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  The old man simply shook his head.

  “I’m wondering what it was he wanted,” Deal said.

  The old man gave Deal a neutral look. “He wouldn’t have told me, that’s for sure.”

  “He usually tell you when he’s got some scheme cooked up?” Russell asked.

  The old man glanced coolly at Russell. “The boy sells a little weed sometimes, but that’s mostly in the neighborhood, and this man here don’t seem the type.” He finished with a nod at Deal.

  Deal cut a glance at Annie, but her gaze stayed on Ainsley Spencer. “Sometimes he peddles some trinkets to the tourists, too,” he added, this time to Deal. “But you don’t strike me as stupid, either.” He shrugged then, as if that ended the matter.

  Deal sat back in his chair, wondering just what he should do next. Comb the island for Dequarius Noyes? Without some clue as to his whereabouts, he doubted he could find the boy if he had a cordon holding hands and marching from one end of the town to the other.

  Sleep was a prime consideration, another part of his mind suggested. His head was hollow with fatigue, his body drained. There was an acrid taste in his mouth, still lingering from the dope he’d smoked, he supposed, and a soreness in the small of his back, courtesy of Deputy Conrad’s fists.

  There was the undeniable upside of Annie Dodds’ presence at his side, but even that was leavened by the knowledge that she was involved in some as-yet-undetermined way with Franklin Stone. Add to all that the events of the past hour, and he was more than ready to put this day into rewind. Go to sleep, wake up, and discover that some of this mess had been a dream.

  He rubbed his face with his hands and glanced around the kitchen, trying to bring some focus to his thoughts. Save for the blood and the buckshot scars, it was a tidy place, which somehow seemed at odds with his impression of Dequarius Noyes. “It’s just you and Dequarius who live here?”

  The old man nodded.

  “How about his parents?” Deal asked.

  The old man lifted his shoulders in a barely perceptible motion. “His momma passed a few years back. I couldn’t tell you where his daddy might be.”

  Deal took it in with a nod. “You mind if I look at his room?” he asked the old man. Maybe there was something there that would give him a hint of what the kid had been up to, or where he might have gone.

  The old man gave him a sharp glance, then seemed to relent. He gestured down a hallway that led away from the kitchen. “Help yourself. The one on the right is mine. Across the hall is Dequarius’.”

  Deal stood and walked out of the brightly lit room into the dim recess of the hall. A few paces along, he caught a glimpse of the old man’s neatly arranged room through an open doorway—single bed, oak dresser, padded rocker—then turned to the facing door and nudged it open. He found the light just inside the jamb and snapped it on.

  Dequarius’ was a small room as well, with its own chenille-covered single bed, a painted chest of drawers, and a small desk with a wooden straight chair drawn up in its knee-hole. Nearly as tidy as the old man’s digs, Deal thought with renewed surprise. Either Dequarius had learned a few things or the old man kept house for the both of them.

  He crossed to the closet and pulled it open to loosen a faint smell of marijuana as well as expose a few pairs of slacks and an array of basketball jerseys on hangers. There was a stack of shoe boxes on the shelf, one of which he suspected held something other than the advertised brand of sneakers. On the floor below the clothing was a pair of scuffed black work boots and a wooden tennis racket with its strings exploded. He was about to close the closet door, taken with the image of Dequarius Noyes loping around a tennis court in Afro, baggy shorts, and Heat jersey, when he noticed something else and paused.

  He swung the closet door open wide, to be sure it wasn’t just a trick of the light. But the image remained: In the corner opposite the boots and the blasted racket was a perfect rectangle outlined by dust. Dequarius’ housekeeping skills had certain limits, Deal saw, squatting down to run his finger through the thin film of dust covering the opposite half of the closet floor. There’d been a box or carton here until recently, he realized, though just how long ago it had been removed was open to conjecture.

  He sniffed at the pungent odor emanating from the closet again, wondering if that, in fact, was what had prompted the invasion and shooting. Someone after Dequarius’ stash.

  Deal stood and began going through the boxes on the top shelf. The first box, in fact, held a pair of sneakers—an outlandish zebra-striped pattern, their soles worn smooth—as did the second, in this case a black leather pair with red lights that still raced about the perimeter of one heel when Deal jiggled the container. Not the thing to wear when fleeing the scene of a crime, Deal thought. Maybe that’s why they seemed scarcely used.

  The third box was so heavy it nearly plunged to the floor when he pulled it from the shelf. Inside he found a glittering array of treasure—treasure of a sort, anyway. Golden coins stamped from a press, shiny silver bracelets, pendants bearing bits of colored glass; it wouldn’t take a genius to spot it for carnival loot, Deal thought, replacing the lid. If Dequarius Noyes had made a living selling crap like this, he deserved every penny of it.

  He slid the heavy shoe box back in its place and brought down the next, as feathery light as the last had been brick heavy. He glanced at the label skeptically. If there was indeed a pair of Reebok running shoes inside, then he was going to scour Runner’s World for a matching set the moment he got back to Miami.

  The odor that struck him the instant he loosened the top told him his suspicions had been correct, however. He removed the top and glanced at the contents—the dark green buds obscured beneath what looked like doubled Ziploc bags—already discounting his earlier theories about the invasion. He put the top back on and replaced the Reebok box, then found three more on the shelf very nearly like it: Nike, Adidas, and Tommy Hilfiger.

  Deal stared at the line of boxes, had a sudden vision of Dequarius out on the street, offering his wares by brand. “Now your Adidas ain’t bad, but your Tommy, that’s some bad shit, my man. And your Nike is one-hit city…” He shook his head and swung the closet door shut, wondering what had been so intriguing inside that carton missing from its spot on the floor.

  He crossed to the desk, scanning its bare top, then slid the chair back to get at the single drawer. Inside, he found a scattering of pens and pencils, and a pad with the telephone number for the Pier House scrawled on the top page, beneath it some random doodlings and scribblings. “Vino, vidi, vici,” Deal read in one corner, the familiar phrase misspelled but triple underlined, as if Dequarius—street corner scholar—had been planning some major campaign of his own. He tore off the page and folded it into his pocket, then went to join the others, snapping off the light as he went.

  When he walked back into the kitchen, he noted that Russell Straight was staring at him with a defiant look, as if Deal might be somehow responsible for Dequarius’ hard road. Deal turned back to the old man. “You sure you don’t want to talk to the police?”

  The old man stared at him tolerantly. “Mr. Deal, I appreciate you coming over here on account of Dequarius and all…” He trailed off, his gaze traveling to the shotgun propped in the corner. “…And I feel bad if I scared you all.” He put the bunched towel down on the tabletop between them and gave his earnest gaze to Annie. “But it’s like I say, there’s just no point to getting the police involved.”

  “But if Dequarius is hurt—” Annie cut in.

  “The police don’t care about Dequarius, ma’am,” Spencer said gently. “That’s one thing we know for sure. When he wants us to hear from him, that’s when we’ll hear.”

  She stared back at him, ready to jump out of her skin with frustration, or so it seemed. “Look at that bump on your head,” she said after a moment. “We ought to have that looked at, at least.”

  The old man mustered a weary smile for her. “A couple of aspiri
n and a good night’s sleep, I’ll be just fine.”

  “Where do you keep your aspirin?” she said. She stood, glancing at Deal and Russell as if daring them to interfere with these small ministrations.

  Spencer pointed over Russell’s shoulder. “In the cabinet there,” he said.

  Deal watched as Annie brushed by Russell and pulled open a tall cabinet door above the sink. As she rummaged about, he caught a glimpse of a box of Kix—his daughter Isabel’s favorite cereal—a bag of rice, and what looked like a bottle of wine. In a moment Annie was back with the aspirin and a glass of water she’d drawn from the tap.

  She shook a couple of aspirins into her palm and handed them to the old man, along with the water. As he dutifully swallowed the pills, Deal opened his wallet and found a card. He copied the number of his room at the Pier House on the back and handed it to Spencer. “If you hear from Dequarius, would you let me know?”

  The old man took the card and glanced at it before putting it in the pocket of his grass-stained white shirt. “I’ll do it,” he said to Deal, who turned then and urged the others out.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I can’t believe we’re just going to leave here like nothing’s happened,” Annie fumed as Deal worked at turning the Hog around on the narrow street.

  His rear wheels were already up over the curb. Maybe once you got yourself in this neighborhood, he mused, you weren’t supposed to get out.

  “Not much else we can do,” Russell offered, his head out the window to help with the maneuvering.

  “I’m afraid he’s right,” Deal said, glancing at her as he stopped backing and cut his wheels.

  “We can check the hospital again later, but if we called in the sheriff, they’d be all over that old man’s house,” he continued, mindful of what he’d found inside Dequarius’ closet. “Who knows what they might turn up. And if they did come across something, it’d be Spencer who’d pay the price.” And never mind his suspicions about Conrad, Deal thought as he wrestled with the Hog’s wheel. Those he’d keep to himself for now.

  And what had happened, when it came right down to it? A well-known scam artist had been bird-dogging him since his arrival in Key West, anxious to unload some unknown swag—gold, jewelry, shoe boxes of marijuana—for reasons Deal couldn’t begin to fathom. There’d been a phone call, a shooting, some smears of blood left behind.

  For all he knew, there’d been a turf battle between a couple of drug dealers, and one of them had been winged in the process. If it weren’t for the fact he’d been sure it was Conrad’s voice he’d heard, and that Dequarius had been so eager to contact him, even warn him to get out of town, Deal would be ready to forget the whole thing.

  “You think the police would harass an old man like that?” Annie’s reply to Russell broke into his thoughts.

  “Old black man,” Russell shot back.

  It stopped her. Deal had the Hog pointed back the way they’d come by now and had begun to pilot them slowly up the dark street. For all he knew there were dozens of pairs of eyes upon them up and down this gauntlet of dark houses, watching through all those blank windows and ghostly curtains. Waiting for the invaders to leave, he thought, waiting to close ranks, begin the healing of the wounds.

  “Look out!” Annie cried suddenly, and Deal turned to find something flying out of the darkness at the windshield. He hit the brakes and turned loose of the wheel at the same time, throwing one arm up in front of his face and using the other to shield her. The Hog skidded to a halt, rocking them forward, then back.

  “Goddamn rooster,” Russell Straight said as the thing fluttered over the roof of the Hog like the world’s largest, angriest moth.

  Deal released his breath and glanced at Annie, who stared up at the sound of scratching on the roof above. In the next instant, he realized that his hand was resting on her breast. The jolt that ran through his body was electric, almost painful.

  “Sorry,” he said, removing his hand.

  “For what?” she asked, staring at him neutrally.

  He opened his mouth to say something, then realized he had no words. His heart seemed to be hammering from a run that had begun about twenty years before.

  “We better get out of here before the chickens get their shit together,” Russell said, giving him a baleful glance.

  Deal nodded, then gripped the wheel and drove.

  ***

  “Right here is good,” Russell said as the Hog came to a stop at a signal perhaps a quarter mile from where they’d started out. Trees shrouded the streets into leafy tunnels and the smell of gardenia drifted on the balmy air. They seemed to have traveled halfway around the world.

  Deal glanced aside at Russell, then noted the silhouette of a compact car parked in the shadows catercorner from where the Hog idled. The signal turned green, but at this hour there was no one behind them.

  “I’ll catch you first thing,” Russell said, levering the door handle at his side.

  Deal nodded. What was it Russell had said what seemed like aeons ago? There’s women everywhere? He stared at the porch of a gingerbreaded bungalow where a yellow light still burned, then stole a glance at Annie. Well, apparently not, he thought.

  “We’ll get some sleep,” Deal said. “Figure out what to do in the morning.”

  He’d added the last as much for Annie’s benefit as anything. What was there to do but wait and see if Dequarius turned up like the bad penny he seemed to be? Track down Deputy Conrad and ask for a sniff of his riot gun’s barrels? Whatever had taken place this night, he thought Conrad might be all too eager to go along with that request.

  Russell lifted one of his big hands to wave acknowledgment, then nodded a goodnight to Annie. In the next moment he was gone, slipping through the shadows down the block.

  “It’s green,” Annie said after a moment.

  He looked up at the signal, then prodded the Hog forward with a touch of the accelerator. There was plenty of room on the broad bench seat now that Russell had gone, and she had taken advantage of it. She sat in the corner of the compartment, her knees drawn up to her chest, her arms locked around her shins. Deal was nearly loony with exhaustion, thoughts bouncing in his head like electrons popping in a skillet. Only one thing burned clear: the feeling of his hand on her breast.

  “You’re upset?” he tried, turning onto Whitehead Street. The moon was behind them now, outlining the big houses down near the water’s edge.

  She started to say something, then stopped and began again. “Men and women think differently about things,” she said. “Why don’t we leave it at that?”

  Forever? Deal wondered. The question was unutterable, of course. His mind raced, some voices raising questions about Dequarius, others demanding some account of his intentions. Why had he had his hand on Annie’s breast to begin with? Why had he taken it away?

  He employed desperate measures to counteract the fierce feelings that seemed to have constricted his throat to the size of a pinhole. What if your daughter were here? But that was no good. He saw Isabel perched on the Hog’s broad leather seat grinning and bouncing in place, Annie with an answering smile.

  Your wife, for God’s sake! Same story, he discovered, willing Janice onto the scene. But she only patted him on the shoulder and wished him well, vanishing into the night as deftly as Russell had. My oh my.

  “We’re here,” Annie said softly as the Hog swung past the shadow of the Hemingway house.

  No help from the ghosts in that quarter, Deal thought. Four wives and who knows what all, before he’d swallowed his own shotgun. Ye Gods.

  “So we are,” Deal said, turning into the drive of Stone’s mansion. No porch light here, he noticed. Some discreet landscape lighting, but no lamp in the window. He left the Hog’s engine running as he turned to her.

  “I’ll check the hospital when I get back to the hotel,” he told her. “If I hear anything…”

  She nodded and put her hand up to stop him.
“It’s all right,” she said. “I know you’ll do the right thing.”

  Would that he were as certain, Deal thought. “By the way,” he said, “neither one of us said thanks for what you did tonight.”

  “Getting the drop on Spencer?” she asked, the hint of a smile on her lips. “I’m glad it wasn’t a real badass.”

  “Do you always carry a gun?” he asked.

  She gave him the look he was getting familiar with, the “I’m not sure I know you well enough” stare. “I lived in a pretty rough neighborhood there for a while,” she said finally. “I got a permit and learned how to use it, in case you’re wondering.”

  He gave her an all-purpose Driscoll shrug. “Anyways, it was a pretty gutsy move. You didn’t know who was out there. Anything might have happened.”

  She thought about it for a moment. “Yes,” she agreed, “anything might.”

  In a movement so quick that it startled him, she leaned forward, brushing her lips against his cheek. In the next moment, she was out of the Hog and gone.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Deal parked the Hog in what seemed to be the last space available in the Pier House lot, and stood with his hand on the dew-streaked car’s roof, waiting for his head to clear before he moved toward his room. It was an unaccustomed quiet at this hour, the moon a yellow disk on the far horizon, about to sink into the sea.

  He could hear the tick of the Hog’s cooling engine, the flurry of a bird deep inside the branches of a nearby banyan. Was there anything as sorry as a tourist limping back to his Key West room late and alone? he found himself thinking, and shook his head at the pathetic quality of the thought. A few hours before he’d been sitting at dockside, having a cocktail with a woman so lovely she could steal his breath with a simple glance—and how long had it been since he’d experienced that feeling, anyway?

  How could things have gone so awry? he wondered. What bad karma, what past sins? Why had he ever answered that phone?

  He checked the discreetly placed numbers on the building before him, made a jog left, then right, crossing a lawn that seemed smooth enough to be a putting green. Golf, he found himself thinking blearily. Maybe he should rise early, return to Miami just as Dequarius had suggested, and throw himself into the sport.