by Mike Stewart
Squirley licked dry, cracked lips, then snorted hard down deep in his throat and spit on the gravel. He was getting ready to talk.
“There’s a hell of a mess goin’ on. On the one side, you got old men been running things down hereâsome of ‘em since after Korea. On the other side you got a buncha mean-ass kids tryin’ to take over. Startin’ to get bad, too. These young ‘uns, they don’t give a shit about nothin’. Kill you for nothin’, for fun. Don’t give a shit about jail. Nothin’.”
I said, “Where’s Purcell come in?”
“Old Leroy thinks he’s gonna come in and take over while there’s a war goin’ on. But he’s fuckin’ up. Shoulda picked a side and cut some kinda deal. But, hell no, fuckin’ football hero wants it all. Word is he wants to set up one of them cartels like they got down in Spicland. Old Leroy wants to be king shit of smugglers. Kinda do for guns and military stuff what the spics did with coke.” He paused to turn his head and spit into the gravel. “Shit. You ask me, Leroy’s fuckin’ up big time. Now, he’s got the old boys pissedâand they been doin’ this shit a long timeâand he’s got the young ‘uns pissedâand, like I said, they just don’t give a shit. Kill your momma for a dollar.”
I said, “We need names.”
“You’re asking shit that’s gonna get me killed if anybody finds out I talked.”
Joey said, “How about if we give you our word that we’ll be as careful with your reputation as you are?”
“You tryin’ to be a smart-ass?” Joey shrugged, and Squirley flinched. He turned to me. “Your boy here don’t know how to do business. Now, you look smart.”
I said, “Uh-huh.”
“All I’m saying is, if you want names, I gotta see that hundred.”
I pulled some folded bills from my hip pocket, peeled one off, and handed it to Squirley.
He smiled. He beamed. It wasn’t pretty.
Our inebriated informer pushed the bill deep inside his pocket, and a dark shape hit him flush in the mouth. Squirley McCall fell back onto the wall and slid to the ground. I spun around.
Joey already had his .45 trained on a group of three men. The one in the middle was casually tossing half a brick into the air and catching it.
Joey said, “Put it down.”
The man caught the brick, turned his hand upside down, and let it drop. The same man looked up and said, “Time for you two to get on out of here.”
Joey said, “I was just gonna say the same thing to you. Seeing how I’m the one with the gun and all.”
The brick thrower smiled and walked away followed by the other two.
Joey said, “Let’s go.”
I grabbed Squirley’s elbow and said, “Get the other arm.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re going to kill him if we leave him here.”
Joey said, “They’re gonna kill him anyhow for talking to us,” but he grabbed the other arm and helped me get Squirley to my car.
After dropping Squirley at the emergency room, I took a few minutes to talk over the night with Joey. Then I headed back to Seaside. I needed to spend some time in front of a laptop while my little adventure at Mother’s Milk was fresh in my mind.
For the first time, the loose ends were beginning to weave themselves into an indistinct but vaguely recognizable fabric.
chapter nineteen
I shut down my new Dell laptop a little after one, trudged up the rented teak stairs of our Seaside cottage, and climbed under the covers beside Susan, who stirred and murmured half words whispered low and found sleep again. I lay there listening to the widow Fitzsimmons’ rhythmic breathing and let panic take hold the way it does when it finds you exhausted and unsettled and uncomfortably awake in the hours between midnight and dawn.
I got up and drank some water. Got back in bed. Got out again and straightened the covers. Again Susan stirred, and I lay still. Much less time went by than it felt like, and I drifted into a fitful sleep.
That morning, I slept late but not well.
Downstairs, Loutie was manning the listening equipment. Susan was on the phone; she put her hand over the mouthpiece and said, “It’s Joey. He needs to talk to you.”
I took the phone, and said, “Kind of an interesting night.”
“Yeah. That’s one thing you could call it. Might’ve been more interesting if Squirley had turned loose of a couple more names before eating a brick.”
I walked over to the cabinet and found a glass. “Go see him in the hospital. We left him the hundred. He still owes us the names.” As I spoke, I filled the glass with ice and water.
Joey said, “Too late. Squirley McCall’s a goner.”
“He died from getting hit in the mouth with a brick? That doesn’t make sense.”
“Hell no. He just hauled ass. The orderly took in his breakfast, and old Squirley had taken a powder. And his clothes were gone. So it looked like Squirley just got dressed and slipped out. I wouldn’t put it past him to just be trying to stiff the hospital, but, considering last night, I’m guessing he’s hiding out somewhere for a while. You want me to try to find him?”
“No, I don’t think so. Tell me if I’m wrong, but I think you need to watch Haycock, and I need to keep an eye on Purcell.”
Joey agreed and got off the phone. I made a detour upstairs for a quick shower and clean clothes and, after donning my cap-and-sunglasses disguise, strolled over and loitered on the beach outside Purcell’s pastel mansion.
Everything looked the way it had the day before. The sky was blue and the Cadillac was red.
I had just gotten there when my phone vibrated. It was Susan. “He’s up. Get out of there.”
“I didn’t know he was down.”
“Yes. He was still in bed.”
“I’m on the beach. I can see the house, but I’m nowhere near it.”
I waited, feeling a little silly, while Susan conveyed my position to Loutie. Susan repeated, “He’s up. He just got a call from a man who didn’t identify himself. And Tom, the guy said he was, quote, ‘bringing in Poultrez.’”
“Shit!”
“They’ve got her, Tom. The only good thing is they’re bringing Carli here, to Purcell’s house.”
“That’s strange. I’ve been operating on the assumption that Purcell would want to maintain a veneer of respectability around here.” I thought. “Another good thing is that if they’re bringing her here she’s probably okay. I don’t think they’ll let her come in kicking and screaming, but I don’t think they’ll want to unload any unconscious teenage girls in broad daylight either.”
I heard Loutie speaking in the background, and Susan said, “Loutie’s coming over. She says stay on the beach side of the house. She’ll hang around in front. She says if you see her move, to come running and to have that gun of yours ready.”
I said, “Let me talk to her.”
Loutie came on. “Tom. Just stay where you are. The man who phoned Purcell said he’d be pulling into Seaside in fifteen or twenty minutes. Like Susan said, I’ll stay on the side of the house away from the beach. If a car comes up, I’ll be in sight. Just follow my lead.”
“You’re kidding. You want to have a shoot-out in the middle of Seaside at nine in the morning?”
Loutie’s voice was tense with the strained patience of an older sister explaining life to her none-too-bright sibling. “No, Tom. I don’t want that, and neither will Purcell. He lives here. But if we want any chance of getting her back, we better do it now. They won’t be expecting an ambush outside Purcell’s driveway. And we’ll all be in the open and in clear view of the neighbors, and they won’t want to shoot. No. This is as good as it’s going to get, Tom.” She paused and said, “Are you with me?”
I didn’t like it, but I said, “I’m with you.”
“Good.”
“Have you talked with Joey?”
“Yeah. I called while Susan was on with you. Looks like something’s happening with Haycock, and he couldn’t get here in time to do anything a
nyway. He said to handle it.”
I said, “Then I guess that’s what we’ll do,” and pressed end.
I walked down to the surf’s edge and looked both ways. The closest humans were little more than distant dots on the beach. Facing the water, I eased the 9mm out of my waistband and held it close against my stomach while I chambered a round and checked the safety. I put it back.
Suddenly the breeze and the sun were irritating, the sand in my shoes ground uncomfortably into tender, sockless feet, and I noticed seaweed and dead jellyfish marring the beach. Shit, shit, and shit. I walked up the beach to a small dune behind Purcell’s place and pretended to collect driftwood. As seconds and minutes ticked by, I walked back and forth along a small section of startlingly white beach collecting smooth brown sticks one at a time and placing them on a neat pile next to the dune, also one at a time. I was trying to stretch a two-minute job into twenty. Finally, when I had exhausted the stick supply, I took a minute to walk up and look for Loutie. Nothing wrong with looking for a friend who promised to join you on the beach. No reason to hide.
When no one had arrived at Purcell’s by nine-thirty, I plopped down on the dune, wiggled a butt-shaped seat into the warm sand, and began to sort my sticks by size and color. It was stupid, but no one Would be looking that hard. And, even if they did, people do stupid, slow-motion things on the beach. The poor fella’s on vacation, Marge. Let him play with his sticks in peace.
A black Chrysler pulled up and parked next to Purcell’s Caddy. Okay. Now what? How do I get close enough to do anything? I picked up the carefully sorted sticks in my left hand and cringed to think I was leaving my “gun hand,” for God’s sake, empty and ready to shoot.
I tried to look relaxed, to look like a tourist, to look proud of my sticks.
I was near the cars now, and the Browning’s heft and its steel ridges chafed my side. Loutie materialized around the front corner of the house. She didn’t look relaxed. She looked ready to kill someone. The car door opened. Tim, Sonny’s painting partner at See Shore Cottage, stepped out of the driver’s door and slammed it shut as the passenger door swung open. An enormous man stepped out and gaped at his monied surroundings like a Baptist in a titty bar. He had dark Mediterranean skin and hair and, judging from a distance, looked to be maybe six four and close to two eighty. He looked like more of Purcell’s muscle, but something about the guy bothered me. Something about him tugged at a memory.
I waited. Carli had to be in the backseat or maybe in the trunk. The men went inside, but I knew there could be someone else hiding in back, someone holding my client hostage and waiting to shoot anyone who came near.
Loutie approached a ground floor window of Purcell’s mansion and peered inside. Then she motioned me forward with her hand and pointed at the Chrysler. I nodded and trotted over next to the trunk. I glanced back at Loutie. She gave me a thumbs-up. I peeked inside at empty seats and then pushed the door release button and eased open the back door. My phone vibrated. The backseat and the floorboards were indeed empty, and my phone vibrated. I opened the passenger door, found the trunk release, pushed it, and my phone vibrated. Carli was not in the trunk. I raised my shoulders and shook my head at Loutie, and my phone vibrated.
Loutie motioned for me to follow her, but I shook my head and walked back out onto the beach and sat on my dune, all the while wondering who was vibrating my hip. Of course, it was Susan.
“What is it?” I may have sounded a little terse.
Susan said, “You didn’t answer.”
“Bad timing. I’m fine. What is it?”
“They’re not bringing Carli here. They don’t even have her.”
And I had it. I said, “That’s her father, isn’t it? That’s Rus Poultrez.”
“How’d you know?” I didn’t answer. I was trying to think this through. Susan went on. “I heard them over Loutie’s equipment. They brought him in to help find Carli. They’re talking money now. Sounds like they had some kind of agreement, and now Poultrez is trying to squeeze more money out of Purcell. I’ve heard the numbers thirty thousand and fifty thousand.”
I felt sick. “Who would sell his own daughter for thirty thousand dollars?”
Susan said, “The same guy who would rape and abuse his daughter instead of protecting her or even ignoring her. Someone disgusting and worse. Someone evil.”
I cussed and kicked some sand into the air that blew back in my face. I told her I was returning to the house.
For most of the next hour, Susan, Loutie, and I listened over hidden mikes as Poultrez bitched about how much money he was losing by sitting around Seaside instead of staying home to work the seas off New England for cod. Every now and then, as Poultrez paused to savor a particularly salient argument, Purcell would say, “If you don’t want the thirty thousand, go back home.”
Purcell didn’t get to be king redneck just by being the biggest nut on the tree. As Poultrez tried to work him for more money, Purcell was demonstrating surprising control and even glimmers of limited intelligence. He knew Poultrez had put his fishing business on hold and flown all the way to Florida based on an offer of thirty thousand. The fisherman would take more if he could get it. But Poultrez had come for thirty, and, in the end, he would happily sell his daughter’s life for that amount.
In contrast to his host, Carli’s father kept pushing after all hope and most of Purcell’s patience had evaporated. Poultrez proceeded from financial arguments to threatening to get on a plane, and Purcell told him to do what he thought best. Poultrez tried anger, and Purcell gave the same answer. Finally, Poultrez tried threatening Purcell, and the football-hero leader of the Bodines offered to kill Poultrez, chop him into edible chunks, and leave his butchered carcass scattered over a saltwater marsh for the crabs and alligators. That was pretty much the end of that.
Poultrez still tried to sound tough, but he mostly just sounded defeated. “This is bullshit. Over the phone, you said thirty for sure and probably more if I came. That’s what you said. ‘Probably more.’ And now that I hauled my ass down here to the middle of nowhere, you just say take the thirty. Shit. I lost my temper threatening you the way I did before, but… shit.”
A feminine voice with a heavy Latin accent announced lunch. Joey’s bugs were so good we could hear the springs on the sofa creak as someone stood. A few seconds later, Purcell’s voice said, “Sit over there,” and we could hear even better than before.
I whispered to Loutie, “This is amazing.”
Loutie said, “They’re not two-way mikes, Tom. You don’t have to whisper.”
Of course I knew that. It just seems like you should whisper when you’re eavesdropping. But explaining would have been worse than nothing, so I said, “Oh,” and Susan pretended not to notice.
Chewing, slurping, and swallowing sounds emanated from Purcell’s and Poultrez’s mouths and buzzed into our rented kitchen through black-screened speakers.
Loutie said, “There’s a bug under the table and one in the light over it.”
More masticating filtered through the speakers, and Purcell said, “Thirty’s all you get for Carli. You wanna make more, you gotta do more. There’s a lawyer named McInnes, Tom McInnes, who’s mixed up in this. I personally took the time to try and reason with him, but the guy’s a prick. Attacked one of my men by throwing food at him like some dumbass kid and then stabbing his tire and running away like a chicken shit.” Purcell paused to gulp something and emit a barely stifled belch. “Like I said, I gave him a chance to be smart. He screwed it for hisself. So, here’s the deal. I want you spending your time looking for the girl. That’s first. But, if you come across McInnes while you’re doing it, and if you put a bullet in his head, I’ll add twenty thousand to the thirty thousand finder’s fee I’m offering for Carli.”
Poultrez’s greed had new legs. “Twenty’s not much for killing somebody. Hell, back home, up in Boston…”
Purcell said, “Do I look like somebody who gives a rat’s ass what people in Boston-f
ucking-Massachusetts do?” Poultrez didn’t answer. “Twenty’s the same deal I’m giving my own men. One of ‘em nails McInnes, I’ll pay the twenty. You nail him, you get the twenty.”
The room swirledâjust a littleâand I realized I was breathing too fast. Shallow gusts filled the top shelf of my lungs and gushed out again under their own power. I blinked and focused on breathing deeply and slowly. Two strong hands squeezed my shoulders, and I jumpedâagain, just a little. Susan was standing behind me, meaning to comfort me.
I said, “That’s interesting.”
Loutie looked unfazed. She said, “Yeah. It is.”
chapter twenty
Susan tried to put the best face on my impending death. “Tom. In a way, this is good. Isn’t it? I mean, we’ve got Leroy Purcell on tape.” She looked at Loutie. “It is on tape, isn’t it?” Loutie nodded, and Susan turned back to me. “So, we’ve got him on tape taking out a contract on your life. We can take that to the police and get them to do something.”
I said, “Do what?”
“Arrest him or something.”
“We illegally bugged Purcell’s house, Susan. Down the road somewhere, the tapes may or may not be admissible in court, if we get that far. But, for now, we’ve got all kinds of problems with them. Just to start, Joey and Loutie committed breaking and entering, which is a felony, to hide the bugs. Joey would lose his investigator’s license, he and Loutie might do some jail time, and I’d expect the State Bar to question my fitness to continue practicing law, since Joey and Loutie planted the bugs at my direction.”
Susan said, “But if it’ll save your life.”
“Susan, if I knew turning over the tapes would save your life, Carli’s life, or mine, I’d turn them over to the cops today. But it wouldn’t work. It’s only our word that that’s actually Purcell on the tapes. He’d claim we manufactured them. And he’s connected down here and we’re not. Who do you think they’re going to believe? The guy’s scum, but he’s still a hero to a lot of people in Florida because of his football days.”