Done Deal Read Free

Leon said, taking the part of the Lord.
    Leon shook his head at Reyes’s stupid question and reached for the ignition.
    A window in the office popped, showering the concrete outside with glass. Reyes’s body pitched forward suddenly, landing face down on the desk in front of him. The chair he’d been propped in was on fire now.
    Leon tapped his coat pocket to be sure he had the papers Reyes had signed, everything dated months before. Smoke was curling out under the station canopy now, time to go on home.
    “You
were
a dumb sonofabitch,” Leon said, as he sent his window up. The office was burning brightly now. Reyes down, just a few to go. Too bad. He’d taken a liking to real estate. Just when the deal gets done, the man have you moving on to something else. He could write a book. Maybe would someday. And wouldn’t
that
be something? He laughed, cranking up the music, and dropped the Beamer into gear.

Chapter 1
    “You look like Gatsby, all alone out here.” It was Janice, come to hand him a drink.
    “I could use his money,” Deal said. He’d been standing away from the party at the stern of the
Mandalay Queen
, staring eastward out to sea. The tail end of a perfect south Florida sunset, the water gone steely blue, so calm it was hard to tell where the horizon left off and the mirrored sky took over. A lone pelican up there, now, lumbering through the last of the light toward shore.
    “Could we buy this boat, then?”
    Deal smiled, still watching the pelican saw its way along.
The Queen
was a hundred-foot wooden yacht, built in Seattle in the 1920s for a lumber titan. It was laden with teak and brass and was worth several times more than the apartment house Deal was building. To their host, it was just a minor business expense, a kind of floating office. But it
was
a wonderful boat, and for a moment, Deal had forgotten he would have to be up at six.
    It was cool on the water, especially for a June evening, and except for the trio of musicians stationed near the entrance to the stateroom, he’d had the afterdeck to himself. Quiet Cole Porterish music, cocktail chatter like a distant rain shower for background, the glow of one Myers and Coke inside him, and a view of paradise laid out before him. This was why Florida had been invented, he was thinking, trying to jump-start his party mood.
    There was a blinking green marker buoy a half mile off to port, marking the way through the shallow waters of the bay. Beyond it, to the east, a group of strange-looking shadows shimmered, looking almost like houses floating above the water. Which is very nearly what they were.
    “Stiltsville,” he said, taking the drink. He gestured toward the horizon. “I worked out there one summer. Did you know that?”
    She followed his gaze. “No,” she said thoughtfully, “I don’t think you ever said.”
    “With Flivey Penfield,” he said.
    “Oh,” she said. She was still staring out that way. When she squinted, a fine network of lines gathered near her lips, her eyes, but you’d have to be standing close to see it. Take one step back, she’d look like burnished gold in the last, reflected light. She wore a black party dress that looped around her neck, left her back exposed. He could see the slightest crescent of white where the fabric dipped to cup her breast.
    “So you must be Daisy,” he said, lifting his drink. He was willing to get into the spirit, he really was.
    “I don’t think Daisy ever got pregnant.” She turned, glancing down at her stomach as if there were anything to see there yet. She smiled, but her eyes were solemn. He’d likely caused that, mentioning Flivey—she hadn’t been around when he had died, but it didn’t take much to throw her off. Deal had chalked it up to changing hormones, but felt he was walking on eggs these days.
    He glanced toward the main cabin where Thornton Penfield, Flivey’s father, was holding court for a knot of south Florida movers and shakers, hustling backers for a