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

by Craig McDonald

  The reporter scowled. “Christ’s sake, you mean hire a whore, don’t you?”

  “That’s very crassly put,” Hector said, an edge in his voice. “C’mon, Mike. Place I’m thinking of ain’t far at all. Don’t be a stick in the mud. It’s a house on Whitehead Street. Let’s go there now.” Hector rose and grabbed the reporter’s arm. “Gotta get on your feet, to get off your feet, Mike. Trust me, amigo. Bliss awaits. Hell, this could well be the night that changes your life.”

  ***

  “Are you calling my men incompetent, Mrs. Lassiter?”

  Brinke sighed. “Not all of your men, Sheriff.” Brinke was suddenly sorry not to be carrying her Colt. She said, “Jack Dixon, for one, strikes me as reasonably effective.”

  Sheriff Hoyt was set seething by that assertion, barely containing his rage. “And you, in your expert judgment, think that because Dixon’s quotes to some of the local newspapers line up with your beliefs? What else can you base your opinion on?”

  Brinke said, “If by my beliefs you mean what I’ve deduced based on known facts and proximity of violence to my home, then, yes. Absolutely.”

  “We’re finished here, Mrs. Lassiter.”

  “Devlin. My last name is Devlin.”

  “Missus—or is it Miss, then?—Devlin, we’re done now. But you could carry word back to that friend of yours—husband. Whatever he is to you. That Hector Lassiter. Tell that man I’ve got my eye on him. You tell him that unlike some French policemen, I won’t tolerate civilians messing in official police business. You tell all that to Lassiter.”

  “I’m frankly more concerned about police business messing in my life and my husband’s life,” Brinke said.

  Hoyt narrowed his eyes. “And just what are you inferring?”

  Brinke rolled her eyes. “I imply. You infer.”

  “Guess you’d know that, you being a writer and all. You know all that useless stuff. Cipherin’ and parsin’ and the like. Most people get by fine without all that nonsense.”

  “You leave us alone, Mister,” Brinke said. “I’m telling you this just once. Leave us the hell alone.”

  The cop snorted. “Or else what, you crazy twist?”

  “Cross me again and you’ll soon enough find out what I mean.”

  Hoyt rolled his eyes now. “I’m shaking, ma’am. There’s the damned door. You just show me that fine rump of yours on the way to it and out.”

  ***

  The radio was cranked up to cover their conversation: “Hard Hearted Hannah (The Vamp of Savannah).” The Cuban madam fanned herself and shook her head. “I detest him, Señor Lassiter, make no mistake on that point. I can think of at least three stories that man Rogers has printed that have cost me business and sleep. Even lawyer fees, once. But what you propose?” She made a face. “It’s maybe actually evil, even by my standards.”

  “And it’s surely my doing.” Hector patted the woman’s arm. “You just stand by and look glum,” Hector said. “And then you can have all the cash he’s carrying. It’s my play and so my sin to carry. My cross to bear. My soul will be the one to take any hit, here. You just collect the money he has on him and forget us both. For you it’s just business as usual.”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed. “How much money?”

  Hector patted down Rogers’ slack body. The reporter was snoring. A drool trail was sliding down his right cheek.

  Hector pulled out the reporter’s roll. “I count three hundred dollars,” Hector said. “Less twenty dollars for his ticket across the Gulf.” Shaking his head, Hector thought out loud, “Three hundred clams. That’s a lot of walking-around money for a reporter.” The bought-off son of a bitch.

  “You can have that car of his out front, too,” Hector said. “It’s a nice one and brand new.” He smiled. “Hell, if nothing else, it’ll class up your parking lot. Maybe draw a better breed of customer than the likes this sorry bastard would on his own.”

  Scowling, the madam said, “You brought that one here. And you swear you’ll cover for me if this doesn’t come off?”

  “It won’t go wrong,” Hector said. “But yes, I swear. Now I just need one of your girls, one who can play dead whatever happens. Whatever this guy says, or maybe even screams when he comes to. And I’ll need some black coffee. I’ll be needing you to step up when this reporter starts talking about cop friends who might help him out of the jam he finds himself in. You’ll nod and confirm that the girl is family of Sheriff Hoyt’s. That’ll shut him up. Until he comes to, if you could, I need your bouncer Felipé to take this twenty and go to the docks and smooth the grooves with some steamer or shrimp boat skipper. Once we convince this sorry bastard he offed one of your girls, we want him on the first boat to Cuba. We want him pointed one way, and we wanted him headed out across the Big Blue River very fast and then gone from our lives forever.”

  27

  Wrapped in yellow rain coats, Hector and Beau stood at the pier’s end, blinking back the rain and catching glimpses of the bloody sunrise through the storm clouds.

  Hector recast his saltwater rig. He said, “All right, Beau, I’ve determined we’ve both concluded that all of this, every dirty thing happening on this island, is linked to real estate and to development.”

  Beau nodded, smiling. “So far, so good, Mase. But, sonny, it’s far bigger than what I think you’re seeing. And one hell of a lot more treacherous.”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “Sure you can. But there’s your pretty wife to worry after now, too,” Beau said. “Though I doubt I really need to remind you of that.”

  That shut Hector up. Beau said, “Mase, this crazy island is wide open. There’s more than one fortune to be made on this rock. Everywhere I look, I see another opportunity just begging to be exploited. Unfortunately, the sharks got to this Key first. Tell you, Mase, if I’d hit this sand dab along about 1920 or ’21, I’d be this coral bed’s beloved sovereign ruler.”

  “I do believe that is true,” Hector said. “I don’t doubt that at all.”

  “Well, the good news is there’s still some wiggle room. You mind helpin’ me with a side project?”

  “What’s that mean, side project, Pap?”

  “You know boats don’t you?”

  Hector nodded. “A fair bit. Yeah, sure.”

  “You can steer a boat, yes? You could ask some intelligent questions about one?”

  “Sure, I guess.” Hector recast his line. “What’s this about?”

  “It’s all about another opportunity,” Beau said.

  “Something you’re into with Nash?”

  “Barn? Nah, Nash is outside this one.” Beau gave Hector a hard look. He said, “Mase, you’ve just never ever cottoned to Old Barnaby. Why exactly is that?”

  “I don’t know,” Hector said. “Call it instinct. Maybe a longstanding, visceral dislike. That’s all. Except I figure it for mutual.”

  “That’s plenty,” Beau said. “Barn’s okay, Mase. We’ve been partners for years, you know.”

  Hector changed the subject: “So what’s with these questions about boats and me?”

  Beau smiled. “Little opportunity I have for you in the Saddle Keys. This enterprise stands to net you some mad money. It’s just a couple of days’ job, I promise. Just until I can free up Conrad Vogel to serve as pilot.”

  “I’ve always liked Conrad,” Hector said. “Con’s jake. This pitch of yours, can I say no?”

  Beau frowned. “It would cost me a lot of money if you did. Not to mention the hurt feelings.”

  “You told Brinke I’m too gabby for the con,” Hector said. “Too inventive to use in a game.”

  “Well, here you’re going to be the surly sailor who can’t string too many words together,” Beau said. “And bring Brinke. She can be my…er, companion.”

  Hector frowned. “Your companion?”

  “Just for show. Just for an hour or two here and there. Brinke will be arm decoration. A fetching and desperately needed distraction.”


  “What’s wrong with Consuelo if you’re looking for decoration like that?”

  Beau waved a hand. “Well, Connie’s not sufficiently cosmopolitan. Not sufficiently American to be on the arm of Gunther Walpole.”

  Hector laughed. “And you’re Gunther Walpole? What happened to Cornelius Astor?”

  “That’s a separate affair, Mase. Cornelius Astor wouldn’t dabble in boats. Astor’s a real estate baron. Walpole is shipping czar and sports boat enthusiast.”

  Hector shook his head. “Aren’t you at all concerned about spreading yourself thin, Beau?”

  The old man scoffed. “Now, don’t be like that, Mase. That’s hurtful talk. You in, sonny?”

  “Two days?”

  “Three at most, cross my dark heart.”

  “Brinke and me—”

  “Have this goddamn bloody Clubber thing, I know, Mase. Trust me though, things are quiet on that front. And they will stay that way for at least the next couple of days.”

  “Quiet by your design? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Please, Mase, my modesty. Seriously, it’s nothing of my direct doing, but I have good reason to believe the violence will be edging off, at least in the near term. So, are you two in?”

  “I’ll have to ask Brinke. I mean, I can’t speak for her.”

  Beau snorted. “And, in that, ain’t marriage just humbling as all hell?”

  28

  Brinke stretched her arms out along the warm brass rail of the boat’s stern, the Gulf wind whipping her hair. Beau sat alongside her, tending his line. Speaking loudly enough Hector could hear from his perch atop the flying bridge, Brinke said, “Have to say, this has been a heavenly couple of days. What’s this make it? Ten, twelve boats you’ve bought, Beau?”

  “Ten,” Hector said, turning their craft to head back in while they still had some sunlight to steer by. He called down to Beau, “What’s next, Commodore?”

  Beau smiled up at his grandson. “What’s next is you two sleep on that last big boat we brought in yesterday,” Beau said, sipping his whiskey soda. “Have a party. I’ll handle the wrap up tomorrow. Then we’ll have a good dinner and celebrate our success here.”

  “Our success,” Brinke repeated. “I’m curious what form that takes. What exactly have we been up two these past couple of days? I’m in it—whatever it is—up to my neck, and yet I’m baffled.”

  Beau patted her knee. “All will be revealed and directly.”

  “You are truly something,” she said. “All this living by your wits, making money simply by using your brain in these funny and strange ways…”

  “Not just me,” Beau said. “You do the same thing really. How else to describe writing fiction?”

  ***

  They were sitting in the cabin of the forty-footer they’d taken possession of Saturday night. They dined on wine and fresh-caught amberjack. Hector turned down the radio on Ted Lewis and his Orchestra’s version of “Show Me the Way (To Go Home).”

  “This yacht club has been deserted for nearly a year,” Beau said. “I rented it for near nothing a few weeks ago. You see, as The Fates would have it, I was actually headed down to the Keys before you two sent your wire inviting me for the wedding. I’ve been putting this operation together for a while. Timing is often a funny thing in this business. Funny, yet so critical. Call it a happy accident.”

  Hector said, “You mean this yacht club is all your stage-setting? That’s incredible.”

  Beau beamed. “Yep. Great, ain’t she? Just had to clean the place up a bit and hire me a few fellas to play waiter and doorman and the like. Had to find me a just-good-enough chef. Looks like a million dollars, don’t she?”

  “I was fooled,” Brinke said.

  “Anyone would be,” Beau said. “This is a sweet touch. Maybe one of my slickest to date. Once I got this place secured, I started answering classified ads regarding boats for sale. I wired the owners to get them all down here one after another, bang, bang, bang. Well, you’ve seen how we’re grinding them through, buying these boats, I mean.”

  Hector said, “But using what for money to buy these boats, exactly?”

  “Stock certificates,” Beau said. “Former owners’ll all be paid out end of day tomorrow.”

  Hector made a face. “You’re confessing you mean to pass off false title on all these rich marks?”

  “The certificates are real enough,” Beau said. “But near worthless. Or they will be tomorrow night. That’s another story, unto itself, Mase. Ties back to another game I’ve got going. Roots of that one trail back to the oil fields of Texas.”

  “This sounds dangerous,” Brinke said.

  “Not a bit of it,” Beau said. “By the time these fellas realize their stocks are worthless, the rafts will be in the hands of new owners and far away from here. The yacht club will be deserted again come Monday morning. And Gunther Walpole? That chap will be a vexing chimera.”

  Brinke smiled, shaking her head. “I should feel much dirtier about all this than I do.”

  “Hell, it gets in your blood,” Beau said. “And anyways, none of these guys is going to miss their money. Ain’t like we’re bilking widows and orphans. That’s not my style at all.” He slipped the wedding band off his finger and passed it back to Hector. “Thanks for the loan, of the ring and of your lady.”

  Hector slipped back on his ring. “Brinke enjoyed it. I could tell she liked having a sugar daddy, even fleetingly.”

  She smiled at Beau. “Shameless as it sounds of me, it’s true enough. Some sorry part of me has always yearned to be a kept woman. I’ve toyed from time-to-time with being some rich and attractive older man’s pampered prize.”

  Beau stroked her cheek. “I don’t believe that. But when it comes to the con, you’re a natural, darlin’. Soon as you entered the room, the IQs among those boat owners sounded, and I mean down deep. Any scraps of reason they ever possessed fled.”

  Brinke said, “That’s this con explained. What are you up to back in Key West, Beau?”

  The old man looked around the cabin. “That might be a bit premature, yet. Too soon to talk, I mean.”

  “Give us the broad strokes, then,” Hector said.

  Beau thought about that. He sighed, then said, “I bought a few blocks in Key West. Well, me and some confederates did that. An even seventy parcels.”

  Hector said, “Again, I have to ask. Using exactly what for money? I mean, I don’t care if you sold a thousand pedigreed mutts, that wouldn’t buy seventy parcels of Key West real estate.”

  “Just bought options,” Beau said. “We just bought options on partial payment. My investors have ponied up half-cost on those options. I don’t have a dime in this thing, so far. Isn’t that sweet?”

  “Your investors?” Hector shook loose a cigarette. “Who are these investors?”

  “The congregation at the church,” Beau said, pulling the cellophane from a cigar.

  “These investors were our impromptu wedding crowd?” Brinke looked stricken. “Beau, we’re planning on living on that island. Key West is home now. You can’t soak all those Key Westers in some land scam! Those are our neighbors, maybe our future friends.”

  “Soak?” Beau looked hurt; maybe even a bit angered. “I’m not going to see any of them Key Westers lose a penny of their investments.” Beau held up his glass for Hector to refill. “Point of fact, those investors of mine will not end up with any land. But they will enjoy a respectable profit on their original investment.”

  Hector looked up from the bar. “And how is that exactly?”

  “That may take some more explaining,” Beau said. “May need to show you some things back in Key West to put the plan across. You two stop by the hotel when we get back. I’ll explain the rest there.”

  “We’re headed to Key West then?”

  “Tomorrow night, I figure,” Beau said.

  29

  The men were gathered in the back room of a shanty speakeasy on Elizabeth Street. Music through
the walls: “There’s Yes! Yes! In Your Eyes.”

  “The woman paid me a visit, couple of days back,” Sheriff Hoyt said. “The Devlin woman, I mean. I give her credit for courage, coming right at me like she did. She’s either got guts, or no brains. Maybe both. She’s also quite the twist. Goddamn walking wet dream. Hell, I shouldn’t have farmed out that hit on her. Should take care of that cooze myself. Prettiest I’ve ever seen, anytime, anywhere.”

  Nash grunted. “She really came straight at you? To what end?”

  “On face, she came to ask about the dead man on her porch, fishing after what I’d learned about him and such,” Hoyt said. “She was playing the concerned citizen. The fearful frail.”

  “On face,” Nash repeated. “What was the real reason?”

  “To put me on notice, I guess,” Hoyt said. “She expressed doubt in my crew. All but fuckin’ Dixon, who she singled out for praise, that conniving cocksucker. Then she threatened me. Warned me to stay away from her and Lassiter.” The cop leveled a finger, moving it from man to man. “I told you, all of you, this Lassiter is trouble for us. Her threat confirms it so far as I’m concerned.”

  “So it would appear,” Nash said. “I’ve done some more checking. I’m starting to come around to Hoyt’s thinking on this. We should kill Lassiter, and I mean yesterday.”

  Hoyt bellowed, “At last!”

  Mayor Winch said, “My bigger immediate concern is our missing member. Where the hell has Rogers gotten off to? He’s missed two editions of his paper. People are talking and that won’t do.”

  Nash frowned. “Who is Rogers?”

  “Owner and operator of the Key West Tattler, one of the local rags,” the mayor said. “It’s the newspaper we had a handle on. One we same as wrote ourselves.”

  Hoyt cracked a peanut shell. He tossed the peanut up in the air, caught it in his mouth. Chewing, he said, “That’s a sideways way of saying Rogers was bought off. Reporter just cost us a new car. Some chump change here and there. He came relatively cheap. And Rogers helped us put over the myth of the Clubber.”