Bone Key

by Les Standiford

  Deal pushed on past him anyway, hurrying out through Annie’s room and down to the doorway of Stone’s room. He glanced inside, at the enormous canopy bed that sat unmussed, at an array of ghostly furniture in a sitting area, at the vast, empty bathroom that lay open at one end of the room.

  “I checked the crapper, the closets, under the bed,” Russell said. “There’s nobody here. Even the houseboy’s gone.”

  Deal stared at him, trying to get his breathing under control. He hadn’t been running, he was certain of it, but he felt as though he’d just finished a marathon.

  “Why don’t you let me hold that gun?” Russell said, pointing.

  Deal stared at the pistol in his hand, then finally nodded and handed the thing over. Russell snapped the safety on, then jammed the pistol into his belt.

  “What now?” he said. Deal thought he heard a note of apology in Russell’s voice, as if there might be some presumption in asking such a question of an addled man.

  He closed his eyes briefly and took a deep breath before releasing it. “I’m okay,” he said to Russell as he reopened his eyes.

  “I know,” Russell said with a nod. “Just say the word.”

  Deal hesitated, then glanced up as realization swept over him. “The wine,” he said to Russell. “The fucking wine.”

  Russell stared back until his gaze lit, too, and in the next moment, they were gone.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  “If it wasn’t Stone, then who?” Russell asked as he piloted the coupe, its wipers flapping wildly against the rain, back toward Truman Town.

  Deal shook his head. He’d been asking himself the same question, but his ability to reason seemed more and more an aspect of a former life. “Maybe one of those ‘important New York investors’ Boussier mentioned,” he told Russell.

  Russell nodded, ignoring a red light as he swung left off Whitehead Street.

  “We’re not walking in,” Deal said, pointing at a guard shack that loomed beside the gated traffic entrance to Stone’s development.

  “Don’t worry,” Russell said. He brought the coupe to a stop beside the tidy guardhouse, a miniature version of one of the Cape Cod cottages within. A rent-a-cop with a wooden-gripped .38 holstered at his side came out of his shelter, a section of newspaper held over his head against the rain. He’d been reading the Sunday comics at their approach and seemed annoyed at being forced out into the weather.

  “You boys need something?” he said, peering inside as Russell rolled his window down. The rent-a-cop had his free hand poised on his hip, as if Harry Truman himself were inside the compound and he might have to go for his sidearm at any second to head off a national crisis.

  Russell held up a scrap of paper in his hand. “We’re looking for this address,” he said. “Somebody told us it was in Truman Town.”

  The guard screwed up his face and leaned closer. Russell’s left hand shot out and caught the rent-a-cop by his shirtfront, snatching him forward. His mouth formed an O of surprise at the same time his forehead slammed into the coupe’s door frame.

  “How about the gate?” Deal said as the cop toppled quietly over.

  “Piece of cake,” Russell said, flooring the coupe. “Or plastic, actually,” he added, as the flimsy gate arm hit the windshield and snapped away.

  The coupe’s tiny engine whined as they raced down the quiet streets toward the waterfront. A woman in curlers stood at curbside before one of the larger homes, holding an umbrella over a squatting cocker spaniel at her feet. She shook her fist and shouted something angrily as they sped by.

  “Hate to shake up your morning, lady,” Russell muttered, leaning the coupe into a tire-squalling left turn. They were bearing down on the marina parking lot now.

  A guy wearing Top-Siders, khaki shorts, and a double-billed fishing cap—his day sail scuttled by the rain, or so it seemed—was struggling to fit the convertible top of his vintage Porsche into place as they roared to a stop in the lot. He glanced up as the two of them jumped from the coupe and ran toward the marina complex. Deal heard the sound of a revving sports car engine in their wake.

  “You head for the cellar,” Deal called, peeling away from Russell as they approached the deserted maintenance building. “I’ll check the docks.”

  Russell gave him a quick wave of acknowledgment and pounded away down the seawall as Deal hurried across the wooden planking of the central pier, splattering puddled rainwater with every stride.

  The gate that barred entrance to the city-block-sized network of docks had been propped open by a 55-gallon drum, where a huge pelican sat, its head tucked into its chest against the rain. At Deal’s approach, the big bird lifted grudgingly into the sky, its wings pumping a series of ever-diminishing V’s against the scudding clouds.

  The rain was pelting now, the skies gone evening dark. Deal held his hand up to shield his eyes, scanning the docks for Ainsley’s skiff amidst the welter of sailboats and fishing craft and cabin cruisers. Pleasure craft, he found himself thinking. All these buttoned-up boats brought to Key West for the prospect of enjoyment. What an alien concept it seemed.

  He was about to give up, turn and head back to join Russell, when he caught sight of something just ahead and stopped as abruptly as if he’d been gaffed. He slid to a halt on the rain-slick planking, his hand clutched at a piling for support.

  She stood wrapped in a dark blue rain slicker at the rear of an old yacht, a teak-studded double-decker, with its big inboard engines rumbling at idle, her gaze directed across the marina, it seemed, where he and Russell had left the tiny coupe at the curb. She wore dark glasses and her hair had been pulled up and tucked beneath a long-billed fisherman’s cap, but Deal would have recognized her if she’d been dressed in a clown’s suit. He’d ingrained her very presence, he realized, had memorized the psychic fingerprint of her being.

  “Annie,” he called. And she turned.

  At the front of the boat, a man clad in bright yellow foul-weather gear glanced up from untying the forward line, but Annie made a motion with her hand and he went back to what he was doing. Deal realized he was moving across the dock again, though his legs felt leaden suddenly.

  “Annie,” he repeated. He glanced behind him at the deserted docks, sheets of rain obliterating the shore where Russell would have been. “What are you doing?”

  She held up a hand to caution him. “You can’t come on board,” she told him.

  Deal stared at her, shaking his head. “What the hell is going on?” he said. “Stone’s dead—”

  “I know,” she said. She glanced over her shoulder toward the boat’s cabin.

  “You know?” He started forward again and saw the door of the cabin swing open behind her.

  “John, don’t,” she called as a heavyset man wearing a watch cap emerged, his hand inside the flap of his jacket. She had swept off her dark glasses, her face a mask of concern.

  She turned to the man who’d come out on deck. “It’s all right,” she said. “Just give me a minute.”

  The man raised his chin a fraction in acknowledgment, then turned to say something to someone inside. Annie turned back to Deal, her hands clutched to the rail.

  “I’m all right, John,” she said. “These are friends of mine.”

  “Friends? What friends? Killers?” He felt rain streaming down his face, his mind a senseless jangle of speculation.

  “No,” she called. “They didn’t kill Franklin.” She shook her head violently. “I don’t know who did. They’re helping me, that’s all. I can’t explain everything right now, John. I have to leave.” She cast another glance behind her, then turned back to him, her face twisted in anguish. “I don’t want to, but I don’t have the choice.”

  He stared back, dumbstruck, still gauging the distance that separated the dock from the deck of the boat where she stood. “I’m supposed to stand here, wave goodbye like I’m your uncle Harry, have a good time on your cruise?”

  “Y
ou’re not my uncle Harry,” she managed, trying to smile through her tears.

  Deal heard mumbled conversation from inside the boat’s cabin, and the revving of the engines increased. “But you’re in danger, too, John. You should leave Key West now.”

  He stared at her, blinking water out of his eyes, his mind beginning to numb itself. Too much to consider, too much to bear. “If you wanted to brush me off,” he said, “you didn’t have to bring goons with guns. All you had to do was say the word.”

  “I’m not brushing you off,” she said, her tone vehement. “I’ll call you. When it’s safe.” The guy holding the forward line must have caught a signal from someone on the bridge. He turned and tossed the heavy rope toward the dock. It landed with a slap. The boat had begun to sidle from the dock. Two feet between them now, then three.

  “Don’t do it, John,” she called. “I love you. Don’t do it. You’ll die. Listen to me.”

  He blinked, felt the tension leaving his legs. Five feet, then six, then it might as well have been a mile. He felt something being pulled out of his gut, every foot the boat receded bringing with it another jolt of pain.

  She raised her hand as the boat’s engines began to roar in earnest. He felt his own hand go up in response. He watched a moment more, then turned and made his way back to shore, reeling like a drunk.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  There was no sign of Russell as he approached the fence that marked the edge of the marina property. The hidden door to the vault where they’d spent the night had been thrown open to the rain, a dark stain splashed across the concrete entrance, a lighter penumbra washing down to the edge of the seawall with the rain’s runoff. Though his mind was still numb, his pace quickened automatically.

  “Sonofabitch.” Deal heard the familiar voice then and hurried toward the gaping doorway in the earth. Russell had stopped halfway down the rough-hewn staircase, Deal saw, frozen by something he’d seen.

  “What is it?” Deal called. He’d already seen that the dark stain at the top of the staircase was not at all what he had thought. Heavy green splinters of bottle glass littered the concrete. Already, the rain had washed much of the spilled wine away.

  Russell glanced up. “Take a look,” he said, pointing down into the darkness.

  Deal hurried down the steps, ready for almost anything. Almost.

  What he saw should not have been a surprise, of course. If he hadn’t been so exhausted, if he hadn’t been so preoccupied with other thoughts, he would have known before he’d reached the bottom of the long flight of stairs.

  “Gone,” he heard Russell say behind him, his voice weary beyond reason. “Every fucking bit of it.”

  Deal stared at the blank walls before him, then glanced down the passageway to his right. He couldn’t see very far in that direction, but he’d already heard the echo of his footsteps, could sense the presence of all that emptiness before him. He noticed something in a gloomy alcove near his foot and bent to pick it up.

  He held the bottle to the light, nodding at the label he’d seen once before. A gray-green patina that seemed almost to blend into the dark green glass itself. A tasteful drawing of the French château beneath the legend Haut-Brion, and below that, the promise that this was a wine of Premier Grand Cru Classe. The year was 1929. The bottle even had its own special serial number, printed discreetly down one side.

  Deal glanced at Russell, who had joined him at the foot of the stairs to stare glumly at what he held in his hands. “One frigging bottle,” Russell said, with a sorrowful shake of his head. “That’s all there is left.”

  Deal hefted it. The bottle seemed extraordinarily heavy, as if whatever was inside had been brewed on a far more massive planet.

  “One bottle was all it took to get Dequarius killed,” he said absently.

  “What the hell are we supposed to do now?” Russell said.

  Deal shrugged. A Vernon Driscoll shrug if ever there was one. “I’m not sure,” he said to Russell, hating the look that he got in return.

  “Maybe call Rusty…,” he began, struggling to find some direction that made sense. He might have gone on from there, might actually have stumbled onto something reasonable to send them toward, when he heard the voice from above.

  “No need,” he heard in tones that seemed outright cheery. “No need for that at all.”

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Deal saw Conrad first, the grim-faced cop descending the stairs with what looked like a modified M-14 in his hands, its stubby barrel swollen at the tip by a suppressor. When his gaze landed on Deal’s, his lip curled into a momentary smile.

  “Well, look who’s here,” he said.

  Malloy followed closely on Conrad’s heels, looking fresh in a crisp white shirt, khakis, and canvas boating shoes. “Do us the favor of tossing that pistol aside, won’t you, Mr. Straight?” Malloy said, pointing at the weapon in Russell’s waistband.

  When Russell hesitated, Malloy patted Conrad on the shoulder. “Shoot him if you don’t like the way he does it,” Malloy said.

  “Do it,” Deal urged Russell.

  Russell’s gaze held steady on Malloy’s as he reached two fingers toward his midsection and pried the weapon out by the butt. “Put it on the ground,” Malloy said, his eyes glittering.

  Russell bent carefully and did as he was told. “Now kick it over this way,” Malloy said. Again Russell obeyed, though the look he sent Malloy and Conrad would have etched glass.

  “Thank you,” Malloy said, squatting on his haunches to gaze at them, a guileless smile on his face.

  “If you’re thirsty, you’re a little late, Rusty,” Deal said. “All the wine’s gone.”

  “Looks like you’ve got your share,” Malloy said. “Château Haut-Brion, unless I miss my guess.” He smiled, then threw his head back as if to catch some scent in the cool damp air. “Quite a bouquet there. I’m going to say 1929. An excellent year.”

  Deal stared back at him wordlessly. Rusty Malloy. His good pal, the glasscutter’s son.

  “Where’d you take the wine, Rusty?” Deal asked. Malloy widened his eyes. “Me? I didn’t take it anywhere. I sold it to some associates of Franklin Stone.” He gestured behind him. “I believe they’re on their way out of the country with it as we speak.”

  “Stone’s dead,” Russell cut in.

  “Is he now?” Malloy asked as Conrad tweaked the barrel of his weapon Russell’s way. “How do you suppose that happened?”

  Deal could only stare, all the disparate pieces of the puzzle flying apart, then rearranging themselves in his head. “You were at the dinner that night when Boussier brought the wine out, weren’t you, Rusty?” Deal said.

  “I may have been.” Malloy shrugged.

  “And Dequarius was there, too, waiting tables or busing dishes or whatever, wanting to see how his wine went over.” Deal swept his arm around the empty catacomb. “Dequarius knew he couldn’t sell Stone what he’d regard as his own property, so he came to you. Once you realized what Dequarius had stumbled onto, you decided to take it from him.”

  Malloy pursed his lips as if he were critiquing Deal’s summation. “An interesting concept, Johnny-boy—stealing abondoned cargo.” He made an idle gesture. “I’d say it’s the law of the sea that applies in this instance. To the salvor go the spoils.”

  “Once you found out where the wine was, you killed him,” Deal continued.

  Malloy made a deprecating sound with his lips. “Did François tell you this? The man simply doesn’t know when to stop talking. We just dropped by to see him, didn’t we, Albert? He’s holding his tongue now, quite literally.”

  Conrad grunted agreement, his eyes flickering back and forth between Deal and Russell, as if uncertain which target he yearned for more.

  “That’s what Dequarius was trying to warn me about the night he died,” Deal said, his anger growing. “You knew he’d been in contact with me. He wanted me to know I was next in line. The only
thing I haven’t figured out is why he came to me in the first place.”

  “A good question, isn’t it?” Malloy nodded. “Stone was in an expansive mood that night, telling a number of war stories, most of them having to do with one or another development scam he and your father had perpetrated. He told us all he had high hopes that you were about to step in where Barton Deal had left off. Stone said you’d been holding him up for a bigger piece of the kickbacks he arranged with the city, but he felt confident you’d come around.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Deal said.

  “I thought about telling him you were a true-blue Boy Scout, but what would have been the point?” Malloy shrugged. “I suppose Dequarius overheard some of Stone’s talk and decided you were a man he could reason with.”

  Russell glanced at Deal. “So much for my thoughts on the matter.”

  Deal shook his head glumly. “Then Dequarius came to me because he thought I was a crook.” He took a deep breath. How long was his old man’s legacy going to hound him anyway? Then he caught a glimpse of the weapon in Conrad’s hands, which suggested something of an answer to the question.

  Deal turned his gaze back to Malloy. “Who else was there that night?” he asked.

  “Some very astute businessmen,” Malloy answered. “Men who understand the concept of pricelessness.” He nodded at the bottle in Deal’s hands. “What you’re holding there has considerable historic significance, you know.”

  “I’d call it evidence,” Deal said.

  “So you might,” Malloy said, “if you were in a position to do anything with it.” He smiled benignly, waving a hand around the sunken chamber. “Certain people have been searching for this wine for years, you know.”

  “So I’ve learned,” Deal said and hefted the bottle, calculating his chances of going up against Conrad and his automatic with such a weapon. Somewhere in the sub-zero range, he thought. But at least as long as Malloy kept talking, they’d stay alive. Anything might happen.