been the point of it? I would have slept fitfully for a couple of hours, if I slept at all. I would have been up prowling the house at two in the morning, avoiding even making an effort to go back to sleep, because I knew that nightmares were lying in wait for me.
A little wax to spike up the hair a bit. A pair of slim dark jeans, a simple black top, sexy sandals. Mascara, lip gloss, and a pair of diamond earrings. At least I looked presentable, even if I didn’t feel fit for public interaction.
Landry’s car turned into the drive, and he parked and stood beside it for several moments, looking my way. I watched through the barely opened plantation shutters in my bedroom. Then he turned and went to Sean’s house.
I waited for a couple of minutes, then left, driving at a crawl, hoping no one would hear me leave.
Players was relatively tame on Monday nights. Everyone who had to have a job had to be at that job bright and early Tuesday morning. Hangovers were not a good idea for people who had to muck stalls and ride horses all day in the South Florida sun. Those who didn’t have to have jobs were free to do as they pleased, but with a shortage of twenty-something girls looking for a good time, the club didn’t hold the appeal it did on the weekend.
The entertainment for the evening was a Jimmy Buffett wannabe with a guitar, a harmonica, and a bad- looking aloha shirt (as if there is some other kind). He had a guy on keyboard who wore a captain’s hat and a double-breasted blue blazer with shiny brass buttons, and a drummer who was young enough, and looked bored and embarrassed enough, to be the son of one of them.
I walked into the bar and skirted the dance floor, where a dozen people were drunk enough to have lost their inhibitions. I’ve always thought there should be a public-service ad showing video of middle-aged drunk people dancing. The rate of alcoholism would surely plummet, simply from the humiliation factor.
The bartender, a hunky young fellow with dark eyes and five o’clock shadow, came over as I took a seat toward the end of the bar.
“What can I get for you, ma’am?”
“For starters, you can not call me ma’am, you darling boy,” I said with a wry smile tucking up the right corner of my mouth. “How do you ever expect to have a mad hot affair with an older woman if you treat them like your old aunt Biddie?”
He grinned. Excellent orthodontia. “What was I thinking?”
“I can’t imagine. Next, you can bring me Ketel One vodka with tonic and a big squeeze of lemon.”
“You got it.”
He turned away to see to it. Someone had abandoned a pack of cigarettes on the bar. I helped myself to one, feeling vaguely guilty, not that I had stolen it but that I was smoking at all. Filthy habit. When he came back with the drink, I asked him his name.
“Kayne Jackson.”
“Kayne Jackson. My God, you’re a soap star waiting to happen,” I said. “Kayne Jackson, I’m Elena Estes.” I took a sip of the drink, savored it, and sighed. “It’s a wonderful pleasure to meet you. Were you working here Saturday night?”
“Yeah, why?”
I had downloaded and printed the photos from Lisbeth Perkins’s cell phone. I showed him the one of Irina sitting between Jim Brody and Bennett Walker. “Did you see this girl here?”
“Yeah. That’s Irina. She’s a regular with that crowd. Hot babe, but she wouldn’t look at me twice.”
“Do you think she had a problem with her eyesight?”
“I think I don’t have a big enough wallet.”
“Ahhh… One of those. Looking to snag herself a rich husband?”
He shrugged.
“Did you happen to see when she left?”
“No. I couldn’t say. It was Jim Brody’s birthday. It was a zoo in here. Why?” He looked a little suspicious. “Are you a cop or something?”
I took another sip of the drink, another drag on the cigarette. “Or something… Did she seem to be having a problem with anyone?”
“No. She was having a good time,” he said, then checked himself. “She and Lisbeth Perkins got into it about something out in the hall. Lisbeth looked pissed and left. Must have been around one.
“With anyone?”
“Alone.”
The band had decided to give it a rest. More people came to the bar. Kayne Jackson excused himself and went to serve people who wouldn’t make him work so hard for his tip.
“Are you enjoying my cigarette?”
The voice was smooth and warm like a fine brandy, almost seductive, a little amused, accented. Spanish.
I looked at him from the corner of my eye as I exhaled a stream of smoke. “Why, yes, I am, thank you. Would you like one?” I said, offering the pack to him.
His dark eyes sparkled. “Thank you. You are too generous, senorita.”
“Senorita. You could give Junior here a lesson or two. He called me ma’am.”
He looked shocked and disapproving. “No, no. This is unacceptable.”
“That’s what I said.”
He smiled the kind of smile that should require some kind of permit to use, because of the impact it could have on unsuspecting women. “I haven’t met you.”
I offered my hand. “Elena Estes.”
He took it gently, turned it over, and brushed his lips across my knuckles. His eyes never left mine. “Juan Barbaro.”
Barbaro. The great man. Mr. Ten-Goal Polo Star. I didn’t react, just to see how he would take it. He seemed not to care. The raw sexual magnetism that was his aura didn’t diminish in the least.
“Estes,” he said. “I feel I know that name for some reason.”
I shrugged. “Well, you don’t know me.”
“I do now.”
Eye contact. Direct, consistent, very effective. His eyes were large and dark, with luxurious black eyelashes. Many a Palm Beach lady paid six hundred dollars a pop every month to have an aesthetician glue on lashes like that-one hair at a time. He was tanned, with unruly black hair that fell nearly to his shoulders.
“What brings a beautiful woman here alone on such a boring evening?”
I looked down at the photos I had brought with me, losing the will to play anymore. “I’m looking to make sense of something senseless,” I said.
I held up a photograph to show him, as if it were a tarot card.
Barbaro’s broad shoulders sagged a little, and he looked sad as he reached out and took the picture from me. “Irina.”
“You knew her.”
“Yes, of course.”
“She was found dead today.”
“I know. Our groom Lisbeth told me. They were very good friends. Poor Beth is devastated. It’s hard to believe something so violent, so terrible, could happen to a person we know. Irina… so full of life and fire, so strong in her character…”
He shook his head, closed his eyes, sighed.
“You knew her well?” I asked.
“Not well. Casually. At a party, to say hello, to exchange small talk. And you?”
“We worked together,” I said. “I found her.”
“Madre de Dios, ”he whispered. “I’m very sorry for that.”
“Me too.”
The bartender brought him a drink without being asked, and he took a long sip of it.
“This was the last public place anyone saw her,” I said. “Do you remember seeing her that night?”
“It was the birthday party of my patron, Mr. Brody. Everyone was having a very good time. The kind of good
