Always Say Goodbye: A Lew Fonesca Mystery Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  PROLOGUE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  BY STUART M. KAMINSKY

  Copyright Page

  To John Neuenfeldt, who has

  patiently put up with us

  these many years

  PROLOGUE

  THE PIT BULL, standing on his rear legs, strained against the thick leash around his neck. The lean young man in a cowboy hat, well-worn jeans and a black T-shirt, muscles tight, held back the dog whose legs were now clawing rapidly against the dirt floor.

  Inside the knee-high wooden wall that circled a dirt-floor ring, stood a 300-pound wild hog, tusks removed with a bolt cutter, scars along its back. The reluctant hog was prodded from behind with a metal rod by a man in a red T-shirt and cowboy hat. He was the twin of the one holding back the pit bull.

  Behind the wooden wall were four rows of paint-chipped metal folding chairs on which sat about one hundred men, women and children.

  Adults paid six dollars to see what was about to happen. Children were admitted free.

  Men, women and children waited impatiently, eyes moving from dog to hog.

  Lew Fonesca stood behind the back row of folding chairs where he could see Earl Borg seated in the front row on the other side of the ring. Borg had made the three-hour drive from Sarasota up I-75 and across I-19, and then onto an unpaved road at the end of which was the barn, the ring and the people swaying and bobbing in their seats. Lew had made the same trip from Sarasota to the town of Kane, stopping at a small gas station and general store that advertised in peeling letters on the dusty window, THE BEST BOILED PEANUTS IN THE SOUTH. He had asked the overweight woman sitting on a stool behind the counter where he could find the hog-dog fight. The woman wore a loose-fitting orange sweatshirt over a faded blue dress. She pulled back a sleeve of the sweatshirt and pointed to the plywood wall behind Lew.

  Three posters were thumbtacked on the stained plaster wall. One of the posters was for the HAWG DOG FIGHT. The poster promised the appearance of Santana, “the fiercest pit bull in the South,” and “the man killer hog.” There were directions to the mayhem in red letters. Lew thanked the fat woman, who nodded and rolled her sleeve back up.

  He had no trouble finding the barn.

  The summer day was Florida hot and humid. The smell of animal and human sweat was almost overpowering inside the barn, which was even hotter and more humid than outside. The crowd didn’t seem to notice. They were focused on something else.

  The crowd was loud, some people clapping and smiling at each other. Their clothes, hair and sun-pink look made it clear that for many of them this was the best they could afford for a Saturday afternoon’s live entertainment.

  The only outward difference between Borg and the others around him was that they looked lean and hungry and he looked healthy and sleek in slacks, a black T-shirt and a dark sports jacket. People, particularly the twins when they weren’t wrestling the animals, paid homage to Borg by somberly nodding when he spoke. Earl Borg was the only multimillionaire in the sweatbox heat of the barn and the others all knew it. The closest person to Borg in income was Sully Wright, the citrus farmer, who could count on a net annual profit of about thirty thousand dollars if there were no blight, freezes, hurricanes or further government restrictions.

  The tugging pit bull looked at the hog and made a throat-clearing sound that brought applause and hoots. The hog responded with a snort. The crowd seemed to think, wanted to think, that the hog was like a bull snorting, eager to paw the ground and attack. To Lew the snort pulsed with fear.

  There was no doubt about what was about to happen in the ring. The only question was how quickly it would take place. Borg was taking last-minute bets, all cash, and pocketing it. He didn’t have to write the names of the people handing him dollars, fives, tens and even a few twenties. He was known here. He knew them.

  Earl Borg’s wife’s lawyer had sent Lew here to serve divorce papers. That was what Lew did. He was a process server, working just enough to keep himself in food and pay the rent with a little leftover for videotape rentals, resale shop clothes, YMCA membership, soap, toothpaste and disposable razors.

  The job was easy. Mrs. Borg had known exactly where her husband would be and when he would be there. The only problem now for Lew was placing the papers in Borg’s hand and getting out of the barn alive and, hopefully, untouched.

  Lew wore his usual jeans and a clean drip-dry short-sleeved blue shirt with no buttons missing, a Cubs baseball cap on his nearly bald head. He fit in, almost invisible, a lean man with a sad Italian face, a lapsed Episcopalian in Baptist country. Lew had once been an investigator in the office of the Cook County States Attorney’s office. Lew had once had a wife he loved and an apartment on Lake Shore Drive. Now he was serving papers for Sarasota lawyers and living alone at the rear of a Dairy Queen parking lot in a small two-room office in a building that merited condemnation. It was the way he wanted it.

  The twin holding back the pit bull cried out, “Go” and freed the dog, who shot across the ring and sunk its jaws into the hog’s snout. The hog squealed in agony, swayed slightly but didn’t move. The dog moved to the animal’s side. The crowd went silent to hear the clamping of the dog’s teeth as it made its deep, quick gash. The crowd went wild, many of them standing, shouting out “Santana” and “Get him”!

  Borg watched emotionless, checking his watch, lips pursed.

  The hog teetered and fell on its side but Santana didn’t let go. Both twins ran into the ring. The one in the black T-shirt shouted, “It’s over.”

  The man in the red T-shirt moved in with a wooden pole the length of a baseball bat, put a foot on the fallen hog’s back, and wedged the pole between the jaws of the dog.

  “Are they finished?” asked a girl about nine in the row in front of where Lew stood.

  “Don’t know, baby,” said the mother, who could have been any age from fourteen to thirty.

  The crowd was silent again. Lew made his way slowly around the wall of the barn. Borg was handing out cash to a grinning wrinkle-necked old man in slacks, a yellow shirt and a green bow tie.

  It took about a minute to pry the dog loose. Red T-shirt lost his cowboy hat in the process. Santana was muzzled the instant his jaws opened. The dog was led out of the ring by the man in the red T-shirt, who paused to pick up his hat, to cheering from the crowd.

  The man in the black T-shirt went to the fallen hog and said gently, “Get up, boy. You did just fine.”

  “Get up,” urged a woman’s voice from the crowd. Others took up the chant. “Get up.”

  The twin in the black T-shirt pulled a bottle of apple cider vinegar from his pocket, opened it and poured it on the panting hog’s wounds.

  Lew was now in the rear of the barn, looking down at Borg’s back.

  The crowd cheered as the hog wobbled to its feet. The man in the red T-shirt was back now, a muzzle in his hand. He put it over the mouth and head of the dazed hog.

  “Children ten and under,” the man in black shouted.

  Children rushed out of the stands, about twenty of them. Some had come armed with sticks. Others used their hands and feet. They pummeled the bloodied hog, who unsteadily tried to get away but had no place to go.

  “Okay” shouted the man in the black shirt after about a minute. “We want to save him for ano
ther day. Let’s all give the hog a big hand.”

  The audience, including Borg, applauded the animal.

  “This little lady here,” said the man in the black T-shirt, singling out a pretty, smiling blonde who appeared to be about nine.

  The audience applauded again.

  “You all know Lilla, right? She’s our guest of honor and she gets to name our hog,” the young man said, placing his hand gently on the girl’s shoulder.

  The girl looked up at a smiling woman seated in the stands in front of Lew.

  Borg looked at his watch. His gambling high had been over the moment he handed the cash to the old man. The look on his face changed from one of self-satisfaction to respectful attention as the girl spoke.

  “Fred,” she said. “That’s my big brother’s name. He was killed in Iraq by a bomb.”

  The man in the black shirt removed his hand from the girl’s shoulder, began applauding and announced, “Then Fred it’ll be.”

  The crowd stood and joined in with applause and a few whoops and hollers. Borg began making his way up the aisle. He paused when he saw the man in front of him looking at him. Lew was thin, short, balding, his face perpetually sad.

  Borg was tall, broad with thick arms and wary. His fists were clenched.

  The hog was led out of the ring with people shouting, “Take care now, Fred!” and “Good job, Fred!”

  Lew reached into his back pocket, pulled out the trifolded papers with their blue cover sheet and handed them to Borg.

  “She told you where I was,” Borg said.

  Lew was silent.

  “I didn’t think she knew,” Borg said, looking at the trifolded sheets in his hand.

  The crowd buzzed past them, people looking at the big and little man whose faces were no more than a foot apart.

  “How much do you get for giving me this?” he asked.

  “Fifty an hour plus expenses,” Lew said, meeting his eyes.

  “I’ll give you three thousand dollars to take this back and say you couldn’t find me.”

  Lew shook his head no.

  “Five thousand,” he said, holding the papers in front of Lew’s face. “Cash. Now.”

  Lew couldn’t explain it to him. He didn’t need money. He made enough to keep living in the room behind his office in Sarasota. He had his memories, his depression, his integrity. None of them were for sale.

  “What do you want?”

  Lew had walked into this place somewhere in Dante’s Inferno. He wanted to get out. He wanted his dead wife back. He didn’t want to face his nightmares. And now he had a new nightmare of pit bulls, helpless hogs, the smell of blood, the stifling heat of the barn and the faces of the people. There was a sadness to what he had seen, but then Lew sensed some level of sadness, loneliness, loss in almost every face he saw.

  “I said, ‘What do you want?’” Borg shouted.

  “To go back to Sarasota.”

  Borg punched him in the stomach. Lew winced as little as possible and didn’t double over. This had happened to him before. It was part of the risk of being a process server.

  Almost everyone had left the barn, except for the twins, who were now standing behind Borg.

  “Trouble?” asked one of them.

  Borg grabbed Lew’s shoulders and slammed the back of his head against the wall. Lew didn’t react. Borg’s hands were shaking.

  “No trouble,” said Borg, standing back.

  He turned Lew around and shoved him over a row of chairs. One of the chairs magically folded, spun over and landed on Lew’s legs.

  “You want us to—?” asked the twin in black.

  “No,” said Borg, looking down at Lew.

  Something changed. For an instant Borg looked exhausted. He was breathing hard.

  “Help him up,” said Borg with a sigh, putting the papers in his pocket.

  The twins moved forward, shoved the folding chair away and helped Lew up. Both twins smelled of tobacco and frightened animals. Lew threw up, not much. They had to back away to keep from getting it on them. Lew wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, managed to walk back to Borg and said, “You’ve been served. Two witnesses. I’ll need their names.”

  “You’re not gettin’ our names,” the one in the black T-shirt said.

  Lew smelled more strongly of vomit than the one in black did of animal blood and cigarettes. The twin backed away half a step.

  One dog and wild boar wrangler was on Lew’s left, the other on his right. Borg was in front of him now, looking down.

  “You weren’t here,” he said calmly. “And you’re never going to be here.”

  Lew tilted his head to the right and spoke into his shirt pocket, “That’s enough Ames. You can take off.”

  Borg grabbed and ripped the pocket, pushing Lew back. A thin small black metal box spun to the ground.

  “What is it?” asked Red.

  “A transmitter,” Lew said.

  Borg leaned over and picked up the black metal box. Then he laughed.

  “What’s funny?” asked the man in the black T-shirt.

  Borg held up the box and looked at Lew.

  “It’s an old transistor radio,” said Borg. “Hasn’t even got batteries.”

  He handed the radio back to Lew and smiled.

  “Hold onto that thing,” he said. “It’ll probably be worth fifty bucks when the Antiques Road Show comes back to Tampa. Now get out of here. I’ve got things to do.”

  Lew turned to leave, crossing the ring, stepping on popcorn and into wet red patches of mud and blood.

  “Wait,” Borg said behind him. “She’s put me through hell. Now she wants everything and … forget it.”

  Lew started toward the exit again.

  “Hold it.”

  Lew stopped and turned around, sweat lined his baseball cap, trickled down his forehead, spotted his shirt. He was swaying slightly now, his stomach warning of more treachery.

  Borg, a cowboy on each side of him, reached into his pocket and came out with a thick wallet. The twins stood, arms folded, watching. Borg pulled out a handful of bills and handed them to Lew. There was a hundred-dollar bill on top of the pile.

  “No strings,” Borg said. “An apology and to cover damages.”

  Lew, swaying like Fred the hog, looked into the man’s eyes, and handed the money back. Borg took it and said, “Some other time maybe.”

  Lew nodded. Borg held out his hand. Lew took it. Borg’s hand had a slight tremor. The twins were confused.

  “Fred the hog is a female,” said Lew.

  “We tell the crowd our killer’s been castrated,” whispered Borg. “They don’t want to see Santana tear a female apart. At least most of them don’t.”

  “Some do,” said the twin in the red T-shirt.

  “Some do,” Borg agreed. “And more than some know Fred is a female and they either lie to themselves or with a wink share that truth with others who are doing the same thing. It’s part of the game.”

  Lew nodded again and headed for the exit.

  He had a bottle of water in the car he had rented for the day. The car had air-conditioning. Not all the cars he rented did. He wanted to get to the car and the air-conditioning before he passed out.

  The next time he saw Earl Borg was more than three years later when Lew discovered … but that’s three years later.

  1

  Three Years and Two Months Later

  LEW HAD COME TO SARASOTA more than four years ago wanting no place to go, nothing to do, no people to be responsible for or to be responsible for him.

  It didn’t happen. He wanted the dark cell of his existence behind the Dairy Queen on 301. Two small rooms overlooking the parking lot, hard to find. Almost none of his business came through the door. He had a Florida process server’s license and an arrangement with four law firms to serve papers. Not much money. But more than enough for him.

  He wanted each day to be a dark blanket that no one pulled back to let in the light. That seldom happene
d. And today he was neatly and reluctantly putting aside his search for solitude.

  Lew’s first stop that morning was the EZ Economy automobile rental down the street. Once there had been two men there. For a couple of years Lew thought they were father and son or two brothers. They weren’t.

  They were a comedy team whose only appreciative audience was each other. Lew was one of their favorite targets as they drank coffee out of Styrofoam cups or stood with arms folded and negotiated.

  The older of the two, Fred, had died a few months ago. Bad heart. Lew had never told him that he shared his name with a hog. Lew thought the company, which had never been a thriving business, would close. But it didn’t.

  “Lewis Fonesca,” Alan, the bulky survivor of the duo, said from behind the desk, feet up, rubbing the sides of the cup. Coffee steamed between his hands. He watched it. “What can I do for you?”

  “A car,” Lew said.

  “Going?”

  “Tampa airport. Be gone I don’t know how long.”

  “Business?”

  “I’m going to find the person who killed my wife,” Lew said.

  “Good luck,” Alan said. “Take whatever car you want. The Saturn’s still in good shape. A few scratches. I think you put a few of them there.”

  “How much?”

  He shrugged and looked for secrets or the face of his dead partner in the coffee cup.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Twenty-five.”

  “A day?”

  “No, for whatever time you have it. Hell, you can own the damned thing for fifty bucks. I’m having a going-out-of-business sale.”

  “Since when?”

  “Now.”

  He reached into the desk drawer, came up with two keys on a small metal hoop and tossed them to Lew.

  Lew expected a joke, a jibe, a half-witty insult, but without Fred, Alan couldn’t find one.

  “Any jokes for me?” asked Lew, who had been assigned by his therapist, Ann Horowitz, to come up with a joke for each of their sessions. Usually Alan and Fred could be relied on for at least a backup.