The Last Breath

by Danny Lopez

  He waved at the others in the group before wading back to the shore.

  “How’s it going?” I said.

  He smiled and gestured toward the water with a flip of his hand. “She’ll get the hang of it.”

  “You seen Jaybird around?”

  He shook his head, his golden hair caressing his tan shoulders. “Not today, brah.”

  “You don’t remember me.”

  He squinted and his pale blue eyes moved from side to side as he took on my features, the scar in my ear. “The Daiquiri Deck?”

  “Yesterday,” I said. “Liam’s house.”

  He threw his head back. “Right on.” He picked up a long paddle, and we started toward his Land Cruiser. “That’s some sad shit about Liam.”

  “You brought his kayak back, right?”

  “Yeah, the red Eddyline.”

  “So he must’ve had another one.”

  “Yeah.” He chuckled. “The blue whale.”

  “It seems the cops never found it.”

  He set the paddle on top of a board on the trailer and turned, leaning back on a kayak and crossing his arms over his chest. “It was junk. He picked it up on Craigslist a few months ago.”

  “But the cops never found it.”

  He tossed his hair back with a wave of his hand. “You just said that, brah.”

  “I know. It’s just weird. You would think the kayak would’ve turned up. The only reason the cops say it was a kayak accident was because a neighbor told them he’d seen Liam out there on a kayak that night.”

  He squinted and pursed his lips like maybe he was giving it some serious thought.

  “You know the neighbors?” I asked.

  He snorted. “They don’t talk to the likes of us, brah.”

  On the outside, Keith seemed like a total burnout, but he ran a business. Maybe the Puka shell necklace and all the brah surfer talk was an act. Or maybe I was assuming too much.

  “Yesterday you said Liam worked for himself,” I said.

  “Right on.”

  “What kind of work did he do?”

  “He had some business. The Corporation.”

  “You know the name?”

  “That’s it.”

  “What’s it?”

  “The Corporation. That’s what he called it. Even said it with a deep voice like he was being serious.” He laughed and mimicked his dead friend making a deep voice and speaking slowly, “The-Cor-por-a-tion.”

  “You have any idea what kind of work he did, an address, anything?”

  He shook his head and pulled his bangs away from his eyes with the tips of his fingers. “Nah, brah. Maybe if you talked to his partner—”

  “He had a partner?”

  “Yeah, he did. One day I saw him shoving papers in his little black briefcase and mumbled something ’bout having to take them to his partner.” He let out a short nasal laugh and shifted his weight to one leg. “Liam was like that, brah. One moment he was all chill, and the next he was mega-serious about work. We teased him about it all the time. Called him Trump and shit.”

  “What about his partner?”

  He bowed his head, then tossed it up like a horse so his hair fanned out and landed neatly at the back of his head. “He never talked business. He’d just split. The rest of us would just party on, smoking the ganja and shit ’til he came back.”

  “When you say the rest of us?”

  “The regulars, brah—Jaybird, me, Candy, Omar, Tessa, Cap’n Cody, Felipe.”

  I stared at his squinty eyes, the thin crow’s feet, the freckles. For the first time, I could see he was older, maybe in his late thirties, early forties. It seemed odd that they wouldn’t talk business, or about whatever they did when they weren’t smoking dope and drinking beer.

  “You think somethin’s up,” Keith said and pointed at me with a lazy finger. “Like maybe someone did it on purpose?”

  “It just doesn’t sit right with me.”

  “Far out.” He tossed his head to the side and glanced at the sky. “A murder mystery right here on the fucking key!”

  “Don’t talk like that.”

  “But you just—”

  “No,” I said. “Maybe. But if it’s true, I don’t want anyone knowing we’re on to them.”

  “Yeah, I can dig that, brah.”

  “I need to talk to Jaybird.”

  “You think he did it?”

  “No. But he might help me find some answers.”

  “Yeah, that crazy Jaybird. He knew Liam better than most, for sure.”

  “You know where I can find him?”

  “Gotta be somewhere on the key, brah.” He laughed a brief snort. “That dude never leaves the island.”

  CHAPTER 9

  I DIDN’T WANT to chase Jaybird’s shadow. I figured I’d find him later at the sunset drum circle or the Salty Dog. So instead, I went to the place where I was sure to get something solid: Bob Fleming.

  The guard at the gate of the Sanderling Club called in my arrival, and a minute later, allowed me to pass into the rich man’s paradise. The white Maserati wasn’t in the driveway. I drove right up to the front door where Bob Fleming was waiting for me. His face was crimson—more so than the first time I’d met him, his eyes razor-thin slits. He was barefoot and wore cargo shorts and a lively Tommy Bahama flowered shirt. He held on to the doorknob with one hand. In the other he had a short tumbler with what I was sure was vodka on the rocks.

  “Mr. Vega,” he said, his words slurring just enough to let me know he’d been hitting the booze for a while. “This is a surprise. I was just … just getting ready to appreciate the sunset.”

  Across the living room, through the French doors and the caged pool, I could see the Gulf. It was still a few hours until sunset, but the storm clouds in the distance gave the sky a dramatic flair that made it feel later than it was.

  I followed him to the middle of the living room, a place that looked as unlived-in as a model house in one of those new developments east of Interstate 75.

  “You all right?” I said.

  “My son’s dead,” he said harshly. “How do you think I’m doing?”

  “I know,” I said. “We talked about this.”

  He rubbed his red nose and waved his glass, motioning to the pane windows that faced the pool and the ocean.

  “Paradise,” he said with a slight tone of disgust. “Paradise … took my son.”

  I placed my hand on his shoulder. “Maybe you should sit down.”

  He eyed me carefully, maybe trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Then he wobbled to the windows and the French doors and looked out at the violent sky.

  “Mr. Fleming,” I said getting right down to business. “Can you tell me about Liam’s work?”

  “What do you mean?” he said without turning away from the window.

  “What did he do for a living?”

  He shrugged and took a short drink from his glass. “He was in business for himself.”

  When he didn’t volunteer anything more, I asked, “What kind of business?”

  Finally, he turned and took a few weak steps to where I stood. “Apparently, he was into acquisitions. Real estate.”

  “He was a realtor or an investor? What?”

  He huffed and cleared his throat but said nothing.

  I said, “What can you tell me about his work?”

  He poked me in the chest with the hand that held the glass. “He bought real estate. The kind that costs a lot of money.”

  I took a deep breath and moved to the side of the sofa and leaned against the sidearm. “Mr. Fleming, I don’t know if someone hurt your son or if it was an accident. But the more I look into this, the stranger it seems to get. I have some suspicions. But I could be wrong.”

  “Tell me what you know.”

  “It’s not a lot,” I said. “But yesterday at his place, a pair of thugs nailed me pretty good.”

  The old man took a couple of steps forward and sat across from me
on a large cushy chair. “Go on.”

  “I went to check out Liam’s place and stumbled into a couple of men who wasted no time in knocking the wind out of me. No greeting.”

  “Well, that’s proof right there,” he barked.

  “No. That only proves that two men broke into his house.”

  “Did you tell the police?”

  “No,” I said. “But that’s another little bit that bothers me. The responding officer said the detective spoke to a witness who saw Liam in the kayak that night.”

  Fleming drained his glass and moved it around so the ice clinked like a bell. “And?”

  “And it’s not in the police report your lawyer gave me.”

  Fleming bowed his head, shoulders slouched.

  “Liam seemed to have a lot of friends, but no one knows what he did for a living,” I said and leaned toward him. “I thought maybe you could shed some light on that.”

  Fleming huffed. Then he set his glass down on the side table next to his chair and pushed himself up with some difficulty. “Let’s have a drink.”

  “Sure,” I said. “But I’d rather have an answer.”

  He grabbed his glass, and I followed him to the bar in the side nook between the fancy dining room and the living room. He poured two glasses of Grey Goose and carried them into the kitchen where he dispensed a couple of ice cubes into the drinks from a large stainless-steel Subzero refrigerator.

  “Sit,” he said, and set my glass on the granite kitchen island. I took a stool and grabbed the glass and took in the smell of the liquor. I wet my lips with the vodka and set the glass down. He took a nice long swallow and leaned his head back and sniffed at the air like he’d recognized a smell from his childhood.

  Then he sat across from me, his shoulders hunched, and finally gave me the skinny on his son. “When I first moved down here a few years ago, I helped Liam start a company. We formed—he formed—a corporation in order to invest in real estate. It was good timing. The economy was still weak and the real estate market was in shambles. There were foreclosures and short sales in every block.”

  “I was here,” I said. “I remember those days.”

  “My God.” He grinned at his glass. “It was a fabulous time to buy.”

  “It was a terrible time for a lot of people,” I said. I couldn’t help myself. My wife lost her job. We got divorced. I almost lost my house.

  “Yeah,” he said. “But not for us. Not for Liam.”

  He paused and took another drink and set his glass on the counter and looked away. I followed his gaze. I thought maybe his wife was about to walk in, but there was nobody there. He tapped the side of his head with his index finger. “Liam was smart. He seemed to have a plan. So I helped him.”

  “Then what happened?”

  He sighed. “He kept buying. All he did was buy. There were good deals out there. Still are. But he kept coming to me for money.”

  “But he never sold,” I said.

  He shook his head real slow. “Never. Not a single property.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What was he investing in? Land? Houses?”

  “Everything. His company must own dozens of places. I don’t really know. He said he was interested in the long-term investment. It wasn’t the right time to sell.”

  “And you financed the whole thing.”

  He stared down at his hands, his finger resting on the rim of the glass. “I wanted to help him.”

  “You just wrote him checks without asking to see an overview of his investments or business plan or even a property title or anything?”

  Fleming took a deep long breath and let the air out slowly. His whole body seemed to deflate like an old balloon. The alcohol on his breath floated across the counter like a storm cloud.

  “I was trying to make up for lost time,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  He seemed to hesitate for a moment, looking past me at the back wall of the kitchen then refocusing on me. He spoke in a flat monotone. “I always felt my responsibility as a father was to provide for my family. And I did that in spades. I was … I was so busy making money, I missed Liam growing up. Because of that, we were never close. I think—I know—he resented me for it. And for the death of his mother.”

  “What happened?”

  “An aneurysm.”

  “You can’t blame yourself for that,” I said.

  “Liam was at boarding school at the time. I called and told him over the phone. I didn’t … I didn’t bring him home.”

  Now I had to take a drink. Memories of my father, of the police officer pointing at him, gesturing for him to get down. My father getting on his knees, hands reaching for the back of his head. My face pressed against the window of the car, watching him. The loud explosion of the patrolman’s weapon just as my father turned his eyes to me—just as our gazes connected for an instant before he fell face-first into the dark asphalt of that deserted stretch of Texas highway.

  “We were mending,” he said. “When he came to me for financial help, I thought it would bring us closer. I was willing to do anything, give him anything.”

  “But it must be millions of dollars of real estate.”

  He slouched so far forward I thought he’d curl into a ball and bounce away.

  “Who’s inheriting the properties?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” he said somberly. “Everything’s in the name of the company.”

  “So you lose your investment.”

  “I don’t care about the money.” His hand turned into a fist. “I have plenty of that. Besides, it was not an investment. It was a gift.”

  He was obviously a very wealthy man. But everyone cares about money. Especially the very wealthy. They probably care more about their money than anyone else. And when there are millions at stake … “Does he have a lawyer?”

  “Joaquin del Pino.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  He nodded. “The guy from TV.”

  “Justice for All, del Pino,” I said with a hiss. That son of a bitch was everywhere.

  Fleming pointed a finger at me and stood. He stumbled back but held on to the counter to keep his balance.

  I followed him to the living room where he sat on the sofa, leaning back, the drink resting atop his stomach. I sat on the cushion chair, holding my drink with both hands. I said, “Mr. Fleming, I know this must be difficult for you—”

  “What the hell?” he barked. “You don’t know me.”

  “There are things I need to know.”

  “My son is dead.”

  “And the money you gave him is gone with him.”

  “I told you, money is irrelevant.” His voice was loud, growling with an edge like a knife. He sat up, leaned forward, and set his glass on the coffee table in front of him. “I set it up for him to go to law school. Yale. I pulled strings, called in favors. He was set. Instead, he came down to Florida. He wasted his life with these good-for-nothing beach bums he called friends. What the hell kind of a life is that?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe he was happy.”

  “Bullshit. That’s just liberal brainwashing.” He poked his chest with his thumb. “I was footing the bill.”

  So the money was important after all. Or at least he thought he was buying his son’s love. “Do you think,” I said, “it was bringing you closer?”

  “I don’t know.” He cleared his throat. His jowls trembled. “At least I got to see him. We’d meet someplace off the key and have lunch or dinner every few weeks. We talked real estate, mostly. He’d tell me about a property he was closing on or how baby boomers were going to change the face of Sarasota.”

  “And you cut him a check for whatever he wanted.”

  He shook his head. “My lawyer did that.”

  “Pearlman.” I leaned back and looked at the drink in my hand. I took a taste. The ice had watered the vodka enough to make it acceptable. But two little sips alread
y had me levitating. The room felt hot. “What was he planning on doing with the properties?”

  “I don’t know. I think he was looking at the market twenty, thirty years from now.” He leaned forward. His face twisted and his red eyes welled up with a couple of small sad tears. “He was my son,” he said slowly. “I loved him.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said—and I was. He looked broken. But I was pretty sure it had to do with more than the death of his son. Something was eating away at him. Maybe it was remorse for how he acquired his wealth. Hedge fund managers and the CEOs of multinational corporations—I always thought of them as heartless. But maybe they were human, had feelings, loved just like the rest of us. At least Bob Fleming did. Maybe in his old age he’d come to realize that all his wealth meant nothing. He was a tired old man, alone with an uptight trophy wife. And all his money couldn’t buy his son’s love. Certainly, couldn’t bring him back from the dead. No. All the money in the world couldn’t do that.

  But then again, maybe I had it all wrong. Maybe he was broke. Maybe he had funneled so much money into his son’s business he was going to have to downsize, live on Social Security.

  Or maybe he was just a sad old alcoholic.

  The light outside had changed. The sky was warming up, turning gold and pink. It was time for me to find Jaybird, give him another shot at explaining Liam’s life. I set my drink on the coffee table and stood. A rush of dizziness hit me like a wave, then settled.

  “One more thing,” I said before walking out. “What was the name of his company?”

  Fleming glanced at me, his eyes small and red. “Beach City Holdings.”

  CHAPTER 10

  I LEFT FLEMING’S house and drove north on Midnight Pass. The two small sips of vodka had me buzzing. And our little meeting troubled me in more ways than one. I felt sorry for the guy. But I was also a little afraid of him. I didn’t know how rich he was. But he must be rich enough not to give a damn about anyone and anything. He seemed very pleased with himself for swooping in and taking people’s homes when the banks foreclosed on their faulty loans. Maybe that’s what it took to be rich: an I-don’t-give-a-shit-about-anyone attitude.

  And del Pino. That fucker was everywhere. I’d always thought of him as a greedy accident chaser, but in the past, he’d proven himself ethical. I had to give him some credit for that. At least now I had some leads. It was too late to try del Pino at his office, so I pulled into the parking lot at Siesta Public Beach and drove around for fifteen minutes until I found a spot just as the sun was beginning to tint the sky with a warm haze.