There was a definite note of pride in his voice.
“We endure,” I said. “You like Thai food?”
“I consume any food. I’m a human in need of fuel. I have given up the concept of like and dislike of food, lodging, or clothes. It exists and I wander.”
“Come on,” I said.
He followed me to my office door and pointed to it.
“There is where he posted his conceits,” he said.
“You have a name?” I asked, opening the door.
“I had one,” he said. “Now I am known as The Digger.”
“Why?”
“Who,” he said, putting a not clean palm on my shoulder, “the hell knows? But it seems to fit me.”
“Wait here,” I said, leaving him in the doorway. I retrieved the two cartons of food and my plastic fork and brought it to him.
“Thai, you say?”
“Yes,” I said.
“It would probably settle nicely with a root beer,” he said, cradling the two cartons.
I fished a dollar out of my pocket and handed it to him.
“I’ll accept this food and dollar if you’ll accept my thanks,” he said.
“I accept, and thanks especially for telling me about Martin Luther’s visit.”
“Are you a Lutheran?” he asked.
The phone began to ring.
“Lapsed Episcopalian,” I said.
“Odd for an Italian,” The Digger said.
The phone kept ringing.
“Root beer,” I said.
He took the hint and wandered away. I closed the door behind him and went for the phone.
“Fonesca,” I said.
“Ed Viviase,” the caller said.
Ed Viviase was a detective in the Sarasota Police Department. I liked him. He tolerated me. Considering the fact that I was a depressed process server who basically wanted to be left alone in my room, our paths had crossed more times than chance would account for. Sarasota is not a big city, but I doubted if many other noncriminals who lived and visited here were known by Ed Viviase and the rest of the force.
“We have to talk,” he said.
“Let’s talk,” I said.
“In my office,” he said. “Fifteen minutes.”
“Fifteen minutes,” I agreed.
He hung up. Sarasota Police Headquarters is little more than a block away, north on 301, cross the street to the right, and there it is less than half a block away. Fifteen minutes was plenty of time to walk to his office and wonder why he wanted to see me.
I put on clean slacks and a clean white short-sleeved shirt with a button-down collar. One of the collar buttons was slightly cracked. When it went, I’d probably just throw the shirt in the garbage can and pick up another one at the Women’s Resource Center.
The Digger was sitting at one of the canopied metal tables in front of the DQ eating his Thai food and drinking what I assumed was a large root beer. I nodded to him and he nodded back as I stopped at the open window of the DQ. Dave was there. Dave, leather-worn by the sun, the face of an adventurer. He reminded me of Sterling Hayden.
“What do you have ready I can eat while I walk?” I asked.
Dave looked back.
“Double burger with cheese,” he said.
“I’ll take it.”
“You got it.”
I paid and said, “How’s the sailing?”
“I’m thinking of taking her around the world,” he said. “Sell this place and go. A year. Maybe more. You can come. I mean it. You don’t talk much. You’re a good listener. I could teach you enough so you could help and I’d supply provisions.”
“I get seasick,” I said, accepting the double burger and handing him two dollar bills.
“You’d get over it,” Dave said.
“Can you play tapes on your ship?”
“Songs?”
“Videos,” I said. “If I go, Joan Crawford goes.”
“Fonesca, you’re saying no to a dream here.”
“It’s your dream, Dave.”
“Think about it,” he said.
There were customers behind me, a pair of old women.
“I will,” I said, knowing I wouldn’t as I stepped away and headed for Detective Ed Viviase.
6
The door to Viviase’s office was open. His name was Etienne. No one called him Etienne, not, according to him, even his wife. He was Ed. That’s what it said on the small plaque on his desk: “Detective Ed Viviase.”
The last time I had been in the office, there were scaffolds against two walls that were going to be painted the same shade of detective brown as the other two. This time there was no scaffolding, just a large office with very little furniture, three metal desks, a couple of chairs, and a line of file cabinets. Each desk held a computer and stacks of papers and reports threatening to tumble or already tumbled.
Viviase was the only detective in the room. I guess he had seniority. He was closest to the window in the room.
“Lewis,” he said, shaking his head as he looked up at me from behind his desk over the glasses perched on the end of his ample nose.
It was getting to be our regular routine.
Viviase was a little under six feet tall, a little over fifty years old, and a little over two hundred twenty pounds. His hair was short, dark, and his face was that of a man filled with sympathy, the smooth pink face of a man whose genes were good and who probably didn’t drink. He was wearing a rumpled sports jacket and a red tie. He looked like a policeman, a cup of coffee in front of him, an already tired look on his face though it was a little before ten in the morning.
I knew he had a wife, kids, worries about his older daughter’s tuition and bills at the University of Florida, and an inability to resist carbohydrate intake. Ergo, the oversized chocolate-filled croissant on a napkin next to his coffee cup.
“Have a seat,” he said. “We’ll play a game.”
I sat across from him. He held up his cup, wanting to know if I’d like some coffee. I had drunk some of the coffee from the machine down the hall once before. The pain had been bearable.
“Okay,” said Viviase, “let’s play.” He took a long drink of coffee making a face that suggested he was ingesting prison-made whiskey. “I describe two men. You tell me if they resemble anyone you know.”
I nodded.
“One man is short, on the thin side, balding, looks like his pet turtle just got mashed on McIntosh Road. With him is a tall old man, denim, flannel, maybe even cowboy boots. Old man stands tall, looks like a cowboy.”
I shrugged.
“You want to use a life line? Call a friend who might have an idea?” he asked.
