He saw the ragged fringe of the mangrove island that sheltered the marina coming up on their starboard side, and nosed Miss Daisy around a bit, dead into the wind and the heaving waves. He’d made it this far, he thought. There was some small satisfaction in that. He nodded, feeling the spray cool on his face as they headed out into open water.
Chapter 31
“I’m Mr. Terrell’s assistant,” the man in the vested suit was saying. “Maybe if you explained what it was about, Mr. Al-kiz-er, then I could help you.”
Alcazar shook his head patiently. He wondered if this person knew how to pronounce his name properly, if he were actually trying to insult him. Alcazar motioned for Alejandro to take a seat at the small conference table that stood between them and this fool wearing an ill-fitting suit.
They were in the anteroom of a suite near the ballroom where a celebration was in progress, no formal announcement yet, but everyone in Atlanta for the commissioner’s meeting agreed. Tomorrow, when the agenda moved to the matter of the expansion vote, the Tropics were a lock to get the franchise.
Three years of lobbying, wheedling, cajoling, junketing—even some attempts at outright bribery—on the part of a dozen U.S. cities were about to come to an end. Two municipalities had erected budget-crushing stadiums to house the team—“If you build it, they will come,” went the literature of one city’s effort—and those two faced the specter of servicing one hundred million dollars or more of debt with flea markets and rock concerts, tractor pulls and evangelical convocations, where they’d hoped to have the crack of bats, the slap of horsehide into gloves. Pity the poor losers, Alcazar thought. He could afford to.
Alcazar’s view was out a bank of windows overlooking the hotel’s lavish inner court. There was a waterfall cascading several stories into an acre of planted rain forest where walkways wound, linking up the bars and restaurants tucked away here and there among the foliage. Huge banners carrying the logos of the various American and National League teams had been hung off standards about the balconies. On the far side of the vast courtyard, escalators zigzagged up from through the trees, linking the hotel to an exclusive shopping mall. He imagined the owners and executives down below, swilling martinis, toasting the banners that hung above them, while their wives swarmed the larded shops.
Earlier, killing time, Alcazar had strolled through the shopping area—which made Worth Avenue look a bit down at the heels to his way of thinking. There was a certain flair in this city—he’d give them that—and for a moment, he entertained the notion of moving his base into new territory, though he just as quickly dismissed it. Too many clownish southerners to test him with their egregious smiles. “Why shoor, Mr. Az-kizzer, we’d be glad to do bidness with you, if’n we can…” Why put up with it?
He could hear the muffled drone of music through the walls behind him. He wondered briefly what kind of orchestra had been engaged. Had it been his celebration, it would be something vibrant, something that exuded heat. The Sound Machine, perhaps, Gloria Estafan there to kick sparks from the stage, melt the speakers, let these moon-faced burghers from the North know what they were in for in the tropics.
Of course, it wasn’t his celebration, but Terrence Terrell’s, and Penfield’s cohorts who’d finally convinced Terrell to buy their baseball team for them. That clutch of good old boys had probably exhumed someone from the dead to play at their celebration, someone remembering sweet strains of something from college, but nothing too exuberant, let’s show our friends from the North that we’re just like they are, every penny we own ground from some poor man’s sweat when you got right down to it, but we’re going to pretend like we picked it off these trees that grow about us…well, never mind, Alcazar thought. Never mind that his money hadn’t been good enough, that he hadn’t had a prayer of participating in the ownership group. There was a future, and there were always unexpected developments to come. And meantime, he would still benefit, and benefit greatly.
The man in the suit did not seem happy that Alejandro had sat down without being asked. “Tell Mr. Terrell I won’t keep him,” Alcazar said.
“I’m afraid this isn’t the time…”
“Just explain that it’s about the Republic Holding Group,” Alcazar said. “I think he’ll want to see me.”
The man considered it. Alcazar watched the gears turning. Throw the greasers out, or go pester his boss who was probably holding court with half the net worth of America, his hand down the back of some scooped out cocktail gown nearby.
“It is important,” Alcazar assured the man.
The man fingered a thread that had unraveled at one of his buttonholes, then sighed. “Just a minute,” he said, and disappeared through a doorway.
Alejandro glanced up at him, his cratered jaw swinging back and forth. “These people do not know how to act.”
Alcazar nodded. “That is true, Alejandro. But it is important to walk among them now and again. To remind yourself with whom you must contend.”
Alejandro nodded, grudgingly. He clearly had ideas about how to contend with such cretins.
The door opened then, and the man with the unfortunate suit was back, followed by Terrell, whom Alcazar recognized from the many photographs he’d seen: America’s techno whiz, the answer to the Japanese threat, young, handsome, dynamic, ballyhooed as if the hopes of the very nation were pinned to his star.
Foolish, jingoistic stuff, Alcazar thought. He envied the man only the Palm Beach estate he’d purchased, the same venerable property that had once belonged to a railroad titan and which Alcazar, despite his wealth, had no hope of acquiring. He gave an inner shrug. So that made two things. No baseball team. No Palm Beach mansion. Perhaps it would not always be so. Meanwhile, he would do the next best thing: profit.
“Mr. Alcazar?” Terrell said, smiling affably.
Alcazar nodded. No veiled insult there. Terrell wore a lime green pair of slacks—linen—a white cotton shirt with a soft collar unbuttoned at the neck, a navy blue blazer. Deck shoes, no socks. Not Alcazar’s style, but bounds above his minion’s taste. Perhaps he would be able to talk with this man after all.
“Claude here tells me you’re with Republic Holding?” Terrell’s gaze curious, wondering what might have sent some holding company’s underling scurrying all the way up to Atlanta at such a time.
Alcazar nodded again. “I am Republic Holding, Mr. Terrell.”
Terrell’s expression went blank for a moment. The signals in his brain scrambling for an instant, then rearranging themselves, synapses clanging, reopening—let’s try that again—channeling, processing: Yes, yes, we copy, we understand.
No more affable team owner, his gaze was suddenly hard. He turned to his assistant. “Go on back to the party, Claude.”
Claude hesitated.
“It’s okay,” Terrell said, flashing the we’re-just-folks smile. “You see what Mrs. Spidel wants to drink. I was right in the middle of that.”
Claude gave Alcazar another distrustful look, then slunk back out of the room.
When the door closed, Terrell turned, shaking his head. “What’s your first name, Mr. Alcazar?”
“I am who you think I am,” Alcazar said.
Terrell nodded, taking it in. “That goddamn Penfield,” he said. “He assured me he and a bunch of his country club buddies controlled that property.”
Alcazar smiled. Terrell was quick, that much was apparent. “I assume he showed you the documents to prove it.”
“Of course he did,” Terrell said.
“Then, so far as anyone else is concerned,” Alcazar said, “that is the truth of the matter.”
“Son of a bitch,” Terrell said, turning to gaze out the window, turning it over in his mind. “He stood to make plenty on this franchise. Why was he worried about some pissant land deal?”
Alcazar shrugged. “One gets older, one gets impatient to see the returns on an investment. Your baseball team will take years to turn a profit. This ‘p
issant land deal,’ as you call it, stands to return eight million dollars on an investment of less than three.”
Terrell stared at him skeptically. Alcazar shrugged. “It is a simple concept, Mr. Terrell. Buy low, sell high.”
Terrell swung about to face Alcazar. “Earning your money is one thing. But to cut some sneaking deal with a…” Terrell was searching for the right insult, but Alcazar brushed it aside.
“We all have our skeletons, Mr. Terrell.” Alcazar pointed at the briefcase in front of Alejandro. “For instance, my associate has with him some very interesting photographs taken aboard a certain pleasure craft Mr. Penfield owned.”
Terrell’s tanned face turned a shade darker. He was married, of course. The recent story in Newsweek made much of his “solid family values.”
“If you think you can walk in here and threaten to blackmail me…” Terrell began.
“I have no such intention,” Alcazar said. “I was simply making a point.”
There was a lull in the music then, and Terrell took a breath, getting himself under control. “I’ve got some people to attend to, Mr. Alcazar. Suppose you tell me what you want.”
Alcazar gave him a bland look. “Nothing, Mr. Terrell. Nothing you haven’t agreed to already, that is. I just wanted to introduce myself, and ascertain that nothing would hold up the closing.”
Terrell thought a moment. “Last I spoke to Penfield, there were still some title problems outstanding, the whole parcel hadn’t been cleared.”
“We are prepared,” Alcazar said.
Terrell tried out his businessman’s gaze. “We don’t have to go with the city-center site, you know. We can go back up north of the county line, talk to the people in Broward, save a hell of a lot in taxes, have all the parking, road access we need.” Terrell smiled. “That’d leave you with a whole bunch of worthless property, would fuck you and the Republic horse you rode in here on, wouldn’t it?”
Alcazar sighed. “Mr. Terrell, you and I both know there isn’t time for that. There are three other cities ready to walk away with your precious baseball franchise. Your participation has tipped the scales one way. But if you were to walk into those hearings tomorrow without a firm site commitment…” Alcazar broke off, letting the implication hang.
“You can’t be sure of that,” Terrell said, smiling. “They know I’ll iron out anything that comes up. Pave it over with cash.”
“You could take that chance,” Alcazar said. “Or you could leave things as they are. You will simply conclude the arrangement to purchase the necessary land outlying the city’s stadium for road access, stadium expansion and ancillary development, said lands and properties to be conveyed by the Republic Holding Group, and everyone will be happy. You’ll save money in the long run, and the civic good will be served.” Alcazar nodded. “There will be a baseball team in our city.”
Terrell was quiet then, ignoring Alcazar’s irony, chewing thoughtfully on the inside of his cheek. Alcazar recognized the pose from a cover of Time. He turned and nodded to Alejandro, who unsnapped the briefcase, withdrew a document and slid it across the table toward Terrell.
Terrell glanced down at it, then stared back at Alcazar. “That doesn’t mean a thing unless the titles are clear,” he said.
“We are prepared,” Alcazar repeated.
The door swung open and Claude peered in. “Mrs. Spidel said you promised her a dance,” he said to Terrell.
“I’ll be right there, Claude,” Terrell said. And then bent down to sign.
***
“I told you, I was out,” Leon Straight said into the phone, his eyes following a dancing fork of lightning that leapfrogged across the horizon. “I had some business.” Thunder had nearly drowned out the voice on the other end of the line. He was sitting at the bar, looking out the big windows at the back of Alcazar’s house, his sore leg propped on a stool across from him.
Alcazar raising hell with him on the other end. Leon sat up, punched a button, put Alcazar on the speaker phone. He added a little of the orange to his Gatorade mix.
“…extremely important, Leon. Everything is in place. Everything is on the line.” His voice sounded a little nervous to Leon.
There was another bolt of lightning and a crash of thunder. Leon sipped his drink. Too much orange, now.
“…depending on you.” Alcazar paused. “What’s all that noise?”
“Looks like a storm blowing in, Mr. A.” Kinda nice, he thought, sitting in here watching it blow.
“Now listen to me, Leon. It is all arranged. If the police apprehend Deal, our friends in the department know what to do. He will resist, there will be an unfortunate accident, everything will go on as planned.”
Yeah, Leon thought, but we ain’t gonna get that far.
“And if you should get your hands on him in the meantime…” Leon took a breath. He didn’t like the thought of going out in this weather, but if he was going to make his own thing happen, now was the time. “You can stop worrying about Deal,” he said. Some spidery lightning now, way up high.
“What did you say, Leon?”
“I said you could stop worrying about Deal. I’ve got something worked out.”
“Leon…” Alcazar’s voice, big-time agitated, so loud it was making the speaker box rattle. Leon reached over, punched the button again, picked up the receiver.
“Mmmm-hmmm,” Leon nodding, waiting for the man to calm down. “Ain’t nothing we can talk about on the phone, Mr. A. But don’t worry. You get yourself back down here from Hot-Lanta, I’ll explain it all to you.”
Leon smiled, hanging up the phone in the middle of Alcazar yelling. He settled back in his chair, enjoying the thought of Alcazar shitting his britches.
Alcazar and Alejandro up there in a fancy hotel, eating the kind of food you couldn’t even spell, fat chance Leon ever get a trip like that. No, he got the dirty work. “Stick around the home front, boy. We’ll bring you back some scraps from the table.” Well, all that was about to change.
More thunder, then, shaking those big panes in the doors, like to break them. He caught a glimpse of running lights out in the Intracoastal, but then they were gone. Dumb bastard probably sunk.
Leon finally heaved himself up off the stool. Last thing in the world he wanted to do was go out on a night like this. But that was the business world for you. You had to adapt.
He stared down at his knees, his offending knees. Body like his. Speed like he had. And the mean. Nobody’d dealt with mean like his. That was what they meant when they talked about “desire.” What they meant was “how mean is the boy?” Which in Leon’s case was plenty.
But all of that didn’t mean shit when your knees went, did it? Then you could take your mean ass on off the property, go back to Georgia, sit on the porch and watch tourist cars go by on the way to Florida, look at the white folks looking out at you—“Oooh my, George, lookit that big nigger boy over there!”
Or else find a place to put your talents to work. The pay not as good, but not bad either. The work, when it came, interesting, you’d have to say that, for these Cubans had some interesting slants on the concept of mean, too bad they didn’t have the size for serious ball.
He watched more lightning streak against the sky, waiting for the crack of thunder sure to follow. Except there wasn’t any trainer and nobody else give a shit about your sore knee, he thought. Leon shook his head again, then went to get his gear.
Chapter 32
They’d nearly circled the island before they found the place, Homer finally recognizing the gazebo in the backyard from a photograph in Alcazar’s office, spotting it all lit up in a burst of lightning just to the west. Deal had cut the running lights while they were still out in the channel, bringing Miss Daisy in on a line toward a neighbor’s dock. He didn’t relish the thought of trying to dock in this weather, but what was he supposed to do? The neighbor’s house where they were headed looked deserted, a couple pair of davits swinging empt
y in the stiff wind, no lights at the boathouse, no signs of life inland, the owners probably in Vermont or Vail, toughing out the summer. Nobody there to watch Deal struggle in, at least.
A hundred yards to port was the broad sweep of Alcazar’s lawn that ran down to the dock where a Donzi was tied off on spring-loaded davits that arched and bobbed over the boat like big fishing rods struck by monster fish.
There were lights on in the back of the house, but he couldn’t see anyone inside. He slid the engines into reverse, keeping a light hand on the throttle, then turned to Homer, who was dancing up on the balls of his feet, trying to get a look at the place over the rails.
“Hold the wheel a minute,” he said to Homer, then reached for a pair of binoculars Barbara had brought up from below decks. She was back at the stern now, clutching the rails, dry-heaving over the side. She’d gotten sick ten minutes out of Traynor’s.
“What am I supposed to do?” Homer called, struggling with the wheel, which threatened to whirl him off his feet.
“Just hold it steady.” Quite an invasion force he had assembled, Deal thought, raising the glasses.
The way the boat was heaving, it was hard to see, but he thought he caught a glimpse of movement inside. He reached out with one hand to help Homer steady the wheel, then braced himself against the wheel housing and ground the eyepieces down hard.
This time he caught it: Leon Straight, impossible to mistake him, wearing a yellow slicker, walking through a big wood-paneled room past a bank of floor to ceiling windows, carrying something…a briefcase?
The boat tipped up on a swell and Deal’s view disappeared. When they came down again, the room was empty, the lights in the house were out.
“Shit,” Deal said. He scanned the dark swathe of lawn with the glasses, but it was useless. Hadrian’s army could be marching down to the shore, he wouldn’t be able to tell.
“What’s the matter?” It was Barbara, pulling herself back toward the bridge, her voice weak, exhausted.
Done Deal Page 23
