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I ARRIVED EARLY AT a small café in San Marco, crowded for a weekday afternoon. I sat at a table on the sidewalk patio and ordered a Jack Daniels.
I was onto my second when Kathleen walked up behind me and ran her hand across my back. “Thanks for meeting me, Henry.”
I forced a smile—a smirk—as she sat down across from me.
She looked as beautiful as ever.
I didn’t even wait for her to order a drink. “I’m not into married women,” I said. “I follow spouses who cheat for a living. But I’m usually the one on the outside looking in. I’m not interested.”
“Henry, please.” She paused a moment, her eyes down toward the table. “I understand. I do. And I know it doesn’t make a difference now, but I told you the truth when I said my husband and I aren’t together.” She removed her sunglasses, placed them inside her purse.
“Mind if I order a drink?”
I shrugged. “Of course now...go right ahead.”
I flagged down the waitress and ordered Kathleen a glass of wine.
I ordered another Jack...and made it a double.
“I don’t like looking over my shoulder,” I said. “I’ve had some strange things happen to me lately. And I can’t help but wonder if it’s got something to do with your husband.”
The waitress put a glass of wine down on the table. Kathleen took a sip. Her bright, brown eyes looked at me over the rim. She placed it down and ran her fingers along the stem. “You don’t have anything to worry about, Henry.”
I leaned back in the chair, my glass in my hand. “Well, now that the cat’s out of the bag...why don’t you tell me what your husband does for a living?”
“My husband?” She looked down into her glass. “He’s an entrepreneur.”
“An entrepreneur?”
She nodded. “He’s involved in international business. He does a lot of work overseas...export and import.”
“Are you trying to avoid telling me what he actually does? Or do you really have no idea?” I leaned forward and took a sip from my glass. “Forgive me for saying this, but you describe his work the way someone married to a mobster might describe her husband’s line of work. But normally that’d be waste disposal.”
She raised her eyebrows and sipped her wine without responding.
I leaned forward on the table. “Kathleen, I don’t even know your last name. How am I supposed to believe anything you say if all you give me are foggy details.”
“I told you, Henry. There’s nothing to worry about. I just think it’s best—for both of us—you let this go. And in time, you’ll know more.”
“I’m sorry, Kathleen, I—”
She reached across the table and put her hand on top of mine. “Henry, please. Can’t we talk about something else?”
I pulled my hand away and looked around at the crowd. “Is it really just a coincidence you showed up when bad things started happening to me? The boat I lived on blew up. My friend’s fiancé is missing. And I’ve been shot...”
Kathleen forced a smile. “You’re being paranoid, Henry. I assure you...what happened between us is—” She looked past me and slipped her sunglasses over her eyes. “My husband is not after you. I just hope, one day, maybe you’ll give this another chance.”
She stood from the table.
I looked up at her. “You’re leaving?”
She stepped around the table, leaned down and gave me a kiss. She held her hand against my face for a moment, turned and walked away.
––––––––
I MADE MY WAY INSIDE the restaurant and sat down at the bar. I worried, maybe I’d been too hard on Kathleen. Maybe she was right. Maybe I was paranoid...reading too much into everything.
But whether or not I was being paranoid didn’t matter. She’d lied to me. More than once. And even if she claimed it was over between her and her husband, she was clearly protecting him by not telling me who he was or what he did for a living.
It did occur to me, however, that she could’ve been trying to protect me.
I received a text from Alex:
Where are you?
Having a drink
Alone?
Yes
You get a car?
Yes. Billy hooked me up
With what?
Chevy Impala. I’ll call you before I leave. I’m going to talk to Frank
Where?
His apartment
You want me to go with you?
I don’t know. I’ll call you
I stayed at that bar longer than I’d wanted to. And by the time I pulled into the parking lot of Frank’s apartment, it was already dark.
I knocked on his door and was caught a little off guard when the door opened right away. Frank stood in the doorway wearing a white tank-top. He held one hand behind his back.
I nodded toward his arm. “You don’t need a gun, do you?”
He dropped his hand down by his side with what looked like a .45 in his hand. He narrowed his eyes. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Is that how you treat all your guests?”
Frank stared back at me but didn’t answer.
I said, “I want to ask you some more questions, now that you’re free to talk. At least for now.”
He shrugged and leaned with his arm up against the frame of the door.
“What can you tell me about Carla Weiss and Julie Sanders?”
He looked out into the hallway. “I’ll be right back.” He closed the door.
I stood still for a moment and wondered if he’d come back out. I turned and looked down over the railing toward a small pond I hadn’t noticed before. The moon reflected off the top of the water.
Frank opened the door wearing a different shirt. He tucked his gun into the front of his pants and walked past me toward the stairs. “We can go sit by the pool.”
I was more than surprised Frank was suddenly willing to talk to me. Suspicious might be a better word. On our way down the stairs, I looked out over the parking lot thinking maybe I’d see Alex’s Jeep pull in.
Over his shoulder, Frank said, “So, why are you asking about Julie Sanders?”
“I’ve just gotten to know her. We met a couple of times. The first time she was friendly. The next time, not so much. Maybe because she knew I saw Carla Weiss deliver a crate. She was with someone who works for Charles Weiss.”
Frank stopped on the stairs and turned to me. “Charles doesn’t have two pennies to rub together, but he’s got someone working for him?”
I followed Frank as he turned and walked along a concrete path with lights on the ground along the concrete walkway. He pushed open a metal gate that clanked behind me when I let it close.
Frank pulled the .45 from his waist and placed it on a round plastic table. We sat down across from each other. There was nobody around.
He lifted his leg up almost as high as the table, showed me the bracelet on his ankle. “This is about as far as I can go for now.”
I gave a quick nod, but wanted to get right to it. “So, what do you know about Julie Sanders?”
Frank took a moment before he answered. “The Sanders family used to be real wealthy. One of the wealthiest in the area.”
“Used to be?”
He nodded. “As we both know...nothing lasts forever.” He looked up at the apartment buildings surrounding the pool. “You think I ever thought I’d be living like this, in some shitty apartment building, sharing it with some kid half my age?”
I shrugged, looked down toward the blue, sparkling water. “Got a nice pool though.”
Frank gave me a look.
“So what is the deal with you and Jayray, anyway?” I said. “I guess I find it a little strange.”
“He works for me.” Frank pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pants pocket and threw them up on the table. “He’s a smart kid, you know. Tells me he was a straight-A student in high school. Sometimes he’ll talk about stuff, doesn’t even make sense to me. You’d be surprised. He’s smarter than he looks.”
“So now he gets to learn from you...show him how to steal a pregnant woman’s car?”
“I didn’t know what you were going to do...figured you were still pissed off about what happened between us the other day.”
Frank pulled a couple of mini liquor bottles from his pocket and put them out on the table. He cracked the top open on one and shot it back, straight down his throat. He handed me the other.
I cracked the top and took a sip. Had to choke it down with a taste too close to gasoline. “So...go ahead. About Julie Sanders?”
Frank nodded, pulled a cigarette from his pack. “I’d heard Julie was getting involved in some business deals. I’m sure that’s why she took that position, running the Jewel and Gem Society.”
“Any chance Carla Weiss’d be working with her?”
Frank narrowed his eyes. “How big was the crate?”
I held my hand out a few feet off the ground and showed him the height. “Four feet high?”
“She delivered it alone?”
I shook my head. “This guy, Dominic. He works for Charles. Drove a black Lincoln...carried the crate inside.”
Frank leaned back in his seat and pulled another bottle from his pocket. He cracked the top and tipped his head back to finish it off. “You know, Julie used to be tied-in real tight with the international trade market. She knows the same people Charles knows, over there in France.”
“She didn’t have anything good to say about Charles. She said they threw him out, took away his membership for trying to scam another member.”
Frank took a drag of his cigarette. “I don’t know much about whatever it is you heard. But Charles knows a lot of people. If there’s any friction between those two—I’d have to put my money on Charles.”
“Charles thinks Julie set him up to keep him away.”
Frank shook his head. “This business...” He had his chair turned out from the table, facing the pool. He leaned back and crossed one leg over the other, his hand with the cigarette rested on his knee. He looked toward the ground. “I’m trying to be fair with you, Henry. Telling you whatever you ask. Don’t you think it’d make sense you do the same?”
“How so?”
He looked me right in the eye and waited a moment before he spoke. “Tell me where my brother is.”
I reached across the table and grabbed another snifter, cracked the top and shot the gasoline-like liquor down the back of my throat.
“If I knew he were alive, I’d tell you. And if I find out where he is—if it turns out he’s alive—you’ll be the first to know.”
Frank sat quiet for a moment, took a drag of his cigarette. “You don’t know what was in that crate?”
“Are you asking me because you wonder if it’s the crystal pelican you’re all after?”
Frank shrugged his shoulders and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “If Philip’s alive, and if he’s hiding, maybe he worked out a deal with someone like Julie. But I don’t know why Carla’d be involved. I can’t say for sure Charles and Carla are even on speaking terms.” Frank had one eye closed as he took a drag from his cigarette. The smoke floated toward his face. “Maybe Julie and Carla teamed-up?”
“What about the tough guy working for Charles?”
Frank stared out toward the pool. “Philip and Carla have some history, you know.”
“Really? Philip and Carla?”
Frank nodded.
“Then, how would Julie fit in?” I said.
“I don’t know. Maybe she lined-up a buyer. They cut Charles out of the deal, Jeanpaul gets his money.”
“Jeanpaul? He’s the artist?”
“Yeah. That’s one thing about Philip, he believes the artist should always be taken care of.” He shrugged again. “I’m just making guesses. Isn’t that how it works?”
“How what works?”
He nodded with his chin. “As a PI. You just make an educated guess. Isn’t that how you solve the mystery.”
“Not quite,” I said. Although he wasn’t that far off from the truth. “What about you? You must not be happy, Philip cut you out of the deal after you and Charles had worked something out?”
Frank gave me a look and held his stare for a moment. He reached for his .45 and pulled it closer to his side of the table. “You asking me if I’d kill my own brother?”
“Well, you’re the one who insists he’s alive. I can’t help but think maybe you know a little something about what went down that day in the marina.”
Frank stood up from the table, picked up his gun and let it hang down by his side. He dropped his cigarette on the ground, stomped it out with his foot and kicked it into the pool. He walked away without saying another word, opened the gate and let it slam behind him with a loud bang.