Gagliano,Anthony - Straits of Fortune.wps (18 page)

"Uh-oh," I said, "now you've made her mad! Better get your gun out, sir!" Hackbart was silent for a moment. "All right, I apologize. Let's start over. Did Mr. Duncan ever speak with you about his work?" "What else do feds talk about when they're working together?" "How long have you known him?" "About a year. He testified in some of the cases back when I was with the D.A." "Did he ever tell you where he was born?" Hackbart asked. "I think he mentioned New Jersey, Union City. Maybe Newark. Someplace like that." "I don't think that's quite correct, Miss Andrews. May I call you Susan?" "Let's keep it formal. It's too late to make friends." "Duncan was born in Cuba," Hackbart said. "That's insane!" Susan said. "Duncan's no more Cuban than I am. Where are you getting this stuff from?" "His real name is Bernardo Reyes D�. Small detail. I guess he forgot to mention that," Hackbart said. "He told me he was half Irish," Susan said to no one in particular. "Well," I said, "you know how the Irish lie." Both of them glared at me. "D�--or Duncan, as you knew him--was a lieutenant in the Cuban army," Hackbart continued. "He served in Angola during the seventies. After that he was an intelli- gence agent. He arrived in Miami via Spain a few years ago as far as we can tell. In other words, he's a spy." "So much for background checks," Susan said. "And they let him into the DEA?" I said. "Wow!" "Not knowingly, no," Hackbart said, scowling at me. STRAITS OF FORTUNE 153

"There was a real Harry Duncan, a student at the University of Miami who died in a motorcycle accident in 1985. D� stole his identity. It's easy enough to do, and besides, he had help. This town is crawling with Cuban spies. They helped him set things up. The false employment records, the good references, credit history, the whole nine yards. Then he got into the Agency. You want to know how we found all this out? Well, every now and then we catch ourselves a spy, and, as is usually the case, he gives someone up to save himself." He looked at Susan. "This time it was Duncan." "Why'd he join the DEA?" I asked. Hackbart glared at me. "You ask a lot of questions for a fellow from Minnesota," he said. "But the answer is, we don't know. There have been rumors for years that Castro is involved in the drug trade. If they're true, it may be he wanted someone on the inside to see if we were getting close to anything. Fidel is a first-class asshole, but he has an image to protect. He wouldn't want it to get out that he was making money off of the narcotics trade through the Caribbean. That wouldn't look too good to his friends at the United Nations." "But Harry didn't even speak Spanish," Susan said hope- lessly. "Not to you he didn't. By the way, he also spoke Russian. Did you know that?" "So what now?" Susan asked. "You think maybe he went back to Cuba?" "It's possible. His cover here is blown. All we know is that he stopped using his cell phone a few days ago. That much we do know, because we've been keeping an eye on him for a while now. He had two phones. Two cell phones, that is. One he used for work. The other he didn't think anybody knew about, but we knew. By the way, do you know a man by the name of Randy Matson?" 154

Susan hesitated, and once again she managed to keep from jerking her head in my direction. "I don't think so," she said. I let out a breath. "Who's he?" "He was a friend of Duncan's," Hackbart said. "Don't know the name. Should I?" Susan asked. "Matson makes stag movies. Pornography, but we think that may be a cover. We've been watching him, too. Matson had a yacht named The Carrousel. A very nice boat. You'd have to sell a hell of a lot of dirty movies to buy a boat like that. The last time we saw it, he was anchored off Sunset Beach. We haven't figured out why it was there yet. The coast guard had it under surveillance, but the cutter assigned to the detail got called away on an emergency. They were tracking a boatload of illegals, and they didn't figure the yacht would leave in the middle of the night, but they were wrong. They're so underfunded over there it's a wonder they make payroll, let alone help us out. Now the yacht is gone." "Man," I said, "this is just like the movies!" Hackbart grinned. "I hope I'm not ruining your vacation, though from the look of that burn, I'd say you've already had too much sun. You've been to Miami before, haven't you?" "Sure, lots of times." "I know. I've seen you." "Really? Where?" "That I don't recall, but I've seen you." He stood up. "Doesn't matter." "You ever go to Spurs?" I asked. Hackbart frowned. "What's that?" "Oh, nothing. Just a nightclub," I told him. "It's a gay place. I go there a lot. I thought maybe you had seen me there." Hackbart looked at me in amazement and laughed. His white teeth flashed liked unmarked dice. "No, I don't think it was there." He turned to Susan, who was still sitting in 155

the wicker chair, staring at the floor as though there were a movie playing on it. "I'm still trying to figure out where I know you from," he said in a friendly tone of voice. I could tell it was really bug- ging him. I wouldn't have been surprised if he ran a check on me the moment he got back to the office. "It'll come back to you," I said. "Say, you don't have to answer this if you don't want, but I was just wondering. You don't by any chance have a crimi- nal record, do you?" "Not yet," I said, grinning. "But the night is young." "Not for me," Hackbart said. "Well, good night, folks. I'll be in touch." The agent gave me one last long, searching look and closed the door behind him. Neither Susan nor I said anything to one another for a few seconds. We were both enjoying the sudden pleasure of Hackbart's absence. But not for long. "You going to tell me how you know Duncan?" Susan asked sternly. "Or should I just strangle you now?" "Maybe Matson introduced him to me someplace. I don't remember," I said. "In my business you meet a lot of people." Susan put her head down for a moment, then looked up. "They're not after you," she said. "Not the FBI anyway. They're a bit myopic when it comes to a case. If they do anything at all, they'll turn it over to the local cops, unless they believe that crap about you being a smuggler. That's a federal matter, but I don't care about that right now. I just want you out of here before I lose my law license." "It's strange, that stuff about Harry," I said absentmind- edly. "I mean him being a Cuban. Maybe Matson was, too. Shit, maybe we all are." "Maybe you should leave. I'm not in the mood for you right now." 156

I stood up. "I need a lift to South Beach." "The son of a bitch was a spy," she said, more to herself than to me. "I could take a cab, but I'll need transportation once I get there." "You think I'm stupid, don't you?" Susan asked. "Susan, I have to head out." "What the hell is going on here, Jack? Why are you bullshitting me? You know Duncan. Tell the truth. You were staring at his picture in my bedroom. Why? Because he's so cute? Come on! And Duncan knew Matson. Tell me you didn't know that." "Not until fairly recently," I said. "But I can tell you this much: They're both dead." "What?" "They're dead. Dead and buried." "Tell me what's going on here, Jack. Were they mur- dered?" "That's right. Shot. Both of them." Susan stared at me for a hard moment, her eyes full of doubt, perhaps even fear. "I didn't kill them, if that's what you're thinking," I said. "But you know who did." "I thought I did, but now I'm not so sure. Listen to me, Susan. I was wrong to come here, but it's too late to change that. You're right: There is a lot I'm not telling you, but the less you know, the more you can deny without lying about it. Right now I just need one more favor, and then I'll be out of here." "You've got to be kidding, right?" "Do you still have that old BMW you used to drive? I need to borrow it." To my surprise, Susan said nothing. She just stared at me searchingly, as though for the first time finally realizing how 157

truly crazy I really was. Still without saying a word, she got up, fetched a set of keys from a rack by the front door, and tossed them to me. "Take it. I'm not sure if it will start," she said. "I haven't used it in a while. It's parked way in the back of the garage with a gray plastic cover over it. " "I was expecting an argument." "Why bother? You'll be in jail soon enough anyhow." I checked the peephole before opening the door. The hall- way was filled with light and emptiness and the quiet of sleeping people. I opened the door and stepped out. "You're a very stupid man," Susan informed me. "I realize that." "Is she worth it?" "Maybe, maybe not. Either way, I can't leave it half done." "I'm not sure I can be your attorney anymore, Jack, not after this." "I understand." I showed her the key. "Thanks for the car and the clothes." "Don't bother calling me when they catch you," Susan said before shutting the door in my face. I stood in the hallway, staring at the peephole for a moment. Then my stomach reminded me about the famous tuna fish sandwich again. I considered ringing Susan's bell to ask for it, but something told me I had better let it ride. One more squeeze and I'd probably wind up with a black eye. The old Beemer was where she said it would be, at the far end of the garage shrouded in form-fitting gray plastic as snug as a bodysuit. I peeled the skin off and stowed it in the small trunk, then climbed into the cockpit and prayed. I turned the key in the ignition and heard the sweet, happy purr of the engine. Five minutes later I was on U.S. 1 heading north toward 158

the beach. Only three courses of action now made any sense at all. The first was to keep driving until I hit Canada and then get a job training Eskimos. The second was to find Vivian and Williams, or maybe even Nick, with the hope that the truth, whatever it turned out to be, would be better than the chaos and uncertainty of not knowing. Of course, there was the third alternative of turning myself in and tell- ing everything I knew to the cops, of playing the part of the pawn who'd gotten used like a condom on a one-night stand. But the more I thought about it, the less I liked that last idea. Maybe in the end they would give me my life back, but not right away, and that's why I didn't do it. I couldn't see how I could avoid doing time--and not just because I'd ille- gally performed a burial at sea. By sinking Matson's yacht, I had also sunk crucial evidence in an investigation, if not the entire investigation itself, and investigations take time to set up, especially when they involve more than one branch of law enforcement. A big case might take years to build. A dozen assorted careers might depend on its successful con- clusion, and then I came along in a kayak and sent all that hard work down to the bottom of the sea--not deliberately perhaps, but permanently nonetheless. I would have to pay for that. My ass would be grass, and the government would be the lawn mower. It might be that they would get me for obstruction of justice or even as an accessory to murder, though that charge wouldn't stick. And then there was my famous breakout from Krome. That one was good for a couple of months. The point was that they would do whatever they could to make my life miserable for as long as they could, and that would mean keeping me in jail for as long as possible. Once I was inside, it might even be revealed that once upon a time Jack Vaughn had 159

been a police officer up in New York City, and then the real fun would begin. If you think the police lack a flair for ven- geance, then you need to hang out with them more often. So I was in no rush to put myself in the hands of the police, the FBI, the DEA, or even the ASPCA for that matter. Sitting passively in the slammer waiting for fate to call my number made no more sense to me at that moment than being free. Jail is a lot like death in that respect: It makes sense to avoid it for as long as possible, and I felt more than a little vengeful myself. So since there's nothing more pathetic than a venge- ful man sitting in a jail cell, I intended to stay free. Vivian and Williams were up to something, and I in- tended to find out what that something was. There was no sense in going down alone. I hit a button, and the sunroof slid open. Orion winked at me; the wind tore at my hair. I put the Space Man's CD into the tiny slot and turned the music up full blast. They're going to extradite my love. I threw my head back and laughed without reason. It was a catchy tune, though:

Cincinnati, New Orleans, New York City, too, They caught my ass in Tennessee, Now I'm comin' right home to you. They're going to extradite my love, baby, They're going to extradite my love. Now take your butt to the bondsman, baby. 'Cause I got shit to do. . . .

It was a good song. Double platinum at least. Vivian owned an apartment on Michigan Avenue out in South Beach, in a building called Tuxedo Park, just down the street from the firehouse and a block south of Flamingo Park, where the municipal swimming pool used to be. I drove by the building twice but saw nothing suspicious. 160

The block was dark. The tall trees muted the glow from the streetlamps, and it was as quiet as a lane in a small town. On my third sweep, I pulled into a space about sixty or seventy yards up the block and across the street from her place and shut off the engine. The flood lamps behind the hedges threw up a barrage of light that lit the sea green facade of the building and the neon letters that spelled Tuxedo Park as bright as the marquee at a Hollywood premier. I checked my watch; it was five min- utes to twelve. Knowing Vivian as I did, she would be just about ready to leave for the nightclub her brother had bought with money from his trust fund, a place called Embers over on Collins. Williams, if indeed he was looking for her, too, would probably be aware of this, so the only question was whether he would try to grab her as she came out of her apartment or try to waylay her at the club. The latter would be risky. There would be too many people and too many wit- nesses. No, I told myself, he'll make his move here. That meant my somehow getting into Tuxedo Park. Time was when I had a key to the place, but that time had long passed; however, there were a few other options, one of which was another felony. I was just about to exit the car when the glare from a pair of headlights bounced off my rearview mirror. I hit the recliner button on the side of my seat and slipped out of sight just as a white van slid by me, doing about ten miles an hour in a thirty-mile-an-hour zone. People in Miami don't drive like that unless they're looking for something or someone: Maybe a crackhead looking for a rock or a plumber on his way home from work looking for a hooker with a soft pair of immoral lips. But it was neither of these. It was Williams. I turned my head just enough to catch sight of the driv- er's profile as the van crept by. It was Williams, all right. 161