Last Call

Chapter 5

Jack felt naked when he opened his front door. He was wearing only a swimsuit, and an FBI agent standing on his doorstep made him want to run for cover. Especially when it was Special Agent Andie Henning – with the emphasis on special.

"Hey Andie." He didn't know what else to say. It had been almost three months since their last date, which hadn't ended on the best of terms.

"Sorry to drop by unannounced," she said. "I was afraid you might blow me off if I called. But I knew you'd be professional if I showed up on official business. It's about-"

"Jack, did you hide my cover-up?" said Rene. She was suddenly standing right behind him, wearing a white string bikini that showcased every square inch of her suntan.

"Your what?" he said.

"My swimsuit cover-up. It's a tunic-style wrap, Hawaiian-print. Keeps the sun from turning me into a lobster."

He'd last seen it on the floor. Next to the bed. Jack looked at Andie and said, "We were just getting ready to take the boat out."

Andie was caught staring. Funny Jack thought. If a man checks out another man in a bathing suit like that, he's gay. If a woman checks out another woman, she's – well, a woman.

"Sorry," said Andie, "but this is important."

"I'm sure it is," said Rene. She was speaking to Jack but looking at Andie.

Jack said, "I'll catch up with you on the boat."

"How long are you going to be?" said Rene, as she slipped her arms around his torso and hugged him from behind.

The affection wasn't overdone, but it was still uncomfortable for Jack in front of Andie. "I'll be quick. Just, uh… how about picking out some CDs?"

Rene let go of him. "You two have any favorites?"

For a split second he wondered how Rene could possibly have known, but how stupid was that? They always know.

"Anything you like is fine," said Jack, though he actually would have been more comfortable giving carte blanche to Andie. Weird, but Andie's tastes were more in line with Jack's than were Rene's.

"Leave it to me," said Rene, as she left the living room and headed for the back patio. It wasn't until he heard the California door slide open and then close that Jack realized he was being rude to Andie. "Would you like to come inside?" he said.

"That's okay. I can see you're in a hurry."

"What's the official business?"

"Isaac Reems. There's a joint task force led by the U.S. Marshals Service. I'm the bureau's point person for the Miami field office."

Jack couldn't hide his surprise. When he'd cut a deal with the state attorney to keep Theo's name out of the manhunt, he would have thought that had also covered the name of his attorney. "And what brings you here?" said Jack.

"You were Reems's attorney of record during his first federal incarceration."

Jack reeled in his anger against the prosecutor. Suddenly, he – not Theo – was the tie to Isaac, but there was an even more surprising part of the equation. "The FBI chose you to come and talk to me?"

"Uh, yeah," she said. "My ASSC remembered that you and I got to know each other on that kidnapping case I headed when I first moved here from Seattle."

"So you didn't tell them that after the case was over we… "

"No. I didn't tell anyone."

Jack understood. That kind of personal history didn't exactly spell career advancement at the bureau – an FBI agent crazy enough to date a criminal defense lawyer.

Andie said, "So, you weren't Mr. Reems's lawyer?"

"No."

"But your name was on his list of approved visitors when he was serving time in the early nineties."

"I'm sure he put it there when he heard that I got Theo Knight off death row. Half the inmates in Florida wanted me as their lawyer after that. The innocent half, anyway," he said with a defense lawyer's grin.

"Did he know Theo?"

Jack reeled in his smile, reluctant to involve Theo in anything that had to do with the FBI.

"Did he?" she pressed.

"They knew each other as teenagers. Basically, just two guys who grew up in the same neighborhood."

Andie pulled a pen and notepad from her pocket and jotted something down.

Jack nearly groaned. "You're not going to drag Theo into this, are you?"

"I'm just following every lead."

Jack tried to fight it, but he could feel the personal emotions taking over the business profile. "When are you going to get off Theo's back?"

"I'm not riding anybody's back."

"So it's all in my head, is that it? It's always been just my imagination."

"Jack, please. Before…" She paused, as if wary of their immediate past. "When you and I were… you know, together, I wasn't forcing you to choose between me and Theo."

"You said if I stayed friends with him, he was going to get me disbarred someday"

"I wasn't even serious. Give me a little credit. I fully understand that Theo's your friend."

"Best friend."

"Okay. Best friend. And I like Theo too. Really I do. I just made a stupid joke."

"That's the funny thing about stupid jokes. They're loaded with truth."

"Not this one."

"Is that what you came here to tell me?"

She made a face, as if trying to stave off a migraine. "No. I came here to talk about Isaac Reems, and now I've bumbled the whole thing. I'm sorry."

"I am too. But you know what I'm most sorry about? Every time something goes wrong in this city, it seems like Theo's on somebody's list of suspects."

"You know that's not true."

"Then why did you write his name in your notepad?"

"There's been a prison break, and the latest advisory said that Reems was last seen at Sparky's around two thirty in the morning."

"Oh, I see. So you put two and two together and figure that-"

"I'm not figuring anything, Jack. Can we please just drop the whole Theo thing?"

Behind him, in the kitchen, the California door slid open. Rene stuck her head inside and called to him from the other side of the house. "Are you almost ready?"

"I'll be right there."

Rene turned and walked toward the dock behind the house, but she left the sliding door open. Jack looked at Andie and said, "Anything else?"

"No. You go ahead. I think we're done."

We're done. The awkward choice of words registered on his face as well as hers.

"Okay I'll see you" he said.

"See ya." For a moment she seemed to wonder if they should shake hands. They didn't. She just thanked him the way she would have thanked any witness for his time and headed for her car.

He called to her as she reached his driveway.

She stopped. "Yeah?"

"Take care of yourself, all right?" he said.

She shrugged, gave a halfhearted smile, and said, "You know I will."

Jack watched as she opened the car door. "Hey, Andie," he said before she could climb behind the wheel.

"What?"

Jack paused, summoning the right tone of voice. "If you're thinking about talking to Theo, don't. He has a lawyer."

Andie didn't answer, but she seemed to understand that it wasn't anything personal – that Jack was simply tired of the cops harassing his friend, and that Theo deserved better. She got in her car and drove away.

Jack shut the door and leaned against it, thinking for moment, and finally chastising himself for thinking way too much. Stop over-analyzing everything, already

He grabbed the boat keys from the kitchen counter and went to find Rene, curious to know which CDs she'd chosen – and wondering if, by chance, she had chosen his and Andie's favorite.

UNCLE CY FELT LIKE he owned the place.

It sounded like an oxymoron, but Theo said he had "personal business" in the upper Keys, so he left: his uncle in charge of Sparky's Tavern until his return. Cy was all over the chance to live out this fantasy – even if the bikers and rednecks did outnumber the brothas and jazz lovers by about fifty to one.

"Hey Lenny" said Cy. "Can you replace the number two keg for me?"

Theo's assistant was at the other end of the bar, setting up for the Saturday night crowd. If the rum he was stocking was 80 proof, it posted a bigger number than Lenny's IQ. "Sure thing, boss."

Boss. The very ring of it made the old man smile.

The day had been absolutely perfect Just him and Theo, the old sax and the new sax. They'd made it to only one of the old bars Cy had played in his youth – Tobacco Road, which Theo also played on occasion – but they vowed to hit all of his old spots eventually, one at a time, a regular outing. More important, they also agreed that the vacant restaurant with the U-shaped bar was the spot for Sparky's II. He sure hoped Theo could nail it down. Hell, was there really anything to worry about? This was Theo Knight, his nephew, a punk from the ghetto who'd survived death row and then named his first bar Sparky's – a double-barreled flip of the bird to Florida's old electric chair, nicknamed "Old Sparky" Theo often said that his uncle was his hero. In truth, Theo was Cy's hero.

"Lenny, the keg, please."

Cyrus Knight didn't have many perfect days in his life story. At least not that he remembered. The culprit was drugs. From the very beginning, friends had begged him not to let customers buy him drinks. Take the tips in cash, they warned him, not liquor. But it seemed rude to refuse a gin-and-tonic from a good-natured guy who swears you're the next Charlie Parker. So he drank. All night. While he played. On his breaks. After his gig. He drank before he went to bed at 5 a.m., and he drank some more when he woke the following afternoon. Before he knew it, he'd burned through the best years of his life as a full-blown alcoholic. Then a pothead. Then a coke fiend. And it only got worse. His arms still bore traces of the track marks to prove it.

It was no wonder that he threatened to kill Theo if ever he caught him drinking when he played.

"Lenny! The keg already"

"I'm getting to it, boss."

Nice kid, but he had the work ethic of a sloth. "Hell, I'll do it myself."

Cy untapped the spent keg first. As he rose from his crouch, however, a sudden wave of nausea sent the room spinning. He leaned on the edge of the sink behind the bar to support his weight. It would pass in a minute, for sure. He was actually getting used to these spells. Damn blood pressure medicine didn't agree with him one bit.

Getting old sucks.

He splashed cold water on his face and breathed in and out, slowly and deeply. Better already. He drew a breath and headed toward the stockroom.

Lenny looked up from behind the cash register. "Boss, I said I'd get it."

"Right. Just like the check's in her mouth, and I won't come in the mail."

"Huh?"

"Never mind."

He found a handcart near the door, but it was plain to see that the full-sized keg was beyond his strength. He went behind the tower of stacked kegs in search of a pony keg, something more his size. There he found just about everything except what he was looking for. He saw plastic bags filled with trash that needed to be taken out and dozens of crushed boxes. There were cans of beer that had broken loose from the twenty-four-pack, an assortment of liquor bottles, and some empty cigarette packages. He spotted several broken cocktail glasses, a cockroach or two, a rat trap.

And an orange jumpsuit.

He stooped down and tugged at the hem, pulling the garment toward him slowly his heart thumping, though deep inside he already knew what it was. The name and number printed on the left breast pocket confirmed his fears.

REEMS 007516.

The nausea was back, but it had nothing to do with the medication. All perfect days had to end. This one had just ended a little sooner than he thought it would.

Damn it, Theo. Damn it all to hell, boy.