Wyatt's Revenge: A Matt Royal Mystery (3 page)

I found Logan at Tiny’s, a small bar on the north end of the key. It took up a corner adjacent to the Village, the oldest inhabited part of the island, home to people who could never afford the condos on the gilded south end. He was sitting on his usual stool, a baseball cap covering his balding head. He was wearing a golf shirt, shorts, and running shoes without socks, his usual attire. Logan stood about five feet eight and had put on a little weight over the past couple of years. His graying hair was fighting a losing battle with baldness. A Scotch and water sat on the bar in front of him.

I took the stool next to Logan. “Hey, buddy.”

He turned toward me and lifted his glass. “How’re you doing, Matt?”

“Fine. I need to talk to you about something I heard yesterday.”

“What’s up?”

I looked around to make sure no one else was within earshot. “I think I know who killed Wyatt. I’m going after him.”

“Whoa. Hold on a minute. Turn it over to the cops, Matt. They know how to handle these things.”

“Won’t work. I doubt they could get enough evidence to arrest him, much less convict.”

“How do you know you’ve got the right guy?”

I knew that Logan would keep his mouth shut, so I told him what I’d learned from Debbie and Cracker. “It’s not much evidence for the cops to go on. No prosecutor is going to take a case this thin into court. I’m not going to let this guy walk.”

“Bill Lester says he thinks it was a professional hit.”

“If that’s the case, the shooter knows who hired him. I’ll work up the chain.”

“Matt, listen to yourself. You’re a retired lawyer who hangs out on the beach. This guy’s probably a professional. You could be getting in way over your head.”

I was in good shape. I pointed out that I ran every day and worked out occasionally with a martial arts instructor, honing the skills the army had taught me long ago. I could take pretty good care of myself in a fight and knew how to use a gun. “I used to be a professional myself,” I said. “I can handle this.”

“Need some help?”

Logan had made his argument for sanity. It hadn’t taken, and he was ready to do whatever it took to help out. That was vintage Hamilton. A friend.

We’d been in a couple of scrapes during the past year; more than one would think could happen on a small island resting in the sun of Southwest Florida. Logan always backed me up without question. It was his nature.

“Not yet,” I said. “Let me take the first step and see what I find out. I’ll let you know what happens.”

“You ready for a beer?”

We sat for an hour or so. I told Logan my plans, such as they were. I wanted him to know where I’d gone in case I didn’t come back. It was getting near evening, and the working people from the Village were stopping
in for their after-work drink. Each one stopped to shake my hand and offer condolences on Wyatt’s death. It was the island way.

Fern Park is a small unincorporated village that straddles U.S. Highway 17-92 on the north side of Orlando. Convenience stores, shopping centers, car washes, grocery stores, topless joints, and a large sheriff’s substation border the road. This was once a town, but when it went bankrupt in one of Florida’s semiregular boom or bust periods, the city fathers decided to unincorporate the town and let the creditors stew.

The Fern Park post office occupied a small building on a side road directly behind a large carwash and small strip shopping center. I parked my rental car and went inside. I was looking for box 158. It was one of the small ones, with a glass in the door front. I saw three envelopes resting there, taking up most of the space. I couldn’t read the addresses on the envelopes, and I knew that the postal employees wouldn’t tell me to whom the box was assigned. I’d just have to wait to see if anyone came to pick up the mail. I hoped Mr. Rupert expected the letters and would be along to collect them. Not much of a plan, but I didn’t have anything else to work with.

On the first Friday in November, the weather was still warm, the humidity high. Autumn in this part of Florida arrives when the air becomes drier and the temperature drops to a more bearable level. It was a little late in coming this year, but a cold front was predicted.

I took a seat on the bench at the bus stop in front of the post office. The schedule posted there told me that a bus came by at the top of the hour. That would give me about forty-five minutes. I could see box 158 from the bench, and I wouldn’t raise anybody’s suspicions by waiting for the bus.

A bus came and stopped. Two passengers got off and walked toward
the shopping center. I waved the driver on, and sat through the cloud of diesel exhaust belching from the vehicle as it pulled away.

Another hour went by, and another bus stopped, this time going in the opposite direction. Same driver. I waved him on and sucked up more fumes. I’d brought a book and a bottle of water to the bench. I sipped and read, enjoying James Born’s latest mystery. I glanced up every minute or so to see if anything was going on at the box. It was nearing noon, and I was sweating like a pig. My water bottle was empty, and I was getting hungry. Another bus stopped, moved on.

I was idly watching a young woman wearing shorts and a halter top entering the post office. Nice body, long legs, blonde hair to her shoulders, a little butt twitch as she walked. My kind of girl. Then again, I’m not all that choosy.

I was suddenly hit with the revelation that she was standing in front of box 158. My heart kicked up a notch. I got off the bench, and strolled toward the plate glass window that took up the front of the building. I couldn’t see which box she was using, but as she moved away, I saw that box 158 was empty. The blonde had three envelopes in her hand as she walked to an ancient Toyota parked in the space next to my rental.

She pulled out of the parking lot, the old car spewing black smoke from the exhaust. I eased up to the road and let her get about a block ahead of me. I followed. She was traveling east and after about four blocks turned right and in another block turned into an older looking apartment complex. She made a couple of turns on the interior roads and parked in front of a one-story building housing four apartments. I pulled into a space twenty feet away. She went to one of the doors, knocked, handed the mail to the man who answered, and walked back toward her car.

I walked over to meet her and showed her a badge that identified me as an honorary officer of the Longboat Key Police Department. Bill Lester had given it to me along with a nice certificate when I’d donated five hundred bucks to a police charity. It looked real enough if one didn’t examine it too closely, and I didn’t give her a good look.

“I’m Detective Charles McFarland,” I said. “I’d like to ask you a couple of questions if you have a minute.” I gave her a big smile, the one that I was sure had melted the hearts of tougher women than she.

“Sure.”

I gestured toward the apartment. “Is that Michael Rupert’s place?”

“Is he in trouble?”

“No. Just routine.”

“That’s the name he told me, and that’s the name on the mail.”

“You don’t know him?”

“No. I clean for him once a week and check his mail every day. He pays me in cash, and I don’t ask questions.”

“Ever see any other people with him?”

“No. You sure he’s not in trouble?”

“Not yet. Thanks for your time.”

She shrugged, got into the Toyota, and left in a cloud of exhaust.

I walked to the door, pulling a pair of latex gloves out of my pocket. I took the .38 out of another pocket, attached a silencer to the barrel. I knocked. The same man answered. He was about five feet eight and thin, with ropes of muscles binding his torso. His short-cropped blond hair was wet and matted to his scalp. He was shirtless and barefoot, wearing only gym shorts with an elastic waistband. He was sweating in the humid air, droplets coursing down his hairless chest. He looked at my pistol and, showing no surprise, turned and walked back into the room, gesturing for me to follow.

The living room was sparsely furnished, holding only a sofa, a large TV, and a set of barbells complete with a bench. The man had apparently been working out when I knocked.

He sat on the sofa. “Who the hell are you?” he asked.

“A friend of Laurence Wyatt’s.”

There was no change in his expression. “How did you find me?”

“That’s not important. You don’t seem too concerned that a friend of the man you murdered is standing in your living room pointing a gun at you.”

“Ah. You’re Matt Royal. I spent some time on Longboat Key, scoping the place out. I heard about you. Saw you at Mar Vista with Wyatt one day. You’re a lawyer, an upstanding citizen. People like you don’t kill in cold blood.”

“You’re pretty sure of yourself.”

“I know your type. You’ll turn me into the law, but there’s no evidence connecting me to the murder of your friend, and if you were wired, my security devices would have let me know the minute you walked in the door. You’ll never prove anything.”

“Why did you kill him?”

“Because somebody paid me ten thousand dollars to do it.”

“Who?”

“Even if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you.” He smirked, but it was more of a leer, a mocking face telling me I had nothing. “You know about client privilege, right?”

I shot him in his right ankle, the pistol making a small noise that could not be heard beyond the room we were in. Rupert recoiled in searing pain, a look of horror on his face. His brain was starting to comprehend that he may have been wrong about me, that maybe he was in big trouble.

“Rupert,” I said, “I don’t give a shit about you. You can live or die, and it won’t make a fiddler’s damn to me. I want the man who ordered Wyatt’s death. You give him to me and you might survive today with nothing worse than a limp.”

“I don’t know who it was,” he said through clenched teeth.

I aimed the gun at his other ankle. “You’re going to have a hard time ever walking again with two shattered ankles.”

“No. Listen.” Genuine fear now edged his words, a tremor in his voice, a pleading look in his eyes. The carnivore trapped by a bigger, meaner, hungrier animal, one with no mercy in his soul, one who had pushed into the hidden lair without warning. “You’ve got to believe me. I don’t know the man. Everything was handled by a middleman that I deal with all the time.”

“Who’s the middleman?”

“If he finds out I told you, I’m a dead man.”

I raised the gun, pointing at his head. “You’re a dead man if you don’t tell me. Your choice.”

He was in terrible pain, his facial features puckered. His shattered ankle was bleeding all over the carpet. His breath caught, something like a sob passed his lips.

“Okay,” he said. “His name is Max Banchori. From Miami.”

“Is that the man you had dinner with the night before the murder?”

A look of surprise skittered across his face. “No. That was just a local contact.”

“What’s his name?”

“I don’t know.”

I raised the gun again.

“No,” Rupert said. “If I knew, don’t you think I’d tell you? I’ve given you Banchori, and he’s going to kill me if he finds out.”

I believed him. He was too scared and in too much pain to hide anything else. “Did you take Wyatt’s laptop?”

“Yes.”

“Where is it?”

“I sent it to Banchori. He told me that was the only thing I was supposed to take out of the apartment.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Honestly.”

“Give me Banchori’s address.”

“I don’t know it. Honest. We always dealt by phone. I’ve never met the man.

“I’ve got to know something, Rupert. Did Wyatt know he was about to die?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I came in through his front door. I knew he never locked it. He was on his balcony reading the paper. He heard me just before I got to him. I put the gun to the back of his head. He knew it was over. He said, ‘Who sent you?’ I told him it wasn’t important. His last words were ‘Then fuck you and the horse you rode in on.’”

It was a cold recitation of facts, no emotion from Rupert at all. He could have been talking about a TV show. I’d never been so close to pure evil. They’re a type, these sorry bastards who roam our world and hide in our midst. They’re sociopaths who have no empathy for others. They can’t feel any of the emotions that normal people have, and so they don’t understand them. They’re good at playacting, at pretending to have feelings, so they’re able to survive in a society that should fear them.

Rupert was a study in fear, his right hand clasping his ruined ankle, his left stuffed between the cushions of the sofa, his face a rictus of pain, teeth clenched, lips pressed tightly. The man seemed to have one real emotion, though. Fear of his own death. I put the gun to his head, the working
end of the silencer boring into his forehead. “No, don’t do it,” he said, sobbing. “I’ve told you everything I know.”

I wanted this cretin dead. My finger tightened on the trigger. A tiny bit of pressure more, and I’d send a bullet through his brain. I stood over the trembling man, gathering my feelings. Nothing. What the hell was wrong with me? I was about to kill a man in cold blood, and I felt nothing.

Was I like Rupert? I hoped not, but at that moment I wasn’t sure. I’d killed men in combat and in firefights that had nothing to do with war. But that was always in the heat of battle, when the blood was running hot with the knowledge that it was them or me. Those situations called for one of us to die, and I’d rather it be the other guy than me. But here, I was about to shoot a helpless man in the head, deprive him of life, send a bullet into his brain, and push him into eternity.

The fact that he was less than an animal didn’t change the reality that I was about to murder a human being. For the first time in my life. Where was the remorse, the regret? Maybe it’d come later. But I was afraid that it wouldn’t. That I was about to cross the boundary that separates good people from the truly evil. I wondered if I could find my way back. What if I couldn’t?

I’d promised myself that I’d take revenge on Wyatt’s killers, but I couldn’t do this. Rupert was right. I couldn’t kill in cold blood. I’d have to let the law take its course. For good or bad. I released the pressure on the trigger and pulled the gun away from his forehead.