Shark Infested Custard (28 page)

       But today was the day, and so far, everything was on schedule and according to his plan. He reread the three-by-five card, as he sat at his desk, and checked off 1 and 2. Number 3 was to fire Robert C. Matlock, his salesman in Jacksonville, a man he had never liked, but had hired because he was a conscientious salesman. He wrote out the letter for his secretary to type and then added a note to Nita, telling her to predate the letter by two days, to sign his name, and to send a carbon copy of the letter to Gunnersbury Silversmiths, Ltd., in England. With a little luck, Don thought hopefully, the embittered Matlock, fired without cause or reason, would steal some of the flatware he had on hand in Jacksonville, and disappear with it. Perhaps and probably not, but Don had never liked Matlock, and as long as he was absconding, it wouldn't hurt anything to throw some suspicion on Matlock while he was at it.

       He crossed out No .4 on his card, and then unlocked the file cabinet in Nita's office. He removed the inventory folder, ripped it into four sections, and placed the quartered sheets of graph paper into a brown paper sack he had brought to the office for that purpose.

       Don sat at Nita's desk and wrote her another short note telling her that he would be in Tampa for the next three days with Henry Messinger—checking out his sales talks. As an afterthought, he told Nita to have George sweep the warehouse and to give the handy man two days off and a salary advance of ten dollars for doing such a good job. If she needed to contact him, which he doubted, she could call him after eight p.m. at the Ramada Inn in Tampa.

       Don picked up the paper sack containing the trashed inventory file, locked the office, and left the warehouse area. He ate the breakfast special at the Biscayne Boulevard Hojo's, drove to the back parking lot of Jordan Marsh and parked his Mark N. He locked his car, dumped the paper sack into a trash can beside the back entrance, and entered the door just as the floorwalker opened it from inside with his key.

       In the children's department he purchased three pairs of blue denim bell jeans, size ten, a red wool topcoat, size ten, three long-sleeved cotton T-shirts (one with "Marlins" printed on the front, and two with "Dolphins" printed on the back), size ten, and two pairs of cowboy boots, one black and one white, size six-D.

       Downstairs in the luggage department on the first floor Don bought a red leatherette suitcase with white leatherette straps and packed his clothing purchases into it. In the cosmetics department, still on the ground floor, and near the back exit doors, he bought a clothes brush, a hair brush, a tortoise comb, and a toothbrush. He added these items to the red leatherette suitcase. He paid for all of his purchases with a Jordan Marsh credit card that belonged to his wife, a card he had removed from her purse the night before while she was busy in the kitchen cooking his dinner.

       Don crossed off 5, 6, and 7 on his three-by-five card, left Jordan Marsh, and ripped the credit card into two halves as he reached the trash can. He dropped the two halves into the can. He unlocked his Mark IV, placed the red suitcase on the back seat beside his own, and drove south on the Dixie Highway, turning left on Twenty-seventh Avenue to the Lilliput School in Gables-by-the-Sea.

       Ms. Dubina, the headmistress of Lilliput School, didn't like it. She didn't like it at all. "I've told parents, Mr. Luchessi, and I've told them again and again, orally and in writing. We don't like to have children taken out of school for doctor or dental appointments during school hours. There's plenty of time after school for such appointments. Marie's only been at school two hours, and what little she's learned this morning will be knocked out of her head completely by the excitement of going to the orthodontist."

       "I'm sorry," Don lied, "but the orthodontist said that it was at least a two-hour wiring job, and we didn't tell Marie about it. She's afraid of dentists, you see—"

       "That's perfectly normal," Ms. Dubina said. "So am I—"

       "At any rate," Don said, "her mouth'll be pretty sore when he's finished, so I won't bring her back this afternoon."

       "Very well. But next time, I want at least three days notice in advance, whether you tell your daughter about it or not. You have your problems with Marie, and I have mine. Your daughter, Mr. Luchessi, is not a tractable child."

       "I know. My wife spoils her, I think."

       "Somebody has." Ms. Dubina nodded grimly. "Wait here. I'll get her..."

       Marie was so excited about getting out of school to go with her Daddy to Disney World that she almost wet her pants. Three blocks away from the Lilliput School Don had to stop at Lum's to let Marie go to the bathroom. When she came out of the restroom, he bought her a Lumburger and a stein of root beer, and then they were on their way again, driving north on 1-95.

       Now that he was actually on the road to somewhere with his daughter by his side and with the ten thousand dollars worth of silver safely stowed in the trunk, Don allowed warm waves of elation to wash over him. His skin tingled, and his face was hot with pleasure. He had done it by himself, without any help from Eddie, or Hank, or anyone else. The black depression that had clutched him every morning for the past two weeks, after he had learned of Eddie's transfer to Chicago, was completely gone. Until he had made his decision and his new plans, Don had been popping Librium capsules like peanuts.

       Marie, sitting quietly beside him in her school uniform (white scalloped blouse, pink pinafore, and white patent leather shoes), looked solemnly out the window at the flat green countryside.

       That had been his only mistake, Don thought, telling Marie he was taking her to Disney World. Of course, Disney World was nowhere near Tampa, where they would be looking for him, if they looked, and he could be damned certain that Clara would demand a search, but all the same, there would be at least a one-day delay if he took Marie on an all-day visit to Disney World. Was there any way out of it? He guessed not. He didn't want the girl to suspect anything, so he would stay overnight near Orlando—but not in Orlando—and take her on the damned tour tomorrow. Marie's excitement had died down, the doubled excitement of missing almost a full day of school today and another day tomorrow, with the Disney World trip thrown in as well, and for at least five minutes she hadn't said a word and she hadn't squirmed.

       "Daddy?"

       "Hmm?"

       "How come Mommy isn't going with us?"

       Don cleared his throat. It was time to tell Marie the truth. If not now, when? So why not now, and get it over with?

       "Your mommy isn't coming because you and I, after we see Disney World tomorrow, are leaving her for good. From now on, it will just be you and me, sweetheart, and we'll never see your mommy again."

       "We'll never see Mommy again?" Marie's voice broke.

       "No. Never."

       Marie began to cry.

       Shit, Don thought, maybe I should've waited until tomorrow to tell her—while she was having fun, like watching an exciting puppet show or shaking hands with Mickey Mouse, or something like that, so she wouldn't have time to think about her mother. All the same, he was a little surprised by her tears. If Marie had told him once she had told him a thousand times that she had wanted to be with him all the time. And now that she had her wish, here she was, crying like a damned baby.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

At ten minutes after midnight Don was awakened by three imperative raps on the door. He was groggy because he had only been asleep for about an hour and a half, but the desk lamp was still on, thanks to Marie's inability to sleep without a night light, so Don was not disoriented. He knew, from the moment he was awakened, that he was in an Orla Vista motel room, that it was late at night, and that there was no excuse, or valid reason, for anyone to pound on his door, unless, perhaps, it was some drunk who had mistaken Don's room for his own.

       Still in his underwear, with his eyes half-closed, and shivering slightly in the chilled airconditioned room, Don hoped that the rapping hadn't awakened Marie. He had had a difficult time getting Marie to go to bed. She had cried for almost an hour after they checked into the room—although her appetite at dinner had not been noticeably affected by grief—and then she had sulked for the rest of the evening, refusing to talk to him. Shaking his head to clear it as he crossed, barefooted, toward the door, Don glanced at Marie's bed and noticed that she was not in it. His relief was immediate. It was now evident that Marie had gone outside for some reason or other and had locked herself out.

       But such was not the case.

       The man in uniform who stood on the narrow concrete porch beneath the overhead porchlight was a full head taller than Don, and he was pointing the barrel of a .38 police special at Don's midriff. The officer smiled shyly, exposing brutal, metalstudded upper front teeth, rehoistered his pistol, and said apologetically, "Excuse me, Mr. Luchessi, but if you'll ask me in I'd like to talk to you for a few minutes."

       Nodding, Don backed away as the big man in khaki chinos, with a round eight pointed badge pinned above his left shirt pocket, entered the room. Before closing the door he said something Don didn't quite catch to another man in uniform who was still outside, and then he edged warily into the room between Don and Don's opened suitcase on the baggage rack. Don was trying not to panic, although he was almost certain now that something terrible had happened to Marie, or else this sheriff, or deputy sheriff, would not be in his room, and Marie would be. Don sat on the edge of his bed, staring at Marie's rumpled bedclothes and, to have something to do, began to put on his socks and shoes. The sheriff nodded approvingly as Don started to dress, and pawed idly through Don's suitcase with his large left hand.

       "That's good, Mr. Luchessi," he said. "I was going to suggest that you get dressed."

       "What's going down?" Don said thickly.

       "A few questions—that's all." The sheriff removed the contents from Don's pockets before handing the trousers to Don. He took Don's key-case to the door, opened it, and handed the case to the man outside. "Here, Red," he said, "take a look through his car."

       "There's valuable property in my car," Don said.

       "Sure. But it won't hurt any to look at it, will it?"

       Don stood up, zipped his fly closed, and crossed to his suitcase. He slipped a clean white knitted shirt over his head, and then lit a cigarette, taking it from the pack on the bedside table. He switched on the bedside lamp and sat on the edge of his bed. His legs were trembling.

       "Listen," Don said, "if something's happened to my daughter, you'd better tell me about it." His tongue was thick and his throat was tight.

       The sheriff sat at the desk facing Don. He removed his broad-brimmed hat and placed it on the other side of the desk lamp. The shadowed brim had made it difficult for him to read the cards in Don's wallet.

       "You daughter's okay, Mr. Luchessi," he said. "That's your real name, isn't it? Luchessi?"

       "Yes, sir. Where is she?"

       "She's all right. Mr. Rouse, the motel manager, brought her over to my house, and my wife made her some hot chocolate. She's probably having some oatmeal cookies with it. I just want to ask you a few questions is all."

       "About what?"

       The big man chuckled. "For one thing, about these two big bills. Are they real?"

       "Yes, they're real. But what happened to Marie?"

       "She said her name was Marie Luchessi, so you must be her father. Is that right?"

       "Of course I'm her father. Is she hurt or anything?"

       "No, no, she's fine. Why're you carrying around a thousand-dollar-bill and a five-hundred dollar bill?"

       "If I carried fifteen hundred dollars in one-dollar bills I couldn't fold my wallet," Don said.

       "That's right, that's right," the big man chuckled, exposing his metal-studded teeth, "I guess you couldn't at that." He counted Don's traveler's checks. "Four hundred and twenty bucks in traveler's checks, too. Right?"

       "I think so, yes," Don said.

       "Where're you heading, Mr. Luchessi? A little vacation? New York, maybe?"

       "No. I'm the state representative for Gunnersbury Silversmiths. You can see my business cards there. I'm visiting my salesman in Tampa, a regular field trip. Our main office is in Miami, and I make a trip to Tampa and another to Jacksonville about once a month, sometimes every other month."

       "You're the boss, then, right?"

       "That's the way it worked out. I've been with Gunnersbury for almost ten years now. I was the Miami salesman at first, and then when the English representative retired, they gave me his job, too. So I'm both: the Florida district manager, and the Miami sales representative. Two hats. But what—?"

       "This is a lot of money. How long were you planning to stay in Tampa?"

       "Look. Tomorrow I'm taking my daughter to Disney World. We'll go on to Tampa for one or two days, and then we drive back to Miami."

       "In the middle of the week? What about school? Doesn't Marie go to school?"

       "It won't hurt to miss a couple of days. She's very smart, and I've been promising to take her to Disney World for a long time."

       There was a knock on the door. The sheriff was on his feet and had the door opened before Don could stand. Don sat again as the deputy entered. He was a short man with curly red hair, and his expression, as he looked at Don, was a curious mixture of anger and loathing. He carried Don's .45 semiautomatic pistol loosely in a red bandana handkerchief.

       "Look what I found in the glove compartment, Ed," the redhead deputy said. "Not only is it loaded, he doesn't even have the safety on."

       "Where does your little girl ride in the car, Mr. Luchessi?" the sheriff said, no longer smiling.