-Run!
Where? Frantic, I look around. I left the kitchen lights on, a sure sign someone’s here. I hobble back to the kitchen and flip the switch. The world goes black.
-Now what now what now what?
If they ring the doorbell, I won’t answer. If they come into the apartment….oy! I slide open the kitchen door and step out onto the balcony. There’s not a stick of furniture to hide behind. Staying out here would be like hiding in a fish bowl. Worse. With the balcony railing totally enclosed by shutters, the men could kill me and no one would see.
-Why are you thinking ‘kill’?
-What, you think those two are coming here to sell Girl Scout cookies?
-Why are they coming? Do they know you’re here?
I step back into the kitchen quietly sliding the door shut. Maybe I could reach the bedroom on the other side of the living room.
-And what if you do? What if there’s no furniture in there, no place to hide?
Think, think, think. I could hide in the small powder room between the kitchen and the foyer.
-And if one of the men needs to powder his gun?
A key turns in the front door, hinges shriek. They’re coming in. I feel around for the cabinet under the sink. The foyer light switch clicks on and off.
“Shit.” A man’s cigarette-rasp voice. “Did you bring the flashlight?”
“Naw.”
“Figures.”
“You didn’t, neither.”
I fold myself into the cabinet, squeezing next to the garbage pail and a roll of paper towels, quietly pulling the doors closed. My phone digs into my hip. What if it rings? I wiggle it out of my pocket, flip it open to shut it off. No need. The battery’s dead.
“Find somethin’ to prop the door open, give us light,” says the Rasp.
“What if someone sees in?”
“Like who?”
“I dunno. A neighbor or somethin’.”
Rasp-man chokes out a laugh. “You think rich people stick around in the summer? No one’s here.”
He says it like fact. How does he know? Did he stop at the lobby and beat the information out of Harry? Did Galdino reconnoiter apartments for the ‘snowbird factor” before deciding to buy on this floor? Might a real estate agent like May cheerfully volunteer information about the neighbors to a prospective buyer?
My banged-up knees are screaming. ‘Bent-in-half’ is not a good position for a woman of a certain age with a bad back, broken knees and bladder issues. I conjure images of Charles Manson contorted into a cramped bathroom cabinet at the Spahn Ranch.
-Great. Think of mass murderers.
Sweat rolls off me. I smell like a goat. I need to stretch but I can’t risk making a sound.
Footsteps plod into the kitchen. Pause. The overhead light flares. A cough hits the base of my throat. I hold my breath against it -- swallow and swallow and swallow. What’s the man in the kitchen doing? Does he know I’m here? Sense me? Smell me? Any second he’s going to rip open the cabinet door and yank me out. Or shoot me. Or knife me. Or…. “Found some paper plates,” he calls.
“What,” says the Rasp, “you eatin’?”
“Naw,” the footsteps clomping away. “See?” his voice echoing in the foyer, “you fold a bunch in half and wedge them under the bottom here like a doorstop. Smart, huh?”
“Genius.” It lacks sincerity. “Come on, Einstein, let’s do this. Grab the other end.” A soft thud. The mover’s quilt, no doubt, being thrown over the safe as camouflage. Now you see it, now you don’t.
A leg cramp works its gnarly way up from my toes, knots muscles in my calf. My back pain’s excruciating. My bladder hits ‘full’. Somewhere in the distance a siren screams.
“On my count….” says the Rasp.
“Hold up. I gotta pee.”
“You just went before we came.”
“Damned prostrate.”
“Hurry up.”
No, no, no, no, no. I can’t stay like this one more second. Footsteps lumber to the powder room. The sound of peeing. Please, Lord, let him not be of the “Sing Happy Birthday two times while washing your hands” school of hygiene. The toilet flushes followed by the sound of footsteps walking away.
“Are you ready, now?” says the Rasp, none too happy.
“Yeah.”
“On my count. One, two, three.” They grunt as they set the dolly in motion. Its wheels clack toward the door, bumping over the threshold and out into the hall. The door hinges shriek as the door slams shut behind them.
Gone. They’re gone. I should wait a few minutes, make sure they don’t come back, but I can’t take the pain. I roll out of the cabinet onto the floor. My back won’t uncurl. My knees won’t unbend. I lay balled like a roly-poly, listening against the silence. The distant siren wails closer.
-You need to get the hell out of here.
-I can’t move.
-If those two goons come back and kill you, you won’t have to.
Fear trumps pain. I force my body to unfold, straightening my back by centimeters until I am marginally unclenched. Rolling onto my stomach, I grit my teeth – one, two, three – desperately trying not to put weight on my destroyed knees as I push myself upright. So far, so good.
-You have to move!
Shambling along like some primitive life-form, I reach the door, bending to press my eye to the spy hole to make sure they’re gone.
The door bursts open, rams me full on. I go flying, crashing against the foyer wall. My head hits hard. Bright sparks flare as I slide down the wall to the floor.
The surprised hulk stares from the doorway. “Who the fuck are you?”
Who am I, who am I, who am I? My mouth tastes like metal. “Who am I?”
“Yeah. That’s right.”
Ding, ding, ding… His friend is in the elevator, holding the door open.
“I said, who the fuck are you?”
A lifetime of advice flashes…
-The best defense is a good offense.
-You have to out-crazy the crazies.
-Deny, deny, deny.
“Young man,” I say, channeling my addled fifth grade teacher, “mind your language.”
He bends down, trying to make out my face in the light from the hall. I shrink back. This behemoth could snap me in half without breaking a sweat. “Where the fuck you come from, lady?”
“Language, please.” I struggle up, unwilling to die in a supine position. My mind searches for a plausible explanation, excuse, chicken recipe.
Down the hall, his partner sticks his head out of the elevator. “You find the car keys?”
“There’s a fuckin’ broad in here.”
“What the fuck?”
“Really,” I say, “I must insist.”
“Don’t you move.” He wedges the wad of paper plates under the door to provide light then goes into the living room, scanning the floor, grabbing up a set of dropped keys. Outside, the siren grows louder, mingling with the insistent ding, ding, ding of the elevator.
“We gotta go,” yells his friend.
Another siren wails in the distance. Woozy, I lean against the wall. Rasp Man comes back, leans toward me, his face inches away. His breath smells of Mentos. His skin has small pores, like Zsa-Zsa Gabor.
-That’s one hell of a last living thought.
His eyes narrow. “You been here the whole fucking time?”
“I’ve just let myself in through the back door this very moment.”
“What back—?”
“I live directly downstairs of this apartment and I am absolutely certain I heard furniture moving.” I waggle a finger at him. “Our condominium bylaws clearly state that there is to be no moving of furniture after four p.m..” I look around the empty room. “I trust your moving company is quite finished here.”
His is not the brightest of bulbs, but I see a dim light flicker as he ‘gets’ it. His face relaxes as he pegs me for what I am, some biddy poking her nose into her neighbor’s busine
ss.
“Yeah, lady, we’re done,” and he strides down the hall to his waiting friend. I slump against the wall, listening as the ding of their elevator fades away on its return to the basement. Thank God he didn’t check. There is no back door.
Get out! Get out now! I want to run but my legs have no strength.
Move. Move now! Those men could change their mind about me, come back any minute.
I lurch to the elevators, jabbing the buttons, needing to go up, down, sideways – anywhere but here. The other elevator doors open and I fall in, frantically pressing the button to my floor. The elevator reeks of a passenger’s floral perfume, suffocating, like lilies at a funeral.
-Stop that. Get death out of your mind.
But, even as I ride to the safety of my floor, somewhere deep in my gut I feel high voltage wires cross, touch, spark. I couldn’t save Michael as he lay dying on our boat, couldn’t bring him back to me. But I can stop this. In fact, I am the only one who can make sure the Lucas safe is found. The only person who can provide the damning evidence that will lock Galdino up where he can never kill again.
The doors open on my floor but I don’t get out. Trembling, I reach out and press “Lobby.”
32
No one’s in the lobby. Harry’s not at the front desk. A sour-faced dowager, her plumped lips perpetually pursed hurries from the elevators and bustles past me toward the front door. She’s cuddling a shaking Chihuahua. “It’s those wild childwen,” she says to the dog, “wild, wild, wild.” The glass doors slide open.
That’s when I see it, smell it. Across the road at the Intracoastal pool, flames shoot into the night sky igniting palm fronds, spewing plumes of acrid smoke. Harry stands in the middle of the road wielding two flashlights, directing a fire truck to the pool. I hobble out into the throng of gawkers. A phalanx of security guards holds us back and sets orange traffic cones around the perimeter.
This inferno is no work of wild childwen. This is a cleverly calculated diversion rigged by the safe stealers in Galdino’s apartment, a distraction big enough to pull Harry off his desk and Security off their appointed rounds, big enough to give those goons time to get away with the safe. Where are they? I look around. They’re somewhere nearby loading up the safe. Where? They can’t have gone far. I hobble back inside, hoist my body half-way onto Harry’s desk, crane my neck until I can see the bank of security screens. In one, a white van backs away from the loading dock.
“Stop them,” I yell, lurching back outside, “don’t let them get away,” pushing through the mob. My voice is lost in the wail of an arriving fire truck. “Stop them,” I scream, heading for the loading dock at the side of the building. The van rolls out slowly toward the road, escaping with the only positive proof linking Galdino to the murders.
“Stop,” I yell. The van inches forward, nosing one of the orange traffic cones out of the way. “Stop.” It keeps coming. A cell phone glows in the driver’s hand. He’s looking down, hasn’t even seen me. “Stop!” I jump in front of the van and slam my hands on the hood. The startled driver jerks to a stop. “Help,” I scream, “someone help me.”
An arriving fireman in full gear breaks away from his crew and runs over. “What?” he says, looking around for spreading fire.
“These people are trying to get away. They have…”
An explosion rocks the earth, shoots a fireball into the black sky over the pool deck. The fireman spins around, leaving me. My heart’s raging. It’s up to me. I go around, yank open the driver’s door. A skinny man stares at me, his eyes wide. Two women huddle next to him. The interior light illuminates more people squeezed into the back. I know them. They’re a cleaning crew hired by tenants. “Sorry,” I say, “sorry,” stepping back, letting them pull away.
Behind me, the gate to the building’s garage clangs open. A silver van roars out, nearly clipping me, scattering orange traffic cones like spooked birds. I barely catch a glimpse of Rasp Man before he veers around an incoming fire truck and hurtles onto the street. “Hey!” I yell. “Hey!” It’s over in seconds.
-Call the police.
-And say what?
-Look for a silver van.
That’s like looking for a needle in a needle factory. There are more silver vans in Florida than grains of South Beach sand. What make of van would I tell the police? Where is it going? On what street? Which direction? The van’s gone. The safe is gone. There’s nothing I can do.
I turn, limping back through the crowd. People hold up phones taking photos of the fire. I reach for my phone. It’s not in my pocket. Where--? I gasp. I must have dropped it when I was folded up under the sink.
--You have to go back.
--I can’t.
--If the wrong people find the phone and trace it back to you…
Galdino’s front door clicks shut behind me. I limp through the dank dark of the now-familiar apartment, turn on the kitchen light and open the cabinet under the sink. My phone’s all the way in the back corner. Slowly, gritting my teeth against the pain, I kneel down and pull out the garbage pail and roll of paper towels. Easing myself halfway into the cabinet, I feel around under the pipes and Instant Hot water tank, my fingers curling around a nest of dryer lint and vacuum cleaner dirt, likely escapees from the now empty garbage pail. I struggle up, my bonjured knees throbbing, and set the mess on the sink. I extract my phone and a couple of orange pills fall out of the mix. Deke’s pills. There’s no mistaking the color and interlocking “V’s”. What are Deke’s heart pills doing here?
The screech of the front door shrieks through the apartment. Ohshitohshitohshitoh. Has Rasp Man changed his mind, decided to come back for me? He’ll see the kitchen light. It’s too late to turn it off. There’s no way out. Heart raging, I flip my phone open, pray it’s working. Still dead.
“Hello?” A woman’s voice. Thank God. Maybe a neighbor came to check on the noise. No, I’m sure I heard the door lock behind me when I came in and there’s no way the Galdinos would give a neighbor their key. “Hello?” It could be one of the female security guards checking on odd noises from the apartment. Lucy, you have some splainin’ to do. “Who’s here?” calls the voice, surefooted heels clicking across the marble living room toward the kitchen. There’s no time to hide.
“It’s me,” I say, cheerfully, no clue what I’m going to say.
Caprice Galdino’s Doppelgänger appears in the doorway. Gone is the innocent girl-child with her long skirts and plain look. This elegant creature is garbed in Gucci dressy-casual accented by Manolo Blahnik alligator slings. She stops short when she sees me. “What are you doing here?”
“The…the door was open…” I begin.
“Why are you here?” her voice firmer, more insistent.
“I…I came to give you this.” I pull Deke’s crumpled obit from my pocket. “I remember reading that your aunt and uncle berthed their boat at this marina.” I smooth the wrinkles from the paper. “I thought you would know this Harbormaster, that you might not have heard of his passing.” I hold it out like an offering. She doesn’t take it.
“Yes,” she says, “I heard.” I look for sadness in her face, some emotion in her eyes. Her look is glacier-cool and razor-keen. “How did you know which apartment I was staying in?”
Great question. “You told me, dear,” I say, slipping into dotage mode, “remember, at the elevator? At least you mentioned the floor you were on,” a lie. “And, since I know everyone else on the floor,” an even bigger lie, “this had to be the one. Then, with the door open and all, I knocked and I called and…and I thought I heard water running so I…I…came into the kitchen and--”
Her eyes glaze over the way my kids’ used to when I’d start talking to them about doing their homework or brushing their teeth or cleaning their rooms. She has stopped listening, dismissing what I have to say as of no consequence or interest. Suddenly, Caprice is in motion, striding from room to room, trailing the clear scent of Clive Christian No.1 mixed with fresh sea air. I trail beh
ind as she scans the bedroom – a couple of inflatable beds and a cardboard three-drawer dresser – moving swiftly to the antiseptically clean bathroom that smells of bleach, ammonia and Fabuloso.
She picks up speed, searching the guest bathroom, medicine cabinet. Then I understand. She’s come to double check, be sure she and her mother and the moving crew left nothing behind. She sweeps into the kitchen, sees the ball of lint and dirt I retrieved from under the sink. She spots the orange pills and before I can move she’s plucked them out of the pile and tossed them down the drain.
“Stop,” I say. “Those are Deke’s pills.”
She whirls around, startled. I’ve jumped from dithering-old-lady to woman-who-knows-too-much. Without taking her eyes off me, she reaches back and flips on the water. I lunge for the drain but she’s younger and faster and hits the disposal switch. I jerk my hand away.
“My mothers’ heart medicine,” she says as the pills grind to dust. “She must have dropped them.”
She’s in motion again, checking the balcony off the kitchen, the one in the living room.
“There’s nothing wrong with your mother’s heart,” I say.
“Really?”
“In the hospital, I heard her tell the doctor.”
She shrugs this off. “My mother is…confused sometimes.” With one final look around, she walks out the front door and onto the elevator. I’m right behind. She looks at me with amusement, as if I were a pesky child.
“What were you doing with Deke’s pills?” I ask as we ride down.
“What pills?”
“What do you mean what pills?”
The doors open and I follow her out into the smoke-filled night. My swollen knees scream in protest but I force myself to keep up as she swiftly passes the fire engines and police cars and onlookers. She enters the small gate at the quiet end of the pool, far from the area where the explosives were set, crossing the deck to the familiar yacht waiting at the Intracoastal. The uniformed crewman extends his hand, helping her onboard. “We can go,” she tells him. He walks to the bow to cast off.
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