car so carefully hidden and locked, a reasonable person might assume that Sally had put it there. Plus, I had overlooked one detail. Even though Bob Catherman had handed me five grand less than two hours earlier, I didn’t know where he lived. I walked to my Triumph and peeled back the damp foam liner in my helmet. Its backing material had protected the envelope of pictures and photocopies. Catherman’s address on Scabbard Road was printed on the envelope. It didn’t prompt me to head his way.

I had imagined that finding the car would offer us a breakthrough. Instead it had handed me more things to ponder.

I hung the helmet on the bike and walked through the patio and into the bar. I didn’t know the woman setting up for the late-afternoon rush.

I ordered an Amstel and said, “Do you know if Anne’s working tonight?”

“She works at Square Grouper now. You must’ve been gone for a while.”

“I live in town. I’m down there most of the time. But I’ve got to say, that’s the first time I’ve ever seen a car towed out of here.”

“That Miata, I wondered,” she said. “Last couple months I’ve seen a cute little girl driving it on the highway. Our schedules must have caused that we passed all the time. I didn’t know where she was going and she sure-as-shit didn’t notice me, but it’s hard to miss a car like that. Anyway, a man parked it here and got out, I don’t know, Monday or Tuesday, right as I got here for work. I thought maybe he was leaving it for her, or she was driving his car and they were meeting here. That can happen. Last I saw, he was walking around to the front. Maybe he didn’t go in the front entrance. Maybe he got a ride out of here.”

“Do you remember what he looked like?” I asked.

“Like a hundred other guys, I suppose. Not too tall or short, no clothing that stood out so I would have noticed. I guess I’m saying I can’t bring a picture of the dude into my brain right now. Anyway, there was that car the next day, yesterday. So what does that make it, Monday he parked it? So the next day I think maybe it was stolen. This Key West cop comes like he does in most days for his after-work beer, to get stewed before he goes home to his bitch of a girlfriend. I tell him about that little car, how long it’s been sitting there and it might be stolen. He tells me not to bother calling the county. They’d just tell me to call a wrecker. So, finally we did, we called the wrecker four hours ago. Took him long enough to get here, and it’s not like its a hundred miles. Good thing it wasn’t a real wreck.”

Good thing I didn’t ask a third question, not that I didn’t appreciate her info. I slugged down my beer before the conversation could grow into a burdensome exchange of hunches and clichés.

I pulled out of Mangrove Mama’s and twisted it on. The limit was forty-five and I was doing ten over in six seconds. A new medium-blue Mustang came toward me, doing about the same speed. It honked as it passed. It wasn’t a car I knew. It looked to be a rental, and people like my Triumph. I watched it fade in my mirror. I didn’t see it cut a U-turn. Before I reached the Crane Boulevard traffic signal, a mile west, the Mustang was on my butt and passing me. It slowed for the light. Sam Wheeler beckoned me to turn right and follow. A quarter-mile farther he went left onto Bad George Road and drove to the dead end.

With “dead” the operative description. The mudhole-pocked turnaround was the last repository of shit no one wanted. Chunks of docks, washing machines, used tires, a scattering of gravel from another era.

Looking more weather-beaten than usual, Sam climbed out of the low-slung GT while I unstrapped my helmet. He stared down the empty street for a half-minute to watch for company. He pressed a key ring button that popped his deck lid, then pulled three Beck’s Lights from a cooler that was bungee-corded upright inside the trunk. Using yachtsman’s smarts and the skin between his left thumb and forefinger as a fulcrum, Sam hooked one bottle cap under the sharp base of each of the others to lever them off. He returned the unopened one to the cooler.

We raised a quick, silent toast to the blue sky and our predicament.

“Catch me up,” I said.

“You go first.”

It took me four minutes to tell all. I described the real estate offer, the agent’s return the next day and his attempt to hire me. I mentioned Marnie’s concern, Lisa Cormier’s come-on and Copeland’s recruitment, their request that I look for the girl. Then the cash delivery, the spy boys watching the post office, and Cecil’s attitude which I described as more slimy than suspicious. I told him about the drunk at Louie’s who blasted Liska about the Bay Point roadblock.

“It’s still blocked where the road splits,” he said. “They’re letting in residents only.”

Sam went for two more beers, came back and handed me mine. The man I had known for two decades to be rock solid and energized looked depleted. He sat and studied the bottle in his hand. “I’ve been trying to cut back.”