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

by Craig McDonald

  “I believe he’s more shaken up by what he seems to think of as Consuelo and I’s near miss with Hoyt than anything he’s done himself,” Brinke said. She stroked Hector’s hand. “He really cares for Consuelo, I can tell. We were in no danger. Though he was awful to behold.”

  Hector stroked her hair. “Hush. I don’t need to know more.” He really didn’t. Hector had disposed of the body after all. He had some definite notions about what the explosion had done to Hoyt.

  “Beau couldn’t look me in the eye for quite some time,” Brinke said. “He said if he’d had the courage to shoot Hoyt this morning, Consuelo and me, well, you know. We wouldn’t have seen that. Could’ve, should’ve and if only.”

  “I surely get it.” Hector tipped his head back and ran his fingers through his hair.

  Brinke said, “You know, I’m famished, Hec. Got a funny metal taste in my mouth. Like I’ve been sucking on pennies or something.”

  He smiled, his fingers rubbing the soft down on the back of her neck. “You’re always hungry, darlin’.”

  “True. But I have a killer craving now. And hunger pangs from hell.”

  “What do you crave?”

  “Not sure,” she said. “My taste buds will know when I see it.”

  “Or when it’s on my plate,” Hector said.

  Brinke punched his arm. “I’m serious, I need to eat.”

  “Well, we best get going while there’s still a few joints open on this wicked rock.”

  Brinke said, “As a dead man, it is wise for you to be out and about so much?”

  “Hoyt was the only one of that so-called cabal who knew me on sight.”

  45

  Beau was sitting in the porch swing when Hector and Brinke returned from their late dinner. He raised a hand in greeting. “Connie’s sleeping.” Sour-voiced, he added, “I couldn’t.”

  “Would surprise me if you could sleep, Pap.” Hector parked his butt on the porch railing and shook out a cigarette. “Might even worry me.”

  Brinke sat down next to Beau and patted his knee. She said, “You should really try to sleep, anyway. Big day tomorrow, isn’t it?”

  “Not for me,” Beau said. “Had to slide someone in last minute to fulfill Barnaby’s planned role, but tomorrow’s more about big chickens coming home to roost for those crooked politicians, realtors and the like. Seems someone tipped the state attorney general’s office that the mayor and members of his administration, and a councilman, here or there, have plundered the city coffers in the past couple of days to fund their illegal and self-enriching real estate speculations. They blew the city’s funds in a big real estate boondoggle. The realtor from Last Key has also been turned into the state licensing boards. Off the books, so the money can’t be taken away, your wedding ‘guests’ have all been issued their checks making them all whole on their original investments with more added in, just as planned.”

  “Paid back with their own tax dollars, it sounds,” Hector said.

  “At least they get the money back,” Beau said. “Better they spend it than some goddamn politicians. They earned it. And you well know my mind on confiscatory taxation, Mase. Like you, I think less government is the best government.” Beau closed his eyes and propped his boots up on the porch rail. “And in Texas and New York, my other endeavors, the schemes I stand to make real money on for myself, they reach fruition.”

  Brinke smiled sadly. “So it is over, then?”

  “Far as I can tell,” Beau said. “The so-called Key West Clubber—in all his parts—has been dismantled. Yeah, I think we’re done here. Not bad for just a few days’ work. Just need you two down at Mallory Docks tomorrow morning. Ten would do fine.”

  Hector raised an eyebrow. “What’s that about?”

  “It’s a surprise, but a good one, I hope,” Beau said. “Something I think you’ll like.”

  Brinke said, “Can’t wait. But now I’m exhausted. Don’t you two stay up much later.” She kissed Hector’s cheek. “Particularly not you, Hec. We’re newlyweds, remember?”

  Hector slipped into Brinke’s vacated seat. “You okay in your head, Pap?”

  “What, you mean because of Nash?” Beau waved his hand. “Better’n you’d think, Mase. But in a way, he is at the crux of the way my mind is turning things over. Like I said earlier, I had Hoyt right there in my sights. A low bastard and killer who had just tried to burn me alive. Yet I couldn’t pull the trigger on that son of a bitch. Yet, strangely, I could pull the trigger on Barnaby who I’ve known for, what, a quarter century or more? How could I do that to Nash but not to Hoyt?”

  Hector lit another cigarette. “You really having trouble coming up with an answer to that one?”

  “Oh, I’ve got a theory,” Beau said. “I just don’t like it and what it says about me.”

  “What’s the answer you arrived at?”

  “Ego,” Beau said. “Nash hurt my pride, betraying me like that. He hurt my pride and I put him down. What the hell does that say about me?”

  “You’re glossing,” Hector said. “Nash was going to poison me, and you too, before he settled on having you shot. I always hated that son of a bitch.”

  “That you did. Thanks for not saying I told you so.”

  “Wish you and I had some more time together,” Hector said suddenly. “So much going on the past few days, feel like we’ve hardly seen one another.” It hung there between them, unsaid: How many more chances to be together like this are left us?

  “We’ll have time. And, soon enough, we’ll have the easy means to visit one another.”

  “Explain that,” Hector said.

  “Tomorrow. Then Connie and me, we’ll probably head out about noon for home.”

  “So she is still going back to Texas with you?”

  “So it seems.” Beau slapped Hector’s knee. “Don’t worry about me, kid. I’m resilient. You know that. I always survive.” Beau slapped Hector’s knee. “You can knock off, Mase. Your lady’s waiting.”

  “Yours too,” Hector said. “You going to marry Consuelo?”

  “You don’t approve?”

  “I’ve got no problem with it whatever, Beau.” Hector smiled. “And would it matter if I did?”

  “Well, I do incline toward marriage,” Beau said. “Still got my health and my mind’s sharp. She makes me happy, and the conversation’s richer than I suspect you might think. How many more shots at good companionship do you reckon I get in this life?”

  “I said I’m all for it.” Hector heard sirens. He sat there grim-faced, listening.

  Beau said, “Fire department?”

  “Nah, different kind of siren,” Hector said. “Cops.”

  The old man shook his head. “Coming across the ocean, I’d expected to find this a much quieter place.”

  “There’s no end to the bar fights or the domestic strife,” Hector said. “But at least thanks to you, there won’t be anymore set fires. No women beaten to death with baseball bats in the name of commerce.”

  The old man shook Hector’s knee. “You can be happy in this place, Mase? Really hasn’t exactly proven itself safe, has it? No more than Paris did.”

  Hector put out a hand. “If you ever find a truly safe place, Pap, you make me your first call.”

  His grandfather took Hector’s callused hand in his own big paw and Hector drew the old man up. He said, “Just us now, so I can say it the way I want to. Thank you Paw-Paw. Thank you for everything.” Hector hugged his grandfather hard and the old man patted Hector’s scarred back.

  “I’d not have had you seen me handling Nash like that,” Beau said. “But I am so glad to have gotten to see you again, even under these bloody circumstances. You make me proud and I do admire you so, Mase.”

  ***

  Brinke rubbed the side of her hand, trying to work out the teeth marks. “First time since Paris, and those thin walls there, I’ve had to bite my hand,” she said.

  “Good news that,” Hector said. “It implies you’ve been chaste
during our year apart.”

  “Doesn’t necessarily mean that,” Brinke said with a wicked smile. “Just means this is the first time since then I couldn’t be loud during lovemaking.”

  Hector said, “Tomorrow you can be loud again. Loud as you please.”

  “Loud as you please, is more like it,” Brinke said. She rolled onto her belly and kissed her way down his neck then bit at his chest. “But do count on me being very loud.” She kissed the place where she had nipped at him. A long pause, then, “Where’d you hide Hoyt’s body?”

  “I was much more enjoying talking about sex,” Hector said. He stroked her raven hair back from her face. “Fact is, he’s in the ground. Let’s leave it at that, just in case. Problem with Key West is you can’t bury ’em deep. A hard rain comes along? Well, then it’s best you don’t know much.”

  “What’s this surprise of Beau’s?”

  “Really haven’t a clue.”

  “You sound so tired, Hec.”

  “Weary to the bone. You?”

  “Same.”

  Hector urged her back up the bed to stretch alongside him. She rolled over onto her side and he pressed up against her, despite the heat, close up against her long back and the curve of her hips. He kissed between her shoulder blades and could tell from the lack of tension in her skin that Brinke was already asleep. He pulled her closer, pressing his lips to the back of her neck. Hector thought about the prospect of spending every night for the rest of his life with her, of never having to be alone in bed again. Together forever.

  Smiling, he pulled Brinke closer.

  46

  Hector had somehow slept through the fighting cocks again. Then he realized he heard rain and figured the gray skies had kept the birds’ screeching to a minimum. The bed was empty, just a warm spot where Brinke had lain.

  The bedroom door opened and Brinke, dressed in her short little Asian robe, padded in, ashen-looking. “I was just sick.”

  “Virus? Maybe the flu?” That latter terrified him—as it did everyone of his generation. There were points when more of his fellow soldiers had died from flu than bullets.

  Then he thought about what they had eaten the night before. Well, really what Brinke had eaten. As usual, she’d made short work of both of their meals. He said, “Food poisoning?”

  “No, I’m okay now,” she said. “Just a one-off event I guess.” Brinke curled into the bed and pulled the sheets up under her chin. “Just need to lay here a minute until my stomach settles.”

  “You’re sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine Hector. I’m just fine.”

  ***

  Brinke and Hector sat in the shade of a shanty bar, awaiting Beau and Consuelo. Hector ordered himself some coffee with Irish whiskey stirred in. Brinke declined liquor. “I don’t think I should just now,” she said, a look on her face that Hector couldn’t read. When the waitress turned her back to them to make Hector’s spiked coffee, he saw that Brinke massaged her breasts, a pained expression on her face.

  ***

  “There you are!”

  Beau was dressed in white deck pants and a white shirt. He also wore a yachtsman’s cap.

  The old grifter hugged Brinke and clapped Hector’s back. Embracing Consuelo, Hector said to his grandfather, “Some dashing look you’ve got going there, Beau,” he said. “Look like you’re ready to run rum or smuggle immigrants from Cuba.”

  “Might could do just that,” Beau said, grinning. He held up a bag and pulled out a second boating cap. He tossed it at Hector. “Here you go. Got to look the part now.”

  “I don’t wear hats like these,” Hector said, fussing with it.

  Brinke, looking a bit more herself now—her color back—took the hat from Hector and adjusted it to a rakish angle on her own head. “What’s this about, Beau?”

  The old man wrapped an arm around Consuelo’s waist and said, “Follow us.”

  They walked down the docks until they came upon two boats moored bows out. Beau said, “The name has been changed—hope you two like the new handle—but that’s the boat you two enjoyed so much our last day up the Keys, running our little yacht scam.” Beau handed a set of keys and sheaf of papers to Hector. “It’s yours. Call it a belated wedding gift.” He pointed at the other boat. “That one’s mine. It’s all packed, and Connie and me are going to break her in making a run back to Corpus here directly. This will make our visits to one another that much easier.”

  Hector was speechless. He looked at the stern. Stenciled there was:

  DEVIL MAY CARE

  Key West, Fla.

  Beau grinned. “You like it, Mase?”

  “We love it,” Brinke said. “It’s an extraordinary gesture. The best present ever.”

  “Hardly,” Beau said. “You’ve got to keep up the payments on care and gas and whatnot. It’s an expensive hobby I’m told. So you two best stow plenty of paper and your typewriters below decks. Gonna have to write plenty of books to keep her moving.”

  Hector started to say something and then saw Conrad Vogel tromping down the jetty. Con was waving a newspaper.

  Beau said to Vogel, “What’s up? Thought you’d be on your way, Con. Things not go to plan?”

  “Everything went to plan,” Vogel said. “Which is why I can’t figure out this headline.” He held up the paper with its boldface scream type:

  CLUBBER KILLS WOMAN IN POSH NEW HOTEL

  Brinke took the paper and pulled on her glasses. She began to read aloud.

  Brinke hesitated when she read the name of the victim: “Malú Paz, age twenty-five.”

  Consuelo screamed, “No!”

  Beau gathered her into his arms. “This doesn’t make sense,” he said.

  Before she could check herself, Brinke said, “Miguel…”

  Consuelo looked up, stricken. Beau caught it, said, “Who is Miguel?”

  ***

  Brinke finished with, “So we saw Miguel with Malú yesterday, well, last evening, really. Couldn’t have been long before she was…” The word murdered hung there in the air, implied.

  “Important thing now is he’s been looking for Consuelo,” Hector said. “And Malú was attacked in that hotel where you both worked.” Hector put his hand on Consuelo’s shoulder. “Describe this Miguel to me. What’s he look like?”

  Hector listened then looked to Vogel. Hector said, “The guy who ran into me on the street last night, remember? He must have been leaving the scene of the crime. That bag he was carrying—it was long enough to hide a bat inside. And remember, he was wearing that necklace I said looked like a woman’s, a silver crucifix?”

  “Malú had one of those,” Consuelo said. “Miguel never wore one.”

  “Well, he was wearing one last night,” Hector said. “It was stained with blood.”

  Beau said, “Let’s go hunt this son of a bitch!”

  “No way,” Hector said. “This is my territory. No schemes or glib tongues are going to carry the day in this crisis. He’s hunting you two, now. You said that boat of yours is packed. You two get on it and get across the Gulf. Weather looks clear and you can get some real distance from here. You two go ahead on. I remember what this fella looks like and it’s not a big island. Just need his last known address and some of his haunts, Connie. You give me those, and I’ll see he doesn’t bother you again. I’ll see he doesn’t bother or hurt any woman ever again.”

  Beau said, “Ain’t my nature to run like this, Mase. Not and leave you holding the bag on this bloody mess.”

  “It’s not like that,” Hector said. “You see to Connie. She’s in the greatest danger now. So you two skedaddle. I’m going to stop home and pick up my Colt and then go hunting. You in Con?”

  The old man said, “Hell, why not? I’m rich and retired now and my time is my own. Sure, I’ll ride shotgun, Mase. What this bastard did to that gal, it can’t be allowed to stand.”

  Hector said to Brinke, “Don’t go home, just in case, darling. Stay here on the boat. You should
be safe here.”

  Brinke shook her head. “Actually, I’ve got a doctor’s appointment. It’s on the way to the house. You can see me safely there.”

  Distracted, Hector nodded. “Sure, we can do that.”

  47

  Later, Hector found a note on the writing table next to Brinke’s typewriter:

  Darling,

  I so hope you’re okay. I couldn’t bear just sitting here, waiting for something bad to happen.

  So I’ve packed us a lunch and a dinner and bought some ice. I’ve stocked our boat with wicked goodies. I’ve also packed up some clothes (not much!) and brought your fishing tackle along so you can catch us breakfast. (You see to bait—yuck!)

  I’m waiting for you on our boat.

  Thought we’d take a long slow cruise.

  Love,

  Brinke

  ***

  She was sitting in folding chair in the shade under the flying bridge, sipping iced tea and working over a manuscript with a pen. Hector unthinkingly vaulted over the side of the boat, setting the craft to rocking and making Brinke look up sharply.

  Brinke was pointing her Colt at his head. She smiled sheepishly and put down the gun. “Given events, not a good thing, surprising me like that, Hec,” she said. “I might have shot you.”

  “So I see now. Sorry.”

  She put down her drink and her manuscript and laid the gun atop the pages to keep them from blowing away. She rested her reading glasses atop her gun. Hector drew her up into his arms.

  “Did you get Miguel, Hec?”

  “No,” Hector said. “He’s gone. Fled the island, I mean. We looked everywhere. Eventually we learned he left late this morning, bound for Miami.”

  “He’s hunting for Consuelo,” Brinke said.

  “Yeah. Better he look there than anywhere she really is.” Hector kissed her forehead. “Few days, maybe I’ll take the boat here and run up to Miami myself. Finish the job.”