Phillip Savelle had a guest, but Lou Dell refused to divulge to the rest of the boys the sex, race, age, or anything else about his visitor. It happened to be a very nice young lady who appeared to be Indian or Pakistani.
Mrs. Gladys Card watched TV in her room with Mr. Nelson Card. Loreen Duke, who was divorced, visited with her two young teenaged daughters. Rikki Coleman exercised conjugal relations with her husband Rhea, then talked about their kids for the remaining one hour and forty-five minutes.
And Hoppy Dupree brought Millie some flowers and a box of chocolates, which she ate most of while he jumped around the room in a fit of excitement, the likes of which she'd rarely seen. The kids were fine, all out on dates, and business was going full speed. In fact, business had never been better. He had a secret, a large wonderful rich secret about a deal he'd stepped into, but he couldn't tell her just yet. Maybe Monday. Maybe later. But he just couldn't now. He stayed an hour and rushed back to the office for more work.
Mr. Nelson Card left at nine, and Gladys made the mistake of stepping into the Party Room where the boys were drinking beer and eating popcorn and watching boxing matches now. She found a soft drink and sat at the table. Jerry eyed her suspiciously. “You little devil,” he said. “Come on, tell us about it.”
Her mouth fell open and her cheeks flushed. She couldn't speak.
“Come on, Gladys. We didn't get any.”
She grabbed her Coke and jumped to her feet. “Maybe there's a good reason you didn't,” she snapped angrily, then marched from the room. Jerry managed a laugh. The other men were too tired and despondent to care.
MARLEE'S CAR was a Lexus leased from a dealer in Biloxi, a three-year lease at six hundred a month with the lessee being Rochelle Group, a brand-spanking-new corporation Fitch had been able to learn nothing about. A transmitter weighing almost a pound had been attached by a magnet under the rear left tire well, so Marlee could now be tracked by Konrad sitting at his desk. Joe Boy had stuck it under there a few hours after they'd followed her from Mobile and seen her license plates.
Her large new condo was leased by the same corporation. Almost two thousand dollars a month. Marlee had some serious overhead, but Fitch and company couldn't find a trace of a job.
She called late Friday night, just minutes after Fitch had stripped to his XX-Large boxers and black socks and sprawled on his bed like a beached whale. For now he owned the Presidential Suite on the top floor of the Colonial Hotel in Biloxi, on Highway 90, the Gulf a hundred yards away. When he bothered to look, he had a nice view of the beach. No one outside his little circle knew where he was.
The call went to the front desk, an urgent message for Mr. Fitch, and it posed a dilemma for the night clerk. The hotel was being paid large sums of money to protect the privacy and identity of Mr. Fitch. The clerk could not admit he was a guest. The young lady had it all figured out.
When Marlee called back ten minutes later, she was put straight through, pursuant to Mr. Fitch's orders. Fitch was now standing with his boxers pulled almost to his chest but still sagging down past his fleshy thighs, scratching his forehead and wondering how she'd found him. “Good evening,” he said.
“Hi, Fitch. Sorry to call so late.” She wasn't sorry about a damned thing. The “i” in “Hi” was deliberately flat, something that happened occasionally with Marlee. It was an effort to sound a little Southern. The recordings of all eight phone conversations, however brief, along with the recording of their chat in New Orleans, had been scrutinized by voice and dialect experts in New York. Marlee was a Midwesterner, from eastern Kansas or western Missouri, probably from somewhere within a hundred miles of Kansas City.
“No problem,” he said, checking the recorder on a narrow folding table near his bed. “How's your friend?”
“Lonely. Tonight was conjugal night, you know?”
“So I heard. Did everybody get conjugated?”
“Not exactly. It's pretty sad, really. The men watched John Wayne movies while the women knitted.”
“Nobody got laid?”
“Very few. Angel Weese, but she's in the middle of a hot romance. Rikki Coleman. Millie Dupree's husband showed up but didn't stay long. The Cards were together. Can't tell about Herman. And Savelle had a guest.”
“What manner of humanity did Savelle attract?”
“Don't know. It was never seen.”
Fitch lowered his wide rear to the edge of the bed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why didn't you visit your friend?” he asked.
“Who said we're lovers?”
“What are you?”
“Friends. Guess which two jurors are sleeping together?”
“Now how would I know that?”
“Guess.”
Fitch smiled at himself in the mirror and marveled at his wonderful luck. “Jerry Fernandez and somebody.”
“Good guess. Jerry's about to get a divorce, and Sylvia is lonely too. Their rooms are just across the hall, and, well, there's little else to do at the Siesta Inn.”
“Ain't love grand?”
“I gotta tell you, Fitch, Krigler worked for the plaintiff.”
“They listened to him, huh?”
“Every word. They listened and they believed. He turned them around, Fitch.”
“Tell me some good news.”
“Rohr's worried.”
His spine stiffened noticeably. “What's bugging Rohr?” he asked, studying his puzzled face in the mirror. He shouldn't be surprised that she was talking to Rohr, so why the hell was he shocked to hear it? He felt betrayed.
“You. He knows you're loose on the streets scheming up all sorts of ways to get to the jury. Wouldn't you be worried, Fitch, if some guy like you was hard at work for the plaintiff?”
“I'd be terrified.”
“Rohr isn't terrified. He's just worried.”
“How often do you talk to him?”
“A lot. He's sweeter than you, Fitch. He's a very pleasant man to talk to, plus he doesn't record my calls, doesn't send in goons to follow my car. None of that sort of stuff.”
“Really knows how to charm a girl, huh?”
“Yeah. But he's weak where it counts.”
“Where's that?”
“In the wallet. He can't match your resources.”
“How much of my resources do you want?”
“Later, Fitch. Gotta run. There's a suspicious-looking car sitting across the street. Must be some of your clowns.” She hung up.
Fitch showered and tried to sleep. At 2 A.M., he drove himself to the Lucy Luck, where he played blackjack at five hundred dollars a hand, sipped Sprite until dawn, when he left with close to twenty thousand dollars in fresh winnings.
Twenty
The first Saturday in November arrived with temperatures in the low sixties, unseasonably cool for the Coast and its near-tropical climate. A gentle breeze from the north rattled trees and scattered leaves on the streets and sidewalks. Fall usually arrived late and lasted until the first of the year, when it yielded to spring. The Coast did not experience winter.
A few joggers were on the street just after dawn. No one noticed the plain black Chrysler as it pulled into the driveway of a modest brick split-level. It was too early for the neighbors to see the two young men in matching dark suits exit the car, walk to the front door, ring the buzzer, and wait patiently. It was too early, but in less than an hour the lawns would be busy with leaf rakers and the sidewalks busy with children.
Hoppy had just poured the water into the Mr. Coffee when he heard the buzzer. He tightened the belt of his ragged terry-cloth bathrobe and tried to straighten his unkempt hair with his fingers. Must be the Boy Scouts selling doughnuts at this ungodly hour. Surely it wasn't the Jehovah's Witnesses again. He'd let them have it this time. Nothing but a cult! He moved quickly because the upstairs was filled with comatose teenagers. Six at last count. Five of his and a guest someone had dragged home from junior college. A typical Friday night at the Dupree home.