King Tide

by A. J. Stewart

  “It looks like an accident to me,” I said. “I just wonder how it could happen.”

  Leon looked at Ronzoni. “Detective, you also question this accident?”

  “Mr. Lezac, I am a police investigator. I question everything.”

  He didn’t smile but I knew Ronzoni just loved delivering that line. Normally he was the kind of guy who would come up with a witty retort three hours later and then text it to you.

  “You think maybe he wasn’t alone?”

  “I don’t have an opinion one way or the other, Mr. Lezac. What about you? ”

  “I think Paul was very serious about his workouts. I think he followed protocol.”

  Anton snorted. “He wasted his life inside a gym, and he killed himself inside a gym. Just face it, Leon.” He stood and downed the last of his glass.

  “I need another drink.”

  He trudged off to the bar and we watched him go. Then Ronzoni spoke.

  “So you don’t believe it was an accident?”

  Leon shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know.” I watched him glance toward the bar and then sit back in the sofa and put the glass to his lips. He didn’t drink.

  “What is it, Leon?” I asked.

  He didn’t look at me. He looked at Ronzoni.

  “Detective, if I wanted to know if Paul was alone, I would look at the hotel security video.”

  Ronzoni cocked an eyebrow. Clearly he hadn’t thought of that. To be fair, neither had I, but the difference between us was that Ronzoni would claim the idea as his own later on.

  Chapter Eleven

  Ronzoni excused himself and wandered over to Neville, who directed him to his assistant manager, Miss Taylor. She was still sitting with Cassandra and Ron, and seemed to have brightened up some, and after a couple of head nods she stood and left the bar with Ronzoni, I assumed to check the security video.

  I refilled Leon’s glass but not my own. I figured Leon for a guy who still had something to say, something that he might prefer to say without the presence of the police. And I figured brandy was just the social lubricant to get it out of him.

  “So you live in Paris?” I pronounced it Paree , and it sounded stupid coming out of me.

  “Yes, monsieur .”

  “What do you do there?”

  “I am a sommelier. You know, wine?”

  I nodded. I knew wine. Not intimately, but Mick usually had a bottle stashed somewhere under the bar for the occasional lost tourist.

  “And the three of you stayed in touch after school. That’s unusual. ”

  “Is it?”

  “I think so. Guys often lose touch with high school friends during college, but Anton left when he was what, fourteen?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you went to Paris.”

  “Oui.”

  “But you kept in touch.”

  “We were like brothers, you understand? Our families were very close. Like brothers, we went our own ways but we always keep an eye for each other.”

  “Sure. So what did Paul do?”

  “This and that.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I heard. What constitutes this and that in France?”

  “He stayed in Bordeaux for a time. Working in gyms mostly.”

  “Personal trainer?”

  “What is this, personal trainer?”

  “Someone who works with people in the gym one-on-one. Creates a program, motivates them, helps keep them on track.”

  “No, Paul did not do this.”

  “Okay. And then?”

  “He was in Paris for a time, not doing much. Then he went away.”

  “Away? You mean he did time?”

  “Did time?”

  “Jail.”

  “No, monsieur. I mean he went away. From France.”

  “Okay. Where did he go?”

  “Here and there.”

  “Right, doing this and that. So what did old Paul do for money? You know, euros? ”

  “I know money, monsieur. How to put such a thing? He lived well on the welfare of others.”

  I nodded. “He was a moocher.”

  “A moocher?”

  “Someone who lives well on the welfare of others.”

  “D’accord . A moocher. Oui.”

  “He stayed with you in Paris?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did he leave? Did you kick him out?”

  “No. Friends do not do this.”

  “Friends don’t mooch.”

  He shrugged. He was good at it.

  “What about Anton? Did Paul mooch off Anton?”

  He nodded. The shrug came more naturally.

  “Even though Anton was in the US?”

  “After. When Anton got on the ATP tour. He plays a lot in Europe. He took Paul along.”

  “Took him along? What, to carry his bags?”

  “No. For some time Paul was Anton’s trainer and hitting partner.”

  “Hitting partner?” I asked.

  “Yes. Someone to practice with.”

  “So Paul played tennis, too?”

  “No, monsieur.”

  I sipped the last of my drink. The story Leon was telling was not unfamiliar to me. I’d seen plenty of guys make it big in baseball or football or basketball, suddenly flush with money, and I’d seen critters crawl out of the woodwork to claim their share of the largesse. A guy never knew how many long-lost cousins he had until he had a pro sports contract in his pocket. They could be like leeches. I’d seen it end friendships, families and careers. And even lives .

  “So Anton is getting married?”

  “Yes, monsieur.”

  “You can cut the monsieur, my name is Miami.”

  “Miami? This is also the capital of Florida, yes?”

  “No. The capital is Tallahassee, and I’m thankful I don’t have that as a nickname. Miami is just the biggest city. It’s where I went to school. College. So married, then?”

  “Yes, monsieur Miami.”

  “And this is the last hurrah, huh?”

  “I think in English you say stag weekend?”

  “In England you say that. We say bachelor weekend.”

  “For the women, also?”

  “Bachelorette.”

  He frowned like it was a stupid word and I was inclined to agree.

  “And when we are all together? Men and women?”

  “Not sure we have a word for that. A recipe for disaster, would be my guess. But Anton’s bride isn’t here.”

  “She is here.”

  “He said she wasn’t.”

  “She wasn’t in the room.”

  These guys were rather precise with their language. Perhaps it was a translation thing. Perhaps they were anal. Perhaps they were hiding something.

  “So where is she?”

  “I do not know, monsieur Miami.”

  “There aren’t that many women in the hotel, Leon. Which one is she?”

  “Shania. The, how do you say it? African American?”

  I thought of the powerfully built woman who had been on the sofa earlier. They didn’t look much of a pair, but I guess couples rarely look that way except if they’re in matching sweaters, and that’s never a good look.

  I said, “Yes, African American. What do you call that in France—someone who is African descent but French?”

  “French.”

  I nodded.

  “So what did Shania think of Paul mooching off her fiancé?”

  “I don’t really know. I don’t think she liked it. I don’t think anyone really likes it.”

  “So why didn’t she stop it?”

  “It is complicated, monsieur.”

  “Miami. How is it complicated? I get it, you’re like brothers. But brothers have to make their own way in the world, don’t they?”

  “Of course. But . . .”

  I said nothing. It was when thoughts trailed off into nothing that the stories always got interesting, and I had learned long ago to let them fester. Pe
ople don’t like silence. They like to fill it. Often with the other side of the trailing thought.

  Instead Leon retreated into his brandy balloon. That was okay with me. Trailing thoughts often found momentum with help of social lubricant. I offered to recharge his drink. I was quick about it, because trailing thoughts also have half-lives considerably shorter than uranium.

  “Tell me about the complications,” I said, like I was the guy’s priest.

  He took another long slurp on his brandy. “A thing happened.”

  “Okay.”

  “You cannot tell anyone. Even the policeman.”

  If it was pertinent and illegal I sure as hell could tell the policeman, but I was equally easy keeping stuff to myself if it wasn’t any of Ronzoni’s beeswax .

  I nodded.

  “We were in Bordeaux for Noël —Christmas—a few years ago. We had some drinks, Anton more than most.” Leon took another sip of his drink, perhaps oblivious to the story he was telling.

  “Anton got quite drunk, and he told us a story of something that happened when he was at the tennis school.”

  “Case Academy?”

  “Oui, yes. He said that there had been a big match, a final of a tournament. Their team had won well. Anton, Shania, Sam. They all won. But there was some kind of a test after—you know?”

  “Drug test?”

  “That’s right. Anton said he had been doing something.”

  I thought of Paul and the steroid look in his eyes. “Performance enhancers?”

  “No, no. Not that. Anton would not do that. No, this was more recreational.”

  “Like marijuana?”

  “I think cocaine.”

  “Okay.” Not performance-enhancing per se, but well outside the scope of acceptable pharma in the eyes of the tennis administration, whoever they were.

  “So what happened? He had a positive test?”

  “No. It was arranged for someone else to take the test for him.”

  “For him? I don’t think it’s that easy, Leon.”

  “Maybe not on the ATP, but this was high school. Anton says it was done.”

  “So he got away with it.”

  “Oui. ”

  “And Paul decided to use this against Anton? To keep the gravy train going?”

  “Gravy train?”

  “The mooching.”

  “No, you don’t understand, monsieur. Paul did not need to use it. Anton was helping him anyway.”

  “So what did Paul do?”

  “Nothing. He said that it was something we should not speak of. To protect Anton.”

  “Okay.”

  “Unless it ever needed to be used, to protect Anton.”

  I sat back, but I was on a coffee table so there was only so far to go without falling backward. But I was forming a picture. Anton might have helped Paul because he was a brother, but there’s nothing like a little guarantee to make sure the deal stayed sweet. And now with a marriage, perhaps the deal was going sour. Perhaps Paul was going to use what he knew. Or perhaps it was just an accident.

  I leaned back toward Leon and spoke softly. “That doesn’t look great for Anton, you know that, right?”

  “No, monsieur. I know Anton. Look, like brothers we have grown apart. We have different lives. But you know your brothers. Inside. Anton may appear like he does not care, but he cares very much. About his tennis, and about Shania. And about Paul. And Paul felt the same way about Anton. He wouldn’t use the knowledge against his brother like that.”

  “You ever heard of Cain and Abel?”

  “Of course. But you miss the point. This is not about Anton.”

  “Then who is it about?”

  “Someone provided the fake urine sample, for the test. Someone else was involved in the cheat. I think Paul knew who that was. I think he was doing the blackmail on them. ”

  “Who was this other person?”

  “I have no idea, monsieur.”

  “So this is just a wild theory.”

  “When I arrived at the hotel I ask Paul how he is doing. He tell me after this trip he would be doing very well indeed.”

  “That plan didn’t work out so well, now did it?”

  Chapter Twelve

  I left Leon staring into his brandy balloon and wandered out of the bar. Leon’s comments had set me thinking, and I noticed that the bride-to-be had left her man drinking alone in the bar. Except that he wasn’t alone. The young blond woman had taken a perch next to him at the bar. What her relationship to the whole thing was I had no idea. I would find out. But first, I wanted to know what was so important about the ballroom.

  Shania had asked Ronzoni if they could still use the ballroom, which I found an odd request. After hearing of a death in the hotel even Fred Astaire would have taken a break from dancing for a while. For it to be the first question asked intrigued me. And once intrigued I needed answers.

  I could hear the wind pounding outside as I made my way up the lobby stairs to the mezzanine level. The stairs were marble like the foyer but the mezzanine was carpeted the color of spilled cabernet. At the top I had two choices, left or right, south or north. I went south. It wasn’t a subconscious choice. I wasn’t a bird. But above the deep, pounding sound of the wind and rain beyond the shuttered windows I heard a rhythmic popping coming from the south side of the floor.

  As I got closer the popping got louder. Pa-tank, pa-tank. It was like a chip fanatic was opening a thousand Pringles tubes one after the other. Pop, pop, pop. I found the ballroom. It was behind a door covered in taupe fabric, next to which was a brass plaque that labeled the space the Flagler Ballroom. I didn’t really see how putting Henry Flagler’s name on it made it any better. Surely the ballroom would have sufficed, but around the Palm Beaches when the imaginative city planning geniuses got together to name stuff, Flagler always saved them from a blank whiteboard.

  I pushed the door open. It took a moment to comprehend what I was seeing. The ballroom was vast and ornate. Lots of rococo curlicues and gold leaf. The ceiling rose to a dome that wasn’t really a dome, since there was another floor above it. The floor was parquet and about the size of six tennis courts.

  But there was only one tennis court. It had been set up in the center of the space. A row of round dining tables clad in white tablecloths were set up as a net. White masking tape had been stuck to the floor to delineate the lines of the court. Above the makeshift net hung a large crystal chandelier. The massive lighting fixture made me think of bulls and china shops.

  The pop, pop, pop was coming from the tennis racquets as a tennis ball was pummeled flat and hard from one end of the court to the other. I wandered along the sideline toward the middle of the court, where the umpire at Roland Garros might sit, or the ball boys at Wimbledon might crouch. At the near end Shania was bouncing around on her toes. She moved lightly, never touching her heels to the ground, jumping side-on to hit each shot and ending facing the dining table net each time, ready for the next. She didn’t grunt or make screaming noises, but she hit the ball so hard I developed a new appreciation for the structural integrity of the Penn product. She had changed clothes, and was wearing a red sleeveless shirt and black Lycra shorts that she filled completely. Danielle’s arms were well defined. She worked out plenty hard. But Shania’s arms were strong. Her triceps glistened with sweat. Her forehand shot started in the shoulder and then popped in the hip like a golf swing, lots of momentum, before whipping at the wrist and catapulting the ball back to the other end.

  Where Sam Venturi returned it. He was built altogether differently. He wore a white tennis shirt and baggy shorts that looked like he had stolen them from Rod Laver. He was the polar opposite of Shania. Male-female, white-black, vanilla-colorful, slight-strong. Shania wasn’t overly tall but Sam was no taller, maxing out at five-nine or five-ten.

  Shania glanced at me between shots but remained focused. The rally went on forever. It reminded me of hacky sack we played back in college, trying to keep the footbag in the air fo
r as long as possible. But Shania and Sam didn’t seem to be trying to rally. They just didn’t miss hit. The ball never rose more than a few inches above the tables acting as the net.

  Eventually Shania let one go. She just didn’t swing and the ball sped by and cannoned into the wall behind her with a force that would leave a dent in drywall. She walked up close to the tables and took a new ball from her pocket and hit it to Sam, who remained at the back of the court, and he returned it with less vigor than before so Shania could practice her volleys. I didn’t know a lot about tennis. I’d been once or twice to the tournament out on Key Biscayne, and I’d attempted to court a tennis player during college. I knew a volley from a groundstroke, and a lob from a smash, but that was about it.

  “You play?” Shania asked, not taking her eyes off the ball .

  “A little,” I said. “Back in college.”

  She hit a few more volleys and then proceeded to catch the return ball on her racquet head. She nodded to Sam and they ambled over toward me. A table had been set up with a carafe of ice water, and they both rehydrated.

  “Nice court,” I said.

  Shania nodded and smiled.

  “They let you do this in here?”

  “They let you do anything, if you got the money,” said Sam, wiping his moist face with a towel.

  “I’d be a bit worried about that chandelier,” I said looking up.

  “No lobs allowed,” Shania said. “You a cop?”

  She got my attention back from the ceiling. “No.”

  “You were helping the cop.”

  “I do that.”

  “He saved that girl, the maid,” said Sam. “That was pretty awesome, dude.”

  I shrugged like it was nothing. My battered knees begged to differ.

  “What happened to Paul?” asked Shania. She wasn’t a beat-around-the-bush kind of gal.

  “He dropped something heavy on himself.”

  Shania frowned again, and it aged her. It did the same thing to me, only worse.

  “You know Paul well?” I asked.

  “He’s a good friend—was a good friend—of my fiancé.”

  “Anton.”

  “Yes.” Her eyes narrowed. “I didn’t get your name.”

  “Miami Jones.”