The Water Keeper(31)
I paid the lady as the two book lovers yakked about the coming novel. As we walked out, you’d have thought I’d given Summer a golden ticket wrapped in a Wonka bar.
We stopped next door at a roadside pizza parlor that smelled like Italy. Our table gave us a view of the water and the Jackie Robinson Ballpark, home of the Daytona Tortugas. An easterly breeze pushed against our faces as we ordered a pizza, a couple of Caesar salads, and a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs with extra meatballs.
While we waited, Summer talked about the book she had yet to set down. “You seriously have not read this?”
“I don’t read much.”
“Where have you been living? Under a rock?”
“Actually, I live on an island.”
“Okay. Same thing.” She held up the book. “Best one yet. Can’t wait for fourteen.”
I let her talk. The more she did, the more the defeat disappeared.
She clutched it to her chest again. “In this story, Bishop is working his way up this line of Mafia henchmen and trying to get to the Godfather ’cause he kidnapped this girl, and Bishop is getting close to finding the girl. Yet despite the fact that they’re all total sickos, all the bad guys are devout churchgoers. And get this, the Godfather makes them all go to confession! Where, unbeknownst to the Godfather, they all spill their secrets. So what does Bishop do? He uses the confessional—again. Problem is, the Godfather is no dummy and he suspects him.”
“Where’s the woman with the scar?”
“She’s living in the convent next to the church. They’re walking around each other like they’ve never met. And she thinks he’s just blowing her off, so she’s getting ticked. But he knows he’s being watched twenty-four-seven and if he even acknowledges her, the mafia guys will kidnap her. So to keep her out of danger and get her transferred or kicked out or something, Bishop invents this cockamamie story about how she’s been stealing from the church.” She waved it in front of my face. “I can’t believe you haven’t read this. This one takes place along the East Coast mostly. Although a few of the stories have taken place in Europe, one in Mexico, one in South America, and one in Africa.” She shook her head. “You don’t know what you’re missing. You should get out more.”
“I have a tough enough time with reality to confuse it with make-believe.”
Another squeeze of the book. “You should let down your hair and live a little.”
I laughed. “I agree.” I pointed at the book. “Okay, let’s say you bumped into this guy and had ten seconds, what would you say?”
She opened the book and brushed her palm over the pages. “There are a bunch of girls like me. Middle-aged dreamers. With baggage and stretch marks and grown kids and bills and bunions and . . . with no chance of ever being rescued by a prince who storms the castle. And yet here’s this guy who nobody knows, who makes us think that no matter how ugly we may be to the world, he might still show up. That’s a gift and it’s . . .” She shook her head. “Priceless.”
Our food arrived, and we ate while Tabby lay at my feet, tethered to the stool by his leash, which he didn’t like. Also, his attention seemed elsewhere. His bowl of spaghetti sat mostly uneaten, which was strange.
I knelt. “You okay, boy?”
Ears forward, he was sniffing the wind. When I lifted the bowl to his mouth, he stood up, stretched his leash taut, and began pulling the stool across the porch of the restaurant, pinballing off other patrons’ chairs. I lifted the stool and attempted to grab the leash at the same time, but he has eyes in the back of his head and I was too slow. Free from his anchor, Tabby shot across the street at somewhere north of thirty miles an hour, dragging his leash behind him. He crossed Orange Avenue, turned due east, and began bounding over the East Orange Avenue Bridge, which spans the Halifax River. Avoiding swerving cars with honking horns, Tabby was running down the center double line. A dog on a mission.
The last time I saw him, he was running full out, ears flapping behind him, turning north between the ballpark and the courthouse. I dropped money on the table, and we began sprinting after him.
Chapter 12
I dodged the traffic, crossed the distance, turned left, and entered a tennis center where mixed couples were playing on six courts. “Anybody seen a dog?”
Guy closest pointed to a dog-size opening in the gate leading to the bleachers. I scaled the fence and ran around the side of the bleachers. The stands were empty save us, so it wasn’t tough to spot him. Tabby’s tail was wagging rapidly on the first row behind home plate. Down where all the guys with radar guns would sit.
The closer I got, the clearer it became that he wasn’t alone. Tabby was straddling a dark-skinned man. More Brazilian or Cuban than African. His hair was totally white and combed back over his head. His eyebrows, mustache, and beard were likewise white. He lay on his back on the concrete between the first row of seats and the backdrop behind home plate. His head was propped on a bedroll of some sort, and his legs were crossed while Tabby straddled him and licked his face.
I walked below him into his field of vision and sat three seats beyond his feet.
The man’s eyes were closed, hands folded across his chest. “Hello, sir?” No response. “Sir?” I shook his foot. Still nothing. I felt his wrist. His pulse was thin, so I shook him harder. He stirred but didn’t wake. At the least, I’d say he was disoriented. Tabby sat alongside him, staring at me. I knew this guy needed medical help, but given the way he’d lay down here, I wasn’t sure he wanted it.