He sat for a while, got out, went to the drug store and bought a Free Press. Got back in the Mercedes, glanced at the sports section. The Lions were playing Minnesota, the Purple People Eaters, on Sunday, a team Detroit had lost to the last six times they’d played.
A little after noon a green Ford pickup truck pulled into the parking lot across the street. A heavyset guy wearing overalls and a cap got out, walked to the door and went in the bar. Harry was pretty sure he was one of the rednecks from the farmhouse who’d kidnapped Colette, and it sure looked like the same truck.
Harry got out of the car, locked the door, crossed the road, moved through the Rodeo Bar parking lot to the green pickup. It was the truck all right, unless there was another green Ford with a rebel flag on the tailgate. He opened the passenger door, sat on the bench seat and looked around. The ashtray was overflowing with tan cigarette butts and there were half a dozen empty Pabst Blue Ribbon cans on the floor. He remembered seeing the same cans on the kitchen counter at the farmhouse. Looking through the driver’s-side window he could see the front door of the bar about thirty yards away.
Harry opened the glove box, found the registration. The truck was a 1966 Ford F-100. The owner was Gary Boone, address on Clark Street in Pontiac. Harry considered his options. He could wait till Gary came out and follow him home, or talk to him right here.
Harry sat in the truck and watched the parking lot fill up. At 2:15 the front door opened, Gary Boone came out squinting, made a visor with his hand to block the afternoon sun, looking across the lot trying to spot his truck. Harry tracked him all the way, and when the redneck got close Harry drew the Colt and rested it in his lap. Gary Boone stopped at the side of his truck, spit and took a long piss, lit a cigarette, opened the door and got in. He was reaching to put the key in the ignition when he noticed Harry and said, “Jesus. What the fuck! Who the hell’re you?”
Harry aimed the big revolver at him. “The guy that’s going to blow your head off you don’t tell me what I want to know.” Gary Boone sat back against the seat. “Who you kidding? You’re not going to shoot me here. I know that.”
Harry pulled the hammer back with his thumb. “You sure about that?”
“Get the fuck out.”
Harry lowered the Colt, squeezed the trigger and put a round between Gary Boone’s feet that sounded like an explosion bouncing around the small confines of the interior, ears ringing from the noise.
“Jesus sucks Jew cock,” Gary Boone said. “What’re you, fucking crazy? You put a hole in my truck.”
“Next one’s going to find you,” Harry said. “Where’s Zeller?”
“Honest to God, I don’t know.”
Harry pulled the hammer back again.
“I can give you the number where he’s at, but that’s it. It’s in my wallet.”
Gary reached behind his back, pulled it out, opened it and handed Harry a scrap of paper that had a phone number on it. “Start the truck and pull out. We’re going to take a drive.”
“Where we going?”
“I’ll tell you when we get there.”
Harry directed the redneck north to a secluded area, an empty desolate stretch of road covered with red and orange leaves somewhere just outside Walled Lake. “Pull over.”
“Pull over? We’re in the middle of Bumfuck, Egypt,” Gary said, glancing at the gun and slowing the truck, pulling over on the shoulder, putting the shifter in neutral. “Now what?”
“Get out.”
“Where am I supposed to go?”
“That’s up to you.”
“Listen, I didn’t lay a hand on your lady. Was Squirrel done it. Man’s got the couth of an opossum.”
Harry pointed the Colt at his right foot. “Want to try this again?”
“Hey, what about my truck?”
“It’s mine now,” Harry said.
“What’re you doing? You can’t take a man’s truck.”
Gary Boone got out and started walking north. Harry slid over behind the wheel and drove back to the strip mall where his car was parked. Made a phone call from the drug store, tried the number Gary had given him. It rang several times before a woman’s voice said, “Your party is not available. Please press one to leave a message or press zero to speak to an operator.” It was a recording. Harry pressed 0 and a live woman’s voice said, “How may I direct your call?”
Harry said, “I’m trying to reach a friend, Albin Zeller.”
“Is he a guest at the hotel?”
“Yeah,” Harry said. “Where am I calling?”
“The Kingsley Inn, sir.”
Harry hung up and ran to his car. Drove to the hotel at Woodward Avenue and Long Lake. He parked, walked in, stopped at the front desk and asked for Zeller.
“I am sorry, sir,” the clerk said, “Mr. Zeller checked out.”
“When?”
“A few hours ago.”
“Did he say where he was going?”
“No sir, but maybe one of the bellmen knows something.” The clerk called the concierge and three young guys in green uniforms appeared in the lobby. “Any of you help Mr. Zeller with his luggage?”
“I did,” said a longhaired guy named Scott.
“He say where he was going?”
“Asked how long it would take to get to the airport.”
“Anything else?”
“He had a plane ticket in his shirt pocket but I couldn’t see where he was going.”
“You know what airline?”
Ten
Cuffee Johnson phoned the Palm Beach detective, Conlin, giving him the bad news. The man definitely had an attitude. Like it was beneath him to deal with Bahamian law enforcement. Cuffee told him the suspect had escaped, and had also murdered a nurse named Paulette, wife of a friend and mother of two little ones.
“I thought you were gonna have somebody there watching him around the clock,” Conlin said. “Did I tell you to put him in leg irons? That’s what we do with suspects we think are dangerous here in Palm Beach County, make sure they don’t kill people and get away.”
Hearing the man’s critical tone made his blood pressure rise. “A couple days ago this dangerous suspect, his nurse tells me, was too weak to stand on his own feet,” Cuffee said, giving it back to him. “Man can’t walk, didn’t seem to be a flight risk.”
“Well either he was playing you, or he made a miraculous recovery.”
“One or the other,” Cuffee said, “but listen, why are we wasting time talking about it? The question now, how we going to catch him?”
“You mean how am I going to catch him?”
This American detective was really full of himself. “What I want to know,” Cuffee said, “how’d this killer get away from you the first time, come to Freeport?”
That shut him up for a few seconds.
“Okay,” Conlin said. “Tell me what you know.”
“I know after sneaking out of the hospital the man broke into a store down the street, stole clothes and money. I know the next morning he took a cab to Lucaya, had breakfast at a restaurant at the marina. And I know he made friends with an American couple, hijacked their yacht and left them stranded on a little deserted island, lucky a fisherman come by when he did. They were thirty-six hours without food or water.”
“Let me guess,” Conlin said. “The yacht’s a fifty-one-foot Hatteras and the couple’s name was Brank. Know who he is? Makes pornographic movies.”
“That’s what I understand,” Cuffee said. “So you have the boat, uh?”
“Coast Guard towed it in last night. Nobody on it.”
Now it was clear. The man was back in Florida.
Conlin cleared his throat. “What did this guy Brank say about him?”
“He was a sleeper, you know? Cool, low-key, nothing suspicious about him. Man said his name was Emile Landau, a builder from Atlanta, and Brank believed him. They started talking about boats and Brank invited him aboard. The rest of the story, I think you know.”