Not like Florida. Jesus. He regretted ever coming here.
Why had he?
It still didn’t make any sense what his grandfather did. Not to anyone. Grandy had shocked the whole family when he telephoned Bern out of the blue and offered him the CEO job, Indian Harbor, and two similar developments, one near Bradenton, the other near Marco. They hadn’t exchanged a word in years, even at the family reunion in Appleton. Everyone knew that Grandy and Bern hated each other. They still whispered about the unfortunate incident when Bern, age thirteen, got so angry at Grandy that he snuck up behind the old man and brained him with a hammer. Those two had been back and forth at each other’s throats ever since.
“It’s ’cause they’re two peas in a pod,” relatives would say.
Maybe so, but it still didn’t explain why the old man offered him the job at a salary three times what he was making at Gimpel’s, and a contractual guarantee that Bern would inherit fifty-one percent of all the Florida landholding company’s property and assets.
There were only two stipulations: Bern had to sign over all his personal assets to the company so that he had a vested interest.
“You’re going to inherit it all back, anyway,” his wife had told him after reading the contract. “That’s not a gamble, it’s a guarantee.”
The other stipulation was that he had to fulfill the obligations of his current position for at least two years after the old man’s death.
“That means showing up on time,” his wife said, her tone asking: How easy can it get? “Your developments don’t even have to make a profit. As long as the company remains solvent, we own half. It’s too good to pass up!
Exactly. Which was maybe what Grandy had in mind: luring Bern down here to a job that had come to seem more like the old bastard’s way of getting even.
No, it was worse than that. Coming to Florida was more like a curse.
30
Moe’s Dodge Ram pickup, with the big tires and the gun rack, came skidding into the marina parking lot as Bern sat at the office computer having some quiet time on the Internet. It was late Saturday afternoon, around 6 P.M. Augie still hadn’t returned with the Viking, but Bern’s anxiety had calmed on this calm day with the salvage crew off, no employees around to upset him, and no recently discovered bodies to deal with that he knew of.
That was about to change.
When Bern saw the Hoosier’s vehicle, he felt a sickening tension in his stomach. His hearing was back to normal, but not his nerves.
Redneck Indiana trailer toad.
His day was coming. Augie’s, too. Bern’s list was growing, and why not, if he had to disappear? Go out with a bang. Like the old man used to say: Forgiveness is for people who don’t have the balls for revenge.
Bern would have his balls with him if he had to run away to a foreign country. Might as well even some scores.
From the Internet, he’d printed information on remote islands off Mexico and Central America that were more or less connected to Florida by shoreline—if a boater was willing to follow the contour of the Gulf of Mexico, stay close to the beach along Louisiana and Texas. Which he was.
He’d also read and printed out an article titled “How to Change Your Identity and Disappear Forever.”
Interesting. Nearly twenty thousand Americans disappeared each year by choice, the story said, and many of them went on to live happy, anonymous lives. Fake passports, driver’s licenses, Social Security cards—all that stuff could be bought if you had the right connections. A better way to do it, though, was to steal the identity of a person who’d died recently. It was best if they were poor, or had only a small number of living relatives—fewer people to blow your cover, that way.
Of course, the article didn’t give the actual details—you had to buy the guy’s book to get the real scoop—but it had lifted Bern’s spirits to read that it was possible to vanish and leave your old life behind.
That day might be coming for him very soon. All because of the hick from French Lick.
When Moe’s .357 went off accidentally, exploding so close to Bern’s ear that it caused his legs to buckle, a lot of things happened at once: Bern collapsed, screaming that he’d been shot. Moe backpedaled toward his truck, fearing that it was true, but also fearing that his boss might not die. And the Cuban, who actually had been shot, managed to get to his feet and stumble into the mangrove swamp.
They found a grapefruit-sized splash of blood where the man had been standing, then a blood trail. Bern and Moe had searched until 3 A.M., looking for the wounded Cuban. They didn’t know where he’d been shot, or how seriously he’d been wounded, but he had enough life left to evade them.
As a preemptive measure, Bern telephoned the police and gave them an edited version of what had happened: They’d surprised Javier Castillo, who was attempting to steal a boat from marina property. Moe was carrying a gun because of the incident two days before. The lighting was poor, but Moe was certain the man was armed and he’d fired a warning shot. That’s all. A warning shot and the Cuban had fled.
The cops kept them up until 5 A.M., taking their statements, the blood trail erased by bulldozer tracks before they arrived.
For all Bern knew, Javier Castillo was at the sheriff’s office right now, a bandage around his arm, telling them about the dead girl in the fifty-gallon drum, available for viewing at Indian Harbor Marina.
Another preemptive measure: Bern told the deputies several times that the Cuban had acted crazy, hoping to sabotage his credibility. Coming to the marina with a gun—wasn’t that evidence enough? Also, the Cuban had started the marina’s bulldozer for some reason. Why?
Down the road, Bern might help the cops guess that the Cuban was using the dozer to bury a dead girl’s body.
God Almighty, he’d give anything to be back selling Eldorados.
Sitting at the computer, Bern watched Moe swing down out of his truck. As he waited for the door to open, he reached into his grandfather’s briefcase, removed the Luger, and placed it at his right, on the desk.
There was no telling what terrible dark cloud the redneck was dragging behind him this time.
M oe had a newspaper under his arm when he came into the office, saying, “Bern. Bern. You’re not gonna believe what’s happened.” The man sounded winded, he was so nervous. “The cops are outside right now. In police boats—”
That’s all he got out. Bern had stood as the man came into the room. Was waiting for him. As he said, “The cops are outside…,” Bern took a giant step, locked his hand under Moe’s neck and chin, lifted him off the floor, and slammed him against the office wall. Held him there at eye level, feeling sick inside. Trapped.
Bern’s voice was shaking as he said, “If the cops are here to arrest me, motherfucker, I’ll cross you off my list before they get the cuffs out.” He had the Luger. He touched it to the Hoosier’s ear.
Moe couldn’t respond because he couldn’t breathe, his face turning purple around his bulging eyes. List? What list was he talking about?
Moe was newly aware that when his boss used profanity, it signaled that he was in a crazed and dangerous mood. Which had been happening a lot lately. If Heller had it in him to murder a girl and bury her in a barrel of oil, he could kill a man—a terrifying scenario to contemplate, being stuffed into a fifty-gallon drum. Moe knew he had to do something fast before he blacked out.
He managed to get the newspaper in Bern’s face, and made a heronlike noise—Awk! Awk!—hoping the man would understand that Moe had information to share. It was good news, not bad.
Bern said, “Beg. Go ahead and beg. You think that bothers me?” Wanting to choke the life out of him.