The Lion Killer (The Dark Continent Chronicles) (13 page)

***

Gillespie glanced at Lynn as they drove along the beach road to the marina in West Palm. Her face was puffy. From time to time, she dabbed her nose with a hanky. There was a childlike quality about Lynn Allison that was fueling his infatuation. Everything told him his association with Lynn would end badly. Gillespie, why in God's name are you getting involved with this woman? I know why. It's because I'm an idiot. Seems like I‘ve already been there—done this before.

“You don't have to do this. You could drop me off at a motel,” she said. “Let's do this my way. Until we can come up with a better arrangement, I think this is our safest option.”

They sneaked past the night watchman at the marina. As soon as they were onboard Gillespie's boat, the
Irish Mist
, they separated to their respective staterooms. As they said goodnight, Dan got the final word in. “Lynn, I know there's a lot going on. I'm not the village idiot. For instance, I know you had a prenup with Turner, which means this isn't about money. Anyway, you think about what I said. I've gotta leave early tomorrow morning. For the time being, I think I should go to work like nothing's happened. We can talk when I get home. Goodnight, Lynn.”

“Danny, I was wrong about you. I….”

“Go on.”

“It's nothing. Goodnight.” She closed the cabin door.

***

Gillespie slipped off his boat in the morning. He laughed at himself for feeling queasy about leaving Lynn. Jesse Spooner pulled up at the front gate to the marina right on time. “Good morning, Danny. You look brighteyed and bushytailed for a Monday morning. It's an hour to Pahokee. I'd like to reread the material Turner gave us on the Rolle woman. Why don't you drive? We need to go over a few things before we get there.”

“Sure thing. How was your weekend?” Gillespie asked.

“Boring. And yours?” Before he could answer, Jesse changed the subject. “I grew up in the Glades. When a white man showed up in our neighborhood, it was for one of three reasons. Either he was a cop, a bill collector or he was looking to score drugs. The black folks are gonna be mighty suspicious when they see us together. After I explain, we won't have a problem.”

“And I was led to believe that only white people were bigots.”

***

Clusters of shabby labor camps mark the city limits of Pahokee. The camps were the living quarters for the sugarcane laborers on contract from the Caribbean. The farm dirt lying fallow was darker than the people who worked it.

Spooner made Dan scrunch down in the backseat. “Danny, stay put.” Jesse got out of his car and walked up to a picketfence in need of paint. When he opened the gate, it screeched. “Hello there. I'm looking for a Mrs. Rolle.”

“I'm Sally Mae Rolle. Why you hidin' that white man in your backseat?” “Oh, you mean that white man?” he said, pointing at Danny who peeked over the backseat.

“Boy, how many white men are you totin'?”

“Just one. He works for me. I'm an attorney. Mrs. Rolle, would it be all right if we come up on your porch? I need to ask you a few questions.”

“You say he works for you?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Ain't nobody stopping you. Boy, don't I know you? What's your name?”

“I'm Jesse Spooner. That's Dan Gillespie.”

“Are you the Spooner boy from Belle Glade? The football player?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Well, ain't that something. Lord have mercy, I went to elementary school with your momma. Don't know what you wanna be talkin' to me about. I done told them other lawyers all I know. Let's go inside. I expect I need to fix you boys some sweet iced tea. This is a hot one, all right.” When Jesse gave a nod to Dan, he hurried from the car and joined him on the porch.

Sally Rolle was a heavy woman. She wore tan support hose to press the fluid from her feet, but fleshy bulges squeezed out over the tops of her shoes. She struggled to get up from her rocking chair. Dan offered her his elbow and Jesse held the screen door open. Her living room smelled of pine soap. There were pictures of Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy on one wall, and a massive bookcase on the other.

“Mrs. Rolle, you must be an avid reader,” said Dan. “This is some book collection.” He pulled a book out from the bottom shelf, blew off the dust and opened it. It was a copy of
War and Peace
.

“These were my brother's books. He was the reader in the family. I can't hardly see to read. No sir, my doctor told me my sight's failin' cause of my sugar. I just like to look at them. They help me remember Willie. Since my husband passed, all I've got are my memories.”

Before Jesse could speak, Dan asked her another question. “I guess your brother was pretty sick just before he died.”

“It's true, Willie's lungs were failing. That ain't what killed him. No sir, he drowned in Lake Okeechobee. The police said he fell off the canal bank while he was speck fishin'. Say, I already told you folks about this. Why you askin' me these same foolish questions? Did you say you work for the law firm in Tampa?”

“No, Ma'am. We work for Turner and Turner in West Palm. We've been authorized to make you a very substantial offer.”

“Jesse, you should be ashamed of yourself. You go tell that devil Turner, I don't want his money. No sir, I want justice for Willie. May God bless his memory. That's all I want.”

“What kind of justice?” Jesse asked.

The woman struggled to her feet and made a shooing motion towards the front door. She looked over the top of her lopsided glasses and shook her head. “Son, if you don't know, I can't help you. I expect ya'll better get. Lord have mercy, I'll bet you're a big disappointment to your momma. Goodbye, Jesse Spooner.”

They rode back to West Palm in silence. Finally, Gillespie couldn't stand it. “So, what are you gonna tell him?”

“Tell who?”

“Who? Who do you think? Turner, for God's sake. C'mon Jesse, get with it.”

“I was thinking about that old woman.”

“Sure is curious how her retarded brother was such a devoted reader.”

Dan stared at the sugarcane fields lengthening forever. A yellow cropdusterpopped oversome high tension wires and then swooped down to start another scud run. A rolling white mist of atomized chemicals spewed from the airplane. Jesse switched lanes to pass a converted school bus. The migrant workers riding in the bus looked down at them as they passed. When Gillespie looked at the workers, he felt guilty.

“Spooner, I'm gonna go out on a limb. I don't know why, but here goes. You need to find yourself another line of work before you get disbarred or end up behind bars as some big white cracker's bitch. I'm giving you the best advice you've ever gotten. Maxwell Turner is a fucking crook. If you hang around, you're gonna get your ass in some deep shit. You know Turner had me bug your apartment.”

“I know. I found them.”

“You found them? Bullshit. Where did you find them?”

“I found three. One was under my nightstand. Of course, one was in my telephone. The third one was on the light above my kitchen table.” “If I ask you a simple question, can I get a straight answer?” “It depends on the question.” “Did you ever even go to law school? Wait, let me rephrase that.

What the fuck are you up to?”

“I graduated from law school, but I'm not a lawyer, at least not officially.”

“Goddamn. I knew it. You're working undercover, aren't you? Is it the FBI or the State Attorney's Office? I bet you lied about failing the bar exam.”

“Danny boy, if I answered your questions, I might have to shoot you. Don't look so serious, I'm only kidding. The part about me failing the bar exam was true.”

“One more question. Why didn't you say something when you saw me steal Turner's keys?”

“That one's easy. I wanted to stop you from doing whatever you were up to, and I needed those keys myself.”

“Spooner, you're full of shit. Like I said before, I was surprised you gave up a career in professional football to become a lowlife ambulance chaser. Now I find out you gave up the NFL to become a cop. Guess that's why we're friends. We're both morons.”

“Danny, I'm leveling with you because you're a good guy. I could use some help with Turner. Before you say yes, you should know this Turner thing could get messy, and I mean legally. You've got your career to worry about.”

“I don't give a rat's ass about my career, or what's left of ‘it,' ” he said, imitating quotation marks with his fingers. “How can this get legally messy? Why am I asking you? You're not a lawyer, at least not officially.” Dan shook his head in disgust and stared out of the window. I wonder if he's telling me everything. “Spooner, would you mind driving a little faster, I'd like to get home sometime this century. I've got someone staying on my boat you're gonna find very interesting.”

***

Lynn Allison and Dan Gillespie became inseparable over the next two months. Lynn's living on the
Irish Mist
became a permanent arrangement. When the news reached Max Turner, he was delighted. What better way to keep tabs on his exwife?

They ran the
Irish Mist
to Key Largo for a long weekend. On another weekend, they made the fifty-mile crossing to the Bahamas. Jesse had dinner onboard three or four nights a week. He seldom missed cocktail hour.

Both men continued to work at Turner and Turner, and both saw a gradual change in Max's behavior. Max would interrupt a conversation with a partner or place his hand overthe telephone mouthpiece if they came within earshot. They were exiled from the Monday morning strategy meetings. Their duties at the firm were reduced to busywork. Every Friday, they would have lunch together and discuss the possibility of Max giving them their notice. Everything changed when Savanna Williams got fired.

On Sunday afternoon, they drove to Belle Glade to visit Jesse's mother. Gillespie waited until he was alone with Jesse before questioning him about Savanna. Lynn Allison had driven Jesse's mother to the First Baptist Church. Lillian Spooner didn't tolerate drinking in her house. Gillespie needed a little help to get straight after a hard Saturday night. The two men sat alone on Mrs. Spooner's back porch, sipping Cokes spiked with Bacardi.

“Lynn asked you to invite Savanna Williams for dinner a dozen times. You said you weren't interested. Either you're gay, or you were setting Williams up. You got Savanna fired, didn't you?”

Jesse knew Dan was eventually going to put two and two together, and had his response rehearsed. “You're the one who told me Turner suspected someone was working undercover. You saw how Max treated us. Turner was looking for an office snitch and I gave him Savanna. What choice did I have? At least she won't be around when the shit hits the fan. In a way, I may have saved her career. Don't worry, Savanna's a smart girl. I'm sure she'll land on her feet.”

“You should have told her the truth. What you did was rotten.” Jesse couldn't help but smirk. “I did her a favor. Look, it's my job. Speaking of favors, I need one. Don't look so happy. It means breaking into Max's office again. If we get caught, I can't protect you. Do you still have the keys?”

“I'm surprised it took you this long to ask. Of course, I still have the keys. We should use Jimmy the locksmith as our lookout. One thing's for sure—he won't drive off and leave us.”

“I was thinking about tomorrow night,” Jesse said.

Gillespie didn't answer immediately; instead, he thought about how he could pump more information out of Jesse. “Tomorrow night? You're on. You're not after Turner, are you? It's this Chinese arms dealer, Chang, isn't it?”

“Nelson Chang's the primary target, but Turner knows where all of the dead cats are buried. We believe Chang gave Turner part of the action in an arms deal. What better way to make sure he kept his mouth shut? Turner's so greedy he couldn't say no. Turner came right out of law school doing Chang's contract work. One thing led to another. I'd love to put both of them behind bars.”

Dan carefully funneled the rum into his Coke bottle. “So it's the gook. I thought you said you worked for the Bureau. You're an agent with ATF.”

“I never said I worked for the FBI, you just assumed it. Let's get the jokes about Waco behind us.”

“I'll leave that one alone. If you had passed the bar exam the first time, you could have gone to work for the postal service.”

“Very funny. Give me Turner's keys.I've got no right to ask you to get involved.”

“C'mon Jesse, you know I can't do that. A man needs a little excitement in his life. Hell, I can't lose my drinking buddy.” He decided to tell Jesse about his invitation. “Funny, all of a sudden I've become Turner's newest best friend. He invited me to a pigeon shoot he's hosting at his Okeechobee ranch. Probably see some of my old divorce clients. Turner can't make it, something about a meeting in Washington.” When he didn't get a response he carried on. “Let's drink up before your mother gets home,” Dan said, draining his bottle. He closed one eye and squinted into the bottle. It was as if he was afraid he might miss a drop.