Tanzi's Heat (Vince Tanzi Book 1)

by C I Dennis

  “Print it, OK?” I said.

  “OK. There’s a contact book and emails too.”

  “Print anything you can,” I said. “Can you tell if it’s a laptop?”

  “It’s Windows-based,” he said. “It should say what kind it is right here.” I watched as he navigated to “System”. In large blue letters it said LENOVO. “Yeah, it’s a laptop,” he said.

  “So you’re looking at that computer right now, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can’t you tell where it is?”

  “Dude,” he said. “Ask me something hard.”

  “OK. Let’s see. How about—what do women want?”

  “If I knew that I wouldn’t be at home on the computer,” he said, and I laughed until my ribs hurt. Maybe he wasn’t the blushing ingénue that I had thought. I watched the screen while he navigated.

  “According to this, the laptop is in Vero Beach, Florida.”

  “Fantastic,” I said. “I happen to be headed that way.”

  *

  It was dark as I passed through Lake Wales. The night was warm, and I stopped in a convenience store parking lot to put the BMW’s convertible top down. I needed the rushing air to keep me awake and distract me from the pain in my shoulder and ribs. I was also feeling the effect of the withdrawal from the drug. It wasn’t a cold sweat, shaky hands kind of thing—more like the feeling you get when the flu is coming on. I’d only been taking the oxycodone for a little more than a week, but I had gained a new respect for how addictive it was. No wonder it had crept in and taken over the lives of so many ordinary people who were not who you’d think of as the druggie-type.

  By the time I got back to Vero, it would be very late and Bobby Bove would be in bed. I wanted him to be the point man on this one; I trusted Bobby even though he and Thornton had pissed me off at the hospital. I assumed the warrant was still good, the cops had just decided to lie low for now because the evidence had evaporated. Warrants usually stayed open for ten days, and that would allow Bobby and his friends to board the boat, get the laptop, and collar C.J. and his son if they were still around. I stopped in Yeehaw Junction for gas and checked my own laptop, as I still had a tracker on C.J.’s van. The van was in the parking lot at the Vero Beach Yacht Club. I decided I would spend the night there too, and would call Bobby in the morning. I didn’t want anyone slipping away in the dark; I was too close to getting the goods on C.J., and I wanted to put him away just as much as the DEA did, if not more. We would see if I was not very bright, as he had said, or if I was one step ahead of him.

  *

  I parked at the other end of the yacht club lot from C.J.’s van. I had a view between the buildings of some of the boats, although most of them were obscured. The docks were brightly lit, but the parking lot was nice and dark, and I kept the convertible top down, drinking in the night while I surfed on the laptop to keep myself awake.

  Actually, I wasn’t paying much attention to the computer screen. I was thinking about Barbara. She was shutting me out for some reason, and that hurt more than my ribs. I didn’t understand why. If she was playing me, like C.J. said, I didn’t get the angle. I couldn’t believe that she was on his side; I had heard her say she didn’t care about him anymore, and those words had sounded authentic. If she would see me again, I would confront her. Even if she didn’t want to see me again, I would confront her—I had to know where we stood. I thought about Frank Velutto getting shut off by Glory, and I almost had some sympathy, but not really. The songs say that love can make you crazy, and they’re right, but that doesn’t mean you shoot somebody.

  The stars were out in force, and I closed the laptop and leaned back on the leather headrest. I missed my wife. I thought I’d hold a grudge for the rest of my life, but I was wrong. I needed to forgive her if I was going to be able to move on. I said so, out loud to the night, and the stars winked back in acknowledgement.

  THURSDAY

  I heard a car start in the parking lot just before dawn. It was the van, and it left out of the far entrance, away from where I was parked. I hadn’t seen anyone walk up to it, but I had been drowsy and distracted in my thoughts. I turned on the tracking software and watched the blue dot going down A-1-A. If they had taken off with the computer, I was screwed.

  I decided that I could track them later if I needed to—this was a chance to check out the boat, and if the laptop was still there, I would take it. I walked around the side of the building and through a gate that led to the docks. C.J.’s boat was in the same slip at the end, partially lit by a big halogen lamp on a high pole on the next dock over. I walked out to the boat and listened. There was no noise, and the interior lights were out. I climbed aboard and carefully turned the handle on the latch that opened the door to the cabin below. I waited for my eyes to get used to the darkness. The light from the dock cast my shadow on the galley table, and I shifted to the side and saw that the laptop was still on it, where I’d seen it the day before. I crouched down and entered through the door, and then crossed the cabin floor as quietly as I could and reached over to grab it.

  Something crushed down hard on the back of my neck, and the darkness became complete.

  *

  When I regained consciousness, Philip was trussing me up in sticky gray duct tape like a spider’s breakfast. He’d wound my arms tight to my chest and was now wrapping my thighs together, along with my ankles. I would have struggled, but his father was sitting on an upholstered dining seat, pointing a vintage Colt Commander at my face. I recognized the gun—it was the one I’d discovered under the toilet in his fake office.

  “Tell me what you know,” he said.

  “Apparently not much,” I said. My voice sounded as cracked as my skull.

  “What do the police know? Tell me, and I’ll let you go.”

  Bullshit. I had gotten in his way, and I was going to be fish food.

  “Do you mind if I ask you a question?” I said.

  “Ask,” he said.

  “Who is Avery Bellar?” I said. “And why are you holding his gun?”

  He frowned. “How do you know that name?”

  “I might be a little smarter than you thought,” I said. “OK, let’s trade. You answer my question; I answer yours. I’ll start. I found the passport and that gun in your office, along with some money and a map. Now it’s your turn. So who are you?”

  “I’m a Canadian citizen,” he said. “Naturalized.”

  “Was that before or after you deserted in Vietnam?”

  He frowned again. “After. I was born in the U.S. I grew up on army bases. When I got out of Vietnam, I went to Canada and got an identity there.”

  “Tell me the whole story. Then I’ll tell you what the cops have,” I said.

  “I could just beat it out of you,” he said.

  “You’re not the type,” I said.

  “Philip, go above,” he said, and the boy left us.

  He exhaled. “I was in a recon platoon looking for NVAs in a little hamlet. Tan Tieng. One of those tiny places in the jungle where they’d cleared out some fields—enough to graze a buffalo and grow some crops. We were on the perimeter, eight of us, when we took fire. The first one to get shot was the lieutenant, and he was dead. There was a sergeant who took the radio and called in an air strike, but in the meantime we were getting creamed and had no cover. Two more guys got hit, and they died immediately; it was sniper fire and they were lining us up.”

  He stopped and gazed at a point beyond me. Somehow I had opened the floodgates, which was good. If I was going to survive this, I had to get him to trust me.

  “Go on,” I said.

  “No one alive knows this story,” he said.

  “I’m a good listener,” I said. As if I had a choice, wrapped up like a burrito on the floor.

  “We had to do something, and so we rushed the hut where the firing was coming from. They got two more of us on the way in, but we threw in some frags and the hut exploded and the firing stopped. There were only
two of them, and they were Viet Cong, not NVAs, but they’d killed five of our eight. Everyone else there were villagers—women and children, any of their men would be in the jungle. So it was me and two others, and the other guys started going hut-to-hut, shooting. Women, little kids, everybody. I screamed at them to stop, and they just laughed. I got out my gun and shot them both.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “Only two of the villagers survived, a young girl and her grandmother. I took them into the jungle because I knew the air strike was coming; a few minutes later two F-4 Phantoms came in and obliterated the place. It was gone.”

  “The girl was Le?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “So,” I said, “Which one are you really? The fruit broker, or the guy I played golf with?”

  “I’ve told you enough,” he said. “It’s my turn to ask you a question.”

  “OK, but just tell me who I’m talking to. Is it you, or is it your brother?”

  His eyes lowered, and he appeared to be looking at the gun. “My brother is dead. He died in the war. He was one of the two soldiers I shot in Tan Tieng.”

  “Your real brother?”

  “Avery. He was a sadistic son of a bitch. He tortured me when we were kids, but my father never did anything about it. Avery was the one who could do no wrong.”

  There was nothing I could say to that. If I made it out of here, I would piece it together later, and Dr. Doug Leyburn would have a field day. The duct tape was wound too tightly around my chest, and my breathing became labored.

  “Undo this and we’ll talk more,” I said. I’ve negotiated in situations like this before; you have to be forceful, but not threatening. It’s a delicate art.

  “Not a chance,” he said. “What do the police know, specifically?”

  “They have physical evidence from your lab,” I lied. “They have all the Empex business records from a portable hard drive that was there, with all your bank records, and they’ve frozen all the assets. You’re under twenty-four-hour surveillance. If you don’t let me go, you’ll just make it worse.”

  “You’re lying,” he said. “They would have picked me up if they had anything like that.” He went up above, and I heard him make a call on his cell. He came back below.

  “And the money is right where it’s supposed to be,” he said. “We’re going for a ride. You’ve become a liability.” So much for my negotiating skills. I’d just negotiated a pair of cement socks and a swimming lesson.

  C.J. went back above and closed the door, and it was dark in the cabin except for the weak dawn that was beginning to filter in. The diesel engines roared into life. The boat rocked as they cast off from the slip, and I could feel us pick up speed as they steered into the Indian River. The sunlight was coming in through the starboard windows, so I knew we were going north, toward the Sebastian Inlet. The inlet itself was a tricky little waterway, and the currents were strong, but a big boat like the Riviera could cut through it with no problem, and then we would be out in the Atlantic. Once you were a few miles off the coast you could knot someone up with an anchor and they would never be found.

  Someone like me.

  *

  I wiggled as much as possible, but all I could manage was to thrash around like a fish on the floor of the cabin. My arms were taped up to my sides, mummy-style, and although the tape could possibly be torn open, I had no leverage and no sharp edges to use. I could bend my legs at the knees, but I could not get to my feet. We had been under way for at least ten minutes, and it was only a few miles up the river to Sebastian. I had to come up with something, and I didn’t have much time.

  The door to the head was open, and it banged back and forth against the cabin wall as the boat rocked. One of them had forgotten to shut it. I wiggled across the floor until my feet were next to it. It took several tries, but I trapped it between my ankles and held it still. The effort made my chest roar with pain, made worse by the tightly-wound duct tape that made breathing almost impossible. I inched closer to the door until my knees were bent, still holding it between my feet, with the lowest bands of tape now touching against the squared-off edge of the door. With enough force I might be able to rip the tape. I pushed my legs against the door edge, hard, again and again, and the corners cut into the skin on both ankles until they bled. I kept ramming the tape against the door edge, not thinking about the pain; the tape was beginning to give. It was crude, but it was working. I rammed hard, over and over, until I felt the pressure on my ankles loosen as the tape began to rip. The more I rammed, the more it ripped, until I was all the way through and my ankles were freed.

  I bent over into a fetal position and tried to get up. With one calf forward and one back I was able to get some lift, but I fell backward twice until I realized I had to have something behind me for support. I wiggled over against the galley stove and tried my scissor-lift again. This time it worked, although my injuries were now screaming. I was standing—with my thighs and torso still bound, but I was mobile.

  The cabin door was secured by a small brass latch. I grabbed the handle with my teeth and twisted it down. It opened, and I pushed the door forward with my head. If C.J. and Philip were at the helm, I would be looking at their feet, but they were up above and out of sight on the flying bridge, and I had the area to myself. I climbed the steps to the helm and squinted in the full sunlight. We were cruising at eighteen knots according to the instruments on the console—fast enough to waterski. I could see small sandbars off the port side, and the shore of what looked like Sebastian in the distance, with its riverside restaurants and Tiki bars. We were well out in the channel, hundreds of yards from either bank of the river, and if I tried to jump, I would never make it to shore.

  The boat was turning in a slow arc toward the inlet, and I realized that at this speed we would be out into the open Atlantic within minutes. If I waited until we reached the churning water of the inlet entrance, I’d be nearer to the shore but the currents would drown me. If I was going to do something, I had to do it now.

  I hobbled down to the cockpit deck and threw myself over the rail like a discarded amberjack. I bounced in the wake, and then it was quiet as I went underwater and heard the boat speed away. I dolphin-kicked my way up to the surface and took a huge, gasping breath. The boat continued toward the inlet, leaving me out in the open river, a long swim from dry land. I floated on my back and kicked, every movement of my legs transmitting an electric current pain to my torso and shoulder, but I was free and they hadn’t seen me flop overboard. The river was calm and the sun was rising over the barrier island, already strong. The sound of C.J.’s boat diminished to a distant hum, and it was quiet except for the squawking coughs of pelicans nesting on the shore.

  A sport fishing boat came into view, heading for the inlet, and I kicked the water wildly, hoping to attract their attention. My thrashing earned me a mouthful of briny water and I gagged and wondered if today was the day I would die.

  I saw the boat change course and head toward me. They slowed, and one of the people aboard jumped into the water with a life ring and swam me over to a platform at the stern of the boat. I couldn’t move, and another of the men took out a fish knife and unbound the duct tape from me, and I could finally breathe freely again. I lay on the platform and took in as much air as I could, unable to speak. Across the varnished mahogany transom was the name of the boat in large gold letters, just above my head: GLORY HALLELUJAH. I squinted up at the puffy morning clouds. Someone was watching over me.

  The white-haired man who had cut away the tape shook his head. “I thought you was some kind of dying fish,” he said.

  “If you hadn’t come along, I would have been,” I said.

  *

  The fishermen dropped me off back at the Vero Beach Yacht Club on the condition that I would call an ambulance as soon as was on dry land. I climbed off the boat onto the dock and thanked them for saving my life.

  “Catch and release,” the white-haired guy said. “You didn’
t look like good eatin’ anyway.”

  I had already called Bobby Bove from the boat, with one of their cell phones. My phone was in the BMW, and I dialed Bobby again as soon as I got in.

  “We got them,” he said. “The Coast Guard had a boat right near the inlet.”

  “Did they find the computer?”

  “Yes. Are you OK?”

  “I guess so,” I said. “I have a lump on the back of my head the size of a tangerine.”

  “Do you want me to send someone?”

  “No, I’m just going to go home and get in bed,” I said. I was too tired to call for the ambulance. “Let me know what they find on the laptop.”

  “Will do.”

  *

  I was sticking to the leather seats of the BMW, so I stopped at a drug store on the way home and bought a roll of paper towels and a can of WD-40: Barbara’s cure. I sat in the parking lot of the store and dabbed myself with it, but the tape residue was firmly attached to the hair on my arms and legs, and I decided I didn’t need a can, I needed a bathtub full of the stuff. I gave up and drove to my house.

  I was tempted to clean up and then pay a call on Barbara. If she was playing me, I wondered how she’d react when I told her that C.J. was going to jail, and if she’d been counting on his money for her meal ticket that ticket had just been punched. It could wait. I was exhausted, and I hadn’t had any sleep except for the involuntary kind that Philip had provided me when he’d cracked me on the head.

  *

  I didn’t stir until the afternoon light had faded and the peepers came out. There’s an old irrigation canal behind my development that’s a breeding ground for mosquitos, but it’s also good for frogs, and if I leave the windows open I get serenaded. I lay there on my bed, listening and surveying the damage to my body: a slug in the shoulder; a nick on the scalp; assorted bumps, bruises, and cracked ribs from the car crash; a bonk on the head when Le shot me and I hit the floor; and one more bonk from Philip. It was all I could do not to call Sonny and beg for more pills. Everything hurt like hell, and my impromptu swim in the river hadn’t made it any better. I needed a week on the beach somewhere where the phone wouldn’t ring, where I wouldn’t have to chase anybody, where I wouldn’t get shot, and where the only decision I’d have to make would be what factor of sunscreen to apply.