Deal with the Dead

by Les Standiford

  The thinner guy was down again, but the one behind him still had him by the shirt. If the big guy ever got both arms around him, he’d be finished, Deal thought, tossing the useless pot handle aside.

  He fell forward, catching hold of a shelf on the open freezer door, but his feet were slipping in crushed orange pulp and pottery scraps, and he felt the flimsy plastic of the door shelving ready to give way in an instant. Whatever was inside the freezer had to be hard, he thought, his other hand groping the frigid interior. He just prayed he wouldn’t find celery, or lamp shades.

  Nothing but frost-covered shelving as far as he could tell, however, and besides, he was going backward now, drawn inexorably by the hand of the big guy, who was still sputtering and cursing, the smell of curry everywhere. Deal caught hold of the lip of a steel freezer bin, but the thing whizzed straight out on its track, hesitating only a moment before it shot free. Something solid struck him in the chest as the shelf fell, though, and he threw up his hand reflexively to catch it.

  A sufficiently rocklike handful it was, with a couple of knurls making for a firm handhold. Cornish game hen, he thought. Something he’d always hated, to Janice’s dismay. But at the moment it seemed a terrific argument for living the separate life. He raised his hand high and twisted about, bringing the frozen ball down on the crown of the big man’s head. The guy didn’t even groan as he fell.

  Deal felt the grip on his shirt go slack and he spun away, heading for the hall. He hadn’t gotten past the end of the counter, though, when he felt a pair of arms around his legs. A good sure tackle, he was thinking, as he went over, his head clipping the edge of the counter.

  Boil up the socks and add the curry, went the crazy thoughts through his star-pinging head. You always make a mess when you cook, Johnny Deal. He could hardly say he was sorry. Employ pliers to pull socks from steaming water. Emeril Lagasse had nothing on him or Janice. What a recipe.

  Serve with well-bludgeoned game hen. Season with crushed peel of thug. He loved Janice. He loved Isabel. What a mess. And then his thoughts winked out.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  “You’re going to eat that thing?” Russell Straight asked, pointing at the plate the bartender had put in front of Driscoll.

  “You think I was going to hatch it?” Driscoll asked him. He picked up the peeled, pickled-pink egg and bit down. The cool texture felt soothing against his scratchy throat. He washed the egg down with a swallow of beer, then had another bite, and a third, which completed the process.

  “You are a tough guy,” Straight said, sipping at his own beer.

  “That cholesterol business,” Driscoll said, “it never bothered me. I figure if you don’t challenge your heart a little, how’s it going to stay strong?”

  Straight lifted his beer in response. “Let’s hope it works out for you.”

  Driscoll nodded. He had another swallow of his draft, then glanced around the horseshoe-shaped bar, making sure no one was paying attention. He needn’t have bothered. This was Flaherty’s, after all. The bartender was standing at the opposite end, idly polishing a glass and watching a Heat game unfold. A couple other patrons sat down there—one guy wearing a bowling shirt, the other a Miami Heat warm-up, all of three of them cheering a Hardaway assist, a thunderous Mourning jam. Three guys who looked like they couldn’t manage a push-up among them were high-fiving like it was them who’d just scored.

  There was a white-haired guy sitting closer, but he was staring at his palm through smeared glasses like Moses had chiseled the tablets there, his lips moving soundlessly—maybe he was trying to find a commandment he was still capable of breaking, Driscoll thought.

  He turned back to Straight then. “You know what I was doing just before those guys jumped me?” he asked.

  “Looking for a new apartment,” Straight said, not meaning it. He’d been staring at the old guy, too.

  “A buddy of mine who lives in that building has a certain facility with computers. I was in his place reviewing your accomplishments as a prize fighter,” Driscoll said.

  “Is that so?”

  Driscoll nodded, waiting.

  “Cops like to pull stuff like this, you know,” Russell Straight said, staring ahead. It looked like he saw something coming his way. He didn’t seem worried about the prospect.

  “Do what?”

  “Say some shit, hope a man will just jump salty, say some things he doesn’t mean to.”

  Driscoll shrugged. “If you have things to talk about, then go ahead.”

  “What do I have to say? If you did your business like you claim, you already know all you need to know.”

  Driscoll glanced over at the old guy. He’d switched hands, seemed to be counting something off on his fingers. Driscoll turned back to Straight. “You were in the joint for killing a man, and that’s when your bad-news brother got his ticket punched. You get sprung, the first thing you do is come to Miami looking to take out your grief on John Deal, but that doesn’t go according to plan. Now you’re still hanging around. It only makes sense that I’d like to know why.”

  “You Deal’s keeper, are you?”

  “I’m more than that. I’m his friend.”

  “Leon was my friend.”

  “He did a lot for you, huh? Wrote you long letters while you were in the slam? Sent cookies?”

  “I was you, I wouldn’t run my mouth about something I didn’t know.”

  Something in Russell Straight’s tone caught Driscoll off guard. He paused, noticing a time-out had been called on the TV game. He signaled the bartender for another round, then turned back to Straight.

  “You have no idea how I grew up,” Straight said. “Leon wasn’t there, I might not have made it.”

  Driscoll nodded.

  “I’ll let it go, what you said about my brother,” Russell continued. He glanced over. “This once.”

  Driscoll nodded again. Say what you want about any felon, the person is always somebody’s son, somebody’s lover, somebody’s big brother. He didn’t know the particulars of the brothers Straight’s upbringing, and he didn’t want to know. Given the outcomes, he could guess. The point Russell Straight was making, Driscoll could let himself concede.

  “I want to thank you again for getting me out of a jam back there,” Driscoll said at last.

  Straight nodded. “We were going to talk about that.”

  “Yeah,” Driscoll said. “You were going to tell me why you went to Deal’s place.”

  Russell looked at him. “You like to play poker?”

  Driscoll shook his head. “I work too hard for my money.”

  “That’s a shame,” Straight said. “You’d be good at it.”

  “What’s your fascination with John Deal?” Driscoll said.

  Russell Straight took a breath, clasping his hands together. The bartender had brought them another round, but Driscoll noted Russell wasn’t halfway through his first. He seemed to be making up his mind about something. It seemed to take a while.

  When he turned to face Driscoll again, his expression had cleared. “I was on my way out of town,” Straight said. “I thought I owed it to the man to tell him I was leaving town…and to thank him for what he did.”

  Yeah, for not having your ass arrested, is what Driscoll thought. But he kept it to himself. “You went over there to quit, huh?”

  “However you want to put it.”

  “And then you decided to follow me?”

  “We already went over that.”

  “Uh-huh,” Driscoll said. “But something’s not adding up. You don’t work for me, Russell. You leave town, I’m supposed to care?”

  “Here’s something to add on,” Russell said. “You’re not a cop anymore and we’re not sitting in the station house. But you want to know the truth, I thought you might be messing with the man, in which case I’d tell him about it. The other thing, maybe he sent you to his place to pick up something, you’re going to take it to him. In w
hich case, I’d let it go. Walk up and shake his hand, say goodbye.”

  “Just acting in his best interest, huh?”

  “Same as you,” Straight said.

  “A guy you were ready to take out a couple days ago.”

  Straight shrugged. “He could have dumped a world of trouble on me. I owe the man for that.”

  “You bet your life you do,” Driscoll said.

  “Are we finished with that part now?” Straight asked.

  Driscoll opened his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I guess we are.”

  “You never told me why those guys jumped you,” Straight said.

  “Yeah, I did,” Driscoll said.

  “You said they wanted your jack, which is a bunch of shit.”

  “A man is entitled to his own opinion,” Driscoll said.

  “This is bullshit, man. I told you the truth. Now it’s your turn.”

  “I had a need to know, my friend. I don’t think that applies in your case.”

  “Maybe it does,” Straight said. “You been nosing into my business, maybe those guys were, too.”

  “Did they look like parole officers to you?”

  “I don’t know what they looked like. That’s something else we’ve been over.”

  “They didn’t give a rat’s ass about you, Russell, that’s all the information you need.”

  “So you say, Mr. Egg-Sucking Cop.”

  Driscoll felt the muscles in his neck and shoulders knotting. “Just how good a fighter were you, Russell?”

  “That what you want to find out?” Russell asked, his face impassive. Neither one of them had raised their voices by so much as a decibel. “We’re supposed to go outside. I’ll show you Thursday morning coming out your ass?”

  “Dream on, my friend.” Like the poor old guy a few stools down, Driscoll had his own palm upraised now. But he wasn’t seeing commandments there. Just the calluses, and all the scars.

  Russell shook his head as if the matter had lost interest for him. “You say the thing don’t have to do with me, I’ll take your word.” He glanced at Driscoll mildly. “Just do me one favor.”

  Driscoll lifted an eyebrow in response.

  “Someplace else John Deal could be?”

  “His wife’s, maybe,” Driscoll said.

  “Yeah? They split up?”

  Driscoll gave him a look.

  “Whatever,” Straight said. “How about you give him a call, say I wanted to get in touch, that’s all. I’ll say my goodbyes, head on out of your way, Mr. Driscoll.”

  Driscoll hesitated. Russell Straight slid some coins across the bar toward him. Driscoll glanced down at them as if a toad had plopped them there. Not that he was at all sure about the man, but if all it was going to take was a phone call to get rid of him, it was a small price to pay.

  “Keep your money, Russell,” Driscoll said. And moved off to the phone to call Janice.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  “Red…right…returning,” Deal’s toneless voice called out. The Cigarette’s motors were a soft rumbling backdrop as Basil Wheatley guided them at near-idle through the shallow Bahamian waters toward shore.

  “What’s he talking about?” Frank Wheatley said, glancing down at Deal’s tightly bound form.

  “That’s nautical talk, Frank,” his brother said. “Sort of like ‘full fathom five,’ or ‘I’ll keelhaul ye landlubbers,’ stuff like that.”

  Frank nodded dubiously. He pointed at one of the red buoy markers materializing out of the darkness ahead of them. “That red one’s on the left.”

  “Uh-huh,” Basil said. “Who you going to trust, little brother? Me, or some guy who’s talking in his sleep?”

  A contemplative look came to Frank Wheatley’s features. “I guess I don’t have much choice,” he said finally. He glanced down at Deal again. He was blinking, licking his lips, the picture of a man unaware. “He’s awake, by the way.”

  Basil nodded, his eyes fixed on the gathering shoreline ahead. “Just in time,” the big man said. He’d spotted the lights at the end of the jutting dock and was making toward landing. “See how he’s doing. Maybe he’s thirsty.”

  “My brother wants to know if you’re thirsty,” Frank said, staring down at Deal.

  Deal stared upward, trying to blink his eyes into focus. The side of his head ached, pulsing with every chugging beat of his heart. He watched as the image of the bearded man above him—his face softly illumined by the lights of the Cigarette’s console—shimmered into two, then coalesced again. He tried to move his arms, to lift himself into a sitting position, and thought that maybe he had been paralyzed by the blow to his head. Then he realized he’d been tied.

  “What’s going on?” he managed. His tongue felt thick and cottony. He was thirsty, he realized. Extremely thirsty.

  “Here,” the bearded man said, extending a plastic water bottle his way.

  Deal stared at him.

  “Oh, yeah,” the bearded man said. He reached for the snap top of the bottle, pulled its built-in spout open so that Deal might drink.

  “Why don’t you untie me?” Deal said after he’d managed a few swallows.

  “You think I’m stupid?” the bearded man said.

  Deal decided not to answer.

  “We’ll untie you,” the big man behind the wheel of the boat said. “Just as soon as we get on shore.”

  Deal tried to get a look over the side of the cockpit, but it was hopeless. “Where are we?” he managed.

  “Quicksilver Cay,” the man behind the wheel said.

  “As in…?” Deal said, still groggy.

  “As in the Bahamas,” the big man said.

  “I’ve never heard of it,” Deal said, though some distant bell seemed to be ringing in his head.

  “It’s private,” the big man said. “There’s different names on some of the maps. That’s what it’s called now.”

  Deal sank back, resting his aching head against the still-thrumming sideboards of the cockpit. “Do you mind telling me why I’ve been kidnapped?”

  “Kidnapped?” the bearded man who towered above him said. “Who’s kidnapped?”

  “Shut up, Frank,” the big man said as the boat nudged up alongside the dock. “Jump up there and secure that aft line.”

  “Fore and aft,” Frank said, hopping up onto the dock. “I always get those two mixed up.”

  “Back there,” the big man said, pointing. Then he glanced down at Deal. “You got any brothers?”

  Deal shook his head.

  “You’re lucky,” the big man said, gesturing at Frank, who was busy tying off the rear of the craft.

  “If I’m not kidnapped, what am I?” Deal asked.

  “We tied you up so you wouldn’t come at us again,” the big man said.

  “It was self-defense,” Frank called down from the dock.

  “This is fore,” the big man said, tossing up another rope to his brother. He turned back to Deal. “He’s right, you know. I got a knot on my head the size of a hen’s egg. My eyes are still burning from whatever you threw at me. Frank’s ear is going to need stitches from where you hit him with that pan. All in all, I’d call you a pretty violent individual.”

  Deal stared up at him, not sure he’d heard correctly. It was the blow to his head, he thought. He wasn’t really tied up in a boat somewhere in the Bahamas. It was all a lunatic dream. It would have been easier to believe his story if his head didn’t hurt so much.

  In the next moment, the big man had cut the engines. He turned and grabbed Deal under the arms, lifting him as easily as if he were a child. “Coming up,” the big man called to his brother.

  Deal felt another strong pair of hands underneath his arms, and then he was on the dock. “Don’t try anything funny,” Frank was saying, propping him against one of the thick wooden pilings. “You fall in the water, you’re gonna drown.”

  “Don’t worry,” Deal said. In the greenish glow
cast from the pale dock lamp, Deal got a look at his tightly bound hands and feet. Plastic grocery bags, he realized. They’d tied him up with knotted-together bags from Publix—an item Janice had never saved a single one of in all the time they’d been together.

  In another minute, the big man had vaulted onto the dock as well—a graceful movement for a man of that size, Deal thought. “You’re all calmed down now, right?” he said to Deal.

  Deal nodded. Even if he were somehow to overcome the two of them, what would he do next? Commandeer that Cigarette, rocket out across a set of unfamiliar shoals in the middle of the night? No, he thought, breathing in the odors of beached seaweed and sulphur that rose from the tidal shallows surrounding them. Right now he was willing to settle for getting his hands untied, working out the kinks in his stiff arms and shoulders, see if the pounding in his head might then subside.

  “Call up to the house,” the big man said to Frank, “let them know we’re here.”

  Frank nodded and moved off toward a phone mounted on a stanchion nearby. There was a stainless-steel-topped cleaning table there, a hose neatly coiled underneath, but something in its pristine aspect told Deal there hadn’t been a fish filleted there in a long time. As if he were attuned to such thoughts, the big man pulled what looked like a boning knife from a scabbard on his belt and bent down at Deal’s feet. He glanced up—a last warning there, Deal thought—then flicked out with the knife, severing the bonds at Deal’s ankles as if they were spider’s threads.

  Deal allowed his feet to work apart in tiny sidelong steps. For a moment, he felt himself teetering, ready to go over backward, but he gritted his teeth and forced himself to steady.

  “Hold out your hands,” the big man said, eyeing him.

  Deal did as he was told. He felt the cool brush of the knife blade as it slid between his wrists, and then his hands were free. “Don’t forget,” the big man said, tapping the slender point of the knife at Deal’s chest. “It’s nothing personal, but I’ll gut you as soon as look at you.”

  Deal nodded, unwrapping the knotted plastic from his wrists. He noticed that Frank had finished his mumbled conversation on the phone. “He says to come on up, Basil.”