“Nope.”
“Benson Alvarez.”
“Nope. We talking gay guys?”
“Don’t seem to be.”
“Just two guys in the back of a super-stretch,” said Creech. “Doing what?”
“There was a woman, too, we don’t know who she is.”
“A hooker?” said Creech. “An orgy?”
“No, sir. Like I said we’re just starting out, Mr.—”
“Sorry, sorry, Lieutenant, I’m just upset.” Creech patted his chest again. The precise spot that roofed his heart. He winced.
“You okay, sir?”
“Me? I’m fine. I’m just…this is hard to hear, guy like Solly. Easygoing—what the kids call laid-back. Nothing bothered him. His snacks were Haitian. He made them himself, didn’t have a woman to cook for him. Cornbread,thatI liked. Some kind of meatball, frankly, too spicy. I gave him potato chips and apple slices. We had a pleasant time and could hear the music in the parking lot.”
I said, “Do you know anything about his family?”
“I know he had one,” said Creech. “Couple of kids, living in Florida. One’s some kind of doctor, the other’s…I think also. Son and daughter, he was proud of them. Whole family came from Haiti on boats, worked their way up, Solly’s wife cleaned rooms. Then she died.”
Creech’s voice caught. “He had it rough. But you’d never know it, always smiling.”
“How did he get clients?”
“What do you mean?”
“We haven’t found a website.”
“I have one,” said Creech, with sudden pride. “Did it last year, move into the new age. But it’s a half-half deal. You get more clients but not always high-quality and then they rate you. The kids, they don’t even know how to tip, to them it’s Uber.” Uttering the last word as if it were a disease. “Nowadays you sell a cookie at a counter, you get a tip. You drive idjits all night, you don’t. That make sense?”
I shook my head. “So if Solly had no website—”
“I asked him that, he told me he did the tear-offs. Those things on bulletin boards, little fringies with flaps? You tear them off, they’ve got a phone number.”
Milo said, “That’s it?”
“When we were at the Bowl, that’s what he had.”
“Where did he hang his tear-offs?”
“Beats me,” said Creech. “My opinion was, not smart. I told him at the time. Anyone can rip off a free piece of paper, you don’t know who you’re dealing with. Am I right? You’re here, so obviously I am.”
“Obviously, you are, sir.”
“Yeah,” said Creech. “But here’s the thing, I don’t want to be.”
CHAPTER
7
Doctors in Florida, uncommon surname, easy trace.
Hillaire B. Roget, M.D., FAAOS, headed the Ocala Bone Institute. Specialties: geriatric orthopedics and diabetic wound management.
