When I woke up, I was hungry and I was certain of something. The dream had told me this, though it had nothing that clearly suggested what I was thinking. I got out of bed and stood for a minute. The room was cold, but I wasn’t.
I made a call to the Texas Bar and Grill. Ed Fairing wouldn’t be there this early. The only one who might answer was Ames. He did after twenty rings.
“I’ll pick you up in twenty minutes,” I said. “Bring your hog leg.”
“Fine,” he said.
I hung up, shaved, dressed and went to the car.
The sky was black with the threat of heavy hot Florida rain. I picked Ames up in front of the Texas. He was wearing his slicker. This time it was more than possible he would need it. I was sure the shotgun was under the yellow coat. I was positive when he climbed in the car and put it across his knees. Then I told him where we were going and why. He nodded. I drove.
And that’s where I began this story. The dead man in the house in Palmetto was Dwight Handford. There was enough left of him to make the identification certain. I didn’t know how many times he had been shot and I didn’t care, probably six or seven. It had happened up close and very personal, a handgun.
Now, with the rain still coming down dark and dangerous, I drove back, this time down the Trail, down 41. I knew who the people in the soup were now. Their tiny faces had been clear but I had blocked them out. They were the faces of people I knew, one of whom had driven out to Palmetto and shot Dwight Handford dead.
Dwight’s house hadn’t been all that hard to find. What I had done others could have done in the same way or a different one. My blue angel could have done it, could have been waiting somewhere when Dwight shot out my window the night before, could have followed him home. My angel had been thrashing in pea soup. Then there was Pirannes, who had been cursing in a chilled peach fruit soup. And, though I didn’t remember seeing them, there must have been Sally and certainly the rigid old man at my side, Ames McKinney, and Flo. There were probably two or three others I hadn’t thought of yet and others I’d never heard of.
On the one hand, I didn’t really want to find the truth, but, on the other, I had to know. I couldn’t walk away. I might not turn the killer in, but I had to know.
“Ames, did you come out here last night on your scooter and kill Handford?”
“No,” he said, looking straight ahead.
“But you’re glad he’s dead?”
“I am.”
“So am I,” I said.
I dropped Ames back at the Texas and told him we hadn’t been to Palmetto, hadn’t found the body.
He nodded, took out his key and went into the door of the grill. I went back to my office. There was no reason to stay away any longer. John Pirannes might still be a bit upset with me, but there was nothing much I could do to him. He was a prime candidate for Dwight’s murder, he or Manny or someone he paid a few dollars to.
In spite of the overhang that ran along the concrete outside my door, the wind had been strong enough to tear down the drapes inside the broken window. The floor was slick and wet with blown-in rain. Blood, rain. When this was all over, I’d seriously consider finding another place to live, if I had enough money and energy for it. But then again, these two rooms were beginning to feel like home.
It was only nine. People were getting to work. Some had been there a while. I was hungry. The DQ wasn’t open and I was soaked through and didn’t feel like changing and going back out into the rain.
I did take off my wet clothes, throw them in the general direction of a far corner and put on dry ones.
Then I called the office of Tycinker, Oliver and Schwartz. Harvey was in.
“Harvey, I’m glad you’re there.”
“I’ve been here since seven. I’m trying to track the bastard who put a real killer virus on-line. It’s called Buga-Buga-Boo.”
“I thought you couldn’t track the source of an Internet virus,” I said. “You told me that.”
“Well, I may be the first. I’m close. When I track him, I’m going to shut him down.”
“Great,” I said. “How about the search you were doing for me?”
“Finished it last night,” he said.
I could hear the clack of computer keys as his fingers reached into cyberspace to hunt the virus planter.
“And?”
He gave me the information. I wrote down what I needed of it. It wasn’t much, but Harvey loved to describe the chase. I didn’t disappoint him by cutting him off.
“Thanks, Harvey,” I said.
“I’m shredding the hard copy of what I just told you,” he said.
“Fine.”
“And tell your friends, don’t download Buga-Buga-Boo.”
“I’ll tell them,” I said.
We hung up. I needed time to think, not conscious thinking, but deep down, almost the dream state. I had a feeling that I’d probably fail because I wanted and didn’t want to know who had killed Handford. Maybe I could convince myself that it was Pirannes since it probably was.
I had another case, another client. I looked at the number of Caroline Wilkerson and punched the buttons. Six rings, the machine.
“It’s Lewis Fonesca,” I said. “I’ve got to talk to you about Melanie. If you-”
She picked up.
“Yes?” she said, panting.
“Sorry to wake you,” I said.
“I’ve been up for hours,” she said. “And, at the moment, I am on my StairMaster. What’s this about?”
“Geoffrey Green thinks you have something to tell me that will help me find Melanie.”
“Geoffrey Green is a quack,” she said. “A charming quack, as quacks should be. I have nothing to tell you. I wish I did. Carl and Melanie belong together. Without her… don’t know what will happen to him.”
“I have something to tell you,” I said.
“What?”
“In person. I guarantee you’ll be interested.”
She gave me her address and told me to come over in half an hour. She had a doctor’s appointment, a facial and shopping to do. I told her I’d be right there.
I hung up. I already knew her address and phone number, but it didn’t hurt for her to be cooperative. I found an old crumpled London Fog coat, back in my small closet. My wife had given it to me. Not a birthday or holiday gift. Just something she thought I needed.
I went out, down the stairs with the rain waterfalling off the roof and from the sky. Rolls of thunder, flashes of lightning. It would have been nice just to sit and watch and listen.
The Geo was at the rear of the lot, as close to the stairs as I could get. I had left the doors unlocked so I didn’t get too wet when I climbed in. There was just enough time for a quick breakfast. I had the feeling that the advances I had been given by Beryl Tree and Carl Sebastian were almost gone. I didn’t want to check.
I found a space right in front of Gwen’s Diner a minute away from the DQ. I ran in. There weren’t many customers. The go-to-work rush was long over. Old Tim from Steubenville was at the counter, in the same seat he had been in the last time I was here. There was no Corky Spence, the trucker who had thought I had served him with papers. I sat next to Tim, who looked up from the magazine and coffee in front of him.
“Process server,” he said, pointing a finger and smiling.
Gwen Two said, “Eggs, bacon, hash browns, coffee?”
“Right,” I said.
She brought coffee immediately.
“Reading something interesting here,” Tim said. “About the Sargasso Sea. Hundreds of miles of floating sea plants in the middle of the Atlantic.”
He pointed east toward the Atlantic.
“Filled with little animals, weird fish, big worms, turtles.”
“That a fact?”
“A fact,” Tim said. “People used to be afraid centuries back, thought they’d get tangled in the plant life, but it’s thin stuff. Off of Bermuda out there. Animals, plants. They die. Drop down thousands of feet. Animals down there eat it. Food chain.”