Done Deal (5 page)

“There’s nothing after-market about the brake system,” Deal said evenly.

The service manager shook his head without looking at Deal. “These body shop guys,” he said, “they come over here from Coconutville, you don’t know what they screw up.”

“Look,” Deal said. “Nobody but you has touched those brakes. Ever.” Deal felt his breath going flaky, had to stop. There was a little pinging sensation at his temples.

“I nearly died out there on the freeway a few minutes ago.” The kid was still eyeing The Hog, shaking his head.

Deal stepped in front of him. “I want you to fix my brakes. I already paid you something like five hundred dollars and the brakes still don’t work. Do you understand me?”

The service manager glanced up at him. “You got an attitude, right?”

Deal looked around. The blond woman with the yellow convertible and the young service attendant were watching him warily. They’d already pegged him a maniac, a probable substance abuser. He wanted to deck this punk, wanted to plant him alongside the palms where you could see him anytime you came in, wave, ask “How you doin’, Carlos, miss the workouts at the gym?”

He forced himself into ultracalm, then turned back to the service manager. “This is my only transportation,” Deal said. “I’d like to get it fixed. You think you can help me?”

The manager studied him, looked back at the car, chewed on the inside of his cheek. Finally, he nodded. “Sure,” he said. “Step right over there. Lucy’ll get you written up.”

“Thanks,” Deal said, watching the service manager walk off.

“Not in there, you fuckheads,” he was bellowing at the lot boys, who had dragged the palm tree inside one of the service bays. “Out in the fucking Dumpster.”

Deal took a deep breath, smiled at the convertible lady, and went to get written up.

Chapter 3

Deal sat in a canvas chair under the Customer Accommodation awning, waiting for the scheduled limo service, idly flipping through the newspaper.

He glanced up at the service attendant who had been ignoring him ever since he’d been written up and the two lot boys had come to push The Hog into the service bays. The attendant was paging someone named “Homer” to the front.

Deal turned back to the newspaper. Yesterday’s edition, with another story on the baseball issue, this one front page, with a picture of the preliminary applicant group, a clutch of men in business suits and baseball caps, all holding bats. One, of course, was Thornton Penfield, their host from the night before. The story identified Penfield as a minor partner in the baseball group and quoted him on various concerns:

The $130 million price tag? “We’re lining up some
Fortune
500 backers.” The rainy summer weather? “We’ll put a dome on our stadium, if we have to.” And which stadium would that be: the city’s aging bowl or a pie-in-the-sky site, to be financed by a $100 million bond issue, straddling the county line, way north in the boondocks? “We’re committed to a downtown site—the bowl can be converted to baseball for less than $10 million.” But, in that case, what of the parking and access problems for the outmoded stadium? “These are details that can be worked out.”

Penfield sounded confident, but the writer wasn’t so sure. Other cities had deeper pockets, less rain, and bigger, newer venues already built. The expansion vote was coming up soon, and it was a contest for millions of dollars to be pumped into the lucky community’s economy. More like billions, when looked at in the long run. Don’t count on it, south Florida, but don’t give up hope. We’re talking Klondike.

Klondike, Deal thought, wearily. He tossed the paper down. If it
did
work out, maybe Penfield could get him season tickets. He heard a horn tap then and glanced toward the counter. The attendant was in earnest conversation in Spanish with someone on the telephone, something about a
puta
who was messing with her boyfriend. When she noticed Deal was staring at her, she lowered her voice and turned her back on him.

The horn sounded again. A LeBaron convertible had pulled up in the driveway, but from where he was sitting Deal couldn’t see anyone at the wheel. The service attendant turned to him and jabbed her pencil at the LeBaron. Deal stood up, puzzled.

Now he could see into the driver’s seat of the convertible. There was a small man behind the wheel, an old couch cushion wedged under him, another propped behind his back. He glanced up at Deal. “You waiting for a ride?” Deal nodded.

“Well, get in,” the man said and flung himself across the passenger seat to open the door.

***

“You’re Homer?” Deal asked, over the convertible’s rush of air. They were whisking up a ramp onto the Dolphin Expressway, headed west. The rain had held off, although there were towering thunder-heads building far out over the Everglades.

“That’s right,” Homer said. He glanced over at Deal. “You can relax. I never lost a passenger yet.”

Deal laughed. He’d been watching Homer’s feet, clad in rubber boots that reached nearly to his hips, dancing over the pedals. Homer’s arms and legs were tiny, child-size, his torso that of an adolescent’s; yet his head was of normal size, his voice husky. The effect was disorienting.

“I can move the seat back,” Homer added, waving at Deal’s knees that jutted up in front of the glovebox.

“That’s okay,” Deal said.

“You’re lucky I was on today,” Homer said. “You’d have had to wait another hour for the limo.”

“I appreciate it,” Deal said. “I have to meet a guy.”

“In Little Havana?” Homer asked. “What kind of business you in?”

“I’m a contractor,” Deal said. Homer raised his chin to acknowledge the remark, then stared in silence down the expressway.

Maybe it sounded too lofty. “I’m an independent. Just a little guy trying to make a living,” Deal added.

“Me too,” Homer said, mildly.

It took Deal a minute to get it. He felt his cheeks flush. “I didn’t mean anything,” he told Homer.

Homer waved it away. “I’m a dwarf. It ain’t exactly something you keep secret.” He glanced at Deal, grinning. “My old man was six two and weighed two thirty when he croaked.”

Deal nodded, uncertain.

“Don’t worry about me,” Homer said. “I’m just happy to get out of the soapsuds for a while. We’ll go to Naples, if you want to.”

“Little Havana is fine,” Deal said. After a moment he added, “That’s what you do normally, wash the cars?”

“Nothin’s normal at that outfit,” Homer said, his eyes on the road. “But yeah, that’s generally what I do.” A Porsche rushed past them in a whine, doing ninety maybe, maybe more.

“Some car,” Deal said. The Porsche had already disappeared, but you could still hear the engine somewhere up ahead.

“You got enough money, you do anything you want,” Homer said. They were over the river now, descending the same bridge where Deal had had his earlier adventure in driving. Across the dividers, Deal saw a crane lifting some of the debris. They’d had to close a lane for the work and the eastbound traffic was snarled.

“Look at that,” Homer said. “I’ll have to take the streets coming back.”

Deal nodded. “I would, if I were you.”

“This town’s got crazy,” Homer said.

“It’s the big city, all right.” Deal checked his watch. If he’d missed the inspector, he might be down another week.

“It’s more than that,” Homer said, guiding them toward their exit. He glanced in the rearview mirror, then swung onto the ramp. “What’s your company’s name, anyhow?”

When Deal told him, Homer turned in surprise. “DealCo,” he repeated. “Who are you shittin’. That’s the big time. They built the Grove Hotel, all that stuff along the bay.”

“Used to be,” Deal told him. “That was my old man. I’m the small time, now.”

Homer turned back to his driving. They were on Twenty-seventh Avenue, now, the lanes heavy with afternoon traffic. “So your old man was John Deal, huh?” Homer thought about it before he continued. “He used to come into the Carneses’ all the time.”

“He wouldn’t go anywhere else,” Deal said. The Carnes brothers were men of his father’s generation. They’d owned Surf Motors from the days when it was the only Seville dealership in south Florida. His father had always traded there, even after the Carneses had long since decamped from the show room to diversify their interests. Deal had serviced The Hog there solely out of habit.

“You’re the kid that played baseball,” Homer said.

Deal shook his head. Ten years, maybe, since anybody’d brought it up. Now, twice in the same day. “In high school,” he said grudgingly.

“Yeah?” Homer screwed up his face, trying to remember. “I thought you got a scholarship, something like that.”

Deal shrugged. “A couple years in college. That’s about it.”

Homer gave him a look. He was just trying to pass the time, wasn’t going to press it.

Deal could imagine his old man booming around the dealership the day he got the call, telling the Carneses and anybody else within earshot about it, “Yeah, the boy has him a full ride with the Seminoles. Next stop, Yankee Stadium.” And on and on. Easy for him to dream. He had never tried to hit a curve ball. Deal glanced at Homer. He wondered if they were going to talk about getting a team down here, now.

“Your old man threw some dice with the bosses now and then,” Homer said. Not bad, Deal thought. Set him up with a fast ball, then the change of pace. The little man glanced over to see how Deal was taking it. “I’d hold the money. Watch the door, in case somebody got a stupid idea.”

Deal nodded. He’d tried to forget about that too. He had a fair suspicion how much of DealCo had skittered away on the craps table.

“So what’s your old man doing?”

“He’s dead,” Deal said. And probably throwing dice with the devil, he thought.

Homer stared at him, then had to swerve around a step-van clogging the middle lane. “Fuckhead,” Homer grumbled. He shot a bird in the rearview mirror.

“Sorry to hear about that,” he said, easing back into the center lane. “I won’t ask you what happened to
your
business,” he said, finally. “I been at Surf thirty years. I saw how the Carneses got screwed.” He made a thoughtful hissing sound between his teeth. “Ain’t the same with them gone.”

Deal turned to him, surprised. “The Carneses sold out?” he asked.

Homer pulled to a stop at a light. He thought for a moment before answering. Finally he turned to Deal. “You seem like a good guy, but I don’t know you. I say something, you might be having a drink someday, tell a guy, ‘Hey, guess what this midget works down at Surf told me.’” The light changed and Homer hit the accelerator, leaving some of the LeBaron’s tires behind them. “Let’s just say the Carneses got tired of the car bidness, okay?”

“Sure,” Deal said. “It’s okay. I was just surprised, that’s all.”

“Things change,” Homer said.

“I’m a little tired of change,” Deal said.

Homer laughed mirthlessly. “You’re in a shitload of trouble then.”

Deal nodded. “I always have been.”

Homer said nothing until they’d stopped at another light on down LeJeune. A slender, black-haired woman in Lycra tights and a tube top strode across the intersection in front of them, carrying a Coke from a take-out joint. Homer tapped the horn and the woman turned, a withering look on her face. When she saw Homer, the look softened. She smiled and added a little extra switch to her walk as she mounted the curb.

“That’s another thing might surprise you,” Homer said, as they drove off.

“What’s that?” Deal asked, mildly.

“The women we get. They hear all the stories, you know. They want to find out if it’s true.”

“If what’s true?”

Homer patted his crotch. “Nobody’s ever complained, either,” he said. He laughed, swung off the boulevard in a swooshing turn, pointed down the street in front of them. “That the guy you wanted to meet?”

Homer guided them to a stop in front of the unfinished fourplex. A florid-faced man in a panama hat was just getting into a beige sedan with a city seal emblazoned on the side. The man stopped when he saw Deal.

“That’s him,” Deal said, scrambling out. He reached into his pocket for his money clip, but Homer raised a hand to stop him.

“Forget it,” he said. “You got me out of the soapsuds, remember.”

“Take it anyway,” Deal said, holding out a five.

“Can’t do it,” Homer said, pulling off. “Good luck with your guy,” he added. “You hit the big time again, maybe you’ll have a job for me.”

Deal nodded, but Homer was already gone. He turned and hurried after the inspector.

***

The inspector’s name was Faye. He mopped his glowing face and pointed down into the hole where the sewer and gas lines were capped off, ready to be joined to the main. “Who told you that gas line would work?” he said, his voice wheezy. His breath was rapid and shallow, as if the twenty-foot walk from his car had exhausted him.

Deal followed his gaze. “What’s wrong with it?” he asked.

Faye shook his head. “That’s a half-inch line. Code calls for inch. One inch galvanized from the main to the meter.”

“Bullshit,” Deal said. “This is a fourplex. You’re talking about a high-rise.”

Faye shrugged. “The original permit called for twenty units.”

“I changed that,” Deal said. “Months ago.”

“Only paperwork I seen says twenty units.” Faye was wiping the back of his neck with his soggy handkerchief.

“Well, look at the goddamn building. You can see it’s a fourplex.”

Faye gave him a neutral stare. “I can see, Mr. Deal. I can see just fine. You get your ass in a crack, can’t float the loan for what you wanted to build, it’s okay by me. But I’m a duly appointed official of this city. I got to go by the book.” He thumped a thick pad in his shirt pocket. “Until I see paperwork that tells me different, you’re going to need a one-inch line down there.” Faye hawked, then spat into the hole. “Galvanized,” he added, swiping at his chin.

Deal pondered it. He could tell Faye to take a flying fuck at the moon, which would mean the end of his hopes of meeting deadline. He could spend the next day down at City-County which might or might not do him any good. Even if he found someone cooperative, it’d be a week or more getting any paperwork out to Faye. He sighed and reached into his pocket.

Faye palmed the bill, checked to be sure the right picture was on it, and nodded back at the hole. “I’d just cut her back two, three feet, weld a joint, step her up to an inch.”

“Why don’t I just have you do it?” Deal asked.

Faye narrowed his porcine eyes. “I’m just tryin’ to be helpful.”

“Great,” Deal said. “Be sure and warn me when you’re going to be a pain in the ass.”

Faye waved his hand airily as he walked toward his car. “Glad to see you’re still in there pitchin’, Deal. Be a shame to turn the whole damned construction business over to the His-pan-yoles.”

Deal watched him back up over the broken curb and crunch into the scrap pile, then pull out. If there was any justice, he’d just picked up a nail in his tire. It wasn’t until Faye was out of sight that Deal remembered he’d meant to ask for a ride back to the dealership.