Blood Foam: A Lewis Cole Mystery (Lewis Cole series) Read online

Felix asked, “How much did you take them for?”

  “Enough,” she said.

  “Didn’t know you were a pool shark,” I said.

  Eyes alive, she leaned in so I could hear her better. “Back in college, when I was working on the school paper in the student union building, there was a game room on the same floor with a couple of pool tables.”

  Paula squeezed my shoulder. “What, you think I spent all my spare time writing news stories?”

  Outside, the crisp November night air was brisk as we went over to the Tahoe. I was suddenly tired, from a long, long day, and not feeling good about where we were. We didn’t know much more than we had when this day started, and the day had also ended with the death of Carl Lessard—and, chances were, Reeve and his boys were closing in fast on wherever Mark Spencer was hiding.

  Felix got in the front, Paula gestured for me to take the front as well, and, after the engine was started and seatbelts were fastened, we started out away from Auburn. Now the interior of the Tahoe stank with stale tobacco smoke from the Hog Heaven Fan Club, and the stench stayed with us all the way back to the seacoast.

  Paula handed a twenty-dollar bill to Felix. “My share of the gas.”

  Felix handed it back. “You’ll get an invoice when we’re finished, Paula.”

  “Hah,” she said, retrieving the money. “Were you able to get much from Phil?”

  “Not much,” I said.

  “Really? Even after Reeve came by earlier today with two of Phil’s boys with him?”

  I started to say something, but Felix quietly switched on the turn indicator and slowly pulled the Tahoe over to the side of the road. He put the gearshift in PARK and positioned himself so he could look directly at Paula.

  “How did you know that?” he asked.

  “My pool boys,” she said. “Roy and Henry. They told me Reeve came by a couple of hours ago.”

  I said, “They just gave it up, just like that?”

  “Lewis, please, besides being what you call a pool shark, I’m a reporter first and foremost. I find things out. I work sources. And I worked Roy and Henry. We got to talking as I was kicking their asses, and in a pause in the action, Roy wanted to know what a pretty young thing like me was doing in a dump like that.”

  “Charming,” I said. “And?”

  “And I told them that you two guys were working for me, trying to find that son-of-a-bitch lawyer from Tyler who stole my widowed mom’s money.”

  Felix said “Well played, Paula. Do go on.”

  “They said ‘Really?’ And I said yeah, really . . . and I added a few more choice obscenities after that, as well as a couple of well-placed teardrops. Then Roy said: well, don’t you worry, there’s a couple of other guys looking for him as well, and trust me, sis, they will find him. And when that happens, bet that fucker lawyer gets what’s coming to him.”

  A tractor-trailer barreled past, shaking the Tahoe. “I asked them what they meant. Henry said that some guy out West had a real hard-on for this Tyler lawyer, and just a couple of hours ago, this guy and two guys from the Crawford Notch club—George and Billy—came in and went upstairs to talk to Phil.”

  Felix said “Well, isn’t that sweet.”

  “Wait, it gets better,” Paula said. “I said, gee, do you think they know where he is? And Roy, he said, well, I don’t think so, ’cause the three of ’em came stomping out of Phil’s office, with that guy from the West saying he didn’t know anything much more than when he first got here.”

  I took that in, and so did Felix; and Paula, her voice quieter, said “Then I pressed it . . . maybe I shouldn’t have . . . but I did. . . .”

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  She said, “I said, dear me, do you think that Tyler lawyer ripped off that guy from the West? And Roy said, no, hon, it was a family thing, an old family thing, and then he was going to say something else when Henry rapped the back of his head with his pool cue, and they both shut up, and we went back to the game.”

  “An old family thing,” I repeated. “Mark was raised in Vermont, orphaned in Vermont, but has a Wyoming Social Security number, and a couple of weeks ago, he might have made a quick visit to Wyoming . . . and now he’s got a biker after him. For something related to family.”

  Felix switched the turn indicator so it was blinking to let drivers know we were about to re-join traffic. “I think I know how to straighten this out,” he said, tempered steel in his voice. “We go back to the club, we see Phil again, and this time he goes downstairs with me holding his pants and his shirt, my pistol to the back of his damn head . . . and I get him up on a table and he can start singing ‘I’m So Pretty’ from West Side Story.”

  “Don’t,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Don’t. Phil thinks he outsmarted us, got us out of the club without knowing much. But now we do. We know Mark’s being hunted due to a family matter.”

  “We go back to the Hog Heaven Fan Club, we can still find out what that’s all about.”

  “Maybe, but that just alerts Phil as to what we know. And besides, knowing what’s driving Reeve Langley, that doesn’t help us get to our goal: finding Mark.”

  “But they’re still looking!” Paula said.

  I gave her a reassuring smile. “Paula, that’s the best news of the night. What your pool players said to you. They said Reeve and the two local bikers, they went out, with Reeve saying he didn’t know anything much more than when he first got here. That meant what they did to Carl Lessard . . . they didn’t get anything useful out of him. Reeve and the others, they’re still in the dark. They still don’t know where Mark is.”

  Paula and Felix pondered that, and then Felix put the Tahoe in DRIVE, carefully checked his sideview mirror, and we went back on the road, heading east, back to the seacoast.

  Felix seemed to choose his words carefully. “Paula, if they’re still unsuccessful, then maybe it might be for the best for us to stop for a while. We might stir things up without knowing it, leading the bad guys right to Mark. If he’s hidden well, that might be the best option.”

  Paula said “But there’s a chance we might get to him first.”

  “A chance,” Felix said.

  “Then that’s what I want to do.”

  “Fair enough,” Felix said. “After all, you’re paying the bill.”

  “What bill?” she said. “I just tried to give you a twenty-dollar bill.”

  Felix said, “Paula, please, don’t confuse me with the facts.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Back at Felix’s house an hour later, we took a break, with Felix announcing we were all going to spend the night there. Earlier, we had stopped at Paula’s place so she could pick up some clothes and such, and Felix and I escorted her in and out of her condo with no difficulty. There was a spare bedroom at Felix’s that went to Paula, and when the time came, I was going to get a pull-out couch in the living room. Paula and I took turns in the shower—which I found refreshing, since it had been some time since I had taken a lengthy and hot shower—and with fresh clothes on, I felt closer to being human again.

  Paula was dressed in gray slacks and a dark blue UNH sweatshirt, and her still-wet hair clung to her ears and to her neck. I joined her on high stools, sitting at the large granite counter in Felix’s well-equipped kitchen, and he made us scrambled eggs with sweet Italian sausage on the side, along with thick white toast. Paula and I both declined coffee and made do with freshly squeezed orange juice.

  Paula sliced at a sausage and said: “So, tell me, Felix, how did you ever hook up with a motorcycle gang an hour away?”

  “Oh, past business dealings, you know how it is.”

  “No,” she said crisply, “I don’t.”

  Felix ate a piece of toast. “Are you asking me as a lovely young lady, eating in my fair house, or as a newspaper reporter, looking for a story?”

  She looked over at him. “This is the finest meal I’ve eaten in days. Does that answer your question?”
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  “I guess,” Felix said. “For a variety of reasons, once I moved up here from the North End, I had a bit of a reputation.”

  “An organized-crime reputation?”

  He shook his head. “Not as organized as you would think. Which is one of the reasons I got out. You see, my dad was Greek, my mom was Sicilian. Which meant I was a half-breed. I would never, ever be completely trusted. But when I was young and full of energy and anger, I didn’t care that much. The older I got, the more I realized that as a half-breed, to those running the show and their friends and allies, I was nothing more than cannon fodder, a hired gun. And if some pressure came down from the government or some other opposing force, then I’d be sacrificed, tossed aside, for the good of my supposed superiors.”

  Paula chewed thoughtfully and asked, “You ever kill anybody?”

  I nearly choked on my orange juice. I had never, ever heard anyone directly ask Felix Tinios that question. In the years I had been friends with Felix, I had never dreamed of being so direct, even though I had seen him in bloody action more than once.

  Felix’s face was impassive. It was tanned, lean, with dark eyebrows and brown eyes, and blue-black stubble along his cheeks and firm chin.

  Then his eyes narrowed and he leaned over the counter, keeping Paula in his steady gaze, and I felt like I was looking at a hunting bird, freezing a furry creature in place with its deadly eyes.

  “Yes,” Felix said. “I have killed. That I have.”

  Then a grin appeared and his eyes lit up. “But they were all very, very naughty men.”

  Paula allowed herself to smile and said “All right. But what’s the deal with the Crawford Notch Boys? How did you ever work for them?”

  Felix relaxed back on his stool. “Things . . . happen. Favors are exchanged. The word goes out that some hard men are needed to guard something. Other times a lesson in force has to be applied.”

  “Doesn’t it bother you?”

  Another question I was surprised was asked, and even more surprised when it was answered. He spoke slowly, reflectively. “A good question. It should, I suppose . . . but I look at my upbringing, look at who I am and what I was hard-wired to do. I don’t do anything out of cruelty or spite. Before I do anything, I need to know . . . to my own satisfaction . . . that it fits some sort of purpose. Perhaps not legal, or particularly moral, but a purpose. . . .”

  “Like providing protection to a motorcycle gang?”

  He lifted up his glass of orange juice. “Like finding a missing attorney.”

  It was late at night. I was on Felix’s pull-out bed, tossing and turning. The bedding was soft and comfortable, the sheets and the pillowcase freshly washed and dried, but I couldn’t get comfortable. The thoughts of finding Mark Spencer were bouncing around up there in my mind, as well as the certainty that Hurricane Toni was grinding her way north, with my partially destroyed house squarely in its path.

  “Hey, Lewis,” came a whisper.

  I sat up. “I don’t think you have to whisper. What’s up?”

  She came over, sat down on the edge of the pull-out bed. There was a little light coming from the stove in the adjacent kitchen. She had on a long-sleeved dark green T-shirt. “Can’t sleep.”

  “Then join the club.”

  “Thanks, I think I will.”

  Paula climbed in and I moved around, and she was on her back and so was I. Her breathing was soft and steady. “You’ve been good to me these past days.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’ve really been there for me. Most guys probably wouldn’t.”

  “I like to draw outside the box.”

  That caused a slight giggle, and she said “I just wish . . . I just wish we had something more to go on. What do we do in the morning?”

  “Watch Felix make breakfast, and then get back to work. Maybe we’ll check in with Hannah Adams. Or Kenneth, the admin aide. Maybe track down some of Mark’s clients. The good news is . . . the bad guys still don’t have a trail yet.”

  She sighed. “‘Yet’ being the operative word.”

  Paula squirmed in closer to me. I could feel the warmth from her body.

  “Speaking of bad guys, don’t you ever get scared around Felix?”

  “Sometimes . . . but it’s usually the other fellow who gets scared.”

  “How in the world did the two of you ever become friends?”

  I brushed her hand with mine. She didn’t move. “We met years ago. I was trying to help a woman who had gotten scammed, and Felix politely told me to stop. I didn’t. He told me again, a bit more insistent. Then I did a little research, tried to find out who he was and where he lived. After that happened, I went over to visit him, to have a meeting of the minds.”

  “How did that go?”

  “Well . . . it started off with a bang. I shot out the tires on his Mercedes.”

  “Holy shit,” she said. “Did you run off? Hide? Did he come after you later?”

  “Nope,” I said. “He opened the door, saw me standing there, saw his Mercedes, and then invited me in for a drink. We quickly resolved our issues, and we’ve been friends ever since.”

  “Still doesn’t answer my question. Why?”

  It was hard to concentrate with her next to me, the scent and closeness, the muscle memory of what it was like to be so very close to her.

  “It made sense. We . . . were kind of a yin and yang, each of us supplying something that the other was missing in our lives. He supplying the cold-bloodedness that gets things done, me supplying the little brake of conscience that keeps him from going over the edge into anarchy.”

  “My, sounds like quite the bromance.”

  “You have no idea.”

  A few moments of silence. “You two . . . you’re still going to find Mark, aren’t you?”

  “Without a doubt.”

  “Tell you a secret?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “It’s going to make me sound like a cold-hearted, mercenary bitch.”

  “Mercenaries always get the bad press. Go on.”

  “There’s more to why I’m with Mark, besides the steadiness and the stability. It’s the opportunity, the opportunity to get out of newspaper work and do something else.”

  I held her hand, squeezed it. She went on. “For as long as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to write, to tell stories. Newspaper work was a relatively easy way to slide into that after college. I mean, how many classified ads are there looking for an untested writer of fiction?”

  “Not a hell of a lot.”

  “That’s right. So I’m in newspaper work. There’s been a lot of high points, a lot of fun, a lot of stories I wrote that made a difference, that told something important that needed to be told. But now . . . I’m tired of being a part of all the bad news, even if it’s just reporting it. I want to do something else, but with my skills what else could I do? And newspapers are dying, Lewis. There may be something romantic about being the last buggy-whip maker or the last street reporter whose only tool is a notebook and pen, but I’m looking for a new start.”

  “What did Mark promise you?”

  She squeezed my hand back. “Well put, Lewis. So here’s my deep secret. Mark promised me that when we get married, and settled in, that he’d get a job at a better firm in Porter, that he’d put his state senate race on hold and give me a year . . . a golden year . . . to quit the Tyler Chronicle, to do anything I wanted. Make pottery. Write bad poetry or bad fiction. Or become a sexy hausfrau for him. Whatever I wanted . . . as long as it was being part of a new family with him.”

  I rolled over and kissed her on the lips, just a brief moment, bringing back not-so-brief memories, and then I rolled back.

  She snuggled in with me. “What was that for?”

  “Congratulations,” I said. “For having a plan. For having a family.”

  We stayed still, until her breathing slowed, until I gently untangled myself.

  I woke up with the rising sun in my eyes. It was q
uiet, just the sound of the waves, and of Paula breathing, rolled over on her side. I checked my watch. Just past six in the morning. I’m sure a lot of people were up and about this morning, but I wasn’t about to join them. I settled back in, rubbed at my eyes, thought if I was lucky I could get back to sleep for another hour or so.

  Luck. Paula and her missing fiancé. Both lucky to have each other, and he was lucky to have her in his corner, pushing hard to find him. I hoped he would someday appreciate it. I had spoken bravely to her a number of hours ago, but chasing down Hannah Adams and Kenneth Sheen was the proverbial grasping at straws. All other avenues had been closed, not much was out there, and I slowly slid into a doze, thinking about all those busy people out there, lots of them preparing for Turkey Day in a few days, and I had to decide if I was going to accept Diane’s invitation or Felix’s, but soon it was going to be the busiest traveling season of the year, all those folks going out on vacation, to a place of escape, to sunnier shores. . . .

  To sunnier shores.

  A place of escape.

  I rolled over and pushed Paula on her shoulders. She grunted and I said “Wake up! Paula, wake up!”

  She rolled over, her hair a mess, her eyes half open. “Sweet God, do you know what time it is?”

  “It’s six-fourteen A.M.,” I said. “I need to know something. There was a photo of you and Mark at his condo. You were both in bathing suits. A vacation photo, maybe. Where was it taken?”

  She yawned and rubbed at the back of her head. “At Lake Pettis. Up near North Conway. We rented a cottage there last July. Had our own private little island.”

  “Could Mark be there?”

  Paula sat up. “No, not a chance. He hated it. He said it was too remote, too many mosquitoes, and if we needed coffee or a quart of milk we had to fire up the outboard and motor in to the town beach. Hell, I remember him telling everybody at the firm’s Labor Day party about that rental, and I even got pissed at him, because it had been my idea. If there’s one place he would go to hide out, it wouldn’t be there.”

  I got out of bed, started getting dressed. “Sorry, Paula, that’s the best place to hide out. Where no one expects you to be.”