“Mr. P. gave me some stuff. Made me feel good. I thought I knew what he wanted but I wasn’t even close. I was hoping he was dead, wishing it. You know what I mean?”
“You know this guy’s first name?”
“Tony, I think,” she said. “Tony Spiltz. I’ve got a good memory. I don’t feel so good.”
“Can you clean yourself up?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Do your best and do it fast,” I said.
“I don’t want to be alone,” she said.
“I’ll go with you,” Ames said, putting a hand on her shoulder.
He led her back and through the door to the bedroom. I stood looking down at Tony Spiltz and wondered what had happened. Where did Pirannes go? Why did he go? Was he with Dwight Handford? Had someone called the police?
Spiltz had no answers. I looked for the gun that had killed him. I did it carefully and wondered what, if anything, Ames or I had touched. No gun.
When Adele emerged ten minutes later, she looked like a fourteen-year-old girl. No, she looked even younger without makeup, with her hair combed out and in a pair of tight jeans and a loose-fitting black sweater that probably belonged to John Pirannes.
“Let’s go,” I said.
“I’ll need the slicker, child,” Ames said.
“I’m not so cold now,” she said, handing him the slicker.
He didn’t put it on. He wrapped it around the shotgun and put it over his arm. We left, Adele between us, and I closed the door with my shirt. It probably wasn’t necessary, but some young cop or security guard might be very smart.
We didn’t meet anyone till the elevator stopped at the thirteenth floor. An old couple wearing robes and carrying towels got on with a small boy in a bathing suit carrying an inflated yellow plastic duck.
The old couple looked at us. The woman looked with concern at Adele.
“You all right?” she asked.
“Fine, ma’am,” Adele answered.
The woman looked at me and Ames. Adele moved close to Ames, who put his arm around her. This seemed to satisfy the woman.
“Did you notice what floor we got on from?” said the thin old man, with a knowing grin. “Thirteen. Most buildings don’t have a thirteen. Actually, they do, but it’s fourteen, if you understand.”
“I do,” I said.
“We live on thirteen,” he said. “We even pay less for our place because people don’t want to live on thirteen. But if they’re on fourteen, they’re on thirteen.”
“Sol,” the old woman warned.
The little boy made a popping sound with his lips and moved the plastic duck around as if it were an airplane. We came to the lobby and the elevator doors opened. The old couple and the boy went left. We went through the front door.
To our right, where the guard gate was, beyond a stand of bushes and short palm trees, a light was flashing. My guess was that it was a police car. I didn’t need a guess about where they might be going, though I wondered who had called them.
We moved right around the building and headed for the beach.
The old man was still in the pool alone. The beach was crowded. We hurried but didn’t run. Only the joggers were running, and we didn’t look like joggers. We found our way back past barbecue pit and pond. The heron was gone.
We pushed through the first line of bushes and stayed back behind the front stand of flowers and trees as we moved toward the mail. We made it in a few long minutes and got in the Geo.
“Where are we going?” Adele asked from the backseat, where Ames sat at her side, an arm around her shoulder.
“I’m thinking about it,” I said.
I couldn’t take her to Flo. Handford knew about Flo, had called Beryl there. She couldn’t go to the Texas, and she sure as hell couldn’t come to my place.
“He should have taken me back,” Adele said behind me as I drove well within the speed limit past the entrance to Mote Marine Laboratory to the left.
“He maybe should have just fuckin’ left me with Tilly,” she said. “Tilly isn’t all that bad. He’s not like Mr. P. I never met anybody like Mr. P.”
When we got back to the mainland, I pulled into the parking lot at the Denny’s a few doors north on the Trail. I had a phone call to make and I wanted to get a good look at the ’98 blue Buick that had followed me from the parking lot on the beach.
10
Adele sat across from Ames in the booth at Denny’s. Ames had left his “hog leg” in the car. Adele ordered a cheeseburger special, chili and a strawberry shake. She wasn’t trembling, but there was a vacant look about her while she waited for her food.
Denny’s was crowded. The waitress was in a hurry. I ordered a bowl of chowder, and Ames wanted nothing but coffee.
When we had first seated Adele in the booth, Ames and I had stood away for a moment. I had told him we were being followed. He said he knew.
We got lucky in our Choice of booths. Through the window you could see the parking lot and the Buick. Its engine was off, but no one emerged. Ames nodded toward the window to let me know he would keep an eye on the car, whose windows were darkly tinted.
I made my phone call and went back to the booth to tell Adele what we had to do. My chowder was waiting, complete with a small basket of crackers. Adele was alternating between chili and burger, washing them down with the shake. She didn’t seem to be getting any great joy from the feast.
“What kind of car does your father drive?” I asked, crumbling crackers into the white chowder.
“Dwight has a pickup with a tow winch,” she said. “No car.”
“Dwight?” I asked.
“Always call him Dwight,” she said, her mouth full. “Since I was… before he went away when I was a kid, and now.”
I didn’t pursue this conversational line, but went on with, “What kind of car does Pirannes drive?”
She stopped chewing and looked through the window into the parking lot. She was a bright kid.
“Big, black,” she said. “I think it’s a Lincoln or something.”
“Tilly, what does he drive?”
She put down her sandwich. There was a touch of ketchup on her upper lip.
“What’s this about?” she asked.
“Being careful,” I said. “If any of them show up, I want to know about it as early as I can.”
“You know Tilly?” she asked.
“I met him-last night.”
She nodded, took another bite and looked at Ames, who pointed to his upper lip and then at Adele. She got the message and used her napkin.
“Tilly drives a sort of sky-blue Jap car with one of those black canvas-like tops. Looks like a convertible but it ain’t… isn’t. It’s not all that new. He got it used. Looks good. He keeps it clean. Tilly is not a big-money dealer on the North Trail, if you know what I mean.”
“He and your father get along?” I asked, working on my chowder.
“I guess,” she said. “You know something? I don’t feel much like talking or thinking.”
I nodded in understanding and said,
“Then you can listen. I just called Sally Porovsky.”
Adele took on the look of a trapped cat. Her hands were on the table. She was ready to get up and run, but since she was smart, she knew better under the circumstances.
“I told her I found you,” I said. “She knows about your father, about Pirannes. I didn’t tell her about the dead man, Spiltz. I don’t want to put her on the spot. If you want to tell her, fine.”
“My mother’s really dead?” she said, trying to think something through.
“Yes,” I said.
“Then I don’t have to go away. I can live with my father.”
“Adele,” I said. “Your father is a violent, abusive child molester. He abused you. He beat me up. He sold you to a pimp and he probably killed your mother.”
“You don’t mean ‘abused,’” she said. “You mean he screwed me.”
“Did he?”
The wary cat looked at me and Ames.
“No way,” she said, shaking her head. “He’s good to me.”
“He sold you,” I repeated as the waitress reappeared and said, “Anything else?”
“Pie,” said Ames. “Apple if it’s fresh. Nothing if it’s not.”