Apparent Wind

by Dallas Murphy

  “I’m sorry, Snack, but your old man’s on the shit list as of now. I ain’t callin’ him no more.”

  “Okay, Sheriff. Just don’t hurt him.”

  “Hey, why don’t I go over there and arrest them both?”

  “That would blow it, Sheriff. We’d never find out anything. That’s what I’m doin’ spyin’ on the old man.”

  “Yeah. Okay.”

  “By snatching that bimbo Rosalind Rock,” said Big Al Broadnax. “That’ll bring Loomis out sure as shootin’.”

  Maybe old man Broadnax wasn’t such a moron after all. In fact, he and Donny had a lot in common. But of course he wouldn’t say anything like that to Gramps. “Hmm, maybe you’ve got something there. Maybe we could make it look like a murder-suicide. Happens every day all over the country. Get rid of them both with no questions asked. Good.” Donny Sikes offered his hand. Big Al shook it with his own gnarled hand, which felt to Donny like a bunch of bent pencils.

  Snack returned to the van. “He says okay.”

  “Here’s my card. Call any time, night or day.” Donny Sikes got out of the van. “I’ll be in touch, partner,” he said to Big Al. “Nice to see you again, Sennacherib.”

  “Yeah,” said Snack.

  Donny walked back to his own car and ordered the purser to return him to the King Don, where he could make a private phone call.

  “We got this punk Sikes just where we want him,” chuckled Big Al Broadnax.

  “That’s great, Dad.”

  BAD VIBRATIONS

  Propped on pillows in his Holiday Inn bed, Walter Vale watched TV, smoked Kools, and waited for the news to come on. He fed another quarter into the vibrating machine and felt certain erotic tingles, which gratified him, since he had taken the trouble of changing a twenty.

  “I’m Biff Champion, and this is ‘Live at Five, the Eyes and Ears of South Florida.’ Today’s top story involves murder and suicide in exclusive Poinciana Estates. We take you live to the scene with Kitty Calhoun. Over to you, Kitty—”

  “Thank you, Biff.” Holding a microphone to her mouth, Kitty Calhoun stood on the sidewalk in front of R.J. Kreely’s split ranch. She had nice pointy tits, Walter Vale observed, vibrating. “Poinciana Estates was rocked today by another chapter in the seemingly endless book of violence in south Florida—” Behind Kitty, two black guys in white coats lugged a rubber body bag out of the split ranch and loaded it into an ambulance while uniformed and plainclothes cops looked on. “Though Dade County police have refused comment pending investigation, our exclusive sources on the scene tell a sordid story of murder and suicide.

  “ ‘Live at Five’ has learned that Mr. R.J. Kreely, the garbage-disposal king, was conducting an illicit affair with his housekeeper, identified as Conchita Castro, twenty-five, of Opa-locka. Ms. Castro’s unclothed body was found in the bedroom, shot once in the chest. Mr. Kreely was found in the living room dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound to the left temple. The same handgun was used in both deaths. A blank sheet of paper and an uncapped pen were found near Mr. Kreely’s body, and sources speculate that he was about to write a suicide note, but for reasons unknown he never did. Mrs. Kreely, visiting her mother in Detroit, could not be reached for comment. Mr. Kreely’s neighbors are stunned, left with the knowledge that if it can happen here, it can happen anywhere. Kitty Calhoun reporting live from Poinciana Plantation. Back to you at the station, Biff—”

  Pretending to be troubled by the story, a real sensitive anchor, Biff Champion shook his head. “In other stories, a rogue alligator—”

  Walter Vale punched off the TV with his remote device, stretched in a languorous, self-satisfied way and dropped another quarter into the vibrator box. He fantasized Kitty Calhoun naked, trying to cover herself.

  Then the telephone rang. “Walter Freed here,” said Walter Vale.

  “Hello, Mr. Freed, it’s Mr. Shipton,” said Donny Sikes. “I’d like to discuss a job with you.”

  “Always happy to oblige,” said Walter Vale, tingling. This guy Shipton was getting to be a regular.

  MESSENGER OF DOOM

  As soon as he returned his father to the Greco-Moorish mansion and deposited him under the leafy hydrangea in the garden, Snack tried to call Doom at the boat, but Doom hadn’t returned yet. Unable to wait, Snack jumped on his Norton, sped across Hurricane Hole Creek and up Route One at ninety plus. Forty minutes later he parked his bike in front of Black Caesar’s Yacht Club. He felt a surge of relief to see Doom, Longnecker, Holly, and the Annes sitting in Staggerlee’s cockpit.

  “They mean to kill you, Doom!”

  “Who?”

  “Sikes and my old man, they’re hiring a hitter.”

  Holly moaned as much at the news as at the fact that Longnecker was grinning. Holly knew that grin. No good ever came of that grin, and the Annes got it on film.

  “They saw you and Rosalind at the bulldozers.”

  “Is it Lucas Hogaboom?”

  “No, a pro. Nobody’s seen Lucas for days. They’re hiring some killer Donny Sikes knows.”

  “So let’s us hit them first,” suggested Longnecker.

  “We ain’t gonna hit my old man.”

  “It looks to me like your old man is in true need of a hitting,” Longnecker insisted.

  “That’s true, but we still ain’t gonna hit him.”

  “Okay, Snack,” said Doom, who had no inclination to hit.

  “Then let’s do Donny Sikes,” said Longnecker.

  “What if we all just split?” Holly wanted to know.

  “We could,” said Doom, but he knew they wouldn’t. “Do they know where I am?”

  “No, but Sikes said killers find people. It’s their job.”

  “Could you find out what they know?”

  “I think so. The old man trusts me.”

  “What about Rosalind?”

  “What about her?” asked Snack.

  “What did they say about her?”

  “Just the usual slut stuff. The old man hates her.”

  “Where’s Rosalind now?” asked Holly.

  “At the dive shop. She had a lesson scheduled this afternoon,” said Doom.

  Longnecker went out to his car and returned lugging a duffel bag loaded with heavy objects. No one needed to ask what was in the bag. He went directly below, cleaned and loaded the objects.

  As, piece by piece, Longnecker assembled his arsenal on the table, Doom phoned Total Immersion, but no one answered. He then called Bert, Marvis, Duncan, and Professor Goode at the trailer park and told them to stay inside, lock their doors and don’t answer for anyone until they hear from him. After that he called Lisa Up-the-Grove, but Rosalind wasn’t there either. Doom told Lisa to tell Rosalind to call him immediately if she heard anything. He suggested that Lisa might want to find another place to stay for a while and if she wanted to stay on the boat, she’d be welcome.

  “You remember what happened to Jackson soldiers who come into the ‘Glades after Seminoles?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “They never come out again.”

  “I see.”

  But still no one answered at Total Immersion.

  “Snack, would you go back home and try to learn some details?”

  “No matter what happens, we ain’t gonna hurt him. Right? Say it.”

  “We won’t hurt him.”

  Snack looked at Longnecker.

  “Sure, sure.”

  “Even if he deserves it.”

  “He sure deserves it,” said Longnecker.

  After Snack had left, Doom said, “There’s still Roger Vespucci. Maybe he’ll do it to Donny before Donny can do it to us.”

  “He’s pretty slow about it.”

  “For all we know he’s in Norway.”

  “He didn’t look bright enough to split.”

  Doom agreed, but perhaps the same could be said of him.

  ROSALIND, MEET WALTER

  Walter Vale staked out Total Immersion Diving. He sat across
the street in his car and watched five students leave. They stowed their gear in their trunks and drove away. He waited awhile longer to be sure before he entered the shop. Finding himself alone, he turned the sign on the door around to say SORRY, WE’RE CLOSED.

  He heard sounds, metallic clicks and clunks, from the back room, but no one was visible. He browsed the equipment displays, finding all that rubber clothing, instruments, mouthpieces, and things titillating. He’d seen most of the stuff before on Jacques Cousteau, never in real. Maybe when he had time he’d take up scuba diving, but then he’d have to deal with hammerhead sharks.

  She was a lanky brunette, and she was wearing a wet suit, damp hair, nice tits, her thighs didn’t touch at the top. He smiled at Rosalind.

  “Hi,” she said. “What can I do for you?”

  “Actually I need you to take off that cute suit.”

  “Beat it, asshole.”

  Walter Vale struck her backhanded across the mouth. The blow didn’t knock her down, but it stunned her, bloodied her lips, whipped back her head. Instantly, Walter Vale hit her again, this time with his fist, in the solar plexus. She crumpled in a heap, gasping helplessly for breath. He stood over her and said, “What do you do when you close?”

  Rosalind didn’t know what he was talking about, but she couldn’t have answered anyway. Walter waited until she could breathe.

  “When you close. What do you do? Do you turn out the lights, do you bar the windows?”

  “The shade—I pull down the shade.”

  Walter did that, then he turned out the lights. Casually, with a practiced hand, he removed his silenced automatic from his waistband, cocked and pointed it at Rosalind.

  “Come on, please don’t do that,” pleaded Rosalind from the floor.

  “Either you take off that suit or I shoot some holes in it,” grinned Walter Vale.

  Rosalind removed her wet suit. She was naked underneath.

  Lately Walter Vale had been lucky that way. “Stand up.”

  Rosalind did so. She made no move to cover herself. Body aching, she stared at him defiantly.

  That fascinated Walter Vale. “Do you have any tape? I like that silver kind best.”

  “In the workroom.”

  “Show me.”

  He made Rosalind tear off three-foot-long strips. Then he taped her hands together behind her back. He used another strip to close her mouth, wrapping the tape around and around her head. He ordered her to sit, and he taped her ankles and knees together. “Now, what we’re going to do is wait for dark. Then we’ll take a little ride.”

  Rosalind laid her head on the floor and squeezed her eyes shut. Good-bye, Doom.

  After dark Walter Vale backed his Budget rental up to the front door and popped open the trunk. He dragged Rosalind by the ankles to the door, made sure the coast was clear, then loaded her into the trunk. Her big black eyes, round with fright, peered up at him. He heard her whimper as he slammed the lid.

  Even the toughest whimpered when you slammed the lid on them.

  TADPOLES

  Day had passed to night with no intervening dusk, as if nature were in a rush to get it over with, by the time Snack returned from Black Caesar’s to the Greco-Moorish Broadnax mansion. He wished he could hate his old man simply and directly, but he couldn’t. Every time he looked upon his father’s gnarled, useless legs, anger vanished, and he wanted to hoist him onto his shoulders and carry him safely through what remained of his life. What did the Bible say about sons who betrayed their fathers? Snack couldn’t really remember, but it wasn’t good. Such sons sure as shit never found their way into the Kingdom of Heaven. Snack sat on a marble bench near his father’s chair.

  A facial tic had developed. About every fifteen seconds something activated it. Big Al’s eye would blink, his lip would curl, and the entire right side of his face would scrunch up in wrinkles. That was something new. What did the Bible say about evil made manifest in the faces of men? Or was that just what happened to you when you got old? Snack missed his big brother. There was still something of Claudius left on Big Al’s face, screwed up as it was, and when Big Al went, so would the last of Claudius.

  Snack remembered the tadpoles Claudius had found and raised to frogs. Claudius had built a little environment for them, explaining to Snack—who was, what, four?—that frogs were amphibians, which meant that they live both on land and in the water. Snack and Claudius kept records of their growth and transitions, marking an X on the calendar when their legs appeared as indistinct little floppy things. They had changed so fast it was frightening. One day they were tadpoles, next day they were frogs. Then the day after that, they had hopped out of their amphibian environment and vanished. Why’d they do that? There was nothing for them elsewhere but death. Snack remembered Claudius sobbing, and seeing that, Snack sobbed, too, when they found the first of the frogs, stiff, dry, and petrified beneath the chifforobe. You could hold the dead frog by the flipper, and the rest of him stuck straight out. That’s what death was—stiff dryness. Dry stiffness. Like his father’s face. Regardless what the Bible said.

  “I don’t want you riding that motorcycle around town, Sennacherib.”

  “Why, Dad?”

  “Only white trash ride on two wheels.”

  “Okay, Dad, whatever you say.” The truth here, Snack knew, was that he was white trash, and so was his old man. “So who’s Sikes sending after this punk Loomis?”

  “I don’t ask. Don’t you ask neither. We don’t want to know. See, if we know, then they can get us as excesses after the fact.”

  “But don’t we already know? I mean, you just discussed it with him, right?”

  Big Al frowned at his son, the way he frowned when Snack got picked up for speeding. “Who heard us, son?”

  “Nobody. Just you and me, Dad.”

  “Exactly! See, son, after Sikes gets rid of that punk Loomis, we’re going to have that stinking sheriff arrest him for murder. Two birds with one stone, get it?” The rictus grin arrived at the same instant as the tic, a grimace of hideous fear on the face of a man buried prematurely. “That’s one thing you’ve got to learn, son, because someday you’re going to inherit all this.”

  “What’s that, Dad?”

  “What?”

  “What I got to learn.”

  “I don’t know…” Big Al had drifted off somewhere like a frog. “This Sikes is scum. So’s his whole family. His grandfather was scum. You remember what his grandfather did to my father. Ruined my father because he was jealous. Throckmorton killed my father as sure as if he’d wrapped a rope around his neck and squeezed. My dad trusted Throckmorton, and look what happened to him. That’s the thing you need to learn! You can’t trust nobody who ain’t kin! That’s what my father taught me, and now I’m teaching you.”

  “I get it, Dad. But what are we going to do after we send Sikes up for the murder of that punk Loomis?”

  “Then we’re going to build Perfection Park, only we ain’t going to call it that, and it ain’t going to be a hotel for any punk with the price of admission. I been ruminating on this. Sitting here in my chair. Ruminating. We’re going to build a museum!”

  “A museum?”

  “Yes!”

  “What kind of museum, Dad?”

  “A Broadnax museum! You’ll be the curator after I’m gone! We—the Broadnaxes—we are the history of Florida! The Colonel A.C. Broadnax Memorial Museum. And we’re going to use Donald Sikes’s money to do it with!” Big Al Broadnax began to cackle, to gasp and cackle again. Chest fluids gurgled as he cackled and gasped and cackled.

  “Excuse me, sir—” It was Wing Li, bowing and scraping with a telephone in his hand— “What do you want!”

  “Telephone call, sir. A Mr. Donald Sikes on the line, sir.”

  “Give it to me.” As Wing Li plugged the phone into the garden jack, Big Al said to Snack, “Son, would you get me a slice of key lime pie?”

  Wing Li wondered why the old son of a bitch sent his heir to wait on him
while his butler was standing three feet away.

  “Sure, Dad, be my pleasure.”

  Wing Li waited for further orders. “Get out,” Big Al ordered.

  Snack went directly to the extension in the hall. Wing Li went directly to the extension in the kitchen.

  Donald Sikes said, “It’s done.”

  “You got her?” said Big Al.

  “Yep, got her. Say, Mr. Broadnax, I understand this Rosalind Rock is your daughter-in-law.”

  “She used to be. But my son is dead. What’s it to you?”

  “Nothing. I hear this Rosalind Rock is some looker. My man tells me. He’s got her naked. I was going over to have a look. Want to come along?”

  “I got other plans…Where do you have her?”

  “Safe.”

  “We got to let Loomis know where you got her. Otherwise, what’s the point? How are we going to do that?”

  “You let me handle the details, Mr. Broadnax. Besides, we’ll want to wait a few days to let Loomis get scared and careless. My man won’t mind the delay. He’s having a good time. If you change your mind about seeing her, just give me a call.” Donny Sikes hung up.

  Snack slid down the wall and hugged his knees to his chest. Rosalind! Then he found himself in the garden with a slice of key lime pie in his hand. When he noticed it there, he hurled it at Big Al. Leaves and fronds fluttered as pieces of pie hit them; the plate shattered somewhere.

  “Rosalind!”

  “Wha—?”

  “It was you! It was your idea!” Snack screamed at the sky like a gutted animal. He began tearing out plants by the roots. The old man’s favorites first. The hydrangea, the orchids— “You! You!”

  He crushed the mangoes, pomegranates, and guavas in his fists, threw their remains at his father— “I’ll never be able to save your ass now!”

  The viburnums, pyracanthas, sapodillas went down next. Shreds of silk fluttered like ashes after an eruption.

  “He’s going to kill her! Rosalind! I tell you what, Dad—If that guy hurts Rosalind, then I turn you in! You’ll rot in Raiford!”