“Hey, I’m sorry about...the trouble today,” I said sincerely.
“Oh, I’m over it,” she assured me. “But don’t tell Mr. Q that. I’m going to let him twist in the wind a bit longer.”
“Cruel,” I said with a smile.
“Dinner tonight at 7,” she said over her shoulder on the way to office. “There’s a band after dinner. Teddy and Poncho are up at the shop. He says Miami PD’s looking for some Russian fellas and a couple old guys.”
“Old guys,” I snuffed. “That hurts.”
“Might want to go talk to him yourself,” she said. “I’m sorry but I have a load of work here.”
“No problem,” I said, turning to leave. “Thanks.”
It was a great day for a golf cart ride and the twisting road was now lined with more familiar faces. Hardly anyone paid attention to me now. Friends of Teddy and Flower were their friends too. I pulled into the shop and Man Mountain Bobby met me at the door.
“Where’s your friend?” he asked easily.
“Miss Charlotte’s shower broke last night,” I informed him.
“Oh, yeah” he said with a knowing nod and a Cheshire Cat grin. “I’ve seen that plumbing problem go on for three or four days.”
“Teddy here?”
“Him and Poncho are in back,” he said, jerking his thumb around the corner. “Just head straight back to the office.”
He buzzed me through the door and I traveled the familiar path through the shop, which was different today. The bays were full of vehicles, including the one hiding the tunnel we were in last night. The doors were open and the day crew appeared to be more actual mechanics than the night shift but, knowing Teddy, they were just as capable. The vehicles were hooked up to diagnostic equipment, getting oil changes and tune ups and the shop rang with the noise of impact wrenches and various power tools. It was a tidy little operation. Nobody paid much attention to me. The word was out Teddy had friends in town and I’d made it past Bobby in one piece, so I was okay.
I knocked on the office door before stepping through. Teddy looked surprised.
“You don’t have to knock,” he grinned. “Did you think we were having a tickle fight back here?”
Poncho thought that was funny. The sheriff and Teddy both had short glasses of an amber liquid in front of them and, by their glassy-eyed appearance and the amount of cigar ash in the ashtray it wasn’t their first and wasn’t going to be their last.
“Sheriff Channing,” I greeted as he rose to shake hands. He was in his mid-40s and could have been a poster model for law enforcement recruiting. His hair was a regulation flattop and he was muscular in a lean kind of way.
“Please, call me Poncho,” he said with wide smile. “I wonder who they’re talking to when someone calls me Sheriff Channing.”
“Pull up a chair,” Teddy invited, turning around to pull another glass out of cabinet and sliding it across the table along with another Habanos. From underneath he pulled up a glass container of amber liquid which I guessed was brandy.
Brandy might seem like an odd drink in the middle of the day for a bunch of central Florida rednecks but it was the preferred drink of cigar smokers everywhere. Teddy poured me two fingers and topped off his and Poncho’s and slid the cutter over to me so I could trim my cigar.
“Heard you and your friend had a little….altercation in Miami,” Poncho volunteered as I lit my Habano.
I let out a stream of blue smoke. “That we did,” I confirmed. “Miss Flower mentioned the Miami PD might be looking for some Russian nationals.”
Poncho nodded. “They questioned two of them in the hospital but got nothing,” he said, dipping the butt of his cigar in the brandy. “Apparently they know them, or know of them.”
Any dreams I had that Miami Metro would be able to wrap this case up for us vanished with his next comment.
“They were going to push it but the Feds asked them to back off,” he informed me.
“Marshal’s office?”
“That was a hell of a guess,” Poncho confirmed.
“Not entirely guesswork,” I said evasively.
“That means it’s none of our business,” Teddy said to Poncho.
“I got that,” Poncho confirmed with a grin. “There also looking for these two characters,” he continued, pulling out his phone and flipping through a couple screens and handing it over so I could see.
The photo was a blurry cell phone picture of Q and I hiding behind the car next to Pig Fucker’s apartment. Our faces were indistinct but our guns were plainly visible.
“Do I really look that fat?” I asked rhetorically.
“At first they were persons of interest in the death of one of the apartment residents,” Poncho explained. “There was also another incident involving a couple up in North Miami but ballistics matched the gun in both cases to some strange kind of round that’s hard to find here in the states.”
“That was fast.”
“Apparently it wasn’t that difficult seeing it was a pretty unique weapon.”
“Was it called an AS Val?” I asked. “Firing stubby looking 9mm subsonic rounds.”
“Well, aren’t you the good guesser,” Poncho confirmed. “Somebody dropped the guy carrying it so it was easy to match the ballistics. Don’t suppose you’d know anything about that, either?”
“I was as surprised as they were,” I said honestly.
“Not one of your people?”
“As of this minute I don’t even know if all my people are whole. I have no idea who it was but they saved our asses. I walked us right into an ambush.”
“He’s probably being hard on himself,” Teddy said to Poncho.
“Not this time, Teddy. I damn near got myself and my team killed because I pushed a situation where I should’ve waited.”
“Easier to see in hindsight,” Teddy reminded me.
“It was still my call.”
We enjoyed our cigars in silence for a few moments, then I had a question. “How’d you find out so much about what’s going on in Miami?” I asked Poncho.
“Oh, one of my school buddies is a detective down that way,” he smiled. “Figured it was about time we caught up. I invited him up to go fishing.”
“You comin’ tonight?” Teddy asked Poncho.
“Unfortunately the wife already made plans for us in Okeechobee,” he apologized. “Which reminds me, I’ve got some shit at the office before I take off for the day.”
I stood to shake hands.
“It was good seeing you again, Mr. Fatman,” he said easily. “I’d go in easy in Miami for a while. They’re still kinda sore and reasonably certain you had something to do with that shit. If it’s any consolation they’re not particularly happy with the feds, either.”
Teddy and I watched him go and went back to our cigars.
“So what you gonna do?” he asked easily.
“My people should start checking in tomorrow,” I said, feeling suddenly weary. “Job one is making sure everyone’s okay.”
“And job two?”
“I’m going back down there and kick that motherfucker’s ass,” I said defiantly. “But careful this time, like I should have been the first time.”
Teddy nodded. “How you doing for manpower?”
“Short,” I admitted.
“I could probably spare you four or five of the boys,” Teddy said after thinking about it for a minute. “But I need ‘em back.”
“Two weeks is hopefully a week longer than we need.”
“Alright,” he said, his drawl creeping back into the phrase as he drew another puff on the Habanos. “I’ll sign ‘em out for a month and they can go fishing with the balance of the time you don’t need ‘em.”
“You have a phone truck we could borrow?”
“We might could dummy one up for you,” he said rubbing his beard. “You thinking of using it for surveillance?”
“That’s the plan.”
He nodded. “I’ll see what the boys in
the shop can whip together. When you planning on heading out.”
“A few days,” I guessed. “We have to figure out what we have left to work with and round everyone up. Probably early next week.”
While our situation wasn’t great, Sergei’s would be just as bad or worse. He didn’t have an old friend in central Florida with a secure camp. I had a guess where he and the rest of his crew would hold up and, if I was right, they would be forced to slip back into town about the same time we’d be getting there.
“I think we can work with that,” Teddy said easily and pulled out his phone. A minute later Bobby stuck his head in the door.
“You rang?”
“Think you could dummy up a phone truck for surveillance?” Teddy asked him.
“Might could,” Bobby said. “How soon do you need it?”
“First of next week,” Teddy informed him.
“I’ll get the boys right on it,” he said.
“Hey,” Teddy stopped him, “when was the last time you had any time off?”
Bobby thought about that one a minute. “Don’t remember,” he said at length.
“You’re probably about due,” Teddy told him.
“Not gonna argue with the boss,” Bobby said with a smile, heading back to the shop to get started on the truck.
“I really appreciate all this, Teddy,” I said, twirling the ash off my cigar.
“Hell, if it hadn’t been for you I wouldn’t even be around to enjoy all this,” he reminded me. “And neither would Miss Flower. That’s not something I’ll ever likely forget.”
“I’d do it all over again,” I reminded him.
“Yeah, that’s called friendship,” Teddy reminded me with a big grin. “Kinda how that whole thing works.”
We decided it was about time to head home and think about getting cleaned up and I had to rouse Sleeping Beauty. As I made my way back to the golf cart Bobby was wheeling in with a nondescript white van with commercial plates. Wheels were in motion and I didn’t even know if all my people were okay. All the same, had there been any mysterious deaths, Poncho would have heard about it. My gut reaction was that everyone was shaken but unhurt. Fred and Mack would keep the Swan and Star at sea until they heard from us.
I pulled up to the house and Q waved at me from his back porch. He was already up with a big mug of coffee.
“Feeling better?” I asked joining him on the back porch.
“Hell yeah,” he breathed. “I needed that nap.”
“Dinner’s at 7,” I informed him. “We should get cleaned up.”
“I’m going to need to use your shower,” Q informed me.
“You’re not going to tell me your shower’s broken,” I said defensively. “Cause that shit’s not happening.”
“It’s not broken,” he said automatically. “Somebody left a gator in my bathtub.”
“An alligator?”
“About that big,” Q held his arms about three feet apart. “Mean as fuck.”
“I gotta see this.”
We both got up and Q lead the way. The bathroom door was closed. “Might want to hang back,” he suggested.
He cracked the bathroom door and verified his new houseguest wasn’t behind the door. “It’s okay.”
He pushed the door open and we moved over to the far side of the bathroom away from the shower. The little gator kicked up a fuss in the shallow water in the tub but couldn’t get enough forward speed or traction to get out of the slippery fiberglass container, though it did manage to spray water everywhere. Unable to escape it settled for hissing at us. There was gator shit in the water and it smelled terrible.
“Maybe his shower’s broken,” I said with a chuckle.
“Scared the piss out of me when I walked in,” Q admitted. “I nearly shot the little fucker.”
“If it wasn’t for the smell it would be kinda cool,” I observed. “You think it’s hungry?”
“I think it’s pissed off,” Q countered.
“Might be better if you showered over at my place,” I agreed, “but you’re not getting any afterwards.”
“You’re hilarious,” he panned.
We turned the lights out and left the fan on, figuring the little shit would calm down in the dark. I told Q if it was still there after dinner and the dance I’d help him get it the hell out of there.
“We should bring it some chicken,” I said on the way to my place. “Do you think they’re trainable?”
“Yeah, I think you could train them to bite your arm off,” he sniped. “How long she going to stay pissed off?”
“I’m guessing she’s pretty much over it,” I guessed. “She’s just giving you shit now.”
“I coulda got bit,” Q countered.
“She also could have put a rattlesnake in your bedroom,” I reminded him.
“I should turn it into a new wallet,” he groused.
Chapter 14
We took our time getting ready for dinner. I had to admit, the nap, shower and coffee had done Q a world of good; he looked almost human again.
“Better now?”
“Shit, yeah,” he admitted.
I slid his phone over to him. “Keep in mind the park can monitor that one.”
He powered it up and swiped through the setup. After a minute he grinned and turned the screen around so I could see.
WELCOME PIE HEATHEN
“That’s better than a live gator in your bathtub,” I reminded him.
“That girl does hold a grudge,” he observed.
“She’s just messing with you.”
We finished up a couple more beers, noting we were out already and needed to bring some home. There was a golf cart mini traffic jam at the community house so we parked out in the grass with some of the others. Dinner was already in full swing and Miss Flower, wine glass in hand, was at the door to greet people. Tonight she was wearing jeans, a denim shirt tied in the middle and short little boots. Q tensed up.
“Thank you for the lovely flowers, Mr. Q,” she said evenly.
“I’m glad you liked them,” Q said tightly.
“Was the gator in the bathtub your idea?” I asked with a grin.
“Oh, my, those pesky things sneak in once in a while,” she said with a sly grin. “I’ll have one of the boys rescue the poor thing before someone cuts a hole in the middle of it.”
I got a laugh out of that but Q didn’t think it was funny. Despite the Special Forces exterior Q was socially sensitive. I was getting concerned that if Flower didn’t back off he might actually get his feelings hurt. She made her point, it was almost time to get back to business and this shit needed to evaporate.
“You boys go on and eat, sit up at the same table as last time. You’ll know which seats are yours. You’ll want to stick around for the band.”
We waited our way through the food line, no one made way for us this time. Apparently we’d been around long enough we were no longer company. We got our food and made our way to the big table. Teddy was already there, trying to eat dinner between people stopping by to chat him up. There were three empty seats; one next to Teddy and one reserved with a small stuffed alligator plush toy.
“I’m guessing that’s your seat,” I said with a grin.
“At least it’s not alive,” Q rationalized.
Teddy went around the table and introduced everyone. There was one of the drivers; her name was Belle. She looked like a truck driver; stocky, slightly heavy set, and loud. Belle was the exact opposite of her husband who was a thin little quiet guy named Steve. Next to them was an older gentleman name Mr. Robertson. Next to Q were Natalie, who everyone called Nat, and Rick, both of whom were botanists and I could very well imagine the particulars of their job.
“Nat and Rick are setting up a greenhouse and taking over 10 acres out by the kennels,” Teddy informed us. “They think they can grow enough vegetables for the whole park on that plot. And goats and...what the hell else?”
“We’re going to use the goats to cl
ear the scrub and recycle the kitchen trimmings,” Rick explained. “They’re better than composters.”
“Then we going to set up a vertical growing system,” Nat continued. “It’s a compact, self-contained system like the one Rick designed at NASA.”
“NASA?” Q puzzled.
“That’s where Rick and I met,” Nat clarified.
The Blue Tango Salvage: Book 2 in the Recovery and Marine Salvage, Inc. Series Page 16