Last to die

“Hey, Theo!” he called out across the lawn.

Theo didn’t seem to hear him. He was busily scrubbing down his twenty-four-foot sport fisherman, which at the moment was suspended by davits and hanging over the water. The one saving grace of Jack’s austere rental house was the fact that it was on the water with its own dock. This was his third rental since the divorce, part of his whirlwind quest to find the perfect digs for a divorced man with no kids, no addictions, and surprisingly little interest in dating. His latest experiment was a “Mackle home,” a simple three-bedroom, one bathroom, cinder-block structure with a small screened-in porch and, of course, no central air conditioning. In the early 1950s, the Mackle brothers built scores of these basic beach homes, mostly for WWII veterans and their young families. Back then, Key Biscayne was little more than a mosquito swamp, so Mackle homes were about the cheapest housing around, with a typical closing price of twelve thousand dollars. Today, the lot alone went for about twelve grand per foot of linear waterfront. It seemed that about every third or fourth day a developer would drop by, aching to enter Jack’s living room with a bulldozer and blueprints. His was the last of the waterfront Mackles still standing.

“Yo, Theo!”

Still no response. Working on a boat with the music blasting was enough to put Theo in another world. Since Jack didn’t own a boat, he let Theo dock his behind the house. It was perfect for Theo, who ran his bar at night, fished and slept all day on the boat. He was one of those rare friends who never seemed to age, which wasn’t to say that he didn’t look older from one year to the next. He just refused to grow up, which made him fun to have around. Sometimes.

Theo was hosing down the deck as Jack approached. “Catch anything?” asked Jack.

Theo kept cleaning and said, “Not a damn thing.”

“It’s like they say: That’s why they call it fishin’, not-”

Theo turned the hose on him, giving his suit a good splash.

“Catchin’,” said Jack. He was dripping wet but pretended that it hadn’t happened, wiping the water from his face.

“You know, Swyteck, sometimes you are just so full of-”

“Wisdom?”

“Yeah. That’s exactly what I was go

“I guess it takes a real genius to taunt an ex-con who’s holding a garden hose,” said Jack as he brushed the water from his pinstripes.

Theo climbed out of the boat, smiled, and gave Jack a bear hug so big that his feet left the ground. Theo had the height of an NBA all star, the brawn of a football linebacker.

Jack took a step back, surprised. “What’s that for?”

“Happy A

Jack wasn’t sure how Theo knew, but he figured he must have mentioned something to him about the one-year milestone. “I wouldn’t exactly call it a happy a

“Aw, come on. You go

“Exactly what a

“What a

“It was a year ago today that Cindy and I separated.”

“Cindy? Who the hell gives a rat’s ass about her? I was talking about us.”

“Us?”

“Yes. Ten years ago this week. You and me met for the first time. Remember?”

Jack thought for a second. “Not really.”

“Now you’re hurtin’ my feelings. I remember everything about it. It was a Friday morning. Guard comes and gets me from my cell, tells me I have a meetin’ with my new court-appointed lawyer from the Freedom Institute. Of course, I’m sittin’ on death row without a damn thing to do, except lay there and ask myself, ‘Theo, would you like the mustard sauce or drawn butter with your last meal of stone crabs and fried sweet potatoes?’ So I’m bouncin’ off the walls at the thought of a new lawyer. So I go down, and there you are, sittin’ on the other side of the glass.”

“What did you think when you saw me?”

“Honestly?”

“Honestly.”

“Typical white Ivy League graduate with a save-the-black-man guilt complex.”

“Gee. And all this time I thought I’d made a lousy first impression.”

Theo narrowed his eyes, as if quizzing him. “Remember the first thing I said to you?”

“Probably something along the lines of ‘Got any money, dude?’”

“No, smart ass. I looked you right in the eye and said, ‘Jack, there’s something you need to know right up front: I am an i

“I do remember that.”

“And do you remember what you said?”

“No.”

“You said, ‘Mr. Knight’-you called me Mr. Knight back then-‘there’s something you need to know right up-front: I think you’re a big, fat, fucking liar.’”

“Did I really say that?”

“Oh, yeah. Exact quote.”

“Wow. You must have thought I was an asshole.”

“I still think you’re an asshole.”

“Thanks.”

Theo smiled, then grabbed him by the shoulders and planted a big kiss on his cheek. “Happy A

Jack smiled. Theo and his kisses. A last-minute release from death row for a crime you truly didn’t commit could make you want to hug everyone for the rest of your life. Or it could have the opposite effect. It all depended on the man.

Theo said, “Grab that cooler, will ya’?”

Jack took it by the handles, and Theo gathered up the fishing poles with the other gear. Empty bottles rattled inside the cooler as the men crossed the lawn to the driveway. Theo popped the trunk. Jack put the cooler inside, then helped Theo break down the poles and mount them on the roof rack.

“Anything else?” asked Jack.

“Yeah, actually. I need a favor. Big one.”

“What?”

“Did you happen to see that story in the local section a few days ago? That rich woman who got shot in the head while waiting on the red light to get on the expressway?”

“I might have skimmed it. I’ve been in trial too long. Not seeing much news.”

Theo opened the car door, pulled something from the console, and handed it to Jack. It was a newspaper clipping. “Read this.”

There were only a few paragraphs with a photo of the victim. Jack read quickly. “Sad.”

“Is that all you can say?”

“It’s sad. What more can I say?”

“You could look at her picture and say, damn, she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“Okay, she’s beautiful. Does that mean I should be sadder?”

“Yes, Mr. Politically Correct, it does make it sadder. That’s what everyone wants to be. Young, rich, beautiful. And now she’s dead. Doesn’t get any sadder than that.”

“Theo, where are you headed with this?”

“Did you read how much she was worth?”

“Yeah. Something like…whatever it said.”

He took back the clipping and pointed to the figure. “Forty-six million.”

Jack read it again. “That’s a lotta dough.”

“Damn straight. Now, this is not a trick question, but I want you to try and guess when was the last time a bona fide babe worth forty-six million dollars came walking into my bar.”

“You saw her in Sparky’s?”

“About two and a half weeks ago.”

“What was she doing there?”

“Talking to a contract killer.”

“A what?”

“You heard me.”

“You mean she was meeting with someone who kills people for money?”

“I don’t mean someone who shoots contracts for a living.”

Jack scratched his head, thinking. “You sure it was her?”

“You think I’m go

Jack saw his point. “So, she talks to a contract killer, and two weeks later, she’s the one who turns up dead.”

“That’s right,” said Theo.

“What do you make of that?”

“Smells bad.”

“I’ll give you that,” said Jack. “But what do you want me to do?”

“First off, there’s a letter I want to ask you about. It’s from the dead woman’s lawyer.”

“Written to you?”

“No. To the contract killer she was talking to in my bar.”