Last Call

by James Grippando

  "Don't move," he said.

  He could feel her fear and the paralysis that came with it. She was no fighter. Isaac was an expert on these things. Quickly but quietly, he took her behind the car and popped the trunk.

  "Please," she said, her voice quaking. "Don't – don't rape me."

  "Your bad luck, baby. That ain't what I'm after." He stuffed her into the trunk, slammed the lid, and hurried into the driver's seat. The engine started right up, and the gas gauge indicated nearly a full tank. He left by way of the parking lot's rear entrance so that none of the workers inside the diner would see him driving the waitress's car.

  He laid the pistol on the floorboard, between his legs.

  Plan C, he told himself. No prisoners.

  Chapter 10

  Jack and Rene were cruising north on U.S. 1 with Uncle Cy in the backseat.

  Around ten o'clock, a half-dozen MDPD squad cars had converged on Sparky's to make sure Reems hadn't doubled back. Agent Henning wasn't part of the sweep, though Jack wondered if she was behind it. Theo was furious – swirling blue lights in the parking lot were never good for business – and Jack told him to go somewhere and cool off before he took a swing at a uniform. Two hours later, Theo still wasn't back, but Cy was ready for his ride home.

  True to his jazz musician roots, Uncle Cy had the internal clock of a vampire. He seemed to come alive at midnight, which definitely had its drawbacks.

  "Say, whatever happened with you and that Andie woman?" the old man asked. He was sitting on the edge of the rear seat, his forearms resting against the back of Jack's headrest. Jack pretended not to hear him.

  Rene said, "Uncle Cy asked you a question." The guy really was everybody's Uncle Cy.

  Jack tried to catch the troublemaker's eye in the rearview mirror to convey a silent ixnay. Cy didn't take the hint.

  "I was just wondering about-"

  "Hey, look, Rene: It's a Calvin Klein underwear billboard!"

  " – you and that FBI agent," said Cy, finishing his thought.

  Jack dismissed it with a wave of his hand. "Oh, I really don't think Rene wants to hear about that."

  "She doesn't mind," said Rene.

  A red Ferrari flew past them at double the speed limit. "Of course she doesn't," said Jack, barely audible.

  "What's that you say?" said Cy.

  For some reason, he was not going to let this drop. It was starting to feel as though the two of them had cooked up this little Mutt-and-Jeff routine for their own entertainment. Jack said, "Andie and I had two or three dates back in January. No big deal."

  "January," he said, his face screwed up like a man dividing fractions in his head. "So, how long have you two known each other?"

  "A lot longer than that," said Jack.

  Rene definitely seemed to be enjoying this, but mercifully she spoke up. "I live in Africa."

  "That's a good place to be from," said Cy.

  "Well, I'm not from there. I've been running a free health clinic for children in Cote d'Ivoire for a few years now."

  Cy seemed impressed. "Good for you."

  "Thanks. But it's kind of tough on the love life. So Jack and I have this… understanding."

  "You see other people?" said Cy.

  "He sees other people," said Rene. "I'm way too busy for that. I come visit him every few months."

  "Say what?" said Cy, now speaking to Jack. "Let me get this straight. This beautiful woman comes and visits you every so often. You show her a good time, she gives you lots of lovin'. Then she goes back to Africa and says it's fine and dandy for you to see other women?"

  Jack didn't like the way Cy was making it sound. But that was basically it. "It's pretty unusual, I know."

  "Unusual?" said Cy, shaking his head. "Man, Theo must hate your guts."

  Jack could have explained that Theo wasn't jealous in the least, that Theo was nuts about Rene. But Theo liked Andie, too. And still in the back of Jacks mind was Theo's comment about longing for the woman who makes herself unavailable – the implication that Jack had cut Andie out of the picture only because she was the one who really wanted to be in it. But there he went again, overanalyzing everything.

  You done, Swyteck?

  "Yeah, Theo should hate me," said Jack.

  "Turn here," said Cy

  Jack headed up Douglas Road, the southwest entrance to Coconut Grove. The questionable area near the busy highway was Theo's childhood neighborhood. The worst of the old wooden shacks were long gone – including Theo's old house. They'd been razed and replaced by new single-family homes that were freshly painted in pastel colors. Much of the business district, however, retained the look and feel of the old ghetto. Groups of young men hanging out on the sidewalk with nowhere to go. Drug dealers and whores at work behind the boarded windows of dilapidated buildings. Rap music blaring from low-riding cars with metallic paint jobs and shiny chrome wheels. Bars and package stores marked by crude wooden signs that looked as if they'd been painted by Tom Sawyer on crack.

  Cy suddenly fell quiet. He was sitting back in his seat, looking out the window. The dramatic mood swing reminded Jack of the time he and Theo had taken this same shortcut into the Grove. In the span of a single city block, Theo – just like his Uncle Cy – had gone from his usual animated self to staring vacantly out the passenger-side window. It had happened some years earlier, and it was the only mention Theo had ever made to Jack about his mother.

  Theo had pointed out where she lay dead in the street.

  "You okay, Cy?" asked Jack.

  "Mm-hm," he said.

  Soon, the ghetto's vapor lights and tall fences topped with spirals of razor wire gave way to gated streets and oak trees. They were approaching Theo's new neighborhood. Central Grove wasn't crime-free, but the sound of gunshots in this area could just as likely be a doctor shooting his wife's tennis pro as a holdup.

  Jack parked in the visitor space outside Theo's town house. Cy thanked him for the lift and climbed out of the backseat. He appeared a little unsteady walking up the steps. Jack got out and helped him to the front door.

  "Are you okay?" said Jack.

  "It's this damn medicine I'm on," said Cy. "Makes me woozy when I stand up after sittin' for too long."

  Uncle Cy had always seemed old to Jack, but he suddenly looked very old. "Let me help you up to your room."

  Jack sensed that the old man was about to protest, but another one of those dizzy spells came upon him. "I'd appreciate that," Cy said.

  At Jack's behest, Rene followed them upstairs to Cy's room. She switched on the lamp as Jack seated him on the edge of the bed. "Rene's a doctor," said Jack. "You want her to check you out?"

  "I don't need no doctor. Doctors is what got me all screwed up. All these medicines they give me." The old man lay back against his pillow.

  Rene said, "What kind of medication are you on?"

  "I don't know. It's sittin' right there on the nightstand."

  "He had a mild stroke last summer," said Jack.

  Rene read the label. "This is to lower your blood pressure. Your doctor might have to adjust the dose or prescribe something else if you're getting light-headed." Rene took a minute to check his pulse. "Ticker seems fine."

  "Of course it's fine. Everything's fine. Now get lost, you two. Go have fun."

  The old man's eyes were already closed. Rene pulled off his shoes, and Jack switched off the lamp. Then they said good night and went downstairs. Jack suggested that they hang around for ten or fifteen minutes so that Rene could check on him again before they left.

  They sat on the couch in front of the television. Rene snatched up the remote, and Jack was hard-pressed to deny such a pleasure to a woman who was headed back to the primitive corners of Africa's cocoa region in less than thirty-six hours. Jack watched in silence as she switched from Tom Hanks in Sleepless in Seattle to George Clooney in Sisters to an old episode of Thirty Something – again and again.

  "You sure you can't stay past Monday?" said Jack.


  The question brought her surfing to an end. Jack was apparently stuck with Sisters. Not a terrible choice – if you had no testicles.

  "I really can't," she said.

  "Why not?"

  They were seated so close that she was leaning against him, and Jack had both arms wrapped around her. He could feel her body stiffen.

  "I'm the clinic's only doctor."

  "I understand that. But whenever you come to see me, you always leave sooner than planned. Five days is never five days. A week is never a full week."

  "Something always comes up."

  "I -" Jack measured his words, but he decided that it needed to be said. "I honestly don't buy that, Rene."

  His arms were still around her, but it was as if their blanket of comfort had been yanked away and thrown to the cold tile floor. They sat in silence, both staring at the television but neither one watching it. Jack wished they were sitting face-to-face so that he could read her expression.

  "You're right," she said quietly.

  "I am?"

  "Yes. I don't really have to get back to the clinic on Monday I could stay a week. I could stay two weeks."

  Jack's chest tightened. It sounded like he was about to get dumped, but he still had to ask: "So why are you leaving?"

  Slowly she broke away from his embrace, sat up, and faced him. "Because if I stayed any longer, I'm afraid I might never go back."

  She sounded sincere, and Jack wanted to believe her. But somehow he couldn't help wondering if she was speaking from the heart or saying what she thought he wanted to hear.

  Theo's telephone rang. It was across the room on the counter-top, and the answering machine picked up. Theo liked to screen his calls, so the message played loud enough for Jack and Rene to hear every word as it was being recorded.

  "Yo, Theo! Where the fug' are you, man?"

  Jack didn't recognize the voice immediately, and even though he knew he shouldn't listen, he couldn't close his ears.

  "Answer me, Knight! I know you got my message. So where are you, dude? I been waitin' here almost half an hour for you."

  Jack hadn't heard Isaac Reems's voice in years, and they'd had only one telephone conversation. But he was dead certain that Theo's machine was recording the message of a fugitive.

  "Dude, here's the deal," said Reems. "Two thousand bucks. That's all it takes. I'm sure you think I don't know what I'm talkin' about. But trust me, a man hears a lotta shit sittin' in prison as long as I did. So get me two grand, bro'. Just do me a couple of favors. And then I swear, I'll tell you who killed your momma."

  The line clicked. The machine stopped recording.

  Jack and Rene exchanged uneasy glances.

  "What was that all about?" she said.

  Rene was a bit of a New York Times snob and hadn't read the Miami paper or watched any local news. The first she'd heard of Reems's escape was when the cops showed up at Sparky's and Jack had told Theo to go cool off. She hadn't asked any questions – Jack said the cops were chasing rabbits – but in light of this phone call, maybe it was a good thing she was returning early to Africa after all.

  "Excuse me a second," said Jack. "I need to call my client."

  Chapter 11

  Isaac was getting tired of waiting.

  Hours before this follow-up call, he'd left detailed phone messages, one at his home and one at the bar, telling Theo when and where to meet. Not for a second did Isaac worry about Theo calling the cops again. This time Isaac had spelled out exactly what his old friend would get if he showed up.

  Finally, the old leader of the Grove Lords had played his ace in the hole.

  This was the proverbial offer that could not be refused. Sure, they hadn't seen each other in years, but Isaac still knew Theo. They'd hung out together every day for months after the murder of Theo's mother. Tatum got over it in a day or two. But Theo was obsessed with finding her killer. It seemed that a day didn't go by without Theo vowing to slit that bastard's throat the way he'd slit his momma's. Blood that hot never cools. It was irrational, really, the way Theo had managed to block from his memory all the ways in which his drug-addicted mother had failed herself and her children. In life, she had been nothing to him. In death, she became the score he needed to settle, as if his anger over the way she'd chosen to live her life had no way to manifest itself except in Theo s revenge against the man who had sliced her open and left her dead on the street. Whoever he was. And now, after two decades, Theo had the chance to hear his name.

  Where the hell are you, Knight?

  Isaac checked the time on the bank marquee on the street corner. Eighty-one degrees at 1:37 a.m.

  Theo was more than an hour late.

  Isaac had to move. The waitress was still in the trunk, so he didn't have to worry about her reporting the car stolen. But maybe she had a roommate or lived with a boyfriend or her parents. They would expect her home and eventually call the cops, which would trigger a police BOLO mentioning her Mustang. The car had served its immediate purpose. He decided to ditch it in the alley but first he had to deal with the cargo.

  He drew his pistol and popped the trunk. The waitress didn't move. He nudged her. She still didn't respond. He laid his hand on the back of her neck, and she was burning up. It was like the fires of hell in that trunk. The heat had obviously overtaken her. He checked her pulse. She was alive, but he wasn't about to carry her around, dead weight on his shoulders. Wrong place, wrong time, honey.

  No prisoners.

  He closed the trunk and left her there, then walked around the building to the chosen meeting spot. It was behind a restaurant called Quincy's. Back in the 1980s, it used to be a bar called Homeboy's. "Meet me behind Homey's," Isaac had told Theo in his first message. That was what they used to call it. Even if the cops had tapped Theo's telephones, they had no way of knowing that "Homey s" referred to a ghetto bar called Homeboy's that had closed almost twenty years earlier.

  Quincy's restaurant was closed, which made Isaac uneasy about standing around waiting for Theo. Someone might report a prowler. The Dumpster offered the only hiding place. Fugitives had holed up in worse places, he figured. He climbed up and lowered himself into waist-deep trash that soiled his clean clothes and squished beneath his shoes. This sucked in a big way, but it was almost funny In a wry moment of nostalgia, he wished he'd run to South Miami. Back in the day, the joke among Grove Lords was that you could knock off a bank and clean out a strip mall right under the nose of a South Miami cop – unless your getaway driver forgot to put a quarter in the parking meter. Then you were dead meat.

  The good news was that he hadn't heard police choppers or sirens since coming north. But Isaac would be an easier target after sunrise. And the odor of restaurant garbage was getting to him. He had to move soon.

  "Come on, Theo," he muttered. "Where's my money, bro'?"

  Maybe Theo hadn't listened to his messages yet. But Isaac couldn't let his mind go there. If Theo wasn't coming, that left Isaac in a stinking garbage can with no one to help him thread his way to freedom through a blanket of cops. He was screwed.

  Totally screwed.

  He heard something. Footsteps? He sat perfectly still and listened. Someone was coming down the alley He rose up in the Dumpster just enough to peer over the rusty rim. The footfalls grew louder. It sounded like one person, and there was no beam from a flashlight leading the way – pretty reliable signs that it wasn't the cops. A silhouette appeared at the end of the alley and stopped. Isaac couldn't tell who it was, but this was exactly where he had told Theo to meet him, and the outline in the darkness was that of a large man. In silence, Isaac drew his weapon and took aim, just in case. A gunshot would bring the cops, so he had to avoid discharging his firearm at all costs. He wanted to call out Theo's name, but he held his tongue. Let him speak first, Isaac told himself.

  The man said nothing. Slowly, he reached into his pants pocket. Isaac watched, taking extra care not to make a sound as the man removed something and tossed it on the ground a fe
w feet in front of him. With his other hand, the man switched on a palm-sized flashlight that sent a laserlike beam cutting through the darkness. The light was on only a few seconds – long enough for Isaac to see that there was a roll of money on the ground. Then the man switched it off.

  Isaac's pulse quickened. Again, however, he reminded himself not to reveal his position until this visitor removed all doubt as to his identity.

  The man said nothing.

  Sirens blared in the distance. Isaac was suddenly aware of the sweat beading on his brow. He listened, hoping the man would speak. All he heard were sirens. And maybe helicopters, too. Yes, that was definitely the whir of choppers, and it seemed to be growing louder. The manhunt was coming north – toward him.

  The man started forward. Isaac's finger was on the trigger. He wasn't sure what to do about the slow and steady approach of this silent silhouette. Then the advance halted. Isaac could breathe again. But not for long. The man bent down, picked up the roll of bills that he'd tossed to the ground, turned, and headed back toward the dark alley.

  He's leaving!

  More sirens. Helicopters were closing fast. Daylight was only a few short hours away. If Isaac didn't make this connection, his only option was to use the waitress – but a hostage standoff was the sure-fire end for any fugitive. All the help he needed to complete his escape was just twenty feet away. Twenty-five. Thirty.

  "Theo!"

  The man stopped and turned.

  Isaac rose from his position of safety and concealment in the Dumpster, revealing himself from the chest up. "That you, Theo?"

  No answer. The man simply reached inside his pocket and, like before, tossed the roll of bills onto the ground in front of him. Isaac's gaze followed the cash. The diversion was just enough to delay his reaction to the blur of a hand that pulled a pistol and took aim at Isaac's face. The entire motion was completed in a split second, but for Isaac it seemed like an eternity.