And then he slept.
There was light and the faint rustle of someone in the next room. Lew blinked at the window. He had forgotten to close the blinds. The morning sun, rising above the shops on the other side of 301, cut through the spaces between the plastic slats.
Lew sat, bare feet on the floor. Then as he rose, he reached for his faded leather pouch with his soap, razor, toothbrush and toothpaste. He took a fresh blue towel from his closet, draped it over his shoulder and went through the door into his office.
Ames McKinney leaned back against the wall across from the door a few feet from the Stig Dalstrom painting. Ames wore his usual naturally faded jeans, a long-sleeved blue flannel shirt under a blue denim jacket. His gray-white hair was cut trim and his face cleanly shaved. He was reading a paperback book, but looked up when Lew entered the room.
“You look sartorial,” said Lew.
“I’m a trendsetter,” Ames said, putting the book in his jacket pocket. “How did it go?”
“Found the man who killed Catherine. Watched a man shoot himself. Talked to a man who had killed a lawyer and a bodyguard and stolen Catherine’s and my savings.”
Ames didn’t ask for further explanation.
“Busy few days,” said Ames, pushing away from the wall. “Got a busy one for you today.”
“What are you reading?”
Ames touched the pocket of his jacket into which he had slipped the book and said, “ Ivanhoe, Scott. Wanna put your pants on, chief?”
“I’ll be right back.”
Lew opened the door, stepped into the cool morning facing the fully risen sun. Twenty steps to his right was the washroom. It was the only washroom for the six offices in the two-story building.
No one was inside when he entered. Sometimes a vagabond from Genesis, a tattered soul cast out of Eden by a vengeful God, would make the cracked tile floor his home for the night. The two toilet stalls had doors that wouldn’t stay closed and a sink with a perpetual slow drip that had left a dark stain leading to the drain. The room had two pinging overhead fluorescent lights. At the moment, they both worked.
Lew looked in the mirror and saw his mother’s face. It was impossible to avoid the resemblance, the pouting lower lip, the dark, sad face, brown eyes. He took off his shirt, hung it over the top of a toilet stall, washed, shaved, brushed, combed back his hair. It was the best he could do. It was all he wanted to do. While he liked to keep himself, his living space, his clothes clean and neat, he wasn’t obsessive. The world was chaotic. He wanted his part of it to be reasonably free of that chaos.
When he got back in the office, Ames said, “Borg.”
Lew moved into the other room and raised his voice. “You saw him?”
“Talked to him on the phone. Don’t know what his problem is but he won’t go to the police with it.”
When Lew dressed in jeans, a white dress shirt and his Cubs baseball cap, he said, “I’ve got a hundred and nine thousand dollars.”
Ames looked at him.
“Catherine’s insurance,” Lew said. “About a quarter of it. The other three-quarters was stolen.”
“Way you live that could stretch you for four or five years,” said Ames.
“It could,” Lew agreed. “I’ll think about it.”
They drove to Long Boat Key and straight up Gulf of Mexico Drive to the entrance of Conquistador Del Palmas. The uniformed guard at the gate was old, with perfect false teeth and a smile. Lew’s name had been left at the gate and he and Ames were waved in.
Earl Borg’s condo was in an eight-story building. Borg was on the sixth floor. He buzzed them in and they crossed the highly polished azure tile lobby to the elevator, which took them silently to the sixth floor. The door to 604 was closed. Lew knocked.
“Come in. It’s open.”
The apartment wasn’t large. A dining-room table and four chairs sat to the left in front of an open kitchen. Another door was open to Lew’s left. Beyond the door was a fully made double bed, ebony end tables and a matching dresser. To the right of the living room in which they were standing was an office-den. The leather smell of the den furniture dominated the apartment. On the small balcony across from Lew and Ames sat a man facing the Gulf of Mexico.
Something didn’t look right, feel right about the place or the man. Lew looked at Ames and knew that he sensed it too.
“Drink?” Borg asked. “I’ve got sangria out here. Ice. Glasses.”
Ames and Lew went out on the small balcony. There were two white canvas-backed director’s chairs.
“No, thanks,” said Lew.
“I’ll take one.”
“Mr. McKinney,” said Borg, without looking up. “I recognize your voice. Distinctive.”
“Montana mostly.”
And then Lew realized what was wrong with the apartment and the man. There was no television set, no computer, no paintings on the walls. There was no reason to put them there. Earl Borg was blind.
Lew and Ames sat, their backs to the Gulf.
“You figured it out,” said Borg, reaching slowly for the pitcher. “I’ve learned to read pauses, silences, inflections, hesitations over the past two years. I do have a television in the den and a computer that likes to talk.”
He found the pitcher and a glass and carefully and accurately poured till the glass was more than half full.
“Mr. McKinney?” he said, holding up the glass.
“Thanks,” said Ames, taking it.
“You wanted to see me?” asked Lew.
“Very much, but since I’m blind, that won’t be possible. I’ll settle for straight talking. I’m diabetic, knew it would take my sight someday. Took my father’s too and I’m pretty sure my grandfather’s. Happen to remember the little girl back at the hog-dog?”
“I remember.”
“That little girl is my daughter. She’s thirteen now. She has also been kidnapped. I want you to find her and take her back to her mother.”
“The police,” Lew said.
“Officially, I’m not the child’s father and I’m certainly not nor ever was Denise’s husband. Denise wants me to pay the money. She won’t tell the police. She’s afraid of what might happen to Lilla. They’ve had her three days. Denise is now convinced they might kill her.”
“Are you convinced?” Lew asked.
“Oh, yes,” Borg said, taking a long sip of his drink. “I know them, know what they’re capable of.”
“You know who they are?” Lew asked.
“Yes, you met them at the hog-dog. They’re my sons, Chet and Matt. Different mother than Lilla. Mr. Fonesca, Mr. McKinney, I have many regrets, those two boys being high on the list, but that girl is the lone glow in my life of darkness. I live simple, but there’s not much meaning to it without that one pinpoint of light whose name is Lilla.” He paused and then said, “I laid it on a little too heavy-handed, didn’t I?”
“A little,” Lew said.
“Are they in Kane?” Lew asked.
“I don’t know, but I’m confident you can find them. You found me four years ago. I’ve asked some people who know people who owe people and I know you’re good at situations like this. They know about you.”
“They?” Lew asked.
Borg kept staring toward the horizon. Lew resisted looking at whatever it was Borg seemed to see out there.
“In my often wicked business, I meet and use and am used by people who have connections below the line of legality,” said Borg.
Lew looked at Ames, whose nod of yes was almost imperceptible.
“I need some information,” Lew said to Borg.
“Whatever you want,” said Borg. “Want to talk money first?”
“How much is she worth to you?” Lew asked.
“My fortunes have diminished a bit since you last saw me, but I’m far from impoverished. So, I’ll pay, at the far end of reasonable, whatever you ask if you bring her to me or her mother safely and get those two whelps the hell out of Florida forever.”
Lew looked at Ames, who met his eyes. Across the table Earl Borg stared between them.
“Gas, car rental, expenses, reimbursement for any information I have to buy.”