No one answered.
‘Sorry,’ the guy with the pill said.
And then he slapped me hard on the chest. I gasped. He popped the pill into my open mouth and then put his hand over my face.
All I could do was swallow. I was too weak to fight the guy off. I couldn’t even stand up. So I chocked the pill down and started coughing. Then a couple of the guys got me to my feet.
‘You’ll be OK now, Foggy,’ one of them said.
I tried to focus on him.
‘Taft?’ I mumbled.
He was dressed in a flannel shirt and jeans, his black hair loose and long.
‘Come on,’ he continued. ‘You’re going to throw up now.’
He was right. I spent a half an hour doubled over, eyes closed, convinced I’d be better off if I’d just go ahead and die.
When it was over I found myself sitting on the ground with all five Seminoles around me.
‘What the hell?’ I managed to croak.
‘What’s the last thing you ate?’ Taft asked me.
I sniffed. ‘Ate? I don’t know. I haven’t eaten anything in a while. I’ve been busy.’
‘John Horse told me you were at the donut shop,’ Taft countered.
‘Wait.’ I blinked. ‘I had an English muffin.’
‘Cass.’ He pronounced her name like it was the answer to a difficult riddle.
‘No,’ I insisted. ‘Cass did not poison me.’
But even as I said it I remembered something that John Horse had told me once. He’d said that every drug was a poison, and vice versa. And that the things you see under their influence are like little telegrams from your unconscious. If you can read them right, you can learn a lot about yourself. And my last thought before I whacked out was about Cass. Maybe I was trying to tell myself something.
‘Why would Cass poison me?’ I asked no one in particular.
Taft leaned forward. ‘You know something you’re not supposed to know. That would be my guess. You understand that Cass was involved with David’s drug activities, right?’
‘Cass?’ I said, my voice a little shrill.
‘Oh.’ He nodded. ‘You don’t know about Cass.’
‘She–she once told me she was a big band singer with, like, Benny Goodman or something,’ I began, nearly to myself. ‘And she hated Peggy Lee.’
‘Yeah, that’s not true.’ He smiled. ‘She runs half the bad stuff in Fry’s Bay. It’s small time, compared to Ironstone, but everybody in that world knows about her. She’s got two houses and a nice local coke connection.’
‘Houses?’
‘Prostitutes. She tried to get some Seminole girls, that’s how we first found out about her. She agreed to leave our girls out of it, and we agreed to live and let live.’
‘And by we you mean Ironstone.’
He nodded. ‘And the Tribal Council. Mister Redhawk knows about her too. As long as she sticks to white people, who cares what she does?’
I squeezed my eyes shut. ‘Fry’s Bay is turning out to be a much different little berg than I thought it was.’
‘Even a pretty little rock can hide a scorpion underneath it.’
‘I guess.’ I took another stab at standing up on my own. ‘So John Horse went where, now?’
Taft smiled. ‘He took your car. He went to make sure Lena was all right. Cass tried to take you out for a reason. And Cass probably doesn’t like the fact that Lena killed her best meal ticket.’
‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘I’m going to have to find out a lot more about all that, but at the moment I feel very anxious to see Lena. And to get my car back. I’ve seen John Horse drive.’
Taft turned and walked toward the back of the park. ‘Let’s go.’
‘You have a car here?’ I asked him.
He nodded.
‘Then why didn’t John Horse take your car?’ I pressed, irritated.
Taft looked at me over his shoulder and kept walking. ‘Are you crazy? I’ve seen John Horse drive.’
Five minutes later we were in front of my apartment; so was my car, unharmed. A more religious person would have offered up a prayer of thanks.
But that little moment of relief was replaced by panic when I saw my front door wide open.
I jumped out of Taft’s Ford pickup and ran a lot faster than I should have in my condition.
The apartment was empty. Some of the furniture was askew.
Taft showed up behind me and stood silent. I turned to him.
‘So, about Cass?’ I began. ‘She was David’s cohort? Did she have any muscle? Could she have overheard what Baxter and I were planning and sent someone here for Lena?’
‘Could have,’ he admitted, ‘but why?’
‘Don’t know,’ I agreed. ‘Is she really that upset about David Waters? Almost everybody in the world is glad that David’s dead.’
‘Sad to say about a fellow Seminole,’ Taft said, ‘but yes.’
‘So would Cass really try to dose me with a dicey muffin?’
‘Do you realize how funny you talk?’ he asked.
‘It’s only funny in Florida,’ I answered. ‘And it just occurs to me that if she did that to me, maybe Baxter got some bad donuts.’
I needed time to think. My head was still musty from the poison, if that’s what it was – and the throwing up. I thought if I called Baxter to see if he was all right, it might give me a minute to clear my mind.
I made it to the phone in the kitchen and dialed his number. There was no answer. I hung up. I thought maybe I’d call the hospital, check in with Maggie to see if Baxter was there. But before I could dial that number, the phone rang.
‘Moscowitz,’ the voice said before I could even say hello.
‘What?’ I snarled.
‘This is Fidestra. We got the kid. And the old man. You tell that to your friends in the DEA. You tell them we want to make a deal about their agent.’
I held my breath. ‘Right. In the first place, I have no friends in the DEA. In the second place, I have no idea what kind of deal you’re talking about. And finally, if you hurt Lena I’ll kill you, it’s just that simple. And if you hurt John Horse, the entire Seminole nation will kill you. Frankly, you’d be better off with me. I’ll just put ten or twelve bullets in your head. But the Seminoles, they’ll spend a couple of months, maybe longer. There you’ll be, out in the swamp …’
‘This is John Horse?’ Fidestra sounded scared for the first time since I’d met him.
I wasn’t surprised. It stood to reason that this old Cuban guy had somehow heard rumors or stories about John Horse. I hadn’t been in Fry’s Bay for two months before I got wind of his legend.
‘Man, have you messed up good,’ I went on, chiding him. ‘You kidnapped a little girl and a spirit man. The former gets you twenty years in prison. The latter sends you straight to hell. I wouldn’t be in your shoes for a million bucks. So long.’
I made as to hang up. It was a bluff, but it worked.
‘Wait!’ I heard him shout into the phone.
I put the receiver back up to my ear.
‘You can’t be far away,’ I said. ‘Just tell me where you are and I’ll come get you; see if I can figure you a way out of this. Why in hell did you think that taking the kid would get you anywhere?’
‘Her sister is the DEA agent!’ Fidestra growled.
I smiled at first; shook my head at his ignorance, but then something really spooky invaded my brain. What if Ellen Greenberg was the DEA agent? No double, no tricks – she actually was working for the Feds. And her new look was a disguise. And the letters weren’t intended for David or even for Lena, they were coded communications to her DEA cohorts. It would explain some things, but it would also make some things weirder. Still, I had to convince Fidestra that he was wrong just to keep Lena safe.
‘I don’t mean to insult you,’ I said to Fidestra, ‘but you’re a chump. The DEA agent was a substitute, a look-alike, a plant from the Feds after Ellen got next to David Waters.’
&nbs
p; Silence reigned on his end.
I used those moments of golden repose to ask myself questions: where Fidestra might be, who had told him that Ellen was the DEA agent, what had made him snap enough to kidnap a kid?
‘Listen,’ he began, and I could actually hear him sweat. ‘These Columbians, they’re crazy. They don’t care who they kill.’
‘Meaning they’re about finished with you,’ I concluded. ‘You want out. Or at least you want me to think that. But you realize that you suckered me twice before, and I’m not exactly disposed to believe you.’
‘Well, you should believe that I’ll kill the little girl and John Horse.’
‘I believe that you’re that stupid, yes. But it doesn’t make any sense objectively. You kill them and then what?’
Again, silence.
‘Here’s an idea,’ I said at length. ‘You come on back to my place, I’ll get in touch with the local law. You become an informant and get into the Witness Protection Program.’
‘The what?’
‘It’s a new thing. You tell the Feds everything you know about the Colombian operation, and they hide you in, like, Oklahoma.’
‘I don’t want to go to Oklahoma.’
‘Not the point.’
‘No.’ He was getting crazier; I could tell by the tone of his voice. ‘If I find the DEA agent and kill her, the Columbians will back off.’
‘No. They’ll say thanks right before they fill you up with bullets. If they get to you before I do. If I get there first, I’ll be the one with the lead.’
I was trying to sound as tough as the guys I knew back in Brooklyn. They could sling around a line of intimidation that could worry J. Edgar Hoover. I figured if I put up a tough enough front, he wouldn’t hear how desperate I really was.
‘Anyway,’ I went on when he didn’t respond, ‘I already know where you are. Our Seminole friends are there now. That little scraping sound you heard a second ago, that was Holata. Holata means Alligator. He’s coming for you.’
All bluff and no content. But my thinking was that every little sound might be amplified by fear. And Fidestra was afraid.
‘You–you don’t know where I am,’ he stammered.
‘Right,’ I said confidently. ‘Then what’s that sound outside your door?’
Suddenly, like a shot of starlight, I heard Lena’s voice in the background.
‘He knows you’re in the abandoned bakery, dumb ass,’ she said.
Nice work, kid, I thought.
‘Shut up!’ Fidestra shouted. ‘How could he know that?’
Very faintly I heard John Horse say, ‘My tribe is helping him. They always know where I am.’
Good. That was playing right into my tactic: create enough paranoia in Fidestra to make him even stupider than he already was at that point.
‘Buscar fuera de la ventana!’ he shouted.
I laughed. ‘You won’t see them outside your window,’ I told him. ‘They’re invisible.’
I glanced at Taft and put my hand over the phone.
‘They’re at the abandoned bakery around the corner from the donut shop,’ I whispered.
He took off without a word.
‘Listen,’ I continued with Fidestra, ‘your only play is to do what I said: work with the Feds. But you’ve got, like, five minutes before your entire situation goes all the way south.’
Fidestra was desperate, anyone could hear that in his voice. His brain had caught fire and driven him a little insane, enough so that he had raced to Fry’s Bay to kidnap Lena in the hope of finding Ellen Greenberg, who may or may not have anything to do with anything.
Of course the coincidence of that action and my poisoning was too much to ignore. So I continued.
‘And you know that Cass almost killed me,’ I said evenly. ‘If she had, you’d be completely screwed now. No way out. So if I were you, I’d back away from Cass.’
Again: all guesswork. Maybe this wasn’t Cass’s doing at all. But it was worth a shot. If I was wrong, he’d just be confused for a minute, which was to my advantage. And if I was right, he’d start thinking that I knew everything, which would really get me somewhere.
‘She didn’t try to kill you,’ he said. ‘She was just trying to take you out of the picture long enough for me to get the girl. You were supposed to be unconscious on the floor of your apartment by now.’
Of course that might have happened if I’d gone right home with the donuts for the kid instead of to the park. I’d be conked out, he’d bust into my place, grab Lena, and have her spirited away to God knows where. But John Horse somehow knew what was what and went in Lone Ranger style. It didn’t keep Lena from getting nabbed, but it did slow down Fidestra.
And then I remembered Baxter’s lemon-filled bombs.
‘All right,’ I said to Fidestra, ‘you have the upper hand. I don’t want anything to happen to the kid, or to John Horse. I’ll tell you what I’m willing to do.’
And then I hung up. I thought that would scare him. But I also had to call Baxter, and I had to get to the bakery building.
I dialed the police. A bored voice answered.
‘Fry’s Bay Police—’
‘Get Baxter now!’ I barked. ‘Someone’s trying to poison him!’
‘Who is this?’
‘Can you see Baxter?’ I shouted.
‘He’s right here,’ the irritated voice answered.
A second later Baxter was on the phone.
‘Who is this?’
‘Foggy. Don’t eat the donuts.’
‘Foggy?’
‘Did you eat the donuts that Cass gave you?’
‘What?’ He was really confused. ‘Not yet. I was trying to take care of the business we discussed—’
‘Cass tried to poison me,’ I interrupted again, ‘and she’s probably done the same thing to your donuts that she did to my muffin.’
‘Are you drunk?’
‘And now we have to go over to the abandoned bakery around the corner from the donut shop because one of the guys involved with the Columbian Black Tuna bunch, he got Lena. He’s there in the building. He also took John Horse.’
‘What–what are you talking about?’
‘Do you want to get out from under all this or not?’ I shouted into the phone. ‘If you do, you’ll meet me at the bakery building five minutes ago!’
I slammed the phone down and charged out the door.
Thank God John Horse had left the keys in the ignition of the Thunderbird. I fired it up and made it to 70 mph before I came to the first intersection.
TWENTY-THREE
The alley behind the bakery building was dark even in the daytime. I still had Holata’s gun, and I’d reloaded it, but I really didn’t want to start shooting up the place with Lena and John Horse in the line of fire. I thought my best plan would be to talk.
So as I neared the creaky metal door that opened into the abandoned bakery, I called out, ‘Fidestra, it’s Foggy.’
Maybe I should have waited to see if Baxter was going to show up, but I really wanted to know that Lena was all right.
‘If you have a gun,’ Fidestra answered me, ‘I’ll start shooting the second you walk in.’
The gun was in my pocket, but why bother the guy with details?
‘Nothing in my hands,’ I assured him.
I peeked around the edge of the entrance. Nobody in sight. I stepped in – because idiots go where angels fear to tread.
The place was all shadows and patterns of light. It was a giant open space, and the industrial-sized bread making equipment was still in evidence, although it was significantly worse for wear. Dust motes ruled the air; rats had control of the floor. Pigeons had roosted in the high rafters, and their guttural murmuring was an oddly calming soundtrack to the otherwise horror-movie ambiance.
I stood in a slanted beam of light so that Fidestra could see me, see that I didn’t have a gun in my hand.
‘Fidestra,’ I said in a normal tone of voice, ‘I need to see that
the kid’s all right.’
‘I’m OK,’ Lena sang out, but her voice was a little mournful.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.
‘Shut up!’ Fidestra shouted.
‘I’m embarrassed,’ she went on, ignoring the Cuban maniac with the gun. ‘I let this guy nab me.’
‘John Horse?’ I called.
‘I’m here,’ he answered very calmly. ‘This is a really interesting situation. I’m enjoying myself.’
‘Good.’ I took a few steps. ‘Fidestra? Quit messing around and let’s talk. Quick. I think the cops are on the way.’
‘Cops?’
‘That’s probably my fault,’ John Horse lied. ‘I called them before I came barging into Foggy’s apartment. I was afraid I wouldn’t get there in time. Which I didn’t. Sorry.’
‘Everything happens to me!’ Fidestra shouted. ‘Everybody wants to kill me! I’m not that kind of person. I like to go fishing.’
What that had to do with things was a little vague, but I understood his gist. Nobody thinks he’s the bad guy. Hitler didn’t think, ‘I know, I’ll do things that will make my name synonymous with all things evil.’ He probably thought he was doing what he needed to do to make his life better. Still. He was Hitler, so.
‘Come on out,’ I encouraged Fidestra. ‘Let’s figure this out.’
Suddenly there he was, in the corner of an angle of shadows, gun in hand, sweating like it was a hundred degrees.
‘I was just explaining to Lena a while back,’ I began, as if we were just continuing a conversation we’d already started, ‘that the Witness Protection Program is a part of the Organized Crime Control Act. If you help out with the DEA investigation, you can be relocated, hidden by the federal government.’
‘Relocated where?’ he wanted to know.
‘Don’t know exactly,’ I assured him, ‘but it won’t be the graveyard, which is where you’re headed now.’
He measured those words, trying to size things up.
‘No, but, why don’t I just kill the DEA agent like I said?’ he asked me at length. ‘Get the Columbians off my back.’
‘Because you’re not a dumbass,’ I said simply. ‘I could tell at the Cherry Pocket that you were at the end of your rope. Who drinks all day in a crummy little place like that and then goes home to watch Columbo and fall asleep? A man in misery, that’s who.’
Three Shot Burst Page 19
