Hard Case Crime: Dutch Uncle (11 page)

A six-burner stove dominated the kitchen, its exposed, cobwebbed pipes connected to nothing. A doubledoored refrigerator hummed against one wall and Bruce’s cot was set up along another. What Leo needed, he told Simon the Bartender, was a piece.

Simon worked keys into a pair of padlocks securing a closet and opened the door. Leo spotted a mop, a bucket, and two brooms with their bristles worn to nubs. A pallet of cleanser was encased in shrinkwrap, and there was a stainless steel sink Simon hadn’t gotten around to installing. He reached into a bowling bag and pulled out a black pistol that had a dull, oily sheen.

He said, “Know how to work an automatic?”

Leo said he did, though he didn’t. How complicated could it be?

Simon the Bartender pulled back the slide. “Careful. It’s loaded.”

Leo closed one eye and brought the pistol level with his shoulder. “How much?”

“That’s a SIG Sauer,” Simon said. “P226, nine millimeter.”

“Right,” Leo said. He was thinking this baby would do a lot more than just leave a telegenic hole in JP Beaumond’s forehead.

“The FBI’s using these now, you know.”

Leo held the gun at his hip and made a
High Noon
quick draw. Probably take a big piece of that Beaumond bean right off. “How much?” he said again.

“Six hundred.”

“Six hundred,” Leo said. “That’s a lotta loochie.” He had about five hundred on him. He gave the SIG Sauer back to Simon.

“That is not the way you hand a man a loaded weapon,” Simon the Bartender said. “Barrel down, the way I gave it to you. I don’t need any fucking accidents tonight. Six hundred and I throw in an extra clip.”

“Can’t do it,” Leo said. “What else you got.”

“I got this,” Simon said, reaching into the bag. “Twenty-five caliber. A little short on stopping power, but you’re not hunting buffalo, right?”

A chunk of the handle’s knurled plastic grip was chipped off. “This’s no good,” Leo said. “It’s fucked up.”

“Don’t worry. It fires.”

“Who makes this one?”

“Phoenix Arms,” Simon said. “That’s your Model Raven.”

“I don’t know,” Leo said. The SIG Sauer looked so much more menacing.

“And I got rounds,” Simon the Bartender said. “About fifty rounds. I won’t need ’em.”

“Alright,” Leo told him. “What’s the price?”

“Everything? Tax included?”

Listen to him. Tax included.

“A hundred and fifty bucks.”

“Seventy-five,” Leo said.

“A hundred and fifty and I throw in all the ammo I got.”

“You were gonna do that anyway.”

“But I got two hundred into it.”

“Bullshit,” Leo said. “I’ll give you seventy-five.”

They settled on a hundred bucks. Leo was on his way out with the pistol tucked into his waistband when Simon the Bartender called him back. He made him come close. He lowered his chin and he lowered his voice.

“If you gotta use it, drop it and walk. Don’t run. You call attention to yourself. Walk. Better if you can throw it down a sewer grate, toss it in some weeds or whatever, but remember, drop it and walk.”

This bit of advice must have been included in the purchase price. Leo wondered what had gotten into Simon the Bartender. Turned into a regular chatty Cathy right before his eyes.

Every light in the house was burning, but there was nobody inside. A drained 64-ounce Diet Dr. Pepper and a flattened pack of More 120s cluttered the coffee table, but Vicki wasn’t in her usual spot in front of the TV. The plate she’d been snorting from was licked clean, and it looked like she’d gotten a nosebleed at some point: a blood-spotted paper towel was wadded up next to the plate. None of her clothes were in the living room. Something wasn’t right.

Leo thought Vicki might’ve gone out with Beaumond and Fernandez, but Vicki didn’t go anywhere without Mimi, and the Chihuahua got car sick, so Beaumond wouldn’t let it in the Eldorado. That killed that explanation.

The bathroom had been cleared of her shampoos and her eyes shadows and her laxatives. The panties always drying on the towel rack were missing. The closet in the bedroom she shared with Fernandez was emptied of her sundresses and her shoes. Vicki was gone.

Leo dismissed the minor possibility that she went to the cops. Considering it was Vicki who helped them get next to Manfred in the first place, she was as guilty as any of them. He hoped she realized that. Plus, she was ga-ga over Alex Fernandez. No way she’d give up Alex. Not a chance.

But motherfucker. Now he had a whole other bundle of worries to deal with, just as he was on the verge of getting everything sorted out. He wasn’t going to let this setback throw him off. Oh no. He had work to do. He added Vicki to the list of potential problems that had to be dealt with, and he’d deal with her, too, in his own sweet time.

Using a wooden spoon to crush some rocks, Leo took a paring knife and diced the powder. He shaped the line into the curve of an S and sniffed it through the casing of a ballpoint pen, chilling to Gloria Estefan. She was singing in Spanish. Leo hardly understood a word. He wasn’t crazy about the music, but he loved this sexy Cuban babe. He bet he’d do all right with Miss Gloria Estefan, if he ever got the chance to meet her. He bet she’d be right on his tip.

He stuffed some blow into the end of a cigarette and smoked it like that, took a bump for each nostril, a freeze for his gums. This coke was the bomb, the best he’d had in months, from his own secret stash. Now what did those morons do with his pipe? Here was a nice rock that’d cook up juicy, give him a real buzz.

Leo originally saw himself standing behind the door and whacking Beaumond the second he came in, but the problem was, he didn’t know which door. So he sat on the couch with the automatic in his lap. Let Beaumond come to him.

The Eldorado’s headlamps flashed though the living room window, and after what seemed like a long time, Beaumond’s drunken voice came drifting in, warbling a current hit he didn’t know the lyrics to. He let go of a belch that sounded like it came from his heels.

They picked the sliding door. Came in through the kitchen. Fernandez first, mutely blasted, the opposite of Beaumond, who got stupider and louder the more booze you put into him. Fernandez didn’t say anything, blinking Leo into focus from the other room. He opened the refrigerator.

Beaumond was calling the dog, his voice getting closer, inside the house now. “Here, Mimi.” He whistled three times. “C’mere girl.”

Leo’s lip was wet with sweat. This was worse than trying to play it cool with Negrito. Way worse. The gun was trembling in his hand, and he couldn’t make it keep still.

He got off the couch and walked into the kitchen, the gun at his hip. He leveled it from about five feet away. He fired and missed.

The shitfaced Beaumond pulsed into stone cold sobriety, his eyes huge, reflecting pure fear. Leo liked that. Beaumond lunged for the gun and Leo fired again, grazing his head, the force of the shot spinning him to the linoleum.

Fernandez dropped a bottle of orange juice. It shattered on the floor.

Beaumond pressed his hand over his wound screaming, He shot me, He fucking shot me, and Leo squeezed off another round that went in above his ear and shut him up for good.

Fernandez was frozen in the refrigerator light, his mouth open, his hand on the door.

Leo said, “Are you gonna help me with this or what?”

Beaumond would’ve been enough of an idiot to hang on to the gun he used to shoot Manfred, and Leo found it wedged between the mattress and the boxspring of the bed JP’d been sleeping in. Also two hundred bucks in tens and twenties, and the latest issue of
Ass N’ Bush
. Give the boy credit for selecting a unique spot where nobody would ever think of looking. Leo put the money in his pocket and collected the few clothes Beaumond owned and stuffed them into a Hefty bag. That made it one handgun, one garbage bag half-full of uncool clothing, and one body that Leo needed to get rid of.

Leo was spoiled by the tight-turning Jag. In the driver’s seat of the Cadillac, Leo felt like he was piloting a tugboat, the Eldo squeaking and bouncing, badly in need of a front-end alignment. She kept wanting to drift right.

They were headed west on 19th Street toward the Causeway, Alex Fernandez riding shotgun, silent and jumpy, sucking the life out of a Newport. Beaumond’s body was in the trunk.

He guided the car into the right lane, pulling the wheel left to keep it from hitting the restraining wall. He slid down the passenger’s window. “Okay, kid,” Leo said, peeking into the rear-view, “Good a time as any.”

Fernandez got his torso outside, sitting on the door. Displaying the form that turned on so many scouts all those years ago, he brought back his left arm and heaved the gun over the wall and into the Bay.

“Nice delivery,” Leo said. “Good mechanics.”

He was watching his speed, but he thought they’d better get out to the Glades while it was still dark. He hadn’t ditched the automatic he bought from Simon the Bartender, because he wasn’t sure whether he was going to shoot Fernandez or not.

Alex was definitely catching that vibe. He lit one Newport off another and Leo thought, Wow, chainsmoking for real. He didn’t think he’d ever seen anybody do that. Fernandez was about as sober as he got, but he was jonesing for the coke Leo refused to let him bring along. He could sniff himself right into a cardiac when he got back. If he got back.

“This is bad,” Fernandez said. They were the first words out of his mouth since they loaded Beaumond into the trunk. “This is so bad.”

“It isn’t real good,” Leo said. Shit, he was out of Marlboros. “Gimme one of those Newports,” he said. He pushed in the lighter, and surprise, it worked.

Fernandez was fucking with the radio, trying to find something to listen to, all of it shit, until Leo lost patience with his button pushing and snapped the thing off.

The inside of the car went dead silent. Leo listened to the hum of the engine and the whirr of rubber on asphalt.

“He was my friend,” Fernandez said eventually. “I know you didn’t like him, but he was my friend.”

Leo said, “Hey, Alex? What about Manfred, Manfred was my friend.”

He was sweating again. Alex Fernandez was one oily, sweaty Cuban. That chemical smell came off him hard, and between that and the cigarettes, it stunk in the car. Leo peeled down the back windows, got some air in there.

A sliver of moon hung behind them, and the palest strip of violet lightened the eastern horizon, but it was pitch black everywhere, except directly in front of the headlights. Leo pulled onto an access road, but it was fenced off by a gate. Backing up across the highway, he got a running start, and plowed the Eldo through, the car dipping and diving on the rutted gravel. He left the motor running and the lights on and he motioned for Fernandez to get out.

He imagined it’d be quiet this time of day, but Leo was wrong. He heard all sorts of creatures rustling in the reeds and splashing around in the water. The trees shimmered with a thousand bird voices. It added up to a ton of noise.

Beaumond was wearing a Hefty bag, tied at the waist with some twine they’d found in the carport. This was Alex’s idea. He didn’t want to have to look him in the face, not even with the eyes shut. He was spooked, and Leo didn’t blame him.

Getting Beaumond out of the trunk was a bitch. No way Leo could’ve done it alone. He grabbed the top half of the body, digging his fingers through the slippery green plastic. Fernandez took the legs. With nothing to support it in the middle, the body sagged into a V. Pulling it over the lip of the trunk, Leo lost his grip, and Beaumond’s head smacked the bumper. It would’ve hurt like hell, if he’d been alive to feel it.

They rested for a minute, but Leo got rattled with the screeching birds and the dark all around them, and fieldtrip memories of gators chilling on logs. No guarantee a hungry one wouldn’t come running right up and snatch him. Those fuckers moved quick on their stubby legs.

They dragged Beaumond through the weeds, right to the edge of where the water met the road. Fernandez went in with the feet, him pulling and Leo pushing, until the garbage bag ballooned and the body started to float. Fernandez tore open the bag, dug up a big rock, and fed it through the hole. Leo loosened two more and Fernandez put them inside. He climbed out of the water.

He had his hands on his hips, breathing heavy and watching the garbage bag send bubbles to the surface as it sunk into the muck. Leo stood in his blind spot, his palm on the grip of the gun. If he was going to shoot him, this would be the time.

He thought back to an All-Star game they both pitched in, the stands bulging with pro scouts. Alex Fernandez was the star among stars, a skinny lefthander who overpowered everybody, on his way to a full ride at USC. His mother and his sister — she was the same age as Leo’s sister — cheering from the stands. Fernandez out there, holding the ball, looking in, and at that last instant, when it could’ve gone one way or another, Leo couldn’t do it. He just couldn’t do it.

Fernandez mumbled something about Jesus Christ Almighty and Leo said, “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

The sun was up by the time they hit West Miami. Fernandez wasn’t talking. Leo didn’t have much to say either, and they were all out of cigarettes, including Alex’s menthols.

Leo said, “We’ve gotta get rid of this car.”

“Drop me off,” Fernandez said, “before you do any other stupid thing.”

Get a load of this guy, smart-mouthing him. Did he realize how close he came to dying back there?

“I can’t believe this is my life,” Fernandez said. “This is so bad.” He was chewing his fingernails. “All I ever wanted to do was have a good time.”

“It’s done,” Leo said. “Stop being such a pussy about it.”

“Turn here for Hialeah.”

“I’m not going to Hialeah. Hialeah’s out of the way,” Leo said. “I’ll drop you off between here and the Beach.”

Leo negotiated the thickening traffic. They were driving into a part of town where the streets seemed familiar, but Leo wasn’t sure where any of them went. The Eldorado was stuck between a tractor-trailer turning left and a milk truck. Some idiot in a mini-van was nosing into Leo’s lane, trying to squeeze between the Eldo and the semi.