Off the Chart (9 page)

“What is it, Thorn?”

“I was thinking Lawton might like it. You know, for his midnight rambles. Might keep him off the highway if we can convince him the Greyhound stops here.”

She stared at the bench, then looked up at Thorn, a smile warming her lips.

“Worth a try,” he said. “I was thinking of putting it over there, next to the gumbo-limbo. Kind of like the bus shelter.”

“You're something, Thorn.”

“Well, I'm not much of a furniture maker, that's for sure.”

She leaned in and gave him a kiss on the mouth so deep and long, it closed his eyes and kept them closed a second or two after she'd drawn away.

“So who was your visitor this time?”

He took her hand in his and waved his free hand at the open yard and the darkening bay.

“Would you trade all this for three million dollars?”

“All this?”

“The house, the land, my car. All of it.”

“Three million for that heap of rust you call a car?”

“I'm serious. The house, land, all of it. Would you?”

She held his eyes.

“It's not mine to sell.”

“But let's say it were. You could take the three mil, go someplace else, invest some of the money in mutual funds, live off the interest. Never have to work again, do whatever you wanted.”

“Mutual funds?” She reached out and pressed her palm against his forehead. “You been outside all day without a hat?”

“Answer the question,” he said, startled by the impatience in his own voice.

She took her hand from his forehead. Her smile drifted away.

“Would I swap all this for a truckload of cash?” she said. “Not in a million years, Thorn. Not in three million.”

Thorn let go of the air that had been building in his lungs.

“Yeah, that's what I thought.”

“Was that some kind of test, Thorn?”

“What do you mean?”

“Because I thought we were a little past the testing phase.”

“We are,” he said. “It's just that sometimes, your job, all the shit you put up with every day, I wonder if you wouldn't be happier retired.”

“You'd sell all this so I could retire?”

“It'd be nice to have you around.”

“And what? Hang out all day, weave palm frond hats and carve faces into dried coconuts?”

She watched Lawton tickling the pup's nose with a blade of grass.

“Man,” he said. “You play rough.”

She shifted her gaze from her father and settled it on him. The wistful fog that seemed to fill her eyes whenever she looked at Lawton burned away in an instant and they were clear again. A cautious smile rose in slow stages to her wide mouth.

“I'm a city girl, Thorn. The stink of baking asphalt, screech of tires, sirens wailing. I've got to have my daily dose. It's who I am.
Even taking the photos of the victims, working the crime scenes. It keeps me sharp, alert. At the end of the workday I love coming back down here. This is a glorious place. It makes me want to sip tequila, take off my clothes, and crawl in bed beside you. But I need the other, Thorn. I just do.”

“I know.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I know you know. You just forget sometimes.”

She kissed him on the edge of his mouth, then stepped away. Her smile full of naked light.

“Okay,” he said. “So let's get the wine and I'll tell you all about Marty Messina. You'll enjoy this.”

Thursday morning, May second, when Anne stepped out of the taxi, her landlady was stooped over her white gravel yard pulling weeds. Anne's rusty Corolla was still parked where she'd left it when she ran off to play pirate. Her efficiency apartment was downstairs below the widow lady's concrete stilt house on the edge of a canal in Stillwright Point. Room for a single bed, a tiny stove, and a couple of bonsai plants. The fridge was so small, a six-pack of Bud Lite and a stalk of celery strained it.

“It's rented.” The landlady had bright white hair and a leathery tan. She approached Anne, gripping a three-pronged tool for prying up weeds. “A nice young man with the Park Service is in there now.”

“You rented my apartment,” Anne said.

“You disappeared; I didn't hear from you.”

“And my stuff?”

“Salvation Army,” the woman said.

“I'm surprised you didn't tow my car.”

The woman came a step closer to Anne.

“Your brother came by.”

“What?”

“Vic Joy stopped by last week. He said he was your brother. That true?”

“And what did he want?”

“He said when you showed up again for me to tell you to come see him.”

“He did, did he?”

The landlady's calico cat sat primly in the gravel nearby and watched.

“He said it's about your boyfriend, what happened to him out on the boat. He said you'd understand.”

 

Vic Joy worked out of the Paradise Funeral Home in north Key Largo.

Anne had tried, but you couldn't work in a Keys restaurant, a bar, a hotel, without hearing about Vic Joy once or twice a week. His latest conquest, his most recent outrageous offense. Another resort or marina on his ledger, another casino boat added to his fleet, his latest run-in with county officials over illegal dredging or flushing one of his casino boat's bilges in a local waterway, all that crankcase oil, all those tourist turds, floating in the canals behind million-dollar homes, courtesy of Vic Joy. His people had been caught a dozen times bulldozing acres of protected mangroves, engaged in bribery and shakedowns to cover their tracks. Vic never bothered with the rules. His policy was simple. If an endangered tree is buzz-sawed in the forest and no one's around to hear it fall, did it ever happen? On the other hand, if somebody made a fuss, that's what lawyers were for. And Vic had an army of Miami's sleaziest for that.

Anne Bonny had passed the Paradise Funeral Home a hundred times on her way up and down the islands, but she never allowed herself to look. Eyes straight ahead until she was well past. But today she roared into the gravel lot and slid to a stop next to a white Cadillac. A half-dozen Harley-Davidsons slouched around the parking lots, their potbellied riders in full dress black clustered in the shade of a poinciana tree drinking long-neck Buds.

The funeral home was a low, sprawling stucco building with a life-size angel perched on the roof. A view of Tarpon Basin out the mortuary windows.

As she marched to the door, a couple of the roughnecks leered her way, but when she stopped and looked back at them, they got busy with their beers.

Behind the reception desk was a woman in her seventies, frail, with a mass of white curls as delicate as ice shavings.

“He's in a meeting. Without an appointment, there's nothing I can do.”

Organ music seeped from the sanctuary, someone practicing “Sympathy for the Devil.” Starting over, mangling the first few chords, starting again.

“Buzz him,” Anne said. “Tell him it's his long-lost sister.”

The old woman drew a quick breath, then, with her eyes still fixed on Anne, fumbled with the phone, mashed in a number, and whispered into the receiver, and a second later she set it down.

“I didn't realize,” she said, and motioned down the gloomy hallway. “Mr. Joy has been expecting you.”

When Anne opened the door, Vic stood up from behind his desk and came around to greet her, his arms sweeping open for an embrace. She backed off, held up her hand, and he halted, but his grin didn't fade a fraction.

He wore a plain white T-shirt and gray jeans and boat shoes. His shoulder-length hair had turned silver since she'd seen him last. Ten years, fifteen? She wasn't sure and hadn't bothered to add it up. His arms were sinewy and blued with ancient tattoos. He was still slim, shoulders unstooped, just an inch over six feet. His flesh was sallow, a shade lighter than the creamy yellow of calfskin. Even after decades in the tropical sun it was all the tan he could muster. Vic had their father's pallid bloodline, descended from a long string of Kentucky hillbillies who'd spent their years in lightless pits hacking out lumps of anthracite.

The knotty pine walls of Vic's office were decorated with plaques and photographs. She glanced around at the history of Vic's civic bullshit. All the commissioners and sheriffs who'd succumbed to his charm or pocketed his payoffs.

“Annie, Annie. After all this time you're not going to give me a hug?”

Before she could answer, she caught a flash behind the open door.

“Oh, yeah,” Vic said, waving in that direction. “I believe you already know Marty Messina.”

Anne slashed a look at Marty.

“What the hell?”

“Marty's working for me now. My new right-hand man.”

“You bastard. How'd you get away?”

“Went overboard, like you. I'm a good swimmer.”

“Bullshit.” Anne stepped toward Vic's desk. “Now it all makes sense.”

“Cool down, honey,” Vic said. “Marty's cool.”

“Marty's a goddamn informant. He's feeding the feds. He brought down Daniel, now he's going after you.”

“That's funny,” Vic said. “Marty said the same thing about you.”

“It was him,” Anne said. “He was the only one made it out alive.”

“Except for you,” Marty said.

“Okay, kiddies,” Vic said. “So nobody trusts each other. Fine, so now we're all on equal footing.”

A second later there was a gold letter opener in Anne's right hand. It must've been on Vic's desk, must have already caught her attention before Marty Messina rose from his chair behind the door, wearing a cocky grin, his mouth opening, about to say something cute, then his face changed as Anne snatched the dagger, whirled, and Marty's hand came up, a big paw, hairy arms, and his fingers knotted to her wrist.

The letter opener was poised an inch from his throat, where the dark curly hair stopped in a precise line just below his Adam's apple. She'd seen him at the Gray Ghost Lodge, meticulously hacking away the pelt that otherwise would've overgrown his entire body in a day or two, drowned him in hair.

The point trembled closer to his white flesh. She was out-of-body, feeling no rage, no exertion, watching from beyond the ceiling as the dagger altered course, turning back toward her, taking aim at her own throat.

Marty's breath blew in her face, chili peppers, onions, a peppermint
mouthwash that had curdled to some putrid gas. Her hand had numbed from his grip on her wrist, her arm bending backward against the joint, then Vic was there shouting, prying them apart, but Anne Bonny was lost in the rush of blood and she drove a knee into the big man's groin, felt his hold loosen, and in that half-second she tore free and plunged the narrow blade into the meat of Marty's chest, a slab of muscle over his heart, jammed it hard against all that gristle.

Marty howled and fell away, and Vic got some leverage on Anne's arm and slung her at the opposite wall. She lost her footing, spun once, thumped headfirst, and saw a dazzling splash of water, then felt her body go limp, her back press flat against the wall, then slide down. At the office door, the old woman with the fragile white hair covered her mouth while Anne sank below the surface of a warm ocean, drifting down into a breathless dark.

 

“You got him in the armpit, honey,” Vic said when Anne opened her eyes.

She was propped up in a leather chair across from his desk. In the far corner, Marty Messina sprawled in another chair. Shirtless, with a yard of gauze wrapped around his left shoulder, a blotch of blood spreading. Organ music vibrated the photos, their frames clicking against the wall. The voices of the mourners were out-of-key and trailing several notes behind the organist.

“Another inch you would've had his aorta. And I would've had to lay a new carpet in here.”

Anne tried to rise, make another run at the son of a bitch, but the room turned pale, started to drain away, and she fell back into the chair.

“You took a bump, darling. Sit still, relax. You can knife Marty again later if you want. I think he's up for another round, aren't you, Marty?”

The man looked across at Vic, then steered his hatred back to her.

Vic leaned back in his chair, laced his fingers behind his head.

“I mean it's not like you have anywhere important to go, sweetheart. And no offense, you look like ever-loving shit. Like somebody backed over you with a dump truck.”

She shifted in the seat. It was useless, her body shut down. She fixed her gaze on Marty Messina—no matter what he said, how good his story was, she wasn't buying it.

“And hey, look. You lay off Marty. He and I go way back to the bad old days. We're buds. Right, Marty?”

Marty said nothing, just continued to glare at Anne.

Vic said, “Ten, fifteen years back, Marty was running grass for your boyfriend, Salbone. Didn't matter he was working for the competition, I still liked Marty, liked his outlook on life. Not unlike my own. Aspiring to better things. Willing to get in there, get his hands dirty. Truth is, I tried like hell to recruit him away from Salbone, but he wouldn't come.”

“Pay wasn't right,” Marty said.

“But if you'd come with me, you'd have saved yourself a six-year stretch. None of my people ever been convicted. Not even a freaking speeding ticket. You made a strategic error, my friend. Took a shortsighted view. But hey, Marty comes back to town, I hear about it, go down to his old haunt, that seafood joint he ran, and bam, Marty's my man. My heavy lifter, my first lieutenant.”

“You deserve each other,” she said.

“Man, you got a lot of anger, Annie. Stored-up shit like that, it'll give you tumors. You need to let go of some of that poison. Find a positive outlet for it.”

“Mental health advice from Vic Joy? Give me a break.”

Vic chuckled.

“So, Annie, Marty tells me you been pirating big boats. Tankers, cargo ships, big fucking vessels. Is that right? He wasn't making that up, trying to impress me?”

“That's one thing he isn't lying about,” she said.

“Well, I'm proud of you, Annie. I'm very proud. Mom would be, too.” He looked over at Marty. “Like I said, our mama was a pirate nut. Took us to all those old movies, got us reading the books. Loved that shit. Errol Flynn, Charles Laughton, Douglas Fairbanks. The woman was crazy for buccaneers. Wrote fan letters to Hollywood, criticized these big studio guys for getting their historical facts wrong. I mean hell, look at us, here we are, doing our Oedipal thing, stuck
in the endless cycle. With that kind of early training, we didn't have a chance to be anything else but crooks.”

“Sure we did,” Anne said. “We could've been anything.”

Vic leaned forward, laid his arms on his desk, starting fiddling with a big fountain pen, taking off the cap, putting it back on. Through the wall, the organist was playing another oldie, a shaky contralto doing the lyrics. “I saw her today at the reception.”

Vic nodded at the wall.

“Another biker busted his melon-head on U.S. 1. Last few months I've been specializing in these idiots. No-helmet law is great for business. Morons get all weepy, play their stupid road warrior music; after the ceremony, they jump on their hogs, ride a half-mile down the strip to the Caribbean Club, get shit-faced, and break up the furniture. One of them wrecks on the way home, and we do the whole goddamn thing over again next week.

“But dumb as they are, you still gotta love 'em. For fifty bucks, they'll tear open a guy's chest; a hundred, they'll bring back his heart on a paper plate. Cheapest muscle I ever had.”

Anne Bonny stared at the door five feet away, measuring her exit. But her head was still whirling, a pulse of light stabbing behind her eyes at every chord of the organ music.

“What do you know about Daniel?”

“We'll get to that, honey. In good time.”

“Don't screw with me, Vic. If you know something, tell me.”

“I got my own order for doing things, Annie,” Vic said.
“Tranquilo.”

“Yeah,
tranquilo,
bitch,” Marty said.

“Okay, so here's how it is,” Vic said. “As heredity would have it, since last we spoke I've had a few pirating experiences myself. Kind of following a parallel path to yours, though nothing as awe-inspiring as oil tankers. Like I told Marty, I've been specializing in pleasure craft. Yachts, sailboats. More like a recreational thing really, a little side business with a high thrill factor. A way to stay limber, keep my hands dirty. So far I've done maybe a dozen, thirteen. Just getting started, really. All the business enterprises I got going, I get crimps in my cash flow now and then. It's good to have something that nets some extra loot.

“And I work it different than how Marty says you guys handled it.
I line up a buyer first, then I locate the boat they have in mind. Hell, sometimes I pick it right from one of my own marinas, vast fucking selection. You know I own eleven boatyards, Annie, all up and down the Keys, a couple over in Naples, Fort Myers, one in Tampa. I've been doing fine since I saw you last, adding jewels to my crown.”

Vic scooped up the pen and pitched it at her underhanded. It came whirling right at her face. Anne flinched, then shot a hand out and snatched it from the air and in the same motion slung it back at him. Vic caught it two-handed and smiled at her.