Ron Base - Tree Callister 03 - Another Sanibel Sunset Detective by Ron Base Page A

make macarons here.”
    Tree squeezed around the visitor and got behind his desk, feeling safer with a barrier separating them.
    The visitor wore a gray suit with narrow blue pinstripes and a crisp white shirt and a bright red tie like a trail of blood. A formally dressed thug with a flower, Tree thought.
    “Ganache,” he said.
    “Tree looked at him. “What?”
    “Ganache. I always say that ganache is one of the fillings in a macaron. But I never know what it is. Do you know what ganache is?”
    “I have no idea,” Tree said.
    “Ganache.” The word rolled smoothly off his tongue. He seemed to savor it. “I must find out what it means.”
    He added matter-of-factly, “Now I bring the lily in friendship, as I said, because that is the sort of person I am. But I must show you something else.” He opened his suit jacket to reveal a shoulder harness from which hung a leather holster-like sheath with a thick wooden handle protruding from it. He pulled the object out of the sheath, revealing a long, gleaming blade.
    He laid the blade on the desk beside the lily.
    “Know what that is?” the visitor asked.
    “It looks like a machete,” Tree said.
    The visitor nodded with satisfaction. “Where I come from, it is known as a cutlass. A tool useful for taking care of enemies.”
    He held the flower in one hand. “A flower for my friends.” With his other hand, he raised the cutlass. “The cutlass for my enemies.”
    The man with the shaved head and the scarred face replaced the cutlass blade on the desk and almost daintily touched it with a manicured fingernail. “Here is the thing. I don’t want you as my enemy. Okay? I bring you a lily. I don’t want to have to use this on you.”
    Tree found he was having difficulty swallowing. He said, “How can I avoid being your enemy?”
    “You avoid being my enemy by being my friend.”
    “And how do I become your friend?”
    “By telling me, very precisely, the whereabouts of Mrs. Elizabeth Traven.”
    “You can’t be serious,” Tree said.
    “When I am making jokes, my friend, I do not show my cutlass.”
    “What would make you think I know where she is?”
    “Because I am smart about these things. Because I know you have been hired by certain disreputable people to find her. So tell me where she is. Or I will give you short sleeves.”
    “Short sleeves?”
    “In my place, that is what we say when we cut off your hands.”
    “You’re threatening to cut off my hands?”
    “Which would make it impossible for you to hold the lily, and that would be very sad.”
    Tree said as calmly as he could, “It would be helpful if I knew who was threatening me.”
    The visitor frowned, stroking his goatee again. “You want to know who I am?”
    “Yes.”
    “I already told you.”
    “No, you didn’t.”
    “I didn’t tell you?”
    “So far it’s been macarons and threats with a machete.”
    “A cutlass. It’s a cutlass.”
    “Yes. Okay. But I still don’t know your name.”
    My name is Dr. Edgar. Dr. Edgar Bunya.”
    “Okay, Edgar, tell me why you are so interested in Elizabeth Traven.”
    “Please. Call me Dr. Bunya.”
    “Dr. Bunya. Why are you interested in Elizabeth Traven?”
    “ That is none of your business.”
    “Well, then, we’re kind of at an impasse, aren’t we? I don’t know where she is. You won’t tell me why you want to find her.”
    He lurched to his feet and leaned across the desk to retrieve the cutlass, causing Tree to flinch. That produced what passed for a smile on Edgar Bunya’s hard, scarred face. “See,” he said. “You are afraid of me. A good thing. As soon as you find Mrs. Traven, you tell me. Understand?”
    “How am I supposed to contact you?”
    He picked up the lily and Tree saw the slip of paper twisted around its stem. Bunya pointed at it. “That is the number where you can reach me. Call me. Leave a message. As soon as you find her, do it.”
    He dropped the flower onto the desk and slipped the blade back into its