Dutch Uncle hcc-12 Read online

  At the corner of 17th and Washington, Leo coughed and gagged and lowered his head between the bumpers of two cars. He heaved a few times, but nothing came up. When his eyes stopped watering, he peered out from behind his shades, hoping he wouldn’t see anybody he knew. Because there were tons of people heading back from the ocean in the dying afternoon light, the streets buzzing with girls in bikinis and beach wraps.

  The Barbarossa announced its existence in indigo neon, a ten-year-old update that did nothing to distinguish it from a half-dozen other restaurants within walking distance. The place was usually empty, though on occasion the overfed Cubans who ran the joint would be forced to set down their cigarettes and coffee, or beer, depending on the time of day, and actually maneuver their fat asses around the tables. A waitress wiping the counter moved toward the window that opened onto the sidewalk, where somebody was signaling for something to go.

  The tables were fitted with lilac-shaded linen, and glass tops with cracks and chips that cost the owners zero credibility with their budget-minded clientele. Each one was adorned with a plastic vase that held a single paper flower, and every chair had a laminated placemat in front of it, fun facts over a map of Florida, Spanish on one side, English on the other.

  Negrito’s name was Ramon Santiago, and he wasn’t Cuban or even Colombian as Leo first suspected, but was born in a banana republic down that way, Ecuador or Venezuela, something like that. Leo never asked and Negrito did not offer extra specifics about himself. He was a nephew of Miguel Santiago, better known as El Negro, which was how he got his nickname. Leo didn’t know where they came up with this Big Black-Little Black business. Negrito and his uncle were both medium-toned Latin guys.

  Negrito was hogging a booth that probably fit eight. The table was clear except for that paper posy, a small saucer, and an espresso cup he was drinking from. He was alone. Leo wasn’t sure if this was a good sign or not, whether Negrito’s uncle or one of his thugs weren’t going to slip up behind him and strangle him with a piano wire, like in The Godfather.

  Negrito was about thirty. He wasn’t more than 5’6”, a rock-solid fat guy who never touched a weight but would bury the biggest Body Tech blockhead in the sand and cut off his head if he was in a bad mood, and Negrito was never in a good one. He looked like he’d gained a few pounds since the last time Leo saw him.

  He had a head like Rex the Rottweiler, and his eyes were set way apart like Rex’s, but the animal he most resembled was a hyena, no neck, the head sprung straight from shoulders knotted tight with muscle. His fat cheeks made his thin-lipped mouth look smaller. Handsome, no. But his strong chin saved him from being homely.

  He sipped his coffee. He looked Leo up and down. He set the cup on the saucer. After what seemed like a long time, Leo just standing there, he said, “I suppose you think you’re pretty slick.”

  Leo could hear him breathing through his nostrils, snuffling like he had a cold. He said, “Why would I think that?”

  “Shut up, Leo. Shut up and sit down. You arranged a delivery. That delivery was made. Then they guy who took the delivery got smoked in his hotel room.” His English had no accent. “You gonna tell me you don’t know anything about this?”

  “Well, no. I saw the papers. And it was on TV. They said it was, I knew it was Manfred.” He waited for Negrito to say something, but Negrito kept quiet, so he added, “The guy I arranged the delivery for.”

  “You thought this would be good for my business? My uncle’s business? Using us as the set-up men in your peabrained scam?” He smoothed the corners of his mustache.

  “You know I, I mean I...”

  “We’ve got friends, Leo, all kinds of friends, and you know what our friends told us? They told us none of our product was found in the man’s room. Now that’s odd. What happened to our delivery? That’s what I don’t understand. Maybe the guy was able to flip the whole kilo between the time our people left and the time the murderer arrived. Hey, maybe the cops stole it. Maybe the package grew wings and flew across the street into the ocean. What do you think?”

  He wasn’t waiting for answers, Negrito getting downright rhetorical.

  “Or maybe, just maybe, somebody who had inside information on this deal let his friends in on his secret, and they got themselves an idea. Let’s steal it. C’mon, who’s gonna know? Negrito’s too stupid to figure it out, so let’s tie his operation to the murder of a man who was no trouble to anybody. Bring a blast furnace of heat right down on Negrito. Let’s make an asshole of Negrito. Fuck El Negrito.”

  “I swear to Christ and on my mother’s grave I did not rob that guy and I had nothing to do with his murder.”

  Negrito raised his fist and swung it down in an arc, slamming the table top. The cup jumped off the saucer and tipped, spreading espresso out on the glass. That earlier nausea Leo was feeling crept further down his intestinal tract. He was struck with the overwhelming urge to shit.

  Negrito took a breath and collected himself, letting the red go out of his face. “This is a complicated situation, Leo, but all life is situations. Some you can get around, and some,” he paused, and Leo wasn’t liking the sound of this silence, “you can’t.”

  “Man, that is so weird,” Leo interrupted. “I was just thinking that exact same thing —” He was about to say “on the way over” but Negrito cut him off with a ringing slap that made his eyes water up again.

  “I’m responsible for this particular situation. That’s lucky for you.” He was totally calm, not a note of emotion in his voice. “Because if it was up to my uncle” — he shrugged to show Leo there’d be nothing he could do — “or the Quiet Man, forget about it.” He shook his head. Slowly. “You hear me?”

  “I think I do,” Leo said.

  “You might never be completely forgiven,” Negrito said, “but I’m gonna give you the chance to right this wrong. And if I were you, I’d be hoping Negrito was pleased with my solution. Understand what I’m saying?”

  Leo understood. He was getting a reprieve, but it wouldn’t last long. He wondered if the solution Negrito was referring to meant he was supposed to kill Fernandez, too, but his voice got smothered with fear, and he didn’t want to seem so stupid he had to ask. This was the difference between Negrito, a genuine tough guy that people were afraid of if people were smart, and that shit bucket JP Beaumond, always fronting how tough he was. Negrito didn’t need to act crazy or dangerous because he was crazy and dangerous.

  It wasn’t that long ago, two, three days, Leo’s luck was running hot. He thought about it, walking back to where his car was parked. He was calling the shots, sketching the plan for Beaumond and Fernandez, finding out when Harry would be getting out, sending him to Manfred. Admittedly, meeting Harry in the first place had been pure, unconscious providence, but figuring out how to take advantage of it — that had all been Leo, and he’d been on fire. So when had it all gone to shit?

  Then he thought of something else. What if Negrito was using him to take care of Beaumond, or Beaumond and Fernandez, he hadn’t decided yet, and then planned to kill Leo anyway? He started feeling sick again.

  This was a situation that had taken a dark, dark turn. It was like getting shelled in the ninth when you’d been cruising through the line-up all day. There was definitely something to this, his baseball-situations theory. Once this whole mess was finished and his mind wasn’t cluttered with so many other things, Leo was going to start carrying a pen and a pad. He got a lot of ideas. He’d write them down. Work them out.

  Chapter Four

  When operating under an alias, Harry felt it was best to hang on to your own first name. For example, if you switched to George or Bill, that’s what people would call you, all the people who had no idea your name was Harry, and after thirty-five years of answering to Harry, you might ignore a George or a Bill aimed your way. That’d make people suspicious, or it could lead them to believe you were a moron who didn’t even know his own name. Either way, potentially embarrassing. So Harry lopped off the He
aly and substituted his middle name for his surname, becoming Harry James, like the bandleader his old man named him for.

  First order of business was finding a place to stay. Fort Lauderdale worked hard to shake its image as a municipal frat party, but the Fiorella-type fleabags that warehoused whatever college kids still showed up in spring were legion. Harry had lots of choices.

  The Wind N’ Sand, set close to the street at the top of a shallow horseshoe driveway, was eighteen rooms laid out in a row, wedged between a Muffler Man and a Pancake Palace. Breakfast All Day. It lacked the least hint of anything resembling glory, past or present. A sign promised prospective lodgers TV and air-conditioning. In red and blue block letters it said SPRING BREAKERS WELCOME. The torn screen curling from one of its windows looked very encouraging.

  The office was a Formica counter and an empty mail grid, an ice machine, a soda machine, and a glass box that vended pretzels and orange crackers stuffed with imitation peanut butter paste.

  A woman in her late twenties was working a word search puzzle in the same newspaper that brought Harry to Fort Lauderdale, pinching the last drag out of a Kool 100. She was a dishwater blonde with ears that winged her skull at 45 degree angles, and she told Harry she didn’t have any vacancies.

  “That’s not what it says on your sign.”

  “It says Spring Breakers Welcome. My guess is the last time you were inside a classroom, Gerald Ford was president.”

  “Jimmy Carter,” Harry said, “but I don’t see what that’s got to do with anything. My money’s as good as any college kid’s.” He was holding a twenty dollar bill on the counter between his thumbs.

  “I’ll tell you right now, that’s not gonna get it,” the woman said. She had a diamond of acne on her right cheek, pimples she’d been picking at, a furious fuchsia bomber on her chin.

  “Okay,” Harry said. “What’re we talking about here?” He went into his pocket for a fifty and laid it over the twenty.

  The woman looked at the bill and she looked at Harry. “How long did you plan on staying?”

  “I’d like to pay for the week.”

  “And what name did you plan on using?”

  “I’m Harry James,” Harry said, getting used to it.

  The woman stood and slid Harry’s seventy bucks into a pair of brown corduroys washed and worn so many times that the nap had gone flat at the knees and the ass, a plum of an ass, wide and thick and high. Her navel was exposed under a white halter and she was wearing a silver chain around her belly. Too bad about her skin.

  “You know, Mr. James, it isn’t about money.”

  “It never is.”

  “That’s not what I mean. I can tell you got trouble. You look like trouble from across the street, and if there’s one thing I don’t need, it’s somebody else’s trouble. My name’s Darlene,” the woman said finally. “Please don’t ask me for anything.”

  South Florida’s News Leader kicked off a telecast with Manfred’s murder, and the story made the papers a few days running, in paragraphs of shrinking size. The reports said police had no suspects at that time. Which may or may not have been the case. Law enforcement only leveled with the media when it served their purpose, and Harry wasn’t setting his clock by those guys.

  There seemed to be an inordinate amount of cops in this town, but that could’ve been his imagination. Harry spotted them cruising the wide streets and held his breath, not looking at them, forcing himself not to look away, either. Then the Manfred story lost steam, and nothing happened.

  Harry tracked the Lauderdale strip, two boulevards that right-angled the ocean, and skipped the places that looked too small or too hard-core local to hire out-oftowners. He thought he’d give Myrtle’s a shot. Its antiseptic scent threw him, its cool dim interior. The place was supposed to be a supper club, but there was no stage and no dance floor Harry could make out, and with its tight-assed fuss of tables and chairs, the joint looked like a cafeteria.

  Harry poked around until he found the manager processing words in her office. Glazed in the green glow of her computer, she had auburn hair. She was wearing a beige suit and glasses. She said most of their security people were off-duty police officers, but Harry could fill out an application if he was interested. She sent him into the cafeteria with a pen. As she turned her head to face the screen, Harry saw her right eye flutter with a nervous tic.

  Okay, for a residence he could provide a fleabag motel. He couldn’t think of a single reference outside of Frankie Yin, and he couldn’t remember Frankie’s phone number, never knew his address. He didn’t recall graduating junior high school. He passed the sixth grade with flying colors, but that seemed to fall into the grammar school category, an academic milestone the application ignored. And hadn’t she mentioned they employed off-duty cops? Harry folded the form and stuck it in his pocket. He left the pen on the table, and held the door as it was closing, so he wouldn’t make any noise on his way out.

  He stopped at a club called Sailor Randy’s, an indooroutdoor multiplex that featured two outside bars flanking a crabgrass garden. Some Mexican was hosing down the patio, and Harry got mad because he didn’t understand English. The kid twisted the nozzle on the hose, cutting off the water, like he was about to launch some back and forth finger alphabet, but Harry got spared by a guy drinking out of a plastic tumbler.

  Harry liked the looks of him, rumpled and bony, but with a potbelly that bulged over his jeans. His hair was going extra thin on top, but he wasn’t trying to hide it, just brushed it straight back from a savage widow’s peak and left it long on the back and sides. He looked like somebody who rode a Harley and hung out in titty bars. Not exactly the type Harry was friends with, but he liked his chances with him a lot better anyway than with some linen-suited redhead suffering facial spasms.

  The man stuck out his hand. “I’m Bryce Peyton,” he said. “What sort of work were you looking for?”

  Odd name, Bryce. It reminded Harry of a hustle he used to run out of the joints on Ludlow Street, with a dope fiend chick named Sam. The marks were straight off the train from New Haven, these suckers, fine arts majors acting hip on the Lower East Side, khaki pantsers who would’ve been burned by anybody anywhere, then slapped around a bit for their trouble. They usually had names like Bryce.

  Harry bluffed his way through all the experience he had in the security field. Peyton called it.

  “I bet you got plenty of experience cracking heads,” Peyton said, “but that’s not what I’m after. Tell you the truth, you’re a little small to be a bouncer.”

  Harry didn’t argue. The other guy inevitably compared himself to you. Peyton had him by an inch or two, and Peyton wasn’t really somebody you’d think of as a big guy.

  “If I stick a walkie-talkie in the mitt of somebody six foot eight, I got sheer intimidation on my side. Maybe the guy hasn’t fought with anything more than a lobster special in fifteen years, but then again, he hasn’t had to. You hear me knocking?”

  Harry wondered whether it was too soon to weigh in with the name, but after this first trip down the strip, he figured Bryce Peyton was the employer most likely to hire a guy like Harry Healy. Or Harry James. James. Harry told him he was down from New York, which impressed Peyton, that he’d been working for a guy named Frankie Yin. Maybe Peyton had heard of him.

  “Sure. Who hasn’t heard of Frankie Yin? From the Wonderland on Second Avenue. That’s a mighty rugged crowd he caters to.” He started laughing and loosened something that was sticking to one of his lungs. “Nothing scares me quite as much as a stockbroker wearing a dress.”

  Harry was about to tell him to take his job and stick it up his ass, but his thinking would run this way whenever his pride was taking a beating.

  Peyton emptied his tumbler with two swallows, and when he exhaled, Harry caught a blast of the vodka inside. What was it, noon? This guy’d give Manfred a run for his money.

  Shit. Manfred. Harry was trying to forget about Manfred and the hole in the back of Manfred�
�s head, Manfred bloody on the floor in his bloody bathrobe.

  Peyton said, “I can tell if I’m gonna like somebody within the first five minutes of meeting him, and I like you. You strike me as somebody who could use a break.”

  He was going to keep talking, but a hacking fit turned his face scarlet and kicked up the louie crackling in his chest. He hawked and spat but missed the crabgrass, and a quivering blob of brown landed on the Mexican’s pressure-cleaned flagstones. When the coughing subsided, Peyton patted his pockets for the pack of cigarettes he must have forgotten inside.

  He caught his breath. “And in this business, that fucking Chink is a legend. If you’re good enough for Frankie Yin, you’re good enough for me. We’ll start you tonight around ten.”

  Bryce Peyton turned out to be a decent enough guy, and he paid cash out of the drawer at the end of a shift, but Sailor Randy’s was the cheesiest joint Harry had ever set foot in. He had to be at work by six on Monday, for the drive-time promotion put on by a classic rock radio outlet. Broadcasting live from the club, an on-air personality exhorted listeners to get themselves over to Sailor Randy’s to collect scads of useless shit, visors and bumper stickers emblazoned with the station’s nickname. The Storm. They arrived in herds the minute their bosses let them go, guzzling Peyton’s rotgut cheapies, caterwauling over lyrics they knew by heart. Harry endured his tenthousandth listening of “Carry on My Wayward Son” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” two overwhelming favorites of the Broward County workforce. Tuesday was Dress to Kill night, which encouraged all manner of local hag to climb up on stage and flash her tits, while no-assed fat guys, Peyton’s cronies, hooted from the floor.

  The only bouncer Harry had any respect for was Palmero, who everybody called Big, or when he wasn’t around, The Gila Monster. He held down a day job at a hospital, a 6’5” ex-lineman from the U of Miami who was currently looking down both barrels at four hundred pounds.