Part 15 (1/2)

”Tell me exactly what they did ask you to do for them,” I said to Nash, who stepped away from his old partners and turned to face them. He looked once over at Brown before he spoke.

”They come out to the Rod and Gun askin' for a guide who knew the area. First said they was followin' some migratory bird, but I could tell they weren't no birders. Then when we got out of Chokoloskee this mornin', they kept secret, like checkin' some electronic thing in their bag. Tol' me it was a GPS but h.e.l.l, I use one them my own self and I knew it was some kinda tracker. Then they got nervous when we found you'd ditched your boat, Mr. Brown, and after that they didn't want to lose sight of y'all.

”And I didn't. Y'all almost slipped me through the Marquez, but I caught ya,” he said with a kid's overblown pride in his voice as he looked over shyly at Brown.

”How much they pay you, Billy?” I asked.

”Five hundred.”

”And whose name is on the expense account, Jim?” I said turning back to the other two without focusing on either one, so my use of the overheard name would put them off guard.

”f.u.c.k you, Freeman,” said the big one. ”You're just a hired P.I.- you know we don't give up the name of a client. Besides, nothing illegal has occurred out here unless you consider you pointing that piece at us is worth an aggravated a.s.sault charge that we could file against you.”

”All right then, boys. What's the name of your licensed agency and I'll be glad to get a hold of you at a later date after I get my equipment scanned and figure out where you planted your directional tracker. You two were the ones watching me have dinner the other night in Fort Lauderdale, yes?”

The other one moved to his left, as if he was starting to sit down on the poisonwood trunk, and I snapped, ”Hey!” and bobbled the tip of the gun to keep him on his feet. He was well out of his element. Beads of sweat had formed across his pate and the heat was flus.h.i.+ng his face a dull red. But his eyes were as black and hard as marbles when he stared back at me from under the bill of his cap. He reached back and put his right hand on the tree trunk and then turned back to me.

”Hey, f.u.c.k you, Freeman. And that hot little cop you're hosing on the side.” He was all New Jersey, the accent, the tough guy thing. But like a bad magician, the mouth was supposed to distract me. He made it look like he was sitting down, a motion that s.h.i.+elded his right hand, but I saw the crook in his elbow go high.

I'd like to say it was the disparagement of Richards that got me. I'd like to say I was thinking of Cyrus Mayes and his boys. I'd like to say I could control the bloom of violence that was spreading in my chest at the sound of another street a.s.shole somehow tied to the death of good men. But I couldn't. It was just a guess.

I shot him in the right thigh. The 9 mm jumped slightly. I had been aiming for the knee. Both of the guy's hands went to his leg, like he could cover the new hole there and make it go away. The other one's hand went to his vest and I had the warm muzzle of the Glock in his face before he could get through the unfamiliar zipper.

”No, no, no, Jim,” I said. ”Bad move, considering that you now know I don't give a s.h.i.+t about your rules, or your standing with the Better Business Bureau, or your lives at this point.” I'd used the name right, guessed which one it belonged to. I could see it in his eyes.

”Now, hands on your heads, boys, fingers laced together.”

I heard Brown move in the brush beside me. The Nash kid had been frozen again by the second gunshot of the afternoon. The big man put his hands on his head and I went in close and took a .38 from a shoulder holster under his vest. Then I stepped behind him and patted him down, found a cell phone and put it in my pocket. Satisfied, I moved the other one. He'd laced his bloodied fingers together on top of his hat. He was breathing short, whistling breaths through his mouth and his jaw was clenched up with the pain. He'd stumbled back against the tree trunk when I shot him and was now leaning with his good haunch against it. I found the 9 mm Beretta I'd guessed he was reaching for still clipped to his belt in the small of his back.

”All right, let's start with names,” I said, moving back in front them. Neither said anything.

”Jim?” I said, pointed the gun at his face again.

”c.u.mmings,” he said in a tone void of resignation.

”Jesus Jim, don't...,” said the other one through his teeth.

”It's only money, Rick. It isn't worth it,” c.u.mmings said.

”Yeah? Since when isn't money worth it to you?”

I switched my aim to Rick's face.

”He's a smart man, Rick. I could shoot the two of you just like you would me and leave you to rot out here in the middle of nowhere and n.o.body would know-forever and ever,” I said, not once considering the irony of what I was saying.

”Rick Derrer,” c.u.mmings said, and his partner scowled at him.

”Who hired you?”

Again silence, but this time it felt tighter.

”OK, then,” I said to Brown. ”Let's go.”

The old man was looking from me to them but did not hesitate to move back toward the way we'd come.

”Y'all are with us, Nash,” Brown ordered the young man, who'd been unsure of what ground he'd landed on, but knew to answer to a legend.

”Yes, sir, Mr. Brown,” he said, and moved with the Gladesman.

I held my Glock in my left hand and with my right heaved c.u.mming's .38 and then Derrer's Beretta out into separate parts of the wet hammock. Without a metal detector, neither was ever going to be found.

”Now, I figure big Jim there might make it the fifteen miles through the swamp to the trail. He looks fit enough. Probably did some hunting in his time. But your boy Rick here, he's in for a long trek with that leg. He makes it a mile and it'll be something,” I said.

”But f.u.c.k you, Freeman. That's what you both said, right? Ought to cap both of us, right?”

I turned and walked away and Brown and Nash walked with me. We were ten steps away when c.u.mmings spoke up. ”All right, Freeman. It was the PalmCo attorneys.”

I took a couple of steps back and waited.

”They hire us on occasion, when their regular loss-prevention guys can't handle the job. They're lawyers so they don't tell us it's for PalmCo, but we've done enough s.h.i.+t for them over the years, we know who pays the bills.”

Derrer had taken off his belt and vest and was strapping the Eddie Bauer ripstop cloth over his wound.

”What was the job?” I said.

”To tail you. Find out where you went, who you talked to. Typical stuff. The only twist was trying to follow you out here. Not exactly our neighborhood,” c.u.mmings said, raising his hands. The movement caused me to raise the Glock to his chest. He turned his palms out and continued.

”We figured you knew about something that PalmCo wanted. That's the usual story. When you picked up the old guy and started moving around in the Glades, we figured you had the location of some d.a.m.n oil deposit or something.

”We were supposed to map everywhere you went and record any spot where you spent much time. They said if you started digging anywhere, we were to contact them right away and record the location.”

He wasn't cowering. He wasn't spilling his guts. This was business for him, and he was playing out his hand with the goal of not being left in the swamp with little chance of getting himself and his partner out alive.

”What about the guns, the chopper, the cell intercepts and bugs on my truck?”

”Standard corporate security procedures,” c.u.mmings said. ”I saw your jacket, Freeman. You were a street cop for a long time. The corporates, they've got stuff we never dreamed of back then.”

My guess that he was former P.D. had been right.