The waitress took our drink orders and left menus. I ordered the salty dog, a deep fried concoction that is better than it sounds. Jock asked for the fried chicken sandwich, and Logan settled for a hamburger. I told them what I’d found in Goldblum’s office and assured them that the documents were solid. De Fresne had told us the truth.
Our food came, and we talked about what to do about Dick LaPlante and George McKinley. “I’m tired of the killing,” I said, “but I can’t let those bastards get away with killing Wyatt.”
“What’re you going to do with the MAD documents?” Logan asked.
“Nothing for now. I promised de Fresne that I’d hold them until after his death.”
“And then?”
“I’m not sure. Let’s let that play out. I don’t know that releasing them will sink McKinley’s chances at the presidency. In fact, what the papers are calling ‘his father’s brutal murder’ seems to be generating sympathy for him.”
“I noticed that,” said Logan. “And he’s apparently beefed up his security in a big way.”
“I’ve got to get back to Houston,” Jock said. “There’re some golf balls calling my name.”
“You go ahead,” I said. “We can’t do anything until de Fresne is dead, so let’s let it rest for now.”
And that’s what we decided to do. Jock left the next afternoon for Houston, and Logan and I prepared to settle back into the island lifestyle we loved. After dropping Jock at the airport, we drove back to the island, stopping at Tiny’s for a drink in the middle of the afternoon. We left after a couple of beers. Logan was taking Marie to dinner and invited me. I declined, thinking they needed some time alone. I went back to my condo, nuked a frozen dinner, and watched the evening news as I ate.
I knew I would have to deal with LaPlante and McKinley, or I’d never rest easy. Wyatt’s useless death needed to be avenged. More useless deaths? Maybe. On the other hand, McKinley could do a lot of damage to this country if he won the presidency. Maybe I could just take him out. LaPlante was nothing without McKinley, and he’d slowly sink into oblivion. He’d have enough money to live well, but not the obscene amount he had now. The money was going back to where it belonged, and Dick LaPlante couldn’t do a damn thing about it. But Wyatt’s ghost demanded full justice, and that included LaPlante.
I was still haunted by what I’d done to Chardone. The world was a better place without a rogue cop who was a murderer and a pedophile. But, I’d put myself in a position to kill a man when I didn’t have to. If I’d let the law handle him, he’d still be alive. Maybe he’d be free to kill again, and good people would die. But that wasn’t my call. Or was it? For good or bad, he was dead and wouldn’t kill again. If I hadn’t tracked him down with murderous intent, I wouldn’t have had to shoot him in the head. I might as well have killed him in cold blood; shot him in the head while he begged for his life. That image was etched on my brain, and I couldn’t erase it. It wasn’t the killing that bothered me. It was the manner in which I’d done it.
I decided I’d try not to think about it for a while. I couldn’t do anything until de Fresne died, and that’d be at least several days, maybe weeks. In the meantime, I’d go back to being a beach bum. It’d be like a vacation.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
They came for me in the night; a discreet knock on my front door and then a pounding. I’m a light sleeper, a leftover response from a long ago war. The first taps awakened me, and the pounding provided a sense of urgency. I looked at my watch. Two a.m. Who would be coming by this time of night? Either a drunk buddy looking for company or an emergency of some sort.
I slipped into a pair of shorts and a tee shirt, and padded to the front door. I turned the dead bolt and started to open the door when it was pushed violently back against me. I dodged out of the way, taking a strike on the arm, and the door slammed into the wall. What the hell? I thought.
A man wearing jeans, a dark tee shirt, and running shoes pushed his way inside. He was slender and muscled, about five foot ten. His face had a day’s growth of beard, his eyes small, squinty, flint hard, and placed above a nose that had been flattened by a fist at some time in the distant past. He was grinning, showing a top row of yellowing teeth with gaps where the canines should have been. He had a nine-millimeter pistol in his right hand, pointed at my midsection.
“Sorry about showing up without an appointment,” he said. “But Mr. LaPlante wants to see you.”
“Come in,” I said. “Can I get you some coffee?”
His grin dissolved, slowly fusing his face into a grimace. “Fuck you, smartass. Go have a seat.” He waved the gun toward my living room. “And shut those drapes.” He pushed the door, not closing it all the way, and followed me into the living room, gun unwavering.
I did as he said. I drew the drapes over the sliding glass doors that led to the sunporch, and took a seat on the sofa. The man pulled out a cell phone and placed a call. He said one word, “Okay.”
“What do you want?” I asked.
“Sit tight. Mr. LaPlante will be here in a minute.”
We sat quietly for a few minutes, I on the sofa, and the gunman in the recliner. The door opened and a dapper man came into the living room. He was about six feet tall and had the slender body I always associate with the patricians. His hair was dark with gray highlights at the temples, a long face, slender nose, and bright blue eyes. He was smiling as if greeting a fellow member at the country club ball. His teeth were white and even. He was wearing a navy blue suit, powder blue shirt, and a blue and yellow regimental tie. His wingtip shoes were polished to a high shine.
“So, we finally meet, Mr. Royal,” the man said. “I’m Richard LaPlante.”
“You should’ve called first, Dickie. I’d have prepared some hors d’oeuvres, chilled some wine.”
“Ah, yes. I’ve heard that you’re something of a smartass.”
“And I’ve heard that you’re something of an asshole.”
The friendly smile disappeared, the blue eyes tightened, the voice dropped a register, the friendly tone suddenly gone. “You have some papers I want.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Come, Mr. Royal. My father died this afternoon, and I couldn’t find the MAD documents. The nurse told me that good old Dad gave you a bunch of papers just yesterday.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Not much of a loss, actually. Now I’ve got the money, and won’t have to put up with an old man’s regrets.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that.”
“On what?”
“Control of the money.”
“I’m the only heir. It’s all mine.”
I let it go. I hoped to be around to watch his reaction when his father’s will was read. “The papers are in a safe place. If anything happens to me, the press and the FBI get them.”
“Then, Mr. Royal, you need to get them for me.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Come along then. We’ll go back to my house. Maybe I can persuade you.”
The parking lot was dimly lit, with just the security lights of the building giving any illumination. We walked to a Mercedes, one of the big ones.
“I’ll drive, Mr. Royal,” said LaPlante. “You take the front passenger seat. My friend here will be in the backseat with his gun pointed at your head.”
I knew this was not going to have a satisfactory outcome. If I got to LaPlante’s house on Casey Key, I’d never leave alive. God knows what he had planned for me, what persuasive techniques he wanted to use to get the documents, but I knew they wouldn’t be pleasant.
I’d stepped into a pair of boat shoes as I left my condo, and I was still wearing the tee shirt and shorts I’d put on to answer the door. The only thing in my pocket was the cell phone and a little cash that I’d left there when I went to bed. I had no weapon, and the gunman’s attention was focused on me the whole time we’d been together.
I hadn’t seen an opening at all.
I stopped at the door to the car, stalling for time, trying to get my brain in gear, find a way out. “Let me ask you one question, LaPlante. Why did you have Wyatt killed?”
The gunman was beside the back door of the passenger side of the Mercedes, standing still, his gun pointed at me, my left side to him as I talked to LaPlante over the roof of the car. I could see the thug in my peripheral vision.
“That’s a fair question, Mr. Royal. He’d apparently stumbled onto the money trail left by my dad and the major after the war. I don’t know how he did that, but he was backtracking. There was the possibility that he’d figure it out.”
“Why kill the professor in Gainesville?”
“He was a specialist in World War II. Wyatt recruited him into his research. We found out about them when they accessed the archives in Bonn.”
“So you’re just the gopher for the McKinleys. You go for things, like pizza and beer, or maybe hookers.”
He was insulted. “Absolutely not. I’m the one who recruited the hitman and oversaw the whole thing.”
“That’ll look good on your résumé when you go to the Senate for confirmation of your cabinet nomination.”
He laughed. “You’d be surprised at what gets left off résumés. Let’s go. Get in the car.”
“One more question. Was that you at the restaurant with Rupert the night before he murdered Wyatt?”
He looked a little surprised. “How did you know that? Rupert never knew my name.”
“No. He’d have given you up before I killed him.”
“You killed him?”
“That’s right. McKinley, too. You guys all signed your death warrants when you decided to kill my friend.”
He laughed. “I think your time has run out, Mr. Royal. No more death warrants will be, um, executed. Except maybe yours. Get in the car.” His happy face morphed into a scowl.
A siren whooped nearby, its wail dying out as soon as it began. The gunman started, was distracted for a second, turned toward the noise. I moved quickly, grabbing his right wrist with my left hand, pushing down with all the force I could muster. At the same time, I brought my right fist into his jaw, catching him just under his mandible. I heard his teeth click together at the same time I felt pangs, like electric shocks, shooting up my arm.
I had no time to think about the pain. I had to get the pistol. The gunman’s head bobbed backward, the reaction to my fist impacting his face. I struck him again, oblivious to the pain in my hand. Two quick jabs, powerful and destructive. He went down, his head making a hard sound as it hit the asphalt. I was still holding his wrist and had begun twisting it as he fell. The pistol popped loose and skidded across the parking lot. I dove headfirst for it.
The gunman lay on the pavement, his head behind the right rear tire of the car. He was unconscious, no longer a threat. The gun ended up in the empty parking spot to the right of LaPlante’s car. I picked it up and rolled onto the grassy border, coming to a position on one knee, pistol pointed at LaPlante.
He was in the driver’s seat, and had gotten the engine started. He hit the accelerator and the car backed out of the space. I heard the sickening noise of the gunman’s head collapsing under the rear wheel. I called to him. “It’s over, LaPlante. Get out of the car.”
He was two car lengths into the lot. He dropped the transmission into drive and poured on the gas, the rear tires making a little screeching sound as they fought for purchase on the sandy asphalt. He was coming right at me. I shot him in the face.
I jumped to my left, out of the way of the car, which bounced over the curb stop at the front of the parking place and slammed into a car parked facing it. I hit the pavement on my shoulder and rolled, absorbing the sharp sting of small rocks spraying onto my exposed skin. I’d have a sore shoulder and some road burn, but I was alive.
I got up, and cautiously approached LaPlante’s car, now smashed grille first into my neighbor’s Lexus. A Longboat police cruiser was coming into the lot at high speed. I dropped the gun and raised my hands. The young cop, Steve Carey, came on the run, his service pistol pointed at me. When he was close enough to recognize me, he holstered his weapon. He was the same officer who’d been first on the scene when my Explorer was bombed.
“Jeez, Matt. What happened? They try to take out your new car?”
“Not exactly. How’d you get here?”
“I stopped a speeder at the corner, and just as I was getting out of my car, I heard gunshots. What happened?”
I gave him a truncated version of the events. “The guy in the car was the one who blew up my Explorer.”
We went around to the back of the car where the body of the gunman lay. I’d seen a lot of death in my time, but I’d never before seen a head squashed like a ripe melon. Blood and gray matter stained the asphalt, and the man’s face was unrecognizable.
There’d been no movement from the Mercedes. Carey and I went to the driver’s side and opened the door. The front airbag had deployed and was holding LaPlante in place against the backrest of the driver’s seat. There was a hole drilled neatly into his forehead, and he was as dead as roadkill.
“Good shooting, Matt,” said the young officer. “Who was he?”
“His name was Richard LaPlante.”
“The society guy?” Incredulity had slipped into the cop’s voice.
“Yep.”
“I’ll be damned.”
Carey walked over to his cruiser and came back with a camera. “Chief’s on his way, Matt. Said for you to stay here.” He took a number of flash shots, and then went back to his car.
Two other cruisers came into the parking lot followed by the fire department’s ambulance. Carey went over to talk to the paramedics, and they left. The uniformed officers took up station around the area and one began to roll out crime-scene tape. A man in civilian clothes came over to us. The chief.
“You all right?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re getting to be a big hit with your neighbors.”
I looked toward the building. The rail along the walkway was lined with my friends, most in bathrobes. One of them called out, “What happened, Matt?”
“Nothing much. Guy tried to kill me.”
“Well at least he didn’t blow up your car.” He turned and went back inside.
The chief looked at me. “The officer told me you shot Dick LaPlante.”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
I told him about my meeting with the elder LaPlante and that he’d given me some papers that had a bearing on Wyatt’s death. I didn’t go into any detail about the MAD documents, but said that Dick LaPlante was involved. He’d come for the papers along with his gunman and they were probably going to kill me.
“We’ll need detailed statements. You know the drill.”
“Yeah. Do we have to do this now?”
“Afraid so.”
“You got a tape recorder?”
“In the car.”
“Why don’t you come on up, and I’ll put on some coffee and we can talk.”
I spent the next several hours giving a statement and watching the crime-scene technicians go over the parking lot. The bodies were loaded into a coroner’s van and taken to the Manatee County morgue. A wrecker hauled off the damaged cars. By the time the sun came up, there was no evidence of a gunfight.
The chief left for home at sunrise. I took a sleeping pill and went to bed. I knew that without the pill I’d dream dreams of dread, of bodies of bad men and good, and of soldiers I’d known who were no more. Those specters would gnaw at the edge of my sleeping brain, asking why I lived and they died. And I didn’t know the answer.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
I slept late the next day and rolled out of bed shortly after noon. I was rested, thanks to the pill, but still shaken by the events of the night before. It had been a close thing, and I hadn’t been at all sure I was going to come out of it alive. But everything clicked. Someti
mes, it’s better to be lucky than good.
I made some coffee, ate a bowl of oatmeal, got the paper from the front door, and nestled into an easy chair on my sunporch. November had slipped away without my noticing. The paper told me that today was the first of December. A heavy snowstorm had blanketed the Midwest, and the northeast was awaiting its turn. Fires were burning in Southern California, stoked by the Santa Ana winds sweeping out of the high desert and down the mountain valleys. A suicide bomber had blown himself up in the middle of a Tel Aviv restaurant, killing forty. A Miami mother was carjacked after finishing her Christmas shopping at an upscale mall in Aventura. Her body was found hours later on the side of a road leading to the Everglades. A Saudi Arabian diplomat had been killed in a car crash in suburban Washington, and his embassy spokesman said that he left a wife and three children in Jiddah.
Longboat Key is separated from the mainland, and we islanders like to think we’re somehow safer for it. The past few weeks had put the lie to that conceit. We were a part of the world at large, with all its foibles, disasters, and heartaches. We knew that a couple of bridges couldn’t isolate us. Yet, we were shocked when that rough world intruded into our island serenity.
My neighbors would not like the violence that had been visited upon them. First, the bomb that took out my car, and now an attempt on my life and two dead bodies in the parking lot. Rita Thompson would surely think the destruction of her Lexus was at least as bad as the bodies.
I called Logan to tell him about the night’s events. He was upset that he’d been sound asleep during all the activity. Mr. Dewar’s elixir had put him to sleep and left him with a hangover, but he was used to that, he said.
I called Jock in Houston and told him about LaPlante and the gunman.
“Do you need me to come over?”
“No. Logan and I can handle things on this end.”
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