by Mike Stewart
Another change of plans: I decided that getting the deputy away from Susan and Carli wasn’t the worst thing I could do. And since I didn’t have a hell of a lot of choice, I might as well find something good about being hauled off into the night by a Florida deputy with no jurisdiction, authority, or good reason.
Deputy Burns maintained a death grip on my arm as we hurried across the porch and down the front steps. When we reached the cruiser, he pulled open the back door, put his hand on the back of my head, and shoved me inside.
Peering out through the steel screen separating the back seat from the front, I could see the flash of moonlight on the deputy’s equipment belt as he sprinted around the front of the vehicle. He literally jumped inside. The motor roared, and I fell sideways as the grinding noise of tires spinning through loose gravel filled the air. I righted myself in time to see Susan’s twin ponds streaming by the side windows. The trees across the way were coming too fast, and the cruiser fishtailed through a small curve as it left the ponds behind. We spun and swerved over another quarter mile of dirt road. But the deputy never lost control, and he had made it out to the highway and covered another three miles toward town before the sweeping red lights of the ambulance met us. The deputy slowed, and a quarter mile later representatives of the Coopers Bend Sheriff’s Department appeared over a hill in a wash of swirling blue light. Unfortunately, they weren’t interested in us. They were speeding toward the charming country farmhouse where I had just discovered one corpse and deposited another.
We had been riding for a little more than an hour. I had been trying to think. I guessed my captor had been doing the same. I decided to try a little conversation.
“Where are we going?”
“Where do you think?”
“I mean, are we going straight to the Apalachicola Sheriff’s Office? Or are we going to the hospital, or what?”
He didn’t answer. I was beginning to feel ignored.
A minute or two passed. Deputy Mickey plucked his mike off the dash, looked at it like it was something he’d never seen before, and put it back. Then he reached over and punched the button on the glove box. The door fell open and a little bulb lighted a haphazard collection of maps and what looked like paperback field manuals. Burns shoved a freckled hand under the maps and stuff and came out with a thick mobile phone that had a coiled wire hanging from it like an oversized tail.
I said, “Who are we going to call?”
The deputy glanced back and forth from the road to the phone as he pulled the cigarette lighter from the dash and replaced it with the phone’s adapter.
I decided to try again. “You think I could use that thing to call a lawyer? It’ll make things go faster when we get there.”
Again, he didn’t answer, and it was becoming clear that we were not going to be friends.
Instead of engaging me in dialogue, the good deputy punched a long series of numbers into his phone and then pressed it against his ear. “This is Burns. I got him.” Silence. “No. No problem. We oughta be there in three hours or less.” Silence. “Yeah, okay.”
He punched a button and put the phone on the seat beside him.
I leaned up close to the metal screen separating me from the front seat. “What’s wrong with your radio?”
“Shut up, McInnes.”
“I was just wondering…”
“You want a drink of water, you can get one when we get there. You need to take a leak, you can piss your pants. You want to use the phone, well, you’re shit out of luck. Now. That’s all the conversation we’re gonna have. Any more questions and I’m gonna pull over on the side of the road and cuff your hands and feet together and stick a rag in your mouth. You got that?”
I said, “Got it,” and lay back against the seat. Might as well get comfortable.
Three hours later, when we cruised straight through the municipality of Apalachicola, Florida, without stopping, I got a lot less comfortable. After Deputy Mickey Burns turned north on 65 and hung a right into Tate’s Hell Swamp, I felt downright miserable.
Burns followed the same route Joey had taken the night before. We were going to Carpintero’s compound. I thought about the dead nephew of a Panamanian dictatorâthe corpse we had left in a smoldering wrecked carâand I thought about the pretty young wife who I hoped had gotten far away with her fat little kid.
I wondered how Deputy Mickey planned to get his patrol car across the submerged road that led through the swamp without either drowning out the engine or sliding off into the ooze the way Willie’s truck had. But, as we rounded a curve and approached the saw grass field, that question was answered with the headlights of half a dozen pickups and 4x4s.
We had a welcoming committee. And I didn’t feel a damned bit welcome.
Bumping across miles of field and marsh and swamp while lying in the bed of a truck tied to a metal cleat, nursing a broken wrist, and trying to avoid any contact with the black-and-blue imprint of a shovel on your back … Well, it sucks is what is does.
Deputy Mickey Burns had departed, leaving me in the care of eight guys with long hair, multiple tattoos, and expensive jewelry. And it quickly became obvious that the caravan of 4x4s was indeed headed for Carpintero’s compound.
With each new jolt of hot pain in my wrist, my breathing grew more erratic and another ounce of hope floated away and drowned itself in the slimy black water that surrounded us.
I tried to think. I couldn’t. I was too damn scared.
Even with jarring pain, even lashed to the cleat of some redneck criminal’s truck, being alive was better than what waited at the compound. So I felt no relief when the six-car caravan entered the compound and parked in perfect order beside two more off-road vehicles.
For some reason, I glanced at my watch. It was close to midnight, and the swamp was full of the sounds of crickets and frogs and night birds. I could hear the metallic clicks and thuds of truck doors being opened and closed. Someone opened the gate on the truck I was tied to and stepped into the bed. The back end sank under his weight, and the truck made creaking, complaining noises of metal against metal.
A knife clicked open. The ropes pulled against my wrists sending an electric jolt of pain shooting up to my shoulder, and I looked at the man standing over me. He wore cowboy boots like the ones Sonny Teeter’s corpse was wearing that night. The ropes popped loose under the pressure of his knife blade, and he jerked me to my feet. He wore a white, western-style shirt with pink stripes and starched blue jeans with sharp creases down the front. His bald head shone in the night above a curtain of shoulder-length hair that hung from his temples and the back of his head. He looked like a malnourished Benjamin Franklin.
I asked, “What do you want?”
Ben spun me by one shoulder and shoved me over the side of the truck. I managed to spin and get my feet under me but then misjudged the ground and landed on my shovel-imprinted back.
Bald Ben hand-sprinted over the side and landed next to me. Another man joined him. They snatched me up, and each man picked an elbow and clamped down. We headed into the large warehouse structure that I had searched earlier that same dayâalthough it seemed days now, maybe weeks, since I had watched Peety Boy shoot Willie Teeter and since I had disarmed Señora Carpintero and helped Captain Billy take his dead and dishonored grandson to the morgue.
Inside, overhead fixtures flooded the warehouse with yellow light. Shipping crates lined the walls. Ten feet up on a storage area that looked like a barn loft, brown cardboard boxes were stacked head high.
My escorts walked me to the middle of the wooden floor and left me.
My shattered hand shot hot jolts of electricity up my arm. My back throbbed, and the bright light stung my eyes. I looked around the warehouse. I was surrounded by cowboy boots and Air Jordans, printed Tshirts and tank tops, blue jeans and cutoffs, and, everywhere, tattooed arms and hands.
A man I recognized stepped forward. He was the on-duty deputy who had pointed his gun at Susan and me the n
ight Purcell’s killers had broken into Susan’s beach house.
“This is the man who killed Leroy Purcell.” He spoke like a senator addressing Congress, like a man giving a speech, except that his voice came out in a high-pitched, bluegrass twang.
I decided to speak up. “That’s not true.”
The orator was quicker than he looked, or maybe I was deeper in shock than I thought. He spun on his heels and popped me across the mouth with a backhand before I saw it coming. The blow scattered my thoughts for a few seconds and the deputy resumed his speech.
“This man’s name is Tom McInnes. Yesterday afternoon, he killed Tim and Elroy, Johnny and even little Skeeter out on Dog Island. He rented a boat at The Moorings, floated out there with this big white-haired asshole, and they killed all four of ‘em. Then he come back in and drove up to Seaside and killed Leroy.” The deputy swept his open hand around the room, motioning at the rogues’ gallery. “You heard about it. It ain’t no secret. This rich asshole lawyer from up at Mobile killed Leroy and then used a hammer to nail his ball sack to a table.”
The deputy was doing a good job, and, with the mention of Purcell, murmuring began to fill the warehouse. When he reminded them of the nails, the threats became audible and graphic.
“Mickey promised you he’d bring in Purcell’s killer. He done it. Mickey said he’d let all of us get a chance to question the bastard that done it. He done that too. Andâas much as Mickey Burns wanted to take this piece-of-shit bastard and nail his balls to a tableâhe promised to bring him here and give us the pleasure of fuckin’ him up any way we want before we bury him in the swamp. And Mickey done that too.”
It was pretty obvious that Deputy Mickey Burns was the ambitious young man Carlos Sanchez had mentioned who wanted to replace Leroy Purcell as the head Jethro. It was also obvious that Deputy Mickey had a hell of a campaign manager in his fellow deputy.
Now or never. “I did not kill Leroy Purcell. He was killed by a man named Carpintero. A man called ‘the Hammer.’” My voice sounded hollow.
The speaker spun and slung another backhand at my mouth, and I tasted blood.
The deputy said, “Who’s got theirself a question?”
The skinny Ben Franklin who had pushed me out of his truck bed spoke up. “Fuck that. Only question I got is who gets to kill him.”
My voice came again, almost without my knowing it would. “Listen! Listen to me, damnit!”
The skinny speaker stepped toward me and threw a fist this time. But I saw this one coming and slipped the punch. When his hand had swung around and he was off balance, I stepped forward and kicked him in the balls with every ounce of strength left in my body. A thick groan came from deep in his chest as his legs lifted off the ground and he fell facedown on the floor, squirming and puffing and making the same guttural sound over and over.
I heard running, and a strong hand grasped my arm. Half a second later, a fist slammed into my left kidney, and I fell to one knee.
Legs and fists swirled around me as more men rushed forward. I caught a flash of cowboy boot, jerked my head back, and felt the wind from a hard kick aimed at my mouth. A knee hit and pain exploded in my chest, and I went down in a hailstorm of pounding boots.
Automatic gunfire shattered the air inside the metal building.
“Stop!” An accented male voice boomed above the celebration.
There was a pause as murmuring filled the space above my head.
Again automatic gunfire crackled throughout the warehouse, and pieces of the boxes lining the walls spun and danced under the floodlights.
“Step away from Mr. McInnes.” The Bodines looked for the disembodied voice, but they didn’t move. The unseen man shouted, “Now!”
Jean-clad legs had just begun to back away when a pair of creased and starched jeans walked past and swung a cowboy boot into my stomach. A single, penetrating explosion echoed inside the warehouse, and skinny Ben Franklin fell backward and landed perpendicular to my prostrate body. A ragged, bloody hole poured blood from the place where his left eye had been.
I pushed my chest up off the floor just as another shot echoed inside the metal walls, and I glanced over to see a man in a tank top fall to his knees with a hole in his chest. He looked surprised; then he fell dead.
The voice came again, and I was sure I could hear echoes of an equatorial accent. “Mr. McInnes, you may leave.”
A quiet mumbling started again.
“Mr. McInnes! Get up and get out of here!”
I was on my feet and moving fast through the outside door. I ran out past the trucks and looked for whatever help was there. A soft, familiar voice came out of the darkness. “Over here, Señor McInnes.” And Carlos Sanchez stepped out of the night. At his side was Deputy Mickey Burns.
I said, “What’s going on?” It was a stupid question, but I wasn’t really in a smart mood.
Sanchez said, “You are safe.”
I nodded at Burns. “I was safe before he brought me here.”
Sanchez puffed on his ever-present cigar. “Actually, no. You weren’t. There was a price on your head. Those men inside wanted you dead.”
“And now they don’t?”
Sanchez shrugged.
In the distance, I could hear helicopter blades beating the night air. I pointed at the sky with my good hand. “Is that yours?”
He nodded.
“Was Deputy Mickey here in on this all along?”
The deputy spoke up. “That’s Deputy Burns. And what I’ve been doing is none of your business.”
The freckle-faced deputy was puffing himself up to fill Leroy Purcell’s shoes; he was ready to don the Caterpillar-cap crown of the next King Jethro. And he seemed a lot surer than I was that there would still be a few Bodines around to follow him after tonight.
As I stood there thinking about all that, I heard running and turned to see a dozen men in black clothing round the corner of the warehouse and disappear inside. Each man had an angular automatic weapon suspended from a shoulder strap and secured by one hand.
I asked, “What’s going to happen in there?”
Sanchez drew again on his thin cigar, making the red tip glow like a hot coal in the night. “Do you really want to know?”
“Yeah. I do.”
“There will be a boating accident. A chartered fishing vessel has already left the marina in Carrabelle. The names on the charter will match those of the men inside.”
“Am I safe?”
He nodded.
“What about my clients?”
“You and they have nothing else to fear from Leroy Purcell’s branch of the organization.” Sanchez turned to Deputy Burns. “Go see what’s happening.”
The deputy squared his shoulders and said, “I don’t want no part of this.”
Sanchez turned to face Burns and simply said, “Now.”
Two seconds passed while the deputy tried to think of a way to salvage some dignity, and he turned toward the warehouse.
I looked up to search the stars for the helicopter, and a pistol fired next to my ear. I fell to one knee and froze. Deputy Mickey Burns of the Apalachicola Sheriff’s Department lay dead on the ground. I turned to see if Sanchez was still alive. He was. And he was sliding what looked like Joey’s Walther PPK into a hiding place inside his coat.
Suffering a broken wrist, a shoveled back, and multiple kicks and stomps had taken a lot out of me. It took some effort to get back on my feet. I asked, “Am I next?”
Sanchez just said, “No,” and then paused to look at the blanket of stars spread overhead. “The helicopter will be here soon.
It will take you to only one place. Dog Island. I am sorry about your hand. You hold it as though it is broken.”
I nodded.
“Too bad. There is no medical help on the island. In any event, you will check into the inn and stay there until morning. At that time, you may take the ferry to Carrabelle. After that, you are free to go wherever you please.”
“Except the police.”
“Yes. Except the police.”
“Why Dog Island?”
“Arrangements have been made. It is the island or, well, nothing. Perhaps, so you will understand, nothingness would be a better word.”
“Why are you doing this?”
Sanchez paused to look at one of his men who had exited the warehouse. The night-clad soldier nodded at Sanchez, who shook his head in response. The soldier went back inside the building. The two-named patriot turned back to me. “Your young client deserved none of this. You are in trouble only because you tried to help.” He paused. “We are not criminals. We are soldiers. This mess was, in some ways, our doing. I have decided to set it right, to the extent that that’s possible.”
I studied his aristocratic features in the moonlight. I said, “And Purcell got out of line.” He didn’t answer, so I repeated the same words and added, “And it’s as good a reason as any to take the Bodines out of the picture once and for all.”
Sanchez smiled. “As I said, we heard you were smart.”
Suddenly the helicopter appeared over the treetops and dropped its tail as it began its descent into the compound.
I yelled over the blades. “One more thing.” Sanchez looked at me. “Whose idea was it to bring a dethroned Panamanian dictator’s nephew into the country?”
Carlos Sanchez rolled his cigar between manicured fingers. A few seconds passed before he said, “We did. And we knew the dangers associated with his family’s presence. But he was well connected in Castro’s government, and we thought his contacts would be worth the risk.”
I shouted. “And was it? Was it worth all this?”
His only answer was to point at the helicopter and say, “Go.”
I ran to the chopper and climbed inside. The helmeted pilot lifted off as I watched Sanchez walk to the warehouse door, speak with one of his soldiers, and then hurry to a waiting Hummer. As the helicopter climbed into the night sky and leveled out over the black mass of oak and cypress treetops, I could have sworn I heard the jarring staccato pops of automatic gunfire echoing inside the warehouse and splintering the night air.
