“I see it.”
“I can get an envelope out of that right now,” he said. “Inside of the envelope is five thousand dollars. Cash. I’ll get it for you now. You take it and disappear till after the commission meeting.”
I didn’t answer. Another player, this one tiny and at least seventy, was at the plate.
“That’s Cal,” Hoffmann said. “He’s from Chicago, too. Big Cubs fan. You should meet him.”
Hoffmann wasn’t looking at me but he understood my silence.
“There are two envelopes in that bag,” he said. “Each with five thousand dollars. They could be in your pocket in ten seconds.”
I still didn’t answer.
“Okay,” said Hoffmann, looking at me now. “What if that ten thousand dollars is a payment to you for your services. I have a job for you in…what’s your favorite city?”
“Sarasota,” I said.
“New Orleans,” Hoffmann said, ignoring my answer. “You’ll like New Orleans. Go there till Saturday or Sunday and find someone for me.”
“Who?”
“The fill-in piano player at Preservation Hall,” he said. “The mime in front of the church in that square near the place where everyone goes for those puffy things covered in sugar. Find me the best antique dealer in the French Quarter.”
“Why?”
“Why? To get you the hell out of town, Fonesca. Can you use ten thousand dollars?”
“Yes, but I don’t need it.”
He sighed deeply and looked down at the ground. We were standing in wet red dirt. It would take me time to get my shoes clean.
“I’ve got a client,” I said. “I’ve got two clients.”
“Remember my man Stanley?” Hoffmann asked.
“Vividly,” I said.
“He has no temper at all. He reads a lot, works out a lot, practices with a wide range of firearms, and has been diagnosed by competent analysts both in prison and out as being violent and sociopathic.”
“Must get invited to a lot of parties,” I said as Cal from Chicago sent a blooper into short right field and moved surprisingly quickly to first base.
“He does what I tell him to do,” Hoffmann said, applauding Cal’s hit. “Sometimes he does things he thinks I want without telling me. Sometimes he…” Hoffmann’s voice trailed off. “Sometimes he makes terrible mistakes.”
I had the feeling that I was seeing the real Kevin Hoffmann for the first time. His face lost its tightness, his eyes closed, his head went down. I knew that look. It was grief. Real grief. But for who? William Trasker? Mrs. Trasker? And why had mention of Stanley triggered it?
“He’s very loyal,” Hoffmann said, lifting his head and opening his eyes, his smile returning, his false front restored. “You don’t want to deal with Stanley.”
“I don’t want any more literary lessons from him,” I said.
“You don’t want any kind of lessons from him,” Hoffmann said.
A bite of bitterness? Did I detect the hint of it in his voice? Whatever it was, it was gone when he said, “Take the envelopes, drive to New Orleans, come back Saturday or Sunday.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I’ve got a dinner date for Saturday.”
“So, money doesn’t interest you?” Hoffmann said.
“Not very much.”
“Threats don’t bother you?”
“Not a lot.”
Hoffmann gave me a hard look.
“You need a good psychiatrist, Fonesca,” he said.
“I’ve got a psychologist,” I said. “I have an appointment with her in about twenty minutes.”
“Kevin,” someone called from the bench. “You’re up.”
Hoffmann reached for a bat leaning against the fence.
“You do know you’ve been threatened?” Hoffmann said. “I mean you have enough contact with reality to know that much?”
“Offered a bribe first and then threatened,” I said.
“I’m up,” he said, and bat in hand, jogged to the plate.
I watched him hit a ball foul, miss a pitch, and then hit another ball foul. Rules of the game. Foul ball with two strikes and you were out. Hoffmann threw his bat on the ground and looked at me with less than love in his heart for his fellow man.
I checked my watch. I had fifteen minutes.
I drove west on Seventeenth to Orange, went south, turned right on Main, and found a parking spot on Palm Avenue next to an art gallery. I stopped for two coffees and two biscotti from Sarasota News amp; Books, and I was in Ann Horowitz’s office a minute early.
While she finished her early-morning appointment, I worked on my coffee and read an article on what quasars are in an old Smithsonian magazine. She was only ten minutes late, but she always made it up by giving me an extra ten minutes at the end of our session, which in turn meant the next client, patient, or lunatic would be equally late or later.
The man who came out of Ann’s closed office door wore a suit. He was short, fat, and moving quickly out the door, avoiding my eyes.
“Come in, Lewis,” she called from inside her office.
I went in and closed the door behind me. I had finished my biscotto in the waiting room while reading the four-year-old Smithsonian. I placed the white paper bag with the coffee and her biscotto on her desk.
“Chocolate?”
“Almond,” I said.
She nodded her approval as I sat in the recliner across from her.
“You’re wearing new earrings,” I said.
“My husband made them from stones we found on the beach,” she said, touching one of the earrings. “Crafted for hundreds of thousands of years by the sea. The ocean can be a great artist.”
I drank some coffee and she nibbled on her biscotto and took out her coffee.
“The operative word is ‘can,’” she said, smelling the coffee. “The ocean also produces a near eternity of shapeless, colorless rocks and shells. Nature is not selective. It creates the neutral, the beautiful, and the ugly. It is up to humans to search for the beautiful.”
“You’ve cheered me already,” I said.
“I can see that. Jokes,” she said, taking a sip of coffee. “You have jokes for me?”
“Someone just threatened to kill me,” I said.
“New symptom?” she asked. “Paranoia?”
“No,” I said and explained.
“All the more reason you should have jokes,” she said.
I took out my notebook and flipped to the pages where I had written the jokes people had told me over the past three days.
“I don’t tell jokes well,” I said.
“Why does that not surprise me?” she said. “You tell. I’ll listen.”
“I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather did,” I read. “Not screaming and yelling like the other people in the car he was driving.”
“You find that funny?” Ann asked.
“You didn’t even smile,” I said.
“I’ve heard it before. You think it’s funny?”
“I…no.”
“Tell me another one.”
“I went home last night and discovered that someone had replaced everything I own with exact duplicates.”
“And what do you think about that one?”
“I like it.”
“But is it funny? Never mind. Tell me another.”
“A new patient got an emergency visit with a therapist,” I read. “The patient said, ‘Doctor, I’m depressed. I lost my wife. My children hate me. I hate myself. Sometimes I have suicidal thoughts.’ ‘Well,’ said the therapist, ‘the world’s greatest comedian, Santoro, is in town tonight for one performance. Get a ticket to see him.’ ‘But, Doctor,’ the patient said, ‘I am Santoro.’ You’ve heard that one, too?”
“Yes,” Ann said, working on her coffee. “You find it funny?”
“Sad,” I said.
“Have you noticed people tell you sad jokes?”
“I seem to have a gift. You want more jokes?”
She nodded her head to indicate that I should go on.
“Mrs. Quan Wong had a baby. The nurse brought the baby in for the Wongs to see and said, ‘The baby is fine,’ the nurse said. ‘But there’s something wrong. This can’t be your baby.’ ‘Why not?” asked Mr. Wong. ‘Because,’ said the nurse, ‘two Wongs don’t make a white.’”
“You like that one?” Ann said, wiping crumbs from her fingers.