by Ralph Zeta
“She’s agreed to see you,” Mrs. Mullen said. “Don’t push her, though. If she doesn’t want to answer something, move on and ask it again later in a different way. You’ll get further that way, I guarantee it.” I could not argue with the large woman. Her advice was solid. Mrs. Mullen stood aside and allowed me into the relative comfort of the house.
Inside the home, the air no longer reeked of smoke and sweat; it now bore the distinct antiseptic aroma of disinfectants and cleaners. Small lamps were on and radiated a warm, almost inviting glow. The view of the hallway and the small kitchen was not as I remembered; the floor was no longer cluttered with garbage and grime. The place now seemed entirely different. Better. Livable.
Elizabeth Gage was dressed in a clean blue robe, and her hair was clean and pulled back in a neat ponytail. Her eyes seemed alert and clear although there were some fairly large dark circles under them. She sat on the dark green couch in her living room. I introduced myself.
“Have a seat,” she said in a raspy voice.
Sitting down in the overstuffed chair that had seen too much use, I thanked her for seeing me and asked if she felt up to talking.
“What would you like to know?” The tone and tempo of her voice was slow, almost like a slur.
“Whatever you can tell me that might help me find this man.”
She looked down at her hands and sighed. “He moves around a lot, you know?”
I nodded. “So I hear.”
“It’s not gonna be easy pinning him down.” She looked at me with a sad little smile. “I’ve been trying for so long.”
“Maybe I can help.”
Her demeanor suddenly changed. She looked me square in the eye and said, “Help me do what, exactly?” Her voice had lost its earlier somnolent quality and had a certain edge edge sharp, ready to spar.
Despite Mrs. Mullen’s warning to expect emotional swings, I wasn’t quite ready for it. I needed to respond with tact and charm. “If you help me find him, maybe I can recover some of what he took from you.”
She lay back on the couch and looked up at the texture-coated ceiling.
“Don’t fool yourself, Mr....” she had forgotten my name already. It happened so often I wondered if I should perhaps consider a name change; maybe go with something more memorable like “Sting” or “Prince.”
“Please call me Jason.”
“Even if you do find him and beat the living shit out of him and he tells you where he’s stashed everything, you will still have failed.” The edge was gone from her voice. Her voice was back to the way it had been; sorrowful, soft.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But why would it be a failure?”
She gave a little sigh and said, “Okay. How about this: can you also recover my dignity?” She sat back up, her big eyes boring into mine. “How about my reputation can you get that back, too? And my life... my friends... my father’s business? How about my dignity?”
I said nothing.
“Yeah, that’s right you can’t.” She sobbed. There were plenty of tears streaking down her pale cheeks, her eyes displaying a deep pain that only she could understand.
I let her vent.
“No one can! Don’t you understand that?”
She was right. Even if I recovered every red cent Baumann had taken, her life had been forever changed in ways I could not begin to fathom and nothing I did would ever change that.
“It’s too late for me,” she said. “He screwed me big. I have nothing left nothing!” She sat back and placed her arm heavily over her forehead. “So just leave me the hell alone and go back to wherever it was you came from.”
The plain reality of that remark seemed to catch us both by surprise. A sense of tragedy and finality reared up in my mind as I realized the grimness conveyed by those words. I suddenly understood how people were sometimes driven to desperate acts. Faced with a nightmare they desperately wanted to end, some drank to forget, or resorted to drugs. Others did the unthinkable. It becomes easy to explain why some seek to escape the harsh realities of life by any means. Even extreme means. Elizabeth needed help.
Mrs. Mullen was in the kitchen silently standing guard and clearly in hearing range. What I was to tell Elizabeth was for her ears only. I went into the kitchen. “Mrs. Mullen,” I said, “would you mind giving us a minute? There’s something private I need to discuss with Elizabeth. Do you mind?”
She gave me a dark stare and said, “Remember, go gentle. She’s been through enough.”
I nodded, and she went down the hallway and into the bedroom. I went back to Elizabeth and knelt by the couch.
“Elizabeth,” I said, as I took her right hand in mine. Her hands were cold and clammy. She glanced at my tanned hand holding her considerably smaller and delicate hand then raised her gaze at me, a look of incomprehension permeating her fine features, as if my touching her had a strange feel to it, a completely foreign experience. “I can understand you hating this man. There’s no doubt in my mind that what he did to you is beyond criminal. He deserves the worst possible penalty for what he’s done. Period.”
She was looking at me through tears, beautifully formed lips quivered with unspeakable sadness.
“But ask yourself the following: are you willing to let this man destroy all the good that is still left in you? Yes, he may have taken everything else, but don’t let him take your life away, too. And please don’t let him keep doing this to others.”
Silence. Tear-swollen eyes stared back at me.
“I don’t think you want to allow that,” I said. “I believe there’s still a lot of good left in you, Elizabeth and a lot of fight. Help me help you. Please.”
More tears. I handed her a tissue from the box on the coffee table.
“I promise you this much, Elizabeth,” I said softly. “With your help, I am certain I will find him. And when I’m done he will no longer be able to prey on anyone else ever again. That’s a promise. Do you understand?”
I must have touched a nerve somewhere deep within her because just like that, the tears stopped flowing and her lips no longer quivered, her eyes square on mine, a fixed cold stare I had not seen before. I grabbed a couple of fresh tissues and offered them to her. She dabbed her eyes and took care of her nose, while her unblinking eyes remained set on me the entire time as if probing my most private thoughts for something, maybe sincerity? Considering what she’s been trough, I began to wonder if she could trust anyone again. Could she trust another man? Could she trust me?
Her eyes looked fierce.
“He’s not going to give in to you; you know that, don’t you?” she asked.
“I don’t expect him to.”
“He’s a very dangerous man, Jason. In the same way a cornered boar or a pit viper is. Do you know what I mean?”
I nodded.
“He’s going to put up a fight, and he knows how to handle himself.”
Her red eyes studied my face, then my shoulders and upper body, then the rest of me. She seemed to be weighing me, taking my measure. Was I up to the challenge? Did I have a chance against Baumann?
“You’re gonna have to kill him. You do know that, too, don’t you?”
“It’s an occupational hazard,” I said.
“Ever killed a man?”
I nodded. “Two tours in Afghanistan.”
She tilted her head a little to the side, her eyes still studying me. Then she contemplated her hands.
“Elizabeth,” I said. “Help me. Please?”
“Promise me something,” she said, ignoring my plea.
“Name it.”
She leveled her gaze at me. “I want you to bring me back his dead, black heart.”
And so there it was. Elizabeth and I had reached the elusive plateau in a relationship where two complete strangers suddenly discover they share an important goal. The discovery in of itself, like a religious transformation, forever changing the nature and tone of the relationship. That simple exchange and unearthing of motives and aims ha
d set us off in a new direction; Elizabeth’s newly acquired purpose was to facilitate my tracking efforts. She wanted justice and more importantly, she wanted revenge. My goal was to elicit any and all memories harbored in her battered memory banks, anything that may get me closer to Baumann. And extract for her some form of retribution. It was something I fully intended to do.
Sixteen
I wanted to let Elizabeth express herself with minimal intrusion from me. I asked her to go back to the beginning, where it all started. I had to allow let the natural recall process to be her guide. I needed her to relive the memories of her time with Baumann as though she were watching a movie only she could see, while narrating the action and dialog for my benefit. Every little detail was important, so she should tell me everything.
She obliged, talking slowly at first, then a little faster, taking frequent breaks to drink from a water bottle. A vague outline emerged. She recounted the not-so-casual events that brought them together, the courtship, the months upon months she had spent under his spell as he moved efficiently and swiftly in on her, finally convincing her to marry him in a hastily arranged wedding and put him in charge of her business affairs under the pretense of rapidly developing the valuable waterfront properties she owned. It was a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Baumann had explained to her long ago. The developers were willing to pay top dollar and cut them in as minority equity partners. The potential for substantial profits was there, she knew. Her keenly developed business sense agreed with the assessment. She was very familiar with investment returns on commercial properties, it was her stock and trade. She stood to make several million dollars on the sale of the land and, at maturity, close to a million dollars yearly from the proposed projects’ projected net cash flows. It all sounded almost too good to be true, she knew. But by then, encouraged by Baumann, she had begun abusing alcohol and sleeping pills. Her otherwise keen business instincts were not the same. Baumann kept her high or drunk most of the time. He was good like that. Later he even took away the benefit of a restful night’s sleep. By secretly mixing a little speed and other hallucinogens in her drink and food, he had managed to confuse her even more. Isolation from friends and family ensued. He was in total control, and in her state of constant haze, she easily acquiesced to his demands. After all, he was her husband. Unknowingly, she had given him power of attorney over her business and personal affairs. He had mortgaged the properties and her business, then sold the assets to a group of unsuspecting business men and then just vanished, leaving her to pick up the pieces of what once had been a very comfortable, almost enviable life.
“I really can’t tell you why I let this happen,” she whispered. “I just did. He became such a compelling figure, such a presence... I just couldn’t say no. All I could think of was to please him, to not make him mad. When he got angry he was very belligerent and abusive... He hit me. Never in the face, though. I don’t know how many times he beat me up. He made me drink. Pills, too. Lots of pills. For my aches and bruises, he claimed. Bruises he gave me. I was not in a position to argue. He’s so strong. And those eyes. I don’t know how much more I can tell you. I have a hard time remembering everything.”
She seemed to shiver. She hugged herself for a moment and then went on.
“His eyes may be blue, but they’re not human,” she said. “There’s nothing but an evil blackness in there. Empty. I’ve never seen anything like it. As if there is no soul. Like a snake, you know what I mean?” Her sad eyes lingered on me as if seeking my understanding.
And I did know.
By all accounts, before Baumann had turned her world upside down, Elizabeth had been a normal, caring, successful businesswoman. Now she had fallen into such a state that recovering what was taken from her mattered less than getting revenge. She had lost more than just the material wealth she once possessed she had lost a large chunk of the person she was. Regardless of how she came out of this mess or how much I recovered for her, she would never be the same again. Time and circumstances took care of that. But at least for the moment, I took some comfort in having given her a glimmer of hope, a reason to live even if that determination was fueled primarily by her desire for revenge. To me it mattered little what brought her out of her self-imposed hell. My wish was that, after this was all over, she would somehow find the desire to pull herself out of the black hole of self-pity and despair so she could perhaps reach a point again where she can once again lead a life worth living.
She stood on weary legs and for the first time gave me something resembling a tentative smile. “I thought of something,” she said.
She asked me to follow her and led me slowly on wobbly legs down the long narrow hallway, her right hand sliding along the wall to keep her balance. I followed closely behind just in case. She placed a shaky hand on the doorknob of the second room and entered. Inside was the cluttered office I had seen before. The single window’s blinds were now open, throwing slats of filtered light onto the maroon carpet.
She opened a drawer on the desk and began searching through it. Plucking something from it, she looked up to see me studying the large map hanging on the wall. She examined the map with tired eyes for a moment, as though questioning its purpose.
“Someone once told me that thieves and crooks often keep a secret place,” she began to explain. “A safe house, a hideaway, like pirates and crooks do a place they go to get away, hide and count their loot. So I decided to follow him check out every place he went to. I hoped to find a pattern, something that would lead me to his lair.” She shook her head and looked away from the map.
“And... ?” I asked.
“Nothing. About four years ago I lost track of him. It was like he just vanished.”
The timing coincided nicely with Evan Robertson’s appearance on the Palm Beach scene. He had changed his name, shed his old identity, and worked his way into Mrs. Kelly’s life. It explained quite nicely why she lost the trail about that time.
She turned away from the map and faced me. “You’re a lawyer, right?”
I nodded.
“I’ve had this a long time.” She handed me a business card.
“This is the attorney that introduced us.”
The card was old and yellowed, its dark print embossed in a conservative font. It belonged to a Lowell Pinkus III, associate counsel at a Miami law firm.
“How long have you had this?”
“Too long,” she said meekly as she sat down heavily on the old wooden desk chair, which creaked under her weight. The chair looked like it belonged in a Depression-era museum it was so antiquated.
“I guess I’ve had it about eight years. Maybe longer,” she said, resting an elbow on the desk and closing her eyes. She was nearing the end of her energy reserves.
I called Sammy on the cell and gave him the Lowell Pinkus name and address the next piece of the puzzle. I asked Elizabeth for permission to have Sammy come in and look thorough her records for anything that might help us. She agreed.
Mrs. Mullen appeared, almost filling the doorway. She checked her patient’s pulse and temperature and announced that Elizabeth had had enough for the day. It was time for her to rest.
I couldn’t argue, so I said good-bye to Elizabeth and promised to be in touch. I also promised to be back to see her soon and said I would love nothing more than to take her to dinner.
She turned and faced me, eyes wide with surprise, and flashed a big smile. “Seriously?”
“Cross my heart.”
She considered that for a moment and finally said, “I’m very grateful, Jason. The moment you walked in through that door this morning something told me my prayers had been answered. Someone finally listened. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.”
I smiled at her. No one sent me. Not Providence, not the Universe, the Supreme Being, whoever he or she was. Our chance encounter was nothing more than a random event, the product of a chaotic universe. Pure luck and circumstance brought me to her door. I was simply following a tr
ail, tracking down an animal. I needed information and she was in need of a friend. And I am a willing sucker.
“You need your rest now, Elizabeth,” Mrs. Mullen interrupted. “You can talk to your knight in shining armor later.” I had to smile.
***
Sammy came in with his digital camera and took pictures of the map and the pins while I started going through the desk. There were plenty of bills due, all neatly stacked on a corner of the desk. Next to them there were the typical bank statement envelopes, still sealed and unopened. I found the latest one and opened it. There were funds in the account not much, but she wasn’t completely broke. I rifled through a few older statements. She had hardly withdrawn any funds from the account, and she rarely used it except to pay important bills and the occasional utility bill. Next I checked out a few of the boxes stacked against the wall. One of them contained pictures of her as young girl, with her family on vacations, at Christmas, on European trips, at assorted parties. There were obligatory graduation pictures and several diplomas. She had graduated with honors from FSU and earned an MBA from Vanderbilt. Several plaques honored her work with the homeless and the Veterans’ Hospital. Framed newspaper articles detailed her business accomplishments and development projects. She had been a remarkable woman even at an early age.
Mrs. Mullen came out of the bedroom and closed the door quietly behind her. I asked her if she was available to keep an eye on Elizabeth for a couple of weeks.
She looked at me sideways and said, “How long have you known her?”
I shook my head. “Since yesterday.”
“So why do you care?” She asked behind crossed arms and a skeptical glare.
