Deal with the Dead (21 page)

Chapter Twenty-nine

“
In here,” Basil said
.
He put his meaty hand on Deal’s shoulder and guided him off the darkened main hall of the house into a dimly lit study.

The room had the same vaguely musty smell that characterized the rest of the house, only stronger: old plaster, wood, and aging fabric, cured by half a century’s worth of humid tropical breezes and unleavened by the antiseptic sweep of air conditioning. Other odors as well in these close quarters, Deal noted: leather, bindery glue, the lingering odor of cigar.

As his eyes adjusted, he took in the furnishings: a massive, other-era teak desk with a tufted cordovan-leather chair, dark as the tiled floor beneath his feet. A matching wooden captain’s chest that took up most of the wall behind the desk. Bookshelves lining the room, a fair portion of the volumes leatherbound, and others with dust jackets chipped and yellowed.
Kon-Tiki,
he read on one spine.
Lost Weekend
on another.

Opposite the desk was a well-worn leather couch, its cushions as puffed and rippling as if they’d been covered in cotton. Beside the couch was a portable bar: liter-sized bottles of British gin, arcanely named Scotch, island rum. An old-fashioned seltzer siphon. An ice bucket and a set of crystal glasses.

“Make yourself comfortable,” Basil said from the doorway. “The boss’ll be here in a minute.”

In the next moment, the big man was gone, closing the carved panel door behind him. Deal didn’t hear a lock click, but what did it matter? He could start rifling the drawers, he supposed, see if he couldn’t find a weapon, but knew that would be wasted effort as well. He could see no phone in the room.

He walked to the portable bar, lifted the top of the ice bucket. Sure enough, half full of cubes, these looking like they’d come from a commercial icemaker. Somewhere was a big, placidly humming machine lodged in a kitchen that could service the fleet, or an ambassador’s dinner, he supposed. He worked his aching neck muscles, noting that the throbbing in his head had subsided. He reached into the bucket, helped himself to a handful of ice, dropped it into a glass that seemed to have the density of Jupiter.

He picked up the soda siphon, pressed what looked like the feeder, and shot his glass nearly full.
What the hell,
he thought, and added a splash of Scotch from a bottle that looked like it had been aged in a peat bog. He sipped at the drink, then sipped again. Had Gatsby been a Scotch drinker? he wondered. If he had been, this was surely his brand.

“My father favored that one,” a voice behind him came.

Deal turned and looked at the man who stood there. He hadn’t heard the door open. He realized he still had the bottle of Scotch in his hand.

“I’m not surprised,” Deal said, putting the bottle back among its pals.

“I owe you an apology,” the man said, stepping into the room. He left the door open. Deal wondered if Basil and Frank were out there, lurking in the shadows.

He’d been expecting somebody in a smoking jacket, Deal thought. The guy before him was wearing rumpled khakis and a denim shirt, his sandy, shortish hair mussed as if he’d just got out of bed. He extended his hand, an earnest expression on his refined features. “I’m truly sorry for the way this turned out.”

Far too young, Deal was thinking. No visible resemblance to the man who’d stood on the dock out there with his own parents a third of a century ago. This guy clearly just the latest in a series of dubious types to have occupied such digs as these. There was a lot of that kind of movement through the off-islands.

He ignored the offer of a handshake as the guy moved in, noticing he was a little off in his initial estimation. He’d taken him for much younger at a distance, but up close he saw the tiny lines at the eyes, at the throat, telltale indicators that even good surgery couldn’t erase. Guy his own age, Deal thought, possibly older. The guy stared back at him in a wide-eyed, TV celebrity’s manner that might have reflected enthusiasm. Or maybe it was just a by-product of the face lift.

Deal had another sip of the drink, his initial light-headedness progressing toward a full-fledged buzz.
What the hell,
he thought.
What the
hell.

“Basil and Frank told me something of what happened.” He gave Deal what passed for a sympathetic look. “That was hardly my intention.”

“Well, that fixes everything,” Deal said.

The guy cocked his head, as if he were measuring Deal for a new suit. “I wouldn’t pick you for a man who could hold his own against those two, if you want to know.”

Deal stared at him. “You mind if I ask what your intention was?”

The guy was shaking his head, apparently in brain-lock. “I’ve seen Frank bend a car bumper in half. Basil could probably fold it over again.”

“Is there a lot of call for that kind of talent?” Deal asked.

“Actually…,” his host began, then let himself trail off. Deal wondered if the guy might be on some drug.

“Tell Frank I’m sorry about his ear,” Deal said. He put his glass down on the silver tray where he’d found it. “Are we going to talk about what I’m doing here?”

“Of course,” the guy said. “You’ll forgive me.” He gestured at the couch. “You might want to sit down.”

Deal shrugged but kept his feet.

“The fact is, the two of us are business partners,” the man said.

“Business partners,” Deal repeated.

“I’m Richard Rhodes,” the man said. “Aramcor Development.”

There was silence as Deal stared at him, trying to digest it. But it had to be. He was looking at the man Talbot Sams had wanted him to get close to. Well, that little matter had been taken care of then, hadn’t it?

“As in the International-Free-Trade-Zone Aramcor?” Deal said, finally.

“That’s correct,” Rhodes said. He didn’t seem particularly proud of the fact, which was something of a plus.

“I don’t recall seeing your name on any of the original paperwork.”

Rhodes shrugged. “There’ve been a few changes.” He waved his hand as if the “changes” were of little consequence. “The fact remains, you’ve been awarded a significant portion of the undertaking.”

Deal shook his head in disbelief, the vision of Talbot Sams sitting at his own desk clear in his mind. “They didn’t tell me being kidnapped was going to be part of the contract,” he said to Rhodes. “Maybe we need to renegotiate.”

“I can understand your feelings.” Rhodes gave Deal what might have been meant as an apologetic expression, holding a hand up to forestall him. “But circumstances make it difficult for me to travel as freely as I might like. I sent Basil and Frank along to explain matters to you, in hopes that you’d agree to a discreet meeting here.”

“Maybe they should have just asked,” Deal said.

“They intended to, I assure you…”

Deal glanced at a framed print on the wall behind Rhodes. The old customs house in downtown Nassau. It was a staple of cruise-ship tourist art, though this was better than most.

“Just why is it you didn’t want to come talk to me yourself?” Deal asked. He doubted it was a question Talbot Sams would have approved, but he was past caring.

“Is that important to you?”

“Under the circumstances, there’s quite a bit that seems important,” Deal said. He had another sip of his drink. “But I’m guessing that either someone in the States wants to kill you or someone else wants to put you in jail. That’s why you’re holed up over here. You don’t want to talk about it, it’s okay by me, but at least let’s not bullshit each other.”

It got an outright smile from Rhodes. Added to the wide-eyed gaze, it made him look like a slightly surprised jackal. He seemed to be contemplating how to respond when another voice issued from the doorway.

“Is there going to be a fight?”

Deal glanced over Rhodes’ shoulder, saw her leaning with a hand pressed languidly at the door jamb as if she’d been there a while. Her expression suggested that she might not mind a fight.

Rhodes turned around, apparently as surprised by the woman’s appearance as Deal was. “Kaia,” Rhodes said. “I thought you were asleep…”

Kaia,
Deal thought. The right name to go with the accent. European, it seemed. One of the northern countries.

If she heard the note of uncertainty or disapproval in Rhodes’ voice, she didn’t register it. She had her eyes on Deal as she pushed easily away from the door frame and moved on into the room. She was wearing a pair of oversized black pajamas—Rhodes’, Deal guessed—the belt cinched tight at her waist, the pant legs rolled at her slender ankles. The effect might have been clownish had the woman been any less attractive. In this case, it only made her all the more alluring: plenty of rustling silk and all the body parts responsible, Deal thought. He wondered if he should have had the drink.

She put a hand on Rhodes’ arm as she approached. “You didn’t mention we’d be entertaining,” she said. It didn’t sound like a complaint.

When she moved past Deal toward the bar table, he caught the scent of her: shampoo, the faintest hint of jasmine mixed with citrus, along with the muskiness of flesh that had been wrapped up awhile in bedclothes. She splashed Scotch—the same bottle he’d gone for—into a glass and turned, sipping at it neat. The look she gave Deal suggested she knew every thought in his head.

“This is Mr. Deal,” Rhodes told her, as if it explained all things.

She tilted her glass Deal’s way. “Charmed,” she said, her voice tinged with a huskiness that the Scotch could have only enhanced.

“So am I,” Deal heard himself reply. He’d never heard anyone use the term in conversation.

He felt light-headed, literal as a dunce, as if Rhodes might have slipped something into his glass. Her eyes were a striking shade of green, her tousled hair reflecting shades of auburn from the parchment-shaded lamp on the desk. There seemed to Deal no good enough reason on earth to have left this woman’s bed. Certainly not to come talk to the likes of himself.
Throw the prisoner in the dungeon, Basil. There’ll be plenty of time in
the morning.

“I saw what he did to those men of yours, Richard. I wouldn’t antagonize Mr. Deal if I were you.”

She spoke to Rhodes, but her eyes were on Deal, waiting to see what he made of her little joke. Deal didn’t know what he made of it. All he could be sure of was his gaze, locked stupidly on her.

“We were just having a conversation,” Rhodes assured her.

She glanced aside, as if she’d forgotten Rhodes was there. She tossed her thick hair and raised her glass to finish her drink. Deal saw a flash of pale skin beneath her tilted chin, another deeper down the plane of her chest when she bent to place the glass on the bar table.
Oh my,
he found himself thinking, though he wasn’t quite sure what the trouble was.

Chapter Thirty

The woman in the flowing pajamas moved to the couch and perched herself on one of its pillowy arms, her legs crossed, her hands clasped at one knee. “Well, don’t let me stop you two from talking,” she said, pursing her dark lips together. An expression that would bring a man wading through a lake of hot lava, Deal thought, willing his gaze back to Rhodes. How must it feel? he wondered. How many men had she seen stare back at her as he was?

“Kaia can be trusted,” Rhodes said. His voice was calm, but Deal suspected that Rhodes was simply trying to maintain his cool.

“I don’t doubt it,” Deal said.
If you’d sent her instead of Basil and Frank,
it would have saved us all a lot of trouble,
is what he thought. He had to look to be sure he was still holding his glass. “I think we were just getting to the good part.”

“Are you sure you won’t sit down?”

Deal glanced at the chair behind him. Sitting suddenly seemed a reasonable prospect. He placed his glass beside Kaia’s and let himself sink.

Rhodes, meantime, had settled himself against the edge of his desk. He stared intently at Deal, his already wide-eyed gaze switched to over-eager mode. Beyond energized. Positively electric.

“You don’t recognize me, then.”

Deal shook his head, not certain he’d heard correctly.

“I wanted to be sure,” Rhodes persisted. “I didn’t want to say a word before.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Deal glanced at Kaia, who gave him a who-knows look in return. A certain degree of conspiracy in that look, as well, something that sent a jolt through him. A feeling as dangerous as anything he’d picked up from Rhodes and his thugs.
Kaia can be
trusted? Trusted to do what?

“Rhodes
is
my real name, but I haven’t used it for a long time,” the man before him said. He passed his hand in front of his face in an odd gesture. “And what you’re looking at isn’t me, either.”

“You could have fooled me,” Deal said evenly.

Not very long ago at all, he had been on his way to the store for a couple of scoops of ice cream, he thought. Spend an hour’s time with his earnest-to-a-fault daughter. Say hello to his wife, who sometimes seemed as elusive as the otherworldly man standing in front of him. At the end of it all, go home, tumble into bed, and get ready for a hard day’s work. Whose life had that been, anyway? In what dimension did such simple actions take place?

“I’m Richard Rhodes,” the man said once more, as if it should mean something.

Deal stared at him, his expression blank. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You’ll have to try me again.”

“Richard Rhodes,” the man repeated, his tone that of the aggrieved minor celebrity trying to get past the maître d’s stand at Joe’s Stone Crab. “We went to school together.”

Deal, who noted the emphasis on
school,
could only shake his head. “I’m sorry…”

“Gullickson Preparatory,” Rhodes insisted. “In Miami. Freshman year.”

Maybe it was the Scotch, Deal thought. Yes, he had attended the private school Rhodes mentioned, forced there by his mother, who feared he’d never crack a book without a headmaster brandishing a cane. But it was barely midterm before his father had become convinced that Deal’s football prowess would be better served at one of the city’s public school powerhouses. Deal barely remembered his time at Gullickson; certainly the name Richard Rhodes meant nothing.

“You played football,” Rhodes said, as if it mattered.

“And you were a geek in the band. You’ve had it in for me ever since.”

The man smiled thinly. “I played tennis, number-one singles. I also had a driver’s license and a little British convertible that my father had sent over on a boat. I didn’t envy you in the slightest.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Deal said, searching his memory, trying fruitlessly to conjure up a picture of a sandy-haired kid in tennis whites vaulting into the seat of a sports car, roaring off with a fourteen-year-old version of Kaia.

Kaia, meantime, shifted on the arm of the nearby couch, stretching her arms high to yawn. Deal knew enough to keep his eyes on her face. She gave him a smile. Deal stared back. Somehow it was difficult to think of this woman as ever having been fourteen.

“We weren’t friends, but our fathers were,” Rhodes continued.

Deal turned back to him. The man seemed obsessed, to say the least. But there
was
that snapshot, wasn’t there? Deal’s father and mother, carefree as a couple from a jazz-age novel, arm in arm with the dashing young man on that very dock outside. “My father had a lot of friends. He didn’t talk to me about all of them,” he said, finally.

“Fathers and sons,” the man before him said. There was a certain sadness in the way he shook his head, and for an instant, Deal felt a connection to this unknowable man, his grip white-knuckled to the edge of his desk as if it were keeping him from flying off the planet. “My father’s name was Grant. Grant Rhodes. They called him Lucky, occasionally. After that old Cary Grant film.”

Deal allowed himself a nod of recognition. He’d seen the movie on late-night television, long ago: an urbane gambling ship owner gets a conscience, aids the war effort against the Nazis. A black-and-white picture, in every way…

Then it came to him with a jolt—the note scrawled across the back of the photograph from his father’s files: Quicksilver Cay. A lifetime ago. “The bastards got
Lucky.”
Of course. “Lucky” with a capital L.

Lucky Rhodes. Though he could not register the details, the name itself seemed to fit. Perfect for another of the endless cast of Runyonesque characters that moved through his father’s life. Deal could conjure up the sound of the name rolling off his father’s tongue, the emphasis on the irony of a name and a destination rolled up into one, already the suggestion of a tale to come. If the details of Lucky Rhodes’ story remained vague, it was probably because Deal had listened to it with half an ear or less: “Met one hell of a crook in the islands over the weekend, son. We drank into the wee hours, ended up at his mansion on the bay…” Et cetera, et cetera.

There had been a million stories like it, or so it had seemed: a million similar plots spun out at cocktail hour, over dinner, during after dinner drinks, and late into the night. Politicians, Miami Beach celebrities, visiting dignitaries, visiting firemen—all were grist for Barton Deal’s mill. Even the smallest of Deal’s own exploits became the stuff of drama: “Let me tell you what happened Friday night on the playing field, ladies and gentlemen. You wouldn’t know it to look at this boy right here, but he’s a powerhouse…”

And Deal would twist away from his father’s grip, away from whatever overheated rendition of a touchdown pass thrown, a home-run ball hit. Garrulous, life-of-the-party, larger-than-life Barton Deal. As vigorous, as rough and ready, as impossible to miss as they come. If Grant Rhodes had been the alter ego of urbane Cary Grant, then Barton Deal had been John Huston incarnate.

“Your father saved my father’s life, in fact,” Rhodes was saying. “He helped him escape from Miami at a very difficult time—”

“Escape?” Deal said, shaking his head. “Your father was
from
Miami?”

Rhodes glanced at Kaia before he answered.
Something apologetic
there,
Deal thought. “You see all this,” Rhodes said, waving his arm at their surroundings. “You hear of private schools and my father’s association with important people…and yet you wonder why you haven’t heard of him.”

“Grant Rhodes,” Deal repeated, still searching his memory bank.
Lucky
Rhodes? But nothing came.

“My father was a gambler, a professional,” Rhodes said. “He operated what once were called supper clubs. The food wasn’t bad, and there were bands and dance floors. But they were casinos, first and foremost.”

“The China Clipper?” Deal asked. “That was your old man’s place?” It was a fabled establishment from Miami’s past, a private club that had come into being during Prohibition and which had lingered on well past the repeal of the Volstead Act. Local officials had been willing to turn a blind eye to certain hijinks as long as tourism was served and the right palms stayed greased. The China Clipper, located well up the Intracoastal Waterway north of the 79th Street Causeway, the very fringes of Miami civilization at the time, had been torn down sometime after the Second World War, well before Deal’s time, but he’d heard plenty of stories. He was the son of Barton Deal, after all.

“The China Clipper, the White Lotus, Blue Lagoon.” Rhodes shrugged. “There were several along the coast, in fact, from Palm Beach southward to Miami. He even had a steamship refitted as a club and anchored just outside the twelve-mile limit for a time, the
Polynesia.
There wasn’t anything on board that you couldn’t get at one of the mainland spots, but my father was a romantic at heart. Something in the concept appealed to him.”

“A romantic mobster?” Deal asked.

“He wasn’t a mobster,” Rhodes said. “Not in the way you mean it, anyway. When it came to business, he was a lone wolf. It’s the quality that led him into trouble, ultimately.”

Deal nodded. “It usually does.”

“I believe that’s one of the things that drew your father and mine together,” Rhodes said.

“Nobody ever called Barton Deal a team player,” Deal said.

Rhodes nodded. Deal noticed that the man was back to staring at him intently. “I meant what I said earlier, Mr. Deal. It may not feel that way to you, but you
are
my guest. You’re free to leave at any time.”

Deal considered the words, unable to stop a sidelong glance at Kaia, who had slid down, tucking herself into a corner of the plush sofa. “As in right now?” he asked.

“I’d advise waiting for morning,” Rhodes said. “The reef out there can be tricky.”

“Your man found his way in well enough,” Deal said.

“He was operating under a great sense of urgency.”

“Maybe I feel the same way about getting back.”

Rhodes gave him a sympathetic look and leaned forward. “The truth is that Basil reports a bit of a problem with the screws on the boat.” His regret sounded sincere. “I’m afraid we’ll have to wait for better light to take a look at things.”

Deal nodded. “Why am I not surprised?” He glanced around the room again. “What if I just make a couple of phone calls, then, put everybody’s mind at ease back home—”

“If a phone were available…” Rhodes said. He trailed off, opening his hands in a gesture of helplessness.

“You don’t have a telephone?” Deal asked, his voice rising.

“I do apologize,” Rhodes said, shaking his head. “Circumstances dictate the utmost caution. But perhaps the delay will give us some time to get to know each other…”

“You think we’re going to buddy up, Rhodes? Dig out the Gullickson yearbook? It just doesn’t work that way.”

Rhodes nodded as if he’d expected as much, but he didn’t respond. Instead, he pushed himself away from his desk and crossed over to the bar. He picked up a glass, inspected it in the light, polished it against his sleeve. He poked about the clutch of bottles, seemed to find what he’d been looking for.

“From Haiti,” he said, showing the bottle to Deal. Rum, it looked like. A label resembling aged parchment. “My father made a fortune smuggling this brand into the States. But that’s hardly a crime to condemn a man for, is it?” He poured some of the amber-colored liquid into the glass, his drink neat as well. Deal found himself wondering who the ice had been put out for.

“Look, Rhodes. I don’t care if your old man was a bootlegger, and I sure don’t care if he ran a floating crap game with a few call girls on the side. I just want to know why you brought me here.”

“Of course you do.” Rhodes nodded. He saluted Kaia with his glass and sipped at the rum. “As a man whose father had his own image problems, I’m sure you’ll understand—”

“You want to talk about
your
father, that’s fine,” Deal cut in. “Leave my old man out of it.”

Rhodes glanced at him, saw Deal’s hands gripping the arms of the overstuffed chair. His gaze flickered toward the darkened doorway, as if he might be calculating how long it would take Frank or Basil to make it inside.
Too long,
Deal was thinking.
Way too long.

“Yes,” Kaia said, rising from her place on the couch. “Remember your manners, Richard.” The way she moved toward the bar might have seemed casual, but Deal noted she had placed herself squarely between him and Rhodes.

“Can I freshen you up?” she asked, already pouring Scotch into his glass.

“You want to know why I asked you here,” Rhodes said. “I’ll have to tell you the story.”

“Ice, wasn’t it?” Kaia was saying. She opened her hand—a magician’s flourish—and Deal heard the faint clink of tiny cubes against crystal.

He stared at her, wondering where the ice had come from.

“Don’t be too surprised,” said Rhodes, amused. “She’s quite the trickster, Mr. Deal.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Deal said, pulling his gaze away from her. Usually it was the man who performed the magic, wasn’t it? The woman was just there to look at. Here was a different package altogether, or so it seemed.

“You were going to tell me a story,” he said to Rhodes.

“Your father and mine.” Rhodes nodded. He gestured toward the dock with his glass. “We have some time.”

“This is yours, then,” Kaia said, handing the drink his way.

Deal glanced up at her. He’d had women hand him drinks before. He was a grown-up after all. But the look she gave him—that he’d rarely seen. It was over in an instant, her hand withdrawn, the glass heavy as lead in his, but
still,
Deal thought.
Still…

“Of course, if you’re done in…” Rhodes was saying.

Not a bad way of putting it, Deal thought, but he had a sip of the smoky Scotch anyway. From the corner of his eye, he saw Kaia tuck herself into the cushions of the willing couch. He tilted his glass toward Rhodes. “Go for it,” Deal said.

And Rhodes did.