The Hound of the Sanibel Sunset Detective Read Free

the lobby, went through the swinging door into its discreetly lit, marbled interior and pushed open one of the cubicles. He stood over the toilet, wondering about a life culminating in a ceaseless search, not for meaning, but for an available bathroom.
    Outside his cubicle, the bathroom door opened and someone stepped across the floor.
    “No, I’m still at the Biltmore.” The voice sounded raspy and hollow, echoing in the marble interior. “We’re having something to eat. We were starving, that’s why. We’re going over there a little later. No hurry. It’s not like he’s into hitting the South Beach clubs at night. Most days, Vic don’t even leave the house.” There was a pause, and then, “Yeah, yeah, Johnny. Not to worry. We’ll take care of it. It’s done. You want the egg broken, we break the egg. That’s what I do, that’s my business, okay? I don’t need advice on how to do my business.”
    The room went quiet. Tree stood frozen in place. Presently, there was the sound of a zipper coming down and then the splash into a urinal, accompanied by a sigh from the man with the raspy voice.
    A moment later the urinal’s automatic flushing unit went into action. Then there was the sound of water gushing into a sink. Shortly after that, Tree heard the entrance door swing open and hiss closed again.
    You want the egg broken, we break the egg.
    Did that mean what it sounded like it meant? Tree did himself up and opened the cubicle door, moving over to the sink. He took his time washing and drying his hands before re-entering the lobby. Ahead, he could see a tall man in a loose white shirt sway through a set of glass-paneled doors. Tree went past a framed sepia photograph of the actor Gene Kelly wearing a cap at a jaunty angle, posing at the Cannes Film Festival.
    Tree stepped through the glass doors and was confronted by a long, tiled concourse opening onto a pretty courtyard around a fountain. Wrought-iron tables and chairs lined the concourse. Tree watched as the man in the white shirt took an empty seat at a table occupied by two other men.
    One of the men wore a straw hat shading a pasty, pockmarked face, a member perhaps of a jazz trio that got together to play dives on weekends. The other man was bare-headed, almost bald, someone’s exhausted grandfather. The two men already at the table were drinking beer. The white-shirted man looked to be in his fifties with a puffy, tanned face, a thin mouth framed by a carefully trimmed mustache and goatee.
    Tree went back through the door and then crossed the lobby and went out to where Justin stood waiting expectantly for the next guest he could illuminate with his pocket history of the Biltmore. He flashed another eager smile as Tree approached. “Boy, that didn’t take long, sir.”
    “Justin, I need my car,” Tree said.
    “Leaving us so soon?”
    “I’m leaving right now,” Tree said.
    “I’m so sorry to hear that.”
    “Justin, I need the car… now .”
    Tree glanced around, half expecting the three men from the courtyard to burst out the door to confront him: what was he doing peeing in the men’s room? More to the point, why was he watching them? What was he up to? But no one came out the door. A few minutes later, the Beetle sputtered into view with Justin behind the wheel. He held the door open for Tree who handed him a ten-dollar bill. Justin frowned at it. “Come back and see us again soon, sir.” He didn’t sound enthusiastic about the prospect.
    Apparently, ten dollars did not buy a lot of love at the Biltmore.

3
    M aybe it was nothing. Maybe the guy with the goatee was talking about another Vic. But then maybe he wasn’t. Maybe the guy had been talking on his cellphone in the bathroom about Tree’s Vic—Vic Trinchera, Edith Goldman’s client whom he was supposed to meet in a few minutes. If it was the same Vic Trinchera, then he might be in trouble. What the blazes had Edith gotten him mixed up in?
    The streets of Coral Gables, neat