In his wild restlessness and worry, the need to act overcame the last of his good sense. From Naples, he followed the new highway east to Monroe Station and turned off on the spur track south to the Chevelier Road.
At Gator Hook, on the stair landing, warm sun had gathered in the coils of a big yellow rat snake; it whispered away down a rain-rotted split in the old greening boards. He pounded and called. Descending the stairs, he made his way around behind the building, where in mid-piss he sensed movement too late and was punched hard between the shoulder blades by what turned out to be the steel snout of an automatic. “Let’s see them hands,” said Crockett Senior Daniels.
“Wait, goddammit-” Startled, hurting, he had wet himself a little. He got things straightened out and finished buttoning, goaded by the weapon prodding his bruised back and also by a careless hacking cough that sprayed his neck. “Feeling jumpy, Speck?” He spoke with all the contempt he was able to muster with a hitch in his voice that betrayed his fear.
“Jumpy, yessir, which is why I am still goin pretty good after sixteen years in my same line of business.” For the second time in a fortnight, Daniels frisked him. “I have growed a nose for a certain breed of cockeyed sonofabitch that you give ’em any room at all it’s goin to cost you.”
Grasping Lucius’s shoulder, Daniels spun him roughly and slapped his front pockets with the back of his free hand.
“You fuckin Watsons just won’t quit! Dyer sent word yesti’day to grab this Robert Watson, said he might be hanging around the church hall. Warned ’em he was crazier ’n hell and dangerous. Turned out this Robert was ol’ Chicken so Junior and his morons never searched him. ‘Nosir, Speck’, they holler when they show up, ‘This fuckin Robert ain’t nobody in the world but your ol’ drinkin buddy!’
“Had a loaded weapon in his satchel, for Christ’s sake! You know about that? Had your damn list with my name on it-you know that, too? You put him up to this? And then you got the guts to tell me I am jumpy! Jesus! I mean, who you Watsons gunnin for if it ain’t Speck Daniels? All the way east, them fools of mine had that spoilbank canal, deep black canal a-crawlin with big gators-my ‘ol’ drinkin buddy’ never should of got as far as Gator Hook.”
Daniels led him up the stairs and on inside. “Told me Chicken give ’em one hell of a scrap when them big boys grabbed him.” Snickering, he leaned back against the bar. “Know somethin? I always liked that feller. After he got done cussin us out, me’n him got along real good, considerin he had your fuckin list and a loaded gun, aimin to shoot me.
“This mornin I went up to town, got your attorney on the telephone. Said, ‘My boys picked up Robert Watson: what you want with him?’ And he says, ‘Mr. Daniels, that man tried to shoot me.’ Told me he’s a law-and-order man, respects the hell out of the law and don’t believe in coddlin no criminals; he’s out for justice without fear nor favor. Said this Robert has to be removed from our law-abidin society, so what do I think would be best for all concerned? And me, I’m thinkin, This man wants him dead.
Lucius nodded. “Lord. And you’re still working for him?”
“Not for long. The man won’t want no more to do with us once his park business is settled. If he’s goin into politics the way it looks, his dealins with the Daniels Gang might cost him. Very practical feller. Don’t go off halfcocked like some damn Watson.”
“And all his talk of preserving the Watson house as a pioneer monument-”
“Oh hell, Colonel, he never cared about that house. He ain’t set foot on Chatham Bend since he left there thirty years ago. Man like that, his old home don’t mean no more to him than the damn crap he took yesterday, it’s that forty acres of high ground that he is after. But while he’s dealin with the gov’ment, he don’t want to throw away no high card. Parks will be hot to burn that house cause it don’t fit in with their idea of wilderness. Dyer knows he could hold ’em up for years with legal diddlin and they know that, too. But it looks like he will step out of their way in some kind of a trade-off for prime real estate in Miami, leave you Watsons high and dry.” Speck emitted a low hard sound of derisive mirth. “Anyways, Junior and them bein on their way to Chatham, I told ’em to take Chicken along, let him lay low enjoyin his old home while I figure how to smuggle him out of south Florida.”
“And what’s in that for you?”
“Well, me’n Chicken, we go back a ways.” He spat. “Course my boys was grumbling. Said they’re real busy movin cargos out before park rangers come snoopin around so if Chicken give ’em any trouble, they aimed to take care of him in a big hurry.”
“What are you saying? That’s just crazy!”
“Might not look crazy to wild boys that’s riskin a long stretch in the pen for this, that, and the other. Last thing they need is to get caught harborin some despert fugitive.”
“They’re willing to kill him? Is that what they’re talking about?”
“They’re through talkin, Colonel. Ain’t like you.”
Daniels folded his arms upon his chest, observing him. He said, “Life without parole? You think that’s better? Chicken sure don’t.” He searched Lucius’s eyes for doubt and nodded when he found it. “While they had him in the auto, he told them boys how he pissed ten years away doin hard time. Said he weren’t never goin back. He meant it, too, cause he told me the same thing. I warned him the boys might have to shoot him if he got in the way; he just laughed at me. Said he would take that as a kindness. Said he was scared to death of dying but slow death in a cage without no hope was worse.”
“He’s better off dead. Is that really what you’re saying?”
“That’s what he’s sayin.” He held Lucius’s eye. “How about you?”
“He’s my brother, for God’s sake!” He felt sick and dizzy, hating what Speck chose to infer.
Speck was starting to enjoy this. “Be honest, Colonel. You ain’t been thinkin death might be the best way out? For everybody?”
“I never said anything like that.”
“Not in words you didn’t.” Speck poured two drinks. “Speakin about truths, let’s see what you make of this one: your daddy’s shotgun weren’t loaded. They shot him to pieces for nothin.”
“Christ, what a liar you are-”
“That’s what they say, all right-‘that goddamn Speck ain’t nothin but a liar.’ But who fished that shotgun out of the bilges of his boat where Isaac Yeomans flung it? Who cleaned the salt water out the breech and oiled her up? I was first man to see them chambers, Colonel. They was empty.”
“Oh, come on. Men saw the pellets rolling out-”
“Weren’t no pellets rollin out because there weren’t no shells. But when I tried to tell them men, they felt so stupid about fillin him with lead that they shouted me down, real angry, so I just shut up. Must of imagined up them pellets cause they couldn’t handle the plain truth.”
“That makes no sense. Why would he challenge that crowd with an unloaded weapon?” Speck shrugged, bored by the question. Lucius said, “Anyway, you have no right to that gun. It belongs to our family.”
“Well, you ain’t gettin it. One these days, that old shootin iron’s bound to bring me hard cash money.”
When Speck said his boys might be back later this evening, Lucius said he’d wait. “Not in here you won’t,” Speck said.