Read Online Denial: A Lew Fonesca Mystery (Lew Fonesca Novels) by Stuart M. Kaminsky - Free Book Online Page B

is the pedestrians who should yield to the cars.
    Driving badly is an infectious disease on Florida’s Sun Coast. I think it started with native Floridians in pickups and baseball caps who zipped in and out of traffic in a hurry to win the race that had no winner. A variation, in mutated form, had been imported from the North with little old retired men and women who kept their eyes straight ahead, drove a dangerous ten miles under the speed limit, never looked at their side or rearview mirrors even when they changed lanes as
they sat with necks craned so they could see over the dashboard. Finally the disease had been passed on to people angry at the pickups, angry with the ancient drivers. This group drove a few miles over the speed limit and had an uncontrollable urge to curse at everyone who hogged or shared the road.
    Someone inside one of those cars on the streets of Sarasota with me that day was even more dangerous than all the rest of the drivers on the road. He was the one who had tried to kill me.

6
    I PULLED into the driveway of Flo Zink’s house on a street off Siesta Drive before you get to the bridge to Siesta Key.
    My leg hurt. My shoulder ached. I was thirsty.
    The SUV was in the driveway. Before I knocked, I could hear guitars and singing beyond the door. This meant that either Adele was out somewhere with the baby or the baby was not taking a nap. The sound system and the pumping of country-and-western music played several decibels too loud were turned off when Adele’s baby was sleeping.
    Flo, glass of amber liquid in her right hand, opened the door and smiled at me. Flo is a short, solid woman in her late sixties. She used to wear too much makeup. Now she wears a little. She used to dress in flashy Western shirts, jeans and cowboy boots. She still does.
    The music was loud behind her, but nowhere near as loud as when I had first met her. I must have looked at the drink in her hand. She did too.
    “Pure, zero-proof Diet Dr Pepper,” she said.
    I looked at the drink, saw the bubbles and nodded. I had pulled some strings, very thin strings, to get Flo’s driver’s license back. Adele was a few days away from turning sixteen. She would be able to drive on her own then, but until she could do it legally, she needed a licensed driver in the car. That was Flo.
    “Quiz, my sad Italian friend,” Flo said, stepping back to let me in. “What Cole Porter song did Roy Rogers make famous?”
    “‘Don’t Fence Me In,’” I said.
    The song was playing throughout the house. I didn’t recognize Rogers’s voice, but I recognized the song.
    “You are a clever son of a bitch,” she said. “What are you drinking?”
    “Diet Dr Pepper will be fine,” I said.
    “You know where the kitchen is.”
    She closed the front door behind me. I limped in and she said, “What’s wrong with your leg?”
    “Bumped into something.”
    “Let me take a look. Sit down and drop your pants,” she said, motioning toward one of the living room chairs.
    “I’m fine,” I said.
    “And I’m Nicole Kidman. Sit. Drop ‘em or roll’em up.”
    I sat and rolled up my pants leg. Flo looked down at it. Roy Rogers sang about gazing at the moon.
    She looked down at my leg.
    “Knee’s a little swollen,” she said. “Nothing too bad.”
    She patted me on the shoulder. I winced.
    “What’s wrong up there?”
    “Bumped into something else,” I said.
    “You are one injury-begging sad sack or a liar,” she said.
    “Adele home?” I said, rolling down my pants leg, getting up, about to head for the kitchen, just left of the front door off the living room.
    “Sit back down. I’ll get it,” said Flo, holding up her glass and heading toward the kitchen and calling back, “She’s home. I’ll get her after I bring your drink.”
    Behind us Roy Rogers sang about starry skies and wanting lots of land.
    I didn’t want lots of land. I wanted to get back to my small box of a room behind my office. And I could do without starry