Gloria was in her swimming pool.
She was still wearing her midnight-prowler gear, minus the watch cap, so the red hair was a spiky halo. The pool was about eight feet deep at this end, and light and shadows wiggled on the surface, making it hard to tell exactly what I was seeing. Gloria appeared to have a spear of some kind through her chest. Her eyes and mouth were wide open. The alarmed girl on the pool apron with the sky behind her must have looked remote and useless from Gloria’s perspective.
“Turn around, dammit.”
I turned and came face to face with someone I hadn’t expected to see again. He wore a few days’ gray stubble, hair and brows were salt-lightened, cheeks were deeply sunken. He was holding a sawed-off shotgun. His eyes were hard and, for just an instant, murderous.
Still, it was the face I knew best, and missed most.
I said, “Hi, Dad.”
I wanted to hug him and blubber as if I were ten years old. But I was twenty-two and knew I had to make adult judgments about people, even him.
“Where did you get the shotgun?”
“From the house. Meggie, I heard you were down here. You look good. How’s your mom?”
Dating someone stable, I almost said. No point in taking cheap shots.
“Why were you in the house?”
“Looking for Gloria.”
“She’s in the pool.”
He took two steps, looked, muttered, “That’s great.” I couldn’t tell how he meant it.
We did our catching-up in one of the cottages. Dad perched on a chair where he could watch the yard. He was impressed that an old drinking buddy had towed the KeyHole, bemused that I was living aboard at the same slip he had used. He asked how I was making a living, and when I told him, he laughed a little. But the laugh was feeble. For the first time, he looked not just old but worn out.
“What happened to you?” I asked.
“Gloria and I took the boat out, and she pushed me overboard. She and I were — well, you know, spending time together. We had a lot in common.”
“I see,” I said crustily. Loyalty to Mom and all that.
“I was doing a little job, keeping an eye on some of the locals here. Gloria saw an angle.” He shrugged. “I was in the water two days, got picked up by a freighter headed for Tampico. It took a couple of months in the hospital before I was half-fit. One bullet messed me up a little.”
“One bullet?”
“She shot me a few times. Thorough lady, when she put her mind to something.”
“What did she do with the KeyHole?”
“Probably set it adrift a few miles out and took her Zodiac. She brought the inflatable in case we wanted to explore the mangroves. Nobody knew we’d gone out together.”
“She told me last night she was looking for Hector Avila.”
“Yeah?”
I told him about what had happened in town, and about Gloria and Parker’s visit.
“Describe the guy calling himself Parker.”
“Bearded, heavy, six-one, big wedding band, talk of not being housebroken, officially retired, called me kid.” I added, “He said you would be sorry you didn’t go out in combat.”
“But I did.” His smile was ragged. “The Parker description could fit a half-dozen guys I can think of. If he’s any good, he changes his appearance anyway.”
“According to Parker, Avila is running stolen boats to Mexico. He and Gloria said they were working an insurance angle.”
“Do you believe that?”
“No. Avila was supplying art to Hewitt’s gallery.”
“Avila’s not in the art trade. He launders money for wise guys in Miami. He uses a boatyard, Hewitt’s gallery, probably a dozen other businesses that will do anything for ten percent. Gloria decided to take him out. She offered me first crack at the deal.”
“You didn’t agree?”
“I told her that messing with Avila was a fast way to get dead.”
“Tell me how the money-laundering works.”
“A guy like Anders Hewitt picks up a bunch of junk art, doesn’t matter what sort, creates a history. Supposedly it’s on consignment from an importer. It’s garbage. In a real sale, you couldn’t unload it for five grand. But he writes up a bill of sale for a hundred thousand, runs the money through his bank account, keeps ten or fifteen as his fee. Avila gets eighty-five thousand of his clients’ money back. Bingo, the capital is on deposit in Lauderdale or Miami for an import company owned by the wise guys. It started off as maybe racetrack skim or vigorish. Now it’s clean enough for casual inspection. The gallery owner’s biggest problem is deciding whether to report the fifteen thousand as income.” He yawned hugely. “I’ve been running on empty for a week. Got in twenty hours ago on a shrimp boat. Can I crash on the KeyHole?”
“Parker knows about the boat.” I told him about Sergeant Irvington ransacking Parker’s room. “He also had a visit from Lieutenant Kilgallen, who slipped out the back way like he didn’t want to be seen. Barry says Kilgallen is Deputy Chief LeMoye’s man.”
“Larry Kilgallen is one of the locals I was asked to watch.”
“Who asked you?”
He cracked an ugly grin. “People who knew I would work cheap. I don’t think they know Parker’s involved. And I never got a chance to tell them about Gloria.”
He slept for three hours while I kept watch. None of Gloria’s occasional boys was in residence. Nobody came around looking for her — or to clean the swimming pool. The only person besides us who knew about the body was the person who had put it there.
While he slept, I kept looking at him. I thought about calling Mom with the news, but she had had enough of this man for one lifetime. What had started out as heroic and romantic had gone bad. He had signed on during the Cold War believing everything, and had ended up believing nothing. And now... he had been in town twenty hours. Twenty hours ago, Bennell, Hewitt, and Gloria had been alive.
He got up late in the afternoon. When he’d had a shower and some coffee and food, we talked about stuff that had nothing to do with the case. He didn’t apologize for being a lousy husband or absent father. He had taught me to sail, and to shoot, and maybe to be too independent. Looking at me, he said he thought he’d done a good job.
After dark, he went into the water and pulled Gloria out. Wrapping her in a sheet, I saw more than I wanted to. The shaft through her body was a long African tribal knife, but it hadn’t made her only wound. She had been tortured. I went behind a tree and threw up.
Dad carried the body into the main house. Then we spent two hours in Bahama Village, making the rounds of places where he had friends. Twice we heard that a fat white guy without much money also was asking around. But nobody had seen Hector Avila in more than a week. That crazy Cuban? Oh, yessir, Mr. Danny, he likes them Chinese prostitutes upstairs of the bike rental. Yessir, that’s Hectorcito, same one as cut Shem the Tailor’s hamstring, Shem who specializes in pharmaceuticals.
It was a matter of time before Parker heard we were out there.
About one-thirty in the morning, a kid with a shaved head, awning-striped shirt, black trousers, shiny black tap shoes, and red suspenders came up to the bar at Puccini’s and handed Dad a note. The boy waited until I gave him five dollars, then ran out the door. Dad showed me the note, which said: 4 A.M. Room 407.
“That’s Parker’s hotel room.”
He nodded.
“We don’t want to go there,” I said.
“You’re not going. Parker and I’ve got business. Let’s camp at the boat for a while.”
I sat on deck in the dark while Dad used the head. He came topside carrying the knapsack I usually kept my paints in. Without asking I knew he had a gun in it. Under my breath, I said, “I’m coming with.”