“Because,” I said, “you’d remind me that I’m responsible for you all day. You’d tell me that being with me when I’m working is the most important thing in your life.”
“I’m into girls now,” he said. “Don’t overestimate your charisma.” He hit each syllable in the word.
“I’m impressed.”
“You’re learning,” Darrell said as Victor drove to Siesta Key.
“I’m entering a new phase,” I said.
And I was pretty sure I was.
The Ocean Terrace Resort Hotel was on Siesta Beach. It had a swimming pool, but it was no resort. It was a one-story dirty green stucco line of thirty-five rooms and a slightly moldy-smelling carpet in the hallway. The Ocean Terrace lived on the spillover from the bigger, fancier, more up-to-date and upscale motels that called themselves resorts and sold postcards proclaiming that they were the place for Northerners, Canadians, Frenchmen, Germans, Norwegians, and Japanese to spend a week, or the whole winter. The Ocean Terrace offered nothing but its own existence.
The desk clerk, a woman with an unruly pile of papers in front of her and a head of equally unruly dyed red hair looked up at us as we entered the lobby. She was maybe in her fifties, clear-skinned, buxom, and looking as if she had suffered a few setbacks in the last ten minutes.
“What have we here, the road company of the Village People? A baseball player, a cowboy, a Chinese guy, and a black kid,” she said.
We didn’t answer her.
“Sorry. That was uncalled for,” she said. “We have no vacancies and you appear to have no luggage. Would you like a bottle of water?”
“Sure,” said Darrell.
“Rachel Olin,” I said.
The woman bent down out of sight and then came up with a bottle of water which she handed to Darrell, who said, “Thanks.”
“A guest,” I said. “Rachel Olin.”
“Checked out about an hour ago,” the woman said.
“She pay with a credit card?” I asked.
“Cash. Who are you?”
“Her husband is looking for her,” Ames said.
“He’s pining for her,” said Darrell.
She looked at Victor but he had nothing to add.
“Left with a man,” she said.
“She call him anything?” Ames asked.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“What did he look like?” I asked.
“Who are you?” she asked.
I produced my process server license card and handed it to her.
“You look different in that baseball cap,” she said, handing the card back. “These gentlemen are your backup?”
“Ames is my partner,” I said. “I look after Darrell on Saturdays.”
“And I killed his wife,” Victor said.
She turned her attention to Victor, who was definitely not smiling.
“The guy she went with was a little older than you maybe,” she said. “Good shape. Nice looking.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes,” she said. “He had a patch over his left eye.”
“Thought he left town,” Ames said from the front seat as Victor drove through Siesta Key Village, avoiding collision with shopping bag-laden tourists.
“So did I,” I said.
“Who?” asked Darrell.
“His name is Jeff Augustine,” I said.
“He kidnapped her?” asked Darrell.
“I don’t know. Maybe. Doesn’t look that way,” I said.
“He’s not the upchuck who shot me, is he?”
“Someone shot him, too,” Ames said.
“Fonesca, what is going on?” Darrell asked, turning in his seat to face me as fully as he could.
“I’m not sure,” I said.
“Can’t do no better than that?” he asked.
“Can’t do any better than that,” I said. “I’m not sure, but I’m getting some ideas.”
“Good ones?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where are we going?”
“To the home of D. Elliot Corkle,” said Ames.
“Why?”
“So he can give you a handy dandy super automatic CD sorter which normally sells for nineteen ninety-five,” I said.
“I don’t need a CD sorter,” Darrell said.
We were crossing the bridge off the Key.
“Don’t worry,” said Ames, “he’s got lots of things he likes to give away.”
Ames told Victor how to get to Corkle’s. When we hit the mainland, Victor turned north on Tamiami Trail.
“Victor,” I said. “Would you do me a favor?”
“Yes.”
“Stop telling people you killed my wife.”
“But I did.”
“You may want to hear it, but other people don’t.”
“You don’t want me to say it, I won’t.”
“I don’t want you to say it to anyone but me when you feel you have to.”
“I’ll remember,” he said.
There were no cars parked in front of Corkle’s or in his driveway, but that didn’t mean no one was home. If he had told me the truth, Corkle didn’t leave his house. Doctors, barbers, dentists, I’m sure, came to him. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had an operating room somewhere behind the walls.
The last time I was in Corkle’s home, Ames stole the Ronnie documents, and I won a few dollars playing poker. This was not a place I wanted to be.
“Ames, find a way in the back,” I said. “See if you can find her.”
Ames looked straight ahead. Victor looked at the steering wheel and Darrell said, “No way. You said he’ll give us something?”
“We’ll come up with something,” said Ames.
Ames stayed seated while I went up the path to the front door. A tiny lizard skittered in front of me. I pulled my foot back to keep from stepping on it. A flock of screaming gulls spun over the Gulf of Mexico about forty yards down the street to my right.
I took off my cap, put it in my back pocket and rang the bell. It didn’t take long, maybe forty seconds. Corkle opened the door.
“Ah, the thief in the baseball cap. Come in.”
He stepped back and looked over my shoulder at Victor’s parked car. Corkle was wearing blue slacks and an orange shirt with the words corkle’s radio to outer space. Under the lightning black letters was a picture of a plastic radio the size of a cigar box.
“You like the shirt?” he asked, leading me toward the office Ames had broken into. “On the way out, remind me and I’ll give you and your friends in the car one each.”
“Could you really hear outer space?” I asked as he opened the door to his office and let me pass.
“I’ll give you one. You try it. Let me know. Truth is, you can tune in outer space on any radio. You just won’t hear much of anything. But the CROS is perfect for AM and FM and has an alarm clock that plays ‘So in Love With You Am I.’ Have a seat.”
I sat, not across from him at his desk but at a table in the corner near a window.
Corkle picked up a glass sphere about the size of a softball. He shook it gently and held it up so I could see the snow under the glass gently falling on…
“Rosebud,” he said. “This is an exact replica of the one in Citizen Kane.”
He handed it to me.
“See the sled?”
“Yes,” I said handing it back. “You sold them for nine ninety-five?”
“No, I didn’t sell them. I had this one made to remind me not to go looking for other people’s Rosebuds. Are you looking for someone’s Rosebud, Lewis Fonesca?”
“My own maybe,” I said.
He made a sound I took as a sign of sympathy or understanding. Then he put the glass ball gently atop a dark wood holder on the table and began rummaging through the drawers of his desk.
“I don’t stay in this house because of any phobia,” he said. “I just don’t find things out there very interesting anymore. You know what I mean.”
“Yes.”
“I wasn’t asking a question,” he said, bouncing from the chair and looking at his shelves for something else to play with. “I know the answer.”
“What’s the answer?” I asked.
“Catherine,” he said. “Am I right or am I right?”
“You’re right,” I said. “Now I’ve got a question.”
“Want a drink? You drink Diet Coke, right? Or how about lemonade?”
“Not now, thanks. The Kitchen Master Block Set.”
“A good seller, not great, but good. Sold seventy-four thousand in 1981.”