I had left the door unlocked.
Digger sat in the chair across my desk. He looked relatively clean and very nervous.
“The door was open,” he said.
I nodded.
“I came in,” he said. “Can we talk?”
“I’m going down to Gwen’s for breakfast,” I said, moving toward the back room. “I’ll buy you breakfast.”
“That’d be nice,” he said. “Very nice.”
I put on a shirt, white socks, and sneakers, and motioned for Digger to follow me. When we were on the landing, I locked the door.
“I’m scared,” Digger said as we went down the stairs. “I gotta dance tonight. I don’t think I can do it.”
“You can do it,” Knute Fonesca said evenly.
“No, it’s too late. Life waltzed right by me while I was two-stepping in the desert of despair for all these years,” Digger said.
“Colorful talk for a frightened dance instructor. Talk like that to the old ladies and you’ll have your salary doubled in a month.”
We crossed the DQ parking lot and turned right, staying as far away as possible from the curb where cars were spraying rainwater as they passed. We passed the workout club, antique shop, and a storefront for rent before we got to the diner.
Gwen’s Diner is a holdover from a few years before the day Elvis supposedly came in and bought two cheeseburgers and a Coke sometime in the Fifties. A poster of Elvis, guitar in hand, mouth open, arm reaching up in midsong, hung on the wall with a little index card Scotch-taped to it with Elvis’s autograph.
If you sat in the right place at the counter, you could see both Elvis and any collisions that might take place where 301 met the curve at Tamiami Trail.
People who had been coming here regularly for a decade or two called the place Gwen’s II. No one remembers the original Gwen’s, if there ever was one. The place was owned and run now by a woman named Sheila and her two daughters, one of whom, Jesse, was eighteen and about to graduate a year late at Sarasota High School a block away. She was a year late because she had taken time out to have her second baby. The other daughter, Jean, had graduated a year ago. They were all natural blonds and all able to deflect a sharp or heavy innuendo with the skill of a seasoned and well-armed gladiator.
Digger and I took a booth in the no-smoking section. The no-smoking section was four booths against one wall with smokers surrounding it.
Gwen’s was busy, and the three women were scurrying around but making it look easy, taking care of the counter-sitters and going from a table of roofers, to a single car salesman reading his newspaper, to three women who looked as if they were just going to or coming from the fitness center Digger and I had passed on our way here.
“Coffee?” asked Sheila, looking down at us.
All three women wore whatever they felt like wearing, which was generally tight jeans, when they weren’t pregnant, and various brightly colored T-shirts.
“Yes. Waffles and an egg over easy with bacon for me,” I said.
“Fueling up for the day, Fonesca?” she asked with a smile. “And you?”
She looked at Digger with a businesslike smile.
“The same,” he said, looking at me to be sure it was all right.
I nodded to Sheila, who scribbled on her pad.
“How are the kids?” I asked.
“You mean my girls or their little ones?” she asked.
“Everyone.”
“Dancing through life,” Sheila said, turned, and moved toward the kitchen.
“That’s it. That’s it. It’s the dancing,” Digger said, leaning toward me across the table. “I don’t trust my knees. I stopped dancing through life ten years ago and started to walk slow and for maybe the last two, three years I’ve been, to tell you the truth, crawling.”
Sheila came back with two mugs of coffee.
“Big Cheese Omelet up,” a woman’s voice came from the kitchen out of sight from where we sat.
Help arrived in the form of Tim from Steubenville, who moved from the counter and sat next to me, facing Digger. Tim lived in an assisted-living home a short walk away at the end of Brother Geenen Way. He spent as much time as he could at Gwen’s, reading the newspaper and telling those who’d listen that drugs, which he had never used, should be legalized, that there should be no income tax, that gays should do whatever they wanted including getting married, that anyone who wanted a gun and wasn’t insane should have one. Since there was very little left of Tim, who was eighty-nine years old, the regulars at Gwen’s tolerated him, a few even agreeing with him from time to time, which he appreciated, or argued with him, which he appreciated even more.
Tim had brought his coffee and newspaper with him. He looked at Digger.
“Seen you around,” Tim said.
Digger nodded.
“You’re looking better than I seen you before.”
Digger nodded again.
“Off the bottle?” Tim asked.
“I don’t drink,” a melancholy Digger said. “No drinking. No drugs. Haven’t smoked in twenty years or more.”
“Nothing to give up,” said Tim, nodding in sympathy.
Sheila looked over at me from the table of the three women and made a nod, which I took to mean that she would ease Tim back to the counter if I wanted him gone. I shook my head once to let her know Tim’s presence was all right with me. I preferred Tim talking to Digger than my talking to either one of them.
I tuned them out, hearing only voices, not words, until Sheila came with our platters and a flip-top pitcher of syrup.
“I never thought of it that way,” Digger was saying when I came back to earth.
“Well, what the hell you have to lose?” said Tim. “What the hell?”
Having accomplished his mission, Tim folded his newspaper, picked up his mug of coffee, and went back to his place at the counter, where he immediately engaged a burly trucker in animated conversation.
Digger dug into his food and finished long before I did, a determined look on his face. I was about halfway through when Digger said, “You mind if I get going? I’ve got stuff to do to get ready for work tonight.”
“Sure,” I said.
“Thanks for your help,” Digger said, getting up.
“Sure,” I said again, wondering for only a beat what Tim had said to him that had brought Digger back to the first small step of self-confidence.
I left a tip on the table and paid Jesse at the cash register with Elvis in midgyration a few feet to my right.
Less than fifteen minutes later I pulled onto the driveway at Seventeenth Street Park. I passed a big open field on my left, where about a dozen people and the same number of dogs were running and barking. The parking lot a little farther down on the left was almost full, but there were spaces open if I was willing to step into shallow puddles left by the rain.
I could see ball games going on beyond the mesh fence, and I went through an open gate and down a concrete path. Voices were traveling in the heavy air. The sound of an aluminum bat hitting a ball clanked clearly, followed by shouts of encouragement.
Hoffmann was waiting for me at the first field on my right. He was wearing jeans, a New York Yankees cap, softball shoes, and an orange T-shirt with “Double Tiger Productions” printed on the front. The men on the bench behind more meshed metal were wearing the same Double Tiger shirts.
“Glad you could make it,” Hoffmann said cheerfully. “I’m up this inning if we get a man on base.”
The men out in the field were wearing blue shirts. I couldn’t make out what was written on them. Both the men in the field and the ones on the bench ranged in age from not young to decidedly old.
“They know you’re only thirty-five?” I asked.
Hoffmann laughed. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t authentic either.
“Watch this next batter,” he said.
A heavyset man came off the bench, two bats in his large hands. He wore shorts, and both knees were reinforced with wh
ite elastic bands. He moved slowly, swinging the bats, handed one of the bats to a wiry man who had to be seventy, adjusted his glasses, and moved to the plate.
“That’s Alan Roberts,” Hoffmann said. “The Boomer. No knees. Has to hit it deep off the fence to make it to first. Then he gets a pinch runner.”
I watched. The pitcher was a lean man with a dirty white cap. He put his feet on the rubber, stepped off, and delivered the ball. The ball arced. Roberts swung and missed.
“Harder to hit a slow-pitch softball than a fast pitch,” he said. “Fast pitch, the ball comes straight at you. You swing even, make contact, and that’s it. Slow pitch, you have to hit up into the ball, time your swing perfectly, and supply your own power. It’s an art.”
There was supportive chatter on the field, encouraging the pitcher, whose name seemed to be Winston. There was also supportive chatter from the bench for Boomer, who took a couple of practice swings and cocked his bat back. Winston delivered. The arc was low. The ball was about to cross the plate chest-high when the batter swung. The ball sailed up and out about twenty feet in the air and rocketed toward the fence and over it. The bench cheered.
“That’s more than two hundred feet,” Hoffmann said happily as Boomer shuffled around the bases. “A lot of these guys played college ball, minor leagues, even a few made it to the majors. The hitting stays with you. The fielding, too. The body goes. Legs, back, arms.”
Boomer crossed the plate and accepted high fives from the bench and Hoffmann, who moved over to meet him and then came back to me.
“I’ll get up this inning,” Hoffmann said. “I’ll make this quick and straight, Fonesca. See that gym bag at the end of the bench, the red one with the white handles?”
“I see it.”
“I can get an envelope out of that right now,” he said. “Inside of the envelope is five thousand dollars. Cash. I’ll get it for you now. You take it and disappear till after the commission meeting.”
I didn’t answer. Another player, this one tiny and at least seventy, was at the plate.
“That’s Cal,” Hoffmann said. “He’s from Chicago, too. Big Cubs fan. You should meet him.”
Hoffmann wasn’t looking at me but he understood my silence.
“There are two envelopes in that bag,” he said. “Each with five thousand dollars. They could be in your pocket in ten seconds.”
I still didn’t answer.
“Okay,” said Hoffmann, looking at me now. “What if that ten thousand dollars is a payment to you for your services. I have a job for you in…what’s your favorite city?”
“Sarasota,” I said.
“New Orleans,” Hoffmann said, ignoring my answer. “You’ll like New Orleans. Go there till Saturday or Sunday and find someone for me.”
“Who?”
“The fill-in piano player at Preservation Hall,” he said. “The mime in front of the church in that square near the place where everyone goes for those puffy things covered in sugar. Find me the best antique dealer in the French Quarter.”
“Why?”
“Why? To get you the hell out of town, Fonesca. Can you use ten thousand dollars?”
“Yes, but I don’t need it.”
He sighed deeply and looked down at the ground. We were standing in wet red dirt. It would take me time to get my shoes clean.
“I’ve got a client,” I said. “I’ve got two clients.”
“Remember my man Stanley?” Hoffmann asked.
“Vividly,” I said.
“He has no temper at all. He reads a lot, works out a lot, practices with a wide range of firearms, and has been diagnosed by competent analysts both in prison and out as being violent and sociopathic.”
“Must get invited to a lot of parties,” I said as Cal from Chicago sent a blooper into short right field and moved surprisingly quickly to first base.
“He does what I tell him to do,” Hoffmann said, applauding Cal’s hit. “Sometimes he does things he thinks I want without telling me. Sometimes he…” Hoffmann’s voice trailed off. “Sometimes he makes terrible mistakes.”
I had the feeling that I was seeing the real Kevin Hoffmann for the first time. His face lost its tightness, his eyes closed, his head went down. I knew that look. It was grief. Real grief. But for who? William Trasker? Mrs. Trasker? And why had mention of Stanley triggered it?
“He’s very loyal,” Hoffmann said, lifting his head and opening his eyes, his smile returning, his false front restored. “You don’t want to deal with Stanley.”
“I don’t want any more literary lessons from him,” I said.
“You don’t want any kind of lessons from him,” Hoffmann said.
A bite of bitterness? Did I detect the hint of it in his voice? Whatever it was, it was gone when he said, “Take the envelopes, drive to New Orleans, come back Saturday or Sunday.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I’ve got a dinner date for Saturday.”
“So, money doesn’t interest you?” Hoffmann said.
“Not very much.”
“Threats don’t bother you?”
“Not a lot.”
Hoffmann gave me a hard look.
“You need a good psychiatrist, Fonesca,” he said.
“I’ve got a psychologist,” I said. “I have an appointment with her in about twenty minutes.”
“Kevin,” someone called from the bench. “You’re up.”
Hoffmann reached for a bat leaning against the fence.
“You do know you’ve been threatened?” Hoffmann said. “I mean you have enough contact with reality to know that much?”
“Offered a bribe first and then threatened,” I said.
“I’m up,” he said, and bat in hand, jogged to the plate.
I watched him hit a ball foul, miss a pitch, and then hit another ball foul. Rules of the game. Foul ball with two strikes and you were out. Hoffmann threw his bat on the ground and looked at me with less than love in his heart for his fellow man.
I checked my watch. I had fifteen minutes.
I drove west on Seventeenth to Orange, went south, turned right on Main, and found a parking spot on Palm Avenue next to an art gallery. I stopped for two coffees and two biscotti from Sarasota News amp; Books, and I was in Ann Horowitz’s office a minute early.
While she finished her early-morning appointment, I worked on my coffee and read an article on what quasars are in an old Smithsonian magazine. She was only ten minutes late, but she always made it up by giving me an extra ten minutes at the end of our session, which in turn meant the next client, patient, or lunatic would be equally late or later.
The man who came out of Ann’s closed office door wore a suit. He was short, fat, and moving quickly out the door, avoiding my eyes.
“Come in, Lewis,” she called from inside her office.
I went in and closed the door behind me. I had finished my biscotto in the waiting room while reading the four-year-old Smithsonian. I placed the white paper bag with the coffee and her biscotto on her desk.
“Chocolate?”
“Almond,” I said.
She nodded her approval as I sat in the recliner across from her.
“You’re wearing new earrings,” I said.
“My husband made them from stones we found on the beach,” she said, touching one of the earrings. “Crafted for hundreds of thousands of years by the sea. The ocean can be a great artist.”
I drank some coffee and she nibbled on her biscotto and took out her coffee.
“The operative word is ‘can,’” she said, smelling the coffee. “The ocean also produces a near eternity of shapeless, colorless rocks and shells. Nature is not selective. It creates the neutral, the beautiful, and the ugly. It is up to humans to search for the beautiful.”
“You’ve cheered me already,” I said.
“I can see that. Jokes,” she said, taking a sip of coffee. “You have jokes for me?”
“Someone just threatened to kill me,” I said.
; “New symptom?” she asked. “Paranoia?”
“No,” I said and explained.
“All the more reason you should have jokes,” she said.
I took out my notebook and flipped to the pages where I had written the jokes people had told me over the past three days.
“I don’t tell jokes well,” I said.
“Why does that not surprise me?” she said. “You tell. I’ll listen.”
“I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather did,” I read. “Not screaming and yelling like the other people in the car he was driving.”
“You find that funny?” Ann asked.
“You didn’t even smile,” I said.
“I’ve heard it before. You think it’s funny?”
“I…no.”
“Tell me another one.”
“I went home last night and discovered that someone had replaced everything I own with exact duplicates.”
“And what do you think about that one?”
“I like it.”
“But is it funny? Never mind. Tell me another.”
“A new patient got an emergency visit with a therapist,” I read. “The patient said, ‘Doctor, I’m depressed. I lost my wife. My children hate me. I hate myself. Sometimes I have suicidal thoughts.’ ‘Well,’ said the therapist, ‘the world’s greatest comedian, Santoro, is in town tonight for one performance. Get a ticket to see him.’ ‘But, Doctor,’ the patient said, ‘I am Santoro.’ You’ve heard that one, too?”
“Yes,” Ann said, working on her coffee. “You find it funny?”
“Sad,” I said.
“Have you noticed people tell you sad jokes?”
“I seem to have a gift. You want more jokes?”
She nodded her head to indicate that I should go on.
“Mrs. Quan Wong had a baby. The nurse brought the baby in for the Wongs to see and said, ‘The baby is fine,’ the nurse said. ‘But there’s something wrong. This can’t be your baby.’ ‘Why not?” asked Mr. Wong. ‘Because,’ said the nurse, ‘two Wongs don’t make a white.’”
“You like that one?” Ann said, wiping crumbs from her fingers.
“No,” I said.
“I don’t think I do either. You have more?”
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