"No. I'm afraid I cannot. You see, Leroy Purcell did kill someone that night."

"Who?"

"Seor?"

"Do you know who he killed?"

"Not that it should matter to you, Seor McInnes, but no. I do not. It was, as they say, an internal matter."

"Is that what Purcell says?"

"That is precisely what he says. So, you see, other than the understandable shock of witnessing such an, ah, event, it was a bad ending between two men who both worked in the kind of business where such things are, if not foreseeable, at least they are not unexpected. In any event, you will never prove that anyone died inside that cottage. All evidence has been obliterated, and, if it becomes necessary, your clients will disappear along with the rest of the evidence."

"Is that how Cuban patriots do business?"

"We will protect our interests. It is that simple. We will take any and all necessary actions, however distasteful, to pursue and protect our interests. As far as 'doing business,' as you put it, we do business with Mr. Purcell and his organization because, at this time, it serves those interests."

"With the Bodines."

He smiled. "Yes. I believe that is how they are known by the police. In any event, they perform essential services for me and my organization. And I cannot allow you to cause the authorities to investigate the murder on St. George Island."

"How do you plan to stop us? I mean, other than killing me, which, just so you'll know, won't stop anything."

"It is very simple, Mr. McInnes. If you cannot promise to cease your attempts to jail Mr. Purcell and guarantee that you can control your clients, then we will kill you and everyone else who is involved." He paused, and then said, "Tonight."

"But Carli's not part of the deal, right? Keeping a teenage girl alive isn't something that serves your 'interests.'"

He shook his patrician head. "Seor McInnes, we are interested. The Bodines are not. They do not trust the girla"this runaway who works as a waitressa"to keep silent."

"And if I can't agree to that..." I needed to think, to stretch out the conversation and run Sanchez's offer around in my head. I said, "These are decent people you're talking about murdering."

"That is why we are talking."

"And I think I should point out that I have a few friends who are kind of hard to kill."

Sanchez said, "The white giant and his a.s.sociates? Yes. That is another reason we are talking."

"Well, that's honest." Sanchez struck another wide match and held it out toward me. I hadn't realized my cigar had gone out, since I hadn't really wanted the d.a.m.n thing to begin with. I leaned forward and let him relight the ash. I said, "The family on the beach on Dog Island the other night. They were some of your people, weren't they? Purcell smuggles in illegal immigrants. People fleeing Cuba? Hot people from other places?" He didn't answer, but then I really didn't expect him to. I was thinking out loud. "Whatever. The guy who came in with his family is kind of famous, I guess."

Again, Sanchez didn't respond, but he couldn't stop a small ripple of surprise, maybe even panic, from moving across his handsome features. And I thought, not for the first time, that there seemed to be much more to the chubby illegal immigrant with the pretty wife and the cloned son than just another "patriot" seeking a better life in Los Estados Unidos. I registered Sanchez's discomfort and made a mental note to remember the tender spot. I said, "I guess South Florida has gotten too hot. So now you're bringing in warm bodies through the Panhandle. And n.o.body does illegal business on the Panhandle without going through the Bodines."

Now Sanchez spoke. "We do business where we please."

"But it's easier to work with an existing operation than to set up your own from scratch."

Sanchez was letting me think. He nodded slowly. "It is easier."

I decided to float some of Squirley McCall's information and see if I could get a reaction. "Is it easier to do business with an arms smuggler?" Sanchez didn't answer. I took a different tack. "And is it easier to work with someone who wants to kill three or four innocent people than it is to get rid of one criminal who's turned a spotlight on your group? And he'll do it again. Leroy Purcell is a bomb waiting to explode in your face."

Sanchez said, "I'm sure you are a talented lawyer. But we are not bargaining."

"Then explain about Carli. You said she's not part of the deal. Why is that? Why is it you can't protect a teenage girl who's more willing to forget all this than I am?"

"It has gone too far. Arrangements have been made. Payments have been accepted, and, unfortunately, emotion is involved. Arguments from you will not help. I have made those same arguments to no avail. The feeling is that a point, an, ah, example, must be made. Too many of the Bodines know of her involvement. This problem, seor, has digressed into notions of honor and control in ... in some minds."

"That doesn't make any sense. Why do I get to walk away? Why does Susan get to walk away? They've already tried to kill her once at her beach house."

"First of all, you, Seor McInnes, did not actually witness anything. You are an attorney, a professional, and, in Leroy Purcell's view, something of a mercenary. He, therefore, believes that your actions are motivated by considered self-interest. He believes that if it is better for you to keep quiet, then that is what you will do."

"That's funny. I thought he wanted me dead."

"He and I engaged in discussions this evening that I am certain have influenced his view."

"What about Susan?"

"Seora Fitzsimmons is an adult. She is well-off and has much to protect. Also, Purcell is aware of a long-term relationship between the seora and yourself. He believes that your silence will be guaranteed by including her in the offer." Sanchez paused to relight his cigar and fill his chest with smoke. He said, "Which brings us to the issue of Carli Poultrez. She is young. She is frivolous, and she is from the peasant cla.s.ses. Even I would not expect her to control her tongue. Purcell, of course, feels even more strongly on this point. And, as I have said, he believes an example must be made. It is, he believes, important to his position with the Bodines. In his mind, the Poultrez girl is the obvious choice for that example."

"And I'm expected to just turn my back on her and walk away?"

"Seor McInnes, that is exactly what Purcell expects you to do. In your place, he would do so without a second thought."

My mind raced. I could, I thought, react loudly and emotionally and get myself and a handful of my favorite people killed, or I could accept Purcell's deala"protecting Susan's life and my owna"and take steps to find Carli and get her to safety, a.s.suming I could find her before the Bodines did. But that option, while immeasurably superior to the first, still left Carli with a lifetime of looking over her shoulder, waiting for a bullet or a knife or just a quick shove at a busy intersection.

His quiet voice startled me. "You are thinking."

It was a statement. I nodded. "Do you care what I do, so long as my actions do not expose your operation or bring the authorities into the equation?"

Sanchez just smiled at me through a curtain of cigar smoke.

I said, "I will not go to the police. Neither will Susan Fitzsimmons."

Sanchez stood and walked to the door. He stopped and said, "You have chosen a proper path, seor. Thank you for your time and for... the intelligence of your response." I studied his spare, intelligent features. He said, "Be careful, Seor McInnes. We have, for many reasons, gone to great lengths to avoid bloodshed. It is the right thing to do, and it is the smart thing to do. But, please make no mistake, just causes such as ours produce zealotsa"useful men who believe the greater the violence, the greater their commitment to the cause. So, as I said, please be most careful." He paused, and, as if mentioning an afterthought, said, "And you should know that a deputy sheriff in Apalachicola, a Mickey Burns, has been asking questions about you."

Sanchez turned to leave. I said, "One more thing," and he paused in the doorway. "Your buddy Purcell threatened me with, in his words, 'a crazy, mean-a.s.s spic' who likes to cut people up and play with their guts. Purcell said all he'd have to do is make a phone call." Sanchez's eyes narrowed, and small muscles knotted in his slender jaw. "That wouldn't be the kind of 'zealot' you're so proud of, would it?"

Sanchez opened his mouth to answer, then closed it again without emitting a sound. He c.o.c.ked his head to one side as if physically rolling thoughts around in his skull. Finally, he said, "I will control my people, and I think Leroy Purcell can control his. But," he hesitated, "some people, some ... forces are beyond reason and control."

"And one of these forcesa"one who likes to play with knives and other people's gutsa"just may turn up if I don't walk away. Is that the bottom line?"

Sanchez met my eyes and held them before turning and walking out of the room, followed closely by the UZI man.

I looked around the room at the decapitated deer and gla.s.s-eyed fish and felt a certain kinship.

Sanchez's cigar tasted heavy and bitter. I stood and walked over to poke it through the mouth of the cast-iron stove before leaving. In the front room, perched on a red commercial cooler with Coca-Cola written on the front, sat Julie the seafood woman. I stopped to look at her. She looked back.

I put two dollars on the counter and said, "I'd like a beer."

She said, "I ain't giving you nothing."

I walked around the counter and stood in front of her. She sat on one of the cooler's two chrome doors. I opened the other one and found a cold Coors. Julie looked furious but didn't move to stop me. I asked, "What did I do to you?"

"You come close to getting Willie killed tonight for one thing."

"What's the other thing?"

"Huh?"

"What else have I done to get you so mad?"

"You done enough. You mess with one of us down here and you messed with all of us."

"Is Captain Billy one of you? Is Peety Boy?"

Julie's face flushed. She looked at the floor and muttered, "You messed with Sonny." Now, she had my full attention. "Made him look bad to his boss. We ain't gonna put up with that."

"What's Sonny to you?" Julie didn't answer. I said, "He's on his way here, isn't he?"

Now she smiled. Sonny was coming to kill me.

chapter twenty-three.

"I know you want me to stick around and get dismembered by Sonny, but I'm leaving. Sorry." As I spoke, Julie put her right foot against the counter, blocking my path by creating a bridge with her leg between the red cooler and the Formica counter. I said, "You've got to be kidding," and turned to put my left b.u.t.tock on the counter to swivel my legs over and leave.

But Julie really had not been kidding. I glimpsed an amber flash just in time to dodge an unopened bottle of Budweiser swung hard at my left ear. A violent breeze swept the tip of my nose as I jerked my head back and pivoted over the counter. Julie seemed to feel deeply about not wanting me to leave. I, on the other hand, felt just as deeply that rolling around the floor trading punches with a female fishmonger would irreparably damage my self-imagea"particularly if she won. So, as soon as my bare feet hit floorboards, I sprinted through the open front door and into the night. Julie's longneck exploded against the door frame behind me, but I was gone. Not only did Julie decline to chase me, which would have been undignified for both of us, but she also confounded expectations by failing to pelt my windshield with bottled beverages as my rented Pontiac spun around the front corner of the shack and screeched onto the road. I could only guess that she was busy calling Sonny or maybe looking for one of Captain Billy's old shotguns.

This, I thought, is not why I went to law school.

A mile or two west of the causeway to St. George, a speeding Apalachicola Sheriff's Department cruiser met me on Highway 98, going, I suspected, where I had come from. I couldn't tell for sure whether the uniformed driver was my old compatriot Mickey Burns, since, speeding at eighty miles an hour through the night, one black-and-white looks pretty much like the next. I watched the deputy's red taillights recede in my rearview mirror until they faded from sight; then I reached over to switch on the radio and noticed my Browning 9mm on the pa.s.senger seat. Bless Carlos Sanchez. The clip was full and the chamber was empty, just as they had been when Julie lifted it out of the trunk.

Following a quick stopover in Panama City at an all-night truck stop with a Hertz franchise, I pulled into Seaside a few minutes after sunrise in a newly rented, dark-blue Taurus. I parked in back, stepped out of that peculiar rented-car smell, and walked around to the front of the cottage. Loutie Blue answered the door.

I said h.e.l.lo and searched her face. "Can you tell me what's going on with Carli?"

Loutie shook her head. "Sorry, Tom. There's nothing to tell. As far as we know, they're just still looking."

When we were seated in the kitchen, she said, "Purcell's gone. He left late yesterday to meet with 'the Cubans,' whoever they are. Susan's fine. She's still asleep. Kelly's been calling you. Three times last night. She said she needs to talk to you as soon as possible."

I stood and walked to the refrigerator. "The Cubans are a group of self-described 'patriots' who waylaid me last night to give us our lives back. According to their leadera"at least I think he's their leader. Anyway, I wouldn't bet my life on it, but it's possible that Purcell no longer longs for my demise. I'll fill you in on the details later." I looked inside the fridge at eggs and cinnamon rolls and bagels and realized I was too tired to eat. I closed the door. "I'm going to bed. If anything happens, come get me."

"Kelly found out something about that yacht's ownership. The one the Teeter guy told you about seeing the other night when you and Joey were on Dog Island. It belongs to some corporation in Tampa."

"Would you mind calling her for me? Ask her to check out the company. Find out if there's any Cuban-American management or ownership."

"There's Cuban-American owners or managers in just about everything in South Florida, Tom."

"I know. Just ask her. And call Joey and ask him if he can turn loose and meet us here ... What time is it? Six-twenty? Ask him if he can make it around three or four this afternoon."

"No problem." Loutie said, "Go to bed. You look like h.e.l.l."

I trudged up the stylish staircase and hesitated outside the room where Susan slept. It was the same room where she and I had made love two nights before.

I liked her. She liked me. We had slept together and liked that too. But climbing into her bed at daybreak to catch up on lost sleep, thata"I don't know whya"but that seemed too intimate, as if I would be taking too much for granted. Maybe it was the way we had parted. Maybe it was the fear that her idea of us was different than mine. Maybe it felt too, almost, married. Maybe I was just tired.

I walked a few steps farther down the hall and found a room no one was using. The mattress was bare. I spied a yellow blanket with satin trim stuffed onto a shelf in the closet. I put my head on a purple, ruffly pillow, pulled the nubby blanket up to my chin, and felt sleep soak into my body like a warm bath.

Someone sat on the bed. A woman's voice said, "Tom, Joey's here now, and Kelly's been here for a couple of hours. They're waiting downstairs." It was Susan's voice. And I felt no ambiguity whatsoever about how glad I was to hear it.

I pushed the twisted blanket away, rolled onto my back, and said, "Nice to see you."

Susan smiled. "You too. Wash your face and come on down. Everyone's waiting." And she left the room.

I walked out into the hall and through Susan's room to the bath, where I had a look in the mirror and was greeted by swollen eyes, red pillow marks on one cheek, and, I was pretty sure, breath that would melt paint. I turned on cold water in the shower, took off my shirt, and leaned over the tub and let the frigid spray run over my face, neck, and hair. I needed a real shower, but people were waiting, so I did what I could. After toweling and combing my hair and making vigorous use of a toothbrush, I felt more or less like myself again, and I headed downstairs.

Once again, everyone had congregated in the kitchen. I said, "I'm getting tired of looking at this kitchen. Can we do this in the living room?"

Joey said, "Did we wake up grouchy from our nap?"

I said, "Bite me," and walked into the living room. Joey, Susan, Loutie, and Kelly followed. Loutie came in carrying something that looked like the kind of miniature radio my father used to listen to at football games. As she walked, she worked at poking a tiny black foam k.n.o.b into her ear.

I looked at her. She said, "Mobile monitor," and sat on the sofa next to Joey. Susan sat in an upholstered chair next to mine, and Kelly came in a few seconds later and put a gla.s.s of c.o.ke on the table next to my chair. I said, "Bless you," and drank half of it right away. "Who wants to start?"

Susan said, "Loutie says you said something about Leroy Purcell not wanting you dead anymore."

"That's what this Cuban guy wants me to think."

My stomach felt queasy, and I realized I hadn't eaten in almost thirty hours. I took another swallow of c.o.ke. Joey said, "You trying to be dramatic? Tell us the frigging story."

"Oh. Sorry." I said, "Actually, I'm trying not to throw up again. It's been a while since I ate. Yesterday at lunch. And I managed to lose most of that on Billy Teeter's boat last night." I looked at Susan. "I'll back up and fill you in later on Teeter's boat and the yacht off Dog Island and all that, but the bottom line is that Carli's father, Rus Poultrez, is dead."

All Susan got out was, "How?"

I told her.

Susan said, "I can't believe how happy I am that another human being is dead."

"Something else," I added. "I met with some kind of Cuban revolutionary last night who claims to do business with Purcell and the Bodines. He also claimed he's convinced Purcell to leave you and me alone. He didn't offer the same deal for Carli."

Joey said, "Why the h.e.l.l not?"

"He said Purcell wants to make some kind of example out of her. You know, 'don't f.u.c.k with Leroy Purcell' or some equally eloquent sentiment."

Susan stood. "Kelly, tell Tom what you told us about the yacht. I'm going to get this poor guy something to eat. Don't let him say anything else until I get back."