by Mike Stewart
Whether it made sense or not, I decided to hold off inserting the law into my relationship with Purcell. So I told the part-time firemen of Apalachicola that I’d been trying to remove a smudge from the frame around the painting with some cleaning fluid I had found under the kitchen sink. I said I’d stopped to light a cigar and the whole thing went up in flames. That seemed to satisfy them. They got to give me a lecture, and I got to keep my run-in with Purcell private.
After the firemen departed, I sat and sipped my scotch and realized that maybe I didn’t want anyone to know that I wanted Leroy Purcell dead. Right thenâat that momentâI wanted and expected something terrible to happen to Purcell in the future, and. when it did, I didn’t want anyone looking too closely at me.
Joey answered his cell phone on the second ring. “Yeah?”
I said, “It’s me.”
“What’s wrong?”
“How’d you know something was wrong?”
An edge had crept into Joey’s voice. It was as close as he ever got to sounding panicked. “Are the women okay?”
“Oh. Yeah. Yeah, Loutie and her guests are fine. I’m over on St. George at Susan’s house. I had some trouble.”
“You sound like your puppy died. And I thought you were gonna stay away from Susan’s house. Hell, you should’ve known they’d be looking there, Tom. I mean, shit, I’m guessing you’re okay, or I wouldn’t be running off at the mouth. You are okay, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, Joey. I’m fine. I’m about as pissed off as I’ve ever been in my life, but I’m fine.”
“As pissed as you’ve ever been is pretty pissed.”
I didn’t say anything.
“What do you need?”
“Is our boy Haycock in his cottage?”
“He’s there, and he’s got a little stringy-haired woman in there with him. I sneaked up to the house and checked on ‘em a little while ago and was sorry I did. The two of ‘em were buck naked and tangled up, banging away like a couple of stray dogs. I’m telling you, after seeing that, I need to go watch some hogs humping to put the romance back in my life.”
“So it looks like he’s staying put for a while?”
“Yeah,” Joey said. “I don’t think he’s going anywhere tonight.”
“Come over, then. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”
I hadn’t thought about the ferry and whether Joey could even get off the island. More than an hour after Purcell’s and Sonny’s exit, I was still pumping too much adrenaline to think about much but murder. So I wasn’t surprised when Joey walked into Susan’s charred living room.
I was sitting in the chair Purcell had used. Joey stopped in the middle of the room and surveyed the black mess where Bird Fitzsimmons’ painting had hung. “What the hell happened?” I raised a glass of scotch, tipped it at him, and took a swallow. “Damn. When you told me you had some trouble, I figured you got your ass whipped or something. What’d they do? Try to burn the place down?”
“You ever hear of a prick named Leroy Purcell? Used to play for the Cowboys.”
“Yeah. He’s a scumbag.” My giant friend paused and looked stunned. “Purcell was here? He did that?”
“Yeah. He was here, and he set fire to Susan’s favorite painting by her dead husband. And came real close to burning the whole place down. It’s supposed to be a lesson about what he’ll do to everything Susan owns if she and Carli don’t meet with him to discuss the guy he murdered in front of Carli.”
Joey stood and walked to the kitchen. When he came back he had a glass full of ice cubes, which he covered with amber whiskey from my half-empty bottle.
“Shit, Tom. I’ve been hearing rumors about Leroy Purcell ever since he left the pros. It’s pretty much common knowledge he likes to hang out with hoods and gamblers and that he’s gotten ass deep in a lot of shady deals down here in Florida.” Joey stopped to turn up his glass. He was not a sipper. Joey drank scotch the way he drank beer and orange juice and everything else. He swallowed a mouthful of whiskey and said, “The guy had about a million opportunities to make an honest living when he came back from the pros. They love the bastard down here. But, word is, he likes the action. Likes the dangerous reputation.” Joey clinked the ice in his glass and looked out at the night. “So it was Purcell who Carli saw shoot that guy in the beach house?”
“Yep.”
Joey cussed, and shook his head, and drank more scotch.
I asked, “Can you let go of watching Haycock for a few days?”
“I can do whatever you need me to do.”
“I want to know what Purcell’s doing. I want to know who he talks to, where he goes, and who he’s sleeping with. I want to know everything I can about what he’s up to. Because we’ve got to know if he’s getting close to finding Susan and Carli.”
“I’ll bury him in bugs. Get his house and his car. Tap his phones. But I’m gonna need to pull Loutie off guard duty to help with this if you want me to keep covering Haycock. I can put another man on Susan and Carli if you want.”
“Yeah. Do that. The whole point is to keep them safe. In the meantime, we’ve got to find a way to stop Purcell for good.”
Joey looked up. “Short of killing him.” I didn’t say anything, and Joey noticed. He seemed to think about that, then he asked, “Did you report him setting the fire?”
“No.”
Joey thought a little while longer. “Does anyone know you two had this run-in?”
I said, “Just the guy who helped him set it,” and Joey slowly nodded his head. Joey knew that Susan didn’t need or deserve any more pain in her life. If it came to it, Joey would snap Purcell’s neck without thought or regret. Now, though, as the idea of murderous revenge turned real, I began to hope it wouldn’t come to that.
Joey shook his head. “Ain’t this some shit?”
Joey was eloquent, and he was right. This was indeed some shit. I said, “You think your buddies on the Panama City force could tell us whether Purcell is mixed up with the Bodines?”
Joey stood and walked to the kitchen phone. He punched in a number and spoke quietly into the mouthpiece.
A fresh whiskey and I walked out on the deck. Bird’s seashells were ash, but their charcoal frame drew a black square in the sand where it had landed and burned. Small flaps of charred canvas ruffled and skitted down the beach ahead of the breeze and disappeared into the dusk. Leaving my drink untouched on the railing, I wandered back inside as Joey was thanking Detective Coosa for his help.
I looked at him. “Well?”
“The rumor is Purcell runs the Bodines up there around Panama City. Coosa didn’t know anything about Apalachicola.”
“Okay, then see if you can find out who runs the Bodines down here. We need to know whether Purcell is the King of the Jethros or just one of several. I want to know if he’s messing around in somebody else’s backyard. Can you do that?”
“Probably. One way or another.” Joey sat back on the sofa. “Look, I got something else to tell you. I got a name on the fat guy Haycock smuggled in.” He paused to drain his drink. “It took a few tries to get to the desk at Captain Casey’s Inn without somebody around, but last night I checked out the card fileâthey ain’t even got a computer. It’s gonna turn out to be some kinda alias, but the guy’s name on the card was ‘L. Carpintero.’” Joey spelled the last name. “Mean anything to you?”
“Nope. But I’ll make a note. It may fit in somewhere if we find out something else.”
Joey got up to leave, and I walked with him to the door. He asked why he hadn’t seen my Jeep outside when he drove up. I told him about Purcell commandeering the vehicle, and he offered to get me a car. I shook my head. I could have one brought over in the morning.
At the door, Joey hesitated. “It never would’ve entered my head that Leroy Purcell would be blowing people away. I thought he just liked hanging out with hoods. Trying to look tough.”
“Murder and arson with Sonny the Psycho to back him up. Not to mention h
im threatening teenage girls. Not exactly what I’d call tough.” I said, “A real All-American, huh?”
Joey said, “Yeah, a real All-American asshole.”
Susan had abandoned her house in a hurry. The bathrooms were ready for the morning shower she took instead at Loutie’s house after fleeing killers in her own home. I lay on Susan’s bed and breathed in the smell of her and tried to think. Outside, through the windows I had stood before while Susan slept, the sunset splashed the horizon with oranges and pinks and purples and streaked the ocean with jagged ripples of molten silver and gold. I rolled off the bed, stripped, walked into the bathroom, and turned on the shower. As the water began to heat and steam clouded the ceiling, I looked at the guy in the mirror. I wasn’t impressed.
The shower felt good, and it kept on feeling good until Susan’s water heater was drained and tepid. I found a box with some of Bird’s old clothes in it and put them on. My stuff was back on the guest room bed at pastel hell, and I didn’t feel like hiking.
Back downstairs, I found my unfinished drink and poured it over the weathered banister and into the sand below. Sharp white pricks dotted the eastern sky above a smudged black horizon, and the approaching night washed the sky with charcoals that faded overhead to the soft gray tones of summer flannel. In the west, the last thin blue tint of daylight hung in a crescent-shaped curtain above the horizon.
I went in search of a hammer and nails, which I found in a combination laundry and storage room under the stilted house. After nailing Sonny’s kicked-in door shut, I went to bed. Susan’s pillow held the soft feminine scents of her shampoo and cologne and makeup and some other girl smell I couldn’t identify. An overwhelming loneliness enveloped me like a physical presence, and I fell asleep.
I was up before the sun with more than four hours sleep, but less than I’d had the night before. It was as if my mind were signaling that my level of screwed-upness had digressed, but not to the depths I had occupied before finding some sort of redemption in helping Susan and Carli.
I washed my face, ate a few bites of a hard aged croissant from Susan’s refrigerator, and stuck out along the bright morning beach in the direction of my pastel palace. Purcell had returned my Jeep to the parking space beneath the house. Inside, I half expected the place to be stained somehow with Purcell’s intrusion, but everything was the way it had been since I arrived. I changed out of Bird’s clothes and into a pair of jeans and a faded red pullover. I traded sandy running shoes for New Balance cross trainers, packed up, and left. My plan was to drive over to Eastpoint and look for Peety Boy’s friend Billy Teeter.
I tossed my duffel in the backseat. The keys were in the ignition, and an envelope had been snapped under the windshield wiper like a parking ticket I was inside the Jeep when I saw it. Stepping out, I pulled up the wiper and lifted out a white business envelope gone floppy with salt spray from a night facing the waves. The moist envelope tore easily and unevenly. It held a single sheet of copy paper.
Report on Carli Monroe (alias)
Name: Carli Poultrez
Age: 15
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Approx: 5′4″, 110 lbs.
Poultrez is a runaway minor from Gloucester, Massachusetts. (Address: 2128 Cleaverhead Road.) She has a record going back three years as a repeat runaway. Her father, Russell (Rus) Poultrez, owns and operates a fishing vessel out of Gloucester.
Rus Poultrez Contact Report
That was it. Before making the copy, someone had placed two large Post-it notes over the rest of the page, including, I guessed, the name and signature of the investigator. Also, I could see the outline of a smaller Post-it at the top covering a letterhead.
I removed my keys from the ignition and went back inside to call Susan with more bad news. When she answered, she sounded a little better than she had the night before.
I asked, “How’s Carli?”
Susan said, “She seems fine. But then, she always does. This has to be wearing on her, though.”
“How are you?”
“A lot better. Thanks. I’d kind of like to see you, even though I know that’s not really in the cards right now. But I wanted you to know that I want to. Losing ‘Scattered Shells’ was difficult for me because I’ll always love Bird. But that doesn’t mean I’m not ready to see you and enjoy being with you.” She hesitated. “Unless I’m taking too much for granted.”
“You’re not.” And she wasn’t, but, for some reason, she was making me uncomfortable. I retreated into the business at hand. “I’m sorry to do this to you, but I’m afraid I have some more disturbing news. Purcell knows who Carli is.”
“Yes, you told me that last night. You said he’s looking for both of us.”
“No. You don’t understand. He knows who Carli really is.” I told her what the report said. I also suggested that I’d rather deliver the news to Carli in person, so I could advise her on how to proceed.
“Are you coming back then?”
“Probably tomorrow. Today, I’ve got to go find an old shrimper named Billy Teeter.”
“There’s a seafood shack over in Eastpoint called Teeter’s.”
“That’s the guy.”
“You may as well go get some breakfast then. The places over there that open on Sunday don’t open until one. You know. Church.”
I told Susan again I’d see her Monday or Tuesday, and hung up.
The island had five restaurant-slash-bars, and they all had signs advertising Sunday brunch. I chose the Pelican’s Roost, where Carli had worked. Susan said it was good, and I thought that I probably needed to look around the place sooner or later anyway. So I turned in and parked in the gravel lot and stepped back out into the warm morning air.
A pair of plateglass windows stared blankly out at the parking lot from either side of the front door. I turned the knob and stepped inside. The waiting area was the bar, but there was no wait. Another nut-brown waitressâthis one with long brown hair and crow’s feetâled me up narrow steps to the second floor, which was furnished with a dozen or so round tables and two long picnic benches hidden beneath plastic, red-and-white-checked tablecloths. Wide, crank-out windows lined both long walls, and a door in the short front wall led out onto a small balcony or deck overlooking the parking lot and a crowded queue of beach houses across the way. Ocean breeze wafted in through open windows on one wall and out through matching windows on the opposite wall.
All in all, the place was simple and more pleasant than it sounds.
Seven or eight people were scattered among the tables. My suntanned waitress smiled and patted my back in a mildly flirtatious way and suggested that I might want to eat out on the deck. I said okay, and she led me out and deposited me near the right front corner where I had a narrow view of the water between two rows of anorectic, architecturally strident sliver-houses.
After she left, I looked out at the distant wedge of water for a while. I moved on to an examination of the skinny vacation houses and the mostly deserted street. I watched a bouncing, tube-topped jogger until she was out of sight. Finally, I glanced down at the parking lot.
This was not going to be an enjoyable meal. There, in the driver’s seat of a Cobra convertible, sat gun-toting, knife-poking, paint-dribbling Sonny. And he was watching me with those jittery, psychotic eyes of his.
chapter fourteen
Either Sonny was scaling new heights of incompetency, or I was supposed to know he was following me. The Cobra’s top was down, and he had parked only ten or twelve feet from my Jeep in an otherwise empty section of the lot. So, considering how rattled I guessed I was supposed to be by Sonny’s blatant disrespect for my privacy, I had three obvious alternatives. One, I could get mad and beat him about the head and shoulders, which would net me either an arrest or an ass whipping. Two, I could respect his wishes and panic, which was what Purcell was counting on. Or, three, I could decide to mess with him.
Sonny may have been a professional thug, but he still loo
ked like a dumbass to me.
When my waitress returned, I ordered steak and eggs with an English muffin and a double order of cheese grits on the side. Contrary to popular belief outside the South, if properly prepared and eaten while steaming hot, cheese grits are actually pretty damn good and almost identical to polenta, which every pseudo-sophisticate in the country likes to see piled next to grilled medallions of veal. But in this instance, I didn’t much care whether the grits were well made, and I purposely let them chill into a thick glutenous mass while I forked beef and eggs into my mouth.
I was full. Time to make grit bombs. I pulled four paper napkins from the dispenser on my table and put three large dollops of cheese grits on each napkin. My waitress came out and gave me a concerned look. I said, “Saving them for later.” She smiled the way people smile at paranoid schizophrenics in Central Park and went back inside.
As I pulled the napkins’ four corners up and around each grit wad and twisted the ends together, Sonny looked up and gave me a self-satisfied grin, and, for the first time, I noticed the blurry prison tattoo Joey had described. On Sonny’s left arm was a large, deep-blue dagger with three letters above its handle and three more beneath its point. I couldn’t make out the initials, but they had to be the R.I.P. and R.E.T. Joey had seen on Haycock’s partner that violent night in the parking lot of Mother’s Milk in Apalachicola.
I smiled back at him. Good to see you too, asshole. Something seemed to catch the corner of Sonny’s eye, and he turned toward the bike path running next to the street to check out a plump blonde in a thong. As he turned away, I completed my first package by dunking it in ice water just before I stood, took aim, and literally creamed him behind his left ear.
The man said some really bad words.
While he screamed, I dunked the second grit ball. He ducked. This, I thought, is fun. I let him duck. This sticky handful was headed for the center of his shiny black hood. It hit with a deeply satisfying thud and splattered like a baseball-sized wad of pelican droppings. Sonny jumped up from behind the dash to see what had happened. I was waiting. Damn. I missed him and sent a thick schmear of cheese grits across his leather seats.
