I didn’t answer. I followed Ames.
“I said, What’s going on?” the guard repeated.
A turn in the corridor. Dressing rooms. Something that looked like a small lounge. An almost empty room with a polished wooden floor and floor-to-ceiling mirrors on one wall.
I was closing in on Ames, who pushed through a door into a small, empty theater with seats graded upward about fifteen rows. There was a dim light coming from the small stage to our right and exit lights behind us and across from us.
We headed for the exit and pushed through a door and found ourselves back in the lobby with the old woman and the young man behind the refreshment counter.
“That way,” shouted the man, pointing to the entrance to the theater.
We ran through the doors into the late afternoon.
Fear, anger, desperation, adrenaline had kicked up the speed of the big man in front of us. He had a lead of about thirty yards.
Ames slowed down a little and said, “Damn arthritis.”
I moved past him, losing my Cubs cap. I was in good shape, at least for running, but my knee did more than just slow me down. I didn’t know what I’d do even if I had been able to catch up with the man, who was a good four or five inches taller than I was and at least fifty pounds heavier.
The man got to his car, opened the door, sat heavily and slammed the door. I was in the middle of the aisle. He was parked between two cars facing into the space. He backed out, swinging the rear of his car in my direction with a wailing squeal.
I moved between two parked cars. I could see the dented fender, the broken light. He was almost even with me. He looked over the passenger seat and met my eyes. I’m not sure what he saw. I’m not sure what I was feeling. I definitely wasn’t thinking.
He shifted into drive and started forward.
A shot, the sound of a firecracker, came from the small gun in Ames McKinney’s hand. Ames was standing in the driveway now. The bullet hit the rear window of the car as it started forward. It made a hole but didn’t shatter. Ames fired again. The bullet pinged off the trunk as the driver made a sharp left turn.
“Two pellets,” Ames said. “That’s it.”
He held up the empty little gun.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“No,” I said, imagining a wild car chase, imagined the clearly desperate man losing control, a crash. “We’ll find him. Now we know where to look.”
We went back through the stage door, where the fuming security guard stood with his hands on his hips and greeted us with, “What the hell is going on here?”
“Miss Root will explain,” I said.
“She’d better,” he said. “I’ve got to write this up, you know.”
“I understand.”
“I don’t need this kind of crap, you know.”
“I know,” I said.
“I get crap about this, I’m quitting. I can always bag groceries at Publix or Albertsons.”
He went back behind the counter, pulled out a pad and began to fill out the form, shaking his head the whole time while we waited for Nancy Root.
She came out about five minutes later, still in costume and makeup.
“Where is he?” she said, looking at Ames and me.
“Got away,” I answered.
“I saw him in the box stage right, didn’t I?”
“Yes,” I said.
“He’s insane, isn’t he?” she asked.
“Something like that,” I agreed.
I wondered if the person who had run down my wife had felt anything like the kind of guilt as the bearded man. I hoped he did.
Nancy Root and I looked at each other. Her mask of makeup didn’t cover the pain in her eyes. I knew that pain. I saw it in mirrors when I had to look or mistakenly looked. She was an actress. She would have to look in mirrors as long as she worked at her profession. She was young. She had a lot of years to look at those mourning eyes.
14
“We should go.” Ames spoke softly, seated next to me, looking straight ahead as I drove down Tamiami Trail.
“In the morning,” I said.
“Suit yourself.”
Ames wanted to go to Manatee Community College and track down the bearded philosopher. I wanted to eat something very bad for me, full of carbohydrates, maybe a couple of Big Macs or a chocolate cherry Blizzard. Maybe both. Or maybe I’d try something different. Then I wanted to put on a clean pair of underwear and go to sleep. It was just before five at night.
We said nothing as we made the turn at Fruitville just past the quay. I turned on the radio. Someone on WLSS was interviewing a woman named Sunny who ran a shelter for stray cats. She had several hundred of them, knew all their names, played them symphonies to keep them calm, assured all listeners that she wasn’t a crazy cat lady.
“Roland and I keep the yard clean,” the woman named Sunny said, as if she were the happiest person in Sarasota, possibly the world. “And there are temperature-controlled little nooks for all of them.”
Sunny didn’t want money. She had plenty. Her husband, Roland, was a retired CEO of a corporation called InterTelex.
I imagined a hundred cats grinning, pawing, leaping, fighting, cuddling, rolling and jumping. Orange, black, white, striped, furry, hairless.
For a minute or two I managed to push reality from my mind, put it in a green fragile bubble and let it quiver away to wait. Catherine had wanted a cat, but neither of us was home during the day and she didn’t think it would be fair to a cat to leave it alone.
A week or so before she had died, I made up my mind to surprise her on her birthday with two cats. I’d get them from the humane society on Halstead, or maybe it was Broadway. I wouldn’t name the cats and I wouldn’t use whatever name the humane society had tagged them with. I would let Catherine name them.
I lost Sunny’s bouncing voice and the cats faded away. The bubble came floating back and for an instant I imagined a baby.
“Easy up,” said Ames, reaching out and turning the steering wheel as I drifted into the left lane just before we came to 301.
I stopped imagining and straightened out as Ames changed the station. The golden oldies station came on. Cyndi Lauper was belting out “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” She sounded too much like Sunny the Cat Lady. I turned off the radio and turned right.
We made it to the DQ parking lot, where Ames’s motor scooter was chained against a metal post.
“I could go it on my own,” he said.
“No, I’ll go with you in the morning.”
“Lock your door tonight,” he said as he got out and then leaned back through the door, his hand open, the derringer lying in it. “Two shots. Pellets are already loaded.”
“I don’t need it,” I said, looking at the tiny weapon.
“Someone trying to kill you?”
“Looks that way,” I said.
