Deal with the Dead (8 page)

Deal shook his head. He was wondering how many times Padilla had been cuffed on the shoulder while hosting occasions of state in Cuba. Maybe Ernest Hemingway would have gotten away with it, he thought. He couldn’t imagine anyone else.

“President Padilla told me that he represented an important client, that’s all.”

“Makes sense. Ugo is the soul of discretion.” Sweeping his arm around their surroundings, Gargano continued, “So what do you think?”

That question again. “I thought I was going to meet some people, talk about an office building.”

Gargano nodded. “Yeah, well, we got an office building or two in the pipeline, too. Right now this is what’s on my mind. I want to build a hotel, right on this very spot. Place is perfect for it. Makes me sleepy just standing here.”

Deal glanced up the beach. “Right next to the Hilton?”

“Right the fuck next to it,” Gargano said. “Competition is good for business, don’t you think?”

“I’ve heard it said,” Deal told him.

“Thing is, we had intended to purchase the site north of here,” Gargano continued, “but Mr. Hilton got wind of it somehow and managed to ace us out.”

“The broker handling the acquisition,” Padilla interjected, shaking his head. “People get greedy.”

“Don’t ask what else he got,” Gargano said, giving Deal a meaningful look. “Anyway, I went to Mr. Hilton himself, explained how this project was a union undertaking, we’re seeking to invest the pension contributions of thousands of little people all over the country. All they want is just to retire one day without going in the hole, et cetera.…You know what he told me?”

“I can guess.”

“So many words, he said go shit in your hat.”

Deal thought he heard honest disbelief in Gargano’s voice. “So that’s when you bought up this tract?”

Gargano nodded. “With Ugo’s help. And we’ve already got a set of drawings.” He nodded at one of the thugs, who went back to the limo, ducked inside, returned with a rolled-up sheet of blueprints.

“We managed to get a look at the plans for the Hilton,” Gargano said. He smiled at Deal, tapping the fat roll against his palm as if he were holding a bat. “I had the architects work it out, angle of the sun, certain months of the year, all that.” He smiled. “Where we’re going to put our main tower, the shadow’s gonna fall in that direction, cover up Mr. Hilton’s entire swimming pool for about 95 percent of the tourist season.”

“Like a permanent eclipse of the sun,” Deal said.

Gargano stared at him for a minute, then his face lit up. “I like that,” he said, beginning to laugh. “I like that a lot.”

“So why me?”

Gargano’s laugh had segued into a rasping cough, and he held up a hand to Deal until he could get his breath. “What kind of question is that?”

“Why bring this to me?” Deal persisted.

Gargano glanced at Padilla. “Because you’re the best around,” he said. “Ugo says so. He vouches for you one hundred per.”

Padilla gave Deal a thin smile and nodded.

“I’ve never built a hotel,” Deal said.

“So what?” Gargano said. “A hammer is a hammer, a nail’s a nail. You saying you’re not interested?”

Padilla was shifting from foot to foot, looking more nervous by the second, Barton Deal thought. “Of course I’m interested,” he said. “As soon as you’ve got working plans, I’ll go over them, work up a bid—”

“We don’t have to bother with all that,” Gargano said. “Ugo says you’re right, then you’re right. Whatever it comes out to, that’s fine.”

“You’d award a job this size without a bid?”

“Some jerkoff comes to me, pulls a figure out of the air, what’s that supposed to mean?” Gargano waved his hand. “I do business on the basis of trust.” He gave Padilla, who had stopped jittering about for the moment, a knowing smile. Then he turned back. “So tell me, Mr. Deal, can I trust you?”

“You can trust me,” Deal said, “but what’s the catch?”

“The catch?” Gargano lifted his brows and Padilla resumed his antsy two-step. After a moment Gargano shrugged. “The catch is, you agree to build a hotel the way it says here in the plans. You tell me how much it’s gonna cost, what you want to make for your trouble, then you go to work. Hammer and nails, that’s all you have to worry about from that point forward.”

“Who keeps the books?” Deal asked.

“Now that’s an item we take care of,” Gargano said. “Frees you up to concentrate on what you do best.”

“That’s not exactly how I’m used to doing it,” Deal said.

“People change,” Gargano said.

“Do they?”

“I’ve seen it happen. Put a large sum of money in a person’s hand, whole new emotions are born.”

Deal had to laugh. “Say down the line, someone, a union trustee maybe, finds there’s a problem with the books. Who would be liable?”

Gargano shook his head. “You are looking at the union trustee, my friend. The trustee, the trustor, and everybody in between. So there isn’t going to be any problem down the line. The buck stops with me.”

Deal nodded, but it didn’t mean he was convinced. He had a flash of those long columns of numbers he’d been adding up back at Wolfie’s, then glanced off to where the geezer had been casting. The old guy had his pole planted upright in the sand now, was sitting in a webbed lawn chair at the edge of the surf, staring out to sea. Sure, he could take this job, make those figures balance in a flash. But would he ever get the chance to finish his days like that old guy up there, farting around, watching the sun going down, trying to catch a fish? Maybe. Or maybe he’d just as easily end up swimming with them.

“It’s something I’d have to think about,” he said, turning back to Gargano.

Gargano glanced at his watch. “Sure,” he said. “Take your time. I don’t have to be at the airport for another half hour.”

Deal stared at him. “You mean you want an answer
now
?”

Gargano put a hand on his shoulder. Maybe it was meant to be a friendly gesture, but Deal didn’t feel anything tender in Gargano’s touch. “You’re a stand-up guy, Mr. Deal. I didn’t know that about you, we wouldn’t be here talking. But you don’t want this job, that’s all you have to say. Goodbye, good luck, and we’re done. I’ll find somebody else. I don’t have time to waste, that’s all.” He took his hand from Deal’s shoulder and stood back, his hands clasped, evidently waiting for his answer.

Deal turned to Padilla, who held up his hands as if to ward him off.
Thees ees up to you, my fren
’
.

Deal ran a hand through his hair. “I’m stretched pretty thin, right now. I’d have to hire a couple of people just to gear up…”

Gargano nodded at the second thug, who handed over a thin briefcase he’d been holding. Gargano hefted it, seemed satisfied, then extended the case to Deal. Deal stared at the case, uncertain.

“That’s two hundred grand,” Gargano said. “Form of a retainer. You can hire yourself a couple of guys, a couple of girls, whatever you like. Money is not going to be an issue here. All I care about is that we”—he paused and smiled again—“lay an
eclipse
on our friends over there. You make that happen, Mr. Deal, you and I will be friends for life.”

Deal couldn’t remember actually reaching for the briefcase, but he must have, for there was no mistaking its heft, its thick handle resting in his grip. Gargano and his entourage had already turned and were walking toward the limo.

He felt a moment of giddy panic—as if he were about to fall from a great height and could stop himself only by catching hold of a high-tension line. He glanced at Padilla, who stared back from behind his dark glasses like a Havana pimp. A voice in Barton Deal’s head told him to rid himself of that briefcase—throw himself in front of Gargano’s limousine, explain it was all a mistake. Another part of him was already gleefully adding and reading long columns of figures, every total accompanied by the satisfying
ka-chung
of a cash register.

Deal watched silently as the limo made its turn and began to purr through the dunes back toward Collins Avenue. He noticed that the sun was nearly gone and that the old geezer who’d been surf-fishing had packed it in. He had his webbed chair folded under his arm and was headed down the beach their way toting his tackle box and his poles.

“Why didn’t you tell me who we were going to meet?” Deal asked Padilla.

“Would it have made a difference?”

“You’re damned right it would have,” Deal said. He brandished the briefcase between them. “Nobody does business this way.” He stopped and glanced helplessly toward the dunes.

“It does not matter,” Padilla said. “You have acquired the job.”

“I haven’t acquired anything,” Deal protested. “No papers were signed. I give him his money back, the whole thing’s off, simple as that.”

“I do not think so,” Padilla said.

“Bullshit,” Deal said. The briefcase seemed to have grown much heavier, as if it were filled with concrete now. The breeze was whistling in off the water, and with the sun gone, it should have seemed cooler. But Deal felt feverish, felt a slick of sweat beneath his arms, on the back of his neck. He thrust the briefcase toward Padilla. “Take it back. Tell him it’s too much for me to handle. Gargano’s a businessman. He’ll understand.”

Padilla stared back at him. His mouth drooped as if he were sad, but with his eyes hidden behind the dark glasses, it was difficult to tell. “We have moved past that point now, my friend.”

“Take the fucking thing,” Barton Deal insisted.

“We have moved to a different plane, you and I,” Padilla said.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

The old geezer had made a turn away from the line of the surf and was moving their way now. Even in the dying light, Barton Deal could see that he’d been wrong about the guy. He wasn’t a geezer at all. All the trappings were there: floppy hat, white plastic nose protector, an untucked checkered shirt flapping over a mismatched pair of plaid Bermuda shorts. But the face was unlined, the eyes keen, the movements of the legs graceful and pistonlike as he came steadily up the slope of the beach toward them.

The man stopped a few feet away and nodded at Padilla, who returned the gesture. The man turned to Deal, removing the ridiculous nose beak and then the floppy hat. No, not a geezer at all. Burr-cut blond hair, pale brows, steely blue eyes, an athlete’s body hidden behind the loose-fitting clothes.

“Looks like you got a lot of money there,” the guy said, nodding at the briefcase in Deal’s hand.

Deal gaped at him. He felt like he’d been rabbit-punched. After a moment, he turned to Padilla, feeling his mouth moving before the words would form. “Who is this?” he finally managed.

“Don’t get your bowels in an uproar,” the man said. “Padilla didn’t have a choice in this.”

If Deal had felt unease moments ago, he had moved toward full-fledged dread now. His mind was racing, trying to make sense of it all. They meant to kill him, take the money, flee to the Caribbean in a fishing boat? But where were the weapons?

The man dropped his chair in the sand, plopped his tackle box on the seat, stabbed his fishing rod into the soft sand at the edge of the packed roadway. He gave Deal something of a smile, flipped the lid of the tackle box open, and gestured at what was inside.

“We’ve got it all on tape, Mr. Deal,” the man said. “A bit noisy with all the wind out here, but with the pictures and all, it’ll make a convincing package.”

“Pictures?” Deal was shaking his head. Instead of the innards of a tackle box, he was staring at what looked like a radio transmitter.

“There’s more wire on Ugo than a Wyoming fence,” the man said.

When Deal started toward Padilla, the blond man stepped forward. “I told you, he didn’t have a choice.”

Deal stared over the man’s shoulder at Padilla, whose mouth had not lost its downward pooch. He spread his palms in front of him in a gesture of helplessness.

“I knew who he’d been doing business with,” the blond man continued. “I made him a deal he couldn’t refuse.” He stopped and stared at Barton Deal for a moment. “Now it’s your turn, I’m afraid…no pun intended, of course.”

Chapter Six

Miami
The Present Day

John Deal stared hard at the man seated behind his desk. He wasn’t sure what expression was on his face, but he noted that Tasker had edged a bit closer to his chair.

“It was you, huh?”

Sams gave him a brief smile. “You’re a quick study, Johnny-boy.”

“You don’t get to call me that,” Deal said.

“Your father was fond of the phrase,” Sams said.

Deal glanced at Tasker, the tendons in his neck and arms gone taut as stretched cable. He’d go one-on-one with either one of these men without a thought, take them both on, if no weapons were involved. But with both of them packing, he didn’t stand a chance. He willed his hands to unclench from the rails of his chair and caught the hum of late homebound traffic out on Old Cutler when the breeze shifted.

“That’s quite a story,” Deal said. “Grifters usually have one.”

Sams grunted, giving Tasker a look. “That’s what you think I am, a grifter?”

Deal shrugged. “You tell me my old man was in bed with a mobster, you and some Cuban politician cut yourself in on the action. If it’s true, I’m guessing that you crawled in here wanting to arrange something of the same with me.”

“You’re close,” Sams said.

Deal studied the man’s face. If things had happened the way he’d said, Sams would have to be in his sixties. Possible, he supposed, but the man in front of him still looked a decade away from geezerhood. “So what is it?” Deal said. “They don’t have a retirement home for conmen? You want my help providing for the golden years?”

Sams gave his man Tasker a thin smile.

“I’m not a criminal, Mr. Deal.” He reached into the pocket of his suit coat, withdrew a leather case. The case fell open and Deal found himself staring at a silver shield, along with an ID card that bore Sams’ photograph.

Deal studied the ID. “Department of Justice?” He heard the skepticism in his voice.

“That’s correct.”

Deal glanced up at Tasker. Sams nodded. Tasker reached grudgingly into his pocket and produced his own shield. Deal glanced at it. “The picture makes you look almost human.”

Tasker curled his lip. “You’re lucky I’m on the clock, pal.”

Deal turned back to Sams. “Is this the way you normally conduct your business?”

Sams shrugged. “It’s a sensitive matter, Mr. Deal. It behooves us to be discreet.”

“Discreet?
I’m not sure that’s the term I’d use.”

“Write your congressman,” Tasker said.

“Shut up,” Sams said mildly. He turned back to Deal. “I’m here because I need your assistance.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Deal said.

“Haven’t you figured it out yet, Mr. Deal? Your father was of great help to our efforts. It took awhile, but Anthony Gargano ended up in federal prison for tax evasion as a result of our collaboration. The government was happy, your father was happy. He could have gone to prison. Instead, DealCo fulfilled its contract with the various International Brotherhoods that Gargano represented. Your father’s company not only built the Eden Parc, it grew and prospered far beyond that. Barton Deal redeemed himself, and he was handsomely rewarded for it. He continued to work hand in hand with this agency for many, many years, in fact.”

Deal stared back at the man, a terrible worm of doubt having crept into his mind. “You kept him on the string?”

Sams pursed his lips by way of reply.

“You had your hooks in my father all his life?”

Sams looked down at the desk, shaking his head as if he were a school-master dealing with a particularly recalcitrant student. “I’ve been trying to convince you that this is a matter of value for us both—”

Deal was out of his chair again without thinking. He was halfway across the desk when the heel of Tasker’s hand shot toward his chest.

The man had meant to drive him straight back into his chair, but Deal’s reach was even quicker. He caught Tasker’s arm at the wrist before the blow could land, his fingers digging into the soft flesh and tendons there. Deal was no bodybuilder, hadn’t been in the gym since his college days, but years of carrying steel, lifting partitions, driving nails with a twenty-ounce hammer, thousands of blows a day, thousands of days in a career as a hands-on contractor, had built a grip that the young guys at the fern-festooned Nautilus salons could only dream of.

Tasker groaned, his knees buckling. He sank to the floor, his face pale, and Deal would have backhanded him aside on his way around the desk if it hadn’t been for the pistol that Talbot Sams had produced.

“Let him go,” Sams said mildly. His expression made it clear that he would not be disobeyed.

Deal relaxed his grip, and Tasker pulled his hand away. He cradled it against his chest, still grimacing in pain as Sams waved the pistol at Deal.

“Sit down, Mr. Deal. We’re all too old and civilized for this.”

Deal hesitated, feeling the blood pulse at his temples. There was a roaring in his ears that made him want to block out Sams’ words. Take his chance against that pistol, get in underneath the man’s aim, take out a few decades’ worth of anger. But something told him that there would be no getting under Talbot Sams’ aim. He took a breath finally and sat back down.

“You’re telling me you blackmailed my father all his life…”

“That’s hardly the way to describe it,” Sams said.

“I’ll fucking bust your ass,” Tasker hissed, coming up off his knees at last, his fist drawn back.

“Shut up or I’ll put a bullet in you,” Sams said.

Tasker hesitated, then saw the look in Sams’ eyes. He backed off, still flexing the fingers in one hand.

“You fed him jobs, and in return, he was your snitch.”

“Your father provided a valuable service to his community,” Sams said. He made a motion with his free hand that indicated the world outside the flimsy building where they sat. “The fact is, there wouldn’t be a Miami as we know it if it weren’t for the business of money-laundering. Dirty money is the lifeblood of the economy, it always has been. Pirates lived here first, and then in the twenties and thirties came the binder boys selling worthless paper and underwater lots. In the fifties and sixties, it was the mob. In the seventies and eighties, it was the South American cartels. This is one of those special places where a tremendous amount of dirty money enters the system, Mr. Deal. It’s where the sharks come to feed…and it’s where I come to hunt.”

“You killed him,” Deal said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sams said.

“You killed my father,” Deal said. “You killed him as surely as if you put that pistol to his head and pulled the trigger.”

“Your father’s health was failing, his business a ruin—”

“Sick and tired is what he was. No wonder, all those years, playing ball with scumbags so you could pick off the easy targets.”

“I saved your father from prison,” Sams said.

“You set him up!” Deal said. “You turned him into a snitch…”

Deal shook his head, still trying to come to terms with the enormity of it. His father living with such a burden all those years. Could his mother have known? But if she had, wouldn’t she have told him before she followed her husband to the grave? There’d been none of that, however, no tender last words about his noble father. Instead, she had sighed, “We hoped for better, didn’t we, John,” and breathed her last.

“Give us five minutes,” Tasker was saying to Sams. “I get finished with him, he’ll tell you he’s sorry out the other side of his head.”

Sams stared at him dryly. “Give it a rest, Tasker. Someday you’ll thank me.” He turned back to Deal. “I think I’ve held you up long enough, Mr. Deal…it’s about time we concluded our business.”

“You’re here because you want to do the same thing to me that you did to my father?” Deal shook his head. “You can forget it. I was doing fine before you came along. Take your rigged bid and your office terminal and cram it up the Justice Department’s ass.”

Sams held up a hand as if to staunch Deal’s outrage. “Your father could hardly have shared the details of our arrangements for any number of reasons, not the least being your own protection,” Sams said. “He collected plenty from the clients we steered his way and no one ever asked for a penny of it back. I can tell you that your father was comfortable with our agreement. He came to enjoy it, in fact—taking the money of a criminal, then seeing him brought to justice in the end. Mobsters and the leaders of drug cartels are not men to whom the concept of betrayal applies, Mr. Deal. Murderers lose their rights to loyalty, it’s as simple as that.”

“If my father was proud of what he’d done, I would have heard about it,” Deal said. “Somehow, some way, he would have let me know.”

“He was very proud of you,” Sams said. “He wanted only the best for you. He was confident that you’d succeed.”

Deal shook his head, stunned at the man’s effrontery. “What made you think I’d listen to this? How could you possibly imagine that I’d work for you?”

“Because you’re the man I need,” Sams said.

“You’ve been too long in the harness,” Deal said.

Sams managed a patient smile. “Do you know who’s behind the international free trade project?”

Deal stared at him. “Swiss investment bankers. Oil sheiks.”

“It’s a convenient story,” Sams said, dismissing the notion.

“You’ve got all the answers,” Deal said. “You tell me.”

“The principal investor was a man named Ferol Babescu. He had a number of interests in the Middle East, including a significant trade in Egyptian cotton. He made the lion’s share of his fortune in hashish and opium, however.”

“Sounds like a DEA matter to me,” Deal said.

“They’ve been involved,” Sams said. “That’s how certain information came to me. Babescu died in August, murdered by a man who subsequently assumed a role in the development of the Miami Free Trade Zone.”

“And I’m supposed to care about this?”

Sams shrugged. “A few hours ago, you were delighted to learn you’d be profiting handsomely from your part in the project, Mr. Deal. Does it mean anything to you that the entire undertaking is the work of criminals?”

Deal paused, trying to remember that euphoria he’d allowed himself to flirt with when Eddie Barrios’ call had come. It seemed a lifetime ago. Now he was being told that the bid had been rigged, that the job was dirty. “I haven’t done anything wrong,” he said. “If what you say is true, then my part in this is history. Go find someone else to play games with.”

Sams lifted an eyebrow. “So
you
say, Mr. Deal.” He lifted a manila folder from the desk and showed it to Deal. “We’ve compiled a substantial body of evidence that suggests otherwise, including an affidavit signed by one Edwin Barrios—”

“Eddie Barrios?”

“—admitting his complicity in a kickback scheme involving the former director of the Port of Miami and two members of the county commission.” Sams dropped the folder on the desk between them. “Mr. Barrios names you as his co-conspirator.”

Deal stared back, his disbelief quickly being replaced with outrage. And some other feeling creeping in there as well. Something he recognized as helplessness. He saw there was a grin on Tasker’s face.

“This is total bullshit.”

“We have taped telephone conversations between you and Mr. Barrios, in which you offer certain inducements in return for his influence—”

“I never offered Eddie Barrios anything.”

Sams nodded to Tasker, who had produced a pocket recorder. Tasker pressed a button and Deal heard first Eddie’s voice—“
You know I can help, right
?”—then his own, “
Sure, Eddie, I appreciate it. We’ll talk.
”

“That’s out of context,” Deal said. “You’ve pieced things together—”

“Juries love to hear a tape,” Sams said. “They hear the voice of the accused, all the doubts just disappear.”

“Fuck you,” Deal said. “File charges. Play your tapes. We’ll see what goes down in the end.”

“Ah, the lone and noble warrior,” Sams said, lifting another file. “But in this case, the warrior is not so lonely.” Sams moistened a finger, flipped a page inside the folder. “He has a wife who requires a rather costly regimen of medical and psychiatric treatment. He has a young daughter enrolled in a private school where her own anxieties can be more closely monitored—”

“You sonofabitch,” Deal said. He’d meant to convey loathing but his voice sounded defeated, even to himself.

Sams laid the folder back on the desk. “It doesn’t have to be this way, John. We can work together.”

There was silence in the room for several moments. Deal stared at the pistol that Sams had placed on a corner of the desk, willing the weapon to reconstitute itself in his hand. He’d killed before, in defense of his own life and that of Janice. In many ways, this seemed to him a similar circumstance.

And yet he knew that even if he could manage the feat, it would lead nowhere. These were the “good guys” staring him down. The defenders of honor and decency. Upholders of the law.

“Who is this person?” Deal asked. “The one who killed Babescu. Why does he matter so much?”

Sams gave Tasker a look that betrayed satisfaction. The quarry weakening at last. Sams took a glossy photograph from the stack of papers on the desk and slid it toward Deal.

Deal picked it up, saw a close-up image of a tall man with slicked-back hair and an engaging smile stepping off a cabin cruiser onto a dock somewhere—it was a telephoto shot, which rendered the background vague, but the man’s tanned face seemed somehow familiar—maybe a minor film star, or a PBS talk-show host.

“He uses the name of Rhodes,” Sams said. “He claims to be a Canadian citizen and to have made a fortune in Great Lakes shipping.”

“But that’s not true?” Deal glanced up from the photograph.

“I don’t think so.” Sams seemed to be watching him closely, as if he were wondering if the name rang any bells.

Deal shrugged. “Then who is he?”

“Someone I want,” Sams said. “That’s all you need to know.”

Deal stared at him. “If you want this guy so badly, then why not go pick him up?”

Sams smiled. “It’s not as simple as that,” he said. “There are certain laws.”