Part 15 (2/2)
A sudden light came into his eyes and he leaned forward eagerly, treating us to a blast of particularly rancid breath. ”I knew it! You're that gal on WYME! Dr. Maggie. I should have recognized your voice. I listen to your show all the time.”
”Well, I'm glad you're a fan,” I said warmly.
”Never had the nerve to call in, though. Man, you've got some sick puppies on the show. I don't know how you stand it, listenin' to them whinin' and b.i.t.c.hin' all the time. I bet sometimes you feel like taking a rusty razor to the lot of them.”
I decided to let that last comment slide. ”Did you happen to hear the show I did with Sanjay?”
Ray suddenly busied himself with his plate of charred catfish. ”No, I can't say that I did. Must have been busy that day.” He knew enough to look me directly in the eye when he said it, but he hesitated just a fraction of a second too long. I figured he might be lying. Had he tuned in that day? But how could I ever prove it? And did it even matter?
”Sanjay's conference was held at the Seabreeze Inn right in the heart of Cypress Grove. We ran ads for it all week. We even ran a contest offering a free registration for one lucky listener.”
”Really? Must have missed the show that day. Never heard of the Seabreeze. I don't think I've even driven through Cypress Grove. Is it a nice place?”
I ignored Ray's clumsy attempt to change the subject.
”So you didn't attempt to see Sanjay when he was in town?” I figured I might as well go for the direct approach.
Ray's face hardened. ”I just told you, girlie, I never even been to your neck of the woods. And why would I be going to one of those silly-a.s.s conferences or whatever he called them? I had a bellyful of Sanjay, and I sure wouldn't pay good money to listen to him.”
A bellyful of Sanjay. Interesting.
”What happened between you and Sanjay? Was it some sort of a business deal that went awry?” Mom's voice was warm with empathy. Ray stared at her for several seconds, and his belligerence seemed to melt before my eyes like frost on a windowpane. It's true. Mom really can charm anyone once she sets her mind to it.
He swallowed hard before answering. ”I guess it was old-fas.h.i.+oned greed that got me involved with Sanjay,” he finally admitted. ”I had some cash lying around and I never did have much faith in stocks and all that financial stuff. Never liked banks, either. As far as I'm concerned, a fool and his money are soon parted, you know what I mean?”
”I do, exactly,” Mom said, touching him lightly on the arm. ”So you had some extra cash and you met Sanjay. What happened next?”
”Well, I was looking to buy a nice little piece of property, and I especially wanted something on the ocean, you know, maybe on the intracoastal. Of course, there's hardly any wa terfront property left in Florida these days. So I figured I'd settle for the bay. I didn't feel like buying anything inland.”
Mom nodded. ”I know; it's a shame.” Her eyes never left his face. ”And I always say, what's the point of living in Florida if you're not going to live on the water?”
”Exactly!” His weathered face creased in a grin. ”I finally found a woman who understands me.” He glanced over at me for affirmation, and I nodded. Mom was clearly on a roll, and I wasn't going to interrupt the flow of conversation.
”And that's when Sanjay entered the picture?” Mom lowered her voice as if signaling the arrival of Satan himself. ”That's when the problems started?”
”You said it,” Ray said and smacked his lips unhappily. ”You know how they say if somethin's too good to be true, it probably isn't? Well, I fell for his line. And I admit, I was a mite foolish. You know, I'm the kind of guy who never can pa.s.s up a bargain. And Sanjay offered me somethin' beyond my wildest dreams.” He paused for effect. ”He offered me a nice little two-bedroom bungalow on Sunset Bay for six hundred thousand dollars.”
”Wow!” I said in spite of myself. ”That's an excellent price. Right on the water?”
Ray nodded. ”You bet. It was the bay, not the ocean, but it had a boat dock and everything. Some of the neighbors had sailboats, but I just had me a little outboard. It was enough to cruise up and down the bay. I planned on living out my golden years on that little boat,” he said morosely. ”It was gonna be my own little piece of paradise.”
I suddenly remembered reading a piece about Sunset Bay. A towering condo with underground parking had recently been constructed there. Uh-oh.
”And you bought the house,” Mom said, trying to hurry him along.
”That I did; that I did.” He took a long swallow of Coors and burped delicately. ”And lived to regret it, let me tell you. Look at me now,” he said, waving his hand at the dreadful trailer. ”Stuck here for the rest of my days. Unless a miracle happens, and I believe they're in short supply. All I have to look forward to is going out to the tavern Friday nights. That's the highlight of my week, sad to say.”
”But what happened to the house?” Mom asked. We exchanged a look. It seems that Ray Hicks had his own way of telling a story and couldn't be rushed.
He gave a harsh cackle. ”Taken by the revenooers.”
”Revenoors?” It was like Beverly Hillbilly-speak.
”I think he means revenuers,” Mom said gently. ”Are you saying the state came in and took over your house?”
”That's exactly what I mean. Imminent domain they call it. Well, it was imminent all right. One day I had me a nice little house and the next day I didn't. If that ain't imminent, I don't know what is.”
”Eminent domain,” Mom corrected him, but he was too caught up in his story to notice.
”The state sold it to some developer to put up a high-rise. All he really wanted was the land; he figured my nice little house should be a teardown. A teardown--can you believe it? Take a lookee and you tell me--does this look like a teardown to you?”
He opened a kitchen drawer and pulled out a picture of a modest ranch house on a barren stretch of beach leading down to the water. It looked like something out of the seventies, white brick and white wrought-iron trim and a scruffy lawn dotted with a couple of date palms. ”This was it,” he said sadly. ”My dream home.”
”Very nice,” I said politely. ”And you think that Sanjay knew all this was going to happen?”
”I'm more than sure. I know he did,” he said savagely. ”That bloodsucker knew exactly what was going on. Somehow he had some inside information. He sold the house to me, and then the state came right in and ripped it out from under me. They paid me some money, but nothing like what I paid for it. And there wasn't a thing I could do about it. Not a gosh-darn thing.”
Except murder, I thought.
Chapter 21.
”I think Ray Hicks got a raw deal from Sanjay, but I don't think he has what it takes to be a killer.”
”Is that so?” Mom slung her long legs gracefully into the Honda Civic and took a deep breath. I immediately cranked up the AC. I'd deliberately left the car windows up, and now it was steaming like a sweatbox inside. A curtain fluttered at the trailer window and I suspected that Ray Hicks was watching us as we left.
”Did I miss something back there? What do you think?” I could tell from her offhand tone that she didn't agree with me. Mom has an uncanny way of ferreting out half-truths, evasions, and outright lies. I always tell her she missed her true calling and should have been a prosecutor.
”Let's get out of this dreadful place and I'll tell you,” she promised. She fanned herself with a south Florida map. ”How about a trip to Miami? That always raises my spirits.”
”Mine, too. You're on. And I have a couple more people we need to see.”
We drove south along A1A, admiring the glittering ocean on our left and the string of luxury hotels on the right. All the famous places I'd read about, the Eden Roc, the Fon tainebleau, the fabled hangouts of Sinatra and the Rat Pack. Maybe the legends were gone, but Miami is still one of the most fabulous places on the planet.
And South Beach, playground of the hip and famous, is as exciting as ever. I pulled into a public parking garage on Sixteenth Street and we walked past Loews toward the beach and the News Cafe.
After ordering cappuccinos, we sat at a green umbrella table and checked out the scene for a few minutes. Across the street, girls whizzed by on roller blades. A vintage cream-colored Bentley with tinted windows purred by.
It was four thirty, but the sidewalks were already crowded. It was time for predinner c.o.c.ktails or cafes con leche. Everyone looked tanned and beautiful, and a young couple at the next table was having an animated conversation in Spanish. The late afternoon sun splashed the Art Deco hotels with a golden glow, lighting up their Easter-egg pastel exteriors.
It was fun, hip, cosmopolitan.
Mom must have read the expression on my face. ”Why don't you move down to Miami?” she asked softly. ”You know you love it here.”
<script>