She was still panicked, trying to pull from his grip, choking, kicking against the rain-slick planks of the platform. When he called her name again, she hesitated. He shook her, called her once again.
Finally, she seemed to focus on him. He felt her go limp in his grasp.
“Deal?” Her face pale, drawn. And she seemed so very thin. But it was her. Janice. Alive.
He drew her into his arms. Held her as tightly as he dared. “Oh my God,” she was saying. “Oh, Deal.”
He glanced through the open doorway into the dimly lit interior of the house. No movement, no sign of life. Still…
“Is there anyone else?” He pulled back from her. “Anyone inside there?”
She shook her head. “I thought it was Leon, coming back. I had this knife. I used it to pry the lock on the bedroom…”
He shook his head, uncomprehending. “It’s okay, Janice. Calm down…”
There
were
the sounds of engines, loud again, cutting in and out of the chaos around them. But it wasn’t Leon, Deal thought with dismay.
He glanced out into the darkness, trying to shield his face from the rain that swept over them in sheets. Lightning exploded atop them, and then again, peals of thunder nearly instantaneous, overlapping into a constant roar.
He began to pull Janice toward the doorway when he heard the engines again. The roar was practically on top of them now, a new pitch in
Miss Daisy
’s whine, the big diesels straining as they dropped into reverse.
“Deal!” Janice shouted, pointing into the darkness over his shoulder.
Deal turned in time to see
Miss Daisy
: huge, lit in the glow of continual lightning, hurtling out of the mists of rain like a ship from a nightmare. The boat was being borne high on a mighty wave straight for the platform.
Deal drove Janice ahead of him, through the door, covering her body with his. The crash came, a terrible grinding and a great shudder in the pilings beneath them. There was an explosion and a ball of flame that blew up into the sky at the far end of the platform and just as suddenly was gone.
Everything was quiet for a moment, as though the explosion had blown the storm back, as though Deal and Janice were being contested over by these enormous forces. Even the sky had lightened, the first light of dawn struggling up.
Just as abruptly, the wind and the rain swept back upon them, more intense than ever. The sheet of plywood that had been flapping atop the scrap pile finally tore loose. It flipped over twice, then gained steam, leveling off like some lethal Frisbee. Deal ducked down, covering Janice as the thing slammed into the doorway and careened off into the water.
He steadied himself, then got to his knees and shoved Janice on inside. He stood and started away. She glanced up at him in panic. “What are you doing?”
“Stay here,” he told her, straining to get the door shut against the wind. He forced himself back out into the storm. A boat cushion cartwheeled across the deck, and a chunk of stainless railing from
Miss Daisy
clattered onto the roof of the house. Deal shielded himself with his arms and lurched toward the stairwell where smoke billowed up from below.
He descended the stairwell by feel, holding his breath against the smoke, but by the time he reached the landing by the docking area, it was over, the smoke gone, the flames vanished, only sea spray in his face, the slightest hint of diesel fuel in his nostrils and that whipped away quickly by the wind. At the far edge of the structure, a dark scorch mark up the side of one piling, otherwise glowing gray in the gathering light. A barnacle encrusted timber and a few bits of flotsam surged about the pilings. But no sign of the boat, no Barbara, no Homer, not the slightest indication of tragedy. For the ocean,
Miss Daisy
had been a mere hors d’oeuvre. And now it getting ready for the meal. “
What boat, Deal?
” Flivey’s voice again. “
No stinking boat around here, man
.” Laughter. The familiar dismissive laughter Deal heard when they’d argued over Cristo wanting to drape the islands, when Deal got the news about his arm, when Deal said they could swim the channel to Dirty Dick’s…
Hell, yes, Deal, you can do any goddamn thing you want to, but who’s going to pay the bill?
His own stupidity, Deal thought. He’d cost Flivey his life. And Penfield. And Cal. Now Barbara and Homer. And there wasn’t a good goddamn reason for any of those people to be dead, was there?
“Forget about it, Deal. Old news. The fun’s just beginning. That house up there. Just wait. It’ll be like Dorothy’s place, lifting off from Kansas. Better than the space shuttle. You’re off to Oz, my good friend. I’ll keep a seat warm for you.” Ha ha ha…
Deal felt woozy, as if he might topple over the railing any second. He stared down at a sodden chunk of something tossed from the boat. It was bumping against the dock, another cushion, a pillow or something coughed up from the busted insides of
Miss Daisy…
but wait, not a cushion, not a chunk of debris. Those were arms, a dark mass of hair fanned out in the water.
Barbara. A dead man’s float
, he was thinking.
He pushed from the railing, scrambling onto the heaving deck on all fours, clutching at the back of her raincoat that had billowed up a pocket of air above her shoulder blades. Only that had kept her afloat.
He dangled out over the water, cupping her chin up with one hand, struggling for leverage with the other. He scanned the waters nearby, praying for just one more miracle, that somehow Homer too would appear, but there was nothing but the surge of the waves against the pilings.
Deal scrambled backward on his hands and knees, dragging Barbara after him. He got her up onto the landing and checked to see if she were breathing. Nothing. He pressed his fingers to her wrist. A fluttering there, he thought, but it could have been his own pulse pounding. He heard something and glanced up to find that Janice had followed him down the stairs. She clutched the railing like the wind might rip her off into the storm any second.
He bent over Barbara, cupping his hand beneath her neck. He’d had CPR, a class Janice had talked him into taking with her. But that had been years ago. He tried desperately to remember…what was first, something about an air passage? He sucked in a breath, put his mouth over hers.
“Her nose,” Janice called. “You have to hold her nose.”
He nodded, frantic to follow Janice’s instructions now, three breaths, then pressing down on her chest, not too hard, you can break ribs, puncture a lung, sure, he remembered that, breathing again, pressing down, the water burbling out, breathing, pumping…
He was gasping for breath himself now, lightheaded, wondering how long he’d be good for when Janice pushed him aside, took over his rhythm. Deal watched helplessly, and then, just as it seemed time for him to start in again, he heard a cough, saw Barbara’s chest begin to heave.
“She’s alive,” Janice raised up, shouting. “She’s breathing.”
Deal nodded, too exhausted to speak. The waves were crashing over the landing now, the sky growing dark, as if they’d been tossed onto some strange planet where daylight lasted a quarter hour and night was always and nothing but storms.
Barbara’s breathing was beginning to even out now. Her eyes flickered, then closed again. He gave one last forlorn glance across the water, still hoping to see Homer clutching to some chunk of wood, some tree limb, somehow riding the current their way, but of course, there was nothing.
“Let’s get her upstairs,” he said to Janice, finally. And together they staggered up.
***
“I found some tea.” It was Janice coming toward him, a cup cradled in her hands, coming back toward the couch where they had put Barbara. Janice glanced back at the stove, where a pot of water still simmered, shuddering as if she were recalling a nightmare.
Deal was on his knees beside Barbara, dabbing gently at her wet face and hair with a towel. She was still unconscious, with a bruise on her cheek, a cut high on her forehead where another lump was rising. Janice put the cup on the coffee table beside him, knelt down. “Who is she, Deal?”
He heard a ripping sound on the roof above them. The shingles? The roofing felt? How long till the whole thing lifted off, tossed them into Flivey land?
Deal gave her a look. “Just someone who wanted to help.”
Barbara moaned, mumbling something in her sleep. Deal touched her arm gingerly and she winced, groaning again. He glanced at Janice. “Broken, I think. She needs a doctor.”
Janice nodded, then looked away.
Outside, the storm was still raging. Something heavy thudded against the siding, bounced again, then was gone. One of the planks from the lumber pile? Or just the sky falling?
Deal studied Janice in profile. There was a kerosene lantern hanging above a dinette table and the soft light softened her features. How precious she was, he thought.
Meanwhile, the storm seemed to relent. The wind died away, and the rain stopped abruptly, as if a switch had been thrown. Except for the surging of the waves beneath them, it was oddly quiet. Janice turned back to meet his gaze. She reached out and gently touched his cheek.
“What’s going on, Deal?” She was fighting to keep her voice level. “Why are these things happening?”
Good questions, Deal thought. He wished he had good answers. He blotted at Barbara’s wet hair mechanically with the towel.
“Where’s the phone you called me with?” he asked.
She shook her head. “It was an old ship-to-shore radio. It took me forever to figure it out…” she trailed off. “But he smashed it.” She stood and walked to the counter, began fixing herself a cup of tea. She glanced at him nervously.
Deal sighed. He wanted to wrap Janice in his arms, take her home, forget anything ever happened.
“It’s all about the land, Janice.” She shook her head, puzzled. “The land the fourplex sits on,” he continued. “It has to be. Alcazar wanted it, and Penfield was trying to help him get it.”
She shook her head in disbelief. “That’s not possible.”
“Believe me, Janice, it’s possible. It has something to do with the baseball effort. There are millions at stake there. I’m just not sure how my little fourplex fits in.”
He could hear the pinging of the steaming pan on the stove, hear the shallow rasp of Barbara’s breathing from the couch. “How long before he comes back, Deal? What are we going to do?”
He heard the fear in her voice and felt a stab of guilt. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was responsible for this, for the whole crazy mess. Maybe if he’d sold the goddamn building…but he broke off.
He didn’t know anything for sure. He would find out, of course, once he got them somewhere safe. But the worst thing he didn’t know was how he was going to get them off of this goddamn platform before Leon showed up again. That was what he had to worry about. And keeping Janice calm while he figured it out.
Sure. Be brave and calm and hope the sky doesn’t fall. He stood. He would go to his wife and reassure her. That was something he
could
accomplish.
And then, the door shattered open, flying inward on its hinges, and what had been bad became even worse.
“Well, lookee here,” Leon Straight said, as the door rocketed off the inside wall.
The vibration sent a barometer framed in a tiny ship’s wheel crashing to the floor. Its glass face flew off and rolled across the kitchen tile to Janice’s feet.
“Havin’ a party and nobody invite Leon.” He stood in the open doorway, framed by an improbable gray light. He was holding something in his hand, something pointed at Deal.
The waves were still thunderous against the pilings beneath them, the whole structure groaning with the ocean’s force. One monster wave, that’s all it would take, Deal thought. The picture of the ruined pilings he’d swum past was clear in his mind. But the rain had stopped, the clouds thinned to reveal an eerily bright sky above.
Leon had to cock his broad shoulders to move through the doorway. He kicked the door shut behind him, but a hinge had given. The door banged off the frame and shuddered open again.
It was some kind of high-tech pistol in his hand, gray metal—maybe even plastic. It had strange, squared-off lines, something that must have been its magazine dangling in front of the trigger guard. A designer pistol, Deal thought. Jazz up death, bring it into the 1990s.
Deal stared at the muzzle, remembering the last time it had happened, out there on the Dolphin Expressway, the pinwheeling Hog, the tinny voices of the Haitian roofers, the big Yahweh staring down at him: “There’s a white man, his number’s come up.” Deal had been scared that day, thinking it was just some macho crazy he’d pissed off. He felt some of the same fear now, but it was tempered with his rage.
“Don’t get any ideas,” Leon said, waving the pistol. Droplets of water glistened on his cheeks, dripped from his chin.
“This here’s gas powered, computer
con
-trolled. Guy up in Hialeah makes ’em, used to work for the airlines.” He wiped his face on his sleeve. “Waterproof, x-ray proof, fit in your briefcase and leave room for your laptop word processor. Also blow you a dozen new assholes ’fore you take a step.” Leon grinned. “I hate to use a gun, though.”
“What did you use on Cal, Leon?”
Leon laughed. “You beat his head in with your very own Volkswagen tire iron, white folks. Went crazy and did it.”
As he spoke, his eyes swept the room, took in the unconscious Barbara, widened with an unspoken question for Janice.
Janice looked away. She was pale, holding on to the kitchen counter with one hand, the front of her sweatshirt clutched in the other.
“Are you okay?” Deal asked her. She managed a nod.
“She’s fine. I been taking real good care of her.” Leon swept his gaze about the room. “But
you
…” He broke off, glancing down at his bad knee. “Man try to do right by you, you go and fuck things up. Mmmmm-hmmmm…”
Leon turned to Janice, waving at Deal with his weapon. “This here is a dangerous killer. Do in his onliest friend, then bludgeon Mr. Penfield with his own autograph baseball bat. Good thing I came back.”
Janice shook her head. “My husband didn’t kill anyone. What are you doing here, Leon? You have what you came for.”
He made a show of surprise. “Why sweet cheeks, I’m racing the storm on home. Then I see this explosion, I think, somebody having a weenie roast out at the ranch. I might as well go on back and warm up by the fire, try this boat shit later on.”
He turned back to Deal. “This is sure a piece of luck. Everybody trying to find you. The police. Mr. Alcazar. Even old Leon, just dying to get you and me together.”
“Why do we want to get together, Leon?”
Leon chuckled. “Cause Leon outfoxed the fox, that’s why. I’m sitting in the hen house, holding what Alcazar wants. Mmmm-hmmm.”
Deal glanced at Janice’s ashen face. He sensed the same madness in Leon’s voice. Time. They needed time.
“Alcazar wants my land, right, Leon? That’s what this is all about.”
Leon laughed. “Used to be your land. Your old lady sold it to
me
.”
“He made me sign some papers, Deal.” She winced, as if something were hurting her inside. “He threatened to hurt the baby…”
“It’s all right, Janice. It doesn’t matter.” Deal stared at Leon, rage welling up in him. But he had to be calm. Had to think. Just keep him talking. As long as we’re alive, there’s a chance.
“It’s baseball, isn’t it, Leon? That’s what it’s all about.”
Leon gave him a wary look.
“But where does Alcazar come in? If anyone found out he had money in the team, the commissioner would yank the franchise out of here in a second.”
“Sure they would, white folks.” Leon shook his head as if Deal were feeble-minded. “But Alcazar don’t care about baseball. He cares about
money
. He wants to sell all this land he bought up so they can build their stadium in the downtown. He owns all of that piece of shit land they need down there.” Leon laughed. “Except your piece of shit.
“You had the last piece of property standing between him and a twenty-million-dollar deal, Mr.
Deal
.” Leon tapped something in his coat pocket. “Which belongs to me, now,” he shrugged.
Deal stared, the last pieces coming together. So that’s where Penfield came in, setting up all the transactions, keeping Alcazar’s name out of it, a big pot of money for them both when the American pastime came to town.
“Let me guess, Leon. In the middle of all this, Alcazar got a bright idea, how he could get me out of the way and keep everything for himself.”
“More or less,” Leon shrugged. “First, you show up on old Cal’s doorstep, scare him to death about how you flip out and destroy all Mr. Alcazar’s automobiles, then when Cal try to reason with you—‘turn yourself in, son’—you go and kill him. Next thing, you go and do your beloved attorney Penfield cause he dropped your case.”
Deal nodded. “And I’ll bet any minute now, I’m going to commit suicide, tie everything up neat as a Shakespeare play.”
Leon snorted. “Play for who?”
Deal turned to Janice, who stared back at him grimly. It had taken a while, but he could excuse himself for being slow, under the circumstances. It wasn’t exactly like reading building plans. “Leon’s just trying to cut himself in.”
She shook her head, uncertain.
“They’d have killed me already, but Alcazar got a better idea. He decided to get Penfield out of the way so he wouldn’t have to share any of the profits on the land deal. He might have been satisfied with half the pot if I’d gone ahead and sold out earlier.
“But once I flipped out, kamikazied his dealership, I gave him the chance. They killed Cal, who might have corroborated my story, then they killed Penfield and made it look like I did it all.” Deal kept his eyes on Janice. “How am I doing, Leon?”
“Not bad, white folks.”
“It didn’t matter who found me first. If it had been the cops, they’d have had their murderer, a psycho deranged by grief, his fingerprints all over everything. Maybe some of Alcazar’s pals in the department would see that I hang myself in a cell. If it’s Leon, he’d make it look like I killed myself, too. Either way, everything’s taken care of. With me out of the way, you
could
sell the company—and everything goes with it.”
Janice turned to Leon in disbelief. Leon shrugged. “Just as well I come on back here, sweet cheeks. Way it is these days, your old man might have got himself a lawyer, ended up in prison.” The big man shook his head sorrowfully. “I
been
in prison. Scrawny guy like him, he’d end up with no teeth and an asshole you could roll a piano through.”
Janice turned away, her face ashen. Leon continued. “Hey, don’t feel bad. Just like your old man says, somebody or another would have taken him out. Only thing is, I get my cut this way.” He smiled. “I been
learning
the real estate business.”
“What happens now, Leon?” Deal had his eyes on the pistol, wondering if he might make a leap for it. They were about out of things to talk about.
Leon glanced at him. “Why, we going to conclude our dealings, Mr. Deal.” He grinned and tapped the phone at his belt. “Mr. Alcazar on his way to his house from the airport by helio-copter, this very moment. Wants to meet me, he’s so anxious to see what I got to sell him. Now that I got you to show him, man can come right out here, see it’s true he’s got no choice but to negotiate with me.”
Barbara moaned softly and Deal glanced down at her, then back at Leon. “This woman needs a doctor, Leon.”
Leon stared down at her for a moment, thinking about it. “No,” he said finally. “She don’t.”
Leon held the pistol on Deal, his gaze unwavering, and unsnapped the pouch at his side. He withdrew a tiny black phone with a stubby antenna. He took it and punched a couple of buttons.
“You blow up your own boat, white folks?” Leon had the phone tucked under his chin, waiting for his connection. “I saw part of it floatin’ around out there.” He shook his head. “You can’t drive worth a shit.”
Deal edged forward but Leon raised the pistol toward his chest. “Careful, now.”
Deal stopped. Leon heard something in the phone and pulled it away from his ear with a sigh. “Some bitch givin’ me the time and the temperature, you believe that?”
He dialed again, jammed the phone back under his chin. Barbara moaned once more, stirring slightly on the couch.
“Yo, Alejandro,” Leon was saying into the phone. “You on the way or no?”
Deal felt a growing dread.
Leon was still talking into the phone. “Yeah, it’s okay. Tell Alcazar we’re at the Stiltsville place. Her old man showed up. That’s right. He’s right in front of me.” He paused, his eyes going from Janice to Deal, back again. “Sure,” he said finally, “everything’s just fine.”
Deal was shaking his head, his stare vacant. Lost. Everything lost.
A distant hum of engines cut the silence of the room. Leon cocked his head at the sky.
“Yeah, man going to give us a ride home,” Leon said to Janice. Her eyes, filled with tears now, had not left Deal’s.
“
Some
of us getting a ride,” Leon was saying. He tossed the phone onto the couch at Barbara’s feet and turned to level the pistol at Janice. “Most of us won’t be needing no ride…”
“That’s the last part of it, Janice,” Deal said. “You’re already dead, I’m about to be. You were swept out to sea. I killed myself in grief.”
Leon glanced at him, chuckling, then flicked something on the stock of the pistol. Deal started forward.
Leon turned to meet Deal’s charge, a weary expression on his face,
more hero shit to deal with
. He raised the pistol, was about to fire, when Janice reached behind her, flung the pot of boiling tea into his face.
Leon screamed, clawing at his eyes. Steam curled out between his fingers.
Deal hit the big man hard, driving him back against the door frame. Leon was blindly trying to level the pistol, but Deal grabbed his arm, slamming his wrist against one of the sidelights. The glass panel exploded in a shower of fragments.
“Gonna fuck you up, white folks,” Leon wheezed. “Gonna fuck you up bad.” A strip of skin had bubbled up from his cheek. As Deal watched, it slid away, leaving a bright pink scar from the corner of his mouth to his ear, a permanent, terrible grin.
Deal gripped Leon’s arm, levering himself against the big man’s bulk. All those years pounding nails, lugging concrete blocks, unloading eighty-pound bags of Sakrete by the dozen. Priding himself that there wasn’t one man in ten who kept himself as well. And what did it matter, because now he was up against the one guy in a hundred, or a thousand, more like it.
Any second now, he was going to lose his grip, go over backward…and then he felt a sudden lurch.
Leon was staggering forward, in from the doorway, his eyes wide, the skin about them blistered and still steaming, his gaze unfocused. And Janice was screaming. And screaming.
Leon pitched on forward, as if the floor were erupting beneath his feet. “Uhhhha…” the big man mumbled, a pink froth at his lips. He tottered sideways, fighting to keep his balance. There was a brief
brrrrrppp
as his finger tightened on the pistol waving in his hand. Janice sagged into one of the dinette chairs, both hands wrapped tightly about her stomach.
Deal gaped at the scene before him. Something had burst from Leon’s chest, something covered red and dripping, something with the long curved jaw of a gar or an eel, a creature from a horror film that had ripped out with a life of its own.
“Whuuuuaaa…” Leon groaned again, taking little mincing steps now, his eyes glazing. There was a terrible sucking sound coming from inside his chest.
Deal ducked as the big man swung wildly at him. Leon careened on past, against the far wall of the living room. The shaft of
Miss Daisy
’s fishing gaff trailed behind him, one end buried in his back, centered in a widening stain of blood.
And clinging to the gaff was Homer, drawn and exhausted, seawater still dripping from his sodden life vest, his face battered and bleeding. He held desperately on to the bucking end of the spear as if he were riding some monster hobby horse.
“His gun,” Homer croaked. “Get his fucking gun.” He clung to the shaft of the spear, clawing at his belt where he’d stuck the flare pistol.
Leon swung wildly behind him, clubbing Homer’s face with the strange pistol. Homer tumbled loose from the spear and crashed into the legs of the dinette. The kerosene lantern went over with a sound of breaking glass.
Leon wavered in the middle of the living room floor, his eyes struggling to focus on this steel flower that had sprung up from his chest. He touched the dripping metal carefully, then held his fingertips in front of his face, studying his own blood with an infant’s fascination.
Deal scrambled on his hands and knees toward the flare pistol, waiting for the searing pain that would rip into him any moment, bullets from a goddamn gun that didn’t even
sound
like a gun. Or maybe Leon would jerk the spear out of himself like John Wayne would shrug off a redskin’s arrow, impale Deal on it. Or…
…he got his hands on the flare pistol, made sure there was one of the giant shells in the chamber and rolled over onto his back, the weapon upraised. But Leon had disappeared. The hum of engines outside had become a roar. Helicopter blades popping, Deal realized. Practically on top of them, now.