Мэри Эндрюс - The Newcomer

“Doesn’t seem to have hurt her,” Joe said. “You, on the other hand, look like someone who could use a night off. I’ve seen you running around the Surf. You’re like the Energizer Bunny. You never stop.”

“I’m grateful to have a job, grateful to your mom for letting me bring Maya to work with me,” Letty said. “Most nights, after dinner, I put Maya to bed and I’m so tired I fall asleep after maybe thirty minutes of trying to watch television.”

“But you’re taking a beach day today,” he pointed out.

“Seems almost criminal to be at the beach, yet not on the beach,” Letty said. “This weather is so amazing, I still can’t believe it’s winter in the rest of the country.”

“You mean, like, in New York?” He said it casually, but Letty heard the intent behind the question. She decided it was best not to evade the question.

“Yeah.”

“How long did you live there?” he asked.

“Five or six years.” She needed to shut down this line of questioning. “Hey, what’s going to happen with Ben Dover and his stepmom? Are they still in jail?”

“They’re still there, and I don’t see either one of ’em getting out anytime soon,” Joe said. “That story about going to visit her kids was bullshit. When we popped the lock on the trunk of that Impala we found an electronic credit card skimmer and boxes of credit card blanks. Those two are bad news.”

“Did you tell Ava about what you found?”

“Oh yeah,” he said, taking a swig of beer. “She says she’s learned her lesson now, but she always says that. The problem is, in her mind she’s a hard-nosed, take-no-prisoners businesswoman. She can’t stand the idea of having an empty room for even one night.”

Letty thought about the gun Ava had hidden in the front-office cash drawer and wondered if Joe was aware that he had a pistol-packing mama. And just how much did he know about her own complicated situation?

“But the reality is my mom is a pushover. Which is why all these sad-sack hard-luck losers are attracted to her like flies to honey.”

“You mean people like me?” she asked.

His face flushed. “That’s not what I meant. You didn’t show up here looking for a handout, or to rip her off. I was thinking about her shitbird ex-boyfriend.”

“The unhandy handyman,” Letty said.

“The one who set up a scam business out of one of the rooms right here at the Murmuring Surf, right under my nose.” He scowled. “Chuck and Rooney, the dynamic duo of rip-off artists.”

Letty almost choked on her hard cider. “Rooney? Did you say the other guy’s name was Rooney?”

Rooney. Tanya’s ex-boyfriend. That Rooney?

“Yeah. Chuck was just a boozer and a loser, up until he met up with Rooney, who, it turned out, was a hard-core criminal.”

“What kind of ‘business’ were they into?”

“Precious metals. It’s a classic Florida scam, because they preyed on retirees or people desperate to make a buck. They’d set up in motels around here, including the Murmuring Surf, and run ads about paying top dollar for estate jewelry and gold coins. Some old lady would bring in her mother’s wedding ring, or a bunch of old coins or the sterling silver tea set they never used. They’d make a big show of weighing it—of course the scales were rigged. And maybe they’d tell somebody her diamond was worthless—flawed, but they’d buy it for the weight of the gold in the ring. Pennies on the dollar.”

“How did Chuck hook up with this Rooney guy?”

“Where else? A bar. I only figured out what they were up to after one of our guests came to me and said she was afraid she’d been ripped off. She’d decided to sell a watch she’d inherited. Begged me not to tell her husband because she was embarrassed. After I looked into it, we set up a sting. We got a female undercover agent to sell them a ring we’d had a certified gemologist appraise at fourteen thousand dollars. They offered her two hundred and eighty dollars. We had the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the sheriff’s office, St. Pete Police, several different agencies involved, because these other two had been working this scam all over the state.”

“There were three of them? I thought you said it was just Chuck and Rooney,” Letty said.

“They had a woman working with them. A redhead, and she was a knockout. They used her as window dressing, to gain the trust of these old ladies. Because how could a sweet-faced girl like her possibly rip them off?

“Rooney and the woman were staying right up there in unit six,” Joe went on. “Our undercover agent said she saw thousands and thousands of dollars in cash, boxes and boxes of gold and silver coins when she went to the room to sell the ring. But when the raid went down, the room had been cleaned out. Rooney and Chuck were long gone. Along with all the money and jewelry and coins. The only person arrested was their female accomplice.”

Letty felt sick. “The female accomplice was arrested? Do you remember her name?”

Joe screwed up his face as he thought about it. “Something with a T. Teresa? Or maybe Tammy?”

“What was she charged with?”

“Fraud. Her lawyer worked out some kind of deal with the district attorney’s office. I don’t even know if she did time.”

“What about the two men?”

He shrugged. “Gone. Mom had pretty much figured out that Chuck was a loser, although she didn’t know he was a criminal loser. She’d kicked him out of her apartment, but was letting him stay in that room where you’re living now, if you can believe it. I’ve got no idea what happened to Rooney.”

“Kind of a funny name, Rooney.”

“I think his first name was Declan, but everybody just called him Rooney. Even his wife.”

“Wife?” Letty said. “He was married to the female accomplice?”

“So she claimed,” Joe said.

Letty took another sip of the hard cider, but it had grown warm and now, she thought, had turned her stomach sour. She emptied the rest into the sand.

“How long ago did all this happen?” she asked.

“Let me think.” He opened the cooler and offered her another drink, but she shook her head. “No thanks.”

“Maybe five years ago?” he said finally. “None of the money or coins or jewelry was ever recovered.”

Maya rushed toward them, her face alight with joy. Her little pink sun hat was askew, her arms and legs and tummy were coated in the sugar-fine white sand, and she was toting the plastic bucket Ava had given her, water sloshing over the sides as she ran.

“Letty, Letty,” she said, when she reached the blanket. She held the bucket out triumphantly. “We catched a fishy!”

“That’s a beautiful minnow,” Joe said, admiring Maya’s catch. “It’s a greenback. See how its back is green, but when it swims, you catch a flash of the silver on its underbelly?”

Maya peered into the bucket and nodded. “Her name is Minnie. I’m gonna keep her. Okay, Letty?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Letty said. “I don’t think Miss Ava allows pets, does she, Joe?”

“Afraid not,” Joe said. “But even if she did, a minnow is a fish, and a fish can’t live in a little bucket like this. They have to be able to swim in the ocean with fresh water moving through their gills, because that’s where they get oxygen to breathe.”

“Really?” Letty glanced over at him. “I didn’t know that. Must be a Florida thing.”

Joe laughed. “Not a Florida thing. More like a high school biology thing.”

“Oh yeah. High school. Mine was in a hick town in West Virginia, and probably only five percent of my graduating class went on to college,” Letty said. “And our biology teacher really was a perv.” She scowled at the memory of Mr. Parker, trying to corner her after class, using the ruse of “helping” her pass her midterm exam.