Last Call

Chapter 46

Uncle Cy didn't know where they were headed. He didn't know what was going to happen to him. He only knew that he had to pee, which meant that it had to be around midnight. Every night, his aging bladder sent the same signal at the same time. He could have set his watch by it, except that he didn't have a watch. Didn't have a wallet or cell phone either. Not anymore. Cy had surrendered all those things at gunpoint before climbing into the trunk of Jack's car.

The ride was far from comfortable. It was hot, pitch dark, and he was having a tough time breathing. Height ran in the Knight gene pool, but flexibility didn't, which made for a tight fit. The spare tire butted up against his back. Jack's golf bag stole a good chunk of his legroom. His head was propped against the wheel well, and the whine of rubber tires on asphalt was almost loud enough to drown out his thoughts. Almost. Danger pushed the mind in strange directions, and it occurred to him that it had been a while since he'd stared down the barrel of a gun. The first time was a holdup, when he was just nineteen. The last time was during the Overtown riots in 1982. There was one other brush with a Saturday-night special, but he'd been too drunk to take it seriously. Never before, however, had anyone put a gun with a silencer to his head. That changed the equation.

Silencers were for real killers, not amateurs.

Cy felt the car slow and make a hard right turn. The hum of the highway gave way to the crunch and pop of a gravel road. A pothole rattled his bones. Finally, the car came to a stop, the engine shut off, and there was silence.

Cy heard the drivers door open and shut. The jangle of car keys and shuffling of footsteps told him that someone was approaching. Cy braced himself, expecting to hear the key in the trunks lock. Instead, he heard a man s voice. He couldn't make out what was being said, but it was growing louder as the man came closer. It didn't sound like the street dialect of the driver, a black guy who'd ordered him to shut his face and get in the trunk. This voice belonged to someone else. Cy was still waiting for the trunk to pop open when, instead, the entire rear end of the car seemed to sink a good six inches. Someone was sitting on the bumper.

"Change of plans," the driver said. He probably thought Cy couldn't overhear their conversation, or maybe he just didn't care. Either way, every word was audible.

"What happened?" the other man said.

"Had Knight all to myself at his new bar. Then, in walked his lawyer and his uncle before I could do the hit."

"Did anyone know you were there?"

Cy wasn't sure, but the other guy sounded white.

"Well, yeah," said the black guy "I mean, I shot his cell off the bar before his uncle showed up."

The anger in the white man's voice was discernible even through the trunk lid. "So you were playing with him. Is that what you're telling me?"

"A little, yeah. Just enough to keep it interesting."

"Damn it! We agreed to a hit, clean and quick. Just like Reems."

The words hit Cy like an epiphany. Theo had been right: he and Isaac Reems had been in the same man's sights.

The driver said, "Then you should have hired the same guy who hit Reems."

"Then you shouldn't have offered to do it for free."

"Cool down, all right?" said the driver.

"No, I can't cool down. You screwed up the Knight hit twice. At least the first time it had the markings of a random killing, just another drive-by gang shooting gone bad. But this time you definitely went and tipped off Knight to the fact that there's a contract on his head. If he's smart, he's in hiding. It could take weeks, maybe months, for us to get another shot at him."

"Got that problem solved, my man."

"Is that so?"

The driver slapped the trunk lid, and to Cy it sounded as if he were trapped inside a bass drum. "Got his uncle right in here."

"What the hell for? I got no interest in ransom."

"Listen to me."

"No, you listen. All I want is to shut Knight up before he starts blabbering about his mother. We have to assume he knows at least as much as Reems knew. I tried to buy Reems's silence, even paid off that guard to help him skip jail. In the end, Reems had to go. So does his buddy Theo. Period."

"Got it covered, dude. Like you said: Theo probably went into hiding. Which means we gotta lure him out into the open." How?

"Like any fisherman will tell ya, ain't nothin' like live bait." Again he tapped the trunk lid, two quick beats on the metal drum. "And we sot all the bait we need."

JACK AND ANDIE PARKED beneath a street lamp in the Coconut Grove ghetto. It was after midnight, but some middle-school kids were still out on the street, jumping the curb on bicycles. A homeless guy was asleep or passed out on the sidewalk. The beat of rap music blared from a pair of giant speakers as a group of gangsters rolled past in their lime-green low-rider.

"I'll wait here," said Andie.

Jack couldn't think of another woman he would leave alone in this neighborhood. He got out of her car, stepped onto the sidewalk, and walked toward the restaurant that had once been Homeboy's Tavern.

He probably could have guessed where Theo had gone, but the Lojack system on Theo's car told him what they needed to know. Law enforcement could access the GPS tracking system, so involving Andie had paid its first dividend.

Jack spotted Theo's car first, and then he saw Theo. He was alone, sitting on a bus bench and staring into the street with unusual intensity. It was as if the chalk line of his mother's body were still there, an unsolved homicide.

A westerly breeze carried a hint of smoke, typical of the late spring fires in the Everglades. The night was far from cool, however, and Theo had to be sweating in his leather jacket. Jack knew why he was wearing it. Trina had told him about the gun.

Jack stopped when he reached the bus bench. Theo was seated at the other end and didn't look at him. He didn't even seem curious as to how Jack had found him.

"Why'd you come?" Theo asked.

"To find you," said Jack. "Why did you come?"

Theo glanced over, and then he looked back at that spot on the street. "Same reason, I guess."

Jack didn't get it at first. Not very often did he hear Theo make allusions to finding himself. He took a seat on the end of the bench, leaving a comfortable space between him and his friend.

"I talked to Trina," said Jack.

Theo showed no reaction.

Jack said, "You can't do this alone."

Theo tapped the bulge in his jacket, the handle of his Glock. "I'm not alone."

"If Redden has done half the things you think he's done, you need a lot more help than that."

"You got a better idea?"

"I do."

"Let's hear it."

"Andie can explain it better."

"No FBI," said Theo.

"She knows."

Theo shot him a sideways glance. "He

"Yeah," said Jack. "She is."

"So the FBI doesn't know shit about this?"

"No. Only Andie."

"Damn," he said. "That's a hell of a woman."

"No kidding," said Jack. "So, you'll talk with her?"

A bus pulled up and stopped in front of them. The air brakes hissed, the doors opened, but Jack and Theo didn't move. The driver shrugged and pulled away, leaving them in a cloud of diesel fumes.

Theo turned to look straight at Jack, his eyes narrowing. "I want you to do two things for me."

"What?"

"Number one, when this is over, don't you dare blow it with her again."

Jack smiled. "Deal," he said, as he extended his hand to shake on it.

Theo shook his hand, but he didn't return the smile. "Two: stay the hell out of this. Both of you."

Theo rose from the bench and walked away.