Crooked River

39

It’s here,” Smithback said.

Flaco turned off U.S. 41 onto Kellogg Street. Checking the road ahead, Smithback relaxed ever so slightly. It was as he’d remembered: Kellogg was one of those streets whose buildings, once large private residences, had been converted into law firms and doctors’ suites, and cute office buildings with tasteful wooden signs advertising the businesses inside.

It was also, he noted grimly, just steps away from Lee Memorial Hospital.

Smithback had put everything he had, body and soul, into making sure this moment came to pass and thinking how he would pull it off. He’d suggested that a few pages of the manuscript be redrawn to improve their appearance. He’d requested a brush to put his hair into some kind of order. Anything, everything he could think of to keep Flaco — who, once Carlos returned, had clearly started to waffle — dreaming of Hollywood riches instead of Bighead’s rage. As night came on and the hours crawled slowly by, Smithback had grown increasingly worried. What if Flaco lost his nerve? What if Carlos didn’t go out after all? Every hour, he knew, was an hour closer to Bighead’s promised return. I’ll come back and break you in.

When Flaco silently brought him breakfast, Smithback even resorted to demanding a portion of the imaginary profits. “Look,” he said, “if El Acero really becomes big — a franchise, you know? — I think we’d better agree now on what my percentage will be. I mean, I’m the one putting you together with Bill. Right? Normally, an agent gets 15 percent. But I don’t want to be greedy. I’ll take 10 percent, maybe 12 — we can talk about it once we get back here, after the meeting.”

Flaco dropped the plate of tortillas and beans on the mattress, then turned and left without a word. Smithback didn’t know if the images of wealth, his own implied willingness to return to captivity, Stockholm-style, had gotten through to the young gunman. He wasn’t even sure Flaco had understood him.

The next two hours were the longest Smithback ever spent.

Then, suddenly, the door to his cell opened. Flaco was standing there. “We go now,” he said.

“But my clothes, my face—”

“In the car, ese. Carlos back by noon. And you get no fucking money.”

So the muscular goon had gone out. Smithback hurried after Flaco, down one cramped corridor and then another. After his time in the cell, it felt strange to walk more than a few steps at a time. Suddenly, Flaco opened a metal door and they stepped out into bright sunlight. Smithback stopped, momentarily blinded.

“¡Date prisa!” Flaco said in a low, urgent voice, pulling Smithback by the arm and flashing the butt of a pistol he’d shoved into his waistband.

They were in the alley where Smithback had initially been ambushed. Sitting outside the door was a ’60s Impala coupe, butternut yellow. Smithback had seen countless vehicles like it when he’d worked the vice beat in Miami: a gangbanger’s ride, chopped and shaved but still street legal. Inside, he found a paper bag with a brush, cheap sunglasses, a box of wet wipes, and a folded T-shirt with the logo of some rock nacional band. Flaco had pulled out onto the boulevard, then turned north on 41 while Smithback took off his filthy shirt, pulled on the tee he’d been given, and went about brushing the dirt from his pants and cleaning himself up as best he could. The mirror on the passenger visor had reflected a frightful visage: bloody, vomit-flecked, and dark with matted hair and several days’ worth of stubble. There was nothing he could do about the beard, but a few wet wipes and the hairbrush restored his appearance to something resembling normalcy. The sunglasses and an artful combover did a good job of concealing his bruised face. By the time he’d finished his toilette, they were downtown and fast approaching Kellogg. Smithback put his shirt in the paper bag, rolled it up, and stuffed it between his feet just as they came up to the street. He’d had no time to steady himself for what was to come.

But what was to come? All his effort had been directed at this moment: getting downtown and away from that hellish prison. He hadn’t known the layout of Fort Myers well enough to come up with any better plan: he’d just have to wing it. One thing he knew: he couldn’t just jump out of the car and make a run for it. Flaco would gun him down without a second’s hesitation, and then burn rubber back to the tienda, where he’d spend the time coming up with a satisfactory explanation for Smithback’s demise. The only chance he had was spotting a passing cop. But as usual, there were none around when you needed one, and as the blocks went by, Smithback realized he was running out of time. About half a mile ahead, he could see the character of the neighborhood already changing: shabbier, less affluent, the well-kept buildings giving way to Florida cracker houses.

“Slow down,” he told Flaco. Shit, he’d better do something, fast.

“Where is it, cretino?”

“It’s close. Okay? These houses look familiar. I’ll know it when I see it.”

As Flaco slowed, Smithback scanned the surrounding buildings, doing his best to conceal a rising panic. The far side of the street, nearest Flaco, had already given way to larger commercial buildings. Many of the houses on Smithback’s side still had tasteful shingles set out in front of them, but they, too, were becoming sprinkled with less attractive structures, and beyond their backyards was some kind of overgrown slough.

“There!” he cried, more out of desperation than anything else, pointing to a particularly large and ornate building whose signpost they were just approaching. Flaco drove past it, made a U-turn at the next intersection, then came back and stopped across the street from the structure.

Smithback was almost afraid to look at it. He’d had to choose one, and there had been no time to consider the relative merits of each building. It was no better than playing Russian roulette.

The signage was attractive, thank God, of lacquered redwood with the lettering cut in bas-relief. Across the top of the sign, straddling its two posts, the main plaque read: THE FLAGLER BUILDING. Below it, screwed in vertical series between the redwood posts, was a series of names: John Kramer, DDS. Lauren Richards, DDS. Kenneth Sprague, DDM. Shirley Gupta, DDS. And then, at the bottom: ENDODONTICS.

Oh God, Smithback thought. A goddamned dentist’s office. If he’d tried, he couldn’t have chosen a worse place to stage his deception. He felt, more than saw, Flaco looking at him.

“Flagler Building?” Flaco said, his voice even more menacing and suspicious than usual.

“Of course. Haven’t you read any of Bill’s periodicals?” Smithback was suddenly beyond caring what he said: fuck this, he’d done his best and he was fresh out of ideas. “That’s his company, Flagler Publications. He named it after his brother, who died young. Flagler Johnson.”

“And those names? And what is Endo... endo...”

“Those are Bill’s business partners. The artists. Look for yourself: John Kramer, Doctor of Drawing Studies. You really haven’t read any of their graphic novels? ‘Endodontics’ is the name of the series. The superheroes all come from the planet Endodont.”

“What about la película? The movie?”

“It comes out around Christmas.” Maybe he should just get out of the car and start running. Suicide by Flaco.

At the nadir of his despair, Flaco eased the car forward. At the next intersection, Flaco made another U-turn, then came back and pulled up in front of the Flagler Building.

“I go in with you,” he said.

Smithback’s heart accelerated. Flaco had just swallowed the most outrageous load of bullshit Smithback had ever flung. And it was only, he realized, because he’d stopped caring — and the fear had gone out of his voice.

“Bad idea.” He pointed at Flaco’s sleeved arms, the torn bandanna around his head. “We talked about this. Let me speak to Bill, show him the manuscript. After he’s read it, your looks — apariencia — will be okay. But too early... You don’t want to spook him.” Smithback shook his head.

Flaco sat without moving for a moment. Then he took his right hand and reached across his own gut, toward the driver’s door. At first, Smithback thought he was going for his gun. But instead, he reached into the door pocket, pulled out the manuscript, and handed it to Smithback.

“¡Muévete!” he said.

Smithback nodded. Then he opened his door, stuck a foot out. His sweaty shirt peeled away from the vinyl of the bucket seat.

He walked briskly toward the building, thinking fast. It was filled with dental practices. If he was lucky, that meant not just one receptionist, but several. And beyond them, several rooms, and maybe a back way out. Or places he could hide in. It all depended on Flaco staying in his car long enough for Smithback to call the cops.

Without looking back, he trotted up the steps and opened the door with as much élan as he could muster. As it closed behind him, he saw a floor of gleaming blond wood lead down a hallway ahead of him. There were open doors to the left and right. Immediately past the entrance was a staircase, the risers painted white. Flowers were set on a small table, along with several plastic holders for business cards.

Smithback raced up the stairs. There was another hallway here and, operating purely on instinct now, he followed it to a desk, behind which sat two women in white.

“Can I help you?” asked one, looking him up and down.

“May I use your phone?” he asked. “It’s an emergency.”

The women looked at each other. But even as they did, Smithback heard a burst of angry Spanish from downstairs and realized it was already too late. Flaco, ever suspicious, had entered the building himself.

On pure instinct, Smithback raced past the reception desk and through a partially open door beyond. He sprinted past a room in which a dentist was at work, drill whining. Another room contained a patient waiting in a reclining chair surrounded by hideous gleaming instruments. Ahead, a sign above a door read EXIT. Smithback charged through and rammed it open, finding himself in a back stairway as he heard another burst of Spanish, this one louder, longer, and angrier.

He descended to a landing, two steps at a time, down a second flight, pushed open the door the stairs dead-ended at, and found himself in the backyard of the building. He paused a second. On either side were similar structures. Ahead of him was the slough he’d noticed earlier: a dense, swampy tangle of mud, brook, and bracken that ran like a green labyrinth from right to left. Pushing himself away from the façade, he ran for it. As he did so, he heard a shot ring out behind him, followed by yelling and a scream. Reaching the edge of the slough, he practically dove into the jungle-like vegetation, rolling over once, then gaining his feet and running on into deep mud as the mazy branches of a mangrove swamp closed in overhead and the sunlight dimmed.

Suddenly, another shot rang out. Then another, whining past a few feet behind him, clipping twigs as it went. He realized he was still clutching the manuscript and immediately dropped it, pages fluttering into the muck. And then he heard the already distant Flaco, yelling at him in furious, frustrated rage: “Smithback! You a dead man. ¡Chinga tu madre! You hear me, motherfucker? Dead! Dead! Dead!”