Matt Royal Mystery - 03 - Blood Island (8 page)

"Miller Lite, if you have it."

He bent to the cooler behind the bar and came up with a can of Budweiser for Cracker and a bottle of Miller Lite for me. He set them on the
bar. No coasters.

"Fats," said Cracker, "I'm looking for Wayne Lee. Do you know
where he lives?"

"Not exactly. He got kicked out of his trailer over at the park when he
stayed drunk a few days and didn't work. The manager said he was tired
of putting up with that."

"Do you know where he went?" asked Cracker.

"Pretty much. Why?"

Cracker looked at me, and I nodded my head. "I think he's in some
trouble, and Matt here is a lawyer. We want to help him out."

"I know he ain't got no money for a lawyer," Fats said.

"It's a freebie," I said. "For Nestor Cobol."

"Nestor's still trying to take care of him, huh?" asked Fats, a sneer
on his face.

I had no idea what that was about, and I didn't want to find out.
Maybe Nestor and Wayne had had a falling out, and sooner or later, Fats
would mention my visit to Nestor. Well, no harm. I'd know what I needed
to know by then.

"I guess so," said Cracker.

Fats took a swipe at the bar with a paper towel, moving a little dust around. "He'll be drinking somewhere by now," he said. "I don't know
where he goes. He moved over to the Tamiami Trail area a couple of weeks
ago. He's only been in here once since then. He can't get a ride, usually."

"Do you have an address?" I asked.

"No, but I can give you directions. I took him home the last time he
was here." And he told us the block on which Wayne lived.

There are parts of Bradenton into which one does not venture alone at
night. Wayne Lee lived in one of those areas. I took Logan and my nine
millimeter along for company.

"What are we doing?" he asked. "I wouldn't even come here in the
daytime."

"We're looking for a guy."

"What guy?"

"Wayne Lee."

"Who's lie."

"Just a guy."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"It will," I said.

"Why are we looking for this guy?"

"He may know something about Peggy."

"Okay. I give up. What?"

"Varn used to hang out at a dive called Hutch's on Cortez Road. He
was usually with a guy named Wayne Lee, a deckhand on fishing boats
out of Cortez. I know Lee. The bartender at Hutch's said he lives up here.
On this street. In this block. I don't know which house, but you can always count on Lee being drunk by ten and stumbling home from somewhere. Maybe we'll get lucky."

"What if we don't?"

"We'll come back tomorrow night."

"Wow. I can't wait."

The neighborhood was quiet and dark. No streetlights, although the
fixtures were still present. The city had stopped replacing the lights when some bureaucrat determined that his department couldn't stay ahead of
the street thugs shooting the lights out. It's easier to deal drugs in the dark.

We sat. The street was lined with bungalows built for returning servicemen at the end of World War II. A neighborhood built on the G.I. bill.
It was once a pleasant place to raise a family, but it was now a testament to
urban blight; a warren of drug dealers and dope addicts, a decaying ruin
that would continue to deteriorate until the city bulldozed the whole damn
place.

We watched a car approach the corner, blink its lights twice, and pull
to the curb. A hooded figure darted from an alley, passed a small package
through the window of the car, took a wad of cash in return, and slithered
back into the darkness. The late-model Mercedes sped off.

Over the next hour, several more cars stopped, made their buys and
left. The kid in the hooded sweatshirt was doing okay.

I saw the lone figure walking up the sidewalk, weaving a little as
drunks do, staying upright by sheer will. He was not tall, about five eight,
and skinny. I'd met him at Tiny's a couple of times, brought there by
Nestor Cobol, a fishing boat captain who had married one of the local
girls. Lee was affable, if quiet, and took his drinking seriously. His tattooed
arms were ropes of muscle, his hands calloused and scarred, the result of
working the nets on the fishing boats. He was missing several teeth, and his
blond hair was cropped short; a buzz cut that grew out over the weeks
until he could afford another haircut. He was in his early thirties and
looked fifty.

I turned in my seat. "We're going to take him when he gets to us," I
said. "He's strong, so don't get careless."

"You're the lawyer," Logan said, "but wouldn't this come under some
kind of kidnapping statute?"

"Probably. But he won't know who we are, and we'll let him go as
soon as he tells us what we want to know"

"Okay. Give the word."

Lee was at the back bumper of the Explorer.

"Now," I said.

We both opened our doors. I ran around the rear of the car as Logan
confronted Lee. The specter of two men jumping out of a car at him didn't seem to cause any great surprise to Lee. He stopped when he saw Logan,
and then turned to face me. He must have heard me coming.

"Matt," Lee said. "What're you doing here?"

"So much for anonymity," said Logan.

I stopped, stuck out my hand to shake. "Hey, Wayne. Got a minute?"

"Sure. You got anything to drink?" he asked, shaking my hand.

"Get in," I said, motioning to the front passenger door. "We'll find a
bar."

Logan got into the backseat, and we drove two blocks to Tamiami
Trail and turned south toward Sarasota. No one spoke. It was as if Lee was
used to people picking him up in the middle of the night and taking him
for a beer.

In the second block, on the right, I saw a small concrete block structure with a blinking neon sign advertising Budweiser beer. I pulled into
the gravel parking lot and we entered the building.

The air was permeated with the smell of stale beer and unclean airconditioning filters. A faint hint of urine floated out of the open restroom
door. There was a bar along one side of the room with three men sitting
on stools, hunched over their drinks, not talking. They all turned as we
entered, and then returned to staring into their glasses.

The bartender sat on a stool, smiling at a girlie magazine. "Help you
gents?" he asked reluctantly, raising his head.

"Beer all around," I said, making a circular motion with my index
finger. We sat at one of the tables.

Lee looked at me and smiled. "I ain't got no money, Matt."

"Beer's on Logan," I said.

Logan raised his head, a resigned look on his face. "What the hell. I'll
uy.

The bartender brought three bottles of Bud and placed them on
coasters on the scarred tabletop. "That'll be nine bucks," he said.

Logan dropped a ten on the table, and said, "Keep the change."

"Wayne," I said. "Do you know a Clyde Varn?"

Lee chugged half his beer, set the bottle down on the coaster, and
wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Nope."

I showed him the picture of Varn.

"Sure. That's Jake Yardley. He's an old buddy."

"From where?"

"I don't know. Just around."

"Around where?"

"Around here." His voice was taking on a whiny quality. "I don't
remember a lot sometimes."

"Wayne," I said, "it's important that you remember where you first
met Yardley."

"Oh, I first met him at his house."

"In Tampa?"

"No. At the trailer park on Cortez Road, out near the fish houses."

"He lived there?"

"Yeah, with some young girls."

"Girls? How many? How old?"

"There was two of them. Probably twenty or so. Well developed, if
you know what I mean." He held his hands in front of his chest and tried
for a leer, but didn't quite make it.

"Who were they?"

"I don't know. He never said."

Talking to drunks is difficult. Logan often complains about it after
I've had too many.

"How did you meet Yardley?" I asked.

"I help out in the trailer park sometimes, raking stuff up when the
boats ain't running. I was working out there one day last summer, and Jake
invited me in and offered me a beer."

"And the girls were there?"

"Yeah, but they didn't stay long. They was gone within a couple of
weeks."

"Do you know where they went?"

Wayne took another long swallow of his beer, shook the bottle,
and held it up to the sparse light from the bar. He stared pointedly at its
emptiness.

"No. He never said. I figured they got tired of hanging out with an old
man and took off."

"I heard that you and Yardley go out drinking together a lot."

"Yeah, when he's around. Which ain't much anymore. He moved
out of the trailer park. Can I get another beer, Matt?"

"When?"

"Now"

Logan stood. "I'll get it," he said, and walked toward the bar.

"What I meant," I said, "is when did Yardley move out of the trailer
park?"

"Months ago."

"Where'd he move to?"

"Don't know. But he shows up sometimes and buys me beer."

"How does he know where to find you?"

"Don't know. He just comes into the bars where I like to go:'

Logan returned with another beer for Lee. Mine was still untouched.

"Who'd want to kill Yardley?" I asked.

"Nobody. He's a nice guy."

"Somebody killed him yesterday. Planted him in Durante Park."

"You're kidding."

"Nope. He was shot."

"Wow."

"And his name's not Yardley. It's Clyde Varn."

"Son of a bitch," Lee said, taking another long pull on his beer.

"What else do you know about him?" I asked.

"Nothing."

"Did he ever say where he was from?"

"Not really. South Florida, I think. Maybe the Keys. He used to talk
about the fishing down there."

"Did he ever say anything about the girls who were living with him?"

"No. But they were sisters."

"How do you know that?"

"Because they always called each other `sister."'

"And you don't know where they went?"

"No," he said. "One day they just weren't there anymore."

"That's a spooky guy," said Logan.

We were driving back to Longboat Key. It was near midnight and the
streets were quiet. A rain squall had moved through the area while we were
in the bar with Wayne Lee. The streets were wet, the lights reflecting off
the sheen on the asphalt of Cortez Road.

"I feel sorry for him," I said. "He's a drunk, and he's getting worse.
Pretty soon, they won't let him work the boats anymore, and he's going to
end up on the streets."

"He's almost there now"

"That's why Captain Cobol tries to take care of him. He won'tjeop-
ardize his boat with a drunk, though. When Nestor won't take him out
anymore, it'll be over for Wayne."

"What do you think about what he said about Varn?" Logan asked.

"Not much to go on. Who were the two girls living with him last summer, and where did they go?"

"Yeah. And if Varn was hired muscle for the drug runners in Miami,
what's his connection to the Keys? Maybe Wayne will remember something else and call you."

I'd left my business card with him in case he sobered up enough to
dredge more information from his booze-soaked brain.

"I'm not counting on it," I said. "I think I'll ask our friend Debbie to
see what she can find out about Varn on the Internet."

"Debbie? From Moore's?

"Yeah. She's been taking computer classes. She swears she can find
anybody or anything. I think she's figured out how to hack into a lot of
databases."