It was an endless war out there in the scrub, every hour of every day. Who would prevail, who would disappear. Who could outsing, outfox, outrun the other.
He drew the pistol from his pocket. Thorn held the handgun for a moment and tried to silence the clamor in his chest. Everything he was doing was out of sync, too fast or slow, the disjointed boogie-woogie of a drunk.
He wrapped his hand around the pistol grip and extended the weapon into a slant of light to see exactly how bad his shakes had gotten. The harder he clenched, the more the pistol quivered.
With his left hand he reached for the knob and saw that hand was trembling, too. He gripped the knob, turned it, shoved the door open, and swung it aside, pressing his back against the exterior wall. Jonah did not spray automatic fire through the wood or at the open doorway. And he didn’t shriek and come swinging down from the rafters with knives in both hands and a knife between his teeth.
In the darkness behind him the owls and frogs continued to compete with one another. The only sound inside the cabin was the creaky whirr of the fan.
“People think I got it easy cashing in on my rep,” Antwan said. “Making deals, being the front man for this and that. A guy looks at me and thinks I’m cruising down easy street. But let me tell you, brown sugar, it’s not like people think. It’s hard work being in the limelight.”
“I feel your pain.”
Sugarman looked across the room at the shattered window. The shotgun’s blast pattern had chewed a swatch out of the rock wall. Crime-scene stickers were affixed to the leather couch beside two puncture wounds. There were animal heads on the wall: an antelope of some kind, a bison, a wild boar with yellowed tusks.
He was sitting in a wingback chair beside the couch. He believed his nose was broken, but he hadn’t reached up to check because he didn’t want to give Antwan the satisfaction.
So far Antwan had punched him three times. Bruised his jaw, loosened a canine. Just recreational hitting, establishing the pecking order. Sugarman hadn’t fought back. Not yet. Playing possum, at least that’s what he was telling himself. But he wasn’t sure he could tolerate much more. Might have to defend the next strike, see what this bully knew about hand-to-hand.
As long as Rusty was okay, there was no urgency. He could hear her talking in a normal voice in the dining room behind them. Couldn’t make out everything, but got a word here and there. Telling Browning Hammond about the structure of the business arrangement. How it happened, the history of it, Florida Forever. Like she could reason with him, like this wasn’t all going terribly wrong. Hammond wasn’t saying much. Just a “goddamn” here and there.
Antwan pulled out his BlackBerry for the fourth time, thumb-typed a message. Waited, didn’t get the reply he wanted, and cursed. He slid the device into his pocket and turned to Sugarman again, his big lips curling into a smile, walking over to the wingback like it was time again for another right jab. Then he stopped short and gave Sugar a curious grin.
“I’m trying to figure out which part of you is white. Old man, or old lady. I’d lay odds you had one of them hippie-chick moms. Lived in a commune, milked her herd of goats, grew big old marijuana plants. Along comes a big black dude with nasty manners and she turns all squishy inside. I bet that’s your story. You’re the love child of a Zulu warrior and a bimbo from Ohio.”
“Mullaney knows we’re here.”
“Aw, man, is that all you got to scare me with?” Antwan said. “Chief of police of Miami? Shit, that’s lame. First off, that man’s got himself an alcohol problem of great magnitude. Second thing, his plate is full to overflowing—he don’t care about your sorry ass. People disappear every day. Drive off, never heard of again, vaporize off the grid somewhere. Happens more than a man would think.”
“He’s an old friend.”
“Well, okay, bring it, baby. Let him send a search crew up here, have a look around, fine-tooth-comb the whole ranch. Nobody’s gonna discover no trace of brown sugar or his twiggy. No, sir, Officer, never seen such a person. No, sir. No, sir.”
“They’ll come looking. It won’t be that easy.”
Antwan bent in close to Sugar and said, “I think you’re still way too pretty.”
He punched him square with a left hand. Sugarman’s head thumped against the chair. He swallowed the blood, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Lips numb, cheeks swelling.
“Look, here’s how it is. You been messing in the man’s business. He don’t like that. Neither do I, cause his business is comingled with mine.”
“I see that.”
“I don’t know what you are, brown sugar, but you ain’t no businessman. ’Cause if you were, you’d see how wrong you been, going behind people’s backs, trying to take what’s theirs without proper remuneration. Am I talking so you understand?”
“Why was Earl in such a hurry to part with his land?”
Antwan took a half step back from the chair and squinted at Sugarman.
“You are one well-informed negro, I’ll give you that much. But the thing is, every time you come out with shit like that, you ain’t doing nothing but taking another shovelful of dirt out of your own grave.”
In the other room Rusty’s voice was growing stern. Giving Browning Hammond a lecture in ethics. As a tactic, Sugarman had always liked that approach. Even when you were a hostage, speaking the truth had a way of knocking off balance morally challenged assholes like Antwan Shelton and Browning Hammond.
“Those two guys that kidnapped Thorn, the little one dressed like a derelict and his big preppie buddy, you sent them, didn’t you?”
Antwan’s grin lost some of its sizzle.
“What did they do with him, Antwan? Where’s my friend?”
Antwan dabbed a finger into the corner of his eye and flicked the crumb away.
“I’d just be guessing,” he said. “But if I had to put cash money on it, I’d say your buddy Thorn put on his weight belt and went scuba diving without his tank.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
* * *
THORN STEPPED INSIDE, FANNED THE Glock around the empty room.
He crossed the bare wood floor, heading behind the couch toward the kitchen. To his right down a hallway several doors were shut. Maybe Jonah was down there catching some Z’s. Maybe he’d grown weary of his own pathetic future and exploded his skull with a bullet. Or perhaps he was absorbed in some old cable TV show. A guy who gives away a million dollars each week, then sits back in his easy chair and watches the fun.
The kitchen reeked of rancid grease and rotting vegetables and damp towels that had been moldering for months. The grout was green with mildew. Smears of butter and jelly and ketchup and black grime marked the countertops. Empty tins of sardines spilled over the brim of the garbage can. These boys had the housekeeping skills of a drove of feral hogs.
Thorn aimed the pistol at the plates and clutter of frying pans and pots. He aimed at the faucet and the trickle of water. He didn’t rush to drink. He exercised restraint because he needed to show himself he was in control. He swung his aim to the door behind him, expecting Jonah to burst around the edge in his weasel grin and grubby clothes.
The pistol barrel wavered before him as if he were shooing away a bug.
The door was empty. In the living room the fan whirred. The drawings tacked to the walls fluttered and rattled. Drawings in Magic Marker and crayon of loony faces and dismembered bodies. Pencil sketches of naked women and couples having Kama Sutra sex. A posterboard decorated with dozens of skulls and a single clown’s face. Scrawlings of the doomed and damned.
Thorn lowered the pistol. He turned and went to the sink, bent his head down and slurped. His throat tightened but he fought off the gag. He straightened and swung back to the doorway. Still empty.
From the open window Thorn heard the peeping of frogs in the marsh. Amazing creatures. With no tusks or venom, speed or strength, it was a miracle they survived the constant combat out on the pineland, where every living thing was busy finding
any slim advantage. So slow and vulnerable, they puffed themselves up and made their bold squeals to bluff intruders. Managing to survive only with their voices and their guile.
He went back to the water, back to swallowing. A sip and another sip. Taking it slow because that was the advice he’d learned in childhood. The medical folklore of growing up. Don’t drink too fast when you’re parched. Overwhelming the shriveled stomach could be as dangerous as the dehydration. Old lessons from Kate Truman, the woman he’d called Mother, whose wedding ring had saved his life today, whose lessons were always practical and clear. Never leave dirty dishes overnight because it’s harder to clean them in the morning. Don’t drink too fast when you’re dying of thirst. And always, always turn around and check the empty doorway to see if the killer has appeared.
This time he had.
Jonah’s smirky grin had been replaced by a vague stare. He had freshened up. Shaved his head, showered away the hog blood, though he’d missed a red smear on his temple. He looked shrunken inside his brother’s snappy blue business shirt. It draped over his bony shoulders like a toga on a child. His eyes twitched around the room and his jaw moved as if he were gnawing on unspoken words. He stood as stiff and uncertain as an understudy pushed onto the stage with insufficient training.
In his hand, however, was one hell of a prop, a Mac-10 with an extended clip.
“You came,” Jonah said. “I thought you might.”
“I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”
“Put the pistol on the counter.”
Thorn did as he was told. Downshifting into slow motion, he bent back to the water and took another sip and another. It was how you behaved when you were swimming in the ocean and confronted by a shark. You relaxed, went on with your business, no splashing, no sudden moves, nothing that might provoke them. If they wanted you, they could have you—not much you could do to fix that beyond staying cool.
Thorn ran the water over his hands and washed away the piss stink and the dirt. He ran some more water over them and scrubbed them hard. He cupped some water into his hands and bathed his face. Took a last deep drink before turning to face Jonah.
He’d seen Mac-10’s before. They were the weapon of choice for South Florida’s cocaine cowboys two decades back and were still popular with certain sweethearts who had the burning urge to discharge a thousand rounds a minute.
Thorn cut a look to his Glock, measuring the distance. A couple of seconds to grab, aim, and fire. Enough time for Jonah to sink fifty rounds in his chest.
“You realize Moses gave his life for yours,” Thorn said.
“Huh?”
“He was dying, but he screamed that warning to you. Lying there in agony, but that was the only thing on his mind, saving your ass.”
Jonah blinked and blinked again as though struggling to recall his reason for being there. Moses had been his meat and muscle and his backbone. Alone, the kid was floundering.
Thorn kept his voice quiet and slow as if speaking into the dreams of another.
“Since I saw you last, I figured out what you wanted to know. The reason you were hired to kill me.”
Jonah shifted the Mac-10 in his arms, his finger stroking the trigger.
“You wanted to cut yourself in on the action, right? That was your plan?”
Jonah licked his lips. His eyes faded and brightened then faded again. He was there, not there, then there again as though a searchlight was making slow revolutions inside his skull.
“Look, I’m going to put my hand in my pocket and show you something.”
“I’ll spatter you on the wall.”
“It’s what you and Moses wanted to know. I solved it for you.”
Slowly Thorn slipped his hand into his pocket, eyes on Jonah’s eyes, while Jonah tightened his grip on the Mac.
He dug out the ancient mollusk, and held it on his flat palm.
“It’s called a rudist,” Thorn said. “It’s a fossil.”
“You’re showing me a rock?”
“Thousands of years ago these creatures covered the seafloor that was two miles below where we’re standing.”
Thorn kept his hand out until Jonah flicked a look at the shell, then stepped back and reset his hands on his weapon.
“What the fuck you talking about?”
“I found the rudist down in the pit. It came up in the backwash of a well.”
“What well?”
“An oil well. That’s what formed that pit. An oil well drilled a long time ago.”
Jonah mouthed a silent word.
“It’s why they sent you and Moses to kill me, Jonah. Why they murdered Earl. Because Earl and I were making a deal to preserve this land. But somebody knew there was oil here and didn’t want that deal to go ahead. That’s what you and Moses wanted to know. You wanted a piece of the action. You just didn’t know what the action was. Well, now you know. It’s oil. That’s why Moses died. Because of oil.”
“Fucking oil?” Jonah rocked his head forward, peering at the rudist.
“If Moses were still here, wouldn’t he want to cash in? Wouldn’t he tell you to go ahead with your original plan?”
“You don’t know anything about my brother.”
“I know more than you think.”
“Step away from that counter. Do it now.”
Thorn obliged, putting another two feet between the Glock and himself. This time he wasn’t going to save his ass with a pistol.
“Moses is dead. I’m the one you have to deal with. I’m running things.”
“Are you, Jonah? Are you running things?”
“I make the decisions. I do what I want. I don’t need anyone’s permission.”
“You missed some hog blood,” Thorn said. “On your forehead.”
Thorn reached out as if to wipe it away, but Jonah lurched out of range. His feet were clumsy. He swallowed hard, his facial muscles working, his eyes sliding from Thorn’s face to the air around him as though he were tracking the erratic flight of a moth.
“Moses and I talked before he died. I got to know him a little.”
“Don’t,” Jonah said. “Don’t talk about my brother.”
“He told me something. His last words. He whispered them to me. I had to bend down, get my ear right up to his lips.”
“Shut up. You don’t know anything about anything.”
“You don’t want to know what it is? Your brother’s dying words?”
Jonah said, “That’s it. You’re dead. I’ve had enough of you.”
“Moses told me to pass it on. He said it was important, that you needed to know.”
An electronic warble came from Jonah’s pocket. He reached reflexively for the device, then caught himself, brought his hand back to the Mac, refocused his aim.
“Maybe that’s him,” Thorn said. “Your boss, the guy who wanted me dead. Maybe this is your chance to let him know who’s in charge. Tell him you know all about the oil. See what he says.”
“What did Moses tell you?”
The warbling in his pocket ceased.
“It was sad. Very sad.”
“What did he say, goddammit?”
“He was whispering. I could barely make it out. I had to lean in close.”
Thorn spoke a few words below his breath. A penitent mumbling his prayers.
Jonah drew a half step closer and again the phone in his pocket trilled. When his right hand made the same automatic move to his pocket, Thorn flicked the rudist at his face.
Jonah swatted at it with the stubby barrel of the Mac-10, and in the same motion squeezed off a dozen rounds that chewed up plates and pans and blew apart a section of the pine paneling.
Thorn ducked his shoulder and tackled Jonah around the waist and drove him backward into the refrigerator. Kept his knees pumping as he’d been coached to do on that long-ago high school football field. Keep going forward, keep pushing. That coach, and Kate Truman, and that geology teacher, all those long hours young Thorn had spent trying to learn p
roper technique, proper manners, trying to understand how the land beneath his feet was fashioned.
Jonah chopped the Mac against Thorn’s shoulder, chopped a second time, and Thorn felt his body soften, felt some of the drive drain from his legs. At his left ear the Mac blasted at least a hundred rounds at the ceiling. In an instant he was deaf and faint and something else was droning inside him, a crazed surge that wasn’t hate or fear or rage but some poisonous cocktail of all three.
Jonah was a generation younger, the muscles in his arms as supple and unyielding as braided rubber. In a swift pivot, Jonah released the Mac, let it crash to the floor, and seized Thorn in a grinding headlock, wrenched Thorn’s bulk around, and bent him forward and danced across the kitchen with Thorn’s skull as a battering ram. It was a rash and childish move, some half-remembered maneuver from the violent playgrounds of Jonah’s youth.
Gathering speed, Jonah took two steps, three, four. No fancy judo was required from Thorn. He just went with it, let his arms drop and tangle in Jonah’s legs, then clutched an ankle, jerked upward, and sent the young man sprawling.
As their bodies broke apart, Thorn banged a shoulder against the edge of the stove and regained his balance. Jonah stumbled another yard into a clatter of dishes and plates that covered a four-legged aluminum table. The table buckled under his weight, and the plates spilled around him onto the floor.
Thorn searched for the Mac-10, didn’t see it, then chose from the stove an iron skillet caked with grease, grabbed its handle and raised it above Jonah’s hairless skull like the devil’s own sledgehammer and cracked him once, then again.
Jonah remained sitting upright, limp but conscious, his legs stretched straight before him, blood streaming from the gash on his scalp, spilling onto the collar of the well-creased shirt. His head rocked from side to side as if its weight was suddenly too much for the slender stalk of his neck.
TWENTY-NINE
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