Raw Deal (21 page)

Deal nodded. It made sense, but still left him unsatisfied. Maybe that was the problem, trying to apply logic when the whole thing made no sense. Look where he was now, riding through the streets of Miami, the prisoner of some voodoo warlord. How did that stack up on the rationality index?

The van took a sudden turn, then slowed, jouncing over a set of speed bumps. Deal heard what sounded like a boat horn as the van pulled to a stop. They sat there in silence for a moment, listening to the muffler creak beneath them, then the sliding door flew open.

The priest nodded to the big men across from him, who urged Driscoll out. The priest withdrew a tiny handheld phone from a recessed compartment, punched in a number. The man beside Deal motioned impatiently for him to follow Driscoll. Deal stepped out of the van, blinking, sensing the soft warmth of water nearby, smelling it even before his eyes adjusted to the darkness.

Everyone stood quietly outside, waiting as the priest held a muffled conversation inside the van. They had parked inside a storage compound a few blocks up the Miami River. A half-mile away, the glittering bank and hotel buildings towered, their floodlights chewing up wattage Las Vegas-style.

The reflected glow of the big buildings outlined the ship that was docked alongside them, a rusty hulk of a freighter that looked incapable of navigating this barge canal, much less the high seas. The deck was jammed with bicycles, hundreds upon hundreds of them, stacked haphazardly under tarpaulins. The ship was a typical Caribbean shuttle: it’d be off before dawn, bound for the islands, there to drop off the bikes, the electronics gear sure to be swelling the hold, for pennies on the dollar. Ten days from now it would be back, offloading fruit, rum, a few woven goods and craft items, and the most lucrative cargo: a sizable number of fare-paying stowaways desperate to reach the streets of gold.

Deal glanced back at the glittering towers. Their lights would be visible for miles out to sea, he knew, well past the surging Gulf Stream, a kind of tropical stand-in for the Statue of Liberty, and every bit as enticing to a load of rafters from Haiti or Cuba. He found his mind drifting to the things Driscoll had told him. How could anyone be so cynical as to trade upon the hopes of such people for the sake of money? How could people who’d lost everything to tyrants turn murderous and tyrannical themselves? Naive, perhaps, but it still confounded him, infuriated him.

“That boat’s got so much hot shit in it, it glows,” Driscoll said, breaking the silence.

The priest was unfolding himself down from the van as Driscoll spoke. “Property is a relative concept,” he said.

“Only when what you’re talking about doesn’t belong to you,” Driscoll said.

The priest stopped, considering Driscoll’s logic for a moment. “They are ready for us,” he said by way of answer, and led them toward the ship.

The gangway shuddered under their weight, as if it might pitch them into the oil-slicked waters between the ship and the docks at any second. A man who dwarfed the two guarding Driscoll stood at the rail, watching them climb. He held what looked like an AK-47 in one hand as if it were a pistol. When the priest joined them on deck, the huge man nodded and directed them amidships with a wave of his weapon.

Deal was considering the possibilities as he followed Driscoll’s heavy footsteps down the peeling decks. He reasoned that if the men had intended to kill them, they wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of bringing them there. On the other hand, maybe they would be taking a short cruise out to open waters, he and Driscoll would be converted to chum where it was more convenient.

They came to an open bulkhead then, and one of the big men stayed back to guide them through the passage. Driscoll moved on inside. When Deal hesitated, the guy behind gave him a shove.

Deal stumbled into the passageway, saw light flooding from an open cabin a few feet away. Two women were in there, staring impassively at Driscoll, who had already stepped inside the room. Deal heard the bulkhead door slam shut behind him. He hesitated for a moment, then went to join Driscoll.

Chapter 31

It was a modest cabin, with two fold-down bunks and a doorless recess you might call a closet. A narrow bulkhead gave on to a john the size of a phone booth, with a shower that would soak everything when you used it. Ms. Marquez was wearing street clothes, the bandages on her hands disappearing up under a loose-fitting long-sleeved blouse, a turban-styled scarf about her head. She was lying back against some pillows on one of the bunks. Margaria sat by her side.

Driscoll surveyed the room, gave a backward glance at the big man who remained at the doorway. “You should have told me you wanted to take a cruise,” he said. “I know better ships.” Margaria turned her gaze to Deal, contemptuous.

“This is John Deal,” Driscoll continued. “The man I was telling you about.”

Deal saw Ms. Marquez’s eyes flicker, as if she’d felt a jolt of pain. Margaria took her hand, soothed her cheek softly with her hand. “You have no business here,” Margaria said. She didn’t bother to look at them this time.

Ms. Marquez put her fingertips on Margaria’s lips to silence her. “I am sorry, Mr. Deal,” she said weakly. “For what has happened to you and your family.”

Deal nodded. “I’m sorry for you, too,” he said, meeting her gaze. She was a beautiful woman. Or had been, at least. He found his thoughts drifting back to Janice, her bandages, her blistered skin…had to will himself to stop.

“You had a lovely place. Some wonderful paintings,” he said sadly. “My wife and I enjoyed it very much.”

She nodded, sinking back into her pillows as if the memory of it exhausted her.

“I guess they told you someone killed Alberto Valles, Ms. Marquez,” Driscoll cut in. “They wrapped him up in copper wiring, plugged him into a two-twenty socket. He was still smoking when we found him.”

Ms. Marquez’s face had turned a shade paler. She shook her head weakly against her pillow. “Animals,” she said, her voice faint. Even Margaria seemed shaken by Driscoll’s words. In the silence, Deal heard the distant sound of a powerboat on the river, the muffled sounds of men talking out on deck.

“Whoever it was had torn Valles’s place apart, ransacked his files,” Driscoll continued. “The police’ll go through everything, but it looked like a pretty thorough job to me. I expect they got everything they were after.”

“They always do,” she said.

“Pardon me?” Driscoll said.

Ms. Marquez was staring at the ceiling, forlorn. “They are ruthless, Mr. Driscoll. They take what they want. They take and they take and they take. And they let no one stop them.”

She struggled up on one elbow. “Now what do you want from me?” She stared at them wild-eyed from her bed, ignoring Margaria’s comforting hands at her shoulders. In a moment, Deal thought, the voodoo brigade would come through the door, put an end to this.

Driscoll gave his imperturbable shrug. “I thought maybe you’d have something stashed away. A copy of the manuscript, some of the files. Anything that might substantiate the charges…”

Ms. Marquez’s eyes were on Deal now. Her face was haunted, as if Deal and Driscoll were demons come to rob her of her last shred of repose. “I have told you. Efrain Valles was very protective. He left nothing with me. He was to deliver the completed manuscript the day that he was killed. So far as I know, there was only one copy.”

“I checked with the boys downtown,” Driscoll said. “They never found a trace of any manuscript after the blast.”

“It was written on paper,” she said. “Not stone tablets. The explosion took place in the editorial offices. You told me that yourself.”

Driscoll nodded as if she was reminding him of the obvious. “What do you know about this Rafael Quintana, your editor?”

She stared back at him, spots of color coming into her cheeks. “What about him?”

“How long did he work for you?”

“Not long,” she said finally. “A few months.”

“Where did you find him?”

She turned away from Driscoll’s gaze. “A friend in New York recommended him. She knew I was looking for someone to help expand my publishing activities and she knew Rafael. He was a junior editor in a small firm in New York City. He was quite anxious to come back to Miami, quite enthused about our goals.” She glanced up at Driscoll, her face pained. “I wanted to provide a forum for other voices in the exile community, Mr. Driscoll. Rafael understood that. He was excited at the possibility. He actually went out searching for authors who had important things to say, manuscripts of value.…” As she spoke, her gaze clouded, until, as if she’d heard the suggestion in her own words, she finally trailed off.

“Were you involved with Quintana, Ms. Marquez?” Driscoll asked the question softly, but she seemed to expect it.

“What relevance would that have?” she said. She seemed very tired.

“Maybe none,” Driscoll said. “Except if you were, you might not have noticed certain things.”

“What sorts of things?” she asked. She was staring off somewhere far away, her voice faint.

“Did this person who recommended him tell you what kinds of books Rafael Quintana used to publish in New York, Ms. Marquez?”

She shook her head, numb. Driscoll reached into his pocket. Deal saw the guard at the door tense, then relax as Driscoll withdrew his little pad and began to flip through the pages. He found what he was looking for, glanced up at Deal, then began to read.

“
El Problema de las Razas de Cuba
,” he managed. He screwed up his face. “
Cuidado la
…” He broke off. “The hell with it,” he said. “Bottom line is it’s all racist, fascist stuff, things that would make the Ku Klux Klan Press seem liberal. In New York, Rafael Quintana worked for an outfit committed to the spread of right-wing propaganda. Its whole operation was funded by the Patriots’ Freedom Foundation.”

“How do you know these things?” Ms. Marquez asked dully.

“I’m a suspicious person by nature,” Driscoll said. “I look at a situation, I try to imagine the worst about everybody.” He shrugged. “After that, it’s simple. You just get on the phone, ask a bunch of questions.”

“What are you getting at, Vernon?” Deal asked.

“Rafael Quintana was a plant in Ms. Marquez’s operation, that much seems certain…”

“You think he would sacrifice his life for those madmen, just to stop the publication of a book?” Ms. Marquez broke in.

“Maybe he didn’t.” Driscoll shrugged. “They still haven’t found his body.”

She stared at him for a moment, absorbing the implication. Finally she gathered herself.

“In any case,” she said, “it is over. The manuscript is destroyed, Alberto’s records are gone.…” She shook her head, weary.

“If we could prove a link between Quintana and the bombing,” Driscoll offered, “link Quintana to Torreno…” He shrugged. “You’d make a pretty credible witness.…”

Ms. Marquez gave a dry laugh that sounded more like a cry of pain. “My word against that of Vicente Torreno? And that is assuming I would live long enough to testify. Spare me, Mr. Driscoll.”

“Sure,” Driscoll said. “I can understand. You’re ready to go off on vacation, who wants to get tangled up in some messy trial.” He glanced around the stark cabin. “You got yourself a first-class stateroom, a nonstop ticket to Haiti—jeez, you’re the first people to willingly go to Haiti in years. They’ll probably give you the key to the island…”

“Leave her alone, Driscoll,” Deal broke in. “She’s right. They’d eat her alive.”

“Stay out of this,” Driscoll said.

“Find some other way to do it, Vernon. You want the guy that bad, find another way.”

Margaria had gotten Ms. Marquez back on her pillows, was smoothing her hair from her sweat-dampened brow. The guard was watching the confrontation between Driscoll and Deal with something resembling a smile. He could watch them fight, then finish off whoever was left.

Driscoll turned back to Ms. Marquez. “How about the man who was mentioned in Valles’s manuscript?” Driscoll said. “The man from our government who knew what Torreno was up to. Do you know his name, where we might look for him?”

Ms. Marquez gave him a forlorn look. “He is dead,” she said, giving them a bitter smile. “I too wanted to speak to this man, to hear it from his mouth. I insisted to Efrain Valles that I speak to him, but he told me he was dead, shot on a Cuban beach during one of the ‘raids’ Torreno manufactured.”

“Why didn’t you tell me all this before?”

She shook her head, helpless. “I thought it would sound too convenient. That it might make you doubt me.”

Driscoll shook his head. “What was this man’s name?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Efrain would not tell me,” she said, falling back on her pillows. “He wanted to protect him.” She gave her bitter laugh, and turned her face to the wall.

“Now, please,” she said. “I am very tired. You must leave me alone.”

The big guy turned and motioned them out. Deal heard footsteps on the decks. Driscoll was making a note on his little pad as the big guy shoved him on through the bulkhead. Something they’d be able to check out in the afterlife, Deal supposed. He gave Ms. Marquez a last glance, then felt a thick hand on his arm propelling him out into the humid darkness.

He stumbled back down the decks, something hard and unyielding prodding him in the back all the way to the gangway, where the same enormous man stood with his AK-47 in his paw.

“Down,” one of the big men behind him said, pointing toward the docks below. Deal followed Driscoll down the swaying gangway, steadying himself along the rope handhold. When they reached the parking area, Deal saw that the priest’s van had disappeared. In its place was Driscoll’s white Ford, the paint glowing softly in the reflection of the Miami skyline.

“Go,” said the big man behind them. And Deal and Driscoll went.

Chapter 32

“You never thought they were going to hurt us, did you?”

It was Driscoll’s voice, filtering back to him through the underbrush. It was still dark, and Deal struggled to keep Driscoll’s jiggling flashlight beam in view. They were on a wild stretch of property behind the ruins of the bombed-out museum, although Driscoll had refused to tell him what they were doing there.

“I suppose you didn’t?” Deal called to him.

“I’m suspicious,” Driscoll called. “Not paranoid.”

He had stopped, and Deal fought his way through the clutch of a Brazilian pepper bush into a clearing where Driscoll stood.

Deal stopped short, surprised by the unexpected view. They were on a rare elevated stretch of ground that overlooked Biscayne Bay. To the north, the same brightly lit buildings they had viewed from the banks of the Miami River were visible, now jutting up over the fringe of mangrove and banyans to mirror themselves on the placid backwaters of the Atlantic.

To the south he saw the graceful arch of the causeway looping out from the mainland to Key Biscayne. One car made its way up the span as he watched, silent at this distance. Its lights coned steadily through the darkness and then disappeared abruptly at the crest of the bridge, as if it had driven off the edge of the world. A million-dollar view, he thought, forgetting himself for a moment.

From where they stood, it was a dozen paces down an embankment to the water, which lapped gently at the shoreline. Driscoll guided his flashlight beam in that direction. There was a foot-thick band of seaweed at the verge, studded with chunks of Styrofoam and plastic jugs, a few pilings, and what was left of a dock that listed half-in, half-out of the water.

“Lookit that,” Driscoll said, guiding the beam over a tumbledown boathouse that ran back from the dock onto the shore. The rear of the building was bunkered into the embankment where they stood, its roofline ending just about level with the ground beneath their feet. “Come on,” Driscoll said. “I’ll show you something.”

He took Deal’s arm, guiding him down the incline to the boathouse entrance. The outer door to the place was long gone. Inside, a pair of rusty davits listed like skeletal arms waiting for a phantom ship. A dank mustiness emanated from the open doorway. The walls were streaked with mildew, prodigious sheets of it, fed by the constant heat and humidity. Every board of the place, Deal thought, doing its best to succumb to the call of the tropics, transform quickly back to mulch.

Driscoll directed his light against the rear wall inside. There was some kind of doorway there, covered by a rusty steel grating. Driscoll started forward and Deal took his arm.

“You’re not going in there, are you?” he said to Driscoll. “You’re not going to walk across that floor?”

Driscoll ran the light over the boards. The planks of the rotted dock where they stood continued on inside, becoming the floor deck of the boathouse. The whole structure looked ready to fold into the water.

“Why not?” Driscoll said to him. “I bet Rafael Quintana did.”

Deal stared at him.

“I ran into an old guy that does the groundskeeping for some of these places around here,” Driscoll continued. “He had some pretty interesting stories. You’d be surprised what’s come ashore right where we’re standing.”

Deal shook his head. “I’m tired, Driscoll. Show me what you wanted to show me and let’s go home.”

Driscoll nodded. “That’s what I was getting to. Come on.”

He stepped through the open doorway of the boathouse. As he took a second step, there was a mushy, snapping sound, like someone slapping a wet towel against concrete. Driscoll’s right leg plunged through one of the rotted floorboards, sending him down to one knee, his hands splayed, the flashlight skittering across the deck like something alive.

“Jesus Christ,” Driscoll muttered, struggling to get his leg free.

Deal stared at him, caught in the beam of the flashlight that had come to rest in a corner. In another context, it might have been funny. Now he found himself wishing the rest of the floor would give way, teach Driscoll a lesson.

“You gonna give me a hand?” Driscoll stared up at him, helpless.

“Only if you promise we can go home,” Deal said.

Driscoll glared up at him. Finally he nodded. Deal picked his way carefully along a row of nails that marked where a stringer would be running underneath the decking boards. He edged on across the musty room, bent to pick up the flashlight, then came back to Driscoll, ran the beam over his beet-red face.

“I wish I had a camera,” Deal said, hesitating.

“Kiss my ass,” Driscoll said.

Deal found himself laughing then. It started off as a child’s giggle, but when he tried to stifle it, it turned into gulps, then fully throated, bellyaching whoops that seemed to go on forever. Finally the laughter subsided to sighs, and he was able to breathe normally again. He wiped at the tears that leaked from his eyes. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed. His stomach ached and he felt drained, but he also felt better, as if some of the tension that had been eating him up these past weeks had finally found a vent.

“Sorry,” he said to Driscoll, who had endured it all in silence. “I couldn’t stop.”

“Just help me up,” Driscoll said impatiently.

Deal swung his other foot over to a parallel course of nails, braced himself, and bent down to take Driscoll’s meaty hand. He caught hold, felt the man’s bulk up the length of his arm.

“Go,” he called, giving it everything.

Driscoll heaved back. There was another great slapping sound and Deal felt the floor give way beneath his feet.

In the next instant, he was weightless. Then he was plunging into bath-warm water, his head going under, his nose and mouth filling, his feet shooting down into bottomless muck.

He was still holding on to Driscoll, he realized. He shook his hands loose and kicked wildly at the muck until he felt himself begin to lift free. They broke the surface together, sputtering, Driscoll thrashing about like a rhino trying to tread water.

Deal noticed the flashlight bobbing in front of him, still sending out its light into the silty water. He reached out and snatched it, aimed it up at the gaping hole in the decking above their heads. Driscoll was already moving toward the shore in an awkward breaststroke. After a moment Deal turned and followed after him.

They struggled up onto an outcrop of coral boulders that marked the edge of the breakwater and sat together, still sheltered by the listing dock, dripping water back into the bay. “Honest to Christ,” Driscoll said finally.

He stared at Deal, his hair plastered over his forehead, the picture of exasperation. Deal slung a reeking piece of seaweed from around his neck back into the water.

And then they both began to laugh, great honking, gasping bursts that echoed off the sides of the rotting building and out across the water, where the moon cut a long path of glittering light.

“Oh, shit,” Driscoll managed finally, getting himself under control. “What a night.”

He glanced at Deal, who nodded his agreement in return.

“Take me home, Vernon,” he said.

“If you insist,” Driscoll said. He put his hand down and was about to push himself up when he saw something and stopped. “What’s this?”

He reached his hand into a cleft between the boulders and withdrew a wrinkled sheet of paper. “Let me see that light,” he said.

Deal handed him the flashlight, watched as Driscoll scanned the paper. The ex-cop nodded, handed the sheet back to him, holding the light so that Deal could see.

The paper had turned a pale yellow, but the type was sharp and unmistakable. “
Master of Deceit
, by Efrain Enrique Valles,” Deal read aloud.

Deal turned to say something to Driscoll, but the ex-cop was already on his hands and knees, the flashlight in his teeth, pawing at the boulders beneath them like a man who’d just caught the glimmer of a vein of gold.

***

“Well, at least it proves what I figured was right,” Driscoll said. He’d spread the single sheet of manuscript on the seat of the Ford between them, nodded at it as they swung off Brickell and onto the northbound approach to I-95.

They had spent another hour or so combing the shoreline and mangrove outcroppings near the boathouse, to no avail. Driscoll had even persuaded Deal to tiptoe back across the floor of the boathouse and venture into the passageway that, as Driscoll had learned, had been hacked through the coral back toward the house. Deal had felt the ghosts of countless pirates, rumrunners, and dope smugglers crowding in on him as he inched up the airless passage. He was not disappointed to find the whole thing blocked by a slide the blast had likely caused a dozen feet inside.

He was leaning back in the seat of the Ford, groggy with exhaustion, listening to Driscoll’s continuing monologue: “So I figure this Rafael Quintana had to have been hotfooting it down the passageway toward the boat he’s got docked there, he isn’t going to miss one little page when the bomb goes off and lights a rocket in his ass.”

Deal glanced over at him. “So you have a title page to some book. Congratulations.”

“You get a map of that coastline,” Driscoll said, unfazed. “Draw yourself a line from that piece-of-shit boathouse straight south, you’ll come to Vicente Torreno’s waterfront estate. That’s where the rest of that book is.”

“So we’ll just go knock on the door, see if we can borrow it, right?”

Driscoll gave him a dark look but said nothing.

Deal fell back in his seat, weary, his thoughts a jumble. What if Torreno
had
blown up the Marquez estate to destroy the manuscript or cover its disappearance? They still couldn’t prove it. And nothing they had heard or seen suggested any link to the fire at his fourplex. Driscoll was mistaken about that, at least. He had to be.

Deal glanced out the window, felt a start. In his daze, he hadn’t paid much attention to Driscoll’s driving. Now, he realized, they were heading away from the Grove, away from the little gardener’s shack and the swaybacked bed he so desperately craved.

“Where are you going, Vernon? I’ve had enough for one night.”

Driscoll shook his head. “I figure you can come on back, spend what’s left of the night with me, pardner.” He looked over as they dropped back down off the expressway onto Flagler Street, heading west toward the fourplex. He’d pushed his grading hair straight back from his forehead where it had dried in an irregular pompadour. There was a big scratch on one cheek and a smear of mud on the other. Deal wondered momentarily what
he
must look like.

“I don’t think it’s such a good idea, you sleeping all by your lonesome out in the middle of that jungle.”

Deal struggled up in his seat. “Goddammit, Driscoll. I have to be at the hospital early tomorrow. They’re taking Janice in for a skin graft. I want to go home and get some sleep.…”

“We’re
going
to your home,” Driscoll insisted. “You built the goddamned place. And you put a nice foldout couch—Castro’s Convertible, wasn’t it—right there in my living room.”

“You don’t seem to get it, Vernon. This doesn’t have anything to
do
with me.”

But Driscoll was resolute, using his jaw to point them down the broad street through a series of traffic lights that were reduced to clicking yellow at this time of night. “Maybe you’re right,” he said as he turned down the side street toward the fourplex. “But why don’t you just humor me a little while longer. I’d feel a whole lot better if you just bunked with me the next couple of days. Is that a whole lot to ask?”

Deal felt a headache mounting over his right eye. He wasn’t going to argue anymore. He was going to stay calm, wait until Driscoll stopped. He would simply call himself a taxi and…

“Well, kiss my ass,” Driscoll blurted, his eyes widening at something in front of them.

Deal turned, following his gaze. Impossible, yes, but there it was. A bulky Metro-Dade fire rescue van pulled up at the curb in front of the fourplex, its red and white flashers spinning wildly. He shook his head, sure he’d been sucked into a dream now, into some horrendous time loop.

It was all alive for him, instantaneously—running from the burning fourplex toward the rescue team at the curbside, Isabel clutched tightly in his arms, his eyes scanning the crowd desperately for any sign of Janice—the whole terrible night rushing before him in a series of images…

…and then they were sliding to a halt at the curb, Driscoll flinging the door open while the car was still moving, making a dash for his half of the fourplex. A technician was backing out of the hallway, guiding one end of a steel gurney toward the waiting van. There was another medic on the other end of the gurney and a third by their side, that one holding a bottle of fluid attached to the person on the stretcher.

“Isabel?” he cried as he ran toward them, the sound rising involuntarily from his throat. But it couldn’t be. It couldn’t. His limbs had gone heavy with dread. He felt as if he were trying to run through molten lead.

“Señor Deal! Señor Deal!” He heard Mrs. Suarez’s voice and spun about. He paused and stared, feeling relief sweep over him. Mrs. Suarez, her face drawn, tears streaking her cheeks, stood there at the curbside, Isabel gathered up in her arms.

“Dah,” Isabel called, her face radiant. “Dah!” She had her arms outstretched.

Deal ran toward them, pulled his daughter into his arms, smothering his face with the reality of her. “Oh, sweetie, oh, honey,” his voice thick with emotion. Finally he turned back to the old woman.

“What is it, Mrs. Suarez? What’s happened?” In her halting English, she explained how a neighbor had heard the shot and summoned her.

“Is terrible,” Mrs. Suarez said, sobbing freely now. She pointed at the approaching gurney, a handkerchief clutched in one of her gnarled hands. “Terrible. He shoot him
self
!” Her face twisted in anguish.

Deal turned, caught a glimpse of the form as the medics folded down the gurney wheels, slid it into the back of the van.

He caught his breath. The face swollen, slathered in blood, disfigured in the angled lights. But unmistakable.