“Look, man, I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m getting ready to eat,” Louis began.

“I want to hire you.”

Louis blinked in surprise.

“I know you caught that paint guy and that you’re doing private investigation stuff now.” The man looked around at another couple taking a nearby table. “Can I sit down?”

Louis hesitated. He needed the work. There wasn’t a helluva lot of cases for a PI to take on here. But this guy looked like he was a little too desperate.

He caught Bev’s eye again. And Carlo, the sumo-sized cook, had come out. Louis gave them a small wave to signal he was okay. His eyes moved back to the man standing in front of him.

His dark hair was pulled into a ponytail and he had an eagerness in his expression that at first made him seem young, but from the fine web of lines around the eyes and the leathery skin of his arms, Louis guessed him to be in his late thirties.

Cade was bouncing lightly on his toes, his lips moving back and forth between a smile and grimace, like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to be tough or friendly.

“All right. Sit down,” Louis said.

Ronnie Cade dropped into a chair, started to extend a hand, then drew it back. He crossed his arms and leaned forward on the table.

“I know you must get real good money for what you do,” Cade said, “but I was hoping maybe you would take what I got and let me make payments on the rest.”

Louis stared at him. Good money? He rubbed the condensation off his beer bottle. “First things first. What kind of investigation do you want me to do?”

“My father’s been arrested. They’ve charged him with murder.”

Louis took a drink of his beer and waited just long enough to not look eager. “You want a beer?” he asked.

Cade nodded quickly. “Bud.”

Louis called over to Bev, trying to sound casual, but inside his heart was quickening. This was promising.

“Who did your father allegedly kill?” Louis asked.

“That lawyer Spencer Duvall.”

Louis straightened slightly.

“I thought that would get your attention,” Cade muttered.

Bev brought the beers. Louis ignored the questions in her eyes. After she left, he asked, “How much can you pay to start?”

“Five-hundred dollars,” Cade said.

“Shit, man. .”

Cade’s hand shot out and he grabbed Louis’s wrist. Louis jerked his hand back and Cade threw his hands in the air.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I’m sorry, okay?”

“Does your father have the same temper, Mr. Cade?”

“I said I was sorry,” he said, his eyes low, his voice strained.

Louis shook his head slowly. “Five-hundred dollars is a day’s work in a homicide investigation, Mr. Cade. Doesn’t your father have a lawyer?”

“Yeah, court-appointed. Everyone knows how hard they work for people like us.”

“People like who?” Louis asked.

Cade paused to take a drink and wiped his mouth with the back of his calloused hand. “Look, I do lawn maintenance for a living. My kid and me live in a double-wide over on Sereno. I ain’t had many breaks in my life and I don’t blame anybody for that. But the law don’t work the same for everybody.” He paused again. “Do I have to start singing a sad song for you here?”

Louis glanced around the restaurant. He had seen the news about Spencer Duvall on TV. A big-shot lawyer getting gunned down in his own office late at night would be news anywhere, let alone Fort Myers. He had seen the film of a man being hauled away in handcuffs, the talking head saying the suspect had been recently released from prison. Louis had just chalked it up to a revenge thing gone bad. Now here was the guy’s kid, begging for someone to believe his dad didn’t do it. Interesting. But not interesting enough that he could afford to work for near free.

“Look, Mr. Cade, I don’t think I-”

Cade leaned forward. “He’s my father,” he said. “I’ll give you anything I have.” He reached in a pocket and slapped a business card on the table. “Look, I’ve got my own business, I got a truck-”

Louis shook his head. “Sorry, man.”

Cade stared at Louis for a long time, then grabbed his beer and quickly drained it. He stood up slowly, digging for money in the pocket of his jeans.

“Forget it,” Louis said. “It’s on me.”

Cade didn’t move. His eyes flitted around the restaurant, then came back to Louis. “I lost him,” he said tightly.

“What?” Louis said.

“My father. He went to prison. I lost my father for twenty years.” Ronnie Cade’s eyes glittered in the florescent lights. “My father wasn’t there when I graduated high school, when I got married or when I had my boy. Twenty years, man. He just got out and now this.”

Louis didn’t reply, the sounds of the restaurant suddenly dull and thick.

Cade shook his head slowly. “Fuck, you haven’t got the faintest idea what the hell I’m talking about, do you?”

He started away.

“Hey, Cade,” Louis called out.

The man turned.

“I’m not making any promises, okay? But I’ll look into it.”

Cade stared at him for a moment, then nodded briskly. He left, the screen door banging behind him. Louis picked up the business card. J.C. LANDSCAPING. It was dirt-smudged and the phone number was inked out and a new one scribbled in. He slipped it in his shorts pocket.

Bev came over, setting the grouper sandwich down in front of him. “What was that all about?” she asked.

“A job offer,” Louis said, picking a fry out of the basket.

“For what?”

“The guy’s father was arrested for murdering a lawyer.”

Bev’s eyes darted to the door where Ronnie Cade had disappeared. “That was Jack Cade’s kid?”

“I guess. He didn’t say what his father’s name was.”

“Jack Cade. He just got out of prison and now they’re saying he killed Spencer Duvall,” Bev said, excitement creeping into her voice. “What, you don’t watch the news?”

“I saw it.” Louis took a bite of the sandwich.

“Don’t you think it’s kind of weird?” Bev pressed.

“Bev, I think all cons dream of killing the guy who put them away. Maybe this one made his dream come true.”

“But why would Jack Cade kill his own lawyer?”

Louis looked up at her, wiping his chin with a paper napkin. “Duvall was Cade’s defense lawyer?”

She nodded. “Twenty years ago. When Cade was on trial for murder.”

Louis set his sandwich back in its plastic basket. “Who did Cade murder?”

“A girl.” Bev’s brow furrowed. “Kathy something, I think. No, Kitty, her name was Kitty. She lived over in Fort Myers. It was big news around here at the time. I was working at the HoJo’s on Cleveland and the cook had this TV in the back and we followed it on the news. It was pretty bad stuff. That girl. . he raped her, too, and left her body in a dump.” She paused. “So you gonna take the case?”

Louis looked up at Bev. “I’m not sure.”

“Why not?”

“He can only pay me five hundred.”

Bev shook her head slowly. “You should have taken it.”

“Why?”

“End of the month. I gotta collect on your tab, hon. Five hundred bucks can buy a lot of grouper sandwiches.”

“I’ll settle up at the end of the week, I promise.”

Bev picked up his empty Heineken bottle. “I’ll bring you another.” She stopped. “Kitty Jagger, that was her name.” She shook her head absently. “Wow. Twenty years. I can’t believe that was twenty years ago. Where’s the time go?”

She went back to the kitchen. Louis picked up his sandwich, took another bite and set it aside. He looked out the window, out at the black moonless night and the inky water of the channel lapping against the dock.

Twenty years was a long time. But not long for rape and murder. Spencer Duvall apparently had done a good enough job to have kept his client out of the chair. Why would Jack Cade turn around and kill the guy who had saved his neck?

He fished out the business card Cade had left. J.C. LANDSCAPING. Louis guessed the J.C. stood for Jack Cade. Twenty years ago, Ronnie Cade would have been, what? — fifteen maybe? What goes through a kid’s head when he finds out his father is a rapist and murderer? How the hell do you forgive that?