He kept coming, straight, eyes ahead, steady pace.
Manny moved across the deck to face the dock. When it was clear to all of us that the stocky bald man was not going to another boat, Pirannes shouted, “Can I help you?”
The angel said nothing, just kept coming. Manny jumped on the deck over the two-foot gap created when he had pulled in the rope. He stood facing the approaching man. Manny was four or five inches taller than my angel. Manny had muscle. Angel looked as if he had eaten far too much lasagna. It was no contest. When the smaller man kept coming, Manny’s arms came up, one palm open, the other in a fist.
The smaller man didn’t even pause. He came faster, leaned over and plowed his head into Manny’s stomach. Manny groaned but didn’t go down. Angel stepped to the side and shoved Manny off the dock and into the water. Then he jumped for the deck of the boat, almost missed and moved toward Pirannes, who didn’t back down.
“What do you want?” Pirannes asked.
The man didn’t answer. He grasped Pirannes in a bear hug, lifted him off the deck, walked to the bay side of the boat and threw the society pimp into the water.
Then he turned to me and said,
“Let’s go.”
Manny was wading heavily toward the shore. Pirannes was swearing at us. I followed the man up the dock and back to the parking lot.
When we stopped at my Geo, he was breathing heavily. His Buick was parked right next to me.
“How did you find me?”
“I know the places you go,” he said, almost bored. “You don’t come back to your office. I check around, saw your car parked near that bar. I followed.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Do your job,” he said.
“Which job?”
“Find her,” he said.
“I found her.”
“No,” he said. “Not the kid. Mrs. Sebastian. Find her. Do your job.”
“Who are you?” I asked as he turned his back and opened his car door.
“Just do your job,” he repeated.
He got in the car, leaned over, opened his window and said,
“Get in your car and get the hell out of here.”
I got in my car and got the hell out of there.
I drove off the key and wondered how much I could count on the little man with the big body. He had probably saved my life for the second time. Was he working for Sebastian? Himself? Someone else? And why was he following me?
I decided to put off looking for Dwight for a while. I wasn’t sure I could keep counting on my angel. I’d need backup when I found Dwight and I’d also need a plan-which, I had to admit, was more than I really had when I went looking for John Pirannes.
Had Dwight killed Tony Spiltz? He came to Pirannes’s apartment to be with Adele. Maybe Tony said no. They fought. Dwight had a gun or took Spiltz’s. It was over. He told Adele the story she fed me and Ames. She would do anything for Daddy.
I went back toward my office, waving at Dave, who was framed in the DQ window. He waved back and shouted, “Your friend is pulling into the lot across the street.”
“I know,” I shouted back and headed up the stairs and into my office-home. There was no one waiting, dead or alive. No one had taken the place apart.
I picked up the phone and dialed Harvey the computer whiz.
“What’ve you got, Harv?”
“Our lady is getting careless,” he said. “She’s using her credit cards.”
“Where?”
“Mostly in Bradenton, once in a gift shop on Anna Maria. Lady has a ton of cash. Is she trying to get caught?”
“I think so,” I said. “Keep looking till she lets you find her.”
“I prefer tracking to being led,” Harvey said, his zeal definitely gone.
“Stay with it, Harvey.”
That done, I decided to hurry the search. I still had a killer to find and a kid to protect from the thing she called her father. I picked up the phone again and called the office of Geoffrey Green. His secretary said he was in but that he was with a patient. I said I would call back.
I went down to the Geo and drove to Palm Avenue. The blue Buick was right behind me, not trying to hide anymore. I found a parking space near a gallery. I didn’t see where Angel parked.
The receptionist looked up at me with a smite and a hint of recognition.
“Yes, sir?” she said.
There were no patients waiting.
“I’ve got to see Dr. Green,” I said.
“If this is an emergency, I can take your name and number and-”
“Now,” I said.
“He has a patient in his office for ten more minutes,” she said. “If you’ll tell me what this is about, I’ll let him know before his next patient arrives and maybe-”
“No maybe,” I said calmly. “I’ll sit here ten minutes and then he’ll see me. Tell him it’s Lewis Fonesca. Tell him I’m here about Melanie Sebastian. Tell him there’s a full moon tonight and I’m feeling its power. Tell him I love him. Tell him whatever you have to tell him, but don’t forget to tell him that I’m coming in to talk to him in…” I looked at my watch and said, “Nine minutes.”
“I’ll tell him,” she said. “Please have a seat.”
I sat. What I really wanted to do was go back to my little room with a stack of videotapes. I wanted to watch Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Cary Grant, Kirk Douglas, John Wayne and Errol Flynn while I ate a pizza. I wanted the search for Melanie Sebastian to be over. I wanted Dwight Handford to disappear. I wanted Adele to be a kid again and live somewhere safe. I wanted to have soft-shelled crabs with Sally Porovsky and talk about her childhood.
I sat. I waited.
12
“Someoneis playing games with me,” I said as Dr. Geoffrey Green closed the door to his office behind me.
He went behind his desk and stood while I moved in front of his desk and did the same. It was late in the afternoon. I was sure I needed a shave. I wondered why he didn’t. I guessed that he shaved between patients. Always well groomed and imperially slim.
“I have ten minutes, Mr. Fonesca,” he said. “If you want to make an appointment-”
“No, I’m in a hurry. I’ll take the carry-out analysis,” I said.
His suit was soberly dark. His tartan tie perfectly Windsored. His manner calm.
“I’m not sitting and I’m not asking you to sit because this will have to be very brief,” he said. “Someone is playing games with you? If I were going to give you the standard carry-out answer, the two egg roll, wonton soup and chow mein answer, I’d say you were possibly paranoid. But I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. Who is playing games with you? What games? And why are you telling me?”
“All right,” I said, spreading my palms on his desk, invading the wall between him and his patients, “Carl Sebastian hires me to find his wife. He says she ran out with all his money. No reason. No excuse. He pushes me to you. You don’t tell me much of anything. You’re her therapist-notice I didn’t say ‘shrink.’ You hint. You send me off to the next square. I roll a six. Melanie Sebastian leads me around by the computer. She’s smart. Maybe you’re helping her to be smart. She tells me she’ll let herself be found in a few days. Why the wait? Meanwhile, a very tough, overweight muscle mass follows me around, saves my life and tells me to get back to the job of finding Melanie Sebastian. Game. I’m being pushed around the board. I’m the pawn, the silver wheelbarrow, but who are the players here, Green? You and Melanie Sebastian? Concerned Carl?”
“Are you frequently like this?” Green asked calmly.
“I’m never like this,” I said. “I didn’t sleep well last night. I’ve got another job, which is more important than finding Melanie Sebastian. A woman I liked was battered to death with a tire iron in my office. I’ve got a long story, but you said I only had ten minutes. So…”
“Sit,” he said, considering something important, possibly my sanity.
I sat.
He adjusted his tie, scratched his left eyebrow and said, “I know where she is. If you tell Carl Sebastian, I’ll deny it. I’m sorry he brought you into this. This is really between Melanie and Carl. She is my patient and my friend. I can’t say more.”