Privateers

by Charlie Newton

  Fish, dressed as tourists, school the wide sidewalks of South Michigan Avenue. I’m on a CTA bus for the final mile in from the Crown Motel, tactical defense against being carjacked to a loan shark’s Canaryville basement. We crawl past James W. Barlow Jr.’s building; I palm my face, eyes watering from the bus’s industrial-strength disinfectant, and don’t see Loef Brummel’s hard-ass Irishmen. I speed-dial Dave’s satellite phone.

  A girl answers singsong: “Hel-lo? Hel-lo?”

  “Hi! Is Dave there? Dave Grossfeld. It’s an emergency.”

  Crackle, spit, static. “Who’s calling?”

  I yell: “Bill.” Half the faces in the bus turn to look at me.

  The voice says, “Hold on.”

  I get up, push the bus’s stop button, and step down into the rear exit.

  The girl’s voice says, “Can David call you back?”

  “No! Absolutely not. It’s an emergency.” The bus slows, my audience watches. We stop; I jump out into the sidewalk crowd.

  Dave Grossfeld says, “Bruddah, what up?”

  “What the fuck are you into? And why am I part of it?”

  “How long we been friends, Bill?”

  “Fuck you. You owe Loef Brummel $40K today. He’s gonna put me in the hospital to make sure you get the picture. If that doesn’t work, he’s gonna toss Flyers off the Ashland Avenue bridge until it does.”

  “Okay . . . call me back when you calm down—”

  “Don’t hang up, goddammit!”

  Silence, static. “How long we been friends, Bill?”

  My teeth grind for the litany. “Since we were kids.”

  “Right. And when your ‘dead’ mom shows up outta the blue, who gets her the big downtown lawyer James W. Barlow Jr. for the car accident?”

  “You, Dave.”

  “Who paid him?”

  “You, Dave.”

  “Who got her the cancer doctors she couldn’t pay for?”

  “You, Dave.”

  “Who bought a fifty percent stake in Serenity Mausoleum so you could spend all your money on trying to save your mother?”

  “You, Dave.”

  “And who needs your help now?”

  “You fucking do.” I pause for control. “The Flyers, Dave. Their only goddamn sin is they know you. Loef said $100K. One hundred thousand fucking dollars.”

  Static, crackle.

  “Twenty grand a fucking week, Dave. Your loan shark’s gonna come get the trucks at Grossfeld’s. He does that, you have no way to earn a solution. Two plus two, you’re dead two or three days after me.”

  “I got the big job coming in, through Barlow-O’Hare. Needed the hundred to juice it—”

  “Does it pay today? Tomorrow? You’re paying Brummel three thousand a fucking day.”

  “Don’t worry—”

  “Fuck you. What job? When? And don’t say the word ‘Haiti.’ Don’t fucking go there. No job’s worth—”

  “It ain’t Haiti, Jesus. The job’s like the Sportsman’s gigs that Barlow got us in 2003 and 2004, but way bigger. A big auction and we move it all, pay me at least $250K net-net, maybe more. The deal ran late a week. We’ll start on Thursday.”

  “This Thursday?”

  “Yeah. Calm down, Bill. Jesus. Barlow guaranteed it.”

  “Is this your medication talking, Dave? Your loan shark won’t care that you were loaded on G-strings and Colombian baby powder.”

  “I know what I’m doing. Stall Loef; don’t let him take the trucks and don’t let the sheriffs in the warehouse.”

  “Sheriffs? Are you late to Cosmo, too? Meaning he filed to repossess them?”

  “Yeah, he did, the fucking Jew.”

  “Cosmo’s Italian. You’re Jewish. What the fuck are you and Barlow into?”

  “Couple of high-ups needed to make the right decision. Same as the Olympics.”

  “High-ups where? In the Bahamas? Carlos Lehder’s in jail. The FIFA boss down there only takes bribes on soccer. Is this soccer?”

  Static. No answer.

  I yell into my phone. “Goddammit, where are you?”

  Tourists on Michigan Avenue’s sidewalk veer away.

  “TCI. The fishing tournament.”

  Dave’s not in the Turks and Caicos. But I can’t be direct; he’s using a sat-phone frequency that’s monitored 24-7 by pirates and police alike. “I watched your loan shark put one of his own guys in the pavement. Okay? For lending you money on a business Loef ain’t in. Okay? We clear? Loef told me what you’re doing, except I did the math, and cocaine isn’t what you’re doing.”

  “Fuck Loef Brummel. I’ll pay him and he can shut the fuck up.” Static. Dave’s voice ramps, “All right! Got my goddamn marlin, finally. Call Loef; tell him I’ll be back midweek with all his money.” Static. “Honey, toss this goddamn phone over there—”

  “Dave!”

  Nope, Dave’s gone fishing.

  I ease back into the crowd, school with them toward Barlow’s building, and call Lisa Reins. “How we doing with Lithuanian Ron?”

  “Ronny likes nylons, sex toys, and baby talk.”

  Lithuanian Ron knew Dave was on the arm to Loef Brummel before I did. “Do me a favor, ask him how he knew about Dave, then get back to me.”

  “Not part of my contract, hon.”

  “Is now. Your friend—me—has some wolves in the orchard.”

  “What’s my friend want to pay?”

  “Take one for the team, okay? We’ll talk money later. Just find out, and quickly. Thanks.” I button off before Lisa can play me, then look down Michigan Avenue at Barlow’s office. I backtrack south, staying mid-throng on the Millennium Park side of the street, hoping to pick out—

  On my side of the street, two black guys are checking their reflections in the stainless-steel Cloud Gate sculpture across from Barlow’s building. Both are wearing jeans and sport jackets in a crowd of sweltering tourist shorts and T-shirts. Locals dress like that in Jamaica, wear jeans all summer. I never could figure how denim-thermal didn’t kill them.

  Final glance for the Canaryville kidnap crew.

  I don’t see them, can’t figure that either, sprint across ten lanes of horns and front bumpers, duck into the Willoughby Tower’s lobby, slide past a stinky Reuben sandwich and a desk guard who isn’t there, then punch the button for the penthouse elevator.

  Commotion outside on the sidewalk.

  The lobby elevator bings.

  Barlow plans to play me, staying outside the target zone while he marionettes all of us inside it. A while back I would’ve handled this situation differently, a brief, terrible time after the events in Haiti.

  The elevator door opens. I jump in, punch “16,” see the name I carved across my palm . . . then squint back at Michigan Avenue. Chicago’s not Haiti and this isn’t the 1980s—

  Then why’s it feel like it?

  Chapter 7

  Susie Devereux

  Saturday, 2:00 p.m.

  As it happens, the ruby slippers I wished for in the Camagüey Breaks come in a variety of styles. Yes, the rumors are true. I am alive, and currently on the sixteenth floor of Chicago’s Willoughby Tower, most of me hidden behind the stairwell door.

  From here, the doors to James W. Barlow Jr.’s office appear more edifice than entry. The doors announce a lawyer who reads John Grisham novels and sees the stunning similarities. Men I loved are dead because of this man and his crime partner, Dave Grossfeld. On the private side of Barlow’s doors will be a meticulously suited, middle-aged, cold-eyed fixer whose mirror sees “attractive ex-linebacker,” not “position power.” I screw the silencer onto my Glock 21 and step out into the hall. In the next thirty seconds I intend to demonstrate the difference.

  The elevator pings. I pivot back into the stairwell. A fit forty-something in a rumpled
seersucker suit exits the elevator, moving like a man with a mission. Based upon Anne’s halcyon description, this is Herself’s university mate, Bill Owens. The same man Dave Grossfeld used to credential himself when he called Anne and instigated the hunt for the Capone gold. The man Barlow and Grossfeld used as bait, bait that subsequently lured me into a trap in Miami last night.

  Mr. Owens is not bad-looking in person, although I’d be pressing my suit more often. Anne says Mr. Owens is not party to our betrayal. Herself will be pissed if I shoot him with Barlow. Anne says Mr. Owens can, and will, help us.

  Bill Owens opens Barlow’s doors, then disappears inside.

  I lower the Glock and demand the same of my heart rate.

  Now that there’s time for a proper introduction, my surname, Devereux, is pronounced “Dev-a-row.” I’m a five-foot-seven brunette, sufficiently rebuilt after the breaks to still use T&A as a negotiating tool if the light’s not fluorescent and you’re not into nineteen-year-olds.

  Early last month I surfaced in Cuba—we’ll call me “bait”—took all of thirteen days before Anne’s long-ago American friend Bill Owens was in Rum Cay impersonating a writer and looking for me. Gosh, imagine that? And now he’s here. And unless his stars align, or he’s smart enough to do what I tell him, he’ll probably die here.

  Chapter 8

  Bill Owens

  Saturday, 2:00 p.m.

  James W. Barlow Jr. smiles at me from behind a three-hundred-year-old cherrywood desk that he says belonged to Alexander Hamilton. Mr. Barlow nods to a secretary who I haven’t seen before, thanks her for working the weekend, tells her, “We’ll be fine. Please close my door and no need to stay.”

  Mr. Barlow cuts to me, floats his eyebrows at my slept-in suit and Crown Motel odor. “So, Bill, how goes it?”

  “Becoming a bit rough out there, Mr. Barlow. Dave and you, and unfortunately me, might have a problem.”

  Barlow motions me to sit in one of his $4,000 green leather chairs. He adds, “I certainly hope not.”

  “Somehow Dave and I both end up at a flyspeck in the Bahamas twenty days apart? That’s not a coincidence. Last night, the bartender down there quoted Dave as using your name, Haiti, Anne Bonny, and Al Capone, all spoken to a ‘man-size’ Haitian woman who came and went by private seaplane with no numbers.”

  Mr. Barlow nods. “Odd.”

  “Not odd, so let’s not burn any more of your valuable time. You might survive Dave’s and your adventure, but I won’t unless Loef Brummel gets paid. I make it ninety-ten Dave dies either way, and seventy-thirty you follow him.”

  Mr. Barlow’s face remains blank.

  “You sent me to Rum Cay; you sent Dave to Rum Cay. Twenty days apart. Why?”

  “I sent Dave? On that you’re mistaken. And you know why I sent you—Susie Devereux and Al Capone’s gold.”

  “Sorry. I just talked to Dave. Dave said he borrowed the $100K to juice two high-ups for a deal you put together.” I point to framed 1920s jockey silks on Mr. Barlow’s wall. “A deal Dave claims is like the Sportsman’s moving contract in 2003. I think him being on the arm for a $100K bribe that you told him to pay qualifies you as a direct participant.”

  “Dave said that?”

  Nod. “I need you to give Loef Brummel $140,000 today or he’ll put me in a coma to show Dave the future. Whether or not you want to explain what all this has to do with Sportsman’s is up to you. I need the one forty.”

  Mr. Barlow does not burn calories to decline my demand.

  I continue. “Dave’s loan shark told me you’re part of Dave’s Rum Cay adventure—it isn’t just Dave saying so—and after Dave and I are dead”—I point at the Afghan rug under my chair—“Loef Brummel will be standing right here, or in your garage, or in your closet. For that kind of money and street insult, he will skin you naked and nail you to a telephone pole in Canaryville.”

  Mr. Barlow eases into the professional smile he uses for Levee Grill / Counsellors Row transactions and death-penalty juries. “My relationship with Dave Grossfeld in this matter began at Sportsman’s Park in 2003 and ended, I thought, in 2004. I cannot imagine why Dave, or anyone else, would borrow $100,000 from a loan shark.

  “Regarding Sportsman’s, I represent a client who in 2003 bought five truckloads from the Sportsman’s pre-auction—one hundred percent of the contents of the offices and back-of-the-house operations. Last month, six years after that purchase, my client informed me that several items included in the sale-inventory list had not been delivered. At my client’s request, I rechecked the paperwork, then contacted Grossfeld’s Moving and Storage to adjudicate the discrepancies.”

  “You didn’t tell Dave to bribe two high-ups in the Bahamas for $50K each?”

  Barlow frowns. “Please.”

  “Or to meet there with a Haitian woman whose plane doesn’t need ID numbers?”

  Barlow reaches for an iPad on his credenza, touches it four times, and hands it to me. “Yesterday, I received this video from my Sportsman’s auction client.” Pause. “Along with some troubling information relative to the fifteen thousand in fees already paid you.”

  The screen is grainy, a women’s rugby match with audio. The camera is focused on a woman playing defense. The collision she causes at the sideline is fast, brutal, and sounds as bad as it looks. Both players finish facedown in the mud; one recovers to her knees, slowly elevates her chin, and stops. The match ends.

  Barlow says, “Susie Devereux. The woman I paid you to find, that you couldn’t.”

  Susie Devereux stands, steps over the unconscious player, and walks straight at the camera. The Scottish Moroccan heritage is obvious and matches the “honey-bee” color of the woman who the Cuban boy said survived the wreck in Cuba. Brunette in a big way; her eyes are wide-set and brown. As she passes the camera on the sideline, her eyes fix on the lens and lock.

  Whoa—The rush is 100 percent night terrors, straight up my back, direct from the Corazón Santo. I drop the iPad, hear Anne Bonny in my ear in 1984 as she hustled me aboard a Jamaica-bound ship to escape the brothers Kray in London: “Mind yourself in Kingston, Bill. There are women in the Corazón Santo the devil fears.”

  Barlow says, “Corazón Santo?”

  I must’ve said it out loud. I mumble the answer, “The triangle that connects Havana, Kingston, and Port-au-Prince. Literally translated, it means ‘Sacred Heart.’”

  The iPad’s streaming in my lap. The video freezes on the final frame—it’s the Witches of Eastwick photo I was given—Anne Bonny, Florent Dusson-Siri, and Susie Devereux arm in arm. It’s Susie D., not Anne Bonny who has my attention, an instinctive choice that I’d have bet every dollar in my wallet against.

  Barlow says, “You’re certain you didn’t locate Susie Devereux?”

  “Huh? No, the maybe in Cuba was as close as I got. Can I keep this?”

  “I’ll have my secretary email you a copy.”

  I hand Barlow his iPad. He doesn’t look like he believes me.

  “Contrary to your findings, Bill, it appears Susie Devereux is alive; in Hialeah, Florida. Yesterday, Little Haiti, to be exact.”

  “You know that?”

  Barlow continues, sans clarification. “According to my client, Devereux and her partners—the two women in that video, one of whom you already know—have been working with Dave Grossfeld for some time now. This was unknown to me until my client informed me a month ago. I told Dave that if he’d kept anything from the Sportsman’s move, it would be considered theft. Dave denied—”

  “Dave worked with Devereux? And you didn’t tell me? I could’ve asked him about her before I went to Rum Cay.”

  Mr. Barlow shrugs. “In retrospect, I shouldn’t have believed Dave’s denial.”

  All or part of this story is bullshit. “How was Susie Devereux working with Dave?”

  “We don’t know. Clearly, Dave was not
being honest with me. That’s why I paid you to have a look. Dave and Ms. Devereux have found, or are searching for, three items missing from my client’s inventory—a 1927 win picture / wall plaque of the greyhound Astor Argyle taken after a dog race at the Hawthorne Kennel Club, later known as Sportsman’s . . .” Barlow watches my reaction and doesn’t continue.

  “Why a greyhound photo?”

  “My client did not disclose his original interest, although I suspect it was, and is, related to the Capone gold. The other two items missing from the inventory are hundred-year-old bottles of Barbancourt Rhum . . .” Barlow stares right through me.

  I stare back.

  He says, “Barbancourt Rhum is the premier product of Haiti, but of course you know that.” Barlow glances the cell phone on his desk. “You said you just spoke with Dave Grossfeld?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. Let’s get Dave back on the line.”

  I try three times. All voicemail.

  “Do you have keys to Dave’s warehouse?” Barlow asks.

  “Maybe.”

  “Tell you what, Bill. I’ll think about your problem with Mr. Brummel. Why don’t you drop by the warehouse and have a look for Astor Argyle and Barbancourt Rhum bottles? Apparently, the items collectively form some sort of message.”

  “Loef Brummel’s gonna put me in a coma. Because of Dave and you. And before you tell me again that you’re not involved, that isn’t what Dave’s loan shark thinks. I want you to know that real soon I’ll have to choose between who to be afraid of first—you or Loef. So we’re clear, you’re gonna come in second.”

  “Be careful at the warehouse, Bill. I’m sure Mr. Brummel will be about. But finding those missing items would certainly be helpful. I have a feeling our friend Dave knew far more about their importance than he let on.”

  “Like you’re doing with me? On every goddamn thing?”

  “One hand washes the other, or will. Or shall we say, could.”

  “Speaking of hands, Susie Devereux had marks on her wrists. That’s what they told me in Cuba. What kind of marks?”