Midnight Pass: A Lew Fonesca Novel Part 11

"Don't worry," Digger said, some of his confidence returning. "This isn't a precedent."

"I know," I said. "Good luck."

"Thanks. I tell you something? Now that the twenty is in my pocket?"

I nodded.

"You never smile."

I nodded again.

"Some things are funny," he said.

"Some things."

"I mean, I'm not talking about a big smile like one of those yellow stickers. Just something besides doom and gloom."

I imagined Lillian Gish in Broken Blossoms, pushing up the corners of her mouth into a pathetic smile when her brute father ordered her to smile.

"I'm working on it," I said, towel folded around my soap and shaving gear. "Know any jokes?"

"Couple maybe, if I can remember them," he said. "Never could remember jokes. Wait, I've got one."

He told it. I took out my notebook and wrote it down. The list for Ann Horowitz was growing. I already had the start of a second-rate stand-up act.

Digger looked as if he had something more to say but couldn't come up with it.

"Wish me luck," he said, going out the rest-room door ahead of me.

"Luck," I said, and headed back to my office.

There were three new messages on my answering machine. I didn't play them back. I knew I had a dying politician to find and not much time to do it and some papers to serve for the law firm of Tycinker, Oliver, and Schwartz, but there were other things more important at the moment, like spending the day on my cot sleeping when I could, watching a video of Panic in the Streets or A Stolen Life. I was trying to cut back on my dosage of Mildred Pierce.

I took off my pants and shirt, draped them on the wooden chair, and lay down after removing my shoes.

I didn't have to sleep. Dreams came while I was awake. The dying Stark would be added to my sleeping nightmares. My waking dreams always came back to moments with my wife, little moments. A laugh shared across the table at the Bok Choy Restaurant, our b.u.t.tery fingers meeting in a box of popcorn while we watched a movie I couldn't remember. Her holding my face in her cool hands and looking into my eyes after we had an argument until I grinned and conceded her victory. Picking out the car in which she was killed.

There was an endless supply of pain. I savored every image, my depression fed on it. It wasn't simply self-pity. There was some of that, but it was that deep sense of void, loss that I wanted to hold onto and lose at the same time.

I fell asleep before I could insert a videotape. I dreamed of nothing and was awakened by the ringing of the telephone. It was still light outside. I checked my watch. It was almost seven at night. The sun was going down. I went into the office and picked up the phone a ring before the machine kicked in to take the message.

"Fonesca," I said.

"What happened?"

It was Kenneth Severtson asking a reasonable question.

"I left a message on your machine."

I looked at the battered metal box I had picked up in a p.a.w.nshop on Main Street.

"So?" he asked anxiously.

I told him the story and ended with "They should be home soon. Your wife had to answer a few questions for the police."

Long, long pause.

"He killed himself in front of Kenny and Sydney? She was in bed with him in front of Kenny and Sydney."

"They were in another room. They're young," I said. "I don't think the s.e.x part sunk in."

I didn't believe that and I wasn't sure he would either, but it was a lie he could pretend to hang onto if he really wanted it.

"I'm thinking about a divorce and asking for custody of the children," he said.

"Talk to Sally."

"I don't know. I want things the way they were," he said, thinking out loud.

"I know, but it won't happen. You take her back, you take the pain. There are things harder to take. Talk to Sally."

"If there's ever anything I can do," he said.

I thought of asking him if he knew any jokes, but decided to say, "Thanks, you owe me some money. You can send it to me or drop it off."

"How much?"

"Three hundred," I said. "I've got to go."

I played the messages, erased Severtson's and two from Dixie to call her. I dialed Dixie at home.

"It's me, Lew," I said before she could cough or say h.e.l.lo in her fake hoa.r.s.e voice.

"Roberta Goulding had a brother and a sister," she said. "Brother, seven years younger, Charles. Sister, six years younger, now Mrs. Antony Diedrich living with her husband in Fort Worth. He's got a Toyota and a Buick dealership. Don't know where the brother is."

"Thanks, Dixie," I said.

"That's not why I called mainly," she said. "Kevin Hoffmann, member of the board of just about everything in Sarasota, major contributor to the Ringling Museum, Asolo Theater, Sarasota Ballet, Sarasota Opera, Pine View School and Booker School Scholarship funds, Committee to Open Midnight Pa.s.s. Goes on and on."

"He's bought lots of friends."

"One might conclude," said Dixie. "Makes lots of money, like lots."

"Like?"

"Taxes on income over the past six years show over a million and half a year, some years over two million," she said.

"Thanks," I said.

"You haven't heard the best," she said. "He's going to have a birthday Sunday."

"I'm happy for him," I said.

"You might want to give him a present," she said, and told me why.

When I hung up with Dixie, I called Roberta Trasker. She answered after three rings.

"It's Lew Fonesca," I said.

"You found William?"

"You know Kevin Hoffmann?"

The pause was long. I opened the phone book and searched the pages for Hoffmann's number while I waited. He wasn't listed.

"Yes," she said. "Socially. He and his wife, Sharon, and William had business with him. Sharon left him about five or six years ago."

"You said *William had' business with Hoffmann."

"I'm sorry," she said. "I suppose I'm..."

"I understand. Mind if I call Hoffmann and ask him if he has some idea where your husband is?"

"No," she said. "I gather you haven't gotten very far in finding William."

"One small step closer," I said. "I'll call you when I have more. You have his number, Hoffmann's?"

When I hung up I looked over at the Dalstrom painting on the wall, the deep dark jungle and darker mountains, the single touch of color in the flower.

Then I dialed the number Roberta Trasker had given me. A man answered.

"Mr. Hoffmann?"

"Who's calling?"

"Lew Fonesca," I said. "Mrs. Trasker give me this number."

"What do you want to speak to Mr. Hoffmann about?"

"William Trasker," I said.

"What about Mr. Trasker?"

"He's missing," I said. "I want to ask Mr. Hoffmann a few questions that might help me find him."

"You're making this inquiry on behalf of Mrs. Trasker?"

"Yes."

"You're with the police?"

"I'm not against them," I said.

I was tired. I wanted to go to a back booth at the Crisp Dollar Bill across the street, listen to the bartender's tapes, eat a steak sandwich, drink an Amstel, get back in bed, and watch a videotape, something old, something black-and-white, something with William Powell.

"May I have a noncryptic answer?" the man said.

"I'm not a police officer."

"One moment."

The phone was placed down gently, and I looked at the painting on my wall while I waited. The jungle was inviting and I wanted to smell the orchid. I didn't know if the orchid in the painting had a smell.

"Mr. Hoffmann is busy. If you leave a number, he'll get back to you tomorrow."

"Tell him I have a birthday present for him," I said. "It can't wait."

The phone went down again and this time a different man's voice, a higher voice, said, "This is Kevin Hoffmann. And you are?"

"Lew Fonesca."

"You told Stanley that you have a birthday present for me."

He sounded amused.

"Yes."

"And you are looking for Bill Trasker?"

"Yes."

"And you are representing...?"

"Someone who wants to find Trasker."

"Come on over," he said.

He gave me the address.

"I'll be there in forty minutes."

I called the Herald-Tribune office and got a young reporter named John Rubin who maybe owed me a favor.

"Midnight Pa.s.s," I said.

"I'm on a deadline," Rubin said. "Call me back tomorrow, early afternoon."

"Two minutes," I said.