by Philip Depoy
Philip shrugged and stared at the floor. ‘I didn’t think he could die.’
Before I could get philosophical, Rothschild appeared, and I stood up.
‘If I’m not out of this cell in about three seconds,’ I began before he could say anything, ‘I’m going to figure a way to burn your house down with everyone you know inside it.’
‘Or you could just get your friend Icepick to pay me a visit,’ Rothschild countered.
‘In the first place, he’s not my friend,’ I said softly. ‘And in the second place, how would you know what he does for a living? And in the third: that’s not a bad idea.’
‘How do you know I’m not here right now to let you out?’
‘Because I’m not as stupid as I look.’ I smiled. ‘I’ve been figuring this whole thing six different ways, but your guys messed up worse than you can possibly imagine. They killed John Horse.’
He shook his head. ‘I didn’t send those men …’
‘Who else would put a tail on me?’ I interrupted. ‘You’re working for … Wait. Philip? You happen to know the name of the family that’s been after John Horse for so long? I should have asked John Horse, but we were interrupted.’
‘Wilkins,’ he said without looking up.
I glared at Rothschild. ‘FBI on the Hale case a long time ago in Oklahoma, they got bought off by this Wilkins bunch. And then it morphed into an official FBI long-term case. Maybe you don’t know the origins of it, maybe you do. No matter what, you’re off my Christmas list because you came after John Horse. He’s not somebody you mess with around here.’
‘Listen to you,’ he said. ‘You sound like a local.’
Then it hit me.
‘Wait,’ I said to Philip. ‘Why does the Wilkins name sound familiar?’
Again, Philip shrugged, still not looking up.
‘They own the houses in Oklahoma,’ I said, mostly to myself. ‘The ones where Bear hid the women. It was this Wilkins gang.’
I could tell that the wheels in Rothschild’s brain were spinning – you could smell the friction.
He was still silent when Philip finally looked up. And even when Philip lunged at his cell door, Rothschild didn’t move. Two seconds later, when the door swung open and Philip had Rothschild by the neck, it was too late. Rothschild’s face was as red as a beet, and the rest of the Seminole men were out of the cell.
Philip tilted his head my way, his eyes still on Rothschild, and one of the other men came to my door. He shoved something into the lock and the door popped open just like that.
‘Is it the best idea,’ I said to Philip as I slipped out of the cell, ‘to kill an FBI officer inside a jailhouse?’
‘Because of him, John Horse is dead,’ Philip answered reasonably. ‘I don’t care if he’s called Brady or Rothschild or hompusche.’
I turned a sympathetic eye toward Rothschild. ‘That last word? That means breakfast. He’s implying that he’ll take your body into the swamp and feed it to the alligators there, like they did with your cohorts. You made an impression as Brady. I thought it was just me, but apparently everyone hates you.’
He tried to speak, but Philip was squeezing his windpipe hard, and no sound would come out.
Then he made a very stupid mistake. He reached inside his coat, going for his gun.
Philip swatted him, backhand, across the jaw, and he was out the way Ali put down Foreman in Zaire. He was crumpled on the floor like leftover takeout food.
I checked his coat. There was a gun. I went for his ID.
‘Well, what do you know?’ I said to Philip. ‘This guy really is FBI.’
‘What do you mean?’ he asked.
‘I mean that he is, but the other guys, the ones who came to John Horse’s house, they weren’t.’
‘So, who were they? Who did we kill?’
‘Yeah.’ I sighed. ‘Let’s figure this. The Wilkins clan, they want John Horse. They get Bear riled up, he thinks he’s got a way to get his family back, make the Oklahoma locals some money: win/win. Only a guy called Icepick doesn’t like what’s going on. He’s got a code. So, he pops one of the men who riled Bear but dumps him in our bay.’
‘Bear was in this thing mostly to take the fall if anything went sideways,’ Philip said.
I had to smile. ‘You been hanging out with me too long. You’re beginning to talk Brooklyn. But, yes, that’s what I figure.’
Philip sighed. ‘I’m going home now.’
Without another word, he and the other Seminole men split. I was afraid I knew where they were going. They were going to a funeral.
I didn’t know what to do, so I went back to my office. Paperwork. It’s better than gin at taking your mind off everything else. I had no idea how everything else would sort out, but I was going to fill out my forms. Children had been in danger. I found their mother and brought her home. Case closed. If the details got the attention of the real FBI or some other higher authority, that would be swell. But my work was done.
A couple of hours later I was just signing the last form, when who should walk into the office but John Horse. He was wearing a flannel shirt and jeans, construction boots, a baseball cap with no insignia on it, and a pair of new-looking horn-rimmed glasses. And he didn’t look real.
‘Hello, Foggy,’ he said, standing in the doorway.
I nodded. ‘Imagine my surprise to see you here. You were dead in the swamp yesterday.’
‘I only die when it suits me.’ He stepped in and set a very large tooth on my desk, right on top of my paperwork. ‘That’s from a panther.’
‘Neat,’ I said, staring at it. ‘Large.’
‘Was a big panther,’ he told me.
‘I wonder why his tooth is now my paperweight.’
‘It’s a gesture.’ He smiled. ‘You’re an honorary member of the Panther clan. My clan. You helped me out and you protected my relatives. That makes you family. Sort of.’
I touched the panther tooth.
‘Why not?’ I said. ‘You already tell people that we’re related, your tribe and mine.’
‘Oh, wait.’ He shoved his hand in his right front pocket and produced about a dozen crumpled hundred-dollar bills and dropped them on to the table beside the tooth. ‘In case you want something a little less Seminole for a thank you.’
He sat down.
He nodded.
‘You know that those men in your house, the Wilkins bunch,’ I said, ‘didn’t manage to get you after all.’
He nodded again. ‘They failed one more time, thanks to you.’
‘That’s what makes them so mean, like I said.’
‘That’s what makes them so persistent,’ he said, softer. ‘They’ll try again.’
‘I’m sorry.’
He stood up.
‘But this time, you helped. So, thank you for protecting my great-great grandchildren,’ he said, turning to leave.
‘Wait a minute, wait a minute,’ I complained, coming to my feet. ‘How is it you’re not dead, really?’
‘Oh, that.’ He didn’t turn around; kept his back to me. ‘Well. I wasn’t dead, obviously.’
‘I saw you get shot. I saw the blood.’
‘You never been shot before?’
‘Once or twice,’ I admitted. ‘But I was young and I had a whole lot of coke in me.’
‘I’m not so old as you think,’ he said, and motored for the door to my office. ‘And I have medicine a lot stronger than cocaine in my blood.’
‘You’re not going to give me a real answer, are you?’
‘No,’ he said.
‘Then how about one last question, maybe?’ I asked. ‘Since I’m family now.’
He stopped just outside the door frame. ‘What is it?’
‘Just how old are you?’
‘In human years?’ he croaked, back still to me. ‘I have no idea. I hope you like the tooth.’
‘I do.’ I glanced down at my desk. ‘But you know I can’t keep this money.’
I looked
down and gathered the bills together.
But by the time I looked up again, seconds later, John Horse was gone.
I knew better than to go after him. I stared down at the panther tooth for a while. Then I reached for the phone and dialed long distance.
It rang for three minutes before Pan Pan answered.
‘What?’ he barked.
‘It’s me. I figured you’d be back in Brooklyn by now.’
‘Oh. I hope you’re calling to tell me when you’ll be home,’ he said.
‘I’m calling to tell you to thank Icepick for me. Weird as it was, he did me a favor by dumping that guy’s body in the bay down here.’
‘Elrod Duncan.’
‘Sorry?’
‘The stiff’s name was Elrod Duncan. He worked for a guy who worked for a guy.’
I nodded. ‘Didn’t look like an Elrod.’
‘It was an alias. He couldn’t very well go by his real last name.’
‘Which was?’ I asked.
‘Horse. Can you believe it?’
It took me a second or two to get out, ‘No.’
‘Don’t you know a guy down there who pretends to have that same name?’
God help me, I was suddenly suspicious of Pan Pan. I was suddenly afraid that he was looking for John Horse, like the crooked FBI or the Wilkins family.
And there it was: the switch. Whose side was I on? Who were my people now?
‘That guy?’ I told my old friend. ‘I don’t think he’s real. They talk about him, but I think it’s a made-up story.’
‘No,’ Pan Pan pressed. ‘I met him. That guy.’
‘Oh, that guy? He’s a local nut-job. Total loon. Likes to call himself John Horse, but that’s because he named himself after a famous Seminole who died in 1882.’
That much was true. There was a John Horse, also known as Juan Caballo and Gopher John. Imprisoned with Osceola when General Jesup, a stain on the American military, captured them under a truce flag. That John Horse escaped, hid out in the swamp, and successfully fought off the entire American army. Our guy in Fry’s Bay was named after him. They say.
‘I see,’ Pan Pan said.
I wasn’t sure what he thought he saw. I decided to make it clear.
‘Hey, Pan Pan.’ I sighed. ‘Will you tell Icepick I said thanks? And tell my mother I said hello?’
‘Sure.’ I could hear him shaking his head. ‘So, you’re not coming home.’
‘Yeah, nobody’s more surprised than I am,’ I told him. ‘The thing is, see – I am home.’
He didn’t say goodbye.
Later that evening, I took a walk down to the beach out my back door. Shoes off, pants rolled up, the whole thing.
The moon was up and the waves were small. There were little glowing things in the water, like bits of stars broken off, floating under the ocean before they burned out. Something came up out of the waves for a second or two. Could have been a dolphin.
I stared out, thinking of all the things about Brooklyn I missed: bagels from Izzy’s, my mother’s chicken, that smell of gasoline on asphalt. Then I thought about all the things in Florida that irritated me. It was too hot when it was hot; colder than you thought when it was cold. It was impossible to escape the smell of fish in the summertime. And not another Jew within a hundred miles. In any direction.
So why the switch?
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
Maybe there, feet in the sand looking out at the moon on the ocean, I was on my way to becoming a man.
Or maybe it was this. On the tenth day of the seventh month you must deny yourself, because on this day atonement will be made for you, to cleanse you. Then, before the Lord, you will be clean from all your sins.
Was it possible that I’d finally been forgiven?