I wanted to hold onto the belief that at any moment I could simply fill my duffle bag, get on a Greyhound bus, and head somewhere, anywhere, where no one expected anything of me and I could nurture my depression. I was increasingly aware that my belief that I could do that was becoming an illusion. Ames, Flo, Adele, Darrell, and Sally-I knew I could not easily ride away from them. I’d need a major blow to let me escape.
“Darrell’s fine,” she said. “He’s weirdly proud that he took a bullet-”
“Pellet,” I corrected.
“… that he took a pellet meant for you,” she said.
“I don’t like Ronnie Gerall,” I said.
“He takes some getting used to.”
“You know him?” I asked.
“I handled his transition when he came from San Antonio to Sarasota.”
There was something in her voice, an unfamiliar impatience or something I couldn’t quite grasp.
“His friends are paying me to prove he didn’t kill Philip Horvecki,” I said.
“I’ve got to go.”
“Meet me tomorrow?”
“We’ll see. Call me in the morning,” she said. “We can set a time when I can come and see your new…”
“Lodgings,” I said.
“I’ll talk to Darrell’s mother,” she said. “I’ll make her love you again.”
“You can do that?”
“No,” she said. “I can’t.”
“Thanks.”
“Take care of yourself, Lewis Fonesca.”
“Yes,” I said. “And you too, Sally Porovsky.”
I had not been doing a good job of taking care of myself since Catherine had been struck and killed by the man sitting on the floor, against the wall. Ann Hurwitz said progress was being made.
The last time she had told me that, I suggested that maybe we needed either another hundred thousand troops in Iraq or a small team of psychologists to speed my progress.
“We’ll talk in the morning,” Sally said.
She didn’t seem to want to end the call.
“Something wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Okay,” I said.
What I really wanted to say was, “I’ll see you if I’m alive. I’ll see you if I don’t run away. I’ll see you if I don’t curl into a ball on the floor next to Victor, hugging my knees.”
I turned off the phone and looked at Victor.
Ames walked in from the other room and said, “Beer, Dunkin’ Donuts, or ice cream?”
Victor shrugged. He didn’t care.
“Make it doughnuts,” I said.
Ames left, and I picked up the phone.
I called the number Greg Legerman had given me. A woman answered after three rings. I said I wanted to talk to Greg. She politely said she would get him. About thirty seconds later he came on the phone with a wary, “Yes?”
“Do your Cheech Marin for me again,” I said. “It’s bad, but probably a little funny for anyone who has a sense of humor.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You called me,” I said. “Told me to stop looking for whoever killed Horvecki. Meet me at the Waffle Shop at eight tomorrow morning.”
Silence.
“You’re at a loss for words?” I said.
“I didn’t call you,” he finally said.
“I think I’ll just give your money back and continue to try to locate a reasonably sane world.”
“Tomorrow at eight. Waffle Shop on 301,” he said. “I’ll be there.”
I made one more call, to Dixie Cruise, and told her what I needed and what I would pay.
“I’ll work on it tonight,” she said. “Call me after ten tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” I repeated and turned off the phone.
Dixie was a waitress. She had just moved to the Appleby’s on Fruitville near I-75. Dixie was pert, energetic, in her thirties, and working online toward a business degree from the University of South Florida. Dixie was also a first-rate computer hacker with a small apartment in a 1920s apartment building on Ring-ling Boulevard.
When Ames returned, Victor took one plain, Ames had a double chocolate, and I had a strawberry iced. We ate, drank decaf coffee, and said nothing for the rest of the evening.
There was nothing to say.
5
The waffle shop is on Washington, also known as State Road 301 or just 301 to the locals. The shop is just before the point where 301 meets Tamiami Trail, known as 41 to the locals. It’s across from a car dealership, half a block from a McDonald’s, and another block from Sarasota High School. It was also a five-minute walk from where I now resided. It didn’t feel right yet for me to say I “lived” there. It probably never would.
The Waffle Shop is semi-famous. Elvis once stopped there. The sign outside says so. There’s a big poster of The King on the wall inside. He was a frequent topic of conversation.
There were regulars at the shop, which looked like it belonged in the 1950s without trying to create the illusion. There was a wraparound counter with red leatherette-covered stools. There were tables against the walls by the windows where morning cops, hearse drivers, car salesmen, high school teachers, truckers and deliverymen, and all kinds of people just hung out.
I sat on a stool and got a coffee from one of Gwen’s daughters, who served as hostesses, waitresses, and owners of the landmark.
For an instant, as I looked at Elvis, I felt like a regular. I did not want to be a regular anywhere, but such things happen.
“Carrots are bullshit,” said the old man who climbed up on the stool next to me.
I knew him. He was a regular. His name was Tim-Tim from Steubenville. Tim said he was sixty, but he was closer to eighty and looked it. He lived in an assisted living home a short walk away at the end of Brother Geenen Way. He spent as much time as he could at Gwen’s, reading the newspaper, shaking his head, and trying to lure people into conversations about eliminating the income tax. Almost everything he said about income tax, abolishing drug laws, and eliminating gun laws ended with the punctuation, “damn government.”
He always had a newspaper and commented on stories ranging from war and devastation around the world to cats and dogs waiting, hoping to be adopted before they had to be urged to pass away, making room for others to wait their turn.
“Do animals have souls?” Tim asked, the blue veins undulating over his thin bones.
“I don’t know.”
“What about carrots?”
“Carrots don’t have souls,” I said.
“What’s the matter with your Cubs?” Tim asked in one of his familiar dancing changes of subject.
“They’re cursed,” I said as he was served his coffee and a slice of pineapple upside down cake.
“I’ll drink to that,” he said, lifting his coffee mug and bringing it to his lips.
“No,” I said.
“I won’t drink to that?”
“No,” I said. “Animals don’t have souls.”
The coffee was hot. I could see the steam rising, feel the heat with my fingers through the porcelain mug. I hadn’t drunk any yet, even after adding milk from the miniature aluminum pitcher. My grizzled counter partner took no such precautions. He sipped, made an “uhh” sound to indicate he had made a mistake, and put the coffee down.
“You do that all the time,” I said.
“I do what?”
“Add the milk and then remember that you don’t like it with milk.”
“My problem,” he said. “Just like Jesse always said when she was living-that I don’t learn from my mistakes. I’m just doomed to keep repeating them. What about people? They have souls?”
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“Cubs, here’s to you.”
He raised his mug and drank more cautiously this time after having cooled down his coffee with the milk I had passed to him. He called me “Cubs” because of the Chicago Cubs cap I wore. I wore the cap for several reasons. First, it was a memento of my affection for the Cubs. Catherine had bought it at Wrigley Field one afternoon when she and I had taken the day off to catch a game with the Pirates. The Cubs had won 4–1. Catherine had bought it for me. I had put it on her head. She looked cute in it. It made her smile. Now she was dead and I wore the cap. Second, it covered my increasing baldness. It was not a receding hairline. It was a steady retreat. Vanity? Maybe. I didn’t take time to analyze it. Old bald men look younger in hats. They don’t necessarily look better. Men my age who wear baseball caps either look tough or would like to be thought of as athletic.