#017: A Fix for Karen

My pool buddy, the bartender, was lurking about outside my door when I returned to my room. He was agitated, very apprehensive, and lost no time on pleasantries.

"Need to talk to you, Miss Springsteen," he almost whispered.

I opened the door and ushered him inside, wondering what the hell.

Turns out his name is Paul Ramirez. He has worked at the Highland estate for the past couple of years, more or less. Guy of about twenty-eight, good looking, a Latino male in his prime and showing it, well set up, intelligent, still lives at home with his parents though occasionally "stays over" at Highlandville when an occasion demands. He was supposed to be staying over this weekend, but had decided that he could not do that.

"There's a bunch of cops downstairs," he explained. "They're interviewing all the help and I can't handle that right now. Don't get me wrong, I don't have any kind of criminal problem, I mean nothing serious. But there are some bench warrants out on me, traffic tickets I never took care of, and they're gonna put my ass in jail if they catch it before I have the money to settle the tickets."

I knew there was something more than traffic tickets behind his encampment at my door, but I played along. "How much do you need?" I asked him.

"Oh no, please, don't think I came here to hit you up. That's going to take three or four hundred bucks, with all the penalties and interest. 'Course, I could use a few bucks to hit the beach for a while, let this thing cool. I noticed awhile ago all the questions you were asking, then when the cops came—and I've heard the talk around here tonight so I get the idea you're trying to help Miss Highland. Listen, she's an okay lady, she gets my vote, I don't think she could have done something like that. Point is, I have some information that could be very important to her and I thought, since I can't go to the cops, not right now ..."

"You need a few bucks to hit the beach for a while."

He showed me a nervous smile. "Yes ma'am."

I had a couple of fifties and small change in my wallet. I gave him the fifties, then wrote him a check for five hundred dollars, pushed it at him, said, "Go down first thing Monday and clear up that traffic problem. Write down my telephone number before you cash the check. Start calling me Monday afternoon every hour on the hour until you get me. Miss Highland is going to need all the help she can get. Think of the five hundred as a very small down payment on her gratitude if you can help her out of this mess. Understand me?"

"You bet, ma'am, I sure understand you."

"Okay, right now we are probably on very limited time. What do you have for me?"

He came right back with: "Bad blood between Doctor Powell and Mr. Kalinsky."

"Do tell."

"Yes ma'am. They had a hell of a beef just about a week ago—in fact, yeah, just last Saturday. I was inside stocking the bar and I heard them in the hallway just outside the lounge. I ducked down behind the bar just because I was embarrassed, not because I was trying to spy on anybody. I just..."

"Sure. Anyway..."

"Anyway, nothing was said about Mrs. Kalinsky, but I think that's what the beef was about. I mean, it's no great secret around here that Doctor Powell and Mrs. Kalinsky had this thing going."

"This thing ...?"

"Yes ma'am, you know, they've been playing around together."

"Everybody knew that, huh?"

"All the service force, I guess, yes ma'am. What you don't see as a bartender or waiter, Miss Springsteen, I mean—we're right there buried in all that stuff, but everybody thinks we're blind and deaf or something, except to wait on them. Hell, we see it all. We hear it all."

"Exactly what did you hear during this beef between Powell and Kalinsky?"

"Well, let's see, the doctor is the one that is so burned. Mr. Kalinsky was just very cold and hard. I only heard about half of what he said. The doc I could hear loud and clear, he was really shouting. He said something like, 'You can threaten me all you like but you can't pull my strings any longer.' Strings, like a puppet, see. He says,'... outrageous ...' but I don't know what was outrageous, and then, 'I'll be out of here in two weeks and that's final! Do your damnedest!'"

"And what did Kalinsky say to that?"

"He says, 'You'll go out alone and naked, then. And maybe feet first.' "

"He said that?—maybe feet first?"

"Yes, ma'am, and the doctor got that meaning. He said that he had enough on Mister Kalinsky to send him up for life, that he had all the evidence hidden away somewhere and that it would all come out if he died, that Mister Kalinsky had better take great pains to see that he never died—I mean that Doctor Powell never died."

"What did Kalinsky say to that?"

"He laughed, Miss Springsteen. He laughed. Then he said, 'Take her to hell with you, then.' I think he meant Mrs. Kalinsky. But did you see the way he carried on with her down by the pool tonight? When he thought she was dead?"

"Yeah, I noticed that. You didn't hear Miss Highland's name mentioned during that argument?"

"No ma'am. I think they were talking about Mrs. Kalinsky."

"Is that all you recall about the argument?"

"That's about it, yes ma'am. But if something else should come to me ..."

I walked Ramirez to the door and told him, "Get cool somewhere. Don't mention any of this to anyone else until you've checked back with me. But get straight with the cops on that traffic thing. We may need to lay this on them."

"I understand, Miss Springsteen."

At the door, I inquired, "Why did you come to me instead of going to Kalinsky with this?"

He chuckled nervously. "Kidding? That guy is cold as ice. My car would have lost its brakes or something on the way home."

"You really feel that way?"

He shivered as he replied, "Bet your ass I do. I knew you were an okay lass, though. You learn to spot them quick, in my business. Especially the assholes. They turn up quick."

I smiled and said, "I guess that means that mine did not turn up."

"You are absolutely right, Miss Springsteen, it did not," he assured me.

I hit him with what I thought would be one last question before turning him loose into the night. "How do you really feel about Miss Highland?—straight shit, now."

"Straight shit, ma'am," he replied, "she's almost too good to be true—I mean, for a rich person. To tell the truth, I've been in love with her for two years. Sort of a hopeless fantasy—you know? But I'll bet I could get rid of those spells for her."

"How would you go about doing that, Paul?"

"I'd love her in the morning and I'd love her in the night, maybe all night long."

"You think that would fix her, huh?"

"Yes ma'am, I think it would."

If only, I was thinking, that could be true.