“Just a moment.”

  Weingarten’s voice was muffled. He was talking to someone else.

  “I’m looking at a printout of the activity on his Visa card and his checking account,” Weingarten said grimly. “He’s been using his ATM card, as recently as last night. There are long distance calls to his girlfriend’s apartment from Ft. Lauderdale.”

  “It’s a trick,” Truman insisted. “I know it is.”

  “Dead men don’t call collect, Mr. Kicklighter. Do yourself a favor. Find a nice hobby. Shuffleboard, maybe.”

  Chapter TWENTY-TWO

  LeeAnn Pilker slipped out of the king-sized bed, pulling the sheet up over Ronnie’s shoulder so he wouldn’t notice she was gone. She stood there, looking down at him, feeling something like tenderness.

  There was something about men in their sleep. They looked so helpless and vulnerable. Even Ronnie Bondurant. With his hair mussed you could see a little quarter-sized bald spot on the back of his head. And with one cheek flattened against his pillow, his dark features were soft, almost sweet. She stopped herself there, though. Sweet? Ronnie? No, she wouldn’t go that far.

  Her suitcase was on a chair, near the door. She rummaged around and found the black tank bathing suit. She’d just barely had time to throw a few things together on Tuesday, after Ronnie called her apartment a rathole and insisted she move in with him. Right then.

  Well, why not? It was a nice place. A sprawling white-brick ranch house, smack dab on Tampa Bay, on Pinellas Point. There was a dock out back, and hanging high in the air on a set of davits, a gleaming new turquoise-and-white Hydrasport. A practiced look told her those were twin 200-horsepower Evinrude outboards. There was a time, when she was a teenager, when she knew the make and model of every boat on the bay. Especially the cool ones. Ronnie’s house had a pool, too, on the screened-in porch that led off the kitchen. Everything was very neat, if just a bit shabby. There were tiny rips in the leather sofas in the Florida room that looked out over the pool and the bay, and two or three panels of the screening on the porch were torn. The lawn was in bad shape, half the grass dead or dying, and the bushes scraggly and unkempt. Ronnie didn’t spend a lot of time at home, she’d learned.

  She made a pot of coffee, found a towel, and headed for the pool. She plunged in, dove all the way to the bottom, hovered there for a minute or two, then let herself bob to the surface.

  This, LeeAnn thought, was heaven. With long, even strokes she swam to the shallow end, touched the tile coping with her fingertips, and executed a respectable flip turn. She swam two more laps, then paused at the deep end, holding on to the wall, inhaling that sharp, distinct smell. Chlorine. It really was her favorite scent. Absolutely clean and clear. She’d always loved swimming. And it was great exercise because it kept your legs toned and your chest muscles strong. She couldn’t swim too much, though, or she’d end up with a set of shoulders like Arnold Schwarzenegger. The management at the club frowned on big shoulders. Except on bouncers like Margie.

  What the hell? LeeAnn did another lap. Who needed the Candy Store? Ronnie was already making noises about her moving in here permanently. And he kept talking about plans, big plans.

  That first night he came into the club while she was dancing, a dozen Pasco County shit-kickers, dressed up in cowboy hats and boots, the whole rig, were whooping it up at the front table.

  Ronnie walked right up, with that creepy friend of his, Wormy, threw five hundred-dollar bills down on the table. “Round-up time, boys,” he announced. Wormy pulled a chair out from beneath one of the scrawnier guys, then pulled his jacket aside so the guy could see something shoved into his belt. A gun, probably. The cowboys cleared out in a hurry, taking the money with them. And Ronnie and Wormy sat through both shows. All the girls got $50 tips that night, except for LeeAnn. Ronnie was waiting by his big gray Lincoln when she got off work at three A.M.

  She went with him. He was generous, for sure. When they’d gotten back to this house on the water, he’d given her $500. Cash. “Go shopping,” Ronnie said. “Buy yourself some sharp clothes. And high heels. I like high heels. The kind with ankle straps.”

  That old guy, the one who showed up at the club with Jeff’s friend Eddie. He’d tried to make her feel bad about two-timing Jeff. Hinted that maybe something bad had happened to Jeff. LeeAnn was a realist. Jeff had dumped her. The plastic surgeon had turned her account over to a collection agency. They called constantly, day and night. Once the bastards even showed up at her apartment. That was another reason to move in with Ronnie. No hassles. And he loved her implants.

  “The bigger the better, sugar,” he told her.

  She was back at the shallow end, going into the kick turn when she felt a hand on her head.

  Her heart almost stopped. She opened her mouth, took in a lungful of the chlorinated water, and surfaced, sputtering for air.

  Ronnie sat by the side of the pool. He was dressed in white cotton slacks, a white golf shirt, Docksiders, no socks. Like he was headed for a day of yachting.

  “Morning, sugar,” he said brightly.

  She shook the long, dark hair out of her eyes, spraying him with droplets of water.

  “You scared me.”

  Ronnie ran his index finger down the side of her face.

  “I been sitting here watching you swim. No prettier fish in the sea. But I can’t figure out why a beautiful body like yours is all bundled up in an ugly old bathing suit? Huh?”

  He took the strap of her suit and gently slid it off one shoulder, then the other.

  LeeAnn felt goose bumps on the back of her neck. It was just the cold, she reasoned.

  “I need the support when I’m swimming, Ronnie,” she explained. “You know, when you’re a D cup, they tend to get in the way.”

  He threw his head back and laughed and laughed at that one.

  “In whose way?”

  So she left the suit at the edge of the shallow end, near the handrail, and she did what Ronnie requested. Swam to the deep end. Got out and stood there. And dove in again. Swam to the shallow end, got out and walked, bare-ass naked, back to the deep end, to repeat the performance all over again. It bugged her. Made her feel what? Nasty?

  Dancing naked at the club never bothered her. She’d started there as a waitress, quickly seen that the big rips were for the dancers, and within a month, she’d gotten rid of her inhibitions, and most of her clothes.

  She was padding dutifully back to the deep end when he called her over to him.

  Ronnie was sitting on a wrought-iron chair, part of a patio set. She reached for the towel she’d left on the glass-topped table, but he pulled it away. So she sat there, with the wrought-iron chairs making little flower and vine marks on her butt.

  “Those,” he said, reaching out and touching her nipple, “are the most perfect titties I’ve ever seen. That doctor of yours was an artist.”

  “I guess so,” she said and shrugged. She really did not see what the big deal was about large breasts. It probably went back to caveman times, she decided. Besides, she’d always remember those bruises, how sore she was after the surgery.

  “What’d you say that doctor’s name was, sugar?”

  She made a face. “Dr. Newcomb. It’s hard to forget when they call you over and over again to remind you what you owe them.”

  “He’s supposed to be good?”

  “I guess,” she said. “A lot of girls at the clubs in town use him. He gives some kind of courtesy discount. Supposedly. It’s still expensive as shit.”

  “But worth it,” Ronnie said. “I believe I’ll call this Dr. Newcomb. See if we can’t get that bill of yours paid off. Maybe we’ll do a little dickering.”

  LeeAnn frowned. “Dickering? He’s a doctor, Ronnie. He has set prices. You don’t dicker with a plastic surgeon.”

  He threw the towel back to her. “You just leave that to me. I got a red Corvette, got plastic surgeon written all over it. There ain’t a doctor alive who can resist the call of a Corvette, sugar.”

  They were drinking coffee in the kitchen when the doorbell rang. Ronnie didn’t bother to look up from the sports page. “Get that, will you?”

  It was Wormy. She didn’t know why he made her feel so creepy. It wasn’t like he looked at her the way men did all the time. It was more like he looked right through her.

  He followed her into the kitchen without saying a word. Poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table with Ronnie.

  Ronnie put his cup down. “LeeAnn, honey,” he said. “How about you go outside and give that grass a good watering? I just noticed it’s looking a little brown. Think you could do that?”

  “Sure,” LeeAnn said. She’d been looking for an excuse to get out of the kitchen. Anywhere would do. Maybe later, she’d get Ronnie to let her take the Hydrasport out for a ride on the bay.

  She found the hose coiled up on the side of the house, turned the water on, and walked out to the worst part of the lawn, close to where the seawall was. The water came out in a blast, kicking up dead grass and pea gravel from a sick-looking bed of hibiscus. What she needed was a spray attachment. She walked around the yard, looking for a toolshed or something.

  There was a door to the garage back by the spigot. Maybe Ronnie kept his yard tools in there. She’d find some clippers too, give the hibiscus a trim.

  There was a set of metal shelves near the door to the kitchen, with clippers and tools and bits and pieces of nails and other crap scattered all over, not neat like Ronnie usually was. She was standing there, surveying the mess, when she heard Ronnie’s voice.

  “No more real accidents. I mean it. That monkey last night, Billy, he bled all over my car. Remind me to get some of that carpet cleaner from the shop later on.”

  “The kid called the lot and left a message on the machine,” Wormy said. “They’re supposed to let him out of Bayfront this afternoon, maybe. And guess what? He’s already running his mouth about who pays the bill.”

  “Unbelievable,” Ronnie said. “Who the fuck told him to hit that Mercedes going forty miles an hour? It’s his own goddamn fault he got hurt.”

  “He tell you he wanted seven hundred dollars to do Boone’s car?” Wormy asked.

  “Yeah, like I’m Santa Claus,” Ronnie said. “Tell him to tell it to Boone. Billy gets two hundred, I get the rest. Make sure he understands that.”

  “He’ll understand.”

  “You see,” Ronnie continued, “that’s why I’m thinking, what do we need with all these monkeys and cars? They’re a pain in the ass.”

  “How else do we do it?” Wormy asked.

  “This is the beauty part,” Ronnie said. “We go to a parking lot somewhere. Office building, shopping center, whatever. We look in the windshield, write down the VIN number off the metal plate on the dashboard, then take down the tag number. Then we call up an insurance agent, tell him we want a collision policy on the car.”

  “Whose car?” Wormy asked, confused now.

  “The car in the parking lot.”

  “But it ain’t ours.”

  “You ever had an agent ask you for the title when you buy a policy?” Ronnie asked. “No. They want your money. They get the VIN and your tag number, and away we go.”

  “How we gonna stage a wreck with no car?” Wormy asked. Just when he thought he had stuff figured out, Ronnie threw him a new curve. That’s why it was good working for Ronnie, ‘cause with a mind like that, you never knew what was coming.

  “We don’t need a car, we don’t need a wreck,” Ronnie said. “Just a Corvette, and Joe and his air knife.”

  “But you said it was too expensive to keep having Joe do ‘em,” Wormy complained.

  “That was when we were having to wreck our own cars,” Ronnie said patiently. “This way, we do away with the monkeys, the cars, everything. Put an ad in the paper and sell off the Corvettes after five or six jobs. We got our original investment back, plus fifty or sixty thousand in gravy.”

  “What about Boone?”

  “We’ll see,” Ronnie said. “This new setup gives us greater profit potential. Could be we don’t need him.”

  “We never did need him, you ask me,” Wormy said. “Him or Billy Tripp. Billy’s done too many jobs for us, Ron. He knows all the angles. And now he knows Boone, too. It’s kinda bugging me. What if Tripp gets pissed off about this Mercedes deal? What if he decides to go to the cops or something, or worse, goes to work for Boone?”

  LeeAnn had forgotten about the lawn and the clippers and everything. She sat on the concrete floor of the garage, fascinated. What all was Ronnie into? And Boone? He must be the big mixed-breed dude with the braid. Why were Ronnie and Wormy so worried about him?

  “Quit worrying so much,” Ronnie said. “We’ll watch Tripp. He gives us any reason, he’ll end up the same place as Cantrell. Billy Tripp takes a trip, huh?”

  At the mention of Jeff’s name, LeeAnn gasped involuntarily. She had to clamp her hand over her mouth to keep from crying out. What did they mean? The same place as Cantrell?

  “Which reminds me,” Wormy said. “We’re gonna need to move old Jeff in the near future.”

  “I don’t want to know,” Ronnie said firmly. “You take care of it. That’s your job.”

  “Yeah, Ron, but don’t you forget to take care of your end of business, too,” Wormy said slyly. “That chick of yours, LeeAnn. Why you want to mess with Cantrell’s girlfriend? Thousands of chicks in this town waiting in line for a guy like you. Why get mixed up with her? How do you know she’s not using you to try to figure out what happened to her boyfriend?”

  Ronnie slapped his newspaper on the kitchen table. “Her? Using me? That’s a good one. Let me tell you something. LeeAnn’s not much on personality. She’s got shit for brains. And half the time she dresses like a friggin’ nun. But her body, her face. Wormy, she’s got the potential. Big-time potential.”

  “For what?” Wormy asked, astonished. “Slut of the month? Stripper of the year?”

  “Perfection,” Ronnie repeated, as matter-of-factly as if he were discussing the paint job on a new Lexus.

  “You kidding?”

  In the garage, LeeAnn thought she might gag. Money or no money, she’d found herself a real sick ticket this time.

  “I been looking, watching,” Ronnie went on. “The fat to body weight ratio is excellent. All that dancing, her legs are perfect, arms slender, with well-defined musculature. The tits? Well, they’re the work of a pro. Perfect Ds, both of them. I checked.”

  “So?”

  “I’m not saying there’s not some problem areas,” Ronnie said. “Her ass is just the tiniest bit saggy. And she’s got a bump on her nose. But they can do liposuction. Rhinoplasty on the nose. I’m gonna get the same guy who did the tits.”

  “I don’t like them Jap-looking eyes of hers,” Wormy put in. “Like she thinks she’s smarter than Americans like us. All them Japs think that.”

  LeeAnn put her hand to her eyes. Her grandmother had been Korean. LeeAnn had only a faint memory of her, but she’d always loved her almond-shaped eyes. They were unlike anybody else’s.

  “Some people find the Eurasian look mysterious and exotic,” Ronnie said, “but you could be right. I’ll have the eyes straightened out while they’re fixing up the other stuff.”

  “Cost a shitpot of money,” Wormy pointed out.

  “Perfection doesn’t come cheap,” Ronnie said. “Anyway, I’m thinking big. Playmate of the year. Why not? Cash, endorsements, movie contracts, appearances on Howard Stern and Jay Leno. I’ll have special tops made for her that say “Bondurant Motors” right across the tits, like those NASCAR chicks.”

  LeeAnn did not hear the part about her exciting show-business prospects. There were not enough clothes or money or good times in the world to make up for how Ronnie Bondurant proposed to cut her up and put her back together again. Like one of his Corvettes. All plastic. She walked quietly around to the front of the house, crept up to the bedroom, grabbed her purse and the shopping bag of new clothes, stuffing in just a few of her old things. As she passed the dresser, she saw Ronnie’s gold money clip lying there with a heap of change and a penknife. She helped herself. And she left behind the four pairs of ankle-strap high heels. Ronnie Bondurant could shove those shoes right up his ass.

  Her gold Honda Civic—the hatchback model Jeff had sold her, telling her the hatch made it better for resale—stalled twice before she got it started.

  She was around the semicircular driveway and half a block down the street by the time Ronnie and Wormy came running out into the driveway. They jumped into the Lincoln, luckily. She hadn’t had time to take the distributor cap off Wormy’s pickup, too.

  “Truman? Mary Anne says to tell you she likes James Patterson, Danielle Steel, and FBI true crime books.”

  “FBI books?”

  “She reads them all,” Clarice said. “I think she’s got a J. Edgar Hoover fetish.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Truman said. “Did she find anything?”

  “Yes. Although nothing on Hernando Boone. Let me just get my notes. All right. Ronald Bondurant has had three different insurers in the past five years. And three different auto collisions. All rear end. None of them his fault.”

  “What kind of cars?” Truman asked.

  “Um. An ‘89 Lincoln, a ‘91 Corvette, and a ‘92 Corvette. All claims paid by the other driver’s insurer. And here’s something interesting. There’s a code on the report for the claims adjuster who approved the claim. The number is the same on both the Corvette claims. I’ll have to call Mary Anne back to see what name goes with the approval code.”

  “I thought you said it was three different insurers,” Truman said.

  “I did,” she said patiently. “But lots of companies use freelance claims adjusters. The same guy could work for twelve to fourteen different companies, especially if he’s set up with a drive-through arrangement. A one-person outfit can handle a lot more volume in one of those, because there’s less paperwork.”

 

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