a hollow pillar made of plaster.
I had helped Ames find Holland. Ames wanted his money and some retribution. Holland wanted to keep everything and get rid of his old partner. I had arranged for them to come unarmed at nine at night to the beach in the park at the south end of Lido Key.
When Ames and I arrived, we crossed the road and walked around the parking lot chain. I didn’t know how often the police patrolled the park after closing, but it was hard to keep people out since the beach ran into the park on the Gulf side.
We listened to the surf, the gulls and the crunch of parking lot stones under our feet as I led the way past picnic tables and through a thin line of trees onto the narrow beach. Across the inlet, the lights from the houses looked friendly but far away.
We were early. Holland wasn’t there.
I moved to the shore with Ames and looked into the clear moonlit water. A ray about the size of a large kite glided just below the surface of the water no more than a dozen feet out
“Ames,” I said. “It’s beautiful here.”
“That’s a fact.”
“Being alive is not bad.”
“Depends. You’re talking to the wrong man.”
At that point, the right man came walking through the trees about thirty yards up the beach. A small white heron skittered away from him. Jim Holland walked erect, sure-footed in our direction, a little man with a mission, hands behind his back. Ames took four or five steps in his direction.
I stepped between them when they were about a dozen paces apart.
“Hold it,” I said. “I talk. You listen. You both agreed.”
They said nothing.
“Compromise,” I said.
“There’s no compromise about this,” said Ames.
“Told you that. He gives me my money back and I let him live.”
“Money is mine, my father’s,” said Holland. “I told you that. He gets out of town and I let him live.”
“Cash money,” said Ames, standing tall, a rush of warm wind bristling his hair.
The white heron had wandered back and stood a few paces behind Jim Holland in the moonlight.
“That’s it,” I said. “That’s it. We’re leaving now. I’m preparing a report and turning it over to the police in the morning. I’m also giving a copy to my lawyer.”
That part had been a lie. I had no lawyer.
“Can’t work like that,” said Holland.
“Can’t,” agreed Ames.
“I’m not a violent man,” said Holland. “I told you, but I see no options here. I’ve got a business, a wife, children and family honor.”
My stomach warned me even before Holland pulled a shotgun from behind his back.
There was nowhere to run and no one to call. I had a vision of a small shark in the water going for my dead eyes.
“This is crazy,” I said.
“No argument from me,” agreed Holland as he raised the shotgun and moved toward us.
Holland’s shotgun was about halfway up when Ames pulled what looked like a Buntline special from under his shirt behind his back and fired twice at the same time as Holland’s shotgun. I was still standing. So was Ames, but Holland went down on his back and flung his shotgun toward the bay. Birds and squirrels went chattering mad in the brush and trees.
Ames returned the long-barreled gun to his belt and turned to me.
“It’s done,” he said.
“You lied to me,” I said. “You said no gun.”
“So did Jim. If I didn’t lie, we’d be dead men.”
He was right and I suddenly needed a toilet. A car, maybe two, raced across the gravel in the parking lot beyond the trees and picnic tables. A pair of headlights cut through, bouncing toward us.
“Gun was my father’s. It ends fitting.”
Footsteps came crashing through the brush branches and a pair of flashlights found us.
“Put your hands up,” came a less-than-steady voice behind the light.
I put my hands up and so did Ames. The two policemen moved toward us past the dead man.
“On your knees,” said one of them. “Arms behind your back.”
I moved as fast as I could. Ames hadn’t budged.
“Can’t do that,” he said.
“Old-timer,” came the voice, drawing nearer, “I’m in no mood.”
“Don’t go on my knees,” said Ames. “For man nor God. I’ll take the consequences.”
And he did. When they took us in to the station back on Ringing Boulevard, Ames took full responsibility, told the police that I had come to patch up an old quarrel and that Holland had set us up. He told them I’d tried to stop the killing and that I had no idea that he had a gun or might use it.
It was not with charity and goodwill, but on the advice of a county attorney that they eventually let me go home after starting a file on me.
They kept Ames and I testified at the inquest. Ames was turned over for shooting Jim Holland.
I’d been the only witness. Ames was given a suspended sentence for having an unregistered firearm. He stayed in town, got a job as odd-job man at the Texas and assigned himself the task of being my guardian angel.
“We going somewhere?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Need a weapon?” he asked, following me back into the Texas.
“No,” I said.
“We’ll be back by one,” I said to Ed as we passed him.
“No hurry,” Ed said without looking up from his book. “Marie and Charlie’ll be here in a little while. I can hold down Fort Apache.”
Ames had a motor scooter in his room. He also had various small arms and a Remington M-10 twelve-gauge pump-action shotgun and a yellow slicker that covered it when necessary plus the use of any of the guns of the Old West display on the walls of the Texas. Ames kept them unloaded but all in firing condition.
We got into the Saturn.
“How’s Ed’s liver?” I asked as I started to drive.
“Swears by acupuncture and Chinese herbs,” said Ames. “Seems to work.”
“Willpower,” I said. “Man owns a bar and can’t drink.”
“Man does what a man has to do,” Ames said.
I would have glanced at him to see if he was joking, but I knew Ames well enough to know that he meant just what he said. I never asked Ames for a joke to tell Ann. I was sure he didn’t have any.
He didn’t ask where we were going, didn’t ask why I pulled off of Beneva and drove down the narrow paved road to the Seaside Assisted Living Facility. The Seaside was a good four miles from the Gulf of Mexico, but it did have a pond with ducks floating on the green water.
I parked in a space between two cars in an area marked RESIDENTS ONLY.
“We’re here to see a woman named Dorothy Cgnozic,” I said.
The nod from Ames was almost not there, but I knew what to look for. He didn’t ask me why we were going to see the woman or why I wanted him with me. If I wanted to tell him, that would be fine. If not, he wouldn’t burn with curiosity.
I told him.
“She thinks she saw a woman get murdered here last night,” I said.
He looked at me, gray eyes unblinking.
I had asked him to come because he was seventy-four, because people found him easy to talk to, to trust, especially the very young and the very old. He understood.
