by Tom Pitts
Col placed a hand on my shoulder, ‘You heard all about it, did you?’
I lowered my brows; gave a brief nod.
‘My Billy shouldn’t have went like that. He was talking about making it big the last time we spoke—he was full of grand plans, you know.’
Col trembled, stammered on his words. He seemed to age decades before my eyes.
‘He was full of talk about making his pile, Gus, but he went wrong somewhere. His mother’s beside herself, the house is a total midden—you should see the state of it!’
I felt taken aback, but I saw he’d only reverted to type, tried to cover his feelings with humour.
I joined him, said, ‘I don’t do dusting, Col.’
Laughter.
We’d lightened the tone. Col tried a weak smile. ‘I have no work for you in that line, but there is something you could do for me.’
He leaned on the bar. His eyes widened, showing their whites, but the dark centres haunted. ‘You know about this kind of thing, don’t you?’
I tried to look away but his eyes left me nowhere to hide.
‘Col, I’m out the game.’
‘But you have the form. This kind of thing’s just your line.’
I knew what he meant, but that felt like another lifetime ago.
I raised my glass, drained it. ‘This is my line now.’
‘Gus, c’mon, you forget I knew you before.’
I knew what before meant right away.
The thing is, I owe Col. Not in a debt sense, just—well—morally. He’s been good to me since my troubles started, a bit like a father figure. Not like my father though. Uh-uh. The mighty Cannis Dury has few to match him. You might say it’s because Col is so unlike my old man that I feel he deserves my respect.
‘I’d like to help, I really would, but what could I do?’
‘Same as before when we had that spot of bother.’
When everything went tits up for me, Col helped out. Some of his employees thought they’d been recruited on two hundred a week and all they could pilfer. He gave me the security gig and a roof over my head. I felt very grateful. Still do.
‘That was a different matter entirely.’ On-site snoop to jumped-up gumshoe looked quite a leap to me. I felt happy enough with our current arrangement—free flat, only a stumble from the bar.
‘Just have a look around in the city, go to your old mates and do some sniffing about.’
‘Hacks have no mates, Col.’
‘You’re no hack—quality you are boyo!’
I laughed. ‘Half right. I’m no hack anymore.’
I raised my glass, motioned to the whisky on the shelf. Col fired off a refill, planted it in front of me. His eyes widened again. When I looked in them I saw they’d grown rimmed in red. I saw the worry there. Genuine grief. I knew the territory.
‘No promises,’ I said.
He smiled, and those eyes of his shone like headlamps. ‘It’s a deal. Gus, I could ask no more. You’ve no idea what this means to me. The father—son bond is a very precious thing.’
‘Tell me about it,’ I said.
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CHAPTER ONE
Oz’s red eye flight from Los Angeles to Ft. Lauderdale touched down a little after seven a.m., and by the time he headed outside to his rental car the temperature was already pushing a hundred. Oz had forgotten how much he hated South Florida, especially in the summer, where swampland heat made any movement murder. Glaring sunlight smacked off the asphalt, shimmering in waves; he felt like he was breathing in a broiler. A long time had passed since Oscar Reyes played ball down here in college. There was a reason he moved away.
He dropped his bag in the trunk, cranked the AC, and made for the Intracoastal, wondering what was so important that Delma couldn’t tell him on the phone.
Though technically Oz Reyes worked for Delma Dupree, he hadn’t seen much of her over the past decade. Delma was CEO of Ten + 1 Media, the parent company of about half a dozen news outlets and television stations, including the Coastal Sports Network, where Oz was director of security operations out west. Nice sounding title but he was small fish in the grand scheme of Ten + 1’s overarching media interests. His position involved strictly sports—running security for bowl games, building dedications, assorted ceremonies—and Ten + 1’s influence reached much further than that. Oz rarely dealt with the East Coast, and very little with Delma, who preferred to run the show behind the scenes, far away in Miami. Oz’s presence in South Florida was seldom required. But he couldn’t say no. And not just because Delma signed his paychecks. Once upon a time, Delma Dupree had saved his life.
The impromptu trip couldn’t have come at a worse time. Coastal Sports Network’s annual awards show kicked off in two days. An entertaining mix of sports and pop culture, the CSNs were heavily hyped and dominated the ratings. Seemed they spent half the year gearing up for it, training extra security detail, shoring up protocol. This was their first year at the Reagan Cultural Center in downtown Los Angeles, which meant they had to double efforts to ensure smooth sailing. Every stairwell and rooftop had to be secured to prevent some nutjob angling for his fifteen minutes of fame. Oz had been fielding calls all night, sprinting back and forth across town, putting out fires, twelve hours straight without a break. Then someone tripped an alarm at one of their properties, a warehouse on Wilshire. Night watchman spotted some high schoolers fleeing the scene. Whoever it was couldn’t have stolen much—the warehouse housed old paperwork and receipts, accounts payable, nothing of value. Still, he’d had to check it out. Oz’s hopes of squeezing in a quick workout were already fading fast when Delma called.
After reporting the break-in to his team, he turned tail, and sped back to his place by the Santa Monica Pier. He threw a change of clothes and an iPad into a gym bag, and rushed out the door to catch the day’s last flight out of LAX.
Oz hit the A1A, a breezy postcard of a road surrounded by swaying palms and fallen coconuts, boating docks peppered between the oyster bars and beachside grills where they played Jimmy Buffet unironically. Cruise ships and yachts bobbed on the baby blue horizon. If all of Florida could’ve been viewed from the pleasant confines of an air-conditioned car, he might not have loathed the goddamn place so much.
Oz veered into one of the gated communities of Golden Beach, a primo chunk of beachfront real estate, and pulled his phone to locate the exact address. At a golf cart crossing, he waited for a parade of tiny poodles to pass, doing his best not to get swallowed up by the past. Any time Oz returned to Miami, he had a tendency to spiral, fixating on that fateful night and a stupid bar fight.
Over the course of his college career, Oz had been blindsided by countless blitzing linebackers, stood up at the line by three-hundred-pound tackles, and he’d jumped back up like nothing happened. Never missed a game. He couldn’t recall ever ending up on an injury report. How could a punch that didn’t even land—a haymaker he’d juked completely—screw him up so much? In the end doesn’t much matter what causes a knee to twist just right. Or wrong. ACLs and MCLs blow out the same either way.
Still struggling to find the right house, one eye on the road, the other scrolling through his contacts, trying to match street numbers against names, Oz soon realized it was pointless. Delma’s was the one with the three-ring media circus in the middle of the driveway. All that was missing were the giant sky beams swirling the heavens.
A pair of guards stopped Oz at the gate, harassing him about his business there, until Delma’s son, Jackson, spotted his car and motioned for them to let him pass. Jackson maneuvered through the cruisers and emergency vehicles to greet his old friend
.
A few years younger than Oz, Jackson had been enamored with the football players growing up, forever hanging around the stadium after practices, before games, a starry-eyed kid. Which was funny in hindsight, given that Jackson Dupree could now buy an entire NFL franchise if he wanted to.
“Glad you could make it,” Jackson said, descending the sloped garden path and offering a hand.
“What’s going on?”
Oz spotted Lew Levine, Delma’s second husband, on the veranda speaking with a couple of men in Panama shirts whom he pegged as reporters, and another grave, bald man—he was guessing doctor—looming behind the trellis. In the turnaround, EMTs closed the doors to an empty ambulance. Lew flashed a suspicious glance in Oz’s direction. A former marine without a speck of athletic ability, Lew Levine had never been his biggest fan. Even fifteen years ago, Lew made his contempt for jocks well known.
“Is your mother okay?” Oz asked.
“She’s fine.” Jackson rolled his eyes like this whole scene was one big misunderstanding. “Follow me.”
“Let me grab my stuff from the trunk.” Oz leaned inside the runner and popped the latch. Two minutes back in the blistering South Florida sun and his undershirt was already drenched. When Oz bent to heft his bag, Jackson came up beside him and snatched it from his hand.
“Take it easy, old man,” Jackson joked. “Don’t want to blow your comeback chances.”
“Not many rookie tight ends with reconstructed knees breaking into the league at thirty-nine. But thanks for the vote of confidence.”
They pushed through the fracas, to the front door, away from the prying eyes of Lew and the others. Jackson dropped the overnight bag on the welcome mat. He didn’t open the door right away. Instead, he squared Oz in the eye.
“Delma’s not fine,” he said. “I didn’t want to talk with the press over there. Any hint of health issues affects stock prices, and I spend half my week talking investors off the ledge.”
“Your mom is sick?”
“We don’t know. The doctors think it might be Alzheimer’s.”
“Alzheimer’s? She’s barely sixty.”
“Runs in the family.” Jackson faked a smile. “Something to look forward to.” He thumbed toward the police, who were escorting paparazzi past parting gates. “Called this morning. I guess Mom wandered off sometime during the night. Found her on South Collins in her nightgown, picking up seashells, weaving hydrangea in her hair, didn’t even know her own name. Not a good look for the captain of a Fortune 400 company. Cops brought her home right before you got here, Sentinel on their heels.” He glowered at the press. “Goddamn vultures.”
“I don’t get it. I talked to her last night. She sounded fine.”
“That’s the problem with dementia. She vacillates from one moment to the next. Doctor says we caught her condition in the beginning stages, so there’s hope. But the very nature of the illness makes her behavior unpredictable.” Jackson peered across the Intracostal.
Oz followed Jackson’s gaze out to the sea. Tiny white sailboats lulled on peaceful waters, palm fronds lushing in the soft ocean breeze.
“Is that why she called me here?” Oz asked. “I mean, it’s a little weird, Jackson. I haven’t spoken to your mom in a while.”
Jackson sighed. “Rodney.”
He didn’t need to say more than that.
There were three Dupree kids, but the only one Oz spoke to with any regularity was Jackson, who oversaw Ten + 1’s finances. He hadn’t seen Jackson’s sister Janelle in ages, and their adopted brother, Rodney, had always been a hard nut. Janelle vanished from the public eye after the scandal. Rodney’s conviction sent Ten + 1 into a PR nightmare for years.
As she had done with Oz, Delma had gone out on a limb to help Rodney, who had been living on the streets when she found him, just another homeless kid sleeping under the bridge. Instead of opening her checkbook, this time she opened her home. Oz hadn’t known the whole story back then. Rodney had been polite enough to him, a little younger than Jackson and Janelle but sullen, artsy, weird. You could tell something wasn’t right in his head. The rest came out in the papers as they prepped for trial.
“How is your stepbrother doing?”
“As well as anyone serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.” Jackson intertwined his fingers, presenting one wrapped around the other, as though reaffirming a special, sacred bond. “Tore me up what happened, but as crazy as it sounds I could understand. In a way. The violence of where Rodney had come from. He never fit in here. No matter how much money Delma threw at him, however many second chances she gave him, Rodney still seemed resentful of the family. What he did to my niece…” Jackson trailed off, taking a deep breath like he was preparing to say more. But he only dabbed at his eyes.
Oz wanted to respond with something comforting, but what could he say in a spot like that? Facts are facts. Before he could fumble a lame attempt, Jackson recomposed himself and pushed the door open, a cold burst of air conditioning swooshing out with the sunlight that sliced through high cathedral windows.
“I’m sorry Delma called you all the way out here,” he said. “I told her you were too busy with the awards coming up. Humor her, okay?”
“What’s this all about, Jackson?”
“I’ll let Delma tell you the rest herself.”
CHAPTER TWO
Delma sat up high in a plush, king-sized bed, propped on giant, fluffy pillows but looking clearly uncomfortable as a bevy of busy-bodied nurses and aids poked and prodded, fussing over her, taking vitals, doling out medications, which were sifted and sorted into days of the week, health care micromanaged down to the minute. Oz knew how much she hated being fawned over.
Delma Dupree was something of an enigma. In business dealings, she enjoyed a no-nonsense, ruthless reputation, the principal architect of the Ten + 1 empire she built from the ground up, having inherited the company in shambles from her father, Big Jack Dupree, a notorious gambler and drinker who’d pissed away most of the family fortune at Gulfstream and Hialeah, two of the biggest horseracing tracks in South Florida. But Delma was equally respected for her philanthropy. She sat on the boards of numerous charities and was forever giving back to the community and those hardest hit by economic inequalities. The students used to call her the Godmother behind her back, a nickname that reflected both her tough-as-nails persona and well-documented generosity.
Upon seeing Oz, she waved her hand as though it were a magic wand, and the help staff dispersed.
“Oscar Reyes,” Delma said, assuming the all-business disposition he knew too well. “Get over here. Talk to me.”
Oz carried a sitting chair past the footboard and spun it around. Delma pushed herself up, smoothed out the spread, folding hand over hand. “Did you see Jackson on your way in?”
“Yes. He seems to be doing well.”
“Overprotective of his mother. But, yes, he is a good son.”
“I’m sorry I haven’t made more of an effort to see you.”
Delma brushed a hand, dismissing the notion much like she’d dismissed the staff. “Don’t be foolish. You’re a grown man on the other side of the country. You have a job and wife to attend to.”
“A job, thanks to you.”
“How many times must you bring that up?”
Oz had to laugh.
When Oz Reyes went down, sports medicine didn’t enjoy the technology it does today. Doctors gathered what was left of his shredded knee, stapled a few ligaments and tendons together, sutured the wound and sent him on his way, but his playing days were over. The injury had further reaching ramifications. Soon as he was walking again, Oz learned how many people he’d alienated at the University of Miami with his abrasive, cocky, star-athlete attitude, burning bridges with abandon. If he treated his studies as a joke, his personal relationships were a full-fledged comedy routine. With the career-ending injury, all prospect
ive endorsement deals dried up, the agency dropped him. And Oscar Reyes wasn’t cut out for talking points in front of the camera. His future appeared DOA, until Delma, a longtime booster at the university, stepped in and handed Oz the gig at CSN, despite the gross lack of qualifications or questions about his character.
“Let’s see,” Oz replied. “Most other directors I work with are ex-military, ex-law enforcement. There’s only one ex-baller hobbling on a Frankenstein leg.”
“I got you in the door. The rest you did on your own.”
“And I owe you for that.”
“Yes, you’ve made that perfectly clear.”
Oz kept thinking of what Jackson had told him. Despite the prognosis, she seemed the same old Delma to him, razor sharp and sardonic, with a succinct East Coast frankness you didn’t find on the West Coast, where candid is often confused for cruel.
“I take it my son has told you about my condition?”
Oz nodded, expression betraying obvious concern.
“I’m not dead yet. Stop being so dramatic. Truth is, I’m fit as a fiddle most days.”
“Jackson said the police picked you up this morning? That you’d wandered down to the beach in the middle of the night?”
“Oh, that,” she said, as if the gardener had just informed her a pesky neighbor was complaining about the bougainvillea again. “I went out for some air and must’ve lost track of time.”
Delma left the subject there, making it clear that the half-assed explanation would have to suffice.
Out the window, a three-foot iguana lazed in a banyan tree on the edge of the water. In the cavernous bedroom, the lizard was just another massive, framed impression on a gallery’s pristine walls.
“You’re wondering why I called you here,” Delma said.
“Jackson mentioned it has something to do with Rodney?”
“It does. But you want to know why I called you.”