“That hard?”
“Maybe hard enough to kill him.”
“Daron. You don’t even want to think that.”
“I hit him so hard my hands still ache. I seriously don’t think Dusty will be turning me in any time soon.”
“So that leaves one more big question.” I talked softly. Not so much because I was afraid someone would hear, but because if I talked above a whisper, my head started throbbing again.
“Yeah.” Em nodded.
Together we said it. “Where’s James?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
I t was almost three thirty, and we still had about three hours of dark.
“We can take advantage of the dark or we can wait until daylight and see if we can find him.”
Hundreds of crickets rubbed their legs together in a mind-numbing nighttime roar. I wondered how people could even sleep with the noise. I wondered if James was sleeping.
“Or we can call him on his cell.” Em pointed at my phone clipped to my belt. I hoped the battery was charged. I hadn’t been home in so long, I had no idea if it would work. I’d never considered calling James. We see each other often enough that I don’t think about calling. I pulled my cell from my belt and pushed the two digits for instant dialing. In two seconds I could hear the phone ring. Once, twice, then I heard the obnoxious ringtone of his phone coming from the back of the truck. Some hip-hop rhythm by a group I didn’t know.
“He left the phone behind.” Em jumped down from the truck. She looked back at me, and in the dark I could see her attempt at a smile. “How do you feel, scarface?”
It wasn’t funny. I could feel the beginning of a scab, but I didn’t want to touch it. I didn’t follow her, and stayed sitting on the edge of the truck bed. I wanted to sit for a while longer, and make sure I wasn’t going to be sick.
“Daron. There are a number of things about you that bother me.”
“I appreciate your candor, Skipper. I’ve always thought you were somewhat of an asshole and that bothers me.”
I ignored the comment. “If we can get on the same track here for just a moment — ”
“Okay.”
“You said you took the money off a dead man? Can you explain that?”
Styles pushed the hat way back on his head, and in the dim light I could see that the long hair on the sides and back of his head compensated for the deep receding hairline.
“I never said that.”
Em walked over to Styles, still sitting on the ground. “You said it. I heard you say it. Skip heard you say it.”
He slowly stood up, this time lit a small cigar and leaned against the truck. “Skip, I’m truly sorry about your accident. It was my fault. Not intentional, understand, but my fault. When I am at fault, I will admit it. To the right people.”
“And we’re the right people?”
“In this case.” He turned and pointed the lit end of the cigar at Em. “You accused me of being dragged away from the office. You saw it with your own eyes, but it wasn’t me.”
“Oh, for crying out loud, Styles.” Em was pissed. “We both heard you say you took the money off a dead man.”
I was surprised. She was raising her voice, but Styles kept his low-key, barely above a whisper. “I never once said that.”
“I heard you, Daron.” I was afraid she was going to wake up the little makeshift village.
“Nope.” He sucked on the cigar. Watching him, I wanted a cold beer in the worst way. Beer and a good smoke just go together. I would have taken the cold wet bottle and applied it to the cut on my head, then I would have sucked the golden beverage down my throat in two or three gulps. James has always maintained that there’s very little a couple of cold beers won’t cure.
“Yep.” Em just shook her head, apparently in disbelief of Styles’s audacity.
“Look, little girl. Let’s get it right. You asked me if I took the money from Michael Bland. I finally admitted I had.”
“And?”
“I took it, because he offered it. Before he keeled over from a drug overdose.”
Em took a step back. “What?”
“Bland came up to see me about an hour before they found his body. We’d talked, and I think he knew that I wasn’t exactly on good terms with the full-timers or with Thomas LeRoy.”
“He came to see you?”
The crickets seemed to get louder the closer we got till dawn. He raised his voice slightly to allow for the noisy insects.
“He did.”
“And what did he say?”
“That he was a full-timer, but he didn’t condone some of the things they did.”
Em smirked. “He said this to you. Someone he’d known for one or two days?”
“I think he knew they were going to kill him and he didn’t know who else to turn to.”
“Why did they want to kill him?”
“So he hands me this paper sack.”
She asked again. “Why did they want to kill him?”
“And he says ‘these are my winnings for tonight. Over eight hundred bucks. If something happens to me, get it to my sister in Coral Gables.’ ”
“And you did?”
“Yes. I hate to admit it. It goes against my reputation as a slimeball.”
As charming as he appeared, there was no proof that any of what he said was the truth.
“Daron, I asked you twice. This is the third time. Why did they want to kill him?”
“The truth?”
“No,” I said. “Lie to us.”
He was quiet for a good thirty seconds. I thought maybe he’d fallen asleep on the ground, but then I saw the ember at the end of his cigarette glowing brightly.
“I don’t know for sure.”
“An educated guess, Daron. Come on.” Em was her sarcastic self.
“You’ve called me a liar all night long. You questioned the computer files, you questioned the FBI reference, you questioned why I was hauled out of the trailer, and you accused me of taking money from a dead man, even though I never once told you that. Why should I tell you my thoughts on Michael Bland or anything else about this traveling sideshow? Why?”
“Because my best friend may be in the same situation. Because James is missing and I want to figure out who is behind this. Why did they want to kill Michael Bland?” I needed to know. Desperately.
“Because they thought he was a plant.”
“Jesus.”
“Was he?” Em had kneeled down, almost on eye level with Styles.
“He might have been.”
“What makes you think so?” I couldn’t wait for this answer.
Styles tossed the cigar away and I could hear it hiss as it hit the damp grass. “Remember I told you that someone, maybe from a government agency, told me to leave and not associate with these bozos? Someone who knew I was in Washington? You remember I told you someone gave me a warning?”
I remembered. Another story in a long line of questionable crap from Daron Styles.
“Well, Bland was the one. Warned me. Wouldn’t say any more than that. Told me I could be a suspect in a murder.”
“He knew you’d been in Washington? The same summer that the senator was shot?”
“There was a brief mention of it. Like, ‘look, I know you were in D.C. when Fred Long was murdered. These guys here know it too. You could be a suspect.’ ”
“And what does all that mean?”
“I don’t know, Skipper, but it happened. And then he gave me a phone number to call if anything happened to him.”
“So? It could have been the phone number of his mother? Maybe his sister? Ex wife?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“I called it.”
“And?”
“They answered ‘FBI. Miami.’ ”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
W e were juniors at Samuel and Davidson University in Miami when the FBI appeared on our campus. Twice. The first time, we heard about it through a friend in the business school. Some crazy freshman sent an e-mail to the White House, saying he wished the president would die in office. And he sent it out over the network at Sam and Dave U. I doubt if there was much investigation, other than why the kid was that stupid. They found him in about two hours.