by Ron Base
I can’t believe you did it,” Freddie said when he arrived home with Marcello and told her what happened.
“I can’t believe you just walked into someone’s house, picked up a little boy and carried him out again,” Freddie continued. “What’s more—and this is the part I really have trouble with—I can’t believe you did it alone. I can’t believe you left me lying here, went out in the middle of the night, and did this.”
“If I woke you up and told you what I was going to do, you would have stopped me.”
“I would have gone with you,” she said.
“Besides, I wasn’t so sure what I was going to do until I did it. Frankly, I’m almost as surprised at myself as you are.”
“We should call the police,” Freddie said.
“No, we shouldn’t,” Tree said. He then told her about seeing Mel Scott on Estero Boulevard.
“Are you certain it was him?”
“Certain enough that it makes sense why Marcello doesn’t want to have anything to do with the police. As far as he’s concerned, the police are in cahoots with the people who want to hurt him.”
“Including Elizabeth Traven.”
“Including Elizabeth Traven,” he said.
“What a mess,” she said, her voice thick with excitement. They were way out of their comfort zone. He suspected they both thought that was not a bad thing.
Undressing Marcello after Tree carried him into the guest bedroom was like manipulating a rag doll. Once she got his clothes off, Freddie laid the boy on the bed and tucked covers around him. She smiled down, a beatific smile for a sleeping child, Tree thought, not unlike the one plastered on his face.
They crept from the bedroom leaving the door ajar. Freddie retreated to the kitchen for a badly needed glass of wine. Tree stripped off his clothes and stepped into the shower to relieve the tension. He emerged feeling better, but aware again of his aching hand. Otherwise, he was unscathed. Not bad for a sixty-year-old, he thought, smiling into the bathroom mirror. The insouciant action hero smiled back.
Freddie was half way through her wine when he arrived in the kitchen wearing a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. They ate leftover chicken along with a salad, seated at the kitchen table. Tree related Marcello’s fears about an “operation.”
“Maybe he does need an operation,” Freddie said. “Maybe it’s legitimate. Maybe something is wrong with him.”
“If that’s the case, why haven’t we heard about it? Why doesn’t Marcello know? Why is Mel Scott involved? Why is everyone trying to hide their involvement?”
“But if there’s nothing wrong with him, why would they be operating?”
“They drugged him,” Tree said. “Nobody who wants to help a child drugs him into semi-consciousness. I don’t know what they were planning, but it wasn’t good. Whether we’re right or wrong about Marcello, he’s safer with us. We don’t know about these other people. That’s as good a reason as I know for doing what I did.”
“I’ll try to remember that when we’re e-mailing each other from our respective prison cells.”
He carried their plates to the sink. She watched him scrape chicken bones into the recycling. “Whatever you’re going to do, you’d better do it quickly, my love.”
“I know.”
“It won’t be long before various people start to think he’s here and come looking for him. How are you going to protect him then? Particularly if they’ve got the police on their side.”
“They’ve got Mel Scott,” he amended. “We’ve got Cee Jay Boone and the FBI.”
“Do you?” Freddie raised an eyebrow. “Can you trust anyone?”
Good question, one Tree didn’t have an answer for. Not tonight. All he knew was that, somehow, no matter what, he would protect the boy. He wasn’t even sure why. He just knew he was going to protect him.
____
They awoke early and together checked the guest bedroom. Marcello lay curled on his side fast asleep, mouth slightly open, a fist pressed under his nose. They decided to leave him like that. Freddie dressed and drank the coffee Tree made for her. Then she went off to work.
At 8:30 the phone rang. It was Cee Jay Boone. “Haven’t heard anything from our friend Marcello, have you?”
“Not a thing,” he replied. How convincingly he had learned to tell bareface lies. He wouldn’t have thought he possessed such a talent. Perhaps he should go into politics. “Why? Is there anything new?”
“Just checking in,” she said. “It’s been a while since we talked.”
“What about our corpse?”
“Which one?”
“The one without a head.”
“What about it?”
“Have you identified it yet?”
She paused too long before she said “no.” He wondered if he wasn’t surrounded by much more accomplished liars than himself—Cee Jay Boone, Elizabeth Traven, and Savannah Trask topped the list.
“I hear it’s Dara Rait.”
“Do you? Who do you hear that from?”
“Dara owned an art shop on Estero Boulevard in Fort Myers Beach. I believe she lived in an apartment above the studio. I think she lived there with Marcello. Or do you already know that?”
“I’ll look into it,” Cee Jay said in a neutral voice. “Thanks for the information.”
“Am I a suspect?”
“A what?”
“A suspect. In Dara’s murder. Or Reno O’Hara’s?”
“You hear that, too?”
“Is it true?”
“Everybody’s a suspect,” she said and hung up.
He went down the hall and found Marcello sitting up, blinking and rubbing his eyes. “Where am I?”
“You’re back at my house.” Tree perched on the edge of the bed. “How are you feeling?”
“You took my letters.”
“And you lied to me.”
Marcello didn’t say anything.
“Are you hungry?”
“Sure,” he said.
Tree offered scrambled eggs and toast, not expecting Marcello to agree to such exotic fare. But for once he nodded assent.
“You know how to work the shower? Of course you do. You’re a big guy, after all. Take a shower. Freddie washed your clothes last night. They’re on the counter in the bathroom.”
“You got my letters?”
“Take a shower. And no escaping out the window, all right?”
Tree got back a slow nod. “I want to hear you say ‘yes.’”
“Okay,” Marcello said.
____
By time the toast popped and the eggs were done, Marcello was dressed and in the kitchen, still sleepy-eyed. Tree put a plate in front of him. Ketchup? Marcello said yes, and even added a welcome “please.” By the time Tree returned with the Ketchup half the eggs were gone.
Between mouthfuls Marcello asked, “How’d I get here?”
“I brought you home last night.”
“Why?”
“Because you said people were going to hurt you. You talked about an operation, and you didn’t want that.”
Marcello took this in without comment. He bit into another piece of toast.
“That’s true, isn’t it, Marcello? You were afraid those people at the house were going to hurt you?”
“They were after me,” he said.
“They live in that big house on Captiva Road?”
“I don’t know where they live,” he said.
The telephone rang. Tree did not recognize the number on the digital display. He pick up the handset. A rumbling voice said, “Mr. Callister?”
“Yes, who is this?”
“Brand Traven calling.”
Tree gripped the receiver harder. “Sorry?”
“Brand Traven. You’re doing some work for my wife.”
Caught off guard, Tree could only repeat, “Yes.”
“I wonder if we could talk. Face to face.”
“Is that possible?”
“It is if you can come up to Coleman.”
<
br /> When Tree didn’t immediately reply, Traven rumbled again. “Mr. Callister? Are you able to do that? Could you visit me?”
Visit? Interesting way of putting it. “When would you want to do this?”
“You’re a couple of hours away. Come up first thing tomorrow. I’ll leave your name. You’ll need photo ID. A driver’s licence will do the trick. You’ll also need my inmate number. Do you have a pen handy?”
“Hold on,” Tree said. He glanced at Marcello. He occupied himself moving a crust of toast back and forth along the table. “How are you doing?”
Marcello shrugged and concentrated on the toast. Tree found a pen and went back to the phone.
“My number is 18331-454. Also, be careful about how you dress.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Avoid anything khaki. They’ll think you’re trying to look like an inmate and that’s a no-no. Also don’t wear dark clothes. They might think you’re trying to impersonate a guard. For some reason they don’t like Polo shirts, either. I usually advise visitors to wear a light-colored sports jacket, jeans, a light-colored shirt with an open collar. That usually does the trick.”
“All right,” Tree said.
“I used to read you in the Sun-Times. Good stuff.”
“Thanks,” Tree said. Flattered despite himself.
The line went dead. Tree replaced the phone on the wall. Marcello was at the counter, on his tiptoes, reaching for a box of Wheaties. Tree went over and pushed the box so that the boy could get to it.
He poured cereal into a bowl, added two per cent milk, sliced a banana into it, and placed it in front of Marcello. He frowned. “I don’t like bananas.”
“You don’t like bananas? How can you not like bananas?”
“I don’t like them.”
Tree sighed and then meticulously removed the banana slices floating in the milk amid wheat flakes. He put the bowl back in front of Marcello, who now beamed.
Tree sat and watched the boy eat for a couple of moments. “I was just talking to a man on the phone.”
Marcello looked at him expectantly.
“His name is Brand Traven. Does that name mean anything to you, Marcello? Brand Traven?”
Marcello looked fearful. “The Bad Man,” he said.
“So you know the name.”
“The Bad Man,” Marcello repeated.
“Why? Why is he so bad?”
Marcello concentrated on making his spoon go in and out of the milk and cereal, fascinated by the tiny plops and splashes he produced.
“Marcello,” Tree said.
The boy took a deep breath. “He made me have the operation.”
He continued to play with his spoon.
“He’s the Bad Man. The Bad Man.”
28
The Federal Correctional Institution-Low, surrounded by chain link fences and topped with razor wire, is located outside the town of Coleman, set away from a country road between Interstate Highway 75 and the Florida turnpike. It’s part of a much larger complex that includes medium and high security prisons.
Tree wore his brown-check sports jacket, jeans, his good pair of Ecco dress shoes, and the striped dress shirt he bought for his daughter’s wedding. Even so, prison guards inspected him closely. He might as well have arrived with a hacksaw buried in a birthday cake.
He had to show his driver’s license, fill out paperwork, take off his belt, remove his shoes, and allow himself to be marked with an ultra-violet stamp so as to ensure the inmate he was visiting didn’t walk out in his place.
Most of the dozen visitors going through the same process were women, soberly dressed in anonymous sweatshirts and slacks in an effort to not offend posted instructions against provocative clothing. Everyone maintained a poker face and kept their eyes averted. If the women knew each other, they gave no indication. Tree wondered how Mickey Crowley would have managed to befriend Elizabeth Traven.
Tree and the other visitors shuffled through two sealed rooms into a drab hall full of tables and chairs. Tree managed to find an empty table and took it just as a guard ushered Brand Traven into view.
He dressed in the uniform of prisoners at Coleman—olive green slacks and a short-sleeved olive green shirt—pausing to look around until Tree raised his arm. Traven sauntered over and said with a crooked smile, “There you are.”
The tubby corporate villain of newspaper front pages and six o’clock newscasts was gone, leaving a trim and rested man in his mid-sixties, pouches beneath dead eyes, deep lines crisscrossing a high forehead.
Traven offered Tree his hand.
“Mr. Callister,” he said. “Thanks for coming.”
Traven sat down as a small, bald-headed man passed, hunch-shouldered, ashen-faced. He aimed a watery smile in Traven’s direction. “Don’t tell ’em anything, Brand.”
“Don’t worry, Jimmy.”
As the bald-headed man moved away, Brand lowered his voice and said, “Jimmy Tragg, bush-league Madoff. Ruined widows and orphans with that oldest and least original of all frauds, the Ponzi scheme. The usual thing. Take everyone’s money, say you’re investing it for them, pocket their life savings, and wait for the Feds to show up at your door. Jimmy took several hundred million from despairing widows and orphans so he’s cooling his heels here for the next hundred years. I’m very small potatoes compared to Jimmy.”
He sat back and his voice rose. “Lots of lawyers in here. They seem particularly susceptible to greed and avarice. Also, the usual parade of bankers and businessmen. There’s a former submarine commander convicted of fraud. America. Everyone’s stealing something. Everyone comes to Coleman. Some do very well here.” He nodded in Jimmy’s direction. “Others not so well.”
“Your wife says you survive, no matter what.”
“Does she? Of course that’s easy to say when you’re not in a place like this.” Traven spread his hands on the table in front of him. “I’m doing a lot of reading of Socrates. Haven’t studied him since I was a kid. He’s kind of like Shakespeare. Not much is actually known about Will, so you can make up any Shakespeare you like. He can be in love. He can be gay. He can even be a fraud who didn’t actually write those plays. Who’s to contradict you? The same is true of Socrates. Create your own Socrates, whatever suits.”
“What sort of Socrates do you have in mind, Mr. Traven?”
“Plato offered a kind of saint, a god-like figure sending down philosophical decrees like thunderbolts from the heavens. I prefer the version created by Aristophanes. A clown. Aristophanes has him in a basket hanging from a rope, musing on the buzzing noise made by a gnat, advising acolytes on how to beat fraud charges.”
“He would fit in nicely at Coleman.”
Traven laughed. “I’m not so sure about the moralist, but the clown would, Mr. Callister. Yes, he would.”
He looked over at the hulks of stainless steel vending machines lining the far wall. “Lunch, Mr. Callister? I’m afraid you’ll have to buy. They don’t allow us to have money.”
Tree got Brand a cappuccino and a ham sandwich. He retrieved another sandwich for himself as well as a Diet Coke. They returned to their table and Brand began to extract the sandwich from its plastic wrap, his movements slow and meticulous, as though unwrapping a small bomb.
“Did you get out of the business or did they throw you out?”
“They threw me out.”
“A.J. Liebling once said the function of a press in society is to inform. Its role is to make money. Alas, it no longer informs, and certainly it doesn’t make money. I won’t say I saw it coming but let’s face it, the business has been on the downslide for years. Is it the end of newspapers? I wonder.”
“Do you?”
“Some will disappear—a few are already gone—but there will be survivors. Like radio. When television came along everyone thought radio was finished. But the medium adapted, survived. A similar situation, I believe, will occur with newspapers, although not the ones with which I was associated.
”
“No?”
Brand laid the sandwich wrapper on the table, using the flat of his hand to smooth it.
“They say I defrauded the company, bled it dry. Yet when I gave up the chairmanship, shares traded at eight dollars. Now they’re down to seventy-eight cents. The company is worthless. The people who were supposed to save it ended up destroying it and raping shareholders in the bargain. They say I lined my pockets. What about these charlatans? They’ve pilfered hundreds of millions of dollars in unearned fees and no one says anything. But then I suppose everyone in this room can do a variation on my speech. You should hear Jimmy Tragg go on about how he was victimized by the government.”
“Were you victimized?”
His grin widened. “Well, that’s my story isn’t it? This place is filled with the innocent. I feel right at home.”
“You’re just more innocent than the rest,” Tree said.
“I like to think so.” No grin this time.
“Is that why I’m here? To help you prove your innocence?”
“Or perhaps a prisoner without a lot of visitors just needs an interesting conversation from time to time. Whatever I may think of journalists, they do make great talkers.”
Traven raised his eyebrows as though to cue interesting conversation from Tree.
“I haven’t been a journalist for a while,” he said.
“Then perhaps curiosity brings us together.”
“Whose curiosity? Yours or mine?”
“I’m curious as to why—or I suppose the better word is how—how a man of your obvious talents ends up on a small island in the Gulf of Mexico, anonymous and forgotten, pursuing detective work of all things.”
Tree said, “The Socrates you talk about is from the play by Aristophanes titled The Clouds. At the end, the intellectual brilliance of Socrates, his terrible arrogant belief in his own omnipotence, is defeated by the rabble rising against him.”
Traven stared a long moment before he produced something approximating a smile. “Dear me, Mr. Callister, I hope we’re not all misjudging you.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Tree said.
“But when it comes down to it, Socrates aside, we’re both in the same boat.”
“No, we’re not. I’m on a lovely island in the sun. You’re sitting in a jail cell.”
