Bright Futures: A Lew Fonesca Mystery (Lew Fonesca Novels) (7 page)

“Having it and using it are different things,” I said, looking at Victor, who was gently bouncing his head against the wall as he sat.

“I don’t want to kill you,” he said.

“Then don’t.”

“But you might make me.”

“Then do. You want to tell me now what I’m supposed to stop doing?”

“Whatever you’re doing,” he said.

“I’m talking to a frightened person on the telephone,” I said.

“Looking for the person who killed Horvecki,” he said.

Ames was looking at me. I met his eyes.

“You killed him?”

“Yes, I did. The police have the wrong person in jail. Ronnie didn’t do it. They have to let him out. You’ve got to stop looking.”

“This doesn’t make much sense,” I tried. “Ronnie didn’t do it, but you don’t want me to look for who did.”

The pause was long. I could hear breathing.

“What can I do to convince you?”

“Stop shooting at me, that would make a nice start,” I said.

“Lewis,” Ames said firmly.

“What’s your favorite movie?” I asked.

“What?”

“Your favorite movie. Mine’s
The Third Man
, or
Mildred Pierce
, or
The List of Adrian Messenger
, or
On the Waterfront
, or
The Seven Samurai
, or
Once Upon A Time in America
, or
Comanche Station
. . .”

“You’re crazy,” he said.

“Deeply neurotic,” I corrected. “You have a favorite movie?”

“
Gone With The Wind
.”

“And?”

“
Wuthering Heights
.
From Here to Eternity
.”

“You didn’t kill Horvecki,” I interrupted.

“I did.”

“Let’s meet for coffee.”

“I don’t drink coffee,” he said. “I hate the stuff.”

“Tea?”

“Tastes like water someone pissed in.”

“A cheeseburger.”

“You’ll arrest me. That other guy, the old one. He’ll shoot me or break my face.”

“I’ll persuade him not to. And I’m not a cop, I can’t arrest you,” I said.

“Citizen’s arrest.”

“You have something to tell me, don’t you?”

“I’ll think about it.”

“You almost killed that boy on the steps.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll let you know about meeting you.”

He hung up.

“He didn’t do it,” said Ames.

The phone rang again. I pushed the button and put it to my ear. The phone was a gift to keep me in touch with the world. I did not wish to keep in touch with the world.

“Philip Horvecki was a murderer,” came the voice of the person who had just hung up. “He deserved to die.”

The connection clicked, and the line went dead. I pushed the button and handed the phone to Ames, who wanted no more to do with it than I did. Ames handed it to Victor, who put it in his pocket.

“The shots at you were pellets and that business about blunt-force .22 bullets was a small pile of cow chips,” said Ames.

“I know,” I said.

The next call came that night, from Sally Porovsky.

“Lewis,” she said wearily.

“Sally,” I said.

“Darrell’s mother doesn’t want him to see you again,” she said.

“He’s all right?”

“Whatever it was he was shot with didn’t go very deep,” she said.

I had been going with Sally for about two years. We didn’t see each other much because she was a child services worker who regularly put in ten-hour days and spent whatever hours she had left with her two children. I was at the fringe of her schedule, which I understood. It was fine with me.

We had never slept together, though we had come close a few times. I had to admit that it was less and less out of a commitment to the memory of Catherine and more an unwillingness on my part to take the symbolic and real action.

I wanted to hold onto the belief that at any moment I could simply fill my duffle bag, get on a Greyhound bus, and head somewhere, anywhere, where no one expected anything of me and I could nurture my depression. I was increasingly aware that my belief that I could do that was becoming an illusion. Ames, Flo, Adele, Darrell, and Sally—I knew I could not easily ride away from them. I’d need a major blow to let me escape.

“Darrell’s fine,” she said. “He’s weirdly proud that he took a bullet—”

“Pellet,” I corrected.

“. . . that he took a pellet meant for you,” she said.

“I don’t like Ronnie Gerall,” I said.

“He takes some getting used to.”

“You know him?” I asked.

“I handled his transition when he came from San Antonio to Sarasota.”

There was something in her voice, an unfamiliar impatience or something I couldn’t quite grasp.

“His friends are paying me to prove he didn’t kill Philip Horvecki,” I said.

“I’ve got to go.”

“Meet me tomorrow?”

“We’ll see. Call me in the morning,” she said. “We can set a time when I can come and see your new . . .”

“Lodgings,” I said.

“I’ll talk to Darrell’s mother,” she said. “I’ll make her love you again.”

“You can do that?”

“No,” she said. “I can’t.”

“Thanks.”

“Take care of yourself, Lewis Fonesca.”

“Yes,” I said. “And you too, Sally Porovsky.”

I had not been doing a good job of taking care of myself since Catherine had been struck and killed by the man sitting on the floor, against the wall. Ann Hurwitz said progress was being made.

The last time she had told me that, I suggested that maybe we needed either another hundred thousand troops in Iraq or a small team of psychologists to speed my progress.

“We’ll talk in the morning,” Sally said.

She didn’t seem to want to end the call.

“Something wrong?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“Okay,” I said.

What I really wanted to say was, “I’ll see you if I’m alive. I’ll see you if I don’t run away. I’ll see you if I don’t curl into a ball on the floor next to Victor, hugging my knees.”

I turned off the phone and looked at Victor.

Ames walked in from the other room and said, “Beer, Dunkin’ Donuts, or ice cream?”

Victor shrugged. He didn’t care.

“Make it doughnuts,” I said.

Ames left, and I picked up the phone.

I called the number Greg Legerman had given me. A woman answered after three rings. I said I wanted to talk to Greg. She politely said she would get him. About thirty seconds later he came on the phone with a wary, “Yes?”

“Do your Cheech Marin for me again,” I said. “It’s bad, but probably a little funny for anyone who has a sense of humor.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You called me,” I said. “Told me to stop looking for whoever killed Horvecki. Meet me at the Waffle Shop at eight tomorrow morning.”

Silence.

“You’re at a loss for words?” I said.

“I didn’t call you,” he finally said.

“I think I’ll just give your money back and continue to try to locate a reasonably sane world.”

“Tomorrow at eight. Waffle Shop on 301,” he said. “I’ll be there.”

I made one more call, to Dixie Cruise, and told her what I needed and what I would pay.

“I’ll work on it tonight,” she said. “Call me after ten tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” I repeated and turned off the phone.

Dixie was a waitress. She had just moved to the Appleby’s on Fruitville near I-75. Dixie was pert, energetic, in her thirties, and working online toward a business degree from the University of South Florida. Dixie was also a first-rate computer hacker with a small apartment in a 1920s apartment building on Ring-ling Boulevard.

When Ames returned, Victor took one plain, Ames had a double chocolate, and I had a strawberry iced. We ate, drank decaf coffee, and said nothing for the rest of the evening.

There was nothing to say.

T
HE WAFFLE SHOP
is on Washington, also known as State Road 301 or just 301 to the locals. The shop is just before the point where 301 meets Tamiami Trail, known as 41 to the locals. It’s across from a car dealership, half a block from a McDonald’s, and another block from Sarasota High School. It was also a five-minute walk from where I now resided. It didn’t feel right yet for me to say I “lived” there. It probably never would.

The Waffle Shop is semi-famous. Elvis once stopped there. The sign outside says so. There’s a big poster of The King on the wall inside. He was a frequent topic of conversation.

There were regulars at the shop, which looked like it belonged in the 1950s without trying to create the illusion. There was a wraparound counter with red leatherette-covered stools. There were tables against the walls by the windows where morning cops, hearse drivers, car salesmen, high school teachers, truckers and deliverymen, and all kinds of people just hung out.

I sat on a stool and got a coffee from one of Gwen’s daughters,
who served as hostesses, waitresses, and owners of the landmark.

For an instant, as I looked at Elvis, I felt like a regular. I did not want to be a regular anywhere, but such things happen.

“Carrots are bullshit,” said the old man who climbed up on the stool next to me.

I knew him. He was a regular. His name was Tim—Tim from Steubenville. Tim said he was sixty, but he was closer to eighty and looked it. He lived in an assisted living home a short walk away at the end of Brother Geenen Way. He spent as much time as he could at Gwen’s, reading the newspaper, shaking his head, and trying to lure people into conversations about eliminating the income tax. Almost everything he said about income tax, abolishing drug laws, and eliminating gun laws ended with the punctuation, “damn government.”

He always had a newspaper and commented on stories ranging from war and devastation around the world to cats and dogs waiting, hoping to be adopted before they had to be urged to pass away, making room for others to wait their turn.

“Do animals have souls?” Tim asked, the blue veins undulating over his thin bones.

“I don’t know.”

“What about carrots?”

“Carrots don’t have souls,” I said.

“What’s the matter with your Cubs?” Tim asked in one of his familiar dancing changes of subject.

“They’re cursed,” I said as he was served his coffee and a slice of pineapple upside down cake.

“I’ll drink to that,” he said, lifting his coffee mug and bringing it to his lips.

“No,” I said.

“I won’t drink to that?”

“No,” I said. “Animals don’t have souls.”

The coffee was hot. I could see the steam rising, feel the heat
with my fingers through the porcelain mug. I hadn’t drunk any yet, even after adding milk from the miniature aluminum pitcher. My grizzled counter partner took no such precautions. He sipped, made an “uhh” sound to indicate he had made a mistake, and put the coffee down.

“You do that all the time,” I said.

“I do what?”

“Add the milk and then remember that you don’t like it with milk.”

“My problem,” he said. “Just like Jesse always said when she was living—that I don’t learn from my mistakes. I’m just doomed to keep repeating them. What about people? They have souls?”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“Cubs, here’s to you.”

He raised his mug and drank more cautiously this time after having cooled down his coffee with the milk I had passed to him. He called me “Cubs” because of the Chicago Cubs cap I wore. I wore the cap for several reasons. First, it was a memento of my affection for the Cubs. Catherine had bought it at Wrigley Field one afternoon when she and I had taken the day off to catch a game with the Pirates. The Cubs had won 4-1. Catherine had bought it for me. I had put it on her head. She looked cute in it. It made her smile. Now she was dead and I wore the cap. Second, it covered my increasing baldness. It was not a receding hairline. It was a steady retreat. Vanity? Maybe. I didn’t take time to analyze it. Old bald men look younger in hats. They don’t necessarily look better. Men my age who wear baseball caps either look tough or would like to be thought of as athletic.

Greg Legerman showed up. He was alone. I couldn’t tell if he was any more nervous than he always was, but he was sufficiently nervous to make the patrons uncomfortable. He wore jeans and a short-sleeved buttoned shirt with a collar. The shirt was green with yellow lines. He sat on the open stool to my right.

The old man leaned forward to get a better look at Greg and said, “Young man, you think people have souls?”

“Good question,” said Greg, avoiding my eyes.

I thought serving this permanently wired kid coffee would not improve the coming conversation, but I was too late. Gwen’s daughter, the one with two kids, including a teenage boy who sometimes worked in the shop after school, put a mug of hot liquid in front of Greg and said, “Decaf. Breakfast?”

“Waffles,” Greg said.

She nodded and moved off. You ordered waffles here. You got waffles, butter, maple syrup. You didn’t get built-in blueberries or bananas or bacon bits. You didn’t get wheat or bran waffles. You got the old-fashioned kind. Just the way Elvis had eaten them half a century ago.

“I can explain,” Greg said.

“I’m sure you can,” I said.

“I was just joking,” he said. “I do things like that for no reason. I get excited . . .”

“Carrots are bullshit and so are you,” I said. “How did you know someone had shot at me?”

“Everybody knew,” he said.

“Everybody? The King of Jordan knew? Brad Pitt knew?”

“Oh come on,” he said. “I mean . . .”

“First you hire me to help Ronnie Gerall. Then you call me to warn me off. You think he did it.”

“No, it’s just that I . . . it’s too dangerous.”

“For who?”

“I gave you five hundred dollars to find the real killer. I’ll give you five hundred dollars to stop looking.”

He reached into his pocket and came up with a roll of bills wrapped in a thick rubber band, which he placed in front of me. I pushed it back and added to it the money he had given me the day before.

“My teeth need fixing,” the old man said. “If neither one of you want that money . . .”