Only Make Believe (24 page)

“He didn’t serve in the war, did he?”

“What?”

“Because he’s a dummy? That it? Sir, you trust your nephew to drive for you. He’s big and strong. He played ball. But I understand he stayed on the home front—while millions of smaller, punier guys like you and me risked our butts. And some of us got badly wounded—like you and Bud Wright.”

Barfield brushed this aside. “Al had a wife and child. There was some kind of minor but disqualifying physical condition. I’ll tell you the truth, I don’t know much about it except that his eyes are bad. It was the draft board’s decision. His mother was very embarrassed about the whole thing.”

I didn’t bother to make sympathetic uh-huh noises.
Minor but disqualifying.
As far as I was concerned, draft dodgers were a lower form of life.

Changing the subject seemed a better tactic so I tried it again. “Something you might do, sir, without any conflict? You might check out Mrs. DiGennaro’s current lawyer, man by the name of Otis Dreyer. Because I hear, off the record and strictly second hand, that he’s trying to bribe people involved in the case. Wants to get the whole thing dropped.”

Barfield glanced at Doc and shifted his bad leg. “Interesting, yes indeed. I know of the man. I’m told he was down here yesterday talking to certain people at the school board. He has quite a record. Didn’t graduate from any law school. Was almost disbarred in Pennsylvania in 1936. Kept his license on the condition he resettle in another state and never enter another Pennsylvania courtroom. Regrettably, the Florida Bar was unaware of that fact when he was admitted.”

“DiGennaro had an appointment at the school board last Monday. Bud talked to them already.”

“Exactly.” Barfield reached inside his coat pocket. “And speaking of conflicts, I wasn’t going to show you this. But since I’m prepared to believe you are a reasonable, intelligent man, and because we all want to protect the club, you’d better take a look. You’d see it tomorrow anyway.”

He handed me an advance page from the next morning’s Sunday
News-Press
. A blind item in the week’s local wrap-up column was circled in pencil.

FISHY BUSINESS IN RIVERSIDE COVER UP — Sources close to the investigation into last weekend’s fatal beating of a prominent Bradenton businessman speculate that the sensational case may never be solved. Nicholas C. DiGennaro, 37, married with two children, was discovered in his riverside hotel room dressed in women’s undergarments. He later died at Lee Memorial. Rumors are that a certain local official will attempt to quash the inquiry to protect his own reputation. This official is said to be doubly compromised. He is employed as a part-time guard by the hostelry where the attack occurred. Thus is justice dispensed in Lee.

I figured this was going to either kill Bud or send him to Korea. I shook my head and said the first thing that hit me. “Lawyer Dreyer must have visited the newspaper office as well as the school board.”

“A reasonable assumption.”

Doc didn’t get it. “Why would he d-d-do that?”

“Because he got nowhere trying to bribe officials.” I handed the paper back to Barfield. “DiGennaro wasn’t queer. I’m sure of that. I think that’s why he was attacked. Maybe the rest doesn’t matter. Except that it’s a serious charge for the paper to make.”

“Precisely my thought from the beginning,” Doc said. “You remember the European theory I mentioned when we inspected DiGennaro’s room?” He glanced at Barfield. “A prewar German hypothesis to the effect that, ah, dressing as the opposite gender is a sexual fetish, not an actual sexual identity or gender inversion. If you take my meaning.”

“The nurses in the Emergency Room heard him loud and clear,” I said. “So did I. ‘Friggin pervert,’ he said, ‘Told him no,’ he said. ‘Wrong idea,’ he said. Carmen and I were standing right there.”

Wayne Larue Barfield slipped the clipping into his jacket pocket and sniffed. “In that case, the rest might matter quite a bit, Dan.”

I asked what he meant.

“If Mr. DiGennaro told a belligerent pervert no, told him he had the wrong idea, well, then, it follows that the pervert, the man doing the asking, was committing a felony. And that’s before he ever laid a hand on the victim. If you see what I mean.”

I did see. Attempted sodomy, the unspeakable crime against nature. “What if DiGennaro more or less led the man on? The dress, the makeup? Then changed his mind?”

Barfield’s expression turned sour as a lemon. “This isn’t a rape case. The she-asked-for-it defense won’t apply here.”

I wondered about that. But I kept my mouth shut. The words ‘pervert’ and ‘victim’ weren’t making sense anymore. The messages were all mixed up.

“This is going to backfire on Lawyer Dreyer and his client,” I said, getting to my feet. “The last thing Bud’s going to do is drop this case now.”

Barfield smiled. “He refused the bribe, then?”

“I didn’t mention any particular official. I still think the widow may be behind it.”

“No, you’re right, Dan. That was off the record. And you may be right.”

“I’m not going to drop it either. Now, may I buy you gentlemen another drink?”

They agreed that drinks were in order. We all agreed that our discussion had been useful. We returned to the club and I switched from beer to rum.

After two highballs and a bowl of chocolate-covered peanuts, I headed upstairs to bed, alone again, and slept fitfully until dawn.

Bud hadn’t specifically forbidden me to contact Chuck DiGennaro so I phoned him the next morning, person-to-person. A maid answered. She asked the operator to wait, returned in less than a minute and said that Master Chuck would pick up the extension in his room.

He remembered my name. “Mr. Ewing, yeah. The Caloosa. What is that, some Indian word? Seminole?”

“Indian, but older than that. The Caloosas were here when the white men came.”

“Oh, yeah, now I remember. We studied that in Florida history. They caught all the Spanish diseases and died. Figures.”

At least he didn’t hang up on me.

“Listen, I’m sorry I couldn’t make your dad’s funeral. Detective Wright said there was a good crowd. Again, everybody at the hotel feels terrible about what’s happened.”

“I saw the flowers you sent,” Chuck muttered.

“I’m really sorry about your dad. OK?”

“Mother threw the card away. You probably won’t be getting a thank-you note. So I thought I’d tell you.”

Polite, considerate, soft spoken—not that there haven’t been polite, considerate, soft-spoken killers before. But no, not this kid.

“She’s had a hell of a shock—a bunch of shocks. You all have.”

“Can say that again.”

“Look, Chuck—is it OK if I call you Chuck?”

“Sure, everybody else does. Just don’t call me Junior—like that cop keeps doing. I hate that. And he was rude to Mother. She’s at church right now. She and my sister.”

“We were all upset at the hospital. Bud’s actually an easygoing kind of guy.”

Easygoing for a Marine who’s not only a part-time cop but a secret homosexual
.

Chuck let it pass. “I don’t remember much about that night, Mr. Ewing. He wasn’t exactly going easy when we met him at Mr. Dreyer’s office.”

“It’s Dan, OK?”

“Sure, OK.” He paused again. “Dan.”

“Bud’s working hard to find whoever did this. But some people—or somebody—wants to stop him.”

“Not me. Who?”

No, I didn’t think it was you.

“Your mother’s lawyer offered a substantial sum of cash to Detective Wright to drop the investigation. Close the case.”

“Mr. Dreyer? He did that?”

“Bud turned him down flat. Don’t quote me. This is confidential. It would be his word against your lawyer’s.”

“Oh, shit. This just gets more and more—why are you telling me this?”

“Because I think you didn’t tell us the whole truth at the hospital. But I don’t think you did anything real bad. You didn’t kill your father, did you? You don’t know anything about it?”

Chuck suddenly started sobbing. He pulled himself together just as fast. “Screw you, mister. I gotta go now. This isn’t a great time to talk.”

Uh-oh, see-saw emotions, tears to curses in a breath. A hand grenade with a loose pin.

“I’d like to call you later,” I said. “Or we could meet somewhere and—”

“At your hotel? And then you hold a gun to my head, force me to put on a—a dress. Turn me into another dead Indian? Oh no.”

“Chuck, wait a minute.”

“No, no, no. Screw you.” And with that, he slammed down the phone.

Teenage passion working overtime—despair, loss, anger, frustration, rage—bam, bam, bam. And he didn’t deny much of anything—except wanting to shut down the case. The boy must feel trapped. If Bud puts him through the wringer again he might blow sky high.

He called me back two hours later. “Excuse me. I was acting like a little kid. There’s a lot of stuff you don’t know about. Nobody knows about. You’re right. Mother and Mr. Dreyer want this all to go away. But it can’t, can it?”

“Not by paying bribes. Look, hold up a minute. We’re connected through the switchboard. Let me call you back on my private line. So nobody can listen in.”

“I sure don’t care.”

“I do.”

“What I was gonna say, anyway—I checked with my best friend, Cy. He thinks I should talk to you sort of man to man, face to face, tell you what I know. I don’t want to talk to that cop again. I don’t trust him.”

“I’ll drive up to Bradenton. I can be on the road in five minutes.”

“See, I don’t trust Mr. Dreyer, either. He tries to put words in my mouth. Him and the cop both.”

Kid, he’s my best friend and if you don’t have anything to hide, you’ll do well to trust him with your life.

“Detective Wright’s got a job to do. He has to go by the book sometimes. It isn’t anything personal. He’s fair and honest.”

“What about I drive down there? I got my license now. Cy’s gonna lend me his jalopy.”

“We could meet at—there’s a diner in Punta Gorda. That’s about halfway in between. They have good burgers.”

“Where’s your office?”

“In the hotel, the Caloosa.”

“OK, I know where that is.”

“You what?”

“That’s one of the things nobody knows about. Except Cy.”

What the hell is this kid telling me?

“One of the things?”

“We were at your hotel last Sunday. Cy and me, we followed Daddy down there.”

Don’t tell me my intuition about you was one hundred and fifty percent wrong. Don’t tell me you boys got pissed and drunk and beat your daddy to a pulp.

“We looked around. But when we didn’t see Daddy in the restaurant or out by the pool or in the locker room, we left. This guy at the filling station over on Fowler Street, he said the Caloosa’s like a private whore house for rich guys.”

“That’s all wrong.”

“I didn’t like what the guy said. That’s why I asked you if maybe Daddy had had a date with a woman.”

“I remember.”

“I tried to call Daddy at the hotel. They wouldn’t put me through.”

“Thank you for telling me that. We knew somebody called. You also called the sheriff.”

“After Daddy died. Yeah, I did. He told you?”

“He told Bud—Detective Wright. You’re still coming down here?”

“It ought to take me two hours.”

I can hardly wait.
“I’ll be here.”

Given Chuck’s expressed—OK, his justified—fears about the Caloosa, meeting him behind closed doors was clearly a bad idea. And I wanted him to feel comfortable and safe.

The hotel fishing boat was tied up with two bilge pumps running; the leaky shaft was scheduled to be repacked the next day. I asked Emma Mae to stock the cooler with sodas, sandwiches and pie. When that was done, I politely told her to get lost.

When Chuck arrived I led him right down to the dock. We talked out in the open, on the afterdeck, the boat rocking gently beneath us. He didn’t relax, not at first. His angry edginess was visible. Patches of sweat marked the front of his gray workout shirt, armpits and neck. He wore pressed, cut-off jeans, Converse All Star hightops and white athletic socks. Sweat bands on both wrists set off his dark, damp body hair and honey-olive tan.

I wasn’t exactly dressed for church myself—yesterday’s khakis over bathing trunks, grubby University of Florida sweatshirt, deck shoes, no socks, and baseball cap. The less I looked like a cop or whoremaster, I figured, the better the chances of getting the boy to vault his embarrassment and open up.

He accepted a 7Up, said he’d hold off on the sandwich, chugged down a couple of swallows of soda and started talking fast, blushing but determined, as if he wanted to get it all out before he lost his nerve.

“When we got back from the hospital last Monday, maybe that was the worst part. I felt terrible, sad, worn out, lower than whale shit. I thought maybe a shower would help. See, I knew I needed to sleep if I was gonna be any good to anybody later on.”