Synopsis

“One hundred year old women die of old age,” the doctor said. Dan Trix suspects it was murder. Detective Rodriquez also suspects murder. He suspects Trix. Trix discovers that the week before her death, his aunt changed her substantial will leaving everything to a hospice in Nebraska and nothing to him. Then his aunt’s nurse is found dead. Trix flew to Sarasota to visit his aunt and enjoy a romantic weekend with his new girlfriend Elaine. A cell in the police station is now as likely as a suite at the Ritz. Trix and his buddy Lester are forced to followed a trail littered with greed, deceit and death.

Chapter 1.

I walked to one side of the horseshoe bar, then the other. On the one side, the only spot available was between a well-nourished lady who overlapped her stool like a walrus would a pancake, and a nervous guy who flipped his elbows to a tune only he could hear. The other side was filled with young women in charcoal pantsuits, texting and drinking something pink in martini glasses.

Finally a stool emptied with no one on either side.

“How you doin’ this evening?” the bartender asked with all the sincerity of an overworked parole officer.

“Hoegaarden, on tap, please.”

While I waited for my Belgian wheat beer, I wondered why I was sitting there. Why not someplace where women wore Yves Saint Laurent, and men with loose Ferragamo ties scrolled through smartphones to check closing stock prices? This place had fake Tiffany lamps shining down on football pennants. But there was good beer on tap.

A guy slid onto the stool next to me. Sleeveless t-shirt, faded, mushy tattoos on both enormous upper arms, face by Sir Walter Raleigh, baseball cap with the bill at a cocky angle. But all was clean and neat. “Pilsner Urquell. Long Island chaser,” he ordered. He didn’t say “please”.

I knew Pilsner Urquell. “What’s in that drink?” I asked, not that I gave a damn, but just to start a conversation.

He shrugged as he opened his phone and began to text. “I just drink ‘em.” He had the smartphone. Stock prices?

Wine, I can sip. Beer, I drink. As a result, I barely had time to lust after a tightly wound young waitress before only a few suds remained. Barely, but I made it.

“Take care,” I offered, flopped some cash on the bar. Thought I’d visit the restroom, then maybe find a stool next to someone more verbal.

He grabbed my arm above the elbow and gave it a squeeze. Working man’s hands. “You’re the one who should take care.  Maybe you should, like, find someplace else to hangout. Starts to get real chilly in Sarasota real soon.” His voice was almost a whisper, never making eye contact.

“Now that you mention it, I do feel the chill,” I replied calmly.

“Maybe cold. Guy can get real sick when it’s cold,” he whispered still looking straight ahead.

“Preventive medicine,” I whispered, then grabbed my beer glass and slammed it down on his open left hand resting on the bar. Three of his fingers and his determination shattered in a blink. He let go of my arm.

The man had experience with pain. Not a peep. No intention of creating a public scene.

“That was good,” he mumbled through clenched teeth. “But you gave your hand away.” He paused, then chuckled at his pun. “You’re a pro, man.  That means, like next time you don’t get no chance.”

“Let’s put it this way, I have a particular acquaintance with violence. I’m not a pro, just a natural. Besides, it’s stupid to warn people. Makes them alert,” I replied.

“Must be that makes me a humanitarian,” he said with a smile, emphasizing each syllable in “hu-man-i-tar-i-an”, then slid off his stool and out the door without ever looking at me.

I’ve hung around my share of tough guys, but this guy was in a class by himself. Slam a beer mug on your fingers and see if your equanimity remains intact. Your fingers won’t, that’s for sure.

Since the guy was outside, I thought it might be prudent to stay inside for a while. It was still Happy Hour, the humidity was waning but still noticeable and the tightly wound waitress was more than she seemed – she was now tending bar. One more will be fine.  In a non-chilled glass, please.

My charm was dazzling, but there were too many empty martini glasses on the bar, and too many worker-bees buzzing in from their hives, waiting for that ethereal alcoholized moment when giggles become laughs.

I contented myself with a few of Life’s Eternal Questions. Why do women dress so well, and guys dress like slobs? Why does everyone who does it, think they are not distracted by texting when they drive? How can anyone watch baseball on television? Why is it easier to find love in an emergency room than it is in a Happy Hour bar? I wasn’t sure whether that last one should be a question or a statement.

Most people, rightly so, would have been speculating on why that meatball had confronted me. Thankfully, somewhere along life’s hallway I had developed the ability to open the door, put the bad stuff in, close the door, and let it be. Frankly, I think this ability was just hardwired in my DNA. There have been times when I put good stuff in and closed the door. That’s always a mistake. The good stuff depreciates, the bad stuff appreciates. I’ve noticed that good soldiers have the ability to put bad stuff away and continue with the mission. Maybe they’re good soldiers because they have that ability. I’ve lately begun opening some of those closed doors and confronting the ghouls that would feed on my spirit like vultures on carrion. It is a long hallway with lots of doors.

I wasn’t really thinking about the threat, only the fact that I could deal with it later. Right now I had something much more important to consider.

Tan summer-weight wool trousers by Polo, Trask buffalo hide cordovan-and-black saddle shoes, red and dark blue checked Faconnable shirt, Brooks Brothers blazer? Or Polo white cotton shirt with the cuffs rolled up, complemented by Diesel fashion jeans, and Johnston and Murphy casual taupe penny loafers? Which would be more impressive with a dark gray BMW 328i convertible? I was never one to shy away from the tough questions.

Elaine Newman was coming to town.  My preference over Santa Claus any day.

All the management journals will tell you the importance of first impressions. I didn’t have to read management journals to understand that fact. Many times I had been on interview teams for new faculty members, when I was busy climbing my way up the sheer face of the academic flatirons. If a guy came to the interview with scuffed shoes and a tub of donuts over his belt, or if a lady arrived with unwashed hair and smudges on her lopsided glasses, there was no need for them to even take a seat. Too often these people are in the same fashion cohort as their students, but we certainly weren’t going to pose them as role models. In the arts colleges, that look was de rigueur. Not so in the college of business.

This certainly wouldn’t be my first impression on Elaine. I had had the pleasure of making a good many impressions on her. When you haven’t seen each other for a while, it has the impact of a first impression. She was due to fly into Sarasota early that evening, and I was idling at a Main Street bar, waiting for her arrival.

She had a convoluted flight from LaGrange, Iowa, to Chicago, to Atlanta, to Bradenton-Sarasota. Once you enter the terminal, it’s all an adventure, she insisted. Travel was reward in itself. Her flight had been delayed out of Atlanta, as are all flights, as near as I can tell.

I was checking the flight tracker app on my iPhone, when a voice strained through honeycomb asked, “Is this stool taken?”

If her dress had been any shorter, it would have been a belt.  Angie Dickenson once insured her legs for a million bucks. I wondered if this lady had the same policy. If I had the choice to suck on her lips or the succulent flesh of a juicy mango, I wouldn’t choose the mango. Lots of small coils of gold tumbled down her forearm as she flicked an imagined mote from the corner of an eye that might have been a rider on that policy. She wore a simple, classic white shirt, with cuffs rolled up. I felt a kinship.

I tried to see all this out of the corner of my eye, conveying that first impression of Matt Damon-cool.

“How’s it goin’?” the guy bartender asked, no Matt Damon there. “Appletini’s are half-price till seven,” he said as he slid a cocktail napkin her way.

“What’s your most expensive Champagne?” she asked calmly.

“Ah, a Mumm Napa,” he replied with a shrug.

“That’s not Champagne. Your best red wine?” she continued.

“Give me a minute,” he replied, then bumped down to the end of the bar, and tapped a guy in a sport coat and tie on the shoulder. Probably the manager.

“Can’t expect a filet at McDonalds,” I offered sagely.

“I wouldn’t know,” she said as she uncrossed and re-crossed her legs. If my eyes got stuck in this position, I would surely look stupid.

An Eagles cover was on Muzak. The ladies in pantsuits were giddy.  A couple of them entertained flirtations from guys in black shirts and matching chin stubble. From the restaurant side, neat and tidy older couples, she with wire-brush hair, he with scotch plaid trousers, were exiting, having enjoyed the early-bird special.

The bartender returned with a bottle of 1994 Stonestreet Cab in hand. “Some guy used to bring in his own wine, by the case. Then he didn’t come any more. It’s yours if you want it. It costs . . .”

“It doesn’t matter,” she interrupted. “Two glasses.”  She nodded my way. There was more breath in her words than there were syllables.

While he carefully uncorked the bottle, she entertained herself by gently bouncing on the toe of her crossed upper leg, a Jimmy Choo pump, 2 ½ inch covered heel, kid leather uppers.  The meatball had a Blackberry, she’s wearing Jimmy Choo. Maybe I was where I wanted to be.

Two proper Cab stems were placed on the bar. He held the bottle over her glass. “Let the gentleman,” she again nodded my way.

I had nudged my largely untouched beer glass down the bar so it would seem it was someone else’s. The bartender poured. I swirled.

I sniffed. I sighed. I sipped. I soliloqued. “The granddaughter of a Spanish conquistador rode through these vineyards. It was an unusually warm day. Beads of perspiration gently dropped from cheeks perfumed by a homemade crush of aloe and fuschia onto the gravely soil, soaking deeply such that the roots of the ancient vines absorbed both her scent and her vibrancy.” I swirled a few more times in contemplation. “Other than that, just an ordinary auction-worth Cabernet.”

“We must make do,” she said as she nodded toward her glass.

The bartender filled our glasses much too full, obviously more accustomed to pouring pink stuff in martini glasses.

She swiveled toward me. Her knee came to rest on my thigh. I turned at the hip.

She canted one eye and toasted, “Love the one you’re with.” We clinked.

“If this isn’t love, I don’t mind. ‘Cause this feels just fine,” I countered. Our eyes were connected by a laser. We clinked again.

“That’s not bad, Trix,” Elaine said.

“More practice, I’ll improve.”

Purchase the book to continue reading…