Bone Key (18 page)
Deal tried to get his feet under him, but whoever it was that held him was tall enough to keep him levered off the ground. His assailant had one arm hooked under his own, using Deal’s body as a fulcrum. The harder Deal struggled, the quicker it was going to end, he thought. The pressure on his throat had cut off his airway and bright stars were pinging in the ever-growing darkness before his eyes.
“Where is it?” a voice hissed in his ear. “Where’d the little fuck put it?”
The pressure on his throat eased momentarily and Deal kicked straight out. His feet drove into the mirrored bifold doors of the closet, caving them inward, showering the narrow hallway with a rain of glass. Definitely not to code, he thought as a falling shard of glass sliced cleanly through his pantleg. Maybe he could sue, if stupid dead men had legal standing in Key West, that is.
He’d gotten enough leverage from the kick to drive them back against the other wall, though, and he heard a rush of breath and the satisfying sound of a skull popping off concrete block. At the same time, Deal jerked his head back as hard as he could manage. It was only an inch or two in terms of range of motion, but coupled with the fact that his attacker’s skull was rebounding forward off the block wall, it was enough.
Deal had a moment’s stab of pain at the back of his skull, but it couldn’t have been much compared to what the guy must have felt when his teeth caved in. He heard a curse—or what he supposed it sounded like when someone tries to curse around a mouthful of blood and bone fragments—then felt the grip at his throat loosen. In the next instant he was free and breathing, falling on hands and knees to the glittering shoals of glass.
Before he could move, there came another gargling curse from above him, then a stunning rush of pain as a heavy-soled shoe drove into his ribs just below his breastbone. The blow sent Deal into the closet, taking out what was left of the flimsy doors. A good thing he’d already kicked the glass out, he was thinking, as his shoulder cracked into the wall.
“You fuck,” he heard, then a hand had him by the hair and was pulling his face up to meet a palm that felt like a lead skillet exploding at his cheek.
Deal felt himself being readied for what might have been the backhand swipe to follow when he heard a shout from somewhere and caught a glimpse of a form that could only be Russell Straight’s hurtling through the curtains that billowed at the door. Deal felt the grip go loose on his hair, then heard an explosion and a flash of flame that seemed inches from his face.
There was another explosion and flash and Deal saw Russell Straight’s form go down on the far side of the bed, trailing the tatters of ripped curtains like a drunken ghost. There was another flash of light then, but no explosion—the door to the room flying open, he realized—followed by a thunderous sound of slamming, along with a return of the darkness and an abrupt and overwhelming quiet.
Deal probed his teeth with his tongue, raised his hands gingerly to his battered ribs. Nothing gushing, nothing broken or piercing skin, though a good part of him might be too numb to tell, he thought.
“Russell,” he called, expecting the worst. “Are you hit?” He pulled himself up by the frame of the ruined closet, glass shards snapping under his feet as he made his way quickly toward the bed.
He was halfway across the room when he saw the ghostly shape rise, the arms slapping at yards of ruined cloth. “Russell?” he repeated.
The big man had managed to get his hands free and hooked at the edge of the fabric. The powerful arms jerked downward, accompanied by a sound as loud as a band saw’s scream, and Russell Straight’s glowering image appeared from the folds of cloth.
The two stared at each other for a moment in the reflected glow of the landscaping lights from outside. “You okay?” Deal asked.
Russell nodded. “How about you?”
Deal nodded back. Sirens sounded in the distance.
“We going out the front or the back?” Russell asked.
Deal glanced at the balcony and shook his head. “Screw ’em,” he said, and began to limp across the broken glass toward the door.
The limo glided smoothly out of the Pier House’s spacious cobblestone entryway at the same moment that a pair of sheriff’s cruisers bounced across the gutter moat, headed the other way. Deal glanced back to see the cruiser doors fly open and a quartet of deputies hustle out, making their way quickly toward the tastefully landscaped entrance.
There were times when the trappings of wealth counted for something, he thought, reaching for the cut-crystal bottle of whiskey lodged in the limo’s bar rack. Who’d be using a limo as a getaway car?
“You get a look at the guy?” Russell Straight asked as the scene at the hotel’s entrance receded in their wake.
Deal gave him a look. “I didn’t see him, but it sure sounded like our pal from the sheriff’s office.”
“Conrad?” Russell asked, his voice rising. “What the hell was he doing there?”
Deal stared across the spacious cabin of the limo. “Waiting for me,” he said. “That’s the only thing that makes sense.”
Where is it? Where’d the little fuck put it?
The words rang in Deal’s mind.
Russell shook his head. “Whatever Dequarius was on to, somebody must want awful bad.”
Deal was nodding agreement when the partition dividing them from the driver’s compartment glided down. Balart turned, revealing his hawklike profile for a moment.
“Maybe we should find a doctor,” Balart said. When Deal didn’t answer immediately, he hurried on. “Don’t worry about the police getting involved,” he said with a dismissive wave. “I know the right person—”
“I’m fine,” Deal said. He pulled a shard of glass out of his palm with his teeth, then poured a dollop of whiskey over the seeping wound. Russell handed him one of the handful of towels he’d snatched from a maid’s cart on their way toward an exit. Deal poured more whiskey on the towel, then used it to staunch the bleeding. He’d already checked himself over. Maybe a couple of broken ribs and a couple more knots on his face to go with the lump on his forehead, but the rest was superficial. Especially compared to Dequarius Noyes.
Deal nodded his thanks, then turned back toward the driver’s compartment. “I need to stop at a liquor store,” he called to Balart.
Balart waited until he’d brought the limo to a stop at a light, then turned to Deal, a puzzled expression on his face. “Where we’re going there’s plenty to drink, you know.”
“I’m looking for a place that sells wine. Good wine,” Deal added. “You know a store like that?”
Balart thought for a minute. “There’s one,” he said. “Down the other end of Duval.”
“Then that’s where we’ll go,” Deal said.
Balart gave him an uncertain look, but the light had turned green and a taxi behind them had begun tapping its horn. “You the boss,” Balart said, then looked over Deal’s shoulder toward the offending taxi. “Hold onto your horses, back there,” he called, and then they were off.
He swung the limo into a turn that carried them past the city’s cemetery, where, on the other side of a wrought-iron fence, a luminous flotilla of white above-ground vaults stretched into the distance.
People dying to get in there
, Deal thought idly. His old man had never passed a graveyard without saying so. It made him wonder where Dequarius’ body would end up.
The thought was still with him minutes later when Balart turned onto Duval Street and brought the limo to a stop by the curb. They were near the southern end of the boulevard, a spot where the shops thinned and the foot traffic was almost nonexistent.
“Tell him Balart is in the car,” the chauffeur said. “He’ll take good care of you.”
Deal nodded, ducking out of the limo. There was a newsstand in front of him, shuttered for the evening, and beside it a narrow storefront with a sputtering neon sign that promised that
LIQUOR
was available inside.
GONZALO FAUSTO, PROP.
had been lettered in smallish script on the storefront glass.
“What are we doing here?” Russell Straight asked, coming out of the limo behind him.
“I need some information,” Deal said, pushing the shop door open. “It’s a little late to try the library.”
He ignored Russell’s impatient glance and moved on inside, his nostrils keen to a blended smell of yeast, aged wood floors and polished shelving, musty cardboard, and suspended dust. A place out of time, he thought, a part of Key West that had survived progress and gentrification, at least for the time being. He wouldn’t have been surprised to see a peg-legged pirate behind the long zinc-topped counter.
Instead it was a wiry, white-haired man who looked to be in his seventies, perched on a stool near an old-fashioned brass cash register the size of a safe. The man glanced up from a book propped on the counter in front of him, peering at Deal over a pair of rimless reading glasses.
“What can I do for you, gentlemen?” he asked in an accent that seemed an odd mixture of old-South and Castilian Spanish.
“I’m a friend of Balart’s,” Deal said.
The man’s glance registered Deal’s battered appearance, then traveled toward the front of the shop and out the window to the idling limo. After a moment he gave a nod of recognition. He was smiling when he turned back to Deal.
“Balart is a good man,” he said. “We were in prison together, did he tell you?” The little man made the comment as casually as if he’d said, “We went to grammar school together.”
Deal shook his head, glancing at Russell. “He didn’t mention that.”
“Oh yes,” the man said, walking behind the counter toward them. “Castro’s prison. Both of us.” Now that he’d come closer, Deal could see that he might have overestimated the man’s age. His fine features were creased, his hair gone white, but his eyes were alert and dancing behind the reading glasses.
“I am Gonzalo,” the man said, extending a talonlike hand. “Gonzalo Fausto.”
“John Deal,” he said, feeling surprising strength in the man’s grip.
“All that was long ago,” Fausto added. He glanced out the windows of his shop again, then turned back. “Now what can I get you? I have an excellent rum just arrived from Haiti—”
“You sell wine,” Deal cut in.
“Oh yes,” the man said. “Indeed I do.”
“Good wines, I understand.”
“I have a truly outstanding Pinot Noir from Oregon,” Gonzalo Fausto said, moving toward a bin behind the counter. “Domain Drouhin—”
“I really came here to ask for your help, Mr. Fausto,” Deal cut in.
The old man turned, a look of uncertainty on his face. He had another look at the scratches tracing Deal’s arms, then glanced toward the front of the shop again, as if to make sure it was Balart and his limo parked outside.
“What kind of help are you looking for?” he asked.
“I saw a wine label a couple of days ago,” Deal said. “An old one. I thought maybe if I described it to you, you could give me some information.”
The old man thought about it a moment. “It is possible,” he said. “Depending on what you can tell me.”
Deal nodded. He’d been trying to reconjure the image of the label he’d seen from the moment they’d left the Pier House. “It was French,” he said. “And very old. Nineteen twenty-nine, I think.”
The old man pursed his lips and nodded. “One of the finest vintages of all time,” he said. “Would this have been a red wine or a white?”
Deal shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“What about the name of the winery?”
Deal gave him a bleak look. “Château something or other,” he said. “It didn’t register at the time.” He glanced toward the bins where wines were stored. “I was hoping you might have some bottles I could look at, maybe it’d jog my memory.”
The old man gave him a tolerant smile. “This is only a humble shop,” he said. “For what you are looking for, you would have to go to Miami, perhaps New York or London.”
Deal stared at him. “London?”
The old man shrugged. “A bottle from that vintage is rarely seen outside the auction houses and the most prestigious shops. And if the wine you are talking about was one of the four first growths—”
“Bear with me, Mr. Fausto,” Deal said, holding up a hand. “Until recently, I was unscrewing the tops on the wine I bought.”
The old man gave him a tolerant smile. “It is simply a way of designating the best Bordeaux wines,” he said. “The system was devised in 1855. For more than a century, there were only four wineries which produced wines classified as ‘first growths,’ or the best of the best: Châteaux Margau, Lafite-Rothschild, Haut-Brion, and Latour. After 1959, the distinctions became more varied.” He paused. “But certain wineries can always be counted upon.”
Deal’s mind ticked over the names, but it was hopeless. He’d taken Spanish in school, and even that had been a stretch. As far as the French went,
oui
was a major accomplishment for him. “I don’t know,” Deal said. “It could have been one of those, I guess. Let’s say it was, in fact. What would a bottle like that be worth?”
The old man shrugged. “That would depend upon many things: the provenance of the wine, for one thing—”
“Mr. Fausto,” Deal interjected.
“Of course.” The old man gave him an apologetic glance. “The ability to trace the wine’s ownership,” he said. “To establish the conditions under which it was stored, which of course affects its viability—”
“A bottle of wine from 1929 would still be good?” Russell asked.
“A bottle of wine from
18
29 could still be good, assuming the cork had held up so that air could not enter, and that the bottle had been kept in a sufficiently cool place.”
“Let’s say everything was hunky-dory, Mr. Fausto. How much are we talking about?”
The old man thought for a moment. “It’s not my ordinary realm, of course, but I’ve seen bottles of that vintage offered for as much as fifteen thousand dollars.”
“You got to be kidding,” Russell said.
“Of course, the bottle from which your label came would be virtually worthless,” the old man said.
Deal stared at the old man for a moment. “Because you couldn’t prove what was in the bottle?”
“That would be part of it. Of course, the cork could be removed and checked. Ordinarily the name of the winery and the vintage would be stamped there.”
“Wouldn’t that ruin everything once it was open?”
“Not necessarily,” Fausto said. “Collectors quite often return rare bottles to the wineries to be recorked. But a bottle without its label attached”—he shook his head again—“that would almost be like owning a very rare stamp that had been torn in half. The value would be very difficult to ascertain.”
Deal took it in, then glanced at Russell, who rolled his eyes. “All this for a worthless bottle of wine?” the big man said with a sigh.
“Excuse me?” Gonzalo Fausto asked, looking confused.
“Nothing, Mr. Fausto,” Deal said, his mind already racing along. “You mentioned collectors. Is there anyone here in Key West who fits that category, persons who might own or be interested in wines like this?”
Fausto glanced out the window toward the waiting limo. “Well, there is Mr. Stone, of course. I have ordered some excellent wines for him. And there’s the occasional visitor…” The old man’s gaze drifted toward the ceiling, his thoughts seeming to wander.
Deal nodded, his thoughts racing along as Fausto searched his memory bank. Given his growing suspicions, he could hardly go ask Stone for a look at his wine cellar. Maybe he could run an ad in the
Key West Citizen
, “Yo, all you wine aficionados out there…”
Deal shook the notion away and turned back to the shop owner. “I don’t suppose you have a book or something I could look in?”
Fausto shook his head. “There would be a number in the library, I’m sure. You could try on Monday.”
Deal was nodding glumly, wondering what the possibilities of breaking into a public library might be, when suddenly a thought occurred to him. “Mr. Fausto, you’ve been very helpful. Do you have a telephone I could use?”
“Of course,” the old man said, turning to point toward an old-fashioned model with a dial on its face hanging on the wall behind the cash register. He moved to unlatch the gate that led behind the counter, and Deal followed on his heels, wondering just how long it had been since he had actually
dialed
a phone.
