Havana Run by Les Standiford Read Free Book Online Page B

said.
    “She’s gaining,” Janice insisted. “She’s ten pounds over normal.”
    “And an inch taller.”
    “She’ll like it there.”
    “At fat camp?”
    “That’s not what it’s called.”
    “What difference does it make what they call it?”
    “They learn how to eat properly, that’s all.”
    “Isabel already knows how to eat.”
    She ignored him. “She’ll enjoy it,” she continued. “They swim, they hike, they ride horses…”
    “Clydesdales?”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “Great big horses for the big fat kids.”
    “Are you going to fight me on this? We’ve agreed on two weeks’ vacation each with Isabel. You’re free to take her wherever you like…”
    “Who’s going to be with Isabel while you’re in the sweat lodges?”
    “Mrs. Suarez has agreed to come along. She’d like to lose a little herself.”
    “I’ll bet,” Deal said.
    “You don’t have a clue about women, John. You like to think you do, but you don’t.”
    “I’ll grant you that much,” he’d told her wearily, and the matter had been settled.
    “Are you still there?” Bernice was asking. “I told you Mrs. Suarez called…”
    “I got that,” Deal said. “I was just thinking about something.”
    “I think it’s time you got back up here,” the bookkeeper repeated.
    “Next week,” Deal told her. “Before Isabel gets back. I promise.”
    “There was a man in here looking for you,” Bernice persisted. Deal thought he detected something in the bookkeeper’s tone.
    “A client?”
    “He suggested as much, but he was a tight-lipped sort. He didn’t want to talk to anyone but you.”
    “You tell him I was in Key West?”
    “I didn’t tell him anything,” the bookkeeper said. “I didn’t care for him. I explained that you were out of town and that if he wanted to leave his card I’d have you get in touch.”
    Deal sighed. “So give me his name and number.”
    “He didn’t leave it. He said he’d be back.”
    Deal rolled his eyes. “Well, I’m sure he will. Give him the Key West number if he turns up again.”
    “That I’ll do,” she said.
    “And you’ll sign those payroll checks?”
    It was the bookkeeper’s turn to sigh. “If you really want me to.”
    “I trust you with my life, Bernice,” he told her.
    “Then you’re a damn fool,” she said. She’d hung up before he could say good-bye.
    ***
    Following his conversation with Bernice, Deal turned his attention to some of the paperwork for the project he was involved in at the eastern end of the island. He might be having trouble getting his last piling properly set, but compared to the political hoops he had to jump through to move a project along in Miami-Dade County, this undertaking had been a breeze.
    It hadn’t hurt, either, that Deal had been willing to pick up the pieces of an unraveling project that the Key West city fathers feared might wind up in the wrong hands. Following the untimely death of Franklin Stone, the original developer of the property, several of the larger Florida developers, including one multinational firm, had made overtures to step in. But because the development encroached upon a wetlands nature preserve, the commissioners bowed to growing public pressure and agreed to keep Deal, Stone’s original choice as builder and the “homegrown” candidate, on board. Nor had it hurt, of course, that Terrence Terrell, Dectra Software magnate, for whom Deal had meticulously restored a pair of historically significant bayside properties in Miami, had weighed in on his behalf. In any case, the job was his now, and Key West was beginning to feel more and more like home.
    Part of the pleasure surely had to do with the fact that Deal was operating out of the shadow of his father’s legacy. It was the first major project that he’d assumed outside Miami and, as he’d suggested earlier to Russell Straight, might well constitute a turning point in his dozen-year struggle to resurrect the business he’d