Rebel Island (Tres Navarre #7)(31)

Afterward, Alex and he had gotten blind drunk at the Water Street Oyster Bar.

“You promised you’d be there at my funeral,” Alex reminded him.

“I was drunk, man. And you’re really starting to freak me out.”

Alex put the knife back in his pocket. “I’m going to get a drink.”

“Don’t think you need one, man.”

“This coming from you? Sorry, Garrett. I need a drink.”

“Alex,” Garrett called after him. “You didn’t kill anybody. You couldn’t do that, right?”

Alex’s eyes were as dead as the fish on the walls. “I’m sorry I got you here, Garrett. It’s gonna be just like Mr. Eli’s funeral. Nobody’s even gonna remember I did anything right.”

After he was gone, Garrett picked up a pillow and threw it at the wall. That didn’t make him feel better.

He thought about how long Alex and he had been friends. Seemed like forever. They’d gone to concerts together, howled at the moon from the roof of this old hotel. When Garrett had lost his legs, Alex was the first one to come find him in the hospital—one of the few friends that stuck with him and never made him feel like a freak. Garrett didn’t like what he was seeing tonight. He wanted Alex back the way he used to be—a pain in the ass sometimes, but fun. Admirable, even. Alex was the guy who always knew the right thing to do. Hearing him talking now about screwing up—no. That was Garrett’s job. Alex was supposed to be the smart one.

Suddenly Garrett wondered where Lane had gone.

They’d been apart like five minutes, and already he missed her. Alex, in the old days, would’ve had something to say about that. He would’ve warned Garrett against falling too hard. Garrett probably needed somebody to remind him of that. He had trouble thinking straight when it came to Lane.

“Hell with it,” he muttered. Maybe he didn’t know Alex as well as he thought. And if you couldn’t know somebody after thirty damn years, who’s to say you couldn’t get to know somebody just as well in one day?

He wheeled himself out of the parlor and went to find Lane.

19

I finally located Mr. Lindy in a room I never knew existed—a small library on the third floor. Judging from the limestone fireplace, the place was directly above the parlor. The shelves were lined with tattered hardcover bestsellers from twenty or thirty years ago. Ludlum. Trevanian. Guy books.

Lindy sat in a leather recliner facing the door—a good defensive position. He still wore his dark suit, though he’d loosened his tie. His demeanor was so formal that even this small concession to comfort seemed like a shocking breach of decorum. He was flipping through a copy of Field & Stream, but I got the feeling he wasn’t paying it much attention. His cologne filled the air with a faint amber scent.

“Mr. Navarre,” he said.

“Mr. Lindy. We need to talk.”

“Then you might as well sit down.”

I sat across from him on the arm of the sofa. It was the only way I could have a height advantage.

Lindy set aside his magazine. That’s when I noticed his .45 in his lap.

“If the gun bothers you,” he said, “I can put it away.”

He sounded courteous, but I wondered if there was a veiled warning in the offer. As if: The gun is the least of your problems.

“What’s your interest in Calavera?” I asked.

“Aside from the fact that he may be a direct threat to our lives?”

“Aside from that.”

Lindy glanced at the ceiling. Even here, in the middle of the house, I could hear the storm blowing strong. Footsteps creaked above us. I wondered if Alex was up in the attic again, blocking off some section of the roof that had been torn away.

“I’m curious,” Lindy said. “What makes you believe I have a personal interest in this killer?”

“There it is again.”

“What?”

“The way you said personal. I didn’t say your interest was personal. Earlier, you said you’d retired before Calavera started murdering innocent people. Innocent people. Most of Calavera’s hits were Mafia men. Only his last hit, his big mistake, killed innocent people. You’ve got some personal stake in the Peter Brazos case, the murder of Brazos’s wife and daughters. You slipped that envelope under my door.”

Lindy studied me, his eyes as bright as broken glass. “If you were right, would it matter?”

“What do you mean?”

“We have a murderer in this hotel. If he’s allowed to leave the island, he will disappear. Now that you know who he is, you must agree he has to be caught. Given our circumstances, you may be the only one who can do that. Does it matter who gave you the information?”

His tone was calm and reasonable, but he said the word murderer with an intimate loathing, the way a preacher might say Satan.

“Why are you here?” I asked. “Why did someone at the hotel call you three times over the last week?”

“I came to fish.” Lindy pointed to the Field & Stream.

“For Calavera?”

“I’m an old man, Mr. Navarre. I’m in no shape to track down a murderer.”

Which, I noticed, was not exactly a denial. “Did you know Marshal Longoria?”

“Not well.”