“Was the Honda still parked there?”
“Still there.”
“What time did it leave?”
“Bit after five o’clock.”
“The two of them sat watching the house all that time, huh?”
“Watching it, yeah,” Nick said.
“Fiddling with maps, like they were trying to figure out where in hell they were,” Charlie said, “but watching the house.”
“Why do you figure they watched it for such a long time?” Warren asked.
“Not ‘cause they made either of us,” Charlie said, “if that’s what you’re suggestin’.”
“My guess is they were clockin’ traffic,” Nick said. “Tryna figger out who’s goin’ in and out of the house at what times. On’y the house is empty, so what they got was no traffic at all.”
“Unless they spotted you going in from the beach side.”
“No, they were in the car when Nick relieved me,” Charlie said. “You beginnin’ to irritate me, Chambers. You don’t think we can do this friggin’ sissy job, then get yourself somebody else. Ain’t many people I know’d be willin’ to sit in a empty house all day for a shitty ten bucks an hour.”
“A shitty ten bucks, huh?” Warren said.
“I get fifteen when I supervise traffic up the country club,” Charlie said. “When they havin’ a dance up there.”
“How many times a week do you do that?” Warren said.
“Well…”
“Well, my ass,” Warren said. “You’re getting sixty bucks a day here, seven days a week, which where I come from is four-twenty a week, which is probably more than you’re making on the force. Moonlighting never paid so good, and you know it.”
“Well, maybe that’s true,” Charlie said. “But that don’t mean we have to take no shit about bein’ made by two hippie assholes in a Honda. We ain’t amateurs. Chambers. If you thought we was amateurs, you shouldn’ta hired us.”
“Well, I did hire you.”
“So then get off our backs, huh?” Nick said. “We doin’ the job, man.”
There was a long silence.
“You think we can maybe get another beer here?” Charlie said.
Warren signaled for the waitress to bring another round. The beers came some five minutes later. The waitress was a dark-haired girl wearing a very short mini. When she left the table, Charlie said, “Like to get me a little bit of that, man.”
“Slide my hand right up that leg of hers,” Nick said.
“Right under that skirt,” Charlie said.
“Find somethin’ real sweet under that skirt,” Nick said, and licked his lips.
“Why’d you call them hippies?” Warren said.
“We talkin’ pussy here, he’s talkin’ hippies,” Charlie said, and shook his head. “Muss be somethin’ wrong with the man.”
Warren guessed he’d been accepted as one of the gang. A redneck didn’t discuss white pussy with a black man unless he thought they were good ole buddies. Either that, or the black man was being set up for a kick in the balls. Warren didn’t think this was the old Let’s-Walk-the-Nigger-Round-the-Block ploy. He suspected his little lecture about the hourly wage had turned them around. Told them he knew he was paying top dollar and expected top-dollar work in return. Touched on their sense of pride. Maybe they weren’t amateurs, after all.
“Why hippies?” he asked again.
“The one dressed in black looked like he’d been sleepin’ in his clothes for a month,” Charlie said. “Had a earring in his left ear. Long black hair. Forty years old, a total friggin’ hippie asshole.”
“Twenty years too late,” Nick said, and shook his head.
“The other one, too,” Charlie said. “Long red hair, wearin’ clothes he picked outa some trash bin.”
“Fine pair of friggin’ hippie housebreakers,” Nick said.
“You said they were clocking traffic,” Warren said. “When do you figure they’ll make their move?”
“Hey, he’s askin’ us our advice,” Charlie said.
“I’ll be damned,” Nick said. “He’s askin’ the amateurs their advice.”
But both of them were smiling.
“If they sat out there from eleven-thirty…”
“Eleven-forty,” Charlie said.
“Eleven-forty till five o’clock…”
“Bit past five.”
“Then chances are that’s when they plan to hit, don’t you think? Say between noon and five o’clock?”
“Well, maybe so,” Charlie said.
He was still smiling.
“Between noon and five tomorrow, am I right?” Warren said.
“Could be,” Nick said.
He was smiling, too.
“So what’s funny?” Warren said.
“Well, what we figured…”
“This was before we knew they were gonna sit out there so long, but it still holds…”
“What we figured…”
“This was when I come in the back way to relieve Charlie, and we were both watchin’ that Honda from the upstairs window…”
“Without nobody makin’ us, Chambers, ‘cause we were usin’ the old Hole-in-the-Shade trick…”
“What we figured was if these two hippie assholes were watchin’ that house there with such great interest…”
“Sittin’ out there like they owned the friggin’ street…”
“Not scared anybody was gonna see them payin’ so much ‘tention to the premises there…”
“Why, what we figured was maybe they’d be so engrossed in they own activity, they wouldn’t notice nobody comin’ up the street behind the car and checkin’ out the license tag.”
“So when I relieved Charlie here, what he done was walk up the beach to Pelican Reef, and then come back down the street and glom the tag on the car…”
“Wrote it down later,” Charlie said.
“Checked it through Motor Vehicles, too,” Nick said.
“Wouldn’t you just know it?” Charlie said, grinning. “I come up with a name an’ a address for the man owns that car.”
“Registered in St. Pete,” Nick said.
“Which means they’re out-of-towners maybe staying in some motel down here…”
“Which means we got a shot at findin’ ‘em even if they don’t bust into the Parrish house…”
“Unless they’re sleepin’ on the beach, which judgin’ from the looks of them is a good possibility.”
“What’s his name?” Warren asked.
“Arthur Nelson Hurley,” Charlie said, “Now whether that’s the one all in black or the redheaded one, I couldn’t tell you.” His grin widened. “That’s ‘cause I’m juss a li’l ole amateur, you see.”
“Let’s call that li’l girl back here for some more beer,” Nick said.
4. This is the man all tattered and torn that kissed the maiden all forlorn…
There were forty-nine hotels and two hundred and sixteen motels listed in the yellow pages of the Calusa telephone directory. On Monday morning, February 8, two people working for the law firm of Summerville & Hope divided the yellow pages between them and began calling all those hotels and motels.
Twenty-four-year-old Andrew Holmes, who’d been graduated from law school in January and who would be taking his bar exams late in July, worked from the motel list. Andrew had a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Michigan; Summerville & Hope was paying him forty thousand dollars a year to work as a so-called “legal assistant.” Moreover, the firm had promised him an immediate raise to fifty thousand a year the moment he was accepted to the bar. If Andrew had chosen to work in New York City, he probably could have started at sixty, seventy thousand bucks. That was because he was an honor grad who’d also been editor of the Law Review. So here he was on a rainy Monday morning in Florida, repeatedly dialing a telephone and asking to speak to Arthur Nelson Hurley, please.