Mortal Dilemma (19 page)

“Right. I'm sure our people will want to know a bit more about that. What brought you to Key West?”

“I got a call from Youssef early yesterday, shortly after midnight. He told me to go to Key West and wait for orders. I got here at sunup and
called Youssef to let him know I had arrived. He told me about the cab driver, Tariq. I was to call for a cab and ask specifically for Tariq. I told the dispatcher that Tariq had brought me from the airport the day before and I liked him and wanted to use him again.”

“How did you manage to kill him?”

“I asked him to take me to a house where Youssef was staying. I pulled my pistol and made him go inside. Youssef cut his throat and I took the taxi and waited for further orders.”

“Why did you identify Akeem's and Youssef's pictures at Starbucks this morning?”

“I don't know. Youssef told me that if you showed me any pictures of them, I was to identify them. We knew the police wouldn't be able to find them, and we wanted to appear to be cooperating.”

“Did Youssef know who I was at that time?”

“No. We thought you were Detective Monk. Until I recognized you.”

“But you identified the men to me even though you knew I wasn't the police?”

“I saw your badge. It looked real. I thought you might be working with the police, so I identified them.”

“Is Youssef still at the house where you took Tariq?”

“No. The house was empty and Youssef just used it to get the cab. He left with me and I dropped him off on Duval Street.”

“Where's Tariq's body?”

“In that house.”

I heard a car pull into the driveway. Paul was home. I glanced at my watch. Five thirty. I had to get a move on. Paul came in the door and I told him that the man on his sofa was Shaheed Mustafa and that he was a terrorist and had been responsible for the death of Tariq Gajani. Paul talked with Shaheed for a few minutes, got the address of the house where Tariq's body was located and then turned to me. “I'll get
this idiot bedded down in a nice isolated cell. Can you get Kendall to send the paperwork right on?”

“I'll do that,” I said. “I need to get to Lower Sugarloaf International. My friend will be landing there in about twenty minutes. And I left my rental car at the Garrison Bight Marina.”

“The forensics people can pick up the taxi and get your car back to Avis. I'll drop you off at the airstrip on my way back to the jail with this asshole. Where's Jock?”

“In the guest room, I guess. He walked out when I hit Shaheed with my gun. Your gun.”

“Keep it. Let's check on my houseguest.”

We walked into the guest room. Jock was on the bed, sound asleep.

S
ATURDAY
, N
OVEMBER
1

Y
OUSSEF AL
B
ASHAR
and Saif Jabbar sat on the sand of Smathers Beach in Key West. It was late in the day and the crowd would be gathering at Mallory Square on the other side of the island to watch the street performers and the sunset. Each of the Arabs was wearing shorts, a t-shirt, and boat shoes. It was their attempt to blend in with the local tourist population, and it worked because Key West drew people from all over the world. Even their beards were not out of place in an island city that drew more than its share of latter-day hippies.

“I'm worried,” Youssef said. “I haven't heard from any of the others and they don't answer their phones.”

“What do you think happened?”

“They've either been taken or they're dead.”

“Four men in one day?” Jabbar asked. “How could that happen?”

“I don't know, but Jock Algren is a very dangerous man.”

“Is he good enough to take out four good men?”

“Three good men. The cab driver is a planner, not a fighter. But he was the only one we could get at the time. He was already in Miami for some reason. I was told to use him.”

“What do we do now, Youssef?”

“We must assume the others are dead. My source tells me the woman called Duncan has gone back to Longboat Key, but that Royal is still
here. Abdullah was supposed to have killed him today, but both he and the cab driver have disappeared. Royal may still be alive.”

“Do you think he killed Abdullah and the cab driver?”

“No. Royal's a lawyer who likes to fish. He would be no match for our men. It has to be Algren who took them.”

“Do we go to Longboat Key?” Jabbar asked.

“Not yet. I want to get Royal and I think he's still here. The woman will not be a problem. There is a man, an American, who is my source on Longboat Key. He will take care of her. I do not trust this man. He is not one of us. He is not a believer. But he will kill her for money, and she won't be expecting a Westerner to come after her.”

“Do you think Algren knows we came to kill his friends?”

“Probably. Our source told us that Royal and the woman came to Key West. He also told me that they flew in a private plane. Algren is smart and he probably knows we planted that card in his wallet and the only reason we'd do that is to lure Royal and the woman here.”

“How do you know Royal is still in Key West?” Jabbar asked. “He could have left today.”

“I know he was here this afternoon because the cab driver called me and I ordered Abdullah to set up an ambush and kill him. The cab driver called me when he let Abdullah off at the Marina and said everything was set. That was the last I heard from him.”

“It's a six- or seven-hour drive to Longboat Key. If he's going, maybe he'll fly,” Jabbar said.

“Yes. I want you to go to the airport and watch for him at the private terminal. The only scheduled flights out tonight would actually take him longer than driving. If you get the chance, kill him.”

“What if he's already gone?”

“Then we'll hear about it when he gets to Longboat Key.”

S
ATURDAY
, N
OVEMBER
1

I
STOOD IN
the gathering dusk in front of the ramshackle building that served as the sky dive office and operations center. I watched the Coit Airways' flagship, a single engine Beech Bonanza, line up on the runway on final approach. Russ to the rescue.

He was his usual jovial self and didn't ask me anything about Key West. He talked about his days as a young Navy fighter pilot stationed at the Key West Naval Air Station, and the good times to be had on Duval Street before the tourists began to come in swarms. It was the days when an unknown singer named Jimmy Buffet performed in the Chart Room Bar at the Pier House hotel, and an aspiring writer who was called Taco Tom tended bar and grew into the popular mystery writer and spinner of Key West tales, Tom Corcoran. It was a magical time, Russ said, and a place where young men's dreams came true. At least for a while.

When we landed at Sarasota, I called J.D. “Patti's going to meet Russ and me at Tiny's. Want to join us?”

“Sure. When?”

“It'll take us some time to get the plane gassed and cleaned, and drive to Tiny's.” I looked at my watch. “Eight o'clock?”

“I'll see you then. How will I recognize you?”

“I'll be the guy whose bones you'll immediately want to jump.”

“Other than Russ, you mean.”

“Well, yeah. I guess. Of course, I'll probably be too tired to be of much use to you.”

She laughed. “We'll see.”

*    *    *

Tiny's was crowded with the usual cocktail-hour folks who were still hanging around. Some would be there until closing time, and some had been there since Susie opened the doors at one in the afternoon. Patti Coit was sitting at a high-top table in the corner. I waved and Russ went to join her. Susie, the owner and bartender, was right behind him with the vodka and cranberry he always drank.

My buddy Logan Hamilton was one of those who came early and stayed late. He was sitting at the bar kibitzing with Cracker Dix and Sam Lastinger, his voice slurred by the scotch he'd been drinking all afternoon.

“Been here long?” I asked him.

“My philosophy is that if you're going to drink all day, you have to start early.”

“I think I saw that on a t-shirt in Key West.”

“Those bastards. Plagiarism is a sin. You'd think they'd know that.”

“Heard you were in the Keys,” Sam said, “and J.D. kind of stranded you there.” Sam was a bartender at the Haye Loft, an upscale bar on the key. He knew everybody and usually knew everything that was going on in our little slice of paradise. He was the central node on the island's information highway, whose sole purpose was to carry island gossip. Sammy was in his mid-forties, looked younger, and apparently appealed to women of every description.

“Yeah,” I said, “I thought she might have been sneaking around with you, so I came back.”

“I understand your concern, Matt, but you don't have to worry about J.D. and me. She seems well preserved, but she's what, late thirties? Anybody over twenty-five has already aged out of my dating parameters.”

“What's the younger end of that rather short spectrum? Eighteen?”

“Usually,” he said, enigmatically, and went back to his drink.

“Matt,” Cracker said in a low voice, almost a whisper. “You remember a couple of days ago I told you that some guy was at Mar Vista looking for you?”

“Yeah. Has he been back?”

Cracker pointed to the end of the bar. “That's him.”

The word “unkempt” didn't quite do justice to the man I saw on the last of the six stools at the short bar, his back to the wall that ran at right angles to the counter. He was glaring at us, sipping his beer from a bottle. He was wearing a white muscle shirt, and even in the dim recesses of Tiny's, I could see stains of various descriptions. Mustard, ketchup—which I surmised might really be blood, probably from fish, but who knew—engine grease, coffee, and several other smudges that I did not recognize. His denim shorts had been cut from a pair of jeans, one leg shorter than the other, both legs frayed, no hems. His ball cap might have once been green and it sported a generic fish embroidered on the crown. His feet were stuffed into ancient boat shoes. He wore a scraggly, anemic beard, gray and sparse, like a man who was incapable of growing a full beard, or maybe one who had contracted mange from a decrepit dog. Patches of reddened skin showed in random blotches in places where hair didn't grow.

I walked over to him, and was hit by a scent that transcended body odor. He smelled like three-day-old roadkill. I had a sudden vision of buzzards following him around and attacking like the birds that went after Tippi Hedren in Hitchcock's movie,
The Birds
. I was a bit surprised that he wasn't as old as he appeared from a distance. He was a
guy who kept in shape. Except for regular baths. I held out my hand, and said, “I'm Matt Royal. I understand you were looking for me.”

He grinned, showing big yellow teeth not unlike those of predators that show up in nightmares. He spit in his right hand and held it out to me. I quickly withdrew my hand. “Look,” I said, “I used to be a lawyer and I dealt with assholes on a daily basis. You don't even come close to some of the ones I tried cases against. What did you want with me?”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Maybe you could demonstrate that maneuver to me.”

“What?”

“I would like for you to show me how to fuck myself. I think it's an anatomical impossibility.”

“I heard you were a wiseass.”

“Some would call me humorous.”

“I'd call you an asshole.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Some call me that, too. Now what did you want with me?”

He laughed, a guttural sound that was as much growl as anything. “I came to tell you that I'm going to kick your ass and then I'm going to fuck that girl cop you hang out with.”

My first instinct was to punch him in the face, to beat him until I got tired, or just pull out my pistol and shoot him, maybe in the balls. I swallowed my anger, reasoning that I couldn't bust up Susie's bar, and if I shot the guy, I'd probably go to jail, no matter the provocation. I said, “That might be harder to do than you think.”

“How do you figure that?”

“First of all, I might be a lot harder to whip than you think, and even if you were able to take me, you'd still have to deal with J.D. She'd kick your ass all the way back to whatever swamp you crawled out of.”

He laughed again, or growled. “You look like some dandified pussy to me.”

I saw it coming, but was almost too slow to stop it. His right hand was wrapped around a beer bottle and it was coming off the bar, headed directly to my precious face. I put up my left arm in a blocking motion and took most of the force with it. At the same time, I punched him on the side of his face with my right fist, driving through and pushing his head into the wall. I followed him in and pushed my forearm into his neck, under his chin, trapping him against the wall. I heard the beer bottle shatter as it hit the floor.

I reached around with my left hand and pulled the pistol Paul Galis had given me out of the waistband at the small of my back. I put it up under his chin. I got close to his face and whispered, “I ought to kill you, you worthless son of a bitch, and I will if I ever see you within a mile of my girl. You got that?”

“Fuck you, lawyer man,” he hissed. “You shoot me here and you'll spend the rest of your life in jail. Go ahead. I dare you.”

I didn't take my eyes off him. I called out. “Does anybody see a gun around here?”

A chorus of “no's” filled the small space. “Maybe not,” I said and brought my knee up forcefully into his crotch.

He slumped to his knees and then began to struggle to stand, his face suffused with anger and pain and what I can only describe as meanness so pure that it sent a shiver of dread through my system.