Mortal Sin

by Paul Levine

  There was a dining room that fronted on a marina, an adjoining bar, and forty-five hotel rooms on three upper floors. I passed under an ornate chandelier with hanging crystal doodads, and went straight to room 212, the desk clerk studying me as I breezed past him. I was wearing a blousy black silk shirt with enough material for a parachute. The pants were black leather and crackled with each step. My feet hurt from the high-heeled boots, black again, with silver piping. I looked like a reject from a Harley-Davidson convention, but Marvin the Mayen told me it was either this or rayon pants with pink roses, so I thanked him and vowed never to shop on South Beach.

  Sam Terilli said I would be directly over the dining room. The door was open, just as he had promised. Mike Goldberg had already installed the equipment. The small console was turned on, the red light glowing, the volume adjusted. I picked up the earphones. Just the faraway clatter of a busy dining room.

  The telephone rang.

  Terilli told me the Florios had arrived and were in the bar. They were waiting for Mr. de La Torre.

  The bar.

  I hadn’t counted on that. They could sit there and drink half the evening away, and I wouldn’t hear a thing. I drummed my fingers on a cigarette-scarred dresser, studying a print on the wall, a still life of avocadoes and mangoes.

  The telephone rang again.

  Mr. de La Torre had joined the Florios in the bar. Everyone ordered drinks. Nicky and Carlos were doing the talking, but when Terilli tried to move close, they clammed up.

  Five minutes later, another ring. “Pick up the earphones. I just seated them.”

  Another round of drinks. Jack Daniel’s straight up for Nicky, Absolut on the rocks for Carlos, and white wine for Gina.

  Small talk and the gentle clinking of glasses.

  What a lovely dress you’re wearing, Mrs. Florio. Hasn’t it been a dry winter? Are you going to Aspen for spring skiing, or have they ruined the place? The ambience in Idaho is so much better. The discount rate dropped half a point, maybe construction will pick up. The audio was decent, but the cloppity-clop of footsteps on the old tile floor kept interfering. The microphone must be under the table. Carlos de La Torre had a faint Cuban accent and the loudest voice. He complained about the damn do-gooders pushing for better working conditions for his Jamaican sugarcane cutters.

  He complained about having to pay $4 million in fines for dumping carcinogenic chemicals into the water waste at his sugar mills. He complained a lot.

  They ordered appetizers. Melon and prosciutto for Gina, an eggplant crepe filled with mozzarella and covered with tomato sauce for Carlos and a good old shrimp cocktail for Nicky.

  “Well, tomorrow’s the day,” Nicky said, after the waiter took the order.

  “Todo en orden?” Carlos asked.

  “No problems at my end. I’m counting on you, of course.”

  “I will be there personally. It is better than sending the lawyers. If necessary, I will remind the board members of a wonderful weekend they spent on my ranch hunting quail.”

  There seemed to be some chuckling at that one.

  The waiter returned, and Nicky ordered another bourbon. Mineral water for Carlos and Gina this time.

  “I am very grateful for your help,” Nicky said. His tone was respectful, his manner formal. I wasn’t used to him that way. But Carlos de La Torre had more money than Nicky Florio, and maybe that was how the pecking order was determined. “I couldn’t do it without—” Cloppity-clop.

  “Correcto!’ De La Torre boomed. “Totalmente correcto! It’s worth ten percent of the gross, right? And we’re not—”

  At a nearby table, someone barked instructions at the waiter. Trying to follow the conversation was like listening to overlapping dialogue in a Robert Altman movie. It took all my concentration.

  “…the management company’s gross.” Carlos de La Torre again. “You’re not dealing with the Indians here, Nick. I want a dime of every dollar from every slot machine, craps, and blackjack table in the place. Not to mention the roulette and poker and whatever other legalized thievery you’re planning.”

  “It’s a lot of money,” Florio said.

  “Yes, for a…what did you call me in the contract?”

  “A consultant.”

  Laughter, Gina joining in.

  “My friends on the water board must not know—” Cloppity-clop-clop.

  “No, of course not,” Florio responded. A piece of silverware banged against a plate. I pictured Nicky Florio gesturing with a fork. “The bastards would each demand ten percent, and what would I have left?”

  More laughing all around. What a hilarious group.

  They resumed their small talk, Carlos drawing Gina into the conversation. Then a discussion of diets, and which friends had stopped eating red meat. The waiter returned, and they ordered. Angel hair pasta with fresh tomatoes for Gina, a whole fried snapper in ginger sauce for Carlos, and a Porterhouse steak, medium rare, for Nicky. Caesar salads all around, hold the anchovies.

  “One more thing,” Nicky said, his voice a shade lower. I pictured him leaning closer to De La Torre. “We’ve got more soil tests to do out there, and I’d love to drop the water level another foot.”

  “So?”

  “I can’t tell the board members because they don’t want the Big Cypress any drier, and I don’t want to send the water south through the park because the rangers will scream we’re flooding the gator holes. So, Carlos, can you use a few billion cubic feet of water?”

  “Water,” De La Torre mused. “What is it the Bible says? ‘If thine enemy be thirsty, give him water to drink.’”

  “Carlos, what are you saying? We are friends.”

  “Verdad, and the very best kind, friends of convenience. Our friendship floats on a river of water. Is there another commodity so precious? In a drought, my company would pay anything for water, but we don’t have to because the Water Management Board would drain the Big Cypress for us. In my business, we have a saying, ‘Water flows uphill, toward the money.’”

  There were the sounds of utensils clicking against plates, some mumbled words, feet shuffling under the table.

  “We don’t need the water now,” De La Torre continued, “but to help a friend, we’ll take some for the fields and dispose of the rest through canals. It’ll be in the Gulf before anyone knows. But not a word—” cloppity-clop “—or there’ll be hell to pay.”

  “Thank you, Carlos. You and I understand each other perfectly.” Then Nicky excused himself. Too much bourbon, he said, provoking another laugh.

  At first, Gina’s voice was so soft I could barely hear her. But I knew it was her. I had heard that tone before. And the words, too. So many times over so many years. “I’ve missed you, Carlos.”

  “And I have missed you, chiquita.” His voice a whisper now.

  “I thought tomorrow…”

  “No, business first. Besides, I promised your husband I’d be there.”

  “Business, business, business. The two of you are so much alike.”

  A soft chuckle. “That is not what you whispered to me when…” Cloppity-clop.

  “I should never have gotten involved with you. That first time, it was such a close call, we shouldn’t—”

  “That’s why you did it! Don’t you know that? It is the risk you enjoy. In your husband’s home, a hundred people around, it turns you on.”

  “We were nearly caught.”

  “Nearly! We were…”

  A throat cleared. “Would you care for coffee now, or are you waiting for the gentleman to return?”

  Damn. Like a policeman, you can never get a waiter when you need one. But when you’d rather be alone…

  “Espresso now would be fine,” Carlos said. Here was a man who didn’t wait for anybody.

  “Two,” Gina said.

  Silence except for the background noise. I wanted to hear more. Come on, Gina.

  A mumble. “…comes now.”

  The scraping of a chair against the floor.
Straining to listen through the earphones was giving me a headache.

  “So what were you two talking about?” Nicky Florio asked.

  “Price supports for the sugar industry and its effect on the international trade of commodities,” Carlos de La Torre said, and everybody had a good laugh.

  My mind was buzzing as I raced down the staircase of threadbare carpeting to the main floor. There was so much I didn’t understand about Gina. What made her tick, anyway? Did boredom make her a thrill-seeker? Was it for the sex, or the power she could wield over men? I had never understood her.

  Passing by the dining room and the bar, I headed toward the lobby, aiming for the front door and the parking lot. Etched into the glass wall of the bar was a schooner under full sail. It made me think of open seas and steady winds. I chased the thought away and tried to concentrate on what I had just heard. The door to the bar opened, emitting sounds of happy chatter. A man came out, but I never looked his way. I was still thinking about water and roulette wheels, bribes and sugarcane, Carlos and Gina. Always Gina.

  “Lassiter? Lassiter, that you?”

  A smart guy would have kept going, head down. A guy in control wouldn’t have jerked around and gaped, a puzzled look on his all-too-visible face. But that’s what I did.

  “Jesus H. Christ, Lassiter.” Gunther wore a golf shirt under a brown plaid sport coat. His thick cop neck filled the open-collar shirt. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  It wasn’t so much a question as an accusation.

  I stared dumbly at him.

  He reached inside his sport coat, patting for the shoulder holster that wasn’t there. His mouth formed the word “shit.”

  “Hey, Gunther, you’re out of uniform.”

  “But you’re not,” he said, examining my leather pants. “Looks like you’re trolling for queers. You’ll have plenty to choose from where I’m taking you.”

  “Where’s that, the Policemen’s Ball?”

  He growled at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Think about it. It’ll come to you.”

  “I’m taking you in, asshole.” He reached behind his back and came up with a pair of handcuffs. I took a step backward and raised my hands.

  “Look, Gunther. Try to get this through your thick skull. We’re on the same side. Nicky Florio is the guy you want. He’s a con man, a murderer, and probably cheats at poker.”

  Gunther took a step toward me, so I took another step back. I was pressed against the wall of the corridor. The front door was twenty paces away. I saw Sam Terilli, the felonious maitre d’, standing in the service entrance to the kitchen, thirty paces the other way. He made a slight gesture with his head, telling me to come that way. Okay, Sam, I’m trying.

  Next to me was a glass trophy case filled with tarnished silver bowls, dusty plaques, and antique golf clubs. I was aware of men in brightly colored slacks surrounding us. Most were gray-haired businessman types in their fifties. A man in a teal pullover sweater tried to step between us. “What’s the trouble here?” he asked.

  “I wouldn’t let this mug play through on fifteen,” I said.

  “Shut up, Lassiter!” Gunther’s face was reddening. “I’m a police officer, and if you’ll all kindly back away, I’ll place this man under arrest.”

  Gunther took a sideways step as if to reach behind me, but I moved the same direction. Sort of a fox-trot. Then a familiar voice. “I see you have encountered the fugitive,” Nicky Florio said. “Be careful, he’s quite dangerous, Officer.”

  This caused a stir in the golf-slacks-and-sweater crowd. A bald man, about sixty, approached Gunther, seemingly to offer help. I’ll bet this was the most excitement they’d had at the club since women were allowed in the Men’s Grill.

  “Jake, you look like a Times Square cowboy,” Florio said.

  “And you look like a cold-blooded killer.”

  “Do I now? Well, I ask you who has been charged with murder? Who is a respected businessman, and who is under indictment?”

  I was aware of two dozen eyes staring at me as if I were a cockroach on the pantry floor.

  “Officer, I believe the man is quite deranged,” Florio said. “I have testified before the grand jury as to his deeds.” He looked at me with a self-satisfied smirk. Now I saw Gina half a step behind him, biting her lip. I felt my neck redden, embarrassed for her to see me this way, cornered and defenseless. A handsome man with a black mustache—Carlos de La Torre—was gently holding her arm, as if to protect her.

  Gunther nodded in their direction. “No problem, Mr. Florio.” He looked back at the posse of duffers. “But one of you gentlemen might just call nine-one-one and ask for some backup.”

  Two sweaters disappeared into the crowd. Not much time now. I stepped to my right and banged into the trophy case. Gunther moved toward me, his broad shoulders blocking my path. “Okay, Lassiter, it’s over.” He extended his right hand as if to grab me above the elbow. His left hand still held the handcuffs.

  I let my body sag. “You win,” I told him. “I know when I’m beaten.”

  Gunther smiled and stepped forward. I pivoted my left hip and threw a jab a tad too high. It bounced off his sloping forehead, but not without snapping his head back. His eyes closed, then opened wide. He roared like a wounded elephant, from anger, not pain, dropped the handcuffs, and charged me. He missed with a looping roundhouse right that I ducked. I feinted with a left, tapped his skull with a glancing right, tried to dig a hook into his kidneys, but he blocked me. As he backed up, I did my best imitation of a place-kicker. My pants rustled as I brought up a black boot aimed at his crotch. But the pants were too tight and the kick too slow. He caught me by the heel of my cowboy boot and slammed me backward into the trophy case. The door shattered, and shards of glass cascaded over me. My feet were slipping, and my right hand reached reflexively toward the wall to gain my balance. Instead, it went into the trophy case. I knocked over a couple of bowls and then felt my hand wrap itself around the wooden shaft of an ancient golf club that might have been a six iron.

  I was shoving Gunther away with my left hand, but he was clawing at my face, trying to get both hands around my neck. I bent my knees, got leverage, and pushed him off, at the same time tearing the golf club out of the case.

  Gunther stood three feet away, facing me, and I jammed the iron under his nose.

  “No!” cried a man in a peach sweater and mauve polyester slacks. “That’s Ben Hogan’s mashie niblick.”

  “Gunther, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to knock your teeth from here to Augusta. Now back off!”

  I jabbed at his chest with the old iron, and he backed up. So did everybody else. I moved forward three steps, and everyone backed up some more. I kept going, and so did they. This was more like it. Outside, I heard the wail of a police siren. Then another. Damn, no use heading for the front door.

  “Jake, it’s useless to run,” Nicky Florio said, his voice soothing. “Turn yourself in. Let them get you some professional help.” Now he was my friend, trying to steer me away from my life of crime and depravity.

  I was under the crystal chandelier. I raised Ben Hogan’s old stick over my head and took a giant swipe at it. The crystal broke, bulbs popped, sparks flew, and everyone ducked and scurried out of the way. Gunther covered his head with his hands but came at me anyway. I dropped him with a solid whack to the knee. Not a bad stroke, though I didn’t have enough hip in it. He yelped and fell, cursing at me, clutching his knee, and rolling onto his side. The sirens shrieked closer.

  I moved twenty paces toward the service entrance to the kitchen, neither running nor walking, just moving at a good clip. Florio broke from the crowd and followed me. I turned toward him, and he stopped. “You can run, Jake, but you can’t hide,” he said, taunting me in a voice just above a whisper. “If the cops don’t get you, I will. You’d better hope they find you first.”

  I left him standing there and pushed through the door where Sam Terilli was waiting
. He grabbed me by an arm, guided me past a stove brimming with pots of soup, around the freezers, and then hustled me out the back door. By a smelly Dumpster, two kitchen workers were speaking in Creole and smoking a reefer as big as a cigar. Terilli pushed me into a waiting taxi. I thanked him, and he said don’t mention it, but forget about applying for membership at the club anytime soon.

  Charlie Riggs was sitting on a stool at the counter of a Cuban sandwich shop on Calle Ocho. He sipped at a cafe Cubano. A tired waitress with dyed red hair took my order: a beer and a bowl of black bean soup, heavy on the onions. It was just before midnight, or just after, I couldn’t tell which. My shoulders ached from two days of rowing a canoe. My back was stiff, and I pulled my hamstrings while launching the kick toward the balls of the loudmouthed detective. I hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in days, or was it weeks, and my head was spinning because I still didn’t know what was going on.

  So I told everything I knew to Charlie. He asked me to go over it again, and I did. I showed him the map I had taken from the shiny truck on the woody hammock. He asked me to describe the truck in as much detail as I could, and I did that, too.

  What else did Nicky say to De La Torre about lowering the water level? he wanted to know.

  Nothing.

  What kind of soil tests?

  I didn’t know. Nicky hadn’t said.

  Hmmm. Charlie ordered another syrupy café Cubano and poured enough sugar into it to make Carlos de La Torre even richer. “Anything else? See anything unusual out there?” He cocked his head to the west.

  “Nada.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “It was the Everglades, Charlie. Peaceful, except when I had to use a pen as a dagger, or I was ducking shotgun pellets. Quiet, except for the birds squawking and an occasional explosion.”