Bright Futures: A Lew Fonesca Mystery (Lew Fonesca Novels) Read online

  Greg grinned and punched his friend’s arm again.

  “You really are funny.”

  “I wasn’t trying to be,” I said.

  “I think that woman on television is talking about aliens,” said Greg.

  “No,” said his friend.

  “I don’t mean illegal aliens. I mean the kind from outer space. Wishu-Wishuu-ooooo.”

  “That sounds like an Ivy League football cheer,” said Winn.

  “Get out,” said Greg.

  “Hit him and I walk,” I said.

  Greg, fist cocked, looked hurt, but he didn’t deliver the punch. Instead, he said, “I did one of my blogs about so-called alien visitors. There aren’t any. Aliens with two eyes and two legs aren’t coming millions of miles to pluck people out of their beds to probe their rectums with metal rods.”

  A woman who had been talking to a younger woman at the table next to us looked over at the last comment.

  “No aliens,” I said.

  “No, they’re humanoids from the future, maybe hundreds of thousands of years in the future. They’re archaeologists or anthropologists or whatever those sciences will be like. They appear and disappear so fast because they zip in and out of time. The shapes of the craft differ because they come from different times in the future.”

  “Why didn’t the ones from farther in the future go back and visit the ones from more recently and coordinate?” I said.

  Greg had finished something filled with caffeine over ice and topped with whipped cream. Just what he needed to calm him down. Winn had an iced tea. I played with my coffee and looked at the two extra cups of Colombia Supremo Deep Jungle Roast and the two biscotti to go.

  I learned that Ronnie Gerall had come to Sarasota in his junior year, that he was a natural leader, passionate about protecting the school from politicians and social gadflies, particularly Philip Horvecki.

  “Everyone likes Ronnie,” said Greg. “Particularly the girls.”

  Greg considered a punch, but his eyes met mine and he dropped his hand to his lap.

  “What about his parents?” I asked.

  Greg and Winn looked at each other before Greg said, “His mother’s dead. His father travels. We’ve never met Ronnie’s father.”

  “I don’t think his father makes much money,” said Winn. “He drives a twenty-year-old Toyota.”

  The ride over and the two biscotti and coffee was the price I had to pay for the information. I listened.

  “Did you know that, in their duel, Alexander Hamilton fired at Aaron Burr first, and that Hamilton had been undermining Burr, who at the time was Vice President of the United States?”

  “What has this to do with the murdered man and your friend in jail?”

  “Nothing,” said Winn, adjusting his glasses. “Greg is a master of non sequiturs.”

  “A connection will occur,” said Greg with enthusiasm. “String theory.”

  “Any other connections between Ronnie Gerall and Philip Horvecki?”

  “No,” said Greg, squirming in his seat.

  The woman at the next table was trying not to listen for more talk about rods being applied to orifices. She was failing.

  “Who else would want Horvecki dead?”

  “Everybody,” said Greg.

  “I didn’t want Horvecki dead,” I said.

  “You didn’t know him,” said Greg.

  “Lots of people are happy that Horvecki is dead,” said Winn.

  “Can we narrow that down a little?”

  “Horvecki had legal trouble with people,” said Winn.

  “Like?”

  “We don’t know for sure,” said Greg. “It was all kept quiet, but everybody knew. Okay, okay, you didn’t know.”

  “Just talk to Ronnie, please,” said Winn. “Start there. What do you charge?”

  “Eleven thousand dollars a week, but in your case I’ll give you a discount because I was recommended by Ettiene Viviase’s daughter.”

  “Eleven thou … ,” Greg began.

  “He’s joking,” said Winn.

  “I’m not good at jokes. I’m making a point. What would you pay for your friend to be found innocent?”

  “Five hundred dollars a week plus expenses,” said Greg. “We can get lots of people to contribute. My grandfather could write a check for four thousand and not miss it.”

  “That’s comforting,” I said.

  “It is to Ronnie,” said Greg. “I’ve got cash.”

  I let the bills he took out of his pocket rest on the edge of the desk.

  “It goes back to you after I talk to your friend,” I said, “if I’m not happy with his answers to my questions.”

  “Then you’ll find the killer?”

  “Then I’ll try to find Rachel Horvecki.”

  “And the killer,” said Greg.

  “And the killer,” I agreed.

  I got a paper brown paper bag from the counter and carefully placed coffees and biscotti inside and then neatly folded the top over before cradling it against my chest. The heat was lulling. I had told the two boys that I wanted to be alone to think and that I’d make it back to my place on my own. Greg wanted to say a lot more. Winn guided him out of the News and Books.

  Normally, I would have turned the possible job down with thanks for the refreshments, but I could use the money. I was moving. It didn’t cost much but there were things I needed and my bike wanted repair. The number of court papers to serve for my lawyer clients was down for the summer. The snowbirds who came down to their condos, homes, and rentals wouldn’t be back to engage in and be the victims of crime for at least three months. There were fewer criminals being brought to justice or just being hauled before a judge for not paying child support. I didn’t need much, didn’t want much, but now I had Victor Woo to feed and a weekly dinner out with Sally Porovsky and her two kids at Honey Crust Pizza, which would eventually present a challenge even if Sally and I split the bill. And though I was a project for my therapist, Ann Hurwitz, I still had to pay something each time I saw her, even if it was only ten dollars.

  When this meeting of the minds was over, I walked down the block to Gulf Stream Boulevard, across from the Bay, to get to my appointment with Ann.

  I stepped through the inner door of Ann’s office and held out my ritual offering of coffee and biscotti. She looked up from her blue armchair, and I sat in its duplicate across from her as she removed the lid from the cup and dipped an almond biscotti into it. I took off my Cubs cap and placed it on my lap.

  “Make me smile,” she said.

  Ann is over eighty years old. I’m not sure how much over. I do know she doesn’t like it when people say she is “eighty years young.”

  “I am by no stretch of the imagination young unless I have morphed into a tortoise. I’ve earned my years. It is the end of them I regret and not their number which I savor.”

  She had said that to me once when I told her I wasn’t interested in growing old. Now she wanted a joke. For almost a year now, I had not only been responsible for refreshments but also for telling a joke. I do not smile. I do not laugh. When my wife Catherine was hit and killed by Victor Woo’s car, I had lost my ability to consider happiness. Ann worked to have me lose my hard-earned depression, and I struggled to hold onto it. A joke delivered was a concession. It took research on my part.

  “ ‘I have of late, but wherefore know I not, lost all my mirth,’ ” I said. “ ‘This goodly frame seems to me a sterile promontory.’ ”

  “Shakespeare,” she said.

  “Yes, and Hair. Catherine liked Hair. We saw it four times.”

  “You liked it?”

  “No.”

  “But you remember it.”

  “Yes.”

  “A joke, Fonesca. It is time to pay the toll.”

  Ann was well groomed, wore colorful tailored dresses, and had her white hair neatly trimmed short. She always wore a necklace and a wide bracelet. She had dozens of baubles of jewelry either made by her husband, a l
ong-retired investment broker, or chosen by them during one of their frequent travels all over the world.

  She skillfully managed to get the soaked end of her biscotti from cup to mouth without dripping—a skill I admired.

  “A psychologist’s receptionist says, ‘Doctor, I have a man out here who thinks he’s invisible.’ And the psychologist answers, ‘Tell him I can’t see him now.’ ”

  “I’m sufficiently amused,” Ann said. “You think this joke is funny?”

  “No.”

  “But you understand why others might?”

  “Yes.”

  “Progress. Tell me about your house guest,” she said finishing the last moist bite of biscotti.

  “Tell you what?”

  “Whatever you wish to tell me. Does he like biscotti?”

  She took a sip of coffee, looking at me over the top of her cup.

  “I don’t know. He killed my wife.”

  “Catherine.”

  “Catherine.”

  “And now he lives on the floor of your office and is going to live with you in your new office?”

  “I think so.”

  “Why?”

  “Why do I think so?”

  “No, why is he going to live with you?”

  “He doesn’t say.”

  “No, I meant, why are you letting him live with you?”

  This struck me as a good question.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Think about it and give me the best answer you can in your next office visit.”

  “No joke?”

  “When you laugh and mean it, you can stop bringing me jokes.”

  “I’ll bring you a joke.”

  She finished her coffee, examined the bottom of the cup, daintily reached in with her little finger to retrieve a biscotti crumb, and deposited it on her tongue.

  “Some boys want me to help their friend get out of jail.”

  She looked up, definitely interested.

  “What did this boy do?”

  “They say he did nothing. He’s accused of killing a man named Philip Horvecki.”

  She shook her head and said, “So I have read. He has a daughter?”

  “She’s missing,” I said. “She may have witnessed the murder.”

  “From what I have heard and read about him, Horvecki was an angry man, a very angry man, and proud of it. He could have used intensive therapy.”

  “He was angry about Pine View School.”

  She smiled. “And many other things,” she said. “Taxes, landfill, religion, the price of gasoline.”

  “But mostly Pine View and Bright Futures.”

  “So I understand.”

  “You know something more about him, don’t you?” I asked.

  “Nothing I can talk to you about.”

  “He’s dead.”

  “And you wouldn’t mind my talking about our sessions if you were to die?”

  That gave me pause.

  “I wouldn’t like it.”

  “He was a patient of yours?”

  “No,” she said.

  “His daughter?”

  I was about to push the issue when Ann rose from her chair with a bounce. I got up. “There’s someone in the waiting room who is here to see me. Do you mind going out the other way.”

  “The other way” was through a door that opened into the offices of a Hispanic real estate and law office. I went through the door. A young woman, pretty and dark, was at one of the two desks in the outer office. She was on the phone and speaking in Spanish. I nodded as I went out onto Main Street, turned left, and then left again down Gulf Stream. My plan had been to walk back to my office.

  But before I had gone five steps, someone offered me a ride.

  2

  *

  HE WAS SMILING. He was one of those people who wore a perpetual smile. It didn’t mean he was happy or amused. He walked at my side, a few inches taller than me, a few pounds heavier, a few years older, and much better dressed. His dark hair was brushed back. His dark eyes were moist.

  “You want a ride,” he said, his voice almost Robert Preston musical.

  “No, thanks,” I said.

  “It wasn’t a question,” he said, keeping pace with me. “I was letting you know that your fondest wish at the moment was a ride in an almost-new red Buick LeSabre. The car was washed this morning and sprayed inside with the scent of a forest. You’re not allergic to scented sprays, are you?”

  “No,” I said, continuing to walk.

  “Good, very good. I’m new to Sarasota,” he said. “Been here a few weeks. I like what I’ve seen so far. Air smells good, fresh. Know what I mean?”

  “Yes.”

  He looked to our right, beyond the manicured bushes and well spaced trees, toward the bay.

  “And the birds, magnificent,” he said. “I’m from L.A… .”

  We were just passing a high-rise apartment building on our left.

  “We have to turn around,” he said. “I’m parked back there.”

  “I’d rather walk,” I said.

  He reached over and flicked the brim of my Cubs cap.

  His smile remained, but his voice changed. We weren’t just chatting anymore.

  “Too hot to walk.”

  “No.”

  “It’s not open for discussion.”

  I recognized him now, but I couldn’t place him. He had the tough look of a television heavy. He caught me looking. His smile got a little broader. He put his left hand on my shoulder to stop me and turn me toward him.

  An old woman with a small, fuzzy white dog leading the way on a leash came out of the apartment building. She glanced at us, moved past, and started across the street.

  “She wasn’t carrying a plastic bag,” he said, watching the woman and the eager dog pulling at the leash. “She doesn’t plan to clean up after the dog.”

  “She’s old,” I said.

  “Then she shouldn’t have a dog.”

  “Maybe that’s all she’s got,” I said. “Jeff Augustine.”

  “Son of a gun. You not only recognize me, you know my name. I’m impressed, flattered.”

  “I used to watch a lot of old television shows. Rockford, Harry O.”

  “I want you to meet a guy,” he said seriously.

  “Mike Mazurki as Moose Malloy in Farewell My Lovely,” I said.

  “Right, but it’s also Jeff Augustine on a street in Sarasota. I really have someone who wants to meet you.”

  “And if I don’t want to be met?”

  He shrugged and said, “Suit yourself, but I think it would be a good idea if you met this fella. Besides, he’d be very disappointed in me if I didn’t deliver you.”

  “What happened to your career?” I asked.

  He shook his head and watched the old lady and the little dog, which was now making a deposit under a small palm tree.

  “Twenty-five years waiting for checks so I could pay my phone bills and my rent and eat reasonably. Toward the end I was singing second banana in dinner theaters. My biggest role was Judd Frye in Oklahoma, in Knoxville. When Judd Frye died that last time, I said good-bye to my career.”

  “Now you … ?”

  “Yes, I work out, wear nice clothes, and persuade people to do things. It pays well and some people like the idea of having a guy with a familiar face getting things done for them.”

  “Is Steven Seagal really tough?” I asked.

  “You remember.”

  “He threw you through a factory window and you fell four floors to your doom.”

  “Doom?”

  “It’s been nice talking to you,” I said. “Now I’m walking home. I’ve got packing to do.”

  “You haven’t been listening closely … Look at that. She’s just leaving it there.”

  This was all said calmly, more with regret than anger.

  “You want an appointment,” I said, “give me a call or just drop by my new office. I’ll give you the address.”

  “No,
now,” he said, his smile even more friendly.

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  He opened his jacket to show a holstered gun.

  “You’re going to shoot me on the street because I don’t want to get in your car?”

  “The car smells like a forest, and I’ve got a small cooler with bottles of water,” he said. “And yes, I could shoot you a little bit.”

  “No,” I said, turning to walk away.

  “You’re a real phenomenon. You’re not afraid, are you?”

  “Worst you could do is kill me. This isn’t a bad place, and it’s a nice day for dying.”

  “You’re a little crazy,” he said.

  “You caught up with me just when I ended a session with my shrink. You know any good jokes?”

  “Jokes?” He looked puzzled now.

  “Jokes,” I repeated.

  “Yes, lots. I did stand-up for a while. The good jokes weren’t in my act, but I remember them from Larry the Cable Guy and Diane Ford.”

  “I’ll go with you if you tell me five good jokes,” I said.

  The old woman with the dog was no longer in sight, but a shirtless black man with sagging slacks, unlaced shoes, and no socks was advancing on us, scratching his belly. I recognized him, had given him coffee and an occasional biscotti. He said his name was Clark, or maybe Cleric, and he claimed that he wasn’t homeless. His home, he said, was under the second bench in Bayfront Park, not far from where the dog had just relieved himself or herself.

  “Five good jokes?”

  “Five.”

  “Deal.”

  “This way.”

  Clark was headed right for us.

  “A friend of yours?”

  “I don’t know,” I said as Clark lifted his chin, reached into his pants to adjust his testicles, and said, “Too many midgets. Too many.”

  “It’s a problem,” I agreed.

  Clark looked at Augustine and pointed a finger.

  “You shot ol’ Kurt Russell. Some soldier movie.”

  I gave Clark two quarters and said to Augustine, “The scent of the forest in a Buick LeSabre?”

  “That’s right,” said Augustine. “Let’s go.”

  “The Cubs,” said Clark, looking at my cap as if he had suddenly realized it was there. “Andy Pafko.”

  “Who?” asked Augustine.

  “Never mind,” I said. “Tell me jokes on the way.”

  The LeSabre did smell like a pine forest. I turned down the offer of Evian water. Augustine drank one as he drove.