You Bet Your Life: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Three) Read Free

window and wiping my hand print off with a cloth drawn from his pocket. Even the cloth was unwrinkled. “You can catch the City of Miami at 5:25 and be in Chicago by 9:55 tomorrow night.”
    My bag was in the back of his car. I hadn’t even had time to check into a hotel after I got off the morning plane from Atlanta.
    “I thought I might stick around here for a few days,” I said.
    He pursed his lips, shook his head no and said, “You wouldn’t like it.”
    Before I could think of a comment, he turned on his car radio with the volume high. Instead of police calls, we got Artie Shaw playing “Frenesi.” The rest of the ride was uneventful, if we don’t count the kid on the bike we almost killed on Biscayne Boulevard and the two pregnant women who dodged out of our way as we screeched around a corner onto Second Street. Artie Shaw’s clarinet seemed to match the action. I saw what looked like a train station coming, so I braced myself without touching the window.
    Simmons reached back for my suitcase, lifted it effortlessly into the front seat, dropped it in my lap and reached past me to open the door when we stopped.
    “Does this mean you don’t want to be pen pals?” I said.
    “Have a nice trip,” he replied through a white-toothed grin. “Got a feeling people are going to be expecting you in Chicago.” He pronounced it She-cawh-goo, with as much contempt and Vitamin C as he could squeeze into an orange juice drawl. I got out. He got out and followed, but not closely enough so I could reopen conversation. Inside the station, he leaned against a wall after checking it carefully for cleanliness. I bought my ticket.
    The ticket man told me to hurry and I did, leaving foot-print puddles across the tile floor. The City of Miami had its steam up, and I cleared the iron step as the train jerked forward. Simmons was on the platform with his arms folded, making sure I didn’t get off. I had spent less than six hours in the sun and fun capital of the world.
    Instead of heading for a seat and making it too wet to sit in for the next twenty-four hours, I balanced my way to a rocking washroom. I hailed a porter, got a hanger, and changed into my only other pair of pants. The pants had a crease in the knees where they had been folded into the case over a wire hanger. The crease wouldn’t come out.
    I hung up my suit and opened the window to dry it as fast as possible. It might be a little stiff, but it would be wearable.
    Outside the window I caught a glimpse of a station that said we were going through Hollywood. For a second I thought time had slipped me a Mickey, or I had taken one too many in the head. I decided instead that there were two Hollywoods. Florida’s was a little burg we shot through in less than six seconds.
    A guy with a pot belly, tweed suit, vest, and a grey-brown beard came into the washroom humming. He looked at me and decided not to hum and not to stay. I looked in the mirror to see what had scared him and I saw. My hair tumbled over my bloodshot eyes and my teeth were clenched.
    I brushed my hair back with my hand, soaked my eyes in cold water, and persuaded my teeth to relax. The water began to slosh around the toilet as we picked up speed. By the time we flew through Fort Lauderdale ten minutes later, I had had enough. I left my suit hanging and headed for the dining car. A little red flower bounced in a glass holder on the table where I was led by a waiter. Two fat women with that Southern accent I so loved sat across from me, talking about Corine’s children. I tried not to listen, but I discovered anyway that Corine’s children were disrespectful and should have been given the stick by Andy. The rest of the diners heard it too. The fat woman who suggested the stick looked up at me. I nodded in agreement of corporal punishment for children as I took a big bite of tuna on white and looked out the window at a lake. An alligator slithered out of the water. I had never seen an alligator before.