Jonathon King - A Killing Night

"I assume the stranger is a lawyer?" I said, holding up the photo of the single woman.

"Sarah O'Kelly," Billy said. "I know her, but I was unaware that she was doing work with cruise ship workers from the Port of Miami.

"She lives in Fort Lauderdale and when I called her, her secretary said she had been traveling in Panama doing research on the cruise cases and had been gone for ten days. The assistant had not opened her mail, but nothing unposted or of similar size to this one had arrived at her office."

"If she got it, it's probably at her house," I said.

"If our new friends are c-consistent."

I turned the photos over and scanned through them again. The shot of Diane seemed uncomfortably pornographic, knowing someone had stalked her and taken it without her knowledge with the purpose of a threat.

"The Hix brothers?" I said.

"I can only imagine," Billy said. "I asked O'Kelly's assistant to pass on my number as soon as she contacts her and preferably before she gets home. She said she's due in tomorrow."

I put the photos and letter back into the envelope and handed them back.

"You tell Rodrigo about this?" I said, thinking of the scared man and his decision to go home.

"That's w-why you'll have to stay here tonight, M-Max," Billy said. "He's out of the hospital, b-but I gave him your bed down at the Flamingo."

"Hiding?"

"For now."

"And Diane?"

"She is not the k-kind of woman who is used to threats," Billy said. "I asked her to st-stay at her place because it is g-gated and secured and she did not argue."

I wasn't sure what it was in his voice: Disappointment? Guilt? All I did know was that I wasn't going to probe there. Not without an invitation.

He was still standing, leaning against the railing now and, unlike the analytical and focused man I had always known, he was preoccupied. I gave him space and looked out where I knew the horizon was, where dark sky met dark water, and searched for the light of a trawler or overnight fisherman, something to give the blackness a reference point. I finally found one far to the south, winking on and off with a rhythm that I knew had to be the roll of the swells.

"So what's the plan?" I finally said. "Do we take this to the authorities as a written threat and let them handle it?"

"Huh?" Billy flinched and looked down as if just discovering the glass in his hand and stepped back from the slosh of wine that had spilled to the deck.

"I'm sorry, M-Max," he said and looked embarrassed. "I, uh, well, certainly that's an option. B-But I think I would rather wait until we get the chance to t-talk with O'Kelly. I'd like to s-see if she too has b-been contacted and what her take on all this is. If I recall correctly, she is an amiable and thoughtful lawyer and I w-would think we'd want her opinion since she is obviously intimately involved."

"Spoken like a true attorney," I said, razzing him for his quick little soliloquy, spit out with style even though it had been far from his thoughts.

He smiled and raised his glass. "I have been threatened b-before. This will wait. I think you have more p-pressing matters at hand. Let's go over your scenarios with a true attorney's perspective on all of this."

The smell of wet green earth and the sound of rain pattering through high trees woke me and I was startled in the way you are when you can't register where the hell you are. I blinked the dream away and pushed my hands up into my face and realized I was already sitting up on the edge of a bed.

Billy's, I recalled, noting the deep ivory color of the wall in front of me and the chill on my bare shoulders from the air-conditioning. I was in his guest room. I was still wearing my canvas pants and looked around to see that I had not pulled the bed covers back and had simply fallen asleep atop them. I rubbed my eyes and again caught the smell of turned and rotted soil on the palms of my hands and stared stupidly down at them. Clean.

I pushed myself up and walked into the bath and stood at the basin and splashed water up into my face and the odor disappeared. When I was a child my mother described how my dreams had seemed so vivid and my recollections of them so detailed that it made her uneasy. She said she would walk to the Italian Market in South Philly or to church and half expect to come around the corner and see the shear cliffs or talking dogs or some falling child that I had foretold from a dream the previous night. There were times now that I fell back into that vividness when dreaming or daydreaming of past experiences. As a cop who saw too many ugly scenes I often considered it a curse. Still, they were dreams. I had never had them portend the future before.

I dressed and went out to the kitchen where I found the coffeemaker loaded with fresh grounds and ready to flip on, and a note from Billy:

"I have gone to check on Diane and will he in my office later. I will call O'Kelly and contact you. I checked on Rodrigo and he is fine. Can you stop in to see him?"

Even though we'd stayed up well into the morning hours, Billy was an early riser. He would have consumed the Wall Street Journal and that horrid fruit and vitamin concoction of his and then been out the door dressed in Brooks Brothers before seven.

I looked at my watch. It was almost noon. When the coffee was brewed I took a cup out onto the patio. There was a nor'easter starting to kick in. The water was gray-green and moving like an enormous blanket being shaken from four corners at the same time, waves of varying sizes swallowing each other and an uneven chop strewn with foam. The sky was overcast and tightened down and the wind was blowing hard enough to snap the single American flag that the faux British manager had raised at dawn. Before my first cup was empty I could feel a film of warm, clammy moisture on my skin. I went back inside and my first call was to O'Shea. He gave the same report he had when I called him at three in the morning, before I passed out: Marci was in her apartment. No sign of Morrison.

"How you doin'?" I asked.

"You ever trying sleeping in a Camaro?" he said

I didn't answer.

"Hey, I'm a security guard, Freeman," he said. "I can handle security."

My next call was to Richards's office number. Her answering machine was on and I left a message telling her I had more information about Morrison and one of the bartenders who we had recently met who might know more than was offered. I hoped at least the bartender reference would cause her to call back.

I finished the coffee and left, pulling Billy's apartment door closed and checking the automatic locking mechanism before taking the elevator down. Outside in the front lot I instinctively scanned the cars, looking for one backed into a spot with signs of a cameraman. Now I wished I had confronted the guy the first time.

I took A1A south and traffic was light. It wasn't a beach day and the tourists and regulars would stay inside or inland somewhere out of the wet wind. The grayness gave the dunes and seaside mansions a look like old antique oil paintings, the colors dimmed and the landscape lonely. I was pulling into the Flamingo Villas when my cell phone rang.

"Yeah."

"It's Sherry, Max."

"Hey. You got my message?"

"No. I haven't been into the office yet. What did you need?"

If she was calling me unsolicited, I immediately wondered why. To offer me something? To ask for help? If I let her go first, it would put me in a better position to state my own case. I hesitated, then realized I was playing the info-for-info game and shook my head like I could just toss off a million years of human social behavior like a bead of sweat.

"I uh, wanted to get with you and tell you about a conversation I had with the bartender," I said. "Marci, at Kim's. The younger one who is fairly new."