The Best American Mystery Stories 1998

by Otto Penzler

  “It’s going to make me a rich man,” Simon Spalding said.

  “Or a dead one. Suppose I get a machine and we play this tape right now.”

  “Here?”

  “We’re alone except for that fellow sleeping in his chair. We won’t disturb him. Don’t you want to know the size of the fish you’ve landed?”

  “I’d rather find out back in the office.”

  “Funny thing,” Rand said, keeping his voice light. ‘You told me yesterday you only met Cedric Barnes once, at an awards dinner. But his daughter said you were at their house back around the time of Sadat’s assassination. That would have been nineteen eighty-one, wouldn’t it?”

  ‘You have a better memory for dates than I do.”

  “There were rumors about Barnes’s unpublished interview with a double agent, a defector who changed his mind at the last minute. Rumors of a journal Barnes kept of the interview. Only Barnes didn’t keep journals, he used a tape recorder. One person would have known that for sure, would have known exactly what to look for among the items to be auctioned, would have spotted that recording tape disguised as a typewriter ribbon. The man Barnes interviewed, the double agent himself.”

  “Damn you, Rand!”

  “If I’m wrong, play the tape for me.”

  Spalding’s hand came out of his pocket holding a small automatic pistol. Rand remembered his own gun and wished now that he’d brought it.

  “I’m a journalist, remember, not one of you spy boys!”

  “You don’t look much like a journalist with that gun. I suppose the British and Russians used journalists occasionally, just as the CIA is sometimes accused of doing. Your job on the European desk was the perfect place to gather information. As for that interview, a journalist would be the most aware of a good news story, and the most likely to tell Barnes his side of the story before he defected.” Simon Spalding held the gun very steady. Behind him, Rand thought he could hear the sound of the bald man snoring. “If what you say is true, why would I change my mind after giving Barnes the interview?”

  “Because the Speculator gave you a column.”

  His face had become a frozen mask. “How could you know that?” “Magda Barnes remembers you at the house in nineteen eighty-one, around the time of Sadat’s assassination. You told me last evening they took you off the European desk and gave you the column in eighty-one. Did you desert Communism for a newspaper column, Simon?”

  “That’s what Barnes asked me! I should have killed him before his tongue got loose and he started those rumors. I thought I’d put it all behind me, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union.” Rand reached out his hand. “Give me the gun. It’s much too late in the game to be shooting people.”

  Spalding raised the pistol, to fire or to surrender it. Rand would never know which. There was a low cough from behind the man’s chair and a flower of blood burst from his chest. His head went back and he lay there dead.

  The bald man was Shirley Watkins, and the silenced pistol was out of sight before Rand ever saw it. “Thought you might need help,” he said. “Hated to put a hole through the chair, though.” “You were already here when we entered,” Rand protested.

  “Saw him waving his cigar around the dining room. Knew you’d head this way.”

  Rand stared at the body, and then at Shirley. “You really are an assassin.”

  “I was once, in my younger days.”

  “What do we do now?”

  /

  “Forget it ever happened. I’ll handle everything. If that tape is what you say, the whole thing will be hushed up. This is the Old Spies Club, remember?”

  . Rand caught the evening train home.

  Beyond Dog

  from Playboy

  The two waitresses stood in the shade of the service bar waiting for their drink orders. The brunette sneaked a drag of her cigarette and put it back in the ashtray on the bar.

  The blonde said, ‘You gonna tell ’em, or me?”

  The brunette glanced over her shoulder. The outdoor tables on the deck of the Mark Hotel’s Chickee Bar were filled mostly with tourists drinking margaritas and rumrunners in the hot Fort Lauderdale sun. Some wore baggy shorts and T-shirts with party naked on the front. Others wore cruisewear bathing suits from Bloomingdale’s. They didn’t talk much, except now and then to whisper to one another and point down below at the male and female strippers lying on the sand, wearing only G-string bikinis, their perfectly tanned bodies glistening with coconut oil.

  ‘You mean the mutt?” said the brunette. “With Spike and the hunk?”

  “Who else?”

  A man and a woman were seated off by themselves at the far corner of the deck. Only their backs were visible to the waitresses. The man looked like a bodybuilder, hugely muscular and tanned, with a bleached-blond ponytail and narrow, dark eyes. The woman was older, muscled, tanned and bleached blonde, too, with close-cropped hair that stood up like spring grass. She wore a G-string bikini and smoked a cigarette, very lady-like, limp-wristed, while with her other hand she stroked the fur of the dog sitting at her feet. The dog had reddish-orange-and-white fur and looked like a cross between a wolf and a fox.

  The blonde waitress set down their drinks. Jim Beam, rocks, for him. Vodka, rocks, for her. The man handed her a twenty and told her to keep the change.

  “Thank you, sir,” the waitress said. She stood there, hesitating.

  The woman ignored her. She sipped her vodka and said to the man, “What time is he supposed to get here?”

  “Twenty minutes ago,” said the man.

  The waitress hovered. Finally, she said, “Excuse me.” The woman glanced up, still stroking her dog. “I’m terribly sorry,” the waitress said, “but it’s against the rules.” She pointed at the dog. The dog looked up at her with an eerily human expression. “No dogs, I’m afraid.”

  The woman took a drag from her cigarette and exhaled. “Really?” she said. She was older than she looked from behind, maybe 45, but attractive. The woman smiled down at the dog. “Did you hear that, Hosh? You’re not welcome.” She poured her glass of water into a tin bowl and put it down for the dog.

  The waitress shrugged and returned to the service bar as a bald man with a big belly and a goatee walked toward the table. Sunlight glinted off his gold-framed sunglasses, his gold necklaces, his gold bracelets, his gold Rolex. His buttondown shirt was open to the navel, exposing his chest hair. Three beepers were hooked to his white tennis shorts.

  “Hello, Sheila,” he said, leaning down to kiss the woman on the cheek. He sat down across from Bobby. '

  “Hello, Solly,” she said.

  “A day late, Solly,” said Bobby.

  “I had things to do.”

  The dog raised up on his hind legs and put his paws on Sol’s arm. “The Hosh!” Sol said. “How’s my man?” The dog wagged his tail. When the waitress appeared at Sol’s side, the dog sat down quickly, as if to be unobtrusive.

  “I’ll have a rumrunner, honey,” Sol said. “And a hamburger.”

  “What are you, a fucking tourist?” Bobby said when the waitress had gone.

  “Right,” Sheila said. “With three beepers on his hip.”

  Bobby leaned across the table and said, “So, what’s the big hurry, Sol, that you bring us out with all the tourists?”

  “I thought I’d toss this one to you, Bobby. Some sandblasted types in Miami. I don’t feature dealing with them.” He grinned. “I figure you and the spies have something in common, you know. Men of color and all.”

  Bobby smiled. “What’s the product?”

  The bald man looked around at the tourists, studying them.

  “Oh, Solly,” Sheila said, “you’re so fucking dramatic.”

  The waitress came back with the rumrunner and burger and Sol raised his eyebrows for silence. After she left, he said, “Do you mind if we get back to business?” Bobby nodded. Sol leaned toward him. “The spic needs a few pieces, Bobby, maybe a couple hundred. Small stuff,
mostly. CZs. AKs. Uzis. They like that foreign shit. He says that he already got his big stuff — SAMs, Stingers — from some raghead in Boca.”

  “So why does he need us?” Bobby said.

  “Because, fuckhead, he can’t buy the stuff in Miami. He’s a big-fucking-deal exile, on TV all the time, screaming how him and his compatriots are gonna take back their fucking island paradise by force. Building an army, he says, a lot of fat old spies in camouflage out in the Everglades, huffin’ and puffin’ through the fuckin’ swamp, blasting gators with grenade launchers.”

  “So why doesn’t he just come up here to get his product?”

  “You know how spies are, Bobby. Like guineas in the Bronx. Hate to leave their stoop. Besides, a sandblasted nigger like him in Lauderdale, sniffing around for product, would draw flies. He needs a buyer. Someone knows his way up here, got contacts. Preferably a white man, he says.” Sol grinned evilly and winked at Sheila. “What they call that, honey?”

  Sheila looked startled, then smiled. “I think you mean irony.” “Irony, Bobby! You and him become asshole buddies, talk politics, maybe he can loan you some Stingers so’s you can recapture the fucking Indian reservation. Dinner at his hacienda. Him and his wife, you and Sheila.” Sol took a bite of his hamburger. “Know any Spanish?”

  Sheila stubbed out her cigarette and looked for the waitress, to order another drink. When she turned back, Sol was sneaking a piece of hamburger to Hoshi.

  “Solly! I told you not to feed him that shit.”

  “He’s a dog, for Christ’s sake. He eats meat.”

  “Yeah, well, not that stuff. It fucks up his stomach, so please, Sol? And another thing: Don’t call him a dog.”

  “Jesus. He is a dog.”

  “No he’s not. He’s beyond dog.”

  “All right, all right.” But the hamburger had already disappeared and Sol turned back to Bobby. “The spic expects you at his house tonight for dinner. Midnight. Them spies eat late. It’s in the Gables.” Sol slid a folded piece of paper across the table. Bobby unfolded it and looked at it.

  The waitress appeared. “Another round,” Sheila said. Then, smiling at Sol, she added, “And don’t forget to put the little umbrella in his rumrunner. OK, honey?”

  Sol ignored her and went on. “There’s no number on the front gate. But you can’t miss it. Big fucking concrete wall, razor wire on top. You know how they are. Makes ’em feel important. I told him to expect a Mr. Bobby Squared. Just announce yourself at the gate. They got this little box you talk into, they let you in.”

  Sol lowered his voice and leaned closer to Bobby. “One other thing. Don’t pack. He’s fuckin’ paranoid.” He smiled at Sheila. “Very good, Sol.”

  “Par-a-noid, Bobby. Drives one of them ten-ton Bentleys that fucking bazookas bounce off. Guats patrolling the grounds with Mac-ios and guard dogs, big fucking mutts like in the movies.” “Rottweilers,” Sheila said.

  “Whatever. Dog shit everywhere. Wear your cowboy boots, Bobby. And don’t pack. They’ll pat you down at the front door, and you don’t want to piss these guys off.” ,

  Bobby nodded. “What’s my end?”

  “All of it. It’s a present. You always stood up for me.” Sol’s tone changed for an instant, not the wise guy now, but genuine. Then he went on talking, all business again. “The product will costya, maybe 75 large. The spic will give you a hundred. You keep the change.” He leaned closer to Bobby and said softly, “Bobby, you know there’s only one guy deals in so much product.”

  “I know.”

  ‘You ever met him?”

  Bobby shook his head.

  “He’s fucking wacko. Old bastard thinks he’s God. From the Old Testament — you know what I mean. Watch yourself.” Absentmind-edly, Sol broke off another piece of his hamburger and handed it to Hoshi. The dog wolfed it down.

  “Jesus, Sol. What did I tell you? You’re a fucking mule!” Sheila stood up. “Come on, Hosh.” She walked off the deck onto the sand and headed toward the ocean.

  “What’d I do?” Sol said.

  “You pissed her off,” Bobby said. He followed Sheila with his eyes as she walked in the sand in that distinctive way of hers that always turned him on. She twisted the balls of her feet so that her small, high ass swiveled left and right. Bobby watched as she turned at the water’s edge and began walking away. Hoshi trotted beside her, well away from the water. The only time he ever pissed and moaned was when they gave him a bath.

  Sheila stared silently through the blacked-out windows of Bobby’s black SHO as they drove south on I-95. Finally, Bobby said, “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing!” she snapped, not looking at him. Then, turning to him, she said, “I’m sorry, baby. It’s not your fault.” She looked down at herself dressed in a beige silk pleated jumpsuit. She was wearing a matronly wig, brown flecked with gray, twisted into a bun at her nape. “It’s this fucking girdle. Reminds me of my age.”

  Bobby reached a hand across the seat and placed it on her thigh. “I’m sorry, baby.”

  “That’s all right, Bobby.” She smiled at him as they passed the Miami skyline, the glass skyscrapers illuminated eerily by pastel lights, pink and green and blue. “I’m curious, though. Why do I have to wear a girdle?”

  “You got your Seecamp?”

  Sheila rummaged through her handbag and pulled out her chrome-plated Seecamp .32, six shots, double action only. He’d given it to her two years ago. “It’s so pretty,” she’d said when he handed it to her. “So tiny. It doesn’t seem real.”

  “Now, stick the gun inside your girdle. The spic isn’t going to pat you down ... I hope.”

  She unbuttoned the jumpsuit to her navel and stuck the little gun into the front of it. “It’s cold,” she said. She moved her hips seductively. “Feels good, though.”

  When they reached Coral Gables they turned left, toward the ocean. Bobby slowed the car, pulled out Sol’s piece of paper and squinted at the numbers on it, then glanced at the numbers on the houses. Mansions. Spanish Mediterranean, most of them. Some looked like English Tudors. The Anglos, Sheila thought. She looked up. An insistent breeze from the ocean rustled the leaves of the big royal palms lining the street, reflecting the white moonlight.

  “We’re getting close,” Bobby said. Sheila appreciated the tall, wrought-iron gates and fences, the big circular driveways, the Rolls Royces, Benzes, Ferraris and BMWs, all illuminated by landscape lights. Another world, she thought.

  “At dinner, baby,” Bobby was saying, “you make sure to sit by me. Things start to go bad, you’ll know. You get up, go to the ladies’ room to powder your nose. Take the Seecamp out, put it in your purse, come back, put the purse under the table, at your feet. A few minutes later, you drop your napkin, something, reach under the table, drop the Seecamp into my boot.”

  She smiled at him.

  A few minutes later, Bobby muttered ‘Jesus” and stopped in front of a 12-foot-high concrete wall topped with razor wire. “You think this is it?”

  Bobby announced himself at the call box and the big wrought-iron gate opened electronically. They drove slowly up the long driveway, past the palms and hibiscuses and frangipani. Two men, cradling Uzis, stood guard at the front, one of them leashed to an enormous rottweiler. The one with the dog hurried to Sheila’s door and opened it, but when she reached out her hand he ignored it and reached for her handbag. On his opposite side, the dog strained at its collar. Sheila stepped out of the car and stared directly into the dog’s eyes with her own cool blue eyes. It looked away and whimpered. Sheila reached down to stroke the fur behind its ears. “Nice boy,” she said. The dog pulled away from her touch.

  The other man gestured with his Uzi and Bobby got out and raised his hands over his head. The man patted him down as the big, hand-carved door opened. A pudgy little man in a white linen suit stood outlined in the light of the doorway. His tiny feet were in black patent leather Guccis and his long, black hair, flecked with silver, was greased and combed straight
back from a soft, pouty face. His eyes were big and dark, like a child’s.

  “Senor Esquared,” the man said, smiling. “Senor Rogers has told me much about you.”

  “Senor Rogers?” Bobby asked.

  The man looked confused. “Senor Esol Rogers, your associate.”

  “Oh, yes. Senor Rogers. He has told me great things about you, too, Senor Medina.”

  The man grinned and nodded with satisfaction.

  Smugglers, Bobby thought. They crave recognition.

  The man who had searched Sheila’s bag was now patting her down, running his hands down her back. Senor Medina frowned and snapped something in Spanish. The man yanked his hand away.

  “Please excuse the precautions, senorita,” Medina said to Sheila. “A man in my position. ...” He shrugged.

  “You’re too kind, senor. But, of course, it’s senora. Senora Sheila Doyle.” She reached out a hand.

  He shook the tips of her fingers. Then he stared at her for a moment, this tall Anglo woman. He said something in Spanish to his two men and barely perceptible smiles crossed their lips.

  “Gracias, Senor Medina,” Sheila said. “Porlos complimientos.”

  Medina looked startled. Then he smiled. ‘You speak my tongue, senora?”

  “ Unpoquito.” Sheila wiggled her fingers a bit.

  “Come in, come in,” the man said. “Welcome to my humble campesino house.” He turned and walked inside.

  Right, Bobby thought. A poor man’s shack. Maybe five, six mil, not counting the half mil in electronic security.

  Bobby followed Sheila through the door. She glanced back and whispered, “That’s the only Spanish sentence I know.”

  Yeah, Bobby thought, but now the little bastard thinks we understand Spanish. Which couldn’t hurt.

  Medina led them into the living room, his tiny Gucci heels clicking against the white tile floor. The living room looked like the set for one of those born-again-Christian TV programs. Overstuffed lavender sofa. Two pink armchairs shaded with gilt. China figurines. Hummels. Expensive kitsch bought by people with no taste. Bobby looked for the big cross, but saw only a huge color photo over the marble fireplace.