“Violent bastard,” said the big man.
“Why did you fire him?”
“I told him to do something, go out on a call. He said he had somewhere he had to be. I was tied up with a hurry-up. Arch was off. I told Dwight to go. He started lipping off, came into my space. I had a wrench in my hand and more than a belly full of that son of a bitch.”
“You knew he had done time?” I asked.
“I did more hard time than he did, but that was some time back and for armed robbery. I’ve raised a family since. A friend asked me to give Prescott a chance. I did. He blew it.”
“You know where he is now?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “Don’t want to know. I’ve got a home address for him.”
“In Sarasota?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“I’ll take it, but I think it’s not where he really lives,” I said. “Did he ever say anything about his daughter?”
“Daughter?” asked the big man, looking at Arch.
“Adele,” said Arch.
“Yes,” I said.
“Adele is his daughter?” asked the big man.
“I figured,” said Arch.
“You didn’t tell me,” said the big man. “He had her with him two or three times. I figured she was his girlfriend, a little young, but
… the way he-”
“She’s fourteen,” I said. “Just barely.”
The big man looked at the stained cloth in his hand.
“My oldest is fifteen,” he said. “I got a late start. If old Dwight comes around, I just might go for the wrench.”
I handed him my card and said, “If he comes back and survives, I’d appreciate your giving me a call.”
“You a private detective?” he asked.
“Process server,” I said.
“You’ve got papers on Handford?”
I smiled and held out my hand.
“Fonesca,” I said.
“Lopez,” he answered, taking my hand.
Ames and I left. Dwight Handford Prescott, I thought, was developing a long pregame lineup of people who wanted him to disappear.
I considered going back to my office, but I wasn’t sure what or who might be waiting for me there.
Instead I went to the Texas Bar and Grill. It was late afternoon. There were only a few people having beers, maybe a bowl of chili here and there. The television over the bar faced toward the tables. There was a baseball game going on. It wasn’t baseball season. It looked like the rerun of a game between St. Louis and Chicago. People didn’t get tired of seeing Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa hitting home runs. It beat the news hands down.
Ames disappeared behind the bar and headed for his room.
Ed Fairing brought me a beer. I took it and moved to the telephone at the end of the bar. I called the DQ. Dave answered.
“It’s me,” I said.
“Lewis,” he said. “Business has been brisk. So have the inquiries about you and the visitors to your door. Some of the most recent visitors were the police. It’s a good day to be out on the water. There are times when I… forget it. And my suggestion is that you don’t come back here for a while. You know a guy with an Italian face, no offense, who looks like photographs of Tony Galento and drives a late-model Buick, blue?”
“I know who you mean.”
“He pulled in about half hour ago, bought a root-beer float then parked across the street in the acupuncture-and-dance-studio parking lot,” said Dave. “He finished the float and threw the container out the window. Then he sat there about twenty minutes and took off. I’m going to have to go there and pick up his mess. Can’t leave a Dairy Queen container littering a parking lot. And you wonder why I prefer the sea to land.”
“He ask about me?”
“No,” Dave said.
“If he comes back and asks, tell him… nothing.”
“That’s what I’ll tell him. Hold on. A lady with two kids is waiting for dinner.”
He was gone about two minutes.
Mark McGwire hit a home run. High-fives all around the field as he rounded third and headed for home with a big grin.
“Back,” said Dave. “I’m thinking of selling out. Or maybe I’ll hire Dawn full-time and semi-retire. I’m beginning to think I don’t like many grown-up people. You are an exception. Don’t ask me why. Can I ask a question?”
“Sure,” I said, taking a slow drink of beer.
“Who was the litterer across the street?”
“My guardian angel,” I said.
“Angels come in a variety of sizes, shapes and colors these days,” he said. “Some can fit on the head of a pin. Others can tuck the universe in their ears, though why they would want to do it I don’t know. Old Testament is filled with angels, warrior angels.”
“I’ve got to find a guy,” I said.
“We talking about a bad guy?”
“Very bad. Name’s John Pirannes. Ever hear of him?”
“I have,” said Dave.
“Know where he might be found or know anybody who knows where he might be found?”
“I understand he has a place at the Beach Tides on Longboat.”
“I have it on good authority that he has vacated the premises, at least for now.”
A thin black guy in a threadbare sports jacket sat down next to me. He nodded in greeting. His name, the only one I knew, was Snickers. Snickers had a sweet tooth and connections. Snickers was reasonably adept at breaking and entering.
“He has a boat docked at the Sunnyside Condos across Gulf of Mexico Drive and almost at the north tip of the Key,” said Dave. “I’ve seen him there. Big boat, can’t miss it. Sleeps who knows how many. Called the Fair Maiden.”
“Keep it to yourself,” I said.
“Lewis, it’s no big secret except from the cops,” he said. “Oh, I read that John Marshall article. I think I’ll pick up a biography of Marshall. I’ve got to go now. Customers.”
“Thanks, Dave.”
“Captain Pirannes is a good man to avoid,” he said. “Take care.”
He hung up and so did I.
“Snickers,” I said. “How’s it going?”
“Fine. Hell, not so fine. You want to buy me a beer or three?”
“Sure.”
Snickers was bobbing up and down to some inner music. He looked up at the television screen.
“Sosa’s the man,” he said.
I motioned to Ed to set up a beer for Snickers, who, considering the candy he consumed, must have been blessed with perfect genes. His teeth were even and white.
“He’s the man,” I said.
“Hey, that’s right. You’re from Chicago. So, what’s been going with you?”
“Well,” I said, getting halfway through my beer, “a tow-truck driver beat me up, a client was murdered in my office, I rescued a kid who had been sold to a pimp by her father, and I discovered a dead guy with a bullet in his head in an apartment on Longboat.”
Ed placed the beer in front of Snickers, who looked at me to see why I thought this was funny. But I was paying, so he smiled and shook his head.
“You know a pimp named Tilly?” I asked.
Snickers put down his beer and nodded knowingly.
After talking to Snickers and watching McGwire pop another home run, I dropped a five on the bar and left. Hell, it was going on Carl Sebastian’s bill.
I considered flipping a coin or playing a game to determine which of the two not-very-bright moves I was going to make. I didn’t consider taking Ames with me. Ames looked a little like Jefferson on Rushmore, but there was a determination behind that face of stone that shouldn’t be there in a man who had access to guns and had killed another man.
No, I was on my own. It was either that or forget the whole thing and go to the police. Detective Etienne Vivaise, otherwise known as Ed, seemed not the greater of two evils but the one unlikely to get me anywhere except in trouble.
If the next five plates I saw were from Florida, I would head for Longboat and the Fair Maiden. If I spotted an out-of-state, I’d go to the address I had for Dwight Handford.
Ann Horowitz asked me every other session or so if I was having feelings of self-destruction. I always told her I wasn’t and she answered,
“Not consciously.”
At the moment, I wanted to face Pirannes and Handford for what they had done to Adele and probably to Beryl. I wanted to know why creatures like this walked the earth. I wanted to argue with God and say, “I don’t know why you do what you do, but you’ll get no praise from me till you accept the guilt you should feel for what you’ve done.”