Ice Chest

by J. D. Rhoades

  The Jack Keller series

  The Devil’s Right Hand

  Good Day In Hell

  Safe And Sound

  Devils And Dust

  The Tony Wolf/Tim Buckthorn series

  Breaking Cover

  Broken Shield

  All available from Polis Books

  To my wife Lynn. A true survivor.

  “NICE RACK,” the thin man said.

  “That it is, that it is,” Rafe Valentine answered. “But we can comment upon the pulchritudinous qualities of the fairer sex any time. This here is a matter of business, so keep watchin’.” He leaned back in his creaky old office chair and folded his stubby fingers across the ample belly that strained at the buttons of his dress shirt.

  Valentine was seated at a dented and scratched metal desk in the back of the garage belonging to his auto-salvage business. An ancient metal fan that looked as if it had been made in the 1930s sat on the desk, trying and failing miserably to move the sticky air. The big roll-up metal doors across the expanse of the garage were open, but they let in no breezes, just the occasional lost mosquito or housefly desperate to get out of the baking Georgia sun. Sweat stained the pits of Valentine’s shirt, but the thin man didn’t seem to notice the heat.

  “What exactly am I lookin’ for?” the thin man said, in a tone that let Valentine know his patience was wearing thin.

  The thin man’s name was L.B. Gordon, and Valentine was one of the few people alive who knew that the L.B. stood for Lord Byron. L.B.’s mother, Mrs. Constance Gordon, had been a lady of scant formal education, but she had utilized a good bit of her time during various incarcerations perusing classic literature in worn, donated paperbacks from the prison library. Sadly, once out on the street, the allure of vodka, cocaine, and unsuitable men pushed the love of reading out of her mind. Only her tattered literary pretensions remained, most strikingly expressed in the names she hung on her children in the brief period between their births and their removals into foster care: L.B., his brother Burgie (christened Anthony Burgess Gordon), and his sister Syl (née Sylvia Plath Gordon). Valentine never made any wisecracks or even allusions regarding the name, which was why he was among that exclusive “alive” segment of people who knew the secret. L.B. Gordon was a man with a short fuse, an old-fashioned affinity for the use of a straight razor in the arbitration of disputes and the settling of grievances, and, as far as anyone could tell, no sense of humor whatsoever.

  “L.B.,” he said, “you are known in our particular segment of the outlaw community to have an eye for opportunity, combined with an encyclopedic knowledge of the various and sundry members of said community, their particular talents, and their general whereabouts, including their incarceration status. I am not engaging in idle flattery when I say that your brain is a repository of criminal contacts that would strain the memory capacity of one of those personal electronic devices of which the young folk are so enamored.”

  Valentine’s own long and varied criminal history had also included several incarcerations. He too had found reading material to influence his life; in his case, it was a tattered book from Reader’s Digest Press called It Pays to Increase Your Word Power. He’d become accustomed to showing off the vocabulary he’d learned, if not always accurately. Gordon, out of respect for their long association, mostly let it pass. Still, there was a limit. “Rafe,” he said through clenched teeth, “if you don’t get to the point, I’m gonna start getting annoyed.”

  “Just another half a minute or so,” Valentine promised. “The main attraction is comin’ up.”

  “What, they get nekkid?”

  “Sadly, no. But if you keep watchin’ you may see somethin’ you like more.”

  “I don’t know,” Gordon said. “I like nekkid women quite a bit.”

  They turned their attention back to the screen of the laptop that was perched atop an unsteady-looking pile of forgotten, yellowing invoices. The screen showed a video of a beautiful young model, smiling brilliantly and doing the classic hip-swinging model strut down a runway. She was dressed only in silky panties, a matching push-up bra, strappy high-heeled sandals, and a set of outlandish feathered wings that seemed to sprout from her shoulders and spread out behind her like the plumage of some bizarre hybrid of tropical bird and fashion model.

  “Why’s she got them wings on her?” Gordon asked.

  “It’s called the Birds of Paradise collection,” Valentine said. “It’s special undies for the boudoir.”

  “Huh,” Gordon said. “Don’t the wings get in the way when she’s on her back?”

  “I don’t think they’re sold as part of the actual outfit.”

  As the two men watched, the girl turned gracefully and walked back down the runway. She was halfway there when another girl emerged from the darkness of the stage at one end. Valentine’s chair creaked as he leaned forward slightly. Gordon picked up on the signal and focused more intently on the screen.

  The previous girl had been lovely; the girl who emerged into the lights could shame the angels in heaven. Her mass of thick, naturally curly raven-black hair cascaded in a wave to the middle of her back, her eyes were wide and a vivid blue and her features were perfection itself. Her body was slender, with long, sleekly muscled legs, a flat stomach that seemed to have never known fat, and the type of large, firm breasts that are so rare upon the chest of a thin woman that anyone possessing such a combination was destined for good fortune, or at least marriage to one.

  “Damn,” Gordon breathed reverently.

  “Clarissa Cartwright,” Valentine said. “Enigma’s model of the year. The face of the Birds of Paradise collection. And the one specially chosen as the only Enigma spokesmodel to wear…” he leaned forward and tapped a key on the laptop, “this.”

  The picture froze. The camera had zoomed in on the model’s chest. It was encased in a bra that was a triumph of engineering, as it seemed entirely inadequate to the load it was asked to bear. Not just the breasts that the undergarment encased so snugly, but the glittering stones that covered every inch of the fabric.

  “Hey,” Gordon said, “are those real?”

  “The tits or the jewels?” At Gordon’s look, Valentine hastily said, “Yes, my great and good friend, those are indeed real. Five point five million dollars’ worth of jewels. White diamonds. Sapphires. Rubies and topaz. A treasure that might have graced the hooterage of the Queen of Sheba herself. They do one every year. It’s a big promotional gimmick.”

  “Uh-huh,” Gordon said. He was rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “And I’m thinkin’ you’re thinkin’ of stealin’ it.”

  Valentine nodded. “Enigma’s taken their fashion show on the road this year. In one week, they’re goin’ to be at the main ballroom of the Imperial Hotel in Atlanta.”

  Gordon looked unimpressed. “And?”

  “And I got a nephew that works there.”

  Gordon looked at the screen again. In the frozen frame, the gems flared like tiny supernovae.

  “Awright,” he said. “You got my attention.”

  “So you’re interested?”

  “I just said I was, didn’t I?”

  “Okay, then.” Valentine pulled out a cell phone and hit a button. He waited a moment, the phone to his ear, and grimaced. “Voice mail,” he explained. “Branson must be at work.”

  “Branson?”

  “My sister’s boy. He’s gonna be our inside man.” He grinned. “The one that leads us to the land of milk and honey.”

  “He got any experience in anything like this?”

  Valentine shook his head. “Naw,” he said. “No record at all. That’s an advantage, ain’t it?”

  “I don’t want no weak links,” Gordon warned. “I don’t wanna bring someone in on this who’s liable to lose his nerve a
nd go to the cops.”

  “Don’t worry. He’s family. I can handle him.”

  “Good. ’Cause if you don’t, I’ll have to.”

  “Understood. Now what sort of equipment and personnel are we gonna need?”

  “Dunno,” Gordon said. “We’re gonna have to look the place over first. An’ you best hurry. We only got a week.”

  “Of course, of course,” Valentine said. He punched the cell phone button again.

  SERVING A meal to 250 people at the same time is a study in logistics, not culinary excellence. When he was working banquets, Branson sometimes felt less like a restaurant server than like one of those sailors he’d read about who rarely saw the sun or sea, working deep in the bowels of a battleship that kept a supply of shells going up the elevators to the gunners in their turrets. Except instead of shells, he was loading plates of rubbery boneless chicken breast with an unidentifiable whitish sauce, rice, “vegetable medley” (peas, carrots, and corn), and rolls. He moved down the line of plates, making sure all the correct elements were on each before tossing a sprig of parsley on, then loading the plate onto a cart for the harried wait staff to roll into the banquet room. He didn’t even know which group was meeting. It didn’t matter. The menu was always the same.

  “Come on, shug, step it up,” a fortyish waitress named Connie urged him. Branson tried to grab a plate in each hand, but turned too fast. The slippery chicken breast slipped off the plate in his right hand and went soaring through the air as if it had been slung from a catapult. It described a shallow arc that ended at the crotch of the banquet manager, David Corso. Corso stopped dead in his tracks, looked down at the dripping white stain on his trousers, then looked up, his face mottling with rage.

  “God DAMN it, Brandon!” he snapped. Branson thought it would be a bad idea to correct him.

  “Sorry, Mr. Corso,” he said, his own face reddening with embarrassment. He looked over at Connie, whose own face was turning scarlet with repressed laughter, then around at the cooks behind the line, who weren’t bothering to repress theirs.

  “Don’t just stand there, you idiot,” Corso said, “clean this up!”

  “Yessir,” Branson muttered. He grabbed a towel and walked toward Corso, stepping around the chicken on the floor.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Corso said. He snatched the towel from Branson’s hand and pointed to the mess on the floor. “That, you stupid redneck! I’ll clean myself up!”

  Branson bent down and picked up the chicken breast, then looked around helplessly. He spotted a trash can a few feet away and headed toward it. The foot of his black dress shoe slipped in the sauce and he went down hard on his left hip. The pain stunned him for a minute, and he thought he could hear distant chimes playing, like in a cartoon where some unlucky character got clocked hard in the head. What was worse was looking up and seeing that more of the wait staff had come into the kitchen and were staring at him with a mixture of expressions ranging from amusement to horror. He spotted Stephanie in the back of the group and nearly groaned with mortification, made worse by the look of pity on her pretty face. He’d been chatting with her the past few days and thought he might have a chance at a date, if he could find the time off. And the money. But he could see his chance of that melting away when she turned aside, as if she couldn’t bear to see any more of his humiliation.

  “Just get out,” Corso said. “The truck’s here. Go help unload it. I’ll deal with this. But I want to have a talk with you later.”

  Branson struggled to his feet. “Yes sir,” he muttered, then turned and fled.

  “Hey, Mr. Corso,” he heard a male voice ask, “you have an accident or somethin’?” He picked up his pace to get out of earshot before he could hear the reply. As Branson passed by the serving line, ignoring the quizzical stares of the cooks, he thought he heard those distant chimes again. He wondered if he’d hit his head without realizing it, and then remembered he had his cell phone in his pocket. It was one of the cheap ones that came “free” with a one-year service contract, and he couldn’t figure out how to change the ringtone or download a new one. He pulled it out and looked at the screen. The number didn’t register with him, but he knew the area code. It was someone from home. He snapped the phone open. “Hello?”

  “Well, hey there, Bran. How’s my favorite nephew?” a familiar voice said.

  Branson felt immediately wary when he recognized his uncle Rafe’s voice. Branson had only seen Rafe once or twice a year growing up, and that had usually been when his uncle had dropped by to try to wheedle some money or a favor from Branson’s mother.

  “Hey, Uncle Rafe,” he answered. “Can I call you back later? I’m at work now.”

  “Absolutely, absolutely,” Rafe said. “Got to keep that job. In this economy, money’s hard to come by. Ain’t that right?”

  “Umm…yeah. So, I guess…”

  “Just wanted to let you know that me and a business associate are gonna be in your vicinity this weekend. Thought we might have a little sit-down, maybe discuss a proposition in which you might take an interest.”

  Branson’s suspicion grew into alarm. He wasn’t exactly sure what business his uncle was in, but his mother’s vague and disdainful references to the ventures she described as Rafe’s “schemes” implied that it probably wasn’t anything legitimate. “I don’t really have any money to invest…” he began.

  “That’s the beauty of this proposition,” Rafe said. “No monetary investment’s gonna be required on your part. Merely your knowledge and expertise.”

  “My…what?”

  “See you soon, Bran.” Rafe hung up.

  Branson looked at the phone as if it might suddenly turn into a serpent in his hand. But there was work to be done, and, as his uncle had pointed out, he needed cash.

  “Hey,” a soft female voice said.

  He looked around. Stephanie was standing a few feet away. “Hey,” Branson said. As always, he felt tongue-tied around Stephanie. She was slim and blond, her long hair pulled back in a braid. A sprinkling of freckles across her nose and cheeks made her look younger than she was. Bran loved those freckles. He wondered if she had them all over. He thought about that a lot.

  “I wanted to see if you were okay,” she said. Her voice was soft, with just a hint of Georgia accent. “It looked like you took a pretty bad fall.”

  “I’m okay,” he said, then fell silent.

  “Good,” she said. Then she laughed. “Corso looked funny. He was sooooo mad.”

  Branson knew he should say something witty, but that laugh never failed to rob him of his wits. “Yeah,” he choked out.

  She looked a little disappointed. “Well,” she said. “I’ve got to get back to work.”

  Say something, for the love of God, a voice inside him pleaded. Anything.

  “Me, too.”

  Something other than that, the voice said.

  “Okay,” she said. “See you around.”

  “See ya.” She turned and left. He watched her go.

  “HEY!” a voice yelled from the back door, where the truck had pulled up with a load of food, linens, and other supplies. “You gonna stand there with your dick in your hand, or are you gonna come here and help us?”

  Branson sighed. Another opportunity blown. He wondered if it would be his last.

  “CLARISSA! CLARISSA! Over here!”

  “Over here!”

  “Look this way, Clarissa!”

  She stopped, turned toward each voice in turn, displayed the famous smile, held it till she saw the flash go off, then turned to the next one. It was a sequence that by now was as automatic as breathing to her, something that required no connection to the actual thoughts in her head. That was a good thing, because the thoughts in her head were not ones to make her smile.

  She heard her cell phone buzzing inside her Vuitton bag, rattling against something plastic. She knew who it had to be and took a savage pleasure in ignoring it.

  “Okay, fellows,” Hermione
Starr called out to the mass of photographers clustered behind the ropes. “We’ve got a plane to catch. Ladies?”

  Clarissa gave one last cheery wave at the mass of faces and set off down the long red carpet that crossed the tarmac toward the waiting plane. The other girls followed like a flock of ducks, doing the model walk as if they were back on the other kind of runway, smiling and waving, and every single one of them hating Clarissa’s guts. She’d heard the whispers, the bitchy little asides. She thinks she’s such hot shit, she’d heard one girl whisper. I’d like to cut her fucking tits off. Clarissa had been shaken by the hatred in the voice. She hadn’t asked to be the lead model, the one who wore The Bra (they always said it in implied capitals). But when Enigma had called her agent and offered all that money, what was she supposed to do, turn it down?

  She pushed the thought out of her mind. If she started thinking about that, on top of everything else, she’d start crying. That’s all she needed, with all these photographers out there in the hot sun just waiting for someone, anyone, to crash and burn, preferably close enough to them that they could get an exclusive shot of Clarissa Cartwright having a meltdown in public.

  “You okay, honey?” Hermione said as she fell in beside her. A former model herself, she’d been hired by Enigma to manage the “flock,” as Enigma insisted on calling the models they’d picked to represent the Birds of Paradise line. She had dark hair, cut short and stylishly. She was in her early forties, but plastic surgery and rigorous exercise had kept her face and figure that of a woman in her early thirties. By Enigma standards, she was a crone. The other girls called her “granny” behind her back. Clarissa actually liked her, although she didn’t know if she could trust her. Everyone had their own agenda. The thought made her feel even sadder.

  “I’m fine, Hermione,” she said. My boyfriend’s cheating on me and any one of the bitches I’m about to spend the next six weeks with would cheerfully throw me into one of these jet engines, she added to herself, but other than that, yeah, I’m just peachy.