Conrad nodded slowly, his head bowed. “Yeah, you and me, we was the team.” He ordered himself another drink, slammed it back. He said, “You didn’t exactly race back from the wars to hook back up with your old Uncle Con, did you, Mase?”
“No, I didn’t.” Hector couldn’t meet the old man’s gaze.
“Why is that, exactly?”
“I knew what was waiting for me back in Texas, I expect,” Hector said. That was the truth. “Didn’t know what I’d find in France or Spain, but I knew in Paris I stood a better chance of establishing myself as a writer. There’s not exactly what you would call a literary tradition in and around coastal Texas. And Paris was so cheap at the time. You could live fine on nearly nothing there. Writers need to find such places and make ’em their own.”
“How’s that working out for you Mase? The writing, I mean. Much money in that business now that you’ve got a book out there?”
Hector smiled. “Beau put you up to asking that question?”
Vogel ran his fingers back through his hair. “Nah, Mase. But he’s wondered aloud a few times. Guess Beau’s curiosity sparked my own. I read that book of yours. Good stuff. I like the fight scenes. Those, and the woman in there. That a real dame of your acquaintance?”
“Maybe just a bit,” Hector said. He checked his pocket watch. “This was real nice, Con. But I should be getting back now. I should be holding down the fort in case there are any repercussions from the morning’s events. You know, in case Sheriff Mel is feeling vengeful over nearly blowing his own fool head off and the like.”
Vogel checked his watch. Goddamn Nash was running late. Conrad wondered if maybe Nash had gone yellow after concocting this scheme to murder Hector and Beau. He said, “One more, Mase, what do you say? My whistle ain’t quite wetted yet.”
A voice behind them called, “Hey there!”
Vogel sighed, said, “Hey there back, Nash.” The slightly older con man looked a little pale and rattled to Conrad’s eyes.
“Hiya, fellas,” Nash said. “Need to get us over to a little garage, to a blind pig I found, to meet Beau. Little place off Whitehead Street.”
Vogel said, “A blind pig? What’s that?”
“That’s island lingo for a speakeasy,” Hector said. “Though they don’t do terribly much to hide ’em ’round these parts. Here, prohibition largely isn’t.” He made a sour face at Nash and said, “Trouble?”
“Just complications, as you always have,” Nash said. “Some unintended consequences you always get spinning out of a complex game like this one.”
“But Beau’s okay,” Hector pressed, “isn’t he?”
“Fine,” Nash said. “But he needs some hands. I know you don’t like this stuff, Mase. Christ only knows you have no stomach for the grift, but we need a fourth man, pronto.”
Hector stood and stretched. “For Beau and Con, I’m in. Where are we headed?”
“We can ride over in my car,” Nash said. “One of you will have to take the back seat, such as it is.” Nash looked at Hector. “You’re young and spry. Probably the most nimble, Mase.”
“Screw that,” Hector said. “I’m also the tallest. I’d never get my knees in that son of a bitch.”
Vogel said, “Forget it, Nash. Just give me the address. Mase can ride over with me.”
***
Beau stood naked under the stinging shower spray, the water smarting as it drilled into his sunburned upper lip.
The old man stood lathering himself up and assessing angles. Considering contingencies and trying to find holes or weak spots where his con could go crosswise on him.
It was always in the last stages of the game, as matters reached consummation, that Beau’s nerves threatened to overcome him.
Hector had told Beau what Brinke had said, late night pillow talk the two young ones had exchanged following Brinke’s first meeting with Beau. Impressions informed by her superficial estimation of the old man’s demeanor and further fueled by Brinke’s rather shallow sense of grifters and sharpsters and their world that she, like so many others, seemed to see as merely quirky.
According to Hector, Brinke admired Beau’s perceived air of unflappability and nonchalance. His “grace under pressure” and his seeming ability to drift through life “untouched by grief or drudgery,” or the “tedium of a typical day job” as she had put it.
Beau had been left to shake his head at that. His grandson had said, “I set her straight of course. I told Brinke that old chestnut you trot out from time-to-time about trying always to be like a duck, ‘all smooth on the surface and paddling like hell underneath.’ I told her about your long and dark nights of the soul and the strain of never drawing an uncalculated breath. About the wearying drag of eternal vigilance and spotting every angle. Thrust and counter-thrust. Oh, and about your copious ulcers.”
Beau smiled bitterly. Untouched by grief. If only saying it would make it so.
Pretty Brinke had evidently forgotten about Mase’s mother. And of course Beau hadn’t burdened Brinke with stories of a lost wife or two, women lost before his grandson’s time.
Still, Mase had called it about right, Beau figured. Always having to think three moves out. Forever sweating a thousand details and evolving tropes and gambits for contingencies rarely played out. Those efforts ground a man down over time.
Beau cut off the water. He hitched a towel around his waist and looked in the mirror, searching his pale blue eyes.
Had he thought of everything? Had he covered every conceivable contingency?
Too late to dwell on that now. In a few hours, he’d know either way. His biggest score.
He held up his right hand, staring at it. Rock steady. He’d see how it looked in an hour or two.
See if he maintained his nerves through the dark and surely bloody night that lay ahead of them.
40
Nash had paid to rent the speakeasy for the evening.
Speakeasy? A garage, really. The place was close and dank. It was littered with some tables and chairs arrayed around a homemade bar. The rough-hewn bar was badly out of plumb. Light came from a single overhead bulb, dangling naked from a cord slung over the rafters.
Hector checked his pocket watch. “When is Beau due?”
“Soon,” Nash said. “Very soon.”
Vogel was mixing fresh drinks. Nash looked to his partner. Hector’s back was to Vogel. Conrad held up the vial of poison and nodded. He stowed the bottle under the bar.
Hector said, “What’s keeping Beau, I wonder?”
“Vagaries. Maybe some stumbled-upon quick buck?” Nash shrugged. “Hell, he’s your grandpap. You know him.”
Vogel handed Hector his drink. Nash and Vogel tapped glasses. “To Buena Stella,” Nash said.
Hector shrugged and tapped his glass against theirs. “Hell, why not? Bottoms up.”
***
Hector was on the dirty floor, no longer moving. He was curled up, his hands clutching his sides, his legs drawn up toward his chin.
Nash was visibly shaken, actually looked sick. Vogel stared at Nash, flexing his hands and wanting badly to swing on his partner. “Fast,” Vogel said, curling his lip. “You said it would be fast and not terribly painful. Shooting Mase would have been quicker. And kinder.”
“That was awful,” Nash said. He was unable to look Vogel in the eye. He said, “God, poor Mase, screaming like he did, kicking. All doubled over. Poor, poor Mase.”
Vogel slung his shot glass across the room, whipping it by Nash’s ear. Vogel said, “I got no stomach to hear this from you now, you sorry son of a bitch. Now what’s the fucking plan for Mase’s body? Or did you even have one?”
“I dug a grave out back,” Nash said, a little fearful of Vogel’s demeanor. “Grave couldn’t be very deep at all on account of the water table. But I’ve got a couple of bags of quicklime out there, too.”
“Least you did that much,” Vogel said. He bent down and pressed his palm to Hector’s forehead, almost lovingly. “We ar
e surely going to hell for killing this boy.”
“Let me help you get that out back,” Nash said. “I’ll get the legs.”
“Don’t you touch him,” Vogel said. “I’ll see to Mase. Owe him that much, and we’re running behind schedule. You best get out front. You meet and stall Beau until I can get Mase out back.”
Nash flinched. He heard pure hatred in Vogel’s voice. Not that Nash hadn’t foreseen Vogel’s backsliding and regret. Nash had planned for that: another shallow grave on the other side of the island and another couple of bags of quicklime awaited Vogel.
It was going to be a back-breaking night, Nash figured.
“Don’t cover him up yet,” Nash said, grimacing. “I was thinking we’d use the same hole for Beau.”
Nash shifted uncomfortably as he saw the expression that suggestion put on Vogel’s face. Nash decided it was best that he wait out front, lest Vogel, in his mounting rage, put one behind Nash’s ear.
He looked back a last time as Vogel struggled to get Hector’s body into position to lift it. Nash thought, A dead man carrying a dead man.
41
Miguel toted the bloodstained bat in a long duffel bag. The sun was less than an hour down and he still felt twinges of pain at the top and sides of his head.
The streets were still too busy for him to begin work. Or was it that the terrible memories of the last three attacks were still too vivid, ambushing him relentlessly as they had been doing?
Up the street, two slender, dark-haired women were walking slowly, just ambling, really. From behind one resembled Consuelo; even her dress looked like one Consuelo owned.
Someone tapped Miguel on the shoulder. It was Malú, a young friend of Consuelo’s, an employee at the hotel where Consuelo had worked. Malú smiled uncertainly. She said, “You look unwell, Miguel. You look scared. What’s wrong?”
He shrugged and tried to smile. “My head, it’s still a problem until it gets darker. You know, from the accident last year.”
“Where are you headed, Miguel?” The young woman smiled. “You looked like you had some purpose.”
“No, not really.”
“I’m sorry you’re not feeling well, Miguel. Can I help you to a doctor?”
“There’s nothing they can do,” Miguel said. “They’re a waste of time.”
“The ones here probably are, I agree, but Connie thought you should see someone in Miami,” Malú said. “Someone with some real skills. Did you ever do that?”
He looked at his feet.
“You should go north then, Miguel. You should give the better doctors there a chance to help you. There might still be time to fix you.”
“Maybe,” Miguel said thickly. “I hear Consuelo is there. That could be a reason to go.”
Malú averted her eyes. “Not the right reason, man. Look, Miguel, Consuelo went north because she was worried about you and your problems. She went to get away from all that, to lose herself in the city. I’m sorry, Miguel, but it’s true. You know that’s so. She was worried about you. Worried about your problems.”
“Afraid of me, more like,” Miguel said.
Malú shifted weight to her other foot. She said, “Listen, I’m going to church to light a candle. My cousin is very sick. It might be a cancer.” She hesitated. “I’m going there before work. Why don’t you come along? Maybe on the way I can talk you into seeing a real doctor.”
Miguel looked up the street, searching for the two dark-haired women he had been watching, looking for the one who dressed and moved like Consuelo.
Vanished.
He gave Malú another look, a long one. She was pretty, in her way. Huskier than Consuelo; less there in the chest and shorter, too. But pretty enough. Why hadn’t he noticed before now? She wore a silver crucifix that caught the light. The cross caused his head to hurt from glints of metallic glare.
Then Miguel flashed on a vision of himself raping Malú in the church. Humping her on some pew and then beating her to death with the bat. Sex in a church? What kind of sin would that constitute? Venial, maybe. Certainly a lesser one against actually murdering someone in a church.
Miguel didn’t want to do that to her. And maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe he would go to church with her. He could light a candle for his lost self. He’d do that, then he’d walk away from Malú. Leave her safe there, alone in the sanctuary of the church. Show some contrition.
Miguel felt sure he could do that. He nodded and shifted the bag with the bat to his other shoulder. “I’ll walk you a ways, Malú,” he said. “I’ll give you a chance to talk some sense back into my poor battered head.”
***
Brinke leaned out from the recessed door front. “It was a reflection in glass,” Brinke said to Consuelo. “Are you sure it was your boyfriend?”
“Ex-boyfriend,” Consuelo said. “And yes, it was him.”
“Well, he’s gone now,” Brinke said. Music from inside reached them, “Charade.”
“That was Malú that Miguel was with,” Consuelo said.
“She’ll lie for you, Malú, I mean?” Brinke searched Consuelo’s face. “Will Malú lie for you?”
“Sí. She will. She knows what to say.”
“Good,” Brinke said. “Let’s get home, then.”
42
Beau dropped his cigar stub and ground it out with the toe of his boot. He nodded at Nash. “Evenin’. What’s up, Barn?”
Nash said, “Thought we should touch base. See you survived the sheriff’s attack and none too worse for wear for that. It was nothing too terrible, I hope.”
“Not for me,” Beau said with a tired smile. The old man suddenly seemed his age to Nash. Beau looked, for the first time ever, old to Nash. Beau was clearly weighed down, distracted. Vulnerable.
“You look good, Beau,” Nash said. “Losing that moustache shaves years off, it does.”
“Right,” Beau said dryly. “So I’ve been told. Let’s have that damned drink.”
They moved inside the garage and Beau looked around with a sour face. “This is quite the shabby little hole you found for our rendezvous, Barn. A man would have to be a world-class juicer to hang out in a place like this one every night.”
“It is a come down from that fancy hotel suite you’ve been slumming in,” Nash said. “But it’s not so far a cry from the dump where me and Conrad have had to bunk on this rock.”
“You sound bitter,” Beau said, narrowing his eyes. “I don’t like the edge in your voice.”
Nash thought he sounded angry, too. He needed to tamp that anger of his down, for at least another few minutes. “I’m just god-awful tired,” Nash said. “Maybe gettin’ too old for this work.” He stepped behind the bar. Nash saw the poison on the shelf and reached for it. “What’s your poison, Beau?”
“I’ve got a choice?”
“Rum, rum and whiskey.”
“Whiskey, then. Up to hear with rum.” Beau stretched out a leg and rested it on an adjacent chair. “Where’s Vogel?”
“He’ll be here, I expect,” Nash said. His eyes flickered to the back door. He needed to watch that skittishness of his, too, he thought. Nash didn’t want to tip the old man.
Beau said, “I’m exhausted, I have to admit. Three overlapping Big Stores. Plus that boat dodge. Don’t expect anyone in our line of work ever took on this much at once. Certainly not at my age. Think I’m actually glad this is the last.”
Nash put Beau’s drink on the table in front of the old man. He raised his own glass. “To endings, then.”
Beau winked without smiling. “They surely do come. And all at once, sometimes.”
“And not fast enough, other times.” The old man was reaching for the glass when he heard a revolver click.
“Put it down, Beau. No time for that now. Besides, you don’t want that shitty drink to be the last you taste, not with your refined palate.” Vogel had entered through a back door. He was aiming an old revolver at Beau’s head. “You and your goddamn expensive tastes.”
&nb
sp; Smiling crookedly, Beau said, “You got one strange sense of humor. You always have, Con’. But age is makin’ it stranger.”
Vogel said, “Figure we all wish, one way or another, that this was just a joke. But it isn’t.”
Scowling, Beau put down his untouched glass. “What the hell is going on? As gags go, this one ain’t in the least funny.”
Stone-faced, Vogel said, “You tell how it is, Nash. It’s your goddamn play. You tell Beau what’s happening here.”
Beau looked to Nash. “Speak your piece, Barnaby. What is this?”
Nash said, “You may want a slug of that drink after all before you hear this, Beau.”
Beau extended a finger and flicked over the shot glass. The contents crept slowly across the rough wood.
Nash looked at the spilled drink, sighed and said, “Now it gets harder. Bloodier.” He looked to Vogel and said, “Just please do it, Conrad. Let’s not stretch this thing out.”
“Man asked you a question,” Vogel said. “You owe him an answer. You owe him that much. Tell Beau how it truly is.”
Nash said, “Okay. We’re taking over the game, Beau.”
“Taking over the game.” Beau’s damp forehead wrinkled. “What does that mean, exactly?”
Nash slammed back his drink, unable to look Beau in the eye as he said it. “We’re going to kill you, Beau. Conrad and me, we’re going to put you down. All these years working with you, backing your plays, now you’re going to make this crazy big score and bow out and go off somewhere to live like some fuckin’ potentate. Where does that leave Conrad and me?”
“You get paid for your part of the job, like always.”
“Exactly,” Nash snarled. “Paid chump bucks, like always. Paid like mere employees. Paid not near enough for us to retire on.”
“Little late to be complaining about wages,” Beau said. “Time to complain was, oh hell, decades ago I expect, don’t you think? I’m the one made the plans, took the big risks.”
“Well, then you consider what’s to come no more than measures taken to recoup back wages owed,” Nash said. “Now, that’s just about enough talk, Boss, ’cause I don’t like this much at all.” Barnaby pointed at Beau. “For Christ’s sake, Con, just shoot the son of a bitch and just be done with it, won’t you?”
Forever’s Just Pretend: A Hector Lassiter novel (Hector Lassiter series Book 2) Page 17