Stranger in Paradise

29.

Crow was sitting under the small pavilion at Paradise Beach, talking on his cell phone. The day was eighty-five and clear. The tide was in. The ocean covered most of the beach, and the waves rolled in quietly, without animosity.

“I’m not going to kill your wife, Louis,” Crow said. “And I’m not going to bring your daughter down to Miami.”

“You sonovabitch, Crow,” Louis Francisco said at the other end of the connection. “I paid you a lot of money.”

“To find them,” Crow said. “I found them.”

“You want to survive this, Crow, you do what I told you.”

“Nope.”

“If I have to come up there, by God…”

“Probably ought to,” Crow said.

“Then I will,” Louis Francisco said. “And I won’t be coming alone.”

The outrage was gone from his voice, Crow noticed. He seemed calm now. He was doing business he understood.

“I’ll be here,” Crow said, and turned off the cell phone.

He sat for a time looking at the ocean. He liked the ocean. There were young women on the narrow beach, in small bathing suits. He liked them, too. He stood and walked along the top of the beach and onto the causeway that led to Paradise Neck. He stopped halfway across, leaning on the wall, looking at the ocean, breathing in the clean smell of it. It would take Francisco a couple days to organize his invasion. He wondered what the cop would do with that. Stone was a cop, and this was a small town. But Stone wasn’t a small-town cop. It interested Crow, how far Jesse would go. Crow was pretty sure Jesse would stick when it came down to it, that Crow could count on him. And he knew that Jesse’s cops were loyal to him. The big kid, Suitcase, looked like he could handle himself. And Crow loved the feisty little female cop.

He turned and rested his back against the seawall and looked in at Paradise Harbor. Might be time to call on Marcy Campbell, too. She was good-looking, and, he was pretty sure, she was ready. He smiled. Women forgave him a lot. He watched the harbor-master’s boat moving about among the tall pleasure boats riding their mooring, sails stowed, people having lunch on the afterdeck. He looked at his watch. Maybe he should have lunch. Daisy Dyke’s? No, that would be iced tea. At the Gray Gull, he could have a couple of drinks with his lunch and then go home and take a nap. He straightened and flexed his shoulders a little to loosen them, and began to walk back to the beach where his car was parked. He felt really good.

Maybe he was going to have his war.