He swiveled around in his poolside chair to study, in the sliding-glass doors, his own pleasing reflection. Unlike Teddy Mink, Colt thought, I can be anyone at all. Don a denim vest and a pair of alligator boots and voila, southern outlaw. Top my dome with that new white Stetson and there you have it, western rogue. Hell, if I bought a pair of eurotrash sunshades and tooled around town on a Vespa, I could even pass for one of those gigolos in La Dolce Vita.
The back door swung open and Teddy stepped out onto the deck. He handed Colt his drink and sat down across from him.
So where was he?
Where was who?
Colt took a generous swallow of the drug lord’s excellent scotch. Dieter. If he was surveilling, why wasn’t he in the truck?
How the fuck should I know? Maybe he was taking a piss. Maybe he walked back to the marsh to check the birds out. Who the fuck cares?
There you are then. The birds.
What?
Colt knew he was grasping at straws, but what other choice did he have? The birds, he said. Maybe he was checking out the birds. There’s a bunch of ‘em back there.
I see. Teddy gazed out at the beach, which was deserted today. Herons and all, he said. Anhingas.
I just meant . . . Teddy’s blistering look stopped the mule in his tracks. He lowered his eyes, unable to meet the drug lord’s cold, uncompromising glare.
You meant?
That we should look at all the angles, Colt muttered.
The angles.
Yeah.
Fine. Teddy drummed his restless fingertips on the tabletop. So what are we saying here? What’s the angle? What am I supposed to believe? That out of everybody in town Dieter’s the one who just happens to park his pickup across the road? Because he’s some kind of ornifuckinthologist?
We aren’t sayin’ anything.
First time I ever saw a vehicle there, pal. First time.
The bottom line was simple. Teddy wanted Dieter dead and he wanted Colt to make it happen.
Binoculars.
Right there in the glove compartment.
And a notebook.
Teddy nodded.
You took a look.
I took a look! Lot of fuckin’ scribblin’, couldn’t read a fuckin’ word.
To lighten the mood, Colt took a weak stab at humor. A writer who can’t write, musta flunked penmanship.
Yeah well, he’s gonna flunk somethin’ else, too. Real soon.
Somethin’ else?
Breathin’.
Colt took another hefty gulp of Teddy’s scotch, trying to drown his trepidation. He might be tough as nails when it came to a Saturday night brawl down at the Black Kat Club, but he was no killer. No way.
I don’t know, Boss. This is bad, man, this is really bad.
Tell me about it.
By arranging to have Colt handle the hit, Teddy, as usual, would shield himself from the law. Look, I’m not asking you to do it yourself, okay? I’m just asking you to find someone who will.
A hit man?
Whatever.
Like I know someone like that? Colt cried. C’mon, Boss, I’m a bouncer!
With a cryptic smile Teddy looked out at the sea again; gray breakers under a gray sky pierced, now and then, by shafts of light. But you do, he said quietly. That’s the thing, you do.
Colt shook his head. How he hated this place. Every time he was summoned here there was more awful news. Do I?
Sure you do. Think Mexican.
Mexican?
Think beer bottle.
Colt’s mind reeled. Who the fuck was Teddy talking about now, Jimmy Santiago? There was no way. Jimmy couldn’t kill a man any more than he could.
Think gold tooth.
Colt set his drink down, staring in dismay at the kingpin. He couldn’t believe what Teddy was suggesting. You gotta be kidding?
Do I look like I’m kidding?
No, but—
Two thousand.
What?
Two grand. Split it any way you want.
Colt sighed, on the verge of surrender. Once again Teddy had backed him into a corner he wasn’t going to be able squeeze out of. What else could he do but obey the order, no matter how distasteful that order might be? He couldn’t kill Dieter himself and he didn’t know anyone else who could either, except perhaps Raul.
As he drove back into town the logistics of the job consumed him. And then, all at once, he had a revelation. The rip off wasn’t going to be that difficult but convincing Maggie to follow him down to Mexico was another matter. Why hadn’t he grasped back at Teddy’s how convenient it would be to have Dieter out of the way? With her lover dead and gone, surely Maggie would be open to his offer. What could be better, after such a tragic event, than to get the hell away?
Psyched now, he considered the arrangements. First he’d call a meeting with Jimmy and Raul, ostensibly to clear the air. With as much humility as he could muster, he would admit that he never should have cut Jimmy in the first place, and that he deserved the punishment he’d received. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, he’d say; which meant they were all square now, right? Then, to show good faith, he’d offer Raul the contract. A grand for the hit? No, let’s make it fifteen, he was feeling generous today. Generous, magnanimous, full of love for those enemies who would get rid of the final obstacle on the path that would lead, ultimately, to his freedom.
A few days ago, when Gene let slip the news about Maggie and Dieter, Colt had been furious. First she kicks him out of the house and then she betrays him with someone she barely knows. He had lain in bed that night unable to sleep, his mind a black fury. But what could he do? If he confronted Maggie about the affair she’d laugh in his face. Why don’t we talk, she’d say, about Nicky Meyers? If he mentioned Mexico she would assure him that she wasn’t going anywhere, with him or anyone else. So he’d tossed and turned for the rest of the night waiting for dawn, tormented, sleepless, crazed. The deal was due to go down any day but without Maggie and the boy, what was the point?
Then Teddy had called, offering his mule—who was too stressed out to recognize it as such—a solution. To ease Maggie’s grief, Colt would offer her a shoulder to cry on, and when her sobs subsided he would make his pitch. In a soothing voice he would tell her about Mexico, the parrots in the palm trees, the murmur of the surf at daybreak, the chapel where she could light a candle for Dieter’s lost soul. This is your chance, he would whisper, to heal those wounds. Why stay here, surrounded by all these terrible memories?
A trial period, that’s what he would call it. Quiet time in a quiet place where she could relax, regroup, and eventually make the most important decision of her life: whether to return to a dead-end job in a dead-end town or to remain right there, in paradise, with the man she was meant for all along.
29
Even when they were kids Lureen didn’t like to bait her own hook, wrinkling her nose in repugnance whenever the earthworm squirmed away from the barb, attempting again and again to spear that little sucker until she finally gave up and begged Maggie, at ten already a tomboy, to do it for her. And now here they were again, twenty years later, reenacting the very same scene.
Jesus, Lureen, it’s only a worm.
Please don’t use His name in vain like that, Mag.
Oh yeah. Sorry.
No shrinking violet, Maggie deftly hooked the worm through twice so it wouldn’t wiggle away as soon as the bobber hit the water, recalling how their father used to take her and Lureen out to the Wakulla River to fish. The sun sparkling off the feathery stems of a tangle of reeds as Frank taught them to release their lines at the top, to let the weight of the leader spin out from their shoulders until it arced into the water, pulled taut by the current thirty feet downstream. The sudden tug of a fish followed, seconds later, by a yelp of joy. On a portable grill
propped over the coals of a campfire, the skins of the filets charred black, their juices sizzling on the embers.
Today, if they were lucky enough to catch a few perch, Maggie would roll the filets in corn meal the way Frank had taught her and pan fry them on the stove. In deference to little sister, she would skip the Chardonnay.
Still thinking about those halcyon days on the river, Maggie heard the rattle of an engine and looked up in time to see Dieter’s pickup pull into the drive. She hadn’t been expecting him. Her heart began to hum.
Well now, Lureen murmured salaciously, look what the cat dragged in.
Easy there, sis.
Soon Dieter was sitting between them casting his own line into the shallows while Lureen chattered away about anything and everything that popped into her head. A good-looking man could still unnerve her, particularly today.
Earlier, on the phone, she had announced that there was a matter of “some delicacy” she wanted to get off her chest, and she didn’t know who else to turn to.
Bring your rod and reel, Maggie replied. We’ll catch us some perch.
On the dock it didn’t take long for Lureen to explain that the delicate matter she so urgently needed to address was her growing dismay over the recent lack of passion in her marriage. With all of Maggie’s experience, she was hoping for some helpful advice.
Experience carried a faint odor but Maggie decided not to take offense. Talk to me, she said.
According to Lureen, and who better to pass judgment, Charley was a wonderful father, a wonderful provider, a wonderful man. Up until a few months ago he had also been rather wonderful in bed. Not particularly imaginative, she admitted, but always there for her, ready to give it another go. And then something happened, and all of that changed.
What?
What what?
What happened?
I don’t know!
Then how do you know?
Know what?
That something happened!
Because, Lureen whimpered, he’s stopped, you know . . .
Sleeping with you? Frowning, Lureen flicked her line into the pond. That phrase, she said. I’ve never understood it. I mean it’s not exactly sleeping we’re talking about here, right? Sleeping ain’t the issue.
Displeased with her sister’s sudden snippy attitude, Maggie said fine. Fucking you? He’s stopped fucking you?
Maggie!
What?
Even though Lureen was irritated, if not particularly surprised, by Maggie’s vulgarity, her displeasure paled in comparison to the bewilderment Charley’s recent indifference had provoked. His passivity was enough to make a wife, even a born-again one, suspicious. And yet she just couldn’t feature good time Charley playing around. Who would want the big oaf?
Maggie trod, more softly this time, across the broken glass. So have you tried . . .
What?
You know.
To spice things up? Lureen shook her head. Trust me, honey, I’ve tried all right. Every trick in the book.
Although she didn’t really want to, Maggie pictured lacy negligees, whipped cream, fellatio. It was not a pretty sight. Fortunately, at the same time these disturbing images streamed through her mind, Dieter’s pickup skidded into the drive.
And now here he was, watching the bobber out of the corner of his eye and smiling dutifully while a nearly-manic Lureen described a trip she and Charley had taken to Guatemala last year, a busload of born agains bringing to the heathens of the highlands the word of the Lord. Maggie watched Dieter carefully, knowing his disdain for evangelical fervor. He had seen this movie before, in Quintana Roo. What those poor people need, he would tell you, wasn’t the Book of Job, but dentists, water treatment plants, agricultural engineers. And yet to Maggie’s great relief—the last thing she needed right now was an argument about religion—Dieter, with the patience of Job, held his tongue.
When Lureen finally ran out of breath they fished for awhile in silence, listening to the whirr of dragonflies hovering inches above the pond. Eventually, having snagged half a dozen perch between them, they went back to the kitchen where Maggie seasoned the filets while Lureen whisked the salad dressing and Dieter mixed a second pitcher of iced tea.
Staring out the window at the far wall of trees casting its shadow across the pond, Maggie felt a rush of affection for all living things. For Dieter and her sister, for Hunter and his towheaded schoolmates, for the mayflies dimpling the water and the deer hiding shyly in the cedars and the souls of the perch they were about to consume. There were times lately when life seemed, against all odds, downright enchanted.
Hey, Mom!
Maggie spun around as Hunter pranced through the door, waving at his mother and hugging Aunt Lureen and gazing up wide-eyed at Dieter, who raised his right hand for a high-five. Hey, Dieter.
Hey, buddy. How’s a little fried perch sound?
Mmmmm. It was one of Hunter’s favorites.
I brought you something, too, Dieter added. I’ll be right back. He went out to his truck and returned a minute later with a paper bag. Go ahead, big guy, open it.
Whoaaaa. Hunter’s eyes lit up at the sight of a leather pouch of marbles tied, loosely, with a bright green string. A few days before, Maggie had described Hunter’s newly acquired passion for marbles, a game Dieter used to play when he was a boy.
With a grin that wouldn’t quit, Hunter balanced the marbles in the open palm of his hand while Dieter, with his photographic memory, taught him their names. Opal, he murmured, glimmer, bull’s eye, blood.
After dinner, out on the back lawn, they opened the pouch and poured the marbles inside an old hula hoop and began to position them. Meanwhile Lureen lit the tiki torches while Maggie filled an ice cream maker with fresh peaches and low fat milk.
Basking in the glow of Dieter’s attention to her son, Maggie considered the twists of fate that had brought the four of them to this cabin. How many unconnected events had to fall into place for a magical night like this to occur? Colt cutting up Jimmy Santiago, Dieter returning to Crooked River, Frank Paterson hiring a stranger off the street to refinish his Belgian armoires. It all seemed so strange and tenuous, and yet here they were.
After finishing the game of marbles Dieter took his leave. He thought it important that the boy understand that his motives were pure. Hunter was no doubt already aware of Dieter’s affection for his mother. He might even, by now, consider him her boyfriend. But he also genuinely liked the man, and more importantly felt comfortable around him. For one thing, unlike most adults, Dieter treated him as an equal. He didn’t lose the game of marbles on purpose, for instance, and then pretend that he hadn’t; because pity, in any guise, was a sham. All of which meant that it would have been a mistake for Dieter to stay over. Trust was not gained in a single evening—both Dieter and the boy instinctively understood this. Ever the gentleman, he pecked Lureen on the cheek and squeezed Maggie’s shoulder and thanked them both for a wonderful evening.
When he walked away, Lureen’s hungry eyes followed him, step by step, out to his truck.
Easy, sis.
Honey, that boy is a genuwine peach.
As he drove back up the driveway, a sweet, dominant aroma flooded the air. Wisteria? Russian lavender? Dieter wasn’t sure, but he slowed down anyway, poking his head out the window to sniff the lovely fragrance.
The first time his family vacationed in Crooked River his mother had accompanied him on a walk through town. She was in a joyous frame of mind that morning, delighted to be back in sunny Florida at the end of a bitter northern winter, a thousand miles from all that snow. Filled with energy and verve, she grabbed Dieter’s hand and swept him along the shady sidewalks, pointing out sprigs of mint in an herb garden, an orange tree bulging with fruit, Russian lavender. I have never been anywhere, she cried, that smelled so good! And she was right. Even for a nine-year-old wh
ose idea of an evocative odor was a box of popcorn at the movies, flowering hibiscus mixed with a salty breeze off the nearby harbor made for a heady brew.
In a flash, Dieter saw his mother standing at the window of their room at the Gibson gazing down at the street. While his father and his sister dressed for dinner, the boy studied the side of his mother’s face, the high, proud cheekbones that bespoke a quarter strain of Cherokee blood, the slash of cherry lipstick, the penciled brows. In her yellow summer dress she seemed indescribably elegant, almost regal, the most beautiful creature he had ever seen . . .
And then they perish, he thought. His beautiful mother, his beautiful Jen. It was a sudden and unexpected mental jolt, and it rattled him badly, and he almost swerved off the road. He was not particularly superstitious but sometimes he wondered if he was cursed. The swiftness of time and the inexplicability of early death crowded his mind. Making blind connections now, he recited a line from a poem—anything could happen / and probably would—his buoyant mood abruptly punctured by icy apprehension, a chill northern wind.
Rolling up his window he glimpsed, once again, the serene expression on Maggie’s face as she watched him play marbles with Hunter. How utterly at peace with the world she had seemed today. But what about tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that? What would happen then?
As he approached the town his thoughts grew increasingly bleak. The future was a blank, an abyss. Would he remain in Crooked River, courting Maggie? Would he write a second book? Would he ever go home? For the last six weeks he had dismissed such concerns, determined not to dote on them. The best course of action, he had convinced himself, was to live like a Buddhist, in the moment, for today. But now it felt as if time was running out. He would have to make some essential decisions, and he would have to make them soon.
Maggie. He thought about her constantly these days, reading a bedtime story to Hunter or rowing the canoe across the pond or gathering tomatoes from her truck patch. He was bewitched, obsessed, haunted, one of those characters in a Russian novel who walks around in a lovestruck fog. When he wasn’t with her he felt miserable, and when he was, he felt afraid. If he was cursed, then she was cursed too, like Jennifer.
Fever Tree Page 16
