“Her life with me can be goddamn good. Listen, I give her a great apartment she shares with a couple of other girls, maid service, great food. Clothes. Walk to the beach. No one hits her. I don’t let her have drugs or drink anything stronger than a little wine. I keep her in shape till she gets too old.”
“Then you send her back to Tilly or Dwight,” I said.
“You don’t get it, Fonesca. It’s not that simple. Life’s not that simple. Where have you been living, aboard the Enterprise? When Adele retires, which I hope is a long time away, she’ll have more money than you’ll ever have and I’ll get her a straight job, hostess at a restaurant, something like that, far away from here. I have connections. If she wants to go to school while she’s with me, that can be worked out. My clients are top-drawer people, high level. No one is going to hurt her. Whatever crap she’s already been through with Dwight and Tilly, this will be heaven. I’ve got a doctor who checks out the girls, takes care of them. I guarantee my girls are disease free, guarantee.”
“You’re a saint, John,” I said.
“You are a stupid wiseass,” he said, shaking his head. “So you keep her. Then what? She goes to a foster home? She’ll run away. She goes back to Dwight, which is a distinct possibility because if I can’t get to her, I bankroll good old Dwight and get him the best lawyer in the state. The judge will not only give her back to her loving dad, but he’ll probably get a Father of the Year award. And then he’ll give her back to me, with the same visiting privileges he has now. You want another scenario? Fine, you can adopt her. You don’t like me. You don’t like Dwight. You adopt her, keep her from running away. You prepared to be pop to Adele, Lewis?”
“You killed Tony Spiltz,” I said.
“How?”
“Shot him in the head. Last night Tony and Dwight came to the apartment while you were in bed with Adele. You came out, argued. You shot Spiltz. Then you and Dwight ran off, leaving Adele with Tony’s body.”
“That’s a stupid story,” said Pirannes. “Look, I’m hungry and I’m starting to get a migraine. I have migraines. My mother had them. My two sisters have them. You’re giving me a migraine. I’ve got a lunch appointment and I have to call my lawyer about Tony getting killed in my place. The truth is, Lewis, I wasn’t home last night. I left Adele with Tony to watch her, maybe, you know, teach her a few things. Tony was a gentle guy with a lot of experience.”
“Adele says otherwise about what happened,” I said.
“Adele’s trying to protect her father, you simpleminded asshole. Handford probably came to my place last night looking for money, wanting to spend time with his kid, who knows. Tony said no. Dwight brought a gun or took Tony’s and… you know the rest. I’m getting hungry. Maybe that’s why I’m getting a migraine.”
He took out one of those plastic one-week pill containers, popped open one of the compartments, removed a large white pill and swallowed it with a Perrier chaser.
“You leave Adele alone,” I repeated.
“You are getting boring, Fonesca. And you don’t listen. Adele is a smart sixteen-year-old who knows the world better than you do.”
“She’s barely fourteen and she doesn’t know much of anything,” I said.
“Fourteen?” he said.
“Change things?” I asked.
“For the better, Lewis. For the better. I’ve got clients who’ll be very happy to get the news. They trust me, know I wouldn’t lie about something like that. You’ve brought me good news, Lewis. Walk away and I’ll forgive you your trespasses. As far as I’m concerned, when the cops find me, I’ve got an all-night alibi and I’ve never heard of Adele. As far as I know, Tony was in the apartment all alone last night. He must have let one of his friends in. They had a fight, and… You like that story?”
“Stay away from Adele,” I said again.
Pirannes got up, rubbed his forehead gently with the fingertips of his right hand and said,
“You like to swim?”
“No.”
“I do. There’s a drawer of swimming suits below. Pick one out that fits you and then come up. I’ll take the Fair Maiden out a few hundred yards. We’ll have something to eat and you’ll have a nice swim. You do swim, don’t you?”
“A little.”
“Good, because it would be very unfortunate if we were a few hundred yards out there,” he said, pointing beyond the rising waves, “and you couldn’t make it back to the boat or the shore. Manny, help Mr. Fonesca find a swimming suit. You’ll like it, Lewis. Water temperature is eighty-one degrees.”
Manny was on the deck now, reaching for the rope that had us moored to a pile on the dock. There was probably an anchor too. I’m not fast. I’m not slow, but I didn’t think I could get past Manny. Diving into the water wouldn’t do me much good either. I had lied to Pirannes. I really couldn’t swim at all.
I reached for the bottle of champagne. My plan was to whack Pirannes and take my chances, which were not very good, with Manny. I looked at Pirannes, who had figured out my plan and nodded his head to show me I was making a mistake.
I had already made my mistake. Pirannes’s plan was simple. He didn’t even have to be involved. He could put my clothes on the shore with a towel and let the police assume I had swum out too far and drowned. Ames wouldn’t believe it. Dave wouldn’t believe it. Flo wouldn’t believe it and I didn’t think Sally would believe it, but that didn’t do me much good. I had not underestimated John Pirannes. I had not estimated him at all. I was looking at a man who killed people who annoyed him.
“This doesn’t give me pleasure,” said Pirannes as Manny unwrapped the loose rope around a piece of metal shaped like a Y that was screwed into the deck.
I must admit it didn’t look as if Pirannes was particularly happy. He checked his watch as Manny moved to the rear of the boat toward the anchor. If I were going to run, this was the time. Pirannes stepped in front of me. Maybe I could take him. Maybe I couldn’t. He could certainly keep me busy till Manny made it across the few yards across the deck.
I think I was the first one to see the man coming. He was walking down the dock toward us, hands at his side. There was a little waddle and a little swagger to his step.
Pirannes spotted him and said, “Manny.”
Manny looked up from where he was turning a winch to pull up the anchor. He saw my guardian angel.
“Don’t do something very stupid,” whispered Pirannes. “He’s probably going to one of the other boats. If he’s here to talk to me, you stay seated and stay quiet. The best you can do is get you and our visitor killed.”
He kept coming, straight, eyes ahead, steady pace.
Manny moved across the deck to face the dock. When it was clear to all of us that the stocky bald man was not going to another boat, Pirannes shouted, “Can I help you?”
The angel said nothing, just kept coming. Manny jumped on the deck over the two-foot gap created when he had pulled in the rope. He stood facing the approaching man. Manny was four or five inches taller than my angel. Manny had muscle. Angel looked as if he had eaten far too much lasagna. It was no contest. When the smaller man kept coming, Manny’s arms came up, one palm open, the other in a fist.
The smaller man didn’t even pause. He came faster, leaned over and plowed his head into Manny’s stomach. Manny groaned but didn’t go down. Angel stepped to the side and shoved Manny off the dock and into the water. Then he jumped for the deck of the boat, almost missed and moved toward Pirannes, who didn’t back down.
“What do you want?” Pirannes asked.
The man didn’t answer. He grasped Pirannes in a bear hug, lifted him off the deck, walked to the bay side of the boat and threw the society pimp into the water.
Then he turned to me and said,
“Let’s go.”
Manny was wading heavily toward the shore. Pirannes was swearing at us. I followed the man up the dock and back to the parking lot.
When we stopped at my Geo, he was breathing heavily. His Buick was parked right next to me.
“How did you find me?”
“I know the places you go,” he said, almost bored. “You don’t come back to your office. I check around, saw your car parked near that bar. I followed.”
