Ron Base - Tree Callister 03 - Another Sanibel Sunset Detective (12 page)

The two men shoved Tree hard against the table. Straw Hat grabbed his left hand. Tree tried to yank it away. Then the two simultaneously had a grip on him, pressing him forward, so that his elbow was on the table and they were forcing his arm out, palm up. His wrist, caught in the lamplight, seemed thin and terribly vulnerable.

“Don’t do this,” Tree said. His voice sounded so high and hoarse, he feared Edgar might get the idea he was scared out of his wits.

“But this is what I do, you see.” Edgar’s voice, icily calm. “This is the weapon I employ to get what I want. What I want is that money and the devil woman herself, Elizabeth Traven. So I am going to give you one more chance to give me the answer I am looking for before I cut your hand off.”

Amazing how little control he had over his body, Tree thought. As much as he fought against the pressure on his arm, he understood how totally powerless he was to do anything about it. “No,” he shouted, as if that would do the least bit of good.

Edgar’s arm rose, the machete in his fist, the blade gleaming in the light. Tree closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, trying to stifle the sobs bursting out of him, terrible sounds he could not control.

And then another voice said, “That’s enough.”

Tree blinked hard and squinted against the uncertain light. He couldn’t see anything.

The voice reiterated, “Let him go, or I start shooting people.”

Edgar very calmly said, “Who will you shoot first?”

“You, with the machete. The guy overdressed for the occasion. I’ll shoot you first.”

“It is called a cutlass,” Edgar said.

“Who cares? Let him go.”

The strong, binding hands slowly released him.

“Move into the light where I can see the three of you,” the voice said. “Do it.”

Edgar and his pals shuffled ahead so that the light struck them full on. Tree noticed that Pork Pie Hat had lost his hat. Edgar’s face in the uncertain light was hard to read, and that made him even more dangerous in Tree’s estimation.

“Tree,” the voice said. “Come over here.”

“Where are you?” Tree said.

“Just come toward me.”

Tree wasn’t quite sure his legs would support him. But as he wobbled forward, they held. He could see a shadow forming itself into a woman holding a gun with both hands. She moved as he came toward her and even in the hard light, Cailie Fisk’s face held its angular beauty. Or was it Susan Troy’s angular beauty? No matter. Whatever she called herself, she seemed to know how to handle a gun, and right now that’s all that counted.

Edgar, still holding the machete, spoke calmly, as if to test the changed climate. “I think you won’t shoot anyone.”

“Is that what you think?” Cailie said. “That’s fine. I’m a former St. Louis police officer. I’ve shot three people in the line of duty and to be frank, they deserved it a lot less than you morons. So do something stupid, and let’s find out if I’m willing to pull the trigger.”

No one moved except Tree who reached Cailie’s side. Was that a Glock pistol she held so steadily?

“Tree,” she said, “start moving toward the exit.”

The order was promptly followed by a loud crash—the lamp hitting the floor.

The world plunged into darkness.

16

A hollow bang echoed through the darkness. It took Tree a moment to register that the sound came from a gun. A screamed curse was followed by the sound of scrambling feet. Coming toward him or running away? Tree could not tell which.

He called out Cailie’s name. No reply. Maybe he got her name wrong. Maybe Susan no longer responded to Cailie.

Hands propelled him forward. He lunged through the black void he found himself in, feeling curiously claustrophobic, as though entombed in darkness.

Presently, a spot in the distance appeared, the blackness broken by a rectangle of gray. Tree plunged through it—diving into the rabbit hole. He found himself outside suddenly, the sketchy outlines of fishing trawlers, a tangle of masts draped in moonlight. Cailie was right behind him.

“Keep moving,” she said in a breathless voice.

“Who did you shoot?”

“It was dark. I’m not sure I shot anyone. I’ve got a car over by the wharf.”

The car was a gunmetal gray Yari hatchback. He squeezed into the passenger seat while she got behind the wheel. “Here,” she said, handing him her gun. “Hold this.”

He took the Glock while she started up the car. He worried that Edgar and his men would come charging and he would be forced to open fire. That’s all he needed, dealing with the fallout from shooting someone in Key West.

But no one came after them as the Yari jumped forward, headlights capturing the hulls of dry-docked fishing boats, a section of chain link fence, and then open gates and a strip of roadway.

“How did you get here?” he demanded, cradling the Glock in his lap.

Cailie kept her eyes on the road. “Let’s say I’m your guardian angel.”

“Are you really a St. Louis cop?”

“If you don’t mind my saying so, Tree, between throwing up on boats and getting kicked around by Key West thugs, I’d say you need help.” She glanced at him and grinned. “You need another operative at the Sanibel Sunset Detective Agency.

“I wouldn’t know what name to put on the employment form.”

“We’re both rather mysterious, I suppose. You don’t know who I am. I don’t know what you’re up to in Key West that attracts the attention of gun-toting goons anxious to cut your hand off.”

“Cailie or whatever you call yourself—”

“Call me Cailie. I don’t want to make things too difficult for you.”

“Look, I appreciate what you did for me back there. I’m not sure why, but you saved my hide. Now if you could just drop me off, I would appreciate that, too.”

“Every time I think it might be possible that you’re capable of dealing with the world you seem to involve yourself in, you reassure me you’re not.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning if I put you back on the street, what are you going to do? Chances are your pals back there are just going to find you again. And believe me, after what just went down, they will want to find you. This time they may do a lot worse than cut off your hand.”

Tree had no choice but to see her logic. “What are you suggesting?”

“Go where they won’t find you.”

“Where is that?”

“With me.”

“Not a snowball’s chance in hell,” Tree said.

“What choice do you have? Besides, we’re the only two people in the world who are going to know anything about this.”

“You’re already making it sound as though we’re up to no good.”

She gave a snort of laughter. “You’ve just been kidnapped and beaten. I may have shot someone in a dark warehouse. And
now
we’re up to no good? It’s a little late to be worrying about that.”

He heaved a sigh. “Where are you staying?”

“Not far away. The Casa Marina.”

“What we will do,” Tree said. “We’ll go over there and see if I can get a room for the night.”

“If that’s the way you want it, Tree, fine.”

_______

The hotel was full.

The desk clerk was so sorry, but everything was booked up. Tree was certain the clerk looked at him as if he was crazy not to stay with the lovely blonde beside him. Tree had to stop himself from blurting that he was a happily married man, and spending the night with this beautiful woman was the last thing in the world he wanted.

He had no choice but to follow Cailie through the long lobby, past the conventioneers crowding the bar area, everyone watching them, he was certain.

By the time they reached her room, he was dead tired. Kidnapping and threats tended to exhaust a detective—at least a detective of a certain age. The room, impersonal in shades of beige and ivory, was cast in a table lamp’s burnished glow, illuminating the king-size bed turned down for the night.

“You said there were two beds,” Tree said.

“I was mistaken,” she said, tossing the key card onto the table and unslinging the large shoulder bag she had carried from the car, dropping it to the bed.

“I’ll take the sofa,” he said.

She laughed. “This is right out of a bad movie. Come on, Tree. You’re bigger and older. You take the bed. I’ll fit nicely onto the sofa. Are you hungry? Do you want anything to drink?”

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Do you want to tell me why those characters were after you?”

“What difference does it make?”

She grinned and said, “Well, if I’m going to become another Sanibel Sunset detective in your organization, Tree, I should know what you’re up to.”

“I’m spending most of my time trying to figure you, Cailie.”

Her smile widened. “I wouldn’t waste my time if I were you. Trying to figure me out will only get you in more trouble than you’re already in.”

“You haven’t told me if you’re really a cop.”

“It’ll be on my resume when I apply for a job.”

He was too tired to argue with her any more. He flopped onto the bed and was vaguely aware of her retrieving the shoulder bag and slipping into the bathroom. Exhaustion washed over him like a series of small blows. He propped his head against luxuriously soft pillows, and was sound asleep.

________

Later—although how much later he could not say other than it was around the time he was being chased by the lion—he was shaken awake. Cailie Fisk’s hair tumbled around her lovely, intense face. Was he dreaming? Hard to say.

“What is it?” he said.

Before he could stop her, she dropped her head to him, her lips finding his, savagely kissing him. He pushed her away. “I want you to know,” she said.

“Stop this, Cailie.”

“I’m going to destroy you and your wife—just like you destroyed me.”

She kissed him again, and then she was gone. He tried to sit up and couldn’t. It was a dream. Lions chasing him. Threatening women kissing him.

Bad dreams, that’s all. If Freddie was here, that’s what she would say.

He fell back to sleep.

17

When Tree awoke in the morning, he was alone in the room.

He had not heard a sound of Cailie leaving, and he still wasn’t sure the kiss, and the threat that went with it, was anything more than a bad dream.

He got up from the bed, and padded into a tiled bathroom, so white its glare hurt his eyes. He stared at his bleary, unshaven face in the mirror. This morning he not only looked his age, he felt it, too. The muscles along his right arm and shoulder ached. He wanted to go back to bed and forget about everything.

Instead, he stripped off his clothes and ducked under the hot, reviving spray of the shower. That felt better.

He found a small bottle of mouthwash in the generous toiletries basket the hotel provided—just in case a guest arrived unexpectedly to spend the night with a mysterious woman who conveniently disappeared the next morning.

He tried on various scenarios that would explain to Freddie how he twice came to be in the same woman’s hotel room. Even the truth came out like a lie. He inspected the one-day beard growth that on younger men made them look sexy; it made him look like Gabby Hayes—for those who remembered Gabby Hayes.

After he finished dressing, he decided to call Freddie and let her know he was all right. But not in the space recently shared with Cailie Fisk. He would wait until he was in the lobby. Somehow, anything he said would sound less duplicitous there.

Riding down in the elevator, Tree thought about how his mother and her sisters used to bring him and his cousins to Sanibel Island each winter. Occasionally, they would break up their stay with an overnight jaunt to Key West. He remembered visiting the Casa Marina, in awe of the grand old hotel built by Henry Flagler to house the very well-to-do arriving from Miami via his newly completed railroad. But Casa Marina had undergone renovation in recent years, and in the process its Old World charm had been lost. Now it was just another anonymously ultra-modern resort hotel.

In the nearly empty vastness of the lobby, Tree tried to use his phone, but could not get a signal.

He considered leaving Key West, taking a cab out to the airport and grabbing the first plane back to Miami. He would find a connecting flight to Fort Myers once he got there. But that would mean leaving empty-handed, and no closer to finding Elizabeth Traven than he was when he arrived. Had she really disappeared with ten million dollars? If she had, she wouldn’t still be hanging around Key West.

Would she?

She might if Hank Dearlove was involved. Wherever Dearlove was this morning, maybe that’s where Elizabeth could be found, too.

Outside, he found an available pedicab. The driver’s name was Dominik. He was young and blonde and spoke with an American accent.

“I was born in Poland, though,” Dominik explained as he started off. “But I’ve been here for a long time, so I guess that makes me pretty much American. You want to see where Hemingway lived?”