I DROVE OUT to Memories Lounge, an old hole in the wall in the shitty side of town. The place had a decent jukebox and an old Rock-Ola from the seventies that played real 45s when it was operational—a fifty-fifty chance on any given night. The walls were covered in cheap wood paneling and the ceiling tiles were black from decades of cigarette smoke. It was as good a place as any to drink cheap and forget you were unemployed and running out of money fast.
Three months had passed since the layoffs at the Sarasota Herald. They were trimming the fat, boosting stockholder profits. I should have seen it coming, but I was too caught up in my own ego—Dexter Vega, superstar investigative reporter. When the list of names came down the pipe in a group e-mail, I was blindsided. Almost knocked me off my goddamn chair.
Not that I’m bitter. I can take it like the best of them. I packed up my shit, waved a middle finger at the publisher, and never looked back.
Memories was never full, and that night, that early, it was almost empty. Just a table of college students and some old guy in a purple polo sitting a few stools from me. I pumped a buck in the jukebox, chose a Johnny Cash tune and Bob Dylan’s Tangled Up in Blue. Mac, the bartender, had a ball game on the old tube televison behind the bar.
I was nursing a Corona, wondering what the fuck I was going to do with the rest of my life. I had given my blood to journalism, and it had stabbed me in the back. When my wife took off with our daughter, she cited my obsession with work as the single reason she could no longer live with me. I hated losing her. I hated losing Zoe.
Halfway through my third beer, this guy marched into Memories, parked himself between me and the old man in the purple polo. Mac gave him a nod. The man just leaned against the bar and stared at the old man.
He looked rough—two days from homeless. Had dirty blond hair and nice blue eyes. Probably mid-thirties. But life made him look older—late forties. I could smell him from where I sat. Foul. Old banana peels and Jack.
He said something to the old man. It didn’t look like a conversation. He seemed like the kind who doesn’t talk to you—talks at you.
I turned my attention to my own problems. My severance money was running out. Something had to give. And this summer I was supposed to get my kid. Zoe was turning seven, and I had to show her a nice time. Maybe take a short vacation, Busch Gardens or Disney. That shit wasn’t cheap.
The rough guy said something to the old man with the polo. I didn’t catch it, but then he raised his voice, cussed, and shoved the old man. He pulled him off the stool, threw him back. The old man dropped flat on the floor, arms out like Jesus. I stood. The rough guy pounced on the old guy. Sat on his chest and hammered him twice on the face with his fists. One-two. Then he picked him up like he was trash and shoved him against the wall. The old man bounced back from the wall to the rough guy’s arms like he was made of rubber. Then the rough guy pushed him out the door toward the parking lot.
I was right behind them. I know. It was none of my business, and I’m not crazy about old people, especially after living in this town for so many years. But what was I supposed to do?
I’m not a fighter. Five-nine, a hundred sixty pounds, and totally out of shape after a three-month bender. Still, I was angry at the world. I guess I needed something to distract me from my own misery.
Outside, the rough guy had the old man folded over the hood of a beige, late model Lexus 460. He held the old man’s head by a fistful of hair at the back and was slamming his face against the bodywork.
I grabbed the rough guy by the arm and threw him back. He fell on the pavement. Not so difficult, but he stood up real quick. Fucker had to be sober as a goddamn stone. He grinned at me, charged—caught me by the waist and dropped me like a pro. I saw stars. He probably would have hammered me unconscious in five seconds if Mac hadn’t come out with that Louisville Slugger he keeps stashed under the bar.
The rough guy stared at him, his little blue eyes shining like lights. Then he bailed. Ran off into the dark. Gone.
Mac checked us out. Asked if we were okay, if we needed an ambulance or the cops. I was surprised to see the old man spring back to life despite his bloody nose and lip. He’d taken it good from that asshole. But suddenly, it was like it never happened. He dusted off his pants and stretched out his shirt and ran his hand over what little hair covered his head.
Mac rested the bat on his shoulder and walked back in the bar.
“Thank you.” The old man had a pleasant, confident voice with a slight accent that reminded me of the Italian bartender at Caragiulos restaurant downtown.
“What was that about?”
The old man shrugged. “Beats me. People these days, eh?”
“I guess.”
He wiped the blood from his lip with the back of his arm and spat. “Probably just angry he lost his job.” Then he smiled. Earlier, at the bar, I would have guessed his age to be in the seventies. But when he smiled, he looked younger, could pass for sixty.
“Please,” he said, “let me buy you a drink.”
He took a step forward. His legs wobbled like they were made of yarn. He leaned against the Lexus for support.
“You okay?”
“Just dizzy,” he said and waved his hand in a circle in front of him. “It’ll pass.”
“Maybe you should go home and get cleaned up.” I pointed at his face. “Put some ice on that lip.” It didn’t look serious, but you can’t ignore a split lip, blood all over his purple shirt.
He touched his face and looked at the blood in his hand. He smiled like a happy grandfather. Crazy, smiling like that after he’d had his face bashed against the hood of a fifty-thousand-dollar car.
“You live far?”
He shook his head. “On Bay Shore. Just over the Trail.”
Blame the humanitarian in me. I mean, that’s why I got into journalism, right? To save the goddamn world. “Come on.” I pointed to my ten-year-old, beat-up Subaru. “I’ll give you a ride.”
His name was Nick Zavala. He lived in a slick house on the bay. It wasn’t one of those new pseudo-Mediterranean McMansions with wide columns, long balconies and red tile roofs. No. His place was a single story, modern deal from the late sixties. It had class. I respected that.
“Why don’t you come in and have a drink with me?” Nick said when he stepped out of the car.
“No offense,” I said. “I don’t swing that way.”
He chuckled. “I didn’t mean it like that. You helped me out of a jam. I pulled you out of a bar. I owe you one.”
Don’t ask. I’m not sure what I was thinking. Maybe I was done with Memories for the night. Maybe it was the old man’s grin or his eyes or the fact that I was still shaking from the fracas with the rough guy because I’m not a fighter and that monster could have wiped the floor with my face.
I was suddenly very, very thirsty.
Nick’s place had the looks of a bachelor pad from the early seventies: sunken living room, shag carpet, and a wall of glass that opened up to a pool. But a thick hibiscus hedge obstructed the million-dollar view of the bay. Still, you could smell the sea, and if you got on your toes and stretched your neck, I’m sure you could catch a glimpse of the ocean.
Nick excused himself and went into the bathroom. Front center, over a long white leather couch was one of those Andy Warhol Marilyn Monroe silkscreens. It was numbered and signed in pencil.
“Warhol gave it to me himself,” Nick said when he came back to the living room. “It has a dedication on the back.”
People talk a lot of shit. I’m a journalist. I know. But I had the feeling Nick was being straight with me. All the art in the living room had that same quality: sixties and seventies pop art you’d seen in movies and magazines. Most of the rich people in this town decorated their homes with art from one of the local craft fairs: paintings of palm trees, beach scenes, flamingos—or posters you could buy at Target. This guy had the real deal. I’m not an art expert, but I knew enough to recognize a real Jim Dine, a Robert Rauschenberg, and a Peter Max. There was even a strange assemblage by James Rosenquist at the end of the long dining room.
Nick went to the bar. “What’s your poison, friend?”
“You got any tequila?”
He smiled. “I have rum.”
“That’ll do.”
“On the rocks is fine.”
“No,” he said. “Would you like to hit a few lines?”
I turned away from the art and walked to the bar where he was pouring me a rum and preparing himself a bourbon.
I shook my head. “Just the drink, thanks.”
“Sure.”
That’s when I realized he was sizing me up. Measuring my game. I didn’t mind. It’s how it is. But I was curious: a sixty-something-year-old guy who lives in a stylish house on the bay that’s gotta be worth a couple of million with an art collection that’s right out of a museum is hanging out at a shit-hole bar like Memories invites me for a drink and offers me cocaine.
What. The. Fuck.
He handed me a glass and came around the bar, his own drink in his hand. He nodded to the dark sky past the hedge to the bay. “Home sweet home.”
“Must be nice.”
“It is. But nothing’s perfect.”
“You’re telling me.”
He took a long drink and pointed at me with his glass. “You’re Dexter Vega. From the newspaper.”
“Not anymore.”
“I always enjoyed your work.”
“Tell it to the editor,” I said. But it wasn’t as if I would ever go back. Even if they begged me to return, on their knees, offered me a raise—a big one—two extra weeks’ vacation. Never.
“It’s a shit deal, eh?” he said. “To be laid off after … how many years?”
“Twelve. And a half.”
He raised his glass. “Their loss.”
I touched his glass with mine and we drank. We moved slowly to the couch, a big white leather divan you probably couldn’t even buy in this town. He sat. I remained standing. It’s a better perspective when you’re in a rich person’s house. Always stand. Drink their booze, keep a clear perspective.
“That piece you did on the Sarasota Police covering up after their own. That was some top-notch reporting,” he said.
His flattery of my work was nice, but it made me wary. I’m naturally suspicious.
“It took a while to put the pieces together,” I said. “But when the puzzle was complete, it was all real clear. Besides, cops are a unique breed. They stick together. But when they smell blood, forget it. Sharks.”
He nodded. “So what are you doing now?”
I raised my glass and took a long sip of rum. “Drinking.”
He smiled. “Sit, please. Just for a moment.”
I sat on the chair across from him. An Eames recliner. Leather. Cool and comfortable.
“I wonder if you could do something for me.”
So there it was. Best friends already.
“I need someone to help me find my daughter.” His expression was dead serious. His little eyes locked on mine. I didn’t like it.
“Is she lost?”
“I’m not kidding, Mr. Vega. She sort of disappeared a few months ago—”
“Sort of?”
He smiled and pointed at my drink. “Need a refill?”
I looked at my glass. “Yeah, but first tell me about your daughter.”
“She’s a senior at New College. I got an e-mail from one of her professors about her absences. That’s how I found out. I called the police. They looked into it, but she’s an adult. They couldn’t find anything—how did they put it? Nefarious. So they dropped the case.”
“And her mother?”
“Deceased. When Maya was ten.”
“What about boyfriends?”
“She must have had one. Or some. I don’t know. She wasn’t very communicative about that part of her life.”
“And?”
He smiled in a very friendly way. “You’re an out of work investigative reporter. I need help.”
“You want to hire me to find her.”
Nick nodded. “I can pay much better than any newspaper.”
I glanced at my empty glass and whirled it around so the ice made that pretty tinkling sound. “How about that refill?”