“Now just calm down, Keith,” Gerri snapped. “Until we find out exactly who leaked that information to the media I’m not having my guys taking any heat.”
“The media?” Keith Pelzner said, his tone rising to an outraged squeak as he spun back to face her. “Who gives a shit about the media? I’m talking about my son, for Chrissake. I’m talking about Trey.”
For a moment Gerri was silent. Whatever the phone call in the car had been about, I realised, that wasn’t it.
She glanced at Lonnie and Chris, neither of whom would meet her eyes. “OK,” she said in the falsely controlled voice of one who is hanging on to her temper by the slenderest of threads. “Now I’ve just had a call saying one of the top financial weekly magazines has run with an article blowing our supposedly top secret project wide open to the world, and laid the company open to hostile takeover bids that could see us all out of a job, which I personally feel is something we ought to ‘give a shit about’ huh?”
She emphasised the last few words using her fingers to scratch twin quotation marks in the air, casting a ferocious look in Keith’s direction, but he was just staring at her with his mouth open. “OK,” she went on. “Would anybody like to fill me in here on what else has gone wrong today?”
“Um, well Ms Raybourn,” Lonnie said. “Trey’s been AWOL outta school again and this time he’s been caught shoplifting down at the Galleria.”
Even Gerri was momentarily speechless to that one. “And where is he now?” she managed eventually.
“The cops are bringing him home,” Keith told her. “Jim and the limey have gone to smooth things over with the store but he shoulda had somebody watching him, for Chrissake. Anything could have happened!”
“Well now we have someone to watch him,” Gerri said, gesturing towards me. My heart sank.
Keith seemed to notice me for the first time. “Oh, hi. Keith Pelzner.” He wiped his hand on his shirt and held it out for me to shake. “And you are?”
“Charlie Fox,” I said, and couldn’t resist adding, “Another limey.”
He gave a nervous laugh but was saved from having to find a way out of that verbal hole by the appearance of another group of people at the double doors where the lanai joined the house. The same Hispanic maid who’d let us in came out first and pointed wordlessly in our direction. Two policemen strolled out next, with a junior version of Keith between them.
The kid had his head down and was dragging his feet, but insolence rolled off him like sweat. Whatever it was he’d been caught doing, he was totally unrepentant about it. His gaze floated briefly over me, the newcomer, and carried on without interest.
One of the cops came forwards and looked straight at Lonnie. “Mr Pelzner?” he asked. He had sergeant’s stripes on his sleeve and a belly big enough to ensure he had to use a mirror to check his fly.
The real Keith Pelzner stepped forwards. “I’m Pelzner,” he said, sounding resigned. “What’s he done this time, officer?”
“Well, sir,” the sergeant said, glancing round meaningfully. “Maybe we could talk about this some place more private?”
Keith sighed and started to lead them back towards the house.
“I think I better be in on this one,” Gerri said. “Lonnie, get Juanita to show Charlie her room, then contact Jim and find out what the score is.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Lonnie said smartly, and to me: “If you’d like to come this way?”
“So,” I asked as I fell into step alongside him, “does the kid do this kind of thing a lot?”
Lonnie rolled his eyes. “Oh yeah,” he said, a slight smirk forming as he recognised somebody further down the pecking order than he was. “But I guess you’ll find out soon enough – seeing as how you’re gonna be looking out for him.”
He wouldn’t say much more, handing me over to the Hispanic maid in the hallway. On the way to my room I tried to gently pump Juanita for information about how much trouble Trey Pelzner managed to get himself into, and on what kind of regular basis. Either her English wasn’t good enough to understand the question, or she was being loyally tight-lipped. She just led me to the appropriate doorway, waved me inside with another smile, and departed.
My room was in the block above the garaging, which makes it sound less luxurious than it really was. Suite would be a better description. The whole place was painted white with blue and pink trimmings which would have looked gaudy anywhere else but the subtropics. It had a tiled floor and the kind of finishing touches that have been added by an interior designer rather than a homeowner.
There was an ensuite just off the bedroom, with shallow but wide bath that I couldn’t have laid down in, but which had a huge shower head over the top of it. Everything had been done in white marble.
Another doorway from the bedroom led to a small sitting room, with a mammoth TV set and a balcony. I opened the wooden shutters and stepped out onto it, discovering that I was at the front of the house, but right over to one side. If I leaned out and craned my neck, I could just see the police cruiser parked next to Gerri Raybourn’s Mercedes.
As I watched, the two cops who’d brought Trey home walked down the steps and climbed into their car, their audience with Keith Pelzner over. The sergeant took the passenger seat, while the younger guy, clearly his junior, went round to the driver’s side.
Just before he got in, the second policeman unfolded a pair of expensive Oakley sunglasses and slipped them on.
Three
“OK, Trey,” I said, keeping my eyes on the road ahead of us. “I think now would be a really good time for you to tell me who’s after you.”
I was rewarded by another silent hunch of the boy’s shoulders. Still he wouldn’t meet my eyes.
I pressed my lips together and let my breath out slowly through my nose, willing the tension to escape with it. The technique didn’t work particularly well.
In reality, I didn’t need him to tell me who was after him. I already knew that. What I really needed to find out, though, was why.
We’d passed the exits for Boca Raton and Deerfield Beach. Maybe, once, they’d been individual places, but now they just seemed to be part of one huge urban sprawl. It started around about West Palm Beach and went all the way down to Miami in the south, swallowing Fort Lauderdale on the way. We were nearly at the junction for the house.
I knew I needed answers before we got there. Trey hadn’t spoken at all since we’d got back into the car. I was only too well aware how shock has its own way of shielding the mind, but I didn’t have time for gentle psychology.
“Is this a straightforward kidnap?” I wondered, more to myself than to the boy. “Was he planning on holding you to ransom?”
Trey snorted suddenly. “For what?” he demanded. “You gotta, like, have a lotta dough to be kidnapped, don’t you? We’re broke.”
“Broke?” I echoed blankly, thinking of the mansion and the wedge of cash in my pocket.
“Yeah,” he said, scathing at my lack of comprehension. “The people Dad works for rent the house and give him, like, an allowance. Like he was a kid or something.”
“Well somebody’s after you.” I said. “You do know who that guy was, don’t you?” It was almost a rhetorical question. After all, the kid had been brought home by Oakley man, sat in a car with him, been torn off a strip in front of him. How could Trey possibly have failed to recognise him?