Dead Fast
Page 23
“Keep it on you,” I said. “At all times. Remember what the goal is this year. Finish school, get solid grades, get back here. Then you can run.”
He nodded. “Thank you, Miami.”
“Anytime, kid.”
He folded the flag and put it in his pocket, and then he looked at me. “What will happen to Mista Richmond?”
“You don’t need to worry about him. He’s going to spend some time in a federal prison. Then he’ll probably have his green card revoked and be sent back to Jamaica, where Corporal Tellis says they have some charges of their own.”
He nodded, but this time he didn’t smile. It wasn’t a smiling matter. Sending bad guys to jail was never something to be happy about. Glad, yes. But not happy.
The final call for the flight was made and Markus shook hands with Ron and me, then hugged Danielle, and headed for the boarding line. As he handed the boarding pass to the agent he reached into his pocket and pulled out the pennant. I watched him stroke it. And he smiled. I thought of his mother, asking why I was helping them, what I wanted. And right there, that was why. The agent handed Markus his boarding pass and he walked into the jetway. He didn’t look back, which was a grand way to move on.
Agent Marcard had asked Danielle to bring me in to the office to complete formalities when I was up to it. Although the ringing in my ears had stopped, the headache persisted, but I didn’t know when I would be up and about next, so we dropped by.
He welcomed us into the same conference room and slid some papers over to me and Danielle. He said he had taken the liberty of completing a report, and asked us to read it. I didn’t. I wasn’t in a reading mood, and I was comfortable that his report would be honest to a fault and designed to nail Richmond. Then Special Agent Kerns joined us. She sat on the side with Marcard, and she slid a similar report over to each of us, and asked the same question. I signed it too, equally confident that Winston would get what was coming to him at the end of Special Agent Kerns’s big stick. Then Kerns turned to Danielle. She noted that Danielle was yet to change clothes.
“That was some fine work yesterday, Deputy,” she said.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“Our international taskforce is ramping up. Winston is quite the scalp, but there’s more to do. You wouldn’t be interested in joining us in DC, would you?”
Danielle didn’t smile or make any kind of face, but she took her time answering. “Thank you for the thought, Special Agent. But I feel like I’m needed down here.”
Kerns nodded. “They’re lucky to have you.”
“If your task force is international, you might consider the officer who worked with us on the Jamaican end. Corporal Tellis, Jamaica Constabulary Force, Montego Bay. She’s young, but she’s as bright as I’ve seen.”
Kerns made a note on her pad. “Tellis. Thanks. We can use someone good on that end.” Kerns thanked us and left, and then Agent Marcard walked us to the parking lot, where Ron was waiting in his car with a coffee and the Miami Herald. Marcard stopped Danielle before she got in.
“If you’re not interested in DC, perhaps you’ll give some thought to joining my office.”
“I’m happy where I am,” she said.
Marcard shook his head. “I doubt that. You can do more, and you know it. But all I’m saying is, give it some thought.” He handed Danielle his card and she took it, and Ron fired up the Camry. He drove us back to Broward General, where Danielle had left the Boxster, and we dropped her off. Then Ron pulled us onto I-95 and headed north into another sunny South Florida day. The radio told us it was pouring cats and dogs across Okeechobee to Fort Pierce, but we saw no evidence of precipitation where we were. But that’s the thing with Florida rain. It’s a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Or the wrong place, depending on your point of view.
Ron cruised up I-95 without a word, and we both looked east as we shot by West Palm Beach and the turnoff that would have taken us toward Longboard Kelly’s. He glanced back at me and smiled. Another day. We got to my house on Singer Island in good time, but unlike the last time when Ron had collected Markus and me from the airport, the Boxster already sat in the driveway. Ron didn’t switch off the engine.
“I’ll see you in the office tomorrow,” he said.
“That you will.”
“Take a few extra headache tablets. Lizzy’s going to have quite a bit to say.”
I smiled and nodded, then got out and watched Ron turn and head away. I did the same, and found Danielle waiting at the front door. She still hadn’t changed clothes.
“Okay?” she said.
I stopped in place. Palm trees wafted overhead and the briny scent of the Intracoastal drifted on the air. I took in the blue sky, the temperature hinting at the summer to come. Looking back at Danielle I nodded.
“All good.”
I got settled on the living room sofa, and Danielle brought me some ice water.
“Can I get you anything else?” she asked.
“No. You need a long hot shower, though, I’m sure.”
“So do you.”
I raised my eyebrows and made to get up, but she gently pushed me down.
“Easy, tiger. You can go later.”
I feigned disappointment, but the attempt at standing had sent blood to my head, or taken it away, I didn’t know which. Either way it pounded for a good few minutes. Danielle went for a shower and I lay on the sofa and lamented the lack of a television, so I eased myself up nice and slow, and took my water out to the back patio. I flicked the umbrella up so the loungers were in shade, and then I lay down and closed my eyes.
I must have dozed because I woke to find Danielle lying on her lounger next to me, sunglasses resting on her head, sipping a cup of tea, looking better than anyone deserved given the lack of sleep. I watched her for a while, her eyes dancing across the view of the water and Riviera Beach beyond. She must have sensed she was being watched, because she turned to me and gave me her half smile.
“Just like Jamaica,” I said. “Without the rum.”
“And the motorcycles,” she said.
“The Porsche looks like the safest vehicle on the road in comparison.”
Danielle shrugged.
“What?” I asked.
She wore a grin that suggested her mind was cooking up some kind of evil plan. “I think we need a new bet.”
“Oh, save me. I just got out of the hospital because of the last bet, if you recall.”
“But this one you can’t lose.”
“I thought that last time, but I have a knack for finding ways to end up getting cracked on the head. Go on, what’s the bet?”
“You stay out of trouble for the next month.”
“Define trouble.”
“Someone wanting to or actually causing you bodily harm.”
“I wish that every day. So if I lose, what do you get?”
“Nothing. You get rid of the Porsche.”
“Why? It’s the first car I’ve had that hasn’t been smashed or bashed in I can’t remember how long.”
“But it’s not you. You’re a domestic car kind of guy.”
“You think?”
She nodded.
“Okay. So what if I win the bet? What do I get?”
Danielle raised an eyebrow. “Me.”
“You? Don’t I already have you?”
“I’ll make an honest man of you.”
“Make an honest man of me? What does that mean?”
Danielle lay back in her lounger and flicked her sunglasses down over her eyes and turned to the water. “You give your bruised little brain some time to think about it.”
I turned to the water as well. My bruised little brain wasn’t in any shape to figure anything out, so I closed my eyes and listened to the tink of rigging on masts, and the calls of the gulls, and felt the warmth of the sun on my face, and I thought about tourist brochures, and why people came to Florida in the first place, and in what ways I wasn’t already an honest man.<
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About the Author
A.J. STEWART WROTE marketing copy for Fortune 500 companies and tech start-ups for 20 years, until his head nearly exploded from all the stories bursting to get out. Stiff Arm Steal was his fifth novel, but the first to make it into print.
He has lived and worked in Australia, Japan, UK, Norway, and South Africa, as well as San Francisco, Connecticut and of course Florida. He currently resides in Los Angeles with his two favorite people, his wife and son.
AJ is working on a screenplay that he never plans to produce, but it gives him something to talk about at parties in LA.
You can find AJ online at www.ajstewartbooks.com, connect on Twitter @The_AJStewart, Facebook facebook.com/TheAJStewart or Google Plus.
Books by AJ Stewart:
Stiff Arm Steal
Offside Trap
High Lie
Dead Fast
Crash Tack
Three Strikes
Acknowledgements
THANKS, AS ALWAYS, to all my readers who send me feedback. A huge thanks to Constance, Marianne and Donna for their editorial and proofing expertise; all the beta readers, especially Heather and Lee; and the readers on my inner circle reading team. These books don’t happen in isolation, so thank you. Any and all errors are mine, especially but not limited to my approximation of the Jamaican patois, as picked up from Jamaicans all over the world, but especially at the Private Banks Cricket Ground in London, around Lauderhill in Florida and in Montego Bay, Jamaica. A more joyful bunch of people you would have to travel a long way to find.
Jacaranda Drive Publishing
Los Angeles, California
www.jacarandadrive.com
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover artwork by Streetlight Graphics
Copyright © 2015 by A.J. Stewart
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission from the author.