Stuart Kaminsky: Bright Futures

“Okay,” he said.

He told the jokes. I wrote them down. I didn’t laugh or smile.

“You don’t think they’re funny?” he asked as we headed north on Tamiami Trail.

“They’re funny,” I said, tucking the cards into my appointment book.

“I like you,” he said. “Do people generally like you?”

“Yes.”

“Why? I mean, I like you, but I’m not sure why.”

“It’s my curse,” I said.

“That people like you?”

“They expect to be liked back.”

“And you can’t?”

“I don’t want to,” I said. “The cost is too high, and people die.”

He looked at me, one hand on the wheel, one grasping a bottle of water, which he squeezed, making a cracking sound.

“So you have no friends?”

“Too many,” I said.

The big two-story gray stone house was right on a cul-de-sac on the water a few blocks south of the Ringling Museum. The house had a front lawn that looked as if it had been manicured with a pair of very small scissors. At the top of the house was a turret which probably had a great view across the water to Longboat Key. A blue Porsche was parked in the driveway in front of a three-car garage. The street had no curb. There was no sidewalk.

Augustine led the way. I followed up the redbrick path to the front door. Gulls were complaining out over the water, and waves flopped against the shore.

Augustine pushed a white button in the wooden paneling next to the door. I heard chimes inside, deep and calm. He rang only once, stood back, clasped his hands in front of him, and rocked on his heels waiting.

“The hat,” he said.

I took off my Cubs cap folded it over and shoved it in my back pocket. The door opened. The woman who strode out was in a hurry. She was dark and beautiful and maybe in her forties. She wore a gray business suit over a black blouse and the necklace she wore was a string of large, colorful stones. She walked past us as if we didn’t exist, her heels clacking on the red bricks. Augustine and I watched her get into the blue Porsche and pull smoothly away.

I didn’t know who she was. I didn’t know who I was about to see. Augustine was no help. We went through the open door that the woman had not closed behind her.

We were in a white-tiled entryway with an open glass elevator, which was on its way down. A large man in it was wearing a pair of tan shorts, a matching polo shirt and sandals over bare feet. He had a full head of brown and white hair and a white-toothed smile of what looked like real teeth that were carefully tended. He was a well-kept sixty-five or seventy year old. I knew his name before the elevator door opened and he stepped out.

“Mr. Fonesca,” he said, extending his hand. “Thanks for coming.”

I took it. His grip was firm, but he wasn’t trying to win any macho hand-squeezing contest.

“You’re welcome,” I said as he held out a hand, palm up, in invitation for us to follow him.

He ushered us off to the right. He smelled like something slightly sweet and musky and displayed the redness of someone fresh out of the shower.

We went through a large kitchen that opened into a family room and library.

“Please sit,” he said, sitting on a yellow leather chair.

Augustine and I sat on a matching yellow leather sofa.

He poured three glasses of something dark brown from a pitcher full of ice on a low, ornately carved table with inlays of white stones. It could have been from India or Serbia. It could have been Wal-Mart.

The drink was strong iced tea. The three of us drank.

“You know who I am,” he said.

“Yes, D. Elliot Corkle.”

“And?”

“You sell gadgets on television.”

The tea was good and strong. I could have used a biscotti.

“Used to. House hold aids,” he corrected, chewing on an ice cube. “For nineteen-ninety-nine, your kitchen fantasies can come true. Our products are all made of the finest durable Oriental plastics and South American metals.”

“My favorite’s the steamer chopper,” I said.

“You have one?”

“No, I watch infomercials. Insomnia. I don’t get cable.”

“Want to know why I asked Mr. Augustine to invite you here?”

“No. I just want a ride back to my place. I’ve got packing to do.”

“It’s taken care of. Right, Jeffrey?”

“It’s taken care of,” said Augustine. “Mr. Fonesca is fully moved.”

“There,” said Corkle. “Now we can have a brief but leisurely few minutes.”

“That should be pleasant.”

“D. Elliot Corkle will see that it is,” said Corkle. “I would appreciate your doing something for me.”

I nodded and drank some more tea.

“After your hospitality, how could I refuse?”

“D. Elliot Corkle would like you to politely return whatever money may have been advanced to you this morning by Gregory Legerman. I will give you a check for double the amount plus a ten-percent bonus if you decide right away. I’m a gambler.”

“If I act right away, you pay shipping costs,” I said.

“And I throw in a set of four eternally sharp cutting knives with handles made from the hulls of salvaged ships-a forty-nine-dollar value.”

He laughed. He was having fun. I didn’t laugh.

“Why?”

“Why do I want you to return the money and go about your business?” he asked, looking at Augustine, who smiled attentively. “Greg is my grandson. He is smart, full of energy and vigor, and inclined to do things without thinking that might get him in trouble.”

“Like hire me?”

“Like trying to prove his friend didn’t murder Phil Horvecki. I think it’s possible; even likely, that there are people who are not unhappy that Horvecki is dead, people who might have killed him, people who do not have the conscience of an orange beetle or a lovebug. Horvecki was not a nice human being.”

He leaned toward me and lowered his voice.

“And if such a person or persons were responsible for the demise of Philip Horvecki they would not be happy to know that you are trying to help that young man in jail, a young man who, I might add, is not the most socially acceptable of characters. They would prefer that young Mr. Gerall go to a juvenile facility for the crime.”

“Got it,” I said.

“Do you? Good. Take it from me. D. Elliot Corkle loves his grandson. Word has already gone out that D. Elliot Corkle will be seeing to it that his grandson is no longer pursuing this inquiry.”

“No,” I said.

“No?” said Corkle.

“I took your grandson’s money and told him I would at least talk to Ronnie Gerall and look around, and that I fully intend to do.”

“Randolph Scott in Comanche Station,” said Augustine.

Corkle looked at the ex-actor with something less than approval. Augustine shrugged.

“My grandson could be hurt,” Corkle said, smiling no more.

“Your grandson could hire someone else if I walked away.”

“Perhaps someone not quite so stubborn.”

“This could wind up costing a lot,” I said.

“I can afford it. You know how many Power Pocket Entertainment Centers I sold last year?”

“No.”

“Three million.”

“I’m impressed.”

“You’re damn right you are,” he said, plunking his almost empty glass on the table. The remaining ice cubes clinked musically.

“I’d like to go now,” I said.

“Who is stopping you?” asked Corkle.

I put down my glass, which didn’t clink as musically as Corkle’s, and stood. So did Augustine and Corkle, who wiped his hands on his shorts.

Corkle silently led the way back through the kitchen and to the front door, where we paused while he made a stop at a closet and came up with a white box about the size of a large book. He placed the box in my hand.