Last Call

by James Grippando

  Theo wandered toward the bar and took the call. He could hear the excitement in Trina's voice.

  "I figured out what I want," she said.

  "Huh?"

  "For my birthday. The replacement for the roach brooch. You said I could have whatever I wanted."

  "Oh, yeah," he said. She's actually holding me to this.

  "This may be asking too much," she said. "But would you even consider setting: a Prince Albert for me?"

  Theo leaned against the bar. "A what?"

  "A Prince Albert. You know what it is, right?"

  "Uh… yeah. 'Course I know what it is."

  "Can you get one?"

  He ran his finger over the bar top and collected a good six months' worth of dust – a long time for commercial property to sit idle. Room to negotiate on the rent. "Sure. If a Prince Albert is what you want, I'll get it for you."

  "Really? Oh, Theo, you are the absolute best."

  "True. But we already knew that."

  "Do you know where to go?"

  "I'll figure it out."

  "Be careful. There are good ones and bad ones. You can't just go anywhere."

  "You think I don't know that?"

  "Okay. But I've researched this. For people who are serious and don't mind paying a little extra, the go-to guy is down in Marathon. His name's Manny Ochoa."

  "Okay. I've got a few sources of my own. But I'll check out this Manny."

  "Thank you. I can't wait to see it. This is the best birthday present this girl has ever gotten."

  "I aim to please."

  "And your aim is getting better all the time."

  They shared a laugh and said good-bye. Theo closed his flip phone slowly, then reached inside his pocket and clutched his wallet. It gave him an uneasy feeling. He had no idea what he'd just promised to get her.

  "Everything okay?" asked Cy

  "Yeah, same old bullshit. Where do we start on this tour of yours?"

  "I thought we'd head on over to-"

  The ring of Theo's cell interrupted again. He left it in his pocket, not even checking the number. "Head over to where?" said Theo.

  The phone continued to ring. "Don't you need to get that?" said his uncle.

  "I'm sure it's Trina calling back."

  "Then take it."

  "I don't feel like it. I swear she's always changing her mind."

  "You want her to change her mind about you? Take the call, fool."

  Uncle Cy was the only man besides Jack who could talk like that to Theo. But at least the old man made sense. Theo dug the phone out of his pocket and flipped it open. "Whassup, baby?"

  "Whassup, baby yourself." It was Isaac's voice.

  Theo struggled to show no reaction, but his uncle seemed to pick up his sudden annoyance. He drifted in the general direction of Theo's future stage, pretending to act busy by pacing off the room's dimensions.

  "I thought we were done," Theo said through clenched teeth.

  "We would be if you hadn't tried to change our deal."

  "What the hell do you mean?"

  "Come on, dude. If I didn't know you so well, I'd think you got your phone calls open to the cops or somethin'. Quit playing games and stop talkin' like it wasn't you who helped me blow TGK in the first place."

  Theo was on to him immediately. Isaac was making good on his threat: If Theo went to the police, he was going to convince them that Theo had "come to Jesus" only after he'd helped Isaac escape. Thank God he and Jack had decided not to let the cops monitor his phones.

  Theo said, "I got nothin' to say to you."

  "Hey, I know it didn't go exactly as we planned, but-"

  "We never had no plan, you son of a bitch."

  "I ain't askin' for freebies here. There's something in it for you, too.

  "I already called the cops, all right? Don't bother me no more"

  "You what? You motha'-"

  "Don't call me." He ended the call and drew a deep breath as he rolled his head from one shoulder to the other, trying to release the anger. He opened the flip phone again, but the sound of his uncle's voice kept him from hitting Jack's speed-dial digit.

  "What's wrong?" said Cy

  Theo closed the cell phone. The old man had always been good about not butting into Theo's business, but he seemed to have a nose for real trouble.

  "That definitely wasn't Trina," his uncle said. "Who was it?"

  Theo slipped the phone back into his pocket. He'd already done the right thing. He'd called the cops. Like Jack had said: It was best to keep that between him and his lawyer. No point spoiling his afternoon with his uncle.

  "Nobody," said Theo. "A real nobody."

  Chapter 5

  Jack felt naked when he opened his front door. He was wearing only a swimsuit, and an FBI agent standing on his doorstep made him want to run for cover. Especially when it was Special Agent Andie Henning – with the emphasis on special.

  "Hey Andie." He didn't know what else to say. It had been almost three months since their last date, which hadn't ended on the best of terms.

  "Sorry to drop by unannounced," she said. "I was afraid you might blow me off if I called. But I knew you'd be professional if I showed up on official business. It's about-"

  "Jack, did you hide my cover-up?" said Rene. She was suddenly standing right behind him, wearing a white string bikini that showcased every square inch of her suntan.

  "Your what?" he said.

  "My swimsuit cover-up. It's a tunic-style wrap, Hawaiian-print. Keeps the sun from turning me into a lobster."

  He'd last seen it on the floor. Next to the bed. Jack looked at Andie and said, "We were just getting ready to take the boat out."

  Andie was caught staring. Funny Jack thought. If a man checks out another man in a bathing suit like that, he's gay. If a woman checks out another woman, she's – well, a woman.

  "Sorry," said Andie, "but this is important."

  "I'm sure it is," said Rene. She was speaking to Jack but looking at Andie.

  Jack said, "I'll catch up with you on the boat."

  "How long are you going to be?" said Rene, as she slipped her arms around his torso and hugged him from behind.

  The affection wasn't overdone, but it was still uncomfortable for Jack in front of Andie. "I'll be quick. Just, uh… how about picking out some CDs?"

  Rene let go of him. "You two have any favorites?"

  For a split second he wondered how Rene could possibly have known, but how stupid was that? They always know.

  "Anything you like is fine," said Jack, though he actually would have been more comfortable giving carte blanche to Andie. Weird, but Andie's tastes were more in line with Jack's than were Rene's.

  "Leave it to me," said Rene, as she left the living room and headed for the back patio. It wasn't until he heard the California door slide open and then close that Jack realized he was being rude to Andie. "Would you like to come inside?" he said.

  "That's okay. I can see you're in a hurry."

  "What's the official business?"

  "Isaac Reems. There's a joint task force led by the U.S. Marshals Service. I'm the bureau's point person for the Miami field office."

  Jack couldn't hide his surprise. When he'd cut a deal with the state attorney to keep Theo's name out of the manhunt, he would have thought that had also covered the name of his attorney. "And what brings you here?" said Jack.

  "You were Reems's attorney of record during his first federal incarceration."

  Jack reeled in his anger against the prosecutor. Suddenly, he – not Theo – was the tie to Isaac, but there was an even more surprising part of the equation. "The FBI chose you to come and talk to me?"

  "Uh, yeah," she said. "My ASSC remembered that you and I got to know each other on that kidnapping case I headed when I first moved here from Seattle."

  "So you didn't tell them that after the case was over we… "

  "No. I didn't tell anyone."

  Jack understood. That kind of personal history
didn't exactly spell career advancement at the bureau – an FBI agent crazy enough to date a criminal defense lawyer.

  Andie said, "So, you weren't Mr. Reems's lawyer?"

  "No."

  "But your name was on his list of approved visitors when he was serving time in the early nineties."

  "I'm sure he put it there when he heard that I got Theo Knight off death row. Half the inmates in Florida wanted me as their lawyer after that. The innocent half, anyway," he said with a defense lawyer's grin.

  "Did he know Theo?"

  Jack reeled in his smile, reluctant to involve Theo in anything that had to do with the FBI.

  "Did he?" she pressed.

  "They knew each other as teenagers. Basically, just two guys who grew up in the same neighborhood."

  Andie pulled a pen and notepad from her pocket and jotted something down.

  Jack nearly groaned. "You're not going to drag Theo into this, are you?"

  "I'm just following every lead."

  Jack tried to fight it, but he could feel the personal emotions taking over the business profile. "When are you going to get off Theo's back?"

  "I'm not riding anybody's back."

  "So it's all in my head, is that it? It's always been just my imagination."

  "Jack, please. Before…" She paused, as if wary of their immediate past. "When you and I were… you know, together, I wasn't forcing you to choose between me and Theo."

  "You said if I stayed friends with him, he was going to get me disbarred someday"

  "I wasn't even serious. Give me a little credit. I fully understand that Theo's your friend."

  "Best friend."

  "Okay. Best friend. And I like Theo too. Really I do. I just made a stupid joke."

  "That's the funny thing about stupid jokes. They're loaded with truth."

  "Not this one."

  "Is that what you came here to tell me?"

  She made a face, as if trying to stave off a migraine. "No. I came here to talk about Isaac Reems, and now I've bumbled the whole thing. I'm sorry."

  "I am too. But you know what I'm most sorry about? Every time something goes wrong in this city, it seems like Theo's on somebody's list of suspects."

  "You know that's not true."

  "Then why did you write his name in your notepad?"

  "There's been a prison break, and the latest advisory said that Reems was last seen at Sparky's around two thirty in the morning."

  "Oh, I see. So you put two and two together and figure that-"

  "I'm not figuring anything, Jack. Can we please just drop the whole Theo thing?"

  Behind him, in the kitchen, the California door slid open. Rene stuck her head inside and called to him from the other side of the house. "Are you almost ready?"

  "I'll be right there."

  Rene turned and walked toward the dock behind the house, but she left the sliding door open. Jack looked at Andie and said, "Anything else?"

  "No. You go ahead. I think we're done."

  We're done. The awkward choice of words registered on his face as well as hers.

  "Okay I'll see you" he said.

  "See ya." For a moment she seemed to wonder if they should shake hands. They didn't. She just thanked him the way she would have thanked any witness for his time and headed for her car.

  He called to her as she reached his driveway.

  She stopped. "Yeah?"

  "Take care of yourself, all right?" he said.

  She shrugged, gave a halfhearted smile, and said, "You know I will."

  Jack watched as she opened the car door. "Hey, Andie," he said before she could climb behind the wheel.

  "What?"

  Jack paused, summoning the right tone of voice. "If you're thinking about talking to Theo, don't. He has a lawyer."

  Andie didn't answer, but she seemed to understand that it wasn't anything personal – that Jack was simply tired of the cops harassing his friend, and that Theo deserved better. She got in her car and drove away.

  Jack shut the door and leaned against it, thinking for moment, and finally chastising himself for thinking way too much. Stop over-analyzing everything, already

  He grabbed the boat keys from the kitchen counter and went to find Rene, curious to know which CDs she'd chosen – and wondering if, by chance, she had chosen his and Andie's favorite.

  UNCLE CY FELT LIKE he owned the place.

  It sounded like an oxymoron, but Theo said he had "personal business" in the upper Keys, so he left: his uncle in charge of Sparky's Tavern until his return. Cy was all over the chance to live out this fantasy – even if the bikers and rednecks did outnumber the brothas and jazz lovers by about fifty to one.

  "Hey Lenny" said Cy. "Can you replace the number two keg for me?"

  Theo's assistant was at the other end of the bar, setting up for the Saturday night crowd. If the rum he was stocking was 80 proof, it posted a bigger number than Lenny's IQ. "Sure thing, boss."

  Boss. The very ring of it made the old man smile.

  The day had been absolutely perfect Just him and Theo, the old sax and the new sax. They'd made it to only one of the old bars Cy had played in his youth – Tobacco Road, which Theo also played on occasion – but they vowed to hit all of his old spots eventually, one at a time, a regular outing. More important, they also agreed that the vacant restaurant with the U-shaped bar was the spot for Sparky's II. He sure hoped Theo could nail it down. Hell, was there really anything to worry about? This was Theo Knight, his nephew, a punk from the ghetto who'd survived death row and then named his first bar Sparky's – a double-barreled flip of the bird to Florida's old electric chair, nicknamed "Old Sparky" Theo often said that his uncle was his hero. In truth, Theo was Cy's hero.

  "Lenny, the keg, please."

  Cyrus Knight didn't have many perfect days in his life story. At least not that he remembered. The culprit was drugs. From the very beginning, friends had begged him not to let customers buy him drinks. Take the tips in cash, they warned him, not liquor. But it seemed rude to refuse a gin-and-tonic from a good-natured guy who swears you're the next Charlie Parker. So he drank. All night. While he played. On his breaks. After his gig. He drank before he went to bed at 5 a.m., and he drank some more when he woke the following afternoon. Before he knew it, he'd burned through the best years of his life as a full-blown alcoholic. Then a pothead. Then a coke fiend. And it only got worse. His arms still bore traces of the track marks to prove it.

  It was no wonder that he threatened to kill Theo if ever he caught him drinking when he played.

  "Lenny! The keg already"

  "I'm getting to it, boss."

  Nice kid, but he had the work ethic of a sloth. "Hell, I'll do it myself."

  Cy untapped the spent keg first. As he rose from his crouch, however, a sudden wave of nausea sent the room spinning. He leaned on the edge of the sink behind the bar to support his weight. It would pass in a minute, for sure. He was actually getting used to these spells. Damn blood pressure medicine didn't agree with him one bit.

  Getting old sucks.

  He splashed cold water on his face and breathed in and out, slowly and deeply. Better already. He drew a breath and headed toward the stockroom.

  Lenny looked up from behind the cash register. "Boss, I said I'd get it."

  "Right. Just like the check's in her mouth, and I won't come in the mail."

  "Huh?"

  "Never mind."

  He found a handcart near the door, but it was plain to see that the full-sized keg was beyond his strength. He went behind the tower of stacked kegs in search of a pony keg, something more his size. There he found just about everything except what he was looking for. He saw plastic bags filled with trash that needed to be taken out and dozens of crushed boxes. There were cans of beer that had broken loose from the twenty-four-pack, an assortment of liquor bottles, and some empty cigarette packages. He spotted several broken cocktail glasses, a cockroach or two, a rat trap.

  And an orange jumpsu
it.

  He stooped down and tugged at the hem, pulling the garment toward him slowly his heart thumping, though deep inside he already knew what it was. The name and number printed on the left breast pocket confirmed his fears.

  REEMS 007516.

  The nausea was back, but it had nothing to do with the medication. All perfect days had to end. This one had just ended a little sooner than he thought it would.

  Damn it, Theo. Damn it all to hell, boy.

  Chapter 6

  Isaac Reems needed a girlfriend.

  He'd studied other prison breaks as part of his months-long preparation, mostly by trading stories with inmates. There was no single formula for success. But the smart guys always had a girlfriend – it was never a wife – waiting on the outside to help them evade law enforcement and melt back into society. With the girlfriend came a fast car, plenty of cash, new clothes, disguises, phony identification, guns and ammunition, food and liquor, a place to hide, and – chicks just dig fugitives – great sex galore. But Isaac figured out a way to get all he needed without a woman, and so long as he had money, even the pussy would follow.

  Eighteen hours on the run proved him dead wrong. Sad to say, but in situations like these, girlfriends were the only friends a man could count on.

  Thanks for nothing brothas.

  Isaac was laying flat on a hard tile floor, staring up at the kitchen ceiling. He'd actually dozed off, probably hadn't moved in at least two hours. A realtor's for sale sign posted in the yard had lured him inside. The modest house, a three-bedroom, two-bath concrete shoebox in a middle-class neighborhood, was completely empty, not a stick of furniture anywhere. The reduced sign out front suggested that the owners had packed up their belongings long ago and moved everything to their new house. It took Isaac all of three minutes to bypass the cheap home alarm system, and the lock on the back door had been mere child's play for the former leader of the Grove Lords. Hard to imagine a more opportune hideout for a dude with no girlfriend.

  Isaac pushed himself up from the floor and noticed that his back was stiff. He'd been hitting the prison gym hard for several weeks before his breakout, trying to get himself into top condition. Still, his thirty-five-year-old body wasn't quite ready for that jump out of a second-story window at the Turner Guilford Knight Corrections Center and the scramble over the nine-foot perimeter fence. Things should have gotten easier after those hurdles, and he probably wouldn't have felt so sore now if the escape had gone according to plan. Deals of all sorts could be cut from inside prison walls, and Isaac had lined up the big items before making his break. A set of wheels with the keys in the glove compartment and a change of clothes in the trunk was supposed to be waiting for him in the parking lot at the 7-Eleven. His new pants were promised with two hundred bucks, small bills, in the pocket.