Free Fall in Crimson (4 page)

He stopped and stared at us, a slow and careful appraisal, and then managed to herd both of us over into a corner away from the girl typing. He smelled tartly of old sweat.

"My name is Odum," he said.

"Meyer. And Mr. McGee," Meyer said. There was no hand extended.

"What would be your interest in that case? We're short-handed here at the best of times. No time for book writers, newspaper people, or those who're just damn nosey."

As I hesitated, hunting the right approach, Meyer stepped in. With a flourish, he handed Odum one of his cards. I knew it was meaningless. But it is a thick card on cream-colored stock with raised lettering. There are a lot of initials after his name, all earned. In the bottom left corner is his adopted designation: Certified Guarantor. He had conducted some field surveys of his own and had weeded his options down to these two words. They sounded official and had the flavor
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of money and personal authority. People treat a Certified Guarantor with respect. If they asked what it meant, he told them in such a way that respect was increased.

"Mr. McGee is assisting me, sir," Meyer said. "The Esterland estate is a phased estate, in that certain incumbrances and stipulations have to fall into place in a time frame that takes heed of certain aspects of taxation on properties coexistent with the residual portions. So I'm sure you understand that just as a formality, sir, we have to go through the motions of testifying and certifying that yes, we did indeed proceed to Citrus City and review the status of the open case of murder and report back to the administrators and adjudicators, so that things can move ahead and not be tied up in jurisdictional red tape. Please believe me when I tell you that in return for your cooperation, we will take a minimum of time from busy officers of the law."

Odum's eyes looked slightly glazed. He shook himself like a damp dog and said, "You want to just . .. check out where we are on that thing?"

"On a totally confidential basis, of course."

"Sure. I realize that. Fine. Well, I guess Rick Tate, Deputy Rick Tate, would be the one who'd have it all clearest in mind. Where's Rick, Zelda?"

She stopped typing. "Rick? Oh, he's went up to Eustis with Debbie on account of her mom is bad off again. He'll be back on tomorrow on the four to midnight."

"You can get hold of him tomorrow," Odum said. "He'll come in about three thirty, around there. I won't be here."

"If we could have some kind of informal authorization?" Meyer asked. "Maybe you could just write it on the back of the card I gave you."

He went over to a corner of Zelda's desk and wrote on the card, Rick, you can go ahead and tell these men everything we got to date on Esterland, which isn't much anyway. Barney Odum.

When we walked back out into the warm evening, I said, "Certified Guarantor! You could write political speeches."

"Let me see. You are a Salvage Consultant. Anne called us a couple of con men. From now until tomorrow what do we do?"

"We can check out the Palmer Hotel. Where Esterland was last seen alive. You did nicely with Barney Odum, friend."

"Yes. I know."

Most of the old hotels in the central cities of Florida, in the cities of less than a hundred thousand, have gone downhill, decaying with the neighborhoods. Some of them have turned into office buildings, or parking lots, or low-cost storage bins for elderly indigents.

Though the neighborhood had evidently decayed, the Palmer was a pleasant surprise. A clean roomy lobby, pleasant lighting, trim and tidy ladies behind the desk and the newsstand. Walnut and polished brass.

The dark bar off the lobby was called The Office. Prism spots gleamed down on the bald pate of the bearded bartender, on shining glassware, on good brands on the back bar, on the padded bar rim, on black Naugahyde stools with brass nailheads. A young couple off in a corner held hands across the small table.

The bartender said, "Gentlemen," and put coasters in front of us. I ordered Boodles over ice with a twist, and Meyer selected a white wine. After serving us he moved off to that precise distance good bartenders maintain: far enough to give us privacy if we wanted it, close enough to join in should we speak to him.

"Good-looking place," I said to him.

"Thank you, sir."

"Do much business?"

"Not much on weekends. Big noon and cocktailtime business during the week."

"This is a very generous shot of gin."

"Thank you, sir. This is not really a commercial place, I mean in the sense that there is a lot of cost control. It's owned by National Citrus Associates. The cooperatives and some of the big
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growers maintain suites here. There's a lot of convention and meeting business, a lot of businessmen from overseas, a lot of government people, state and federal. It's something like a club. The number of available rooms is quite limited."

Meyer said, "A friend of ours from Fort Lauderdale had lunch here the day he was killed at a rest stop over on the turnpike. A year and nine months ago. Ellis Esterland."

"A tragic thing," the bartender said. "Beaten to death and robbed. There is so much mindless violence in the world. I've been here five years, and I can see the difference in just that short time.

Mr. Esterland had a drink here at the bar before he went to the grill room for his lunch. He sat right where you are sitting, sir. He had a very dry vodka Gibson, straight up, and soon after he left there was an order for another one from the grill room. Of course, I did not know his name at that time. They showed me his Florida driver's license, the police did, and I recognized the little color photograph as the man who was in here."

"What did they ask you about him?" I asked.

He shrugged. "If we had any conversation beyond his ordering his drink, and I said we didn't. I had a dozen customers at the bar, and I was quite busy. I had no chance to notice him, really, to guess at his state of mind. That's what they asked. Was he nervous? Was he elated? I just couldn't help them at all. From his manner I judged him to be a businessman of some importance, used to good service. He spoke to no one else, and no one joined him. They questioned his waitress and the people at the desk and the girl at the newsstand. I don't think they learned anything useful. At least they've never arrested anyone."

"It's puzzling," I said. "Why would a man pull into a rest stop on the turnpike after he had been driving only six miles?"

"Car trouble?" the bartender said.

"He had a new Lincoln Continental with just over two thousand miles on it," Meyer said.

"Perhaps he felt unwell," the bartender said. "He didn't look like a really healthy person. His color was bad."

Three new customers arrived, laughing and hearty, dressed like Dallas businessmen, ranch hats and stitched boots. Juice moguls, maybe. They called the bartender Harry, and he greeted them by name. Two bourbons and a scotch.

We had a second drink and then went to the dining room for better than adequate steaks, green salad, and baked potatoes, served efficiently by a glum heavy woman who knew nothing about anybody who'd been a customer over a year ago, because she had not been there a year.

Back at the motel, Meyer went to bed with a book called Contrary Investment Strategy. I told him to be sure to let me know how it came out. I tried to think about Esterland's misfortune, but my mind kept veering into trivia, to a memory of the fine matte finish on the slender Renzetti legs, and the tiny beads of sweat along her forehead at the dark hairline as she sat in silhouette against the white glare of beach. Meyer, in bright yellow pajamas, frowned into his strategy book.

I slipped away into nightmare. I was running after a comedy airplane. Gretel was the pilot, very dashing in her Red Baron helmet, goggles, white silk scarf, white smile as she turned to look back at me. The little biplane bounded over the lumps in the, broad pasture. I was trying to warn her. If she took off, she would fly into the trees. She couldn't hear me because of the noise of the engine. She thought I was making jokes, chasing her. I could not catch her. The engine sound grew louder and the tail skid lifted and she took off toward the pines.

As I ran, still yelling, I saw her tilt the plane to try to slide through a gap in the trees, saw the wings come off, heard the long grinding, sliding, clattering crash into the stones. I climbed down the slope. The whole, gully was cluttered with large pieces of airplane, but strangely old, stained by time and weather, grass growing up through rents in the aluminum. I couldn't understand. I kept hunting for her. I flipped over what seemed to be a small piece of wing, big as the top of a card table, and there was a skull in the skull-sized stones; helmet in place, the goggle lenses starred by old fractures, a bundle of soiled gray silk bunched under the bones of the jaw.

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Meyer shook me out of it, and I came up gasping, sweat-soaked.

"Okay?" he asked.

"Thanks."

"A lot of moaning and twitching going on."

I wiped my face on a corner of the sheet. "Gretel again. She doesn't seem to want to stay dead."

He went back over to his bed and covered himself and picked up his book. He looked over at me, thoughtful and concerned.

"How is the book coming?" I asked.

"The bad guys are winning, I think."

"Sometimes they do. Sometimes you can't tell the bad guys unless you buy a program at the door." And when my heart slowed back to normal, I was able to go back to sleep.

At breakfast Meyer said, "I'd hoped to be back by early evening. In fact I would very much like to be back."

It took me a few moments to understand the urgency. Then I remembered that Aggie Sloane was due in on her big Trumpy again, called the Byline. Aggie, an ex-news hen who had married a publisher and assumed the management of the chain of papers when he died, had first come to Meyer as the friend of a friend, with a delicate international money problem. Their friendship had blossomed during and after Meyer's deft solution to her problem.

Though Meyer loves to look upon the lively young beach girls and is often surrounded by little chittering platoons of them, running errands for him and laughing at his wise jokes, when it comes to any kind of personal involvement, Meyer feels most at ease with-and is usually attracted to-mature capable independent women, the sort who run magazines, newspapers, art galleries, travel agencies, and branch banks: For them, Meyer is a sometime interlude, reassuring, undemanding, supportive, and gentle. They return, refreshed, to their spheres of combat. They are women who take great good care of themselves and are not inclined toward any permanent attachment. Meyer smiles lot.

Aggie Sloane makes an annual pilgrimage. She flies down and boards her big Trumpy in Miami, cruises up to Lauderdale to pick up Meyer, and takes him along on the one-week vacation she allows herself every spring.

"Aggie arrives today?"

"I suppose there'd be pretty good air service back."

"Would you mind driving Miss Agnes?"

"Not at all. Of course, when I drive that thing, I always feel as if I'm hurrying to catch up with the antique classic car parade. But why?"

"I think a nice inconspicuous rental would be more useful somehow. And-I might go back to Naples and have a chat with that doctor."

"Just for the hell of it?"

"I'll give your regards to Anne."

"I think she might be too involved with that doctor to hear much of what you say. She had that look when she brought him up."

"I didn't notice."

"I think you'd better get back in the habit of noticing everything, Travis. That trait has kept you alive up until now."

"I've noticed one thing I should mention. Whenever you feel a bit guilty about anything, you give these little stern warnings to people, usually me."

His bright blue eyes looked quite fierce for a few moments. Then he smiled. "All right. The guilt isn't about Aggie, of course. It's about leaving you alone with this Esterland thing."

"I managed everything alone for quite a few years, professor."

"Always happy to leave you to your own resources. The things you get into make me highly nervous."

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"I didn't mean that the way it sounded. Give my love and admiration to the lady Sloane. I might be back late tomorrow or the day after. But you won't be there, will you?"

His smile spread wide under the potato nose, wide and fatuous and tenderly reminiscent. "With any luck, I won't."

Four

RICK TATE was a lean, dusty, bitter-looking man with eyes deep set under shaggy brows, narrow nose, heavy jaw-a slow, lazy-moving man who looked competent in his pale blue cotton, black leather, and departmental hardware. I guessed his age at forty.

He took the card and held it by one corner, looking at it with suspicion and distaste as he read it.

"Says men," he said.

"My boss had to get back."

"Why you got to know this stuff?"

"My boss explained it to Barney Odum. It's a legal and tax thing."

He slammed the door of his gray steel locker and twirled the combination dial. We went out the back door into the lot and stood in the shade of the building waiting for the cars to come back in from their shifts. There were only three out, he told me.

"Look," he said, "instead of your riding around with me, the best way is I give you the file so you read it and then we talk; but I don't damn well know you at all, McGee, and I don't feel right about not being with anybody when they are reading a file I put together."

"Dave Banks could have told you I was all right."

He shoved his hat back off his forehead and stared at me. "Hell, I married Dave's middle girl."

"That would be Debbie?"

"Sure would."

"How's Mrs. Banks these days?"

"Not good. Not good at all. She's up in Eustis, living with her sister. We was up to see her yesterday. Looking terrible. It cut Debbie all up to see her mom looking so poorly. What she's got is kidney trouble, and they put her on a machine up there once a week. They drive her over to Orlando. Costly."