"I'm trying to figure out how one of us can let the other one know if we find her." I handed her my cell phone. "Here. I'll find a phone and call you in an hour. If one of us hasn't come across her by then, it'll be time to get Joey on it."

Susan said, "Tell me his number. I'll call him now." And she was right, of course. I told her Joey's office and cell phone numbers. As I climbed into my Jeep, Susan strode through Loutie's side yard toward the alley. Her face was pale and concentrated as she punched b.u.t.tons on the tiny gray flip phone.

An hour later, I called. We agreed to keep going. An hour after that, even over cell phone static, I could hear defeat in Susan's voice.

Randy Whittles and Joey were inside Loutie's house when I arrived. The air crackled with tension, and Randy's ears burned as red as Joey's face. I could have sworn there had been yelling in that room.

I sat and explained everything I knew about Carli's disappearance. Randy added nothing. He hadn't seen anything.

After Susan arrived and joined us in the living room, Joey leaned forward in his chair and propped his elbows on his knees. He looked at the piece of hardwood floor between his Hush Puppies for a few seconds and then up at me.

"Letting a teenage girl slip out of here under our ... under my nose is ... s.h.i.t. Anyway, after I got Susan's call this morning, I called Randy and then got a few men out looking. I told Randy here to fix his f.u.c.king mess. But, h.e.l.l, it's my fault. I should have been here myself."

Susan scrunched up her eyebrows. She looked at me and then at Joey and then back at me again. I rolled my eyes and said, "It's n.o.body's fault, Joey. And n.o.bodya"not even youa"can be everywhere.

"Now, about little Randy here." I noticed that Randy Whittles sat up a little straighter and glared at me when I called him "little." Any man who has gone through what it takes to become a SEAL deserves not to be insulted. I said, "No offense, Randy. It's just that you look like a kid to an old man in his thirties." Randy's chest unswelled a little, and he turned the ba.s.s down on his glare. "Joey, Randy was a.s.signed to keep people out of this house, not keep them in. And you know as well as I do that those are different things. And, on top of that, Carli may have taken off this morning after Randy was gone."

Joey said, "Except that Randy had no business leaving here without my okay."

I said, "Well, Randy works for you, not me." And Joey nodded, as if to say, d.a.m.n right he does. "But I'm not blaming you for anything, and I'm sure Susan isn't either."

Susan piped in on cue. "You're the best. Anyone else would be making excuses or covering up, but you're here pointing out nonexistent mistakes and taking full blame." She walked over and squeezed his huge hand.

Joey said, "This turned touchy-feely all of a sudden, didn't it?" Susan laughed and slapped him lightly on the top of his head.

I said, "Now that everything's cuddly again, we need to figure out where our client is."

Joey said, "I've got somebody at the bus station. And I've got someone at the airport, even though I doubt Carli's got the money to take a plane to the nearest hub. By the way, how much money does she have?"

Susan knitted her eyebrows again and shook her head. "I don't know. Carli probably had some tips from her last night at the Pelican's Roost, but I never asked her. Loutie gave her some clothes and bought her a few more."

Joey asked, "Have you checked your purse?"

Susan said, "I don't think Carli would ever..."

"I'm not saying she's a crook, Susan. The girl was scared. Scared s.h.i.tless of Leroy Purcell from what Tom tells me. Just go check your purse."

Susan pointed at an antique sideboard against the back wall and said, "It's right there on the table." She walked over and looked inside. "My whole wallet's gone." She sounded tired.

I said, "Call MasterCard and American Express and whatever other cards you've got. Check on recent purchases. Tell them your daughter sneaked off with your cards. Say you don't want the police involved, but you want to know if someone tries to charge anything."

"Will they do that?"

Joey said, "Sometimes. Not always. How much money is missing?"

"I don't know. Somewhere between two and three hundred dollars."

Joey stood. "I'm gonna go call my man at the airport. On Southwest Airlines, that little girl could fly just about any-d.a.m.nwhere Southwest goes for three hundred bucks." As he stood, he added, "Randy. Go fix this mess." Joey walked out, and, in quick order, Randy stood and marched out the front door without uttering a word.

Susan said, "Testosterone poisoning."

"That's more than a little insulting, you know." Susan looked taken aback. I said, "If a man, every time a woman acted stupid or vain, said she was suffering from estrogen poisoning, he'd be drawn and quartered by every woman and half the men in the room."

Susan said, "Okay. You're right. But why are we arguing about this?"

I said, "Because I'm ticked off about Carli and Sonny and Leroy Purcell, and I want to argue with someone."

"Feel better?"

"Yeah."

"Good. What now?"

"I think I'm going to go mess with Leroy Purcell."

"Why on earth would you do that?"

"Because it seems like the only time we learn anything in this case is when things get stirred up. And I'm tired of the other guy doing all the stirring. This is something I've been giving serious thought to. I want to give Purcell something to think about besides looking for you and Carli. So, I'm going to try to mess with his mind a little and see if I can split his attention and maybe even get him to make a mistake."

Susan said, "Can I help?"

I said, "Yeah. I think you probably can."

chapter seventeen.

I awoke Tuesday morning in a strange room in Seaside, Florida. A pale blue ceiling floated over the bed. Two sandy yellow walls angled together and formed a square with another right angle of walls painted the blue-green color of shallow Gulf water on a summer morning. The bed's driftwood headboard swirled with hand-painted sh.e.l.ls and fish and mermaids. Found-object sculptures decorated only one sand-colored wall. All other walls were left blank to catch the sunshine and the changing shadows of outside vegetation projected through oversized windows. The room, in short, was horribly and expensively whimsical.

A soft tangle of brunette hair lay on the pillow next to my own sandy head. The covers had fallen away to reveal one perfect female shoulder and a strong, firm rib cage that flowed into that wonderful woman place where narrow waist meets the beginning swell of hips. I ran my hand over the exposed, cool curve of her hip and circled her waist with my arm. My hand moved over the dimple of her navel and stopped at her ribs to pull her warm back against my chest and stomach and her rounded bottom against my thighs. I kissed her shoulder. She stirred and yawned, and Susan turned on her back to look at me.

I propped up on my left elbow, rested my head in my hand, and said, "Good morning."

Susan said, "Morning." Her voice came out soft and husky with sleep.

I studied her. A friend of Loutie's had visited the house on Monterey Street Monday afternoon and dyed Susan's hair a surprisingly realistic dark brown. The pet.i.te, frizzy-haired magician had even tinted Susan's eyebrows to match.

Susan pulled the sheet up to her neck and laced her fingers behind her head. She smiled. "What are you looking at?"

I've never quite known what to say when a woman asks that. So, I just said, "You."

Susan said, "I think you're enjoying this."

"You're right."

"No. I mean sleeping with a blonde one night and a brunette the next."

I sat up and put my feet on the floor. Smiling, I said, "Yeah, I knew that's what you meant." I heard her weight shift on the bed, and I should have gotten out of the way. Susan swung a playful but solid fist into my right shoulder blade. I yelled, "Ow," more from surprise than pain and jumped up.

Susan was laughing and looking inordinately proud of herself. She said, "Watch it."

I said, "Jeez. Consider it watched."

Susan sat up, hooking the sheet under her arms, and looked at me. "Most people over thirty look better with clothes than without them. But you happen to look very, very nice naked."

As I walked toward the bathroom to take a shower, I said, "Then I guess you'd better watch it too. It'd be a shame to have to deny you all this."

Susan smiled, it seemed, with more indulgence than amus.e.m.e.nt.

Twenty minutes later, I was showered and outfitted in clean jeans and shirt. After finding my way down an open teak staircase, over nubby carpet and Mexican tile, and through an oversized hexagonal doorway into the kitchen, I found Loutie sipping tomato juice and fiddling the k.n.o.bs on an impressive array of electronic equipment that had been spread out on an artistically chipped slab of granite the owners had intended to be the breakfast table.

"Good morning."

Loutie frowned at a graphic readout and held a black foam rubber k.n.o.b attached to one side of a tiny headset to her ear.

She said, "Hey," and tossed the headset on top of a graphite-colored box.

I asked, "What's Purcell up to this morning?"

"Sleeping." Loutie motioned at the refrigerator with her thumb. "There's m.u.f.fins. Orange juice and tomato juice. Coffee's still okay. Been on the burner a while, though."

She wasn't exactly testy. But Loutie had become very ... focused. I asked, "Is anything wrong? I mean, anything I don't know about?"

"No. I'm just keeping tabs on Purcell. Joey's back on Dog Island watching Hayc.o.c.k."

I said, "And Carli's out there alone somewhere, and Joey's pushing everyone because he thinks he's supposed to be perfect." Loutie shrugged and sat in an awkward, designer dining chair made of four sticks of chrome and two swatches of mauve leather.

Susan walked in, running her hands through damp hair. New, dark mascara made her eyes appear bigger and an even lighter blue than usual; earth tones powdered her eyelids; and dark lip gloss and blush gave her tanned complexion a decidedly olive cast. Together with her new dark brown hair and eyebrows, it was a pretty amazing disguise.

I said, "Who the h.e.l.l are you?" And Susan smiled.

Loutie told her about the m.u.f.fins and juice. Susan found a gla.s.s in the cabinet next to the sink and poured some orange juice in it. Loutie turned to me. "Joey said to tell you he's still working on who runs the Bodines down around the islands."

I asked, "Does that mean it's not Purcell?"

"No. I think it just means he still hasn't found out who runs what. Could be Purcell. Could be somebody else. All the cops could find out is there's a rumor that the young Turks, as Joey put it, may be trying to take over from the old guard. But Joey says that's not exactly earth-shattering news since somebody's always trying to edge out somebody else when business is good. You know, criminal business."

"And that's all?"

"That's all."

So much for that. I came back to the task at hand. "Anybody else in Purcell's place?" Loutie shook her head. I asked her how to find it, and she told me. I gave her my cell phone number. As I tapped a series of four b.u.t.tons on the tiny gray keypad, I said, "I'm turning off the ringer and setting the phone on vibrate. If Purcell wakes up or somebody else shows up, give me a call. I won't answer unless I'm clear of the house, though. So don't worry if you can't get me."

Susan frowned. "You sure you know what you're doing?" I said, "Nope. But, I'll be careful." I lifted my shirttail to show her the b.u.t.t of a Browning 9mm automatic I had gotten from my father in the aftermath of my brother's death the previous fall. The sight seemed to scare her more, not less. I found a khaki cap with a blue visor and Seaside, Florida st.i.tched across the front, and put that on along with a pair of overpriced, purple-mirrored, Revo sungla.s.ses a client had given me.

Quaint pathways pa.s.sed beneath bright sky and beside white picket fences, perfect pastel vacation homes, and decorator bird-houses that seemed to be the object of some kind of cuteness compet.i.tion. If my Jim Walter house on St. George had been pastel h.e.l.l, then Seaside, Florida certainly was pastel heavena"if ba.n.a.l, architecturally angular h.o.m.ogeneity is your idea of heaven. Seaside is, in the best and worst senses, a planned community. Mostly, it was planned to provide new-rich Chardonnay-Southerners a tidya"some might say sterilea"place to vacation far from the unwashed throngs who sunned and sloshed and guzzled Budweiser along the rest of the Redneck Riviera.

The place looks so unreal and unlikely that Hollywood used Seaside as the fantasy town that could only exist on television in the Jim Carrey film The Truman Show.

It's a small place. Nothing in Seaside is very far from anything else. And no more than a hundred yards from our modestly ostentatious rental, Leroy Purcell's beach palace occupied a sandy, picketed lot just one left and two rights from our own canary-yellow front door. I was not surprised to see that our ail-American hero owned one of the larger chunks of aqua blue siding in Seaside, which is saying something. Neither was I surprised that parked behind his house was one of the longest, reddest Cadillacs I have ever encountered.

Spring break revelers had trudged back to cla.s.s, and the arthritic flocks of sun-browned s...o...b..rds who took up winter residence on the Gulf had pointedly migrated north even before the spring break crowd had arrived. So, as I moved among the clapboard canyons of Seaside, I had encountered only a few lonely, sandy-bottomed souls. Now, standing outside Purcell's million-dollar beachfront, I saw no one.

I waved and jogged across Purcell's lot as if attempting to catch up with a friend. Acting 101. As I came up on his fiery Caddy, I stumbled and knelt down to retie a perfectly tied Reebok. More acting. From inside my hip pocket, I pulled out a small black box with a tracking device on the inside and magnets on the outside. Following Joey's earlier instructions, I reached under Purcell's Caddy, felt for the steel frame, and clicked the box into place.

I stood and squinted into the western sky before jogging out to look longingly down the beach at my departed, imaginary buddy, whoever he might be.

Turning away from the surf, I had started up the beach on the way back to Susan and Loutie when my flip phone vibrated, not unpleasantly, in the hip pocket of my jeans. I hesitated before realizing I would look suspiciously out of place on the beach at Seaside only if I didn't occasionally confer with unseen minions by cell phone. I pulled up the tiny antenna and opened the phone.

Loutie said, "Joey called. He needs you in Apalachicola."

"Is he all right?"

Loutie sounded surprised. "Joey's fine. He has somebody he wants you to meet."

"Who is it?"

"He just said somebody with information about Purcell. Call him, okay?"

I said, "okay," and ended the call.

A recorded female voice full of misplaced emphasis told me the cellular customer I was calling was unavailable. I looked around some and tried Joey's number again with the same result. I walked back along manicured, sandy paths to Susan and Loutie and the rented house with the canary door.

Long morning. Loutie listened to Purcell listen to ESPN; Susan read the complimentary copy of USA Today she had found on our steps that morning; and, between unsuccessful attempts to return Joey's call, I glanced at whatever pages Susan wasn't reading. I was absentmindedly looking at a four-color pie chart with a line of Zorro masks next to ita"something about crime going downa"when the phone rang.

Joey sounded excited. He had been tailing the guy he wanted me to meet, trying to decide whether the man really wanted to talk or maybe just wanted to do us bodily harm.

I asked, "So, what do you think?"

I could hear Joey's radio playing softly as he spoke. "I think we ought to meet with him. Coosaa"the cop in Panama City I've been working witha"says he's okay. I mean, he's a f.u.c.king snitch, which means he's basically human s.h.i.t, but, for a snitch, he's okay."

"How'd you find out about him?"

"Like I said. Coosa. I guess he figured we weren't getting much for our money, so he just called me up and gave me the guy's name and address and stuff."

Joey was happier about this than I was. I asked, "Does that seem strange to you?"

"Yeah, a little."

"But you still want to meet with him?"

"Sure. It's better than sitting around waiting. And the only trap I'm worried about is one I don't see coming. I figure we're gonna learn something whatever happens. The boy's either gonna tell us something useful 'cause he wants to or 'cause we make him. Doesn't make much difference to me."

I said, "You do know that you're not actually immortal?"