Deal with the Dead (31 page)

The safe door was hanging open, and its contents, whatever they had been, were gone. Gone too were Rhodes and Kaia Jesperson.

Of course
, thought Deal, staggering on across the cellar.
As it was surely meant to be
. Russell Straight had made his way to Driscoll now, was working the big ex-cop free of his gag and bonds.

He made his way to the cellar’s outdoor entrance and up the short flight of stairs. The sound of the engines was gone, the view of the bay blanked out by the advancing squall.

Deal lifted his face to the pelting rain.
So many people gone, old man. When are you coming back
?

Chapter Forty-five

Coral Gables
Four Months Later

It was a balmy spring night, a perfect night for baseball. The University of Miami, perennial private school power in the city, was hosting its crosstown rival, Florida International, the upstart public institution. Lots of players on both sides whose names ended in
a
or
o
or
z
, Deal noted, s
c
anning the program. Local bragging rights on the line. A big crowd, one side of the stands calling out good-natured insults as the two teams got ready to take the field, the other side chanting back. He’d got the passes unbidden in the mail, from one of the new building-supply wholesale houses that had sprung up to service the burgeoning port project.

And why not accept the tickets?
Deal had thought. He’d been working hard. The date fell on one of the nights he had with his daughter, the game was always spirited, the stadium easily reached from Janice’s Coconut Grove condo. Why not?

“Is there going to be a fight?” Isabel glanced up, concern on her earnest features as the chants and catcalls grew in volume.
Hurricanes blow! F-I-Who?

Deal stared at her a moment before he answered, his thoughts kicked back an eon, or so it seemed.
Is there going to be a fight?
Kaia Jesperson standing in the doorway of Rhodes’ study, that noncommittal, green-eyed gaze on his.

“No, sweetheart,” he told his daughter. “They’re just teasing, that’s all.”

She nodded, but the expression on her face told him she wasn’t fully convinced. Deal put his arm around her narrow shoulders and hugged her close. She snuggled in, willing to be convinced in that way.

Deal smiled down at her, but as the Miami pitcher trotted to the mound to begin his warm-up, and the crowd noise grew even louder, he found his thoughts drifting again. Months now since it had happened. No word from Kaia, none from Rhodes. Nor had he expected any.

“
How’d you get here, Mr. Deal? Who else was with you?
” The harsh questions of Scott Thomas, the Department of Justice official who’d shown up with a squadron of backup in time to accomplish absolutely nothing, except tag the bodies.

He’d come by boat, Deal had explained. With the Wheatley brothers, who’d been killed by Tasker. Tasker himself had been killed by a shot from Talbot Sams’ pistol. You might want to call it “friendly fire.”

Then where was the boat that had brought them? As to that, Deal had said, he had no idea. He’d heard the engines as the Cigarette departed, but he’d been too busy with Sams to have a look. Perhaps an accomplice of Talbot Sams had seen what was happening and fled. In any case, Deal had no idea what had happened to the Cigarette, and that much of it, at least, was true.

Had he known, Scott Thomas demanded, that Klaus Nieman, a man with long-buried ties to gambling interests in Miami, had been his tenant? Deal had not, and his property agent was quick to explain why Deal hadn’t known.

And what had been in that hidden safe? the agent had wanted to know. There had been nothing in the safe, Deal told the man. Take a flying look for yourself.

There’d been some bluster about charges of obstructing justice, even the threat of implicating Deal in the death of Talbot Sams, former Department of Justice investigator. But Sams had long been a target of a manhunt undertaken by his own agency, and despite all the cajoling and the threats, nothing had come of it.

Two crooked former agents had died after killing a bank officer and two competing thugs during the commission of a crime, and Russell Straight—returned to Georgia to work out the terms of a parole violation—and Vernon Driscoll—recovering slowly from the effects of a brutal beating—had backed Deal’s story, first to last. Enough bodies on hand for the end of a Shakespeare play, in Vernon Driscoll’s words. Case closed, or as good as closed.

Deal caught sight of his old friend then, making his way carefully up the stairwell toward their seats, balancing a cardboard drink-carrier in one hand, an unfamiliar device in the other. “Why is Uncle Vernon using a cane, Daddy?” Isabel asked. “Did he get old?”

Sure
, Deal almost said,
everybody does
. As he also thought about sharing with his daughter the ancient riddle:
What creature begins life on four legs, then moves to two, and ends on three?
But he decided against it, savoring the crack of the ball in the catcher’s mitt below. It was too promising a night for talk of tragedy.

“He got hurt, Isabel,” Deal told her. “But he’s a lot better. He’ll be getting rid of the cane pretty soon.”

Driscoll gave them a weary smile when he collapsed into the chair beside them. “Why didn’t you ask for seats on the bottom row,” he said.

“They’re freebies,” Deal told him. “Sorry about the climb.”

“It’s all right,” Driscoll said. He pulled his drink out and passed the holder down. “I’m losing weight this way.” He held up his cane and smiled.

“You forgot the popcorn, Uncle Vernon,” Isabel cried, as the drink container came her way.

“Doggone it—” Driscoll said, starting up.

“Sit still,” Deal said, “one large popcorn, coming up.”

He was across the aisle to the steps and downstairs quickly, but not before he heard the umpire’s mythic call. He caught sight of the Miami pitcher’s first delivery and heard the sharp report of an aluminum bat in response. First pitch, first swing, a clean single to left, and a fresh round of chanting from above as he ducked into the tunnel that led toward the refreshment stands.

He saw someone coming toward him from the opposite direction—a tardy fan rushing to see what the fuss was about, he thought at first. But then he caught sight of the odd profile, the balding dome, the frizzed-out hair at the temples, the bulbous nose and the flapping, oversized shoes.

A clown, he realized, just part of the evening’s festivities. Deal was about to hurry past him when a white-gloved hand caught him at the shoulder.

“You win,” the clown called in a loony voice. He held up an envelope in his other hand.

“That’s okay,” Deal said. He’d won his share of bogus “prizes.” “Give it to somebody else—”

“Oh, no,” the clown said. “You’re the one.” He reached forward and tucked the envelope in Deal’s shirt pocket, then hurried on down the tunnel toward the brightly lit field.

Deal watched the clown disappear into the brightness at the other end, fingering the envelope in his shirt pocket. He’d won a “free” cell phone that would cost him about $10 a minute to use, he suspected. Or maybe a vacation to Disney World if he’d just sit through a couple days’ pitch for a time-share sale. He shook his head and hurried on toward the concessions.

While a young woman wearing what he hoped was a temporary U of M tattoo on her cheek went to scoop his popcorn, Deal opened the envelope to have a look. There was a folded notecard inside, heavy cream-colored stock with no identifying markings. He opened the card and found handwriting there, a neat flowing script in what looked to be a feminine hand.

“Sir?”

Deal glanced up from what he’d been reading. The young woman with the tattooed cheek was standing there, a tub of popcorn outthrust. “That’s three dollars,” she said, nodding over his shoulder where a young couple waited their turn. “I gotta take care of these people.”

“I’m sorry,” Deal said, handing over some bills in a daze.

He tucked the envelope back into his shirt pocket and took up the popcorn, hurrying back toward the tunnel.

“That’s too much,” the attendant was calling after him, but Deal had his mind on more important things.

***

Deal had found no clown anywhere in the stadium, of course, and he knew better than to check with anyone in charge. He’d delivered the popcorn to Isabel and sat with his arm around her, chatting idly with Driscoll, answering his daughter’s every question about the arcane rules of baseball until she’d finally fallen asleep and he’d borne her off toward home. The score was tied at the time, and since they’d come in separate cars, Driscoll decided he would stay to see how things turned out. If he’d noticed Deal’s distracted state, he’d been good enough to let it go. They were neighbors, after all. There would be plenty of time to talk.

Deal had delivered Isabel home to Mrs. Suarez’s care, then left, with assurances that he’d be back soon. He piloted the Hog down 8th Street to Douglas Road, then south all the way to the Grove. He threaded through the back streets, dodging the late-night traffic as best he could, making his way onto Main Highway and finally to Old Cutler Road.

He’d moved most of his day-to-day operations to a portable he’d leased on the site of the International Free Trade port project, but there would always be the Old Cutler offices, so long as there was a DealCo, anyway. He’d also gotten rid of the management firm that had handled the leasing of his family’s home and had applied for the permits to begin restoration. It would take a fortune that he didn’t have, he thought, and none of it could bring his old man back, of course, but it was a process he could start on, at least.

He swung off Old Cutler, down the secluded lane, the Hog wallowing through the ruts and potholes. Not much rain recently, but when the moon was right, the tides sometimes flooded the road in its lower spots. Something else to be taken care of, he thought. One day when there was time.

He made it to the parking area of the office without incident, the headlights of the Hog sweeping across an empty lot. He’d expected as much, but what was to keep him from hoping against hope?

He parked, killed the Hog’s engine, got out, and stood in the cool wash of moonlight, listening. Nothing but the ceaseless tree frogs, the occasional whine of a rare cool-weather mosquito, the ticking of the Hog’s manifold under the hood.
Florida
, he thought.
The essence of it, right here
.

He went up the wooden steps, found the door locked, just as he’d left it a week or so before. He used moonlight to find his key, opened the door, flipped the light switch, saw that there was no one behind his desk, no one behind his door, no one for company, in fact, but ghosts.

He stared at the file cabinet in the corner, still dented and listing, its contents long since replaced, as haphazardly as they had ever been. He thought about pulling the card the clown had delivered from his pocket again, thought about checking things just to be sure, but he didn’t. He had memorized the words the moment he’d read them.

He walked to the cabinet, put his hand on the drawer that the note had designated, and hesitated once again. There could be a bomb rigged up inside, he supposed—pull the handle, send yourself to kingdom come? He could have told Driscoll about everything, could have brought his friend along.

But something had told him he might follow those instructions safely, and they had stipulated that he come alone. He saw no reason not to obey.

He snapped the drawer’s little button switch with his thumb and gave the handle a jerk. The drawer rolled open easily on its guides. No blast of fire. No explosion. Just a soft thunking sound when the mechanism achieved its reach.

Deal stared down at what had been carefully stacked there for him and wondered if this was the moment when Thomas Scott or Scotty Thomas—or whatever the hell his name was—would burst through the door with his shield and gun upraised…but that didn’t happen, either.

It was only Deal there in the office, with all those upturned images—the faces of long-dead statesmen and presidents—laid out in stacks before him. He stood there, reading and rereading the note in his mind.
The very least we could do
, she had closed, no further elaboration.

He’d noted the scent of jasmine and lemon the moment he’d opened the envelope. He might have reached for his pocket, checked the note again, but he didn’t have to. He recalled the scent clearly. As he could visualize the hand that wrote it, the hand that had somehow turned back fire and in that way saved his life.

No need for any assistance, now, John Deal. He stood alone in the office and conjured up the ghosts.

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