Deal with the Dead

by Les Standiford

  “Now there’s a surprise,” Basil said dryly.

  Basil, Deal thought. Never had a name seemed more apt. Bass drum. Bass fiddle. Base element. One giant load of Basil.

  Basil stared at him. “That way, my friend,” he said, pointing over Deal’s shoulder.

  Deal had the last of the plastic off his wrists now. He turned, realizing he was looking for a place to dispose of the scraps. Kidnapped by Man Mountain Basil and his bodybuilding brother Frank, and here he was, worried about despoiling the environment, Deal thought. He was almost distracted enough to miss the sight before him, might have walked along the pier too far, gotten too close to shore, where he quite possibly would have lacked the right perspective to put it all together.

  But he hadn’t. He’d glanced up at the right time, had seen it, and the realization that swept over him was enough to start his head pounding like the steel drummer’s part in an island street-corner band.

  It was dark, sure. So there was no way of seeing the sparkling green sweep of lawn that lay up ahead. And even though most of the house lay in shadow and all that he really registered was its shape and its commanding presence at the top of the rise, Deal knew.

  Quicksilver Cay. The legend scrawled on the back of a faded snapshot. No ghost of his father standing there on the dock, smiling back at the camera, of course. And no shimmering presence of his mother tucked against that imposing, hail-fellow form. But still Deal saw it all, the snapshot he’d discovered in his father’s secret cache conjured in his mind as if he were a human camera and time had no meaning at all. The image, Deal realized for one fleeting instant, would be forever burned into his mind: the enduring touchstone for everything he quietly aspired to, and—how could it be?—all things in life to avoid.

  The only person missing in the tableau seemed to be that simulacrum of Gatsby, who’d been caught in that long-ago photograph—whoever he was. And as Deal stumbled on, prodded by the very real hand of Basil at his back, he wondered if that might be the person he was going to meet.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  “The cops told you what?” Driscoll asked Janice. He saw her lower lip trembling and reminded himself to keep his voice on an even keel. Contending with the Russell Straights of the world was one thing. Janice Deal was a far different matter.

  “The officer in charge said all this was no proof of anything other than a break-in.” Her eyes flashed as she swept her arm around the devastated kitchen of her condo. “He didn’t even seem too convinced of that.”

  “You get his name?”

  She nodded, biting her lip, and handed him a card.

  Driscoll glanced at it but didn’t recognize the name. He nodded, staring at the spatters of blood across the otherwise pristine face of the refrigerator. “Maybe this is the way they cook at his house,” Driscoll said.

  “Cops…” Russell Straight said, shaking his head. Driscoll had introduced the two of them at the door. To his credit, Straight had offered to wait outside, but Janice had insisted he come in.

  Driscoll shot him a look, but Straight paid no attention. Worse yet, the look Janice gave Straight made Driscoll realize she couldn’t agree more.

  “What’s happened, Vernon? I’ve called Deal’s apartment, his office, his cell phone…” She stared at him, her eyes pained.

  “Now, we don’t know for sure that this has anything to do with Deal,” he cautioned.

  “Not you, too, Vernon,” she cried. “I don’t think I could take it. I didn’t want to argue with the police in front of Isabel, but I’m scared to death—”

  Driscoll stepped forward then, wrapping her in his arms. Lending aid came naturally to Driscoll, but comfort was another matter. He felt awkward, patting her back like some kid playing Joseph in the school play, supposed to know just how Mary felt.

  “Come on now,” he said. “We’ll sort this out. Whatever it adds up to.”

  After a moment, Janice’s sobs had subsided. “I’ll be okay,” she said, stepping back from him, managing something of a smile. She tore a paper towel off a tumbled roll, inspected it for blood, then raised it to give her nose a hearty blow.

  Driscoll noted that even in the red-eyed, glowing-nosed shape she was in, Janice was an extremely attractive woman. Maybe even more lovely when she was distraught, he thought. And given Deal’s recent history, there’d been plenty of distress. Things ever got on an even keel with them, it could be she’d look ordinary enough for Deal to get over her. Sure, Driscoll.

  “Isabel’s asleep?” he asked, cutting his glance toward the back of the place.

  “Thank God,” Janice said, blotting her eyes with the back of her hand. She stopped, looking at him more closely. “What’s the matter with your chin?”

  Driscoll realized he’d been massaging the aching muscles in his throat. “Got tangled up in my seat belt,” he said, shrugging it off. That’s all they needed to get into right now. Send her shrieking right off the planet.

  “How about this message you picked up from Deal?” he said, forcing his hand away from his rubbed-raw throat. “When did that come in?”

  She shook her head. “It wasn’t Deal himself,” she said. “It was a call from someone’s office. A secretary, I assumed. She said that Deal had asked her to call.”

  “Let’s listen to it,” Driscoll said, pointing toward the answering machine that sat undisturbed on a nearby counter. It was one of the few items that hadn’t been knocked askew.

  Janice shook her head again. “I erased it before we went out.” She turned toward the machine. “Unless you do, you have to listen to everything all over again. I hate that thing. I’ve been meaning to get a new one…”

  Driscoll nodded. “You don’t remember any names?”

  She looked at him helplessly. “She must have said the name of the firm, but I wasn’t paying too much attention at first. I thought it was somebody who wanted to sell me something. When I realized what it was really about, I jotted down what’s there.”

  She gestured at the pad that Driscoll held in his hand. “Out of town,” he said, glancing up at her. “This woman didn’t say where?”

  “No,” Janice said. “It was stupid not to keep the message, I know—”

  “Hey—” Driscoll tried to stop her.

  “—but I was so upset that he’d do something like that, on such short notice. It’s a little thing, I know, but Isabel always looks forward so much—”

  “Janice—” Driscoll said.

  She broke off and stared at him. “I’m sorry, Vernon. I don’t mean to babble.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I ask all these questions, it doesn’t mean anything. I’m just thinking out loud, okay?”

  She managed a nod, but Driscoll wasn’t sure he’d eased her burden. She sighed and turned away to right a fallen vase on the counter. “The police said I couldn’t file a missing-person’s report, it was too soon,” she said. Her voice was softer, barely above a whisper.

  “Yeah,” Driscoll said. “It’s a little too early for that.” He glanced at Russell Straight, who stared back at him with that look that seemed to question Driscoll’s every word.

  He glared back at Straight, then turned to Janice. “Here’s what we’re going to do,” he said. “I’m going to swing by the DealCo offices, see if our boy might be working late.”

  She opened her mouth to say something, but Driscoll held up a hand to stop her. “You know that phone’s always going on the blink. He could be over there crunching numbers on this new contract, all the worry’s for nothing—”

  “But—”

  “Then I’ll check at Terrell’s place, and that strip center he’s finishing up down south, just to be sure. It wouldn’t be the first time he went back to work at midnight.” She stared back at him, maybe calmed a bit by the reassurance in his voice. “You left a message on his phone at the apartment, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then he�
��ll call if we cross paths somehow.” He paused, glancing around the wrecked kitchen. “You need some help with all this?”

  She shook her head. “It’ll give me something to do.” She glanced up at him. “You’ll call me?”

  He saw it in her gaze then, the bedrock anguish, the unmistakable connection she still felt. He wanted to take her by the shoulders, tell her then and there, Cut the shit, Janice. Take Deal back. Get your life under way again…but it was hardly the time, and that wasn’t his job anyway, now, was it?

  Instead, he simply nodded. “I’ll keep you posted, every step of the way.”

  She managed a smile then and bent down to retrieve something from the floor. “I’m throwing everything away,” she said. “All of it.”

  He got a look at what she was holding when she stood. It looked like a miniature turkey, but he realized that it was actually a Cornish game hen. He’d seen them in grocery stores all his life, but he’d never seen anybody actually buy, or eat, one. It crossed his mind to say something of the sort to Janice, but she’d already pitched the thing into the trash can with a thud.

  What the hell did it matter anyway, Driscoll asked himself, his thoughts on Cornish game hens or anything else? All that really mattered was the task at hand. He was headed for the door, turning his attention to that. He noted that Russell Straight was right behind him.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  “In here,” Basil said. He put his meaty hand on Deal’s shoulder and guided him off the darkened main hall of the house into a dimly lit study.

  The room had the same vaguely musty smell that characterized the rest of the house, only stronger: old plaster, wood, and aging fabric, cured by half a century’s worth of humid tropical breezes and unleavened by the antiseptic sweep of air conditioning. Other odors as well in these close quarters, Deal noted: leather, bindery glue, the lingering odor of cigar.

  As his eyes adjusted, he took in the furnishings: a massive, other-era teak desk with a tufted cordovan-leather chair, dark as the tiled floor beneath his feet. A matching wooden captain’s chest that took up most of the wall behind the desk. Bookshelves lining the room, a fair portion of the volumes leatherbound, and others with dust jackets chipped and yellowed. Kon-Tiki, he read on one spine. Lost Weekend on another.

  Opposite the desk was a well-worn leather couch, its cushions as puffed and rippling as if they’d been covered in cotton. Beside the couch was a portable bar: liter-sized bottles of British gin, arcanely named Scotch, island rum. An old-fashioned seltzer siphon. An ice bucket and a set of crystal glasses.

  “Make yourself comfortable,” Basil said from the doorway. “The boss’ll be here in a minute.”

  In the next moment, the big man was gone, closing the carved panel door behind him. Deal didn’t hear a lock click, but what did it matter? He could start rifling the drawers, he supposed, see if he couldn’t find a weapon, but knew that would be wasted effort as well. He could see no phone in the room.

  He walked to the portable bar, lifted the top of the ice bucket. Sure enough, half full of cubes, these looking like they’d come from a commercial icemaker. Somewhere was a big, placidly humming machine lodged in a kitchen that could service the fleet, or an ambassador’s dinner, he supposed. He worked his aching neck muscles, noting that the throbbing in his head had subsided. He reached into the bucket, helped himself to a handful of ice, dropped it into a glass that seemed to have the density of Jupiter.

  He picked up the soda siphon, pressed what looked like the feeder, and shot his glass nearly full. What the hell, he thought, and added a splash of Scotch from a bottle that looked like it had been aged in a peat bog. He sipped at the drink, then sipped again. Had Gatsby been a Scotch drinker? he wondered. If he had been, this was surely his brand.

  “My father favored that one,” a voice behind him came.

  Deal turned and looked at the man who stood there. He hadn’t heard the door open. He realized he still had the bottle of Scotch in his hand.

  “I’m not surprised,” Deal said, putting the bottle back among its pals.

  “I owe you an apology,” the man said, stepping into the room. He left the door open. Deal wondered if Basil and Frank were out there, lurking in the shadows.

  He’d been expecting somebody in a smoking jacket, Deal thought. The guy before him was wearing rumpled khakis and a denim shirt, his sandy, shortish hair mussed as if he’d just got out of bed. He extended his hand, an earnest expression on his refined features. “I’m truly sorry for the way this turned out.”

  Far too young, Deal was thinking. No visible resemblance to the man who’d stood on the dock out there with his own parents a third of a century ago. This guy clearly just the latest in a series of dubious types to have occupied such digs as these. There was a lot of that kind of movement through the off-islands.

  He ignored the offer of a handshake as the guy moved in, noticing he was a little off in his initial estimation. He’d taken him for much younger at a distance, but up close he saw the tiny lines at the eyes, at the throat, telltale indicators that even good surgery couldn’t erase. Guy his own age, Deal thought, possibly older. The guy stared back at him in a wide-eyed, TV celebrity’s manner that might have reflected enthusiasm. Or maybe it was just a by-product of the face lift.

  Deal had another sip of the drink, his initial light-headedness progressing toward a full-fledged buzz. What the hell, he thought. What the hell.

  “Basil and Frank told me something of what happened.” He gave Deal what passed for a sympathetic look. “That was hardly my intention.”

  “Well, that fixes everything,” Deal said.

  The guy cocked his head, as if he were measuring Deal for a new suit. “I wouldn’t pick you for a man who could hold his own against those two, if you want to know.”

  Deal stared at him. “You mind if I ask what your intention was?”

  The guy was shaking his head, apparently in brain-lock. “I’ve seen Frank bend a car bumper in half. Basil could probably fold it over again.”

  “Is there a lot of call for that kind of talent?” Deal asked.

  “Actually…,” his host began, then let himself trail off. Deal wondered if the guy might be on some drug.

  “Tell Frank I’m sorry about his ear,” Deal said. He put his glass down on the silver tray where he’d found it. “Are we going to talk about what I’m doing here?”

  “Of course,” the guy said. “You’ll forgive me.” He gestured at the couch. “You might want to sit down.”

  Deal shrugged but kept his feet.

  “The fact is, the two of us are business partners,” the man said.

  “Business partners,” Deal repeated.

  “I’m Richard Rhodes,” the man said. “Aramcor Development.”

  There was silence as Deal stared at him, trying to digest it. But it had to be. He was looking at the man Talbot Sams had wanted him to get close to. Well, that little matter had been taken care of then, hadn’t it?

  “As in the International-Free-Trade-Zone Aramcor?” Deal said, finally.

  “That’s correct,” Rhodes said. He didn’t seem particularly proud of the fact, which was something of a plus.

  “I don’t recall seeing your name on any of the original paperwork.”

  Rhodes shrugged. “There’ve been a few changes.” He waved his hand as if the “changes” were of little consequence. “The fact remains, you’ve been awarded a significant portion of the undertaking.”

  Deal shook his head in disbelief, the vision of Talbot Sams sitting at his own desk clear in his mind. “They didn’t tell me being kidnapped was going to be part of the contract,” he said to Rhodes. “Maybe we need to renegotiate.”

  “I can understand your feelings.” Rhodes gave Deal what might have been meant as an apologetic expression, holding a hand up to forestall him. “But circumstances make it difficult for me to travel as freely as I might like. I sent Basil and Frank along to explain matter
s to you, in hopes that you’d agree to a discreet meeting here.”

  “Maybe they should have just asked,” Deal said.

  “They intended to, I assure you…”

  Deal glanced at a framed print on the wall behind Rhodes. The old customs house in downtown Nassau. It was a staple of cruise-ship tourist art, though this was better than most.

  “Just why is it you didn’t want to come talk to me yourself?” Deal asked. He doubted it was a question Talbot Sams would have approved, but he was past caring.

  “Is that important to you?”

  “Under the circumstances, there’s quite a bit that seems important,” Deal said. He had another sip of his drink. “But I’m guessing that either someone in the States wants to kill you or someone else wants to put you in jail. That’s why you’re holed up over here. You don’t want to talk about it, it’s okay by me, but at least let’s not bullshit each other.”

  It got an outright smile from Rhodes. Added to the wide-eyed gaze, it made him look like a slightly surprised jackal. He seemed to be contemplating how to respond when another voice issued from the doorway.

  “Is there going to be a fight?”

  Deal glanced over Rhodes’ shoulder, saw her leaning with a hand pressed languidly at the door jamb as if she’d been there a while. Her expression suggested that she might not mind a fight.

  Rhodes turned around, apparently as surprised by the woman’s appearance as Deal was. “Kaia,” Rhodes said. “I thought you were asleep…”

  Kaia, Deal thought. The right name to go with the accent. European, it seemed. One of the northern countries.

  If she heard the note of uncertainty or disapproval in Rhodes’ voice, she didn’t register it. She had her eyes on Deal as she pushed easily away from the door frame and moved on into the room. She was wearing a pair of oversized black pajamas—Rhodes’, Deal guessed—the belt cinched tight at her waist, the pant legs rolled at her slender ankles. The effect might have been clownish had the woman been any less attractive. In this case, it only made her all the more alluring: plenty of rustling silk and all the body parts responsible, Deal thought. He wondered if he should have had the drink.