Black Jack Point

by Jeff Abbott

  “Have you gotten many offers on the land?” Considering the value of waterfront property in parts of Texas, Whit wondered if the land provided a hard motive.

  “One, oh, a month ago. I got a phone call from a real estate investor in Corpus. I wasn’t interested, but I did refer him to Patch because he was so persistent.”

  “Who was that?”

  “Stoney Vaughn. He’s got a montrosity of a house up on Copano Flats. Tedious type. I met him once at a Port Leo Art Center function. And another offer, about a year ago, from a company in Houston. We just say no. We don’t want to sell. I don’t know if that will change now, with Patch gone.”

  The bottle of Glenfiddich had been from a Stoney. Maybe interesting, maybe not.

  He thought of the skeletons. “Patch ever mention any archaeological value to the land?”

  Suzanne didn’t answer for a second and he wondered if she knew about the bones. David and the DPS team had kept it out of the papers thus far. But a freakish detail like that was hard to muzzle with so many people now involved. She stubbed out her cigarette, glanced up at him through the trail of smoke. “An archaeologist wouldn’t find anything except old dead Gilberts and their junk.”

  “No earlier settlement on the land?”

  “Indians must have passed through or hunted there, I guess. Black Jack Point’s always been wild country, though. I don’t think anyone else ever built there but us crazy Gilberts.” She lit another cigarette. “Speaking of crazy Gilberts, what do you see in Lucy? Do you mind me asking? Yes, she’s very pretty but she’s very contrary and a bit too high-maintenance.”

  “She drives me nuts. She makes me laugh. She makes me think. For me that’s pretty good.”

  “Laughing is good. Sexy.” Her voice went a little lower.

  “I bet Roy’s a real giggle factory.”

  “He can be very sweet,” she said, letting her smile grow. “But I do bore easily.”

  “I’m allergic to paint,” he said. “I’d like to talk to Roy now.”

  Her smile—more carefully crafted than her paintings—went flat. “Sure.”

  They returned to the den. Roy lay sprawled on the couch, drinking a fresh bottle of Dos Equis, watching Jeopardy! He didn’t look up at Whit.

  “Roy, Whit needs to talk to you,” Suzanne said.

  “I barely knew Patch. What is the Tower of Pisa?” he said to the television, playing Architecture for $200. He was right.

  “It took a lot of strength to beat a man like Patch to death,” Whit said.

  Roy Krantz didn’t take his eyes off the screen. “Probably not. What is photosynthesis?”

  Whit leaned down, grabbed the remote, cut off the television in the middle of Botany for $600. “Pardon me. I’m speaking to you. As part of a death inquest. If you don’t want to answer questions here, you do it in a courtroom.”

  Roy stood. Whit was tall but this guy was an oak. “I told you, I don’t know anything. And I don’t like to miss my program.”

  “Roy.” Suzanne shook her head.

  “I’m sorry, baby.” For the first time Whit saw tenderness in Roy’s sun-hardened face. “Sorry. Okay.” He crossed his arms. “I never got to know him, Judge. He decided in the first ten seconds of our acquaintance I was trash. So we declined to occupy the same place at the same time.”

  “Let’s talk prison records.”

  Roy walked into the kitchen, got another beer, offered a bottle to Whit. Whit shook his head. “I ran some dope for a school buddy, I got caught, I cut a little deal, school buddy didn’t. I did a short stint and I’ve been spotless. Now I got my life back together here with Suze, doing my art, and people just want to piss in my beer.”

  “Y’all do much gambling?” Whit asked.

  Roy glanced at Suzanne and she said, “Lucy.” He glanced back at Whit with a smirk. “Actually, we do, and we have the means to and we’re not in over our heads. I don’t suppose it’s occurred to anyone that maybe Mrs. Tran was the target, not Patch. You grilling her family like this?”

  “I couldn’t say.”

  “You come after me just because I got a record, that’s the easy thing to do. Just as easy to get yourself sued for false arrest. For reporters to get a call to say some poor ex-con who’s become a model citizen is getting hassled. You can’t bully people, man.”

  “I didn’t realize you felt bullied by me,” Whit said. “Please don’t cry.”

  Roy took a step forward. Suzanne put a hand on his thick forearm. “Roy. Don’t let him bait you.”

  “I’m not baiting anyone,” Whit said. “Thanks for your time. I can see myself out. I’ll let you know if you’re needed to testify at the inquest.”

  Whit drove out of Castaway Key. He remembered the time the land had been developed, this thin sliver of near-island, when he was a teenager. Once this was rough country, not too different from the Gilbert land, thick with salt grass, jutting out into shallow water with a handpainted sign that read PLEASE DON’T PET THE RATTLERS. And how much is this land worth now? Whit wondered. Millions. So how much is that family land really worth to Suzanne Gilbert? Or maybe to her way-smarter-than-he-looks boyfriend?

  He didn’t want to think about how much it might be worth to Lucy.

  11

  CLAUDIA WRIGGLED HER head through the open porthole, attempted to snake her body through. She eased one shoulder out. She turned, trying to navigate her head and the other shoulder out, but the opening was too narrow and the ropes, tight already, chafed hard, gouged her legs. She was angry enough to cry hot tears, and she hated to cry.

  The heavy blindfold slipped around her neck like a loose scarf. No getting that back over my eyes. That’s probably worth a whole foot of broken toes.

  She pulled herself back in. A knot of rope caught on the porthole crank. Not good, not good. She caught her breath, eased herself free, and fell back against the bed. She tried to maneuver the blindfold back into place but she couldn’t; her hands couldn’t push it up far enough to cover her eyes and all her wriggling had loosened the knot too much.

  She heard Stoney’s shocked drawl over the speakerphone. “I’ll give you the money. Okay? But these other items you’re asking for, I don’t have, please.”

  Gar said, “Number one,” and Ben screamed.

  “That was finger number one,” Gar said. “Broke it. A pinky. You keep arguing I’ll cut it off.”

  “I don’t have what you want!” Stoney said.

  “Let’s accelerate. I vote to cut off something more important,” Redhead said with a giggle. “Where did I put those scissors…?”

  “No, leave him alone!” Stoney yelled.

  “We will,” Danny said. Claudia could hear the distaste in his voice. “If you play along. First the five million.”

  Stoney moaned.

  “Got your pen ready, sunshine?” Redhead said. “Put a half million in this account in Grand Cayman.” He read off an account number. “That’s at the Great Commerce Bank of Grand Cayman. Move that first, will you?”

  Stoney made a noise of unhappy agreement.

  “Don’t whine,” Redhead said. “Then another half million in this bank in Anguilla. Here’s the account number…”

  More accounts, more banks, the slow carving of Stoney’s fortune. Claudia gritted her teeth.

  “Now. The journal and the Devil’s Eye,” Danny said. “You’re going to take them to Staples Mall in Corpus. Tomorrow at eight a.m., when the mall opens for the elderly mall walkers. Go to the carousel at the middle of the mall. Leave the journal and the emerald in a Sears bag, each wrapped in plain brown paper and covered with a couple of paperbacks. You’ll put the bag underneath the gray horse with the white mane, the red saddle, and the bright blue ribbons. If the police are there, or I don’t like how anything looks, your brother and his girlfriend die and I report the murder you committed to the New Orleans police. We get to that point, I don’t care what happens to me. But you, you’re finished.”

  There was a long silence. Stoney
Vaughn finally said, “I don’t know how long this transfer will take. After it goes through the banks in Houston we may not have immediate confirmation, and I’m not at my office right now…”

  “We check with Grand Cayman here shortly, and you better hope that money’s streaming in,” Redhead said.

  “We can’t control how long the transfer takes once it leaves my bank. You know that,” Stoney said. “Let’s say I do what you want. How do I get my brother back?”

  “We’ll drop off Ben and Claudia in a safe place after we’ve got the journal and the emerald,” Danny said. “We’ll call you, let you know where they’re at.”

  “That’s not good enough,” Stoney said.

  “Our beef’s not with them. It’s with you. We’re not into killing innocent people. And don’t call the police or the coast guard or the navy or anybody. We see choppers coming, we see boats coming looking for us, they’re dead in two seconds.” Danny didn’t seem to notice the contradiction in his words, which made Claudia cold all over.

  “You jerk,” Stoney said.

  “Yes, but I’m the jerk in charge,” Danny said.

  “Okay. Okay. Please, I want to talk to my brother.”

  “Here he is. You got five seconds.”

  “Stoney?” Ben said. He didn’t sound scared or hurt to Claudia, more mad.

  “Yeah.”

  “Do what they say.”

  “How did they get you? I don’t understand.”

  “Boarded us. Please, Sto—”

  “Five seconds up, no more talk,” Danny said. “Start the money transfers. We’ll be checking on you. I’m calling you back in fifteen minutes.”

  “That’s not enough—” Stoney started and then his voice was gone. Cut off.

  “Progress,” said Redhead. “But I’ll just keep these scissors handy, okay, Ben?”

  Claudia heard footfalls on the steps outside the master stateroom.

  The porthole’s still open. She hadn’t shut it.

  The stateroom door flew open, hard, slammed against the wall.

  Gar, with the stocking off his head. A heavy round face, brown eyes, dirty-blond hair askew from the stocking, full mouth. He noticed her blindfold was off.

  He yanked the chamois cloth back over her eyes with angry roughness. “That better not come off again, you understand? We’ll play this little piggy if it does.” He grabbed at her foot, twanged her broken toe. A bolt of fire shot up her leg.

  She kept her voice steady. “I’m sorry. It slipped off while I was trying to get comfortable.”

  “Comfort’s not in your immediate future.” He leaned down close to her, licked her ear with a pizza-greasy tongue. “I’m not like Danny Boy, who plays nice with you. I don’t believe in being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I think fate brought us together so we could have us a little fun.”

  He picked Claudia up, threw her over his shoulder, and carried her out the door.

  Stoney Vaughn sat in dismal shock in his home office overlooking St. Leo Bay, staring at the banks and account numbers Danny had given him.

  He lit a cigarette, fired up his computer, and tried to order his thoughts.

  Danny had his idiot brother and that girlfriend of his, somehow. On his boat. And that lunatic wanted the journal that had led Stoney and Alex to the treasure, and the Devil’s Eye. And five million in pain money.

  Forget that.

  He abandoned thinking how did this happen, because he quickly decided that was pointless. He started thinking of how the cards might play out.

  Bad hand number one: He transferred the money, turned over the goods, got his brother back. Wouldn’t work. No way he could surrender the Eye—even the fake one in the storage unit—without Alex going nuclear. No way they could let Danny walk free. That went for Ben and his girlfriend, too, especially because she was a cop and God only knew what Danny had told her. Alex wouldn’t stand for it.

  And if he even tried to cut a separate deal with Danny, Alex would kill him.

  Bad hand number two: He transferred the money but didn’t turn over the journal or the Eye. Fool Danny, make him think they’d give up the goods and let Alex eliminate Danny during or after the drop. But then he was out five million bucks, and he didn’t have that much sitting around. He had maybe a million, and then he had clients who were generous but didn’t know it. He sometimes borrowed money and moved it back in when he got new clients. Most of his clients—carefully selected—were elderly, rich from birth, and patient regarding small losses. This creative accounting had bought him the boat and helped with the house, but he couldn’t swing five million, not all at once, moved overseas. No way to cover that up.

  Bad hand number three: He picked up the phone and called the police, and Danny turned him in for murder. Hell. A murder he didn’t do but Danny didn’t know different. Too much death—the guy in New Orleans, the old couple in Port Leo. He wasn’t a killer but he was an accessory. Prison. No more golf, no more deals, no more treasure hunts, no more luscious coastal social climbers in his bed. Or Alex would kill him to keep him quiet.

  Ben’s dead no matter what I do, he thought. If Danny doesn’t kill him, Alex will.

  He got up, paced in front of the plate glass. They would be calling back in fifteen minutes, and he had a decision to make.

  Danny thought Stoney had stolen the journal from him, killed his cousin in Louisiana. That meant he didn’t know about Alex. Didn’t know Alex existed. But Alex couldn’t do much about Danny while Danny sailed freely in the Gulf.

  So he had to get Alex and Danny both there and let Alex solve it. But first he’d cover his bases.

  Stoney accessed the Internet, opened up a connection to his network management software that monitored and controlled the investment counselors’ activities in his Corpus Christi office. He typed an administrator’s code, entered some commands, pressed OK. He’d had this as a time-buyer, a backup plan in case his clients—or the police—got too curious about his records.

  Stoney dialed the phone; Alex answered on the first ring. “We have a problem.”

  “Yes, we sure do,” Alex said.

  “I need you, um, at my house. Now?”

  “That would be my pleasure.” Clicked off.

  Stoney decided, a boulder in his throat, he didn’t like the sound of that at all.

  12

  WHIT HAD CALLED the Tran family from his cell phone—reluctantly acknowledging that Roy had a point about Thuy being a possible target more than Patch—and Dat, Thuy’s son, had suggested meeting him behind the family restaurant. The Tran family worked close to Old Leo Harbor, the older and smaller shrimping harbor. Whit waited on the dock, watching one shrimper hosing down his boat, a flock of hungry gulls swarming above the decks, inspecting it for morsels.

  Cong Ly, the Trans’ restaurant, was only a hundred feet from the harbor and hustling from the back of the restaurant was Dat Tran, irritated and looking sick and puffing away on a cigarette as though it were his only solace.

  “You don’t mind if I smoke while we talk?” Dat said, the cigarette merrily burning away.

  “Of course not,” Whit said. “Again, I’m sorry for your loss.” He had visited the Trans briefly the day after the bodies were found. Thuy’s two daughters and son knew nothing, they said. This was beyond imagining for them. The talk had been quiet, factual, and brief. “I just came from Suzanne Gilbert’s house.”

  Dat answered this with a stream of smoke.

  “You’re having to work today?” Whit asked. Given the family tragedy, he thought the restaurant might be closed.

  Dat licked his lower lip. “Tourist season. We can’t afford to close. Other families, they’re running it for us. I’m just here for the dinner rush.”

  “I wanted to ask you how your mother and Mr. Gilbert met.”

  “Introduced by my nephew Sam.”

  “How?”

  “Sam was working on an oral history of the county, prepping for his senior thesis. He’s at Rice, double-majoring
in history and economics. Wants an MBA. Never wants to see shrimp again.” Dat blew out smoke. “You know what the kids are like these days. He interviewed Patch for this county history, said he was funny and charming. Invited him to Sunday lunch at the restaurant. Patch met Mother there. Called her, asked her out for coffee.” He frowned, and Whit wondered if Dat was gripped by that insidious illness of grief, the if onlies. If only Sam hadn’t chosen that history topic… if only he hadn’t called Patch Gilbert… if only his mother had said no to coffee. It could drive you mad, Whit thought.

  “Did you approve of them dating?” he asked.

  “Usually it’s the other way around,” Dat said, his voice tense. “The Anglo disapproves of the Vietnamese.”

  “I’m not asking from a racial standpoint,” Whit said. “I’m just asking what you thought of them seeing each other.”

  Dat flicked his cigarette into the harbor. It fizzed for a moment, was gone. “Patch was a nice man. But not a serious man. Everything a joke, everything a party. My mother was a teacher, very serious about life. She took his interest seriously. I expected her to be hurt by him.” He lit another cigarette, his hands shaking. “You’re dating his niece, right? So I heard.”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe Patch’s family didn’t like him dating a Vietnamese.”

  “They’ve said nothing but fond and respectful words about your mother.”

  Dat glared at him through the veil of smoke. “Of course. She’s dead now. Being nice costs nothing.” He stared out for a moment over the flat of the harbor. “That investigator, Mr. Power, he said maybe it was a racial killing.”

  Whit chewed his lip. Of course David would like the racial angle. He was politically minded, hungry for the sheriff’s office, and solving a racially motivated crime would stick him firmly on the white steed of morals and justice. But there was no reason yet to think that race played a role, and he felt annoyed with David, perhaps needlessly putting the Trans through this subtle mental torture.