Bone Key (17 page)

***

He tried to get them to the bedroom, but they made it only as far as the couch, where, in another life and time, he had sat while Rusty Malloy read him the riot act. This time, however, it was Annie Dodds who was with him, and the riot was of a markedly different character.

She’d lost the minuscule bottom half of her suit somewhere behind the bar, about the same time that Deal felt his T-shirt go over his head with what sounded like a ripping sound. He was tumbled back against the plush white cushions, his hands on her breasts, which had tumbled free from her top. She was astride him, her hand under the hem of his running shorts, caressing him through the thin fabric liner.

“If you keep that up…” he managed.

“Then what?” she said, wiggling herself higher up his lap.

In the next moment, her hand was all the way under the fabric, squeezing him, pulling him toward her writhing hips. He thrust himself up to meet her, felt a moment’s resistance as they met, then the exquisite slipperiness as she rode down hard upon him with a groan.

Their movements became galvanic then, a coupling that seemed intent upon restoring every pleasure denied over the course of twenty years. Deal felt his consciousness recede to some Pleistocene level, all ooze and scrapes and nips and scratches, all nuances of equilibrium gone. Up, down, and sideways became synonymous.

Everything was wetness, pink and black and bone on bone. At some point, he realized he was atop her, that she lay atop the spine of the couch’s back, her legs straddling the sides. He had one foot sunk in the cushions, the other struggling for purchase on the shell-stone floor as he drove himself deep inside her and she pounded herself back against him with every beat.

When he came, it seemed as painful as it did glorious, as if he might not ever reach such heights again. She was off the couch entirely, her arms wound around his neck, her legs clamped to his back.

“I’m going to stay just like this,” she told him. “I’m not going to move, ever.”

“You don’t have to,” he told her. Then managed to carry them, locked together like that, all the way into the bed.

***

The second time was far more measured, almost stately in its pace, and ended with her astride him, collapsing onto his chest as she came. She lay panting for a bit before she finally glanced up at him. “I didn’t mean to take so long,” she said.

“You’re apologizing for that,” he said.

“I didn’t want to take more than my share,” she said.

“You can have my share anytime,” he assured her.

“That was something,” she said.

“Keep it pent up for twenty years, something’s going to happen,” Deal said. “What’s that on your cheek?”

She turned and lay her head back on his chest. “Nothing,” she said, her voice muffled.

“Did I do that?” he asked, tucking his finger under her chin for a better look.

“Don’t,” she said, pushing his hand away. She rose to a sitting position, her back to him.

“Hey,” he said, an awful premonition sweeping over him as he recalled the dark glasses. He started to reach for her, then stopped, his hand inches from the flesh of her upper arm.

Three dim finger-sized bruises were striped horizontally there, just above her elbow. He shifted his hand to her shoulder and drew himself up at her side.

“What happened?” he said, struggling to keep his voice under control.

She gave him a neutral glance. There was a mouse under her left eye, a pale yellow bruise rising in a half-moon above it. He felt light-headed suddenly, a queasiness growing in his stomach, along with a rise of anger at himself for having missed it earlier. “I walked into a door,” she told him.

He felt his hands clench into fists. “Stone did this…?”

“Get a grip,” she said, her voice almost angry. She stopped and drew a breath. She put a hand to his chest, forcing a smile. “You should see the other guy.”

Deal was shaking his head. “No,” he managed. “No way he can do this—”

“John,” she said, her voice rising again. “You weren’t there. You don’t know what happened.”

“I don’t care what happened,” he said. “He can’t hit you.”

“I hit
him
, all right?” she said, her eyes flashing. “He grabbed my arm to stop me from nailing him again and I jerked away, right into the edge of the door.”

He stopped, trying to digest it. “You hit him?”

She nodded.

“Why?”

“I’m not sure how much of this I need to get into with you,” she said.

He blinked at the words, feeling as if he’d been punched himself. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to get so personal.”

She glanced at his damp chest, then down at her own sweat-glazed body. “That’s pretty good,” she said, then gave him a rueful smile. “Imagine what it would feel like if we really let ourselves go.”

He nodded, then glanced back at her eye. “You sure you’re okay?”

She nodded. “I didn’t mean to sound so hostile,” she said. “Franklin was waiting up when I came in. He was worried, that’s all. I told him to go to bed and he said something. That’s when I lost it,” she said. “I just wanted him out of my way.” She gave him a contrite look. “It was more like swinging my purse at him than a punch.”

“I’m glad you kept your gun put away.”

She nodded, then gave him a smile. “I’m glad you
didn’t
,” she said. She leaned into him, sliding her hand between his legs. “Look who’s still awake, would you?”

Deal glanced down, surprised at himself. There might have been a time in his distant, hormone-filled youth when he’d made love three times in an afternoon, but he couldn’t really be sure. All he knew for certain, watching her head descend to his lap, was that he was surely going to do so this day.

Chapter Twenty-two

Deal woke to a pounding that seemed like it was coming from somewhere near the base of his skull. But by the time he managed to pull himself out of the tangled sheets, he realized that it was someone at the door of his suite. He also realized, with a certain hollow feeling in his gut, that he was alone in the bed.

The knocking came again, accompanied by a muffled voice that sounded familiar. He forced himself to his feet and moved groggily into the bathroom to wrap one of the oversized towels around his waist, then padded through the living room, noting glumly that Annie’s things had disappeared as well.

“Yo, Deal,” he heard the familiar voice outside his thundering door.

“I’m here,” he called, moving to open up.

“Whoo-eee,” Russell Straight said when he opened the door and gave Deal’s bare chest the once-over. “You look like a flesh-and-blood cat post, my man. What you been doing in here anyway?”

“None of your business,” Deal said, retreating into the living room. He collapsed on the couch while Russell paused to take in the new surroundings.

“I heard what happened to Dequarius,” he said finally. “How come you didn’t call?”

Deal gave him a look that sent Russell’s hands up in surrender. “Forget I asked,” the big man said. He glanced at his watch. “You remember we had a dinner engagement?”

Deal considered the concept of “dinner engagement” for a few moments until it finally sank in. Though it seemed a vestige of another existence, he could not deny the memory of Stone’s invitation. In another dimension, or so it seemed, there lived a building contractor named Deal who had come to Key West to discuss a business proposition with a high-rolling developer his father had known.

Undeniable facts, indeed. But they seemed to have so little to do with life as he now knew it.

“What time is it?” Deal asked Russell finally.

“Limo o’clock,” Russell answered. “The man’s ride is sitting out front, waiting on us.”

Deal nodded slowly. Somewhere there was a proposal he’d been asked to study. Perhaps a packet waiting for him at the front desk. Or perhaps Dequarius Noyes had bled out on it, and it was now bagged up in the Monroe County sheriff’s evidence room.

No sooner had he thought it, than he remembered what he’d left beneath the ironing-board cover in his former room. “Sonofabitch,” he blurted.

“What’s the matter?” Russell said.

“Did you go by the room I was in?”

Russell nodded warily. “It’s posted,” he said. “That’s when I went down to the front. One of those brain-dead parrot-heads told me what went on.”

“I have to get in there,” Deal said.

“As in where?”

“My old room,” Deal told him.

“That might be a problem,” Russell said.

“I left something important,” he said.

Russell shrugged. “Call the cops.”

“It’s not that simple,” Deal told him.

“It never is.” Russell sighed.

“I’ll get in the shower,” Deal said. “Go tell Stone’s driver we’ll be a few minutes late.”

Russell nodded. “Either that or a couple extra years,” he said, and walked ponderously toward the door.

***

“It don’t look like they meant for anybody my size to walk on that,” Russell Straight said, glancing down at the narrow ledge that ran along the rear facing of the wing where Deal’s old room had been.

“That ledge is a good six inches wide,” Deal said. “If I laid a six-inch-wide board down on the ground, could you walk on it?”

“All the way to China, man, but that ledge ain’t on the ground, now, is it?”

Deal glanced out over the railing where they stood. His former room abutted the breezeway, its balcony rail visible only a few feet away. Just swing out onto that ledge, he thought, a couple of quick shuffle steps, then back over the balcony railing to safety.

If you lost your balance, he told himself, it was no more than a ten-foot drop to the stone decking below, if you missed the thorny bougainvillea plantings that hugged the building, that is. Worst-case scenario, a broken ankle. More likely, a couple of hours pulling thorns out of your ass.

“Just lean into the building, use those rocks that stick out for handholds,” Deal said.

Russell gave him a doubtful look. “Who goes first?”

“I will,” Deal said, swinging his leg over the breezeway railing. “Yell if I fall.”

“I got no problem with that,” Russell said.

Deal shook his head and, before he could think about it further, slid his right foot quickly onto the ledge, reaching up and finding a hold on the rough flagstone facing with his hand. He held tightly, praying the stone he grasped had been set by someone who thought in permanent terms, then loosed his hold on the breezeway railing and brought his other hand and foot along. It took him a second to find a crevice for his left hand, and he wavered giddily, feeling all that air opening up at his back.

Whatever you do, don’t go ass over teakettle, he told himself. Despite his assurances to Russell, Deal had seen a member of a roofer’s crew die that way. An inexperienced laborer carrying a fifty-pound roll of roofing felt stepped out of the way of a coworker sloshing hot tar with a mop. The new guy’s legs hit the low parapet behind him and the weight of the felt took him over headfirst. He’d only fallen a dozen feet, landed on grass, and had been wearing a hard hat that was still on his head when they got to him, but none of that had mattered.

The guy had speared the ground headfirst like a rookie safety trying to take out the world itself. Everyone on the roof had heard the crack. At least the guy had died quickly, Deal thought, as he felt his fingers dig into a crevice. He got himself steadied, shot another glance at a doubtful Russell, then pulled himself along. In seconds he was swinging himself up over the railing of the balcony, relieved to see that the glass doors had not been sealed.

“I can probably handle things over here,” he called softly back to Russell.

“Fuck it,” Russell replied. He swung one of his thick legs out over the railing, then the other, and glanced at Deal with a look that suggested he’d be asking for a raise soon.

All his grumbling aside, Russell moved along the ledge like an experienced second-story man, ignoring Deal’s outstretched hand to pull himself onto the balcony with ease. “Pretty impressive,” Deal said.

“Don’t try to sweet-talk me,” Russell said. He pushed past Deal and tried one of the sliding doors. It jiggled in its track but didn’t move. “What’s next?”

Deal wiped his palms on his pants then flattened them on the glass of the door, leaning heavily toward the inside of the room. “Get your side, just like this,” he told Russell. “Now push up.”

Russell did as he was told and Deal felt the heavy door slide upward. He put the toe of his shoe beneath the exposed bottom frame and motioned for Russell to do the same. In seconds they had levered the heavy slab out and were easing it to the floor of the balcony.

“Damn,” Russell said, stepping back from the leaning door section. “You must have been a criminal in your other life.”

“I put about a thousand of these things into a Hyatt one summer,” Deal told him. “They’re good to look through, but they’re not much for security.”

Russell examined the dislodged door. “Sure as hell seems that way,” he said.

“It was one hell of a boring summer,” Deal said, pausing to catch his breath. “I told my old man if I ever saw another sliding glass door I’d quit.”

Russell glanced up. “What’d he say?”

“He told me to suit myself,” Deal said.

“Well, there you go.” Russell nodded. Laughter from a party on a distant balcony drifted toward them, and he sent a nervous glance over the nearby grounds.

“Wait out here,” Deal said. “You see anybody coming from the front, let me know, especially if they’re in uniform.”

“You sure a couple pieces of paper are worth all this?” Russell asked.

Deal shrugged, the image of the folded label clutched in Dequarius’ stiffened fingers swimming up clearly in his mind. “Dequarius Noyes must have thought so,” he said. “It’s all there is to go on, anyway.”

Russell nodded, then turned his gaze back over the lush grounds laid out below. “Go on,” he said. “I see any cops, I’ll be the first one out.”

“Thanks,” Deal said dryly, then turned and pushed his way through the billowing curtains and inside the shadowed room.

The worst of the smell was gone, but even in the dim light, the crusted stains were still visible on the carpet and the chair. It didn’t take much for Deal to conjure up Dequarius Noyes still sitting there with his thousand-mile stare, waiting endlessly for him to arrive.

He felt a chill come over him and shook off the image, then moved quickly toward the foyer closet. He pulled the door open and groped about in the darkness until one of his knuckles banged against a ragged edge on the undercarriage of the metal ironing board, lifting what felt like an inch-long flap of skin.

“Sonofabitch,” he said, drawing his hand back as if he’d been bitten by a snake. He could already feel blood trickling down his fingers. He brought his hand to his mouth and sucked at the wound, while he used his other to search out the edge of the ironing pad. He dug his fingers under the slick fabric and groped about, then stopped, feeling nothing.

He pulled his bleeding hand away from his mouth and squatted down, running his fingers along the edge of the board, all the way to the bottom, then peeled the padding away and shook it. He glanced down at the floor of the closet, but saw nothing.

For an instant, he wondered if he’d broken into the wrong room, but a glance at the grisly chair reassured him. The envelope had simply stuck to the padding, he told himself. He’d carry the whole thing out by the light where he could get a decent look.

He was trying to lift the ironing board out of the hooks on the closet caddy, when he felt the arm lock around his throat.