“So you could wait to see if I noticed it was gone,” Ivy said. “Right, I get it. You think because it never left Donegal, you’re covered.” Hands behind his back, Ivy bent close to examine the picture.
“I don’t steal,” Rivera said. “I accept gifts.”
“I know a little Spanish.” Ivy reached out and rubbed a place on the frame. “You’ve got a truckload of ‘gifts’ you want to get rid of. I didn’t get it all, but I know you’re unloading them.” He straightened. “Well, this isn’t one of your ‘gifts.’ This is a Jasper Johns lithograph my bitch wife thought it would be fun to help you steal. So you take it down and put it in the van.”
Ivy stepped back as Rivera brought down the picture. Rivera carried it back along the hall, down into the garage.
Ivy followed. “I’m going to check it out,” he said as Rivera leaned the picture against the van. “I’m interested in any ‘clients’ who died lately.”
Rivera opened the twin rear doors and swung them wide.
“‘I understand,’” Ivy said behind him. “That’s what you told my wife. Just what did you understand? I’m going to play that recording for the little helpers of the poor here in Naples. I’m going to tell them about the book I found. Is Jack Kevorkian your role model?”
Rivera slid the picture face up into the cargo bay. “I used to work in nursing homes,” he said, and grasped the stone bookend moved earlier from under the front seat. “In Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton. I saw how doctors hid behind being thought of as healers.” He leaned back out. Looking to the street, he saw his van would block the view.
“These doctors,” Ivy said. “What is it they were hiding from?”
“Making hard decisions.”
“Son of a bitch.” Ivy shook his head. His eyes were wide with fake amazement. “I’m right, aren’t I? You’re the local Kevorkian. You’re Naples’s Doctor Death, you killed—”
“No, I didn’t.” Rivera held the statue against his hip. “Mr. Ivy had an accident. He was old and alone, and sick a long time. I did nothing wrong.”
“A fucking handyman playing God—”
“No.” Rivera shook his head. “I’m not God,” he said. “I just lend Him a hand. Someone needs to.”
He felt calm. Superior to the rich, white fool in front of him, a man whose wife had made him into a…what was the word…cuckold. That was it, from Hilda Frieslander. A man with horns on his head isn’t a man any longer, she said. He’s a creature, a thing, a cuckold.
“Did nothing wrong?”
Ivy was staring, acting surprised and outraged. Acting the way he thought a son should act, a son who never came to visit, never called. But it was still important to show the spic handyman how angry he was.
“Why would you see it?” Ivy said. “You know nothing and come from nothing. You hop the fence and start your own little business, serving the needs of your ‘clients.’”
When bad things happened, Kleinman said you should see them as inevitable. As part of the bigger picture. That’s what I’m doing, Rivera thought, gripping the statue. It felt right to him, like finding the missing piece to a puzzle.
“Get in,” he said. “I’ll take you back. You can do what you want.”
“That’s true, Jimbo. I can do what I want. Any fucking thing at all.”
Ivy moved to the van. He bent to enter, and with all his strength Rivera struck at the base of Ivy’s skull. He dropped the bookend and caught the heavy slumping body. Quickly he spun Ivy and shoved him against the truck, ducked under the man, and came up in a fireman’s carry. He reentered the house and kicked shut the door.
“Hi, there,” Noelle Harmon said. “I tried earlier, I left a message.”
“I was out. Just a second.”
Brenda set the cordless on the kitchen table. She snatched another tissue from the Kleenex box and blew her nose. She got another, then picked up the phone. “All right, I’m back.”
“That happens a lot down here,” Noelle said. “Sinus problems. It’s the humidity and chlorine in the pools.”
“What can I do for you, Noelle?” Eyes closed, Brenda had never wanted to talk less to anyone.
“Well, we kind of got sidetracked Saturday, didn’t we?”
“How’s your sister?”
“False emergency, they didn’t keep her. She’s just supposed to take it easy.”
“Good.”
“Yeah. Now, I thought if you didn’t have a lot on tomorrow—”
“Noelle, I can’t,” Brenda said. “Thanks, but no.”
The realtor hesitated. “I hope everything’s all right.”
“It’s personal,” Brenda told her. “I appreciate the time you gave me, but I won’t be here much longer.”
“I see. I hope it’s nothing too serious.”
“Oh,” Brenda said, pressing her eyes with the Kleenex, “just another speed bump.”
“Boy, don’t I know about those,” Noelle said. “OK, then. You give me a jingle if and when.”
“Wait.” Brenda shook her head to clear it. “James Rivera. Do you have any idea where he is?” The realtor again hesitated. “I’m trying to locate someone, and I think James could help. All I have is his cell number.”
“It’s really hard to say,” Noelle said. “He’s got all these customers. Can you tell me who you’re looking for? It’s not that big a town, I might know him.”
“His name’s Patrick Sweeney. He has a house here at Donegal.”
“Sweeney, Sweeney… Nope, sorry. I know a Mike Sweeney in Fort Myers, but no Sweeney in Naples.”
“I saw him last night,” Brenda said. “He didn’t say anything about leaving town, but he’s disappeared.”
“Now that is weird,” Noelle said. “What’s it got to do with James?”
“He was here last night. At a customer’s house just opposite Sweeney’s place. I thought James might have seen him out on the golf course.”
“Huh, maybe so. The reason I sort of hesitated—well, I think I told you, James has no green card. He’s not legal. People who know him don’t want to give him any trouble. I think you can see why.”
“Yes, I can.”
“The whole immigration thing’s
