‘I don’t.’
‘That song?’ Gerard said. ‘God Damn the Pusher Man.’
‘Don’t know it.’
‘Nina Simone, come on,’ he said, ‘I thought you people knew all about the entertainment world. Don’t you own it or something? Like in New York? That’s where you’re from, right? I could tell by the accent. Hey! Martinis!’
He spun around with two cocktail glasses, one in each hand, and didn’t spill a drop.
I made as to stand to receive this manna, but Gerard would not have it. He moved, well, like a gazelle, and handed me my beverage, which I sipped immediately.
‘Dreamy, isn’t it?’ he said, standing over me.
‘Angel tears indeed,’ I concurred. ‘So you were saying that you don’t approve of Jody’s profession.’
‘I don’t. I’m strictly clean and decent. And P.S.? Jody’s as much of a Seminole as you and me. She tell you that baloney about a soldier father and a Seminole woman?’
‘She did.’ I sipped again.
‘That’s Lynette’s story, not Jody’s. I don’t know if Jody is confused because of the junk or likes to think of herself as a half-breed or what. But she was born in Miami to all-American stock.’
‘And you know this how?’ I asked politely.
‘Girl talk,’ he said, retreating to his fainting sofa. ‘Dressing room gossip. Jody’s girlfriend and I used to be close.’
‘Used to be?’
‘Before she took up with Jody, naturally.’
‘Naturally.’ Another sip and I was beginning to feel much better.
‘So,’ Gerard said, in a very deliberate voice. ‘You didn’t really come here to ask me these questions because, if you actually are with this so-called Child Protective Services, your work is done. The child is protected. Right?’
‘After a fashion,’ I demurred.
‘Meaning what?’
‘Meaning,’ I said, after yet another sip of the glorious martini, ‘that Mister Redhawk is going to get the baby and spirit it away. Whence I do not know, but I don’t like to save a kid from the clutches of junkies and donut cooks who have guns only to have said tyke be removed from the safe environ of the hospital.’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘A man with a mission.’
‘Plus,’ I was forced to admit – partly because I wanted to be honest, partly because the martini had really kicked in – ‘I kind of have to hide out for a while to let Philip rid me of this McReedy pestilence, see?’
‘There it is,’ he said, saluting me with his drink. ‘I’m your backstreet jelly roll.’
‘OK,’ I admitted to him, ‘I don’t know what that means either, but you certainly do have a colorful way of expressing yourself. If you mean that this apartment is maybe the last place in America that McReedy would go looking for me, then, as you say, bingo.’
‘It means,’ he explained, ‘that thanks to me, you’re going to be that rarest of birds, the good man that is hard to find.’
‘Not only is your speech colorful,’ I told him, polishing off my beverage, ‘but it is also rife with innuendo.’
‘Double entendre is my métier,’ he sighed. ‘And you’re out of refreshment.’
He hopped up, setting his own glass on the floor, and without another word scooped the glass from my hand and retreated into the kitchen.
‘You can stay here as long as you like,’ he said from the kitchen, ‘but in a bit I’m going to have to get ready for the club.’
‘I don’t want to interfere with the ordinary course of your day,’ I told him.
He stopped for a second in his work with the shaker and said, a little softer, ‘I kind of like the company.’
I didn’t know why that made me sad, but it did. Not sad for Gerard, exactly, or even for myself, because I could probably have said the same thing to him.
The human condition, as I understood it, was primarily built out of loneliness, occasionally interspersed with brutality, terror, and meals.
SIXTEEN
By eight o’clock I’d taken a nap and Gerard was dressed for work.
‘How do I look?’ he asked.
I gave him the once-over from my sleeping chair. ‘Pretty spectacular, actually.’
‘Smooth talker.’ He winked.
He was dressed in a tight black slinky number with sequins all over it. The heels were at least three inches tall and red as a fire engine. His wig was a kind of a Judy Garland thing, like toward the end of her life; black and tight around the head. The hose were black with a seam up the back like they used to have.
‘Don’t wait up,’ he said at the door. ‘I’ll be very late.’
‘OK, but chances are I’ll be gone by the time you get back. Assuming I can wake up. I slept really hard.’
‘You’ll be gone.’ He nodded. ‘But look, you have to come back and give me the scoop, right? If you don’t get killed by McReedy.’
‘Will do.’ I smiled. ‘You know, you might be the nicest person I’ve met in this burg so far.’
‘Well,’ he shot right back, ‘I’m certainly the nicest looking.’
‘One hundred percent,’ I agreed.
With that he was out the door.
I sat there a second trying to rouse myself and then looked around for a phone. I figured to call my apartment first, just to see if somebody would answer, but a second later that seemed silly. I nixed calling Sharon, least for the nonce, on account of her surprise father. Then I thought, maybe I would give Fat a call to see did he know anything. Then I tried to think who else might offer me information, if not solace.
And this question gave me pause, because I realized that I really had no friends to call. I’d been in Fry’s Bay for three years, and I had plenty of friendly associates, but no pals. Back in Brooklyn I had Steady Pete, the shyster. He was always giving out with the jokes. And Pan-Pan Washington, an artist with a blowtorch. I once saw him change a Ford Falcon into a Jaguar sort of looking thing. It was a beautiful piece of work. I would have called Pan-Pan, if I’d been in Brooklyn. But I was not.
So I thought to myself, Do I call the donut shop? Cass was the one who’d hipped me to McReedy. Maybe she’d heard something by now. Even Yudda might know something, or Myrna his waitress. What to do, what to do?
I finally decided on Fat, because he’d been the most scared. That meant he had the most to lose, I thought. Sure, he’d told me not to come back for a while, but he hadn’t told me not to call him.
So I found the phone in the kitchen and I dialed up Pete’s Billiard Emporium.
The phone rang for a while, but finally Fat picked up.
‘What?’ he said, though not unpleasantly.
‘Do not repeat my name but this is Foggy.’
‘Foggy?’
‘What did I just say?’ I moaned.
‘Oh, yeah. Jesus. Sorry. But it’s OK. There ain’t a soul around. The joint is like a morgue. It’s like word got out that Redhawk and Philip were here or something, and suddenly my place got the stink.’
‘Ah. Well, that’s too bad, but I have some problems of my own right now.’
‘You’re telling me. Where are you?’ His voice sounded very nervous, and suddenly I wondered if maybe he might not be telling me the truth about his place being empty.
‘I’m Nowhere Special. It’s just outside of Mind Your Own Business.’
‘Look,’ he said, ‘don’t get mad at me just because your playhouse fell down.’
‘It did not fall,’ I corrected him, ‘it was pushed. I was doing my job. Someone else didn’t like it.’
‘That’s the understatement of the year, brother.’ He lowered his voice. ‘McReedy was in here.’
‘When?’ I panicked a little, partly because there was a man who wanted to kill me abroad in the land, partly because Fat seemed to know all about it. I figured he overheard a lot, but the fact that he knew who McReedy was gave me pause. ‘McReedy was in there when?’
‘Like, a couple of hours ago.’ He sniffed. ‘He looked
around, didn’t say word one to me, and then he was gone. Like that.’
‘Did he look mad?’
‘He always looks mad.’
‘You know him that well?’
‘I know enough to be scared to death,’ he said. ‘And you can’t own an establishment in this part of Florida without somehow owing something to the Seminoles, or to Pascal Henderson, who is actually the mortgage holder on my blue heaven. So over the years I’ve been warned about McReedy. It works – I’m never late with the payment.’
‘And yet you say that the place is yours,’ I said, unable to keep the suspicion out of my tones.
‘You got any idea what happened to the economy last year?’ he asked me, incensed. ‘I’m lucky I still got half my ass, let alone this joint. I got a second mortgage that’s eating my liver! You have no idea what the small businessman faces, my friend. You, with your carefree life of Riley. With that sum-bitch Nixon in the White House, I don’t see it getting better anytime soon, either.’
‘OK, OK. Times is tough all over.’ I took a deep breath. ‘So you haven’t heard anything else about my particular situation, then.’
‘Like what would I hear?’
‘Like that Philip shoved McReedy down an elevator shaft or something.’
Fat made a noise like ice cracking. ‘You should be so lucky, Foggy.’
‘Please stop saying my name.’
‘Right. Sorry. But, no news.’
‘Nothing at all of interest?’ I asked.
‘I’m telling you, this joint is like it’s closed on account of a death in the family.’
‘Gee,’ I said, a bit harshly perhaps, ‘that’s the phrase you decided to use?’
Before Fat could answer I heard scuffling over the phone, and then the distinctive, sickening pop of a handgun firing.
After that, there was nothing.
SEVENTEEN
I had just awakened from a martini-induced coma, so my judgment was cloudy. My reaction to the shock on the phone was to hang up, run out of Gerard’s apartment, and run as fast as my wobbly legs could carry me to Pete’s Billiard Emporium. Which is always the wrong decision; running toward the gunfire.
Nevertheless, within three or four minutes I was standing outside Pete’s. To my surprise, the local constabulary was already in evidence. This was something of a shocker too. Under ordinary circumstances you couldn’t get a cop to move past tortoise pace unless free food was involved.
The sun had gone, and I was able to hang back a bit, somewhat hidden in shadows. In front of Pete’s, I saw two cop cars, several citizens, and a minor but vocal hubbub. There was no ambulance, and I didn’t hear sirens. Just as I was trying to decide if this was a good thing or a bad thing, I felt the unmistakable sensation of a gun in the middle of my back – a feeling a person doesn’t forget.
I reacted the way the person holding the gun always hopes you will. I held up my hands and said, very politely, ‘OK.’
‘OK?’ said a very high-pitched voice behind me. ‘You think this is OK? Because of you, you piece of crap, I got a scraped-up face, a raging headache, and I had to shoot up one of my favorite bars to get your attention. Turn around!’
I did. There before me was a short little guy in a seersucker suit. The right side of his face was a mess, the result of a sidewalk surfing. He was sweating like a sweat factory, even though there was quite the chill in the air. He was pointing a very familiar looking pistol at my gut, a .44 Auto Mag Pistol, AMP for short. This was the exact kind of pistol I had taken off the kid at Pete’s earlier, the pistol that was now unfortunately gone from my coat pocket.
‘You would be McReedy,’ I said, continuing my congenial tone.
‘Shut up,’ he growled.
I did. But not because he told me to. I shut up because of what was behind him. It was a mountain of Philip, just about to smite a mighty smote. I couldn’t quite figure how the big guy was moving so quietly. He was like a dancer.
‘Here’s the thing,’ McReedy began.
But he never got a chance to finish whatever it was he wanted to tell me. Philip bashed him in the head with a fist the size of a gumball machine. McReedy went down hard, and his pistol clattered on the sidewalk.
‘Let’s go,’ Philip said and took off, away from Pete’s.
I agreed, following in a likewise direction, but not before I scooped up McReedy’s gun.
‘How did you do that?’ I asked Philip, catching up with him.
Philip was now dressed, for some reason, in a tux. For a man his size, he carried it off quite nicely.
‘Well, you hit a fellow in the head like that,’ Philip said calmly, ‘he’s going to drop. You have to come in at just the right angle or you’ll only make him mad. That’s no good, because then he’s liable to shoot you. If he has a gun. Now, a man without a gun on the other hand—’
‘I meant,’ I interrupted, ‘how did you move like that?’
‘Like what?’
‘Silent.’
‘Oh.’ He smiled, like it was a big joke. ‘Old Indian trick.’
‘Uh huh,’ I said, because I didn’t think it was that funny. ‘So where are we going?’
‘Well, I didn’t want to have to kill McReedy. He’s just doing his job. But I don’t want him to kill you, because the tribe owes you a debt of honor. So after considering all my options, I have decided to take you with me. Besides, I want you to meet someone. So let’s go.’
We made it around the corner of the next block to where a beat-up, rusted Army Jeep was parked.
‘Where?’ I asked.
‘What?’ he repeated, going to the driver’s side of the Jeep.
‘Where are we going?’ I said.
‘Ah,’ he told me. ‘Into the swamp. Get in.’
PART TWO
Seminole Swamp
EIGHTEEN
The swamp in that part of Florida, where the Seminoles lived, was very humid. Even in the cold part of the evening. We drove for maybe an hour and a half in silence, and I might as well have been on Pluto. I was sweating like the proverbial hooker in temple, and I had absolutely no frame of reference for what I could see by the light of the moon. Everything around me was mystery vegetation, including some trees that had stalagmite-looking things growing up out of their roots. So I had to ask Philip about them, breaking a perfectly peaceful evening drive, except for the bumping and the banging, because a Jeep was never a smooth ride.
‘What the hell are those things?’ I asked Philip.
‘Which things?’ He wanted me to be more specific.
‘Those things,’ I said, pointing, ‘that look like stalagmites.’
He glanced. ‘Oh. Part of the cypress trees. This swamp is named after those trees.’
‘No,’ I said, because I thought he didn’t see what I was pointing at, ‘those things there.’
‘Yes, I know. You never saw a cypress tree before?’
‘I never saw any of this stuff before. And I’m assuming, since there isn’t a light anywhere except your headlights, that we’re in the middle of nowhere.’
‘No,’ he corrected me, ‘we’re somewhere.’
‘I mean, if I jumped out of the Jeep at this point, I would die.’
‘Yes.’
‘If I got lost in this swamp, you would never hear from me again.’
‘Yes.’
‘Because I would never find my way out. You’re not even on a road as such, so there’s nothing for me to follow back to Fry’s Bay.’
‘No, you’re right,’ he agreed. ‘And besides, something would kill you – or kill you and eat you – within an hour out there.’
I didn’t know if he said that to scare me or not, but it was a pretty good line.
‘What would kill me? It’s my first time in this part of Florida. Nobody around here is mad at me yet.’
‘Alligators, water moccasins, diamondbacks, the occasional panther or black bear, and even the wild pigs are pretty mean. They don’t have to be mad at you. They just hav
e to be hungry. Any one of them would consider you a nice snack.’
‘But your tribe lives in here?’ I asked, a little shaken.
‘We always have,’ he said.
If I didn’t think about the teeming wildlife that was, at least according to Philip, hungry for something kosher, I might have thought that the landscape had some wild kind of charm. The moon made everything look nice, I guess; the fan trees, the cypress, the tall grass, and something that smelled like gardenias. I started to think that the place was pretty nice.
‘What’s that smell?’ I asked Philip after another short period of silence.
‘Good or bad?’ he asked me.
‘Good,’ I said.
‘Mmm,’ he told me, smiling and nodding. ‘Magnolia. My favorite. Do you know that song? I like that song.’
‘What song?’
‘Magnolia, you sweet thing,’ he sang. ‘It’s J.J. Cale – beautiful. Very sensitive.’
I turned sideways a little so I could get a good look at the big man. His profile was impressive.
‘So now I have to ask why you’re wearing a tux,’ I said, settling back.
‘This is Mister Redhawk’s idea,’ he informed me. ‘He says that most people would not suspect that a man in a tuxedo was out to kill somebody, or was a tough guy sort of a person. If you wear a tuxedo, you’re headed for some important affair in a hotel or a ballroom, not for bopping a guy in the head.’
‘Unless you’re James Bond,’ I retorted.
He thought for a second. ‘Good point. But who, in Fry’s Bay, is going to mistake a big Indian for James Bond. He’s British.’
‘And you’re not.’
‘Not that I know of.’ He smiled.
‘Look,’ I said, ‘maybe I forgot to tell you thanks for stopping McReedy from shooting me. I mean, I can usually take care of myself in this regard, but apparently McReedy is something of a professional, and you never can tell about a thing like that. So. Thanks.’
‘You’re welcome,’ he said right back. ‘You certainly do like to talk.’
‘You don’t?’
‘I’m actually enjoying the conversation,’ he admitted, smiling bigger, ‘but you can probably tell that I’m more the strong silent type.’
Cold Florida Page 10
