by J. A. Marley
“Forgive me for saying, Mrs Cardell, but you don’t strike me as a woman who would shock so easily.”
June angled herself a little further back in her seat, as if taking him in before responding. “I’m just a country girl from England. What would I know about ‘juke joints’ and ‘flop pads’?”
Danny was surprised by her use of the “N’awlin’s” slang terms. She was full of surprises.
“In all seriousness, Danny – and as I’m calling you that I hope you will start to call me June – I really don’t frequent the seedier cities that North America has to offer.”
“Okay… June… I think I’ve got that message but answer me this. Why are you here? Today? With me?”
“Simple, I have lived in Florida for at least six years now, and not once have I been out on a boat, to fish or… anything else really. That’s a bit like visiting London and never setting foot in a black taxi, isn’t it?”
The mention of a London taxi tweaked Danny’s gut instantly.
‘I suppose. But you could have gotten onto any boat. There are a lot more well-known charters than mine.”
“I have a habit of doing things on the spur of the moment. Spontaneity is one of my favourite ways to behave.”
“And how does… Mr Cardell, take to all this ‘in-the-moment’ behaviour?”
June turned to look at him, pushing forward in her seat, her bare leg touching his. “Is that what is making you seem… on edge, Danny? Are you worried what my husband might think… or do?”
Danny smiled and moved his leg away at the same time. “Listen, Mrs Cardell, I don’t tend to worry about what anyone else may or may not do, or how they may react to a situation. All I care about is when someone is playing a bit of a game with me.”
Danny was warming to his theme. He felt he was about to discover exactly what this English woman was doing here on his boat. Was she the one leaving toy cars on his porch?
“Are you a man of Jesus, Danny? Have you accepted him into your heart as your Lord and Saviour?”
Danny was thrown off balance by the curveball question. Why does everyone who shows up on my boat turn out to be into God these days? “Mrs Cardell, excuse my blunt language, but I don’t fuck with Jesus, and he doesn’t fuck with me.”
“How very refreshing…”
At that, June Cardell hooked her leg round Danny’s and pulled him towards her. At the same time, she pushed out of her seat with the other leg and met him full on. He could smell her hair, the rise of her breasts against him. Tightening her grip, she gave him a long, open-mouthed kiss, her hands running over his chest as she did so. Danny couldn’t help but respond, meeting her strength, kissing her back.
When she was done, she held his arms by his sides and threw her head back, gently laughing. Danny was, in every sense of the word, gobsmacked.
“Have you never met a woman who simply takes what she wants, Danny?”
Danny looked down at her, not really knowing what to say next, so he decided to do what he wanted instead. He pulled her against him and kissed her, this time running his hand down her back to her rear, using the waist of her shorts to tighten the contact between them.
“I kiss better when I know it’s coming, Mrs Cardell, and now I’m pretty sure I’m being toyed with. Who the fuck are you?”
He let her go, and she sat back down into the pivot chair, rearranging her hair as she did so.
“That was most enjoyable, Danny, but I think you should start by telling me who you are. London boy, shows up in the Keys out of nowhere? Lives in a little roadside shack, yet has enough money to buy a boat and, probably a passport and driver’s licence with a different name on it…”
Danny took a long, slow swig from his Dr Pepper and regarded the woman with a cooler eye. She was asking exactly the kind of questions he had managed to avoid for almost two years. He didn’t intend to start answering them now.
“Has it occurred to you that we are out on the salt, in the middle of nowhere? And you start asking me questions? Did you come here to fish, or fish around me?”
“No need to come over all London gangster on me, Danny. Cool your jets. I’m just having a little fun. Aren’t you? Don’t tell me that kiss wasn’t fun?”
“I never mix pleasure with business.”
“Well then, our association is going to be very boring. You’re starting to remind me of my Jesus-freak husband. Let me tell you about him.”
And she did.
As Deputy Sheriff Sosa pulled off Highway One onto the oyster-shell drive that led to Danny’s house, she didn’t know why, but she cut the engine on her green and white, and let the car drift a few yards to a natural stop. Why had she done that? She wasn’t sure, but it had felt the right thing to do. This Ingles wasn’t official business… at least not now, but she was still intrigued. Was that professional curiosity or something else? Or worse… a bit of both? Sosa didn’t want to answer her own question.
She stepped out of her car and made her way slowly up the drive. She was being careful to stay close to the Camellia bushes that bordered both sides of the drive. That way, she was shielded from view of the porch. She walked far enough to see the front of the house but still be obscured when she spotted movement ahead of her. But, to her surprise, it wasn’t the man she was expecting. This was a huge man, bigger than the Danny she had met, broader, slightly taller, with a head that was wide and clean shaven. He was squatting to set something down on the stoop of the porch, and then, he was off, making his way to the side of the house that led to the boat dock.
Sosa waited until he had disappeared around the corner of the house before she moved closer. She heard the rasp of an outboard motor on a small boat, leading her to believe the tall man had departed. She jogged to that corner of the house in double quick time. As she peeked round it, she managed to see a skiff leaving the dock where it met the local channel. The man was alone.
It was only then that Sosa realised that she had her hand resting on the butt of her service pistol. She let out her breath in an audible blow. Turning, she took stock of the front yard of the modest dwelling. There was an expensive-looking Mercedes SUV out front that she hadn’t seen last time she was there. She made her way back towards the steps of the porch, looking to see what it was that the tall man had been left.
She bent down, looking at the little flash of red sitting there. A model of a vehicle of some kind. Bright red, like a big coach or bus. She went to pick it up but then hesitated. On closer inspection, she realised it was a toy. She had seen one in a film once, something romantic and funny… Was it that Christmas one? Love Actually? She couldn’t be sure.
Why would someone leave a toy bus on someone’s stoop? And why had she felt tension as she had watched the man do it? She had been holding her breath, her hand still on her gun.
Everything about El Ingles enveloped him in further mystery as far as she was concerned. He might just be worth keeping tabs on for all sorts of reasons.
11
Business or Pleasure?
As soon as she began to make her play, Danny knew that June Cardell had form, a past. Still, it surprised him when she told him it all right off the bat.
Sitting at the back of the boat, she shared the story of her life in England.
“I’m a Buckinghamshire girl… little village called Seer Green. Growing up, I was bored, so it was too easy. Too easy to fall for the wrong man at the wrong time. His name was Don. It was all infatuation, lust, excitement. In a very short time, he managed to blur my boundaries and convince me that my family didn’t love me. Only he could. The more they tried to intervene, the more I believed him.”
Danny listened intently, now and again, little stabs of recognition punctuating her words. Hadn’t he, too, been bored? He, too, had chosen a lifestyle his family felt alien.
“Soon, I was involved in his less-than-well thought-out drug distribution network. It was exciting, dangerous, and I have to admit, I liked a puff and sniff myself. But he was an ama
teur. Within six months, other gangs were circling us. He was so sure he could ride out anything, he could use his balls and brass neck to face anything the mean streets of Bucks could throw at him. Turns out that when others show up, the streets of Bucks aren’t all that. He disappeared overnight, and I got woken by the loudest of policeman’s knocks.”
Her eyes had gone a little glassy, the reflection of the blue water and even bluer sky giving her a wistful look. Danny had to stop himself from chuckling. She could win Oscars, this one.
“I talked, gave the Old Bill the evidence they needed. All they had to do was find him. Then, one night, one of the coppers showed up at the woman’s shelter they’d dumped me in. Took me to a pub, bought me some food, made me feel a little human again. Then, he offered me a different kind of deal. One that would sort out any worries I might have had if they did catch my ex. If he did his time, afterwards, would he come looking for me?”
“Let me guess. He offered you a more permanent solution, one with no comebacks?”
She nodded, not looking at Danny, staring off to the horizon. “All I had to do was ask around, do some sniffing. If I could find my ex, I was to tell the copper where other interested parties might find him before the Old Bill did. In return, I’d be given cash and a plane ticket. A chance to start over.
“It didn’t take long. His mates were never really his mates, and soon, they were spilling their guts to me, telling me where he was. A week later, I landed here in America. I was staying in a boarding house in Washington. I chose there, because, for some reason, to me, New York felt too obvious a place to hide. A few weeks later, a brown envelope was delivered to me by courier. Inside, it was a single page from the Evening Standard. On the front was a photo of a yellow Range Rover full of bullet holes. I knew the car instantly. My ex was most definitely now ex.”
“Guilty?” Danny watched her carefully. This answer would tell him more than anything about who he was dealing with.
“Not a shred.” Her face changed, hardening as she said it. “He took my life and used it like toilet roll. I was his little trophy. He traded on my looks to impress his so-called mates. It was like I was a shiny sports car. Just another status symbol he felt he needed to cement his own self-worth. Yes, I was complicit, but I was too young to know any different.”
“What did you do next?”
“I kept moving. I thought it best. I drifted down the East Coast, spent some time in a weird, hippy commune in North Carolina, whacked out on quality cannabis. All the clichés: nights chanting around a campfire, sleeping under starlight. It soon wore thin. I was thinking about moving on again, when one morning, a relatively new camp member asked me if I believed in God.”
“A Damascene moment…”
“You know a little bible then, Danny?”
He shrugged in reply.
“Why am I being so open with you? Is it the sultry warmth of the afternoon or the sway of the boat?” She was studying him. He could feel her eyes as they swept up and down the length of him.
“What can I say, June? I like a good story…”
“If only it were just a story, Danny.”
“What answer did you give the woman? About God…”
“What God would want anything to do with me? Especially as I had blood on my hands… and not just Don’s… my ex… I’m sure others died because of the smack we sold to them.”
June swept a stray strand of hair behind her ear, looking a little lost in her own reverie.
“Anyway, when I quit the commune, I went south. Almost by accident I started going to church. Proper ones at first. It didn’t matter whether it was Catholic or Episcopalian, I didn’t care. I just liked the stillness. Then, one day, in North Florida somewhere, God knows where, I stumbled across a little revivalist tent, you know the type. All blood and thunder from the pulpit. I had realised I was running low on cash. Anxiety was creeping up on me, keeping me awake nights. I was getting desperate. So, there I was, almost broke, weighing up what few options I had when I met him.”
June shifted her position, letting the sun fall flush on her face as she reminisced. “He was blood, thunder and fire all wrapped up in scripture and charisma. He was handsome and passionate. He plucked me from my seat in the fourth row. It was easy, mind you; there were only about fifteen people in the tent. He looked at me and told me I was lost. He put his hands on my head and prayed. He said that only Jesus could wash away the blood in my life. I was gobsmacked. How did he know? What could he see?”
Danny cleared his throat. She paused, looking back at him, frowning. He raised his hands. “I wasn’t going to say anything. I just needed to clear my throat.”
“No, you were going to say something like, ‘Isn’t that just a typical, Old Testament kind of thing a preacher would say?’. The answer is yes… but also no. He was looking at me… into me. He knew. Vincent Cardell knew more about me in that moment than I knew about myself.”
June stood up and walked towards Danny. Her hair caught the last rays of the afternoon sun, her eyes were shining, her feline gait making Danny swallow involuntarily.
“At the end of the revival service, I waited to speak to him. He told me there and then that he could show me, through Jesus, that I could repent and be whole again, that I could admit my failings and find a path forward. Three months later, we were married in a little white church in St Augustine. Shortly after that, things got a little more… intense.”
She stood directly in front of Danny, close enough to feel her breath on his face. He wanted to shift back a little, but he was already on the gunwale of the boat. The next step would be a wet one.
“As we grew to know each other, I soon realised that Vincent wasn’t just driven in his faith in Jesus. He’s driven in practically every facet of his life. He has… appetites. A dark side. Driven. Firstly, for scripture. I knew that. But what I didn’t know was that he was also hungry to spread the word of Jesus in more ways than simply preaching. Vincent wants power. Political power. And that hunger and drive brings ruthlessness with it. Ruthlessness to fight for the one thing that kind of power feeds off in America.”
Danny laughed softly. “A shit load of money. That is what it takes to acquire a position of real influence.”
June nodded back. Reaching out to him, she took his hand, pulled him up off his perch on the side of the boat. She led him towards the “fighting chair” that faced out to sea at the back of the boat. It was the scene of many conquests, all of the sports fishing kind.
She sat him down in the seat and stood over him, continuing to talk. “So, we needed money. Lots. Vincent was becoming something of a star on the Evangelical circuit, pulling in bigger crowds at bigger churches. Invitations to appear on Gospel TV shows rolled in. A few at first, then more and more, until two years ago, we launched the ‘Miami Mission’. Eight thousand people crammed into the ‘South Beach Tabernacle’. And that was night one. We held another, six months later. Bigger venue. More nights. Twelve thousand people a night. But still, even with donations and T-shirt sales, Vincent wanted more.”
“I can see where this might be heading. Did your Vincent climb into bed with someone? A little business arrangement?”
“Indeed he… we… did.”
June moved closer to him. She traced the line of his beard where it swept down the side of his neck, touching the slightly frayed collar of his Lucky Brand, Johnny Cash T-shirt. “You smell delicious, a mix of the smell of sea salt and heat.”
Danny swallowed.
“Being a follower of Jesus is a thriving business, Danny. Money flowed in. Lots of it. Donations, all paper ones, flooded in at our mission events. It would be an easy thing to pad those returns out with the proceeds of crime. Cash in dirty, profits out clean. Charitable disbursements to schools and hospitals and orphanages in Eastern Europe, North Africa… Central and South America. Shit, we even actually built a few of them for real. Meanwhile, our partners reclaimed their clean cash, and we kept a percentage of the action. We now h
ad real juice.”
She leant into him, sliding an arm around his neck, steadying herself so that she could use her other hand to unfasten the button on her cut-off denim shorts. Watching her shimmy out of them had Danny transfixed, especially when he realised that she wasn’t wearing any underwear.
“So, tell me, June. What was the point at which you realised this was all going to go Pete Tong?” Danny put his hands on her hips, running them down over her thighs as she straddled him.
“I was always nervous about it. I mean, we were getting in to bed with serious players.”
“It seems to me that getting in to bed with a player might not be all that alien to you…”
She playfully slapped his shoulder in response, then followed by lowering her full weight onto his lap. “But what really made me doubt the wisdom of all this was Vincent’s impatience. He decided our cut wasn’t enough. We weren’t amassing the political war chest quickly enough. So, he started skimming off the top. Just a little here and there. Putting it down to bribes at first, then local expenses at the foreign ends of our ventures and finally under-reporting the churn of funds. Given that crime is mostly a cash game, he believed they’d never really know how much we were actually laundering.”
“But you think they do know.” He could feel her, the heat and pressure of her body on him creating exactly the kind of reaction he knew she wanted.
“Yes. They either do already, or they will soon. I think Vincent believes he has the righteousness of Jesus on his side. This, after all, is for the greater glory of his word and testament. Only through politics and leadership can you really promote a White, Christian, American agenda. And I think he’s also in it for the thrill…”
She rotated her hips slowly, noticing how he flexed his thigh muscles to accommodate her weight and movement. His shoulder muscles rolled as he helped her lift her T-shirt over her head.
“And you aren’t a thrill seeker, June?”
