Эйс Аткинс - Kickback

I pushed past Richie and the trio of golfers on the floor. The redheaded kid had a wild look in his eye that I didn’t like.

Hawk and I walked out together onto Seventh Avenue and strolled back to where we’d parked our car. The globes of the old-fashioned streetlamps were burning bright, the sky pink and blue. Women wearing next to nothing walked past us, talking on cell phones and chatting and laughing. Boys in tank tops and baggy jeans followed them into the dance clubs and bars. We passed a big plate-glass window where old men were rolling cigars for tourists.

“Got what you wanted,” Hawk said. “DeMarcos know we here. And I didn’t even have to mess up my suit.”

“Might need a press.”

“How about that Richie?”

“I think I wounded his pride.”

“How about that knee?”

“Might have wounded that, too,” I said.

“Let’s get something to eat,” Hawk said. “Whipping up on white boys sho’ gives us darkies a powerful thirst.”

37

We had a four-hour dinner at an old steakhouse in Tampa called Bern’s. Hawk downed two bottles of Iron Horse champagne and the next morning showed no ill effects. He was dressed and ready in the lobby as I emerged from the elevator, reading the business section of the Tampa Bay Times . He had already gone for a five-mile jog and had breakfast. I was moving a bit slower, having ordered room service and called Susan.

We drove north along Highway 19, the morning sun high and bright, to Dunedin, where the final two addresses were. Both were in a development called Esperanza Marina on an inlet off the Gulf of Mexico. It wasn’t until we got there that we realized it was, in true Florida style, a gated community. I stopped at the gate and a woman in a white golf shirt emerged from the guard shack. She held a clipboard, which seemed to indicate some serious duties. A pleasant smell of salt air blew off a warm, sticky wind.

“Hello, sirs,” she said after I’d rolled down my window and she’d looked inside. “Names, please?”

“We’ve come to look at some property,” I said. There were several realty signs staked around a nearby palm tree. The gate was big, wrought-iron, and impressive.

“Which address?”

I looked down at my printout and rattled off the addresses for Scali and Callahan. She again asked for our names.

“I’m Bill Buckner,” I said. “And this is Mookie Wilson.”

She wrote down the names and walked back into the guard shack. Hawk didn’t say a word but was smiling, which for Hawk was as good as slapping his knee.

A couple seconds later, the big metal gate swung open and I drove in as if our names had been Rockefeller. “Always helps to tell the truth,” I said. “We did come to see the properties.”

“Bill Buckner,” Hawk said. “Ha.”

The developer of the Esperanza Marina did a lot to maximize the space of the lots. The Mediterranean Revival houses were jammed so close together, you could pass a jar of peanut butter from window to window without ever stepping outside. The light stucco façades were topped with red barrel tile roofs. Some of the houses had names like Joe’s Last Stand or The Carlisles’ Reward.

“White people make me laugh,” Hawk said.

“Black people don’t name their houses?”

“Shit,” Hawk said.

Scali’s address was along Seagull Way, apparently the premier address of the development, as all the units faced the marina and onward to the Gulf. I pulled in front of a mailbox in the shape of a full-size dolphin. Hawk and I got out of the car and looked up to admire a three-story house.

“Look better when they put the windows in,” Hawk said.

The windows were covered in Visqueen that popped and bucked in the hard wind. When I walked up and peered inside, I saw that plywood still lined the floors and it didn’t seem any of the fixtures had been installed. There was a pneumatic nail gun on the floor along with a level. The front door was locked, a realtor’s key box on the handle.

“Maybe he ran out of money,” Hawk said.

“Or maybe he’s in no rush.”

We walked a block over to the next address. The contractor had only recently poured the foundation of Callahan’s place. The house had a realty sign staked out front. It was a different company from the one his wife and Scali’s owned.

“What’s it mean?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I only thought they spent a lot of time down here.”

Between the two addresses, a long dock jutted out into the inlet lined with sailboats and Boston whalers, some larger live-aboard boats. A few of the big deep-sea fishing boats looked to be about fifty or sixty feet, made by Bertram and Hatteras, which was about the extent of my knowledge of boat makers. The engines on many were running, bubbling up seawater behind them. A guy who had skin the texture and color of shoe leather was filleting fish on a dock, ripping out the spine and guts to the sound of rock music blaring from the boat. He had the sleeves cut out of a T-shirt that read FLORA-BAMA and a long cigarette hanging from his lips.

“You wouldn’t happen to know which boat belongs to Joe Scali?”

“Who?”

“Or a guy named Callahan?” I said. “He’s from Boston.”

He looked up from his work, hands bloody to the elbows, and pointed a couple times down the dock. He took a long drag from the cigarette and pulled it slow from his lips. “That one of the judges?” he said, smoke escaping his mouth.

“It is,” I said. “We’re here to inspect his barnacles.”

“That seventy-seven-foot blue Hatteras down there,” he said. “Biggest boat in the marina. Can’t miss it.”

“Nice,” I said. I looked to Hawk.

Hawk whistled at the hulking shape of the ship. “Pretty,” he said. “Cost a few bucks?”

“A few bucks?” the leathery man said. “How about a few million? I joke with them about it when they’re down here. I don’t think they’ve taken it out all year. The thing is brand-new. The captain is the luckiest guy I know. Doesn’t have to do much but hose down the deck.”

“Callahan fly down a lot?”

“Every few weeks,” he said. “Never see them here at the same time. What’s the other one’s name?”

“Scali.”

“He’s kind of a weirdo,” he said.

“Yep, that’s him.”

“Gives me the creeps,” he said. “Those weird purple glasses he wears.” He flung some fish guts onto the deck and a couple seagulls fought over the mess. “He’s always yelling at folks who own the boats. Says they aren’t following the rules. I don’t think he knows one end of a boat from another. All he and his wife do is sleep aboard and get drunk.”

I thanked the man. The man put the cigarette, now smeared with fish blood, back to his mouth and resumed work.

Hawk and I stood at the bow of the judge’s ship. The fighting chair reached up tall into the sky. Nautical flags flapped from stiff wires. The controls were covered in a tarp and, below deck, sealed with a padlock. I didn’t need to get on board anyway.

Hawk crossed his massive arms across his chest. He shook his head and read the boat’s name. “Reel Justice,” he said. “Boston, MA.”

“Poetic,” I said.

“You think that developer in Boston supplementing the judges’ paychecks?”

“I do.”

“And that some way he’s buddies with the DeMarcos?” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

“How many kids does Scali have to send to Fortune Island to buy a boat that big?”

“A few hundred.”

“So this is all about kids for cash.”

“Sure seems that way,” I said.

“I’d sure like to take those men fishing,” he said. “Use their asses as bait.”

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