“Well, I guess you’re just shit out of luck,” Larry said, pocketing the phone. He pushed Stone toward the mangrove. “My instructions were, if I couldn’t reach him, to do the deed and meet him tonight.”
“You’re doing this on credit, then?” Stone asked, trying not to panic.
“Don’t worry,” Larry said. “Me and Mr. Barnacle go way back. We did a little stretch together.”
Suddenly the name rang a bell. “Barnacle? Douglas Barnacle?”
“That’s his name.”
Stone realized that he was about to be murdered by a dead man. “Hang on,” he said.
“Listen, Mr. Barrington, there’s no use stretching this out. You don’t want to think about this any more than you have to.”
“Don’t you read the papers? Watch television? Listen to the radio?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Didn’t you hear about the shoot-out in a Palm Beach restaurant last night?”
Ernest, who had gotten out of the car, walked up. “Yeah, I heard something about that,” he said.
“What shoot-out?”
“The guy you call Doug Barnacle was living in Palm Beach under the name of Paul Bartlett. The police killed him last night.”
That brought Larry up short. “Ernest, that was the name, wasn’t it? Paul Bartlett?”
“That’s what he was using yesterday,” Ernest said.
“Turn on the car radio,” Stone said. “Find an all-news station.”
“Do it, Ernest,” Larry said.
Ernest went to the car, turned on the radio and found a station. Farm report, bank robbery in West Palm, weather.
Larry looked at his watch. “Ernest, we got a plane to catch.”
“I know it,” Ernest said.
Larry turned and marched Stone back to the mangrove. He put a foot against his backside and shoved him into the swamp. Stone kept his balance and ended up thigh-deep in the black water. A large snake slithered past no more than a yard away. “Mr. Barrington, that was a real nice try. I admire it, but it’s time for you to say bye-bye.” He raised the pistol and pointed it at Stone’s forehead, no more than five feet away.
“Hey, Larry!” Ernest called.
“What?”
“Listen!” He turned up the radio.
“… chaotic scene at La Reserve, a Palm Beach restaurant last night, ended up with one dead, and a Minneapolis police officer seriously wounded.”
“Don’t Doug live in Minneapolis?” Ernest asked.
“Shhhh.”
“… have identified the police officer as Lieutenant Ebbe Lundquist, of the Minneapolis PD, and the dead suspect as Paul Bartlett, also of Minneapolis. Bartlett had been wanted in Minnesota for the murder of his wife, Frances Simms Bartlett, nearly a year ago, and Lieutenant Lundquist was trying to effect an arrest in the restaurant, backed up by the Palm Beach Police Department.”
“Well, shit,” Larry said. “You’re not lying, Mr. Barrington.”
“No,” Stone said, “I’m not.”