Read Vengeance for Free Online Page B

mess, Lew.”
    I shrugged.
    “Then how about I give you each five bucks.”
    “Why not?” said the mediator, moving between Dave and Jason and heading for me.
    I pulled out my wallet and give him five singles. I would charge the payoff to Carl Sebastian. There was no point in asking them about Melanie Sebastian. She was in a different league.
    “Sarasota High,” said the kid, who was blond and reasonably good-looking except for some much-needed dental work.
    “She goes to Sarasota High School?”
    “She did,” he said. “I haven’t seen her around the last three, four weeks, somethin’, you know?”
    “Not enough,” I said, though it was a start.
    “That’s what I know. You guys know what happened to Easy Adele?” he asked.
    Jason smirked. The third kid said, “She said she was living with her father. I don’t know where. She was whorin’ on North Trail. I seen her. By the motels, you know?”
    “I know,” I said.
    The kid in front of me backed away and Dave repeated calmly,
    “Pick up your mess.”
    Jason was the last to bend over and start the job.
    After the three had driven off, taking time to screech the brakes and throw Dave and me the finger, I got a fish sandwich, a burger and a cherry Blizzard. There was no one waiting in line behind me. A couple with a small girl had disappeared when Dave came out of the DQ.
    “They’re not bad,” he said. “Just stupid. I don’t like that kind of stupid.”
    Dave got my sandwiches and cherry Blizzard and started to read the article.
    I went across the parking lot and up the stairs to my laundry basket—sized two rooms with a view of 301 from each.
    I turned on the lights, looked at the whirling air conditioner and sat down at the desk in the outer office to check the Sarasota and Bradenton phone book for Dwight Handford. There was nothing. I didn’t expect there would be. I tried Dwight Tree. Nothing.
    While I worked on my dinner and watched the ice cream melt in my float, I called the Best Western and asked for Beryl Tree’s room, 204. She answered on the second ring.
    “Yes,” she said.
    I could hear a television in the background. I thought I recognized the Hollywood Squares music.
    “Lew Fonesca,” I said.
    “Yes?”
    “I haven’t found her yet but I have a lead. It looks like you might be right. I think she was is or was staying with her father.”
    “Oh.”
    “She did go to a high school here, at least for a while. I’ll go over there in the morning. They may not want to give me any information so I might have to get you to talk to them.”
    “I’ll be here all day,” she said. “I’ll just get something to eat and bring it back to the room.”
    “I’ll call tomorrow,” I said. “Good night.”
    I took off my clothes, touched the stubble on my face, put on my YMCA shorts and a University of Illinois T-shirt and moved into my back room. I had what was left of my food and my Blizzard. I had the folder on Melanie Sebastian and I had a tape of Charade I’d bought two days before for two dollars at Vic’s Pawn Shop on Main Street.
    While I watched Cary Grant searching for Carson Dyle, I started a folder on Adele Tree. So far there wasn’t much in it, a photograph and the few notes I was now writing. I had a feeling the folder would grow.
    I was working. Two cases. Lots of questions. My grandfather, my mother’s father, played the mandolin. He used to say that the mandolin held the answers. He never made it clear what the questions were. I liked listening to him play old Italian folk songs, songs he made up, even an Elvis tune. He particularly liked “Love Me Tender.” He lost himself in the mandolin. Closed his eyes and listened to the answers.
    “It all ties together,” he would say, eyes closed, mind who knows where.
    I heard the mandolin in my head. It asked questions. I had two clients who had lost someone close to them. Carl Sebastian, who had chosen me on a chance recommendation, had lost his wife. I had lost my wife.