by Ron Base
26
Wonderful Freddie without (too much) complaint came to pick him up, mystified that a husband who had started off in a tuxedo for a show at the Big Arts Center had ended up in Fort Myers Beach.
“Thank you,” he said after she found him sitting forlornly at the roadside, holding his stomach.
“It’s not every night I get to pick up a guy in a tux on the side of the road. Incidentally, why are you holding your stomach?”
“Someone hit it with a fist.”
“Why would someone do that?”
Tree said, “It’s a long story.”
Crossing San Carlos Bridge he told her what had happened. He told her everything—or at least everything he knew, which, when it came right down to it, was not a whole lot.
“But you don’t have nine million dollars,” she said.
He hesitated perhaps a second or two longer than he should have before he answered, “No.”
She cast him a sidelong glance—there were sidelong glances each time the subject of nine million dollars came up. “Tree, why is there always this hesitancy before you answer that question?”
“There is no hesitancy,” he said.
“There is,” she maintained.
“You are imagining things.”
“I wish I was, but I don’t think I am.”
“The point is,” Tree said, “it doesn’t matter really whether I have it or I don’t, too many people think I do, including people who say they are willing to kill us if I don’t come up with it.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’ve got four days to figure that out,” Tree said.
“Who are these people, anyway?”
“Whoever they are, they are not nice.”
“And who is Ryde Bodie or Wayne Granger or whatever his name is, and how has he ended up in this predicament? For that matter, how did you end up in it?”
“We can blame Marcello for that,” Tree said.
“Or you can take some personal responsibility here, and decide you are going to walk away from these things and not walk into them.”
“Yes, I can decide to do that, I suppose,” Tree agreed. “Except right now I’m in it, and I’ve got no choice but to figure the way out.”
“Let me ask you this,” Freddie said. “If you did have the money, would you give it to them?”
“That’s supposing I have it.”
“Let’s suppose.”
“I’m not so sure giving them the money would save us or Ryde Bodie,” Tree said.
“I’m scared, Tree,” Freddie said.
“Yes,” Tree said, “I am, too. And I haven’t even told you the worst part of it.”
“What’s that?”
“I totally sucked doing the Oscar show tonight.”
“Tree—”
“It’s no use trying to reassure me,” he said. “I got up on the stage, and I looked out at the audience, and I totally froze. Couldn’t remember a thing.”
“Tree, it’s—”
“Please, don’t tell me it’s all right.”
“I wasn’t going to tell you that,” Freddie said.
“What were you going to tell me?”
“I was going to tell you that, right now, you’ve got bigger problems.”
________
When they arrived back at Andy Rosse Lane, Tommy, holding an ice pack against his swollen hand, was on the sofa watching WWE clips on the iPad, Madison and Joshua huddled on either side of him with Marcello trying hard to look as though he was far too mature for snuggling.
“Josh and I both love Rey Mysterio,” Tommy said.
“I don’t like wrestling,” Madison declared.
Marcello, not looking at all happy, got off the sofa and came over to Tree. “I thought we were partners.”
“We’re temporary partners,” Tree amended.
“So, temporary partner, what happened tonight?”
Tommy had lost interest in the iPad. “Something happened tonight?”
“I think something did,” Marcello said.
“It’s late,” Freddie announced. “You kids should be in bed by now.”
“They just wanted to watch one more match,” Tommy said.
“And one more and one more,” Madison said in a bored voice.
Marcello addressed Tree. “So you’re not going to tell me?”
“There’s nothing to tell,” Tree said. “I went to the Oscar show. Here I am home again.”
“Where’s your car?” Marcello demanded. “How come Freddie had to go and pick you up?”
Tommy gave Tree a closer look. “You look as though you’ve been put through the wringer, Mr. C. What happened tonight? Are you okay?”
“I don’t think I’m cut out for a life in show business,” Tree said.
“We can talk about this later,” Freddie said. “Right now everyone has to get some sleep.” Adopting the no-nonsense tone employed when she was not in the mood to argue.
Tommy said he would get the kids into bed. A chorus of objections briefly arose from Madison and Joshua, but once again Freddie put that authoritative voice to work and the three kids trooped off, accompanied by Tommy who promised to tuck them in—Marcello protesting that he was too old to be tucked in.
Tree could not remember the last time he slept. His whole body ached with exhaustion. He undressed. Freddie asked him if he wanted anything to eat. He shook his head and sank onto the edge of bed. All he wanted right now was sleep.
He rolled under the covers. Freddie loomed over him, the uncertain light framing the loving expression on her face. “What am I going to do with you?” she said to him. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”
“They can’t kill me,” he said. “I’m the hero of the story.”
“Heroes get killed all the time,” Freddie said. “And let’s face it you’re not that much of a hero.”
“No, I suppose not.”
That was the last thing he remembered saying.
________
A brightly-lit cinderblock corridor reverberated with the distant roar of a crowd. Tree went along the corridor, through a series of connecting doors, until he encountered a man in a red windbreaker. The man wore sunglasses. Tree marveled at his artfully arranged blown-dry hair.
The man in the red jacket said, “The mayor’s just been here and presented him with some sort of plaque. And a native kid. There’s a native kid. At least I think she’s native.”
“Native?” said Tree.
“Yeah. She gave him something, too. He’s sweating a lot tonight. Waiting for you.”
“For me?” Tree said.
The man with the blown-dry hair shrugged and the overhead light glinted off his sunglasses as he opened the door behind him. Tree stepped into a team dressing room with exposed overhead pipes and benches in front of walls lined with metal lockers. A fat man sat on one of the benches. He had jet black hair pushed up in a pompadour. Jet black sideburns framed a pale, fleshy face all but lost in the high collar that was part of the white, spangled jump suit he wore—a jump suit that strained to contain his heavy torso. The fat man’s small, heavily-lidded eyes were outlined in what looked like eyeliner. He squinted, and his fingers twitched spasmodically.
“Grab one of those tissues over there,” he said to Tree, pointing to a box of Kleenex on a nearby bench.
Tree went over and pulled out two or three tissues and returned to the fat man in the white jump suit.
“Just dab my face, will you? I’m sweating like crazy.”
Tree used the tissue to catch the perspiration running down his cheeks.
“Are you all right?” Tree said.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Tired, that’s all. Tired a lot, lately. I’m not sleeping, always trouble sleeping. I’ve gotta go out there in a few minutes and do a concert, although I’m not even sure where we are. Rapid City?”
“We’ve met before,” Tree said.
“I meet a lot of people, sir.”
“You
drove a golf cart on a sound stage. It was late. You were having trouble sleeping then, too.”
“I’ve always had trouble. That’s why I take medication. So I can sleep. That and the colds. I seem to get colds a lot.” He became silent. Tree pressed a tissue against his damp forehead.
“Yeah, I think we’re in Rapid City,” the fat man said. “What is it, early June? And you say we’ve met before?”
“That’s right,” Tree said.
“Well, I got a couple of months left, but, sir, you’re not going to make it that long.”
Tree stopped dabbing at the white, sweaty face. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t stop, okay? I can’t go out there sweating like a pig.”
Tree used the tissue to pat the fat man’s high forehead, gathering the moisture running along his scalp line. The fat man said, “That’s what I wanted to tell you. They’re gonna kill you. That’s all they wrote for you, son.”
“This is crazy,” Tree said. “How would you know when I’m going to die?”
“It’s this whole spiritualism thing I’m into. I can see things others can’t. What’s the word when you can do that? When you can see the future, that sort of thing?”
“Prescient?”
“That’s it. Something like that. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking you can somehow dodge the trouble you’re in. Well, forget that. Sir, these people you’re dealing with, they’re snakes. They kill meaner people than you before breakfast. They don’t care.”
“I don’t believe it,” Tree said.
“Believe it or not, that’s up to you. The fact is neither one of us is gonna make it, so there you go. Wherever we’re going, Heaven, the Great Beyond, whatever, it’s got to be better than this.”
“This is all right,” Tree said. “I don’t mind this so much. It has its drawbacks, sure. But I have a beautiful, loving wife, good friends, a home on an island a lot of people think is paradise. I’ve really got a lot to live for when I think about it.”
“Then why do you keep figuring out new ways to get yourself killed? What makes you want to throw it all away?”
“Do you think that’s what I’m doing? Throwing it all away?”
“Don’t you?”
“I don’t know,” Tree said, perplexed. “I guess I’d never thought of it quite that way.”
“I hope those gospel hymns I sang all my life are true. I just want to see my mama again, that’s all.” He gave an ironic smile. “Ever since she died, it hasn’t been the same. We should be living in paradise but paradise turns out to be hell on earth.”
“It’s not hell,” Tree protested. “I don’t think it’s hell—most of the time, I don’t think that.”
“I told myself the same thing for a long time. But the darkness keeps coming in, and now it’s the end. You’re old and I’m fat, and we’re both going down.”
“What happened to you, anyway?”
“What happened to both of us, sir? How did we end up sitting in a dressing room that smells like dirty socks in Rapid City, South Dakota? We were both something else, and now we’re this, in a place we never intended to be, filled with regrets. We both could’ve done it differently, I guess, but the fact is we didn’t, so here we are.”
From outside, Tree could hear music start up, the strains of Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra. The entrance door opened, and more men in red jackets with blown-dry hair filed in. “It’s time, Boss,” one of the men said.
“Gotta go.” The fat man in the white suit rose to his feet. One of the red-jacketed men took over Tree’s job wiping the sweat on the fat man’s forehead.
Tree stood up. “I wish I knew what to say to you.”
“Hey, just give me a hug.”
Tree embraced him. The fat man’s whole body felt damp.
In the background, the music was rising toward a crescendo. Tree and the fat man in the white suit shook hands. “Hope you make it, sir.”
“You, too,” Tree said.
“I don’t think it looks good for either of us,” he said. “But I suppose we can dream, can’t we?”
“Yes,” Tree said. “We can always dream.”
“Dream what?” Freddie said.
Tree opened his eyes. Freddie said, “It’s morning. You slept in.”
27
You sure sleep a lot,” Madison observed when Tree finally padded out of the bedroom, into the kitchen. She was seated at the table in a pink bathing suit, holding a red pencil poised over drawing paper, her hair still wet from an early morning visit to the beach.
“Since I met you and your brother, I haven’t had any sleep at all,” Tree said.
Madison concentrated on drawing her picture. “Thomas took us to the beach,” she announced as she worked away. “He’s nice.”
Because Tree had not taken them to the beach, he was not nice. He could not disagree. “Where did you get the bathing suit?” he inquired.
“Freddie got it for me—and one for Joshua, too.”
“It looks pretty on you,” Tree said, pouring himself a cup of coffee.
“Pink is my favorite color,” Madison said, before adding, “Freddie is nice, too.”
Tree noted he was the only adult inside the Andy Rosse Lane house this morning not designated by Madison as “nice.”
He added milk and then leaned against the counter sipping his coffee. Freddie came in, looking spectacular in her one-piece orange bathing suit, trailed by Tommy, less spectacular in oversized trunks, followed by Joshua and Marcello.
Tommy said, “This taking care of kids is kind of fun.”
“Thomas can’t swim very well,” Joshua confided. “I helped him.”
“I swim all right,” Tommy protested. “I just need a little encouragement, that’s all. Besides, I’ve got a sore hand.” He held up his still-swollen hand as proof.
Freddie said, “The kids want to go back to the beach. Why don’t you come along with us, Tree?”
“I don’t know that I’m up to ocean swims first thing in the morning,” Tree said.
“Come on, Mr. C,” Tommy said. “It’ll be good for you.”
“We should be working this case,” Marcello said to Tree.
“How should we be doing this?”
“We should be putting stuff on the walls.”
“What kind of stuff?” Tree asked.
“You know, newspaper stories and photographs—maybe those mug shots, too. Drawing arrows that look confusing but help us solve the case.”
“Like in the movies,” Tree said.
“Yeah, they always do that in the movies,” Marcello said.
“Except I don’t have any photographs,” Tree said.
“And you’re not drawing lines on my walls,” Freddie said.
“I want to draw the lines,” Madison cried. “I want to draw the lines!”
Marcello shook his head in disgust. “No wonder we can’t solve this case.”
Freddie persisted with the return to the beach, finally leading everyone out except Tree. He finished his coffee and called Rex.
“Even Paul Newman made bad movies,” Tree said.
“Paul Newman didn’t end up on stage, staring bug-eyed at the audience, his mouth opening, but nothing coming out,” Rex said.
“You are very cruel, Rex.”
“You may have to give up this idea of becoming an actor.”
“You were great last night, incidentally,” Tree said. “I should be big enough, in the face of my personal failure, to tell you that.”
“You must want something,” Rex said. “What is it?”
“Can’t I even give you a compliment?”
“You can, but it’s because you want something. What is it?”
“Bonnie. Ryde Bodie’s dance partner. She’s Bonnie Garrison, isn’t she?”
“The Widow Garrison,” Rex said. “Her husband died last year in Charlotte, just as the FBI was about to indict him.”
“Wonderful Wally,” Tree said. “Bonnie live
s here on the island, right?”
“Bonnie has a place on West Gulf Drive. She’s fighting the feds to hang onto it.”
“Why would the feds want it?”
“Because the government believes the house is part of the proceeds from the Ponzi scheme her husband cooked up.”
“So you know about Wonderful Wally and his car contracts.”
“I don’t know the details. Bonnie says they have been investigating her, but she claims she had no idea what Wally was up to. She just thought he was a brilliant businessman.”
“You talked to her about this?”
“Unlike some other people I know, Bonnie actually showed up for the rehearsals when she was supposed to. We got to talking.” There was a pause and then Rex said, “I think there’s something going on between Ryde Bodie and Bonnie.”
“You don’t happen to have Bonnie’s address on West Gulf Drive, do you?”
“See?” Rex said with a sigh. “I knew you wanted something.”
________
The canary yellow frame house stood at the end of a long paved road off West Gulf Drive. The house was built atop stilts, the steps and porch area painted a chocolate brown so that a first-time visitor would have no difficulty locating the front door.
Tree had taken a taxi to retrieve the Beetle from the Big Arts Center parking lot. Now he parked and climbed the steps and rang the doorbell. No one answered. He rang it again. Still no answer. He tried the door. It was locked. He went down the steps and around to the back to a second brown-painted porch. Two big windows overlooked the ocean, but nobody in the house wanted to see the ocean today. Blinds were drawn across the windows. He knocked on the back door. Still, no one answered. This time, however, when he tried the door, it opened.
Tree leaned in and called out. “Hello? Anyone home?”
The silence of the house came back at him. He could hear insect sounds from outside, but otherwise there was nothing. His stomach began to twist into a knot. He called again: “Bonnie? It’s Tree Callister. Are you here?”
Getting no reply, he stepped into a kitchen area, his stomach tightening even more. He should just turn around and walk out and forget he was ever here. Instead, he moved through the white kitchen with its white cupboards and white marble countertops. The living room-dining room area was white, too, beneath a slant roof. A white fan overhung furniture that was like an afterthought, added by people on vacation with better things to do. The enormous black eye of a flat screen television followed his every move.
