Hard Look Read online

  I was going to deposit Meyer’s check in the morning, but it would take three days to clear. I had just enough of my own money in my checking account to cover the ticket and give me walking-around money for a couple of days until I could tap into the check. I would also be able to draw some money from my Visa from a handy cash machine, if it came to that. I was hoping that it wouldn’t.

  I grabbed a sandwich and a couple of cans of cream soda from the deli across the street and ate them in my apartment. I still had a place on Thirteenth Street and University Place that I was actually in no danger of losing. A few years ago I’d had some trouble paying rent, and had lost my office and my apartment. These days I was a little more solvent.

  What I said before about not having a girlfriend wasn’t exactly true. I was seeing a couple of women at the moment, but was not truly serious with either of them. That is, serious enough to be having dinner from time to time, or taking in a show, and even discussing the possibility of practicing safe sex with each other, but not serious enough for any of us to have to account to each other for our movements. However, it would have been a nice gesture on my part just to let them know I was leaving town.

  Caroline McWilliams was a lady P.I. I knew whom I had helped on a case some months back. She was in her early thirties, dark-haired and pretty, and had elected to continue keeping her husband’s business active. I’d helped her find out who killed her husband, a guy named Andy McWilliams.

  We had gotten friendly during that time, and were continuing to see each other socially. I called her and told her I would be going out of town on a case and would let her know when I returned.

  During the same case I had met Linda Matella. She was blond, in her late twenties, and worked as a cop assigned to police headquarters, which meant she wasn’t a street cop—not yet, anyway. She had hopes, though. I called her and gave her the same message I had given Caroline.

  “Need some company?” she asked.

  “I’m going on business, Linda.”

  “I couldn’t get the time off anyway,” she said. “Call me when you get back, if you like.”

  My relationship with Linda was even looser than the one I had with Caroline. Truth be told, I felt sort of like a heel even seeing Linda. The string connecting the three of us sounded like a bad soap opera. She had been seeing Caroline’s husband when he was killed, and now I was seeing both of them. Two women sharing a man—again, although I was sure they were seeing other men—at least, I was sure Linda was. She just wasn’t as serious a person as Caroline was, at all.

  Caroline knew about Linda, knew that her husband had known her, but had never asked me how well. Neither had she ever asked me if I was seeing Linda. Like I said, I felt like a heel, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying the company of both women. I just hoped I never got serious with either of them. That would just cause too many problems.

  Having spoken to both of the ladies and finished my sandwich, I hauled out my suitcase and started to pack. When I traveled I did so with one piece of carry-on, so that I never had to suffer the adventure of waiting for my luggage. I was usually in my hotel room a half an hour after landing, which suited me fine.

  I finished packing and was left with time on my hands. I hate having time on my hands. I could have called Caroline or Linda back and spent some of it with one of them, or I could go back to Packy’s, hang out and be the boss.

  I decided to go back to Packy’s. Look, I enjoyed owning the place. There were problems, sure, but it was the first time I had ever felt like I truly belonged someplace, and I liked the feeling. Besides, I was leaving the next day, and I could say goodbye to my crew—especially Geneva—and some of my regulars.

  6

  Packy’s was walking distance from my apartment, so that’s what I decided to do. It was during that walk that I noticed the man in the brown bomber jacket walking behind me. I wondered if he had followed me home from the bar, and if he had, why, if he was just someone casing the bar for a chance to rob it.

  Then the scenario Geneva had fed me came to mind. Was this someone who was connected to some past case? And if so, what case could it be? Or was it something else entirely?

  I had spotted him only by accident, but now that I knew he was there, I was going to have to lead him someplace where I could confront him. I wasn’t about to let him follow me around without trying to find out why.

  I made a right on Eighth Street, going west, because it was lined with small stores, and I could stop at a moment’s notice, as if looking in a window, to check and see if he was still tailing me. He was. He had his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jacket, and whenever I stopped to look in a window, so did he. At one point I stopped and turned to a window, and so did he—and then he realized that he was looking into an empty window, because the store that had been there had gone out of business. He continued to stare into the empty storefront, although he must have felt stupid doing it. He was probably wondering if I knew that the place was empty. Maybe he was trying to look like a prospective renter. He even cupped his hands at one point, as if peering deeper into the store. While he had his face pressed to the window, I started walking again, increasing the lead I had on him.

  I made a left on Sixth Avenue and walked south until I reached West Fourth Street, where I turned left to walk east. If he had figured me to be on my way back to Packy’s, he was probably getting confused, and that meant he might get careless. Anyway, he stayed on my tail.

  I had decided to confront him, but instead of doing it in an alley or an out-of-the-way street, I’d do it in plain sight. So, I took him to Washington Square, where at that time of day there were plenty of strollers, joggers, panhandlers, street performers, and regular, normal people. In other words, plenty of traffic.

  Once we were there, I simply turned around and started walking toward him. Bomber Jacket froze in his tracks, not knowing what to do. Had I spotted him, or had I simply realized that I had forgotten something or that I was going the wrong way? Before he could make up his mind, I was face-to-face with him.

  He was in his late thirties, unshaven but fairly clean, with a dark complexion that was either natural, or he had been somewhere lately where he’d gotten a tan.

  “Why are you following me?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “What were you doing by my store?”

  “What? What?”

  “What’s going on?” I demanded.

  “H-hey,” he said, still trying to formulate a plan of action, “w-what are you talking about, pal?”

  “You know what I’m talking about, friend,” I said. “You were snooping around my bar earlier, and now you’re following me. I want to know why. Do I know you?”

  He had finally settled on playing dumb—unless he wasn’t playing.

  “I don’t know who you are,” he said, “but you better get away from me before I—I start yelling.”

  “Look, pal,” I said, grabbing the front of his jacket. He jumped back like a scalded cat, slipping from my halfhearted grasp. I kept my eyes on his hands, but they came out of his pockets empty. No gun, no knife. At least that was a relief.

  Sometimes I wish I was that P.I. in Boston, the one who beats everybody up when he’s working on a case, or even my buddy, Nick Delvecchio. Nick probably would have pounded this guy once or twice to get what he wanted. Me, that wasn’t the way I worked. Besides, I was a professional fighter once. I could get my ass in a sling using my hands on somebody. Come to think of it, that guy in Boston used to fight, too. . . .

  “Hey, get away from me!” Bomber Jacket started yelling. “What are you, crazy?”

  “I’ll show you how crazy I am, friend,” I said, “if I catch you anywhere near my bar again. Count on it.”

  “Yeah, that’s what you are, crazy!” he shouted again as I walked away. “Stay away from me.” As was the case in Manhattan, a few people stopped to stare, but no one did any more than that.

  At least while he was yelling for me to stay away fro
m him, he couldn’t follow me, but then why did he have to in the first place? He knew where Packy’s was, and he knew where I lived.

  Neither was a comforting thought.

  When I got back to the bar, I asked Geneva if she had seen the guy around while I was gone.

  “No,” she said, “I didn’t see anybody like that.”

  I looked around, but Stilwell and Taylor had obviously taken off.

  “Have you seen him?” she asked.

  I almost told her the truth, but I didn’t want to worry her, especially now that it seemed that he wasn’t about to rob the place. If anything, he might have been a kook who had somehow fixated on me and was simply following me around. I’d fix that when I hopped the plane to Florida tomorrow.

  Let’s see him follow me there!

  7

  Tampa Airport was busy, bustling with activity and vitality. I had never been there before, or to any airport that had the shuttle system it had. In order to get from the gates to the main terminal you had to take these monorail shuttles. Once in the main terminal, you had to find your way to one of the many elevators or escalators and down to the street level where transportation could be found. All around you were advertisements for the local tourist industry. For the most part, the other passengers were parents traveling with children, all of whom you knew would find their way to these places, and more. I wished all I had to worry about was whether to go first to Busch Gardens or to one of Disney’s theme parks.

  I had decided to stay in Tampa only because that’s where Jerry Meyer had stayed. It might have been smarter to stay in St. Pete, where he had found the postcard, but later I would realize that Tampa was the perfect place to stay for this investigation. I had picked the right place for the wrong reasons, and wasn’t that how life usually worked? Doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, or the wrong thing for the right reasons?

  I didn’t stay at the same hotel as Meyer, though, not even with him paying the tab. It just didn’t make sense for me to stay in one of the expensive chains, a Hilton or a Sheraton. In fact, there was an arcade of shops and restaurants that bridged the airport with the Marriott Hotel next door. It was tempting to just walk across and register, but I could just imagine what the rates had to be. I did, however, stop in the rather large bookstore in that arcade, because from outside I saw a couple of racks of postcards. One was filled with Florida skylines, beaches, and hotels, but the other was an assortment of fairly risqué postcards with photographs of scantily clad, well-built women—although none of them seemed to be bodybuilders or candidates for Ms. Fitness. They were just big-breasted, long-legged beauties on whom bikinis looked good—and none of them looked like Sandra Meyer. I bought a few anyway.

  The helpful young lady at the car rental counter directed me to the Holiday Inn on North Dale Mabry, which she told me was the main drag of this part of Tampa. I wasn’t really in the city of Tampa, she said, but I had easy access to downtown Tampa, as well as highways to St. Pete, Clearwater, Sarasota, and Orlando. Would I be going to any of those places? she asked. I said I didn’t know, but decided to take her advice. I knew I’d at least be going to St. Pete.

  She was also very helpful about the car itself. She informed me that they had a special whereby I could rent a large car—like a Cadillac—for the same amount that a midsize car would usually cost. Since I hated small cars, I had intended to rent a midsize anyway, and since I could get a Caddy for the same price, I took it. Why not drive in luxury? I drove away with a current-year, maroon Cadillac Fleetwood. Luckily, the air conditioner worked, because it was eighty degrees and my shirt had already begun to stick to my back beneath my sports jacket.

  I found the hotel with no problem, following the young lady’s directions. Actually, all I had to do was look for Tampa Stadium, home of the NFL Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and the Holiday Inn was just about half a mile past it. It was not a large hotel—which suited me—and instead of a coffee shop there was a Denny’s connected to it. Airplane food being what it had become, I had turned down my flight attendant’s offer of half a sandwich of some unidentifiable meat, a salad with packet dressing, a cracker, and a black olive, to which she replied, “I don’t blame you.” Consequently, I was hungry. I checked in, left my suitcase in my room, doused my face with some water, ditched my jacket and changed into a fresh short-sleeved shirt, and went to Denny’s.

  Fortified by a chicken-fried steak, fries, and coffee, I went back to my room an hour later to call Geneva and let her know where I was and to plan my strategy. Clearly, my first move would be to go where Jerry Meyer had purchased the postcard. That meant driving to St. Pete to something he had called “the Pier.”

  Down in the lobby of the hotel I had collected as many complimentary brochures as I could. I went through them, finding nothing about the Pier. I found brochures for Busch Gardens, Walt Disney World, and the various theme parks—MGM, Universal, and the like—as well as Sea World and Baseball & Boardwalk.

  I did, however, manage to come up with a map of the Tampa Bay area, which seemed to include the cities of Tampa, Clearwater and St. Petersburg. Meyer had not been able to tell me anything about the Pier except that it was in St. Pete. By using this map I’d be able to find my way to the city itself fairly easily. Once there, I was sure I would be able to find the Pier.

  I decided to put off the drive until the next morning, when I’d get an early start. Consequently, I was looking for some way to pass the evening, and it was too late to do any touristy stuff. I ended up driving around in my rented Fleetwood—which was almost like driving a limo—and that’s when I found Magadan’s Sports Cafe.

  I had a couple of beers, made the acquaintance of Craig, the manager, and Christina, the lady bartender. We shot the breeze and—since I was in the business—finally got to meet Joe Magadan. As a Mets fan, I enjoyed the whole evening immensely and told them I’d be back.

  I got back to my room about midnight, and left a wake-up call for 10:00 a.m.

  I didn’t have to start out all that early.

  8

  It was a remarkably easy run from Tampa to the St. Pete area. Getting closer than the “area,” though, was a little tricky. I took 275 south across this long bridge, and apparently when I came off the bridge, I was in the St. Petersburg “area,” but that was still a “fur piece” from downtown St. Pete, which is where I had to go. I continued on until I saw signs telling me what exit to take to get to the Pier. I got off at the proper exit, then proceeded to drive around for a half an hour, hopelessly lost, until I finally stopped to ask someone what I was doing wrong. He told me, I turned around, and was still doing something wrong. I had to ask again before I finally got onto the right street—Second Avenue, or Second Street, I’m still not sure which—and saw the Pier straight ahead of me.

  It was a four-story building somebody had the bright idea of building on an old pier, turning it into a tourist haven.

  I drove down and followed the sign to the parking lot. For a buck I got to park the car, and then I had the option of riding a bus to the Pier building, or walking. It wasn’t far, so I decided to walk.

  The water was beautiful, unlike any I’ve ever seen while standing on a New York pier. It was different shades of blue, some dark, some light, and I couldn’t really see what was causing the different shadings, unless it was rock formations underneath. I hoped it was rock formations, and not Orca or Jaws, or some such creature.

  Off to the left, across the water, were some high-rise buildings, at least some of which appeared to be made of pink stucco. I guessed that most of them were hotels—the ones that didn’t have bank emblems on them.

  To my right, again across the water, was a small airfield, and I could just make out a few small planes. In the water between us were some sailboats and some motorboats or launches—I still don’t know the difference.

  Walking along the path, I passed a young man playing the guitar and singing a few tunes, and dropped some change into his open guitar case. I didn’t do that to
the musicians I passed in the New York subways, so I guessed it was something in the air.

  As I approached the main building, there was a smaller one to my right selling bait or something. It was also selling fish, which the tourists were buying and throwing to the pelicans. Jeez, there were a lot of pelicans, and I don’t know that I would have trusted them if I had any fish in my hand, but there were the moms and pops letting their kids feed the remarkably large birds right up close.

  I guess I’m not a pelican person.

  By the time I reached the building, my shirt was plastered to my back. There was a glass elevator on the front of the building, which was, at the moment, on the second floor and going up. A small boy looked down at me and waved, and I waved back. Don’t see too many kids wave at you in Manhattan.

  Something in the air . . .

  There was a bank of doors, any of which took you inside the Pier, where it was beautifully air-conditioned. Left and right of me were shops. A hat shop, a Disney shop, a gift shop that did not sell postcards, a shop selling paintings and prints. I stopped at the hat shop and looked at some genuine Panama Jack’s hats. I even tried on a couple, then got out of there before I bought one. The woman behind the counter smiled at me even though I hadn’t purchased anything and said, “Goodbye. Have a nice day.”

  Can anybody in Florida not have a nice day?

  I stopped in the Disney shop, but all they had in the way of postcards were Mickey, Minnie, and the gang.

  I continued through the first floor, passing more shops—clothing, crystal, more gifts—but no cards. I passed a stand where they were making real fudge, then came to the rear where all kinds of handcarts were gathered. They were selling toys, sunglasses, jewelry, clocks, anything you could think of. There was another bank of doors leading outside, where there were benches, a miniature golf course, and a bar. To my left was a restaurant, and to the right a food court. Both bore the name Allesi’s. I guessed that Mr. or Mrs. Allesi pretty much had a monopoly on the food concessions. Sort of the Harry M. Stevens of St. Petersburg.