Kathy Hogan Trocheck - Truman Kicklighter 01 - Lickety-Split Read online

  He moved quickly out the front door and onto the sidewalk.

  Chapter TWO

  It was warm even for march, high eighties. First Avenue was crowded. Big Lincolns, Buicks, and Chryslers took up every available parking space as far as he could see. The license plates told you what time of year it was: Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio. The snowbirds had landed.

  It was high season in the Sunshine State. Outside the hotel the Fountain of Youth sign was lit up at night again now, along with a No Vacancy sign. They’d cleaned out the old stucco and tile fountain in the lobby and turned the water back on again, and they’d planted bright red geraniums in the window boxes outside.

  He checked his post office box at the open-air. Nothing but a bank statement and something from the hotel. Probably another notice about not using electrical appliances in the rooms. He had a hot plate and a toaster and he used them any damn time he liked.

  The newsstand was tiny; three people made it seem crowded and there were two women inside already, studying the postcard rack.

  Truman plucked a box of HavaTampas from the counter display and looked around for the Derby Lane racing programs.

  “Excuse me,” he said, trying to wedge himself between the two muumuu-clad women. “You got any racing programs, Ollie?”

  The dwarf behind the counter tried to peer around the woman who was pushing for the Silver Springs postcard. “Oh hi, Truman,” he said. “Got ‘em back here. Ain’t even untied the bundle yet. The truck just dropped them off.”

  While Ollie rang up the women’s purchases, Truman turned around to examine the magazine rack beside the glass-doored drink cooler.

  “Going to the track tonight, Truman?” Ollie asked, sliding the race program across the worn wooden counter- top.

  “What?”

  “The dog track,” Ollie repeated. “You know, Derby Lane.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Truman said, reluctantly turning from the rack. “Yeah.” He put the cigars on the counter, then added a pack of Doublemint chewing gum. Pearl had made Mel quit smoking last winter, so he was a prodigious gum chewer these days. A little present for his pal.

  Truman fished a worn dollar bill and some silver from his change purse. “You wanna go with us? There’s a free bus.”

  Ollie’s face brightened momentarily and then fell. He was probably Truman’s age, but his diminutive size made people treat him like a child. A sweat-stained St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap covered his thin brown hair, and the thick-lensed glasses made his eyes look outsized for his head. The Vandyke beard was a recent addition, to make people treat him with respect. He thought it made him look intellectual. Truman thought it made him look like the mayor of Munchkinland.

  “Can’t,” Ollie said. “Promised my sister I’d come over for supper.”

  “Another time.”

  “Sure,” Ollie said.

  Truman tucked the cigars in his breast pocket and the gum in his trouser pocket.

  “You get the notice about the church?” Truman was studying the latest issue of True Caper, one of those crime magazines he used to read in the barbershop. Twin redheads dressed in white fur bikinis were posed on the hood of a red Ferrari, each with a pistol pointed right at the viewing public. Those girls had some lungs all right. He decided right then and there that now was the time to start catching up on his reading about current law enforcement matters. The magazine was three dollars, though. That would cut into his dog-track money.

  “What?” he said, reluctantly putting the magazine back. “I’m not a churchgoer. Never have been.”

  “Yeah well, this is one church you better find out about,” Ollie warned. “Seein’ as how they’re fixing to put you and me and everybody else over there at the Fountain of Youth out in the street.”

  “What are you talking about, taking over the Fountain of Youth?” he demanded. Ollie was bad to gossip. Every week he had some cockamamie new rumor about some pro sports team that was coming to town. Most of the time he was talking through his hat. “The Mandelbaums own the hotel. Always have,” Truman pointed out. “I saw young Seymour just last week, in the business office. He didn’t say anything about a church to me.”

  Ollie licked his upper lip excitedly. His tongue was huge for so small a guy. Truman wondered why he’d never noticed it before.

  “Maybe old man Mandelbaum ain’t told the kid yet,” Ollie said. “All I know is, I got my notice in the mail this morning. Felt like I’d been kicked in the gut when I read it.”

  Ollie lived in what the hotel called a studio apartment just off the hotel lobby. It had actually once been a card room years ago. Now it had a toilet and a sink, and Ollie had his color television, a bowl of goldfish, and his adult tricycle in there.

  Truman pulled the letter from the hotel out of his pocket and ripped it open. It was written on the hotel stationery.

  “Tenant Notice” the top line said. Truman frowned. Notices never meant anything good.

  Ownership has recently concluded negotiations for the sale of this property to the Church of Cosmic Unity. The church plans to convert the hotel into a retirement home for its elderly members. Representatives will contact tenants soon to discuss ownership options. Tenants who do not purchase their units must terminate

  residency by no later

  than June 1.

  The notice was signed by Arthur Mandelbaum, D.D.S. “Regular maintenance, my ass,” Truman said bitterly. “They’re fixing the place up to sell it. Giving us three months to get out,” Truman said in disbelief. “Three months.”

  He looked sharply at Ollie. “You got one of these?”

  “Sure as I’m standing here,” Ollie said. “I showed it to Howard Seabold when he come in today. Howie Jr., you know, is a lawyer. He promised to have the kid look into it for me.”

  “Says here tenants can purchase their units,” Truman said. “Wonder how much? Not that I can afford it.”

  Ollie’s tongue worked his upper lip. “What about me?” he said. “You got a pension, and a kid. All I got’s this job here. Two-hundred-sixty-two dollars and fifty cents a week. I got two-hundred-fifty bucks I been savin’ up in case of an emergency. My rathole money. I guess I’ll be having a change of address pretty soon.”

  Truman felt for Ollie. He really did. His own pension from the wire service wasn’t anything grand, but it was enough, if he was careful. And Truman was the careful kind. As for having a kid, well, Cheryl was having a rough enough time raising Chip by herself. He couldn’t ask her for help.

  He stood in the doorway of the newsstand and blinked in the bright sunlight. He shoved the notice into his pants pocket. Church of Cosmic Unity. Christ. What next? “Hey, Truman,” Ollie called. Truman turned around slowly.

  Ollie held out the racing program. “You don’t want to forget this. Maybe you’ll win big tonight. Buy the Fountain of Youth yourself. Take the penthouse apartment. Maybe a trip to Hawaii.”

  “Yeah,” Truman said, taking the program. “Maybe I’ll marry Liz Taylor and move to Beverly Hills while I’m at it.”

  Chapter THREE

  Cookie Jeffcote stopped at the door to room 2711, fluffed her red hair out over the collar of the mink coat, then smoothed the shocking-pink minidress over her hips.

  Michael liked her to look good. He didn’t like anything that didn’t look expensive or first class. The first time they’d met, at the bar in the clubhouse, she’d had on this mink, which was the only thing she’d gotten out of her last boyfriend, a married lawyer who handled the financial affairs of one of the residents at the Fountain of Youth. (The scumbag, he should take poison and die.)

  She was standing there, waiting on her Rob Roy, when Michael turned around, his elbows propped on the counter like he owned the place. He gave her a good long look. “Feelin’ lucky?”

  She’d giggled and shown him the fan of twenties she’d already won that night.

  “Not talking about greyhounds,” he’d said coolly.

  Cool. That was Michael all
right.

  She knocked the code. Shave-and-a-haircut. Two-bits.

  He’d been in the shower. Drops of water glistened in his wavy dark hair and clung to the thick, matted hair on his bare chest. A towel was not so much wrapped as draped around his hips.

  “Baby,” she cooed. He didn’t say a word, just grabbed her by the hand and pulled her into the room.

  She’d just had time to rescue the mink from the floor before he was at her, tugging at the big zipper that ran down the front of the dress, pushing her toward the king- sized bed.

  “Hello to you too.” She laughed.

  It had taken some doing to get out of the office this time of day. The Reverend Jewell Newby liked to keep a close watch on the sheep in his flock. Since she was handling the new condo sales, he was keeping an especially tight rein on her. Wanted telephone reports on everything. Screw that. She’d called in this afternoon to inform Newby that she’d be out all afternoon having dental work done.

  “I’ll pray for a healing,” he’d said, in that preacher voice he used when he was talking about God.

  Jewell Newby didn’t give a rat’s ass about any healing. If he was praying, it was to get her in bed. Cookie Jeffcote had been around men long enough to know when one wanted her. And that one wanted her in a bad way.

  Right now, Cookie had something else on her mind. Michael Streck. She’d always had a thing for Italian guys, even though Michael swore he wasn’t Italian at all.

  Her first time had been with Frankie Lonardi, in the back of his mother’s Buick Regal, at the Sky-Vue drive-in. And when she’d first met Butch Goolsby, his hair was dark, even though he still had that crew cut he’d gotten in the marines. By the time she’d figured out Butch was nothing but Baptist white trash from Pinellas Park, she was sixteen years old and three months pregnant, and her mama was screaming about sending her to the Florence Crittenden Home.

  If she never saw a pair of greasy jeans or a pickup truck full of tools again in her lifetime, it would be just fine with Cookie.

  She ran her long pink fingernails down Michael’s back and let the big diamond solitaire dig into his nice firm buttocks. He was tan all over. She made a noise deep in her throat, like a tiger growling. She’d seen that in a movie once. “Ggrrrr,” she purred.

  “Ow,” Michael said, looking up. “What the hell was that?”

  “Three carats,” Cookie said. “Feels good, huh?”

  Later, he ordered drinks and hors d’oeuvres from room service and they did a couple lines of coke together. Cookie felt all warm and melty inside, like a Hershey bar that had been left in the sun.

  Then the phone rang. He picked it up, listened, then turned to her. “You mind?”

  She did mind, but she knew that tone of voice. She went into the bathroom and ran the water and stood at the door, trying to hear.

  After she heard him hang up, she waited a moment, flushed the commode and came out. Michael was standing in front of the mirror, buttoning his shirt, getting dressed.

  “Party’s over, doll,” he said. “I got business.”

  She plopped herself down on the bed. Michael never said what his business was, but she just assumed he was a member of the mob.

  The first time she’d called it that, laughingly, he’d grabbed her wrist and twisted it angrily. “Don’t call it that,” he’d said. “It’s family.”

  He tucked his shirt in, then came and sat down beside her on the bed, slipping his feet into soft leather loafers. He kissed her neck. “We’ll do it again, later this week? Right?”

  Cookie pulled on her stockings one at a time, leaning back on the bed, arching her back and cocking her leg in the air, like she’d seen Susan Sarandon do in that Bull Durham movie. Slowly and deliberately, she snapped them to the garter belt, then pulled her dress on over her head and zipped it up. Michael was frowning at an imaginary speck of dust on his slacks.

  “What about tonight?” she asked.

  “Tonight?”

  “The track. I thought we could go. You’ve already gotten lucky once today, right?”

  He turned and took the zipper in his teeth and moved it down an inch, kissing between her breasts. “I can’t. I got a thing.”

  Cookie went to the mirror. She took a lipstick out of her purse and touched up her face and combed her hair. It was a mess.

  “What about our thing?” she said, pouting. “We never go anywhere when we’re together, Michael. Am I that awful, you can’t be seen in public with me?”

  “Something wrong with this setup?” Michael asked, gesturing at the room around them, with its heavy damask draperies, the patio that overlooked the Gulf of Mexico. “A two-hundred-fifty-buck room isn’t good enough for you?”

  “Nooo,” she said, “but—”

  “This is work tonight, doll,” Michael said.

  He wondered idly how old Cookie really was. She was older than the twenty-eight she had once claimed, that he was sure of.

  “I guess,” she said, shrugging, acting disinterested.

  Michael went to the closet, got out a dark blue sport coat and slipped it on. “Next time. Okay?”

  Cookie picked up her purse, looked inside, and frowned. “Next time. You guys don’t seem to understand, a girl likes a little attention. I’m cooped up all day long in that dump downtown. And this new guy, the preacher who bought the place? He gives me the creeps.”

  “So get another job,” he said, shrugging. “What’s the big deal?”

  She smiled, catlike. “Not just yet.” Then she changed the subject. “So what’s this thing you have working at the track tonight? If you don’t mind my asking,” she said quickly.

  He shrugged, trying to act nonchalant. “It’s just a thing I’m working on. This guy, he’s got a system. A system of picking dogs. Says it’s ninety percent accurate. So I’m gonna check it out.”

  “So you’re going to the track after all?”

  “I told you. It’s business.”

  Cookie looked dubious. “He can pick winners ninety percent of the time? What is he, a Gypsy? Why’s he gonna sell it to you?”

  Michael picked up the big diamond-studded gold watch from the dresser and slid it onto his wrist. He picked up the gold money clip, some change, and the room key and put it in his pocket. It was cute, the way Cookie was interested in business. She was a cute kid.

  “He needs a backer, someone who can finance him,” he said. “That’s all. Hey, maybe if this thing pans out, we could work something out. I could set you up in your own place. How’d you like that?”

  Cookie got out her car keys and glanced at her watch. She’d really have to go now, before all hell broke out down at the Fountain of Youth. “Maybe. That’s all I ever get, Michael. A lot of maybes.”

  Curtis Goolsby ran the vacuum-cleaner nozzle over the front seat of the white Ford Escort for the third time. He’d already picked up one whole bag of trash from the front seat. Old newspapers, a half-full bottle of Sea & Ski, and a mildewed Holiday Inn bath mat.

  But the sand. Jeez, that powder-fine white sand. It was everywhere. And it did not want to come up.

  “These people must have slept on the beach, you know that, Dad?”

  His old man, Butch, was not really listening. Butch sat in a wooden chair at his desk in the garage of Sun Bay Auto Rentals. He was reading. Butch was a great reader. He liked Harold Robbins and Louis L’Amour and Jacqueline Susann. Hell of a book, Valley of the Dolls. His specialty, though, was true-crime books. Had a shelf at the trailer with nothing but Ted Bundy books. Today he was reading the sports section.

  The radio was on. Curtis could not work without music going. He was humming along to something, like always.

  “What’s that, son?” Butch asked, looking up from the sports page.

  “Sand,” Curtis hollered over the whine of the vacuum cleaner. All Butch could see of him was his butt sticking out of the front seat of the Escort. “The damn sand won’t come out.”

  Butch glanced at the clock on the maintenance
-bay wall.

  “Just get the big chunks, son,” he said. “Check the trunk for money or luggage, dump out the ashtrays and make sure there’s no chewing gum on the seats.” Chewing gum was a rental car’s worst enemy.

  Curtis switched off the vacuum reluctantly. He liked to do things right. He got out and flicked a rag on the hood of the car.

  “You got anything doing tonight?” Butch asked, casual-like.

  Curtis scrubbed at a spot on the hood that looked like seagull poop. “Me and Tammi were just gonna maybe go out to Sunshine Speedway. You wanna ride out there with us?”

  “Might,” Butch said. He let Curtis get the windshield of the Escort covered with window spray before he spoke again.

  “Say, you remember that boy come in here and rented the green Cutlass a couple weeks ago? Blond college-looking guy?”

  Curtis straightened up and thought back. “Guy said some colored dude stole his Porsche. That the guy you mean?”

  “Yeah. That’s him. He was supposed to come last Monday and bring the insurance money to pay for the Cutlass. When he didn’t show, I took a ride over to his place. You know what he does for a living?”

  “No, what?”

  “He’s kind of like a scientist. That’s what. Works on some secret NASA space program. What he does is, he works on computers.”

  “Huh,” Curtis said. “Did the boy give you the money?”

  “No,” Butch said slowly. “He said the insurance settlement ain’t come in yet. We got to talking, though, and after I told him I was gonna have to hook up the Cutlass to the towbar and take it back, he told me about this deal he’s got going. See, Wade—that’s his name, Wade Hardeson—old Wade has got this computer at his work rigged up to pick the Double Q out at the dog track.”

  “That’s good?” Curtis asked.

  “Yeah,” Butch said, trying to be patient. “That’s real good. They had a Double Q over in Tampa last season, woman won one hundred thousand dollars on a two-dollar ticket.”