Life's a Beach Then You Die

by Falafel Jones

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  In the car, Ed asked me, “What was that all about?”

  “Dunno, but he doesn’t seem too happy with me.”

  “Because you keep finding more work for him without him getting a chance to make anything of what you find?”

  “Maybe. I get the idea Torres likes to lead his own investigations but lately, I’ve been finding things that have been keeping him busy. I don’t think he likes that. Do you think he really suspects me?”

  “Nah, but if he does, I know a great lawyer. Me.”

  I didn’t return Ed’s grin. He stopped smiling and asked, “Now what?”

  “Geez, I don’t know.”

  “Did you eat yet?”

  “No. Why?”

  “I didn’t get a chance to give you that personal effects list you wanted and I’m hungry. I’m thinking of going out for a late dinner and I hate eating out alone. Want to join me?”

  “Sure. Where you want to go?”

  “How about that place on Third Ave? The one with the outdoor seating?”

  “You mean the Garlic?”

  “Yeah, that’s the place. I think they serve until 10.”

  “Sure, but I’m filthy from all of that dust and dirt on the boat. Let me change first.”

  “I’ll drop you home, get the list, clean up myself a bit and meet you there.”

  Ed pulled up at my house and I said, “OK. Give me about 30 minutes. I’ll be walking over.”

  Of all of the restaurants, which are not located on the beach, the Garlic Restaurant is one of my favorites. I love their outdoor dining area and their eggplant parmigiana. In addition, they have a nice wine list and I really wanted some wine. Enough wine that I would be better off walking instead of driving.

  The restaurant is a classy one, so I washed up, changed into a pair of tan cargo pants, put on a black golf shirt and black loafers. If I was going to eat Italian food with red sauce and pasta, a black shirt was the way to go. I was tired of people being able to tell what I ate just by looking at my clothes.

  I locked up the house, walked north up Saxon Drive to Third Avenue and thirty minutes later, I saw Ed in the parking lot. He was leaning against his car, facing the lot entrance and smoking a cigarette. When he saw me, he waved, threw down his cigarette and then stomped it out with his shoe. He was just looking back up from the ground as I approached.

  “Hey, Max. It’s good we could do this. You need a break. I hate to cook and I hate to eat out alone. Especially in a nice place like this.” He put his left hand on the back of my neck, and stretched out his right arm in the direction of the restaurant entrance. “After you, my friend.”

  We stopped at the restaurant entrance to allow folks to pass on their way out. They exited through what appeared to be an indoor hallway lined with wooden beams, benches and plants. On closer examination, the illusion breaks down revealing bushes and trees. You realize the hall is outdoors.

  At the left end of the apparent hallway is Il Forno, Italian for the Oven or the Furnace. In this case, Il Forno is a wood-fired outdoor oven that reaches temperatures of over 900 degrees. It offers limited seating in front as one might find at a small bar. To the left of Il Forno is the entrance to the hostess station and the indoor portion of the restaurant. This is where the bar and the musician’s bandstand are located. To the right is the landscaped and heavily treed dining courtyard. One side of the indoor restaurant was open to the air with no outside walls. This opening led to the courtyard too.

  Ed walked up to the hostess station and an attractive, dark haired woman in her late fifties smiled up at him. “Are you ready now, sir?”

  “Yes, please.”

  She picked up two menus and started walking. Due to the late hour, most of the tables were empty. When we entered the courtyard, she stopped and asked, “Any preference?”

  Ed pointed to a table. “Over there is just fine, thank you.”

  The hostess placed the menus on the table and turned to Ed, “Enjoy your meal.”

  “Thank you, Darling.” He placed a hand on her shoulder and smiled.

  She smiled back and left us. Ed watched her walk for a moment, then pulled out a chair and sat down. While we were still standing, I took in the décor. I had only been here a few times and I still liked to admire the layout. We sat outside, next to a cypress tree, under a heater built into the eaves of the main building. A string of white lights circled its way up the tree. To our right was an outdoor fireplace tall enough for a man to stand in. A large wood fire burned brightly inside. I could hear the sound of a jazz saxophone playing from inside the restaurant.

  Mariel and I came here for our wedding anniversary dinner last month. It felt strange being here with Ed instead of her. He was thumbing through the wine list and humming along with the music. I was lost in thought when I realized he stopped thumbing and humming. He looked up at me over the top of the list. “You can’t let it get to you.”

  I nodded and picked up a menu.

  “If you don’t relax when you eat, you can get indigestion and all sorts of ailments. It’s not worth it. Besides, things’ll look up. She’ll be back as soon as we clear this thing up.”

  He was right. I’d been through worse and getting upset wasn’t going to make things better. “You’re right. I’m sorry. What looks good on the wine list?”

  “Red or white?”

  “Red. Dry red.”

  He looked back down at the wine list and nodded approvingly. “They have many fine reds here.”

  “Unless you want something in particular, the house Montepulciano d’Abruzzo is pretty good.”

  “You’ve had it?”

  “Yep.”

  A waiter wearing a black shirt, black pants and a long black apron came over to take our order. I didn’t see a spot of red sauce anywhere on his clothing. I felt reaffirmed in my shirt choice. Ed ordered a full carafe of the house red wine and the Char-Grilled Filet Mignon with a creamy porcini mushroom sauce, caramelized onions and roasted garlic. Just in case there wasn’t enough garlic in Ed’s steak, it came with garlic mashed potatoes and a roasted garlic appetizer. I ordered the Eggplant Parm as planned.

  After the waiter left, I asked Ed, “You got the list?”

  “Yeah, they faxed it to me.” He fumbled in his shirt pocket, pulled out his cigarettes and then a folded piece of paper. He handed me the paper and I unfolded it. It was a personal property inventory list from the police. It detailed each of the items Ray Kenwood was carrying when he died.

  The list contained the stuff you would expect; the contents of Ray’s wallet, pocket change, a wedding band, eyeglasses, Maalox tablets, cigarettes, a monogrammed lighter, a monogrammed handkerchief (both bearing the letters “RK”), a business card holder containing Ray’s business cards and something odd; an eyeglass mount bicyclist’s mirror.

  I never met Ray, but Ed knew him pretty well, so I asked him. “Did Ray ride a bicycle?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Ed, where are these things now? Especially this bicyclist’s mirror?”

  “What’s a bicyclist’s mirror?”

  “It’s a small mirror mounted on a short, thin, stalk that clips onto a bicyclist’s eyeglasses or his helmet. Because the mirror is so close to the bicyclist’s eye, it can be small and still provide a view of what’s behind the bike. It’s odd Ray would have one in his pockets when he died.”

  “Yeah, I guess so. Except for the notebook computer, everything else is still with the police.”

  The waiter came back with two wine glasses and a colorful ceramic pitcher shaped like a chicken. He picked up the pitcher and poured wine out of the chicken’s mouth. In one way, it was a cute image, but in another, it was too reminiscent of a few times I had overindulged.

  After he poured the wine, the waiter produced a wood cutting board covered with a warm baguette and a huge clove of roasted garlic. This was a house specialty. He used a fork to mash the garlic and then drenched it with olive oil and balsamic vi
negar. He said, “Enjoy, Gentlemen,” and left the table.

  Ed picked up his glass, raised it towards me and said, “May the road rise to meet you and may the wind at your back never be your own.”

  I laughed, raised my glass and drank.

  “There, Max. That’s better. I think that’s the first time you’ve laughed since Mariel left.”

  “Probably.”

  “Mmm. I like this wine. Good choice.” Ed put down his glass, broke off a piece of bread, dipped it into the mashed garlic and put it in his mouth. “Mmm.”

  “Thanks, Mariel and I usually order it when we come here. Ed, I’m wondering. Can you get me this bike mirror?”

  “Boy, you don’t stop for nothing, do you? Sure, I guess I can get it. I don’t think the police are going to like me picking up things one at a time, but I guess I can pick up the rest of the stuff all at once.”

  “Thanks, I think this mirror may be important. If I’m right, someone may want to steal it too, so you’ve got to be careful. Now, it’s safe with the police, but once you pick it up, someone may come after it and after you.”

  “You think there’s a risk?”

  “Not yet. We haven’t discussed it anywhere we could be overheard. I think we can get our hands on it without the thieves knowing about it. Can you bring it right to me, directly from the police?”

  Just after I finished speaking, the waiter returned, placed two salads on the table and said, “Gentlemen, your dinners will be out shortly.” After the waiter disappeared into the restaurant, Ed shrugged. “Sure. I’ll pick it up tomorrow morning. I’ll call you when I’ve got it. Now, relax and enjoy your dinner.”

  “Yeah. I guess I’ve been a bit tense lately. I don’t like the way this thing has made Mariel feel like she can’t come home. I’m also not keen on the idea people have been watching me.”

  “You need to compartmentalize. Like when I was going through my last divorce, I was working some big cases, dealing with the break up and looking for a new place to live all at once. I had to deal with each one separately and not let my feelings about one interfere with another. On the other hand, I had experience that helped me.” He paused a moment, then laughed, “My previous divorces.”

  I shook my head in disbelief, “How many?”

  “Between the starter wife and the trophy wife? Hmm, let’s just say more than one. I wouldn’t want anyone to think I was hard to live with or fickle.” A big smile formed on his face as he sat back in his chair.

  “Ed, I don’t want to pry, but if you feel like talking about it, how’s it going with Sheila?”

  “Did I tell you we met at my first job after law school? She had been there about a year before me, took me under her wing and under a few other body parts. We got married, had Brenda, got divorced and so on. That was before I went to work for EFH. Sheila stayed on at the firm when I left. After a couple of years with Zorky, I went out on my own, set up a practice in Manhattan. I still handled his affairs, but as outside counsel. That way I was able to leverage my accomplishments with him to obtain and service additional accounts.”

  Ed stopped to light another cigarette and I remembered how he tends to ramble when he’s drinking.

  “Outsourcing his legal work also cut down on Zorky’s overhead, so it was good for everyone. Matter of fact, it was so good that after a few years, I left the New York office with one of my partners, moved down here and opened up a Florida branch. I made some friends here, bought a house where I could dock my boat and decided to stay. We spoke occasionally, but I hadn’t seen Sheila in years. She’s held up well though. Too bad she’s not going to be moving in.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear…” I said.

  “Oh, I’ll admit that for a while, it was nice to relive the time when Brenda was small and we were a family, but it’s not for us. We’ve got a good divorce now. I wouldn’t want to spoil it. You see, the reason Sheila and I hit it off in the first place was because we’re so much alike. We’re both aggressive in protecting our clients, clever in the law but unfortunately we both have roving eyes.” Ed paused, lowered his head and without moving it, looked up at me, “and I’m not speaking ophthalmologically here. We both live for the chase.”

  “So she’s looking for another place?”

  “Yeah, it was mutual… again.”

  After what I heard in the bar at Stevie’s Sky Lounge, I wasn’t too sure about the “mutual” part, but Ed seemed to be taking the break up in stride. “What about Brenda?”

  “She came down here to go to school, liked it here and stayed. That’s part of the reason I decided not to go back north. Now, she’s working on her graduate degree, got another year to go. Luckily, she got her mother’s looks and her mother’s brains. Can you imagine if she got my looks instead?”

  We talked some more about Ed’s family, varied legal career and his love of boating. Perhaps I should say, Ed talked while I listened and nodded. I was just as happy to sit there without the need to manufacture small talk of my own. After a while, our food arrived. My eggplant was delicious, the wine was making me feel relaxed and I was enjoying myself for the first time in a day or so. Ed seemed to be enjoying his steak. He was too busy eating to talk anymore.

  We pretty much ate in silence and then stuffed and sated, sat back in our seats. The waiter brought us coffee and Ed surprised me by passing up dessert, mumbling something about keeping his figure for the ladies. When the waiter brought the check, Ed grabbed it. “Business dinner. Billable expense.” It seemed either he used his allotment of words for the day or the food and wine had slowed him down.

  We finished our coffee and headed out to the parking lot. I walked Ed to his car and he said, “Get in. I’ll give you a lift home.”

  “No, thanks. I’m going to walk. Thanks for dinner.”

  “Thank Ray’s estate. I’ll call you when I’ve got the thing we discussed.”

  We shook hands and I headed home. I was still full and the walk would feel good.