Stuart Kaminsky - Vengeance

“And you…?”

“Took my hit from Dwight and accepted the offer,” said Tilly.

“People-selling’s a tough job,” I said.

“You’re telling me. No shit. Hey, I just gave you free, key information. Don’t stand there trying to give out free trips to Guilt City. I’m not taking the offer. There’s always a catch.”

He was right. Tilly emptied the can of Mountain Dew and placed it on the small white table in front of him. I had to give him credit. He didn’t crush the can.

He shot it toward the wastebasket next to the refrigerator.

“That it?” I asked.

“That’s fucking it,” he said, clicking on the television set behind me with a little black remote.

“Thanks.”

“I’m doing you no favors. Getting that girl away from Mr. John Pirannes won’t be a run to the 7-Eleven, if you know what I mean. I hope you know where to find a small army. Now if you’ll just move out. You’re blocking the screen.”

“Last question,” I said.

He hit the mute button and the voice of a vaguely familiar woman stopped in midsentence behind me.

“What do you think the best Italian restaurant in town is?”

“Say what?”

“The best-”

“I heard you. Are you nuts, man?”

“Italian.”

“Bacci,” he said. “Across from Barnes and Noble. Go on Wednesday and order the osso buco special. Now take your act somewhere else and don’t come back. We’re not talking again.”

I walked to the door and the woman’s voice came back on. I glanced at the television screen just before I left. Mary Tyler Moore was trying to explain something to Ed Asner.

Francine was just inside the motel office when I passed. She was smoking and doing what she was told to do, having a cup of coffee. I pointed back to the room to show that it was all hers. The kid behind the counter looked my way and I nodded to show that everything had gone well with Tilly. He was safe. Adele wasn’t.

I had left the key in the car. Sally had turned it on and was listening to All Things Considered, where a serious discussion was going on about the renewed interest in banjo music.

“And so?” she said.

“Ice cream?”

“Gelato,” she said. “Classico. You know it?”

I did. Ten minutes later I was having a regular-size orange chocolate and she was having a regular half coconut, half chocolate almond.

“You ever hear of a man named John Pirannes?”

“I’ve heard. Even met him once. Name came up at the edges of a few of my cases and the middle of one. No one would say much but he’s made the newspaper a few times. Pirannes,” she said, trying to decide whether the spoon should go for the coconut or chocolate almond and deciding on the coconut, “likes to wear white, combs his white hair straight back, has nicely capped teeth and a decent vocabulary. He has slight lisp. Word is that he has all his money tied up in cash. Been here about five years. Very, very high-class call girl operation. Reputation for angry public outbursts, usually with one of his girls. According to some police officers who know, he travels with an ever-changing backup man.”

“You know a lot about Mr. Pirannes,” I said.

I had finished my orange chocolate and was considering another, but I exercised restraint.

“Looked him up,” she said. “Asked questions. Went to the library. His name kept coming up in my cases, other people’s cases, always about young girls he had hurt. The police never got one of the girls to tell who hurt them, but some of those hurts were deep.”

“I know him,” I said.

“You do?”

“Couldn’t be two men in Sarasota with that description. He works out early mornings at the Y. I see him there. Even said hello a few times. There’s always someone with beef waiting for him and watching television in the lounge. Pirannes is a man of few words.”

“But he reads a lot,” she said. “Classics mostly.”

“You know a librarian.”

“I know the clerk at Barnes and Noble,” she said. “A former client. I think Pirannes once had another name. I think he took up reading when he was in a place where there wasn’t much to do. I think John Pirannes did something very bad and got caught.”

“You know or you think?”

“A little of both,” she said.

She touched my hand. I liked it.

“I’ve got to get home. Early meeting with a case manager. Lew, Pirannes has Adele, right?”

“Looks that way,” I said.

“There’s more?”

I took a half dozen beats before I answered.

“Her father dealt her to him.”

Sally’s head went down. She bit her lower lip and then lifted her head. Her eyes were moist. But there was anger too.

“The world would be a better place if people like Dwight Handford weren’t in it,” she said.

I didn’t disagree.

“But not only are they in it selling their daughters, molesting their daughters and beating their wives, the courts give them… I’ve got to get home. Here.”

She reached for a napkin, took a pen out of her purse, gave it a click and wrote something. She handed it to me.

“It’s in Palmetto,” she said. “I think that’s where he lives. The Sarasota address he gave was to get Adele into Sarasota High.”

“Thoughtful father,” I said, folding the napkin and putting it carefully in my pocket.

I drove her home. We didn’t say much on the way.

“You feeling… awkward?” she asked when we were about half a mile from her apartment complex.

“Yes,” I said.

“Me too. We’re not used to this.”

“I never was,” I said.

“Okay,” she said, turning toward me. “We say good night at the door. We shake hands. We agree to see each other again. Okay with you?”

“Truth? I’m relieved.”

She put her hand on my shoulder and smiled.

When we got to the front door of her apartment, we shook hands, a warm, friendly shake that lasted long enough to show that she was definitely friendly.

“Next time,” she said. “Let’s try Chinese or Thai and a movie. No business.”

“Saturday?” I said.

“Why not?” she answered with a smile. “Six-thirty. A movie. Something funny. I need something funny.”

She smiled. Tired smile, but real.

“I’ll say one thing for you, Fonesca. You know how to show a girl a good time.”

It was a little past eleven when I got back to the DQ parking lot. The DQ was closed. Traffic was slow on 301 and I got out of the car touching my tender but slightly better stomach. I thought about what Dwight Handford had done to his daughter and almost wished that he would come out of the shadows by the stairs. I went to the trunk, found the Geo’s tire iron under the mat and closed the trunk. My tire iron upstairs was bigger but this was lighter.

I wondered what Ann Horowitz would say about tire irons as my weapon of choice. I had too much respect for her to think she would give me the old phallic response. It might be true, but we were beyond that.

Dwight did not appear out of the shadows. I went up to the dim-lit concrete balcony that led to my home, my office, the place where I wanted to feel reasonably safe and somewhat comfortably alone.

Something had happened to me in the last few days. I decided to call Ann Horowitz and hope she had time for an emergency visit. I had the twenty dollars.

Feelings were dancing in my mind and chest. Adele, Beryl, Sally and Dwight. And there was something about Melanie Sebastian. Something off. Something wrong. I was feeling it, but… My door was closed. Ames McKinney had fixed it. The lights were out. Tire iron dangling by my side, I turned the handle. The door was open. I stepped in, ready, and flicked on the light. Ames had put everything back in order.