to Jack, but he had to be certain.
Besides, it could be worse. Paying a single dime to this low-life would be too much, but the truth was that ten thousand dollars would not devastate his and Agnes’s finances. The man could easily have asked for much more.
He wondered why the man
Somehow the possibility of that filled him with an even deeper dread.
Chapter 9
“To my good buddy, Jack,” said Crazy Mike Mannon, proprietor of Mike’s Bikes and Jack Swyteck’s best friend. He raised a bottle of Michelob. “May you come to your senses and never find another job as a lawyer.”
Jack smiled, then tipped back his Amstel and took a long pull. After a day of phone calls to friends about potential job openings, he’d let Mike talk him into dinner on South Beach. A couple of beers and cheeseburgers at a sidewalk cafe sounded good.
They enjoyed the ocean breezes and watched bronzed bodies on roller blades weave in and out of bright-red convertibles, classic Corvettes, and fat-tired jeeps blaring reggae and Cuban salsa. By eight o’clock the sun had gone down and everything trendy, sexy, and borderline illegal was parading down Ocean Drive beneath colorful neon hues.
“Whoa,” said Mike as a deeply tanned blonde with a seriously plunging neckline sent a ripple of whiplash through the cafe.
Jack smiled with amusement. Mike was one of those guys who was forever on the make-a frat boy stuck in a man’s body. Even so, he had an irrepressible spirit that most people found charming. He had a way of not taking life too seriously, of following his own desires and not worrying about what others thought or said. Jack envied him for that.
“You know, Mike, there’s an orthopedic surgeon over at Jackson Memorial who would love to see your X rays. She’s doing a paper on swivel heads.”
“Easy for you to be so pious, Mr. Monogamous. But some of us don’t go to bed every night with Cindy Paige.”
“Yeah, well,” Jack said, looking away, “I’m beginning to wonder how much longer that’s going to last.”
“Uh-oh. Trouble in Camelot. That’s okay, I’ll find a honey for you, too. How about that one?” Mike said, nodding at a leather-clad bodybuilder with spiked burgundy hair.
“Perfect. She looks like the type who’d go for a guy without a job. And if she seems undecided, I’ll just mention that some maniac wants to turn me into roadkill.”
Mike gave him an assessing look. “Any new theories about that car thing yesterday?”
“Your guess is still as good as mine,” Jack said, shrugging. “I suppose it could be Goss having fun with me. This ‘killer on the loose’ stuff is his style. But I’m not sure he has the attention span. First the phone call three days ago. Now this. It’s a real campaign. Someone is obviously furious about the verdict.”
Mike’s head swiveled to follow two halter-topped women who’d emerged from the ladies’ room. “Maybe you should call the cops.”
Jack smiled. “The Miami Police Department would like nothing better than to hear Jack Swyteck is being hassled. They’d probably offer the guy the key to the city. I don’t think the cops are an option right now.”
“Well, you watch your back,” Mike said with emphasis. He grinned. “You might even want to consider a new line of work-you know, greeting-card salesman or something.”
Jack nodded. Maybe Mike had a point. Maybe he did need a clean break-even a move to another state. Away from Goss, and out of the shadow of his father, for whom the best was never enough, and Cindy who was always pushing him to open up. Hell, why
“Hey, Mike,” Jack asked, his mind drifting. “Do you get along with your family-you know, do you chew the fat regularly with your mom and dad?”
Mannon had made eye contact with some woman in tight purple capri pants. “Huh,” he said, refocusing on Jack. “Oh, family. . well, yeah, you know. My mom and I talk. It’s mostly her that does the ear-bending. Always wants to know when I’m going to get married and give her grandchildren.”
“And your dad?”
“We get along.” He smiled, but with a hint of sadness. “When I was a kid, we were real tight. Horsed around, went to the Hurricanes games. We took the boat down toward Elliot Key nearly every weekend. Came back with our limit every time, it seemed.” He paused. “After I got out of school, though, it was more formal-you know, brisk handshake and ‘how’s the business going, son?’ That sort of thing. But we’re always there for each other.”
Jack thought of that picture he’d seen on his father’s bookshelf the night of the Fernandez execution. Deep- sea fishing. Just the two of them.
“Waiter,” he called out. “Two more over here, p1ease.”
Driving back from South Beach at 1:45 that Saturday morning, Cindy leaned over, turned off the A.C. in Gina’s car, and opened her window to let in some warmer air.
“Why’d you do that?” Gina said petulantly.
“Because it’s getting cold in here.”
“I like the cold air. It keeps me awake-especially after I’ve had a few drinks. Besides, these pants I’m wearing are hot.”
Cindy looked over at her girlfriend. Oh, they were hot all right, but not in a thermal sense. The clingy black spandex molded Gina’s body perfectly-a body that could get her anything from dinner at world-class restaurants to full service at self-service gas stations. She was gorgeous, and she worked at it, still striving at age twenty-four for “the fresh book” that had earned her a thousand dollars a week as a sixteen-year-old model.
They’d first met six years ago in college, two eighteen-year-old opposites who were thrown together by the administrative fiat of dorm-room assignments. Cindy was the more serious student; Gina, the more serious partyer. For the better part of a semester they simply put up with each other. Then late one Saturday night Gina came back to their room in tears. It took until dawn, but Cindy finally convinced her that no college professor, no matter how good a lover, was worth a fifth of bourbon and a bottle of sleeping pills. Cindy was the only person who ever learned that a man had pushed Gina Terisi to the edge. A friendship grew out of that night’s conversation, and over the years Cindy had witnessed the slaughter of countless innocent men who came along later and paid for the sins of Gina’s first and only “true love.” Cindy knew that the predatory Gina wasn’t the real Gina; but it was hard convincing others who hadn’t seen her at her most vulnerable.
“Have you ever driven a car with your eyes closed?” Gina asked.
“Can’t say I have,” said Cindy as she fiddled with the buttons on the car radio trying to find something she liked.
“I have. Sometimes when I see there’s a car coming at me, I get this feeling that I want to hold the wheel steady, close my eyes, and wait for that
Cindy rolled her eyes. “Just drive, Gina.”
Gina made a face. “You’re in one hell of a mood.”
“Sorry. I guess I don’t feel like I should be out partying tonight. I’m having second thoughts about telling Jack I want to break up.”
“We’ve been over this a hundred times, Cindy-you’re getting out of that relationship.”
Cindy blinked. “It’s just that we were so close. We were even talking about making it permanent.”
“Which means that I rescued you without a moment to spare. Believe me, it’s no accident that the word
