“I think he’s a kind of companion,” I said.
“We talked to Corkle,” Viviase said.
“What did Corkle tell you?” I asked Viviase, making another effort to get up. Ames reached for my arm.
“Lie down, partner,” he said.
I did. The thin pillow felt just right behind my head, and I wanted to go to sleep. I was sure I had been given something to ease the pain.
“Corkle had nothing much to say,” said Viviase. “He did refer to himself in the third person and compared life to a game of poker twice. He tried to give me a box with a Wonder Chopper inside. I told him I couldn’t take it. Your mini CD player and the CDs are being held as possible evidence.”
“Of what?” Ames asked.
“I don’t know,” said Viviase. “I have a headache and I don’t know. Just answer the questions, Fonesca, and don’t ask any. I have places to go and things to do, and my wife promised me that she would have chicken in duck sauce for dinner tonight. I plan to be there for it.”
I nodded. Ames stood straight and silent.
“You moved to a new place,” Viviase said.
“Yes. Had to. DQ is gone. My office building goes down tomorrow. I’m right around the corner, off of Laurel.”
“Life goes on,” Viviase said.
“Even when we don’t care.”
“The Chinese guy?” said Viviase.
“He’s moving with me, I think.”
“You’re nuts,” said Viviase.
“No… Maybe. It doesn’t matter.”
“Get better. Come and see me,” he said taking a deep breath. Then he turned his head toward Ames and added, “Take care of him.”
“I aim to,” said Ames.
When Viviase was gone, I stood again, this time without Ames’s help.
“We going to look for whoever took the shot?” he asked.
“We are,” I said. “Either that or I buy a car and head out of town forever.”
“That won’t work.”
“I guess.”
“Where do we start?”
“In juvenile detention,” I said, adjusting my Cubs cap and noticing that it had a slight but real tear on the right side. “First we talk to Augustine.”
I didn’t fall on my face as we moved to the elevator to go up to the private fourth floor room where Jeff Augustine was lying on his back. He wore a white hospital gown with a thin white blanket pulled up to his chest. An IV was going. His left eye was closed. His right eye was covered by a taped-down gauze pad. His hands were folded in front of him. He looked like a one-eyed saint.
“Jeff?” I tried.
Augustine made a sound but didn’t open his eye. I tried again.
“Augustine.”
This time his left eye popped open and he let out a pained groan as he reached up with his right hand to touch the injured eye.
“Hurts,” he said.
“I know,” I said.
“How would you know?”
“I have a natural empathy. Besides I got caught by flying glass.”
“We get a medal or something?” Augustine asked, closing his eye again and explaining, “Hurts less when both eyes are closed. I may lose the eye.”
“Maybe so,” said Ames.
“Who is he?” Augustine said, being careful not to turn his head.
“My friend,” I said. “Ames McKinney.”
“Weren’t we both in an episode of The Yellow Rose?”
“Not an actor,” said Ames.
“I could have sworn, but… Damn, what if this killed me? My obit would make a single line in Variety, ‘Bit Player Killed by BB Gun.’ Bitter irony.”
Alana Legerman walked in. She wafted perfume and looked sleek, dark, and beautiful.
“What happened?” she asked, moving to the side of the bed next to Augustine.
She was as tranquil as her offspring Greg was wired.
“Someone shot BBs at us,” said Augustine. “Hit me in the eye.”
“Who did it?” she asked.
No one had an answer, but Alana Legerman had a question.
She looked at Augustine and said, “Are you all right? Are you going to lose your eye?”
She tried to say it nice, but it was as if she were asking if the dime dropped on the floor was his. I couldn’t be sure if she was just saying the right thing or if she had shown concern to her father’s employee beyond that of an heiress.
“I’m all right,” Augustine said. “I’ve still got one twenty-twenty eye.”
“I’m all right too,” I said.
There was no way even a casual glance would have failed to reveal the scratches on my face and neck.
“I’m sorry,” said Alana Legerman. “How are you, Mr…”
“Fonesca,” Ames supplied. “Mr. Lewis Fonesca. And my name’s Ames McKinney.”
“And what have you got to do with my father and Jeff?”
“Your father has asked me to look into the murder of Philip Horvecki.”
“You’re a private investigator?”
“No, a process server.”
She was unimpressed.
“You think my son’s friend killed Horvecki?”
“The police think so. The television stations, the newspaper and most of the people in Sarasota probably think so.”
“Why don’t you just ask Ronnie Gerall what happened?”she asked.
Jeff Augustine’s left eye was open wide and looking at Alana Legerman. I moved toward the door, Ames at my side.
“I think we’ll do that,” I said.
3
The problem was immediately clear after we talked to Ronnie Gerall across a table in the visitors’ room in the county jail. I got the impression that he worked at being independent, superior, and unlikable, but I could have been wrong. He could simply and naturally be what my uncle called a Merdu, which roughly translated from the Italian means “dickhead.”
Ronnie was about six feet tall and had the build of an athlete, the drawn-back, almost blond hair of a teen movie idol, blue eyes, and a look of total boredom. He could easily have passed for twenty-one, which I was sure he did when it suited him.
It had started badly. Gerall had been ushered in. He wore a loose-fitting orange jail suit and a look that said, “Look at what those jerks sent me.” He didn’t offer his hand to Ames and me or ask or say anything at first; he just sat in the wooden chair with his right leg extended and half turned as if he planned to escape at the first sign of ennui.
Ames and I took seats. The full-bellied, uniformed guard, who looked almost as bored as Ronnie Gerall, stood with his back to the door, arms folded. The room was large enough that the guard wouldn’t hear us if we whispered. Ronnie had no intention of whispering.
“Greg Legerman told me you were coming,” he said.
That required no answer so I just kept sitting and watching him.
“Please do me a favor before we have anything that resembles conversation,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Would you mind taking off that dopey baseball cap.”
“Yes, I would.”
“I watched you and an old man drive up on a motor scooter,” he said, ignoring my answer.
“And…?”
“You can’t afford a car?”
“Don’t want the responsibility,” I said.
“How did Greg Legerman find you?” he asked shaking his head and looking first at Ames and then at me.
“Luck,” I said.
We sat in silence for about a minute, during which he found his fingernails fascinating and the palms of his hands, particularly the right one, profound.
“I did not kill Philip Horvecki,” he said, looking up.
“Tell us what happened.”
“Why not? I’ve got time. It was Thursday night. He called, said he would meet with me. Horvecki said he wanted to talk.”
“You sure it was Horvecki?” I asked.
“Old men all sound alike, either like sick hummingbirds or gravel pits. This was gravel pits. Pure Horvecki.”
He looked at Ames, who could have been number five on Mount Rushmore.
“Go on,” I prompted.
“I went to his house.”
“Right away?”
“Yes.”
“You told someone you were going?”
“No. Can I go on?”
“Yes.”
“I rang the bell. No answer. I tried the door. Open.” I went in. The place is a nightmare. Black wood, black tile floors, white walls. Even the paintings are almost all black and white. No wonder someone killed him.”