Hell's Bay

by James W. Hall

  “Fair enough.”

  Sugarman edged to the center of the room. Being in close quarters with a cop whose weapon was drawn was like coming upon a hammerhead while snorkeling. Look away, go about your business. If he wanted you, he could have you.

  “Mind if I get an apple? I’m starving.”

  Sugarman moved to the kitchen before Timmy could answer.

  “Get back in here.”

  He was at the sink, a quick pass of his left hand across the silverware in the drying rack, while he reached out with his right for an apple. He managed to palm a table knife and turned to Timmy, holding out an apple.

  “Care for one?”

  “Put it back.”

  “I’m starving,” Sugarman said.

  “Put it back in the bowl, turn around, and walk slowly into the living room. Do it now.”

  Sugarman got the knife up his shirt cuff, pinching it in place with one finger.

  Timmy followed him back into the living room.

  “Don’t turn around,” she said. “Raise your hands straight up. You know the drill.”

  Sugarman lifted his hands and waited. Knife pinched against his wrist.

  She tapped her pistol barrel once against his spine, then frisked him one-handed, sliding up and down his jeans, to his crotch, then around his waist. Up and down his rib cage. Patting his pockets, front and back. Slower than seemed strictly professional, or maybe that was wishful thinking. Then another tap against the spine to let him know she was done.

  He stepped forward, lowered his hands and sat in a blue wingback chair. She took a seat across the room, ten feet.

  “Houses this close together,” Sugar said, “lots of people would hear the gunshot.”

  “A black man burglarizing a house,” she said.

  “Yeah,” he said. “You’d probably get a raise.”

  “I wish you hadn’t come to my town,” she said. “And I wish I’d kept my mouth shut a whole lot tighter.”

  “But I did. And you didn’t.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m curious why. I don’t think I tricked anything out of you.”

  “Give yourself more credit. You noticed what a lot of men wouldn’t.”

  “You know what?” he said. “I think you’ve been waiting for me. You knew it was coming. You had to. A person like Abigail Bates, no way that’s just going to blow over.”

  “Okay,” she said. “There’s some of that. Counting off the seconds. Looking up when the door opened. Sure, I expected someone to come.”

  “And yet you weren’t all that prepared to fake it.”

  “You’re better than you think, Sugarman. Disarming, is what you are.”

  “Oh, come on. I’m not that good. I think this has been burning a hole in your gut. You’ve been waiting for some-body to confess to.”

  She forced a smile.

  “It usually works the other way,” she said. “The person the gun’s pointed at does the confessing.”

  “So where do we go from here?”

  “Why don’t you tell me what you know, or what you think you know. And then you tell me what you think you’re going to do about it.”

  “Okay,” he said. “That’s fair.”

  He could feel the knife cold against his wrist.

  “So go.”

  “You and Sasha were friends. Best friends.”

  “And you know that how?”

  “Photo album, back bedroom.”

  She gave him a quiet look and shook her head.

  Sugarman glanced out the front window. In the yard across the street two couples were having a neighborly chat. A handful of kids taking turns on a slippery slide rolled out on the front lawn in front of them.

  “So C.C. Olsen dies. It’s ugly. It tears her up. Sasha’s been in Iraq, seen terrible shit, but losing her husband like that, no, that’s worse. Especially because it looks like the cancer didn’t just pop out of his genetic code. In some way or another it was Bates cancer. Milligan cancer.”

  Timmy Whalen shifted her eyes to the floor between them.

  One of the girls across the street, seven, maybe eight, was sprinting too fast and throwing herself headfirst onto the slippery slide, a reckless dive. The parents weren’t really watching, and Sugar felt like going to the door and shouting at them to be more goddamn vigilant. Then he remembered the Glock in Timmy’s lap and eased back against the cushions.

  “Then there’s Carter Mosley,” Sugar said. “Your phone buddy.”

  Timmy flinched and released a breath. He’d crossed a line with that one. This was the watershed moment for Timmy Whalen. One way or the other, it was the beginning of a new way of life for her.

  “Here’s how it went,” Sugar said. “Mosley calls you on the morning of July eighteenth, right after Abigail Bates left his office. He informed you of her destination, that she was going canoeing on the Peace River. For some time she’d been suggesting she might do this, so you’ve all been waiting for this day. As soon as Mosley hangs up, you call Sasha, pass it on. He calls you, you call her. Like laundering money. You don’t deposit your ill-gotten gains directly in a bank, just like you don’t call the hit man’s home phone. You dial the hit man’s friend, the sheriff, of all people, leave it for her to do.

  “So there. You call, Sasha gets into a bathing suit. Maybe the green one hanging back there in her bathroom. She jumps in her truck and off she goes to the highway Ms. Bates would have to use to get to the canoe place. She spots Abigail’s car, follows her till she turns off, just to be sure, then goes up the river to where she knows Ms. Bates will pass by. Sasha knows the river. Everybody around here knows the river and where the tough turns are. So she goes there and waits.”

  “Why does she do that? The sheriff.”

  “Why does the sheriff get her hands dirty?”

  “Yes. Why would she do that? Something that extreme.”

  “Oh, I think anybody who’s been a cop could sympathize. It’s because of that oath she’s taken. She’s come to believe Abigail Bates is the biggest threat to the people of the community she’s sworn to protect and defend. So when the opportunity arises, she aids her friend in removing that threat.”

  Timmy Whalen was holding his eyes.

  “And you, Mr. Sugarman? You approve of that kind of behavior?”

  “I wish I did.”

  “You don’t. You don’t see how that would serve justice? More than standing by and letting kids sit all day long inside a poisoned schoolhouse.”

  “I can see the temptation. I’ll give you that.”

  He studied the bright pinpoints in the center of her caramel eyes. If she was about to kill him she wasn’t giving it away. If anything, her eyes looked sad. Worn out. But it was not an observation he’d bet his life on. So he kept his legs taut, ready to spring.

  “Let me get this straight, Sugarman. If you’d been in my place, you would have resisted the temptation. You would’ve been strong. Knowingly sacrifice more young people to the great god of capitalism and the Boy Scout honor code. Is that it?”

  “A sheriff doesn’t get to decide those things. I wish I could lie and say otherwise, but, no, you did wrong.”

  She licked her upper lip, swallowed, then reset her hand on the Glock.

  “Well, I appreciate your candor.”

  Sugarman checked on the kids across the street. The parents had dispersed and the children were bored with the slippery slide and had moved on to their skateboards. No broken necks yet. Once again his anxieties had flared over nothing. Been happening a lot lately. Ever since his own girls got so damn exploratory, Sugar found himself worrying about threats the rest of the world didn’t seem to notice.

  “If you’d done your job a little differently,” Sugar said, “if you’d gone looking into the problem itself instead of joining this conspiracy and sanctioning the killing of people you thought responsible, you might’ve found out those children are being poisoned by the school itself, not the gyp stack.”

  “What?
”

  “The radioactive waste, the gypsum, it’s in the walls, the plasterboard, the cement.”

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “Your disgruntled doctor Dillard filled me in. Long time ago when that school was built, Bates International owned the construction company that did the work. Penny-pinching bastard. He used gypsum throughout the school. All that free mining waste he had access to, he used that, and that’s where the high readings come from. They’ve known it for a while and they’re sitting on it. Carter Mosley knows, Milligan knows. That school’s got to be torn down. No choice. Not one more Monday morning can those kids walk into that building.”

  “In one day you found this out.”

  “The day’s still young.”

  “What do you want?”

  “To know the rest.”

  “And then you’ll go away and leave us alone?”

  “You know I can’t do that.”

  “Which of the rest do you want to know?”

  “The details, like did you and Mosley and Sasha sit down and plan this out?”

  “It didn’t happen like that. Not like that at all.”

  “Mosley recruited Sasha?”

  “You’re missing it,” she said.

  “Mona? Mona was driving the bus?”

  Timmy Whalen studied his eyes as if trying to do to him what he’d tried with her—read past the surface, evaluate his threat.

  “Goddamn Mona,” she said. “She took advantage. She knew how vulnerable Sasha was. Home from the war, lost her husband, son sick. Mona came over one night, sat right where you’re sitting, and propositioned her.”

  “I could’ve sworn Mona was the grieving granddaughter.”

  “Well, she fooled you.”

  “Yeah, fooled me good.”

  “She’s a sly one. She and Mosley worked out some kind of deal. A way to sideline John. Mona gets the environmental stuff she wants, and for Mosley, it’s what it always is with business guys.”

  “A bigger bite of the apple.”

  “So Mona meets with Sasha, makes her pitch. She offers money, fifty thousand to take down Abigail. Sasha needs the cash for medical debts, but it’s not just that. It’s the chance to fix the problem, do something for the greater good. You ever heard of that concept?”

  “Once or twice. A lot of bad shit happens in its name.”

  “You’re not going to cut me any slack.”

  “I’m listening. I’m trying to see your side.”

  “Oh, yeah, my own Mr. Empathy.”

  She lifted the pistol, adjusted its fit in her hand, and laid it back in her lap.

  “Sasha confided in me,” Timmy said. “Told me about Mona’s scheme, basically asked my permission. How’m I going to refuse? Her husband died, she’s losing her son. Abigail Bates was a coldhearted bitch. You saw her in action. Thumbing her nose at the town. She was eighty-six years old, for godsakes.”

  “So there’s a cutoff age for murder? Pass eighty-five, you’re fair game?”

  “You’re not even trying to see the other side.”

  Sugarman was silent. Working to translate her tone. Did her confession mean she was about to hand the pistol over, or use it on him? Sugar was guessing that Timmy Whalen probably didn’t know the answer to that herself.

  “So Milligan wasn’t part of the cabal?”

  “That’s right. Just Mona and Carter Mosley.”

  “They recruited Sasha, then she recruited you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “That was a clever move.”

  “Clever?”

  “You should be honored, Timmy.”

  She stared at him and said nothing.

  “Mona and Mosley have a lot of respect for your abilities. They could’ve brought in anybody to murder Abigail. Some out-of-town contractor. But they were worried about you. Worried you’d figure it out. So they draw in your friend. Make sure you’re on board before they put the plan in motion. They used Sasha to neutralize you. Once your hands are dirty, they’re home free.”

  She closed her eyes briefly, fingers tightening on the Glock.

  “But before the plan could work, Thorn pops up. Fly in the ointment.”

  “Where is he now, your friend?”

  “Fishing somewhere in the Everglades. Why?”

  She dropped her eyes, stared down at the burgundy rug. Sighed.

  “Why, Timmy?”

  “The gun-shop break-in this morning. The rifle, handgun, all that.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I think it was Sasha. I believe she hit that boatyard, too, stole a twenty-footer on its trailer.”

  Sugarman shot to his feet, and she came to hers.

  “Easy, now. Easy.”

  “That goddamn houseboat. That’s what this is about. Take Thorn out in the Everglades and kill him. That’s what you’re telling me?”

  “Down in the chair. When you sit, we talk.”

  The pistol’s aim was fixed on a spot a few inches above his navel. Her hand was steady, her body tensed to unload. A trained shooter with a trusty hand. He could see that in the easy way she leveled the weapon, in the neutral focus of her eyes.

  Sugarman sat. He touched his shirt pocket and felt the folded paper. Thorn’s exact address in the middle of nowhere.

  After Sugarman was settled in the chair, Timmy took her seat again.

  “When you mentioned Thorn’s name earlier, I realized what might be going down. I didn’t know they were targeting him. No one told me.”

  “They didn’t need your permission this time,” he said. “It’s out of your jurisdiction. Nothing for you to cover up.”

  Sugar was perched on the edge of the cushion. Ready to cut left or right, or rush the woman head-on. Whatever made itself available.

  “Take a minute, Sugarman. Stand back, see the big picture. Bates is huge, a global force, thousands of enterprises all around the world, a hell of a lot more than phosphate mining. Having the right people call the shots, someone like Mona, that could mean more than just doing right by Summerland, Florida. It could mean moving the world in a better direction. Fix a hundred Pine Tree Schools, a thousand creeks and rivers.”

  “That’s the speech, is it?”

  “Yes, that’s the speech.”

  “My friend has to die,” Sugar said, “so there’ll be peace on earth.”

  She gave him a bruised look.

  “I’m sorry about your friend. I had nothing to do with that.”

  “Not true, Timmy. Chain of cause and effect. You were a crucial link. You still are. Whatever’s happening down in the Glades is because you gave your friend a pass.”

  Out in the street a white Lincoln Navigator pulled to the curb. A little man got out and started up the Olsens’ walkway. Carter Mosley in his poet’s uniform. Blue denim shirt, khakis, moccasins.

  “What’s Mosley doing here? He coming to confess, turn himself in?”

  “No,” Timmy said. “He’s here to help me dispose of your body.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  She fired a round every other second, as if timing the trigger pulls to her unhurried pulse. The wind was dying down. Her boat held steady about thirty yards off the Mothership, suspended in some perfect stasis between the incoming tide and the northerly breeze, as if God himself was collaborating with her.

  There was something dreamlike about the cadence of her firing. Like a drumbeat that gave an orderly rhythm to the wild confusion of shattering glass and screams.

  In the first few minutes of the fusillade, I managed to slip into the water on the submerged port side, then duck about three feet below the surface and frog-kick twenty feet north. I came up quickly for a breath and dove back as a spurt of water erupted two feet to the right of my face.

  I grabbed Holland’s left ankle and sidestroked back to the loading platform, tugging him along. Twice the water dimpled close beside me.

  I wasn’t sure if he was still alive. His eyes were open, but if he was breathing I couldn’t detect it.<
br />
  While Rusty helped boost him aboard, slugs blasted golfball holes in the fiberglass behind us. One of the Mercury outboards took a hit that tore open the cover; another round ricocheted off its props, snapped one blade, and set the others spinning. The bob and dip of Sasha Olsen’s boat was probably all that was keeping us alive.

  As we positioned Holland on his back, he grunted once and drooled a shot glass of spume. One round had scraped his throat, another had winged his right arm. Ugly flesh wounds. He swallowed and gritted his teeth and seemed to be trying to speak.

  I tilted down to hear him.

  “Fuck-er.”

  It coul’ve been one word, or it coul’ve been two.

  Then he shut his eyes and began to moan some off-key song.

  Thirty feet out, Annette floated faceup, the upper portion of her skull gone. The tide had her in its grip and was dragging her body south faster than I could swim. The city girl whose been-there-done-that smugness never gave the Everglades a chance. Usually the jaded scoffers were converted by a few hours in that wilderness. Maybe it woul’ve happened eventually with Annette. Then again, she might have been one of those rare ones who were constitutionally unable to yield to forces larger than themselves. Their selfimportance was so deeply rooted, so habitual, they were immune to the grace that nature can confer and found endless ways to scorn its power.

  “Why’s she staying out there? Why not come finish the job? She has to know we’re helpless.”

  “Maybe she’s having too much fun,” I said.

  I slung Holland over my shoulder and Rusty waved me ahead. I lugged him up the four-rang ladder and rolled him onto his back in front of the salon door. I was slumped low, as another slug shattered the tinted window three feet overhead, and a moment later the window beside it blew apart. Holland winced and grumbled a feeble complaint.

  At the top of the ladder, Rusty faltered and lost her footing, then I saw her face go out of focus, and I lunged for her right hand.

  She huffed deep and long as if she’d lifted too much weight.

  Her eyes fixed on mine for half a second, then her mouth went slack. I grabbed the front of her shirt and slung her on top of me and fell backward, a double body-slam, and spun us down the slope of the tilted deck out of Sasha’s sights.