“During tarpon season,” I said, “you’re always so busy. I hate to come up here and get in the way.”
“We look that busy?”
There were a couple of men locked in private conversation at the end of the bar. In the dining room, they’d pushed three tables together and a dozen or so cheerful-looking women were drinking iced tea and eating salads.
“Everybody’s out fishing the hill tide,” Annie said. “Tarpon’ll be on a sure ‘nuff feed. So if it wasn’t for you and the Sarasota Ladies’ Something-or-Another Book Club in there, this place’d be like a tomb. Jim and Karen done left. Hey-how about I read your fortune?”
Annie liked playing with tarot cards. It was her little hobby. I ordered a Bud Light and a bag of chips while I waited on one of Smitty’s grouper sandwiches. I proceeded to tell Annie my sad story as she laid out the tarot cards.
“I make an appointment to talk to this guy, I run my boat all the way up here, and the man’s not home.”
Annie was slapping the cards down on the bar, looking at them. “Geez, what a jerk,” she said. Her mind was on the cards. “You’re goin’ on a trip real soon. Pretty long trip, too. Where you goin’?”
“Colombia. I’ve got a morning flight out of Miami tomorrow on Avianca, so-” I stopped chewing for a moment. “How’d you know I was going somewhere?”
“You got the Three of Swords up next to the Ten of Swords. The last time I saw that, one of the Hamilton boys met a girl at the Pink Elephant and the two of them drove her mini-van all the way up north someplace. Dee-troit? Maybe Cleveland or a place like that. Those cards, they almost always mean some kinda trip.” As she spoke, she was looking at the checkered scarf I had placed on the bar. “Where’d you get that? I don’t think I’ve ever seen one like that before.”
I patted it. “Pretty, isn’t it?”
“Looks handmade. The checks, that berry color, looks like they mighta used natural dye.” Fingers at the top corners, she held it out for a more complete inspection. “Whew! Kinda smells funny, though, don’t it. What is that? Like a fish smell.”
I sniffed my fingers. Yep, sour and fishy.
She said, “Smells just like some of the tarpon fishermen come in here after a hard day. ’Course then, Doc, maybe that’s the way biologists smell, too. ’Scuse me if I don’t check.” She placed the scarf back on the bar. I balled it up and stuck it in my pocket.
I said, “Did you hear what I was telling you? This guy I had the appointment with, Frank Calloway, that’s his name. I was supposed to meet him at his house at six-thirty sharp. But like I told you, nobody home. Stood there like an idiot knocking on the door.”
“Knocking on the door?”
“Yeah.”
“What, he didn’t have a bell?”
The woman didn’t miss much.
I told her I’d tried the bell first, but figured it was broken because no one answered the door.
“I don’t know any Frank Calloway. Never even heard the name. Where’s he live?”
Gilchrist Avenue, I told her.
“Oh, one of the Beach-Fronters. But pretty new to the area, right? The old-timey Beach-Fronters, I know all them.”
“Yeah, I think the Calloways have only lived here a few months. Pretty rude, if you think about it. Have me run my boat all the way up here, then stand me up.”
“Doggone rude. But maybe he’s got a good reason for it. Maybe he had an emergency or something.” She was moving the cards around concentrating. “Say, Doc, tell me somethin’.”
“Sure.”
“You know anybody that just died recently?”
I stopped chewing again. “Why do you ask that?”
“‘Cause you got the Tower card faceup. The last time I saw the Tower card faceup the way she is now, it was for this tourist lady, and a friend of a friend of hers got dead somehow. Maybe zapped by a truck or something, but he sure ‘nuff passed away.”
“Is that right.”
“Yep. The Tower card, positioned the way she is now, it almost always means somebody’s ready to cash in their chips.”
I looked at the card. It was a gothic drawing of a medieval tower. The tower had been set afire… or caught in an explosion, perhaps. Stones were flying skyward in a starburst of orange flames.
“I don’t believe in this stuff, Annie. You know that.”
“Who says I believe it? Readin’ the cards, it’s just something to do for fun. How else am I gonna pass the time?”
She moved that card, placed a couple of more cards on the bar and stared at them while I sipped my beer.
From the dining room, I could hear the Sarasota ladies laughing about something. Playing some kind of game, it seemed. Friends and mothers, probably, who had the self-amused glow of contented, attentive wives. Good women getting together, having fun.
It was my guess that Skipper would not have been readily accepted by this nice group.
I looked up from the bar. Annie was backdropped by rows of liquor bottles. On the wall were old framed caricatures of local baseball players. The cartoons had been done years ago by Sam the three-fingered artist. Sam had lived down on the Keys, then one day just disappeared. Or so the story went.
I said, “Say, Annie, I was wondering about something: Have you seen a man roaming around town, a really huge guy. Like I’m talking maybe three hundred pounds, probably more, and a head the size of a football. With perfect hair, the kind that looks painted smooth. You would’ve noticed him.”
It was a reasonable question to ask. Not that it seemed likely that Calloway had been murdered. Wet tile, bare feet, blood on the marble countertop and hard kitchen floor. But it was a possibility and it didn’t hurt to check with one of the most observant women around if someone matching Merlot’s description was in town. Maybe the trip to Colombia, the entire postcard business, was a ruse just like Darkrume, Merlot’s alter ego.
Annie said, “A really fat guy, huh? Is that the man you come here to see? This Calloway fellow?”
“No. Another guy I thought I might run into up here.”
“The carnival people, the ones who winter up in Gibsonton? They drive down to the beach sometimes. The ones they call freak show people, but you couldn’t meet nicer folks. The Giant used to visit with the Monkey-Faced Lady. They’d stop in for lunch. Sometimes they’d bring a couple of the midgets along. And the one I think they call Crab Man, I just seen him. Maybe they got a Fat Man travelin’ with ‘em.”
“No, this isn’t a circus person.”
Her attention was back on the cards. “You sure no one you know died recently? A woman. I’d think it’d be a woman.”
That almost made me smile. Calloway lying stone-cold dead only a few blocks away and the cards were telling her it was a woman. “Yep,” I said, “I’m pretty sure I haven’t had any lady friends die recently.” Smitty had brought out my sandwich. I took my time, napkin on knee, getting ready to eat.
Annie’s a nice person. I could see the concern in her face. “Then I sure wish you wouldn’t take that trip. Colombia, you say? Some of the local boys have been down there a time or two. They say she can be a pretty dangerous place, Colombia.”
“Annie, you’re worrying for no reason. I already told you I don’t believe in fortune-telling. Tarot cards, palmreading, none of it.”
“I don’t either, Doc. I don’t either!” Now she was scooping up the cards. Seemed eager to get them back in their box. “I just read them for fun. They don’t mean nothin’. Not a blessed thing. Just fun.”
I was smiling at her. “Then why do you look so concerned?”
“‘Cause sometimes readin’ the cards is more fun than others. Now eat your grouper and let’s talk ‘bout something else.”
13
On the phone, Amanda Richardson said to me, “You’re talking about Frank? Why’re you being so nice, trying to get me to say that I still feel an emotional attachment to Frank?”
Smart woman… and exactly what I was trying to do. The reason was, she’d spoken badly of the man earlier and I didn’t want her saddled with additional guilt when I told her that Calloway was dead. Wanted to nudge her into saying some nice things before I gave her the news. Something else: I wanted to get a sense of how she felt for him deep down. She’d already told me her roommate wasn’t home, and I needed to decide whether I should contact one of her close friends first. Make sure the friend was nearby when I told her. Or maybe drive over there. It was only two hours to Lauderdale, and I was flying out of Miami International tomorrow anyway.