thousand shrinks with a thousand mandolins could tell you it wasn’t your fault. But it was. You can always think of something you should have done, could have done.
Carl Sebastian blustered and bragged, but a gargoyle called guilt rode on his shoulders, head back, laughing and showing sharp teeth. A small taunting demon of guilt hid within the purse of Beryl Tree, peeping out to whisper of things that could have been done and weren’t. I knew the demon and the gargoyle. We weren’t friends, but I knew them.
The place was noisy. The bar was to my right and beyond it was the dining room and beyond the dining room was the bay and a view of Lido Key about a half mile or so away.
Carl Sebastian was at a table in the bar. He sat alone, a drink in his hand, his eyes on me as I approached. I sat.
“What do you have?” he said.
I felt like saying “a sense of humor” or “a desire for civilized interaction,” but I didn’t.
He was dressed in a perfect-fitting white jacket, a black shirt and a white tie and, from what I could see, a perfectly creased pair of white slacks. There was even a black handkerchief in his pocket.
I looked at him and smiled. I think it was a smile.
“You’re in pain,” he said. “Your chest-”
“Nothing to do with your situation,” I said.
“I’m sorry,” said Sebastian, starting to put a hand up to check the wave in his white hair and then changing his mind. “I’ve just been
… don’t know. I can’t work. I can’t… would you like a drink? I’m just having Bloody Mary mix with a slice of lemon. They don’t have V8 tonight.”
“I’ll have the same,” I said.
Carl Sebastian looked up over my shoulder, made a slight gesture with his left hand and a waiter appeared. Sebastian ordered my drink and another for himself.
“She’s probably still in the area,” I said.
“Good,” he said.
“She’s not using her credit cards or checking account.
Of course she could have used her cash to open another account under another name, but I don’t see the point. Mr. Sebastian, I don’t think your wife wants to be found. Not right now. She’s not running, but she doesn’t want to be found. I have some reasonable evidence that she plans to stay around for a while. I think she may come back on her own, call you or get to you through a friend. That’s what they usually do.”
He shook his head no.
I sat listening to the noise and looking to my right at the sun on the water.
“I don’t want to think about who she might be with,” he said. “What she might be doing. I can’t sleep. I can’t work. Find Melanie for me.”
I shrugged and looked at the Bloody Mary mix with a twist of lemon the waiter had placed in front of me.
“All right,” I said. “She rented a car. I may be able to track it down, find it, find her through it. There are other leads.”
“The good Dr. Green,” he said with as much sarcasm as he could muster.
“Maybe,” I said. “You still think he might be with your wife?”
“Yes,” he said emphatically, looking into my eyes.
“He says he’s gay,” I said.
“I know,” said Sebastian. “He’s lying.”
“Pretending to be a homosexual?” I asked after taking a drink.
“Why not? He gets the homosexual trade. He gets women who feel comfortable with a homosexual who wouldn’t be with a-”
“Straight guy, like you and me?” I said.
“You’re mocking me, Fonesca,” he said.
“Sorry.”
“Shall I continue or do you want to smirk for a few seconds?”
“I don’t smirk.”
“Geoffrey Green gets women who feel comfortable with him and then seduces them. Maybe they think they’re rescuing him from his choice or nature.”
“And maybe he’s gay,” I said.
“Or maybe he is whatever the client wants him to be,” said Sebastian. “I think he knows where Melanie is. I want her found. I’m sure I can straighten this out if she’ll just talk to me face to face.”
“I’ll keep looking,” I said.
He sat back and said, “Good.”
I finished my drink, got up and said I had to leave. He looked at his watch and said he had to leave too. He dropped a twenty on the table and we made our way through cigar smoke and hoarse laughter and down the stairs and through the doors to the outside. Sebastian nodded to one of the young valets, who blinked and went looking for the right car.
“Find her for me, Fonesca,” he said, putting a hand gently on my shoulder.
I nodded and started down the pier toward the parking lot. There were more gulls now but the pelicans were gone.
Sally Porovsky’s apartment was in one of those two-story complexes in blocks of six or seven buildings. There was plenty of parking, the grass was green and the bushes and trees, including some stunted palms, were taken care of. This was not where the retired wealthy spent their golden years.
The apartment was easy to find. The buildings were clearly marked with large gold address numbers, which were easy to read by the complex’s night lights. When I got to the door, I could hear voices inside, including one male voice I recognized: Harrison Ford. I pushed the button and waited. From inside, a boy shouted.
“Door. It must be Kevin Costner for you, Mom.”
“Michael,” said Sally, “how about a gesture of goodwill?”
A few seconds later, the door opened and I was facing a lanky teen in a blue T-shirt, million-times-washed jeans and bare feet. His hair was long and he had an earring in his left ear. He was still into acne, but it was minimal. He said nothing.
“I’m Lew Fonesca,” I said, holding out my hand.
He shook and stood looking at me, holding the door.
“Can I come in?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said, moving to a sofa against a wall and plopping into it. His feet went up on a low coffee table and his eyes turned to the television set, where Harrison Ford was scrambling along a rooftop.
I was standing in a small, neat living room with a bright comfortable sofa, an armchair, a dark wooden coffee table, a line of Georgia O’Keeffe flowers on the walls. The floor was gray carpet. I guessed the floors in all the apartments were management-gray carpet. The room and the dining room beyond it were clean and uncluttered.
I pushed the door closed behind me and said,
“Frantic.”
“Yeah,” Michael said.
“What’s your favorite Harrison Ford movie?”
He looked up at me and said, “You care?”
“I think so. I’m killing awkward time till your mother comes to save me, but it’ll be easier for both of us if we find something reasonably interesting to talk about. My favorite is Witness.”
Mike nodded and looked back at the television set. Harrison Ford almost fell.
“I like the first Indiana Jones too,” I said.
“Yeah,” said Mike.
“I’ve got tapes of both of them,” I said.
“We don’t have much room for tapes,” said Mike. “But we do have the VCR.”
