Finally, she looked away, shrugging. “He bought it this way. From the previous owners.” She allowed herself a smile. “If
he’d
had it decorated, it’d look like the goddamn Hunt Club in here.”
Deal came to the bar, sat on a white leather stool, watched her staring out the windows for a moment. Finally, she turned back to him, her smile still there, but sad now. “Pretty pathetic, huh?”
Deal shrugged. “It’s a nice place.” He looked at her, watching the mist burning away. “You deserve it.”
She laughed again. “I doubt my mother would agree with you on that one.”
“So,” he nodded at the bedroom door. “You’re going somewhere.”
She followed his gaze toward the half-packed bags. “Yeah,” her voice resigned. After a moment she turned back to him. “It’s not like I’m paying the rent for this.”
Deal nodded. She gave him a weak smile. “He was nice enough, even after Maria came along.” She broke off, taking a swallow of her drink. “You met Maria, right? Maria with all the hair and teeth?”
“The one downstairs. The week you were off,” Deal said.
“That was her,” she nodded, finishing her drink. “Five years, Thornton and I were together. His wife had been sick a long time, you know. And then she died…and then, just when I thought we could finally be together, Maria came in. Like some hurricane.”
She smiled and swept her hand about them. “But I got to keep the place.” She glanced at Deal. “Until now.”
Deal nodded. “Is that why you told me about Penfield and Alcazar that day?”
She shrugged. “Maybe. Like I said, I’m fed up with lawyers.”
“Could I have a beer or something?” Homer called from his place near the hall.
“Barbara,” Deal began, “I need to find Raoul Alcazar.”
She stared at him.
“It’s important,” he said. “He’s got a place out in the islands, right? It’s not like I can go around asking a bunch of people right now and I figured you might know where he lived.”
She shrugged. “Thornton knew. He went out there a few times.” She glanced at Deal. “I guess that doesn’t help you right now, does it?”
Deal stared at her. “Maybe it’s on the Rolodex, or some of those papers you were talking about, down at the office.”
“You want me to go down there?” She looked at him, incredulous.
“Like,
now?
”
Deal shrugged.
“I don’t know if I’m up to that,” she said, reaching for her glass.
Deal put his hand atop hers. “Janice is alive.”
Her eyes widened. “Wait a minute…”
“She called me,” he said. “Somebody has her. She didn’t get a chance to tell me where she was. But I think Alcazar might know.”
“You think Alcazar kidnapped your wife?” Barbara shook her head, dazed.
“I’ve got to find him,” Deal said. “Will you get the address for me?”
She took a breath, her eyes somewhere else for a moment. “I told Thornton,” she said, softly. “I told him not to trust that bastard.” She turned to Deal. “But Thornton was desperate for the money. That’s what they all love, more than anything, you know?”
Deal stared at her, waiting.
Finally, she dropped her gaze, wiping at her eyes. “Give me a minute, okay?”
He nodded. She pulled her robe tightly around her once again and disappeared into the bedroom.
“Doc Hammer,” Leon said, his voice booming out of the darkness.
“
Got
-damn,” the old man gasped.
Leon had been waiting the better part of an hour for the old bastard to lock up, duck into the scrungy back room of his pharmacy for a fix. The syringe flew out of Hammer’s hand, skittered out of sight.
Leon flipped on the lights and the old man lunged for the syringe, which was lying in the middle of a linoleumed aisleway. Leon grabbed him by his flapping white coat and pulled him back. He kicked the syringe out of sight, underneath a rack of shelves piled with pill bottles and dusty merchandise.
“Damn, Doc,” he said. “Here’s your old friend Leon, come calling, you don’t even say hello, kiss my ass, nothing?”
Hammer stared mournfully toward the spot where the syringe had disappeared, then glanced back at Leon through his thick glasses. His bleary eyes came gradually into focus.
“Yeah, Leon,” he said finally, trying to pull from his grasp. “Christ. You scare shit out of me.”
The doctor tried a laugh, wanting to see how that would go.
“That why you’re shaking, Doc?” Leon smiled at him. A few more minutes, the guy would be a puddle on the floor.
“Bad neighborhood here, you know? Got-damn bastards broke in last month, steal every-ting.”
“Mmmm-hmmm,” Leon said. “They get your stash, too?”
Hammer stared at him, offended. Christ, he’d caught the dumb bastard shooting up, he still wanted to pretend. Leon let him go.
“So, there’s something I can do for you, some strength medicine, huh?” The doc was jittering around, anxious to get rid of him, would do anything he asked.
“No, Doc. Not that.”
“Something else? Pills? You got pains in your leg again?”
Leon smiled, shaking his head. He still had pains, but he’d learned to listen to them. Better that than what had happened. Get an injury, tell your agent, First Round Odoms, who says he’ll handle it. Meantime, play with pain, son. Once we get you through training camp, we can renegotiate, cut a better deal. But if you have to sit down, we’re lost. So, go see Doc Hammer, he’ll fix you up. Get good and numb so you can keep going, fuck everything up, once and for all.
“Too bad about your leg, you know.” The old fart trying his sympathy routine. “One hell of a ball player, you were.”
A fucking quack, ruined Leon’s career, and what was there to do about it? Sue Doc Hammer? Would have been like suing a turnip.
Leon pointed to one of Hammer’s reference books he had lying open on the counter. Had taken him a while, using a flashlight and all, but he finally figured out how to read the damn thing. He tapped an entry with his big finger.
Hammer glanced at the page. “Ergotomine?” he said, turning to Leon. “You have some lady in trouble? Don’t fuck around with this, Leon. Take her to doctor.”
“These pills do what it says there?” Leon asked. He had hold of the doctor’s arm again.
Hammer writhed in his grip. “Yah. Sure. If it isn’t very late. They work.”
“Good,” Leon said. “Then that’s what I want.”
He gave Hammer a shove toward his pill shelves and waited for him to try to fill a bottle. After watching the sonofabitch spill half the tablets on the floor, Leon swept him aside, turned the container over, dumped a handful in his pocket.
“Thanks, Doc.” He turned back to Hammer, something else in his hand now. “And just to show you what a good guy I am, I brought you a present.”
He held up another syringe, look like something you’d use on a horse, gave Hammer his finest grin.
“That’s okay, Leon.” Hammer was backing away. “You don’t owe me nothing.”
“That’s not how I see it,” Leon said, moving in on him. He had the skinny old fart slung over the counter in an instant, his arm—all those needle tracks up and down it—laid out straight, the big syringe poised, needle puckering the skin now.
“Best load of your fucking life, Doc,” Leon said. “Send your ass to Polack heaven.”
“Leon…” his eyes watery now. “Please…”
“There’s guys on the team now, make a half million a year, Doc. So fat they can’t see shoe leather. So slow they run backward. Too dumb to make a half a person. What do you think of that?”
The doctor stared up at him, shaking his head from side to side in fright.
“I said, what do you think about that?” Leon jabbed with the needle, brought up a bright dot of blood.
“Not right…” the doctor croaked.
“Say what, Doc?” Jabbing him again.
“Not fair,” the old man gasped. “You were good. A got-damn shame.”
“You ain’t got it yet, Doc.” Leon leaning hard on top of him now, could feel the man struggling to breathe. Heart thumping to beat the band. “We’re talking about your part in the story, what
you
did. Big dumb nigger with a bad knee, Doc Hammer gives him a shot, says, ‘Put some heat on it, Leon. Run it out.’” Leon leaned in harder. “You remember that, Doc? You got enough brain cells ain’t too juiced to think?”
“Sorry…” His voice a bare whisper now.
“What?” Leon eased up a bit. “You’re not talking too good.”
“I’m said, I’m sorry…” There were tears leaking out of the old man’s eyes now.
Leon paused, stared down at the pitiful bastard. Finally, he shook his head. “Well, you sure to hell ought to be,” he said.
He lifted the needle, brought it in front of Hammer’s weepy eyes, suddenly pressed the plunger. Hammer squeezed his eyes shut, tried to turn away as the liquid streamed against his forehead, ran down his cheeks.
“Just tap water, Doc,” Leon said, straightening up, dusting himself off. He tossed the empty syringe aside.
Hammer stared up at him, his mouth popping open and closed like some fish wiggling on the counter to clean.
“But keep it in mind,” Leon said, moving toward the back. “Anybody ever come around, asking questions, just remember.” He was at the door now. “Hot load come along anytime.” He nodded before he went out. “Fucking
drugs
can kill you.”
As Deal expected, the cops had sealed Penfield’s offices. Homer parked the Rivolta in one of the Bayfront Park turnouts, catercorner from the bank plaza, and they sat watching as Barbara, wearing a hooded raincoat and her go-to-work clothes now, picked her way through the puddles on the broad boulevard. She ran up the steps, and spoke to the cop at the door. After a little hand waving and pointing upstairs, the cop shrugged and let her go inside.
“Suppose she tells somebody you’re out here,” Homer said.
“She won’t,” Deal said.
“What if she does?”
“I have the best getaway driver in the state.”
“That’d make me an accessory,” Homer said.
“What are you now?”
Homer considered that as a metro cruiser swung around the corner and passed them, hustling north, leaving rooster tails in its wake. The thunder and lightning had abated, but the rain was still pouring, whipped into sheets now and then by the wind.
Deal raised his head as the cruiser disappeared. Homer glanced at him over the back of the seat.
“Your old man always did right by me, Deal. The bones were good to him, he’d give me a nice tip for watching the door. He didn’t do so well, he took care of me anyway. Him and the Carneses too. No midget jokes, no Homer get me a drink, Homer get that. Those were different times. I already told you how things changed down there.”
Homer turned back to the wheel. “So don’t ask me what I am, okay? Tonight, I’m doing you a favor. Maybe you’ll find your old lady, maybe you’ll take the cocksucker out.” He shrugged. “And if it don’t happen that way, tomorrow, I’ll get up, go in to work, wash some fucking cars.”
Deal leaned back in the seat, trying to ease the stiffness in his back. “I appreciate it, Homer,” he said finally.
Homer grunted. The rain drummed harder on the roof. Deal heard the radio volume go up, a new Bonnie Raitt song, which seemed perfect for the situation.
Deal wormed his way into another position, and lay staring up at the headliner, trying to put it all together, but it just wouldn’t come. Alcazar and Penfield’s little business deal, that made sense. And Cal, poor goddamn Cal had just been in the middle, Deal’s fault. They’d killed him, then made it look like Deal had done it. Maybe they figured it would get him picked up and out of the way. But why would Alcazar kill Penfield too? One frame was plenty. What on earth had he done to deserve all this trouble? And where did Janice come in? What if he was wrong? What if Alcazar didn’t have her? What if Deal had dreamed it all up…
And then a radio announcer’s voice had gradually wormed its way into his consciousness: “…here in Atlanta, where the announcement of Terrence Terrell’s participation in the south Florida ownership group seems to have swung
everyone
around. Baseball will be coming to south Florida, folks, and you can take that one to the bank.”
“Who gives a shit,” Homer said. “What we need’s casino gambling, OTB—”
“Quiet,” Deal said, coming up from the backseat.
It was Terrell’s voice then, as full of smooth confidence as Deal remembered from the party on Penfield’s yacht, “…just pleased to have the means to play a part in this effort. But I want to emphasize that making money has nothing to do with it. I consider baseball an inalienable American right and I’m proud to help bring it to south Florida.”
“My aching ass,” Homer groaned.
“Shut up,” Deal said, his mind spinning, as the announcer came back on.
“…Terrell, whose genius with computer systems built the largest privately held company in
that
industry, lends both the business savvy and the financial clout that the other owners have been looking for in an expansion package. From the depths of despair to the highest of highs, that’s the kind of ride south Florida fans have had this day, and Terrell had this to say about the passing of Thornton Penfield…”
Deal fell back in his seat as Terrell intoned his sorrow at Penfield’s demise. Deal felt his spirits sinking. If Terrell
was
the major player the baseball group had been praying for, then what in the world was going on between Alcazar and Penfield? Maybe all of Deal’s speculations were off base. Maybe he was wasting time even now…
“Here she comes,” Homer said, as another gust of wind rocked the car. Barbara was hurrying across the empty street, her head bent against the driving rain. As she ran around the front of the Rivolta, Homer leaned across to throw open the door for her.
She fell inside, breathing heavily, water streaming down her face. “They weren’t going to let me in,” she said, still gasping from her run. “I told them I left my birth control pills upstairs.”
Homer blushed, and turned to stare out the window. Barbara reached over the backseat to Deal. “Here,” she said, handing him a card from a Rolodex. “It’s a place out on Vanderbilt Key.”
“More rich people,” Homer muttered.
Deal stared at the card, still distracted by what he’d heard on the news. But what choice did he have? He forced himself to concentrate on the card he held. A place he knew, all right.
Originally the family estate of the Vanderbilts, who didn’t fancy neighbors when they wintered in Florida, the place had been sold off by the heirs and its acreage divided into a few slightly less ostentatious compounds. You got there by helicopter, seaplane, or boat. The owners maintained a ferry for themselves and their guests, but Deal doubted he and Homer could qualify.
“Where’s everybody want to go?” Homer said, starting the Rivolta.
“You can take me home, I guess.” It was Barbara, sounding tired.
“We’re going to need a boat,” Deal said.
Homer turned to stare at him. “Are you nuts? Look at it out there.”
“It’s okay, Homer, you don’t have to go,” Deal said.
Homer glared at him. “I never said that. I just said, look at the weather. You gonna ask a guy, ‘Rent me your ship, I’d like to go down at sea’?”
A peal of thunder punctuated Homer’s words, but it was distant. Deal avoided his gaze. “It’s blowing over.”
Homer threw up his hands and sat back in his seat, disgusted. Deal glanced up at the sky. At least there was no lightning. It’d have to clear, sooner or later, didn’t it?
“Penfield has a boat.” It was Barbara’s voice, surprising them. They both turned to stare at her.
“
The Mandalay Queen?
That’s not what I had in mind,” Deal said.
She shook her head. “This is something no one knows about. It’s a kind of a Gary Hart fishing charter. He keeps it down at Traynor’s.”
“This is a serious boat?” Homer said, doubtful.
She shrugged. “It’s big enough. Cabins fore and aft. Nice galley. A cozy little stateroom in the middle.”
Deal stared at her, trying to picture it: Barbara in a sundress mixing up margaritas at the teak bar, Penfield and another guy in their yacht caps talking baseball.
She stared back at him, tossed her wet hair back. “I liked the boat. It was clean and clear out there, all the stink blows away, you know?”
Deal raised his eyebrows. “Maybe. My old man had an Aquasport. An open fisherman. He liked to drag me along deep-sea fishing. Maybe I wasn’t old enough to appreciate it.”
“Maybe,” she said.
“Let me get this straight,” Homer said. “We just go down to Traynor’s, overpower the dock master, and steal this yacht, right?”
Barbara shook her head. “You take me with you,” she said.
“I don’t think so,” Deal said.
“They know me down there. I’ll get you past the gate, then you’re on your own.”
Deal thought about it. The rain had eased to a drizzle on the windshield. He could see the ragged outline of a cloud, backlit by the moon. Barbara smoothed her hair back, still watching him. She might have been someone’s secretary, caught in the rain, ready for a ride home. He found himself nodding.
It was a long shot, but finding Janice was the important thing. If Alcazar could lead him to his wife, that’s all that mattered. He’d worry about the whys and wherefores later.
“Okay,” he said, motioning to Homer. “Let’s go to Traynor’s. Let’s get ourselves a boat.”
***
Never mind that it was a stormy Tuesday night, an occasional downpour still sweeping in off the bay. The parking lot outside the popular Grove hangout was packed. There was a real restaurant and bar inside, but all the action was on the huge terrace outside. There was a reggae band blasting under a chickee hut, plastic sheeting unfurled around the sides to protect the musicians and their equipment. The dance floor was under the roof that slanted out from the main building and most of the crowd had simply left the open-air tables to jam in under the eaves, drink their Red Stripes, their Meyers and Coke, their Rumrunners.
The place had been remodeled, rebuilt, given a coat of pink-and-aqua stucco, but it had maintained its laid-back atmosphere over the years. After Lindy Traynor sold out, off to federal prison on tax evasion charges, the new owners hung a bunch of ferns off the porch rafters, brought in a series of bands with horns and girl singers who wore spandex. Before that, Deal had always liked to stop for a beer at Traynor’s, if he was ever in the neighborhood, unwind after a day of wrangling with the subs. He was gratified to see reggae was back, at least.
They’d had to park way out near the street. As they passed the walkway to the terrace, the off-duty cop looked the three of them over, then turned back to his bored, tough-guy chat with the young woman who was collecting the covers.
They continued on along the sidewalk that skirted the back of the bandstand, weaving through thick hibiscus hedges to the water’s edge. Deal sensed something and glanced at the bandstand, at a rift in the thick plastic sheeting where a big Jamaican in a flowered shirt stood guzzling a beer. Their eyes locked momentarily and the guy nodded slightly, as if they knew each other. A stage hand? A body guard? One of the musicians? There was no way to tell. Deal nodded back and moved on after Barbara.
The dock master’s shed sat at the end of the path, blocking the way onto the floating docks. There was a chain-link fence with a gate, a little window where you rang a bell and hoped someone let you through.
Barbara tapped on the window and an old guy wearing a T-shirt that read
IRIE
in big black letters peered out. After a moment the window slid up.
“Hi, Miz Cooper,” the guy said. He glanced at Deal briefly, then came back to her. “Kind of a rough night, didn’t it?”
She nodded. “We just want to look at the boat, Harry.” She nodded at Deal. “I’ve got a friend from up north. He’s never been to Florida before.”
“That right?” Harry said, punching a button that unsnapped the gate with a buzz. “Well, be careful he don’t fall in.”
Barbara smiled and turned to take Deal’s arm. “We’ll be careful, Harry.”
The old guy turned away with a wave, headed back toward the little television he had set up on the desk inside. Homer moved through the gate along with them. The old guy had never even seen him.
“
Miss Daisy?
” Homer said, turning to Barbara. “That’s what he called it?”
“He called it ‘The boat,’” she said.
They were standing at the end of the slip, braced against the rolling caused by the incoming swells, watching as Deal clambered aboard. It was dark out here, and quiet, except for the clanking of halyards against the masts of the sailboats docked nearby. Although the rain had eased off to a mist, the sky had closed up again. Deal worried the storm hadn’t truly blown over. Still, he was committed. What else could he do? By morning he could find himself in a small room downtown with Driscoll, listening to the evidence they’d stacked up against him, running his finger down a list of public defenders. Or maybe they’d have him in a padded cell, certain he was taking phone calls via the fillings in his teeth…
He found a set of steps stowed along the starboard rails and folded them down for Homer, who climbed up, followed by Barbara.
“What are you doing?” he said, as she stepped over the rail.
She looked at him neutrally. “You want the key, don’t you?”
He nodded and stepped aside, steadying himself against the rolling of the boat, watching as she made her way to the hatchway, ran her fingers under a teak overhang. She turned to Deal, surprised, then tried the overhang on the other side of the passageway.
“Shit,” she said. “It’s always here.”
Deal glanced up at the bridge, which sat a few steps above them, the wheel open, but protected by a canopy. No key in the ignition, that much was certain.
“Maybe Jimmy Swaggart borrowed it, forgot to put the key back,” Homer said.
“Funny,” Barbara said. She bent to check the deck at her feet.
Deal turned to Homer. “Did they ever show you how to hot wire a car down at Surf?”
Homer gave him a look. “
They
never did.” He shrugged. “It got to be sort of a lost art after all the locking steering columns came out. What you do these days, you want to boost a car, is you get hold of a flat-bed tow truck, winch the damn thing on board, drive away.”
“There’s no steering lock on this thing,” Deal said, nodding at the wheel.
Homer glanced up. “Sure isn’t.”
“So can you start it, or not?”
“I can
start
it,” Homer said. “Who’s going to
drive
it?”
“Don’t worry,” Deal said.
Homer shook his head. “I
knew
we were going to steal a boat.” He started up the steps to the bridge. “I just goddamn
knew
this was going to happen.”
***
The rain had picked up again by the time Deal had gotten the twin diesels idling smoothly. Inside of fifteen minutes, Homer not only had jumped the ignition wires but had also picked the hatchway lock leading down below. He poked his head up and tossed a poncho at Deal, who stood at the wheel, ready to back from the slip.
He turned to Barbara, who had already cast off the stern line and stood on the dock, ready to undo the bow line from the big cleat there. Deal glanced over his shoulder. The rollers were still coming in. And there wasn’t much space between him and the boats moored across the way.