us in came out first and pointed wordlessly in our direction. Two policemen strolled out next, with a junior version of Keith between them.
The kid had his head down and was dragging his feet, but insolence rolled off him like sweat. Whatever it was he’d been caught doing, he was totally unrepentant about it. His gaze floated briefly over me, the newcomer, and carried on without interest.
One of the cops came forwards and looked straight at Lonnie. “Mr Pelzner?” he asked. He had sergeant’s stripes on his sleeve and a belly big enough to ensure he had to use a mirror to check his fly.
The real Keith Pelzner stepped forwards. “I’m Pelzner,” he said, sounding resigned. “What’s he done this time, officer?”
“Well, sir,” the sergeant said, glancing round meaningfully. “Maybe we could talk about this some place more private?”
Keith sighed and started to lead them back towards the house.
“I think I better be in on this one,” Gerri said. “Lonnie, get Juanita to show Charlie her room, then contact Jim and find out what the score is.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Lonnie said smartly, and to me: “If you’d like to come this way?”
“So,” I asked as I fell into step alongside him, “does the kid do this kind of thing a lot?”
Lonnie rolled his eyes. “Oh yeah,” he said, a slight smirk forming as he recognised somebody further down the pecking order than he was. “But I guess you’ll find out soon enough – seeing as how you’re gonna be looking out for him.”
He wouldn’t say much more, handing me over to the Hispanic maid in the hallway. On the way to my room I tried to gently pump Juanita for information about how much trouble Trey Pelzner managed to get himself into, and on what kind of regular basis. Either her English wasn’t good enough to understand the question, or she was being loyally tight-lipped. She just led me to the appropriate doorway, waved me inside with another smile, and departed.
My room was in the block above the garaging, which makes it sound less luxurious than it really was. Suite would be a better description. The whole place was painted white with blue and pink trimmings which would have looked gaudy anywhere else but the subtropics. It had a tiled floor and the kind of finishing touches that have been added by an interior designer rather than a homeowner.
There was an ensuite just off the bedroom, with shallow but wide bath that I couldn’t have laid down in, but which had a huge shower head over the top of it. Everything had been done in white marble.
Another doorway from the bedroom led to a small sitting room, with a mammoth TV set and a balcony. I opened the wooden shutters and stepped out onto it, discovering that I was at the front of the house, but right over to one side. If I leaned out and craned my neck, I could just see the police cruiser parked next to Gerri Raybourn’s Mercedes.
As I watched, the two cops who’d brought Trey home walked down the steps and climbed into their car, their audience with Keith Pelzner over. The sergeant took the passenger seat, while the younger guy, clearly his junior, went round to the driver’s side.
Just before he got in, the second policeman unfolded a pair of expensive Oakley sunglasses and slipped them on.
Three
“OK, Trey,” I said, keeping my eyes on the road ahead of us. “I think now would be a really good time for you to tell me who’s after you.”
I was rewarded by another silent hunch of the boy’s shoulders. Still he wouldn’t meet my eyes.
I pressed my lips together and let my breath out slowly through my nose, willing the tension to escape with it. The technique didn’t work particularly well.
In reality, I didn’t need him to tell me who was after him. I already knew that. What I really needed to find out, though, was
We’d passed the exits for Boca Raton and Deerfield Beach. Maybe, once, they’d been individual places, but now they just seemed to be part of one huge urban sprawl. It started around about West Palm Beach and went all the way down to Miami in the south, swallowing Fort Lauderdale on the way. We were nearly at the junction for the house.
I knew I needed answers before we got there. Trey hadn’t spoken at all since we’d got back into the car. I was only too well aware how shock has its own way of shielding the mind, but I didn’t have time for gentle psychology.
“Is this a straightforward kidnap?” I wondered, more to myself than to the boy. “Was he planning on holding you to ransom?”
Trey snorted suddenly. “For what?” he demanded. “You gotta, like, have a lotta dough to be kidnapped, don’t you? We’re broke.”
“Broke?” I echoed blankly, thinking of the mansion and the wedge of cash in my pocket.
“Yeah,” he said, scathing at my lack of comprehension. “The people Dad works for rent the house and give him, like, an allowance. Like he was a kid or something.”
“Well somebody’s after you.” I said. “You do know who that guy was, don’t you?” It was almost a rhetorical question. After all, the kid had been brought home by Oakley man, sat in a car with him, been torn off a strip in front of him. How could Trey possibly have failed to recognise him?
The kid glanced at me, little more than a sliding skim that settled longest, I noticed, on the blood which had dried on my shirt and on my skin. I resisted the impulse to scratch at it.
But I’d caught something in his eyes. Something knowing. Something that made me suspect he wasn’t as horrorstruck by what he’d seen as he was making out.
“Why was a cop trying to kill you, Trey?” I asked now, more brutal, trying to shake it loose. “What have you done?”
“I ain’t done nothing!” The words had burst free before he had the chance to stop them. Too fast, perhaps? The way the guiltiest kid in the class will issue an instant denial before he’s even been accused of the crime. “I ain’t done nothing,” he repeated, quieter this time.
“You must have done something for those two cops to have picked you up at the Galleria,” I said. “It was only the day before yesterday. What happened?”
Of course, I’d heard the official version of events from Gerri Raybourn’s second-in-command, Jim Whitmarsh. He’d filled me in later, on the day I’d first arrived, although it was only after he’d begun speaking that I’d worked out that the Galleria was the name of the local shopping centre – a place so mammoth it made Meadowhall in Sheffield look like the corner Spar.
Trey had been caught near a store that sold computer accessories with a considerable amount of unpaid-for merchandise stashed in his school bag. The store manager had been all for pressing charges until Whitmarsh and Sean had been down there.
It was Sean, I’d gathered, who had politely pointed out the name of the company Trey’s father worked for. It might not have been up to Microsoft standards, but it still had enough clout in that field to dampen the guy’s enthusiasm for a prosecution. Particularly when Sean had hinted that the company might possibly be needing a rake of new hardware in the near future. By the time they’d left, he’d told me, the manager was falling over himself to be helpful.
Now, I waited for Trey’s side of the story. It took him a while to get it straight in his head before he tried it out on me.
“They set me up,” he muttered.
I ducked my head to catch the words, unsure for a moment that I’d heard him right. I couldn’t believe he’d actually come out with that one as a viable excuse, but I put a lot of effort into keeping my voice neutral. “Who set you up?”
Again, that sideways flick of the eyes from beneath his lashes, to check how this was going down. “That cop and my dad,” he said at last. “He didn’t want me to go up to Daytona for Spring Break, so he set it up just so’s he could ground me.”
