Only Make Believe (21 page)

“Wouldn’t he be more like a second cousin? But yessir, he calls himself their uncle, and they’s the nephews.”

“Tell me about Muscles.”

“You mean Albert? He was a big, good-looking boy and you’re right, always makin’ a muscle. Not as bright as his older brother, Robert, who’s no Einstein hisself. Anyway, Robert—Rob—he landed a good job with the power company. It was Albert was his mother’s trial.”

I asked why was that.

“Boss man, he just couldn’t keep up. Then he got that girl in trouble. Yeah, he did—just like his big brother did before him. Like he was copying him. Both of ’em without a high school diploma between ’em. They weren’t good students, didn’t read much at all. Albert missed a couple of grades, got held back. But he did the right thing, I guess, when the time came—drove the slut up to Folkston, Georgia, where you can get married overnight. Now he’s got that steady job as a nurseryman. Started a family. Another brat in the oven. Just goes to show.”

After Emma Mae said goodnight, I strolled along the river front.

Just goes to show—what?

Out in the channel, a small tug dragging a barge chugged upstream, fighting the current. I shut my eyes, opened them, and it was July of 1945 again. I was standing on the portside deck of the
Indianapolis
. We’d pulled into Apra Harbor, Guam, during the previous watch, an hour past sunset. I was supervising the loading of supplies and Mike Rizzo had just come topside to check out the view. All around us, tugs, gigs, barges, oilers and a few native outriggers were going about their business. Mike—bare-chested, deeply tanned, compact and sporting two days’ growth of black stubble—leaned out over the rail and waved at a Chamorro woman with a boatload of bananas to sell. She started paddling toward us but a patrol gig’s searchlights quickly nailed her and cut her off. Mike winked at me. The lady swore and shook her fist.

The war was a month from won. Seeing Mike just
there—beside me, my buddy, my mate
—was always a surprise, a secret joy. He was sexy as hell, funny, courageous—
my Mike
.

Guam was the last land we saw before our cruiser was ripped apart by Japanese torpedoes, before the gallant old ship sank like a knife in pitch darkness—the night I lost him.

I sucked down cold Florida-brewed Regal beer and tried to turn my thoughts away from Ensign Rizzo.

Did Daddy Albert serve in the War? Did a pregnant wife or newborn child exempt him from the draft?

I tried to imagine Al Fletcher stripped for a draft board physical—muscles out to here, former football player, strong, presumably healthy—A1 infantry material, the opposite of 4F.

What did he look like on the football field, suited up? Or naked in the locker room, or fucking his wife?

I couldn’t imagine it. I couldn’t think of anything but Mike and Bud. Patches of fast-moving fog played along the surface of the water. Mike and Bud were standing
together on a puff of mist, thirty or forty feet away. Neither was touching the other or seemingly aware of the other’s presence. We stood staring at each other for what seemed like half a minute. Slowly, the little cloud on which they stood began to pull away. Mike saluted. Bud waved. Neither man appeared to be unhappy at leaving me behind.

I waved and silently called out. They got smaller and smaller before disappearing into darkness. I took a deep breath, drained my beer, tossed the bottle into the river and started to shiver. The woolen watch coat wasn’t thick enough to protect me from my worst fear—losing a second lover to another Asian war.

I didn’t think much about life after death in those days. Mike was just—gone. And yet, for a moment, he was here, with me, a spirit, a waking dream, standing solidly beside Bud, who was both flesh and spirit, all man, all mine.

What about Nick DiGennaro, I wondered. Would his spirit haunt the Caloosa? Would the ghost be dressed as Diva Capri? Would a mysterious Italian woman haunt the fifth floor halls of the hotel until we nailed her killer and sent him to the electric chair? Or forever?

And, damn it, what about Chuck, who so resembled a younger Mike? Bud was willing to speculate that he’d killed his father, or helped his mother do it. Granted, the boy was a cool liar, and on his way to a drinking problem. He and I had that much in common. But a killer? I couldn’t see it. My own parents had been killed in a car wreck when I was a little boy. I was raised by my father’s brother Bob and his off-and-on girlfriend, Judy. Uncle Bob was my dad in every way but fact. I loved and respected him. I couldn’t imagine circumstances where I’d ever have done more than argue with him, much less break his jaw and kick him in the nuts.

Suddenly, I almost loved the DiGennaro boy. He rolled his shoulders just like Mike and Bud, had Mike’s dark eyes and sable lashes, Bud’s wary reserve. I wanted to protect him, advise him, keep him from making all the stupid mistakes I’d made growing up.

I felt drunk. Yet after just one highball and a beer, I really wasn’t. Chuck and Mike probably had no more in common than Italian blood and soulful eyes. I’d be a fool to let my own feelings interfere with Bud’s investigation.

Somewhere behind me, a siren went off. A fire alarm, a klaxon, moaning rather than shrieking, aaaah, AAAAH, aaaah, AAAAH, an eerie, cautionary sound over the familiar rush of the river’s waters. At first I thought I was dreaming, imagining things, was back aboard the wounded
Indianapolis
, handing out life jackets, ordering sailors to unlash rafts, desperately trying to spot Mike or any of my wardroom crew in the near total darkness.

Turning toward the hotel, I saw Phil running across the pool deck. “Fire! Fifth floor,” he shouted. “Brian’s on his way up with extinguishers. You want I should call the fire department?”

“Hell, yes, call them. And start calling guests in the rooms above five. Work your way down from the top. Go!”

I ran through the locker room, took the fire stairs up, failed to notice the brown sock abandoned on the third floor landing. On five, I followed the shouts and acrid smoke smell to the crime scene, again room 522. The door this time was standing wide open. The padlock and hasp had been ripped off the freshly painted doorjamb. The missing hotel key had been inserted into the lock, the cylinder turned, the door unlocked and shoved open, the key left behind.

Inside the room, Brian Murphy and the two former army buddies, Spud and Gregg, had the situation under control. Brian and Spud were wielding fire extinguishers. Gregg was busily filling and refilling an ice bucket from the bathtub tap.

“We heard something,” Spud said.

“Out in the hall,” Gregg echoed.

“Like somebody almost running, or walking fast, double time.”

“Heard the fire door bang shut.”

“We thought this time, hey, we ought to go investigate.”

I figured they’d probably been in bed together when they heard the “something” but exited into the hall from two different doors. It didn’t matter. Like Bud, they were brave and battle-hardened. I intended to suggest that they return to the Caloosa next year, again without their families. On the house.

The fire was confined to the closet and bedspread. Doc Shepherd and Bud had elected to leave the unstained linens and DiGennaro’s wool suit, gray slacks and evening gown behind, at least temporarily, pending further developments. Now the garments were black shreds covered with foam, the bed a smoking, stinking ruin.

Four firemen arrived minutes later, escorted by Phil. They seemed disappointed to find that the danger was past. “Fifth floor,” one of them said. “Could have been a major exercise. Didn’t spread. Good thing. This fleabag could be a real fire trap.”

“One more reason we got to keep pushing the mayor to get us that truck with a tower ladder.”

“This ain’t the room where the man was killed, is it? That was in the paper and all? The swish wearing the dress?”

I ignored the fire chief’s epithet. Instead, I confirmed that it was the same room and that the dress itself seemed to have been consumed in the fire. I added that the fire appeared to have been set. “These guests here”—I indicated Gregg and Spud—they both heard something out in the hall. Heard it from their rooms.” I emphasized the plural, rooms. “They say somebody was running, hurrying. Right after that, the fire door slammed.

“Sounds like you got a firebug on your hands. Or somebody wanting to destroy evidence.”

“It was somebody with a key, chief, that’s for sure. See, in the door. That guest key was missing, and now here it is. The firebug also broke the hasp that was set by the police officer on the case. My guess is he unlocked the door, then shoved it open.”

The fire chief sniffed, glanced at one of his men, knelt and put his nose to the bedspread’s unburned apron. “Mort?”

Mort knelt, sniffed, shook his head. “Lighter fluid, that’d be my guess.”

“We’ll have to get the inspector in.” The chief looked at me. “You the manager?” I said I was. “It’s already a felony been committed here, alleged. So now we’ll have to post a guard on it overnight. Or get the police over here. Who’s working this case, by the way? Handling the dead swish, I mean.”

My back was up. I didn’t like his language and assumptions. DiGennaro had been about as swish as Genoa salami. I gave him Bud’s name, told the chief he wouldn’t be available until the next morning, said I thought we ought to get the fire escape looked at now, demanded, in fact, that it be inspected for clues.

He shrugged. “Well, it’s been used by a lot of people since the alarm went off, sir. You got a big crowd of guests in their pajamas and dinner clothes out in the parking lot. They’re going to be mooing to go back upstairs pretty quick.”

I insisted we look anyway. This time I spotted the brown sock. It contained an empty Ronsonol lighter-fluid can. We found out later that the sock had wiped the can clean. There were no prints on the room key, either. The mate to the sock was found in the hotel parking lot the next morning.

Bud showed up on the pool deck late Saturday afternoon. I was swimming laps. He waved. I waved back but kept going. He was wearing a dark suit, necktie, oxfords, aviator shades and a brimmed hat.

He knelt at the end of the lane. When I flip-turned, hit the wall with my feet and pushed off again, he had to jump back to avoid the splash.

I hauled out after another half mile. Bud was seated at an umbrella table sugaring a cup of coffee. I grabbed a towel and swabbed my face. “Let’s go upstairs,” I said.

“I been upstairs. Fire inspector been up there since breakfast. You know that already. He’s got a four-page report ready to go. Fire was definitely set. Evidence destroyed intentionally. I been listening to him yap for an hour.”

“Does he have any idea who set it? I mean, we
know
.”

“What do you mean,
know
?”

“Whoever beat up the Diva came back to try to clean up the scene. Or maybe he forgot something. Could be he did, and retrieved it. I didn’t see any sign the Klan was there. No ‘1 more dead evening gown’ in black-widow lipstick.”

“Thanks for your help, Lieutenant.”

“What about Doolittle? You write up your report on him?”

“Sure did. Probably wasted effort. Come to find out he was released to his sister on condition she get him sober enough for a hearing the middle of next week.”

“She might as well try to turn the Caloosahatchee around. The drinking he does, starting with his morning coffee, that’s not the kind of drunk a big sister can cure. Not in a week.”

“Takes one to know one, huh?”

“Who was it swan-dived into Lake Bacardi last night?” I positioned myself right in front of him, toweled my legs and chest and let him inspect my nearly naked body. “Why don’t you pretend I’m the fruit in the planter’s punch, gyrene.”

He ducked his head. “I’ll make it up to you,” he muttered.

“Let’s go upstairs. To my room. Second floor. Not five.”

“I got work left to do.”

“We both do. Let’s go.”

“Goddamn it, excuse me. But this thing feels stalled. Can’t waste time on that.”

“
That
? What? On us? We can fix
that
. It’s OK. You were plastered.”

“This whole goddamn investigation—DiGennaro. You can’t fix that. Maybe you already done kind of the opposite.”

“What happened? Something happened?”

“Right. Yes. You know I had to drive to Bradenton for the funeral this morning first thing. Well, second thing, what with the Doolittle report and all. And you know who comes up to me at the graveyard?”

“The mayor? The tooth fairy?”

“Why don’t you put some clothes on and sit?”

I wrapped the towel around my trunks and sat. “Make up your mind. You pulled my shorts down last night. Got me all interested, then pushed me out the door. Having an asshole with a shotgun break in on the party is no excuse.”

He hit the tabletop with his fist. “Will you stow that? You think I ain’t feeling it, too?” He took a breath, whispered “Fuck” and put his hands on the arms of the chair, as if to go.