◆◆◆◆◆
In two minutes he reached Sweeney’s. Schmidt went to the door, rang the bell. Waited. Pounded. He went to the back and entered the screened cage. Something covered the pool, a tarp of some kind. He went up the steps, into the bedroom. He found the light switch—clothes still on the bed—and moved to the back. The closet was still empty.
Stepping back out to the deck, Schmidt stopped to look a moment at the dark golf course. He imagined the light beams from last night. Heard her laugh. Don’t do it, Schmidt thought, and followed the pool’s border, watching his feet in the wedge of light from the bedroom. The plastic pool blanket meant Sweeney had come back. Brenda had found him, and they’d gone someplace, maybe to some town called Immokalee.
He stopped before the blanket handler, a thing shaped like a giant rolling pin with a crank handle. Why take time to cover the pool?
He went back inside, found a panel of switches and clicked the first. A light came on over the lanai. With the second, a ceiling fan began turning. He clicked the third switch, and the plastic pool cover turned blue. At the shallow end, something underneath made the blanket dark.
He moved along the deck to the deep end, knelt and began cranking the handler. The thick, quilted plastic slid toward him, dripping as it gathered on the roller. Schmidt stopped and stood, seeing what was there in the beam of subsurface light.
He moved along the deck to the shallow end. It must be Sweeney. Duct tape covered the mouth, and more tape had been wound around the wrists and ankles. A bag of golf clubs rested on the body to keep it submerged.
Schmidt knelt. No, it wasn’t Sweeney. Blood moved in lazy currents around the head. Floating free, the hair was brown, not white. He was face up, eyes closed, dressed in a white shirt and dark slacks, his feet still in tassel loafers. It’s Ivy, Schmidt thought, and it disappointed him. Then he felt shame. You want it to be some guy named Sweeney, he thought. Someone you never met who lost his whole family. Someone without blame.
“What? I can’t hear…”
Rivera kept walking backward on the shoulder. He cupped his free ear and turned away as a trailer truck whipped past. “No, Ray, I was driving a Mazda. Both front tires blew right after I got on 75. Both tires, like they were timed.”
His cousin asked why he was driving a Mazda. “If they’re looking for me, they’re looking for a white van.” Another semi-trailer whipped past. He kept walking backward, facing northbound Interstate traffic.
“What did you do?” Ray asked. “They ask me about some letter on Burlson’s computer, about a boat.”
“Don’t ask, don’t tell, Ray. Need-to-know, understand?” Rivera squinted against oncoming headlights. “All you need to know is, I have to leave. You’ll be fine, there’s plenty of money. I have twelve thousand with me. I’ll contact you later.”
“Okay. But one thing for sure, I’m firing Stuckey.”
“That’s your call now. You were right, Ray. We should use our own people.”
“I been telling you.”
“You were right. It took a while, but I see it.”
His cousin was now telling him about loading the truck. Was everything going to Miami a legitimate gift? “We have records for all of it,” Rivera said. “All signed. Anyone says All Hands stole anything will look stupid. A Tonto.”
He twisted around to look north, still moving, gripping a canvas gym bag. As Ray went on about the truck, a car’s brake lights lit up ahead, on the shoulder. But the brake lights weren’t flashing as they would in an emergency. By now, Collier and Lee County sheriff’s deputies were looking for him.
“Why you talking about stealing?” Ray asked.
“You’re going to hear things—” Another big truck slammed past. Rivera began jogging toward the stopped car. “Just remember,” he said. “Everything was for All Hands on Deck. Fifty-fifty.”
“Kleinman,” Ray said. “You listen to him too much. He’s dirty.”
“He knows how things work,” Rivera said. “Talk to you later.”
He clapped the phone shut and slipped it into his pocket. Jogging faster, Rivera got out his handkerchief and wiped his face. The night felt humid. His shirt must be wrinkled. He stuffed the handkerchief in his hip pocket, smoothed back his hair. Close enough now to see through the ground fog, he made out the car. It was an older Jaguar, beige, an XK12. He glanced to his right. In the damp, foggy atmosphere, Rivera could not see between the shoulder and whatever lay beyond. He turned back and kept jogging. The southbound headlights coming at him looked like amber holes burned into paper. Someone was getting out of the Jag. Illuminated by approaching lights, he was dressed in shorts and a sweater. A car whipped past.
“Damn, I thought that was you—”
He was familiar, someone Rivera knew. The airport, he thought. Mrs. Larson’s son. Teddy Larson was standing with his hand on the open door, smiling.
“Is that your red Mazda back there?” he called
“Both front tires blew on me.”
“What are they, Firestones?”
Rivera reached him and stopped. “Could be, it’s a Ford product.”
“Yeah—” Larson put out his hand. “It’s all the same.” They shook. “Ford, Lincoln, Mazda. This thing, too,” he said. “It’s in the shop half the time. Where do you need to go? You want me to call a wrecker?”
“That’s a good question—”
Rivera scratched his head, acting lost. He had planned to go back to Immokalee and ride with the truck to Miami. It would be easy to lose himself in Miami. He had never been fingerprinted, and the photo on James Rivera’s forged driver’s license would soon bear no resemblance to Quinto Colon.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“The airport,” Larson said. “An emergency. I have to go up to D.C.”
“If you can get me there, I’ll lease something.”
“Done.”
Larson
