Jonathon King: A Visible Darkness

McCane took my hand in a heavy, dry handshake.

"Frank McCane. Tidewater Insurance Company."

I nodded.

He had gray hair cut short to the scalp and looked to be in his mid-fifties. His face had a florid, jowly look. His nose had a broken bend as if from a quick meeting with a bottle. It also held a web of striated veins from a longer association with the same. But his facial features were overpowered by his eyes; pale gray to the point of being nearly colorless. They gave the impression of soaking in all the light that entered their field and reflecting back none. I am six-foot-three, and we were nearly eye to eye.

I held his gaze long after the appropriate time for a business handshake. Without a flinch of emotion his eyes moved off mine, focused on something behind my left shoulder, and then swung to the other side. Street cop, I thought. Street cops hate to be stared at. They need to know what's around them. I knew from walking a beat myself. Once a street cop, always a street cop.

As we stood on the sidewalk, Arturo approached from under the awning of his cafe. He had recognized Billy and knew how to treat an important customer.

"Ah. Mr. Manchester. Gentlemen, gentlemen. So good to see you, sirs," Arturo started, talking to us all but looking only at Billy. "May we seat your party please, Mr. Manchester?"

A gracious host, Arturo had taken Billy's hand in both of his and was guiding him toward a table.

"Arturo, gracias," Billy said. "P-Please take care of m-my guests. But I cannot s-stay."

"Of course, Mr. Manchester. I am disappointed but honored."

Billy turned to us.

"I have a m-meeting. Mr. McCane will fill you in, Max. I will sp- speak with you later."

I watched as Billy walked away. McCane had not moved from his spot on the sidewalk. When Arturo again extended his palm to an umbrella shaded table, I turned to him.

"Let's eat."

The big man sat in a chair and then scraped the legs across the flagstone so he could sit at an angle to the glass-topped table. He lit a cigarette and ordered "sweet tea." I asked the waiter for a Rolling Rock and McCane cut his eyes at me.

"Ya'll were on the job somewhere?" he said, the New York cop phrase sounding odd in his southern accent.

"Philadelphia. Ten years."

"Retired?"

"Quit," I said. "Took disability after a shooting."

"I seen that scar," he said, his eyes going to the penny-sized disc of scar tissue above my collarbone. I repressed the urge to touch the soft spot left by a bullet that had miraculously passed through my neck without killing me. I stared across the street, a flash of sun on the window of an opening door flickering behind my eye where the memory of the pale face of a dead twelve-year-old boy hid. I blinked away the vision.

"You?" I asked, turning back to McCane.

"Charleston P.D. for a while. Then over to Savannah some. Retired there. Picked up this investigative work through an old boy I knew for years. Money's all right. Don't like the travel much."

The waiter brought my beer with a glass. McCane sipped his tea, and refused to look as I took a deep draw from the bottle.

Out in the street a river of cars filled up the block and then flushed away with a change of the stoplight. It was a bustle, but unlike a fall day in a northeast city. The people weren't locked onto a destination; the subway, the train station, the office building where they could get out of the cold. Even on a busy downtown street here you can not stand under a blue sky next to a palm tree and be in too much of a hurry.

"Hard to find P.I. work down here?" he asked, taking another drag on his cigarette.

"I wouldn't know," I said, wondering how much Billy had told him about me. "Why do you ask?"

McCane released a lung-full of smoke.

"You know. Just figured if you had to work for him," he said, nodding in the direction Billy had walked, "things must be tight."

"It's a favor," I said, recognizing now the subtle edge of racism in the man's voice.

"Yeah, well," he said. "It all spends the same, don't it?"

The waiter came back for our orders. I asked for grilled yellowtail, knowing Arturo's chef would spice it nicely with a Cuban flavor.

"Black beans, sir?" the waiter asked.

"Yes, please."

McCane had not looked at the menu.

"I'll have the same," he said. "Nix the beans, heh?"

The waiter nodded politely and left. When he was gone McCane shifted into business mode.

The connection between two ex-cops was settled at arm's length. I now knew why Billy called me in to work with a man with whom he could not.

"My company owns three of the policies written on these women more than forty years," he started. "Some go-getter salesman comes down here in the '50s. Figures Florida is boomin' what with all the young WWII vets makin' a new start.

"But he gets down here and the GIs and flyboys have already been scooped up by insurance companies with government connections. But this ol' boy ain't gonna waste a trip. He sniffs out another market and works the other side of the tracks, sellin' to the blacks who have a few bucks because the whole place is flush."

Again he seemed to stop a moment for effect.

"Got to give the boy some credit. He targeted the women. The housekeepers who had regular work in white homes. Shop owners who were runnin' little businesses. He sweet talks them with the old promise of security for the kids. Something for their future. A better life for them when you're gone. He signs up dozens of them, gets a few bucks up front, figures what the hell, they get a few premiums in before they quit paying, it's easy money."

I ate while McCane talked. I was listening, but watching other customers come and go, marking cars in traffic that held more than one male, and noting that each time I took a drink from my beer, McCane would look away. I was also thinking of Billy's history lesson.

"But some of these women kept up with their payments," I finally said.

"Yeah. And some even bought additional policies over the years. Especially this last one. Two hundred thousand worth when she sold to the viatical investors."

I finally cut to it: "You think someone killed them?"

"Hell, I don't know. The cops don't think so. The M.E. don't. But your boy Manchester does and he's got some kinda clout, cause here I am."

Billy's famous connections, I thought. But back in his office he'd admitted that without the cooperation and inside knowledge of the insurance carrier his abilities were limited. McCane picked at the fish, washing nearly every bite down with his tea.

"You know why Manchester's bringing you in on this? Cause unless you got some kinda inside track I don't know about, I'm not sure how it's gonna help," McCane said.

I didn't answer because I didn't know myself.

"Maybe you know people we can use for an inside look, cause I'm tellin' you, the incident reports are damn thin and I ain't gonna get shit from the relatives," McCane said. "To be honest, this is lookin' like a bad fishin' trip to me."

I drained my beer and came close to agreeing with him out loud. But I kept it to myself.

"I'll get with Billy," I said as the waiter cleared the table, presented the check and offered Cuban coffee as a parting gift from Arturo. I took the shot of sweet caffeine. McCane took the check and pulled out a silver clip of folded cash and refused my offer to split the cost.

"Expense money," he said with a slight grin. "They do take American, right?"

When I got back to Billy's office, he was still out. I left word with Allie that I'd call him as soon as I could and update him on my lunch with McCane. She raised her eyebrows at the mention of the insurance investigator's name.

"Will you be taking over for Mr. McCane?" she asked, an optimism in her voice.