Free Deal with the Dead by Les Standiford

which he in turn made up from the draw on project C…and so on and so on, not to mention the fact that the drain had seemed to grow worse as time went on.
    The crack had become a fissure, the fissure a crevasse, and with construction suddenly drying up in Dade, Barton Deal’s little pyramid scheme was threatening to collapse altogether. He was facing the specter of bankruptcy at a minimum, and given the fact that certain of his unauthorized transactions involved public funds, he could imagine the possibility of criminal action as well.
    All he needed, of course, was a ready infusion of cash, another project to borrow from, just until he could finish up with the restaurants, get his final draw, and use the profits—there would be profits, he was sure of it—to plug the original hole. Things would be tight for a while, of course, but they could adjust, get themselves back to a normal life, for God’s sake. Barton Deal had a son now. He needed to unstrap the flak jacket from his liver, get back to the basics.
    He’d been thinking such thoughts, making such resolutions, all the while that he had been waiting for Ugo Padilla, former president of the Republic of Cuba, who had promised to deliver him that necessary source of revenue—at a certain cost, of course. Now the man was here and the moment, it seemed, was at hand.
    Deal rubbed his face with his hands and nodded to Padilla, who was staring at the napkins on the table between them. Deal glanced down. Columns and columns of figures he’d been adding, nothing balancing out, all of the negatives featuring way too many zeroes. He reached out, crumpled the napkins in his fist. “Why didn’t we just meet at the job site to begin with?” he asked.
    Padilla shrugged, already sliding out of the booth. “These are cautious men.”
    Deal laughed mirthlessly. “
There
’
s
a new way to describe them.” He slid a bill under the salt shaker and stood to follow Padilla away.
    ***
    The traffic northward on Collins wasn’t exactly light, but it was much better than Deal had expected. Padilla had suggested they take his car and Deal had not objected, though he was beginning to doubt his wisdom on that count. The little man had the wheel of the big Chrysler in a white-knuckled grasp that made it seem like he was trying to lift himself up for a decent glimpse of the road. He was a tailgater and a lane dancer, cursing in Spanish at the drivers around him, taking advantage of the slightest gaps in the traffic to veer left or right, gain a car-length’s advantage.
    “Are we in a big hurry?” Deal asked.
    Padilla glanced at him. “No,” he said, turning back to cut off a taxi on their right. A horn blared in their wake, but Padilla seemed not to notice.
    “I don’t like to fool around, that’s all.”
    Deal nodded. He glanced in the rearview mirror, saw that the driver of the taxi was shaking his fist. “You drive like this back in Cuba?”
    “You think I drove myself in Cuba?” Padilla shook his head. “I never even had a license until I came over here.”
    “Who would have guessed it?” Deal said. He clutched the armrest as the Chrysler cut back to the left, whisking past a Ford that had stopped for a red light. They plowed through the intersection, narrowly missing a delivery van that was trying to make a U-turn.
    “
Pendejo!
”
Padilla shouted at the driver of the van, which had stalled out in the intersection. He turned back to Deal, erasing the frown from his features. “I had a driver for a while, but my wife was always complaining that we needed to adjust, become more American, you know?”
    Deal saw an elderly couple standing by the curb a hundred feet or so up ahead. It looked to him as if they might be contemplating crossing the road. “I guess,” he said, hoping that the couple had enjoyed a long and happy life.
    “It took me awhile, but now I enjoy this driving,” Padilla said. He was staring at Deal, as if he wanted some kind of approval. The