Two minutes later I was sitting in a chair next to the desk of Mrs. Carla Free. Her cubicle in the gray-carpeted complex was directly outside of an office with a plate marked "William Trasker."

Mrs. Free was tall, probably a little younger than me, well-groomed and blue-suited, with a white blouse with a fluffy collar. She was pretty, wore gla.s.ses, and was black. Actually, she was a very light brown.

"I have to find Mr. Trasker," I said.

"We haven't seen him in several days," she said, sounding like Bennington or Radcliffe, her hands folded on the desk in front of her, giving me her full attention.

"Does he often disappear for days?" I asked.

Mrs. Free did not answer but said, "Can I help you, Mr. Fonesca?"

There was no one within hearing distance. Her voice sounded all business and early dismissal for me. I decided to take a chance.

"Where do you live?" I asked.

She took off her gla.s.ses and looked at me at first in surprise and then in anger.

"Is this love at first sight, Mr. Fonesca?" she asked.

"You don't live in Newtown," I said.

"No, I live in Idora Estates. My husband is a doctor, a pediatrician. We have a daughter in Pine View and a son who just graduated from Pine View and is going to go to Grinnell. Now, I think you should leave."

"I have reason to believe that if Mr. Trasker goes to the City Commission meeting Friday night, he will vote against the Midnight Pa.s.s bill and that members of the commission will try to divert the money they would have spent on opening the Pa.s.s to helping with the renovation of Newtown," I said.

I waited.

"Who are you working for?" she asked quietly.

"Someone who wants to find William Trasker and help Newtown," I said.

"I was born here," she said so softly that I could hardly hear her. "In Newtown. So was my husband. My mother still lives there. She won't move."

"Where is Trasker?" I asked.

"Off the record, Mr. Fonesca," she said. "Mr. Trasker is not well."

"Off the record, Mrs. Free," I said, "Mr. Trasker is dying and I think you know it."

She nodded. She knew.

"You really think he'll vote against opening the Pa.s.s?" she asked.

"Good authority," I said. "A black man of the cloth."

"Fernando Wilkens," she said with a sigh that showed less respect than resignation.

"You're not a big fan of the reverend?"

"I'd rather say that he serves the community when that service benefits Fernando Wilkens," she said. "Fortunately, the two are generally compatible."

"You know him well?"

"I know him well enough."

She looked away. She understood. The sigh was long and said a lot, that she was considering risking her job, that she was about to give away things a secretary shouldn't give away.

"One condition," she said, folding her hands on the desk. "You are not to tell where you got this information."

"I will not tell," I said.

"For some reason, I believe you," she said. "G.o.d knows why. You've got that kind of face."

"Thanks."

"You've heard of Kevin Hoffmann," she said.

"I've heard," I said.

"He has a large estate on the mainland across from Bird Keys," she said. "Owns large pieces of land all along Little Sarasota Bay."

"So he'd make money if the Pa.s.s was opened."

"Now boats have to go five miles past the Pa.s.s site to the end of Casey Key and then come up Little Sarasota Bay another fiveplus miles."

"I get it."

"Only part of it," she said. "If the Pa.s.s opens, a lot of Kevin Hoffmann's property, now a bog, could be turned into choice waterside home sites. Trasker Construction has done almost all of the work for Kevin Hoffmann. It's been said that Mr. Trasker is in Kevin Hoffmann's pocket. It's also been said that Hoffmann is in Mr. Trasker's pocket. They are certainly close business a.s.sociates and have been for many years."

"It's been said," I repeated. "You think Hoffmann's done something to Trasker to keep him from voting against opening the Pa.s.s?"

"I wouldn't put it past him."

"You've put some thought into this," I said.

"Some," she admitted, adjusting her gla.s.ses. "You can check out Kevin Hoffmann's holdings in the tax office right downtown," she said. "Which would be more than the local media have done."

"Thanks," I said, getting up.

"No need," she said, rising and accompanying me down the hall. "We haven't had this conversation. I've told you nothing."

"Nothing," I agreed.

"Why doesn't Mrs. Trasker like you?" I asked.

"Five years ago when I came to work here," she said, "Mr. Trasker was looking less for a competent secretary than a possible s.e.xual conquest. By the time he realized that he would not be permitted to even touch me, he had also realized that I was probably invaluable to the business. Mrs. Trasker is a smart woman. I'm sure she knew what had been on her husband's mind. I'm also reasonably sure that she knew he had failed, but Mrs. Trasker is a vain woman not likely to be kindly disposed toward any woman her husband found attractive."

When we stood in front of the receptionist's desk, she shook my hand and said, "I'm sorry I couldn't help you, Mr. Fonesca, but I will give Mr. Trasker your name and number as soon as he returns."

It was almost four, but I drove up Swift and made good prearush hour time. Rush hour in Sarasota was still not a big problem, compared to Chicago or even Dubuque, but it slowed me down.

I got to the parking lot in front of Building C in a complex of identical three-story buildings marked A, B, C, and D off of Fruitville and Tutle. It was just before four-thirty.

Building C housed some of the offices of Children's Services of Sarasota. Buildings A, B, and D had a few empty office s.p.a.ces but most were filled by dentists, urologists, investment advisers, a jeweler, an estate appraiser, a four-doctor cardiology practice, and three allergists.

John Gutcheon was at the downstairs reception desk, literally twiddling his thumbs. John was thin, blond, about thirty, and very openly gay. His sharp tongue was his sole protection from invaders of his life choice. His world was divided into those who accepted him and those who did not accept him.

I was on John's good list, so I got fewer verbal barbs than a lot of Children's Service parents, who usually sullenly and always suspiciously brought in the children they had been charged with abusing. He looked up at me and shook his head.

"That cap has got to go," he said. "You are not a hat person and only real baseball players and gay men with a certain elan can get away with it. You look like an emaciated garbageman or, to be more socially correct, an anorexic sanitary engineer."

"Good afternoon, John," I said. "She's expecting me."

"Good afternoon," he answered. "I'm glad you prepared her. Are you saving someone today or are you going to try to pry Sally away from her caseload for dinner? She could use the respite."

"Both."

"Good. I'll sign you in."

"Thanks."

"It's been drearily quiet here today," he said, looking out the window at the cars in the parking lot. "I'm giving serious thought to moving."

"Key West?" I asked.

John rolled his eyes up to the ceiling.

"No," he said. "Care to try for a second stereotype?"

"San Francisco," I tried.

"You are a George Sandersalevel cad, Fonesca," he said. "Providence, Rhode Island, the city of my birth, the birth of my life which still puzzles my parents."

"Providence," I repeated.

"My parents are very understanding people," he explained. "Very liberal. They walked out on Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? when they first saw it. Couldn't accept that a beautiful man like Sidney Poitier, who played a world-famous, wealthy, and brilliant surgeon, would be in love with that dolt of a white girl."

"I get the point. You know any good jokes, John?"

"Hundreds," he said, opening his arms to indicate the vastness of his comic memory.

"Tell me one."

He did. I wrote it down in my notebook.

"Flee," he said with a wave of his right hand when I finished writing. "Your lady awaits."

He pulled the clipboarded sign-in sheet on his desk and began to carefully enter my name.

I took the elevator up to the second floor unannounced and went through the gla.s.s doors.

In most businesses, with the clock edging toward five, the employees would be in the act of preparing for their daily evacuation. Not here. The open room the size of a baseball infield was vibrating with voices from almost every one of the small cubicles that served as office s.p.a.ce for the caseworkers.

Most of the workers I pa.s.sed were women, but there were a few men. Some of the workers were on the phone. One woman looked at me in a dazed state and ran a pencil through her thick curly hair as she talked on the phone. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back.

"Then when will you and your wife be at home?" she asked.

Never, I thought. Never.

Sally's cubicle was big enough for her to sit facing her desk with one person seated to her left.

The person sitting was a thin black woman in a sagging tan dress. She was worn out, clutching a little black purse against her small b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She looked up at me with tired eyes as Sally spoke to a boy of about thirteen standing to the right of the desk. The boy looked like the woman with the purse. His eyes were halfclosed. His arms were crossed and he was leaning back against the thick gla.s.s that separated Sally from the caseworker across from her, Julio Vegas. Vegas, on the phone and alone, gave me a nod of recognition.

"Darrell," Sally was saying evenly, "do you understand what I'm telling you?"

Darrell nodded.

"What am I saying?"

"I get in trouble again, maybe a judge takes me away from my mother."

"More than maybe, Darrell, almost certain. And you heard your mother say that if you didn't straighten out, she didn't want to see you till you went somewhere else and came back a responsible man."

"Yes," Darrell said.

"You think you can straighten out?"

"Yes," said Darrell without enthusiasm.

"Really?" Sally said, sitting back.

"Maybe," the boy said, avoiding his mother's eyes.

"Mrs. Caton?" Sally asked, turning her eyes to the thin woman. "You willing to try once more?"

"I got a choice?"

"Considering his police record and breaking into the car last night, I can start the paperwork now, put Darrell in juvenile detention, or we put him into Juvenile Justice and see how fast we can get in front of a judge if you say you can't handle him anymore."

It was a lose-lose situation. I recognized it. Sally had told me about it a few dozen times. Kid goes back to his mother, and there is no way outside a miracle that he is going to straighten out. Kid goes into the system, and the odds were good that if a foster home could be found, he wouldn't straighten out and the foster home might even be worse for him than living with his mother. There was at least a shot if a good foster home could be found, but generally it was lose-lose.

Mrs. Caton looked at her son, at Sally, and at me. Sally watched the woman's eyes and turned to me. She held up a finger to indicate that she would be finished in a minute. Normally, Sally's minutes were half an hour long. She turned back to Mrs. Caton.

"Guess we can try again," the woman said with a sigh and a shake of her head.

"Darrell?" Sally said, turning her head to the boy.

"I'll habilitate," he said.