The biker, his mouth full of chocolate candy, said, “Hey, Billy, you settle this for us. Ace says that’s Ella Fitzgerald. I say it’s Peggy Lee.”
I didn’t hear Billy’s answer.
I worked at my sandwich. It was overdone but hot. Just the way I like it. The onions were undergrilled but hot. Just the way I like them. The coleslaw was too sweet, just the way I like it. A feel-good meal as a reward for a job badly done.
“Saw your car in the lot, the one you’re renting,” came the voice across the table.
Digger was sitting there in a white shirt, a wide red tie, and a blue jacket at least one size too large. His face was pink and clean-shaven. He didn’t look happy.
“Didn’t get the job?”
“I got it. You should have seen me. It all came back. Kept my back straight, led like George Raft, didn’t miss a beat, smiled like a waiter at a fancy restaurant. Even tested me on the bolero. I think maybe I was a professional dancer or something when I was younger. Can’t remember, but you should have seen me, Fonesca. I almost had them clapping their hands.”
“Then why don’t you look happy?” I said with a mouthful of steak sandwich.
“You don’t look happy either. But you never do. When you see that guy in the mirror, don’t you ever tell him something to pep him up?”
“So, you didn’t take the job.”
“I took it,” Digger said. “By God, I took it and I’ll be there on Friday and I will dance with old ladies and I will smile and I will drink unspiked punch and eat little sandwiches and collect my fifteen dollars for just showing up, an additional five if I do a good job. I’ve taken the first small step back to respectability and I don’t think I like it much.”
“Give it a chance,” I said.
“I will. But I don’t know if my brain can take it. You gonna eat all those fries?”
“Half of them.”
He reached over and took three at a time. I asked what he wanted to drink.
“A beer, like you.”
“I thought you didn’t drink?”
“A beer ain’t drinking,” Digger said, reaching for more fries.
I ordered him a beer and handed Billy a five-dollar bill when he brought it over.
“I’ve got three bucks left of the money you gave me this morning,” Digger said. “Mind if I spend it on a place to flop tonight?”
“No.”
“One more favor. Can I hang my jacket, shirt, tie, and the rest in your place? Want them clean for Friday.”
“Sure.”
“This morning as I recall you asked me for a joke. I think I told you one. You want to hear another?”
“No,” I said. “I’ve had enough fun for one day.”
The next day was even more fun. The phone woke me at six in the morning. I ignored it but couldn’t get back to sleep. I looked at the ceiling, mouth dry, trying to focus on nothing. That usually worked. It didn’t this time.
The phone rang again at six-twenty and at ten to seven. I got up. I was wearing a pair of faded black boxer shorts with a pattern of white airplanes. I knew I needed a shave. I always need a shave. Maybe I’d grow a beard. I remembered my grandfather Tony when he had a beard. He kept it trim, made him look wise, but he told me once that it was harder to keep it looking good than it was to shave.
“Fonesca, are you there?” Kenneth Severtson’s voice came frantically. “For God’s sake, pick up the phone if you’re there.”
I picked up the phone.
“I’m here,” I said.
“They’re holding Janice,” he said. “Just got a call from her. The kids are in some kind of place they keep children.”
“Where are you?”
“In my car, on the way to Orlando. What the hell happened?”
Paranoia is the patron saint of the guilty. I didn’t think anyone had the time or inclination to bug my phone but I wanted to take zero chances.
“Did you get the message I left you yesterday?”
“Yes,” he said impatiently. “Stark killed himself. Well, the Orlando police say they’re not sure. They’ve been badgering Janice. What the hell did she do?”
“Looks like she got herself involved with a violent alcoholic,” I said. “Your partner.”
“So now it’s my fault? Is that what you’re saying? You’re saying it’s my fault. The hell with it. I’m not forgiving her, not for what she’s done to my kids. I talked to my lawyer. I’m getting Ken and Sydney and bringing them back home and Janice can…I don’t know.”
“Stark killed himself,” I said.
“In front of my children?”
“No.”
“Janice was there?”
“Yes.”
I heard the sound of a horn and Kenneth Severtson cursed bluely and loud.
“That son of a bitch,” he said.
I didn’t know if he meant Stark or the other driver.
“Get her a lawyer,” I said. “You know any in Orlando?”
“Why should I…No…Yes, a group that does tax law.”
“Call them. Ask them for a criminal lawyer. See if someone can meet you. Has your wife been charged with anything?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t care.”
“You care,” I said.
“Okay, okay. I’ll call the lawyer,” he said. “What are you going to do?”
“Make a call, get back to Orlando, talk to the police.”
“And tell them what?”
“My story,” I said.
He gave me his cell-phone number. I wrote it on the pink Post-it pad on my desk and told him I’d call him back.
I called the Reverend Wilkens. This time I got an older-sounding woman. I told her I had to speak to Wilkens and who I was. He was on a few seconds later.
“Mr. Fonesca, you’ve found William?”
“I have and I haven’t. He’s at Kevin Hoffmann’s house, too sick to be moved according to Hoffmann and a doctor named Obermeyer. You know this Obermeyer?”
“No,” he said. “Do you believe Hoffmann? What does Trasker’s wife say about all this?”
“She says she believes Hoffmann.”
“Do you believe Hoffmann?”
“I don’t believe Hoffmann and I don’t believe her,” I said. “I’ve got to get to Orlando. I should be back by late in the afternoon. I’ll talk to her. I don’t know if she’ll cooperate.”
“My questions are simple,” Wilkens said. “Why is William Trasker in that house? Why isn’t he at home or in the hospital if he is ill? Is he too ill to come to the Friday-night meeting if he is, indeed, that ill? It does not have the odor of honest concern on the part of Mr. Hoffmann. Hoffmann wants Midnight Pass open.”
“I know. He told me,” I said. “He also not very tactfully told me that he’d break my head with a genuine Babe Ruth bat or have a man named Stanley shoot me if I didn’t stop bothering him.”
“Is it essential that you go to Orlando? We are running out of time.”
“It is essential,” I said. “I’ll call you when I have more.”
Three hours later I was back in Orlando and with a few questions found the detective who was handling Stark’s death. His name was Tenns, Sergeant Jacob Tenns. He came out to meet me in the waiting room at the station, where people sat with their heads in their hands, their briefcases on their laps, their eyes open and looking at nothing or their eyes shut and looking at too much.
Tenns was a throwback. Lean, dark slacks, suspenders, white shirt, and a tie. His glasses were perched on the end of his narrow nose. His hair was dark, combed straight back. He wore broad suspenders. He was trying out for a part in Inherit the Wind.
“You Fonesca?” he said approaching me.
“Yes.”
“You made a statement the other day about Andrew Stark’s death,” he said.
“Yes,” I said.
“Officer who took your statement was given a reprimand,” Tenns said. “You should have been held as a material witness till a detective talked to you. Follow me.”
I did, through a wooden door, down a narrow corridor to a small room with a table surrounded by six chairs. There was a humming refrigerator on one side of the room and two vending machines on the other: one gave out Cokes and Sprite if you inserted seventy-five cents or a dollar bill, the other gave out candy if you put in a dollar or correct change. Along the wall facing us as we entered was a counter and sink with closed cupboards over it. A half-full Mr. Coffee pot sat in one corner of the counter with Styrofoam cups nestling inside each other.