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  “Assault on a police officer, interference with an officer during the performance of his duty, resisting arrest…” Malloy shook his head. “They’ve got a pretty long laundry list, Johnny.”

  “What were we supposed to do, let him kill that poor kid?”

  Malloy shrugged. “Officer Conrad says that ‘poor kid’ came after him with a knife—”

  “Bullshit,” Deal said. Still, a little worm of doubt had crept into his brain. Had there been a knife? What if he and Russell had just been too far away to see it? Still, there hadn’t been any knife in the kid’s hand by the time he and Russell had made it to the scene. The deputy had been about to kick the kid to death, he was certain of that much.

  “The kid’s a known offender—drug dealing, petty theft, public intoxication…” Malloy ticked the charges off as if they were simply the tip of a large iceberg. “He was driving without a license, with expired plates, maybe the car was stolen, too. The cops are still trying to run the VIN down.”

  “Expired plates? That a capital offense down here?”

  “Forget that little grifter,” Malloy said, waving his hand impatiently. “You’ve got plenty of problems of your own.”

  “How’s Russell?” Deal said sullenly. “I expect he bumped his head a few times, too.”

  “Russell’s fine,” Malloy said, nodding over his shoulder. “They’ve got him in a holding cell down the hall. I spoke to him briefly, told him to keep his mouth shut until we had a chance to talk.”

  “Russell’s done time,” Deal said. “You don’t need to tell him how to behave.”

  “He’s a convicted felon?” Malloy said, staring in disbelief. “What else do I need to know?”

  “That we did exactly what anybody else would have done,” Deal said. “That asshole cop was ready to kill that kid. All we did was stop him.”

  “That’s not the way Deputy Conrad puts it,” Malloy said.

  “He was ready to blow Russell away, too,” Deal said. “I kicked his gun away just in time.”

  “Conrad says he drew his gun and ordered Russell to cease and desist. That’s when you blindsided him.”

  “Like hell,” Deal said. “Did he tell you I had a knife, too? Or maybe it was a two-headed axe I came after him with.”

  “They did find a knife on your person, John.”

  Deal stared at Malloy in disbelief. “My Swiss Army knife?” he asked, incredulous. “The one with the two inch blade, the tweezers, and the nail file?”

  Malloy shrugged. “No one’s making a big thing about your Swiss Army knife,” he said. “I’m just trying to make a point.”

  “Look,” Deal said, “I appreciate your coming down here, Rusty, but maybe I need to talk to somebody who’s on my side.”

  “I am on your side,” Malloy said testily. “I just want to be sure I understand exactly what happened out there. If you expect me to help, I need the facts.”

  Deal took a deep breath. “Maybe Russell got a little excited,” he told Malloy, “but if you’d been there, you’d have probably done the same.”

  “I doubt it,” Malloy said. “I might have said something, but assault is hardly my style—”

  “It wasn’t the time for conversation,” Deal said. “Russell tackled him just as he was about to put the kid’s lights out. The cop went ass over teakettle, then came up with his pistol in his hand, ready to blow Russell away. No cease, no desist. Just sayonara.”

  “And that’s when you kicked the gun out of his hand?”

  Deal nodded. “Whereupon Deputy Conrad came after me and made it clear that it was his intention to clean my clock.”

  “Which is when you kicked him in the balls?”

  “Punched him in the balls,” Deal said. He decided to leave out the part about the kid sinking his teeth into Conrad’s ear. Besides, he could still hear the groan the surprised deputy had made. The memory cheered him slightly. Maybe it would keep him going during his time on the chain gang, he thought.

  “Whatever,” Malloy said, making a note on a pad he’d produced from his coat pocket.

  “I’d have kicked him if I could have,” Deal added, “but the sonofabitch was sitting on my back.”

  Malloy seemed to stifle a smile. “Conrad considers himself a major badass, that’s what I picked up in the squad room. I get the feeling a few of his peers are kind of enjoying the way he’s walking right now.”

  “He’s not going horseback riding anytime soon.”

  “Nor you either,” Malloy said. “Conrad may be a dirtbag, John, but he is also a cop.”

  “It’s the word of three people against one,” Deal said. “Doesn’t that count for anything?”

  Malloy did smile at that one. “It counts for something. But alas and alack, one of you is a habitual offender and another is a felon, as I have just been informed. Not to mention that two of your party also happen to be other than white—you will forgive any imputation of racism, of course. And then there’s the fact that both you and Russell hail from outside the Conch Republic and are accused of committing mayhem upon one of the officers deputized to protect that entity from attack by foreign parties.” Malloy stopped and gave him a baleful look. “You’re an intelligent person, John. How’s all that stack up in your eyes?”

  “It’s the twenty-first century,” Deal said. “You’re talking like we’re in Bull Connor, Alabama.”

  “It’s not Alabama,” Malloy said. “But it is Key West.”

  There was a commotion in the hallway outside then, and the sound of a key turning in the lock. The two of them looked up as the door swung open and a dapper-looking man hurried in with a look of concern on his tanned and handsome face. He was wearing linen slacks, a dark T-shirt, and a raw silk jacket that draped him like he’d been born to the garment. His swept-back hair was silver, but his features suggested that was an anomaly. Franklin Stone was in his sixties, Deal knew, but he exuded a certain agelessness.

  “Counselor,” Stone said when he saw Malloy.

  “Mr. Stone,” Malloy replied, giving Stone a respectful nod.

  Stone, meantime, had turned to Deal. “Johnny-boy,” he said, extending his hand as though they were meeting unawares. “What the hell’s happened to your face?”

  Deal glanced at the sullen deputy who’d followed Stone into the room. “My hammer slipped,” he told Stone.

  Stone shot the deputy a look of his own, then turned back to Deal, managing something of a laugh. “Well, let’s get you out of here, shall we? I’m sure you’d like to get cleaned up.”

  Deal stared at Stone for a moment, then glanced at Rusty Malloy. “I’m not sure it’s that simple, Mr. Stone,” Malloy began.

  “What on earth are you talking about?” Stone said. “It’s all taken care of. A regrettable misunderstanding. Isn’t that right, Deputy?”

  The deputy behind Stone looked as if a furry animal had slipped suddenly into his shorts. “That’s right,” the deputy said to Malloy, his tone carefully measured. “He’s free to go.”

  Deal stared suspiciously at Stone. “How about Russell?”

  “Your sidekick?” Stone said. “He’s already outside in my car, waiting.”

  Malloy rolled his eyes. “Well, you heard what the man said. Let’s take our leave.”

  Stone nodded and put his hand on Deal’s shoulder. Malloy snatched up the pad he’d been jotting notes on and started for the door. Deal put his own hand on the lawyer’s sleeve. “How about the kid? The one we tried to keep from getting killed.”

  Malloy turned in astonishment. “John…”

  “Dequarius Noyes.” Franklin Stone shook his distinguished head patiently. “That boy’s nothing but trouble.”

  Deal shot a glance at the silent deputy. “I don’t want him left here, Mr. Stone. Not after what I saw this morning.”

  Stone’s eyes flashed, and he seemed about to say something. Then he swallowed whatever it was and turned to the deputy. “What’s he charged w
ith, Peters?”

  Peters looked as if the animal burrowing around in his shorts had clamped its teeth down hard on something tender. “Driving with an expired license,” he said grudingly. “His plates had lapsed and he couldn’t produce a vehicle registration.”

  “No assault, no resisting arrest?” Stone’s nostrils flared.

  Peters shrugged. “We could talk to Conrad again.”

  “That’s not what I asked you,” Stone thundered.

  Peters threw up his hands in surrender.

  “Let him go,” Stone said.

  “Well, the sheriff might—”

  “I said to let him go. I’ll take personal responsibility.” Stone’s eyes were daggerlike now.

  “If you say so,” the deputy said.

  “I’ll speak to the sheriff,” Stone said. “Noyes isn’t running off anywhere.”

  Deputy Peters gave Deal a last murderous glance, then turned and went off down the hall. “Get that dickhead out of his cell,” Deal heard him call to someone. “He’s skatin’ again.”

  “I appreciate it,” Deal said, turning to Stone.

  “All in the interest of justice, Johnny-boy,” Stone said. He moved to put an arm around Deal’s shoulders, guiding him out of the interrogation room. “Now come on, we’ve got more important matters to attend to.”

  Chapter Six

  “What did happen to your face, anyway?” Russell Straight asked Deal. They were standing on a shaded deck at the back of Stone’s home, which had turned out to be one of the imposing antebellum mansions the two of them had jogged past a few hours earlier, practically across the street from the Hemingway home.

  “Cut myself shaving,” Deal said, putting a hand to a lump on his forehead. At least he’d been able to wash the grit out of the scrapes and scratches, he thought. Stone’s driver, Balart, a tall, wiry-looking Hispanic in his fifties, had taken them by limousine to the hotel and waited while they’d changed and showered, then delivered them back to the house.

  “Funny,” Russell said. “Happened to me, too.” His knuckle absently traced a welt on one of his cheekbones.

  Deal found himself musing that it had been a while since he’d been in a limo. He wondered if Russell ever had. He glanced at his watch, noting that it was nearly three o’clock. Time flies when you’re having fun, as his father might have said. So much for making it up to Miami in time to check on the progress of the port job.

  A houseboy in shorts and a flowered shirt similar to those of the Pier House staff approached, a tray of drinks in his hand. Deal took the Myers’ and Coke, Russell the beer. The houseboy took what looked like a glass of seltzer off to the other end of the deck, where Stone had excused himself to take a phone call.

  “What about your wine diet?” Russell asked.

  “It’s Friday,” Deal said. “You get to do whatever the hell you want on Fridays.”

  Russell stared at him for a minute. “You okay?”

  Deal gave him a look, then turned his gaze out to sea. “I’m fine,” he said. Nothing a little ocean-gazing couldn’t cure, anyway.

  And it was a fine view from the deck Stone had built out over the shallows here, one hundred and eighty degrees of seascape, over waters that were a patchwork of blue and turquoise and cobalt and steel, depending on whether the bottom was hip-deep or full-fathom five, or something in between.

  One of the features that made the Keys special, he thought. The whole chain of islands that stretched down from the mainland a hundred miles or so to where he stood now weren’t really islands—the type that poke up in the middle of a nowhere ocean, anyway—but a series of reefs jutting barely out of the sea, and surrounded by neighboring formations that fell away gradually toward the deeps. The varying bottom depths close to shore were what made for the interesting array of colors out there, one of the many things that distinguished the place.

  Another feature, Deal thought, was the calm that usually descended upon him in the Keys, just about the time he crossed Jewfish Creek and reached Key Largo, the northernmost in the chain. He’d always assumed it was a psychological phenomenon, simple hooky-playing relief that anyone might feel upon crossing the boundary between the regular world and the gateway to Margaritaville. But not long ago he’d heard a scientist being interviewed on a Miami radio talk show, the guy explaining that when people went to the beach they found themselves bombarded by gazillions of ions sweeping in on the ocean breezes, these ions carrying along with them some kind of charge of zone-out juice they’d picked up from bounding over the wave tops.

  Deal didn’t really care whether the sensation was physiological or psychological…right now, all he wanted was for that calm to descend. He had a healthy sip of the Myers’ and Coke, hoping to help things along.

  “I guess your Mr. Stone swings a pretty heavy stick down here,” Russell said at his shoulder.

  “So it would seem.” Deal nodded.

  “I could have used him up in Georgia a while back,” Russell said. “Might have saved me a few years of my life.”

  Deal glanced over at Stone, suspecting that what the man said was true. Russell had been a boxer once, and had killed a man in the ring. It might have been ruled an accident, except for the fact that it had happened in a crackerass town in rural Georgia, and that Russell had thrown off his gloves at one point and used his bare fists to continue the process. They’d had to drag him off his opponent, a white boy who’d made the mistake of growling racial epithets at Russell at the same time he was head-butting, low-blowing, thumb-gouging, and otherwise fouling him in the ring. The white boy’s head had struck a ring post at some point during the riot that erupted after Russell finally tackled him and dragged him down to the canvas, there to pummel the ever-loving crap out of him.

  The next day, the white kid—a local—had died from a freakish blood clot that broke loose and lodged in his brain. Nineteen-year-old Russell Straight had ended up serving eight years on a manslaughter charge. And he was probably right, Deal thought. It was the sort of thing that a Franklin Stone—had one existed in the town where Russell had been so unfortunate, and had he cared a whit about the plight of an ill-educated and angry young black man—might have been able to smooth over.

  “I’m so sorry,” Stone was saying, hurrying toward them now. He snapped the tiny cell phone he’d been using shut and slipped it into his coat pocket. “It’s been a hell of a week, but that’s no excuse, I know. I trust they’ve been treating you well at the hotel.”

  Russell nodded his assent and Deal tilted his glass at Stone. “The hotel was great,” he said. “Though we never did get around to checking out.”

  “Don’t give it a thought,” Stone said. “I had Balart call over.” Stone gestured off toward the front of the place. Deal noted that the houseboy had reemerged and was busy arranging what looked like hors d’œuvres on a nearby table. “Everything’s been taken care of.”

  Deal shrugged. “We were planning on going back today.”

  Stone looked somewhat crestfallen. “But we haven’t even gotten down to business yet.”

  Deal started to say something, but Stone pressed on. “And I’ve been such a terrible host. I was hoping—” he broke off for a moment “—assuming you could put this morning’s unfortunate business out of your mind—that is, that you and Mr. Russell would be my guests through the weekend.”

  Deal glanced at Russell, who maintained his usual impassive expression…no matter what images of himself and their cocktail waitress might be cavorting through his mind, Deal thought. “I’m not sure…,” he began, but Stone cut him off.

  “I’m terribly sorry for what happened today,” Stone said, turning a meaningful gaze upon Russell in turn. “The officer involved has been reprimanded. He’ll have a week’s desk duty during which he can calm himself down.”

  Deal stared. A couple of hours ago, he was facing the prospect of a weekend in the Monroe County jail. Now, Stone seemed ready to hand him the keys to the city
.

  “Was his word against ours, when it came down to it, Mr. Stone,” Russell was saying. “How come you took ours?”

  Stone smiled and put his hand on Deal’s shoulder. “Because I’ve known your employer here for more than thirty years,” he said. “And his father, too, God rest his soul. If Barton Deal had told me the sun was going to come up in the west tomorrow, I’d have taken him at his word. The same thing holds for this man right here.”

  Russell pursed his lips, apparently satisfied. Stone seemed about to go on, when Deal cut in. “Say you hadn’t known me, Franklin,” he said. “What if we’d just been a couple of guys from out of town who jumped into that mess?”

  Stone paused. “It’s hard to say, isn’t it? But I’ve been made aware that Officer Conrad can be a bit, shall we say, overzealous in carrying out his duties. The two of you performed a public service this morning, that much I am convinced of.”

  “Well, I’m convinced you did us a service,” Russell Straight offered. “I appreciate it.” He lifted his glass to Stone, who returned the salute.

  Deal nodded and joined in with the toast, although something was still troubling him. Maybe he needed a heavier breeze, one carrying a major ion transfusion, he thought, or maybe it was just the throbbing from his sore head.

  He was relieved that he and Russell had been sprung from jail, sure, but still, none of it should have happened in the first place…and something about the ease with which Stone had engineered their release bothered him as well. Franklin Stone was a pillar of the business community to be certain, but he was no elected official, not by a long shot.

  “How’d you find out we’d been picked up, anyway?” Deal asked.

  Stone turned back to him. “Why, Rusty Malloy called to tell me what had happened, of course.”

  Deal nodded. He needed to stop looking this gift horse in the mouth, he told himself. An old acquaintance of his father’s wanted to do business with him and had used his clout in a small town to get him and Russell Straight out of a jam. End of story.