8

My heart went out to Martin. It must have been a confusing time for him when he found out about Lenny. That instead of the woolen slippers, bowls of candy, and birthday cards full of cash that usually fill a child’s vision of their grandparents, Lenny was all cocaine, helicopters, and machine guns. Lenny’s cards full of cash heading to crooked cops. All Martin needed now to complete the set would be to find out that Grandma still worked the pole at Spearmint Rhino.

It was a rotten branch of the family tree that Martin had found himself sitting on, and I started to wonder what Alice had been thinking. I’m not saying she was to blame for the situation we were in, but if I had a kid, and found out that their grandfather was an infamous drug trafficker, would I have wanted the two worlds to meet? I mean, what the hell did she think was going to happen? Building a bunch of schools and hospitals might have made him a popular figure – but he was still a killer. And a brutal one.

I looked up the police reports concerning Lenny’s involvement in the suspected murder of Francisco Lonos, Emilio’s father. It wasn’t just brutal, it was comic. It seems that Lenny and Francisco had a huge falling-out one night. No one was sure what the argument was about, but witnesses heard raised voices and the sound of breaking glass – after which, Francisco seemingly disappeared off the face of the planet. It wasn’t until a week later that workers at Lenny’s tuna-canning plant in Port of Savannah found the crushed remains of Francisco’s wedding ring in one of the processing machines. Lenny, who claimed he knew nothing about it, immediately labeled it a tragic accident, and recalled all the factory output for that week. He then proceeded to hold a funeral for Francisco – a ceremony that consisted of burying forty-five thousand cans of tinned tuna. The pallbearers drove a fleet of black forklift trucks.

This was Alice’s dad. Seriously, what the hell was she thinking?

I gritted my teeth and continued weaving through the late afternoon crowds outside Miami Speedway Track. Racing fans and engines echoing in the distance. The colossal concrete stadium like a pedestal holding the sky above it in place. I’d dumped the Audi I’d stolen that morning, and was looking for a fresh car for the journey to the airstrip. As Alice and Martin sat way out of sight by a quiet lake near the stadium, I strolled through the swarming crowds – a sea of NASCAR baseball caps and mirrored sunglasses.

Ten minutes later, I headed over to the parking lots and started hitting the thirty or so key fobs I had stuffed in my pockets. A couple of two-doors eventually responded – a Chevy and a Ford – but with the air strip out in the middle of farm land, we could use something a little heavier. I kept on with the pushbutton lottery. I raised a curious eyebrow as a deep red Porsche 911 lit up. Not so long ago, I’d have jumped straight into it, but it would have a tracker for sure. Plus, I was a family man now and I needed to steal accordingly. I kept on pushing. The tail lights of an old Toyota Land Cruiser lit up. I eyed it for a moment – beaten-up, but sturdy-looking. Heavy-duty tires. It wasn’t pretty, but no one was going to miss it. I grabbed the best part of four hundred dollars I’d lifted, dumped the wallets and car keys in the trash, then climbed into the Toyota. I pulled out of the stadium and drove to the lake – Alice and Martin sitting quietly by the water side.

I pulled up beside them and buzzed down the window. ‘Let’s go,’ I said.

We headed out of Florida City and drove northwest, the sky a deep orange across the mangroves in the distance. Alice and Martin stayed quiet as they sat in the back, but that was fair enough. The drive into the Everglades was likely to be the last view of American soil that either of them would have for a long time. Me too, maybe. If I stayed after this, chances are I’d end up in a riverbed somewhere with a bullet hole courtesy of Southwest. I could take the plane along with them, perhaps – but then Lonos would walk free, and all this would have been for nothing.

As the sky darkened, my thoughts returned to the PI, Robert Plack. Who he’d been searching for? What I needed was access to his firm’s files – the names and cases. Hacking was well out of my league, but Southwest had people who could do it. I glanced at the phone lying on the passenger seat, then picked it up. In no mood to speak to Willard, I emailed him Plack’s details along with a request for all case information from Plack’s firm. I didn’t hold out much hope that he’d arrange it – he’d made his mind up about Lenny already – but I was low on options.

As the email disappeared off into the ether, I pulled up the Gainsboro Chronicle, and handed the phone back to Alice.

‘What’s this?’ she said.

‘Go into the archive and see if you can find anything about missing girls... runaways, anything.’

‘Is this to do with the bombing?

‘I’ve got a dead private detective who was searching for a missing girl, and we have an unidentified female at the cabin... call girl, maybe. If they were the same person it would be a huge step forward.’

She pulled up the archive, then glanced at the dates. ‘How far do you want me to go back?’

I shrugged. ‘Just keep reading.’

As she started searching the archive, I turned off the highway toward the darkening haze of the Everglades, the car crunching along the narrow dirt tracks. A few farm houses and tin-roofed shacks visible through the trees, but not a soul in sight. Then again it was getting late. Plus this was alligator country, and it was probably a good idea not to venture too far from either a rifle or a decent set of stairs.

I navigated the winding route through the swamps and farms. Windmills and water-towers punctuating the shadowy trees on the horizon. In the rear view mirror, I could see that Martin had fallen asleep on the back seat. I switched on the radio, turned the volume right down, then tuned into the first news station I could find. WKPM Miami, news on the hour. As the stillness of the Glades drifted by, the newscaster’s voice whispered about a spate of gang-related shootings. Eight dead in Allapattah. A car bomb in Little Haiti. A nightclub shooting in Coconut Grove. I listened carefully as the whispering voice counted the dead. Lonos making his move on the city.

‘Turn it off,’ said Alice.

I did as she asked. She rolled up a jacket, carefully placed it under Martin’s head, then returned to the archive on the phone.

As she continued browsing the pages, she glanced at me in the rearview mirror.

‘So have you ever actually read anything by Zoy Rigby?’ she said.

I stared at her for a moment, then shook my head.

She eyed me cautiously. ‘So...’

‘I took your phone. That night we met at the restaurant. I’m sorry, but I needed you to take me to Lenny.’

She nodded to herself.

‘So who are you?’ she said. ‘Is your name even Rick?’

‘I’m nobody. A pickpocket.’

‘But you work for the government?’

I nodded. ‘I want out. They said if I did this job, they’d give me my freedom.’

‘And take away Martin’s and mine in the process.’

I stayed quiet. Saying sorry wasn’t going to cut it any more.

She eyed me bitterly, then stared back at the phone. She continued swiping pages, then slowed a moment.

She sat upright. ‘Samantha Lederer,’ she said. ‘A service was held at Grace Community Church in memory of the student who disappeared at Gainsboro Gala.’

I glanced at her in the rearview mirror. ‘Gala? When?’

She scanned the rest of the article.

‘Four years ago,’ she said.

Four years?

I pulled the car to a halt. ‘Give me the phone.’

On the screen was a photo of the girl. Fresh-faced, she couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen years old. Pretty. The kind of beauty that might attract the wrong kind of attention. I eyed the article carefully. But how could she be the girl at the cabin? Samantha Lederer disappeared four years ago. How could she have been missing that long only to turn up in Gainsboro a few months ago? I gazed at the article, struggling to get a handle on it. Abduction maybe? But she’d been with Will Jerome and a bunch of other people – I doubted any of them had been holding a gun to her head. Amnesia maybe, but a neighbor, or someone in town, would surely have recognized her. She might have run away deliberately, but then why return? And under what circumstances?

I shook my head to myself. The more I thought about it, the more it failed to add up. She couldn’t have been the unidentified victim at the cabin.

Alice leaned forward on the back seat. ‘Not her?’

I gazed at the photo. ‘I don’t know, I doubt it.’

‘The archive doesn’t go back much further.’

‘I’ll call the paper in the morning... see if they know of anybody else.’

She nodded.

‘Even if she is the girl,’ she said. ‘What’s this got to do with Emilio Lonos?’

Yeah. It was a good question. Lonos blows up the cabin, kills Will Jerome – pins the whole thing on Lenny. Fine. So what’s this girl got to do with anything?

I sighed despondently. ‘I don’t know.’

Maybe I was just chasing a dead end. That whoever this missing girl was, she had nothing to do with anything.

Fuck.

As Alice checked on Martin, I put the car into gear and pulled back out onto the road – Samantha Lederer’s photo smiling from the phone on the seat beside me.

It was 1:40 a.m. by the time we passed a beaten-up metal sign telling us that we were entering Eden Point. Thickets and swamps around us. Twisted roots and insects. God knows why anyone would give this place a name, let alone Eden. The headlights picked out an anonymous track through the trees. Beyond that it was sheer darkness – the view from the windows like a shroud of black felt had been thrown over the car. I cleared another ragged, overgrown corner, then slammed on the brakes. Two guys with shotguns were staring at us as they stood in the road about thirty feet ahead. Insects swimming around them in the iodide blaze of the headlights. One of the guys raised his gun and strolled over to us. In his forties. Gaunt. The few strands of hair on his head glued down with sweat to his glistening skull.

Alice wound down her window. ‘Lenny’s expecting us,’ she said.

The guy took a quick look inside the car, then glanced at me. ‘Take the road another couple of hundred feet. You’ll see it.’

I gently pressed the pedal, the guys following us at a relaxed stroll as we continued through the mangroves. The track opened out onto a tiny strip of grassland cut between the trees. Maybe five hundred feet long, but narrow – barely enough space for a small plane to land without brushing its wing-tips against the creeping branches on either side. At the far end sat a small wooden barn with boarded up windows. A black Mercedes G-Class parked in front of it. As I pulled up beside the barn, one of the Mercedes’ rear windows slid open. Lenny’s face appeared in the dim ceiling lights of the car.

Alice nudged Martin awake. ‘Sweetie, we’re here.’

Martin opened his eyes and looked around. Lenny caught sight of him, then pushed open the door and limped out of the car. New clothes. Fresh bandages. His face still greasy with sweat, but he looked a lot better than he had done last night.

Martin smiled, then got out of the car. ‘Grandpa.’

Lenny hugged him with one arm. ‘How’s my man?’

Martin nodded and held tightly to him.

‘It’s all good,’ said Lenny. He leaned down to Martin’s eye level. ‘We’re going on a little vacation. Your mom tell you? It’s going to be great.’

Martin nodded again, but with those same careful eyes.

He stared at the bandages across Lenny’s chest. ‘Does it hurt?’

‘Grandpa’s a tough old bird,’ said Lenny. He smiled wistfully at him. ‘But we gotta move quickly, so you do what your mom and me tell you, OK?’

In the rear seat, Alice grabbed her bag and slid out of the car. As she did, she stopped and stared at me.

‘I guess this is goodbye,’ she said.

I nodded.

She hovered a moment, then sighed. ‘It’s a shame. At the restaurant... I liked you there for a moment.’

I held her look.

‘Take care of Martin,’ I said.

She kept her eyes on me for a second, then stepped out of the car and headed for Lenny.

He put an arm around her, then gestured toward Martin. ‘Take him inside. There’s food, water.’

She grabbed Martin by the hand and led him toward the barn. As they headed away, Martin turned and waved goodbye to me. I waved back – reassuring myself that, no matter how this panned out for me, at least he’d be safe. As I watched him disappear into the barn, the guys with the shotguns appeared way down the airstrip. The gaunt-looking one checked his watch, then strolled over to Lenny and took him to one side. He spoke briefly to him before heading into the barn himself. A couple of seconds later and two ragged ribbons of LED lights flickered into life all the way down the edges of the strip.

I stared up at the sky. Thick clouds concealing the stars. I listened carefully, but no sound in the darkness other than the cicadas chirping away around us.

Lenny limped toward me and rested himself against the car door.

‘Alice told me about the bus terminal,’ he said. ‘I’m grateful.’

I nodded.

‘At least you do a better job keeping people alive than you do killing them,’ he said.

I raised a vague smile.

Leaves rustling in the breeze. A whisper of movement. I stared into the darkness of the trees, then glanced at the second guy with the shotgun, waiting down the strip. I eyed him a moment. In his thirties. Goatee. A little healthier-looking than the other guy, but still – an uneasy air about him as he kept his eyes on the sky.

‘That guy always look so nervous?’ I said.

Lenny shrugged. ‘When the planes land, everyone is.’

I could hear it now – a distant hum way above us. I gazed up at the murky sky and caught sight of a small two-engine plane appearing beneath the clouds. It rocked around in the wind as it banked toward the strip.

I took a deep breath – there was no use in waiting any longer. I put the car into gear.

‘Good luck with Lonos,’ said Lenny. ‘We’ll see each other again, I’m sure.’

‘Why don’t you just stay gone?’ I said. ‘Be a grandpa for once.’

He smiled.

As the plane weaved and tilted on its approach, I swung the car around and headed back through the trees. The tiredness catching up with me now. I needed to rest – time to think. The PI’s missing girl looked like she was a dead end, and I had nothing else to go on. As I struggled to get my head straight, I swung around a sharp bend in the mangroves, then slowed a little. A sense of movement in the edges of my vision. I stared through the thick trees. Stillness for a moment as my eyes adjusted to the darkness – then an indistinct shadow sprinting through the branches, away from the airstrip. I pulled to a stop, grabbed a torch from the glove compartment and shone it out of the window. The figure froze in the beam – a shotgun in his hand. The guy with the goatee. I eyed him a second. What the hell was he running from? As he continued sprinting, I turned and stared back through the trees. The plane descending toward the airstrip.

My heart jumped a gear. Fuck – he was running from what? I put the car into reverse and hit the pedal hard, branches hammering against the bodywork as I wound back through the trees. I buzzed down the window and started yelling toward the air strip.

‘Alice! Get out! Lenny!’

I reached the strip and veered toward the barn.

I yelled again. ‘Alice!’

A bullet rang out and shattered the Toyota’s rear window. I ducked down in the seat, kept my foot hard on the pedal. Another stream of bullets thudded into the bodywork, the car crunching into the side of the Mercedes. As the car shuddered to a halt, I carefully raised my head. Lenny emerging from the barn – the plane coming in to land. As Lenny stared at me, a brilliant flash erupted through the branches on the other side of the strip, then soared into the sky. A bonejarring crack as the plane erupted into a ball of flame. It dropped from the treetops then tumbled down the strip – propellers and flaps tearing off as it careered down the grass and slammed headlong into the barn. Gunfire in the air. Figures emerging from the trees down the strip. Six or seven of them. Lonos’ guys. That goatee fucker had sold us out. I jumped out of the Toyota, bullets zipping through the air around me. I arced round the flaming wreckage of the plane, covered my face with an arm, then kicked down the smoldering slats of one of the barn doors.

‘Alice!’ I yelled. ‘Martin!’

Bullets tearing through the smoke. I ran over to Lenny and Alice – Alice trying to pick Martin up off the floor. Her face bleeding as she grabbed him and held him close to her chest. Another explosion as the heat ignited the Mercedes’ fuel tank outside. Fuck, they’d be here any second. Lenny rose to his feet, the fury driving him like a machine.

‘Motherfuckers!’ he yelled.

He flung open a steel chest on the barn floor and grabbed a heavy-caliber automatic rifle. He gestured for me to take Alice and Martin out the rear door of the barn. As I grabbed them and ran out into the darkness, Lenny stepped toward the plane wreckage like a man possessed – spraying a stream of bullets through the flames. I picked up a smoldering splinter of wood from the ground, then led Alice and Martin through the trees. I stopped by a dense clump of twisted roots about eighty feet from the barn. I checked behind us, then signaled for Alice and Martin to hide under the roots. I nodded for them to just stay there, held tightly to the burning splinter of wood, then darted away into the darkness.

I weaved through the trees, igniting wisps of sawgrass in my wake. More gunshots from the barn way behind me. I glanced back at the faint trail I’d left in the undergrowth, then kept running – another two, three hundred feet before I stopped and tossed the burning splinter as far as I could. The crackling of the barn in the distance, black smoke creeping through the undergrowth. I darted away from my makeshift trail, then ducked low in the undergrowth.

Footsteps stumbling through the fauna way off to my right – Lenny’s silhouette through the trees. As he followed the trail toward me, I reached out from the foliage and grabbed him, immediately raising my hands as he swung the rifle around. I pulled him away from the trail and led him back toward the roots where Alice and Martin lay hidden. We stopped dead as hushed voices emerged from the barn. I listened intently as they headed out into the trees, at least five of them. They’d split up – fan out – but they’d keep in the direction of the trail. As I kept my eyes on the darkness, a silhouette weaved past the embers in the sawgrass, the ugly lines of an automatic weapon pointing ahead of him. As Lenny raised his gun, I grabbed hold of him. Now wasn’t the time – just let the guy follow the trail. My heart thumping against my chest as the figures started to arc away from us. I took hold of Lenny and led him back toward Alice and Martin, pushing my feet flat across the forest floor to nudge away any loose branches or twigs that might signal our location. We reached the twisted clump of roots. I crouched down to find Alice holding Martin behind her. I scanned the barn – a single armed figure waiting by the burned-out shell of the Mercedes. The Toyota in flames beside it. I gazed down the airstrip. Lonos’ guys had emerged from the trees on the left-hand side. They’d have cars somewhere nearby – parked out of earshot, but within reach of the strip. I nodded at Lenny, then signaled for Alice and Martin to follow us.

We kept low within the foliage as we arced around the remains of the barn, the guy by the Mercedes disappearing from sight as we crept through the trees by the airstrip. As I led the way I searched for anything that might reflect the soaring flames behind us. A glinting windshield or glowing wheel rim. I scanned the darkness but there was nothing. Just shadows and silhouettes.

Voices way behind us. I couldn’t make out what was being said, but the tone was aggressive now, like they’d found the end of the trail. They’d spread out and cover as much of the area as they could. We’d need to move quickly. As I kept Lenny on his feet, I searched the shadows through the trees. No reflections, but there was something else. I went still. A man’s voice in the distance – on his own, talking on a phone. About twenty degrees to our left.

I turned back to Lenny. ‘Give me the gun. Wait here.’

He eyed me for a second, then handed me the weapon.

I ducked low beneath the branches and began creeping in the direction of the voice. I kept the gun aimed ahead of me as I silently pushed my way through the trees, the air around me thick with insects. My heart pounding, I slowed to a stop. In the darkness ahead of me, I could just about make out a clearing, maybe fifty feet ahead. Two black Jeeps parked by a narrow dirt track that weaved through the mangroves on the other side. I stared intently at the cars. No voice in the air now. I crept a little further toward the cars, scanning the darkness around them.

‘Don’t move,’ came a voice from beside me.

I froze.

‘Drop the gun,’ he said.

I did what I was told.

I slowly turned to find a thick-necked Hispanic guy pointing an Uzi at me. I only vaguely remembered him from my encounter with Lonos, but he definitely remembered me.

‘Motherfucker,’ he said.

My blood racing as he raised the gun toward my head.

‘Where’s Lenny?’ he said.

I just stared at him.

‘Where’s Lenny!’

I nodded toward the darkness just behind him. ‘Just there.’

For a second his eyes diverted from me – I grabbed the Uzi with one hand and jabbed my elbow deep into his throat. As I tried to pull the gun from his hand, he grabbed at me – started yelling into darkness.

‘Rico!’ he said. ‘Here!’

We tumbled to the ground, fighting for the weapon.

‘Rico!’ he yelled.

He smashed me in the face. Dazed, I felt the gun slip from my hands. I looked up to see him swinging the gun toward me. He took aim, then toppled to one side as Lenny’s huge bulk crashed into him out of the darkness. As the guy struggled to free himself from Lenny’s gargantuan arms, I dragged the gun free from his hands and aimed it at his head. He went still, stared at us a second, then yelled out again. Lenny swung his boot down onto the guy’s face. A dull crack of bone and the guy went quiet – groaning weakly as he rolled on the ground.

I turned to find Alice and Martin silhouetted against the distant flames of the barn. As they caught up to us, I nodded toward the cars.

‘Let’s go,’ I said.

The guy choking on the ground.

Lenny glared down at him. ‘Piece of shit.’

He started kicking at the guy’s head.

‘Let’s just get out of here,’ I said.

Lenny’s face nothing but shadow in the infernal glow behind him. He grabbed the gun from me, swung it around, and hammered the butt down onto the guy’s skull. Again and again, until the sound went soft.

I glanced at Alice and Martin standing in the trees behind him – Martin clutching Alice’s side. As Lenny continued hammering the gun down on the guy, I pulled him away.

‘He’s finished! Let’s go.’

Lenny glared at me a moment, then stormed back toward the guy like a fucking possessed bull.

I grabbed onto him. ‘You really want Martin to see this? Let’s go!’

He went still, panting as he stood over the guy’s motionless body. He caught his breath, then glanced at Martin cowering behind his mother.

Alice took Martin by the hand and led him toward the Jeeps. Martin quiet as the grave as he stared back at the shadow of his grandfather.