by Carl Hiaasen
The telephone looked red-hot on the bedstand, so many possibilities. Call Mom and borrow money for more lawyers? Perhaps when Biscayne Bay freezes over.
Call García and spill everything? Erin doubted the detective would be moved to tears by a recounting of her domestic problems. He would, however, be greatly intrigued by the weird details of Jerry Killian’s blackmail plot. A homicide with political connections would be a welcome break from the drudgery of domestics and drug murders.
Maybe that was the phone call to make, Erin thought. Get it over with.
She changed her mind and put the empty martini glass on the floor. Jimi Hendrix loomed over the headboard, tonguing his left-handed Stratocaster. Dead at twenty-seven. Erin thought: Not me, buster.
She took the telephone off the bedstand and balanced it on her tummy. She punched a number in Deerfield Beach and closed her eyes, thinking please, please, please.
Angela answered on the third ring.
“Baby?”
“Momma?”
“It’s me. Did I wake you?”
“Where are you, Momma?”
“Is your father there? Talk softly if he is.”
“Can you come see us? Every day we go for rides in the hospital.”
“Which hospital, baby?”
“Different ones. Daddy dresses up like Doctor Shaw.”
“Oh God,” Erin said.
“Then he puts me in a wheelchair and pushes real fast. Can you come see us? We go real fast—you can push, too.”
“Angela, listen to me.”
“I think I gotta go. Love you, Momma.”
“Angela—”
Long silence. Somebody breathing. Then a wet cough.
“Angie?”
Darrell Grant laughed, high-pitched and juiced by speed. “I gotta get this number changed.”
Erin said, “You are one dumb shit. If you get caught using that little girl—”
“Hell, I won’t get caught. It’s a dream setup, didn’t she tell you? I stole a doctor’s jacket, a real stethoscope, the works. Man, I look so legit! Fact, I’m thinking seriously about trying some gynecology on the side—”
“Darrell, they’ll take her away! The HRS will take her away from both of us. Forever.”
“Lord, you do worry. I already told you, I won’t get caught. The setup is, I dress Angie in pajamas so she looks like a real patient. Her Cookie Monster pajamas, remember? The ones with the little feetsies in the bottom—”
“You asshole.”
“Now, don’t be judgmental. You, who flashes her tits for a living. Don’t fucking judge me, sweetcakes—”
Erin hurled the phone to the floor. She was too mad to cry, too upset to sleep. She pulled on a sweatshirt and blue jeans, and grabbed her car keys off the dresser.
Special Agent Tom Cleary wore a burgundy bathrobe and brown floppy bedroom slippers. To Erin, he looked practically adorable. She’d never seen him rumpled and ungroomed. Sleep had sculpted his sandy hair into a sharp peak, like the crest of a cardinal.
“Coffee?” he croaked.
They sat in the kitchen and spoke in low tones while Cleary’s wife heated a bottle for the baby, who was yowling upstairs. It was the couple’s fourth child in six years and the stress of fecundity was taking a toll. When Erin apologized for the lateness of the hour, Mrs. Cleary said it was no problem. No problem at all! She was about to explode with artificial politeness. The moment she went upstairs, her husband sagged with relief.
“I need some help,” Erin said, leaning forward.
“Darrell again?”
“Naturally.” She told him about her ex-husband becoming a police informant, about the expensive court fight, about Darrell Grant’s wheelchair scam with Angela as a human prop—
“Back up,” the agent interjected. “He’s got custody? That doesn’t seem possible.”
Erin’s throat felt chalky. “The judge says I’m an unfit mother. How ’bout them apples?”
Cleary was incredulous. “Unfit?” The word came out in a horrified whisper, as if he spoke of a dreaded disease. “What in the world … Erin, did something happen?”
She thought: I can’t tell him about the job. The Eager Beaver he would never understand.
“It’s a long story,” she said.
“Darrell got to the judge?”
“Well, something did.”
The coffee was ready. Cleary poured. Upstairs, the baby finally stopped crying. Erin said, “Tom, he’s turning my daughter into a gypsy.”
The FBI man nodded soberly. “The problem is, we can’t stretch jurisdiction.” She started to say something but Cleary cut her off. “Let me finish, Erin. Your divorce, that’s a civil matter, totally out of our scope. But if you’ve got proof the judge is corrupt, then maybe we can do business—”
“I don’t have proof,” Erin said sharply. “I thought that was your department.”
Cleary’s eyes flashed but he continued: “The wheelchair racket—now I agree it’s despicable. But basically you’re talking grand larceny, which the Bureau won’t touch.”
“But the locals have Darrell on the damn payroll!”
“Listen,” Cleary said, “if I tried to run this one past my supervisor—well, there’s no chance in hell. He’d throw it right back in my face.”
The agent was rueful but unwavering. Erin felt whipped. “A phone call from you and the cops would drop him like a rock,” she said. “One lousy phone call, Tom.”
“I don’t work that way. Rules are rules.”
“But you helped me before.”
“I ran a name. That’s easy, Erin.” Cleary took off his glasses and kneaded his temples. “What I cannot do,” he said wearily, “is open a federal case on your ex-husband. I’m very sorry.”
“Me, too” Erin mumbled into her coffee cup.
The agent asked if the information about Jerry Killian had been helpful. Oh yes, Erin said, very helpful. She thanked him for the coffee and rose quickly to leave, but not before Cleary asked: “How does he fit into all this? Killian, I mean.”
“Another long story,” Erin said. Cleary would panic if he knew Jerry Killian was dead. Automatically he would connect the murder to his own leak of the computer check. Next he’d feel compelled to confess the breach of regulations. Several cubic yards of paperwork would accumulate before an actual field investigation of Killian’s drowning began. Meanwhile, Tom Cleary most certainly would be transferred to the FBI equivalent of Siberia, where his wife would ponder a future of frigid winters and limited day-care possibilities. Eventually the Bureau might sort out the facts of Killian’s death and exonerate the exiled Cleary. By that time, though, Darrell Grant could be safely in Tasmania, or anywhere, with Angela.
Erin had no time to wait for the FBI. And she wanted Agent Tom Cleary in Miami, in case she needed him.
As he walked her to the door, Cleary asked where she was working.
“A dive,” Erin replied, “tending bar.” Not an unmanageable lie. The same one she told her grandparents.
Cleary said, “Which dive?”
“You don’t know the place, Tom. It’s definitely not in your jurisdiction.”
The agent accepted the sarcasm impassively. He said he hated to think of her slinging drinks. Erin said the money wasn’t bad.
Cleary, his voice heavy with guilt: “On this Darrell thing, I wish I could bend the rules, but I can’t. I simply can’t.”
“I understand, Tom.” Erin checked discreetly for the wife, then pecked him on the cheek. “Thanks, anyway,” she said.
When she got home, Mexican championship boxing was on ESPN. The face of one fighter was purple and pulped, blood trickling from what appeared to be three nostrils. The other boxer aimed meticulous jabs at the man’s fractured nose, until the bleeding got so bad that the referee lost his footing on the slippery canvas.
At one time in her life, Erin couldn’t have comprehended how a human being could inflict such misery on an opponent he scarcely knew. Now, thinking of her ex-husban
d, Erin began to understand the boxer’s drive: a simple transfer of aggression, from real life to the ring.
By morning, she had cooled off. She did one hundred sit-ups, reassembled the telephone and tried another phone call. This, too, was a long shot.
Erb Crandall noticed something new in the front hallway of Malcolm J. Moldowsky’s penthouse. It was a color portrait of John Mitchell, former attorney general and convicted felon.
“A dear friend and mentor,” Moldy explained. “Savagely maligned, long before your time. An American tragedy.”
“I know all about him, Malcolm.”
“Political genius,” said Moldowsky. “Misplaced loyalty was his fatal flaw. He took the fall for Nixon.”
“Who didn’t?” Erb Crandall had been in college during the Watergate hearings. He remembered John Mitchell as a surly old dog who couldn’t lie his way out of a paper bag.
“The ultimate insider,” Moldy said, aglow. He stroked the frame of the portrait in a tender manner that worried Crandall.
“Don’t you have a hero?” Moldowsky asked.
“Nope.”
“That’s very cynical, Erb.”
“People with heroes usually believe in something. How about you?”
Moldy thought about it while he poured two cognacs. He handed one to Crandall and said, “I believe in influence for the sake of influence.”
“Pushing buttons.”
“It’s a kick—wouldn’t you agree?”
Crandall said, “To be honest, some days it sucks.”
“You’re still in the trenches, Erb. Be patient.”
“You mean someday I could end up like … him?” He pointed at John Mitchell’s toady visage. “Gee, Malcolm, I can hardly wait.”
“You are one cynical fuck.”
They sat in Moldowsky’s plush living room, which featured a panoramic vista of the Atlantic Ocean. Distant lights of freighters and cruise ships winked at them from the Gulf Stream. Crandall was soothed by the view and warmed by the cognac.
Moldowsky asked for an update on the reelection campaign. He was pleased to hear that David Dilbeck’s Republican opponent, a right-wing appliance dealer, had raised only sixty thousand dollars to date. The hapless yutz was spending most of his days fending off the press, and trying to explain two long-ago convictions for mail fraud back in Little Rock, Arkansas. Moldy himself had unearthed the obscure rap sheet, and passed it along to a friendly Miami columnist.
On the home front, Erb Crandall reported that every living Rojo, including scores of far-flung cousins, had dutifully sent cashier’s checks for the maximum allowable contribution to the Re-Elect Dave Dilbeck Committee. Additional thousands of dollars were pouring in from supposedly ordinary citizens wishing to support the congressman’s exemplary work. Crosschecking those contributors’ names with voter rolls, or even with the telephone book, would have been useless. The names belonged to Caribbean farm workers, imported by the sugar industry to work the cane fields. It was Moldowsky’s inspired idea to use the untraceable migrants as a cover for illegal Rojo donations.
“Davey still doesn’t know,” Crandall said.
“Don’t tell him,” said Moldy.
“He thinks he’s adored by the masses.”
“Encourage that notion, Erb. We like a candidate with confidence.”
“Oh, he’s confident,” Crandall said. “He’s so goddamn confident I can’t control him.” He handed Moldy the congressman’s most recent tab from the Flesh Farm. Mr. Ling had boldly tacked on forty bucks for “replacement of damaged pasties.”
“And where were you?” Moldowsky demanded of Crandall.
“He went out the back door, Malcolm. Chris Rojo sent the car.”
“I said, where were you?”
“Asleep in the living room.”
Nice work.”
“Fuck off,” Crandall said. “Tonight you can tuck him in. That I’d pay to see.”
Moldowsky was disturbed to hear that Dilbeck was up to his old licentious tricks. Obviously the idiot had learned nothing from the Eager Beaver episode.
Erb Crandall said, “Can we put something in his food? I was thinking saltpeter.”
“Yeah? I was thinking thorazine.” Moldowsky was astounded by the congressman’s stupidity. Didn’t he realize how close he’d come to disaster? Jerry Killian was gone, but there would be other Killians, other dangerous blackmailers, if Dilbeck didn’t steer clear of the tittie bars.
“There’s something else,” Crandall said.
Moldowsky loosened his necktie vigorously, as if escaping a noose. “Let me guess: he’s gone and knocked up a cheerleader. Make that an underaged cheerleader. Catholic girl’s school?”
“You told me to keep you posted in the weirdo department.”
“So post me, Erb. Before I die of fucking suspense.”
Crandall popped a cough drop into his mouth. “The congressman got an unusual phone call this morning.”
“Here, or in the Washington office?”
“Washington. One of the secretaries took the message.” As he spoke, Erb Crandall clacked the lozenge from cheek to cheek. He said, “It was a woman calling.”
“There’s a shocker.”
“Said she was a friend of Jerry Killian.”
“You’re shitting me.” Moldy’s jaw hung. “Erb, this better be a joke.”
“You see me laughing?”
“What else?” Moldowsky barked. “What else did she say?”
“That’s it, Malcolm. She didn’t leave a name or a number. Very polite, according to the secretary. Said she’d call back another time, when the congressman was available.”
Moldowsky ran his fingernails raggedly through his hair—that’s how Crandall knew he was upset. Impeccable grooming was one of Moldy’s trademarks.
“Did you tell Davey?” he asked.
“Of course not.”
“Which secretary took the call?”
“The older one—Beth Ann. Don’t worry, she doesn’t know a thing. The name Killian meant zero to her.” Crandall noisily chewed the cough drop and washed it down with cognac. “Malcolm, it’s about time you filled me in.”
“Be glad I haven’t.”
“But you said it was taken care of.”
Moldowsky stared out to sea. “I thought it was.”
At the moment his pager beeped, Sgt. Al García was sitting on a meat freezer, chewing gum, filling out paperwork. Inside the freezer were Ira and Stephanie Fishman, ages eighty-one and seventy-seven, folded up like patio furniture. They had passed away within two days of each other in the month of July during the first full year of Gerald Ford’s presidency. Daughter Audrey, their only child, had placed the dead Fishmans in a Sears industrial-size deep freeze, which she’d purchased especially for that purpose. Between them, Ira and Stephanie Fishman had been collecting about $1,700 a month in Social Security, disability and veteran’s benefits. Being chronically unemployed and without prospects, Audrey felt no urgency to inform the government or anyone else that her parents had died. Friends assumed that the couple had grown tired of the hot weather and moved back to Long Island. No one but Audrey knew that Ira and Stephanie lay perfectly preserved beneath three dozen Swanson frozen dinners, mostly Salisbury steaks. The Social Security checks kept coming, and for all these years Audrey cashed them.
Her secret was safe until this day. She got up early and took the church bus to Seminole bingo, as usual. At about noon, a young outlaw named Johnnie Wilkinson broke a bedroom window and entered the Fishman residence in search of cash, handguns, credit cards and stereo equipment. Curiosity (or perhaps hunger) attracted Johnnie Wilkinson to the big freezer, and his subsequent screams were heard by a passing postal carrier. Audrey returned to find the small house swarming with cops. She was immediately taken into custody, but detectives were unsure what charges should be filed.
Days would pass before the Fishmans defrosted enough for a proper autopsy, although it appeared to García that they’d died of natural cau
ses. Florida had no specific law against freezing one’s own dead relatives, but Audrey had committed numerous misdemeanors by failing to report her parents’ deaths, and by storing the bodies in a residentially zoned neighborhood. As for her Social Security flimflam, that was a federal crime. Al García had no jurisdiction, or interest. He was rather pleased when his pager went off.
Erin met him at a Denny’s on Biscayne Boulevard. They took the farthest booth from the frozen pie display. When García attempted to light a cigar, Erin plucked it from his mouth and doused it in a cup of coffee.
“Unnecessary,” the detective groused.
“Get out your notebook,” she said.
Al García smiled. “Good old FBI training.”
“You know about that?”
“I’m not as slow as I look.” A waitress appeared, and García ordered a burger and fries. Erin asked for a salad.
She said, “What else do you know?”
“You went through a blonde phase.”
Erin laughed. “God. Not my driver’s licenser!”
“You look better as a brunette.” Al García took out the notebook. He clenched the cap of his pen in his teeth, to compensate for the missing cigar. He said, “All I got really is the basics. Height, weight, marital status. Big fat zilch on the FCIC, which is good. Oh yeah, you’re overextended about a hundred bucks on your Visa card. Boy, do I know that drill.”
“I’m impressed,” Erin said.
“Don’t be.”
“You know about Darrell?”
“He’s a hard one to miss. But let’s hear about the late Mr. Killian.”
The more Erin talked, the better she felt. García acted as if he believed every word, although she wondered if it was part of the routine. The detective was non-threatening to a fault. He made notes in sloppy cop shorthand, careful not to let the transcribing interfere with the eating of his hamburger. Predictably, he perked up when he heard that Killian had boasted of a pipeline to a congressman. “I got the name from the judge,” Erin said. She watched as the detective printed the word DILBECK in neat block letters in his notebook.
She added: “Whatever Jerry tried, I’m praying that it isn’t what got him killed.”
“Love can be a dangerous item,” García said.
