The Quick Adios (Times Six) (7 page)

Damn… My mind spun with questions that Beth Watkins was trained to ask. I felt infected by a weird sleuth virus, and I had to remember that I been hired and fired by Beth within four hours of a tender and damn-near acrobatic belly-to-belly at my house. Then I had to witness Liska’s odd behavior on my porch, an indication that something more personal than police work was bothering him. Odd misbehavior, since he was drinking on duty. If a straight line of logic lay under all that activity, it was hiding from me. But I had escaped it all in a King Air, flown away from the island pleased by the idea that none of it was my problem.

I was off to earn good money, rude company and all.

During our descent alongside Longboat Key, I glanced to my left. Eileen held a small spiral-bound art folio in which she was drawing a tree branch with several blue and green crayons. At one point she chose one blue tone over another and swapped crayons. I’m good with colors because of my photography, yet I saw no difference between the two blues. She checked the open booklet I had given her, added a detail and saw me looking. Her mouth twitched but didn’t smile like her eyes did. She made a fast thumbs-up sign and went back to her details.

Nearer the airport Eileen packed up her art gear and nudged my arm with the trees booklet, giving it back to me. I smiled and made a hand signal that it was hers to keep. I was surprised by her astonished look, especially from a girl surrounded but apparently not spoiled by the trappings of elegant living. As she tucked it into her carry-on pouch, I saw a photo, a head shot of a lovely woman.

Eileen noticed that I had seen it. She looked straight at me and silently mouthed the words, “My mom.”

I smiled, raised my eyebrows in appreciation and, still smiling, looked away.

The pilot whose first or last name was Sherwin had stated shortly after take-off that we would be on the ground at Sarasota-Bradenton at 6:04. He made his arrival to the minute. We went from daylight to sunset to dusk on our descent, from seventy-five to the mid-sixties stepping off the plane.

Beeson signed off some forms while the private terminal’s manager pulled a silver Ford Escape Hybrid to a slot near the office door. Anya and Eileen took the rear seat, while I rode shotgun. We drove a half-mile to another lot. Beeson stopped between two rows of cars.

Facing forward, he said, “Keys?”

I looked to my left.

Anya peered into her small handbag. “Yes. Pasta?”

“Perfect.”

Twilight Zone. Next they will start speaking their own private language.

Anya and Eileen got out with their carry-on bags and walked toward a cream-colored Porsche Boxster.

Beeson waited for the Porsche’s engine to start. Its rumble was deep enough to suggest an exhaust system modification. He then cued his stereo to an old Marley tune and drove away. He turned right onto the Tamiami Trail, the highway built in the 1920s to connect Tampa with Miami, a project that also launched the long-term annihilation of the Everglades. A minute later we were eastbound on Tallevast Road. After being quiet for over two hours, Beeson began to make up for it.

“I grew up in Bradenton, about six miles from here,” said Beeson, “and worked construction out of high school until my twenty-fifth birthday. I saved a hell of a lot of money by sharing shithole apartments with beer-swilling roommates and by not helping them buy their drugs.”

“I think we all hit a phase like that,” I said.

“That’s when I learned all the tricks I used in remodeling my home in Key West. But one day I stood back and tried to envision my future,” he said. “I knew I couldn’t be pounding nails when I was forty, or even standing out in the weather supervising nail pounders. I would have to master some other skill at a poor time in my life to be learning new ways to get along. So I looked for an alternative to busting my ass, though I didn’t quit my day job.”

We heard a faint doorbell as the music volume dropped. Beeson’s in-car cell.

He pressed a button on his steering wheel. “Yup.”

Anya’s voice came through the car’s speakers: “Morton’s. Eileen wants a slice.”

“Her mother’s decision.”

“No answer from her,” she said. “We’re latchkey again.”

“Okay,” said Beeson. “One is plenty.” He thumbed his phone’s off button and said, “One slice of pizza at Morton’s is more than I ate in a day, growing up.” He thumbed the button again. Bob Marley returned.

“We can look at my building while Anya takes Eileen to her mother’s place,” he said. “By the time we reach the house, our supper will be ready. You can stay in my guest house unless you prefer a hotel.”

He gave me a fraction of a second to respond, then said, “Anyway, I didn’t know what it was called back then, but I was placing venture capital on a local level. A tire outlet, self-storage units, a chain of four ice cream stands. The first few worked on a certain level. I got my money back and some free tires and too much storage and ice cream. Then I bought one more concrete block building out on 301 that was really too big for an ice cream stand. I thought it would be my downfall. But before we got a chance to move in, Hertz came along and offered to lease it for thirty years. Zap, I was golden.”

“Can I ask one question?” I said.

“Anytime you need to, Alex.”

“This building at 23 Beeson Way. What do we expect to see after dark?”

“You won’t believe this, with my expertise in numbers,” he said, “but I’ve never been able to remember that address. Here you are, knowing it after reading it once. Anyway, I want you to see the campus in its worst light. You’ll appreciate it more in the morning. I also want to pick up my mail and check a couple of things.”

We were eastbound on State Route 70. I saw I-75 a short distance ahead and feared his weird lecture might never stop. This had become far more complicated than the cushy gig I envisioned while boarding the King Air in Key West.

Beeson passed the cluster of gas stations, motels and convenience stores near the Interstate, drove under and a quarter-mile beyond the big highway, then turned right onto a multi-lane service road. We went southward, hooked back toward I-75, then south again. A minute later he pulled to the roadside, put the Escape into Park but left the motor running. It took me a few seconds to realize that we had stopped in front of 23 Beeson Way, complete with night crime lighting. The two-lane roadway was illuminated with orange-colored sodium-vapor lamps, while more intense blue-green mercury-vapor lights lighted Beeson’s property. My eyes saw a toxic blend of bad apricots and two-year-old butter.

I reassessed my opinion of the photography in Beeson’s promo folder. His bland building had been made to look attractive, which it was not. That may have had a lot to do with its failure rate. The prospective tenants had felt taken, as much as I felt conned by Justin Beeson’s fancy offer. Thinking farther, however, if he had warned me of the drudgery, for which he would pay well, I might have agreed, if only to get off the island for a couple of days.

“This dump was supposed to be my early retirement,” he said. “I figured I’d build a square-footage monster and sell the air inside of it, like selling apartments. Thanks to people in New York who didn’t have to worry about risk, the economy went into the tank, and I owned expensive air. I tried to turn it into a car museum. I threw that party and nobody came.”

I wanted to escape the Ford. A bright bulb lighted my brain.

“I’ve learned in this type of work that security sells,” I said. “Tenants like sunsets and they’ll tell you so, but they buy into safety. I can take some photos right now that will capture the location’s after-dark visibility.”

“Worth a try,” he said. “I have a Maglite under the seat. Let me walk ahead so you don’t fall in a ditch. Or step on a snake.”

I keep a Mini-Mag in my camera kit, but I didn’t want “the boss” to feel useless. I said, “Great, but I have to ask a favor. No conversation while I’m working.”

“Can do,” said Beeson. “I’ve been talking your ears off for twenty minutes.”

No shit.

“Matter of fact,” he said, “I’ve got two calls I need to make. Take my Maglite and go to it, and I’ll park and go inside…”

“The photos might look better without your vehicle in front of the building.”

“Not a problem,” said Beeson. “I’ll sit here and use my cell.”

One advantage of shooting digital is knowing within seconds whether you got the shot. My bonus was not having to compensate for the artificial color cast of the crime lights. Ugliness, just then, was what I wanted to show. I opened my tripod, set it in a corner of the building’s parking area and took my time. With Beeson in his SUV, not tempted to direct me, I had plenty of latitude in my shot selections. I went for angles that showed available paved space, ground-level windows and the main entrance. I played the lighting, the lines of the building.

While the images fit my concept, I felt an odd sense of isolation while I worked. The sodium- and mercury-vapor lights suggested a high-crime area, and the sound track was the high-pitched whine of truck tires on the highway. I saw shapes but no horizon, ground-level movement but no stars. I worked more quickly and damn near got artsy until my cell vibrated in my pocket. It was Wiley Fecko, and the screen said that I had missed seven calls and three messages.

I glanced at the SUV, saw Beeson’s raised arm, the silhouette of a man talking on his phone.

“Bad time, Wiley,” I said. “I’m out of the Keys for a day or so, taking pictures. Please be quick.”

“You pay your money,” he said, “you get a daily summary. Full-service business.”

“I can give you thirty seconds.”

“Ocilla Ramirez is a no-hit Google. Even her first name gets no hits. It sounds Hispanic but we searched the hell out of it, and it came up only as a town in south Georgia. The electric, garbage and gas bills for 490 Crawford Street on Big Coppitt are paid in cash right on time every month by a short man who speaks a non-Cuban, non-Mexican Spanish. The one guess I’ve heard is Guatemalan.”

“That makes Crawford a sub-lease,” I said. “Maybe Ocilla lives in town. Hell, she could be living in another state by now.”

“We’ll get on that tomorrow,” said Wiley. “Have I gone past my thirty seconds?”

“Take another thirty,” I said. “This is good info.”

“Okay, the condo at The Tideline is owned by a big Canadian holding company called Branchdale Corporation. The occupants, as you thought, are Mr. and Mrs. Emerson Caldwell. The mortgage payments and condo dues are seven months in arrears. Last year’s property taxes haven’t been paid, but they’re not overdue yet.”

“That makes me wonder if Ocilla was supposed to take care of those things,” I said. “Maybe she was pocketing the money.”

“We’ll put that on our list, too,” said Wiley. “Meanwhile, Caldwell made news in the Keys ten years ago when he was suspected of bilking an investor group. This was long before Madoff, but the term “Ponzi scheme” showed up in one news release. After about four days of bad press he proved that the deal was legitimate and no one lost money. The scam rumors were traced to a former business partner, also Canadian, now deceased.”

“Where does that leave us?” I said.

“Here’s the thing, Mr. Rutledge,” said Fecko. “One of Caldwell’s early investors was your friend, Sheriff Chicken Neck Liska.”

“Oh, shit.”

“We thought you might say that.”

I dropped a few money shots into the bank but my creativity ran dry. I couldn’t show the structure’s proximity to the highway until morning, anyway. And I was sure to see a few more photogenic angles in daylight or, in this case, favorable shadows.

Beeson saw me hang the camera around my neck and collapse the tripod’s legs. He drove into the lot, picked me up then rolled fifty yards to the main entrance.

“I won’t be five minutes,” he said. “Come on in for a preview, but please forgive the access control system.”

In spite of the crime lights, I chose to keep my camera bag with me. Following him up a short walkway, I looked around, saw two video cameras aimed toward the entry alcove. The one on the swivel mount was easy to spot. The other, set into an architectural detail, was visible if you had sharp eyes and were smart enough to look. But not many B&E practitioners play on the upper slope of the IQ curve.

Grimacing, Beeson summoned his memorized list. He began by inserting a thick electronic key, then waved a magnetic smart card toward a sensor. He was prompted to enter a five-digit PIN. “They hooked me for the whole package,” he said. “We had to integrate the ID devices with the video imaging, make it ADA compliant and allow for emergency egress, their term for getting out in a fire. Inside it will also catch you tailgating my authorization.”

“Not sure what that means,” I said.

“That’s when two people enter on a single okay. Your legs will trip the infrared if I don’t enter a special buffering code. The system goes haywire if someone is pulling a suitcase on wheels.”

“This is what it takes to please high-end tenants?” I said.

“You bet it does, out here by the lonesome highway. They’re security-conscious. It blows their socks off.”

“Like the first brochure in that package you sent me?”

“Right…” he said, “but that’s a good point. With no tenants, high- or low-end, I probably should re-think the whole installation.”

“Does it run all the time?”

“Only after sunset these days,” said Beeson. “I had to disable the daytime codes to please my real estate broker and his three salespeople.”

“Who monitors the video?”

“Nobody,” he said. “It gets stored for seventy-two hours, then erased unless we have an unauthorized entry attempt during that time. You want to hear the pisser? There’s an almost identical installation at the back of the building. That one runs twenty-four-seven. This whole setup cost me as much as the roof.”

I wanted to ask, but he interrupted my thought with the answer.

“Yes,” He added. “I signed a damned lease agreement. “

The door emitted an electronic click. Beeson entered one more PIN and we were inside. He led me down a hallway past modest beige and gray offices on the left, each with twin windows to the front. Off to our right, a huge single room held an array of work cubicles. Cheap fixtures, commercial-use carpeting and fluorescents prevailed, as if someone had ordered the sterile furnishings out of a catalog. Or sight-unseen off the Internet.