Deal with the Dead (14 page)

“How does it turn out?”

“It’s a poem,” he told her. “Poems don’t turn out.”

She nodded as if she’d accept that authority.

“How about you?” he asked. “How is it you’re still all alone?”

She gave him a tolerant smile. “There’s plenty of time. I was with a man when I got into the spectacle thing, you know.”

He didn’t know, and didn’t really want to know, but he nodded sagely anyway. “So all that was
his
game to begin with?”

“He was a Swede,” she said, as if it explained a number of things. “We met in an ashram, in India.”

He lifted his head in recognition. “So
that’s
where you learned to walk on coals.”

She glanced at him sharply. “I thought we were finished with that,” she said.

He held up his hands in surrender. “I’m sorry,” he said.

She nodded, then glanced away for a moment. When she began to speak again, her voice had a wistful tone, he thought. “Karl was a genius, but a troubled one. I followed him from India to London. We lived together. He was on the web before there was a web. All-night chats over the ether with other disembodied spirits.” She shook her head wearily and took another sip of wine.

“That’s how he learned about SRL.” She gave him a practiced smile. “The next thing, we were off to San Francisco.”

“SRL?”

“Survival Research Laboratories,” she said. “More angry geniuses. There are a number of them, loosely knit groups with similar names: Peoplehaters, Cybernasia. It’s a countercultural thing. They’d fry all of Silicon Valley if they could.”

“And from that came the spectacles?”

“Even a genius needs an audience,” she said.

“Whatever happened to Karl?”
Mangled by some giant slice-and-dice machine?
he mused. Roasted by a first-generation firecage?

She shrugged. “Karl found out what kind of money the American geniuses had turned their backs on. He went to work for the enemy. The last I heard, he was working on military applications for the Pentagon.”

He nodded. “So Karl’s found his niche.”

“He’s still angry,” she said. “But now he’s destroying things and being well paid for it.”

“What happened to the two of you?”

“If he hadn’t gotten his rocks off sufficiently during the day,” she said, “he took it out on me at night. I got tired of it.”

Rhodes felt an unreasoning anger rise within him. “He hurt you?”

She shrugged. “Nothing serious. I like it on the edge, in case you haven’t noticed. But on top of everything, he’d gotten so gloomy, and there we were in
California.”
She smiled and finished her wine. In an instant, the assistant was there to pour the last of the bottle into her glass. The man gave an inquiring glance at Rhodes, who sent him scurrying off to the cellars with a nod. “Besides,” Kaia said as the man disappeared, “I’d gotten interested in the spectacle of the thing, you know.”

“The magician’s assistant becomes the magician herself?”

“I suppose that’s it,” she said. “There is this thrill, standing there, a few inches away from certain death. And knowing that I choose to be there.”

Rhodes rested his chin on his interlaced fingers. “I’m only speculating here…” he began.

“Speculate away,” she said.

“Karl started off an outlaw, then was co-opted by the system.”

She shrugged. “So what?”

“So now you find yourself in the company of a true fugitive from justice. What does that tell you?”

“Whatever you’re implying,” she said, looking at him in amusement, “I’m here because you invited me.”

“So you are,” he said. “It was just a thought, that’s all.”

“Analyze it anyway you like,” she said. “The wine is wonderful. It’s even better, wondering just how you’re going to pay for it.”

He smiled back. “It excites you, does it?”

She leaned closer. “It’s almost like being inside that firecage.”

He nodded. “I can feel the heat myself.”

The couple who’d been gawking at them over dessert had settled up and were walking past their table now, with no pretense at hiding their inquisitive stares. The sommelier was headed their way bearing another bottle of Château Margaux, his expression coming dangerously close to a smile.

Ah, yes,
Rhodes thought, turning his gaze back to her: How his life had finally coalesced. Beneath the snowily draped table, he felt her bare foot graze the inside of his thigh.
Ah, yes.

Somehow the rest of dinner passed.

Chapter Fifteen

Monday morning, Deal was sitting behind his desk in the portable office, stacks of files strewn on its surface before him. He’d put in a call to City-County first thing, had to leave a message on voice mail. Then he had set about combing through old DealCo records, searching for some trace of Talbot Sams. He’d had no luck, but then again, he’d only made it about halfway through the first drawer, cursing the haphazard nature of the system, or lack thereof, when the phone rang, echoing in the otherwise silent office.

“John Deal,” he said into the receiver.

“It’s Gladys Collum,” a woman’s voice came back. “In Mr. Martinez’s office. You called about your bid.”

“I did,” Deal agreed. He was ready for anything.

“What was your question?” The voice abrupt, annoyed at having to waste time on actually being of service.

“I’m wondering about the status.”

“Excuse me?”

“The status of the port office building bid,” he said. “I was told the matter had been decided.”

There was a pause on the other end. Deal heard the rustling of papers, then a muffled voice calling something to a coworker. In a moment, she was back. “Where did you get that information?” she asked.

Deal hesitated, but he didn’t hesitate long. “Eddie Barrios called me Friday afternoon,” he said. If he was blowing Eddie’s cover, too bad.

He heard Gladys sigh audibly. “Just a moment,” she said into the phone, and then he heard another muffled voice.

In the next moment, there came a click, and another voice cut in on the line. “This is Rafael Martinez. How can I help you?”

Deal closed his eyes, took a deep breath. Martinez was the new oversight manager for the project, installed by a mayor who had run on a promise of “strict accountability in public works” to voters long accustomed to anything but. Deal knew little about the man—he’d had a brief handshake the day he turned in his bid.

“This is John Deal,” he said. “I’m calling about the port offices bid.”

“Eddie Barrios called you?” The tone of Martinez’s voice left little doubt as to his opinion of the man.

“That’s right,” Deal said.

Another pause. Deal could have sworn he heard the drumming of fingertips on a desk top. “I’d like to know how these things get out,” Martinez fumed.

“Look—” Deal began, but Martinez was already going on.

“There’s a process, you understand. Put in place for very good reasons.”

“How about Talbot Sams?” Deal interjected. “He called, too.”

“I don’t know anyone by that name,” Martinez said. Deal thought he said it a little too quickly.

“Couldn’t you just give me the word, Mr. Martinez?”

Another pause, but not as long this time. When he spoke again, Martinez’s voice had lost some of its edge. “I don’t suppose there’s much point in
my
toeing the line,” the man said. “No one else seems to pay attention to protocol.”

“Are we moving up on a ‘yes’?”

“Your bid was chosen, Mr. Deal,” Martinez said. “The notifications went out by messenger this morning.”

Deal felt a surge of conflicting feelings well up inside him. Relief, pleasure, satisfaction, validation of his efforts: those he was grateful for, were all to be expected. But just as quickly came suspicion and anger trailing in the wake. Compared to the distaste he’d felt when Eddie Barrios called to tip him to the news, the specter of Talbot Sams, sitting in this very chair, claiming he’d arranged it all…

“Was there something else I could help you with?” Martinez’s voice cut into his thoughts.

“No,” Deal said, staring across the room at the waiting file cabinets. There was no point in irritating Martinez further, he thought. “I guess not. If something comes to me, I’ll bring it up the next time I’m in. I guess we’ll be seeing quite a bit of each other, now.”

“Not on this job,” Martinez answered quickly.

“What do you mean?” Deal asked. DealCo hadn’t had a government contract since the early eighties, but he could still remember his father’s grumblings about the time it took to process paperwork through the downtown bureaucracy.

“The way it’s set up, you’ll coordinate through the general contractor. The only way you’ll be in here is if there’s some kind of a problem.”

Deal paused. “So where do I go next?”

“All that’s in the paperwork on its way to you,” Martinez said.

Deal raised his eyebrows. “Well, I guess that’s it, then. Thanks for your help, Mr. Martinez.”

“My pleasure,” Martinez said as he hung up, his tone conveying any number of emotions, none of them pleasurable.

Deal stared at the receiver for a moment, then replaced it in the cradle.
Good old Eddie Barrios,
he thought. What did it say about a guy who likes to give good news and everybody despises him anyway?

He heard the sounds of a motor outside then, someone winding down the lane toward the offices. The messenger, he thought, a man bearing the envelope from city hall, Deal’s ticket back to a serious business life. He stood and went to the door, unable to keep from thinking about how differently the moment might have been configured: no Eddie Barrios, no Talbot Sams, no separation from Janice or his daughter…Why couldn’t there be one simple, unalloyed moment of joy, no strings, no conditions, he asked himself…

And then opened the outer door of the office to find Russell Straight’s cherry-red pickup nosing to a stop in the parking area beside the Hog. Deal hesitated as the throbbing engine shut down, and Russell Straight, clad in jeans and a T-shirt that seemed painted on his sculpted body, stepped from the cab of the truck. No handy chunks of two-by-two anywhere around, Deal realized. No spud bars, no hammers, no tiger net, no Magnum .44s. Just himself and a pair of hands.

Straight rounded the front of his pickup and stopped, folding his arms across his chest as he stared up at Deal. Veins bulged from his forearms and biceps like those on the arms of impossible bodybuilders. How had he managed to get the best of the man? Deal asked himself.

Something in Russell Straight’s countenance suggested he was wondering the same thing. “I went by the job,” the man said finally. “They told me I might find you over here.”

“So you have,” Deal said.

Straight nodded, glancing around the deserted surroundings. “You seem to like it close to the water,” he said.

Deal shrugged. “A person lives in Florida, he ought to.”

Straight pursed his lips, considering the wisdom of Deal’s remark. “I been thinking about those things you told me,” he said after a moment.

“Is that right?” Deal answered, his tone as neutral as Straight’s.

“What you said about Leon,” Straight said.

“What about it?” Deal said. He drew a breath. If this was heading toward something, then it would happen any moment now.

“Didn’t come here to
ask
you about anything,” Straight said. “Just wanted you to know I decided you were telling the truth.” He cut his gaze out over the mangroves momentarily. “The way you see it, anyway.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Deal said.

Straight turned back. “The other thing’s the job.” The man was squinting a bit in the early sun.

“What about the job?”

“I’d like to stay on and work,” Straight said. He rolled his head atop his broad shoulders as if his neck was stiff. “If that’s all right.”

Deal nodded. “The offer’s still good.”

Straight stepped forward then and extended his hand up toward the railing. Deal took it, felt the calluses, felt the power in the man’s grip. It wouldn’t take much for Russell Straight to jerk him clean off the porch where he stood, that much he knew.

“One thing, though,” Straight said, releasing his grip.

“What’s that?”

Straight looked off again. “I’d need you to—like I said—pay me off the books. Just for a while, at least.”

Deal hesitated. There were thousands of undocumented workers in South Florida, to be sure, most of them illegals from the islands, as well as Central and South America. Maids, nannies, gardeners, fieldworkers, mechanics, assembly-line workers. Chase them out tomorrow, half the restaurants in the city would have to close. The INS would stage periodic raids every now and then, haul off most of the personnel from some hapless garment shop while the TV cameras rolled, but everyone knew the economy of the area depended upon the practice.

His old man had considered the use of undocumented workers a form of exploitation, though, and Deal had carried on in the same fashion. A man who worked hard deserved the same pay, the same benefits, the same status as everyone else. Russell Straight’s case seemed a bit different, though.

“I just want a little time on my own,” Straight was saying. “Earn enough for my keep. Then maybe go on back home, we’ll see.” He shook his head. “I go on the books, there’ll be the man on me before you know it.”

Deal nodded. He stared out over the mangroves himself, looking for whatever it was that Straight might have been focused on. Vernon Driscoll would be beside himself if he were here. His old man, too, most likely.

“All right,” Deal said finally. He turned back to the man. “For a while, anyway,” he added.

Straight stopped short of a smile, but his nod seemed a reasonable substitute. “I’m ready to start when you say.”

“I’m going back over to the Terrell site in a bit,” Deal said. “We’ll get you started then.”

Straight nodded. “I’ll wait in the truck,” he said.

Deal glanced at the Chevy, fairly gleaming against the dark green tangle of the mangroves. The breeze had shifted back in from the ocean, signaling an end to the cool weather. “I’m going to be a few minutes. It might get hot out here.”

Straight looked around. “I
been
hot,” he said.

“Suit yourself,” Deal said.

He started inside, then stopped and turned back to Straight. “We’ll keep our arrangement between you and me,” Deal said. “If you don’t mind.”

“That’s fine,” Straight said. “I appreciate you taking care of me.”

Deal gave him a wave then and went back inside the office. He gathered the loose files littering his desk and was moving toward the yawning file drawer for another sheaf when the phone rang again. He dumped the files in the drawer and picked up.

“John Deal,” he said.

“Congratulations, John,” the voice on the other end came. There was a hiss of static in the background, as if the call were coming from a great distance.

Deal felt the muscles in his jaw tighten. “Is this you, Sams?”

“I take it you’ve received the official word by now?” The voice cheery, unconcerned.

Deal pulled the receiver away from his ear and checked the readout on the caller ID.
Unknown caller.
“Of course,” he muttered.

“I didn’t catch that.”

Deal sat on the edge of his desk, pondering things for a moment. “Are you tapping my phone, Sams?”

“What kind of a question is that?” Sams said. “I simply assumed you’d have ascertained the facts—”

“Bullshit,” Deal said.

“I assure you—”

“Never mind,” Deal said. He’d have Driscoll check the lines later. But he had no doubt that, one way or another, Sams knew every detail of his earlier conversation. “Martinez told me the county was out of the loop on the job I landed,” he continued. “But you must have known that yourself.”

“I believe I conveyed that you were an invaluable part of the team, Johnny-boy.” The connection had cleared a bit, though Deal thought he could hear another conversation crossing theirs in the background.

“I told you not to call me that,” Deal said.

“You did,” Sams said. “Forgive me.”

“And I’m not part of anybody’s team,” Deal said.

“Unfortunate terminology, that’s all,” said Sams. “I trust you haven’t changed your mind.”

He hadn’t made up his mind in the first place, Deal thought. But until he knew a few more things about Talbot Sams, it would be prudent to keep the man pacified. “Where did you learn how to talk, Sams? What do you do when your batteries run out?”

“There’s no need for that sort of thing,” Sams said. “We’re going to be working together for some time.”

“So what happens next, Sams? I’d like to hear your notion of that.”

“Nothing happens,” Sams said. “Nothing unusual, anyway. You’ll meet with the officials of Aramcor Development, arrange to coordinate your own activities within the greater scheme of the project, and then you will go about your business.”

“That’s all?” The background conversation was clearer now. Two women speaking a foreign language, chatting animatedly about something that seemed to delight them both.

“For now,” Sams said.

“I take a meeting, then I go to work.”

“Was there something else you had in mind?”

“There’s something else
you’ve
got in mind,” Deal said.

“You’re simply going to establish yourself as a trustworthy and competent building contractor, John. That shouldn’t be a stretch.”

Deal thought for a moment. There was a distant peal of laughter from one of the women in the crossed conversation. Sams seemed unaware. “You’re convinced this guy Rhodes—whoever he is—is calling the shots at Aramcor?” Deal asked.

“I’m certain of it,” Sams said.

“I’m still not clear on what you expect me to do,” Deal said. “I never went to spy school.”

“I want you to learn everything you can about the present functioning of the company, including just how closely Rhodes is tied to its day-to-day operations. I want to know where he is based. I want to find out what banks he uses to channel the project funds—”

“Why don’t you just call Dun and Bradstreet?”

“There’s the information that’s part of the public record, and then there is the true gen, as one of our more accomplished men of letters liked to say,” Sams replied. “You’re going to get the true gen. And if there should be any unusual requests, you’ll pass that information along as well, of course.”

“Unusual in what way?”

“I think that’s self-explanatory,” Sams said. “We’ll consider such matters as they arise.”

“Suppose they figure out what I’m up to? What then? Do you and Tasker burst in, guns blazing?” There was a brief pause. Deal noticed that the women and their cheery conversation were gone.