Bitter Legacy: A Matt Royal Mystery (Matt Royal Mysteries)

by Griffin, H. Terrell

  “I doubt it. I was sitting on this stool like I do every day and he came in and sat on the one you’re on now. We chatted a bit and after a couple of hours, he left. He was kind of keyed up, said this could be the big one for him. I think he planned to make a lot of money.”

  “What else did he say?”

  “Nothing much. He didn’t usually talk about his work, but he had a lot to drink that day. We were talking about how hard it is to make a living around here and he started talking about the Seminole guy. He got shot two days later.”

  “Do you know Charlie Foreman?” I asked.

  “Sure. Everybody knows Charlie.”

  “I talked to him briefly. He said he’d talked to some of the folks in the Swamp Rat, but nobody knew anything. Did you tell him what you just told me?”

  “Nah. I heard Charlie was in here Saturday night, but I went up to Pahokee to visit my sister that morning. I just got back today. I was going to call him, but ain’t got around to it yet.”

  I changed the subject. “Tell me about your town.”

  We talked for another half hour and had one more drink. I used a credit card to pay my tab and left, thinking I’d gotten about all I was going to get out of the bar. It had been a wasted trip. B.J. would call Charlie Foreman the next day and then the lieutenant would have the same information I had now.

  I stepped out of the bar and into the soft evening. I walked a few yards to the corner and stopped, standing for a moment on the sidewalk staring into the dark street. There were no streetlights and the only illumination was the light spilling from the Swamp Rat. The noise had subsided as the door closed behind me, bringing a relative stillness to the night. Something wasn’t right. Old instincts were churning my gut, raising alarms, releasing adrenalin

  What was it? I stared into the night, my vision sharpening. I saw Jock’s rented Pontiac parked across the square, a shadow moving toward it. I fixated on the scene and felt the cold steel of a pistol barrel caress the back of my neck. A deep voice tinged with the cadences of the Glades said, “Come with me, Mr. Royal or sure as shit, I’ll kill you.”

  Before I could respond, I saw the shadow stop behind the Pontiac, roll something under it, turn and run into the dark. I was puzzling it out when an explosion rocked the night. The rental shifted upward, a gout of flame shooting from the area of the gas tank above the rear axle. The car was engulfed in fire before I could move. I was cemented to the sidewalk, in shock, no more able to move than if my feet had been glued to the ground. There was no movement in the Pontiac, no one trying to exit, nothing. A second had passed before I gathered my wits and started to move.

  “Don’t,” said the voice. I felt the pistol bore deeply into my neck. I stopped. A black Mercedes, lights out, pulled up and stopped in front of us. The rear door on our side opened. Down the block I could see people flowing out of the Swamp Rat, alerted by the explosion. The man with the voice pushed me into the car, climbed in behind me, and put the pistol into my side. The driver accelerated around the corner and raced into the night.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  It had been a long day and the old man was tired. He’d received a call mid-morning from the Hacker, that useless turd, to tell him that his people had once again failed to kill Royal. In fact the two men sent to do the job were dead, killed by somebody at Royal’s house.

  “Your biker buddies?” the old man had asked.

  “No. These guys were contractors. The biker guys hired them because they knew how to handle boats.” He told him how the operation had been planned and how bad it had turned out.

  “You’re skating on thin ice,” the old man said. “I ought to fire your ass and get somebody else to do the job.”

  “Temporary setback,” said the Hacker. “I’ll get it done.”

  “You’ve had a lot of those setbacks this week. Fuck up one more time, and you’re history.”

  The whole week had been like that. One screwup after another. He didn’t understand why the men he’d hired couldn’t wrap this mess up. He was sick of the whole thing.

  His life was ebbing away, but not fast enough. He sat and stared out at the bay, or watched a little television, or read one of the several newspapers delivered daily to his door. Most of them weren’t worthy of wrapping fish.

  His gut had become so delicate that he could eat little other than some sort of mush that Donna concocted. When he did eat the rare sandwich, heartburn came with such fire that he swore he’d never again eat another. His Scotch kept him sane, but he couldn’t drink all day. His fucking stomach wouldn’t allow it. He did look forward to the evening. A time when he could sip his allotted two Scotches and watch the daylight dim over the bay. It wasn’t much for a man who’d lived a life so full. Maybe the end time, the last few weeks of life, was the hell he deserved. Hell on earth. Did that mean that death brought nothing? Or maybe another chance, an opportunity to live a better life, to have a family, to enjoy his wealth without the burning need to see it grow?

  Well, he’d find out soon enough. In the meantime, it was too late to change his fate. The gods had already written that story based on his life to date. There would be no redemption, no chance to change his eternal future, if there was a future, if there was something more than—than what? Nothingness?

  Hell, he was tired of worrying about it. He’d follow through on his plan, stomp out the last people to challenge him, make one final splash on a world he’d despaired of, that he was happy to leave. Those remaining would talk about him down through the ages, regale their children with tales of treachery and deceit that made the old robber barons seem benign. In the end, all he had to leave was his legacy, and that legacy would be one that would make men tremble in awe for generations.

  His phone had rung a half hour before, one of the cells that Donna would destroy the next morning. He had dozens of them. It was a foolproof way for people to communicate with him and never know his identity. He had a Web site, one that was untraceable, and had but a single page. Each night at midnight, Donna went onto the site and posted a new phone number, erasing the one from the day before. New number, new phone. She bought the phones as needed, mostly from convenience stores, never the same one twice, and always paid cash. The phones came with their own number and prepaid minutes.

  He almost never talked on them. Donna would answer, take messages, and convey orders to the caller. That evening, she came to him after the phone had rung. “Turk is on the phone,” she said. “He’s in the bar in Belleville. Said Matt Royal came in and talked with one of the locals who knew about the document. The guy didn’t know what they were or where they are.”

  “Ask Turk if he has weapons, and if so, what kind.”

  Donna disappeared and returned in a couple of minutes. “He has a pistol and some old hand grenades he got from a bent army supply sergeant. Says they’re still good.”

  “Ask him if he’ll kill Royal for ten thousand dollars.”

  She came back. “He’ll do it.”

  “Tell him it’s a deal, but only if Royal dies tonight. Also tell him to look out for Royal’s buddies. If Turk can take them out, I’ll add another ten grand a head.”

  Donna returned shortly, bringing another tumbler of Scotch and water. “Done,” she said, as she placed the whiskey on the table next to his chair.

  So he sat and contemplated life and death. He smiled to himself. Royal would go first, Royal and his buddies. If there was life after death they’d be there waiting for him. Would they be angry, relieved, happy? Or was there any such sentiment in the hereafter? Who knew? Who cared?

  Turk had started the whole thing. He’d worked in the phosphate mines most of his life, traveling from his hometown of Belleville to the center of the state to dig out Florida’s version of gold. His brother, who’d had some schooling at the community college in Naples, worked for the same company, but he was in lower management. He wasn’t very bright, so he’d never advanced above his supervisor’s position, but he worked hard and did his job in a
reasonably efficient manner.

  Turk, who wasn’t even as smart as his brother, worked as a laborer, and held onto his job through the beneficence of the company. When he got hurt on the job, because his brother had some pull, Turk was kept on the payroll until he had enough years to retire. He owed his brother and he owed the company.

  He’d returned to Belleville and lived in a dump on the edge of town out by the swamp. He’d never married, but a succession of hard women shared his bed from time to time, never for more than a few weeks.

  Turk met Jason Blakemoore when he had a minor run-in with the law. One of the women hadn’t taken kindly to being asked to leave, and he’d had to slap her around a bit. The bitch had gone to the law and Turk was arrested on a domestic violence charge. The only lawyer he had even heard of was Jason, so he’d gone to see him. Turk didn’t have any money, but Jason made a deal for Turk to work off the fee by doing chores around his house.

  Jason got the charges reduced to disorderly conduct, mainly because the State Attorney’s office lost track of the woman who had complained. They had no case, but Jason hadn’t figured that one out, and thought he’d done a good job by getting the state to agree to the plea.

  Turk was sentenced to ten hours of community service, which he worked off during one weekend of mowing grass at the hospital in Naples. He thought Jason was a great lawyer, because even though that crazy bitch deserved to have her ass kicked, he knew the law took a dim view of such things. He figured he’d spend some time in the county lockup over it, but Jason had been brilliant and Turk was free. He happily went to work fixing up things in Jason’s house.

  They developed a pattern, two bachelors living in a small town. Most days they’d have a couple of drinks as the day wore down. They’d often sit at the bar at the Swamp Rat for a few drinks and then go to Jason’s home for a couple more. No big deal, but Turk admired Jason’s football glory and his education. Sometimes, they’d drink more than two and talk into the night.

  A few days before, during one of their late night forays into the bottle of Jack Daniel’s supplied by the lawyer, Jason told Turk of a client he’d seen that day, a black man who claimed to be a Seminole Indian. As if there was such a thing. But the man whose name was Abraham Osceola told a story of finding a document that would give the Black Seminoles title to much of the phosphate in Florida. It was a stretch, since neither Jason nor Turk had ever imagined anything remotely like a Black Seminole, but if there was such a document, there would be a lot of money involved. Jason could sell those rights, whatever they might be, to the phosphate industry for a tidy sum, a not insubstantial part of which would fall into Jason’s pocket through the magic of the contingency fee contract. Jason would get one-third of whatever he recovered, less whatever another lawyer charged to help out.

  There was only one problem. Jason had no idea of what action he should take. He could go to court, but that would probably mean federal court, and those judges scared the hell out of a lot of lawyers, including Jason. They actually expected you to know what you were talking about when you came to court. Jason didn’t think he could face that kind of scrutiny. He’d never even been to county court where they heard misdemeanors. He always pled his clients out.

  Osceola had told Blakemoore that he knew a lawyer up the state who was a real trial lawyer and thought he’d help them out. A guy in Longboat Key named Matt Royal. He was retired, so that’s why Osceola hadn’t gone to him in the first place. Jason planned to get in touch with the guy and see if they could work out some sort of division of fees that would be fair to Jason.

  Turk thought the whole thing was nuts, but when he got over his hangover the next day, he’d called his brother and told him about the conversation. Maybe there was a way for them to get a part of the deal. He could sure use the money. His retirement check hardly kept him in food and booze, much less women.

  The old man laughed to himself, thinking about the foolishness of simple-minded men. Turk’s brother’s job was not very secure. He had a new boss who expected more than he could deliver. In an attempt to ingratiate himself with the new man, and thereby keep his job, he’d told the boss the whole story. The boss sent it up the line, thinking it was all just more cracker bullshit. Within hours of Turk and Jason’s conversation, the gist of it had reached the ears of the old man. And as always, he’d taken action.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  I looked at the man holding the gun. He was the one who had been on the barstool next to B.J. in the Swamp Rat. I was sitting in the corner of the backseat, scrunched against the right side door, hoping for an opening. I didn’t think I’d get one. The man rested against the opposite door, behind the driver, a large pistol leveled at me. He was left handed, or at least that was the hand that held the gun. I glanced out of the windshield. We were coming up to the next corner, still accelerating. I saw a man standing in the middle of the street, a pistol pointed at the car. A flash from the muzzle, and a hole appeared in the windshield. The driver slumped over against the center console. The car veered sharply to the right, sideswiped a telephone pole and came to rest against a cinder block building that according to the faded sign painted on its side had once housed a drycleaning establishment.

  We had not gained much speed before the driver lost control, but it was enough that the sudden stop pushed the gunman into the back of the front seat. At the same moment, I dove for him, grabbed his left wrist with my right hand, and slammed the heel of my left hand into his nose. I felt the cartilage go as a scream tore from his throat. I hit him again and at the same time banged his left wrist into the back of the seat. I could feel his grip loosening, the pain taking over his reflexes. I twisted the pistol from his fingers and slashed it across his face, drawing more blood. I pulled it back, intending to bring it down again into his face. The door opened and the man fell backward onto the pavement.

  “Whoa, buddy,” said Logan, leaning into the car. “You okay?”

  I took a deep breath, the bloodlust draining out of my system. Sometimes, not often, and only when greatly provoked, I lose a bit of control. A red film fills my eyes and I become a man possessed by demons. I want to kill the object of my intense anger. So it was on that night. I think it was a reaction to the anticipation of my own death, and the relief that I was not going to die that day. Maybe it was the effrontery of a stranger who would put a hole in my precious hide or maybe it was just that I was stupid enough to let somebody get an advantage on me, somebody who was intent on causing my death. I am not proud of that part of me, but I live with it and usually control it.

  “I’m okay. How about Jock?”

  Jock leaned into the car. “Right here, podner.”

  “That was some kind of high noon crap,” I said.

  “I thought it had the right touch.”

  “I owe you, buddy. I don’t think this asshole had my best interests at heart. How did you come to be in the middle of the street?”

  “Let’s get this bozo restrained,” Jock said, “and then we’ll talk.”

  I got out of the car. The gunman lay unconscious on the pavement. Jock pulled a plastic flex-cuff from his pocket and used it to secure the guy’s hands behind him.

  “We’d better call Charlie Foreman,” I said. “He’s going to be busy tonight. I thought you guys were in the car when it went up.”

  Jock grinned. “No, but with the car windows dark the guy with the grenade couldn’t tell that.”

  “What happened?”

  Logan spoke up. “We saw this one come out of the bar and make a couple of calls on his cell. Then he went to a beater parked on the corner and got what looked like a pistol out of the trunk. He wasn’t paying any attention to us, and we figured he might be after you. We got out of the car and came over here to see what was going to happen.”

  They watched as the man with the phone waited by his car. After about twenty minutes, the Mercedes drove slowly down the street. He let a man off about a block behind where Jock and Logan were parked and then m
oved to the block just the other side of the bar. “When Jock’s rental blew up,” Logan said, “I figured you’d be next. It’s a good thing the Mercedes turned this way. Otherwise, we’d have had to get my car and come after you.”

  “So,” I said, “you didn’t have a plan.”

  “Not exactly, but we improvised,” said Jock, grinning. “It worked out. You’re not dead.”

  I laughed, bleeding off nervous energy. “You’d think somebody would be here by now. The car hitting that building must have gotten somebody’s attention.”

  “They’re probably still out in front of the bar watching the rental burn,” said Logan.

  Less than five minutes had passed since the explosion. I was still a little shaky from the adrenalin rush, now subsiding. I’d thought my friends were dead and was sure that I’d join them very quickly. I pulled out my cell phone.

  “What’re you doing?” asked Jock.

  “Calling Charlie Foreman.”

  “Hold up. I can’t be identified as being part of this.”

  “The rental car is in your name, Jock,” I said. “They’ll figure it out sooner or later.”

  “I rented the car in a name nobody will ever be able to trace. Just being careful.”

  I shook my head. I could never get over my amazement at the trade-craft of my boyhood friend. Even on vacation from his world of spies and espionage and intelligence gathering, Jock had rented the car using one of the fictitious identifications he carries around with him like so much extra change. I motioned to the man lying prone on the ground. “What about him?”

  “Let’s take him with us,” said Jock. “We might be able to pry some information out of him. Maybe that’ll start unraveling this mess.”

  “I’ll get my car,” said Logan.

  A siren screamed in the distance, getting louder, closer. Another took up the call, this one laced with a loud horn, coming from the same direction. Headed for the explosion, I thought. Logan disappeared around the corner and in a minute came back with his car. The first siren let out one more whoop and went silent. I heard the hiss of air brakes and then only the crackling of the fire across the square and the murmur of voices from the people gathered outside the Swamp Rat.