For ten long seconds, as he walked past parked cars and light standards, angling toward his truck sitting on the lot’s periphery, he ignored the strong impulse to turn and search out the source of his unease. Only when he was fifteen feet from his truck did he see in the tinted windows what he was up against.
Two men.
One African American. One Caucasian.
First sight of the pair had Riker hearing Stevie and Paul harmonizing in his head. So he had to tag the duo Ebony and Ivory. Which made him want to burst out laughing.
Instead, he remained calm and learned what he could from their reflections.
Both pursuers were wiry and wore board shorts and patterned shirts over matching wife-beater tanks. Dead giveaway that at least one of them had on flip flops was the sudden squelch against pavement he heard when Ivory picked up his pace to flank him to the right.
The moment Riker punched the button on the fob, simultaneously unlocking his door and disarming the alarm, he learned that Ivory had drawn a boxy black pistol as he slinked over to the rear of the truck.
In his left side vision, Riker saw a red and black Air Jordan enter the picture and come to rest atop the Shelby’s front tire. He saw Ebony’s coal-black ankle and muscled calf, but nothing else. The man’s sun-darkened skin was in dire need of some moisturizer. “Ashy” is the word Tara would have used to describe the man’s skin.
Ebony said, “Whatcha got in the bag, brother?”
A cold chill ran up Riker’s ribcage.
No longer able to see the pair reflected back at him due to the shallow angle, he turned slowly away from the truck, toward Ivory. A smooth clockwise maneuver that had him bringing the bag in his right hand to eye level and the other dropping the fob into his shorts’ pocket.
“I got a new cell phone in the bag,” Riker said, the gooseflesh suddenly displaced by the unstoppable creep of anger that had his trapezius muscles knotting and twin stabs of pain manifesting behind his eyes.
Keeping the gun mostly shielded from view behind one scrawny leg, Ivory took two steps toward Riker. A slight tremor rattling his drug-addled frame, he said, “Nobody but geezers and foreigners call ‘em cell phones these days. It’s smart phone, motherfucker. But I won’t hold your own ignorance against you if you just hand the bag to me and toss your keys and wallet to my pawdna there.”
Stalling, Riker said, “Take the phone. Hell, take my wallet, too.” He squared up to the shiny blue Ford. “But don’t take my baby. She’s not even out of her break-in period yet.”
“We need that whip,” Ebony said, his deep voice rising an octave. “Ain’t you been watching the news?”
Riker shook his head side to side. A slow wag that let him see that Ebony was unarmed.
“I don’t watch the news. Don’t read the newspaper, either,” he added. “Please fill me in.” As he spoke, he was setting his feet a shoulder width apart and gauging distances in his side vision.
“The New York sickness is on the move,” said Ivory. “And it ain’t bad junk or flakka or some new designer drug causing muthafuckas to eat people.”
“Crazy cannibal attacks been happening up in Jacksonville, Orlando, and Daytona,” said Ebony. “My cousin saw it with his own eyes. Barely escaped before the po po rolled up hard and started cappin’ the things.”
“Let me guess. The men in black came next,” quipped Riker. “And they cleaned things up and took all the evidence and any witnesses with them.”
Ebony was slack-jawed and staring dumbly at Riker.
Going light on the balls of his feet, Riker said, “Am I right?”
Ivory said, “Were you there or something?”
Riker thought, Not exactly the sharpest tools in the shed.
But out loud he said, “I was joking, fellas.”
“Well we ain’t,” Ivory shouted, waving the gun at Riker. “Do like I told ya. Give us all your shit.”
When you feel the burn, Riker’s last therapist would say, turn the other cheek. Then turn the anger into humor.
Riker was in no mood to tell another joke. Not with a man five feet to his right aiming a pistol in the general direction of a lot of irreplaceable body parts. He glared at Ivory. Said, “Come and take it.”
A flicker of fear ghosted across Ivory’s face.
The other man took his foot off the tire and moved to within an arm’s length of Riker.
One hand palm up, the other slowly kneading the pistol’s grip, Ivory repeated his demand.
“All right,” Riker said. “You fellas can have it all.” He feigned like he was reaching into his pocket for the fob. While the gunman was distracted watching him go for his keys, Riker swung the bag in the man’s direction and released his grip on the twine handle.
Leaving Riker’s hand, the bottom-heavy bag traced a perfect parabola through the airspace between him and Ivory.
Bag in mid-flight, Riker turned toward Ebony, opened his right hand wide, and brought it up lightning quick.
Before the bag struck the ground, Riker had caught the punch coming his way, crushed phalanges and metacarpals in his mitt-sized hand, then spun Ebony around and flung him hard at his partner in crime.
Forgetting all about the pistol, Ivory backpedaled, turned and ran, leaving his buddy to continue on a collision course with hot pavement.
A solid thunk sounded as the back of Ebony’s clean-shaven head struck the ground with force sufficient to shock his body rigid and loosen his bowels.
Leaning over the prostrate, twitching body, Riker reached out with one arm and snatched his bag off the ground.
As Riker stood straight, in his right peripheral he saw Ivory stumble over a curb, lose one flip flop, and then brace his fall with the hand holding the gun. From the corner of his other eye, he detected movement, maybe twenty feet distant. Glancing over, he made eye contact with an elderly couple just arriving beside their compact Cadillac.
“Call the cops,” he mouthed. “This a-hole just tried to rob me.”
Face a mask of confusion, the woman reached into her purse.
Knowing Florida to be a stand-your-ground state, and fully aware the lady might just as well drag a .38 Special from her purse before going for her phone, Riker flung open his door to use as a makeshift shield between him and the couple.
For good measure, before Riker climbed into the Ford, he gave a swift kick to Ebony’s exposed temple.
Riker didn’t wait to see if the elderly couple honored his request.
And no bullets crackled the air nearby—a plus in his book.
Ivory was already lost from sight when Riker wheeled into traffic and started retracing the route that would take him back to his temporary home.
Chapter 2
Riker nosed the Shelby onto West 29th, crossed the bridge to Sunset Island, then pulsed his window down. Rig coming to a full stop in the shadow of towering palms, he removed his glasses, leaned partway out the window, and handed his pass card to the uniformed man in the tiny guard shack.
The guard scrutinized the laminated card for a beat, started the iron gate rolling open, then handed the card back and waved the Shelby through.
Until three days ago, the nicest place Riker had stayed the night was the three-thousand-square-foot home belonging to the parents of a high school friend. And that had been to attend a keg party—the spending the night part was not planned.
Partying came early and fast to the rapidly growing sophomore. Due to his size and abundance of facial hair, Riker quickly became the person enlisted to make liquor store runs, procure kegs from the brewery, or pop in to the local grocer to pick up forty-ounce bottles of Olde English or St. Ides for his neighborhood upperclassmen.
The mansion he’d been calling home for the last four days only made him nervous. It was on the western tip of the island and faced the east side of Biscayne Bay. Tara had said earlier that she thought it had to be worth something in the twenty-million-dollar range. From soup to nuts, everything inside was high-dollar. Seemingly every
interior wall held pieces of art that his sister, Tara—the accredited interior decorator—insisted were real and each worth six-figures or more. Just setting foot on the highly polished Cordoba marble entry made him want to shuck off his shoes, which was no easy task due to the prosthesis; nor effective, considering that the fine white sand used to landscape the property grounds found its way inside no matter the measures taken to keep it at bay.
Keying in the code on a lighted pad beside the mansion’s entry started yet another gate rolling into a narrow pocket in the twelve-foot wall fronting the property. Painted a muted shade of yellow, the perimeter wall was mostly obscured by tropical fauna pressing in on it from inside and out. Though he hadn’t taken the time to scrutinize the top of the wall, he guessed there was some kind of deterrent there. Maybe metal louvers with sharpened ridges or crushed glass embedded into the cement.
Wheeling through the gate, Riker was greeted with the sight of the majestic royal palms planted at twenty-foot intervals on either side of the long brick drive. As the mansion materialized from the clutter of drooping palm fronds, he admired the Moroccan/India-inspired architecture.
Owned by a recently traded Miami Dolphin linebacker, the two-story digs rambled off left and right, with the separate guest home’s prominent observation tower stabbing into the clear blue sky.
The exterior featured arched windows with copper hurricane shutters and was painted a yellow several shades darker than the perimeter wall. At sunset, the villa’s west-facing walls glowed like polished gold.
A star-shaped fountain, home to a marble cherub, bubbled away in the center of the expansive circular motor court.
“Villa Jasmine,” Riker said, “I’m going to miss you.”
Truth was, save for a couple instances in the Sandbox, he had never witnessed sunsets so stunning. The nighttime views of a brightly lit downtown skyline were also sights to behold for the lifelong Midwesterner.
He parked the out-of-place pickup before one of the doors to the massive six-car garage. Then grabbed the bag with the iPhone inside and closed the door behind him, setting the Shelby’s alarm with the fob as he strode toward the covered front entry.
The timber and iron door to the villa opened with yet another code punched into a keypad whose rubber buttons glowed a soft shade of orange.
The foyer, with its marble floors and soaring ceiling, was bigger square-footage-wise than Tara’s old apartment back in Middletown, Indiana. A pair of opposing staircases angled left and right, hugging the honey-colored stucco walls as they curled gently to an open landing twenty feet overhead.
Emerging from the shadows under the stairs to Riker’s left, Steve-O said, “Boo,” and broke out in laughter. Planting his hands on his knees, he added, “Got you real good, Lee. You jumped a country mile.”
“Maybe a country inch,” conceded Riker. “And that was only my real foot leaving the floor. What’ve you been up to, Lobster Man?”
Steve-O rose up and fixed Riker with liquid blue eyes fronted by prescription lenses. He was wearing a straw hat in place of his usual white Stetson. Instead of the ubiquitous Western shirt and Levi’s starched and ironed to near bulletproof stiffness, the forty-five-year-old man wore swim trunks in a Hawaiian-style floral pattern and a white tank soiled with what to Riker looked like extra-chunky salsa. And sure enough, the reason for the new nickname—save for a patch of white in the shape of wraparound sunglasses he’d been wearing religiously when out and about in the Florida sun—he was sunburned from head to toe.
“Tara can call me Rocket Raccoon all she likes,” replied Steve-O. “But you, Mr. Riker, may not call me Lobster Man. Lobsters are orange. I am not orange.”
“Sometimes lobsters are purple,” Riker noted.
Steve-O said nothing. He seemed to be chewing on the validity of the statement.
Breaking the uncomfortable silence, Riker said, “Are you using sunscreen today?”
“None of your business,” Steve-O shot. “I’m a grown ass man, remember?”
“Suit yourself,” Riker said, suppressing a smile. “What brings you to the back forty of Villa Jasmine?”
“Just looking to make some lunch when I heard your monster truck outside,” Steve-O replied. “Why, are you writing a book?”
Riker could no longer contain the smile. As the dam broke, he snorted. “No book in the works, Steve-O. I was just curious.”
As the much shorter Steve-O turned toward the wide hallway leading to the front of the house which overlooked the dock where a forty-five-foot Fountain offshore racer was cradled in a boat lift, Riker spotted a large bandage on his friend’s right shoulder. Gauze filaments peeked out from under a heavy tape job. An inch or so of the angry red skin around the edges of the bandage glistened with some kind of yellow salve.
Touching Steve-O’s arm—an action that made the man wince and pull away—Riker said, “What happened to you? That is not covering a bite … is it?”
Shaking his head, Steve-O vehemently denied he’d been bitten.
“Lay it on me,” Riker insisted. “What happened? Leave nothing out.”
“Last night, while me and Tara were out shopping”—he made air quotes as he said shopping—“we both got tattoos. At first the man didn’t want to ink me because I have Down Syndrome.” He smiled wide. “Tara straightened him out real quick.”
“A real tattoo?” blurted Riker. Shaking his head, he added, “Explains why you all were gone so long.”
“I’m a big boy,” Steve-O said as he began to pick at one edge of the bandage.
Riker removed his Oakleys and stuffed them in a pocket. As he ranged around to get a better viewing angle, he asked, “What did you get?”
“Patience,” implored Steve-O as he peeled away the bandage, revealing the dark, saucer-sized piece of work glistening with salve.
Chapter 3
Riker couldn’t believe his eyes as he squinted and leaned closer. Expertly tattooed on Steve-O’s arm was a grouping of faces inset into what appeared to be a craggy mountain full of shadows. The result of the fine line work and shading truly made the work of art pop. The thicker lines were raised and red. As if the skin knew it would never again be pasty white, the whole right side of the man’s upper arm seemed to be weeping.
“Why Mount Rushmore?”
Steve-O shook his head. “Look closer.”
Leaning in so that his face was maybe six inches from the tat, Riker said, “Oh, my,” and then chuckled to himself.
Smiling now, Steve-O said, “Can you name them?”
Working left to right, his finger hovering over each face for a beat, Riker said, “Hank Williams, Johnny Cash … and I think this is a woman—”
“Dolly Parton,” interrupted Steve-O, his voice betraying an elevated affection for the buxom blonde.
Finger poised over the final likeness, face screwed up, incredulous, Riker said, “Is this a black guy?”
Steve-O nodded. “It’s Darius Rucker. Looks just like him, right?”
Riker reared back. “Whoa … illegal right turn there, buddy. What the heck does the lead singer of Hootie and the Blowfish have to do with the legends of country music?”
Shaking his head, Steve-O muttered, “Rookies,” and started off down the hallway, smoothing the bandage back in place as he went.
Riker said nothing. He shrugged once, slung the bag with the phone over one shoulder, and followed the shorter man through the mansion.
They walked the length of the house, stopping in the massive kitchen long enough for Steve-O to make himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
The bank of floor-to-ceiling storm windows facing the bay were open, the panels pushed all the way to the walls left and right of the great room they fronted. A gentle breeze carrying with it the briny aroma of salt water ruffled the sheer linen curtains.
They walked around the pool, through the exquisitely manicured backyard, past more palms than Riker could count, and stepped up onto a wide deck supported by hidden pilings.
The shore-hugging deck stretched seventy-five feet in both directions, the wide wooden planks bleached white by the sun and worn smooth by Mother Nature.
On the bay side of the dock was a rail of brushed metal posts strung through with heavy gauge cables.
Tara was in a skimpy yellow two-piece bikini, lounging on a teak recliner. A bucket by her side bristled with the clear, long necks of bottles full of golden liquid. The plush red and white striped pad on the lounge chair shifted under her as she sat up and grabbed a Corona by the neck. Seeing the pair arrive, she gestured toward them with the bottle. “Steve-O? Tilt one back with me?”
“Told you yesterday that I never touch the stuff,” said Steve-O before popping the last bite of sandwich into his mouth.
“Pass,” said Riker as he sat and stretched his long frame out on the recliner next to Tara’s.
“No duh,” Tara said. “Last thing I need is to lose track of you for another three months while you chase your demons.”
Grimacing, Riker said, “Chasing? I was usually running from them.”
“Demons?” said Steve-O. He was squinting against the sun now and making a show of not paying Tara any attention.
“Figure of speech, Steve-O.” Riker turned toward the man, took the drug store sunglasses off the low table between chairs, and handed them over. “Grown ass man or not, you better wear these. You’re starting to get a bad case of crow’s feet.”
Steve-O harrumphed and acquiesced, trading out the thick-framed prescription items for the knock-off Ray Bans. “Better?” he asked, smiling.
“Much better,” Riker said. “Now take a load off. Looks like you need to work on that tan of yours.”
“Leave him alone, Lee,” Tara said, shooting him a harsh look. She passed an aerosol can of SPF 50 sunscreen over to Steve-O. “He’s from Indiana,” she added. “That’s pretty damn far from the Sunbelt.”
The Plan Page 2