Tropical Freeze

by James W. Hall

  He liked the irony of bringing Claude ashore here, within spitting distance of his old colleagues. And Dynamite Docks had the reek of history. He could imagine the wagons of rum creaking down a sandy path out to some old jalopy on the highway. And he could picture the hippies back in the sixties, VW vans gridlocked back there in the woods, waiting for their bale of grass.

  They were about fifty yards from shore when Murphy called down that there was a boat and some activity at the docks. Claude moved alongside Benny, staring at him in the dark.

  “You said it was all arranged,” Claude said.

  “Hey,” Benny said, “I can account for every fucking DEA boat, Customs, Coast Guard, you name it. If it’s one of ours, I know its present location. And they aren’t around here.” Benny strained through the dark toward the darker shoreline, the Bertram still gliding forward.

  “What do I do?” Murphy called down.

  “Keep going,” Benny said. He told Claude to get his ass down below and stay there. Then he got Donald and Joe arranged flat on the front deck. He told them to keep their Mac-10s trained on the shore. Benny shook his head and snapped the slide shut on his Smith automatic. All right then, gentlemen, start your engines.

  Murphy slid them neatly up to the edge of the dock. The other boat was an eighteen-foot Boston Whaler. Benny could see the black gleam of a plastic-wrapped bale. He could even smell the shit. Nobody was around.

  He hissed at his guys, waved them back to the stern deck. Claude was glaring at him through the parlor window, making slit eyes at Benny. He probably scared normal people with that look.

  Donald and Joe made the Bertram fast to the pilings, and Benny stepped onto the dock. There was a black Ford van parked about twenty yards off, near the trees. Benny motioned for Donald to go one way, Joe the other way, surround the van.

  When they were in place, he walked across the sandy ground and stood facing the rear doors, raised his automatic, and was about to fire when the door came open a crack and a boy’s voice said, “We surrender.”

  “Get the fuck out here,” Benny said. All that DEA adrenaline soaring through him again. “Now, motherfuckers!”

  It was a boy and girl with matching frizzy blond hair, both in blue jeans and black T-shirts. Rock stars in training.

  Donald and Joe came around the van. The teenagers edged away from them. Benny opened the van door. In the half-moon glow, he could make out two or three bales.

  “How old’re you two punks?” he said, closing the doors.

  “Eighteen,” the girl said.

  “Ken and Barbie,” Benny said, “out in the spooky woods at night with a ton of illegal drugs. How does that happen? Huh? Where in hell did you develop fucking values like that?”

  “We have the right to remain silent,” the boy said. “The right to have an attorney present.”

  Benny snorted, turned to his men. Donald smiled. Joe was eyeing the girl.

  “What is it?” Benny said. “Your old man a lawyer?”

  “As a matter of fact,” the boy said, “he is.”

  Benny shook his head and said, “Jesus Christ, that’s the way it’s fucking going.”

  He shot the boy in the knee. And when the kid was on the ground writhing, Benny moved over to him, stepped on the ankle of his good leg, and shot him in the other knee. The girl screamed for him to stop.

  A brown Mercedes rolled up the narrow path.

  “It’s about fucking time,” Benny said. He shot the boy through the chest and turned to the girl. “You wouldn’t ever do anything like this again, now would you, sweet pea? Seeing what can happen.”

  She swallowed, mouth quivering. She said, “No, sir. No, never.”

  He pressed the barrel of the Smith against her left breast. Rubbed the barrel against the cotton, until he felt her nipple harden. He trapped the tip of her nipple inside the barrel. She wasn’t wearing a bra. Yeah, it figured. It went with the rest of her values.

  “You promise now?” Benny said. “You give me your sacred word of honor you won’t ever participate in this kind of filth again?”

  “I promise,” she said. “I promise.”

  Benny squeezed off two quick rounds into her left breast. It blew her backwards a couple of yards into a bush.

  “Jesus Christ, Benny!” Donald said. “Why’d you do that?”

  Benny put the Smith back on his hip, turned, and looked at Donald. He said, “To teach her a goddamn lesson.”

  2

  Thorn was idling in his driveway, looking for a space in the traffic on U.S. 1. It was Friday, the tenth of January, and the winter Winnebagos had arrived, and the bright rented convertibles, and dusty station wagons from Indiana. All of them streaming through Key Largo, on their annual hunt for paradise. Thorn had been waiting there for five minutes. He needed a wide break in traffic, because his VW had lost its will to rush.

  He was on his way up to Miami to get a blade for the Lakowski 175 sawmill he was using to rebuild his house. A hardware store in Hialeah was the only place for a hundred miles around that still stocked blades for that electric monstrosity.

  When he saw a space coming up right after a brown Mercedes, Thorn slipped the shifter into first, revved it hard. But the Mercedes slowed, pulled into the gravel along the shoulder, and tucked into the drive beside him.

  It was Gaeton Richards who got out of the car. He was wearing a blue windbreaker, madras plaid shirt, jeans, and tennis shoes. He’d grown a mustache since Thorn had seen him last, sandy blond, like his hair. Thorn got out of the VW. They shook hands; then Thorn laughed and opened his arms, and Gaeton stepped forward into an embrace.

  When they stepped apart, Thorn said, “It’s been what, over a year?”

  Gaeton said, “It was Old Pirate Days last January.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Thorn said. “We made conch fitters over at your trailer.”

  “And you got drunk, sang Christmas carols.”

  Thorn said, “Yeah, it’s coming back to me.”

  He’d noticed a man sitting in Gaeton’s car, not looking over at them.

  Gaeton said, “Well, hell, let’s do it again this year. Dress up this time, get polluted, kidnap a maiden. Hey, we could make your VW into a float, ride in the parade. Really do it up right.”

  “Yeah,” Thorn said, smiling.

  Gaeton said, “You’re on your way somewhere.”

  “I was going up to Miami, but I can do it later.”

  “No, that’s perfect,” Gaeton said. “I got to take this guy up there anyway. Come with us, zip this guy by the car showroom for a minute or two, run your errands, come on back. Give us time to shoot the shit.”

  “You were coming to see me?”

  “Yeah,” Gaeton said, his voice lower. “I needed to talk.”

  “OK, let me stash the VW.” Thorn turned to get in his car, then turned back. “Up and back, right? No side trips.”

  “My word on it.”

  Their passenger was a quiet gentleman. He had a mat of crinkly yellow hair that he brushed straight back away from his face, cheekbones that could slice ten-pound test line, and raw pinkish skin. If he wasn’t an albino, he’d climbed out of the same gene pool. He sat in the back seat, wearing a blinding yellow shirt with blue hula girls on it, and white pants. He looked like nobody’d ever shown him how to smile.

  As they crossed the Jewfish Creek Bridge out of Key Largo, Gaeton launched into a story about his final assignment with the Miami field office of the FBI. Seems there was an elephant shipped into the Metrozoo from the Far East. The unfortunate pachyderm had been stuffed full of garbage bags of heroin. Just as the federales were closing in on the zoo handlers who were plucking bags out of the elephant goop, the elephant started having intense seizures. Must’ve digested one of the bags during his voyage. And there he was, rearing up, threatening good guys and bad guys alike.

  “Ever see what a three-fifty-seven magnum does to elephant hide?”

  “It’s been awhile,” Thorn said. “I forget.”
/>   “Not a whole hell of a lot,” Gaeton said.

  Gaeton went on with the story, while Thorn glanced into the back seat at this man. Those green eyes clicked onto Thorn’s and held him for a minute. The guy had something burning in there.

  They strolled around the lot of a Porsche and Ferrari dealership, the two of them following behind the man in the hula girl shirt as he stalked down the aisles of cars. After a while they attracted a young salesman. He sized up the three of them and spoke to Gaeton.

  “Looking for some speed and luxury today?” the young man said.

  “Our friend Claude is.” Gaeton nodded ahead to the other man.

  “He speak English?”

  “I couldn’t tell you,” Gaeton said. “I never had the occasion to speak to him.”

  “Well, we’ll let him look a bit,” the salesman said. He seemed to be used to this, three guys shopping together but not knowing each other.

  Claude had stopped in front of a black Porsche. He tried the door, but it was locked.

  Gaeton called out, “Find one you like?”

  Claude looked back at Gaeton. No car buyer’s flush in his face. Just that heavy-lidded look, like a snake about to doze off or strike. It was hard to tell.

  Gaeton said, “Get us the keys to that one, will you? Our friend wants to sniff the leather.”

  In a few minutes the salesman sauntered back with the keys. He was wearing a black polo shirt with a red alligator on it, a white coat over that, white pants. Dark wraparound sunglasses, loafers without socks.

  “The Carrera has very silky steering,” the boy said as he unlocked the driver’s door. “And a top end of one hundred seventy-four.” He turned his sunglasses on Claude and said, “Me entiendies?”

  Claude let a few seconds pass, then said to the salesman, “You may speak to me in your language. I understand it well.”

  “Well, then,” the boy said. A fidget appeared in his right hand, drumming on his pants leg. He nodded his head at Claude.

  Claude said, “I want to experience this top end you speak about. This one hundred and seventy-four. I want to feel this.”

  The boy glanced at Gaeton and Thorn to see if they were smiling. They weren’t. The salesman created a smile anyway. “We’ll go around the block, a mile or two, then swing back and talk.” Getting a patronizing authority in there.

  Gaeton yawned, looked off at the traffic. Thorn watched a jet rise from Miami International a mile or two to the north, its rumble vibrating through the asphalt lot.

  He’d been running into this same type of kid a good bit lately. The boy had a nasal haughtiness, as if he’d been to some college where he’d been educated beyond his character, given a glib view, a sketchy understanding of the great ideas. And now there was no job on earth that wasn’t beneath him.

  Claude got into the driver’s seat and started the Porsche. Raced the engine. It sounded like he was holding it at redline. The kid ducked into the passenger side, and Thorn and Gaeton headed back to the Mercedes.

  At Frog City they reached the last traffic light on the western edge of Miami, the current border of the Everglades. The salesman turned in his bucket seat and made a frantic wave to Gaeton and Thorn, who followed in the brown Mercedes. It was his third since they’d left the car lot. Gaeton waved back.

  A hundred yards ahead of them the four-lane highway narrowed to two as it entered the Everglades. The last of the housing developments behind them now, just the shadowy tunnel of pines ahead.

  “They must’ve run out of conversational topics,” Gaeton said.

  “They don’t seem to have a whole lot in common,” said Thorn.

  “First dates are tough.”

  The light turned green and the Porsche’s rear tires squealed and Gaeton crushed the accelerator pedal of the Mercedes, lugging after them.

  Thorn said, “You see that? He had hold of the kid. Had him by the scruff, like you hold a dog back.”

  In a minute Thorn leaned over to check the speedometer. Eighty-five and the Porsche was pulling steadily away.

  “By the way, Gaeton, who is this guy? A pharmaceutical king?”

  Gaeton Richards leaned back, one hand on the wheel, the other brushing a strand of hair off his forehead. He looked over at Thorn, the trees flashing by behind him.

  ‘I’ll tell you, buddy,” he said. “I don’t know who the hell that guy is. And I sure wish I did.”

  “Come on.” Thorn laughed. “Who is he?”

  “All I know is I’m supposed to take him on a shopping spree, see he gets whatever he wants, not let him out of my sight.”

  Thorn eased his hand up for a good grip on the door handle, braced his feet flat against the fire wall.

  “Why do I have the feeling I’m not going to get that blade today?”

  Gaeton was quiet for a few moments; then in an almost dreamy tone he said, “You ever remember Saturdays, going to the Guardian office?” Nearly closing his eyes as he recalled it. “How we would play with the bars of lead type and make up our own newspaper stories about people around town. Get ink on our clothes.”

  “Yeah, I think about it. Those were good days,” said Thorn. “I remember the headlines we made up. BILL NICKERSON FOUND ASLEEP IN HAMMOCK WITH DEAD SNOOK, things like that.”

  The Guardian had been Gaeton’s father’s newspaper, the only paper at that time in the upper Keys. It was a one-man affair that he ran out of the downstairs of a Conch house in Tavernier, on a squeaky hand-set press. Gaeton senior had been the reporter, the publisher, editor, everything. He was a calm, quiet widower, who subscribed to a dozen New York magazines, read cowboy novels, smoked a pipe. His hands were always inky and knuckle-busted.

  Thorn thought of him often, of his voice especially. How steady and rich it had been, never straining, no matter how angry he might be, or disappointed. Holding that solid timbre, always clear and direct. It still resonated in Thorn’s inner ear, a kind of middle C, a reference point. The man could stand in the blast of a hurricane or the easy wash of a summer trade wind and speak with the same calm and grace.

  “I was just thinking about those days,” Gaeton said. “How we thought things were back then, how we pictured the world.”

  “It was a simpler time,” Thorn said.

  “Yeah, simpler.”

  Thorn watched the asphalt hurtling underneath them. In the distance the Porsche smoked to a stop.

  Gaeton said, “He’s testing the brakes now. If you’re going to drive that fast, you need good brakes.” Gaeton brought the Mercedes down to just a little over legal speed. The other car was still a half mile ahead.

  The Porsche took off again, its tires burning.

  “Here we go,” Gaeton said, accelerating.

  “You’re telling me you don’t know this guy? We’re playing tag at a hundred plus and you don’t know who he is?”

  “I’m working on it,” Gaeton said. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I wanted you to meet him, see what I’m into.”

  “Looks like you’re still in the bad guy business. Not a big change from the FBI.”

  “If you’re going to help me, I thought you should know how it is, see one of these jokers.”

  “Help you? Who said I was going to help you?”

  “You will,” Gaeton said. “I just haven’t asked you yet.”

  “Ask me, so I can tell you no right now and get it out of the way.”

  Thorn watched the steering wheel shimmy in Gaeton’s hands. He kept himself from leaning over to check the speedometer. The black Porsche was just a speck now at the end of a long straightaway. They had to be doing over a hundred.

  Gaeton glanced over at Thorn, caught his eye, and smiled. He said, “I remember when we were kids, you and me, Darcy, Sugarman, always around this time of year, we’d get into that pirate thing. Dueling. Eye patches, that whole number.”

  “I’d forgotten,” Thorn said.

  “Dad never liked it. Glorifying bad guys, he used to say. He’d say things like th
at and I thought he was being tightass and fussy. I never knew what he meant. Not back then.”

  Thorn was silent. He was trying to put this together. Claude, the Guardian, pirates. This whole day.

  Gaeton said, “You’re rebuilding your house now. That’s taking all your time, right? Getting yourself back together. I shouldn’t be bothering you with my bullshit.”

  “You in some kind of danger, Gaeton?”

  Gaeton held his eyes to the road. Empty now for as far as they could see. The pines and melaleucas blurred past. He shook his head as if trying to focus his eyes on the here and now.

  He said, “You ever hear of Benny Cousins, the guy I work for?”

  Thorn said he hadn’t.

  “Well, he was a hotshot with DEA, till he quit few years back, started Florida Secure Systems.”

  “Now he’s your boss.”

  “Yeah,” Gaeton said, thinking about it. “My boss.”

  “So, what’s the problem?”

  “I wish I could tell you the whole thing, Thorn. But I can’t.”

  “You can’t tell me, but you want me to do something.”

  Thorn willed his right foot to relax, stop stamping on the imaginary brake. Gaeton looked over at him.

  “Oh, hell, Gaeton, you need me, I’m there,” Thorn said. “You know that.”

  “Yeah, I knew that.” Gaeton smiled at him. “But it’s still good to hear you say it.”

  3

  The wheel was shaking hard now. Gaeton was working just to keep them in their lane. He squinted down the three-mile straightaway at the disappearing Porsche. Then he cleared his throat and looked over at Thorn, his eyes full of trouble.