Penny Max and the Runaway Lottery Ticket: Hilton Head Chronicles Part 1

VII. In Which Phil Hanover Keeps his Eye on Things

Warm up: "Private Eyes" by Hall & Oates

Phil Hanover held his cans of soup and watched as the employee hurriedly left to the front of the store. He could tell she was upset but didn't think it was about the groceries on the ground. He shook his head as he realized there was nothing he could do for her. Besides, he needed to keep an eye on the Russian in the front of the store. He had seen him at the Savannah Port at odd hours and so began keeping an eye on him. Today was the first time he decided to actually follow him in his car though.

He saw the Russian head out the front door and he laid his cans into a nearby cart and followed him out from a casual distance. As Phil headed outside, he paused at a newspaper rack at the entrance way as though he was looking for something in the classifieds. He pulled his sunglasses down over his eyes and surveyed the parking lot while casually flipping through the paper. 

He watched as the lanky Russian headed toward a short younger looking man, both with the same paper white look about them. He kept scanning the parking lot to not be obvious and found his gaze catch on a brightly colored mumu. He tilted his head and then looked directly at the person wearing it for a moment and caught himself smiling to himself as he nodded approvingly of her bright mishmash of colors. 

Phil looked again at them and noticed that he and other man were looking on the ground, moving around some of the shopping carts in the parking lot. He looked back at the mumu lady and saw her bend down to pick up something from the ground. He also heard a yap and realized she had a dog in her cart. "Fits the profile," he thought to himself. He watched again as the Russian and his cohort kept looking on the ground. Phil looked back at mumu lady as she held something - paper? - in her hands and saw her unfold it and realized it was an envelope. He straightened up and put the newspaper back into the rack. Something was up here. 

As she placed her dog into her car - "hmm a vintage Skylark. Nice," he thought, rather impressed. Then Phil stood really still for a moment. He had a hunch and headed to his vehicle - a nondescript SUV that matched many of the SUVs in the parking lot. As he got in, he eyed the Russian again and saw a desperation to his movements walking the parking lot. Phil paused, trying to decide which person to keep an eye on, but decided to follow his gut instinct and left the parking lot following his hunch and a 1960-something blue Buick Skylark.

Though being a P.I. wasn't really in his background, he knew enough from various past work situations how to be discreet about things. He followed a few car lengths behind the mumu lady but she wasn't hard to notice as she drove really slow, then sped up at various times, then stopping quick at various cross roads. He shook his head and kind of laughed to himself over it. "She's a firecracker alright," Phil thought, smiling to himself. 

 He found himself growing fond of her from her driving habits, reminding him of a great-uncle he helped out at one time. After all, Phil wasn't the traditional hard-nosed private eye, he thought to himself, shrugging his shoulders. He was allowed to  like - or not like - people he was 'curious' about. He saw that the car turned right onto Folly Field Road. As he pulled up to the intersection, he noticed the blue car parked at the Carabba's restaurant on the corner. Phil turned the corner and then drove into the parking lot parking near enough the car to see that the white dog was in the car but that the car was still running. 

It was parked in the handicap space right at the entrance. He picked up a grocery store sales flyer from the front seat to read and not be obvious, something he remembered from various minor stakeouts he had done and a couple spy movies he had seen. He opened his window about two inches just in case there was anything to hear. After a couple minutes he saw her saunter out of the store, take-out bag in hand. 

Phil overheard her talking to her dog. "See that wasn't long Penny Max. And I got your favorite -meatballs!" he heard her say. She got into the car, then backed out of her space without looking around and left the parking lot. He wasn't sure if he was still following a hunch or just curious about this character, but he continued to roll with it. He liked this lady. 

The journey took him to a popular coffee shop in Bluffton. The Skylark was parked right in front of the shop. As Phil parked his car, he noticed a dapper older man getting out of a red Porsche convertible. 'Nice cars, dang,' he thought to himself. Phil watched as the oldster smoothly entered the shop. He shook his head and again found that he was genuinely entertained by these two, not for any nefarious reason like he expected, but because they amused him. 

He sat very still for a second. He realized it had been awhile since he'd been this interested in other people for reasons other than work observation. And he wasn't used to that. He waited a moment before entering the cafe and wrote down the Skylark license plate. Then for good measure, he wrote down the Porsche convertible one as well, then entered the coffee shop. 

Phil paused inside the doorway as his eyes adjusted to the light. He scanned the room and noticed the brightly colored mumu in the corner and overheard a cackling laughter. Phil headed to the counter and waited a minute or two to order while waiting for the attention of the barista who was oddly standing beside the croissants not doing anything. 

That's when Phil noticed that mumu lady was actually sitting with Porsche man. He also realized that the barista was listening to the pair. Phil found himself almost chuckling and had to stop himself.  "What in the hell is going on here?" he asked himself, shaking his head. Phil called out to the barista to put in his order - a black coffee and a cinnamon biscotti - his favorite. He took a seat in the corner near the couple, this time with a book he always kept in his glove compartment: Cervantes' "Don Quixote". 

He sipped his coffee and began flipping through the pages of the book until he came to a dog-eared page with a quote that he had been hung up on for a week or so. "The knight's sole responsibility is to succour them as people in need, having eyes only for their sufferings, not for their misdeeds," he read, and shook his head derisively as he pondered the quote, and what was going on around him. 

He listened as the pair bantered. The Mumu lady was surprisingly intelligent and unsurprisingly the one in charge of the conversation. It was obvious the Porsche man liked her a lot. He also noticed the dog looking at him and he did his best not to make eye contact as animals trusted him and sometimes came running over to him. But this dog just seemed to carefully watch him. So he just kept a side eye on the pair and the pup and continue to thumb through his book, stopping here and there to read a line or two. 

And the conversation was interesting. Phil found himself learning about favorable stock options, a new golf course that he thought was just going to be another senior residential development and saving the sea turtles. 'God,' he said, shaking his head yet again, this time holding back his amusement with a serious demeanor. 

As the pair said their good-byes, with obvious affection in their banter, but nothing more than that, Phil watched them, absently flipping the pages in his book. He looked down at his book and looked at the page he was on. He had opened it to another quote. "There were no embraces, because where there is great love there is often little display of it." He smiled and stood up. After taking his coffee cup to the counter, he headed outside to see where mumu lady was heading next.

He got into his SUV and watched as both the Skylark and the Porsche departed. He decided to stick with the Skylark and within a couple miles saw her turn into a driveway which led to a very fancy double trailer, more dogs who emerged from underneath the trailer. He decided to drive past, turn around at a gas station and drive past again. At this point, she must have been inside. So he decided to make another stop, this one closer to the ocean, to talk to a friend at a local beach bar. Time to start seriously digging into this, he said to himself.