“Who’s Nelson,” Jesse said.
“Paradise Rentals,” Guilfoyle said. “He’s the big guy in the business, right over here off the town wharf.”
3 3
R O B E R T B . P A R K E R
Jesse nodded.
“I know the place. You think she made a mistake, took it back to the wrong place?”
“How do you do that?” Guilfoyle said.
He wore a pink striped shirt and white duck trousers with wide red suspenders. The shirt was unbuttoned over his chest, as if he were proud of the gray hair.
“I mean he’s here, I’m way the hell down the other end of the harbor. He’s got a hundred boats. I got fifteen. He’s short and fat.”
“And you look like Cesar Romero,” Jesse said.
“Yeah, right. So how does somebody make that kind of mistake.”
“Hard to figure,” Jesse said.
“Plus I got her damn driver’s license. I always hold it until they bring the boat back.”
“You have that with you?” Jesse said.
“Yeah. The credit card slip and her license.”
Guilfoyle took a brown envelope out of his hip pocket and put it on the desk in front of Jesse.
“Kid’s sailing the boat over to my place. I got to charge her credit card for all the time it’s been gone, you know.”
“That’ll be up to you and the credit card company,” Jesse said. “I’ll need to hang on to the license for a few days.”
“What if they want some kind of proof ?”
“I’ll make it available,” Jesse said. “I just want to see what happened to the woman.”
“Something happened?”
3 4
S E A C H A N G E
“Yep.”
“I don’t want to get involved in no trouble,” Guilfoyle said.
“Don’t blame you,” Jesse said.
“But you think I might?”
“Not unless you’re what happened to her,” Jesse said.
“It’s that dead girl they found floating down by the wharf.”
“Don’t know if it is or not,” Jesse said.
“But if you look at the picture on her driver’s license . . .”
Guilfoyle paused.
Jesse was shaking his head.
“Oh,” Guilfoyle said.
“Thanks for coming in, Mr. Guilfoyle.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t want no trouble over this. I just want to get paid for the time my boat was missing.”
“And I wish you well on that,” Jesse said.
“I’m going to talk with a lawyer.”
“That’ll be swell,” Jesse said.
Guilfoyle looked at him. Jesse looked back.
“Don’t lose that license, either,” Guilfoyle said.
“Okay,” Jesse said.
Guilfoyle lingered.
“Thanks for stopping by,” Jesse said.
Guilfoyle hesitated another moment, then went.
3 5
8
I t was a Florida driver’s license. The photo was not flattering. But it showed that she was blond and thirtyish.
Horvath. Her address was in Fort Lauderdale. Her date of birth was February 13, 1970. Jesse took the license and credit card to the copy machine, made a copy of each and took the copies to the front desk and gave them to
