Millions, maybe, or at least a few thousand. One or two, probably.
I knew it wasn’t true. Of the six billion or so people in the world, including the ones in China, I was probably the only one doing that. It was damned depressing.
It was still raining when I got home, and Paco’s car was gone. It was dark under the carport, and I held my gun in one hand while I got out of the Bronco and ran upstairs. My fingers actually trembled while I unlocked the French doors, and I kept my gun out after I got inside. I stood inside the door and tested the air, sniffing to see if I got the same feeling of a recent intruder that I’d got earlier. Everything felt normal, but I still did a search before I went back and lowered the hurricane shutters. If anybody was in there, I didn’t want to trap myself inside with them.
I stood a long time in a warm shower and then crawled into bed with the .38 on the table beside me. I felt like I’d been up for a month or two, and tomorrow probably wouldn’t be much better. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I was a pet-sitter, damn it, not a deputy sheriff. I shouldn’t have to be concerned about anything except my pets. Like Mame, who was alone across town while rain beat on her roof. Mame, who was old and deserved better than having her people go off and leave her for such a long time. With Mame on my mind, I fell asleep. Feeling sorry for Mame didn’t make me any happier, but it was at least better than feeling sorry for myself.
10
The rain had stopped when my alarm went off at 4 A.M. I groped my way to the bathroom and went through my morning routine: splash face, brush teeth, pull hair into ponytail, step into shorts, wiggle into a T, tie clean white Keds, sling on backpack, pick up gun. I raised the storm shutters and opened the French doors, scanning the dark porch corners for any lurking killers as I stepped out. The air was sauna-damp, but an early sea breeze kept it from being stifling. The sky was gun-metal gray but clear, and along the rim of the horizon was a pale pink foretelling of dawn. Wavelets broke on the beach with the fizzing sighs of Alka-Seltzer plopping in water, and a few early birds were comparing tales of what they’d done during last night’s rain.
Downstairs in the carport, my Bronco was still the only one at home. Michael’s shift at the firehouse would end at 8 A.M., and nobody knew what Paco’s schedule was. A couple of egrets on the Bronco’s hood sullenly watched me get in the car and then took off with a great fluttering of white wings. On the twisting lane to Midnight Pass Road, heavy oaks were still dripping rain, and flocks of parakeets alarmed by my passing caused more drops to scatter when they flew away.
At Tom Hale’s condo, I parked in a visitor’s spot by the front door and went inside the deserted lobby to the elevator. Billy Elliot was waiting inside the door, snuffing and dancing on the tiled foyer. I hugged him hello and snapped his leash on, whispering so as not to wake Tom, and then we both trotted down the hall to the elevator and across the lobby to the front door.
As soon as he sniffed fresh air, Billy Elliot stretched his long body out ready to race. I heard a motor running and looked to the side of the lot. It was the same pickup on those ridiculous big tires, idling with its lights off. Maybe this lot was being used for a drug drop or something. I pulled Billy Elliot back until we got to the big open space and then let the leash play out.
Billy Elliot took off like a comet, and so did the truck. The difference was that Billy Elliot was running away from me and the truck was driving straight toward me. I swung my head to look toward the sound at the same moment he turned on his high beams, catching me in their glare like an unsporting hunter.
In seconds, the truck was on me, so close I could feel its heat, so close I could feel the vibration of its speed under my feet. Paralyzing fear shot through me like sick electricity, sheer animal panic like I’d never felt before. I had been afraid before, afraid of drunks with guns, afraid of wrecking when tires slewed on wet-slick streets, afraid of snakebite when I saw a rattler at my feet, but this went beyond fear. The death that is always there, always hovering, always ready to slam its foot on anything that moves, had arrived. Somebody in that truck intended me to die, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it.
There was nowhere to go: no ditch to fall into, no wall to climb over, no time to run away. Throwing the leash handle clear, I spun around to face my death. The giant tires were so close I could see the deep grooves in their tread. The noise was deafening, like a banshee’s scream.
Suddenly a man’s calm voice high on the right side of my head said, Hit the dirt, Dixie.
I dove for the pavement, sliding flat out between the tires, face turned to the side, mashing ribs and cheekbone and pelvis into the asphalt. Hot exhaust fumes swept over me, so close they ruffled my hair, and then a rush of cool air signaled that the truck had passed over. I couldn’t see it, but I heard it roar out of the parking lot onto Midnight Pass Road.
Mewling and gasping for breath, I clawed my way to my feet and crab-ran toward the side of the lot. I stumbled between two parked cars and dropped to the curb when my rubbery knees refused to hold me up anymore. Choking on bile and grit, I put a shaky hand to feel the wetness on my burning face, but it was tears, not blood. My nose was running and my blubbering mouth leaked saliva down my chin. Adrenaline poured through my veins in an overwhelming rush, shaking me so hard my teeth rattled. I hugged my thighs and rested my chin on my scraped knees, gulping air like an asthmatic, trying to quit crying, trying to quiet my galloping heart.
A scraping sound brought me to my feet, my hand digging into my pocket for the .38. I’d forgotten about it until now, but even if I’d remembered, it wouldn’t have been any good to me against that towering truck. But I could sure as hell use it now. I used both hands to hold it stiffly at arm’s length. The peculiar sound was coming closer. If that truck driver had left a friend to finish me off, I was going to blow the blue-eyed shit out of him. Whoever was coming, he was dragging something on the asphalt, something metallic, like a chain. Jesus, somebody planned to beat me with a chain. I whipped a look to both sides behind me to see if there was more than one of them. I didn’t see anybody, but the sound was coming closer.
Through the spaces between the cars, Billy Elliot streaked into view, oblivious to everything except the joy of running, still happily following his simulated race track, dragging his leash behind him and not missing me at all. I stuck the gun in the waistband of my shorts and walked unsteadily to the the end of the cars that hid me.
“Billy! Come!”
There must have been something in my quavering voice that told him this was no time to fool around, because he slowed to a trot, made a wide turn, and came at a gentle jog to sit in front of me. His tongue lolled out of his grinning mouth, and he seemed more satisfied than I’d ever seen him.
I got his leash and shakily reeled it to the handle.
“Don’t think running without me is going to be a regular thing.”
Billy Elliot fell in behind me, stoically enduring the shortened leash and my plodding steps back into the building. As we went into the lobby, we met a couple of plump middle-aged men and their plump middle-aged dogs. The men gave me startled looks and pulled their dogs close to their sides. Billy Elliot snorted, as if to say that I might not be much to look at, but he was still sleek and svelte.
In the elevator, I reacted like the men downstairs when I saw my reflection in the mirrored wall. My shorts and T were smeared with black road grease, and my right cheek looked like somebody had rubbed it with sandpaper. My nose was still streaming and my knees were oozing blood. I wiped my nose with a quivering hand, and realized my palms were scraped. So were my arms.
By the time we were off the elevator and at Billy Elliot’s floor, my heart had calmed, at least enough that it didn’t seem to be trying to leap out of my chest with every beat. But I was still shaky, and my legs still felt like silly putty. I had to use both hands to get the key in Tom’s door. When I got it open, the lights were on and I smelled coffee.
From the kitchen, Tom yelled, “Morning, Dixie!
Want some coffee?”
After a couple of inaudible bleats, I managed to yell back that I didn’t have time, but thanks, and we both yelled good-byes and I left. If he had known what shape I was in, Tom would have ministered to me like a mother hen. But I didn’t want him to see me begrimed and shaking and snotsmeared. I felt ashamed, as if almost being run down by a maniac in a big truck was like getting caught with my hands in my own pants. Like a hurt animal, I wanted to crawl off in the bushes and lick my wounds.
I slunk down the hall to the elevator. On the way down I leaned against the wall, my body thrumming with pain. The lobby was clear, and I bolted through the doors and slammed into the Bronco. Like a homing pigeon, I turned south on Midnight Pass Road and drove to my apartment.
When I pulled under the carport, sunrise was just beginning to pink the milky horizon, and wavelets were gently sucking at the beach. I was glad Michael and Paco were still gone. I didn’t want them to see me bruised and scraped. I took the stairs two at a time, unlocked the French doors, and hurled down the hall to the bathroom, peeling off clothes as I went.
I stood in the shower and sobbed while water lifted asphalt grit from my pores. It wasn’t so much physical pain that made me cry, it was the shock of knowing somebody hated me enough to squash me like a cockroach. I hadn’t felt hated since my fourth-grade teacher had struck daily misery into my heart with her sighs and baleful looks. I had finally announced at the supper table that I wasn’t going to school ever again, and my grandmother called the teacher and asked her what I was doing that made her dislike me so much. The teacher was a little taken aback, but she admitted it was just plain annoying how I wasn’t Working Up to My Potential. My grandmother told her my dad had died over the summer, my mother had run off to start a new life, and I had plenty of time to Work Up to My Potential after I got my life in order. The teacher promised to be nicer to me and I went back to school, but for the rest of the year her disappointment was like little hooks of gravity pulling me down. I felt the same way now. I hated being hated.
When I was all cried out and clean again, I patted dry and applied liquid Band-Aid to my scrapes. Then I looked hard at my reflection in the mirror and told myself that I had spent three years overcoming the sick weariness that goes along with being a victim, and I wasn’t going back there. The person driving that truck would love to know I felt humiliated, and as long as I did, he might just as well have killed me. That son-of-a-bitch had another think coming if he thought I was going to slink around in fear.
I put on fresh Keds and a clean bra and underpants, this time not going for fancy lace or satin because I didn’t give a shit how my underwear looked when I shot the bastard who had come after me. I was going to find him and I was going to make him feel as much fear as he’d caused me.
11
I had two other dogs to walk before I went to Secret Cove, and they were both willing to let me poke along on my sore knees. The cats on my schedule didn’t care one way or the other how fast I moved, but a couple of them wound themselves around my ankles to show sympathy. I carried my .38 shoved into the waistband of my shorts, more or less covered by my loose T. My bruised rib cage reminded me with every movement that it had slammed against hard pavement, and my right cheek had swollen so it looked like an overripe plum. Good thing animals aren’t judgmental or nosy.
With every painful move, I muttered “Ouch! Ooh! Shit! Fuck!” and thought about the driver of the truck. Two big questions had to be answered: who was he and how did he know I would be running in the Sea Breeze parking lot that morning. There was no question about why he’d tried to kill me. I already knew that. He was the man who had killed Conrad Ferrelli, and he wanted to shut me up so I couldn’t testify against him.
Before I went to Secret Cove, I swung by the Metzgers’ to retrieve Conrad’s coat. In the driveway, I dropped my gun into my pocket and put on a pair of dark shades to hide my red eyes. Priscilla opened the door to my ring, smiled shyly, and beckoned me down the hall to the workroom. As I followed her, the Metzgers’ seal-mitted Russian Blues, Elsie and Serenity, trotted to meet me. Aerialists of the cat world, Russian Blues are fine-boned graceful cats with brilliant green eyes. I was flattered they remembered me, because Blues take awhile to warm up to strangers. I was too sore to kneel and stroke their silver-tipped fur, but they didn’t seem to mind, just threaded themselves in and out of my legs for a moment before light-footing it back to the workroom. Maybe they had been showing sympathy too.
In the workroom, Priscilla’s baby was asleep in her playpen, and Conrad’s coat was on a tall white-haired man. Josephine was behind him, moving her hands across the shoulders.
She took one look at me and said, “My God, Dixie, what happened to you?”
I tried to shrug and pass it off but ended up grunting because shrugging hurt.
“I fell.”
“You didn’t get that banged up from falling, Dixie Hemingway. Now what happened?”
Everybody in the room was staring at me, including the man wearing Conrad’s coat.
I said, “A truck tried to run me down this morning.”
Suddenly I was crying again, and Josephine had gathered me into her arms and was patting me and making shushing noises like you make to a baby, and I was leaning into her and feeling a whole lot better. When I was finally cried out, Priscilla scurried out of the room and brought me tissues and thrust them at me, and the man in Conrad’s coat smiled and nodded at me as if I had just accomplished something important. Maybe I had.
He said, “That truck, what kind was it?”
“It was a normal-sized pickup but up high on big huge tires.”
For a split second, Josephine and Priscilla and the man all cut their eyes at one another. They quickly looked back at me, but now there was something apprehensive in their faces, something akin to guilt or fear.
Josephine said, “Did you see the driver?”
“No, it was too dark. I was running with a dog in a parking lot, and the truck just came blasting toward me. I was out in the open and there wasn’t any place to go. I was terrified.”
Josephine said, “Well, I guess so.”
“I fell to the ground—dived, really—and it went over me. That’s how I got bruised.”
They all pulled themselves up stiffly as if they were living the moment with me. The baby made a shrill squeal that startled everybody and broke the tension. Priscilla rushed to her sewing machine and Josephine gestured to the man beside her.
“Dixie Hemingway, meet Pete Madeira.”
His white grin knocked off about thirty years. “Are you related to Ernest Hemingway?”
“People always ask that, but I’m not.”
He waggled woolly black eyebrows that looked like fat caterpillars inching above his pale blue eyes. “I’m not Madeira wine either, but I’ve been known to intoxicate.”
Josephine slapped his arm. “Behave yourself, Pete.”
Pinching fabric at the coat’s shoulder, she said, “Pete wants Conrad’s coat, but it doesn’t fit, and I’m not altering it. The shoulder is the main thing. If the shoulders don’t fit, the whole thing will look wrong.”
It didn’t take a tailor to see that the coat slid off his shoulders, pulling the lapels too far apart and giving the whole coat a sloppy look.
Pete turned his mouth down in mock despair. “Are you saying I don’t have broad manly shoulders?”
“I’m saying the coat don’t fit you, Pete.”
She unbuttoned the plastic chrysanthemums and pulled it from him. He turned to me and spread his arms to the side.
“It’s the story of my life. Women are always telling me I’m not big enough.”
Josephine put the coat on a hanger and hooked it over the rack. “Don’t let anybody kid you, Pete, size does matter.”
The baby chortled as if she got the joke, which made us all grin.
I said, “Actually, Jo, I’m here to take the coat back to Stevie Ferrelli. I told her what you said, and she thinks i
t’s a great idea.”
Josephine’s face brightened. “Well now, that’s the best news I’ve had in a long time.” She turned to Pete and said, “I told her Conrad should be buried in the coat.”
“Of course he should. I’m surprised you had to point that out.”
Josephine said, “Give her a break. The woman’s probably in shock.”
She took the coat down and brought it to me, but Pete was right behind her, reaching for it.
He said, “I’ll carry that out for you.”
I bit back a reply that I was a big girl and didn’t need a man to carry a coat for me, and handed it over. We said our good-byes to Josephine and Priscilla and went out together, Pete proudly leading the way with the coat laid over his forearms like a holy shroud.
At the Bronco, he carefully arranged it on the backseat and then straightened up with a deep sigh. “You know, it’s the strangest thing. Ever since I heard about Conrad, I’ve felt like it was Angelo who’d died. It’s like going through losing him all over again.”
“You knew Angelo Ferrelli?”
“Close to sixty years. I don’t think anything has ever hurt me as much as Angelo’s death. I’m ashamed to admit it, but losing him was almost worse than losing my wife and daughter. Not that Angelo and I had anything fruity between us, but we started out in the circus together, like soldiers in foxholes in the thick of battle.”
“You were a clown?”
“I am a clown, honey. Just’cause I’m old don’t mean I’ve hung up my clown shoes.”
He gave me a lecherous wink and grinned. If he’d been fifty years younger, it would have been annoying, but there’s something endearing about a flirtatious octogenarian.
He said, “I teach a clown class now. You ought to come visit us. There are a lot of clown alleys in Sarasota.”
“Alleys?”
“An alley is a group of clowns that do the same kind of work. Comes from the time when the ringmaster would yell, ‘Clowns, allez!’ when it was time for the clowns to come on. Allez means go in French, but to Americans it sounded like alley, so that’s what we call it now. I belong to a hospice alley. We go to hospices and entertain the patients, the caregivers, and the families. People don’t hurt so much when they’re laughing.”
Duplicity Dogged the Dachshund Page 9
