“Eight thousand dollars,” I said. “I need eight thousand dollars cash.”
She ate some chicken and said,
“When?”
“Tomorrow morning at the latest,” I said.
“Big bills, little bills, what?”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said.
“I’ll get it after I finish eating unless you’re in a hurry.”
“You want to know why I need it?”
“If you want to tell me,” she said.
“It’s about Adele,” I said. “We’re-you’re insuring her from her past.”
“Eight thousand isn’t much to insure that.”
She finished, threw her bones in the red kitchen garbage can, rinsed her plate, knife, fork and glass and put them in the dishwasher. Then she went to a drawer, opened it, took out a small screwdriver and motioned for me to follow her. We went across the living room to the opposite side of the house and down a hallway I’d never been in before. She led me into a little room with carpeting; two recliners and a television set. The lights were already on. Roy Rogers was loud and clear in here too. He was singing about a pony now.
Flo went to the television set mounted on a dark wood table with rollers. She rolled the television out of the way and opened a little built-in cabinet. There were books in the cabinet. She handed them to me and told me to put them down. I put them on one of the recliners. Then she reached back and edged the back wall of the cabinet out with the screwdriver.
We weren’t through. There was a black safe with a dial and white numbers.
“I use my birthday backwards,” she said, turning the dial as she said, “Thirty-four, twenty-nine, nine.”
The safe swung open. It was piled thick and tight with bills. She pulled out a stack on the left, counted off hundreds and handed them to me. She pocketed a pile of bills and put everything back the way it had been. When I handed her the last book and she had put it in place, Roy Rogers sang, “Yippie ti aye oh.”
“Thanks, Flo,” I said.
She waved off my thanks as she rolled the TV back into place.
“Need an envelope for that?”
“Yes.”
She went to a table between the recliners, opened a drawer, pulled out an envelope and handed it to me.
“My husband, Gus, and me used to practically live in this room,” she said. “Now I do. Watch TV, read, write letters, drink, listen to music. That was his chair. This is mine. I like this room. I like it being small.”
“I like it too,” I said.
I meant it.
“I’m going to wait till Adele’s here before I redecorate the guest room down the hall, turn it into hers. She can do what she wants with it long as she keeps it clean.”
“Don’t spoil her, Flo.”
“I’ll work her. Don’t worry.”
“And don’t let her know about the safe,” I said.
“Lewis, you’ve known me two, three years. Am I a fool?”
“Definitely not.”
“Then don’t act is if I might be one. I know what the girl’s been through. She’s not coming to me out of a finishing school. She’s a tough orphan. I’m a tough widow. Good combination.”
“Good combination,” I agreed.
“You bet your ass it is,” she said, guiding me down the corridor to the door, holding on to my arm, screwdriver peeking out of her pocket, smile on her face.
When I left, Roy Rogers was singing “Happy Trails.”
With eight thousand dollars in my pocket and a murder weapon under the seat, I headed home. The blue Buick was right behind me. Well, not right behind me but not far enough back that I couldn’t see him.
I hadn’t eaten with Tilly and I hadn’t eaten with Flo. Pirannes hadn’t offered me anything. The problem was that I wasn’t hungry. The DQ was doing burn-up business now. The parking lot was almost full. I retrieved the gun, dropped it in my pocket where it did not fit snugly and wouldn’t have even if it hadn’t been in a ziploc bag, and went to my office-home.
The window was fixed and the broken air conditioner gone. Ames. Always Ames. I locked the door, put the chair in front of it, pulled the plug on my phone and went to bed with the gun and the envelope full of hundreds under the bed. There wasn’t a decent place to hide anything here and I didn’t want to part with gun or money.
So I put them where even a retarded blind chimp could find them. Then I watched my tape of Mildred Pierce for the three or four hundredth time.
When I woke up in the morning after dreaming of Ann Blyth coming to shoot me, I reached under the bed and found gun and money. I needed a shave. It was a little after seven in the morning. I was hungry. I staggered into the office and plugged in the phone. It was ringing.
“Hello,” I said.
“Lewis, your phone is broken or you were out all night.”
“I unplugged it.”
“It’s me, Harvey.”
“I know,” I said, mouth and tongue dry.
“Bingo,” he said.
“Straight line or four corners?”
“Melanie Sebastian,” he said. “Found her.”
Which meant that Melanie Sebastian was ready to be found. There was no hurry. She would wait for me wherever it was. She had lived up to her word. She had let me find her just when she had promised.
16
There was a lot to do that Saturday. It was too early for the DQ, and Gwen’s place was only open during the week. I drove through the McDonald’s where 301 and Tamiami Trail meet across from the office of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
The blue Buick was behind me. It was hard for him to hide on a sleepy Saturday morning.
I got a small black coffee and two Egg McMuffins. I ate the sandwiches as I drove, and when I parked in front of the offices of Tycinker, Oliver and Schwartz I drank my coffee. The street was almost deserted. A handful of cars were parked on the street, which on weekdays was full.
When I finished my coffee, I went into the office building and up the elevator to the door, which was open. There was no receptionist on duty and I could hear no voices. I moved down the corridor past the desk of the chief secretary and to Harvey’s open office.
“Lewis,” he said.
Harvey was clean-shaven, his hair brushed. He was wearing an Oberlin sweatshirt and working at his computers with a mug of coffee or tea steaming next to him.
“Harvey,” I said. “What have we got?”
“The technology doesn’t exist to find the Buga-Buga-Boo virus origin. At least I haven’t found it yet. The information superhighway does not yet have speed traps.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“I haven’t given up yet. You want Melanie Sebastian. I have her. Credit card in her name used yesterday at the Barrington House in Holmes Beach, that’s on Anna Maria Island.”
Harvey handed me the phone as he kept working. I looked up the Barrington House. It was a bed-and- breakfast. I called. A woman answered. I told her I was in from Baltimore and looking for a place for my wife and I
