by Ron Base
“You think she’s still in Key West?”
“She is not here.”
“Okay. I’ll need a name and a photo,” Tree said. “And any other information you have on your friend.”
“You want photo, Mister Detective Callister? I give you photo.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a four-by-six photograph and handed it to Tree. Zoran, his big gut folding over his swimming trunks, posed on a Key West beach with a woman in a bright red bathing suit. The woman was wearing sunglasses. Tree looked at the photo and then looked at it again. No. It couldn’t be.
He glanced up at Zoran. “Tell me who this is,” he said.
“Her name is Elizabeth Traven,” Zoran said.
Tree shook his head. Was he really hearing this?
“What is wrong with you?” Zoran demanded.
Tree threw the photograph onto the desk. “Who are you, Mr. Zoran?”
“I am most valuable of things.” He reached into his pocket again and this time produced a wad of one hundred dollar bills that he threw on top of the photograph.
“I am a customer. You go to Key West, Mr. Callister. You find my Elizabeth. You will find out why she disappears like this. Maybe she no longer wants me, I don’t know. You will find out. If you do not want to do this, then you will discover something else about me.”
“And what is that, Mr. Zoran?”
“It is not a good thing to disappoint me,” he said. “It is not a good thing.”
“That’s not a threat, is it Mr. Zoran?”
“How could you imagine such a thing?”
“Because I’d hate to start off a relationship with the client threatening me.”
“You find my Elizabeth.” Zoran said it like it was a marching order.
“When you were in Key West, where did you and Elizabeth stay?”
“A hotel. The Southernmost. You know it?”
Tree nodded. “How do I get in touch with you?”
Zoran stood and for the first time since he entered the office, he smiled. It was not a nice smile.
“I will contact you, Mister Detective Callister.”
8
According to the Google search engine, Javor Zoran was once in charge of Serbian president Slobodan Milošević’s personal security detail. After Milošević’s arrest, Zoran had been investigated by the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague. Prosecutors decided there was not enough evidence to bring him to trial; a decision The Washington Post said defied credulity.
There was little doubt Zoran had ordered the deaths of dozens of civilians. The question of prosecuting him hung on whether those murders were committed on such a widespread and systemic basis as to constitute a crime against humanity. The prosecutors at The Hague had concluded they did not. Therefore, Zoran was allowed to go free—a travesty, the Post said.
A Time magazine story speculated that during his time with Milošević, Zoran was being paid by the CIA. That would help explain, said the magazine, why no charges had been brought against him. The piece suggested he had emigrated to the U.S. with the help of the spy agency.
Tree picked up the photograph of Zoran with Elizabeth Traven. If he hadn’t been holding the photo in his hand, he would not have believed it: a Pakistani spy and a Serbian war criminal. How did she get mixed up with these characters? He immediately felt ridiculous for even asking the question. It was Elizabeth. The possibilities for trouble were beyond imagining.
But why had she disappeared? To get herself out of the mess she found herself in? It was certainly a possibility. Thus he had to confront the obvious question: if he found Elizabeth, was he putting her life in danger? More to the point, was he putting his own life in danger?
Two distinct possibilities.
________
Tree got over to the Sanibel Island Holiday Inn a little past noon. When he entered the lobby, his son Chris was just coming out from behind the reception desk, reminding Tree once again of how much he looked like his mother. He had married Judy—the first of four wives, a number even he had trouble believing— when they were both in their early twenties. He should never have done it, they were both far too young—at least Tree was and too much of a newspaperman to want the sort of traditional marriage Judy had in mind. They had produced two sons, Raymond and Chris.
Raymond, the eldest, was a lawyer in Chicago and although he remained close to his mother, Tree had not spoken to him in years. No fights or anything, merely a broken family drifting farther apart. Tree kept meaning to do something about that. But the fact is he didn’t do anything.
Chris had lost weight recently, regaining the lean and lanky look that was his trademark before he met his Playboy model wife, Kendra. In a lightweight summer suit, he appeared healthier than Tree had seen him in a long time. Chris adjusted his glasses when he saw his father approaching. “What brings you here?”
He didn’t sound all that happy to see him, Tree thought.
“I thought I’d drop by and see how you are doing.” Tree hugged his son, feeling his back stiffen. Chris didn’t like his fatherly display of affection. Tough. He was going to get it, anyway.
“I was just about to go on break. You feel like a cup of coffee?”
“Sure,” Tree said.
They crossed the lobby to the restaurant where an impressive faux Banyan tree sprouted out of the floor, its branches spreading across the ceiling. Tree sat at a table while Chris went away and came back with two steaming mugs. Tree watched him with a mixture of love and despair. Chris had always been the problematic son, the silent, enigmatic kid most wounded by his parents’ divorce, left adrift in a world that did not seem to interest him very much. He had no passion for journalism that was for sure. If anything, he disdained the profession. It was, after all, the business that employed his disliked father. He was going to go to university. And then he wasn’t. Then he enrolled in business at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business—but then didn’t attend classes. He had a thousand excuses for his behavior, all of them, Tree was certain, masking resentment of his father and the way he had treated—or rather mistreated— Judy and the boys, charges to which Tree could only plead guilty.
And then Chris had met the beautiful Kendra, siren of desire, celebrated in the pages of Playboy, no less. Everyone wanted Kendra, only Chris had her—or sort of had her, as it turned out— and the next thing they were married during a whirlwind weekend in Las Vegas, no family members present, thanks very much. The next thing after that, Kendra and Chris were starting up, of all the curious things, an online dating service, using, Tree believed, money invested by Judy who, since her divorce from Tree, had blossomed into a successful real estate agent in the Oak Park area.
Everything was going to be all right after that. Everything was going to be just fine.
Only it wasn’t.
“Just milk, isn’t it, Dad?’
“How’s the job going?” Tree asked, snapping himself out of his reverie.
“Fine.” Chris put the mug down and sat back, looking at his father. “The staff here is great, very pleasant.”
“So no problems?”
Chris’s smile erased the tension from his face. “To tell you the truth, Dad, it’s just the opposite. I’ve met someone.”
“You mean a girl?”
Chris’s smile widened. “A young woman, yes.”
“You met her here on the island?”
“A couple of months ago. She was a guest at the hotel. You know, we just started talking, nothing serious or anything. Then she went away on a business trip, but now she’s back, and I’ve got to say, things are moving along nicely.”
“Have you spoken to Edith Goldman lately?” Edith was Chris’s lawyer.
“What? I should call Edith before I date someone?”
“No, of course not. That isn’t what I was getting at.”
“What are you getting at?”
“I just don’t want you to lose sight of the fact you’re not out of the woods yet.”
“What woods are we talking about?” There was an angry edge to his voice. “What would you like me to do? Sit in my little apartment, fingers crossed, hoping nobody shows up at the door with a warrant for my arrest?”
“No one is saying that.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“Look, you are innocent. I know you are.”
Chris raised his eyes from the coffee. Haunted eyes, Tree thought. “But that’s the dirty little secret here, isn’t it, Dad? I was there that night. I could have killed my wife.”
He glared at his father. “Maybe I’m not as innocent as you think.”
“Talking like that is not helpful, Chris,” Tree said.
Chris waved his hand, as though to clear away the damning words. “Never mind. It’s nothing. Me being crazy, I guess.”
“Look, it hasn’t been that long since Kendra’s murder, that’s all I’m saying. It might be a little soon to get involved in another relationship.”
“What do you think, Dad? Do you think I loved Kendra?” The glittery challenge was back in Chris’s eyes; radiating that defiance he had seen so often over the years.
“I don’t know, Chris. You tell me. Did you love her?”
“Whether I did or didn’t doesn’t matter much at this point, does it? The fact is my wife is gone, and I’ve got to somehow get past it. This woman I’ve met, maybe she can help me do that.”
“Just do me a favor, will you? Call Edith, see if she knows anything.”
“Okay.”
“In the meantime, if the police come around, for any reason, don’t talk to them. Call Edith.”
Chris said, “I’ll bring her to the Lighthouse, maybe this Friday so you can meet her.”
“Meet who?”
He grinned. “Susan. The girl of my dreams.”
9
You’ve got a visitor,” Rex said to Tree when he got back to the office.
“Man or a woman?”
“Definitely male.”
“What’s he look like?”
“Like he wants to kill someone,” Rex said.
“Thanks,” Tree said. “That’s very reassuring.”
He started up the stairs.
“Try not to get blood on the carpet,” Rex called.
The African-American male sprawled in the visitors’ chair certainly looked formidable. His head was shaved, and a permanent scowl was built into a face emblazoned with three diagonal scars slashing his forehead and right cheek, dominated by eyes the size of searchlights that inspected Tree with ill-disguised hostility.
He stroked at a carefully trimmed goatee before he leaned forward and placed a single orange flower on the desk.
“A Calla lily,” he said. “A beautiful flower. Yes? I bring this flower to you in friendship.”
“That’s good to know,” Tree said.
The man sat back, eyeing the lily with apparent satisfaction. “Now you must tell me where I can find a good macaron on the island.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“A macaron,” he said in a high-pitched voice, all wrong for his size; a big man with a small voice. “They are delicate cookie-type confections, made with meringue and egg whites. They are filled with jam or buttercream or ganache. Absolutely delicious. I discovered them in Paris. Everywhere I go I test the local macarons. I did find good macarons in Toronto a few years ago. But so far nothing compares to the macarons of Paris.”
“I’m afraid you may be out of luck on the island as far as macarons are concerned.”
“This is most disappointing because this is a beautiful place. Sad they don’t make macarons here.”
Tree squeezed around the visitor and got behind his desk, feeling safer with a barrier separating them.
The visitor wore a gray suit with narrow blue pinstripes and a crisp white shirt and a bright red tie like a trail of blood. A formally dressed thug with a flower, Tree thought.
“Ganache,” he said.
“Tree looked at him. “What?”
“Ganache. I always say that ganache is one of the fillings in a macaron. But I never know what it is. Do you know what ganache is?”
“I have no idea,” Tree said.
“Ganache.” The word rolled smoothly off his tongue. He seemed to savor it. “I must find out what it means.”
He added matter-of-factly, “Now I bring the lily in friendship, as I said, because that is the sort of person I am. But I must show you something else.” He opened his suit jacket to reveal a shoulder harness from which hung a leather holster-like sheath with a thick wooden handle protruding from it. He pulled the object out of the sheath, revealing a long, gleaming blade.
He laid the blade on the desk beside the lily.
“Know what that is?” the visitor asked.
“It looks like a machete,” Tree said.
The visitor nodded with satisfaction. “Where I come from, it is known as a cutlass. A tool useful for taking care of enemies.”
He held the flower in one hand. “A flower for my friends.” With his other hand, he raised the cutlass. “The cutlass for my enemies.”
The man with the shaved head and the scarred face replaced the cutlass blade on the desk and almost daintily touched it with a manicured fingernail. “Here is the thing. I don’t want you as my enemy. Okay? I bring you a lily. I don’t want to have to use this on you.”
Tree found he was having difficulty swallowing. He said, “How can I avoid being your enemy?”
“You avoid being my enemy by being my friend.”
“And how do I become your friend?”
“By telling me, very precisely, the whereabouts of Mrs. Elizabeth Traven.”
“You can’t be serious,” Tree said.
“When I am making jokes, my friend, I do not show my cutlass.”
“What would make you think I know where she is?”
“Because I am smart about these things. Because I know you have been hired by certain disreputable people to find her. So tell me where she is. Or I will give you short sleeves.”
“Short sleeves?”
“In my place, that is what we say when we cut off your hands.”
“You’re threatening to cut off my hands?”
“Which would make it impossible for you to hold the lily, and that would be very sad.”
Tree said as calmly as he could, “It would be helpful if I knew who was threatening me.”
The visitor frowned, stroking his goatee again. “You want to know who I am?”
“Yes.”
“I already told you.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I didn’t tell you?”
“So far it’s been macarons and threats with a machete.”
“A cutlass. It’s a cutlass.”
“Yes. Okay. But I still don’t know your name.”
My name is Dr. Edgar. Dr. Edgar Bunya.”
“Okay, Edgar, tell me why you are so interested in Elizabeth Traven.”
“Please. Call me Dr. Bunya.”
“Dr. Bunya. Why are you interested in Elizabeth Traven?”
“That is none of your business.”
“Well, then, we’re kind of at an impasse, aren’t we? I don’t know where she is. You won’t tell me why you want to find her.”
He lurched to his feet and leaned across the desk to retrieve the cutlass, causing Tree to flinch. That produced what passed for a smile on Edgar Bunya’s hard, scarred face. “See,” he said. “You are afraid of me. A good thing. As soon as you find Mrs. Traven, you tell me. Understand?”
“How am I supposed to contact you?”
He picked up the lily and Tree saw the slip of paper twisted around its stem. Bunya pointed at it. “That is the number where you can reach me. Call me. Leave a message. As soon as you find her, do it.”
He dropped the flower onto the desk and slipped the blade back into its holster before closing his suit jacket over it. Then he turned on his heel and went out the door without another word.
________
Nothing came up on Google for Edgar Bunya, even after Tree added “doctor” to his search. Then he typed in “short sleeves,” and that gave him a lot of fashion stuff about short-sleeved blouses. When he added “cutting off hands,” however, that yielded a London Times story about rebels of the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone. “Long sleeves” meant they cut off your arm at the elbow. With “short sleeves” they simply cut off your hands.
Tree’s telephone rang. He peered at the number on the display and didn’t recognize it. He’d had enough unexpected trouble for one day. But then he was a detective, wasn’t he? He was supposed to be a tough guy, or at least tough enough to pick up a telephone.
“Trembath here,” said the voice on the other end of the line.
“Mr. Trembath,” Tree said.
“Any news, old chap?”
“I was hoping you might be calling with some,” Tree said.
“No news from this end, I’m afraid. Mr. Shah has left the island for a few days. But he’s anxious to be kept in touch about any developments.”
“What do you know about a man named Edgar Bunya?”
There was an interesting silence before Trembath said: “I don’t know anyone by that name.”
“How about Javor Zoran?”
Another silence. “Why am I supposed to know these people?”
“Their names have come up during the course of my investigation,” Tree said.
“Mr. Shah is not interested in anything but results—quick results. I do hope you’re not going to let him down.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Tree said. “I’m off to Key West tomorrow.”
“Key West?” Trembath sounded unexpectedly irritated. “Why would you go to Key West?”
“Let’s just say I’m playing out a lead.”
“I do hope you’re not wasting your time, Mr. Callister. I don’t know why Mrs. Traven would be in Key West.”
“Then where do you suggest I look for her?”
That produced yet another pause. “Well, that’s what we hired you for, isn’t it?”
“Then let me go to Key West.”
“Yes, of course, I’m not going to bloody well stop you, am I?” A forced jocularity was back in his voice. “Well, Mr. Callister, good luck and cheers.”
