Deal with the Dead

by Les Standiford

  “That’s a charming thing to say,” she said. She tossed her head and glanced at the whispering couple across the room. The two immediately averted their eyes. She turned back to him, taking another sip of her wine.

  “Everything is charming here.”

  “I’m glad you like it.”

  “Why on earth wouldn’t I?”

  He shrugged, glancing around their surroundings. Stresa, it was called these days: the cuisine northern Italian; the décor, French. The staff all local Bahamians. Broad plate-glass windows looking out upon a forested glade a stone’s throw from a gaudy resort, but most of the tourists kept to the tiki bars and the Americanized restaurants closer to the water’s edge. Rhodes felt comfortable here, more comfortable than he’d felt in years.

  “My father had this place built, you know.”

  She shook her head, bemused. Her gaze swept around the room once again. “When was that?”

  “A long time ago,” he said. “It was different back then. More ‘New York night spot.’”

  She nodded. “Is that why we stopped in Nassau? Auld lang syne?”

  He shook his head.

  “Then why?”

  “This is home,” he told her.

  She stared at him. “I thought we were going to the States…” She trailed off, her glass tilted slightly in her hand.

  “You don’t want to spill any of that,” Rhodes said with a nod. A waiter had materialized at their table to set down gilt-edged plates bearing what looked like pâté dotted with caviar. He couldn’t be sure. Beyond the wine, Rhodes had left the menu to the captain.

  When the waiter was gone, he turned back to her. “My father was born in New York. He moved to Florida early on. He did well there. But things eventually took a turn.”

  “They always do,” she agreed.

  “Yes,” Rhodes said, nodding to her. “It was required of him to leave rather suddenly.”

  “When was this?”

  “In the fifties,” Rhodes said. “About the time that everyone else in the Caribbean started going the other way.”

  “And this is the place he came to?”

  “My father found gracious haven in the islands,” Rhodes said.

  “And you grew up here?”

  “Off and on,” he said. “I went to school in the States, got my start in business there.”

  She nodded thoughtfully. “Your father was a criminal?”

  He looked at her gravely. “Who isn’t?”

  “What exactly did he do?”

  “He gambled.”

  She nodded. “Who doesn’t?”

  He tipped his glass to her. “He had clubs on the mainland and a party ship that anchored just off Palm Beach for many years. This was in the forties and fifties, before Las Vegas, before gambling became tawdry. He was a charming host and very good at what he did. The Lucky One, that’s what the Hispanics called him.”

  “An interesting name,” she said. She nibbled at her pâté, made an approving sound somewhere in her throat. “That project in Florida you talked about with Babescu,” she said after a moment, a question in her voice. He nodded, noting that her gaze did not waver when she mentioned the name. “I thought that’s where you were going, that’s all.”

  “I may yet,” he said. “But there’s something I need to find first.”

  “You don’t strike me as the sort of man who lacks for anything,” she said mildly.

  He had a bite of the pâté himself. The flavor seemed to have been designed with the explosive wine in mind. “I wish my father were here to meet you,” he said.

  “So do I,” she said. “What is it you need to find?”

  He dabbed at the corner of his mouth and signaled with his nearly empty wineglass. In seconds, the assistant was back to pour them more.

  “The fact is, I’m nearly broke,” he told her.

  She glanced at their surroundings then touched the rubies at her neck, hardly convinced. “Are these on loan, then?”

  “Wealth is a relative thing,” he told her. “Babescu, the bastard, robbed me blind. You happened in on the end of our discussion.”

  When she didn’t flinch, he went on. “What he didn’t squander on preposterous ideas like that spectacle in Kusadisi, he sank into this colossus in Miami.” He shook his head. “Shipping, ports, international trade. The man fancied himself the next Onassis.”

  “Why not just sell out?” she asked. She turned her gaze discreetly. “It’s all yours now, after all.”

  He shrugged. “It’s hardly the time,” he said. “Once the project gets off the ground, then maybe I’ll be able to unload…,” he trailed off, shaking his head. “As the old saying goes, it takes money to make money. I need cash quickly, and I can’t make myself visible in certain quarters.”

  “You’re wanted in the United States,” she said. It was not a question.

  He put his wineglass down and stared at her. “Kaia, I’m wanted everywhere.” He paused and waved his hand at the room. “Everywhere but here, that is.”

  She glanced toward the entrance of the place uncertainly, as if she expected a squadron of police to burst in. “And you have money in Nassau?”

  “Nearby,” he said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means there’s someone in Miami I need to speak to.”

  She had more wine, a full swallow this time. “You meant it when you say you have to find it, don’t you?”

  He leaned forward. “Kaia, you are beautiful, you can walk through fire, but that’s the least part of it.” He reached to take her hand. “You understand me. You’re a kindred spirit.”

  She was looking at him, but her mind was elsewhere, still calculating all he’d told her over the past weeks. “It’s your father’s money, isn’t it?”

  He smiled. “Amazing. Simply amazing. If I’d had you with me all this time…”

  She sat back in the brocaded chair. “You’ve brought me all the way to Nassau to go on a treasure hunt.”

  He smiled. “To take possession of what’s rightfully mine, that’s all.”

  “Who is this person you have to speak to?”

  Rhodes shrugged. “He’s a building contractor, the son of an old friend of my father’s.”

  “He has your money?”

  He gave her a speculative look. “I believe he can point me in the right direction.”

  “Assuming he would want to.”

  He smiled. “Frank and Basil can be persuasive.”

  She chose to ignore the implication. “Why now, Richard? Why didn’t you come here a long time ago?”

  “For one thing, I didn’t need the money, or so I thought. I made a big mistake, trusting Babescu,” he said, shrugging. “And I was undergoing some extensive medical procedures that made travel impractical.”

  “You’re sick?”

  He thought he saw concern in her eyes. The thought only enhanced the bittersweet ache he felt every time he looked at her. “Nothing like that,” he said. “Just a bit of cosmetic rearrangement.”

  She looked at him carefully. “Whatever it was,” she said, “they did it well. Make sure to give me the name of your doctor.”

  “What on earth for?” he said. “You’re perfect.”

  “Time catches up with everyone, Richard.” She bent to her plate and finished the pâté in a bite.

  Even the way she chewed her food seemed attractive, he marveled. He knew he was in trouble now.

  She put her fork down and smiled. “How old are you?” she asked.

  “Does it matter?”

  “Not really,” she said. “Have you ever been married?”

  He raised his eyes in reply. “We’re getting to the basic questions a bit late, aren’t we?”

  “Maybe it’s the wine,” she said. “Have you been married?”

  He paused, gazing up at the ceiling momentarily. “‘Were a woman possible as I am possible, then marriage would b
e possible,’” he said.

  “That’s rather lofty,” she said.

  “It’s the work of an American poet,” he said. “The speaker fancies himself too eccentric ever to find a mate.”

  “How does it turn out?”

  “It’s a poem,” he told her. “Poems don’t turn out.”

  She nodded as if she’d accept that authority.

  “How about you?” he asked. “How is it you’re still all alone?”

  She gave him a tolerant smile. “There’s plenty of time. I was with a man when I got into the spectacle thing, you know.”

  He didn’t know, and didn’t really want to know, but he nodded sagely anyway. “So all that was his game to begin with?”

  “He was a Swede,” she said, as if it explained a number of things. “We met in an ashram, in India.”

  He lifted his head in recognition. “So that’s where you learned to walk on coals.”

  She glanced at him sharply. “I thought we were finished with that,” she said.

  He held up his hands in surrender. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  She nodded, then glanced away for a moment. When she began to speak again, her voice had a wistful tone, he thought. “Karl was a genius, but a troubled one. I followed him from India to London. We lived together. He was on the web before there was a web. All-night chats over the ether with other disembodied spirits.” She shook her head wearily and took another sip of wine.

  “That’s how he learned about SRL.” She gave him a practiced smile. “The next thing, we were off to San Francisco.”

  “SRL?”

  “Survival Research Laboratories,” she said. “More angry geniuses. There are a number of them, loosely knit groups with similar names: Peoplehaters, Cybernasia. It’s a countercultural thing. They’d fry all of Silicon Valley if they could.”

  “And from that came the spectacles?”

  “Even a genius needs an audience,” she said.

  “Whatever happened to Karl?” Mangled by some giant slice-and-dice machine? he mused. Roasted by a first-generation firecage?

  She shrugged. “Karl found out what kind of money the American geniuses had turned their backs on. He went to work for the enemy. The last I heard, he was working on military applications for the Pentagon.”

  He nodded. “So Karl’s found his niche.”

  “He’s still angry,” she said. “But now he’s destroying things and being well paid for it.”

  “What happened to the two of you?”

  “If he hadn’t gotten his rocks off sufficiently during the day,” she said, “he took it out on me at night. I got tired of it.”

  Rhodes felt an unreasoning anger rise within him. “He hurt you?”

  She shrugged. “Nothing serious. I like it on the edge, in case you haven’t noticed. But on top of everything, he’d gotten so gloomy, and there we were in California.” She smiled and finished her wine. In an instant, the assistant was there to pour the last of the bottle into her glass. The man gave an inquiring glance at Rhodes, who sent him scurrying off to the cellars with a nod. “Besides,” Kaia said as the man disappeared, “I’d gotten interested in the spectacle of the thing, you know.”

  “The magician’s assistant becomes the magician herself?”

  “I suppose that’s it,” she said. “There is this thrill, standing there, a few inches away from certain death. And knowing that I choose to be there.”

  Rhodes rested his chin on his interlaced fingers. “I’m only speculating here…” he began.

  “Speculate away,” she said.

  “Karl started off an outlaw, then was co-opted by the system.”

  She shrugged. “So what?”

  “So now you find yourself in the company of a true fugitive from justice. What does that tell you?”

  “Whatever you’re implying,” she said, looking at him in amusement, “I’m here because you invited me.”

  “So you are,” he said. “It was just a thought, that’s all.”

  “Analyze it anyway you like,” she said. “The wine is wonderful. It’s even better, wondering just how you’re going to pay for it.”

  He smiled back. “It excites you, does it?”

  She leaned closer. “It’s almost like being inside that firecage.”

  He nodded. “I can feel the heat myself.”

  The couple who’d been gawking at them over dessert had settled up and were walking past their table now, with no pretense at hiding their inquisitive stares. The sommelier was headed their way bearing another bottle of Château Margaux, his expression coming dangerously close to a smile.

  Ah, yes, Rhodes thought, turning his gaze back to her: How his life had finally coalesced. Beneath the snowily draped table, he felt her bare foot graze the inside of his thigh. Ah, yes.

  Somehow the rest of dinner passed.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Monday morning, Deal was sitting behind his desk in the portable office, stacks of files strewn on its surface before him. He’d put in a call to City-County first thing, had to leave a message on voice mail. Then he had set about combing through old DealCo records, searching for some trace of Talbot Sams. He’d had no luck, but then again, he’d only made it about halfway through the first drawer, cursing the haphazard nature of the system, or lack thereof, when the phone rang, echoing in the otherwise silent office.

  “John Deal,” he said into the receiver.

  “It’s Gladys Collum,” a woman’s voice came back. “In Mr. Martinez’s office. You called about your bid.”

  “I did,” Deal agreed. He was ready for anything.

  “What was your question?” The voice abrupt, annoyed at having to waste time on actually being of service.

  “I’m wondering about the status.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The status of the port office building bid,” he said. “I was told the matter had been decided.”

  There was a pause on the other end. Deal heard the rustling of papers, then a muffled voice calling something to a coworker. In a moment, she was back. “Where did you get that information?” she asked.

  Deal hesitated, but he didn’t hesitate long. “Eddie Barrios called me Friday afternoon,” he said. If he was blowing Eddie’s cover, too bad.

  He heard Gladys sigh audibly. “Just a moment,” she said into the phone, and then he heard another muffled voice.

  In the next moment, there came a click, and another voice cut in on the line. “This is Rafael Martinez. How can I help you?”

  Deal closed his eyes, took a deep breath. Martinez was the new oversight manager for the project, installed by a mayor who had run on a promise of “strict accountability in public works” to voters long accustomed to anything but. Deal knew little about the man—he’d had a brief handshake the day he turned in his bid.

  “This is John Deal,” he said. “I’m calling about the port offices bid.”

  “Eddie Barrios called you?” The tone of Martinez’s voice left little doubt as to his opinion of the man.

  “That’s right,” Deal said.

  Another pause. Deal could have sworn he heard the drumming of fingertips on a desk top. “I’d like to know how these things get out,” Martinez fumed.

  “Look—” Deal began, but Martinez was already going on.

  “There’s a process, you understand. Put in place for very good reasons.”

  “How about Talbot Sams?” Deal interjected. “He called, too.”

  “I don’t know anyone by that name,” Martinez said. Deal thought he said it a little too quickly.

  “Couldn’t you just give me the word, Mr. Martinez?”

  Another pause, but not as long this time. When he spoke again, Martinez’s voice had lost some of its edge. “I don’t suppose there’s much point in my toeing the line,” the man said. “No one else seems to pay attention to protocol.”

  “Are we moving up on a ‘yes’?”

&nbs
p; “Your bid was chosen, Mr. Deal,” Martinez said. “The notifications went out by messenger this morning.”

  Deal felt a surge of conflicting feelings well up inside him. Relief, pleasure, satisfaction, validation of his efforts: those he was grateful for, were all to be expected. But just as quickly came suspicion and anger trailing in the wake. Compared to the distaste he’d felt when Eddie Barrios called to tip him to the news, the specter of Talbot Sams, sitting in this very chair, claiming he’d arranged it all…

  “Was there something else I could help you with?” Martinez’s voice cut into his thoughts.

  “No,” Deal said, staring across the room at the waiting file cabinets. There was no point in irritating Martinez further, he thought. “I guess not. If something comes to me, I’ll bring it up the next time I’m in. I guess we’ll be seeing quite a bit of each other, now.”

  “Not on this job,” Martinez answered quickly.

  “What do you mean?” Deal asked. DealCo hadn’t had a government contract since the early eighties, but he could still remember his father’s grumblings about the time it took to process paperwork through the downtown bureaucracy.

  “The way it’s set up, you’ll coordinate through the general contractor. The only way you’ll be in here is if there’s some kind of a problem.”

  Deal paused. “So where do I go next?”

  “All that’s in the paperwork on its way to you,” Martinez said.

  Deal raised his eyebrows. “Well, I guess that’s it, then. Thanks for your help, Mr. Martinez.”

  “My pleasure,” Martinez said as he hung up, his tone conveying any number of emotions, none of them pleasurable.

  Deal stared at the receiver for a moment, then replaced it in the cradle. Good old Eddie Barrios, he thought. What did it say about a guy who likes to give good news and everybody despises him anyway?

  He heard the sounds of a motor outside then, someone winding down the lane toward the offices. The messenger, he thought, a man bearing the envelope from city hall, Deal’s ticket back to a serious business life. He stood and went to the door, unable to keep from thinking about how differently the moment might have been configured: no Eddie Barrios, no Talbot Sams, no separation from Janice or his daughter…Why couldn’t there be one simple, unalloyed moment of joy, no strings, no conditions, he asked himself…