Three Shot Burst

by Phillip DePoy

  I turned to get a good look at the guy. I’d met him before at John Horse’s place in the swamp. Nice guy.

  He avoided eye contact.

  ‘Taft,’ I said. ‘Man, I’m sorry I shot you. What the hell are you doing working for this schmeckel?’

  ‘I need the money,’ he lamented, still not looking at me. ‘My mother is real sick.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ I began.

  ‘Get that gun out of my face!’ Ironstone demanded.

  I turned his way, flicked my hand a little to the left, and fired the pistol a third time. The bullet just barely missed his ear. It probably damaged his hearing, and it absolutely dampened his motivation. He sat more still than the chair – that poor old, shot-up chair.

  Before any further mayhem could ensue, Lena appeared in the room, Hachi at her side, followed by Ironstone’s last visible play pal.

  Lena smiled at me. She was still wearing the ridiculous outfit, and she was barefoot.

  ‘Go ahead, Foggy,’ she encouraged, ‘that chair’s only suffering now; you need to put it out of its misery. One more shot ought to do it.’

  I lowered the pistol.

  ‘There you are,’ I said to Lena. ‘Look, I wouldn’t have bothered you while you’re working, but you owe me three-ninety-five for the gator basket back at the Cherry Pocket.’

  ‘It’s good to see you too,’ she said softly.

  ‘She was in a back room, just sitting there,’ Hachi assured me.

  ‘OK,’ I said to Ironstone, ‘would you mind telling me what the hell you thought you were doing kidnapping a minor from my official state custody? Do you have any idea how much trouble you could get for that?’

  ‘I want to find my grandchild,’ Ironstone told me through clenched teeth, ‘and that girl is the only one who knows where my grandchild is.’

  ‘She doesn’t know,’ I insisted.

  ‘I tried to tell him that,’ Lena assured me.

  ‘On the other hand,’ I went on, ‘I did find out about your son’s involvement in Black Tuna and a whole lot of cocaine.’

  Ironstone didn’t say anything, which was, of course, saying a lot. The fact that he didn’t deny my allegation and didn’t defend his son spoke volumes.

  ‘Come on, Foggy,’ John Horse said, patting Taft on the shoulder and standing up. ‘We got what we came for. Let’s go.’

  I locked eyes with Ironstone.

  ‘You understand that I have to file charges against Holata and the other guy we shot in Lake Wales,’ I told him. ‘I assume he’s in the hospital there, the other guy. And I don’t think Holata’s going to be much help to you from now on; I think I can get him to admit your part in Lena’s abduction. Makes you a party to kidnapping of a minor. It’s a felony that judges especially hate.’

  Ironstone just smiled, his eyes dead. ‘Do you really think there’s a judge in this state that I can’t buy? Or a cop? You know that Baxter’s on my payroll.’

  And even though I’d suspected that, I lost just a little bit of my swagger. Ironstone could see that on my face.

  ‘Here’s the thing about money, Mr Moscowitz,’ he said. ‘It gives me the kind of feeling you’re getting right now from John Horse’s medicine. The difference is, your feeling isn’t even real, and it’ll wear off in a couple of hours. My feeling makes things real, and it lasts forever.’

  John Horse roared laughing.

  ‘Money isn’t real,’ he said when he could catch his breath. ‘Ironstone, your life doesn’t have any reality. You don’t even live in a real house, it’s a set from a movie.’

  ‘You live in a cinder block house!’ Ironstone countered very loudly.

  ‘No I don’t,’ John Horse corrected, shaking his head, still smiling. ‘Sometimes I sleep or eat in a place like that, but I live in the air, and on the ground, and sometimes in the water. Come on, my friends, let’s leave this sad place. And this walking corpse that thinks he’s a living man.’

  Ironstone sat very still on his wrecked chair.

  ‘Get up, Taft,’ he said, ‘and show our guests out.’

  Taft glanced down at the little turtle shell in his hand.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he said and stumbled to his feet.

  He was bleeding, and his foot had to be killing him. John Horse put his arm out and Taft leaned on the old man. They headed for the door, so I followed. Hachi and Lena caught up with us.

  ‘Man,’ Lena whispered, ‘you came in like the cavalry.’

  ‘I was worried about you,’ I acknowledged. ‘I told you: if anything happens to you while you are in my alleged care, I have a ton of paperwork to fill out. I hate that.’

  ‘You’re in over your head,’ Ironstone called out. ‘All of you.’

  I nudged Lena. ‘That’s just what the guy in the Cherry Pocket restaurant told me.’

  ‘Tony?’

  ‘No, the old geezer at the bar,’ I said. ‘Wait ‘til you hear all the things I found out.’

  ‘Is one of those things the notion that my sister was never actually in Fry’s Bay?’ she asked as we neared the front door. ‘That some other woman masqueraded as the fabled Ellen Greenberg? I figured that out from some of the questions Ironstone was asking me. So now I have no idea what the hell is going on.’

  I stopped walking because it was hard for me to think and move at the same time.

  I glared at Lena. ‘I just realized that Ellen Greenberg is a false name. Your last name’s not Greenberg. I don’t know what your last name is.’

  But she kept walking toward the door.

  ‘That’s right,’ she said without looking back. ‘You don’t.’

  FIFTEEN

  By the time we got back to my place, the ‘medicine’ was beginning to wear off. John Horse was very quiet. Worst of all, Lena had to ride in the trunk. There wasn’t any other way to fit all four of us in my car. We left the trunk lid open, which made it impossible for Hachi to see out the back window, so not only were we breaking about ten traffic laws, we were also pressed up against the boundaries of highway safety.

  Hachi parked. I jumped out in a hurry and went around to check on Lena. She was curled up and sleeping.

  I looked down at her.

  ‘Wouldn’t you rather do this inside on the sofa?’ I asked her.

  She didn’t open her eyes, but she smiled.

  ‘It is a nice sofa, if memory serves.’ She yawned and unpacked herself.

  The four of us stood in the parking lot for a second not knowing what to say, exactly.

  ‘Well,’ John Horse announced at length, ‘I’m going home. Foggy, you should get some sleep. You look terrible.’

  I nodded.

  John Horse headed off toward town. Hachi handed over my keys. Lena headed for the front door. I was surprised to see Hachi do the same.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ I asked her.

  ‘You and Lena need to sleep,’ she answered me. ‘I don’t. I’ll stay awake.’

  I started to argue, but then I realized that it would probably be useless, and also that John Horse had most likely told her to stay. If that was the case, there wouldn’t be anything I could do to get her to walk away.

  So I nodded. ‘OK. But I have to say that you are the most singularly attractive watchdog in the United States and Canada.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Lena called out over her shoulder, standing at the door.

  ‘Flattery from both of you,’ she observed. ‘You must be exhausted.’

  And she was right. Lena and I were done for the nonce. I don’t remember anything after that.

  I woke up with a start, very disoriented. I was still in my tweed, face down on the bed, shoes still attached.

  ‘Hey?’ I called out.

  ‘Kitchen!’ Hachi sang.

  I smeared myself across the bed and managed to get vertical. Something smelled fantastic.

  I stumbled out of the bedroom, when what to my wondering eyes should appear but Yudda, larger than ever, carousing in my kitchen.

&n
bsp; ‘This is a surprise,’ I mumbled.

  Lena was sitting up on the sofa, nearly as groggy as I was, and Hachi was standing next to Yudda in front of my stove.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Lena wanted to know.

  ‘That’s Yudda,’ I answered.

  ‘Tony’s Yudda?’ she asked.

  ‘None other,’ I confirmed. ‘I just can’t figure out why he’s here.’

  Yudda glanced up from his labors. ‘Yes you can.’

  And then he went right back to work.

  ‘No I can’t,’ I assured him. ‘What are you doing in there?’

  ‘Okra pancakes, caramelized onions, blanched celery root with a goat cheese froth, and Duck Eggs Anna.’ He smiled, not looking up.

  Hachi was watching him work, fascinated.

  ‘Eggs Anna?’ I called out.

  ‘Met a guy at Columbia University a couple of years ago,’ Yudda said distractedly, ‘name of Jacques. He was getting his master’s degree in French literature, but he was a hell of a chef. His mother used to do this thing with eggs, hard-boiled, then mustard added to the yolk, then pan seared face down – gonna kill you.’

  I stared. ‘I don’t understand about half of that, but Columbia University is in my town. What were you doing there?’

  ‘Hiding.’ He shrugged.

  He’d always made a big deal about being on the lam from his nefarious mischief in New Orleans. I never asked because I lived in a glass house. I just accepted him as a fellow traveler and left it at that – despite how curious I was about Yudda at a university.

  ‘OK and you met a French guy there?’

  He nodded. ‘Ready!’

  He looked up at last.

  Hachi announced, ‘This is going to be wonderful.’

  Lena stood. I motivated. We all gathered at my classy little kitchen table, Formica top and all.

  And while the repast was indeed wonderful, my thoughts turned quickly to the collection of questions I had in my brain.

  ‘Yudda,’ I began unceremoniously, ‘these eggs are perfect, what’s the deal with Tony?’

  He looked up from his plate.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Tony,’ I repeated, ‘at the Cherry Pocket near Lake Wales.’

  ‘Oh, that bastard.’ Yudda returned to his food. ‘He tried to poison me with oysters.’

  ‘And he used to be involved in your weed business.’

  Yudda’s fork froze halfway between plate and mouth.

  ‘Says who?’ he wanted to know.

  ‘I don’t care about that,’ I went on, ‘I care about what’s happened to the business. I’m putting in a call to my pal Pan Pan Washington in Brooklyn just as soon as I finish this delectable breakfast, and he’ll know all about the subject, to wit: the Columbian/Cuban ruckus here in our sunny little state.’

  ‘That’s a mouthful.’ Lena grinned.

  ‘I don’t know what Tony’s been telling you,’ Yudda said, setting down his fork, ‘but all I ever done was collect a little weed for a rainy day.’

  ‘And sell it.’

  He held up an index finger. ‘Only to friends.’

  ‘You made enough profit to buy a big boat from the Fort Lauderdale yacht brokerage.’

  ‘Well,’ he hedged. ‘Yeah. I like to go fishing.’

  ‘Uh huh,’ I said. ‘Don’t really care about that either, but when the Columbians came in and took over the general apparatus, they also introduced coke into the mix, am I right?’

  He nodded, unsure what to say.

  ‘And David Waters was involved.’ I said it like I knew what was what, which I did not. But I wanted to see what Yudda would say about it.

  ‘That kid.’ Yudda shook his head. ‘Jesus what a mess he was.’

  I took that as a yes.

  ‘And when I showed you the photo of the so-called Ellen Greenberg, you didn’t bat an eye.’

  ‘Because I never seen the woman in that pitcher,’ he protested.

  ‘Yeah, but my guess is that you knew more than you were telling me.’

  ‘Such as?’ he snapped.

  ‘Such as there was a woman going around town calling herself Ellen Greenberg, and you knew that woman.’

  He shifted in his chair uncomfortably. ‘Jesus, if I knew you was such a pain in the ass, I never would have come here with Hachi.’

  ‘Yes, you would,’ I said, ‘because Hachi is John Horse’s pal, and you’re afraid of John Horse.’

  That was another guess, but it was a good one. Lots of people were afraid of John Horse. If I’d had any sense, I would have been one of them.

  Hachi put her hand on Yudda’s big forearm. ‘You might as well tell him everything. That’s why you’re here. And, as you can see, he’s figured out most of it anyway.’

  ‘Which, may I say, is impressive,’ Yudda sighed. ‘It ain’t a single cop that’s ever figured all this out. You go to Lake Wales for ten minutes and all of a sudden you’re an expert.’

  ‘So give,’ I told Yudda.

  He did. His story was odd. He had friends in the bayou who grew great stuff, and they would send it to him when they sent crawfish. It was a great gimmick, the fish smell covered the pot smell. It was an enterprise that had gone on for a while. Nobody got hurt, everybody got high.

  Enter the Columbians. They followed all the pot trails, found Yudda, and convinced him to take them on as his new partners. The convincing involved snipping off one of his toes and insulting his food. He didn’t say which one had been the final straw, but shortly after their visit, two of his cousins in Louisiana were found face down and bloody in the swamp near the pot farm. They’d apparently been less cooperative than Yudda.

  After that it was just a matter of bringing some of their powdery product into the swamp, hiding it in the crawfish boxes instead of pot, and sending it to Yudda. Yudda got Tony the job in Lake Wales so they could use it as a kind of changing station. The old Cuban guy at the Cherry Pocket was not just on ice there, more or less like he’d told me. He was an administrative assistant.

  ‘All of this is very interesting,’ I interrupted, ‘but I have two questions. Why bring in the stuff through Louisiana? And what about David Waters?’

  ‘I’m getting to that,’ Yudda protested. ‘The answer to your first question is diversity. Bring in all your stuff through one port, you have a greater risk of getting nabbed than if you spread it out. These guys, this Black Tuna outfit, they really know what they’re doing. And they’re more organized than any legit business I ever heard of.’

  ‘And David Waters?’ I prompted.

  ‘Christ you’re impatient,’ he complained. ‘David insinuated himself. He was, by any measure, a wreck waiting to happen. The guy did more coke in a day than most people do in a year. Honestly, he knew all about the back and forth between the Cubans and the Columbians, and he went into business with them both. Both. I’m surprised the guy didn’t get killed sooner.’

  All eyes turned to Lena. She had stopped eating.

  ‘That whole line about David Waters asking you to kill him,’ I said softly, ‘was garbage.’

  She nodded. ‘It was.’

  Finally: the truth.

  ‘But it’s not what you think,’ Lena went on quickly

  ‘What do I think?’ I asked, leaning back in my chair.

  ‘You think I might be connected with one of the drug gangs. That’s what I’d think. But the truth is a whole lot more personal, Foggy. You have to believe me.’

  ‘Let’s hear a little more of the truth, for a change, and I’ll see what I believe.’

  ‘I have an older sister,’ she began. ‘She went by the name of Ellen Greenberg; it was a last name she picked out of the obituaries. We were born in Rio, Florida – population around four hundred. She left when she was twelve and I was nine. I left a year later.’

  ‘You left home at the age of ten?’ I blurted.

  ‘We didn’t have parents. Same mother, one of Rio’s three hookers and a real fan of the needle. Two different fathers �
� identities unknown. I’m pretty sure our mother thinks we’re still around the house somewhere. Anyway, Ellen fell in with a Seminole crowd, far as I’ve been able to determine, and met David Waters. He encouraged her to do coke and play around in bed, both of which she apparently did with aplomb. When she came up pregnant, she tripped on a moment of clarity and fell out of love with the sporting life right away. Something about not wanting to be just like our mother. She took off, hid out in Lake Wales, and somehow sent for me. I came running, but she was gone by the time I got there. Vanished. I went looking; came across her connection with David Waters. Did some research and called him. Arranged a meeting.’

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ I began.

  She nodded. ‘That night at Mary’s Shallow Grave. That was our first meeting.’

  ‘And he really didn’t want to be dead,’ I observed.

  ‘Probably not,’ she agreed.

  I leaned forward, eyes narrow. ‘So tell me. Why did you kill him?’

  She locked eyes with me. ‘I’ll tell you. He didn’t know I was the person he was meeting there that night. He just saw an under-aged girl. He slithered over to me, obviously coked up. When he leaned over to whisper in my ear, he had a syringe in his hand. He jabbed my arm and was about to push the plunger when I shot him. My guess is that’s how he got Ellen involved in drugs. Given our family history, it wouldn’t have been that difficult, we probably have a genetic disposition.’

  I was momentarily stunned, but I managed to say, ‘Nobody found a syringe.’

  ‘No,’ she said tersely. ‘Someone at the bar, or with the police, found it, got it, and took it away.’

  I sat back. ‘Baxter.’

  ‘Could be.’ She stared down at her plate.

  ‘All we need now,’ Hachi intervened, ‘is for Foggy to tell us about his life of crime, and me to explain why I’m John Horse’s apprentice, and we’ve got ourselves a real Encounter Group going on here.’

  It was just the right thing to say. It wasn’t exactly funny, but we all laughed, and a whole lot of tension left the room.

  ‘So what now?’ Yudda said after a moment.

  ‘Now I’d like to ask Lena, here, what the hell she was talking about at Ironstone’s,’ I said, ‘the first time we met him. What was all that about David wanting you to kill him?’