“You don’t have one.”
I reached behind under my shirt to the small of my back and pulled out my Glock, keeping the gun out of sight from the campers and trailers behind us.
Nick’s eyes went wide. “Oh shit. I didn’t know you’d brought your pistol.”
“Stand to the right, Nick. This interrogation will be real quick.” I could read the United Rental sign on the light blue door to the John. Also, I could see that the occupant failed to lock the door. Bad mistake. I held the Glock in my right hand. With my left hand, I jerked the door open. There was Smitty, pants down around his ankles, sitting on the seat, best friend in his hand, looking down the barrel of the Glock. His face melted. I said, “Didn’t your daddy tell you to lock the bathroom door? Don’t even think of lying to me! If you do, they’ll find you dead on the shitter. Understand?”
He nodded, his voice caught in his throat.
“Courtney Burke didn’t kill Lonnie Ebert, right?”
He nodded, his face bright red.
“Who killed Lonnie?
“Don’t know! I swear!”
“Did Bandini order it?”
“That’s what the word on the street is, yeah.”
“Why?”
“I heard it was on account Lonnie was double-dipping.”
“How’d you hear that?”
“From Lonnie. He was my friend. He told me Tony Bandini had actually shorted him two G’s so he was taking it back in installments. I don’t know how Bandini or his guys caught him. But Lonnie knew they were on to him. He was makin’ plans to get out of town with that chick, Courtney. But he waited one night too long.”
I pulled a business card from my shirt pocket and tossed it to Smitty. “The number on that card is to Detective Dan Grant of the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office. Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to pull your pants up, and then you’re going to call the detective and tell him what you told me.”
“You don’t know the Bandini family.”
“And you don’t know me. I won’t let an innocent girl take the fall. If you even think about running, I’ll hunt you down. And guess what?”
“What?”
“I will find you.”
I slammed the door and walked away. Nick followed me and said, “That guy’s balls shrank to the size of two peas. You believe he’s telling the truth?”
“He didn’t have time to lie.”
“You think he’ll call that detective?”
“Don’t know. But I will, and I’ll tell him where he can find Smitty.” I looked across the back parking lot to where the customized Bandini bus sat, diesels purring, Randal Barnes, no doubt, conveying everything I’d asked him. Worse yet, what Nick had told him. I walked to a spot where a large camper blocked the line-of-sight from Nick and me to the bus. “You made a mistake back there.”
“What mistake?”
“Nick, you told Barnes that you overheard the conservation between Smitty and him. They were probably drinking so much they don’t remember exactly what they said about the murder, the hit on Lonnie. But now they know that you know, and that makes you a potential liability to these guys.”
“You think they could come after me?”
“Maybe.”
“They take one step on my boat and I’ll put what’s left of ‘em in my crab traps.”
“Let’s head back to the marina.”
As we walked through the midway, I was now worried for two people, a girl who might be my daughter, and a man who was like my brother.
29
It was on our walk back to the parking lot when I heard a voice that stopped me in my tracks. “Lemme guess your age and weight,” said the man. “Nobody can beat the Guesser. How about you, young lady? Bet I can guess your weight to within one pound and your age to the exact year.”
I could hear some teenagers laughing, the conversation fun, challenging each other. “Nick, let’s see what’s on the other side of the Shoot-O-Rama, I heard a familiar voice.”
We walked around the arcade and watched as a dwarf sat on a three-legged stool, wireless microphone in one hand, a large weighing scale to the right of his stool. A half dozen high school students stood near him, watching as he sized up a large man and said, “Sir, I bet you are two hundred five pounds, including the weight of those brogan boots you’re wearing, and they haven’t gone out of style since their introduction in the Civil War.”
The man laughed, and looked at his girlfriend next to him. He turned back to the dwarf and said, “You’re good.”
The little man leaned forward in a short bow. “Okay, pilgrim, stand on the great revealer called a scale.”
The man stepped on the scale and the needle swept past the two-hundred mark for a second, and then pointed to 206. The man shook his head and smiled. “All right, how old do you think I am?”
“Old enough to know better.” The dwarf held his hands like he was looking into an invisible window. “I can see back to your birth. You were born thirty-seven years ago.”
The man’s mouth dropped, eyebrows arching. “That’s damn good.”
“Tell the crowd your age?”
“I’m thirty-seven, turning thirty-eight next week.”
“But that doesn’t count right now. Thank you, sir. Next person for the Guesser, step right up here.”
The man grinned and pulled a baseball cap back on his head and walked away with his girlfriend, both laughing. The teenagers drifted off, chasing toward the Toboggan Run ride. The dwarf turned to Nick and me. “Aren’t you a tall one? Bet I can guess your weight, height and age.”
“I bet I can guess your name … Isaac Solminski.”
He looked at me, eyes widening, smile growing. He tilted his head. “That’s impressive.” His falsetto voice rose slightly. “However, I recognize your voice, too, Mr. O’Brien. And your friend is …”
“I’m Nick. You’ll never guess my age ‘cause Greeks age differently than most of the world. I’m a two-thousand-year old optical illusion.”
“I like your friend, Mr. O’Brien. He doesn’t look a day over forty-four.”
Nick grinned. “Something’s wrong here. Nobody ever gets my age on the nose. Either I’ve aged a hellava lot in the last two days, or you’re really good.”
“It’s the latter.”
I watched Solminski click off the switch on the microphone. I said, “Courtney trusted you enough to tell you about my birthmark. Did she tell you how she knew, who told her? Your answer is very important.”
“She told me exactly what I relayed to you on the phone.”
“Where is she?”
“I couldn’t say for sure.”
“You’re a good guesser but a bad liar. I’m the only one looking for her who actually believes she’s not a killer. I need to find her first.”
“I wish I could help you, but to help you would only hurt Courtney. But I can say …” He paused and looked beyond my left shoulder, his eyes cautious, locking on to something behind me. He set the microphone on a corner of his stool. “If I were to venture another guess about you both, I’d say you’re being watched, no you’re being followed.”
I looked up at a slight reflection off the round glass face on the scale. I could see two men standing in the midway, their body language in surveillance mode, standing out in a crowd of moving people. “Is it Carlos Bandini?”
“No. It’s some guys who work for him. Why are they tailing you two?”
“You know a guy named Randal Barnes and one called Smitty?”
“Smitty is Tyler Smith. Barnes works directly for Bandini.”
“Barnes and Smitty were drinking in a bar, someone overheard them saying Lonnie was a drug mule for the Bandini family. I wanted to give Barnes the opportunity to tell me how Courtney wasn’t involved.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Because if he wasn’t involved in the Bandini drug enterprise, he might be willing to tell me just enough to take any potential heat off him. But now I know his job description is beyond only working as a ride operator. Smitty was Lonnie’s friend. I strongly encouraged him to call the same detective who spoke with you the day you called me, Detective Grant. Smitty can vouch that Courtney Burke had nothing to do with Lonnie’s murder.”