I got out of Cracker’s Café without any information, but at least without starting a brawl, so I counted that as a plus. Headed home with thoughts shifting from Marcus to Dad and back again, like that Pong thing in the first Atari game. Full-on monkey brain without any more profit than I had in Vero. But the progress in the Creighton case was also a plus, right? Finding the cell phone records that showed Shayna Murry had perjured herself. Having an opposing interpretation on that incriminating fingerprint. Then I remembered what I’d told Laura, how it doesn’t matter what kind of logic or law you bring to bear, the appellate judge could just say no.
Then back to what Will Hench had said, “but you try to see justice done anyway.” At least I had Derek Evers on the ropes; it would only be a matter of time before he came through with the hair dryer. Would be a good day if I found Dad feeling better, sitting up and taking some nourishment.
The afternoon rain hit again, but I didn’t even slow down.
It was still raining when I got off I-95 at the Commercial Boulevard exit. I found a Walgreens and purchased a cell phone to give to Mom. Also an umbrella.
And arrived at the hospital around six. Despite what I had told myself about the level of involvement with my parents, the self-centered tedium of sitting in that room, I still approached it on hyperalert, ready for a monster to jump out at me. How odd, I thought, totally calm in that café not knowing what two grown men might do, but now my heart pounding harder and harder the closer I got to his room.
With this in mind I nearly ran into the priest, dressed in black with a white stole around his collared neck. He carried a little black box in front of him.
“Oh my God!” I said, nearly shoving him aside in my frenzy to get to Dad’s bedside, but he was a large priest and couldn’t get out of the way fast enough even if he wanted to.
He looked startled, then said, “It’s all right, my dear. I’m not here for last rites, I’ve just given Mr. Quinn his communion.”
He stepped around and out of the room, leaving me to consider how my heart appeared to be looking for a way out of my chest. Wondering if it meant that I cared after all. When I’d calmed down some, I walked in and found Todd standing next to the bed.
“There,” Todd said. “Happy now?”
Dad was lying there, totally out of it, paler and bonier than ever. I stroked a skinny shoulder that protruded from his hospital gown and felt the joint. His hand had turned purple from the IV needle. Blood bruises marked his forearm. “He’s in a coma? I thought he just took communion.”
“He did. Then he went back to sleep. Don’t wake him up.”
I knew Todd was saying this for his own benefit rather than any healing power sleep might bring Dad. I wasn’t in the mood for arguing.
At that point Mom emerged from the bathroom. So I wouldn’t forget, I got the cell phone out of my tote, plugged it into a wall outlet to charge it, and showed her how to use it. From phrases she used, like “new-fangled gizmos,” I’d say her ability to learn this was in doubt. Funny how you get used to doing something like tying your shoe and then wonder about it when you’re trying to show someone else how to do it.
It took us a while, practicing from my phone to hers, what buttons to press to speed-dial me and how to make sure it was charged and why to keep it on. How to turn it back on in case she accidentally turned it off.
Todd left while we were doing that. I stayed for several hours.
* * *
Finally heading to the hotel just after sunset, I called Carlo, who was three hours earlier than me. Wanting to keep the conversation from the battlefield light for the home front, I joked about Mom trying to learn how to use a cell phone, and the run-in with the good ol’ boys in Sebastian. I meant him to laugh, but he didn’t. Carlo expressed concern for my safety, which I pooh-poohed vigorously before I switched the topic to weather. Arizonans like talking about the weather because there is so little of it.
“Did it rain there yet?” I asked. June mostly bakes, and the monsoon rain comes in July.
“No, it’s just hot,” Carlo said with the terminally cranky fatigue of summer. “How about there?”
“We’re getting the three P.M. thunderstorm pretty regular, but in between rains it’s so hot and humid my elbows are sweating. I’m never going to make cracks about dry heat again.”
“This is too long. I miss you.”
“I miss you, too, Perfesser.”
He asked me how Dad was doing, then about Laura. I was uncustomarily distracted by all this and finally thought to check out the car behind me as I usually did when driving. It was dark, but I could make out a large upscale vehicle. I wondered how long it had been there.
“Gotta go, honey.”
“Is everything all right? Your voice sounds edgy all of a sudden.”
Like I was going to say Oh shit, I think someone is following me when they probably weren’t? I adjusted my voice. No need to worry him about nothing. “Just worn out, and I shouldn’t be on the phone while I’m driving in the dark. Love you, talk tomorrow, ’kay?”
I hung up and focused my eyes on my rearview mirror. The car continued to follow me east on Hillsboro Boulevard, light after light. Not too alarming; it was a well-traveled crosstown street. At the Hillsboro Bridge the raising light went on, and I got sandwiched between the car in front of me waiting at the drop bar and the car behind me.
Not that there was anywhere I could go, but I didn’t switch off my ignition as I usually would.
A tourist would watch the gigantic drawbridge go up and admire the several luxury yachts and a sailboat crossing through on the Intracoastal. A Floridian would curse at being stopped for six minutes and swear to get the timing better next time. Instead, I took the opportunity to lift just my eyes to my rearview mirror and study the vehicle behind me.
Black Mercedes, late model, I’d guess E-Class from the grille. Made for comfort, not sex appeal. Pricier than some, but common as sand in this part of the world. Guy with very wide shoulders driving. Blazer, white shirt, and tie, which I could make out because the day-bright lights on the bridge made the shirt glow in contrast to the jacket and tie. A baseball cap. Not wrong, and not quite right either.
The drawbridge finished its slow descent, the arm went up, and the line of cars that had grown since I stopped continued its progress across the bridge.
Better safe than sorry, Mom said inside my brain. Rather than make the left turn on Ocean Boulevard that eased into A1A and the entrance to the hotel, I turned right instead. So did the Mercedes.
I drove down the two-lane road hemmed by high-rise condos on the beach side, to my left, and quaint old fifties-style motels on the right, blue neon pelicans with VACANCY signs. I drove five miles under the speed limit to encourage the car to pass me, but it didn’t. Either the driver was a senior citizen who always drove this speed, or I was definitely being followed in a kind of slow-speed chase.
I didn’t want to let him know where I was staying, of course, so I looked at my options. No left turns possible, but if the car followed me down any one of these dinky side roads to the right, it would be too coincidental. The roads were dark, and he had more of a chance of getting aggressive without being seen, but that was my only choice.
At the last second I whipped to the right without braking, and because I was only going thirty miles an hour I managed to mostly stay on the road, just snagging the small plot of grass in front of the Flamingo Harbor Motel.
In my rearview mirror I saw the car jam on its brakes, its taillights stopped midway through the intersection. A horn honked, some driver who didn’t appreciate almost rear-ending him. I sped up and kept going, and made the third right before he could back up and follow. The driver behind him helped delay that move.
After a few blocks heading north, I turned left and then turned right again like a fox leaving a confusing trail for the hounds, watching for that Mercedes along the way. I kept expecting to see his headlights behind me at every turn, with a feeling that I was playing a large-scale game of Pac-Man. But oddly, and this made me more suspicious than if I had seen him, there was no sign of him ready to gobble me up. If that was the case, he’d given up too easy.
Still watching every side street, I finally made my circuitous way to the hotel. I would have valeted, but couldn’t see anyone on duty and didn’t want to leave my vehicle parked for long under the well-lighted portico where anyone driving by could see it. So I pulled around the building and into the underground garage. I wanted a space close to the elevator, but so did everyone else, apparently. I finally found one about six aisles away.
Parking garages at night. What a cliché, huh? There’s a reason for that.
There was more shadow than light down there, and no one else around, so I pulled my weapon out of my tote bag and held it dangling against my thigh as I walked toward the elevator. The gassy smell. The dampness. The now-familiar squeech of my sneakers that had become theme music behind the whole Florida visit echoed against the dank concrete walls. I disapproved of the sound because it made it harder to hear more important sounds.
I heard the catch of a car door that wasn’t slammed shut but gently closed. I wasn’t sure where the sound came from because of the acoustics down here. I ducked down between two cars—not SUVs, in which case I wouldn’t have had to duck. Where’s an SUV when you’re not trying to get out of a parking space? I looked out around the back fender of a Honda and saw my man leaning up against the concrete wall next to the elevator. Same dressed up below the neck, same baseball cap above. He was looking around, a little too curious for a parking garage, like what’s to see? Yet too relaxed and in the open to be an assailant. Still, the man was like a Miami Dolphins defensive end who was just a little past his sell-by date. Good two twenty-five, two fifty, and at least six two.
I tried to assess the situation, figure out my options, deal with this bum. I didn’t know what his own objective was. Rape or similar assault, robbery, or sent specifically after me by someone who knew me when I worked this area, someone with an old grudge? With his body mass about three times mine, I preferred not to deal with him hand to hand unless I had to. I could still kill him, but after the day I’d had I wasn’t in the mood.
I eased out from behind the car, gun drawn. I said, “Put your hands by your side.”
He did. “There’s noth—”
“Shut up,” I said. “Step away from the elevator.”
For a regular Joe he seemed a little too comfortable with this kind of scenario, standing in front of the muzzle of a weapon in a parking garage. He pushed off the wall slowly with his foot and took one slow step after another. “If you’d—”
By this time he was within about ten feet of me, angled with his right side forward, likely disguising something under his jacket on the left. “Jacket off,” I said. “Very slowly.”
He did that, revealing a side holster with a Glock. He smiled, almost apologetically, when I saw it. He started to drape the jacket over his arm.
“Drop it,” I said.
This was his first protest to my instructions. “But I’m—”
“Drop it,” I said. “And one more word and you’re dead.”
He dropped it, on the oil-and-tire-tread floor of the garage. “It’s a nice jacket,” he said, with more regret for the jacket than concern for his life.
“Oil stains will come out easier than dick matter from your pants. Now I want you to use your index finger to release the strap on your holster. That’s good. Now your index finger and thumb to remove your weapon. Slowly. I’m watching, and I’m feeling strangely alert.”
He did as I said and stood holding the gun before him with two fingers like a smelly diaper.
“Shut up,” I said again, just in case. “Now gently put the gun on the floor, and then kick it over here.”
He did, but not far enough. It stopped midway between us. He stepped forward, but I gestured for him to stay where he was.
I said, “You were following me. But you knew I was staying here. How is that?”
“When I saw your erratic route, I figured you spotted me and were just trying to give me the slip. I figured you’d be here sooner or later.”
“How did you know I was staying here?”
“I followed you here yesterday. When—”
I said, “You’re not the kind of person who works for himself. Who sent you?”
“I’ve come from Manuel Gutierrez,” he said, sounding a little sheepish that we had come to this pass without him being able to identify himself.
I remained on alert, but silent. That encouraged him to go on.
“He’d like to see you. Now, if you’re free.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Glen Slipher.”
“You’re not very good at the task you’re currently performing. This makes me suspicious, because I would think Manny Gutierrez would be able to afford better. What kind of work do you usually do for him, Mr. Slipher?”
“I’m Mr. Gutierrez’s accountant,” he said, and repeated, “He’d like to talk to you.”
“You’re a very large accountant. Why didn’t you say that sooner?”
“You didn’t give me a chance.” He inadvertently glanced at the sound of tires that had a heavier squeech than my shoes had made.
“Terrific. You bring another accountant for backup?” I asked, not daring to avert my eyes from him and the gun on the ground, which was closer to him than I’d like.
“No. I’m alone.”
The door belonging to the car that must have pulled in to a spot somewhere behind me opened and closed, making no attempt at secrecy. Or wanting to make me think it was making no attempt at secrecy. I’m suspicious that way.
I cocked my head slightly to the right as hyperawareness rippled over my skin. “Swivel around me so we’re facing the guy coming this way.” As we did this I stayed conscious of his gun on the floor. Maybe he was paying a visit from Manny Gutierrez, and maybe he wasn’t. We waited.
A youngish man, in twentysomething uniform of shabby jeans and a vintage rock band T-shirt, clearly lost in his own thoughts, got all the way past Glen the accountant before he saw me and the gun. He slowed despite his best intentions.
“Evening,” I said.
“Evening,” said the accountant.
Youngish man didn’t answer, just picked up the pace and headed on. I figured he thought, little woman with a gun, looked like she had things under control without his interference. This was South Florida, after all.
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I said.
He nodded. “Mr. Gutierrez told me to anticipate that possibility. He said you’d prefer to follow in your own car.”
“He remembers me.”
“He said you’ve had a long association.”
I stepped forward to bend down and pick up Glen’s weapon. “I didn’t like the way Manny disrespected me when I stopped by. I’ll see him another time, and I’ll give this back to you when I do.”
“I might have a second one in my car,” he advised helpfully.
“I may be paranoid, but I’m not ridiculous,” I said. “What else did Gutierrez say?”
“He called you a tough cookie. He said that with great respect, of course. That you were little. Very small in stature, but nonetheless dangerous, he said, and I should use every caution or you’d likely kill me before I had a chance to speak.”
“Why didn’t he just let us in the last time we were at his place? That’s no way to treat an old friend.”
“He only wants to see you, not your associate.”
“And why not just call me and invite me over?”
“Mr. Gutierrez doesn’t like to use phones. Anytime, anywhere, any way.”
“Yup, that’s Manny. Tell him he should suck it up, buy a phone, and call me on it. Then when he’s not using it he can stick it up his ass.”
Now you might be saying Why stop by his place and then tell him to go to hell? This is how you do it with Manny Gutierrez. I wanted him to know I was in town, but couldn’t make it look like I needed him. I would go on my terms, in my time.