Bahamarama, page 15
part #1 of Zack Chasteen Series
“And you were going to call me?”
“Who else would I call?”
He looked at me, eyes narrowed.
“You got a way of worming around a question. I almost took that for a yes.”
He reached into a shirt pocket and pulled out a toothpick. He chewed on it. And then he said, “But I’ll give you that one. I still don’t believe you. But I’ll give it to you.”
“Thanks,” I said. “So how’d you find out about the phone calls?”
“Got my sources,” said Pederson.
“That would be Clarissa Percival?” I said.
“My, my,” he said. “You’re pretty good.”
“Process of elimination. It wasn’t me. And it wasn’t those three other women. Had to be her. She one of your cousins, too?”
“Not hardly.”
He arched his eyebrows, smiled.
“Oh?” I said.
“Me and Clarissa,” he said. “We’re friendly-friendly.”
“I’m envious.”
“Oughta be.”
“Thought you had a wife.”
“I do.” He gave it a beat. “She stays in Nassau. Says she likes it better there. I like her better there, too.”
“Nice arrangement.”
“No, it isn’t nice. It’s got-damn expensive, that’s what it is. It’s why I have to rely on graft and corruption to pay my bills.” He worked the toothpick around in his mouth. “That’s a joke, Chasteen.”
“I’m laughing,” I said. “So what do you make of it all?”
“Meaning, who do I think the bad guys are?”
“For starters.”
“Don’t have a clue. All I’ve got is guesses. And my best guess is that it’s someone who wants two million.”
“Impressive,” I said. “You get an A in deductive reasoning at Gainesville?”
Pederson sat there studying me. His mouth worked into a grin.
“Actually, it was Logic 101 and 102 and, yeah, I aced them both.” Then he said, “Wondering when you were going to make that UF connection.”
“I’m still making it, still kinda foggy. How come you didn’t mention it before?”
“Didn’t want to embarrass you,” he said.
“Embarrass me how? For not remembering you?”
“No,” said Pederson. “Embarrass you when you did remember me and how I knocked you on your ass.”
“You knocked me on my ass?”
“Uh-huh. Flat on your ass.”
“When was that?”
“Oh, I’d say it was about twenty-two years ago, almost twenty-two years ago exactly.”
“Twenty-two years ago, I was . . . I would have been a senior.”
“Uh-huh, I know that. I was a freshman.”
“You played ball?”
“I did.”
“And you knocked me on my ass?”
“I did indeed.”
“Sorry,” I said. “But you’re gonna have to refresh my memory.”
“Be glad to. It’s alright you don’t remember me, I was hardly worth remembering. Just a walk-on freshman, playing on the scrimmage team. It was a Wednesday, before the opening game. Against Southwest Louisiana.”
“We beat them forty-eight–zip.”
“Uh-huh, and to get warmed up for it they threw the freshmen meat against the first team. Our first offensive series we ran a quarterback draw that ripped up the middle and went all the way. Mainly because you got taken out of the play. And Coach Rowlin . . .”
“Howlin’ Rowlin . . .”
“That’s him, he chewed your ass out. Chewed it out up and down. Wanted to know how you could have possibly missed tackling that quarterback. And you remember what you told him?”
“No, what?”
“You said, ‘That right guard threw a pretty good block.’ You didn’t make up any excuses. You just told it like it was.”
“And you were the right guard.”
“I was. And I did throw a pretty good block. One of the best damn blocks I ever threw.”
“Mmmm.”
“You still don’t remember, do you?”
“No, sorry.”
“That’s alright. Doesn’t matter. Got me a little notice with the coaches though, blocking out a preseason second-string All-American. Got me some playing time on the freshman team. And come the end of the season they offered me some scholarship money.”
“You move up the next year?”
“Was going to,” said Pederson. “Only I screwed up my hip next spring at the Orange and Blue game. Didn’t play after that. But they made good on the scholarship. Paid for my full ride. Got a degree in criminology and public administration.”
“How’d you wind up here?”
“Oh, I was raised on Harbour Island. Came time for high school though, I went to Miami and lived with my aunt. Played at Coral Gables. Then went on up to Gainesville. Got out, I worked Miami PD for three years. Hated it. Got word the inspector here was retiring and I was first in line for the job. Been at it going on fifteen years now.”
Pederson looked around the room.
“You got anything to drink besides gin and champagne?” he said.
“I got ice and I got water,” I said.
“I’ll take some of that.”
I poured him a glass and one for myself.
I asked him, “So you got any other guesses about who we’re up against here?”
“Got a couple. They say what the man on the phone sounded like?”
“No, they didn’t. I didn’t ask,” I said. “I should have asked.”
“Yeah, you should have. But what you really should have done was call me up while you were sitting there and told me what was going on, and then I would have come over there and asked the questions that needed asking.”
I said, “You want, we can go there right now and find out. Let’s go.”
“Nah, that’ll wait until morning. I got plenty else to keep me busy tonight.”
“You think it could be somebody here on island?”
“No, I don’t. I don’t think that at all. Don’t know why I don’t think it. Just don’t. Just know the people. Just don’t think there’s anyone here would pull something like that,” he said. “Now, up on French Jug . . . that’s a different story.”
“French Jug?”
“A few islands north, other side of Bitter Channel, about a thirty-minute run by boat. Another old Loyalist community. Only it’s Loyalist through and through.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, French Juggers don’t exactly embrace the concept of ethnic diversity. You won’t find any black folks living there. Hell, you won’t find any white folks living there unless they had family on French Jug two hundred and fifty years ago.”
“Family tree doesn’t have any branches, huh?”
“Oh it’s got branches. Exactly four of them. Got the Hailes, got the Crowes, got the Blounts, and got the Snows. And they’re all twisted together and growing in on themselves. You aren’t one of them, then you aren’t living on French Jug.”
“They don’t let anyone else on the island?”
“Oh, you can go visit. There’s a marina and a restaurant and a bar and some shops. Even got a little museum about the history of French Jug and all that. People on French Jug, they aren’t going to turn down tourist dollars. Especially now.”
“Why now?”
“Let’s just say their traditional source of revenue has been drying up.”
“Smuggling?”
“The drug part of it, anyway. Back some years ago, in the heydays, there were a lot of millionaire lobster fishermen living on French Jug. Then the drug business got centralized and streamlined, and there wasn’t room for freelancers running boats anymore. Some of them, they started hauling Haitians, but there’s not nearly as much money in that. So they’re scrambling. Some of them are actually forced to go fishing lobster. Some of them are just petty got-dam criminals. I’ve hauled a few of them in for stealing boats and breaking into houses here on Harbour Island, that sort of thing.”
“So you think it could be someone from French Jug?”
“Nothing says it is and nothing says it isn’t.” Pederson drained the water in his glass and shook loose an ice cube and chewed on it. “You know who I’d put my money on?”
“Victor Ortiz?”
“You got it,” Pederson said. “Knowing what little I know and knowing what you told me—not that I can believe all of your shit, but I am looking at those black eyes of yours—then I’d say Ortiz is squeezing you.”
“That’s what I’ve been thinking, too. Only I don’t know what he’s squeezing me for.”
“You got something he wants.”
“It damn sure isn’t money,” I said.
“Could be something that you know.”
“Yeah, but if it was something I knew and he didn’t want me to know it, then all he’d have to do is kill me. And he could have done that already,” I said. “Besides, they were looking for something when they tore everything apart at my place.”
“You’ve got no idea what it is they were looking for?”
“No. And believe me, I’ve been racking my brain trying to think of something.”
I looked at the Beefeater’s. I was about ready for one. But I didn’t think Pederson would join me. And I didn’t want to ask him and then wind up drinking alone. Drink clear on Kalik, wake up with a . . . what? A limp dick? Just one gin, that couldn’t hurt.
Then Pederson said, “You know where it all falls apart, don’t you? The whole thing with Victor Ortiz?”
“If he’s squeezing me, then why would he snatch Lord Downey? Why not just take Barbara?”
“Yep. That’s the part I can’t get around.”
“Maybe it’s just about the money,” I said. “He squeezes me and doubles his money by squeezing Lord Downey.”
“Maybe,” said Pederson.
“Maybe we don’t know shit, do we?”
“Maybe that, too.” He stood to go. “Been nice, but I need to go interrogate an informant.”
“Clarissa?”
“I’m real good at interrogating,” he said. “My informants are always asking me to interrogate them some more.”
He opened the door and stepped out and started off down the pathway.
“Did you really knock me on my ass?” I called out after him.
He didn’t turn around.
“Flat on it, man. Flat flucking on it . . .”
32
After Pederson was gone, I walked around the room trying to decide if I really wanted some Beefeater’s, and then I remembered that I still hadn’t phoned Steffi Plank. On the way down to the main house I remembered something else: I hadn’t told Pederson about what Mr. Pindle had mentioned to me, about Jesteen from the kitchen seeing Tiffani St. James driving the golf cart. Maybe there was nothing to it, maybe there was. But I didn’t want Pederson accusing me of holding out on him again.
Everyone was in the dining room eating and no one was using the phone. Steffie answered on the third ring. We exchanged quick pleasantries and then I asked her if she could put me in touch with Barbara’s attorney.
There was a long pause on her end, and then: “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing’s the matter.”
“I don’t believe you, Zack. Why do you suddenly need to speak to Barbara’s attorney? Something has happened, hasn’t it?”
So I told her about it. And when I was done, Steffie shrieked and cried, and then she pulled herself together and said she would call Barbara’s attorney that night if she could find her, first thing Monday morning for sure. She said she would get back to me as soon as she knew something.
I walked past the dining room. The menu posted outside said the entrees were rosemary-skewered scallops with a shrimp and white bean salad, honey-glazed squab in a lemon-olive sauce, and porcini-crusted rack of lamb with black pepper spaetzle. It looked like Chrissie and Charlie Hineman had saved a spot for me at their table. I was hungry, but I wasn’t feeling all that sociable.
I walked back up the hill to the cottage. The door was open. I didn’t remember leaving it like that. I opened it slowly and looked inside. I saw someone sitting on the bed. It was Tiffani St. James.
“Well, if it isn’t Mr. Neat,” she said.
I stepped inside the cottage.
“Surprised?” asked Tiffani.
“Words can’t express,” I said.
“Glad to see me?”
“Should I be?”
She scrunched up her nose.
“You’re supposed to say yes.”
She had changed clothes. She was no longer Little Miss Beach Babe. She wore a slinky black dress and strappy black shoes with heels the shape of daggers. The look was Downtown Saturday Night. Only it was Sunday and we were on Harbour Island. So the effect was more All Dressed Up with No Place to Go.
“What’s happening here, Tiffani?”
“I got tired of sitting around. I want to do something.” She twisted the end of her hair with a finger and played with it, sticking it in her mouth and sucking on it, and looking up at me with her green eyes. The look was fetching. And it was well practiced, which made it pathetic.
She said, “Wanna go out and do something?”
“No.”
“Wanna stay here and do something?”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“Oh, I think it would.” She slipped off her shoes and eased back on the bed. “Come here. Just relax.”
There was a mirror over the dresser by the bed. I went and stood in front of it and checked myself out. Then I turned to her and said, “Do I really look that goddam stupid?”
Tiffani flipped over on the bed and turned her back on me. She sighed a mighty sigh. I sat down in a chair by the ice bucket. Screw it. I took a glass and put some Beefeater’s in it and put some ice on top of that. Rum I drink neat. Gin I don’t. I took a sip. I took another.
Tiffani sprang up on the bed. She bounced on the side of it, all smiley and ready to play again.
“What are you drinking?”
“Poor man’s martini.”
“Oh, I love martinis. Make me one, OK?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because you aren’t old enough.”
“How do you know?”
“You’re nineteen.”
“How do you know that?”
“Lynfield Pederson told me.”
“Who?”
“Lynfield Pederson, the police inspector. The man who came and talked to you about Bryce Gannon.”
“Oh, him. He’s mean. He asked a lot of questions.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Not much. Zoe did most of the talking.”
“Does Zoe always do most of the talking?”
“Yeah, pretty much. She’s smart. She knows how to handle things.”
“How do you know each other?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, how did you meet, how did you get to know her and Burma Downey?”
“Oh, clubs, you know. Just hanging out. Burma knew I wanted to be a model and she said she could help me. She used to be one you know. A model. Only she’s, like, thirty now.”
“What about Zoe?”
“What about her?”
“Did you meet her hanging out in clubs, too?”
“Yeah, she’s a friend of Cheri’s.”
“Cheri?”
“Uh-huh. Cheri Swanson. She wants to be a model, too. Me and her, we used to work together, but then Burma started helping Cheri, and she stopped working. Cheri’s beautiful. She’s tall and thin, and she’s hardly got any boobs at all. Me, my boobs are too big, way too big. Don’t you think so?”
I rattled the ice in my glass. The gin was gone.
I said, “So tell me about Zoe. What does she do?”
Tiffani shrugged.
“I don’t know. Takes care of . . . of Burma mostly.” She chewed at a fingernail and spit it out. “Before that I think she was like a personal trainer or something. She works out a lot. Runs, like, ten miles a day. She knows karate and everything. Only it’s not called karate. It’s like tie one . . . something.”
“Tae kwan do.”
“That’s it. You’re smart, you know that? Smart and handsome. I really think me and you should party.”
“Cut the crap, Tiffani.”
She had a patent on pouting. She gave me one of her best ones.
“You don’t have to be so grouchy. I just came by to cheer you up.”
“Did you cheer up Bryce Gannon?”
She flinched a little, but only a little.
“I tried to. But he was always too busy. He kept saying me and him were going to hook up, and then he . . .” She stopped. “It’s too bad he’s dead. He was nice. I liked the way he talked. He sounded like Paul McCartney.”
“How did you know Gannon?”
“Oh, I just went down to the Bahama Sands and hung out and, you know, these things just have a way of happening.”
I sat there trying to figure out who I would cast in the role of Tiffani St. James if my life became a movie. I think one of those Arquette sisters, the plump one with the baby-doll voice. All sweetness and innocence and not nearly as dumb as she acts.
“Did you sleep with Gannon?”
That’s personal, you.” She tried to act offended. She was a lousy actor. “But no, I didn’t. I mean, I only knew him for a couple of nights.”
“And he gave you a ride home last night?”
“Yes.”
“So why were you driving the golf cart?”
“What’s with all the questions? You ask more questions than that policeman did.”
“I’m just wondering why, if Gannon offered to give you a ride, you were the one who was driving, that’s all.”
“Well, so what? I like driving those little golf carts. They’re fun. They remind me of those rides at the fair, those bumper car thingies. I asked Bryce if I could drive and he said yes.”
“And you drove to your place and you got out. Then they drove off. And that was the last you saw of them.”
“That’s right.”
Tiffani stood up from the bed. She reached behind her back, unzipped her dress, and it fell to the floor. Just like that. She stood there naked, smiling.
“What are you doing, Tiffani?”
“Who else would I call?”
He looked at me, eyes narrowed.
“You got a way of worming around a question. I almost took that for a yes.”
He reached into a shirt pocket and pulled out a toothpick. He chewed on it. And then he said, “But I’ll give you that one. I still don’t believe you. But I’ll give it to you.”
“Thanks,” I said. “So how’d you find out about the phone calls?”
“Got my sources,” said Pederson.
“That would be Clarissa Percival?” I said.
“My, my,” he said. “You’re pretty good.”
“Process of elimination. It wasn’t me. And it wasn’t those three other women. Had to be her. She one of your cousins, too?”
“Not hardly.”
He arched his eyebrows, smiled.
“Oh?” I said.
“Me and Clarissa,” he said. “We’re friendly-friendly.”
“I’m envious.”
“Oughta be.”
“Thought you had a wife.”
“I do.” He gave it a beat. “She stays in Nassau. Says she likes it better there. I like her better there, too.”
“Nice arrangement.”
“No, it isn’t nice. It’s got-damn expensive, that’s what it is. It’s why I have to rely on graft and corruption to pay my bills.” He worked the toothpick around in his mouth. “That’s a joke, Chasteen.”
“I’m laughing,” I said. “So what do you make of it all?”
“Meaning, who do I think the bad guys are?”
“For starters.”
“Don’t have a clue. All I’ve got is guesses. And my best guess is that it’s someone who wants two million.”
“Impressive,” I said. “You get an A in deductive reasoning at Gainesville?”
Pederson sat there studying me. His mouth worked into a grin.
“Actually, it was Logic 101 and 102 and, yeah, I aced them both.” Then he said, “Wondering when you were going to make that UF connection.”
“I’m still making it, still kinda foggy. How come you didn’t mention it before?”
“Didn’t want to embarrass you,” he said.
“Embarrass me how? For not remembering you?”
“No,” said Pederson. “Embarrass you when you did remember me and how I knocked you on your ass.”
“You knocked me on my ass?”
“Uh-huh. Flat on your ass.”
“When was that?”
“Oh, I’d say it was about twenty-two years ago, almost twenty-two years ago exactly.”
“Twenty-two years ago, I was . . . I would have been a senior.”
“Uh-huh, I know that. I was a freshman.”
“You played ball?”
“I did.”
“And you knocked me on my ass?”
“I did indeed.”
“Sorry,” I said. “But you’re gonna have to refresh my memory.”
“Be glad to. It’s alright you don’t remember me, I was hardly worth remembering. Just a walk-on freshman, playing on the scrimmage team. It was a Wednesday, before the opening game. Against Southwest Louisiana.”
“We beat them forty-eight–zip.”
“Uh-huh, and to get warmed up for it they threw the freshmen meat against the first team. Our first offensive series we ran a quarterback draw that ripped up the middle and went all the way. Mainly because you got taken out of the play. And Coach Rowlin . . .”
“Howlin’ Rowlin . . .”
“That’s him, he chewed your ass out. Chewed it out up and down. Wanted to know how you could have possibly missed tackling that quarterback. And you remember what you told him?”
“No, what?”
“You said, ‘That right guard threw a pretty good block.’ You didn’t make up any excuses. You just told it like it was.”
“And you were the right guard.”
“I was. And I did throw a pretty good block. One of the best damn blocks I ever threw.”
“Mmmm.”
“You still don’t remember, do you?”
“No, sorry.”
“That’s alright. Doesn’t matter. Got me a little notice with the coaches though, blocking out a preseason second-string All-American. Got me some playing time on the freshman team. And come the end of the season they offered me some scholarship money.”
“You move up the next year?”
“Was going to,” said Pederson. “Only I screwed up my hip next spring at the Orange and Blue game. Didn’t play after that. But they made good on the scholarship. Paid for my full ride. Got a degree in criminology and public administration.”
“How’d you wind up here?”
“Oh, I was raised on Harbour Island. Came time for high school though, I went to Miami and lived with my aunt. Played at Coral Gables. Then went on up to Gainesville. Got out, I worked Miami PD for three years. Hated it. Got word the inspector here was retiring and I was first in line for the job. Been at it going on fifteen years now.”
Pederson looked around the room.
“You got anything to drink besides gin and champagne?” he said.
“I got ice and I got water,” I said.
“I’ll take some of that.”
I poured him a glass and one for myself.
I asked him, “So you got any other guesses about who we’re up against here?”
“Got a couple. They say what the man on the phone sounded like?”
“No, they didn’t. I didn’t ask,” I said. “I should have asked.”
“Yeah, you should have. But what you really should have done was call me up while you were sitting there and told me what was going on, and then I would have come over there and asked the questions that needed asking.”
I said, “You want, we can go there right now and find out. Let’s go.”
“Nah, that’ll wait until morning. I got plenty else to keep me busy tonight.”
“You think it could be somebody here on island?”
“No, I don’t. I don’t think that at all. Don’t know why I don’t think it. Just don’t. Just know the people. Just don’t think there’s anyone here would pull something like that,” he said. “Now, up on French Jug . . . that’s a different story.”
“French Jug?”
“A few islands north, other side of Bitter Channel, about a thirty-minute run by boat. Another old Loyalist community. Only it’s Loyalist through and through.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, French Juggers don’t exactly embrace the concept of ethnic diversity. You won’t find any black folks living there. Hell, you won’t find any white folks living there unless they had family on French Jug two hundred and fifty years ago.”
“Family tree doesn’t have any branches, huh?”
“Oh it’s got branches. Exactly four of them. Got the Hailes, got the Crowes, got the Blounts, and got the Snows. And they’re all twisted together and growing in on themselves. You aren’t one of them, then you aren’t living on French Jug.”
“They don’t let anyone else on the island?”
“Oh, you can go visit. There’s a marina and a restaurant and a bar and some shops. Even got a little museum about the history of French Jug and all that. People on French Jug, they aren’t going to turn down tourist dollars. Especially now.”
“Why now?”
“Let’s just say their traditional source of revenue has been drying up.”
“Smuggling?”
“The drug part of it, anyway. Back some years ago, in the heydays, there were a lot of millionaire lobster fishermen living on French Jug. Then the drug business got centralized and streamlined, and there wasn’t room for freelancers running boats anymore. Some of them, they started hauling Haitians, but there’s not nearly as much money in that. So they’re scrambling. Some of them are actually forced to go fishing lobster. Some of them are just petty got-dam criminals. I’ve hauled a few of them in for stealing boats and breaking into houses here on Harbour Island, that sort of thing.”
“So you think it could be someone from French Jug?”
“Nothing says it is and nothing says it isn’t.” Pederson drained the water in his glass and shook loose an ice cube and chewed on it. “You know who I’d put my money on?”
“Victor Ortiz?”
“You got it,” Pederson said. “Knowing what little I know and knowing what you told me—not that I can believe all of your shit, but I am looking at those black eyes of yours—then I’d say Ortiz is squeezing you.”
“That’s what I’ve been thinking, too. Only I don’t know what he’s squeezing me for.”
“You got something he wants.”
“It damn sure isn’t money,” I said.
“Could be something that you know.”
“Yeah, but if it was something I knew and he didn’t want me to know it, then all he’d have to do is kill me. And he could have done that already,” I said. “Besides, they were looking for something when they tore everything apart at my place.”
“You’ve got no idea what it is they were looking for?”
“No. And believe me, I’ve been racking my brain trying to think of something.”
I looked at the Beefeater’s. I was about ready for one. But I didn’t think Pederson would join me. And I didn’t want to ask him and then wind up drinking alone. Drink clear on Kalik, wake up with a . . . what? A limp dick? Just one gin, that couldn’t hurt.
Then Pederson said, “You know where it all falls apart, don’t you? The whole thing with Victor Ortiz?”
“If he’s squeezing me, then why would he snatch Lord Downey? Why not just take Barbara?”
“Yep. That’s the part I can’t get around.”
“Maybe it’s just about the money,” I said. “He squeezes me and doubles his money by squeezing Lord Downey.”
“Maybe,” said Pederson.
“Maybe we don’t know shit, do we?”
“Maybe that, too.” He stood to go. “Been nice, but I need to go interrogate an informant.”
“Clarissa?”
“I’m real good at interrogating,” he said. “My informants are always asking me to interrogate them some more.”
He opened the door and stepped out and started off down the pathway.
“Did you really knock me on my ass?” I called out after him.
He didn’t turn around.
“Flat on it, man. Flat flucking on it . . .”
32
After Pederson was gone, I walked around the room trying to decide if I really wanted some Beefeater’s, and then I remembered that I still hadn’t phoned Steffi Plank. On the way down to the main house I remembered something else: I hadn’t told Pederson about what Mr. Pindle had mentioned to me, about Jesteen from the kitchen seeing Tiffani St. James driving the golf cart. Maybe there was nothing to it, maybe there was. But I didn’t want Pederson accusing me of holding out on him again.
Everyone was in the dining room eating and no one was using the phone. Steffie answered on the third ring. We exchanged quick pleasantries and then I asked her if she could put me in touch with Barbara’s attorney.
There was a long pause on her end, and then: “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing’s the matter.”
“I don’t believe you, Zack. Why do you suddenly need to speak to Barbara’s attorney? Something has happened, hasn’t it?”
So I told her about it. And when I was done, Steffie shrieked and cried, and then she pulled herself together and said she would call Barbara’s attorney that night if she could find her, first thing Monday morning for sure. She said she would get back to me as soon as she knew something.
I walked past the dining room. The menu posted outside said the entrees were rosemary-skewered scallops with a shrimp and white bean salad, honey-glazed squab in a lemon-olive sauce, and porcini-crusted rack of lamb with black pepper spaetzle. It looked like Chrissie and Charlie Hineman had saved a spot for me at their table. I was hungry, but I wasn’t feeling all that sociable.
I walked back up the hill to the cottage. The door was open. I didn’t remember leaving it like that. I opened it slowly and looked inside. I saw someone sitting on the bed. It was Tiffani St. James.
“Well, if it isn’t Mr. Neat,” she said.
I stepped inside the cottage.
“Surprised?” asked Tiffani.
“Words can’t express,” I said.
“Glad to see me?”
“Should I be?”
She scrunched up her nose.
“You’re supposed to say yes.”
She had changed clothes. She was no longer Little Miss Beach Babe. She wore a slinky black dress and strappy black shoes with heels the shape of daggers. The look was Downtown Saturday Night. Only it was Sunday and we were on Harbour Island. So the effect was more All Dressed Up with No Place to Go.
“What’s happening here, Tiffani?”
“I got tired of sitting around. I want to do something.” She twisted the end of her hair with a finger and played with it, sticking it in her mouth and sucking on it, and looking up at me with her green eyes. The look was fetching. And it was well practiced, which made it pathetic.
She said, “Wanna go out and do something?”
“No.”
“Wanna stay here and do something?”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“Oh, I think it would.” She slipped off her shoes and eased back on the bed. “Come here. Just relax.”
There was a mirror over the dresser by the bed. I went and stood in front of it and checked myself out. Then I turned to her and said, “Do I really look that goddam stupid?”
Tiffani flipped over on the bed and turned her back on me. She sighed a mighty sigh. I sat down in a chair by the ice bucket. Screw it. I took a glass and put some Beefeater’s in it and put some ice on top of that. Rum I drink neat. Gin I don’t. I took a sip. I took another.
Tiffani sprang up on the bed. She bounced on the side of it, all smiley and ready to play again.
“What are you drinking?”
“Poor man’s martini.”
“Oh, I love martinis. Make me one, OK?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because you aren’t old enough.”
“How do you know?”
“You’re nineteen.”
“How do you know that?”
“Lynfield Pederson told me.”
“Who?”
“Lynfield Pederson, the police inspector. The man who came and talked to you about Bryce Gannon.”
“Oh, him. He’s mean. He asked a lot of questions.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Not much. Zoe did most of the talking.”
“Does Zoe always do most of the talking?”
“Yeah, pretty much. She’s smart. She knows how to handle things.”
“How do you know each other?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, how did you meet, how did you get to know her and Burma Downey?”
“Oh, clubs, you know. Just hanging out. Burma knew I wanted to be a model and she said she could help me. She used to be one you know. A model. Only she’s, like, thirty now.”
“What about Zoe?”
“What about her?”
“Did you meet her hanging out in clubs, too?”
“Yeah, she’s a friend of Cheri’s.”
“Cheri?”
“Uh-huh. Cheri Swanson. She wants to be a model, too. Me and her, we used to work together, but then Burma started helping Cheri, and she stopped working. Cheri’s beautiful. She’s tall and thin, and she’s hardly got any boobs at all. Me, my boobs are too big, way too big. Don’t you think so?”
I rattled the ice in my glass. The gin was gone.
I said, “So tell me about Zoe. What does she do?”
Tiffani shrugged.
“I don’t know. Takes care of . . . of Burma mostly.” She chewed at a fingernail and spit it out. “Before that I think she was like a personal trainer or something. She works out a lot. Runs, like, ten miles a day. She knows karate and everything. Only it’s not called karate. It’s like tie one . . . something.”
“Tae kwan do.”
“That’s it. You’re smart, you know that? Smart and handsome. I really think me and you should party.”
“Cut the crap, Tiffani.”
She had a patent on pouting. She gave me one of her best ones.
“You don’t have to be so grouchy. I just came by to cheer you up.”
“Did you cheer up Bryce Gannon?”
She flinched a little, but only a little.
“I tried to. But he was always too busy. He kept saying me and him were going to hook up, and then he . . .” She stopped. “It’s too bad he’s dead. He was nice. I liked the way he talked. He sounded like Paul McCartney.”
“How did you know Gannon?”
“Oh, I just went down to the Bahama Sands and hung out and, you know, these things just have a way of happening.”
I sat there trying to figure out who I would cast in the role of Tiffani St. James if my life became a movie. I think one of those Arquette sisters, the plump one with the baby-doll voice. All sweetness and innocence and not nearly as dumb as she acts.
“Did you sleep with Gannon?”
That’s personal, you.” She tried to act offended. She was a lousy actor. “But no, I didn’t. I mean, I only knew him for a couple of nights.”
“And he gave you a ride home last night?”
“Yes.”
“So why were you driving the golf cart?”
“What’s with all the questions? You ask more questions than that policeman did.”
“I’m just wondering why, if Gannon offered to give you a ride, you were the one who was driving, that’s all.”
“Well, so what? I like driving those little golf carts. They’re fun. They remind me of those rides at the fair, those bumper car thingies. I asked Bryce if I could drive and he said yes.”
“And you drove to your place and you got out. Then they drove off. And that was the last you saw of them.”
“That’s right.”
Tiffani stood up from the bed. She reached behind her back, unzipped her dress, and it fell to the floor. Just like that. She stood there naked, smiling.
“What are you doing, Tiffani?”
