Free Fall in Crimson Read online

  “And,” said Meyer, “on your days off you can sit around here on the houseboat and whine and whinny about how jaded life has become.”

  I stared over at him in the darkness. “I have been doing that quite a lot, haven’t I?”

  “Not more than I can stand. But enough.”

  “What can I tell you? I swam for three hours yesterday, some of it as hard as I could go. I woke up this morning feeling great. Absolutely great. Busting with energy. Know something? I want to get involved in the life and times of Esterland and son. I want to go out and con the people. I want to have to bust a couple of heads here and there and have somebody try to bust mine for me. Why should I feel a little bit guilty about feeling like that, Meyer?”

  “Maybe you got so you were enjoying the ennui.”

  “The what?”

  “Ennui, you illiterate. That is the restless need for some kind of action without having the outlet for any action at all. It is like weltschmerz.”

  “Which, as you have so often told me, is homesickness for a place you have never seen. I miss Gretel, Meyer. God, how I miss her! But she is dead and gone, and the stars are bright and the night wind blows, and the universe is slowly unfolding, revealing its wonders. What was your impression of Ellis Esterland?”

  “I did spend a couple of evenings with him. And Miss Renzetti. Not actually out of choice. He wanted to pick my brain, and I his. He wanted to know some of the banking practices in Grand Cayman, and I wanted to know which plastics companies were going to lead the pack in the future, based on new discoveries. What was he like? He tried to give the impression of being bluff and hearty and homespun. But he was a shrewd and subtle man. A good watcher. A good listener. I had no idea he was as sick as they say he was because that had to be—let me think back—two years ago in May, two months before he died.”

  “What happened to his lady? Do you know?”

  “Anne Renzetti? She stood up to him pretty well. I think he had a habit of bullying his women. I heard that she’s over in Naples, Florida, working in a resort hotel. Mmmm. Eden Beach! Correct.”

  “She was in the will?”

  “I don’t know, but I would think she was. She had been an employee. When he sold out his plastics company years ago, he set himself up as a management consultant, specializing in chemical and plastics companies, and from what he said I think he must have had a staff of a dozen or so. The offices were in Stamford, Connecticut. When he got sick he sold out and kept the Renzetti woman as a private secretary to help him put his affairs in order. After he was killed, the executor let her live aboard the boat until it was sold.”

  I went back to the rail, snuffed the night. No traffic sounds. No surf sounds. Fifty boats away a night woman gave a maniacal cry of laughter, as abrupt and meaningless as the honk of a night-flying bird. I did not trust the rising sense of anticipation I felt. I had tried to fit myself to somberness, to a life of reserve. I had located a couple of boats for people, for a finder’s fee. I had ferried a couple of big ones—a Hatteras over to Mobile, a Pacemaker up to Maryland—and flown back. I’d done some work for one of the brokers, putting bargain boats through their paces for people who wanted to believe how easy it was before making the down payment.

  I told myself I had lived in a house of many rooms, but there had been a fire, and it was all charred to hell except for a small attic bedroom. A bed, a chair, a table, and a window. And if anybody wanted to take a shot, I would happily stand in the window.

  But you can’t cut your life back like some kind of ornamental shrub. I couldn’t put the old white horse out to pasture, hock the tin armor, stand the lance in a corner of the barn. For a little while, yes. For the healing time.

  It was more than economics. I could tell myself I needed the money. And I did. More than the money, I needed the sense of being myself, full size, undwarfed by my disasters.

  I turned to Meyer and said, “I think I could find something where the chance of some kind of recovery would be better.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Ron Esterland is a little paranoid about the whole situation. He’s got a hang-up about his father. He isn’t thinking clearly.”

  “Probably he isn’t.”

  “I don’t see what Anne Renzetti would be able to tell me that would be any help at all.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “Want to ride over to Naples with me?”

  “I would enjoy that. Yes.”

  “Thanks for talking me into it, Meyer.”

  “For a little while I didn’t think I could do it.”

  Two

  Meyer waited in my old blue Rolls pickup while I talked money and time with Ron Esterland. Then in midmorning on a fine April Saturday, I drove over to Alligator Alley and we went humming westward past the wetlands, the scrub palmetto, the dwarf cypress. Traffic was heavy. Each year the gringos stay down longer. Each year too many of them come down to stay forever. Once the entire state becomes asphalt, high rises, malls, highway, fast food, and littered beaches, they will probably still keep coming.

  The computer in one of the basements inside Meyer’s skull predicts an eventual Florida population of thirty-two million folk, and by that time it will level off because it will not be any more desirable to live in Florida than it is to live in Rhode Island or West Virginia.

  “What can you remember about Ellis Esterland’s murder?” I asked Meyer. He walked back into his computer room and checked out the right floppy disc and played it back for me.

  “On a very hot day Esterland drove up to Citrus City, in River County. That is about a hundred and twenty miles from Fort Lauderdale. Miss Renzetti offered to drive him, but he said he would go alone. She said he was feeling much better that month, even though he was depressed by his daughter’s condition. He did not tell Miss Renzetti why he was going to Citrus City. And nobody ever found out. He was driving a dark gray Lincoln Continental. He had lunch alone at the Palmer Hotel, in the center of the city, and sat in the lobby for a time reading the Wall Street Journal. No one noticed his departure. Apparently he drove his car back over to the Florida Turnpike and stopped at a rest area six miles south of the interchange for Citrus City. A trucker found the body and reported it on CB radio. He was face down on the floor in front of the rear seat with his legs doubled under him. His wallet was on the front seat. His money was gone. Miss Renzetti said he probably had about two hundred dollars with him. He had been severely beaten. Blood beside the car and spattered against it indicated that he had probably been tossed into the back after the beating. Skull fractures, jaw fracture, broken facial bones, broken ribs. Nobody saw anything. No witness ever came forth. There were no clues.”

  “I think I was out of town at the time.”

  “You were. It was an overnight sensation. DYING MILLIONAIRE SLAIN. KILLED IN HIGHWAY ASSAULT. But it soon became yesterday’s news. Oh, as I remember there was a second little flurry when the terms of his will became known. GIRL IN COMA INHERITS FORTUNE. That sort of thing. I think the headlines called him the Plastics King.”

  “And if you had to guess?”

  “Ellis Esterland was a very abrasive man. He was cordially disliked by a great many people. I think that if he felt unwell, he would have stopped where they found him. And if anyone had tried to talk to him, he would probably have said something ugly to them. I would guess there was only one person involved.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “The money was taken, but not the expensive car. It was a new car. If two people had arrived in one vehicle, one of them could have taken the car. If there was only one person, their identity could have been traced through the vehicle they would have left behind.”

  “Meyer, there is a difference between logic and implausibility.”

  “I’ve never noticed that logic needs be plausible.”

  He retreated into silence. I knew that he was back there in one of his thinking rooms, working things out. Staring into the fire. Patting the cat.

  I notic
ed a marsh hawk on a dead branch and pointed it out. “Circus cyaneus hudsonius,” Meyer said. I turned and stared at him. He coughed and said, “Sorry about that. It’s a twitch. Like hiccups. Compulsive classification. I try not to do it. Can’t help observations. Such as what you do when you get annoyed. You go ten miles an hour faster.”

  I dropped the speed back where it belonged.

  We got off the Alley and took 858 into downtown Naples and out to the beach, turned right, and drove along hotel row until we came to the Eden Beach. I drove the long curve of sleek asphalt past the portico and on over into their parking area. A man tending the plantings stopped and stared slack-jawed at the Rolls pickup. It has that effect. The conversion was done clumsily during the Great Depression. Four fat women in shorts were on the big putting green, grimly improving their game. Through big-leafed tropic growth I could see the blue slosh of the swimming pool, and I heard somebody body-smack into it off the rumbling board. I saw a slice of Gulf horizon, complete with distant schooner. We went up three broad white steps and through a revolving door into the cool shadows of the lobby. A very pretty lady behind the reception desk smiled at us, frowned at her watch, picked up a phone, punched out two numbers, then spoke in a low voice.

  “She’ll be right out,” the nice lady said.

  “What kind of work does she do here?”

  “Oh, she’s our manager! She’s the boss.”

  Anne Renzetti appeared a few minutes later, looking unlike a boss. I had forgotten what a vivid little woman she was. Black black hair, dark eyes, black brows, a slash of red mouth. She wore a beige suit, white crisp shirt, green silk scarf knotted at her throat, very high heels. She walked trimly, swiftly, toward us, giving Meyer a smile of genuine pleasure at seeing him again, holding her cheek up for a kiss, favoring me with a quick handshake and a dubious look.

  “McGee?” I said. “Travis McGee?”

  “I think I remember you.… Meyer, how are you? You look absolutely wonderful. Gentlemen, perhaps you will join me for a drink? I was getting ready to leave. Marie? I’ll be at my place if anything comes up.”

  We followed her out the west doors, through the pool area past a thatched outdoor beach bar, and down to the farthest cabana. It was on pilings six feet high. We went up the stairs to a shallow porch with a broad overhang. A nice breeze was coming off the Gulf. The tubular chairs were comfortable. We approved her suggestion of vodka and grapefruit juice, and she declined any help. When she came back with the drinks on a small tray, she had changed to white shorts and a pink gauze top.

  Meyer said, “Congratulations on your exalted position, Anne.”

  She made a face. “It was sort of an accident, actually. First, I was secretary to Mr. Luddwick and then the company moved him to Hawaii, to a bigger hotel. His replacement was driving from Baltimore, and he got into a really bad accident. He was alone and fell asleep and went off the road. They thought he might be laid up for six weeks to two months, and they asked me if I could carry on alone here—with a small raise in pay, of course. I said sure. They had to pin the man’s broken hip, and he got an infection, and finally, when he was ready to report, somebody had the good sense to look at the results for the three months I had been running it, and they decided they shouldn’t change a thing. I owe getting the top job to Ellis Esterland.”

  “You do?” Meyer said, astonished.

  “I cover every inch of this place at least once a month. I know what every employee is doing and what they are supposed to be doing. I know where every penny of expense goes. I listen personally to every gripe. Ellis taught me that there are people who try to look as if they are doing a good and thorough job, and then there are the people who actually damn well do it, for its own sake. I’m proud of myself, damn it. And I love being the boss. I really love it! Everything you do in life is worth infinite care and infinite effort, Ellis said. He said that in a half-ass world the real achiever is king. He used to make me do things over if I made the tiniest mistake. He used to make me cry. But, wow, I really owe him.”

  “Nice-looking place,” I said.

  “Why have you looked me up?” she asked.

  Meyer left it up to me. “We were talking with Ronald Esterland yesterday night in Lauderdale, Miss Renzetti.”

  “With Ron! You were? How is he? What is he doing?”

  “Fine, apparently. He had a big show of his work in London and he sold most of it. He is beginning to get a lot of attention.”

  “I’m so glad! You know, I thought Ellis had really gutted him. I really thought Ron would never amount to anything. His father thought Ron’s ambition to be a painter was absurd. He thought it was a cop-out, an excuse for not working. I tried in little ways to get Ellis to get in touch with Ron. But he wouldn’t. I felt … maternal about Ron, which is strange because he’s a little older than I am. I think Josie felt that way, or feels that way, about him too, and though she is older than he is, she certainly isn’t old enough to be his mother. It really crushed Josie, losing Romola the way she did.… What does Ron have to do with your looking me up?”

  “His attitude toward his father has mellowed, Miss Renzetti.”

  “Please call me Anne.”

  “Thank you, Anne. Ron realized that he lost some of the fun of success because his father wasn’t alive to see it happen.”

  “Ellis would have been totally astonished. He used to say to people, ‘I’ve got a middle-aged son living abroad making funny daubs on canvas, trying to live in the wrong century.’ ”

  “He isn’t satisfied with the story of his father’s death.”

  “Who is? They never found out a thing. Not a single thing. And it happened in such a public place. It doesn’t seem possible they couldn’t find out something.”

  “So I’m poking around.”

  “Are you some sort of police officer?”

  Meyer answered, “No, he’s just a private citizen. But he’s had a lot of luck finding things for people, answering questions people have had. You can trust him, Anne.”

  “With what? I don’t know anything I haven’t told the police long ago. It wasn’t too pleasant, you know. I was a single woman living aboard a fancy boat with a rich old dying man. They were less than polite. They wanted to know what boyfriends I had on the side. They wanted to know, if Ellis was so sick, why I hadn’t driven him up there. Was he getting a divorce from Josephine? Did I plan to marry him if he got a divorce? Had we quarreled before he drove up there? Finally I had enough and I told them I wasn’t answering any more questions. They tried to bully me, but I had been bullied by one of the world’s greatest, so it didn’t work. Look, tell Ron I’m so glad he’s making it. And tell him I feel quite certain Ellis would have come around and been proud of him too. Will you do that?”

  “Of course we will,” Meyer said. “Did Ellis go off on trips like that often, without telling you why?”

  “Never! Here’s all I know about that trip. He was feeling better. He’d been—regaining lost ground for a month. He had picked up some of the weight he had lost, and his color was better. He was talking about being strong enough to fly out to Los Angeles to see Romola and talk to Josie and the doctors. He wanted to see Romola, but at the same time he dreaded it. He had talked to the doctors on the phone. They said there was no hope at all for her. It was a terrible thing for him. I think he really loved Romola. I don’t think there was ever any other person in his life he had loved. Not me. Not anyone. So, okay, when I came back from shopping on Monday, the day before he was killed, he was talking on the phone. Mostly he was just saying ‘Okay, okay, okay.’ I had the feeling it was a long-distance call. They checked the phone records afterward, and if it was long distance, it wasn’t an outgoing call. He seemed thoughtful that afternoon and evening, and before we went to bed he told me he was going up to Citrus City the next day. He said he would go alone. He wouldn’t tell me why he was going. He told me to stop asking questions.”

  “Do you have any idea why he didn’t want to tell you?”
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  “It wasn’t like him not to. Not that he was so very open with me. It was just that he didn’t care what I knew about him. I wasn’t in any position to disapprove of anything he might do. I don’t know why I didn’t walk out. It just didn’t occur to me that I could. Does that make any sense? I was in a cage with the door open, and I never even noticed the door. Now here is the only dumb guess I could come up with. He had a scientific mind. He started as a research chemist, you know. The one thing he hated above all else was doing something ridiculous and being found out. He knew how sick he was. We told each other that the remission was holding, and maybe he had licked the cancer. But he knew better than that. It had metastasized before it was first diagnosed. Chemotherapy had knocked it down for a little while, long enough for him to recover from most of the effects of the therapy, but when the remission ended, the next series of chemotherapy treatments would, if they suppressed the cancer at all, knock him back further than the previous set. And the pain would be back too. The only thing I can think of that would make him keep a secret from me was the idea I might ridicule him. Hope can be a dreadful thing, I guess. If he was going off to track down some sort of a quack cure, I don’t think he would have told me.”

  “Is there some kind of miracle cure available in Citrus City?”

  “I never tried to find out. But I would think that if there was, the police up there would have checked to see if he made contact, once they knew of his condition.”

  Meyer cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable. We looked at him and he said, “There’s always the remote possibility that he didn’t tell you because he thought you would try any means of stopping him if you knew.”

  “Knew what?”

  “That he knew exactly what was in store for him with what was left of his life, and he had been arranging to get himself killed.”

  She stared at him wide-eyed. “No,” she said firmly. “No, Meyer. Not Ellis. Not like that. This might sound sick, but I think he was enjoying the battle too much. He was a very gutsy man. All man. Cancer was challenging him. It pushed and he pushed back. He would delay taking pain pills, and keep track of how bad the pain was. No. To him it would have been like some kind of dirty surrender. He was building himself up to give it another battle.”