Black Jack Point (7 page)

‘You’re very prolific’ Whit nodded toward the calmer paintings on the wall. It was the only compliment he could think of.

‘I get bored working on a painting too long, so I paint quickly. But they sell quickly, too.’ An offhand shrug.

‘They’re very interesting.’

Interesting
apparently didn’t cut it; she frowned. She sat on a paint-splattered stool and he settled on its twin across from her.

‘You’re probably wondering why I don’t paint the bay, with a wonderful view.’ Suzanne crossed her legs, dangled a black sandal
off one alabaster foot.

‘No. But you want to tell me.’

She gave a solemn smile.
’Everyone
here paints the bay. Every stupid little dabbler who can barely hold a brush between their fingers. And the required frisky
gulls, little boats, swaying palms. Tiresome.’ She pointed at one small painting, framed in silver, a violent swirl of purple
spirals, gray crosses, and white froth that looked like nothing more than idle slapping of paint by an angry child. ‘That’s
the bay. My interpretation of it. No adorable dinghies, no fishing grannies, no endangered whooping cranes winging back to
the refuge. The bay as it is. Hard. Cruel. Like life is.’

He didn’t think she knew diddly about hard life in this grand house. Maybe he should have her call Linda Bird. ‘I’d like to
know about your relationship with Patch.’

‘Are you asking as a judge or because Lucy’s said an unkind word or two?’

Now that was interesting. ‘As a judge.’

‘I loved Patch. Who didn’t?’ She tucked her sandal back on her foot. ‘Artists live up to our stereotype now and then, get
moody and mean when the work sucks. Patch always pulled me out of the blues, gave me a slap on the fanny when I needed it.’
She spoke with the air of the artist, playing out each nuance until it wasn’t a nuance anymore. But he saw in the dusky light
how brittle her eyes and mouth looked under the fresh makeup. She had cried and cried hard.

‘Did he ever help you in other ways? Say financially?’

‘You ask that like you know the answer already.’

Whit shrugged.

‘You know, Lucy doesn’t make it easy to love her sometimes, does she? She does have a mouth.’ She lit a cigarette, a thin,
ladylike coffin nail in a pink pack, then offered him one. He declined.

‘She told you garbage about me with great reluctance, right? Much wringing of hands? She got a vibe, right?’

Whit said nothing.

‘Lucy was born with a finger pointing at someone else. Artists see patterns, honey, and I’ve seen plenty of this one.’

‘She said you asked Patch for a large loan.’

‘I was a little short on cash between paintings and asked Patch for help. He said no, I said fine, we were fine. He’s not
a bank. I understood.’

‘You asked for a hundred thousand?’

Her eyes went wide. ‘Good Lord, no. I asked for ten thousand. I got it from a friend. It’s being paid off, no problems.’ She
tapped ashes into a crystal ashtray on the worktable, her mouth thinned. ‘A hundred thousand. She ought to use that imagination
for noble causes.’

‘She said it’s what Patch told her.’

‘She’s dead wrong.’

‘She and Patch seemed to have a good relationship.’

‘Lucy likes people who have things and will give them to her. I’m not one of those people. Patch was. He doted on Lucy, just
a bit too much.’

‘Can you think of anyone who’d want Patch or Thuy dead?’

‘He only dated widows, and he was successful at it. I could see he might make another man jealous. Thuy, Lord, no. Gentle
and kind as a lamb. Retired teacher, loaded with patience. I adored her.’

‘You and Roy were here in town on Monday night.’

‘Yes. I already gave a statement to the police. We were
here, watched the news, turned in.’ She paused, tilted her head, gave him a melty smile. ‘We fucked. Twice. So we were awake
until midnight or so. That’s not in the police statement but I don’t mind total honesty with you.’ Her smile shifted; his
skin prickled.

‘In a bed or on the canvas?’

The smile widened. ‘You have a good eye.’

Yeah, it’s real tough to make out painted, squashed boobs.
He saw the perfection of her face created a sense of emptiness – like a house with no curtains in the windows. ‘Roy’s what
to you, social engineering?’

‘Radio Lucy strikes again.’ She shrugged. ‘It was a minor drug conviction, ten years ago. He’s clean.’ She exhaled a cool
little stream of smoke. ‘He was here all Monday and Tuesday with me, okay? Working. He’s an artist, too. His studio’s across
the hall. Sculptures in metal. Gulls, lighthouses, coastal art for the gift shop crowd. He’s not an artist at my level but
he has potential.’

Whit glanced at the body prints on the paper on the floor and thought he saw Roy’s rather limited potential at work.

‘It’s a lot of land at stake. With Patch gone.’

She frowned, as though he had dragged a dirty finger across one of her artworks. ‘Well, the Gilberts have owned most of Black
Jack Point since before Texas was Texas. It totals about three hundred acres. Fifty acres is mine. Fifty is Lucy’s. Uncle
Patch owns another two hundred.’ She shrugged again. ‘I’ve no idea of the details of Uncle Patch’s will. I would suppose Lucy
and I inherit. But we never discussed it.’

‘But if you needed ten thousand dollars, why not sell some of your land?’

‘We’ve always had an unspoken agreement not to sell, except as a group. Patch wanted to hold on to the family
land, even when solid offers came in. Lucy and I always deferred to him.’

‘Have you gotten many offers on the land?’ Considering the value of waterfront property in parts of Texas, Whit wondered if
the land provided a hard motive.

‘One, oh, a month ago. I got a phone call from a real estate investor in Corpus. I wasn’t interested, but I did refer him
to Patch because he was so persistent.’

‘Who was that?’

‘Stoney Vaughn. He’s got a big-ass house up on Copano Flats. Tedious type. I met him once at a Port Leo Art Center function.
And another offer, about a year ago, from a company in Houston. We just say no. We don’t want to sell. I don’t know if that
will change now, with Patch gone.’

The bottle of Glenfiddich had been from a Stoney. Maybe interesting, maybe not.

He thought of the skeletons. ‘Patch ever mention any archaeological value to the land?’

Suzanne didn’t answer for a second and he wondered if she knew about the bones. David and the DPS team had kept it out of
the papers thus far. But a freakish detail like that was hard to muzzle with so many people now involved. She stubbed out
her cigarette, glanced up at him through the trail of smoke. ‘An archaeologist wouldn’t find anything except old dead Gilberts
and their junk.’

‘No earlier settlement on the land?’

‘Indians must have passed through or hunted there, I guess. Black Jack Point’s always been wild country, though. I don’t think
anyone else ever built there but us crazy Gilberts.’ She lit another cigarette. ‘Speaking of crazy Gilberts, what do you see
in Lucy? Do you mind me asking? Yes, she’s very pretty but she’s very contrary and a bit too high-maintenance.’

‘She drives me nuts. She makes me laugh. She makes me think. For me that’s pretty good.’

‘Laughing is good. Sexy.’ Her voice went a little lower.

‘I bet Roy’s a real giggle factory.’

‘He can be very sweet,’ she said, letting her smile grow. ‘But I do bore easily.’

‘I’m allergic to paint,’ he said. ‘I’d like to talk to Roy now.’

Her smile – more carefully crafted than her paintings – went flat. ‘Sure.’

They returned to the den. Roy lay sprawled on the couch, drinking a fresh bottle of Dos Equis, watching
Jeopardy!
He didn’t look up at Whit.

‘Roy, Whit needs to talk to you,’ Suzanne said.

‘I barely knew Patch. What is the Tower of Pisa?’ he said to the television, playing Architecture for $200. He was right.

‘It took a lot of strength to beat a man like Patch to death,’ Whit said.

Roy Krantz didn’t take his eyes off the screen. ‘Probably not. What is photosynthesis? You dumb asses.’

Whit leaned down, grabbed the remote, cut off the television in the middle of Botany for $600. ‘Pardon me. I’m speaking to
you. As part of a death inquest. If you don’t want to answer questions here, you do it in a courtroom.’

Roy stood. Whit was tall but this guy was an oak. ‘I told you, I don’t know shit. And I don’t like to miss my program.’

‘Roy.’ Suzanne shook her head.

‘I’m sorry, baby.’ For the first time Whit saw tenderness in Roy’s sun-hardened face. ‘Sorry. Okay.’ He crossed his arms.
‘I never got to know him, Judge. He decided in the first ten seconds of our acquaintance I was trash. So we declined to occupy
the same place at the same time.’

‘Let’s talk prison records.’

Roy walked into the kitchen, got another beer, offered a bottle to Whit. Whit shook his head. ‘I ran some dope for a school
buddy, I got caught, I cut a little deal, school buddy didn’t. I did a short stint and I’ve been spotless. Now I got my life
back together here with Suze, doing my art, and people just want to piss in my beer.’

‘Y’all do much gambling?’ Whit asked.

Roy glanced at Suzanne and she said, ‘Lucy.’ He glanced back at Whit with a smirk. ‘Actually, we do, and we have the means
to and we’re not in over our heads. I don’t suppose it’s occurred to anyone that maybe Mrs Tran was the target, not Patch.
You grilling her family like this?’

‘I couldn’t say.’

‘You come after me just because I got a record, that’s the easy thing to do. Just as easy to get yourself sued for false arrest.
For reporters to get a call to say some poor ex-con who’s become a model citizen is getting hassled. You can’t fucking bully
people, man.’

‘I didn’t realize you felt bullied by me,’ Whit said. ‘Please don’t cry.’

Roy took a step forward. Suzanne put a hand on his thick forearm. ‘Roy. Don’t let him bait you.’

‘I’m not baiting anyone,’ Whit said. ‘Thanks for your time. I can see myself out. I’ll let you know if you’re needed to testify
at the inquest.’

Whit drove out of Castaway Key. He remembered the time the land had been developed, this thin sliver of near-island, when
he was a teenager. Once this was rough country, not too different from the Gilbert land, thick with salt grass, jutting out
into shallow water with a handpainted sign that read
PLEASE DON’T PET THE RATTLERS.
And how much is this land worth now?
Whit wondered.
Millions. So how much is that family land
really worth to Suzanne Gilbert? Or maybe to her way-smarter-than-he-looks boyfriend?

He didn’t want to think about how much it might be worth to Lucy.

Claudia wriggled her head through the open porthole, attempted to snake her body through. She eased one shoulder out. She
turned, trying to navigate her head and the other shoulder out, but the opening was too narrow and the ropes, tight already,
chafed hard, gouged her legs. She was angry enough to cry hot tears, and she hated to cry.

The heavy blindfold slipped around her neck like a loose scarf.
Shit. No getting that back over my eyes. That’s probably worth a whole foot of broken toes.

She pulled herself back in. A knot of rope caught on the porthole crank. Not good, not good. She caught her breath, eased
herself free, and fell back against the bed. She tried to maneuver the blindfold back into place but she couldn’t; her hands
couldn’t push it up far enough to cover her eyes and all her wriggling had loosened the knot too much.

She heard Stoney’s shocked drawl over the speaker-phone. ‘I’ll give you the money. Okay? But these other items you’re asking
for, I don’t have, please.’

Gar said, ‘Number one,’ and Ben screamed.

‘That was finger number one,’ Gar said. ‘Broke it. A pinky. You keep arguing I’ll cut it off.’

‘I don’t have what you want!’ Stoney said.

‘Let’s accelerate. I vote to cut off the brother’s dick,’ Redhead said with a giggle. ‘Where did I put those scissors … ?’

‘No, leave him alone!’ Stoney yelled.

‘We will,’ Danny said. Claudia could hear the distaste in his voice. ‘If you play along. First the five million.’

‘Oh, Christ, oh, Christ,’ Stoney moaned.

‘Got your pen ready, sunshine?’ Redhead said. ‘Put a half million in this account in Grand Cayman.’ He read off an account
number. ‘That’s at the Great Commerce Bank of Grand Cayman. Move that first, will you?’

Stoney made a noise of unhappy agreement.

‘Don’t whine,’ Redhead said. ‘Then another half million in this bank in Anguilla. Here’s the account number …’

More accounts, more banks, the slow carving of Stoney’s fortune. Claudia gritted her teeth.

‘Now. The journal and the Devil’s Eye,’ Danny said. ‘You’re going to take them to Staples Mall in Corpus. Tomorrow at eight
a.m., when the mall opens for the elderly mall walkers. Go to the carousel at the middle of the mall. Leave the journal and
the emerald in a Sears bag, each wrapped in plain brown paper and covered with a couple of paperbacks. You’ll put the bag
underneath the gray horse with the white mane, the red saddle and the bright blue ribbons. If the police are there, or I don’t
like how anything looks, your brother and his girlfriend die and I report the murder you committed to the New Orleans police.
We get to that point, I don’t care what happens to me. But you, you’re finished.’

There was a long silence. Stoney Vaughn finally said, ‘I don’t know how long this transfer will take. After it goes through
the banks in Houston we may not have immediate confirmation, and I’m not at my office right now …’

‘We check with Grand Cayman here shortly, and you better hope that money’s streaming in,’ Redhead said.

‘We can’t control how long the transfer takes once it leaves my bank. You know that,’ Stoney said. ‘Let’s say I do what you
want. How do I get my brother back?’

‘We’ll drop off Ben and Claudia in a safe place after
we’ve got the journal and the emerald,’ Danny said. ‘We’ll call you, let you know where they’re at.’

‘That’s not good enough,’ Stoney said.

‘Our beef’s not with them. It’s with you. We’re not into killing innocent people. And don’t call the police or the coast guard
or the navy or anybody. We see choppers coming, we see boats coming looking for us, they’re dead in two seconds.’ Danny didn’t
seem to notice the contradiction in his words, which made Claudia cold all over.

‘You fucker,’ Stoney said.

‘Yes, but I’m the fucker in charge,’ Danny said.

‘Okay. Okay. Please, I want to talk to my brother.’

‘Here he is. You got five seconds.’

‘Stoney?’ Ben said. He didn’t sound scared or hurt to Claudia, more mad.

‘Yeah.’

‘Do what they say.’

‘How did they get you? I don’t understand.’

‘Boarded us. Please, Sto—’

‘Five seconds up, no more talk,’ Danny said. ‘Start the money transfers. We’ll be checking on you. I’m calling you back in
fifteen minutes.’

‘That’s not enough—’ Stoney started and then his voice was gone. Cut off.

‘Progress,’ said Redhead. ‘But I’ll just keep these scissors handy, okay, Ben?’

Claudia heard footfalls on the steps outside the master stateroom.

Oh, God, the porthole’s still open.
She hadn’t shut it.

The stateroom door flew open, hard, slammed against the wall.

Gar, with the stocking off his head. A heavy round face, brown eyes, dirty-blond hair askew from the stocking, full mouth.
He noticed her blindfold was off.

‘Goddamn it.’ He yanked the chamois cloth back over her eyes with angry roughness. ‘That better not come off again, you understand?
We’ll play this little piggy if it does.’ He grabbed at her foot, twanged her broken toe. A bolt of fire shot up her leg.

She kept her voice steady. ‘I’m sorry. It slipped off while I was trying to get comfortable.’

‘Comfort’s not in your immediate future.’ He leaned down close to her, licked her ear with a pizza-greasy tongue. ‘I’m not
like Danny Boy, who plays nice with you. I don’t believe in being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I think fate brought
us together so we could have us a little fun.’

He picked Claudia up, threw her over his shoulder, and carried her out the door.

Stoney Vaughn sat in dismal shock in his home office overlooking St Leo Bay, staring at the banks and account numbers Danny
had given him.

He lit a cigarette, fired up his computer, and tried to order his thoughts.

Danny had his idiot brother and that girlfriend of his, somehow. On
his
boat. And that lunatic wanted the journal that had led Stoney and Alex to the treasure, and the Devil’s Eye. And five million
in pain money.

Fuck that.

He abandoned thinking
how did this happen,
because he quickly decided that was pointless. He started thinking of how the cards might play out.

Bad hand number one: He transferred the money, turned over the goods, got his brother back. Wouldn’t work. No way he could
surrender the Eye – even the fake one in the storage unit – without Alex going nuclear. No way they could let Danny walk free.
That went for Ben and his girlfriend, too, especially because she was a cop
and God only knew what Danny had told her. Alex wouldn’t stand for it.

And if he even tried to cut a separate deal with Danny, Alex would kill him.

Bad hand number two: He transferred the money but didn’t turn over the journal or the Eye. Fool Danny, make him think they’d
give up the goods and let Alex eliminate Danny during or after the drop. But then he was out five million bucks, and he didn’t
have that much sitting around. He had maybe a million, and then he had clients who were generous but didn’t know it. He sometimes
borrowed money and moved it back in when he got new clients. Most of his clients – carefully selected – were elderly, rich
from birth, and patient regarding small losses. This creative accounting had bought him the boat and helped with the house,
but he couldn’t swing five million, not all at once, moved overseas. No way to cover that up.

Bad hand number three: He picked up the phone and called the police, and Danny turned him in for murder. Hell. A murder he
didn’t do but Danny didn’t know different. Too much death – the guy in New Orleans, the old couple in Port Leo. He wasn’t
a killer but he was an accessory. Prison. No more golf, no more deals, no more treasure hunts, no more luscious coastal social
climbers in his bed. Or Alex would kill him to keep him quiet.

Ben’s dead no matter what I do,
he thought.
If Danny doesn’t kill him, Alex will.

He got up, paced in front of the plate glass. They would be calling back in fifteen minutes, and he had a decision to make.

Danny thought Stoney had stolen the journal from him, killed his cousin in Louisiana. That meant he didn’t know about Alex.
Didn’t know Alex existed. But Alex couldn’t do much about Danny while Danny sailed freely in the Gulf.

So he had to get Alex and Danny both there and let Alex solve it. But first he’d cover his ass.

Stoney accessed the Internet, opened up a connection to his network management software that monitored and controlled the
investment counselors’ activities in his Corpus Christi office. He typed an administrator’s code, entered some commands, pressed
OK. He’d had this as a time-buyer, a backup plan in case his clients – or the police – got too curious about his records.

Stoney dialed the phone; Alex answered on the first ring. ‘We have a problem.’

‘Yes, we sure do,’ Alex said.

‘I need you, um, at my house. Now?’

‘That would be my pleasure.’ Clicked off.

Stoney decided, a boulder in his throat, he didn’t like the sound of that at all.