by Jeff Lindsay
But even love of my hometown would not protect me if somebody in Room 1221 was still breathing. I drew my Ruger and followed Brian across the tatty carpet to the partially open door. Gently, carefully, gun raised in front of him, Brian pushed the door open with his foot. His body blocked my sight of the room; he was really being quite protective. I could only watch his back as he swept the pistol from left to right, and then abruptly dropped it to his side. “Your plan worked a little too well, brother,” he said, and he moved aside.
I leaned into the room. The body blocking the door was the second of Raul’s gunmen, the one Brian didn’t know. The large raw hole where his left eye had been was a pretty good sign that he was no longer among the living. And beyond him, over beside the bed, was the rest of our little party.
Cesar, the Very Bad Man, had turned out to be Not Quite Bad Enough. He lay on his back, or most of him did. Several small parts of him were actually displayed on the wall behind him, decorating the two holes in the plasterboard made by the two shots that put them there. There was enough gore lying around him on the floor that there was no need to make sure that Cesar was dead.
Both of Raul’s gunmen. Dead and gone and far beyond the reach of any questioning technique I knew of, unless we got a Ouija board. I was no closer to finding my kids than I’d been two hours ago. Some plan. Nothing to show for it but more dead bodies.
I suppose I should have felt some kind of guilt, but of course, I never have and I hope I never will. And in this case, it would have been the height of hypocrisy, since I had arranged for this to happen. My only regret was that we didn’t have a live gunman. Without that, without someone to tell us where the children were, the whole thing had been pointless.
Or nearly pointless: One very large point had been made.
Directly in front of Cesar was Detective Anderson.
Anderson as I knew him was many things, and most of them were unpleasant, but one thing he was as well was, apparently, a better shot than I would have thought. Two head shots, two kills. And he was also quite a bit tougher than I’d have guessed.
He sat on the floor, his back against the foot of the bed, his legs splayed straight out in front of him. His hands had fallen by his sides, one of them still clutching a Glock pistol.
Beside the other hand the shoe box he’d carried in had fallen to the floor and spilled open, revealing several large plastic baggies filled with some white powdery substance.
Anderson himself wasn’t moving. There were three bright red circles on the front of his cheap white shirt. Any one of them might have killed him. Three of them absolutely had. But as stupid as he was, Anderson apparently didn’t know that he was dead. As I stepped toward him to be certain, I could see that his chest was moving, very faintly, and one eyelid flickered open and slowly, dizzily focused on me.
For one long moment he stared, and I stared back. His lips parted and moved a little; he tried to say, “Help,” and nothing happened, except that one of the chest wounds spouted a tiny bit more blood.
I squatted down beside him. Here was the relentless dumb ass who had tried to ruin my life, and come very close to succeeding, and for once I really wished I had emotions, so I could enjoy this a little more.
“I’m sorry,” I said to him. “Did you say help? You’re really asking me for help?”
He just looked at me out of the one bloodshot eye he could open and moved his lips again, like a fish that had been out of water far too long. The eyelid fluttered and then opened wide, as if he finally realized who he was talking to.
“Yes, it’s me,” I said happily. “Remember you said it isn’t over?” I leaned in as close to his ear as I could get without actually touching him. “Now,” I said to him, “it is over. At least for you.”
I was just in time; Anderson’s eye got wider and wider, still fixed on me, and I saw the old familiar beauty of That Moment, the final second when you realize it is the final second and there will never be any more of them, not for you, not ever again, and all the simple and wonderful things you took for granted, like breathing and sunshine and everything else in the world aboveground, all that starts to recede, pulling away from you slowly as you try to hang on to it, and then whirling away faster and faster and spinning you down into the endless darkness—and then you are gone and it is all over forever.
I watched all this in Anderson’s eye, the awareness that this was It and I was watching It and I followed it, as always, feeling this time like all the others that special sense of quiet bliss that comes from witnessing that moment, and if this time it felt just a little better, I had earned it.
I watched as that last awareness faded away to no awareness. And then Anderson’s legs twitched, and the slow movement of his chest stopped, and he seemed to grow just a little smaller and a little dirtier and then he was all gone, ripped away forever from the world of puppies, rainbows, and torturing Dexter.
It should have been a wonderful moment for me, in at the last minute, in time to see my tormentor yanked out of his mortal coil. But the glow didn’t last. Even in dying Anderson had made himself a nuisance. By fatally shooting both gunmen, he’d made absolutely certain that no one could tell me how to find my kids. My plan had gone perfectly, and he’d still spoiled it.
“Bastard,” I told Anderson. I stood up, and I would have kicked him, except that I’d get blood on my shoes.
“It’s best we go quickly,” Brian said softly.
I turned to go, and then paused. There was no reason to waste an opportunity like this, when the addition of one small touch could make this scene an even more memorable one—one that might even make Anderson look bad enough to cast a large load of doubt on my guilt.
“Brian,” I called, and he looked back to me. “Can you spare some cash?” I asked.
“Dexter, why on earth—Oh, of course,” he said. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a large wad of what seemed to be mostly hundreds. “This will have to do,” he said, and he flung the money through the door.
I took a last look, and liked what I saw. The scene could not have been more obvious with subtitles. A dirty cop tried to sell drugs stolen from the evidence room. An argument over money had resulted in a shoot-out. A quick ID check would certainly reveal that the other two men had ties to organized crime. And Anderson was clearly as guilty as a dead man could be. Good riddance to all three. Case closed.
I followed Brian back to the elevator. We rode it down to the third floor, got out, and took the stairs the rest of the way. I followed my brother out the hotel’s back door, the long way around the block, and to our car.
“Well,” Brian said as he drove slowly away from the Galleon Hotel, “I suppose it’s back to square one.”
“Not quite,” I said. “At least we know for sure about Kraunauer.”
“Yes,” Brian said, and he sighed. “But I wish we’d managed to save Cesar.”
“Really?” I said, somewhat surprised. “He was a friend of yours?”
“Oh, no, far from a friend,” Brian said. “In fact, we had a few very bitter differences.” He looked at me with a somewhat shy smile and said, “So I was kind of looking forward to getting him to a quiet place for a little chat.”
“Next time,” I said. And again I wished I could pray, just a little. Because there was no guarantee of a next time.
And without it, my kids were as good as dead.
TWENTY-TWO
Brian drove us to a coffee shop over in Coconut Grove. It was full dark when we got out of the car and went inside to a booth at the back. Neither of us had a great deal to say. Brian fiddled absentmindedly with the laminated menu, and I was trying to think of a logical next step, now that plan A had flushed itself away. Even more immediately, I was quite sure that Deborah would be sitting at home chewing through the furniture until I called, and I did not want to jeopardize our still-fragile reconciliation by keeping her hanging too long. And because My Plan had resulted in what Harry would have called a Total FUBAR, I also had to fi
nd some truly magical combination of words to explain things to her.
And Debs would unquestionably have heard about Anderson, and she could put things together as well as anybody. The short math here would quite clearly add up to Dexter Did It. Whatever else Debs was willing to do at this point, authorizing a hit on a cop—even a dirty cop—was not in the picture. Add that to her panicked worry over the kids, and she would no doubt be on the verge of insanity at this point. I was so certain of that I hadn’t even switched my phone back on.
Coffee arrived, in chipped porcelain mugs, and it was hot and very welcome. Brian ordered strawberry pie, and I settled on a tuna melt. Time was lurching past at a ridiculous pace. I even thought I could hear my watch ticking, and I still didn’t have any wonderful speech for Deborah. But I didn’t see how I could put it off any longer, so I pulled out my phone and turned it on.
Almost immediately it began to ping with missed calls, and all of them were from Debs. I waited another minute, but no inspiration came. I called her anyway.
“Where the hell have you been,” she said in a voice halfway between grating and snarling. “What the fuck is—Did you find the kids? And, Jesus, Anderson? Was that you? Because—”
“Deborah,” I said, much louder than I liked, and Brian cocked an eyebrow at me. But it got her attention, and with only a few more muttered bad words—none of them terribly original—she slid back down to a less hysterical grumpiness.
“Jesus fuck, Dexter,” she said. “You go trotting away with a pistol and Anderson turns up shot dead and…How does that get our kids back? Can you tell me that?”
“Not while you’re talking, I can’t,” I said, and I could hear her teeth click shut—but at least she was quiet, which allowed me to lower my voice. “As sad as it seems to me, I didn’t shoot Anderson,” I said softly. And at that moment, happily for me, I thought of the perfect explanation to let me off the hook. “But, Deborah—Anderson shot the men who could tell us where the kids are.”
Deborah made a remarkable sound, a moan that seemed to be hissed out through clenched teeth. “Fuck,” she said. “Oh, fuck.”
“But there are more of them,” I said.
“More of the kidnappers?” she said. “Can you get to them?”
“I…think so,” I said carefully, because it was an obvious question and I didn’t have an answer yet.
Debs was silent, and then suddenly blurted out, “I have to come with you this time. I have to, Dex.”
“No, Debs, not yet,” I said.
“I have to, goddamn it!” she said. “I can’t just fucking sit here and do nothing while you fuck around and my kids are still…where, Dexter? Where the fuck are my kids?!”
“I’ll find them, Debs,” I said.
“Goddamn it, I want to find them with you!”
“I’ll find them,” I said again. “And I’ll call you later.”
“Dexter, you miserable piece of shit!”
I already knew I was a miserable piece of shit, so I hung up.
“Well,” Brian said with his brightest smile, “and how is your sister?”
“As well as can be expected,” I said. “Brian, do you think we can work the same trick again?”
“You mean getting Raul’s men to come after you?” he said, and I nodded. He frowned thoughtfully. “Weeellllll…If I know Raul, he’s somewhere close by. He’ll have your children with him. But they aren’t bringing you to him on your knees, and he’s missed twice. So I’m quite sure he’s starting to get just a teeny bit, um—upset? Angry, frustrated, perhaps even approaching apoplectic.” He shook his head sorrowfully. “The man simply has no self-control. And he absolutely hates not to get what he wants, when he wants it.”
“I suppose that goes with being a drug lord,” I said. “Will he take it out on the kids?”
“Mmmm, noooo,” Brian said, not very convincingly. “Not just yet…”
“What will he do?”
“He’ll want to kill something, of course,” he said. “Preferably you and me.” He shrugged, as if that was the first rational thing Raul had thought about. “But he’ll be way past being patient. Or subtle.”
“So you think he’ll bite on the same bait?”
“At this point,” Brian said, “I think Raul would bite on bare hooks if it might get him to us.”
“All right,” I said. “And you did say he’d have more shooters?”
“Oh, absolutely,” Brian said. “Manpower is never a problem. Not for a successful man like Raul.”
“Good. So what’s the best way to do this?”
We both thought about it for a moment. Then Brian said, somewhat hesitantly, “Um…perhaps through Kraunauer?”
“Will Kraunauer go for it? I mean, he has to suspect something by now, doesn’t he?”
“I don’t think so,” Brian said. He raised a finger and wagged it like he was lecturing me. “Raul when angry has a way of making everybody around him very jumpy. Very anxious to please. Even Frank Kraunauer.”
I frowned and I pondered and I didn’t see any other way. “All right,” I said, reaching for my phone. “But, Brian—we absolutely have to get one of them to talk this time.”
“Oh, yes, absolutely,” Brian said.
I dialed.
Kraunauer answered right away. “Mr. Morgan, what the—Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I said.
“I just…I heard—I mean, there was some kind of shooting at your hotel, wasn’t there? And that detective—that was the same one that, ah—”
“Yes, that was him,” I said. “But I wasn’t there when it happened.”
“Oh,” he said, and even he heard the disappointment in his voice. He cleared his throat hurriedly and rushed on. “I mean, that’s good, absolutely, but how—and what…what…where are you now?”
“Actually, I’m hiding out,” I said. “I’m up in North Miami.” Which was in reality quite far from where I was, since for some reason, I just didn’t trust him.
“Good, good, okay,” he said. “But that’s…How did you…with that detective. I mean, what happened?”
“He called me on my cell phone,” I said, letting my imagination run. “He, um, he said he had documents. That he said would prove I was innocent. And I would never get them—that he was going to burn them in front of me and I couldn’t stop him.”
“All right,” Kraunauer said. “And then?”
And then? Nothing—my mind went completely blank. “Then…then,” I stammered, waiting for something to occur; it didn’t. “I have the documents, Mr. Kraunauer. And they really do prove I’m innocent,” I blurted out. I could only hope that Brian was right and had Kraunauer so anxious he wouldn’t notice the rather large gap in the story line.
“Wonderful,” Kraunauer said with no hesitation at all. “Where are you now?”
I said a silent thank-you to Raul and sprinted for the finish line. “The thing is, I don’t think I can keep them safe,” I said, lowering my voice for sheer theatrical effect. “I want to get them to you as soon as possible.”
“Great!” he said, with very believable enthusiasm. “I’m having dinner at Tick Tock at ten o’clock; do you know it?”
“Um, South Beach?” I said.
“Right.” He gave me the address, and said, “Can you be there a few minutes before ten?”
“It’ll take me forty-five minutes,” I said. “But I need to be careful, make sure I’m not followed, so—maybe a little longer?”
“Perfect,” he said. “I’ll be there about a quarter of. Can you meet me out back then? There’s a parking lot.”
“Behind Tick Tock. Quarter of ten,” I said. “I’ll be there.”
I broke the connection and returned the phone to my pocket. Brian looked at me quizzically. “Tick Tock?” he said. “It’s a clock store?”
“A restaurant,” I said. “Supposed to be very good.”
“Would he really do this at a good restaurant?” Brian asked doubtfully.
“I know the area a little,” I said. “There’s an empty lot next door, and the parking lot behind is pretty well screened. It’s actually a perfect place.”
“If you say so, brother,” he said.
“I do,” I told him.
He nodded. “It might be wise to get there first?”
“Agreed,” I said, and I stood up. “Shall we?”
We dropped some cash on the table and went out to his car, and Brian rolled out onto U.S. 1. “I’m not sure what we do next if this doesn’t work,” Brian said as he drove us north and then up onto I-95.
“Then let’s make sure it works,” I said.
We crossed over to South Beach on the MacArthur Causeway, and drove straight up 5th. Brian cruised right past Tick Tock without slowing, and I looked carefully as we went by. Of course there was nothing to see but a small crowd waiting to get in. None of them seemed to be carrying assault rifles. A block past, Brian turned right and then into a parking lot with a concealing row of trees around the perimeter. He parked in a spot with a view of the restaurant, and left the engine running.
“How would you like to proceed?” he said.
“It would be nice to know the odds,” I said. “How many of them should we expect?”
“They think there’s only one of us—you,” he said. “There were two of them last time, but this time it’s public. So probably three,” he said. “The extra man will be the driver. He’ll wait with the motor running. And he’ll provide backup, of course, but the shooters won’t want to use him. Pride, you know,” he said, shaking his head. “They really take their work seriously. So I think three men. Any more would seem like overkill.” He gave me a large and very bad smile. “If you don’t mind me saying so.”
“Better you than them,” I said. “Three men, then—the two shooters, and the driver.”
“Probably,” he said, nodding.
“If they split up, it gets very difficult,” I said. “Three targets in three different places.”
“And probably a cross fire on us,” he said. “That’s what they’ll do.”
