Stuart Kaminsky - Bright Futures

He looked straight ahead and said, “Let’s find us more windmills.”

We were making good time going north on Tamiami. We were both quiet while I thought about what to do next. Then I spoke. I didn’t think about what I was saying. There were consequences, but there was the promise of windmills.

“How are things at the Texas?”

“Fine,” he said.

“Think you might want to become my partner?”

“Already am.”

“Officially, I mean.”

“The pay would be bad, the hours all over the place, the job dangerous sometimes, no benefits?” said Ames.

“And those are the incentives,” I said.

“Sounds good to me,” said Ames.

“And there’s always a chance I’d get in this car one morning and just drive away for good.”

“Understood.”

“And your job at the Texas?”

“Could still do the cleaning up in exchange for my room. Big Ed’d be amenable.”

“Then it’s done?”

“Seems,” Ames said.

And it was done. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but I knew something had happened, something I would have to talk to Ann Hurwitz about.

“Dunkin’ Donuts to celebrate?” I asked.

Ames had said enough. He nodded in agreement and we pulled into the parking lot of the Dunkin’ Donuts across from Sarasota Memorial Hospital.

Our partnership was confirmed over coffee and chocolate iced doughnuts.

“Someone’s been following us,” Ames said after wiping his mouth.

“Blue Porsche.”

“Yes.”

“She parked in the lot?” I said. “Yes.”

“Maybe we should bring her coffee and a muffin?”

“No need,” Ames said, looking past me. “She’s coming.”

There were three chairs at our small table, the only table at which anyone was sitting. The sound on the television set mounted on the wall was off. On the screen, a very pretty blonde with full red lips and perfect teeth was looking out at the world and talking seriously about something.

The woman from the blue Porsche sat between me and Ames.

“Can we get you a coffee and doughnuts or a muffin?” I asked.

“Coffee, black, that’s all,” she said.

She was Corkle’s daughter and the mother of my teenage babbling client, Greg Legerman. She was dark and beautiful, her make-up perfect, not a hair out of place. Her skirt was blue and her long-sleeved cashmere sweater white. A necklace of large Chinese green jade and small jet black beads was all the jewelry she needed.

For an instant, just an instant, I remembered Catherine on the night we went to a concert at Orchestra Hall in Chicago. The symphony played Grieg and Brahms, and I watched my wife smiling and held her hand.

“You all right?” Alana Legerman asked.

“Perfect,” I said.

I introduced her to Ames. He nodded in acknowledgment. She didn’t offer her hand. Ames rose and headed for the counter to get her coffee. She sat up straight, probably a payoff from yoga classes.

“You didn’t give my son back the money he paid you to find out who really killed Horvecki.”

“If he wants his money back-”

“He won’t take it,” she said.

“No, he won’t.”

“You’ll get my son killed.”

Ames was back. He placed the coffee in front of Alana Legerman.

“Who would want to hurt him?” I asked.

“Whoever killed Horvecki,” she said, looking at the steaming coffee but not picking it up.

“You don’t think Ronnie Gerall did it?”

She considered the question. She took a breath, picked up the coffee, and said, “Ronnie has a temper and caustic verbal bite, but he hasn’t the fire inside for the kind of brutal thing that was done to Horvecki.”

“You know Gerall well?” I asked.

“Well enough.”

I pictured the two of them together. She was twenty years older than he was, but she was a beauty, and he was a good-looking kid. Stranger things had happened.

“How did you meet him?”

“That’s not relevant,” she said, drinking some coffee.

A fat man sat two tables away with a small bag of doughnuts and a large coffee. He was wearing a suit and a very serious look on his face. I watched him attack the bag and come out with an orange-iced special.

I looked at Ames, who sat with his large hands folded on the table. He understood what I wanted. Neither of us spoke. It was her move.

“I’d like you to continue to look for whoever killed Philip Horvecki. You return whatever money my son and my father gave you, and I’ll give you double the amount in cash. In addition, you make it clear to everyone you come in contact with that you are working for me. I’ll do the same.”

She touched the corner of her mouth with a little finger to remove a fleck that wasn’t there.

“So, whoever killed Horvecki won’t have any reason to harm your father and your son?” I asked. “If the killer wants my investigation to stop, he’ll go after you.”

“Yes,” she said, “If that’s what it comes to. Whoever it is is already trying to kill you.”

I didn’t see how changing clients would make a difference to someone who might want to kill me because I was looking into Philip Horvecki’s murder, and I wasn’t sure how accepting her offer might make her father and son a lot safer than they were already.

“How about this?” I said. “I keep the money you, your father, and your son give me, and the killer has to do a lot of thinking before going after your family. What’s Greg’s father like?”

“As some of Greg’s friends might say, Greg’s father is, like, dead. Heart attack. The world did not grieve at his passing.”

“Nine hundred and thirty dollars,” I said.

“A nice round number,” she said, reaching into her oversized Louis Vuitton purse. “Will a check do?”

“Nicely,” I said. “Make it out to cash.”

She had a checkbook in front of her and a lean silver pen in her hand. When she finished writing the check, she tore it out of the book and handed it to me.

“Then there’s nothing more to say,” she said, getting up.

“You could thank my partner for the coffee.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Thank you.”

This time she held out her hand, and Ames took it. “Report to me when you have anything and try not to upset my father and Greg. Oh, and one last thing. When I said ‘everyone you come in contact with’-don’t tell them you are working for me.”

She gathered up her purse and moved quickly toward the door. The fat man in the suit paused in his chewing to admire Alana Legerman as she went into the sunlit morning.

“Pretty lady,” Ames said.

“Very pretty,” I agreed.

“What’s next?”

“We do just what she doesn’t want us to do. We talk to Greg and Corkle.”

Greg was still in school. I left a voice message asking him to call as soon as he could.

D. Elliot Corkle answered the phone. I asked if I could come over.

“Something happen to Gregory?”

“No.”

“Come on over.”

“Be there in half an hour.”

He hung up. On the way to his house we stopped at a Bank of America and cashed the check. I gave half the cash to Ames. Alana Legerman hadn’t followed us-we would have known. It’s hard to hide a neon blue Porsche being driven by a beautiful woman.

The Saturn still made some voodoo sounds. Ames said he would engage his magical skills and take care of the Saturn’s remaining problems the next day.

My cell phone rang.

“You weren’t going to call me, were you?” Sally asked.

What was it I heard? Disappointment? Simple weariness? A headache in progress?

“I don’t know.”

“Dinner Saturday. Just you and me. No kids. Walt’s. Six-thirty.”

“You want me to pick you up at home?”