Bone Key (11 page)
“What kind of car is this, anyway?” Annie asked as they rumbled southward down Whitehead Street.
“It’s a Cadillac,” Deal said.
“I didn’t realize they made pickups,” she said, glancing through the windowed partition that separated the driver’s compartment from the Hog’s customized cargo bed.
“A client of mine who owned a dealership fixed it up this way,” Deal said, glancing at her. “He kept race horses and liked to run out to the stables with the occasional bale of alfalfa. He just wanted to do it in a gentlemanly way.”
Annie nodded dubiously. “So why do you have it?”
Deal paused, thinking of Cal Saltz, one of his father’s fondest friends, yet another ally long since dead. “The guy couldn’t come up with what he owed me on a project,” Deal said. “I took the Hog instead.”
“The Hog?”
“Janice named it.”
Annie glanced around the rumbling passenger compartment. “Seems appropriate,” she said.
Deal nodded. Everything about the vehicle—its weight, its throbbing engine, its throaty exhaust—suggested bulk and power. He’d never have gone looking for such a car, but now that it was his and his doting Miami mechanics had fallen in love with the machine, continually refining its suspension, steering, and engine—even its coachwork—Deal had developed something of an appreciation for its singularity.
They passed a bar called the Green Parrot, an open-air place where the late-night crowd had spilled out onto the sidewalk. A sheriff’s cruiser was pulled up in front, facing the opposite direction, two wheels on the curb, its blue and red flashers popping silently. A pair of deputies—neither of them Conrad, Deal noticed—flanked a big man wearing nothing but a bathing suit and a pair of rubber flip-flops. The guy’s skin glowed lobster-bright, no doubt from the combined effects of vast quantities of sun and alcohol. His eyes were glassy, seeming to stare off at nothing while the deputies spoke earnestly up at him. Most of the other patrons milled about, seemingly indifferent to the confrontation.
“Why don’t I drop you off at home?” Deal said, glancing at Annie as they rolled past the scene.
“I don’t feel like going home,” she said. “Besides, you need a navigator.” She held up the pad with the address Deal had jotted down.
Deal gave her a skeptical look. “I’m not sure what we’re getting into,” he said.
“All the more reason,” she said. “I have friends in high places.”
“Suit yourself,” he said.
“I generally do,” she told him, then pointed out the windshield. “You want to turn right up there. Try not to hit the chickens.”
Deal glanced ahead. Sure enough, there were half a dozen roosters scratching in the sand where a narrow street branched off from Whitehead. The birds took their time getting out of the way—one of them stretched up on his toes and flapped his wings as if he might be ready to take on the bothersome automobile—but finally Deal was able to ease the Hog past and down the narrow lane.
The houses were small here, even by Key West bungalow standards, most of them wooden shotgun cottages with flaking paint, sagging eaves, and cluttered porches, though here and there a few stood out, bright with paint and flowers planted in the dusty yards. It was the old service quarter of the city, an area of several square blocks populated largely by blacks ever since there had been a town.
His old man had brought him in here once during a family vacation to the Rock, as he called it, the ever-flamboyant Barton hot on the trail of a cock-fighting match he’d heard about in Captain Tony’s Bar. They’d never found the match that day, much to Deal’s relief, but it had surely been there somewhere. Those birds they’d driven through were probably the survivors’ descendants, in fact.
No one on the streets at this hour, no lights burning in the houses they passed. “There,” Annie called, pointing out her window at one of the bungalows.
Deal slowed as the headlights of the Hog washed over one of the tidier cottages. The house was built facing them, at a point where the roadway jogged and burrowed deeper into the quarter. A set of reflective house numbers had been nailed into the gatepost of a whitewashed picket fence. Beside the gate was an iron jockey, its face painted white. No car in the driveway, no lights burning inside, no welcoming bulb glowing on the porch.
Deal pulled the Hog over to the curb, its snout still facing the cottage, and cut the engine. After a moment the headlights snapped off automatically. There was a faint glow in the sky, the reflection of the downtown lights just a few blocks away, along with a vague buzz of party-time Friday night. Here all was quiet and dark.
“You heard shots?” Annie asked him, staring out toward the neat, still house.
“A shotgun, I’d guess,” Deal said.
“Don’t you think other people would have heard?”
He nodded.
“Then why aren’t people out in the streets?”
“Maybe they don’t want to get shot, too,” he said.
“But surely someone would call the police.”
“Depending on where you lived,” Deal said agreeably.
In the rearview mirror, he had noticed a set of headlights coming down the narrow street behind them. He leaned into the door of the Hog and swung his legs out, then turned to Annie. “Sit still,” he told her. “The keys are in the ignition. Something happens, you slide behind the wheel and get out.”
“Oh sure,” she said.
He shook his head and got out of the Hog, moving in the direction of the headlights, ready to dive for cover if he had to. The headlights of the approaching car flicked to bright, blinding him for a moment, and Deal threw up a hand to shield his eyes, the other tensed on the rail of a chain-link fence beside him.
“That’s him,” he heard a familiar voice say over the whine of a small car’s engine. “Kill your lights.”
Abruptly there was darkness and the sounds of the motor died away. Deal lowered his hand, felt the muscles in his upper back relax as Russell Straight unfolded his bulk from the passenger seat of a compact car. Deal caught a glimpse of Denise behind the wheel—he registered tousled hair, a brief tank top, a pair of boxers maybe, before the door slammed shut and the dome lamp winked out.
Russell leaned back through the window and said something Deal couldn’t catch. In a moment, the small car started and began backing away slowly, its headlights still doused. “Like to break my back,” Russell said, his hands held to his kidneys.
Deal glanced at him.
“I’m talking about her car, man.”
“I didn’t say anything, Russell.”
Russell rolled his eyes. “That the place?” he said, nodding at the tidy cottage down the lane.
Deal shrugged. “That’s the address you gave me.”
“Pretty quiet around here,” Russell said, checking their surroundings. As if in answer, a cock crow split the night. Probably the rooster who didn’t like cars, Deal thought, happy to see Denise passing by.
“We were just saying so,” Deal said.
“We?” Russell asked. He bent down and peered through the Hog’s back window, then glanced up at Deal. “Who is that in there?”
“Annie Dodds,” Deal told him.
“Stone’s woman?”
“She’s the one you met,” Deal said.
“What’s she doing here?”
“We were having a drink when Dequarius called,” he said. “She didn’t want to go home.”
Russell nodded, considering things. “You called the number, I guess?” he asked, his eyes on the house.
Deal nodded. “A couple of times. A busy signal, that’s all.”
“You go up there yet?” He was still staring at the house.
“I was just about to,” Deal said.
“Let’s go then,” Russell said.
They had just started forward when the explosion came.
Deal heard Annie’s cry as he dove for the pavement behind the Hog, then felt Russell’s bulk slamming down beside him. There was another deafening explosion, and, after that, the rattle of buckshot raining down on the roof of the Hog.
Deal glanced at Russell, who was pressed to the pavement like a boot-camp recruit ready to count out push-ups. “You okay?” he asked.
He saw Russell’s head dip in affirmation. “How about you?”
“So far,” Deal said.
“Come on out,” a man’s voice called from the darkness. “Both of you. With your hands up.”
Deal glanced at Russell, who gave him an uncertain look in return. A powerful flashlight beam snapped on suddenly, illuminating both of them in a bright pool of light.
“Get up, I say,” the voice commanded. “I’m through fooling around, now.”
Deal slowly raised one hand to the tailgate of the Hog, then brought his other hand to join it. “Just like that,” the voice crooned. “Pull yourself on up. Your buddy, too.”
Deal did as he was told, trying to catch sight of Annie through the rear glass of the passenger compartment. Why had he let her come along? he wondered, cursing himself as Russell rose carefully to his feet beside him. It was one thing to stupidly put himself in danger, but what had he been thinking of, allowing her to join in?
“Now turn around so I can see you,” the voice said. “Slow.”
Deal did as he was told, wincing as the beam of the torch washed over his face. He couldn’t see Russell for the glare, but the scrape of shoes on pavement suggested he had done the same.
“You mind getting that light out of my eyes,” Deal heard Russell say at his side.
“Never mind that,” the man said. “Now, you boys start walking, nice and easy, right over this way…” the voice began, then broke off suddenly, with a sharp intake of breath.
“I’ll take the gun,” Deal heard a familiar woman’s voice. “Turn it loose this instant, or I’ll blow you away.”
It was Annie’s voice, Deal realized, somewhere out there, past the blinding orb of light.
“Get the light out of their faces. Now!”
The torch beam wavered, then slid down to puddle in the street. “John,” he heard from the darkness. “I’ve got his gun.”
“Annie?” Deal said, staring in amazement toward the sound of her voice. His eyes were still adjusting from the glare, but he could make out two vague silhouettes standing close together, just down the sidewalk. A tall man, pointing his flashlight at the ground now. And a woman behind him, one hand raised high, pointing something at him, what looked like a shotgun under one crooked arm.
“Don’t move,” she said, beginning to edge away. “It’s okay, John,” she said, turning toward him for a moment. He sensed what might happen at the very instant that it did.
The man’s arm swung suddenly upward, the arc of the flashlight beam cutting through the night sky before him. He heard Annie cry out, saw something shiny fly from her upraised hand. There was a distant clattering and the sound of scuttling feet as the man began to run down the sidewalk toward him.
“Don’t shoot!” Deal heard Russell cry, even as he left his feet. His shoulder hit the man just below hip level, driving them both through the spindly picket fence that bordered the house.
Not a bad tackle, Deal found himself thinking, as the two of them rolled through the dewy grass. Especially not for someone as long out of the game as himself.
The guy he’d hit was tall and light but wiry, seeming to move in several different directions at once. Deal struggled to get his weight atop him, catching one of the man’s flailing hands that pounded at his chest, snatching the other as a feeble punch glanced off his ear. He had managed to pull himself astride the man, a knee pinning each of his thin arms, when he saw the glint of the shotgun move in front of his nose, its dual barrels pointed in the general direction of Deal’s knees.
“Just lay still,” he heard Russell’s voice above him. Deal felt the struggling figure beneath him go lax. In the next moment the flashlight beam had snapped on once more, illuminating their prey.
“What the hell?” Deal said, staring down at the person who lay pinned beneath him. A snowy-haired black man, eighty if he was a day, glared up defiantly into the flashlight’s glare.
“You think I’m scared?” the old guy said.
“You’d better be,” Russell said, waving the shotgun in a tiny circle above the guy’s face.
“Be careful with that thing,” Deal said. His groin was inches from the old guy’s chin.
“He don’t have to be,” the old guy said. “It’s empty.” He tried to buck out from under Deal at that moment, a surprisingly strong move for someone his age and build.
“He’s right,” Deal heard Russell say over the sound of the shotgun breaking open. A pair of spent casings fell to the grass at his side. “What the hell are you doing, old man?”
“Better question for you people,” the old guy said sullenly.
“Are you all right?” Deal heard Annie’s voice from behind him. He wasn’t about to turn. Keeping his balance atop the squirming old man was like trying to ride an eel.
“I’m fine,” he called. “How’s your arm?”
“It’s okay,” she said.
“What is
that
?” Deal heard Russell’s voice. It seemed to be a question for Annie.
“You’d better take this,” Deal heard her say. “My hand’s a little sore.”
“Is it loaded?” Russell’s voice came.
“Why would I carry a pistol that wasn’t loaded?” Deal heard her answer. It was only beginning to sink in. A moment ago, he’d been feeling guilty for dragging her into danger. Now, he realized, she had saved their skin.
“Just asking,” he heard Russell say.
In the next minute, the big man was crouching beside Deal, a tiny, pearl-handled derringer in one of his big hands. “See this?” he asked the old guy.
The old guy stared up sullenly. “You couldn’t get your fat finger through the guard,” he said, writhing violently in Deal’s grasp.
“You’re right about that,” Russell said, and brought the heel of the pistol down smartly on the old guy’s forehead.
Deal stared down at the suddenly limp form beneath him. “Jesus, Russell. What if that thing had gone off?”
Russell gave him a baleful look, holding up what looked like a .22 shell between two of his fingers. “Give me some credit, will you?”
“What is going on here, anyway?” Annie asked.
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” Deal said, glancing up at her. At the same moment, he felt a stirring beneath him.
“You tried to kill Dequarius,” Deal heard the old man’s voice. No more snarling now, more like a sob. “Now you’re gonna kill me.”
For a moment, the three of them stared at one another in surprise. And then Deal was helping the old man to his feet.