Blood Relations (38 page)

The chandelier was off. She had put a lamp on the table, and her fingers were flying over the number pad of her ten-key. The paper spit out of the machine in a steady rhythm. Click-click-click, ca-thunk. Click-click, ca-thunk.

Beer in hand, Sam leaned against the side of the entrance way from the kitchen. “Did you get my message?”

She didn’t look up. “The one that said you’d be home two hours ago?”

“It took longer than I thought.”

Dina was still in the clothes she had worn to work, a black skirt and red silk blouse. Her gold bracelet glittered as her arm moved, and her earrings swung. She’d been to a salon last week, had her hair cut and colored. It was parted in the middle and stood out from her head in dark, heavy waves. She was wearing makeup again. No more pills. Up early, working late.

He took a long swallow of beer. “What’s going on with Melanie? Is she failing her classes? Has she got a crush on some boy who won’t look at her?”

“God knows. She refuses to discuss it. I told her, fine, stay in your room and brood. Come out when you can behave properly.”

Sam asked, “What is that you’re working on?”

“It’s for the lawsuit.”

Which could only mean Hagen vs. Harley-Davidson, et al., still unfiled and unlikely ever to be filed.

He caught a glimpse of himself in the windows, the darkness beyond making a mirror of them. He looked like shit. He pulled off his loosened tie and walked back to the kitchen to throw away the empty bottle.

Her voice followed him. “Who died, Sam? What was it? A robbery? A fight of some kind?”

“George Fonseca,” he said.

“I know that name.”

“A defendant in the Duncan sexual battery case.” Sam came back with another beer and sat down in one of the upholstered side chairs. The lamp reflected in the tall cabinet that held the china they never used anymore. He could see Dina’s profile in the glass.

“Fonseca. Yes, the exboyfriend. How did he die?”

“He was shot. Twice.” Sam took a swallow of beer.

“Not neat, but effective. He bled out pretty fast. I think he was twenty-six years old.”

She laid down her pencil. “Charlie Sullivan was shot twice.”

“Correct. With a forty-five-caliber handgun. It could be the same shooter.”

“Who?”

“No idea.”

The corners of Dina’s mouth turned up. “Does Ali Duncan know yet about George Fonseca? She’ll be ecstatic.”

“Ecstatic?”

“One down, two to go. Only Ruffini and Lamont left now.”

“I don’t think she expected any of them to get the death penalty.”

Dina made an impatient noise with her tongue. “Nothing would have happened to him. He wouldn’t have been found guilty.”

Eyes closed, Sam rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand. “You know, Dina, I’m damn good at my job. I would not have lost this one. I promise you that.”

She looked at him another moment, then turned back to her papers. She ran her finger down a column of numbers.

“What is that?”

“I have an appointment with Frank tomorrow morning.” Dina clipped a stack of papers together and set them aside. Other little stacks were spaced evenly on the table.

“Christ. What the hell is this? What is he making you do now?”

“He isn’t making me do anything. This is my idea.” She lifted another stack of papers out of a file. The adding machine started up again. Click-ca-thunk, click-click.

“I’m reconciling Matthew’s checking account, which he never attended to. He received almost twenty thousand dollars when he turned eighteen by cashing in the savings bonds we purchased for him. When he died he had less than three hundred dollars. Where did it go?”

“He spent it.”

“On what? He bought his motorcycle with his earnings from modeling.” She shook her head. “Someone stole it.”

“Stole it?” Sam paused with the beer halfway to his mouth.

“Yes. If not outright theft, then a fraud of some kind.

You remember, Sam. He was talking about investing in a business. Someone must have taken his money in a spurious deal. They robbed him.”

Sam lowered the bottle to rest on his thigh. $20,000.

Not so much money for a kid in a fast crowd on South Beach. Matthew could have run through that amount in weeks. He could have spent it on clothes, clubs, parties.

He could have snorted it, drunk it, even shot it into his arms. “Dina, it doesn’t matter anymore.”

She wet her thumb and flipped through a stack of cancelled checks. “I’m going to trace every one of these.

Someone as good as held a gun to his head and emptied out his bank account. Frank says we can sue whoever did this.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Sam muttered softly.

Her eyes lifted to pin him with a dark stare. “I’m not asking you to get involved. You’ve made your position clear. I’ll take care of it. Frank may require your signature on a document, but otherwise, you needn’t bother.”

Sam finished his beer, then put it on the table. He picked it up again, wiping off the circle of condensation.

He said, “I’ve been thinking about Matthew lately. It may surprise you, but I do think about him, Dina. I don’t dwell on it, but sometimes … he comes to mind.” Sam took a breath to ease the tightness in his chest. “There was a lot about him I didn’t know. But I wasn’t aware of it at the time. Not knowing, I mean.”

She wrote down some figures with her mechanical pencil. Dina had neat handwriting, very precise. She’d had her nails done. Lengthened, painted. Whatever women did to their nails.

He set his bottle on the carpet beside his chair. “Did Matthew ever talk to you about Charlie Sullivan?” Dina looked up. “Did he ever mention the name?”

Twin lines appeared between her dark brows as if she’d drawn them there. “Not that I recall. He knew that man?

How?”

There was no point to this, Sam thought. No reason to tell her. He said, “Around South Beach. Matthew knew him from modeling. One of the witnesses on Ali Duncan’s case told me they had met.”

“So? I don’t see the importance.”

He shook his head. “It isn’t important.”

She sighed. “Sam, you’re drunk. Why don’t you go to bed?”

He laid his arm out on the table and clenched and unclenched his fist, easing the stiffness. “Today I was thinking about the time I took Matt fishing up at Crystal River. Don’t know why I thought of it. How old was he, fourteen?”

“Fifteen. It was his birthday. June twenty-first.”

“That’s right. It was. We used your brother Nick’s camper. A long weekend, just Matt and me. It was great.

Shit, I don’t think we caught anything, but we had a good time. Did he ever tell you about it?”

“Yes, Sam.”

“We used to be buddies. He said that. ‘Hey, Dad, we’re buddies.” So what happened? I swear to you I don’t know.

One day we’re okay; then there’s a wall between us, and he grew up on the other side of it. He was always closer to you. What was he like, Dina? What … was my son like?”

Dina smiled. “You’re really asking that. He was perfect. He was-life. Everything.” The lamp made a circle of light on her files, the machine, and her arm, sleeved in red silk, lying across the papers. “Matthew would have been twenty years old this month. Twenty.” She was silent for a while, then said, “I can’t talk about him now.”

Sam dropped his hand over hers. “Never mind.” He stood up, steadying himself on the back of the chair.

“Let’s go to bed. How the hell long has it been since you and I have gotten into bed at the same time? How long has it been since we made love? I’ll bet you have that tallied up somewhere. Do you?” He laughed. “You’d better hurry, or we’ll be in the debit column again.”

There might have been an exhalation of breath. “Go on.

I have to finish this,” she said. “I’ll be there soon.”

Somewhere in the night he saw Dina sitting at the dining room table with a .45-caliber pistol. Loading it, metal clicking on metal. Her fingers moving quickly, precisely.

Pressing bullets into the clip. Hollow-points. Click. Click.

What are . you doing, honey?

I have to balance the accounts.

No, no. Let me do it.

Sam saw himself looking down the barrel at a beautiful blond man, felt the weight of the gun. Then an elongated boom, slow motion. Then aiming at George Fonseca.

Pulling the trigger again, feeling the heavy steel shuddering in his hand.

Heart slamming against his ribs, Sam sat up, disoriented.

Dina was a shape under the blanket. He stared at her for a while. She breathed peacefully, a hand curled at her cheek. He remembered his dream, and his body trembled.

A sudden, horrific thought had shaken him to the bone.

Making no noise, he pushed back the blanket and got out of bed.

Tying his robe, Sam went downstairs to his study, a small room off the living room. Dina’s antique mantel clock ticked softly as he passed by. Three thirty-five A.M.

He closed the door and turned on the desk lamp. The key to his gun cabinet lay on top of the bookshelf across the room, out of sight. The cabinet, six feet tall, was paneled in oak. He opened the decorative door and inserted the key.

Past the inner walls, made of steel, were his single-shot .22 from boyhood, a double-barreled twelve-gauge, a restored Mauser, a .357 Winchester hunting rifle with a scope, a .3 8 Smith & Wesson chrome-plated revolver in a leather zipper bag, and his Colt pistol, military issue. The pistol was in a wood box. Also in the cabinet were bluing, machine oil, rags, brushes, and boxes of ammunition to fit the various firearms. Sam pulled the .45 rounds off the shelf. Neat rows of bullets. One box of steel-jacketed rounds, two of hollow-points, plus another half full. He couldn’t remember how many rounds were in there, last time he looked.

He opened the box that held his .45. The pistol was there along with three clips, all loaded, nine rounds each.

He took out the gun. Not so heavy now, but it would weigh close to two pounds fully loaded. He checked the chamber. Empty. Checked the action, pulled back the slide, fired it dry, then did it again. The clicks were loud in the quiet room. He shoved in a clip with the heel of his hand, sighted down the barrel. Then unloaded, rechecking the chamber. He smelled the barrel and ran his hands over the crosshatched wood grip and the smooth, gray metal, looking at his fingertips afterward.

Nothing. It was clean, only the faint scent of oil. Sam sat heavily in his lounge chair. “You’re crazy, that’s what.”

If Dina walked in here right now, asking what he was doing up at this hour, playing with his guns, he wouldn’t know what to tell her. He would feel ridiculous as hell.

This pistol had been smuggled out of Vietnam by way of a friend in transportation. Sam had carried it in combat.

Had used it. Maybe he had stolen it because he’d thought it was lucky. It had saved his life a couple of times.

Now he looked down at the Colt, which he still held by the grip. He got up, put the pistol back into its box, returned the box to the cabinet, and locked the door.

or an art exhibit on Miami Beach in the month of June, Ion after the season was over, Caitlin’s show wasn’t Fdoing too badly. She allowed herself another glass of champagne. Her photographs looked splendid, mounted on the high, white walls. Five or six had already been sold.

Paula DeMarco, the gallery owner, had planned the usual wine and cheese and crackers. Caitlin had run her charge card to the limit having the show catered with champagne. She was wearing loose slacks and a handpainted vest, looking properly artsy. On South Beach, image was everything.

Now she was in the middle of an interview with a freelance writer for Ocean Drive magazine. He wanted to know how a fashion model could make the leap to art photography. Then he asked what other top models she’d worked with. And wasn’t it great that the Beach was acquiring some of the cultural ambiance of New York?

Caitlin said yes, she’d heard about a new restaurant opening up on Collins where the waiters were all transvestites.

Very East Village, didn’t he think? Then he asked if she had any shows this summer. She said there would be an exhibit in Soho, a gallery on Mulberry Street. A lie, and he probably knew it but wrote it down anyway. Surely, before the summer was out, she would have a show somewhere. The reporter had a camera and asked to take her picture.

Sipping her champagne, Caitlin glanced past him toward the door. A young couple going out, a trio of men coming in. Catching herself, she muttered idiot under her breath. She knew what she was doing, for the hundredth time tonight: looking for Sam Hagen. The more rational part of her brain told her this was the last place he’d show up.

“Caitlin, I adore your photographs!” A model agent she’d known for years gave her a fumbling hug. The woman was high or drunk, possibly both. “But I knew you had talent. Didn’t I say that? Didn’t IT’

“Thanks,” Caidin said. “They’re for sale.” For less than you paidfor those ugly shoes, she added to herself.

The woman grabbed the reporter’s shoulder. “Brian!

My God, somebody told me you’d gone to L.A.”

Caitlin slipped away, nearly bumping into Rafael Soto around the other side of a divider. He was speaking Spanish to a good-looking man about thirty. Caitlin took the cigarette out of Rafael’s hand and filled her lungs.

Exhaling smoke, she said, “Thank you so much.”

He took it back. “That’s all you get. Caitlin, this is Julio. Julio, esta loca es mi amiga preciosa, Caitlin.”

“Hi,” said Julio. He had eyes as dark as Rafael’s, and perfect teeth.

“Hello. Did you come willingly tonight, or did Rafael twist your armT’

“Please?”

Rafael did a fast translation, then said, “Julio just moved here from Paraguay. He speaks no English, so I’m showing him around.”

“He’s gorgeous. Should I say congratulations?”

“Not yet, but stay tuned.” Behind the red-framed glasses, Rafael’s eyes shifted across the gallery. “Oh, God. Your ex just walked through the door.”

Caitlin glanced around. Frank Tolin was looking at her.

He smiled. Then picked up a gallery guide and walked toward the first grouping of photos as if he had actually come here to see them.