owner would get more from the insurance payout than the place was worth.
Pulling out the envelope that Richard Dean had passed me, I put it down on the desk next to Rink's computer. 'What do you know about this client, Rink? Impression I got was he's on paranoia overdrive.'
'Just your run-of-the-mill white-collar worker with a mortgage to support,' Rink said. His Arkansas drawl always made me think of Wild West heroes; which was apt considering Rink was as quick on the draw with a gun. All that was missing was the white Stetson.
'So how does he come up with that kind of cash?'
On the drive over, I'd pulled into a rest stop. The way in which Dean had conducted the meeting had set off a worm of unease inside me. The envelope contained a number of photographs and a wad of cash. Twenty thousand dollars to be precise.
'Maybe he's done a little digging into his daughter's college fund. It ain't like she's gonna be needin' it.'
Moving the cash to one side, I laid out the series of five photographs. The first showed a pleasant — if homely — looking young woman smiling into the camera. She was slim, her slightly prominent ears emphasised by her tight ponytail. She wore only a dab of make-up and her jewellery didn't extend beyond silver studs in her ears and a delicate crucifix on a chain at her throat. Her clothes were a conservative blue cardigan over a white blouse. Richard Dean's seventeen-year-old daughter, Marianne, looking shy and uncomfortable in front of the lens.
In contrast, the young woman in photos two and three could have been lifted directly from a celebrity gossip magazine. This woman was the type you usually see hanging on to a movie star's arm. If it weren't for the crucifix I wouldn't have immediately made the connection to the insecure child in the first photograph. Marianne had definitely blossomed from drab duckling to radiant swan.
The final two images gave me most concern. The first showed Marianne in the back of a limousine. She was drunk, her hair disarrayed, clothing twisted askew. The man sitting beside her was mugging for the camera as he slipped his hand up the hem of her dress. His face was cruel, mindless of the token effort that Marianne made to push his hand away. Then there was photo number five. A flat portrait shot lifted from a Miami P.D. file.
Marianne had been crying. Her hair was dark with sweat and clung to her forehead. Mascara was smeared down her cheeks, but failed to hide the bruises round both eyes. Her top lip was split in two places, and an earring had been torn from her left lobe, leaving dry blood streaking her neck.
The most poignant thing that was instantly noticeable to me was the lack of her crucifix.
There was a note pinned to the final shot. Handwritten by Richard Dean, it said, 'Will the next photograph be taken from the M.E.'s post-mortem report?'
Maybe he had a point.
Recalling his final words to me, I thought about what he expected. 'Please, Mr Hunter, I need you to get my daughter away from that monster. If it means killing him to do that… well… I'll pay you any price you want.'
When Rink and I were in the Special Forces together we'd both killed men. Government-sanctioned killings of terrorists and gang lords. I never saw myself as an assassin; still don't. I saw the death we doled out as a necessary evil. The scum we put down deserved what they got, and it usually made life so much better for the innocents who had suffered under their reign. Maybe I'd been a little too quick to deny Dean's assumption that I was a hit man. There were some men in this world that needed killing: Marianne's battered face was all the proof I required.
'The asshole in the limo,' I asked, 'I take it he's Jorgenson?'
Rink swung the computer monitor so that I could see it. The same face smiled out at me from the screen. He was a clean-cut-looking kid, early twenties, reddish hair. Bradley Jorgenson was one of the playboy elite who were gaining media attention on the Miami scene.
'He do that to her?' I tapped the police photograph.
'Marianne wouldn't go through with any official charges. She denied Jorgenson was responsible. So did more than two dozen partygoers at his mansion that night. Course, when they were out of earshot of the police, talk was different. They said Jorgenson must have beaten her for the hell of it. He was pissed off about some deal or another going ass-up: Marianne was the nearest punching bag he could find.'
'But she went back to him?'
'Don't think she had a choice in the matter.'
'We'll see about that.'
Three months ago, moving out here had been a big decision. It had taken me all of about one minute to consider whether I could build a new life in the sunshine of Florida. It meant leaving behind my old life in England, an ex-wife who I still cared for, and my two dogs, Hector and Paris. Diane took the German Shepherds and I took the first flight out. Rink's offer of work had clinched the deal. When we were in the forces together we'd worked as equals. Although — according to the sign on his door — Rink was at the helm of this P.I. outfit, we were still equals now. So there was no need for an executive meeting to decide what we were going to do about the Marianne Dean situation. I pressed buttons on my mobile phone.
'Mr Dean. You're still awake. Good.' I looked down at the portrait of his daughter. The fear behind the flash- washed image couldn't hide. 'You still want me, I'm going to take the job.'
I'd have taken it whatever his answer.
3
Mention New Orleans and certain images come to mind. The world famous Mardi Gras carnival. Jazz musicians. River boats plying the wide Mississippi. Then there are those pictures that people wish to cleanse from their minds. Hurricane Katrina. Floods and devastation. The dead and the displaced. Thousands of families still living in transit, suffering for all they had lost when nature unleashed its pent-up fury upon them.
New Orleans is a potent mix of extravaganza and destruction, magic and mayhem, wonder and desolation.
It would be hard to imagine a human equivalent, a poster boy for the city. No one would instantly bring to mind the face of Dantalion. But, in his own estimation, he was the very essence of this contradictory place of enchantment and woe.
Outwardly, he accepted, he was no great shakes to look upon. Some might even say that his unhealthy pallor and emaciated frame spoke of disease and decay. Initially people would avoid him, but in the end they'd come when he wished. They would bend to his will and give him what he desired. He had that power. It was his gift.
It was what had made him a master of his craft.
Why he was much sought after when certain people required other persons dead.
He was meeting certain people today.
Not in New Orleans, the place of his birth, but far to the east in Miami. The whisper had gone out among those certain people that he was in town and available. A coded message had come through on his BlackBerry, requesting a meeting. This was why he found himself sitting on a bench in Bayside Park overlooking Biscayne Bay. Nearby the Macarthur and Venetian Causeways carried traffic over the holiday-brochure water towards the island where the world famous Miami Beach could be found. The Mildred and Claude Pepper Fountain was just visible through the trees, and to his left he could make out the Miami Queen at its permanent berth, allegedly Miami's most unforgettable attraction. Dodge Island was a low-slung beast hunkering in the water. Pale against the turquoise sea, it was like a great white whale aground in the shallow bay. Industrial units and storage containers made up the barnacles on this creature's back.
He wasn't there to appreciate the sights, not a tourist. But that was how he would appear to anyone walking by. His pale skin was at risk from the sun, so he'd be forgiven the wide-brimmed hat and dark glasses. His billowing white coat, like the cassock of a medieval monk, was a little strange when taken at face value, but not compared to the garb of some visitors.
Behind his sunglasses his pale blue eyes were watchful. The stark light pained him, but it was necessary that he be vigilant. Sometimes certain people wished he was dead, too.
Three men were walking towards him from the mall area next to La Marina de Miami. One, dark-haired and perma-tanned in a cream linen suit, headed directly towards Dantalion. The other two, men with guns concealed under their jackets, stood kicking their heels as though admiring the bronze statue commemorating Christopher
