"Good word choice," Sally said. "Now make a good life choice."

"Let's go home, Darrell," Mrs. Caton said, shaking her head to show that this was no more than she expected.

Darrell, who stood about three inches taller than his mother, moved past me. Darrell whispered to me, "What'd you do to your kid?"

Since I had no kid, I had no answer. He didn't expect one. I didn't put high hopes on Darrell's habilitation.

When they were gone, Sally swiveled her chair toward me, took off her gla.s.ses, and rubbed the bridge of her nose. Sally is dark, pretty, maybe a little overweight, and definitely a lot overworked.

"That boy is thirteen," she said. "His mother is twenty-eight. Do the math, Lew. I was bluffing. There's no s.p.a.ce in juvenile and no basis for any action. She's stuck with him till he commits a felony, she kicks him out of their one-bedroom apartment, or he decides to live on the streets or with the crack dealer he picks up a few dollars from as a lookout."

"Darrell is lost?" I said, sitting in the chair where Mrs. Caton had been.

"No," she said, brushing back her dark hair with both hands. "Percentages are against him. I'm not. I'll do an unannounced drop-in in a few nights, maybe take them out for coffee or an ice cream for which I will not be reimbursed."

Sally was a widow. Her husband had died five years ago and she was raising her son and daughter in a two-bedroom apartment about five minutes away on Beneva. She worked sixty-hour weeks for thirty-seven and a half hours of pay and once in while she sent someone to me for the kind of help I can give. Someone like Kenneth Severtson.

"Use your phone?" I asked.

She handed it to me and I called Dixie.

"It's Lew," I said when she answered with her I've-got-a-bad-cold voice. "Anything on Trasker?"

"Not a trace after last Thursday," she said in normal Dixie. "Thursday night he paid for gas on an Amex card. That's it. No hotels, motels, escort services, bank withdrawals, bagels, cafe lattes, or bank deposits. Nothing. Whatever he's spent since last Thursday has been with cash."

"Thanks."

"Did find something," she said before I could hang up. "He's got a record. Goes back thirty-two years. Spent two years in a California prison for nearly killing a man who he said was diddling his movie-star wife."

"Claire Collins," I said.

"That's the one. William Trasker was Walter Trasnovorich when it happened. Legally changed his name when he got out in 1972."

"Who was the man he almost killed?"

"Actor," said Dixie. "Movie name, Don h.e.l.ler. Real name, Franklin Morris. Want to know Roberta Trasker's name before it was Claire Collins? Roberta Goulding, but I think there's a name even earlier. There's a big blank in her life from the age of zero to about seventeen. I'll keep working on it."

"Trasker have any family?" I asked. "Brothers, sisters?"

"I can find out," she said.

I thought for a second. I could call Roberta Trasker for an answer, but I don't like telephones. I don't like the dead s.p.a.ce I'm expected to fill on them and Roberta Trasker might give me a lot of dead s.p.a.ce.

"See what you can find," I said. "I'm going out of town tomorrow. You can leave a message on my answering machine if you find anything. And there's someone else I'd like you to check on: Kevin Hoffmann, the real-estate developer."

"Got it. I'll have to bill you some more," Dixie said apologetically. "I'm a working girl with two cats."

I hadn't seen any cats in her apartment but I believed her.

"Okay," I said, and hung up to look at Sally, who was looking back at me with slightly raised eyebrows that held a question.

"Long story," I said. "You have time for the China Palace buffet?"

Sally looked at her watch.

"No," she said. "I've got to put in at least another hour filling out reports and then get home to the kids."

"I'll bring you some carryout. Cashew chicken and hot-and-sour soup?"

The China Palace was three minutes away on Fruitville.

"And a bunch of egg rolls for the kids," she said, reaching down for her purse under the desk.

"On me," I said. "I've got a paying client, remember?"

"Kenneth Severtson."

"I'm going to Orlando tonight," I said. "His wife and children are there with-"

"Andrew Stark," she finished. "You have a plan?"

"No," I said. "Find her, watch, maybe talk to her. Maybe I just tell Severtson where they are. He tells his lawyer. Think that's a good idea?"

"Probably not," she said. "I don't think Kenneth Severtson's likely to handle the situation very well. It's better if you talk to her. If she won't come back, Severtson can get a lawyer. They're his children, too."

"But that would take time," I said.

"And money," she added. "And she could be out of Florida before the paperwork could get done so someone like you could serve it."

"What do you have on the family?"

She reached over to a stack of files leaning against the gla.s.s at the back of her desk, fished through them, and came up with the one I wanted. I knew she couldn't let me read it, but that didn't stop Sally from answering some questions.

"Your own words," I said.

"My own words," she said, pursing her lips. "Kenneth Severtson is not the Cosby dad, but he's not Homer Simpson either. He's got a temper. He's tough to get through to. They have credit-card payment problems, even talked about bankruptcy. His business is good, but they spend like its Microsoft. He took it out on his wife. The police were called in. He needed help. He doesn't trust therapy and resented our intervention. Janice isn't a mouse, but she isn't a dragon. Good mothers can do dumb things when it comes to their kids. I had her down as a loyal wife who was willing to put up with a lot to keep her marriage and family together."

"Things have changed," I said.

"Andrew Stark," she said. "Stark isn't an old friend of the family. Went into partnership with Kenneth Severtson a few years ago. Definitely a shady background. He's done some very soft time for consumer fraud, and he has not been particularly polite in dealing with women who are, unaccountably, attracted to him."

"You met him?"

"No, just made a few calls to friends in the sheriff's office."

"So?" I asked.

"She'll probably stay with Stark until he gets tired of her. Or maybe it's true love. Truth is, Lewis, I don't care about the future of Andrew Stark and only dimly about Janice Severtson. It's the kids. Do what you can, Lew."

I nodded.

Sally looked over at Julio Vegas, who was in animated conversation on the phone in Spanish.

"I'll be back with Chinese in a shopping bag," I said, getting up.

"I'd kiss you if we weren't in the equivalent of South Gate Mall," she said with a tired smile as she touched my hand. "Be careful."

"At the China Palace?"

"In Disneyville."

5.

I HAD ALREADY PACKED my blue carry-on for a couple of nights and had my Chicago Cubs baseball cap in the front seat of the Nissan Sentra. I look like a big-eared dolt in the cap, but it protects my ever-growing forehead from burning under the Florida sun and even though it was close to seven at night, the sun was still huge and hot in the sky behind me as I headed east on Fruitville for I-75.

I had delivered the bag of Chinese food to Sally and got twelve egg rolls, three of which sat in a brown sack on the seat next to me. Another one was in my hand. I had also bought four egg rolls for John Gutcheon.

I drove past Target and the malls on my left and right and headed north on I-75. Traffic wasn't bad for three reasons. Rush hour was over. It was summer and the s...o...b..rds had left, reducing the population of Sarasota and the entire state of Florida significantly. People who worked were already home and people who didn't were in their air-conditioned homes or at the beach on the cool white sand ignoring the ultraviolet index.

I was on my way to Orlando armed with three photographs and wearing a Cubs cap. I listened to a talk-show guy who badgered his callers, made crude jokes, and kept saying he was just using common sense while he got the history of Israel, Iraq, France, and the United States almost completely wrong. I chewed on egg rolls and kept to a few miles over the speed limit.

There was construction on I-4 from the Tampa interchange to Orlando. I-4 is four lanes, two lanes in each direction, and it always seems there are as many trucks as cars. Still, it only took me a little over two hours to get to International Drive, a street of glitz, restaurants, hotels, a water slide, plenty of places that sell T-shirts and souvenirs, and a Ripley's Believe It or Not house built at an odd angle, as if it had just been dropped from outer s.p.a.ce.

The hotel wasn't full, but all they had for me was a room at almost two hundred a night. I didn't have a credit card, but I had taken all my cash with me. I paid a day in advance and got a receipt I could show Kenneth Severtson. The young woman behind the desk did a great job of ignoring the fact that my luggage was a single blue carry-on.

When I got to my room, I threw my cap on the table, took the John Lutz novel I was reading out of the carry-on, and went down to the atrium lobby, where I used the house phone to connect me to Andrew Stark's room. No answer. I asked for his room number. The young woman on the phone said they weren't permitted to give out room numbers.

I went down to the lobby. There were plenty of wroughtiron seats at tables and tastefully upholstered chairs scattered around the area. I found a chair in the atrium facing the door to the hotel and sat with my paperback open in my lap.

Little kids ran screaming in their swimsuits heading for the pool. Families went by speaking German, French, and something I couldn't place.

Stark, Janice Severtson, and the kids came in a little after nine-thirty. Stark was carrying the little girl, Sydney, who was sleeping. Kenneth Jr. was walking slowly with a less-than-happy look on his face. His mother was definitely a beauty, but there was something less than ecstasy in her face. She was carrying a colorful shopping bag with a picture of Shrek on the side.

Stark was a good-looking if slightly beefy-looking man with wavy salt-and-pepper hair. He was at least twenty years older than Janice Severtson.

There wasn't too much I could do to be inconspicuous. I don't have the kind of face people remember in any case. It's a blessing in my work and in my private life.

I managed to get on the elevator with the four of them and smiled.

"Floor?" I asked pleasantly.

"Seven," Janice Severtson said, closing her eyes.

I hit the "seven" and "eight" b.u.t.tons.

When we pa.s.sed the third floor, she opened her eyes and looked at me.

"I know you," she said.

Stark turned to face me. He was wearing black jeans and a black shirt with b.u.t.tons and sleeves that came down to his elbows. He was also wearing muscles and a scowl. His face was sun-browned. His brown eyes were firmly focused on me.

"I don't...," I began.

"Sarasota YMCA," she said. "Downtown. You work out there."

So much for my keenly developed internal storehouse of names and faces. How could I not remember someone who looked like Janice Severtson? How could she remember me?

"I do," I said with a grin. "Every morning before I go to work. I'm the men's wear department manager at Old Navy in Gulf Gate. Brought my wife and kids here, for our annual week of torture."

"I know what you mean," she said.

"Who's that?" the little boy asked, looking up at me.

"A friend of your mother's," said Stark with more than a touch of suspicion.

"You a friend of my daddy's, too?" the boy asked.

"No," I said, holding out my hand to Stark. "Pleased to meet you."

"He's not my daddy," the boy said.

"He's your grandfather?"

Stark's jaw was tight now. I ignored him and looked down at the little boy, who was shaking his head no.

"He's Andy," the boy said.

"I think we've bothered the man enough," said Janice Severtson.

The elevator stopped at seven and they shuffled wearily out.

"Nice to meet you," I called as the doors closed.

When the doors opened on the eighth floor a few seconds later, I got out quickly and moved to a spot on the atrium landing not far from my room where I could see them moving slowly toward their room.

After they went in, I stayed at the railing for another hour, pretending my novel was a sketchbook when anyone went by, keeping an eye on the door to the room I was watching on the seventh floor. I even drew a crude stick figure and a tree on the inside cover of the novel at one point. My watch hit eleven, and I went to my room and set the alarm clock for five in the morning. I shaved, showered, shampooed, brushed my teeth, and watched a Harold Lloyd silent comedy on Turner Cla.s.sic Movies. Harold wound up running around an abandoned ship being chased by a murderer and a monkey in a sailor suit. The movie was short. I went to sleep. Everything was going just fine.

By seven in the morning, I was eating the free Continental buffet breakfast at a two-person table. When I finished, I slowly drank cup after cup of coffee with USA Today in front of me. A little before nine, Andrew Stark, Janice Severtson, and the kids came down. The kids were bouncing and arguing. The adults were just arguing. I couldn't hear them, but it looked as if the brief honeymoon was in trouble.

I followed them out after they breakfasted. The rest of the day was moppet heaven for the kids and nightmare alley for me. They went on and saw everything at the Disney-MGM Studios theme park while I watched from a discreet distance. I don't know what I was watching for. Possibly signs of intimacy in front of the children. A stolen pa.s.sionate kiss and a little groping while the kids were in the Muppet Vision show, or maybe I was hoping for a chance to catch Janice Severtson alone.