Deal with the Dead

by Les Standiford

  On this evening, most of the passengers had already boarded the Polynesia in Palm Beach. Because the sheriff of Broward County was running against a reformer bent on cleaning out the scoundrels from the bailiwick, the ship would not make port in Fort Lauderdale until after the elections. Barton Deal and “Mel” had been ferried out to the Polynesia aboard a gleaming wooden water taxi—all gloss-lacquered and gleaming brass—an accouterment that Lucky had brought in all the way from Venice. Just getting in the damned thing made you feel otherworldly, Barton Deal thought, though he hadn’t asked if his traveling companion felt the same way.

  There had been a couple of girls to jump leggily onto the boat just as they were about to depart—one redhead, one blonde, both wearing upswept hair, sequined dresses, and smiles that promised the world. Barton Deal had accepted a dollop of champagne in a flute from the water taxi captain, as had the two women, but “Mel” had declined. It was left to Deal to entertain the girls during the short run out to the Polynesia. Despite all the distracting thoughts in his mind, he’d done his best to oblige.

  The girls had clambered up the gangway ahead of them—The view, the view, Barton Deal thought—and had presumably already passed the checkpoint to join the party on the foredeck. Too bad he wouldn’t be partying tonight.

  “Well, you and Mel come on down,” Lucky Rhodes’ voice came over the speaker. “We’re about to set sail. I’m eager to meet your cousin.”

  That was Lucky for you, Barton Deal thought, watching as the two gatekeepers moved to pat Mel down. They were quick but thorough: “Mel” with his hands above his head like a man being robbed at gunpoint, one of Lucky’s men working his hands above the belt, the other working deftly below.

  “That’s fine, sir,” said one of the men as he straightened up. Mel gave him a grudging nod.

  “You’re okay, Mr. Deal,” the guard said, waving him along without a search.

  The two of them followed after the second guard, who moved a short way along the rail toward the foredeck, then stopped and turned to motion them through a bulkhead door.

  “Mind your step,” the big guard said, ushering them through.

  “Guy’s a faggot,” Mel said to Barton Deal as they moved down the plush carpeted passage ahead of the guard. “Had his hands all over my prick back there.”

  “Maybe he thought it was a little gun,” Deal said.

  Mel shot him a dark look.

  “Or maybe he thought you were just happy to see him,” Deal added.

  “Fuck you,” Mel said. “You got the piece, right?”

  “I have it,” Deal said. He remembered the feel of the heavy weapon as he’d holstered it. Handle a gun out on the target range, it’s just a piece of machinery. Hold one you might have to shoot someone with, it’s got blood and guts of its own.

  “Just keep thinking how it’s going to go.”

  Barton Deal nodded, leading the way around a turn in the passage. Helpful hints from your local assassin, he thought, wondering how he’d gotten himself into this, anyway. He’d introduce his “cousin,” they’d spend the evening playing on the DealCo tab. When the ship reached port back in Palm Beach, they’d go see Lucky again to settle up.

  While Rhodes’ men were occupied with securing the evening’s take and escorting the main body of the passengers off the boat, that’s when it would happen. And though getting down to Rhodes’ cabin from topside was complicated, going the other way was a piece of cake. They’d be off the ship with the rest of the crowd before anyone discovered the body. That was the plan, at least.

  Something caught his eye as he rounded the turn, something that stopped him short. “Take a look at that,” Deal said, pointing as the wiry guy made his way up beside him.

  The passage had opened up here, the dim orange-ish light cast by the wall sconces behind them replaced by a shimmering blue-green glow that filled the hallway like a ghostly liquid. The guy stopped, his seen-everything expression unsettled for a moment.

  There were a series of thick glass windows lining one side of the passageway that stretched off in front of them, offering a view into the depths of what might have seemed a swimming pool at first. Deal had been in a bar in Honolulu with a similar setup once—he and his wife had sipped mai tais and watched big-busted girls made up like mermaids swirling around in some kind of underwater ballet.

  But this was no swimming tank, or at least there were no mermaids frolicking inside. Instead there were fish: schools of little teal-and-fuchsia ones whirling around like neon smoke, some medium-sized snapper and jack in there as well, but those fish, too, were moving especially fast whenever the shadows of the two featured creatures swept across the deep.

  For it was two massive hammerhead sharks who were the showpiece, the big gray things swirling endlessly around the made-up reefs and phony shipwreck set in the midst of it all: hammerheads gliding here, hammerheads swooping there, up to the top, and down again, around and around the confines of an artificial sea. From where Barton Deal stood, you could see all the way across the huge tank to the windows on the opposite side: he had a murky view of a cocktail lounge, or a ballroom maybe, where men and women in suits and evening gowns milled about, and danced, or held drinks and watched the fishies, too.

  “Fucking A,” the wiry man said.

  “I had a malamute with eyes like that once,” Barton Deal said, caught by the rhythms of the sharks’ endless dance. “But his were on the front of his head.”

  “What do they feed those things?” the wiry guy said, his studied cynicism evaporating for the moment.

  “Meat,” said the guy in the white dinner jacket who’d caught up to them. “Lots of it.”

  “Fucking A,” the wiry man repeated. And then the three of them moved on.

  ***

  “It’s all right, Andrew,” Grant Rhodes said, dismissing the man who’d escorted them down the labyrinthine passageways. “These gentlemen are friends of mine.”

  Andrew gave his boss an uncertain look, but turned to go out the way they’d come. Barton Deal felt a twinge: maybe it was the weight of the pistol beneath his dinner jacket, he thought, or maybe he was sad to see Andrew go.

  “Quite a setup you have here,” said the wiry man to Grant Rhodes.

  The three of them stood in front of a one-way glass that offered a soundless view into a room where a tall, rail-thin man in a tuxedo dealt a hand of chemin de fer. On the other side of the felt-covered table sat two couples—the men steely-haired, titan-of-industry types in black tie, their companions more reserved, evening-gowned versions of the women who’d been on the water taxi, everyone intent on the game.

  One of the men made an almost imperceptible gesture toward the cadaverous dealer, and another card was offered up on a paddle by an assistant. It seemed like a glimpse into another dimension, Barton Deal thought: fortunes might be won or lost, but somehow, real trouble would not dare intrude. Rhodes pressed a button then, and a heavy wooden panel closed over the glass.

  “Happy to have you aboard,” Rhodes replied. He was in tux shirt and tie, his jacket draped over the back of his desk chair. “Those folks shouldn’t be playing until we’ve cleared the twelve-mile limit, but”—he shrugged—“we’re among friends, aren’t we?”

  When they’d been buzzed through the thick bulkhead door into his office, he’d been in his desk chair on an intercom phone with what sounded like a pit boss. The moment he’d seen Barton Deal enter, however, he ended the conversation and was up and around to greet the two of them, a broad smile crossing his avuncular features, as if their arrival was something he’d awaited for years.

  They could have been camel drivers just made it across the Sahara bearing gifts untold, knights returned home with the Grail itself. Nor did it have anything to do with Cousin Mel’s feathers about to be plucked, Barton Deal thought. If men were going to lose their money, time had shown they’d mind it less losing to Lucky Rhodes. With his reassuring arm around your shoulders, whatever g
ot inserted elsewhere simply hurt less somehow.

  “Baccarat appeal to you, does it, Mel?” Rhodes asked, gesturing at the shrouded window.

  “Bones is more my game,” the wiry man said.

  “Then you’ve come to the right place,” Rhodes said. He turned to Barton Deal. “Hasn’t he, Bart?”

  Deal nodded, trying to imagine how things would change with men like Sandro Alessio and his goons in charge. A customer has a complaint, he files it full fathoms five, no need to take off his concrete overshoes.

  “I hadn’t seen the aquarium, Lucky,” Deal said, turning toward the door. “It’s a touch. A very definite touch.”

  “You have to amuse yourself,” Rhodes said, shrugging as a smile crossed his guileless features. A man with an unwavering gaze, but a way of leaning back from a conversation as if to encourage your every word. “Isn’t that the point of life?” he said.

  The expression on the wiry man’s face suggested he’d never considered the issue.

  “I’d say it was,” Barton Deal spoke up.

  “Must be a lot a trouble to keep it going,” the wiry man said.

  Rhodes nodded. “Most things you care about are troublesome,” he said.

  Try getting your reptilian brain around that one, Barton Deal thought, glancing at his companion.

  “Did you show Mel the craps tables on your way down?” Rhodes asked.

  “We were in too much of a hurry,” Deal said.

  Rhodes smiled. “No need to hurry, we’ve got the whole evening in front of us.”

  The smile of the perfect host, Barton Deal thought. Every detail attended to, the night laid out like a buffet banked with endlessly replenishable delights. Lucky Rhodes, who’d been everywhere and seen everything—more, in fact than Barton Deal could imagine. Time to get this over with, he thought. They would do this now.

  “Actually, we don’t have the whole evening,” Barton Deal said.

  Rhodes turned to him, good-natured puzzlement on his features. “What’s that you say, Barton?”

  Deal shrugged, scarcely glancing at the wiry man beside him. There was no going back now. “The fact is we came down here to kill you. Me and my good buddy, ‘Mel.’”

  Grant Rhodes began to laugh. “Oh, that’s a good one—”

  “I’m serious, Lucky—”

  Rhodes held up his hand, trying to stifle his guffaws. “Stop it, Bart—”

  “What the fuck,” the wiry man said, his features contorting.

  “See, I’m packing the gun,” Deal said, pulling back the lapel of his dinner jacket to show the bulky shoulder holster. “Fuzz-nuts here came along to make sure everything proceeds as planned.”

  “I’ll tell you, Barty-boy—” Grant Rhodes’ eyes were leaking tears of laughter now.

  “You stupid bastard,” the wiry man said. He raised his arm and brought it down in a flourish. There was a snapping sound and Barton Deal saw it: a tiny pearl-handled derringer had somehow appeared in the man’s hand.

  “You do have a teeny little gun,” Barton Deal said.

  “And you are a fucking dead man,” Mel said, swinging his gun hand toward Deal.

  Deal ducked, his hand going for the pistol at his shoulder. He was likely to be late, he thought. He might have expected a knife, a garrote, maybe some serious brass knuckles, but a derringer on a sling holster had been a bit of a surprise.

  He was on his way toward the corner of Rhodes’ desk when the explosion sounded behind him, accompanied by a stinging sensation in his arm. The sound was stunning in the close confines, snuffing out Deal’s hearing as abruptly as if a powerful pair of hands had slammed against his ears.

  “Mel” was stumbling backward across the room, a stitching of red dots across his forehead, a vacant expression upon his sour face. There was a second explosion—felt more than heard by Deal’s numbed ears—and he watched a blossom of red erupt silently on Mel’s chest. The impact took the man off his feet, driving him against the opposite wall. He hit hard and slid downward, trailing blood all the way.

  Deal, on the floor now, glanced up at Lucky. Lucky’s mouth appeared to moving, but whatever he was saying was lost, as if he were speaking from behind a thick glass wall. Deal sensed movement and turned to see Andrew stepping smartly through the bulkhead door, the stubby-barreled shotgun he’d used on Mel still smoking.

  Andrew checked to be sure that Mel was no threat, then turned and gestured toward the doorway. In moments, the office seemed full of people. Two steely haired men were working to sling Mel’s body inside what looked like an oversized duffel bag—the two “titans of industry” who’d posed as baccarat players, Deal realized, the whole lot of them shills, even as one of the gowned and bejeweled women who’d been in the room bent over him, concern etched on her dark contessa’s features.

  There was a high-pitched ringing in Barton Deal’s ears now, which somehow seemed a good thing. “…your arm,” he heard the woman who had bent over him say. He glanced down at his shoulder and saw a spot of blood the size of a silver dollar.

  “Nothing to worry about,” he told the woman, though he couldn’t hear his own voice quite yet. He mustered a smile for her and tried to push himself into a sitting position. He was still smiling goofily at her when the pain surged up from his wounded shoulder and he passed out like a drunk in her arms.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  The Bahamas

  The Present Day

  “Quite a story,” John Deal said when Rhodes finally paused. “What’s it have to do with me?”

  “I’m getting to that,” Rhodes told him. He splashed more Scotch into his glass and held up the bottle for Deal, who shook his head. “But there are a few things I’d like to show you, first.”

  Deal shrugged.

  Rhodes rose from his desk and moved toward the doorway. “I’ll just be a moment,” he said, then disappeared down the dark hallway.

  Deal glanced over at the couch where Kaia had dozed off. Her head was tilted back, her mouth opened ever so slightly, as if she’d been about to say something when her lights went out. The pose might have seemed vaguely comic on someone else, he thought. Kaia Jesperson was composed and lovely, even in her sleep.

  He turned away from her, thinking back on the conclusion of Rhodes’ tale: His father had come to on a couch in Lucky’s office, Rhodes had explained, his hearing more or less back to normal, the cadaverous guy—a former corpsman on Guadalcanal, as it turned out—finishing a bandage where a pellet from Andrew’s shotgun had winged Barton. “Andrew felt like hell about it,” was the word from Lucky.

  The ship’s office had been put back in order, Mel’s body gone, the long bloody trail the wiry man had left erased from the opposite wall, as though everything Barton Deal had witnessed had been only a troubling nightmare. The Polynesia was steaming back to port in Palm Beach—the result of engine problems, or so the passengers had been told.

  Lucky’s captain on the water taxi had spotted the piece under Barton Deal’s coat right away, had radioed ahead with word. It had been Rhodes’ decision to let things play out. Lucky Rhodes’ instincts had served him well in a lifetime as a gambler—and they had not failed him in this instance either. No way he’d been able to accept that Barton Deal meant him harm. No way on earth.

  John Deal thought about that more than anything as he waited for Rhodes’ return: the trust that Lucky Rhodes had apparently had in his own father. Was there anyone that he himself could trust so completely? Janice, he guessed, when she was Janice, anyway. And Vernon Driscoll, whom he doubted about as much as he might have his own right arm.

  Driscoll would step in front of a train on his account, no question. And that meant something, didn’t it? Meant you mattered in some elemental way. And if you had no one in whom to place such trust, what did that imply?

  Deal glanced at Kaia again. Something told him Rhodes had no such person of the likes his story had suggested. No Janice, no Barton Deal. Just Frank and Ba
sil and Kaia Jesperson, all of them who seemed accidental moons in their temporary orbits.

  “Have a look at these.” It was Rhodes’ voice. Deal glanced up from his reverie to find the man returned to the room with a sheaf of news clippings in his hand, clips that had been placed in protective plastic holders, but so old they had nonetheless yellowed with age:

  “Flamboyant Casino Owner Dies in Freak Accident,” read the headline of the first story Rhodes handed over. The piece was from the Fort Lauderdale News, led by an overheated account of the gruesome discovery made aboard the Polynesia on that fateful night. Officers from the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Department had been called aboard the ship by shaken employees who had made the discovery: what little remained of Grant Rhodes after he’d apparently fallen into the shark tank he maintained aboard his notorious floating pleasure palace. No mention in the story, of course, as to just how many palms had been greased to make sure Mel’s remains had been identified as those of Lucky Rhodes.

  Deal glanced up at Rhodes, who smiled as if to approve of his father’s ingenuity. He took the first clip back from Deal and handed over another.

  This clipping from the Miami Herald, Deal saw, dated a week or so later, concerned the puzzling death of an as-yet-unidentified white male who had apparently tried to dive from the balcony of an unoccupied upper story suite at the Eden Parc Hotel into the swimming pool far below. The man, nude and presumed intoxicated, had landed headfirst on the flagstone decking, which was complicating the process of identification.

  “Let me guess,” Deal said to Rhodes. “Sandro Alessio.”

  Rhodes nodded. “It’s a family newspaper,” he said. “They didn’t go into the oddity of why certain of his lower body parts had been found lodged in his throat.”