Vengeance

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “I don’t feel so good,” she said.

  “What did he do to you?”

  “Mr. P. gave me some stuff. Made me feel good. I thought I knew what he wanted but I wasn’t even close. I was hoping he was dead, wishing it. You know what I mean?”

  “You know this guy’s first name?”

  “Tony, I think,” she said. “Tony Spiltz. I’ve got a good memory. I don’t feel so good.”

  “Can you clean yourself up?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “Do your best and do it fast,” I said.

  “I don’t want to be alone,” she said.

  “I’ll go with you,” Ames said, putting a hand on her shoulder.

  He led her back and through the door to the bedroom. I stood looking down at Tony Spiltz and wondered what had happened. Where did Pirannes go? Why did he go? Was he with Dwight Handford? Had someone called the police?

  Spiltz had no answers. I looked for the gun that had killed him. I did it carefully and wondered what, if anything, Ames or I had touched. No gun.

  When Adele emerged ten minutes later, she looked like a fourteen-year-old girl. No, she looked even younger without makeup, with her hair combed out and in a pair of tight jeans and a loose-fitting black sweater that probably belonged to John Pirannes.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  “I’ll need the slicker, child,” Ames said.

  “I’m not so cold now,” she said, handing him the slicker.

  He didn’t put it on. He wrapped it around the shotgun and put it over his arm. We left, Adele between us, and I closed the door with my shirt. It probably wasn’t necessary, but some young cop or security guard might be very smart.

  We didn’t meet anyone till the elevator stopped at the thirteenth floor. An old couple wearing robes and carrying towels got on with a small boy in a bathing suit carrying an inflated yellow plastic duck.

  The old couple looked at us. The woman looked with concern at Adele.

  “You all right?” she asked.

  “Fine, ma’am,” Adele answered.

  The woman looked at me and Ames. Adele moved close to Ames, who put his arm around her. This seemed to satisfy the woman.

  “Did you notice what floor we got on from?” said the thin old man, with a knowing grin. “Thirteen. Most buildings don’t have a thirteen. Actually, they do, but it’s fourteen, if you understand.”

  “I do,” I said.

  “We live on thirteen,” he said. “We even pay less for our place because people don’t want to live on thirteen. But if they’re on fourteen, they’re on thirteen.”

  “Sol,” the old woman warned.

  The little boy made a popping sound with his lips and moved the plastic duck around as if it were an airplane. We came to the lobby and the elevator doors opened. The old couple and the boy went left. We went through the front door.

  To our right, where the guard gate was, beyond a stand of bushes and short palm trees, a light was flashing. My guess was that it was a police car. I didn’t need a guess about where they might be going, though I wondered who had called them.

  We moved right around the building and headed for the beach.

  The old man was still in the pool alone. The beach was crowded. We hurried but didn’t run. Only the joggers were running, and we didn’t look like joggers. We found our way back past barbecue pit and pond. The heron was gone.

  We pushed through the first line of bushes and stayed back behind the front stand of flowers and trees as we moved toward the mail. We made it in a few long minutes and got in the Geo.

  “Where are we going?” Adele asked from the backseat, where Ames sat at her side, an arm around her shoulder.

  “I’m thinking about it,” I said.

  I couldn’t take her to Flo. Handford knew about Flo, had called Beryl there. She couldn’t go to the Texas, and she sure as hell couldn’t come to my place.

  “He should have taken me back,” Adele said behind me as I drove well within the speed limit past the entrance to Mote Marine Laboratory to the left.

  “He maybe should have just fuckin’ left me with Tilly,” she said. “Tilly isn’t all that bad. He’s not like Mr. P. I never met anybody like Mr. P.”

  When we got back to the mainland, I pulled into the parking lot at the Denny’s a few doors north on the Trail. I had a phone call to make and I wanted to get a good look at the ’98 blue Buick that had followed me from the parking lot on the beach.

  10

  ADELE SAT ACROSS from Ames in the booth at Denny’s. Ames had left his “hog leg” in the car. Adele ordered a cheeseburger special, chili and a strawberry shake. She wasn’t trembling, but there was a vacant look about her while she waited for her food.

  Denny’s was crowded. The waitress was in a hurry. I ordered a bowl of chowder, and Ames wanted nothing but coffee.

  When we had first seated Adele in the booth, Ames and I had stood away for a moment. I had told him we were being followed. He said he knew.

  We got lucky in our Choice of booths. Through the window you could see the parking lot and the Buick. Its engine was off, but no one emerged. Ames nodded toward the window to let me know he would keep an eye on the car, whose windows were darkly tinted.

  I made my phone call and went back to the booth to tell Adele what we had to do. My chowder was waiting, complete with a small basket of crackers. Adele was alternating between chili and burger, washing them down with the shake. She didn’t seem to be getting any great joy from the feast.

  “What kind of car does your father drive?” I asked, crumbling crackers into the white chowder.

  “Dwight has a pickup with a tow winch,” she said. “No car.”

  “Dwight?” I asked.

  “Always call him Dwight,” she said, her mouth full. “Since I was … before he went away when I was a kid, and now.”

  I didn’t pursue this conversational line, but went on with, “What kind of car does Pirannes drive?”

  She stopped chewing and looked through the window into the parking lot. She was a bright kid.

  “Big, black,” she said. “I think it’s a Lincoln or something.”

  “Tilly, what does he drive?”

  She put down her sandwich. There was a touch of ketchup on her upper lip.

  “What’s this about?” she asked.

  “Being careful,” I said. “If any of them show up, I want to know about it as early as I can.”

  “You know Tilly?” she asked.

  “I met him-last night.”

  She nodded, took another bite and looked at Ames, who pointed to his upper lip and then at Adele. She got the message and used her napkin.

  “Tilly drives a sort of sky-blue Jap car with one of those black canvas-like tops. Looks like a convertible but it ain’t … isn’t. It’s not all that new. He got it used. Looks good. He keeps it clean. Tilly is not a big-money dealer on the North Trail, if you know what I mean.”

  “He and your father get along?” I asked, working on my chowder.

  “I guess,” she said. “You know something? I don’t feel much like talking or thinking.”

  I nodded in understanding and said,

  “Then you can listen. I just called Sally Porovsky.”

  Adele took on the look of a trapped cat. Her hands were on the table. She was ready to get up and run, but since she was smart, she knew better under the circumstances.

  “I told her I found you,” I said. “She knows about your father, about Pirannes. I didn’t tell her about the dead man, Spiltz. I don’t want to put her on the spot. If you want to tell her, fine.”

  “My mother’s really dead?” she said, trying to think something through.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Then I don’t have to go away. I can live with my father.”

  “Adele,” I said. “Your father is a violent, abusive child molester. He abused you. He beat me up. He sold you to a pimp and he probably killed your mother.”

  �
��You don’t mean ‘abused,’” she said. “You mean he screwed me.”

  “Did he?”

  The wary cat looked at me and Ames.

  “No way,” she said, shaking her head. “He’s good to me.”

  “He sold you,” I repeated as the waitress reappeared and said, “Anything else?”

  “Pie,” said Ames. “Apple if it’s fresh. Nothing if it’s not.”

  Adele and I were eye to eye. The waitress didn’t know what was going on and didn’t much care. She moved away from the booth.

  “I didn’t say he did,” Adele said, playing who-blinks-first.

  “Tilly says he did,” I said.

  She shook her head.

  “You figure Tilly’s going to tell that to a cop or a judge or a social worker? You think anyone would believe him?”

  There was no reason to go on with this. I would leave that to Sally. Back in Chicago, I was on a case in which a dying black drug dealer, a kid a few years older than Adele, had been stabbed six times in the stomach. He was in a hospital emergency room when I saw him. He was dying and he knew it. The cop I was with asked the kid who had knifed him. He said it was his best friend, his street partner, but he wouldn’t give a statement against him.

  “Him and me,” he said. “We was always tight. He was good to me, like, you know, a brother. He was real good to me till he killed me.”

  The waitress came back with Ames’s apple pie.

  “Fresh enough?” she asked.

  “It’ll do,” he said, reaching for the fork.

  “I’m real happy to hear that,” said the waitress, putting our check on the table and moving away.

  Adele started to eat again, her eyes down. She was either thinking hard or working hard at not thinking.

  Ames nudged me. I looked at him and he nodded toward the window.

  The door of the Buick was opening.

  A man I recognized stepped out. It was my guardian angel, the short, tough-looking bulky little man with less hair than I had, the one who had saved me from a hospital-size beating, or worse.

  He didn’t look in our direction and Ames and I looked away before he caught me.

  “What’re you two doing?” Adele asked, looking out the window.

  “Ever see that man before?” I asked, still working on my chowder. “Man closing the door on that blue Buick?”

  “No,” said Adele. “Wait. Is he coming in here to get me or something?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m just being careful.”

  “Fucking paranoid,” she said.

  “I’d appreciate your watching your language when you’re in my presence,” Ames said.

  “Who the … ?” Adele began and then found Ames looking at her, fork holding a piece of pie.

  Adele shrugged and pushed her plate away. Ames finished his pie. The bulky short man came into Denny’s and headed for the men’s room without glancing our way. He almost waddled.

  I considered following him into the men’s room, asking him what was going on, what did he want, who did he know, but I dropped the idea. He wouldn’t tell me and I owed him one. There was also no long-term point in getting out and running while he was occupied. He knew where to find me. There was, however, a short-term reason for losing him: Adele.

  “Let’s go,” I said. “Now, fast.”

  I dropped a twenty on the table, a too-generous tip.

  Ames put down his fork and Adele slid slowly out of her side of the booth.

  “The guy in the Buick,” she said.

  I didn’t answer. We moved toward the door.

  “He’s after me,” she said, looking toward the men’s room.

  Ames touched her arm, guided her quickly toward the door. Adele was shaking again. When we got in the car, Ames sat in the back with Adele while I drove. “I didn’t believe you,” she said.

  “About what?”

  “About my mother being dead. You were just trying to get me to say something bad about Dwight.”

  “No, little lady,” said Ames. “Your mom’s dead.”

  In the rearview mirror I could see Adele looking up at him and seeing the truth. Her mouth was open. The first cry was more of a scream, and then the tears came. Ames put his arms around her. She leaned against his chest, her fists clenched. Her right hand went up and for a second it looked as if her thumb was searching for her mouth. It stopped short and her fist rubbed against her cheek.

  She didn’t stop crying until we pulled up in front of Sally’s office building.

  Sally was waiting downstairs in front of the glass doors. Her arms were folded across her chest. She was wearing a very businesslike black skirt and a matching black jacket over a white blouse.

  “I’m not telling her,” Adele said as I pulled up in front of Sally. “About the dead guy.”

  “Up to you,” I said, getting out of the car.

  Adele got out too, but Ames stayed where he was. Before she moved toward Sally, Adele looked at Ames. He looked back at her. There was something going on, some understanding, maybe some respect on her part.

  “Adele,” Sally said, stepping forward, her arms now at her side.

  “Sally,” Adele said cautiously.

  “I can use a small hug,” Sally said, looking at me. “Or a big one.”

  Adele moved to Sally and put her arms around her.

  “I’ve got to go,” I said.

  Sally nodded and met my eyes.

  “I’ll call you later.”

  “Do that,” she said, one arm now around Adele, who was crying again.

  As she led the girl through the glass door and into the building, I got back in the car.

  “She’ll run,” said Ames. “If they don’t lock her up, she’ll run to him.”

  “I know,” I said, driving forward.

  “What if he wasn’t there to run to?” asked Ames.

  “That’s what I was thinking,” I said. “He killed Beryl. He has a record.”

  “I was thinkin’ somethin’ faster, surer,” he said as we drove north on Tuttle.

  “You can think it,” I said, “but don’t do anything more than think it. You know where I’m going now?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “If you come with me, we do it my way,” I said.

  “Till your way doesn’t work anymore.”

  I looked at him. He didn’t look at me. He seemed to be admiring the trees and houses and, particularly, a concrete mailbox shaped like a manatee.

  Sally had told me Dwight Handford worked out of a Texaco station on University Parkway, east of I-75. It was easy to find. It was a self-service place with a double-bay garage and two tow trucks. A good-looking blonde in shorts was pumping gas at one station. The others were empty.

  We parked in front of the station, got out of the Geo and stepped inside. There was no one at the cash register, but there were two men working on cars beyond an open door that led to the garage. The hood of one car, a Mazda, was up. A heavyset man with a mop of white hair was leaning deep into the open mouth of the Mazda. He was wearing overalls. The heavyset man was talking to a kid in similar overalls. The older man’s voice echoed within the Mazda.

  “Here, see this, right here. Leak.”

  “I see,” said the kid, leaning forward.

  The kid was skinny. Grease spotted his overalls.

  “We’ll have to take the whole damn thing out,” said the heavyset man, easing back out from under the hood. “I told him it might happen. ‘Shit happens,’ I told him. You know what I mean, Arch?”

  “I know what you mean,” the kid said. “Shit happens.”

  The big man patted the kid on the back once and said,

  “You’ll learn something with this one.”

  The big man started to clean his hands with a cloth. He looked away from the Mazda at us.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked.

  “Dwight Handford,” I said.

  “Don’t know the man.”

  “Dwight Prescott.”

>   The big man gritted his teeth, looked away and said,

  “He’s not here.”

  “When will he be here?” I asked.

  “Never,” he said. “If he shows up, I go for my gun and the phone. Son of a bitch should be locked up again.”

  “You fired him?”

  “Two days ago,” said the big man. “Who are you?”

  “Friends of his wife,” I said.

  The big man looked at Ames and then back at me.

  “He’s married?”

  “He was till yesterday,” I said. “She’s dead.”

  “He kill her?”

  Arch was fascinated by the conversation. He stood listening, mouth slightly open.

  “Between you, me, Arch and my friend here, I’d say it was a good bet.”

  “Violent bastard,” said the big man.

  “Why did you fire him?”

  “I told him to do something, go out on a call. He said he had somewhere he had to be. I was tied up with a hurry-up. Arch was off. I told Dwight to go. He started lipping off, came into my space. I had a wrench in my hand and more than a belly full of that son of a bitch.”

  “You knew he had done time?” I asked.

  “I did more hard time than he did, but that was some time back and for armed robbery. I’ve raised a family since. A friend asked me to give Prescott a chance. I did. He blew it.”

  “You know where he is now?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “Don’t want to know. I’ve got a home address for him.”

  “In Sarasota?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “I’ll take it, but I think it’s not where he really lives,” I said. “Did he ever say anything about his daughter?”

  “Daughter?” asked the big man, looking at Arch.

  “Adele,” said Arch.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Adele is his daughter?” asked the big man.

  “I figured,” said Arch.

  “You didn’t tell me,” said the big man. “He had her with him two or three times. I figured she was his girlfriend, a little young, but … the way he—”

  “She’s fourteen,” I said. “Just barely.”

  The big man looked at the stained cloth in his hand.

  “My oldest is fifteen,” he said. “I got a late start. If old Dwight comes around, I just might go for the wrench.”