Lowcountry Punch Read online

My eyes quickly adjusted to the brightness, and I locked in on my prey. With fire under my heels, I took off in his direction. I had lost a step since my UVA soccer days, but I still had a little juice left. As long as he didn’t have a car waiting, he was mine.

  I didn’t want him to know I was coming. Had to be clever. Didn’t want to find out what would happen if the perp dropped the child on the run. I kept thinking about the softness of the little one’s skull. So I chased him through the crowded parking lot with caution. I took a parallel lane, dipping here and there to hide behind a car every time Dreads took a look behind him.

  I’d cut my distance from him in half when I saw the short bald guy I’d spoken to in the elevator earlier getting out of his car. He saw me coming and took in the scene: Dreads running at him with a gun in one hand and the baby in the other. He scurried behind a car. His head popped back up a moment later. Against all odds, he dashed out from behind the car and went with both hands for the boy. I couldn’t believe it. The short, fat man whose kids would’ve probably chosen their T-ball coach over him as their hero had decided today was his day. He caught Dreads off guard and pried the baby away without too much effort. He began to run. Dreads swung the gun around and pointed it at them.

  I was on him. Like a cheetah on a gazelle. I plowed into him from behind, taking us both to the ground hard. He was bigger than me, but I was ready to go. I don’t snap easily, but when it happens, you best be on my side.

  Dreads was my age, fairly muscular, and filthy. His shirt and shorts were soaked in sweat. His eyes were bloodshot and lifeless, as if there was nothing behind them. He kicked hard and grunted as I pounded his face. He managed to get a couple good knees into my stomach, and I lost my breath. Gaining it back, I rolled him over. Put a fist in his eye socket and dropped several more on his nose and cheeks. He bled freely but kept kicking and swinging, getting a few shots inside. He snuck a left under my right eye, and my vision blurred. I was gone by that point, though. No pain at all. I grabbed his left shoulder and flipped him onto his stomach, then took his dreads in my hand and smashed his head into the ground.

  “How’s that feel?” I yelled.

  I stood. I knew I should stop. But I couldn’t. It had everything to do with that woman he’d shot. How it could have been Anna. How a man high on drugs could take a life so easily. A man just like him had taken my father’s life, too.

  I’d never known such anger. Grabbing him by the hair, I bent down low and dragged his face along the pavement, grinding it in, his nose the tip of a paintbrush dipped in red.

  Someone finally threw their arms around me and pulled me to the ground. I fought for a moment and then gave up. Relaxed my arms. Sucked in oxygen. The man holding me was a cop. He pushed me onto my side and locked my right arm behind my back.

  “I’m a Federal Agent,” I said. “DEA. Check my pants.”

  He put a knee into my back, making sure I wasn’t going anywhere, and then he stuck his hand in my pocket. Pulled out my credentials. He finally released my arm and let me roll onto my side.

  “He’s clear,” the cop said, standing up. “You all right?” he asked me.

  I nodded, then rolled over to my side and tried to regain control of my breathing. Of reality. My body hurt. My knuckles were raw, and my hands and rib cage ached. My head was dazed. I finally pushed myself up off the ground. The world around me came into focus. Sirens blaring. Twenty or thirty people collected on the sidewalk, their mouths open.

  The man from the elevator was still holding the child in his arms and he was looking at me. We shared a moment of admiration. I have no idea what would have happened if he hadn’t intervened. Looking back on it, it was really cool to see a man step outside of his comfort zone to help another. It’s in times like those that true character shines through. I immediately regretted only half-acknowledging his existence earlier that morning.

  I turned around. Two cops were cuffing the man I’d beaten. They lifted him up to stand. He looked even worse than I did. As they began to march him toward the back of their patrol car, Dreads looked at me with eyes so full of hatred and evil that I knew he hadn’t learned any lessons. Nothing would ever change that guy. We called them unfixable.

  He glared at me. Spit some blood onto the ground. With a mouth full of gold teeth, he said, “I’ll find you. Your family, too. You’re dead.”

  “What was that?” I walked toward him. “I don’t think I heard you right.”

  “You heard me right. If you only knew who I was. I’ll be coming for you.”

  “Well, this will help you remember who I am.”

  Without giving the two cops escorting him time to react, I lifted my boot and kicked the side of his knee with everything I had, more strength than I’d mustered in a while. His bone snapped sideways and broke out of his flesh.

  An unexpectedly violent morning, even for me.

  3

  Steve spoke to the detective in charge, and I was out of there before the camera crews started lingering. A photo in the newspaper is a death sentence for an undercover agent. Poor guy was probably already regretting recruiting me, and I hadn’t even mentioned maiming the perp. He told me to go home for the day. I climbed into my CJ7 Jeep and went out the back way.

  The Jeep was originally a government car I used in Miami for some undercover work. We call them g-cars. They gave me a good deal, and I picked it up after an op a couple years ago. For some reason, unlike the rearview mirror, I was attached. She was green with big tires and a winch on the front. From the looks of the inside, the duct tape on the seats, and the worn floorboard, you would think I didn’t own a top, but I had a khaki hardtop that I kept in the garage. The only work I had done was to install a marine stereo with a hardwired iPod input and some waterproof speakers. I played the Lonesome River Band loud as I rode down the highway. The wind blew, and the sound of Sammy Shelor’s banjo rolled with the rhythm like a waterwheel in an old Kentucky town.

  My waterfront house was at the end of a cul-de-sac that rested against the Wappoo Cut, a span of saltwater separating the Ashley and Stono Rivers. Live oaks formed canopies over the quiet street; Spanish moss hung down low from the limbs. My family had lived on that land for as long as anyone could trace back, and I’d always felt a calling to return. The Reddicks had been through three homes there. My grandparents had built the last one after Hurricane Hugo had torn theirs to the ground. It was a gorgeous light yellow with white shutters. Two palm trees rose high on either side of the front stoop. Not forty yards away stood Anna’s parents’ home, the place where she’d grown up. Our first kiss was on their dock reaching out over the marsh.

  I unlocked the door and punched in my alarm code on the keypad just inside the front hallway. I’d had it installed when I moved in; Diego wasn’t the only one who had beef with the chief. In Miami, you kill a cop and you’re a cop killer. The circumstances don’t matter. In short, the Miami-Dade police department had not thanked me for cleaning up their force.

  I kicked my boots off at the front door. In the corner of the well-organized living room, I had a rack of some Northwest Merlots and Syrahs that I had taken an interest in lately. Above it, a photograph my grandfather had taken hung on the wall. It was a shot from the bow of a sailboat approaching the Avalon harbor on Catalina. The old Wrigley’s Casino where Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman played in the 1920s and 30s stood prominently in the background.

  I put on some shorts, grabbed a fishing rod off the porch, and headed out into the sweltering heat. There’s not much that hooking onto a redfish won’t cure. I find time alone to be powerful medicine.

  At the end of my dock floated the Pretender, a twenty-seven-foot Catalina sailboat that I had brought up from Miami. I walked past it to the Tate’s house. They let me use their seventeen-foot Key West center console, a much better companion for the rod and the reel. I hopped aboard. The Yamaha engine cranked on the first try. I steered her through the narrow channel, which opened up into the Cut. A variety of boats sped past each o
ther, ignoring the No Wake signs that stood in people’s yards along the shore.

  I found Jimmy Buffett’s 1974 release, A1A, on the iPod, skipped to number two and turned right. A west wind pushed against my back. After a half-mile, the Cut opened up into the Stono River. This was all saltwater, only miles from the ocean. The Stono ran wide but you could still see the other side, mostly marsh and trees, but further along, there was a bridge and Buzzard’s Roost Marina.

  Low tide approached, and the oyster beds became visible. Redfish love to hover above the beds on a rising tide. I wasn’t in any hurry, so I rode along the shore scouting for places to come back and fish later. All you had to do was throw a live shrimp on a hook, float it with a bobber inches above the bed, and it was game time. I had fished these waters with my father and grandfather as a child. I had a few good spots, but it was always a great challenge and accomplishment to find another one.

  Off in the distance, I noticed a ski boat with a woman on a wakeboard trailing behind. She moved along impressively, cutting across the wake, taking several feet of air on occasion. They swung around toward me. Two other women were on the boat. As they drew near, I watched the wakeboarder. She would lean forward and bend her knees, moving left, and then dip her heels and lean backward, cutting right. It was fantastic.

  As she approached, she cut hard into the wake and jumped into the air, only thirty feet from me. The wind caught the face of the board and slapped her into the water. She skipped across the surface before plummeting underneath.

  Popping up moments later, she looked around, disoriented. The laughter of the two women in the boat came across the water as they swung around to retrieve their friend. I motored up close.

  “You almost pulled it off,” I said, cutting the engine, noticing her beauty.

  “I hope you enjoyed that,” she replied, bobbing with one hand on the wakeboard.

  “You looked great out—”

  Behind me, the unmistakable sound of a hull grinding into an underwater oyster bed echoed across the water.

  I jerked my head around. Her friends had been thrown to the front, and the boat was in a foot of water, stopped on a bed, probably fifty yards from us. I started to twist the key and head that way, but both of them stood and waved. “We’re okay!”

  I looked down at the wakeboarder. “You wanna climb in? Go get your friends?”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  “I’m happy to help.”

  She swam around to the ladder and handed me the wakeboard. I set it down and then helped her up. The life jacket did little to hide her unbelievably attractive body. I’d never in my life seen finer legs.

  “Let me get you a towel,” I said.

  “That would be great, thanks.”

  I found a clean towel under my chair and handed it to her. God, she was gorgeous. I couldn’t get over it. Gentle, brown eyes under sharp eyebrows. Rounded nose and cheeks with a touch of rose. Naturally brown skin. She surely had Native American blood running thick through her veins.

  She dried off her face and then said, “I’m Liz Coles.”

  “I’m T.A. Reddick. Nice to meet you.” I didn’t bother explaining why my face looked like I’d gone three minutes in the ring with Evander Holyfield.

  We looked at each other a couple seconds longer than you normally do when you meet someone. Our paths had crossed for a reason. Something deep inside me knew that we had some sort of future together, like I’d seen it through a crystal ball. We broke eye contact at the same time.

  “Let’s go get your friends.”

  “Good idea.” Liz held on to the console as I sped across the water.

  I pulled right up to the rail of their boat, and Liz reached over to hold the boats together. She introduced us. Jaime, the captain, wore a Nascar hat and Ray-Bans. Ashley had short black hair that looked dyed. They were both attractive. They’d hit an oyster bed. I’d hit jackpot.

  Ashley sat on the cushioned seat, holding a towel to her leg.

  “How bad is it?” I asked.

  “I’m fine.”

  “I don’t know,” Jaime interrupted, with a thick Charleston accent. “There’s so much blood.” She pointed at the inside rail. “She hit that sharp corner pretty hard.”

  Ashley removed the towel. The cut was deep and needed some attention. I offered my opinion. They could either pay Sea-Tow to rip the boat off the bed, or wait a couple of hours until high tide lifted her off gently. They opted for the latter, so I invited them back to my place. No, not a ploy to spend more time with Liz. I really wanted to help them. Would have done the same if it were a bunch of old men. I’d like to think so, at least.

  Leaving the boat anchored just in case she broke free, we headed back to La Casa de Reddick. Liz and Ashley rode on the bow, and Jaime stood next to me as I drove. She held on to her hat. “I swear I’ve ridden over that spot before…never seen an oyster bed.”

  “They pop up,” I told her. We hit a bump and some spray came over the bow, beading up my sunglasses. I took a rag from under the seat, wiped them clean, and put them back on. Liz hid her brown eyes behind sunglasses of her own. I couldn’t tell if she was looking my way or not.

  “You must think we’re idiots,” Jaime continued. “How embarrassing.”

  “Find me ten boaters in Charleston who haven’t hit a bed, and you’ve got nine liars. I’ve hit my fair share.”

  Inside my house, I took the first aid kit out of the bathroom and began to dress Ashley’s wound. Liz and Jaime looked around the house, which bothered me a little. I’m somewhat protective of my privacy.

  “Who’s that with you and Chet?” Liz asked, admiring a picture on the wall of Chet Baker.

  I took my eyes off Ashley’s leg. “How do you know Chet?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “I’ve been around.”

  A woman who loves jazz. I was taken aback.

  “Who is Chet?” Ashley asked.

  I had nearly forgotten there was anyone but Liz and me in the house. Or the universe, for that matter. Maybe it’s not time that heals a broken heart, but another woman. I tried to find the courage to ask for her number later.

  “That’s Chet Baker,” I said. “The Prince of Cool. He was West Coast jazz. That’s my dad with him.”

  I put the last piece of tape over Ashley’s cut. “You’re good to go.” She thanked me, and the four of us sat around the table talking for a while. They asked what I did, and I lied, telling them I was a financial advisor. They asked about my face, and I told them I was a black belt. I made sure most of what I told them was the truth, though. I had found the more truths I could hold onto, the easier it was to lie. Jaime came in with one of my banjos strapped around her shoulder and pretended to pluck a tune, singing in a mock banjo sound the melody for The Beverly Hillbillies. Everyone laughed.

  “Play us something, T.A.,” Jaime said.

  “Not a chance.”

  “Why not?”

  “Not today, okay?”

  We ended up sitting around the television watching the news, looking for the latest on Chad Rourke. They were showing an earlier video of the covered body being rolled under the yellow tape and lifted up into the ambulance. Then back to a live feed across the street from the hotel. The newswoman stated the few facts that she knew. Behind her, a mass of solemn bystanders stood watching and waiting to find out more.

  After gulping it all up, Jaime said, “I feel so bad for his wife. They were such a cute couple.”

  “I just don’t see him being a druggie,” Ashley said. “Of all the celebs, I never would have guessed. Liz, your man has met him a few times, right?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t think they really know each other.”

  So she was in a relationship. That was saddening. But not shocking. She was a catch of the highest caliber. The sudden reality check reminded me of what had happened that morning. It wasn’t over by a long shot. I excused myself, walked out front, and dialed Steve.

  “What’s the latest?” I demande
d. “I thought you were going to call.”

  “I was just picking up the phone. So you snapped the guy’s leg after he was in cuffs? C’mon, Reddick. He’ll probably have a limp the rest of his life. You’re lucky the cops that saw it are going to cover for you. I can’t get you out of another one of those, though. Don’t make me regret bringing you up here.”

  “I’m sorry, Steve. You have no idea how pissed I was when I saw that little kid’s mother bleeding out on the floor.”

  “Don’t go preaching to the choir. We got bigger problems anyway. The guy whose leg you snapped—after he was in cuffs—he’s Tux Clinton’s cousin, Jesse Clinton. Tux and his sister are at the hospital with him.”

  I mumbled and cursed to myself. The last thing I needed was one of Charleston’s biggest drug dealers looking to settle a score with me. “Is Tux asking questions? Is he looking for me?”

  “Probably. Not sure if he even knows your name, but I’m not going to take a chance. I’m sending two cops your way. I want you on twenty-four-hour surveillance.”

  I laughed out loud. “You’re kidding me! I’ve dealt with this before. Tux can get in line. I don’t need a couple idiots holding my hand. I’ll be fine.”

  “T.A., I’m not asking if it’s okay. If he figures out who you are, he may come after you.”

  “Steve, Diego Vasquez and half the uniforms in Miami want me dead. I’m okay.”

  “Don’t be an idiot. Just let the uniforms do their job. They’ll stay out of your way.”

  “Fine.” I had to pick my battles. “Any word on the mother?”

  “She’s in surgery. She’s gonna live.”

  “Good to hear.”

  “Reddick, watch yourself. See you in the morning.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I gave the gals a lift back. Jaime’s boat had floated off the bed with the rising tide, but the anchor held it in place. I gave each one of them a hand over. As I took Liz’s hand, I said, “Can I call you?”

  She squeezed my hand. “If it’s meant to be, we’ll see each other again.”