Sylvie's Cowboy Page 10

  “Come on, Harry, be there! Aw, shoot!” He slammed the phone down in frustration.

  He thought for a second and snatched up the phone again. He punched in a number. Busy signal. He shouted, “Clarice, get off the dad-blame phone! Dang!” He smacked the phone down and raced for the bedroom.

  Moments later he emerged from the house, pulling on a clean shirt, and leaped over the two dogs. He slammed shut the hood of the pink Mustang and jumped into the driver’s seat. He cranked and cranked and cranked—but the car wouldn’t start. He jerked the door open, climbed out, and slammed the door behind him. “Dang it! I knew this would happen!”

  He reopened the hood with a fierce yank, and he started to work in earnest.

  ...

  Two hours later, about a hundred miles away, in the parking garage of the penthouse condominium, a cellular phone rang in its holster. The holster was mounted inside a red pickup truck with yellow doors. The phone rang again and again and again. But the parked truck was unoccupied. The call went to voicemail. Moments later it rang again with the same result. The caller tried a third time, then the phone went silent.

  Across the garage, Dan Stern was leaving his car, carrying a sack of groceries, walking toward the elevators.

  Outside on the street, Harry Pace, wearing his windbreaker, boots, and Stetson, sauntered down the sidewalk toward the condominium parking garage. He was carrying a bag of takeout burgers and whistling “Your Cheatin’ Heart.”

  Dan Stern let himself into the condominium formerly occupied by Sylvie Pace. He went to the kitchen and stocked the refrigerator with the contents of his grocery sack. Then he crumpled the sack and stuffed it down the refuse chute. The kitchen—and indeed the entire apartment—remained fully furnished inasmuch as Sylvie had been permitted to remove nothing but her clothing and personal articles.

  Noticing a cutlery rack on the wall, Dan removed an ice pick, contemplated it, then stowed it in his pocket. He had plans for an ice bucket and a champagne bottle later, but the ice maker in the apartment had been idle while the apartment was vacant. The ice bin was a solid block that would have to be chipped apart when it was time to chill the wine.

  He looked around the apartment and decided he was pleased with his preparations. He palmed his keys and left.

  When the elevator doors opened in the parking garage, Dan stepped out and headed for his car. He stopped when he heard whistling. Wary, he stole forward using the garage’s concrete pillars as cover until he could see if the whistler was who he suspected it was.

  Harry Pace was standing in the open door of the red pickup truck, unloading takeout food onto the seat and whistling “Your Cheatin’ Heart.” From Dan’s point of view, however, the man in boots and Stetson looked exactly like Walt McGurk.

  Dan looked at his watch, then he slipped the ice pick out of his pocket, muttering to himself. “You made good time, Dogpatch. But your time just ran out.”

  Dan crept up behind Harry. The whistling stopped abruptly when Dan jabbed the ice pick through the back of the man’s head, beneath the brim of the Stetson, directly into the brain.

  Harry fell forward, face down, across the takeout food on the truck seat. Hastily Dan shoved the booted feet inside and closed the truck door. Still thinking he had killed Walt, Dan said to the corpse, “They won’t find you until the smell gets bad, and I’ll be long gone by then.”

  Dan hurried to his car and left the garage with the greatest possible speed.

  ...

  That afternoon at Clarice’s Beauty World, Sylvie tightened the screws on the electrical plug of a blow-dryer. Then she reached across the appointment book, knocking the desk telephone off the hook, and poked the plug into an outlet. She turned the dryer on. It made a satisfying whirring-whooshing noise, and she turned it off.

  Sylvie unplugged the dryer, without noticing the askew telephone, and carried the appliance across the room to Clarice. The shop was only moderately busy, and Clarice was giving a facial to a lady who seemed to be asleep in the chair. Sylvie placed the dryer on Clarice’s station with a flourish.

  “There you are,” Sylvie announced. “I can’t believe you were going to throw that out when all it needed was a new plug. These things cost money, you know.”

  “And I can’t believe you fixed it! Where did you learn to do that?”

  “Walt. Walt can fix anything.” Sylvie’s tone became apologetic. “You know, if I weren’t here, he would’ve fixed that dryer for you.”

  “I know nothing of the kind.” Clarice reached into a drawer nearby and produced an electric curling iron, which she handed to Sylvie. “Why don’t you take this home tonight and see what you can do with it. It shocks me so bad it like to knocks me down ever time I try to use it.”

  “I don’t know what I can do, but I’ll try.”

  “I’ll pay you for the time you work at home.”

  “Don’t be silly. It’s a favor for a friend.” Sylvie returned to the reception desk and placed the curling iron in her purse.

  Outside the picture window Dan Stern’s car swooped into the parking space just outside Clarice’s front door. In a trice, Dan was out of the car and through Clarice’s door. Sylvie was closing the drawer with her purse in it when Dan entered the salon. She still had not noticed that the telephone was not seated on its hook.

  “Dan! What are you doing here?” Sylvie smiled at him and turned toward Clarice. “This is one of my oldest friends, Dan Stern. Dan, this is my boss—and my friend—Clarice Putnam.”

  “The pleasure is all mine, Miss Putnam,” said Dan with his most winning smile. “I had heard that Sylvie had a job, but I never expected such a young, attractive employer.”

  Clarice smiled and sent Sylvie a wink. “Why don’t you bring him around more often?”

  With considerable finesse, Dan managed to turn his attention to Sylvie without seeming rude. “Sylvie, may we speak outside?”

  Sylvie looked to Clarice, who nodded approval. Sylvie and Dan stepped outside the front door.

  Through the picture window, Clarice watched the conversation between Dan and Sylvie on the sidewalk outside. Sylvie was doubtful about what he told her, but he was charming and persuasive, and she finally believed him. He suggested a course of action, but she demurred. He persisted. She acquiesced. She re-entered the shop while he waited at his car.

  “Something’s come up about my father’s estate,” Sylvie told Clarice. “I need to go to Miami right away to straighten it out. Would you mind terribly if I left early today?”

  Clarice had a bad feeling but couldn’t pinpoint a reason. “Is everything all right?”

  “Well, yes,” said Sylvie, sounding anything but certain. “That is, it will be if I go and take care of this paper work today. Do you mind? I hate to leave you high and dry.”

  Clarice looked at Sylvie, at Dan, and at Sylvie again. Maybe she was just picking up on Sylvie’s grief-tinged stress over legal red tape. Clarice brushed aside any misgivings. “We’ll be fine,” she told Sylvie. “It’s slow today. You do what you need to do. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Thanks,” said Sylvie. She retrieved her purse from the desk drawer and left.

  On the reception desk, the phone was still off the hook, emitting beeping sounds that were masked by the background noise of the beauty salon.

  Sylvie and Dan had been gone only minutes when through the picture window Clarice saw a pink Mustang screech to a stop outside. Walt McGurk was out of the car and in through the salon door in nothing flat.

  “Sylvie, you’ve got to—Where’s Sylvie?” His eyes scoured the reception desk and found the bleating off-hook telephone. He snatched up the receiver and slammed it down on its cradle. “I been tryin’ to call! Ain’t she here!?”

  “Good afternoon to you, too,” Clarice responded. “She said she had to go to Miami. Somethin’ about Harry’s estate. What the heck are you drivin’?”

  “Tunin’ it up for Harry. He’s got my truck. ... Her bug’s outside. Sylvie take you
r car?”

  “No, her friend took her. Dan.”

  Walt erupted. “And you let him take her!”

  Clarice’s sleeping client was startled awake and nearly knocked the chair and Clarice flying. Clarice had her hands full steadying and calming the wide-eyed, mud-packed lady. “It’s all right,” Clarice soothed, “just Walter actin’ the fool.”

  Clarice looked over her shoulder at Walt. “He wasn’t kidnapping her, McGurk! Looked to me like she wanted to go with him. Now, if that bothers you so dad-blame much, I suggest you stop scaring my customers and go after her.”

  “I’ll dang sure do that, thank you very much!” Walt stormed out the door.

  ...

  The car carrying Dan and Sylvie sped southwest past scattered farmhouses, crops, and pasturelands. Dan turned on the charm, admiring how Sylvie filled out the simple polyester beautician’s uniform she wore—not ignoring the pretty legs between skirt hem and nurse-y, white rubber-soled shoes.

  Dan rested his hand on her knee. “I’ve tried to be patient, to give you some time after Harry’s death, but it’s no use. I can’t stop thinking of you. We’ve had good times, haven’t we? We’ve never fought. We like the same things. Things haven’t changed between us, have they, Sylvie?”

  A lumbering tractor-trailer rig ahead of them distracted Dan. This stretch of Highway 27 was too narrow for Dan to safely pass the slow-moving truck. Dan grimaced in frustration and honked his horn, but the tractor-trailer moseyed along without increasing its pace.

  “I have responsibilities now,” Sylvie told him. “I have a job. I have obligations at home. I can’t party every night like we used to.” She glanced at how closely the car approached the rear of the massive truck. “Danny, please ... you’re speeding!”

  He took her hand and clasped it reassuringly. Then he released her, grasped the steering wheel with both hands and attempted to pass the tractor-trailer. Oncoming traffic forced him to swerve back into his lane, still behind the truck.

  “I understand about your ... obligations, Sil. I have obligations, too,” Dan said. “In a way, that’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about.”

  They were approaching a curve, and the oncoming lane seemed empty, but there was a solid yellow no-passing line on the asphalt. Dan disregarded the line, honked his horn, gunned his engine, and whipped around the tractor-trailer.

  Sylvie held her breath and covered her eyes. Dan swerved in front of the tractor-trailer’s front grill and sped southward around the curve. Neither of them saw that behind them the tractor-trailer, cut off by Dan’s reckless maneuver, jack-knifed on the curve and ended up on its side, blocking both lanes of the two-lane highway.

  Still barreling down Highway 27, Dan again took Sylvie’s hand. “Please don’t be angry with me, Sil, but that story about ‘estate business’ was only a ruse to get you to come with me today.”

  Sylvie took her hand from her eyes and looked at him. “Danny, slow down or let me out! ... Why didn’t you just ask me to come with you?”

  Dan saw something new and serious in her face. He deliberately slowed down. When he leveled off at a moderate speed, he looked to Sylvie for approval. She smiled her gratitude.

  He answered her question. “I didn’t ‘just ask’ because, well, you were living with that cowboy.... Then I heard at the Club that you two were on the outs and, well, today I acted on impulse.”

  He gave her his most sincere face and his gravest tone of voice. “I thought a lot of Harry. In a way, he was my hero. When he died, I was so upset I couldn’t, I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t think straight, y’know?”

  Sylvie, getting misty, patted his hand, understanding.

  Dan seemed to choke on his words. “And then when you were forced to move out, I was away just when you needed me most. But I couldn’t stop thinking of you struggling day after day, doing without things, being unhappy.” He stopped talking to collect himself.

  Sylvie said, “It’s okay.”

  ...

  After peeling out of the space in front of Clarice’s Beauty World, Walt sped toward Miami in the pink Mustang. On Highway 27 he whipped by cane fields and pastureland, but then: frustration. A long line of cars sat bottled up by a roadblock, flashing lights, Florida Highway Patrol vehicles, and rescue vans.

  Agitated and stopped dead in traffic, Walt climbed onto the roof of the car. He could see a tractor-trailer jack-knifed on its side across the highway and a spectacular traffic jam like those he had seen before on television newscasts. Furious, he slammed his Stetson to the ground.

  ...

  Twilight muted the colors and shapes of the Port of Miami. Tiny points of light blinked along the skeletons of cranes and the superstructures of cargo ships. Dan’s car pulled up and parked just as a seaplane dropped over the Miami skyline to land on the waters of Biscayne Bay.

  As he had been doing all the way from Clewiston to Miami, Dan continued wooing Sylvie. “I want to do something special for you, Sil. I want to make you happy.” He produced a shiny key from his pocket and flourished it.

  “What is it?”

  “The key to your penthouse. Everything’s exactly like you left it. Just waiting for you.”

  Sylvie was incredulous, excited, and increasingly hopeful. “But ... but Les sold it. She told me a Bahamian company owns it now.”

  “Owned it,” he gloated. “They sold it to me. You and I are taking a chartered plane to Nassau this evening to celebrate closing the deal.”

  Sylvie looked at him as if he had just offered her the moon and was capable of delivering.

  A telephone rang. Dan placed the key in Sylvie’s hand, closed her hand around it, then lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it, slowly.

  The phone rang again. Out on the bay, the seaplane had now taxied to its ramp, ready to load for takeoff. Sylvie stared at her hand, then back at Dan. He was her knight in shining armor.

  The phone rang a third time. Sylvie said, “Do you hear bells?”

  Dan reached for his phone and turned it off.

  In Leslye Larrimore’s Miami office, her secretary, Diane, hung up the phone. She looked up with red, swollen eyes at Walt McGurk, standing across the desk from her.

  “He’s not answering his cell, either,” Diane said. “I don’t know where else to try. There’s no phone service at the penthouse yet. They’re going to connect it tomorrow.”

  The door from the lobby to Les Larrimore’s private office stood open. City of Miami Police officers were searching Leslye’s office. Diane looked at the police officers and began to cry again. She pulled her last tissue from the dispenser on her desk. “I just can’t believe it.”

  Walt handed her his handkerchief and tossed her empty tissue box into the trashcan behind her desk. “Let me get you some coffee,” he offered. “Then maybe I’ll go over myself and see if they’re at the penthouse, just in case.”

  Diane nodded gratefully, and Walt left to get the coffee. City of Miami Police officers strung yellow crime scene tape across the doorway to Leslye’s office. Diane sniffled.

  When Walt returned with her coffee, Diane was cradling her head in her hands. He set the coffee down. She grasped it desperately and drank, then she rolled her shoulders.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “Headache?” asked Walt when she rubbed the bridge of her nose.

  Diane nodded. Walt placed his hands on her shoulders and began the neck rub for which he was famous, according to Clarice Putnam.

  A police detective whose name tag said “Mank” stepped close to Diane’s desk and consulted a small notebook. Walt continued the massage, standing behind Diane’s chair.

  “I’m looking for a Daniel Stern,” said Detective Mank.

  “Isn’t everybody,” said Walt.

  The detective addressed Diane, “You know Mr. Stern?”

  Diane nodded. Walt kept massaging. Detective Mank raised an eyebrow at Walt, looking for an answer to the same question.

  “Know him,” said Wa
lt. “Ain’t warm for him.”

  “Do you know his whereabouts?” asked Mank.

  Diane shook her head. Walt shrugged and kept massaging.

  Mank jotted something in his notebook, turned a page, and read further in his notes. “Do you know whether he was with Ms. Larrimore yesterday evening?”

  Diane answered, “I don’t know, but it’s possible. Ms. Larrimore often met with Mr. Stern after hours. She wouldn’t usually say anything about it.”

  “Neither would I,” quipped Walt.

  “They had personal business,” Diane continued. “Mr. Stern is sometimes … overtextended. Ms. Larrimore would lend him money. She and Mr. Pace used to argue about it all the time.” Diane began to sob again. “First Mr. Pace, then poor Ms. Larrimore.”

  Mank jotted more notes in his pocket notebook. “So, if Stern owed Ms. Larrimore money, there might have been a confrontation?”

  At this, Walt stopped massaging and stared at the policeman.

  Diane gasped in horror. “You can’t mean--!” She raised one hand as if to cover her mouth. “I think I’m going to be sick. Excuse me, please.”

  Walt helped her up from her chair and she hurried away. Walt asked Detective Mank, “You intend to arrest Dan Stern for murder?”

  “Probably won’t get the chance,” Mank answered. “My guess is if he’s not out of the country already, he will be soon.”

  At that very moment, Dan and Sylvie were sitting, all lovey dovey, in their seats on the chartered seaplane. Biscayne Bay and the Miami skyline glittered through the windows as twilight welcomed the lights of the Magic City.

  Dan held Sylvie’s hand and leaned toward her. “We’ll just zip over to the islands, do it, and zip back. I don’t want to give you any time to change your mind.”

  “I won’t change my mind,” she said.

  “Tomorrow morning I’m cooking you breakfast right back in your own penthouse in Miami. It’ll be the perfect hideaway—everybody thinks it’s vacant. I’ll have you all to myself.”

  “I still can’t believe it,” gushed Sylvie.

  “Believe it. I love you. I’m going to take care of you.” Dan leaned a little further and kissed her lips.