Sylvie's Cowboy (13 page)

Dan Stern let himself into the condominium
formerly occupied by Sylvie Pace. He went to the kitchen and
stocked the refrigerator with the contents of his grocery sack.
Then he crumpled the sack and stuffed it down the refuse chute. The
kitchen—and indeed the entire apartment—remained fully furnished
inasmuch as Sylvie had been permitted to remove nothing but her
clothing and personal articles.

Noticing a cutlery rack on the wall, Dan
removed an ice pick, contemplated it, then stowed it in his pocket.
He had plans for an ice bucket and a champagne bottle later, but
the ice maker in the apartment had been idle while the apartment
was vacant. The ice bin was a solid block that would have to be
chipped apart when it was time to chill the wine.

He looked around the apartment and decided he
was pleased with his preparations. He palmed his keys and left.

When the elevator doors opened in the parking
garage, Dan stepped out and headed for his car. He stopped when he
heard whistling. Wary, he stole forward using the garage’s concrete
pillars as cover until he could see if the whistler was who he
suspected it was.

Harry Pace was standing in the open door of
the red pickup truck, unloading takeout food onto the seat and
whistling “Your Cheatin’ Heart.” From Dan’s point of view, however,
the man in boots and Stetson looked exactly like Walt McGurk.

Dan looked at his watch, then he slipped the
ice pick out of his pocket, muttering to himself. “You made good
time, Dogpatch. But your time just ran out.”

Dan crept up behind Harry. The whistling
stopped abruptly when Dan jabbed the ice pick through the back of
the man’s head, beneath the brim of the Stetson, directly into the
brain.

Harry fell forward, face down, across the
takeout food on the truck seat. Hastily Dan shoved the booted feet
inside and closed the truck door. Still thinking he had killed
Walt, Dan said to the corpse, “They won’t find you until the smell
gets bad, and I’ll be long gone by then.”

Dan hurried to his car and left the garage
with the greatest possible speed.

...

That afternoon at Clarice’s Beauty World,
Sylvie tightened the screws on the electrical plug of a blow-dryer.
Then she reached across the appointment book, knocking the desk
telephone off the hook, and poked the plug into an outlet. She
turned the dryer on. It made a satisfying whirring-whooshing noise,
and she turned it off.

Sylvie unplugged the dryer, without noticing
the askew telephone, and carried the appliance across the room to
Clarice. The shop was only moderately busy, and Clarice was giving
a facial to a lady who seemed to be asleep in the chair. Sylvie
placed the dryer on Clarice’s station with a flourish.

“There you are,” Sylvie announced. “I can’t
believe you were going to throw that out when all it needed was a
new plug. These things cost money, you know.”

“And I can’t believe you fixed it! Where did
you learn to do that?”

“Walt. Walt can fix anything.” Sylvie’s tone
became apologetic. “You know, if I weren’t here, he would’ve fixed
that dryer for you.”

“I know nothing of the kind.” Clarice reached
into a drawer nearby and produced an electric curling iron, which
she handed to Sylvie. “Why don’t you take this home tonight and see
what you can do with it. It shocks me so bad it like to knocks me
down ever time I try to use it.”

“I don’t know what I can do, but I’ll
try.”

“I’ll pay you for the time you work at
home.”

“Don’t be silly. It’s a favor for a friend.”
Sylvie returned to the reception desk and placed the curling iron
in her purse.

Outside the picture window Dan Stern’s car
swooped into the parking space just outside Clarice’s front door.
In a trice, Dan was out of the car and through Clarice’s door.
Sylvie was closing the drawer with her purse in it when Dan entered
the salon. She still had not noticed that the telephone was not
seated on its hook.

“Dan! What are you doing here?” Sylvie smiled
at him and turned toward Clarice. “This is one of my oldest
friends, Dan Stern. Dan, this is my boss—and my friend—Clarice
Putnam.”

“The pleasure is all mine, Miss Putnam,” said
Dan with his most winning smile. “I had heard that Sylvie had a
job, but I never expected such a young, attractive employer.”

Clarice smiled and sent Sylvie a wink. “Why
don’t you bring him around more often?”

With considerable finesse, Dan managed to
turn his attention to Sylvie without seeming rude. “Sylvie, may we
speak outside?”

Sylvie looked to Clarice, who nodded
approval. Sylvie and Dan stepped outside the front door.

Through the picture window, Clarice watched
the conversation between Dan and Sylvie on the sidewalk outside.
Sylvie was doubtful about what he told her, but he was charming and
persuasive, and she finally believed him. He suggested a course of
action, but she demurred. He persisted. She acquiesced. She
re-entered the shop while he waited at his car.

“Something’s come up about my father’s
estate,” Sylvie told Clarice. “I need to go to Miami right away to
straighten it out. Would you mind terribly if I left early
today?”

Clarice had a bad feeling but couldn’t
pinpoint a reason. “Is everything all right?”

“Well, yes,” said Sylvie, sounding anything
but certain. “That is, it will be if I go and take care of this
paper work today. Do you mind? I hate to leave you high and
dry.”

Clarice looked at Sylvie, at Dan, and at
Sylvie again. Maybe she was just picking up on Sylvie’s
grief-tinged stress over legal red tape. Clarice brushed aside any
misgivings. “We’ll be fine,” she told Sylvie. “It’s slow today. You
do what you need to do. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Thanks,” said Sylvie. She retrieved her
purse from the desk drawer and left.

On the reception desk, the phone was still
off the hook, emitting beeping sounds that were masked by the
background noise of the beauty salon.

Sylvie and Dan had been gone only minutes
when through the picture window Clarice saw a pink Mustang screech
to a stop outside. Walt McGurk was out of the car and in through
the salon door in nothing flat.

“Sylvie, you’ve got to—Where’s Sylvie?” His
eyes scoured the reception desk and found the bleating off-hook
telephone. He snatched up the receiver and slammed it down on its
cradle. “I been
tryin’
to call! Ain’t she here!?”

“Good afternoon to you, too,” Clarice
responded. “She said she had to go to Miami. Somethin’ about
Harry’s estate. What the heck are you drivin’?”

“Tunin’ it up for Harry. He’s got my truck.
... Her bug’s outside. Sylvie take your car?”

“No, her friend took her. Dan.”

Walt erupted. “And you let him take her!”

Clarice’s sleeping client was startled awake
and nearly knocked the chair and Clarice flying. Clarice had her
hands full steadying and calming the wide-eyed, mud-packed lady.
“It’s all right,” Clarice soothed, “just Walter actin’ the
fool.”

Clarice looked over her shoulder at Walt. “He
wasn’t kidnapping her, McGurk! Looked to me like she wanted to go
with him. Now, if that bothers you so dad-blame much, I suggest you
stop scaring my customers and go after her.”

“I’ll dang sure do that, thank you very
much!” Walt stormed out the door.

...

The car carrying Dan and Sylvie sped
southwest past scattered farmhouses, crops, and pasturelands. Dan
turned on the charm, admiring how Sylvie filled out the simple
polyester beautician’s uniform she wore—not ignoring the pretty
legs between skirt hem and nurse-y, white rubber-soled shoes.

Dan rested his hand on her knee. “I’ve tried
to be patient, to give you some time after Harry’s death, but it’s
no use. I can’t stop thinking of you. We’ve had good times, haven’t
we? We’ve never fought. We like the same things. Things haven’t
changed between us, have they, Sylvie?”

A lumbering tractor-trailer rig ahead of them
distracted Dan. This stretch of Highway 27 was too narrow for Dan
to safely pass the slow-moving truck. Dan grimaced in frustration
and honked his horn, but the tractor-trailer moseyed along without
increasing its pace.

“I have responsibilities now,” Sylvie told
him. “I have a job. I have obligations at home. I can’t party every
night like we used to.” She glanced at how closely the car
approached the rear of the massive truck. “Danny, please ... you’re
speeding!”

He took her hand and clasped it reassuringly.
Then he released her, grasped the steering wheel with both hands
and attempted to pass the tractor-trailer. Oncoming traffic forced
him to swerve back into his lane, still behind the truck.

“I understand about your ... obligations,
Sil. I have obligations, too,” Dan said. “In a way, that’s
something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about.”

They were approaching a curve, and the
oncoming lane seemed empty, but there was a solid yellow no-passing
line on the asphalt. Dan disregarded the line, honked his horn,
gunned his engine, and whipped around the tractor-trailer.

Sylvie held her breath and covered her eyes.
Dan swerved in front of the tractor-trailer’s front grill and sped
southward around the curve. Neither of them saw that behind them
the tractor-trailer, cut off by Dan’s reckless maneuver,
jack-knifed on the curve and ended up on its side, blocking both
lanes of the two-lane highway.

Still barreling down Highway 27, Dan again
took Sylvie’s hand. “Please don’t be angry with me, Sil, but that
story about ‘estate business’ was only a ruse to get you to come
with me today.”

Sylvie took her hand from her eyes and looked
at him. “Danny, slow down or let me out! ... Why didn’t you just
ask me to come with you?”

Dan saw something new and serious in her
face. He deliberately slowed down. When he leveled off at a
moderate speed, he looked to Sylvie for approval. She smiled her
gratitude.

He answered her question. “I didn’t ‘just
ask’ because, well, you were living with that cowboy.... Then I
heard at the Club that you two were on the outs and, well, today I
acted on impulse.”

He gave her his most sincere face and his
gravest tone of voice. “I thought a lot of Harry. In a way, he was
my hero. When he died, I was so upset I couldn’t, I’m sorry, but I
just couldn’t think straight, y’know?”

Sylvie, getting misty, patted his hand,
understanding.

Dan seemed to choke on his words. “And then
when you were forced to move out, I was away just when you needed
me most. But I couldn’t stop thinking of you struggling day after
day, doing without things, being unhappy.” He stopped talking to
collect himself.

Sylvie said, “It’s okay.”

...

After peeling out of the space in front of
Clarice’s Beauty World, Walt sped toward Miami in the pink Mustang.
On Highway 27 he whipped by cane fields and pastureland, but then:
frustration. A long line of cars sat bottled up by a roadblock,
flashing lights, Florida Highway Patrol vehicles, and rescue
vans.

Agitated and stopped dead in traffic, Walt
climbed onto the roof of the car. He could see a tractor-trailer
jack-knifed on its side across the highway and a spectacular
traffic jam like those he had seen before on television newscasts.
Furious, he slammed his Stetson to the ground.

...

Twilight muted the colors and shapes of the
Port of Miami. Tiny points of light blinked along the skeletons of
cranes and the superstructures of cargo ships. Dan’s car pulled up
and parked just as a seaplane dropped over the Miami skyline to
land on the waters of Biscayne Bay.

As he had been doing all the way from
Clewiston to Miami, Dan continued wooing Sylvie. “I want to do
something special for you, Sil. I want to make you happy.” He
produced a shiny key from his pocket and flourished it.

“What is it?”

“The key to your penthouse. Everything’s
exactly like you left it. Just waiting for you.”

Sylvie was incredulous, excited, and
increasingly hopeful. “But ... but Les sold it. She told me a
Bahamian company owns it now.”

“Owned it,” he gloated. “They sold it to me.
You and I are taking a chartered plane to Nassau this evening to
celebrate closing the deal.”

Sylvie looked at him as if he had just
offered her the moon and was capable of delivering.

A telephone rang. Dan placed the key in
Sylvie’s hand, closed her hand around it, then lifted her hand to
his lips and kissed it, slowly.

The phone rang again. Out on the bay, the
seaplane had now taxied to its ramp, ready to load for takeoff.
Sylvie stared at her hand, then back at Dan. He was her knight in
shining armor.

The phone rang a third time. Sylvie said, “Do
you hear bells?”

Dan reached for his phone and turned it
off.

In Leslye Larrimore’s Miami office, her
secretary, Diane, hung up the phone. She looked up with red,
swollen eyes at Walt McGurk, standing across the desk from her.

“He’s not answering his cell, either,” Diane
said. “I don’t know where else to try. There’s no phone service at
the penthouse yet. They’re going to connect it tomorrow.”

The door from the lobby to Les Larrimore’s
private office stood open. City of Miami Police officers were
searching Leslye’s office. Diane looked at the police officers and
began to cry again. She pulled her last tissue from the dispenser
on her desk. “I just can’t believe it.”

Walt handed her his handkerchief and tossed
her empty tissue box into the trashcan behind her desk. “Let me get
you some coffee,” he offered. “Then maybe I’ll go over myself and
see if they’re at the penthouse, just in case.”

Diane nodded gratefully, and Walt left to get
the coffee. City of Miami Police officers strung yellow crime scene
tape across the doorway to Leslye’s office. Diane sniffled.