Cold Florida

by Phillip DePoy

  ‘All right, look,’ I began slowly. ‘Let’s just think about this for a moment. I would like to start by putting away all guns.’

  To verify my veracity, I set McReedy’s Magnum on the floor, and the other pistol I had, which was a Smith and Wesson number. I looked at Joseph. He mumbled something which I didn’t hear, and then put his guns on the desk closest to him.

  ‘There,’ I announced, ‘this makes it much nicer. Does anyone else have any guns?’

  After a moment’s hesitation, Sharon sighed and tossed the cutest little concealed weapon on to her desktop, right next to McReedy. I thought it was a Model 210 Sig, which, in addition to being very accurate, was also remarkably expensive—and Swiss.

  ‘McReedy,’ I said, ‘I would take it as a sign of good faith if you would please brush that little pistol of Sharon’s on to the floor so that you won’t be tempted by it. OK?’

  He nodded. He brushed. The gun clattered to the floor.

  Then, after another second, McReedy leaned over, really slowly, with his eyes on mine, and said, ‘This is the last one.’

  Turned out he had another gun taped to his left ankle. I couldn’t tell what it was because of the duct tape and the bad lighting, but he ripped the tape and tossed the gun carelessly behind him, into a corner.

  ‘Good,’ I declared. ‘Now, here is my thinking with regard to our situation. I am not the problem, because I am apparently too stupid to be the problem. Joseph certainly isn’t the problem because he’s a college graduate and an accountant. Plus, he’s shot. The funny thing is, McReedy, I currently don’t think that you’re the problem either. While I don’t care for the fact that you’ve tried to kill me every chance you got, I can see that it wasn’t your idea. Which leads us to the one person who actually is the problem.’

  ‘Pascal Henderson,’ Joseph and McReedy said at the same time.

  ‘Dad,’ Sharon chimed in, somewhat haplessly.

  ‘Good,’ I nodded. ‘We’re in agreement. My suggestion is that we form some kind of short-term alliance whose first order of business would be to go to Yudda’s and get something to eat. Food always makes you feel better. And we’re supposed to go back there pretty soon anyway, to meet people. So who likes this idea?’

  ‘I could eat,’ Joseph allowed.

  ‘I’d really go for some flapjacks,’ McReedy said dreamily.

  We all looked to Sharon.

  ‘Far be it from me to throw a monkey wrench into these works,’ she answered, ‘but are we certain that the four of us don’t make the most obvious group target in the southeastern United States? A wounded Indian, a soggy Jew, a known hitman, and a tall, bleeding woman? All we need is Sidney Greenstreet and we have the makings of some lost Bogart movie.’

  ‘I’m getting used to that kind of weirdness,’ I told her happily. ‘And you only thought to say that about Bogart because I brought up his movies earlier in the conversation.’

  ‘No,’ she disagreed. ‘I brought it up because if my father is anywhere around, he will recognize me and McReedy right away, of course, and then he’ll see that we’re dining with two other people who might mean to do him harm. And we’re proposing to do this less than a block away from his sumptuous condo, a place where he actually is quite liable to see us. This isn’t completely nuts to anyone else?’

  ‘I see what the problem is,’ I told her. ‘I’ve forgotten to mention that Mister Redhawk and Philip are probably at Yudda’s right now. They’ve had a conversation with your father, and are meeting us at Yudda’s to tell us that this whole thing is over with.’

  ‘What?’ Sharon’s mouth was open about as far as it was going to get.

  ‘So I think we should gather up all these idle weapons, lock them in your desk, and adjourn to Yudda’s. Right?’

  Sharon and McReedy sat, stunned. But Joseph and I began to collect guns.

  ‘Can we hustle it up a little?’ Joseph asked me ‘My leg is starting to hurt bad. I could really use a beer.’

  THIRTY

  Yudda was all by himself on that particular evening. No help, no customers. The sun was probably going down, but there was no way to tell because it was raining so hard. The rain was like little bullets of ice, very hard, very cold.

  Yudda didn’t make a peep when we walked in, even though we were a very strange assemblage. Maybe we looked so strange that keeping his mouth shut was a good idea.

  Mister Redhawk and Philip were not in evidence, so we took the fourth booth, the last one at the far end of the diner. This would give us room and also a nice view of whoever came in the door. We jockeyed a bit for position, but it was finally decided that McReedy would go in first and I would sit beside him, both of us facing the door. Sharon went in first on the other side and Joseph sat kind of sideways so that he could face the door a little, too, but also he could stretch out his shot-up leg.

  All this happened in a matter of around ninety seconds, and then we settled in. Still, Yudda did not move.

  ‘Are there any specials?’ I asked, looking right at him.

  His eyebrows lifted. ‘Other than the four of you? No. I got nothing on the menu half so special as that.’

  ‘But you still serve food here, right?’ I asked.

  ‘The monkfish is good,’ he shot right back.

  ‘Yeah, sometimes,’ I allowed, ‘but the crab cakes are safer, right?’

  ‘Crab cakes all around,’ he said. ‘They come with French fried potatoes and a provocative sauce.’

  ‘Mine comes with three beers,’ Joseph said, somewhat insistently.

  ‘Yudda does not serve alcohol,’ I told Joseph.

  ‘I need beer!’ Joseph roared, and in such a manner as to assure us all that he was serious.

  ‘Let’s put everybody down for beer,’ Yudda said. ‘I may have a few in my personal cooler. And I assume, since you’re all looking at the door every three seconds, that we are expecting others?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said to Yudda. ‘And thank you for your generous offer of personal beer.’

  He went about his business.

  I leaned forward and made my voice soft as I could. ‘What do we think is the deal with Mister Redhawk? Why isn’t he here?’

  ‘He’s very thorough,’ Joseph answered. ‘He’s a little like John Horse in that way – they both take a long time to do what they do. I get kind of frustrated with it, but it usually comes out pretty good in the end.’

  ‘Slow cooking,’ I said.

  Joseph understood why I said that, because of his mother’s turtle stew. The other two seemed mildly puzzled, but not enough to ask about it.

  A few seconds later, Yudda waddled over and plunked down an undetermined number of beers. I say undetermined because I didn’t bother to count them. Joseph got more than one, and I got one for me, so what did I care?

  Joseph’s first one was gone in sixty seconds. So was mine. Sharon decided to nurse. McReedy did not touch his. His eyes were locked on the front door of the joint.

  ‘You’re nervous,’ I said to him.

  ‘Yes.’ And he sounded nervous.

  ‘Why, exactly?’

  ‘Why?’ He seemed to think this a stupid question. ‘Why am I nervous that one of the most powerful men in the world, a man who has ruined my life and my daughter, is about to walk in here and see me sitting beside a man I was supposed to kill? Twice, or was it three times? And currently I am completely unarmed? Why am I nervous? Is that what you’re asking?’

  ‘OK, OK,’ I told him. ‘I can see your point. But what’s he going to do in a place like this, with all these witnesses? I think you can relax.’

  And at exactly that moment, two cops barreled into Yudda’s, pistols drawn, and started yelling at us to put our hands behind our heads and shut up.

  ‘Is it OK if I don’t relax just yet?’ he whispered to me.

  ‘Shut up!’ one of the cops screamed. ‘Hands behind your heads!’

  We complied, all four of us.

  ‘What’s going on, officers?’ Yudda wa
nted to know.

  ‘Shut up,’ the other cop said to Yudda, but a lot more politely than the screamer had said it to McReedy.

  Outside of Yudda’s I could see the flashing lights of a cop car. Maybe there were more guys outside. Maybe it was just these two. I started weighing the options.

  But before I could get very far, Sharon threw up again. This time on the table between us.

  That seemed to confuse the cops, and they lost their concentration.

  I stood up fairly quickly, so as not to get my best suit any more messed up than it already was. When I did that, McReedy launched himself out of the booth and into the midsection of the nearest cop. That cop went flying back, and into the other cop. They both knocked into the bar stools and thudded on to the floor. Before I knew it, McReedy had their guns. He pocketed one and pointed the other right at one cop’s eye. Inches away from it.

  ‘I work for Mr Henderson,’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘I assume Mr Henderson sent you here. Right?’

  The gun was almost touching the cop’s eyeball.

  ‘Yes,’ that cop said. ‘Mr Henderson.’

  ‘Then we’re on the same side, right?’ McReedy went on.

  Yudda added his two cents to the cop. ‘You know that you’re talking to McReedy, don’t you, Rodney?’

  The cop swallowed loudly. We could all hear it. ‘McReedy?’

  ‘That’s me,’ said McReedy.

  ‘Yes,’ Rodney said, ‘we are definitely on the same side, Mr McReedy.’

  ‘Good,’ McReedy muttered.

  McReedy stepped back and offered Rodney a hand. Rodney hesitated but took it and was standing up in seconds. The other cop staggered to his feet.

  ‘I’m going to leave now,’ McReedy announced. ‘You do whatever you want with these three.’

  With that, he handed the cops back their guns, muscled past them to the door, and out on to the rain-wet streets.

  The cops pointed their guns at us, but some of the stuffing was out of them.

  ‘My leg really hurts,’ Joseph said to one of the cops. ‘McReedy shot me. I think I should go to the hospital.’

  ‘Yes,’ I chimed in. ‘And this woman is obviously very sick. She should go to the hospital too. Which leaves you with me.’

  I smiled.

  The officers did not respond. I could read their faces, and it was easy to see that they had no idea what they were doing.

  ‘Hospital would be the right thing,’ Yudda grunted.

  ‘Yeah, OK,’ Rodney said. ‘Hospital.’

  ‘For the Indian and the woman,’ the other cop said, tossing an uncalled-for look in my direction. ‘He stays.’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ Rodney agreed. ‘He stays. I still think he’s the one who stabbed that poor teenager over at Pete’s the other night.’

  ‘Oh, I get it, you’re Rodney’ I said. ‘They told me that you were the constable who investigated that mêlée at Pete’s.’

  ‘What?’ Rodney asked. And the look on his face was proof enough that the rumors around town were true: he was a moron.

  The other cop went to the cop car and called for an ambulance, although it would actually have been quicker just to walk to the hospital.

  After a second, I sat down at the bar and Yudda, as if nothing else was going on, brought me my crab cakes. I ate them instantly. They were delicious. The secret was in the remoulade.

  The ambulance came. Joseph and Sharon went. Rodney sat down next to me. The other cop was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Yudda?’ Rodney said with his eyes on me.

  ‘What?’ Yudda grunted.

  ‘Take a walk.’

  ‘It’s raining,’ Yudda protested.

  ‘Take an umbrella,’ Rodney snapped, ‘and beat it before I find enough code violations to shut you down ’til next Christmas.’

  Yudda mumbled something. I thought it might be some kind of Cajun curse. But he stepped outside.

  ‘Look, wise guy,’ Rodney began, his voice lowered, ‘you don’t know who you’re dealing with.’

  ‘Yes I do,’ I told him politely. ‘I’m dealing with Pascal Henderson.’

  ‘OK,’ he responded, only slightly thrown, ‘but you don’t have any idea who he is.’

  ‘I apologize for disagreeing again, Officer,’ I said, ‘but, in fact, I know that Pascal Henderson is one of the richest men in the world, he has a condo in Fry’s Bay for tax and oil purposes, the woman who just left here with her head in a bandage is his daughter, and he is also the father of a little baby whose exact location is unknown at the present time. And that particular baby is, currently, the crux of the biscuit.’

  ‘What?’ he said, proving that it was, in fact, Rodney who did not know who he was dealing with.

  ‘It’s true,’ I assured him.

  ‘That woman who threw up just now, that was Mr Henderson’s daughter?’ he said, looking at the door.

  ‘One of them, anyway,’ I told him, ‘but not the one currently in contention. The aforementioned crux of the biscuit.’

  He turned back to me, his face all contorted. ‘I know that you’re speaking English because I recognize some of the words, but I don’t understand what you’re saying. Who knows what you people are saying, ever?’

  ‘You people?’ I asked, hackles rising.

  ‘Yankees,’ he explained, as if it was obvious.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘All I know is this,’ he said, sounding seven years old, ‘Mr Henderson wants you. So I’m taking you to him. Now.’

  He stood up.

  I kept my seat.

  ‘I’d rather not,’ I told him.

  I figured this way: something had happened to Philip and Mister Redhawk. I did not wish to have the same thing happen to me.

  ‘Get up!’ he insisted.

  Then he pointed his pistol at me to back up his insistence.

  ‘Look,’ I explained, ‘Rodney. You understand that when you work for Satan, bad things happen.’

  ‘Satan?’ And there was that contorted face again.

  ‘That’s what Sharon calls Henderson,’ I told him. ‘And if his own daughter calls him that, who am I to disagree? So I’m just saying that when you work for Satan, bad things will happen to you.’

  ‘Get up!’ he shouted.

  I put my hands on the tabletop. ‘OK,’ I told him. ‘But I did warn you.’

  As I was standing, I palmed the fork with which I had eaten my crab cakes. I stepped off my barstool, and poor Rodney did not even have the sense to take a step back. I kind of felt sorry for him, but it didn’t keep me from going after him.

  I slapped his gun away, kneed him really hard in the nuts, and jabbed the fork as hard as I could right into his trachea. This made it easier for me to take the gun out of his hand before he hit the floor.

  Rodney started gurgling. I kneeled beside him.

  ‘This is what you call a bit of irony, this fork in the throat treatment, wouldn’t you say? I mean, considering your investigation the other night at Pete’s. I never used a move twice in a row like that before, but I’m too tired to think up something new. I hope you understand.’

  He flailed.

  ‘That’s right, Rodney. You’re in trouble. If I do nothing, and you can’t get the fork out of your throat in a minute, you’re dead. Dead. Is that what you want?’

  Rodney got a look in his eye like a wild animal – terrified, not quite comprehending what was happening to him. It brought out my sympathy.

  ‘OK,’ I told him, ‘but you have to behave.’

  I put my palm over his throat, two fingers on either side of the fork, and pulled it out with my other hand, really fast. Rodney had a serious convulsion, but it subsided.

  Meanwhile, Yudda had come back in and was standing in the doorway.

  I looked up at him. He looked down at me.

  ‘Sorry to mess up the place,’ I said. ‘I seem to be doing this all over town lately.’

  ‘Rodney deserves this,’ Yudda said calmly. ‘He’s taking three diffe
rent payoffs from guys, and he’s about as useful a cop as I am.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I gather that Rodney is in the employ of Pascal Henderson.’

  ‘At least,’ Yudda said.

  ‘So who do I call if I want an honest cop around here?’ I asked. ‘Or is there such a thing?’

  ‘Baxter and Gordon,’ Yudda told me right away. ‘Both born here. Baxter’s father is a commercial fisherman in this town since I don’t know when. I buy all my stuff from him.’

  ‘Baxter and Gordon,’ I repeated. ‘These are familiar names. I think they’re guys my boss told me to steer clear of.’

  ‘Why would that be?’ he asked me, but he said it like he already knew the answer.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, brain on overdrive, ‘why would that be.’

  ‘Your boy Rodney,’ Yudda said, ‘he don’t look too good.’

  I glanced down. Rodney seemed to have passed out.

  ‘Do you have something like a clean bar towel in this joint?’ I asked Yudda.

  He moved. He got a white towel out of some drawer. I concentrated on keeping the holes in Rodney’s throat kind of closed. There wasn’t as much blood as you might think, but a nice big towel was called for, which was just what Yudda tossed. I wrapped it around Rodney’s throat all the way. Then I woke Rodney up. He blinked. I took his hands and I put them on the towel.

  ‘You hold your hands right here and don’t pass out again, OK, Rodney?’ I said to him. ‘That will keep you from bleeding to death and it will help you to breathe. Yudda is going to call the hospital for you now.’

  Yudda went to the phone.

  ‘And don’t worry,’ I told Rodney. ‘I’m going to go meet Mr Henderson, so you’ve done your job just fine.’

  I patted his shoulder, stood, picked up his gun, and stepped over him.

  Yudda was speaking into the telephone. ‘It’s the damndest thing I ever saw,’ he was saying. ‘The guy was eating so fast, and I think he was kind of drunk or something, and he actually stabbed himself in his own throat with his fork. I am not kidding.’

  I nodded to Yudda. He nodded back, listening into the phone.

  Then he said, ‘Crab cakes. He was having the crab cakes.’