“So am I,” he said, and guessed he meant it.
“Walking out,” she said. “Dumb. Just plain dumb.” She hesitated and then said, “Just when it was getting good, too.”
There was a sudden silence on the line.
Matthew cleared his throat.
“Uh, Susan,” he said, “about the weekend...”
“Yes, the weekend,” Susan said. “Here’s what I thought, if it’s okay with you. Can you pick her up here at about five on Friday?”
“Sure, that’ll—”
“And if you have a little time, maybe you can come in for a drink.”
Another silence on the line.
“Yes, I’d like that,” Matthew said.
“So would I,” Susan said.
“So... Friday at five, right?”
“Right. See you then. And Matthew...?”
“Yes?”
Her voice lowered. “It really was getting good.”
There was a small click on the line.
It sounded like a maiden’s blush.
Smiling, he put the receiver back on the cradle and pulled the first of the two folders to him. Both folders had been labeled here at the office yesterday morning, after he’d given the photocopied pages to Cynthia. Both folders contained Otto’s standard contract form, signed by himself and the party or parties hiring him, stapled to which was a two-paragraph rider. The first paragraph stated why Otto was being hired, and the second was a disclaimer to the effect that whereas Otto would investigate diligently and in good faith, there was no guarantee, stated or implied, that he would necessarily achieve results. That Otto had felt it essential to add this rider to his basic contract indicated that he’d been burned before and was taking no chances on collecting his fee. Each folder also contained Otto’s daily notes on the case, all of them typed clean.
The first folder was labeled DAVID LARKIN.
Whether you approached the place by land or by sea, it didn’t make any difference. Either way, you could see the sign announcing Larkin Boats. Big white double-sided sign with ice-blue plastic lettering on each side, LARKIN BOATS. Biggest retailer of boats in all Calusa, sold them new, sold them used, sold them from dinghies to yachts — Larkin Boats, his TV commercials said, The Way to the Water. The showroom was on the Trail itself, but behind that was a deepwater canal and enough dock space to accommodate fifteen, twenty boats, depending on the size. Bird sanctuary just beyond the canal, and beyond that the Inland Waterway, man wants to take a boat out for a spin, be my guest. Larkin Boats, The Way to the Water.
Late that Wednesday morning, Larkin was sitting with Jimmy the Accountant on the foredeck of a fifty-seven-foot Chris-Craft Constellation, a boat maybe twenty years old but still in terrific shape, could take you clear to the Bahamas if you wanted it to. Larkin was wearing jeans and Topsiders, and a white T-shirt with blue lettering on it: Larkin Boats, The Way to the Water. Jimmy the Accountant was wearing a green polyester suit and pointy brown shoes and a white shirt with a tie looked like somebody vomited on it and mirrored sunglasses and a narrow-brimmed straw fedora. Jimmy was five feet eight inches tall and he weighed a hundred and eighty pounds, and Larkin thought he looked more like a fat spic than the Italian he actually was. Jimmy’s real name was James Anthony Largura but almost everybody called him Jimmy the Accountant or Jimmy Legs, both names having to do with his occupation. Jimmy the Accountant came to see you when there was an accounting due. Jimmy Legs broke your legs if you didn’t account to his satisfaction. Or your arms. Or your head. Or sometimes only your eyeglasses.
Jimmy was Larkin’s younger brother.
Jimmy was here to ask if Larkin could let him and some friends of his use one of the boats for a little trip they had to make on Friday, the twentieth of June. The kind of boat Jimmy had in mind was a cigarette. Which could outrun the Coast Guard, if Larkin followed his drift. Larkin followed his drift perfectly, not for nothing were they brothers. Jimmy and his friends were expecting another shipment, of what Larkin didn’t want to know. Larkin made a point of never asking Jimmy about business. That way, Larkin stayed clean. Every once in a while, Jimmy asked him for the use of a boat. Larkin always said what he said now.
“If somebody accidentally left the keys in one of the boats, and somebody came in and used it, I wouldn’t know anything about it. It comes back safe and sound, that’s terrific. It gets blown out of the water, I didn’t even know it was gone.”
“Yeah, that’s cool,” Jimmy said.
Forty-two years old, Larkin thought, and he looks like a fat spic, and he buys his clothes in the discount joints lining 41, and he still talks like a teenager. Yeah, that’s cool. Jesus!
“Then we pick it up that night sometime, that’s cool with you, huh?”
“If I don’t know anything about it,” Larkin said.
“But the keys’ll be in one of the cigarettes, huh?”
“It’s possible keys could get left in a boat by mistake.”
“Sure, I dig,” Jimmy said.
I dig, Larkin thought. Jesus!
The men sat in the sunshine drinking beer.
“I hear you’re searchin’ for some broad,” Jimmy said.
Larkin looked at him.
“A Miami hooker,” Jimmy said.
Larkin said nothing.
“Stole your watch,” Jimmy said.
“Where’d you hear that?” Larkin said.
“You remember Jackie? Jackie Pasconi, his mother used to run the candy store downstairs when we were kids in New York? Jackie? Pasconi? Whose brother got stabbed up in Attica? Don’t you remember Jackie?”
“What about him?”
“What he does sometimes, he works — he used to work — for this guy got shot here last Sunday. This Jewish guy, I forget his name. Jackie done work for him in Miami.”
“What kind of work?”
“Like listening around, you know? Like a snitch, sort of, but not really, ’cause this wasn’t for the cops, it was for this Jewish private eye, what the fuck’s his name, I can’t think of his name right now.”
“Samalson,” Larkin said.
“Yeah, right, Samuelson.”
“So?” Larkin said.
“So I run into Jackie at the dogs, he starts tellin’ me my brother hired this private eye to find this hooker ran off with his solid gold Rolex, that’s what Jackie tells me.”
Larkin looked at him again.
“Is it true?” Jimmy asked. “That a hooker took you for five bills plus the gold Rolex?”
“No, I didn’t pay her nothing,” Larkin said. “I didn’t even know she was a pro.”
“But she got your watch though.”
“Yeah.”
“Walked off with the watch, huh?”
“It was on the dresser.”
“You musta been sleeping, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“This was when, in the morning?”
“Yeah.”
“She was gone when you woke up, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“With the watch.”
“Yeah.”
“So why’d you go to a private eye? Whyn’t you come to me? I’m your brother, I coulda taken care of this for you.”
“Well.”
“Better’n any fuckin’ private eye, that’s for sure. Who got himself killed, by the way.”
“Well.”
“You think she mighta done it?”
“I know she did,” Larkin said.
“Killed him? No shit?”
“No, no, I thought you meant—”
“Oh, the watch, sure. But you don’t think she killed him, huh?”
“Who the fuck knows what she did,” Larkin said.
One thing he knew for sure, she’d stolen his watch. The other thing he knew for sure... well, the other thing was something he hadn’t even told Samalson, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to tell his brother, either. Nor anybody. Ever. Fucking little bitch! He wondered now, sitting in the sunshine on the foredeck of a sleek Constellation with his fat brother Jimmy Legs the Accountant in his polyester suit, wondered if maybe she had killed Samalson. Because suppose Samalson was getting close? And suppose she knew this was something more than a solid gold Rolex, this was something could get a pretty girl’s face rearranged in a way you’d never recognize her again. And suppose she knew the minute Samalson zeroed in she’d be having company who didn’t want to hear no shit about what a big gorgeous cock you got, honey. It was possible. Desperate people did desperate things.