circled around the tables piled with new arrivals.
We sat at a table near the window facing Main Street. The television mounted in the corner silently played one of the business channels. I wasn’t tempted to watch.
“I’ve got to tell you,” said Greg. “I am not filled with confidence about you.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Well, no offense, but you’re a little bald guy in jeans and a frayed short-sleeved yellow shirt. You’ve got a baseball cap on your head and you look like someone just shot your faithful dog.”
“I’m not offended. What do you have to tell me?”
“What? Oh.”
Greg grinned and punched his friend’s arm again.
“You really are funny.”
“I wasn’t trying to be,” I said.
“I think that woman on television is talking about aliens,” said Greg.
“No,” said his friend.
“I don’t mean illegal aliens. I mean the kind from outer space. Wishu-Wishuu-ooooo.”
“That sounds like an Ivy League football cheer,” said Winn.
“Get out,” said Greg.
“Hit him and I walk,” I said.
Greg, fist cocked, looked hurt, but he didn’t deliver the punch. Instead, he said, “I did one of my blogs about so-called alien visitors. There aren’t any. Aliens with two eyes and two legs aren’t coming millions of miles to pluck people out of their beds to probe their rectums with metal rods.”
A woman who had been talking to a younger woman at the table next to us looked over at the last comment.
“No aliens,” I said.
“No, they’re humanoids from the future, maybe hundreds of thousands of years in the future. They’re archaeologists or anthropologists or whatever those sciences will be like. They appear and disappear so fast because they zip in and out of time. The shapes of the craft differ because they come from different times in the future.”
“Why didn’t the ones from farther in the future go back and visit the ones from more recently and coordinate?” I said.
Greg had finished something filled with caffeine over ice and topped with whipped cream. Just what he needed to calm him down. Winn had an iced tea. I played with my coffee and looked at the two extra cups of Colombia Supremo Deep Jungle Roast and the two biscotti to go.
I learned that Ronnie Gerall had come to Sarasota in his junior year, that he was a natural leader, passionate about protecting the school from politicians and social gadflies, particularly Philip Horvecki.
“Everyone likes Ronnie,” said Greg. “Particularly the girls.”
Greg considered a punch, but his eyes met mine and he dropped his hand to his lap.
“What about his parents?” I asked.
Greg and Winn looked at each other before Greg said, “His mother’s dead. His father travels. We’ve never met Ronnie’s father.”
“I don’t think his father makes much money,” said Winn. “He drives a twenty-year-old Toyota.”
The ride over and the two biscotti and coffee was the price I had to pay for the information. I listened.
“Did you know that, in their duel, Alexander Hamilton fired at Aaron Burr first, and that Hamilton had been undermining Burr, who at the time was Vice President of the United States?”
“What has this to do with the murdered man and your friend in jail?”
“Nothing,” said Winn, adjusting his glasses. “Greg is a master of non sequiturs.”
“A connection will occur,” said Greg with enthusiasm. “String theory.”
“Any other connections between Ronnie Gerall and Philip Horvecki?”
“No,” said Greg, squirming in his seat.
The woman at the next table was trying not to listen for more talk about rods being applied to orifices. She was failing.
“Who else would want Horvecki dead?”
“Everybody,” said Greg.
“I didn’t want Horvecki dead,” I said.
“You didn’t know him,” said Greg.
“Lots of people are happy that Horvecki is dead,” said Winn.
“Can we narrow that down a little?”
“Horvecki had legal trouble with people,” said Winn.
“Like?”
“We don’t know for sure,” said Greg. “It was all kept quiet, but everybody knew. Okay, okay, you didn’t know.”
“Just talk to Ronnie, please,” said Winn. “Start there. What do you charge?”
“Eleven thousand dollars a week, but in your case I’ll give you a discount because I was recommended by Ettiene Viviase’s daughter.”
“Eleven thou…,” Greg began.
“He’s joking,” said Winn.
“I’m not good at jokes. I’m making a point. What would you pay for your friend to be found innocent?”
“Five hundred dollars a week plus expenses,” said Greg. “We can get lots of people to contribute. My grandfather could write a check for four thousand and not miss it.”
“That’s comforting,” I said.
“It is to Ronnie,” said Greg. “I’ve got cash.”
I let the bills he took out of his pocket rest on the edge of the desk.
“It goes back to you after I talk to your friend,” I said, “if I’m not happy with his answers to my questions.”
“Then you’ll find the killer?”
“Then I’ll try to find Rachel Horvecki.”
“And the killer,” said Greg.
“And the killer,” I agreed.
I got a paper brown paper bag from the counter and carefully placed coffees and biscotti inside and then neatly folded the top over before cradling it against my chest. The heat was lulling. I had told the two boys that I wanted to be alone to think and that I’d make it back to my place on my own. Greg wanted to say a lot more. Winn guided him out of the News and Books.
Normally, I would have turned the possible job down with thanks for the refreshments, but I could use the money. I was moving. It didn’t cost much but there were things I needed and my bike wanted repair. The number of court papers to serve for my lawyer clients was down for the summer. The snowbirds who came down to their condos, homes, and rentals wouldn’t be back to engage in and be the victims of crime for at least three months. There were fewer criminals being brought to justice or just being hauled before a judge for not paying child support. I didn’t need much, didn’t want much, but now I had Victor Woo to feed and a weekly dinner out with Sally Porovsky and her two kids at Honey Crust Pizza, which would eventually present a challenge even if Sally and I split the bill. And though I was a project for my therapist, Ann Hurwitz, I still had to pay something each time I saw her, even if it was only ten dollars.
When this meeting of the minds was over, I walked down the block to Gulf Stream Boulevard, across from the Bay, to get to my appointment with Ann.
I stepped through the inner door of Ann’s office and held out my ritual offering of coffee and biscotti. She looked up from her blue armchair, and I sat in its duplicate across from her as she removed the lid from the cup and dipped an almond biscotti into it. I took off my Cubs cap and placed it on my lap.
“Make me smile,” she said.
Ann is over eighty years old. I’m not sure how much over. I do know she doesn’t like it when people say she is “eighty years young.”
