CHAPTER EIGHT
BENNO TOOK the expensive mechanical pencil from her. The mother-of-pearl looked fragile against his large tanned hand. “A woman,” he guessed.
“Give the man a gold star.”
“Martha?”
Sydney nodded. “That’s half of a set. She used the other half to write the ‘Meet me at midnight’ note. I found the ballpoint pen with her stationary. Needless to say, its uniqueness caught my attention. Now we know there’s a connection between them.”
“Not necessarily,” Benno argued. “If the fake Kenneth was wandering around the house, he could have picked this up and carried it off.”
“And Martha could have been in this car with her hired cohort.” When Benno didn’t respond, she asked, “Do you know something I don’t? Or do you just refuse to believe Martha is guilty for some reason.”
“Kenneth was her brother.”
”Do you really believe she loved him?”
“Sometimes love and hate are emotions that easily get confused.” Benno quickly busied himself jotting down the license plate number on the back side of the register tape. “I suspect Martha felt both for Kenneth.”
Then he walked to the front of the car and looked through the windshield to find the vehicle identification number. He added that information to the tape which he then stuck in his shirt pocket. He handed her the pencil and token.
“Let’s lock up and get going.”
Sydney had let him do the talking because she was getting that feeling again, the one that told her whatever Benno wasn’t saying was more important than what he was. But if she questioned him too thoroughly, he would think she didn’t trust him. She didn’t want that kind of friction between them, not after all he’d done for her.
He secured the Olds. She slipped the pencil and token in the zippered compartment of her shoulder bag and climbed into the Thunderbird.
The drive to Seaside took the better part of an hour, enough time to do a lot of thinking... about Martha’s probable involvement and motive... about her own gullibility... about Benno’s secretiveness.
Her sense of friction was certainly building. Questions hung between them that she needed answered. How to accomplish that without destroying their growing bond?
She hadn’t come close to figuring it out by the time they arrived in overcrowded Seaside. At noon, the streets were packed with tourists and conventioneers shopping and eating and taking advantage of the sun. The parking lots were filled, eager beach goers waiting their turn for a spot so they could join the fun off the two mile long cement beach promenade. After ten minutes of cruising and waiting, Benno finally found a spot.
“This place is a zoo,” Sydney said, stretching as she climbed out of the car.
“A pretty spiffed-up zoo,” Benno told her. “Seaside used to have a reputation of being a hurdy-gurdy hustler town, but it’s really been cleaned up in the past few years. Now it’s a respected resort town. I hardly recognized the place when I moved back from California.”
California. Sydney stored away that bit of information and decided to go for more. “Why did you decide to come back?”
“I guess I wanted to prove something,” Benno admitted before slickly changing subjects. “Let’s find a telephone booth.” Grabbing her elbow, he steered her through a crowd of teenagers. “You can find the address of the liquor store in the directory, while I call Stone Beach Police and give them the information about the car.”
“Wait. You were the one who said no authorities.”
“I’m going to do this without involving you.”
The only reason Sydney cared whether or not the authorities knew they were investigating together was because she didn’t want Benno to get in trouble, but she figured saying so wouldn’t change his mind. They found a telephone outside a nearby drugstore. She thumbed through the phone book while he placed the call.
“Yeah, Brickman, it’s Benno DeMartino.” He paused, then said, “I’ve been doing some investigating on my own.” He listened for a moment. “Look, I checked out a car parked at The Cascades. Sydney told me the man pretending to be Kenneth Lord left it there. Put a tracer on it, would you?”
Sydney found the listing for Seaside Liquors and took note of the address while Benno described the car and read off the license plate and vehicle identification numbers.
“Don’t worry, Brickman,” Benno said dryly, “Sydney’s not trying to do a disappearing act.” He gave her an exasperated expression. “How would I know? Probably took a walk on the beach or something.” His expression grew furious. “Don’t send out the troops, for God’s sake.” Another silence was followed by, “All right, all right, she’s with me. Promise not to put out an APB.” A short pause and he said, “Seaside, but I’ll have her home before dark.” He slammed the receiver in its cradle.
Sydney immediately got on his case. “Why, Benno? Now you’ve identified yourself as an accessory.”
“To what? This isn’t exactly a prison break we’re involved in. I figured it would make the most sense to be up-front considering he’d already guessed I had something to do with your disappearance. Martha already told him you were gone. Besides, it won’t matter since I’m going to bring you back soon.”
“Only if we come to a dead end,” she stated firmly. “I’m not going to stop if there’s a chance I can find the man who’s trying to destroy my life.”
Benno nodded.
Finding Seaside Liquors was easy enough. Unfortunately, neither the clerk nor the store owner could place the man Sydney described.
“Are you sure?” Sydney asked, trying not to get discouraged. “He had the kind of looks and manner that could charm the most resistant feminine heart.”
The owner rolled his eyes as if he were exasperated. “Lady, we get dozens of smooth-talking Romeos coming through this town looking for excitement every season. And you wanna know if I remember someone who bought a bottle of booze from what... a month ago?” He shook his head and walked toward the back of the store, muttering, “Gimme a break.”
“Sorry,” the clerk added, shrugging his thin shoulders.
Sydney dug out the arcade token and showed it to him. “Does this look familiar?” she asked.
He shook his head. “There’s plenty of game arcades in this town. That could be from any one of them. I wouldn’t know. I hate pinball machines and video games myself.”
“Thanks anyway.”
The clerk dismissed them by focusing his attention on another customer. Discouraged that their first lead hadn’t panned out, Sydney quickly left the store.
Back on the street, she said, “Maybe we should get a map of the town, pinpoint the arcades or other places that might use tokens. What do you think?”
“That I want to get something to eat first.”
Her own stomach could use some reinforcement. “You’re right. This could be a long afternoon. We might not be home before dark, after all.”
They agreed on a dive further along the street that boasted “Fifty Variations on the All-American Hot Dog.” One for each state.
Benno ordered three kinds of dogs, a large order of fries, a shake and a piece of apple pie, making Sydney wonder how he stayed so fit. No doubt if she asked, he would turn her question into a joke... or at least channel the discussion elsewhere rather than talk about himself.
The small place was crowded, but a man was just leaving a spot in the corner. They claimed the table where they waited for their food. Getting an idea of how she could get Benno to reveal more of himself, Sydney opened her shoulder bag and pulled out her Tarot deck.
His brows shot up as she slid the cards from their pouch. “You’re going to mess with those things now?”
“Yep.”
He appeared skeptical. “Don’t tell me a reading is going to help us find our felon.”
“Nope. I’m going to do your reading. You said you wanted me to,” she quickly added when she fathomed he was about to object. “Don’t worry, this won
’t take long.” She pulled four cards from the deck. “I can read while we eat.” And maybe she’d be clever enough to coax some of those answers she’d been looking for out of him. Without waiting for him to agree, she explained, “First I want you to choose a card to represent you.”
Of the various methods of choosing the significator, she’d decided to use the one in which the different categories of court cards – king, queen, knight and page – delineated sex and age. Having removed the four knights from the deck, she held them out to Benno face up.
“Which of these are you most drawn to?” she asked.
He gave her a look that clearly conveyed he was only doing this to indulge her. Then he picked the Knight of Swords and set it on the table.
A thrill shot through Sydney as she remembered the reading she’d done for herself shortly before they’d met. She’d turned over the Knight of Swords and had assumed the card represented her “late husband.” Of course, Benno hadn’t had the entire deck to pick from, she told herself. He’d had a one in four chance of choosing that very card.
Still, he had chosen it.
Reinserting the remaining three knights, she shuffled the deck and set it in front of him. “Now you. While you shuffle, think of a question you’d like answered or a problem you’d like to work out a solution to.”
Benno made an expert job of it, leaving her with no doubts that this wasn’t the first time he’d handled cards.
“What kind of cards do you play?” she asked. Even finding out about his recreational habits would be a start. “Poker? Blackjack?”
“‘Go Fish.’”
But only if he were serious, of course. He answered as if she should have known better than ask, but she couldn’t help prodding him further.
“If you want, you can tell me the question or problem.”
”I’d rather see what you have to say.” His eyes on her were intense. “Isn’t that what this is about. Showing off your stuff?”
“Not exactly.” Sydney realized her plan might not be as easy to implement as she’d hoped. “Cut the deck in three using your left hand.” When he hesitated, she explained, “It’s nearest your heart.”
“Okay.” With his left hand, Benno deftly split the deck in three piles.
“Now put them together in any order you prefer.”
“So what is the object of this exercise?” he asked as he complied.
“To appease your curiosity... and mine.”
As she took the deck from him, his expression was enigmatic, making Sydney think he’d guessed what she was up to. She began laying out the Celtic Cross, keeping the cards to one side of the table so there would be room for the food. Even before organizing her thoughts, before looking at the whole picture, the spread made her uneasy. In addition to the significator, three additional cards held swords.
Worse, she’d turned up The Tower, which could be one of the most unfavorable cards in the deck.
“That bad?” Benno asked, studying her.
Realizing she was frowning, Sydney told herself to lighten up. “Give me time to absorb everything,” she hedged.
“You absorb. I’ll eat.”
One of the employees was delivering their order on a tray. She returned her attention to the cards while Benno took their plates and drinks from the kid and set them on the table.
“So start interpreting,” he prompted as he picked up a hot dog in one hand, a couple of fries in the other.
Determined to get the best from her reading as always, Sydney decided to soften what she was feeling. Again, the cards had put her in a negative frame of mind. She started with Benno’s present situation covered by the Two of Swords.
“You’re experiencing a great deal of frustration at this time. Something is stopping you from going forward and resolving whatever it is that’s been troubling you.”
“I suppose this has to do with finding our mystery man,” he speculated.
“You tell me – is that the problem you chose?”
Rather than answering, he merely said, “Go on.”
No, she hadn’t thought so. She sensed the problem was a lot closer to home for him. Next came the Two of Cups. “A new relationship is influencing the situation.”
”Relationship or romance?” he was quick to ask.
“Could be either.” She wasn’t eager to pursue that line of thought since she had the distinct impression that she was the other half of the relationship. “You’re not happy in your present situation, but change is coming...”
For the better or worse? Sydney wondered, hoping that her reading wasn’t adding to whatever troubles Benno was worrying about. She gave probing him more directly another shot.
“If you did tell me what you wanted to resolve, I could make this reading more accurate.”
He grinned as he picked up his second hot dog. “I’m sure you could.”
“You’re making fun of me.”
“I’m not. I’m merely enjoying my Wisconsin cheese dog,” he claimed. “Cheddar, Munster and Colby.”
She picked up her own hot dog and tore into it with a vengeance.
When she continued to concentrate on her food and ignore the cards, he said, “I thought you could eat and read at the same time.”
“Not when you won’t take me seriously.”
Normally she wouldn’t be so sensitive, but normally she wouldn’t have her own hidden agenda in doing a reading. Besides which, she wasn’t averse to stopping before she had to go on to the next card which she viewed with foreboding.
“I promise to take you seriously.” When Sydney didn’t immediately respond, Benno urged, “Please, go on.”
Compelled to do as he asked, she forgot about her food and reluctantly turned back to the spread.
“This next position deals with the distant past.”
The Tower Card. Touching it briefly, she jerked her hand away when a sudden chill swept up her arm. Her head grew light, her palms clammy. She flashed Benno a quick look and noted that his gaze was riveted to the illustration, a tower being struck by lightning.
“The Tower represents some upheaval in your background,” she said.
But Sydney sensed more than some mere disturbance. And she rejected a possible startling revelation, which could be another interpretation of the card. She envisioned calamity and a terrible personal crisis. A sense of loss so great the feeling engulfed her and made her throat close. She wasn’t sure if the ominous vibrations were coming from the card or directly from the man himself.
“A terrible tragedy,” she whispered, even as she tried to reason with herself to let it go.
She’d struck a nerve. Raw emotion flickered in those amber depths before Benno successfully shuttered himself from her.
“Great hot dogs, aren’t they?” He picked up his third. “Better finish. They’re getting cold.”
Obviously he’d had enough, as had she.
Sydney attacked her food in silence though she couldn’t stop herself from finishing the reading silently. Whatever had happened so long ago was still affecting Benno, still keeping him in a constant state of battle, at least within himself. That’s why he didn’t let anyone get too close. She saw the potential for defeat, humiliation, possible inability to change.
Yet his most positive card was that of self. She’d dealt him Strength, revealing a quiet confidence rather than dominance, calm perseverance and determination, the ability to accept what life held for him. As always, rather than being gospel, the cards were merely a roadmap, subject to personal interpretation, and she could find both positive and negative in them... though there had been that one moment when she’d sensed some frightful event in the past.
“Does this fortune telling stuff always get to you like this?” he asked, again in complete control.
Quickly swallowing, she set down the last of her hot dog. “My readings are rarely this involving or I wouldn’t have tried yours here in public. Occasionally I sense more than what
the actual reading tells me.” She hesitated only a second before pushing him further. “I was correct about something terrible happening in the past, wasn’t I?”
“Yeah, well it doesn’t really matter,” he said, digging into his apple pie.
But it did matter, she realized. He couldn’t hide from her now. Maybe later, but not at this moment. The tough dark knight’s vulnerability had shown through barely long enough for her to recognize it, but recognize it she had.
The knowledge was hers and with it came some understanding of who Benno was. Not the day-to-day details, perhaps, but a greater picture of the man beneath the tough trappings. Now if only he would talk to her, tell her about his past so she could really understand in concrete terms and try to help him as he’d been helping her.
Unable to stop herself, she reached for his hand. “Having someone to talk to can be a big relief sometimes.”
He shrugged but the gesture didn’t come lightly. “So talk.”
“I have been for days now. I can listen, too.”
She could tell he was torn between wanting to reveal more and wanting to mask himself again.
“My past isn’t anything to brag about. I was an unhappy kid who made others unhappy in return.”
“Sounds like a kid thing to do. But you’re a man now, and from what I know of you, you’re kind, gentle, loyal.”
”Sounds like you’re talking about a dog.”
A smile hovered around his mouth, prompting hers in return. “I’m talking about a man who I like and respect very much,” Sydney stated.
“You really don’t know me.”
“Not as much as I would like to, no, but you could fix that. Start with something easy. Say, like why you decided to open Benno’s Place.”
He withdrew his hand from hers and she realized that her question was more loaded than she’d imagined. Surprisingly, he didn’t close up on her as she might have expected.
“I like being my own boss. I make my own decisions, my own hours. If I have to go out of town for a few days, I just put a sign in the window, lock up and take off. And I enjoy dealing directly with people. Running a small establishment makes me happy.”
“That’s important,” Sydney said knowingly. “Some people never figure out what they want to do.”
“I had a lot of different jobs in my youth so I made an educated decision about where I was headed,” Benno told her. “I opened my first business in the L.A. area, and when that panned out, came back here to open a second. Benno’s Place is kind of a throwback to the early seventies – part pub, part coffeehouse – but it suits me.”
She thought so, too. Before she could urge him on to new revelations, the delicate connection was broken. “You through with those?” The kid from behind the counter was indicating their plates.
“Yeah, I’m done,” Benno said.
Sydney indicated he should clear hers away, as well. Sensing the moment of sharing had passed, she gathered the cards and stuffed them into their pouch.
“I guess we should continue our manhunt,” Benno said, rising.
And they would continue their conversation later, Sydney thought with determination.
They methodically combed the streets for establishments with video games and pinball machines, checking tokens at each business. None were stamped with impressions of a seagull and boardwalk.
As they continued on, Benno couldn’t help thinking about the incident in the hot dog joint. Would any Tarot reader have seen so much in the cards or had Sydney’s psychic powers jumpstarted her imagination? He had to admit she’d been right on target. How could she have sounded so certain, and so empathetic, about his past?
He should have opened up to her as she’d encouraged him to do. He’d never really talked about the tragedy that had prompted him to leave town with anyone but Kenneth or Poppy. Plenty of people like Parnell Anderson were ready to make judgements and impose them without provocation. They didn’t forget and they certainly didn’t forgive.
Why should they when he hadn’t forgiven himself? And yet, he’d been tempted to share himself fully with someone for the first time and he couldn’t quite say why.
Maybe because he owed her.
Maybe his reasons were more complex.
Benno was unable to deny his growing attraction to Sydney Raferty. He’d thought that affinity was inappropriate when he believed she’d been Kenneth’s wife. But she hadn’t been married to his friend, hadn’t been married at all. Still, she’d thought herself in love and Benno saw his own interest in Sydney as an intrusion of sorts. She had enough emotional baggage to handle without adding his.
Barely a block from the larger Fun Zone area, they entered a medium size game arcade called Mariner Amusements.
Benno told himself to remember his purpose – to help Sydney. The thing he feared most was that her involvement in the murder was his fault. His and, to a lesser degree, Kenneth’s. Since a dead man couldn’t be expected to assist anyone unless he could cross over from the grave, her welfare was in his hands.
And if he were responsible for getting Sydney into this mess, albeit in an indirect way, she would be glad to see the last of him. So maybe he would be wise to keep to keep his own council for as long as possible.
Benno gave the place a once over as they passed several kids playing video games. A teenager had just lost his last ball on a double-decked pinball machine. As the digital read-out showed a score of one million, two hundred thousand, he slapped the machine’s side in disgust. The half-dozen tokens lined up in a perfect row on the glass top jumped.
“Hey, buddy, can I check one of those out for a minute?” Benno asked.
“Huh?” The kid gave him a suspicious look, then nodded. “I guess.”
Picking up a token, Benno was aware that the teenager’s eyes never left him. He smiled and turned the token so Sydney could see.
“A seagull... and a boardwalk.”
“Bingo.” He set the coin back in place. “Thanks.”
“This is it.” Excitement colored Sydney’s cheeks as well as her voice. “Now if only we can find someone who remembers our mystery man.”
Benno placed an encouraging arm around her shoulders. Sydney rewarded him with a smile. As they stopped one of the employees who exchanged tokens for cash, he hoped that particular expression would stay put, that Sydney wouldn’t be disappointed yet again. He was afraid exactly that would happen when, after she described the man she’d married, the token changer’s face remained a blank.
“I coulda seen the guy, but I ain’t sure.”
“Try to remember,” Sydney urged, but the employee merely shrugged.
“I think I know who you mean.” This response came from a pretty blonde of eighteen or so who was emptying one of the video games of tokens. Closing the door and straightening, she said, “This guy has kind of a crooked smile, right?”
“Right,” Sydney croaked, moving toward the blonde. “And he smokes those thin brown cigarettes.”
The blonde nodded. “The Fox. The girls all call him that ‘cause of his dynamite looks.”
“What’s his real name?” Benno asked.
She shrugged and gave him the once-over. Her smile told him she liked what she saw. “Never heard him called anything else. He used to hang out here a lot, but I haven’t seen him in weeks. Said he was going on vacation, but I guess he’s not back yet.”
Or he was too busy making trouble for other people to hang around a game arcade, Benno thought. “Do you know if this Fox lives somewhere near here?”
“Carol, a customer up front needs help with one of the machines,” a man in his thirties said. A tag on his white shirt identified him as the manager.
“Sure Mr. Vita.” Flashing Benno a look of regret, the blonde hurried off.
The manager swept over each of them in turn, his weasel eyes not missing a detail. “Can I help you folks with something?”
Sydney’s lips curved into a charming smile. “We’re tr
ying to find a man called The Fox.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
The manager’s tone of voice didn’t ring true. Benno wondered if the guy was protecting The Fox. A friend? And when Sydney went through her description once more, he wondered where her intuition was, no less her psychic powers. Couldn’t she tell the manager wasn’t being straight with them? Then again, perhaps she wasn’t fooled, either. She was carefully watching the guy for his reaction.
“Sorry. We get thousands of customers every week. Only someone with a photographic memory would be able to place any particular one.”
“Thanks for your help.”
Benno didn’t miss the sarcasm in Sydney’s voice. She held herself stiffly and walked toward the front of the arcade.
Carol had finished with the customer. As they passed her, she kept her back toward her boss and whispered, “The Fox and Mr. Vita are friendly, you know? Once I heard him say something about meeting at Oceanview Apartments. Or was it Ocean Winds? Something with water in the name.”
“Thanks,” Sydney returned just as softly. Outside, she said, “I guess we look for a telephone directory again.”
“You really think Al Fox is listed?”
“Probably not. But we can check for apartment complexes in the yellow pages.”
She was correct. They had an assortment from which to choose: Oceanview, Ocean Winds, Seascape, Sea Breeze and Watersprite. And the various complexes seemed to be located within a half mile radius of the arcade.
They started with the closest, Ocean Winds, where they were lucky enough to spot a tenant carrying groceries from a car. Sydney described the fake Kenneth, but the woman insisted no one by that description lived there. She knew the only two hunks in the building.
Next they stopped at Watersprite and found it to be a retirement community. No good looking young tenants of either sex here.
Ocean Winds was an exclusive enclave. The guard at the gate turned them away without answering any of their questions which left that place a big question mark.
Only two places left to check.
Sea Breeze was the closest, several blocks inland. How it had gotten its name, Benno couldn’t fathom since the water wasn’t even visible from the complex.
“No one around,” Sydney said dispiritedly.
“We could knock at doors.”
“Or check mail boxes. Not that it’ll do us any good since we don’t know The Fox’s real name.”
Benno tried to be encouraging. “We’re here, aren’t we?”
The building was small. Only a dozen tenants. And checking the mailboxes proved to be the smart thing to do.
“My God, Fox is his name.” An excited Sydney tapped the identification. “Al Fox. 2-F.”
The two story building was old but in decent shape. An outside staircase led to a second story landing that fronted the half-dozen apartments. Fox’s was the furthest from the stairs. As they traversed the landing, Benno noted each apartment had a large picture window with smaller windows on each side. Some were curtained for privacy, others not.
Al Fox’s were.
Benno rapped on the door. When he got no response, he banged harder. “Delivery for Mr. Al Fox.”
Tension seemed to ooze from Sydney as they waited.
“He’s not here,” she said softly, her tone ripe with disappointment.
“Then we’ll have to go in and take a look for ourselves.”
“Break in?” she asked. “That’s illegal.”
Sometimes Sydney could be incredibly naive, but Benno guessed that was part of her charm.
“Do you want legal?” he asked. “Or do you want to find out why you may be indicted for murder?”