Surface Tension Page 17

  I sat down on the smooth navy bedspread. “Had you two been roommates long?”

  She closed the hallway door and leaned against it, crossing her arms under her ample breasts. She was wearing a white tank top and green satin jogging shorts. With her long blond hair and shapely legs, she looked like the type of model who is usually photographed draped over an outboard engine or a motorcycle.

  “I already talked to the cops, and I’ve got nothing else to say. Who are you?” she asked.

  “My name is Seychelle Sullivan. Maybe Elysia mentioned me.”

  I saw in her eyes that she did recognize my name, but her defenses weren’t down yet.

  “Yeah,” I went on, “we sure had some great times together. Did Ely ever tell you what we did on her seventeenth birthday?”

  A hint of a smile sparkled in her eyes, and she nodded. “She told you about the gorilla suit? She once told my friend B.J. that she loved gorillas. Well, I was complaining to him that I didn’t know what to get her for her birthday, and he said, ‘Let’s rent her a gorilla suit!’ And we did. We made her wear it all weekend—even to work. Only she’s such a shrimp, it was the funniest-looking, shortest-legged gorilla you’ve ever seen.” The room grew terribly quiet when I stopped laughing. “I mean was. She was such a shrimp. God, that’s hard to get used to.”

  After another long, uncomfortable silence, Sonya stuck out her chin and said, “She called you her guardian angel. But I don’t believe in angels.”

  “Yeah, she called me that because I was just trying to look out for her. I knew she didn’t have parents who were going to care, but I cared. A lot. And Ely knew that.”

  She shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “And I still care about her now. I care about what they’re saying about her, and I know it isn’t true. I don’t believe Ely’s death was an accident or suicide. I don’t believe she was willingly using drugs again, either. Someone killed her.”

  She walked over to the closet and began pulling clothes off the hangers, balling them up and throwing them into the suitcase. “I don’t know anything about that.”

  I stayed quiet for a while, knowing the silence would work on her.

  Finally she flopped down onto the bed and sat hunched over. She stared at the carpet and rubbed her toes across the fibers. Finally she looked up. “What do you want? I don’t know nothing. Leave me alone!”

  “Were you working the door when Ely came home Friday night?”

  Her blue eyes glanced up at me with a guilty look, the way Abaco used to look when she’d been left in all day and had peed on the floor in the cottage.

  “I don’t think I should be talking to you.”

  “Why not? I was a friend of Ely’s. I’m just trying to find out what happened to her. Don’t you want to know what happened to her?”

  I almost didn’t hear it, she spoke so softly. “No,” she said, and she started to cry. She had looked so tough, so invulnerable at first, that I had nearly forgotten she was just a kid.

  I pushed aside her suitcase and sat next to her. “What is it, Sonya?”

  “Sunny, call me Sunny. Ely did. I hate Sonya.” She wiped at her eyes trying to regain her composure, but the tears continued to spill down her cheeks. “Shit, I gotta get out of here.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Fifteen.”

  Oh, man, at fifteen, I was still playing on a girls’ softball team and hanging out on the river with my dad. I was tall and lanky then, dressed in cutoffs and T-shirts to hide what curves I had, and boys ignored me. I had no idea what it would be like to be a little girl in a woman’s sex-kitten body like Sunny’s.

  “Where are you from?”

  “Indiana.”

  “Don’t you think your family misses you?”

  She didn’t answer right away. Then she said, “I don’t have a family. My parents died when I was little.”

  “I’m sorry. I kinda know what that’s like. My mother died when I was eleven.”

  She didn’t say anything for a long while. The room was quiet aside from her occasional sniffles. Finally she looked up, her blue eyes now rimmed in red. “Do you still miss her?”

  Decades can go by and you can think you are so over it, and then one little question can just rip it all open again and make the wound as fresh and raw as it was that hot day on the beach. “Yes. Every day of my life.” She nodded and didn’t say anything more for a while as we sat there next to each other each essentially alone with our memories.

  She inhaled deeply. “I was raised by my sister and her husband.”

  “Where’s your sister now? Maybe you could go back to live with her.”

  “I don’t know where she is. Probably dead. She got on drugs, and then she tested positive. She just left.”

  There was more to the story, and though I felt pretty certain I knew what it would be, I had to let her tell it.

  “That was when Ray started going after me. Then he threw me out because I wouldn’t sleep with him anymore. Said I wasn’t good for anything.”

  It was a different variation of the story told by most of the girls in this place.

  “Is there anything I can do to help you?”

  She turned and looked at me, as though calculating what harm or good I could do her. “You helped Ely a lot. She told me.”

  I took a deep breath to keep the quiver out of my voice. “She was my friend. I’m really going to miss her.” Sunny stood up and went into the tiny bathroom. I heard the water running. When she returned, the tears had stopped.

  “I might know something that could help you a little. But see, I’m getting out of here. And I don’t have all that much time or money.”

  I opened my shoulder bag and pulled a twenty out of my wallet. Her offer hadn’t been well disguised, so I figured there wasn’t any need to try to be tactful. I put the twenty on the bed. She snatched it up and stuffed it in a tiny satin handbag hanging on the doorknob.

  “Okay. I came here about four months ago. That’s when I first met Ely.” Sunny went back to throwing things into the suitcase. “She didn’t talk much at first; she was always busy with her work and all. But after a couple of months, she started giving me some hints about how to make it and all. She told me the real story about this place, trying to keep me out of trouble, but by that time, it was already kind of late.”

  “What do you mean, the real story about this place?”

  She went on with the story, ignoring my question. “I thought I knew exactly what I was doing, and I wouldn’t listen to her at first. But it turned out she was right after all. This place isn’t what I thought it was.”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  She didn’t answer right away. When she did speak, the words came more slowly, more measured. “You asked me about if Ely was clean. Yeah, she wouldn’t ever have used drugs again. Even if she wanted to kill herself, she wouldn’t have done it like that.”

  Collazo now knew she hadn’t killed herself, but I didn’t see any reason to scare this girl with those kinds of details.

  She picked up a small stuffed dog off the bed and hugged it to her chest. “Promise you won’t tell anyone I told you this?”

  I nodded solemnly. “Yeah. I promise.”

  “Okay.” She took a deep breath. “I hope I’ll be gone out of this town by tonight anyhow. See, I was working the door Friday night when she came in. She signed in and went back to the room. An hour or so later, she left. She went running out, real upset like, crying and screaming and all. Then yesterday morning, Minerva calls me into the office and tells me Ely’s dead. She says the cops called and said they’d found Ely in the river and they were coming over here to talk to the people who knew her. She tells me I’m not supposed to tell anyone that Ely was here on Friday. She ripped the page out of the sign- in book where Ely signed in. She promised me something if I’d go along with them.”

  “What did she promise you?”

  “I can’t tell. It doesn’t matter. Ely told me n
ot to trust them, but I didn’t believe her. I should have.”

  “What about James? Sunny, do you trust him?” At the mere mention of the name, she turned all teenage moony and lovestruck. It was obvious she had a big-time crush on him.

  “I can trust him all right. He’s not like the others. He doesn’t know everything that goes on here. He’s gonna help me get a new start and all. I know he will.”

  The phone rang and she picked it up.

  “Yeah? Oh, hi!” Her face stretched into a wide smile. “Uh-huh ... okay.” Her eyes flicked in my direction. “Yeah. Well, a little.” The voice on the phone grew so loud, I could hear the angry tones across the room, and Sunny’s smile slowly burned out. “Okay. I promise. Bye.” She hung up the phone and turned to face me. “You gotta go.”

  “Who was that? On the phone, did somebody just tell you not to talk to me?”

  She began scooping all the cosmetics on her bureau into a shopping bag, ignoring me.

  “Sunny, what did you mean when you said Ely told you the true story about this place?”

  She spun around to face me. “I can’t talk to you no more. Go on. And please, don’t tell anybody that I talked to you at all.”

  “Sunny, tell me what’s going on here. I want to help.”

  “Well, you’re not helping.” Her voice sounded strained, frightened. “You’re only getting me in trouble. Now go. Get out of here.”

  I set one of my business cards down on top of the clothes in the suitcase. “If you need help or a place to stay, or if there’s anything you want to tell me, that’s my phone number.”

  I found my own way out, and as I walked down the hall, I wondered why James had lied to me about Sunny. What had happened that night to make Ely so upset that she would flee—and then turn up dead?

  Since Minerva was on the phone, I just waved to her as I passed through the lobby area. As I went out the door, I heard her saying into the telephone, “No, Mr. Burns, don’t worry. I’ll see to it.”

  Okay. So Burns is a fairly common name. But like Detective Collazo, I no longer believed in coincidences.

  By the time I drove back over the drawbridge, it was past three o’clock, and my stomach was protesting loudly. At a red light, I checked my wallet. Thanks to Sunny, I was down to my last twenty. A drive-through would be cheaper but I was more likely to find work hanging out at the Downtowner. I headed for the restaurant and bar on the bank of the river.

  Pete smiled when I came through the door but then his expression turned serious, as though he had suddenly remembered something. He waved me over.

  “Hang on a minute, Pete,” I called out, and pointed to the back where the pay phone was. I wanted to talk to Jeannie first and find out how things were going on the legal front. I doubted she’d been able to do much over the weekend, but I hoped.

  She picked up on the seventh ring, just as I was getting ready to give up. She sounded like she’d been trying to run a marathon.

  “Jeannie, Seychelle here.”

  “Oh, hi,” she said in between gasping breaths. “I was outside working in the yard when the phone rang.”

  I imagined Jeannie running up the stairs to her place, her muumuu flapping in the breeze.

  “You catch your breath, and I’ll tell you what I’ve found out so far. Then you can fill me in on your side of things.”

  “Okay.”

  Jeannie hadn’t known Ely personally, but she had always had a good sympathetic ear. I found myself close to breaking down again as I told her about the events of the past twenty-four hours.

  “I went back up to Harbor House and spoke to Ely’s old roommate. She was working the front desk the night Ely died. She said Ely did come in and then ran out upset and crying about an hour later. The folks at Harbor House tore out the page in the log where Ely signed in. Then they made this girl hush up about it and lie to the police.”

  “Do you think they had something to do with her death?” Jeannie asked.

  “I don’t know.” I told her about my date with James and the face that I saw briefly at my kitchen window. “It was certainly not my imagination. Someone was spying in that window.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t you they were spying on.”

  “James? I hadn’t thought of that. Hmmm. To be honest, I can’t figure James out. There’s definitely something going on at Harbor House, but I’m not certain he knows about it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I heard something strange when I was leaving Harbor House this afternoon. The lady at the front desk, Minerva, was on the phone, and she referred to the caller as Mr. Burns. I was wondering if it could be the same one. What have you found out about him?”

  “Not much. He has an office off Las Olas, very high-rent district. The scoop from friends of mine is that in spite of his upper-crust veneer he is a real scumbag. He likes to take criminal cases for the rich and famous, and he cleans up their messes. If some rich brat gets caught dealing dope in his prep school or a local commissioner is arrested for exposing himself up in Holiday Park, they call Burns. They like him because he’s not a publicity hound like a lot of these guys. I can’t get past his secretary, though, and he won’t return my calls.”

  “Well, he called me.” I told her then about the message on my answering machine. “Fifteen thousand is still chicken feed compared to what I could win if I took this to arbitration. They must know that or they wouldn’t be threatening me.”

  “Fifteen thousand is better than nothing.”

  “Don’t say that. You’re my attorney, for crissakes.”

  “I know. But I’m worried about you, Seychelle. These are not nice people.”

  “Anything more on who’s behind the Cayman Islands corporation?”

  “Nothing concrete, but I have my suspicions. I suspect that slimeball Benjamin Crystal never really sold the boat. I could be wrong, but I’ve been doing a little research on him. Crystal is the owner of record of several Top Ten Clubs, all strictly legitimate. That’s his public front. On the other hand, he is alleged to be involved with bookmaking, loan sharking, and prostitution through the clubs. They have been trying to gather enough evidence to close it down, but up until now, Crystal has been too smart. The only reason he’s in jail right now is because of a coke bust that was a bit of a fluke. Normally, Crystal doesn’t go near drugs—at least to import them. Not that he’s above it, but he’s making so much money on the sex business, why bother? But he did own this little interisland freighter so the cops began to suspect he might be running drugs. They’d been over it many times with drug-sniffing dogs, but that boat was always clean. A man named Zeke Moss was captain— Crystal’s cousin by marriage or something—and the cops now think he kept the freighter just to give this cousin a job. He was busted bringing a ‘gift’ to his cousin in the boatyard.”

  “Why would he want it to appear that he had sold the Top Ten?”

  “He’s been under surveillance for quite some time. He knew they were out to get him. He wanted to be sure they couldn’t seize his toys. He’s been doing the same thing with a couple of homes he owns.”

  “Jeannie, listen. I don’t really care who owns the Top Ten. I just know I need at least twenty thousand—more like thirty, really—for this job. I know that sounds like a lot, but I risked a lot.”

  “If I’m right about this, it’s not a lot to Benjamin Crystal. My question would be, then, how come he hasn’t just paid the fee to get rid of you? That’s what doesn’t make sense. What does he really want from you?”

  “I don’t have a clue. Call Burns and make a counteroffer say thirty, forty thousand. I need to settle this soon. Maddy is in real money trouble. I think I am going to have to buy him out of the boat somehow. If not, I’ll have to sell her and dammit, I don’t want to do that.”

  As soon as Pete saw me coming back from the phone, he waved me over.

  “Seychelle, there’s something you got to know. Something’s going on and it stinks.”

  “What are you talki
ng about, Pete?”

  “I don’t know who started it, but the word is that you’re blackballed. Nobody’s going to hire you anymore. They’re saying you’re late all the time, and you don’t know what the hell you’re doing. Guys you’ve worked for who know better they aren’t even speaking up and saying it’s a load of shit. I’m mad as hell about it, and every time I hear it start up, I go over and try to set things right, but it’s no use. You know how it goes with gossip around here. People’ll keep saying stuff they know ain’t true just because other folks are saying it.”

  I patted him on the shoulder. “Thanks for letting me know, Pete.”

  “One more thing, Sey. That hairy cop dude? He’s been in here twice looking for you, asking questions about you. People don’t like it. You might not want to show your face in here again for a while.”

  If I couldn’t work, couldn’t even go to my old haunts to solicit work, I’d lose the boat for sure. I suddenly lost my appetite.

  XIV

  When I got behind the wheel of Lightnin’, I wanted to slam the Jeep into gear and lay down some rubber to show the whole world just how pissed off I was. Luckily, I reconsidered. They, whoever they were, were the ones making all the moves, and I had just been running around reacting. And the cops—I didn’t know what they were doing, but it worried me that Collazo was investing so much time chasing after me. It was time to go on the offensive.

  I stopped at the cottage and threw some old clothes and my in-line skates into the Jeep. I changed into some ratty old sneakers and put out fresh food and water for the dog.

  As I drove down Andrews Avenue, I had a plan in the back of my mind, and I just wanted to drive for a while and let it brew. The next logical source of information seemed to me to be the Top Ten herself. Undoubtedly, the local cops had searched the boat, but they didn’t necessarily know what to look for. Cesar and his buddy, Big Guy, had been looking for something offshore right around the same spot where I found the Top Ten drifting last Thursday. Maybe it was the wreck I saw them diving on, or maybe they were guessing, same as me. One thing I knew was that if Neal had been looking for something on the bottom, then the position of that something could be retrieved from the memory of the boat’s GPS, Global Positioning System.