chaps. His sideburns looked like black leather pasted in front of his ears. He wasn't a tall guy, five ten or so, but nail a chrome grille to his chest and he'd have been a Kenworth. His skin looked oiled under the black vest, the better to define the pecs, I guessed. I flashed the shield and set the photos on the bar.
'Seen either of these gentlemen?' I asked the Steroid King.
'No,' he said.
'You didn't look at the pictures.'
'True.' He pumped his fists to make the muscles in his forearms jump; they looked like steaks wrestling beneath his skin. He gave me bunker-slit eyes and said, 'Good-bye.'
I pointed to a corner booth where several men vamped and giggled. 'Look over there, Meat. I'll bet each one's carrying something. Smoke, Ecstasy, acid… I'll walk over and check them out. They'll mask fear with belligerence. I'll become frightened for my safety and call for backup. Cops will rush in, the place will clear out. What will that do to your tips?'
The steaks went wild. 'You think you're a tough guy?'
I sighed. 'Worse. I am a busy guy.'
Meat stared at me, pursed his lips, then shrugged and put his elbows on the bar. He studied the photos.
'Oh,' he said, and inappropriate to his image tsk-tsked.
'What?'
He pushed Deschamps's picture aside and tapped a sausage finger on Nelson's face. 'This one. He's been around. And I mean that both ways.'
'Enlighten me, Buddha.'
'A charmer, knows how to talk and act above his station. He'll come in occasionally, pick off some old queen who'll keep him for a while.'
'Know anyone who'd like to see him boxed and shipped?'
It took a second to sink in. 'He's dead?'
I nodded. The barkeep flipped the photo back. 'Sad. I remember him as kind of goofy; a dreamer. He never really hurt anyone, maybe broke a few old men's hearts.' He paused, thinking. 'He was in here a couple-three weeks back. I remember because he usually drank well booze, but he'd switched to top shelf. Buying rounds instead of hustling them. Said he found himself a bottomless honey jar and life was going to get sweet.' The bartender shook his head, grunted a laugh. 'Like I've never heard that one before.'
'You didn't believe him?'
The barkeep was still laughing when I walked out the door.
After two hours of dark bars, worn-out faces, and cigarette smoke as thick as jam, I was ready for a final run at the elusive Dr. Davanelle.
She sat in her small office working up the preliminary report. Her face seemed washed of color. I wanted to say something charming, pithy, and witty. Instead, I stood in the doorway and settled on the truth.
'Look, Dr. Davanelle, I can be a wiseass at times. If I've said things to offend you or make you think I'm a jerk, I apologize. When I asked you if you wanted to do something quiet and simple tonight, I meant only that. My intentions are so honorable I might have an ascension at any moment. That said, it's Friday night. Before I ascend would you like to grab a sandwich and watch the sun go down?'
Her head was shaking no before I finished the sentence. But this time her eyes weren't looking at me like cold pork gravy with a hair in it.
'I've got to finish the preliminary report on Deschamps, then drive over to Gulf Shores. My stereo receiver's being repaired. If I don't pick it up tonight, I won't get to it for a week.'
'Need company? I know the area,' I said, instant tour guide to Greater Mobile.
'The store provided me with clear directions, but thank you.'
Mobile Bay encompasses four hundred square miles, a vast, shallow pan of water extending approximately thirty miles from its wide Gulfside mouth to the Mobile and Tensaw rivers that feed freshwater into the northern delta. The city of Mobile is on the northwest side of the Bay, in Mobile County, appropriately enough. Baldwin County is on the eastern shore of the Bay, and has no signature city. Tourists might disagree, tending to think in terms of two motel-and condo-laden beach locales, Gulf Shores and Orange Beach.
Though Baldwin County has rural areas of charm and beauty, it's not only temporary home to tourists, but permanent home to former Mobilians looking for the 'country life.' Driving to Gulf Shores on one of the major thoroughfares is an exemplar of what inrushing money can do, especially teamed up with bulldozers development after development, billboard following billboard. Strip centers. Big-box stores. Fast food and service stations. I was once traveling through the city of Daphne when I heard an excitement-voiced tourist call back to the Winnebago: 'Get in here and take a peek, Marge, southern BPs are just like the ones we have in Dayton!'
I was seized by inspiration: suggesting Ava return to Mobile via the ferry between Fort Morgan on the tip of the eastern Bay, and Dauphin Island on the western side. I ran to my car, returned with a map, and traced the route with a highlighter. The ferry cost a few bucks and wasn't much of a time saver, I explained, but the view beat the hell out of the alternative.
She glanced at the map. 'Uhm-hum,' she said, furrowing her brow.
'It's a date,' I said. 'I live on Dauphin Island. Stop by on your way home and I'll show you my collection of sand.'
'Date? I don't think I '
'I didn't mean date like in date, Doctor. I'd just like to get your input on the autopsy. Bring a copy of the prelim by. Ten minutes.
Max. You'll be home before dark.'
'Home while it's light?'
What did it matter was she a vampire? I crossed my heart. 'I promise.'
'Give me your phone number,' she said. 'I'll call while I'm in Gulf Shores. If I'm able to stop by, that is.'
It was a dodge worthy of a Gypsy with legal training. Requesting my number implied intent, thus mollifying me, but she left her escape hatch wide open, not having to phone at all. Still, I penned my number to the map, which she stuck in her purse without a glance. Leaving, I turned to wave and saw her walking away like she'd slipped into another dimension.
CHAPTER 11
A week after moving into my house I was seized by a fit of domesticity and bought a vacuum cleaner. Or, judging by the looks of things when I'd un boxed it earlier this evening, several vacuum cleaners: tubes, brushes, cords, bags, and all manner of vaguely obscene, mouth like devices. Finally assembling a working instrument, I'd given everything a good suctioning. I squeaked gray film from my windows with rubbing alcohol. The toilet bowl received magic blue dust that fizzed and bubbled. Stacks of clothes were tucked into drawers. After an hour the place dazzled, in a relative sense.
By 7:30 I was sitting on the deck contemplating the slender odds that Dr. Davanelle might appear. The sun slid through no its last degrees of arc. A squall to the east pushed toward Pensacola, but the remaining sky was warm blue. The phone rang and I popped up like anxious toast. Be Ava, I wished, reaching for the phone.
'Carson? This is Vangie Prowse.'
My heart dropped to my knees. 'Hello, Dr. Prowse. What a surprise. I haven't seen you in '
'Jeremy called you a few night's ago, or early morning, rather?'
Her voice always split the difference between question and statement, a good voice for a psychiatrist.
I said, 'I didn't know he was allowed to call out.'
'He isn't. He slipped a cell phone from an attendant's pocket. I left a message for you the other night, to call me? I wanted to apologize for the lapse.'
My mind-photos of Dr. Evangeline Prowse, taken a year ago, gave her brown eyes as penetrating as those of a snow owl, fortune-teller eyes.
In her mid-sixties, she had more pepper than salt in her hair, the salt more silver than gray. Her loose-jointed knees and elbows conferred the gait of a retired marathoner. She would be calling from her office, high ceiling,
