The Four Corners of the Sky_ A Novel - Michael Malone [176]
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In the parking lot, Raffy glided up to Annie. “I apologize,” he murmured.
“I could have killed you,” she admitted, handing him back the phone. “I just went through thinking my dad was dead and turns out he’s fine.”
Raffy’s dark eyes flickered away from her. “Annie, ‘fine’ could be a stretch in regards to Jack. I don’t know what it is lately about his personal karma, because when I met him, he was A Man Loved by the Gods, but these days…?”
Grabbing his chin, Annie shook it. “Just nod at me. Is Jack still hiding out at Golden Days?”
Rook used his free hand to hitch up his trousers. “No. Annie, here’s the thing. He’s gone.”
She jerked the small man to her so hard he wobbled. “Don’t tell me he is dead because I don’t believe it.”
Rook frantically waved his hands. “Ms. Skippings found out Jack was there and that’s when she fired Chamayra.”
“Skippings threw my dad out?”
“In a sense. He left in her car.”
“Chamayra’s car?”
“Ms. Skippings’s. Could you quit that for a second?” Annie let go of him; she felt awful.
He caught her as she stumbled, off-balance. “You look green.”
“It’s the heat. I think I’m going to throw up.”
Hurrying her across the parking lot into the log cabin restaurant, Good Mornin’, he rushed to a restroom on whose door was painted a picture of Betty Grable in a bathing suit.
Ten minutes later, he led Annie gently to a rustic pine table beside a window that squinted grimily at Rest Eternal. “Drink this tomato juice. Take these.” He held out aspirin. “You’ve been through a lot.”
“More than you know,” muttered Annie as she swallowed the pills. Something in his look made her blush and she added, “At least I was hoping it was more than you know.”
“You and Daniel Hart, who could predict it? ‘Clubs could not part them.’” He confessed that last night he had seen her, soaking wet, arm in arm with Hart, going up into the hotel elevator and not coming down. He had seen this from the Dorado bar where he’d been waiting for her, while keeping a watch over Brad Hopper, who was also in the bar.
Annie dropped her head into her hands. “Brad was in the bar? Great.”
The slender man nudged the coffee cup at her. “Forgive my bluntness. If you’re worried that your husband saw you kissing Sergeant Hart, he missed it completely.”
Annie looked out at him through her fingers. “We’re getting divorced.”
“In my opinion, all things considered, a wise plan.” Raffy tapped pepper into his tomato juice.
The coffee, which Annie tried to drink, was both too hot and too weak. “I can’t think about that now. Where did Dad go?”
“Poor Jack.” He spoke with sympathy. “‘There is a tide in the affairs of men’ and your papa took it. When the bastard Miami police showed up at Golden Days with—my best guess from their shoes—FBI agents, Jack stole an SUV from the parking lot. Which—it must be admitted—turned out to be Ms. Skippings’s Lexus.”
“He stole Skippings’s car?” She laughed but quickly stopped because of the pain when her scalp moved. “So, where’d he go?”
Surprisingly, Raffy seized her hands. “Annie, I heard on the radio coming here—but, as we know, there’s no reason to believe the press.” After a pause, he hurried ahead. “They found her Lexus in the bay. But there could be many explanations—”
She pulled her hands away.
Raffy dropped his eyes to his coffee, shaking the mug as if he were reading his fortune in it. “The car went off the causeway, through the crossrail, and they found it on the bottom of the bay. They sent out divers.”
Sun splintering through the dirty window blinded her. “Was he in the car?”
The Cuban vigorously shook his head. “No, no, no, no, no. And its windows were open. But his jacket was caught in the front seat, with his wallet in it. His driver’s license. Jack Peregrine, West Palm Beach.”
Slowly, Annie thought about this. “A driver’s license in his real name?”
Raffy sucked wistfully at his coffee. “The cops think he tried to swim to the surface but didn’t make it. It’s not easy water.”
She thought further, motionless.
Raffy gently reminded her that her father wasn’t at all well. “Prison wasn’t