Deal with the Dead (15 page)

“There’s little chance of that,” Sams said mildly. “Your father managed his role for quite some time without ever being compromised. We’ll have an eye on things, rest assured.”

“So you say,” Deal countered. “I’m just supposed to waltz into an office somewhere, tell them I’d like a look at this Rhodes’ cooked set of books?”

“Hardly,” Sams said. “You’re going to ingratiate yourself, become a fellow traveler.”

“How’s that going to happen?” Deal protested. “I’m the token local builder here. My little building doesn’t amount to much in the larger scheme of things.”

“The dollars aren’t the point,” Sams said. The connection had cleared considerably. It sounded as if the man might be in the next room. “You’re tied in locally. You’re a valuable resource for an outfit like Aramcor. You know how things get done down here.”

Deal thought he heard something in Sams’ voice and felt the anger building inside him again. “You put the word out about DealCo, didn’t you?”

Sams sighed. “The word’s always been out, John.”

“You sonofabitch.”

“Criminals gravitate toward criminals, John. It’s the way of the world.”

“I’ve spent the last six years of my life trying to build my company into something decent, now you want to turn it to shit?”

“Let’s not be melodramatic. It’s not like we’ve taken out an ad in the papers.”

“You don’t have to, goddammit—”

“Goodness is as goodness does, John. Let’s keep our eyes on the goal, shall we?”

“Fuck you, Sams,” Deal said, and slammed the phone back into its cradle.

Chapter Sixteen

Deal rose from his
desk, every nerve ending on fire. He glanced around the office, looking for something to take his anger out on. He caught sight of the battered file cabinet, its top drawer still yawning. He strode forward, about to send his fist into its side, then caught himself at the last second and slammed his forearm against it instead. The flimsy metal caved inward with a groan and the open drawer, already leaning precariously, tumbled out of its frame. Deal had to jump backward to keep his foot from being smashed. The corner of the heavy drawer dug into the floor, gouging out a chunk of vinyl tile and dumping file folders everywhere.

Deal stood surveying the mess, rubbing his forearm absently. The side of the cabinet looked as if a cannonball had caromed off it. He could have easily broken his hand, he thought, shaking his head.

He bent down and began to gather the tumbled folders together when the door of the office swung inward. “Everything all right?” It was Russell Straight standing in the doorway, staring down at him.

“Everything’s fine,” Deal said, still feeling contrite. He waved his hand at the file cabinet. “I just pulled the drawer out too far.”

Straight’s eyes traveled to the battered file. “Uh-huh,” he said, not sounding convinced.

“Let me pick this stuff up, then we’ll go.”

“Need some help?” Straight offered.

“I’ll be right there,” Deal said, his voice rising.

“Just asking,” Straight said. He backed out onto the porch with his palm held up and closed the door behind him.

Deal righted the fallen drawer, then stood to try to slide the thing back into the cabinet, but it was hopeless. He sighed, dropped the drawer down on the floor again, and began dumping files haphazardly back on the hangers. With the new contract, he would need a secretary once again anyway. Let her put things back in order.

He had managed to replace about half of the strewn folders, was trying to wrestle another batch into place, when he realized there was something wrong with the file on the bottom of the stack, as if a bunch of papers had gotten wadded up in it during the fall. He set the other folders aside and checked inside the last, seeing nothing but a single slip of paper, a pink copy of an invoice from a California supplier of wire molding: one neat, flat sheet.

The folder itself was thick in his hand, however, and far too heavy for what was in it. Puzzled, he turned the thing over in his hands, realizing then that there was a second piece of manila glued to the back of the original folder. Maybe something inside there, he thought, something hidden inside? He stood and took the folder back to his desk, switched on the gooseneck lamp, and held the folder up for a closer look. Sure enough, a seam was visible, little specks of dried glue bulging here and there where the two pieces had been pressed together.

He withdrew the Swiss Army knife he always carried, flipped open the smaller blade, and worked the edge between the two pieces of heavy paper, then carefully sawed one side of the packet open. He turned the folder on its end and shook it gently, watching as a folded packet of heavy, gray-flecked stationery and a key dropped onto the desk top. His glance traveled to the key: flat, the size of a house key, with a rounded top and two square teeth.
No house key,
he thought.
Maybe for a safety deposit box.
He picked up the packet of papers then, and unfolded them.

The top sheet, stiff as sail canvas, was a piece of Barton Deal’s letterhead bearing the address of the family home on South Bayside Avenue. Nothing typed, but there was a yellowed clipping of an article from the defunct
Miami News
taped to its face: “Mob Boss Sentenced.” It was dated December 4, 1960, and carried the byline of Howard Kleinman, a reporter who still posted an occasional column on Miami history in the
Herald.
Deal scanned the piece quickly, but found nothing there of note: Anthony “Ducks” Gargano convicted on multiple counts of embezzlement, bank fraud, and tax evasion. A hefty prison sentence from Carlton Cope, legendary ball-busting judge for the Miami district. No mention of Deal’s father, of course. Nor of anyone named Talbot Sams.

Between the first and second sheets was a faded photograph of Deal’s father and mother on a dock somewhere in the Caribbean, along with a tall, distinguished man in boater’s whites whom Deal did not recognize. Deal’s father’s Bayliner, the
Miss Miami Priss,
was tethered to a piling in the background. The view was toward the shoreline, where a broad lawn sloped upward toward an imposing Bahamian-styled mansion.

His mother wore a loose-fitting one-piece bathing suit and was turned in profile to show off her obviously pregnant belly. Deal’s father—his barrel chest bare and bronzed, his arm draped over his mother’s shoulders—seemed the very image of a contented man. Deal had seen any number of such snapshots before, for his parents had loved cruising the islands, especially before he was born.

As for his parents’ Gatsbyesque host, Barton Deal had a way of befriending total strangers inside of half an hour at any hotel bar in the world. This man was undoubtedly another of the pack. He turned the photo over and saw his mother’s handwriting: “Quicksilver Cay, October 12, 1952,” went the legend, in flowing script. Beneath it he saw that his father had added something in darker ink: “The bastards got lucky.” Deal shook his head, puzzled. Who were the “bastards,” and what good fortune had they enjoyed? He shook his head at the nonsensical quality of the scrawl—who could ever hope to understand the jumbled thoughts going through his father’s mind? He glanced again at the snapshot, then set it aside and turned to the rest.

The second sheet carried a clip from the
Herald
—no dateline included, but Deal didn’t need one. This clip, though equally yellowed, had come from the 1970s, the year of Deal’s graduation from high school. “All Prep Football,” the caption read. A smudged photo of long-haired and afro’ed high school boys in team jerseys and street pants, Deal among them, the only representative from a Miami Central team only so-so that year. He’d played both ways: tight end on offense, linebacker on defense, had made the all-star team (and earned a scholarship to Tallahassee) as the latter, more a result of tenacity than talent. His father had circled Deal’s visage, his nose still taped from one of an endless series of smashings. He had added his own inscription in what looked like the same ink he’d used on the back of the photograph: “My son,” he’d written. As if anybody needed to know, Deal thought.

Deal felt his throat constrict, realized his balance was wavering. He sat down in his office chair, forcing himself to take deep breaths until he felt steady again. He had another glance at the clippings, then set them aside, turning his attention back to the key. He picked it up, turned it over, found a three-digit number chiseled into the opposite face, but no other identifying markings.

His father had banked at a downtown branch of Coral Gables Federal; after his mother’s death, Deal had cleared out what little was left in boxes belonging to both his parents. It was possible this was simply a duplicate key—he certainly couldn’t remember the numbers of the boxes he’d opened. And while Gables Federal had long ago been gobbled up by one of the out-of-state behemoths, the branch office was still in place and conducting business. If it was a box key, the matter should be easy enough to check out, he thought, rubbing the smooth metal between his thumb and forefinger as if it were some kind of talisman.

Some secret treasure trove,
he thought. A key, one photo, and two news clippings: his father’s hidden legacy.

He folded the clippings back into the packet, then stuck the papers into the pocket of his shirt. Deal glanced at the key again, hefted it in his hand. After a moment, he leaned back in his office chair and stared up at the creaking ceiling of the portable building, wondering just what he had done to earn this present place in the cosmos: His wife gone away from him to live, treading the narrow path between normalcy and god-knows-what each day, his earnest-to-a-fault daughter torn by confusion, a killer’s brother come to town intending to end his life, a shadowy CIA type apparently bent on blackmailing him, and now his suicide father sending messages from the grave.

What to do about it all? he wondered, and could hear his father’s voice in answer: “You’ve got your health, boy. Soldier on.”

Sure,
Deal thought. What other alternative was there? He took another deep breath then, stood, and went toward the door to do just that.

Chapter Seventeen

“Too bad we didn’t bring a fishing pole,” Frank Wheatley called to his brother. He braced one hand on the console of the roaring Cigarette, the other locked on a windshield brace. His hair flew straight back in the slipstream like it had been frozen into place.

Basil, who was at the wheel of the big boat, gave him a withering look. “Yeah, you could be trolling for something at forty knots.”

Frank shrugged. “Sailfish can do that. They can hit fifty or sixty in short bursts.”

Basil looked at him again. “Sailfish? How would you know?”

“It was on TV this morning,” Frank said. “The Caribbean Sports Channel.”

Basil turned back to the undifferentiated waterscape in front of him. Seas three to four feet, a slight tailwind, nothing but clear skies ahead. “You see any sailfish out there, Einstein?”

“Not right now,” Frank said. “That’s why we need bait.”

Basil didn’t bother to respond. Any kind of answer would only encourage his brother. As far as he knew, Frank had been fishing exactly once—if “fishing” was the right term. The two of them had gone out to Dishman’s Lake one afternoon, in search of a hundred-pound catfish said to lurk in the murky depths of the long-abandoned quarry waters. They’d climbed to the top of one of the surrounding cliffs, and Frank had lobbed a chunk of concrete block, with a burning stick of dynamite attached, down into the deep waters. The concussion had sent about a thousand goggle-eyed perch, carp, and suckers floating to the surface, along with a few catfish, but nothing remotely close to the hundred-pound range. Basil had thought the incident proved the story about the catfish was bullcrap. Frank had argued that they simply needed to come back with more dynamite.

“Wouldn’t you like to have one of these babies back on Ramapo?”

Basil glanced at Frank out of the corner of his eye. “Are you talking about this boat?”

“I’m not talking about sailfish,” Frank said.

Basil snorted. “George Washington could throw a dollar across Lake Ramapo. You couldn’t get this thing out of idle before you’d have to turn it right around.”

“Yeah,” Frank said. “But women like a fast boat.”

“What if they do?” Basil asked.

“It doesn’t have to
go
fast, it just has to
look
fast. Something like this, you’d just park it at the dock, sit back, and wait for ’em to flock on board.”

“There’s a plan, all right.” Basil’s voice was getting sore from all the shouting. He wondered why nothing ever seemed to stop his brother.

“The guy back at the dock on Paradise told me they had twin ’Vette engines in this thing.”

“Is that right?” Basil said.

“You imagine how fast a Corvette could go if it had two engines in it?”

“Pretty fast,” Basil said.

There was silence for a few moments. Basil knew that his brother was staring at him, but he was not going to give him so much as a glance in return.

“How come you’re trying to be agreeable?” Frank asked.

Basil glanced up at the sky, so blue it hurt to look at it. “Because it’s a nice day,” he said. “Perfect day for a boat ride.”

“A
long
boat ride,” Frank said. “I don’t see why we couldn’t just fly where we’re going.”

“You know why,” Basil said.

“We could have used different names. It’s not like we haven’t done that before.”

Basil finally turned on him. “Are you getting tired of this line of work, little brother?”

“I’m just saying—”

“Because if you are, the old man’s still holding a place for you back at the scrap yard in Jersey.”

Frank gave him a petulant look. “You know what I’m saying.”

“And you know what
I’m
saying. The minute you start trying to cut corners, try to make it easier on yourself, that’s when everything goes to shit. The boss has a plan, we have to follow the plan.”

“I was just thinking—”

“Thinking?” Basil said.
“Thinking?”

“Oh, forget it,” Frank said. “If that’s the way you’re going to be.”

“Somebody’s got to keep a hand on the controls.”

“That’s what we count on you for,” Frank said.

“See, the way you look at it, we’re going to waltz up there to Miami, everything’s going to go just the way we want it to, we’ll get in, see who we have to see, do what we have to do, in and out—no muss, no fuss.”

“Why shouldn’t I?” Frank said defensively. “That’s the way the Zen do it.”

“The Zen?”

“They’re a kind of monk,” Frank said. “They want to shoot an arrow, they think about it hitting the bull’s-eye before they pull the string. They want to hit a tennis ball to a particular spot, they see a picture in their minds before they even swing. The point is, you want something to happen a certain way, then that’s the way you picture it beforehand.”

“This is something else you saw on TV? Monks playing tennis?”

“Guys who’d studied with the monks. A couple weeks ago. One of those British channels.”

Basil stared at his brother. “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,” he said finally.

“You’re just jealous,” Frank said, “because I keep an open mind. I’m willing to grow. You, on the other hand, you think you already know everything. That makes you an old man, Basil. Old before your time.”

Basil nodded. He thought about just reaching out, giving Frank a three-inch punch to the breastbone, send him right over the rail, let him swim with the sailfish. But exasperating as he could be, Frank
was
his baby brother. He might have been blessed with the body and the looks of a movie hunk, but somebody had wrapped up the package before all the parts had been installed. Hardly Frank’s fault.

“You’re right, little brother,” he said. “You are the creative side of this team.”

Frank stared back at him, suspicious, but Basil knew the flattery had already begun to do its work. “But these Zen you were talking about,” he continued, “they’re Chinamen of a sort, aren’t they?”

Frank nodded. “I think so.”

“Well, that’s something else about Miami.”

“What is?”

“There’s no Chinese there,” Basil said. “Lots of just about everything else, but very few Chinese.”

“So?”

“So, you go into a new place, you want to be tuned into the operative vibrations, if you know what I mean. You seen what happens when one of those karate guys puts a bunch of moves on Clint Eastwood, right?”

“He pulls out his Colt and shoots them in the nuts.”

“Bingo, little brother,” Basil said. “So we want to end up like Clint, not like the guy with the hole in his balls.”

“So over the side with the Zen,” Frank said. “That’s what you’re trying to tell me.”

“All I’m saying is, stick with the plan.”

“Get in and get out quick, but be ready, just in case.”

“That’s it,” Basil said.

“No going through customs, coming in or going out.”

“Carry whatever you damn well please along with you.”

“Like guns and stuff.”

Basil smiled. “And stuff.”

“Makes sense, I guess.”

“We’re on the same page now,” Basil said, pointing at the horizon where tiny nubbins that were really seaside skyscrapers had come into view. “Miami, here we come,” he said. From out of the corner of his eye, he saw his little brother draw back the string of an imaginary bow and let an arrow fly.