Deal with the Dead

by Les Standiford

  After a fair amount of wrangling, the matter was settled, the commissioners firmly ensconced in the familiar position of patronage. Anything else, as the saying went, would have been unthinkable, at least in Miami.

  The terminal complex, a glorified name for what would be essentially a dockside office building, was a relatively small blip on the project’s huge screen. Deal’s proposal totaled just over $20 million. But DealCo hadn’t undertaken a project anywhere near that size since well before his old man’s suicide. He’d put in the bid only at Barrios’ insistence, and even then after warning Eddie that there would be no greasing of palms, no payment of lobbyists’ fees for Barrios and Company, no funny business whatsoever. “Hey, Johnny,” Barrios had said, “you get the job, you’re going to need some help putting a subcontractor team together. We’ll cross that one later on.”

  When Deal had discovered that the architects picked to design the building were a husband-and-wife team with whom he’d collaborated well on a couple of extensive home renovations in Coral Gables, he’d decided to go for it. Every night for nearly a month—two hours when his daughter, Isabel, was staying with him, four hours when she was back with Janice—poring over plans and working calculations that most firms would have had a dozen associates working on, Deal had painstakingly detailed his proposal, using everything his old man had taught him, every scrap of knowledge he’d picked up on his own.

  The bid was cut to the bone, predicated on the contributions of competent subcontractors, the cooperation of suppliers, his own meticulous supervision, and a certain amount of good luck, but Deal knew it was workable, knew it was good. No one would be able to seriously undercut him, no one honest, that is—which left a rather wide crack in the door when it came to the awarding of public works contracts in South Florida.

  Deal had delivered the thick packet of his proposal to the county offices on the morning of the deadline day, tapped it to his forehead for good luck, logged it in with the clerk, and then forced himself to put the matter out of his mind. And until now, he had been reasonably successful in managing to keep his hopes right where they belonged: tethered to a block of mental concrete about four hundred fathoms beneath the surface of possibility.

  “You still there?” came Eddie Barrios’ voice over the cell.

  “I’m here,” Deal said, something inside him still unwilling to accept the news.

  “You don’t sound real happy, chico. You still don’t believe me or something?”

  “I believe you,” Deal said. Thinking, I’ll kill you if it isn’t so.

  “I told you DealCo’s time was coming around again. I told all my friends downtown, too.”

  Meaning, Don’t forget you got a partner now, Deal thought. Maybe Eddie put in a good word for him, maybe not. He could be certain Ceci and Gene McLeod, the architects, would have spoken on his behalf. They were meticulous craftspersons themselves, had managed to get Deal pulled onto a couple of smaller jobs they’d designed when the original contractors had started taking things south. So Eddie and Ceci and Gene had done their part, and maybe for once the commissioners had said what the hell, let’s go with the best bid for a change…

  “Everybody told me, ‘Yeah, we remember Barton Deal,’” Eddie was saying. “People want to see you doing good, Johnny.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” So add to the mix his old man’s ghost, Deal thought.

  “Gotta get out of here, my man, but you and I, we’ll be talking, all right?”

  Deal was silent.

  “You know I can help, right?”

  The right more of a demand than a question this time. “Sure, Eddie. We’ll talk,” Deal said. “And I appreciate the news, okay?”

  He heard a sudden series of beeps, then pulled the phone away to see the “Discharging” legend on the tiny screen. In the excitement, he must have missed all the preliminary tones that would have let him know the battery was giving out.

  He banged the phone against his palm, then brought it back to his ear. “Eddie?” Nothing but silence in response. What the hell. “I do appreciate it,” Deal said, and tossed the dying phone on the seat beside him.

  ***

  A pay phone kiosk had already been set in concrete at the edge of the strip center’s lot, but there was no phone installed yet. Deal glanced in the direction of the principal landmark in this part of the county: Mount Trashmore, highest point in South Florida, where thousands of buzzards and gulls dotted the sky, cruising the updrafts over the enormous landfill where the waste of two million citizens was laid daily, inching steadily heavenward.

  He knew he could make his way along the cross streets, past the landfill, and on to Black Point, the county-run marina and boat storage complex. He could find a pay phone there, but the thought of trying to talk to Janice in the shadow of a mountain of garbage, trying to make himself heard over the noise of boat traffic or mechanical hi-lifts hauling day-sailor craft back and forth from the landing slips to their dry dock berths, just didn’t appeal to him.

  He knew, in fact, that he had no business calling her at all, not until he’d had official notification, seen with his own eyes everything signed and sealed, no Eddie Barrios bullshit factor to consider, but he couldn’t help himself. That big ball of hope had burst loose from its full-fathom tether and exploded to the surface, and he was reeling in the seat of the Hog like a man with the bends.

  He knew he would tell her. He had to. He would be cautious, of course, play the matter down, share his suspicions that Eddie had cooked it all up in his mind, put it on Deal for whatever unimaginable reason…but he was going to call. He had known Janice for twenty years now, and nothing of the slightest importance had taken place in his life that he had not shared with her.

  Even now, the two of them living apart, sharing custody of Isabel, their daughter, Deal couldn’t shake that connection. Didn’t want to shake it, was what the truth was. “Come on, Deal, go out, meet somebody, get yourself a life,” that’s the sort of thing he was always hearing from his pal Vernon Driscoll, but who was Driscoll to talk? Divorced, half a dozen years out of harness as a Metro-Dade homicide cop, his idea of a big night was six bottles of Jamaican Red Stripe and watching whatever ball game was on the tube.

  The fact was that, despite everything, Deal loved Janice. He had simply never met a woman who came close to commanding his interest the way she did. Sure, she was having difficulties, but who wouldn’t? Twice, she’d nearly died at the hands of men who’d been intending to kill him. The first time she’d nearly drowned, the second time she’d been badly burned. And though time and surgery had erased the physical scars, the emotional damage had not gone away. Post-traumatic stress disorder, that’s what the doctors had finally diagnosed, but giving the condition a name had not made it any easier to treat.

  Time, Mr. Deal, that was the doctors’ mantra. Give her time, and give her love. Sure, he thought, he could do that. After all, if it hadn’t been for him, none of it would have happened in the first place.

  He shook himself from his thoughts and turned over the ignition of the Hog, felt the powerful engine—bored, stroked, and turbocharged courtesy of Emilio and Rodriguez—set up its quiet rumble. Janice had almost died in this car, he reminded himself again as he pulled away from the vacant center. Maybe that was it: Every time he got in the thing, some of the bad karma rubbed off. He should get rid of the Hog, he told himself. He really should.

  ***

  About halfway back to the city, he wheeled the vehicle off Old Cutler Road, down an overgrown lane that bored through a thick stand of man-groves and holly toward the water, then into the parking lot of what passed for the offices of DealCo these days. It was a sun-bleached, double-wide portable building set up on a stilt foundation fronted by a dusty expanse of crushed coral, and had once been intended as the sales office for a time-share resort that a major hotel corporation wanted to build on the surrounding eight-hundred-acre tract of bayside property. Federal regulators and environme
ntal interests had intervened, however, and the project had been scrapped more than a decade ago, the area designated as a natural preserve and park that was still waiting to happen.

  Deal’s father, a minority partner in the venture, had managed to hang on to the ninety-nine-year lease for the lone acre upon which the sales office stood. He couldn’t build anything new there—couldn’t even erect signage—but he’d maintained the right to access the office that DealCo had installed for the hotel chain in the first place.

  The place was hot and mosquito-plagued in the summer, isolated and hard to find in every season, but there was phone service, the price was right, and it actually suited Deal, whose business did not depend on a lot of drive-up traffic. He hadn’t even employed a secretary for more than a year. On days when it appealed to him, he could hole up here like one of the original Miami settlers. He’d set up his desk chair on the wooden porch, drag the phone out to the limit of its cord, sit outside and conduct business, lord of a lonely domain.

  Though it wasn’t visible through the thick screen of mangroves, Deal was well aware that a narrow tendril of the bay snaked its way in to a point a dozen yards behind the office. He kept an aluminum canoe hung on the back wall of the place. When the weather was cool, he’d sometimes bring Isabel down and the two of them would paddle out to the bay. There were little patches of beach to find along the shoreline out there, places you could get to only by boat, where Isabel would skinny-dip and Deal would roll up his khakis and wade. He’d pack them a lunch, take along a couple of fishing poles, they’d tell themselves this was the day they’d catch the granddaddy snapper.

  All that within eyesight of the Miami skyline, four million people surrounding them, and where Deal and Isabel played, they couldn’t hear a one. The collapse of the project might have meant the dissolution of the last of his old man’s many last Ozymandian dreams, but Deal was glad that it had happened that way. And no, as he told himself often, even the project working out would not have made a difference, would not have kept that pistol at bay.

  About time for another one of those forays with Isabel, he thought as he got out of the Hog and held up his chin into the crisp evening air like a hound. What he could see of the sky was dusky pink. High up, far enough east to make it over the water, a lone osprey sawed its way along toward wherever home was, the hunt over for the day. Closer in, a squadron of parrots zigged and zagged noisily over the treetops, as uncertain and raucous as a car full of seniors searching out a spot for an early-bird dinner.

  Maybe he’d move out of the fourplex in Little Havana, bring a hot plate and a cot down here, Deal mused. Change the name of DealCo to Mad Hermit Construction, let the world take care of itself. He smiled, trying to imagine what Janice would think of his fantasies, and reminded himself of why he was here at this moment, after all.

  He crunched on across the gravel, made his way up the weathered plank incline to the little porch, and fished in his pocket for his door key. When he reached to insert it, however, he found the knob turning freely in his hand. He was going to have to get better about that, he thought. He didn’t keep anything of much value in the office, but kids could make a hell of a mess…

  That’s what he was thinking as he stepped inside the office, his hand moving automatically toward the light switch. Then he saw the man sitting behind his desk, and all that warm bath of ease he’d managed to conjure up for himself slid away in the instant it took him to draw a breath.

  Chapter Four

  “You’ll forgive me for startling you,” the man said, his voice the practiced purr of a salesman. A band of dying sunlight fell through the opened door, cutting across the man’s chest. Deal saw the lapels of a well-cut suit, a muted tie against a soft blue shirt. His face was still in shadow.

  Deal stood, hesitant, in the doorway. Something told him to simply take one backward step, close the door, get back in his car and proceed, never mind the stop at “Go.” Do it now, Deal.

  He could see the man’s hands clasped easily over his belt. Blunt, thick fingers, the nails carefully manicured. No weapon, no threat in the voice. It could have been his banker sitting there.

  Close the door, Deal. Get out.

  “Who are you?” Deal said.

  “We’ll get to that,” the man said.

  “You sure you’re in the right place?”

  “Quite certain, Mr. Deal.”

  Deal hesitated. He’d had a flash of a feeling he’d sometimes experienced as a child. He wouldn’t have done anything to merit punishment, not really. Maybe swiped a candy bar from the Shores 5 & 10, maybe snuck a peek at some of his father’s magazines. But that was all it took. As a kid, he’d been certain that sooner or later someone or something was going to show up when he least expected it, demanding restitution in full.

  “I mean no harm, I assure you,” the voice smooth, avuncular.

  Deal reached to flip on the light switch, but nothing happened.

  “It wouldn’t work for me, either,” said the man. One of the neatly manicured hands moved to the telephone set. He turned it around, facing the keypad so that Deal could see it. “The phone’s out, as well.”

  Deal stared into the shadows at the vague silhouette before him. “It happens sometimes,” he said. He glanced over his shoulder at the empty lot outside. “Where’s your car?”

  “It’s out there,” the man said.

  “The hell it is,” Deal said. “You want to tell me what you’re doing here?” If the man had meant to rob him, assault him in some way, things would have already happened, he sensed that much.

  “I came by to congratulate you, for one thing.”

  So that was it, Deal thought, a certain measure of relief washing over him. One of Eddie Barrios’ cronies. The cross Deal was going to have to bear. But there was good news involved: Eddie must have been telling the truth if the sleazeballs were already rolling in.

  The only thing was, Deal was not getting the right vibrations from this man. Most of Eddie’s pals were the type that had to work at keeping their knuckles from dragging the floor. Whoever this was, making himself at home behind Deal’s desk, he exuded a slightly more refined air.

  Deal turned and pulled on the cord of the blinds that blanked the window by the door. Dim light filtered in from outside, enough to give him a look at the man who stared back placidly. A round, avuncular face to match his voice, thinning hair gray at the temples, dark circles under the eyes that gave him a weary, plaintive look. A version of Tommy Lasorda in a business suit, Deal thought. But he didn’t imagine Tommy Lasorda would come creeping into someone’s office while the occupant was out.

  “Why don’t you just leave me your card, I’ll get back to you when I’m ready to start bidding out the subcontractor work,” Deal said.

  The man laughed, but there was no humor in it. “I’m no contractor,” he said. “Not the way you mean it, anyway.” He gave an airy wave of his hand. “Have a seat, Mr. Deal. I’d like to have a talk with you.”

  Deal gave him a smile of his own. “You break into my office, you don’t want to tell me who you are—” He stopped, shaking his head. “We don’t have anything to talk about.”

  “I’m a friend of your father’s,” the man said. “We go back a very long way.”

  Deal looked at the man’s face more closely. “I’ve never seen you,” he said.

  “That’s right,” the man said. “You never have.”

  “You one of the wise guys he dealt with?” Deal said, though he didn’t think that was it, either. “If the old man was into you in a big way, I’m afraid you’re a little late to collect.”

  The man shook his head patiently. “If anything, I am indebted to your late father. Please, Mr. Deal, sit down.”

  “I don’t have time,” Deal said.

  “Five minutes, I promise you,” the man said. “What I have to say will interest you.”

  Something in the man’s voice, the plaintive set of his features, tugged
at Deal. He took a deep breath.

  “We’ll start with your name,” Deal said. “You don’t want to give it to me, get the hell out right now.”

  “Sams,” the man said. “Talbot W. Sams.” He nodded at a pair of battered file cabinets in a corner. “There’s a file or two in there with my name on it.”

  Deal glanced at the cabinets. The name meant nothing to him. “You sure about that?”

  Sams shrugged. “It was a boring wait. I took the liberty of checking.”

  “You’ve got nerve, I’ll give you that much,” Deal said. He pulled the battered side chair toward him, sat down on the edge of the seat. “We’re down to four minutes.”

  The man gave him a nod, tenting his fingers before him. “Do you have any idea how you managed to secure that bid for the terminal complex building, Mr. Deal?”

  Deal stared at Sams, ignoring the sudden surge of doubt he felt. “Because it was the best one submitted,” Deal said, his voice even.

  The man smiled, glancing around the spartan office. “It wasn’t badly prepared, under the circumstances.” He waved his hand in dismissal. “But that was hardly the reason.”

  Deal felt his anger building. “Look, you need to go on home now, call Eddie Barrios, tell him whatever it is the two of you had cooked up, it didn’t work. You can also let him know he doesn’t want to run into me anytime soon—”

  “Eddie Barrios is a small-time grifter,” Sams said. “I wouldn’t send him to the store for a quart of milk.”

  “I’m out of here,” Deal said, starting up from his chair.

  He felt as much as heard the quick footsteps behind him, turned to find a hard-featured man in a suit moving out of the shadows in the far corner of the room. When the man withdrew his hand from his coat pocket, Deal saw the glint of steel.