Forever’s Just Pretend: A Hector Lassiter novel (Hector Lassiter series Book 2)

by Craig McDonald

  “He caught them in bed together. All three were drunk, but Graf had a gun. Mase heard the shots fired that killed Livia and her lover. Mase grabbed one of his daddy’s other guns and ran to help his mother. Mase put one in Grafton’s shoulder. Didn’t kill him, though. State of Texas saw to that. That’s this life’s one real regret, sweet Brinke. I knew things were bad between those two. I should have pulled Liv and Mase out of that place. Should have put Liv in some hospital somewhere to dry out and I should have raised Mase up myself, years earlier than I ended up doing. You and Mase, you both got equally robbed on the parent front, sounds like.”

  Beau hesitated then. “God forgive me, failing Liv and failing Mase. A lot of wicked things come out of Tulare, but none of ’em quite so nasty as Grafton Lassiter.”

  “It’s a terrible story,” Brinke said. “Just the thought of that little boy seeing all that. But Hector had you.”

  “You flinched when I mentioned babies earlier,” Beau said carefully. “I’m sorry if I hit some nerve. It’s too soon for kids of course. You two need that time alone. I mean, if you ever even want kids.”

  Hector stood there, listening, the drinks sweating in his hands. He heard Brinke make a false start or two, then she said, “When I was a little girl, I was attacked. A man, a neighbor, well… They put him to death later. I wasn’t his only victim, just the only one to live. Anyway, the doctor back then, he said probably I can’t have children of my own, not ever. They said it maybe could even be dangerous to try.”

  “Maybe isn’t can’t,” Beau said, “and forever is too long to get your mind around. But we’ll talk no more of that. What happens, happens. You can always adopt if you want a child.”

  “Maybe I’ll get lucky,” Brinke said, “prove that old country doctor wrong. Cheat fate.”

  “It can surely be done,” Beau said. “We can make our own luck, darling.”

  “You truly believe that?”

  “Every day of my life.” It was quiet then, and Hector deliberately bumped into a chair—made its leg make noise against the Spanish tile. Beau called from the veranda, “Mase? Connie? That you?”

  “Just me,” Hector said. He set Consuelo’s drink next to her placemat. Brinke reached out and took Hector’s drink from him. “Thanks so much, darling,” she said. “That was very thoughtful of you.”

  “That’s me all over,” Hector said, returning to mix another drink for himself. He called back, “Something for you, Beau?”

  “Bourbon, neat,” his grandfather said. “What the hell’s on fire down there?”

  “A diner downtown is going up in smoke,” Hector said.

  Brinke asked, “Arson?” He could hear the frown in her voice. “Do I really have to ask?”

  “I’ll know for certain when I talk to my best man,” Hector said. “But I’ll hazard it was a torch job. Right up against the burning building is an empty lot from an earlier fire.”

  Beau blew smoke out his nostrils. “You wouldn’t happen to know the realtor of record on that lot, would you, Mase?”

  Hector nodded, taking the seat opposite his grandfather. “I would.”

  Beau said, “I’ll take a stab at a guess before you declare. Last Key Realty?”

  “Yes, but—” A door slammed behind Hector. Consuelo shimmied out onto the porch, trailing servers. “Dinner is served,” she said redundantly.

  21

  Brinke had ordered Hector to Beau’s hotel to change for the wedding.

  “Bad enough luck for you to see me so close to the ceremony,” she had said. “Besides, first time you see me in my wedding dress, I want it to be as I come up that middle aisle on your grandfather’s arm.”

  There had been some considerable interval between Hector’s rap on Beau’s hotel room door and the old man’s eventual answer. Probably the result of Beau scrambling to put on some clothes and stash Consuelo someplace in a pointless bid at sparing Hector’s sense of propriety, or the like, he figured.

  Ultimately, Beau had left Hector alone in the sprawling hotel room. “Have to fetch my tux from a shop down on Duval,” Beau had said. “You relax here a while. Treat yourself to a last solitary drink or three as a bachelor. I’ll see ya in church, Mase.”

  It struck Hector then that last time he and his grandfather had been in a house of worship together was probably when Hector was a little boy, at his mother’s funeral. They hadn’t marked Grafton Lassiter’s passing with so much as a graveyard visit.

  Hector poured himself two more fingers of bourbon and carried it with him to a floor-length mirror. He straightened his tie and then slipped on the jacket of his evening suit, a relic of his nightlife in Paris with Brinke. He looked at his left hand, at his naked ring finger. He asked himself if he had second thoughts, found he didn’t. He savored the bourbon’s quicksilver burn.

  ***

  Hector splurged on a taxi to shuttle him to the church. It was already muggy and he didn’t want to arrive for his wedding wet as a mop. A lone man sat on the steps in front of the church as the taxi rolled up to the curbstone. Jack Dixon was smoking a cigarette. He cast that down and snuffed it out with a twist of a toe. He stood and smiled at Hector. Jack said, “You’re not quite late. Still time to bolt, brother.”

  “I’m just fine, Dix. Dandy, even.”

  “No second thoughts?”

  “Nah. Hell, no.”

  “Quite a crowd in there,” Jack said.

  That threw Hector. “Shouldn’t be more than a half-dozen in there, and that’s counting the priest and the organist,” he said.

  “More like, say, six dozen,” Jack said. “It’s pretty much standing room only.”

  Hector ducked a head in, floored to see a full house. What the hell was going on? “This is very strange,” he said aloud.

  Jack said, “Saw you last night, hanging around the fringes of the fire.”

  “Yeah, what was that, Dix? Another torch job?”

  “Utterly.”

  “Any clues? Anything useful?”

  “Sheriff says not.” Jack paused, “Best man… say, I’m supposed to buck you up or something, aren’t I? Offer some advice? Something like that?”

  Hector shrugged. “You ever been married, Dix?”

  “Christ, no,” Jack said.

  “So what could you possibly say to me that would mean anything?” Hector slapped the cop on the back. “Let’s get in there and get this crazy thing done.”

  ***

  Hector and Jack stood at the altar, scanning the crowd. Hector thought he recognized one or two of Beau’s old cronies, a local merchant or two, but hardly anyone else. The crowd still baffled Hector.

  The organist segued into “The Wedding March.”

  Brinke and Beau began making their way up the aisle. Brinke wore a white beaded gown that left Hector wondering how she could breathe. The dress bared Brinke’s shoulders and emphasized her breasts and the brownness of her exposed skin. White silk gloves nearly reached her bare shoulders. Brinke’s face was hidden behind a veil. Beau wore a dove gray tuxedo with a cut-away coat. His white hair was slicked back. The old man seemed unusually reserved—very serious. Or possibly just badly hung-over or sleep-deprived from his night before, carousing with Consuelo.

  Brinke’s veiled head moved side to side, taking in the audience and leaving Hector with the impression the crowd was a surprise to Brinke, too. Beau, on the other hand, was nodding and smiling now—sometimes even winking—at various men and women in the audience. The old man seemed to know everyone, pricking Hector’s curiosity even more.

  The bride-to-be and her escort finally reached the altar. Beau squeezed Hector’s hand and grinned. Brinke smiled nervously at Hector. Through her veil, he read her lips: “Here we go…”

  ***

  After the ceremony, Brinke, Hector, Jack, Beau and Consuelo, the latter a last minute addition as maid of honor, posed for pictures.

  The congregation gathered on the front porch to toss rice on the newlyweds.

  Beau pul
led Hector aside at the curb. He pressed into Hector’s hand a thousand dollars and a hotel key. “My rooms, Mase. Sorry I can’t share the wedding lunch waiting there, but, well, I just can’t. Place is yours until at least five. Fresh sheets are on the bed. Be nice if you returned that favor when you two are done wrecking said bed.”

  Hector nodded, sporting an awkward smile. “Thank you, Pap. Everything else aside, you just seeing this, and giving Brinke away today, I can’t thank you enough for that.”

  Beau hugged him. “You want to choke me up? Now, you two do know what to do when you get back to the hotel, oui?”

  “We’ve been practicing.”

  “Plenty, I’m sure. Now g’wan, kiddo. Scram. Leg it, Mase.”

  The crowd cheered as the Lassiters drove off in a gaudily decorated Model-T Jack Dixon had scrounged up. Jack followed in his cruiser, blowing the siren all the way to Duval.

  As the two vehicles disappeared around the corner, Beau raised his arms, his demeanor sharply changed. Loudly, he said, “Folks, thanks again for your infinite patience. So sorry for the confusion on times. But we’re ready to go now, if y’all just step back inside and grab a pew.”

  Murmuring, the crowd filtered back into the church and settled back into seats. Audience members fanned themselves with wedding programs and real estate brochures.

  The priest pulled Beau aside. He said, “I have a few dollars of my own. I rather fancy some property.”

  “Clergy gets discounts,” Beau said, smiling. He gestured at an empty space in the front row. “Grab a pew, Father. Take a load off. You can take a look at how you look from out here for once. Oh, and thanks again for the use of the space.”

  Beau slapped another man on the back, said aloud, “My associate, Barnaby Nash. He’ll be running this auction.”

  Barnaby stepped up to the altar and began setting up easels. He then positioned enlarged property plats and architectural renderings on the array of stands.

  When he was finished, Barnaby raised his hands, beaming. He said, “The Good Lord isn’t making more dirt, so property remains the soundest investment of your dollar, brothers and sisters. Nowhere more so than Florida, and nowhere in the Sunshine State more so than here, on the Lord’s last Key. Seventy plats are available for investment, all contiguous and all marking the footprint of Florida’s most ambitious resort complex. We call it Buena Stella, a top-drawer, A-1 resort complex, mixing hi-tone retail outlets and sumptuous residential living. Now opening bids on plat number one!”

  22

  Hector fumbled with the front door lock. He finally got the key to turn and opened the doors. Brinke grabbed his arm. “Whoa, there,” she said. “Bad luck, just going in like that.”

  “What?”

  “The threshold, darling—you’re supposed to carry me across,” Brinke said, smiling. “You know? Sweep me off my feet? Carry me to our marriage bed and ravish me?” Hector wasn’t sure he had any of that flavor of stamina left after an afternoon already spent at Beau’s hotel ravishing Brinke.

  “Right,” Hector said. “How perfectly dense of me.” Brinke wrapped her arms around Hector’s neck and he leaned down and slipped an arm behind the backs of her knees and swept her up into his arms. Smiling, she kissed Hector and said, “Romantic, isn’t it?”

  “If I slip a disc it surely won’t be.” Hector turned a bit to edge through the door. As he did that, Brinke’s foot bumped the shrub alongside the porch. There was a heavy clunk as the baseball bat fell loose from the branches of the shrub and bounced off the concrete step.

  Brinke and Hector exchanged wide-eye glances. Hector said it for both of them, “Son of a bitch.”

  Voice cracking, Brinke said, “Does this mean what I think it does?”

  “What else could it mean,” Hector said, “but that you’ve been targeted?”

  Hector scoped the street with angry eyes but saw no obvious spies in sight.

  Brinke, also checking the street, said tautly, “Maybe you better put me down.”

  Hector, distracted, said, “But the luck.” He carried her across the threshold of their house, then lowered Brinke to their living room floor. “Gonna go fetch that bat,” he said.

  Hector leaned out the door and checked the street again. He used a handkerchief to grasp the handle of the Louisville Slugger. He leaned the bat against a chair and passed the handkerchief to Brinke. “Take this,” he said. “Use it to move that bat into a closet, or the attic. Somewhere safe for now. Just don’t leave your prints on it. Then I want you to lock this door and sit waiting for me with your gun. I’ll call out before I mount the step. Failing hearing my voice? You hear someone else put foot to that step? That happens, I want you to shoot through the door, high and low, no questions asked.”

  Brinke said, “Where are you going, Hec?”

  “Hardware store. Won’t be ten minutes. Then it will be about ten more minutes out on the porch setting up after my purchase. Meantime, don’t take off that dress. That’s still my job and I mean to relish it.” Hector hesitated, then smiled and added, “I mean, again.”

  ***

  Brinke arched her back. She held her position, quaking, then settled atop him, her mouth at his throat and her ragged breath running counterpoint to his pulse.

  “That might well have been the best ever,” she said.

  “The best to date,” Hector corrected, short of breath. “Our marriage is still young.”

  “Don’t edit my conversation,” Brinke said. She lowered her head and nipped at his chest. She held up her left hand, the rings catching the lowlight through the window. “There’s something very sensual, very intense, about being completely naked but for your rings,” she said.

  “Very,” he said, holding up his own hand and contemplating the gold band there.

  Cicadas, the sound of the oscillating fans; a distant dog baying at the moon. A soft, steady rain pattered on the tin roof. There was suddenly a sharp crackle, then the power dimmed. The fans slowed once, twice, then stopped. The radio cut out in the middle of “The Man I Love.”

  Brinke’s nails dug into his arm. “No electrical storm to speak of and nothing to knock out the power I can think of,” she said. “You don’t think someone cut our electric connection, do you? That ball bat’s owner, for instance?”

  “Maybe him, but not like you mean.” Hector slid out of the bed. “It’s more likely a blown fuse or circuit,” Hector said. He heard this strange edge in his voice. Hector sat there, listening: Had his crazy scheme truly worked? He slipped his hand under his pillow and pulled out his Peacemaker. “You wait here, darlin’.”

  Brinke scowled. “Like hell. And that gun was under the pillow all this time? On our wedding night?”

  Hector paused, then shrugged. “Well, yeah. All these fires, these rapes and beatings?” Hector cupped her chin. “And because of that baseball bat you knocked out of that shrub. Thank Christ for your unending beautiful goddamn legs.”

  “Nicer than saying thank God for my big feet,” Brinke said. She slipped her hand under her pillow and drew out her Colt. Sheepishly, she said, “It’s catching, I suppose.”

  Hector smiled and extended a hand. Brinke took it and he drew her up to him. They cocked together. Nude, toting their guns, they padded quietly into their living room. Hector nodded and Brinke slid to the left of the front door. Hector drifted right. He fumbled with the lock on the storm door and then jerked it open, dropping to one knee and pointing his gun through the screen door. Nothing.

  Brinke whispered, “You sure this blackout is something sinister?”

  “Pretty certain.”

  “Why, Hec?”

  “Bear with me.”

  Brinke wrinkled her nose. “You smell something? Like burned meat, maybe?”

  “Like I was saying.” Hector rose and now he could see the body on the porch. The man’s hand was thrust into the shrub where the ball bat had been hidden. The man’s eyes were wide open and rolled back in his head, showing mostly the whites. The stranger�
��s lips were blue. His tongue was twisted out one side of his mouth. There was indeed a scent of burning meat riding the wet night air.

  Brinke leaned out for a look, said, “What in God’s name happened to him?”

  Hector handed Brinke his Colt. Naked, he stepped out onto the wet porch and reached behind the shrub, groping around. He found what he was looking for and pulled. He felt the socket come free from the exterior electrical outlet. Then Hector jerked hard and the other end of the electrical cord came loose from its fastenings. Hector held up charred, exposed wires, then tossed the electrical chord into the house behind himself. Reaching into the shrub, Hector felt around, found the tube and pulled it from the damp ground. He wrenched it loose from the dead man’s hand that was still tightly gripping the metal pole. Hector handed the piece of metal to Brinke, who scowled, looking at the hollow metal tube in her hand. Hector leaned down and felt the man’s throat for a pulse. Nada.

  “Stash our guns, darling,” Hector said. “We both need to dress. Then I’m going to take a short walk and toss this electrical chord and piece of tubing into the ocean. After, I’ll go find us a cop.”

  Brinke shook her head. “You deliberately electrocuted him?”

  “Not so much,” Hector said sourly. “I figured to knock him out. Didn’t count on the rain. I think he parboiled from the inside out. Though I doubt the cops would see it as an accident.” He pointed at the man’s feet. “And he shed his shoes, which only made it worse. Guess he was hoping to be quieter once he got inside.” The man’s rubber-soled shoes rested on the bottom step.

  Brinke winced, shaking her head. “You set a trap. So, it’s over then, yes? You killed the Key West Clubber.”

  Hector stepped into a pair of shorts and then pulled a T-shirt down over his chest. “Nah. The Clubber may be dead, such as he was. But I don’t think anything’s over. Hate to say it, but I expect all we’ve done tonight is step up the pace of fires to come.”