Tropical Freeze

by James W. Hall

  “OK, OK, what I think is,” Darcy said, forcing the words out one at a time, “I think Benny’s laundering people. I think he’s taking some very bad people and giving them some very good ID. He’s setting them up in places around America. Running a kind of immigration service for desperadoes.”

  “That’s quite a damn leap,” Thorn said.

  “Not really.” She looked off at the water, at a narrow trail of yellow light thrown out across the choppy water by a marina light. She said, “I pulled out some bio on Benny at the Miami Herald’s library. There was a snippet from a few years back as his Florida Secure Systems was getting off the ground. One of the last things Benny did for the DEA was act as liaison with the Federal Witness Protection Program. Hiding people who’d testified against the drug cartel, like that. He did that for almost a year. And that fits with Hespier. Hespier wants to come, but he can’t immigrate. Benny fixes things so he can.”

  Thorn was quiet for a moment, letting all this settle.

  He said, “So it’s, give me your rich, your cannibals, your killers, yearning to shop at Neiman-Marcus.”

  “Exactly,” she said. “But it’s not funny. It’s not funny at all.”

  “No,” he said. “It isn’t.”

  “And the house in Islamorada is a way station. They probably bring the guys in by boat, no sweat, and Benny’s house is the first place they stay while all the records are getting set up. It takes two weeks apparently, and then off they go, coming into your own neighborhood, shopping at your local grocery.”

  “It wouldn’t work,” Thorn said.

  “Why?”

  “There’s just too many people looking for the top bad guys. Their faces are on the walls of too many post offices, in too many mug books. And there have to be people, agents out there watching these guys’ moves. Somebody’d catch on to this.”

  “Don’t count on it,” she said. “Benny’s not stupid. He wouldn’t take on somebody with a big reputation. What I think is, he’s very selective, he waits till the right guy comes along, somebody with enough quick cash to buy the package he’s selling and with a low enough profile that setting him up somewhere in a new identity wouldn’t be too risky. I’m betting he’s very conservative, not really pushing this angle hard. Why should he? He’s rich. He might not even be doing it for the money. He might think it’s patriotic somehow. Converting the bad guys to the good life, or something.”

  “The guy with the alligator Friday, one I told you about …”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  “He had a blond Afro, green eyes. Looked like somebody poured too much milk in his genetic coffee. That was Claude.”

  She nodded her head. “And today, if the pattern holds, he’s off somewhere. Moved to Palm Springs, hanging out with the stars.”

  “So if Gaeton’s still with the bureau,” Thorn said, “and he’s posing as Benny’s sidekick, and Benny finds him out …”

  Darcy said, “Then poof, he’s gone.”

  A pickup truck passed by on the road behind them; a country music song, sorrowful and slow, played loud from its windows. The truck squeaked as it bounced down the rutted street. How simple the world could be. How basic and true. Slug it out in the parking lot. Drink beer, love a woman, lose a woman. Hurt in your heart. And how far it could swing away from that.

  “But ransoming Gaeton for three thousand dollars?” Thorn said. “What in the hell would Benny do something like that for? If he wanted Gaeton out of things, he’d be neater than this. I mean, this is dopey. This is lowlife.”

  “It’s probably meant to throw us off, or the police if we went to the police. Nothing else figures.”

  She let go of his hand and swallowed hard. She swiveled and faced him.

  “I should have told Gaeton what I found out. Maybe it was just the info he was missing.” Her voice was remote, shadowy. “I wanted to be such a hotshot.”

  He helped her stand up and they walked around the perimeter of the trailer park. Everything quiet now. The TVs tucked in for the night. Only the wind still awake.

  She seemed dazed. Her step heavy.

  “You were trying to help. You were doing good.”

  “I screwed up, Thorn. I screwed up bad. I underestimated all of this. I was playing at it, like a goddamn weatherlady.”

  She stopped and her body began to shake. He held her and she pressed her mouth into his shoulder, stifling her sobs. He patted her back and looked up at a fleet of small clouds brightened by moonlight. They were sailing very high, very fast to the south. A few gallons of Georgia pond water on a voyage to the Amazon. He wished he were going.

  She shivered in his arms. In a few moments she grew still. Then gently forced her way out of his embrace. She sniffed a couple of times and began to walk.

  Thorn said, “So, the Islamorada house is Ellis Island. That’s how you see it.”

  “Yeah,” she said. She swallowed, took a deep breath, and let it out. “He’s using witness protection as his model. People who saw crimes committed and testified and are in danger.” She took his hand as they rounded a corner, headed down a dark lane. “Except these guys Benny’s hiding, the only crimes they witnessed are the ones they did.”

  “Where do we start?” Thorn said.

  “I need to get three thousand dollars out of my checking account first,” she said. “At least go through the motions of paying the ransom and see what happens.”

  Thorn was silent. The Australian pines were turning the wind to a ghostly moan. Two-hundred-foot harps, playing their harmonic tones.

  “I know you’re Mr. Realism,” she said. “You don’t think much of psychic phenomena. But I know Gaeton’s dead. I’ve been sensing it. He’s in the ocean, a lake, in water. I don’t know. But he’s not swimming, he’s not breathing.” Her voice was shaking again. “I know he’s gone. You probably won’t believe me. But he’s not in the world anymore.”

  He’d seen Darcy guide them so many times across a flat and empty stretch of ocean, right to the hole where the big grouper were hiding. He’d been out with her on many cloudless noons when she’d predicted a violent squall by three, and it always came, rolling dark and ferocious from the Everglades. Thorn, who normally trusted only in what he could heft in his hand, believed in this, this mystical thing she could do.

  He nodded his head yes, let her see his faith in her.

  He said, “Isn’t there anybody at the FBI you know, any of Gaeton’s old friends, you could go to, tell them about this?”

  “There’s a woman he used to be involved with,” she said. “She was an agent. Myra Rostovitch. I met her a couple of times, but hell, I’m not sure anymore who’s who. If he was investigating the bureau itself, something I did might tip somebody off. Blow the whole thing open, might put us in danger.

  “Well, what then?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it for a long time,” she said. She halted and dropped his hand. “What I could do is make contact. Pretend to be a bad guy. Buy my ticket, take my ride. Get run through the process and see how the whole thing works.”

  Thorn asked her how in hell she’d do that, and she said, “I’ve got some ideas.”

  “Oh, shit, Darcy. That’s nuts,” he said. “There’s got to be a better way.”

  She studied him in the dim light, making up her mind about something. She looked away into the dark, then back at his eyes. Some moment seemed to pass for her, some shift Thorn could see in the set of her mouth, the deepness of her breath. She had settled an argument in her mind, and her face softened as she continued to regard him. But he knew in some subtle way he had lost her. Lost the way they’d been.

  “He’s gone,” she said, a new edge in her voice. “Gaeton’s gone, and I’m not about to play it safe. Call nine-one-one or something. Hell, no. Only way to find out how cows turn into steaks is go into the slaughterhouse.”

  “Bad metaphor,” he said.

  “Yeah, well, you know what I mean.” She cocked her head at him. And again her voice was cal
m, almost uninterested now. “It’s because I’m a woman, isn’t it? You wouldn’t argue like this if it were Sugarman or one of your male friends. The two of you, you’d just do it. Flex your muscles and jump into it.”

  “OK,” Thorn said. “You found me out. I’m a sexist shit. If I care about a woman, I try to talk her out of slipping a thirty-eight into her mouth. I admit it, I’m a Cro-Magnon.” She turned away from him and began to walk. He had to hurry to stay with her. She’d shifted into a long stride, her face turned away.

  “Well, here’s a test for you,” she said, still walking fast. “Let’s see if it’s possible for you to care about a woman who doesn’t need your help.”

  He dropped back a little at that, following her to her trailer. She walked up to the doorway, turned, faced him. Thanks for a wonderful evening. Let’s do it again sometime. Thorn watched her eyes go slack, begin to drift inward.

  He reached out, put his hands on her shoulders, massaged the tension at the root of her neck. Her head sagged forward, giving in to his hands. He ran his hands down her shoulders, her arms, took her hands. She let him hold them but didn’t grip back.

  She shook her head sadly at him, looking at him from inside the faraway place she’d gone.

  “Just get back to building your house, Thorn. Tying your flies,” she said. “That’s where your heart really is. This isn’t your problem.”

  Thorn looked at Darcy’s hands, limp in his own. Then brought his eyes back to hers. A breeze stirring her hair.

  “Screw my house,” he said. “Screw fishing flies.”

  18

  “So, how’s your shit doing these days, Papa?” Benny asked.

  Papa John Shelton flicked some ashes from his Camel overboard and turned to get a better look at Benny Cousins. The guy was holding his ten-pound rod like he was scared of it, like it might turn into a snake and slither right out of his grip.

  The guy was wearing a khaki shirt with a sailfish embroidered on the back of it. Khaki short pants, white legs, boat shoes, a khaki long-billed fishing hat with earflaps and a neckflap. Throw in dark glasses with leather blinders. Everything just off the rack.

  Number one, the guy had money. He had somebody guiding him to the fancy clothes aisle, number two. But number three, he was such an asswipe Papa John was ready to fire up the engine and go in, even though they were into some good-size yellowtail.

  “What kind of shit we talking about?” Papa John said.

  “Shit shit,” Benny said. “The kind that comes out of your backside.”

  “What kind of question is that to ask somebody?”

  “It’s a personal question,” Benny said. “I’m getting personal with you.”

  “My shit’s fine.”

  “Well, I’m happy to hear it,” Benny said. He shifted the rod around, and took another grip on it. It still looked like he was ready to drop the whole thing if a fish hit. “You haven’t ever heard the saying, so goes your shit, so goes your day?”

  “I may have,” Papa John said. He took another couple of sandballs out of the bucket. They were a chum and sand mixture that he balled up and froze overnight. He dropped them over the side. Then he sprinkled some toasted oats on the surface of the water. That ought to fire them up, bring them to the surface.

  It was about four-thirty in the afternoon, a Tuesday. The weather was warming up a little, but still nippy. Maybe sixty today, a light northwestern breeze. A moderate chop, with an empty blue sky.

  This Benny Cousins had sent one of his people over to roust Papa John first thing that morning. The man was just standing there on his boat, never asked permission to board. Papa John lay in his bunk, groggy from a first-class hangover, staring at this jocko.

  Normally he would’ve reached up and pulled down the .45 nickel-plated service revolver he kept over his bunk and pointed it at this guy and told him to get off his boat, and try starting over the right way. But this guy didn’t look like he’d move. Papa John would have to shoot him a couple of times to teach him any marine manners. And what with his headache banging like it was, he didn’t want to face the noise.

  The guy had told him that Mr. Benny Cousins wanted to charter his boat for the afternoon. Mr. Cousins wanted to go out to the reef, catch some fishies. He’d said that, fishies. And Papa John had looked at him and told him to go fuck himself and Benny whoever it was and to take his white pants and his purple tennis shirt and his Rolex watch and get the hell off his boat.

  The gorilla had said, “You got that off your system, now roll out and start getting ready. He’ll be over at noon. He has a hard-on to see you. Don’t ask me why.”

  At noon Benny had parked his brown Mercedes in the shade beside the Bomb Bay Bar and got out in all his khaki glory, and Papa John had looked out from the bar and said to himself, “Jesus Christ, not that guy.”

  Benny Cousins had worked out of the Miami office of the DEA for ten years, back in the seventies before all the white powders started coming ashore, changing things. He’d come down on weekends and hung around, sitting in the Bomb Bay Bar, shooting the breeze with the local scuzzbags who were just then considering moving out of the marijuana business and into the white powder business.

  Benny drank scotch, telling war stories about Miami cops and robbers. Everybody wondered about him. Is he looking for action? Definitely. But what kind? Nobody was sure. He’d come in, acting all down-home friendly and how y’all doing. He’d sit there and tell his stories, buy a few rounds of drinks, but nobody became his buddy. People shooting looks at Papa John.

  John finally had to ask the guy to stop coming in. It was hurting business. He put it as friendly as he could. John back then was buying a forty-pound bale of grass once a month, dealing out of the bar, so he didn’t want some DEA agent taking a personal dislike to him. Benny had said, huh, you’re kicking me out of here? But these are my people. This is my home, this bar, this stool, this town. His eyes getting wet.

  Isn’t nobody in here gonna be sorry if you don’t ever come back, Papa John had told him. He thought he should just get the man’s snout right down there in reality and let him root. And Benny’s eyes had shut off. His smile just died away. Not that he was mad or anything, but like somebody had just clipped the wires to him.

  And he’d gotten up and walked off, and that was it for Benny. Took his Nerf ball and his glove and went looking for some other sandlot. Till today. And here he was, same guy.

  “See,” Benny was saying, “I’m a shit examiner myself. I look at it, I readily admit to it. It comes from my insatiable curiosity about all things human.”

  “You’re a philosopher,” Papa John said.

  “Yeah, yeah I am. And what shit is, it’s a miracle. A daily miracle. We put something in one end, it comes out the other. It’s different, totally changed. You look at it and you think, Jesus, my body did that. My body. It’s how this country used to operate. You put some poor illiterate slob in one end, and America takes that slob and … you see what I’m saying?”

  “No,” Papa John said.

  He splashed in two more sandballs. He was half hoping that Benny’s live shrimp would get smacked by a hammerhead cruising by and pull this guy overboard, haul him out to the Gulf Stream, where he could examine the turd flow from South America.

  Benny said, “I look at my shit, and I make assumptions based on things, like consistency, color. Even the smell, that can tell you a lot. I’m not saying I stick my nose down in the bowl, and I don’t actually probe it with a tongue depressor like the crazy Germans, looking for undigested particles, run them through again. I’m not a fetishist or anything.”

  John had his line running out, the one-ounce jig carrying it down nice and smooth. He was staring at Benny, wondering why he’d taken this guy’s two hundred bucks and come out here fishing with him. He guessed he was getting bored, and because he’d wondered why a guy with a pet gorilla would want to see him so bad. It reminded him a little of the old days. People with bodyguards were always wanting to use his co
nnections.

  Benny said, “Like this morning, I’m standing there and it’s been a great dump, a miracle dump. And I’m buckling up, feeling ten pounds lighter, and all at once it hits me.”

  John’s bait bumped bottom, and he brought it up a little, began to jig it, reel in a few feet, jig.

  “It hit me that here I am down here, making this place my home, getting all the plugs plugged in, the keys working in the right locks. And I thought, Papa John! The main man. Or, well, the used-to-be-main-man.

  “And I go, hey, Benny. You can have the mayor carrying your books home from school, you can have the commissioners doing your cuticles and the whole Chamber of Commerce trying to get their noses inside your rosy red, but if you ain’t got Papa John, man, you ain’t got squat.”

  “Uh-huh,” John said. “This all came to you, buckling up your pants? I’m supposed to do what now? Curtsy? Genuflect?”

  “See how it is is, I’m down here now. I’m in the Keys to stay. Benny’s come home to roost. And well, till the other day, I had this guy, a Conch type, and he was setting things up for me, greasing the chutes, you know, introducing me to the so-called big shots down here. But this guy, he turned out to be a Benedict Arnold. I had to let him go.

  “So I’m there thinking what to do next, and bang, it comes to me, how about if I talk to the old man, see about what it would take for him not to kick me out of the bar anymore? How many dollars it would cost for you to welcome me into the bar. Act like you’re fucking glad to see me is what I’m talking here. ’Cause see, I’ve got this idea, we could be partners, blood brothers.”

  “You ain’t got that much money, Benny.”

  “No, no,” he said. “You see money’s just part of it, man. I’m not talking about just money. I’m talking about putting you back together again, Humpty Dumpty.”