Gagliano,Anthony - Straits of Fortune.wps

by Unknown

  "I don't know. It's like some kind of invisible padding you wear. You like men--at least from the waist down you like them--and you like them to look at you, except that the moment they do, it's like they've shown their hand, and you get disgusted." "That's not true," she said indignantly. "Okay, then. I take it back. Besides, I couldn't have han- dled both you and Vivian at same time even if it had come down to that." "I doubt you could handle me at all." "About the only thing I can handle right now is another glass of scotch." "Well," Susan said, "look on the bright side. At least you're rid of that little bitch." "Yeah," I said. "One down and one to go." So much for staying on her good side.

  A week later I came home from the gym and found an envelope under my door. It had no return address on it, but the scent of perfume told me who it was from. The letter had a postmark from Bimini and had been sent three days after Vivian and the Colonel left Williams and me standing on the beach up in Edgewater. I looked over my shoulder to see if Hackbart was sneaking up on me with a lasso, but there was no one there, so I locked the door behind me and opened the letter. It was written on stationery from a hotel named the Beachcomber.

  Dear Jack: Please write back to me as soon as you receive this letter. I am so worried about you. I know you don't be- lieve me, but I really do love you. I hope you can come and see me someday. What happened to Williams? My father is very concerned that he was picked up by 230

  the police. Please contact me as soon as possible. Love always, Vivian

  I read the note again a couple of times just for effect, then tore it up and flushed it down the toilet. Then I sat at the little table in the kitchen and wrote a reply.

  Dear Vivian: I'm doing fine, and business is great. I'm even train- ing Susan again. You remember her, don't you? Tell Dad I said hello and how's his old hammer hangin'? Williams? I'm afraid his health has taken a turn for the worse. Tell your dad he'd better start looking for a replacement. Try the ape cage at the Havana Zoo. You might find somebody there with the right quali- fications. Stay in touch, but not by phone--the cops may not be through with me yet. Love, Jack

  After things had settled down and nobody showed up to kill or arrest me, I decided to take a trip to New York, just to get out of Miami for a while before business picked up again. I decided to drive. I could have flown, of course, but I wanted to feel the distance. It had been five years, and while hardly anybody thinks of New York as a holy city, anyplace is holy if that's where you were born, if that's the first place your spirit will fly to when you die. I had the feeling that when my time came, mine would fly to New York, but now I had business there. I was going home, and I wanted it to take a while. As it turned out, it took longer than I figured, because somewhere in the middle of Georgia, the T-Bird snapped a fan belt. That set me back a day, but I didn't care. 231

  It was early in September, and most of my clients--rich, traveling bastards that they were--were still out of town. Despite the continuing protests of the Thunderbird, I made it to New York about eight o'clock on a Friday night, in the middle of a thunderstorm that would have done jus- tice to Miami, so I checked in to a motel out in Queens, ate dinner at an all-night Greek diner that I remembered from the old days, and later on fell asleep watching the Jets give the Dolphins a good preseason whipping. Some things never change. I spent the next day visiting a few old friends, some of them from the college days and a few from the cop days. I went to a bar named Chauncey's in the West Village where police and firefighters used to hang out and sat at the bar and drank one drink too many. All the old guys from my other life were still there, and they treated me like the prodigal son. The bartender still remembered me, and that's always a good sign. Still, when I left the bar that night and walked through what's left now of Little Italy, I understood for certain that I really didn't belong there anymore. Sure, you can go home again. You just can't stay there for very long. I wandered around Manhattan for a while looking for the New York I had known, but I couldn't quite find it. It seemed always just out of reach, always a potential, a remembered scent, lingering maybe just around the next corner. Oh, most of the places were still there. The noise was the same, and the crowds and the pigeons were all there, but somehow I felt like a ghost. I walked a lot. I walked looking for a sense of nostalgia I couldn't find, and I felt, finally, somehow trai- torous for not having found it. I walked uptown to Fifty- ninth Street where Central Park begins, then turned east and walked over to the Plaza Hotel. There I sat on the edge of the fountain and watched the people go by. After a while I came 232

  to the conclusion that there were a few too many of them. Soon there would be one less. The next day I put on the khaki suit again, along with my one good tie, and drove straight up Queens Boulevard into the neighborhood called Jamaica. There was one last thing to do. I was nervous and a little scared, and part of me thought for sure that I was being stupid. Let sleeping dogs lie, they say, but maybe there are some dogs that need to be awakened when the time comes, when their sleep has done as much good as it's likely to do. I wasn't sure, but I kept driving. The cop I shot was named Edward Stuart. It was a good English name with the sound of royalty to it, but Stuart was a black man, all of twenty-nine at the time I shot him, and he had grown up in the same projects where he died. I'd been warned not to go to his funeral, but, being me, I went anyway and got the crap beat out of me by a half dozen or so of his relatives, along with one white guy, another cop, who decided he didn't like me much either. It was a bira- cial beating, which shows that people can work together. I hadn't even fought back that hard. I did just enough not to get beaten too badly. I don't have full recall of the evening's festivities, but I do believe it was one of Ed Stuart's brothers who eventually drove me home. A few weeks later I left town. I got the Stuarts' phone number and address from infor- mation and made the call from a phone outside a Shell sta- tion on Jamaica Avenue, half hoping that no one would be home and that I'd be able to drive home with the coward's comfort of having tried. But still, there were some pretty good reasons for not contacting the widow of the man I had shot. Two years is not a long time, and there was no telling how far she had moved on in her life, but no matter what the answer to that question was, I would still be a sorry reminder 233

  of a terrible time. There was another question that bothered me as well: Had I come all this long, stubborn, disastrous way for Beth Stuart and her son or for Jack Vaughn? A boy answered the phone, and I almost hung up, but then I heard a voice that didn't quite sound like me ask if Mrs. Stuart was in. He yelled for his mother, and a wom- an's agitated voice came back and asked who it was. I told him, and he shouted my name so loud it embarrassed me to be Jack Vaughn. Then I heard a silence so wide I thought I might never reach the other side of it, then the sound of footsteps. "Hello. Who's this?" asked Beth Stuart. "Jack Vaughn," a voice said. "What can I do for you, Mr. Vaughn?" "I'm in town for a few days. I was wondering if I could stop by for a couple of minutes." "What for?" "Look, I've come a long way for a few minutes of your time. It won't take long." "What? To apologize again? Mr. Vaughn, listen to me. I just put flowers on my husband's grave. What can you say to that?" "I know," I said. "I saw them: yellow roses. I put mine next to them." She let out a long breath. "All right, Mr. Vaughn," she said wearily. "You come on by." Beth Stuart met me at the door of her little house on a tree- lined street with a face that held more suspicion than mercy. She was a tall, good-looking woman in her early thirties, with a high forehead and bright, intelligent eyes, and she was dressed for church. She invited me into a small living room overflowing with furniture. A football sat perched in a black recliner across from a television set. I picked it up and sat down and glanced around. There were a lot of pictures 234

  on the wall, but I didn't want to look at them. Instead I stud- ied the football just to give my eyes something to do. "That belongs to my son." "That would be Robert, right?" I said. Beth Stuart looked at me as though I'd said something in a strange language. She was very gracious under the circum- stances, but I got the f
eeling of some great force being held at bay by a wall of well-worn civility. She went into the kitchen and came back with a pitcher of iced tea and watched me intently as I filled first her glass and then my own. "What can I do for you, Mr. Vaughn?" she asked. Nei- ther of us touched our tea. The glasses were just a pair of witnesses. I put the football down next to the recliner, then reached into my pocket and got out the cashier's check for forty grand and put it on the table. "I would have put it in the trust fund, but the woman at the bank told me it had been transferred someplace else. She didn't know where. Anyway, I figured it might come in handy for the boy's college or something." She picked up the check, studied it for a moment, then slid it back to me across the polished teak surface of the coffee table. Her face was hard, but it wasn't anything I hadn't ex- pected. It wasn't as hard as the lid of a coffin. "That's all right, Mr. Vaughn. We're doing just fine. We don't need any of your money. I've already forgiven you, as the Lord says we must. If you can't forgive yourself, then there's not a blessed thing I can do for you." I took a sip of iced tea and set the glass on the table. I stared down at the carpet for a moment and tried to think of something else to say. When I looked up, Beth Stuart was staring at me defiantly. "You're right, Mrs. Stuart," I said. "I'll be going now. Sorry to interrupt your day. Thanks for the tea." "You're most welcome." 235

  She stood up. The message was clear: Hit the road, Jack. I started to reach for the check, but instead I sat back. "Look," I said. "Maybe you can help me out. I don't know. I'm trying to do something here. Can you understand what I'm saying?" She met my eyes, and her lips started to tremble, but she'd had much practice in being tough, and the tremor vanished without a trace. I don't know what she was seeing. Maybe she saw a man at the end of his rope, because something changed in her face. And then, as though driven by a force of nature, the front door flew open and a boy of about ten with a basketball under one arm burst into the living room. He started to run up the stairs but stopped short when he saw me. I stood up. "Who are you?" he asked boldly. He was tall for his age. He wore the baggy satin shorts of a basketball player. I could see his father in him. I glanced at his mother. Our eyes locked. "This is Mr. Vaughn," Beth Stuart said. She hesitated for a moment, then said, "He knew your father." The boy's eyes widened, and he came slowly down the stairs and studied me intently for a moment, as though I were an unexpected statue in a strange city. I looked at his mother in confusion. She nodded. The boy and I shook hands. I didn't know what to do or what to say. "You knew my father?" he asked incredulously, as though his father had been some great hero out of antiquity, some Hercules so powerful and remote that anyone who had known him was lifted automatically to the level of myth, to legend. It took everything I had in me to keep my bearings. "Sure I knew him," I said. "Anyway, I was just stopping by to give my regards." "You're a police officer?" the boy asked. This, too, was incredible. 236

  "I was. I'm retired now." "You're too young to be retired," he said. "Maybe you're right," I said. "You better go get cleaned up for church, Mr. Robert," his mother said. "Mr. Vaughn is coming with us. Isn't that right, Mr. Vaughn?" Our eyes met again, and I nodded. "Whatever you say, Mrs. Stuart."

  T wo hours later, after the service, Beth Stuart and her son walked me out to where the Thunderbird sat waiting in a light rain. Robert had already loosened his tie and seemed anxious to shed his suit and become a basketball player again. He said good-bye and ran off toward the house, shed- ding his jacket before he reached the front door. I watched him go with a mixture of relief and sadness. I didn't think I would ever see him again. Of course, you see people every day whom you won't ever see again, but it's different when you know it. "I guess you'll be heading home now, Mr. Vaughn," Beth Stuart said, her hand over her head to shield it from the rain. "You think this old rustbucket will make it back to Florida?" "I don't know," I said. "Maybe you ought to pray for it." "I don't pray for cars, Mr. Vaughn, only for people." I nodded. The rain was urging me to go. "Thanks for the church," I said. "Thanks for everything." I started to walk toward the car. When I turned back, Mrs. Stuart was still standing there watching me. "You're going to have to tell him the truth one day," I said to her. "I mean, about what happened and all." "I know," she said. "But not yet, not here, and not today. He's got some years left before he has to know everything. Childhood needs to have some mercy in it." Her eyes were glistening, but maybe it was the rain. 237

  "Okay," I said. "You take care now, Jack Vaughn. My hair's getting wet. I never thought you were a bad man. Now I know for sure, but just the same, a little church now and then won't do you any harm either." "That's for sure," I told her, thinking of Williams, of Matson, of everything. "That's for sure." Then I turned the car south, and the rain escorted me out of the city and onto the highway toward home--or at least Miami. It was still hard to say if they were both the same thing. AC K N OW L E D G M E N TS

  A special thanks to the creative writing department at Flor- ida International University for their help in the writing of this book. About the Author Born in New York City, Anthony Gagliano now lives in Miami Beach, Florida. www.anthonygaglianobooks.com

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author. High praise for the hottest, wildest, most electrifying debut thriller in years

  ANTHONY GAGLIANO's STRAITS OF FORTUNE "Straits of Fortune is a smashing debut thriller, evoking all the magic and mystery that modern day Miami has to offer, its mile-a-minute storyline etched in prose as finely chiseled as a body-builder's six-pack. This guy could end up making the rest of us South Florida crime writers look like 98-pound weaklings." Les Standiford, author of See You in Hell and Havana Run

  "Straits of Fortune is a ripping good Florida yarn, part Carl Hiassen, part Randy Wayne White, and first-novelist Gagli- ano is quick with a good, hard-boiled simile. It's a safe bet that Jack will be back--and that the many fans of Hiassen, White, and the rest of the Florida crime pantheon will add Gagliano to their list of must-reads." Booklist (* Starred Review *)

  "Gagliano is a welcome and powerful new voice in the Flor- ida crime scene, deftly gene-splicing Mike Hammer and `Miami Vice' as he takes the beach by storm. Only com- plaint: I'm left hanging for the follow-up." Tim Dorsey, author of Hurricane Punch

  "[A] great summer read." Contra Costa Times "Although Florida is awash in top-notch mystery writers . . . there is always room for more good storytellers who find inspiration in the state's vagaries. . . . Anthony Gagliano makes a most welcome debut in the well-plotted, gritty Straits of Fortune. . . . . [An] exciting story. . . . Gagliano in- fuses Straits of Fortune with an energized plot reminiscent of early Lawrence Block and Robert Crais. . . . Gagliano also nails the South Florida background. . . . This new series is off to a fortunate beginning." Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

  "A hot, impressive debut thriller. . . . There are double crosses galore. . . . Gagliano's dark, pulse-pounding, action- packed tale is tough to put down; it's an accomplished tale by an exciting newcomer." Lansing State Journal

  "Anthony Gagliano has re-invented Florida noir with fresh humor and lovely writing. Hard to believe this is a first novel--it's got all the right moves. A crime-lover's dream cruise." April Smith, author of Good Morning Killer and Be the One

  "The author takes what could have been a cookie-cutter whodunit and twists the genre to craft a contemporary action-adventure novel well-suited to the summer movie blockbuster crowd. Straits of Fortune begs to be enjoyed with a cool drink at the beach." St. Petersburg Times

  "Gagliano is a welcome addition to the Miami noir all-stars." Florida International Magazine "Gagliano's debut crackles with the same energy that char- acterized Robert Crais's early Elvis Cole novels. . . . Gagli- ano's Miami is a jittery mix of beautiful women, handsome bad boys, thugs, smugglers, and weird eccentrics, all of whom the author draws with panache. With Jack Vaughn's first outing, Gagliano makes an auspicious beginning on a promising new series." Publishers Weekly

  "Anthony Gagliano's Straits of Fortun
e combines old school noir with a modern `Miami Vice' edge. . . . Gagliano pulls out all the stops with one high-octane sequence after an- other that never lets up until the final page." Madison County Herald

  "The sort of novel you crave when you have a long, hot, blissfully free afternoon ahead. . . . Gagliano stuffs Straits with action, and his tough-guy narration never wavers." Miami Herald

  "The writing is excellent, the plot is unpredictable, the char- acters are interesting, and the pace is genuinely unrelenting." Boca Raton News

  "Straits of Fortune is one of those books you want to keep on reading no matter how late it gets. . . . This is one you don't want to miss." Bestsellersworld.com Copyright This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright � 2007 by Anthony STRAITS OF FORTUNE. Gagliano. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non- exclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.