Part 16 (2/2)
”Come with us, please.”
”Where?” It seemed a reasonable question.
Odd Job said, ”Move,” and gave me a shove. I turned and looked for my 9mm inside the Bonneville's open trunk. It was there, no more than a foot from the b.u.mper where I could easily grab it as I walked by and, if I were really lucky, click off the safety, chamber a round, and shoot one of these guys before the other two pumped me full of little pieces of metal. And, at that moment, standing in the shadows behind a shrimper's shack at midnight with a twenty-thousand-dollar bounty on my head, it didn't seem like a particularly bad idea. Fortunately, Julie saw me look. She stepped forward into pale yellow light from inside the trunk, picked up the Browning, and fixed me with a look of such hatred that I thought she was going to shoot me herself. Instead, she turned and handed my gun to one of her escorts. Odd Job b.u.mped me on the head again and repeated, ”Move.”
”Mind if I get a s.h.i.+rt?”
He pushed me aside, rummaged in my duffel while keeping his narrow black eyes trained on my face, and handed me a sweats.h.i.+rt. More precisely, he shoved the wadded s.h.i.+rt against my chest with enough aggression to leave no doubt that he enjoyed his work, and, as he manhandled me, Odd Job repeated his last instruction. ”Move.”
I wanted to stick a fist in one of his nasty little porcine eyesa”eyes that looked like someone had slit his dark meaty face with a razor to reveal onyx marblesa”but the man had a gun and he outweighed me by a hundred pounds, so what I did was move.
The two suits led the way. Julie followed them. I followed her, and Odd Job brought up the rear. We circled Teeter's Seafood, mounted the porch, and walked in through the front room where, during the daytime, customers bought shrimp and fish and frozen crab cakes so good they ”taste like something that came off a menu at a restaurant.” We walked through a doorway into a back room that looked like an old, single guy's idea of a den. A wood-burning stove squatted in the back right corner beneath a crooked length of stovepipe that angled out through the rough paneled wall. The front right corner held an abused television in a stained and chipped wooden cabinet. Opposite the stove and the television, antlered deer heads, plaster-filled fish with lacquered scales, and worn fis.h.i.+ng tackle hung from the walls. Below the trophies and spinning rods, a collection of upholstered chairs and sofas waited in varying states of distress.
As we entered, a dark, slender man in a two-thousand-dollar suit rose effortlessly out of an orange Naugahyde chair and stepped forward.
”You are Thomas McInnes?”
I was a little overwhelmed and more than a little afraid, and I didn't answer right away. Odd Job took offense and tapped me once again on the crown with the barrel of his automatic. I found my voice, ”You want to talk to me, tell Odd Job to quit hitting me on the head.”
The dark man held up his palm at Odd Job, and, with the quiet authority of someone who was used to being obeyed, he said, ”Please.” Then he nodded at the door and my head tapper walked out, turning sideways to navigate the opening. The dark man turned back to look into my eyes. ”I apologize, seor. Please sit down.” He motioned at a used-up La-Z-Boy upholstered in mustard hopsack and punctuated with exposed tufts of almost matching foam rubber.
I sat. One of the suits, the one who had spoken, moved to the far wall and watched. He held what appeared to be an UZI in one hand. At least, it looked like what I imagined an UZI would probably look like. The second suit left the room, I a.s.sumed to help Odd Job secure the perimeter or some such thing.
The dark man was attired with the formality expected of a business executive in Europe or Latin America. Thick black hair swept back from a narrow forehead and would have curled if he had been the sort of man to allow such lack of control.
He said, ”Are you comfortable?”
”No.”
He smiled. ”No, seor. Yours is not a comfortable situation.” He sat back and studied me. ”You like cigars?”
”Sure.”
He reached inside his coat and produced a black alligator cigar case. As he opened it, he said, ”Would you like one?”
”No.”
He didn't appear surprised or offended. He pulled a huge, unwrapped cigar from the case, glanced at the foot, which had already been cut, and put it in his mouth. The UZI guy walked forward, reaching into his pocket with the obvious intention of lighting the cigar. The dark man held up his palm, just as he had earlier, and the UZI guy stopped and returned to his corner.
I said, ”Got 'em trained with hand signals.”
”Seor?”
”Nothing.”
He lit his cigar with a match, and he took a while doing it. When he had it going, he said, ”My name is Carlos Sanchez.”
”Nice to meet you. I'm John Smith.”
Once again, he smiled. ”Yes. I see what you mean. But it is something to call me. We have business to discuss.”
A.k.a. Carlos Sanchez smoked his Havana the way only Central and South Americans smoke them, drawing the thick, pungent smoke deep into his lungs and then letting it out through his mouth and nostrils. He said, ”You are an intelligent man. Or, more precisely, you are 'smart.' That is the word we hear about you. ”Tom McInnes is smart.'”
”I feel so good about myself now.”
”Seor?”
”What do you want?”
”We want you to leave Leroy Purcell and his group alone.”
I said, ”What?” and he started to repeat. ”No, I hear you. I just don't believe what I hear. Your buddy, Leroy Purcell, has taken out a twenty-thousand-dollar contract on my life. He's trying to kill a young girl who's a client of mine, and, I'm not certain, but he's probably got a contract out on another woman who's a better person than you and me put together.”
Sanchez simply said, ”Susan Fitzsimmons.”
I looked at him.
”And Carli Poultrez. Daughter of Russell Poultrez of Gloucester, Ma.s.sachusetts.”
I kept looking at him and thought some more before I spoke. ”Are you offering an end to this? Can you guarantee the safety of Susan and Carli if we agree to walk away from Purcell and his people?”
”I can try to arrange these things. I cannot guarantee. Seor Purcell is an unpredictable and dangerous man. But I believe I can arrange for your safety and that of Seora Fitzsimmons.”
”And Carli?”
Sanchez shook his head.
”Are you saying Carli's not part of the deal?”
”I'm afraid she is not. That part has gone too far. But I can arrange...”
I interrupted. ”Who are you? I've been sitting here talking with you, basically humoring you, because there's a guy with a gun over there. But it looks like you know everything about me and my clients and ... Who the h.e.l.l are you?”
Sanchez rolled his cigar between a manicured thumb and a set of fragile-looking, tanned fingers, then raised the moist foot of the Churchill to his lips and turned the ash red as he pulled smoke into his lungs. He was thinking. Considering. He reached inside his tailored coat, once again pulled out the alligator case, removed the cap, and held out the cigars. ”Please.”
This time I took onea”maybe I needed a prop tooa”and he lit it for me with a wide, flat match.
As he replaced the case in his inside pocket, Sanchez said, ”I work with a group of Cuban patriots who are pursuing a number of goals. None of which are in any way contrary to the interests of the United States. Please understand that. It is most important. We have great respect for the United States and wish to see many, if not all, of its ideals emulated in a free and democratic Cuba.” He stopped to smoke and look at the UZI guy. Some unspoken communication pa.s.sed between them. He went on. ”You, Seor McInnes, and your two clients have become involved, through no fault of your own, with something that could become quite ... unmanageable.”
He paused to give me a chance to comment on that. I didn't.
He said, ”I am told that either Susan Fitzsimmons or Carli Poultrez witnessed a murder last Wednesday night on St. George Island. Is that correct?” I looked at him some more. Sanchez said, ”We have a problem. Your clients are in danger because of what one or both of them saw, and, of course, because they want to go to the police and see justice done. Unfortunately, I cannot allow them to take that action.”
”You can't allow that, huh?”
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