Stiff Arm Steal

by A. J. Stewart

  “Weren’t a secret. We used to have it in a case in the original restaurant. Plenty of people would've known about it, seen it. I was in the local papers plenty, over the years."

  "So he might have seen it, some time ago?"

  "At least three years ago, but hell, he might've eaten next to it."

  We made motions about leaving and Orlando made no protest. Danielle collected the coffee cups and took them into the kitchen. I motioned to Orlando and he nodded and checked that Danielle wasn't watching.

  "Just give me an arm, son." I stuck my arm out and he grabbed the forearm and hoisted himself into the wheelchair.

  “You need to get somewhere?” I said. I looked in the direction of his bedroom.

  He shook his head. “I’ll watch a little TV. Moira will be back directly."

  Danielle came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands. We met at the front door and Orlando rolled over.

  “Well, it was mighty fine of you folks to visit," he said.

  "Thank you, Mr. Washington," said Danielle. “We’ll do everything we can to get your Heisman back."

  "I appreciate that. It would mean something to my boys."

  We both shook his delicate hand and stepped through the door. The sun was high and the sky was so blue it was almost white. Danielle stopped and turned back as if she'd forgotten something, like Colombo.

  "Sir, if you don't mind me asking one more thing. Why did you tackle the assailant?"

  Orlando smiled. “Because I remember," he said. "I remember good."

  "You remember? I'm sorry, I don't understand."

  Orlando's grin deepened and he looked at me. He squinted against the bright sky.

  "You ask Miami Jones." He pushed the wheels on his chair and rolled back inside. "Miami Jones remembers, too."

  He was still smiling as the door closed in front of him.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  I DIDN’T FEEL like a long and boring drive back to West Palm. I felt like sitting in a bar by the water on one of the Keys off Sarasota. Or zipping down to Sanibel and collecting shells. I felt tired. I headed east through the city and out onto route 60. Strip malls and concrete prefab. I looked at Danielle. She was a million miles away. The Mustang pulled towards home and I pulled against it. The horses won. Then Danielle turned to me.

  "You wanna get some lunch?" she said.

  “Where you wanna go?"

  "Orlando's."

  I pulled a U-turn and headed back into Tampa. We found Orlando’s. A big banner on the outside proclaimed it as the original location. Inside it was dark and basic. Bench seats, red and white check tablecloths. We sat at a table and a middle-aged woman with a generous smile handed us menus. We both looked around the room. It was generic sports. Nothing of Orlando Washington remained. There were lanterns hanging from the ceiling. A Georgia license plate on the wall next to my head. Pictures of old footballers. None of them were Orlando Washington.

  Danielle frowned at the Georgia license plate. “Did he play for Georgia?"

  I shook my head. "Alabama."

  “Family from Georgia?"

  “Some here and Tampa, some in the Florida panhandle. If they follow football, they'd hate Georgia."

  We looked at each other. "Let's get out of here."

  We thanked the smiling waitress and feigned an emergency. The day was even brighter after the dark restaurant. We wandered back to the car and I started it up. I put my hand on the gear selector and Danielle put her hand on mine.

  "I don't want to go home right now," she said.

  I nodded and pushed the selector back into drive. Danielle lifted her hand off mine and I pulled into traffic. I didn't know Tampa well, so I did what I always do when I can't think of where to be. I headed for water. We drove out over Old Tampa Bay to Clearwater, then across the causeway to Clearwater Beach. I drove along Mandalay Avenue until I found a likely spot. We parked the car and took our shoes off and walked along the sand. Small waves, maybe one or two footers, broke on the shore. The beach was wide and handsome.

  We came upon a place on the beach called Frenchy's Rockaway Grill. A thin, bronzed waitress waved and smiled and told us to come on in. We sat at a table overlooking the sand. I ordered a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. It had been a favorite when I’d played ball in Modesto. Danielle nodded and I told our bronzed waitress to make it two. She delivered them promptly and we clinked bottles and I took a pull, and looked out on the sand and the warm water of the Gulf of Mexico. Danielle’s face glistened in the sunlight. Her lips were moist. She looked at me and put her beer down.

  “You know a lot about Orlando’s career. I can’t believe you keep all those stats in your head.” she said.

  “I don’t. I knew he’d won a Heisman, but that was it. He was before my time.”

  “So how did you know about his yards and touchdowns and all that?”

  “I spent some time online at the hotel this morning. Looked up his stats. I figured it couldn’t hurt to honor an old man’s achievements.”

  Danielle nodded and sipped her beer. “What did he mean? He said he can remember."

  I thought for a moment. “He means exactly what he says. He remembers. The disease and the game might have battered his body, but there's nothing wrong with his memory."

  "Remembers what though?”

  “Everything. He remembers being young. Indestructible. He remembers the smell of wet cut grass on his cleats, the feeling of running and having every muscle working in concert. A perfect machine. And he remembers a signal. A call from his quarterback, and the handoff. The leather in his hands. Driving forward, behind his linemen and then, at the last minute exploding out, through the gap. The grasping and clawing at him as he pushes through the line of opponents. He's a gazelle and he flies and he's perfect. And then he breaks out and there's nothing but grass and space and the crowd. And he shuts it all out and runs. Just runs."

  I looked out at the water lapping at the sand. Then I turned to Danielle. "He remembers a day when a guy in a cowboy hat and fake mustache would've trembled at the sight of him, not stolen his stuff."

  I took a large pull on my beer. The waitress reappeared and I ordered two more and some fish tacos made with Gulf grouper. Danielle waited until the waitress skipped away.

  "He remembers all that? Or you do?"

  “Maybe we both do."

  "So you're saying he was angry? Angry that someone was taking his trophy?"

  “He was angry that someone took his youth."

  "Pretty brave to attack a guy with a gun, angry or not."

  “Maybe. Or maybe he thinks, he's had this great life, his wife is gone, sons are grown and gotten their own lives, and now he's alone with his memories. And this guy is stealing the one important thing left to him.”

  "His prime," she said.

  I smiled and nodded.

  Our beers arrived. We drank watching the gulls playing on the beach. When our tacos came we ate, then ordered some conch fritters. A sign by our table said there was a two-hour limit on patio tables, but we were in the shoulder season: the summer vacationers were gone and the snowbirds were yet to arrive. Our waitress made no attempt to move us on. She brought us some more beers. The sun started its drop towards the water.

  Danielle leaned her elbows on the table and looked at me. She seemed to be examining the lines on my face. "I owe you an apology," she said.

  "I can't imagine what for."

  “The way I reacted about Beccy."

  “No, you don't. I should have just told you."

  "I know that's history. We all have history. Hell, I've been married."

  "I know," I said. "Your history came to see me a few days back."

  She frowned. "Eric?"

  "Aha."

  “Why?”

  "He was concerned about the company I keep."

  "Me?"

  "More how other company I keep might affect you."

  "Huh. I hope you were nice."

  “Yes, being nice to your ex is always h
igh on my list."

  She shook her head and grinned. "I mean it. He's a State Attorney. He's a good person for you to know and a bad one to annoy."

  "You're right. I’ll invite him round for a game of darts."

  She punched my arm. It hurt more than I thought it should. "I'm serious. He's not that bad a guy. I think you’d get along."

  I took a long drink from my beer, and put it down. I took her hands in mine across the table. “Eric knows, for absolute certainty, that losing you is the worst mistake he has ever made in his entire life. And I am a reminder of that fact. We are never going to be best buddies."

  She looked me straight in the eyes and took the air out of my lungs all over again.

  “You wanna dance?" I said. I took her hand and led her to an open area near the bar. I whispered to our bronzed waitress and she skipped away. Jimmy Buffett started up out of the speakers. I took Danielle and held her close. She smelled of jasmine and beer and salt water. She felt like an old glove. We drank a couple more and the bar got crowded and loud. I settled up and we walked barefoot back onto the sand. Danielle put her arm around me and nestled her head into my collarbone. A gull bounced across the sand looking for a bed.

  "I wonder what I’d do in Orlando’s place?" she said.

  "Attack a guy? Hope not."

  “No. I mean be on this high, be a winner. Then have it all taken away. Hard to look on the upside all the time."

  “We talking about Orlando now?" I said.

  “You saying I'm talking about me? I've never won anything."

  “You were on the track, had the flashy husband, the house. Things a lot of people would consider wins. You became a cop, dumped the husband, and were seen about town with a ne'er-do-well former ballplayer with a Columbo complex."

  She laughed. "Sounds pretty good."

  “Exactly what Orlando would say. We can all remember something. But we can't live there."

  "I just hope I'm not too old to miss out on things."

  "Old? Are you kidding? You are young in all the right places, sweetheart."

  “Not all the right places," she said quietly.

  We came upon a small hotel across from the beach. Blessed be the shoulder season, so they had a room. It was sparsely furnished in cane pieces. It was old and tired, but clean. The kind of place where you don't mind walking sand in on the bottom of your feet. What a seaside motel should be. We showered together and then fell into bed. The bed rattled like a San Francisco trolley car. I lay on my back, hands on my head, as I had the previous night. Danielle was crushed up against me, one leg looped over mine. I could feel her breath on my chest. She was breathing deep and slow.

  "I really wanna get this guy now," she said.

  “Me too.”

  "Not for BJ Baker."

  "No, not for BJ.”

  I lay listing to the hum of the air conditioner until Danielle spoke again. "You think we'll get him?”

  "I do," I said. "Something tells me he's about to make a mistake. And we'll be there when he does."

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  BY THE TIME I finished the long and boring drive from Tampa to West Palm Beach my confidence that our Heisman stealing cowboy would make a mistake had subsided considerably. I dropped Danielle at her house and headed into the office. No one was in. We had left early and without breakfast in order to get Danielle back in time for her shift, so I was hungry. I wandered out to a cafe and got a bagel and black coffee.

  I sat on the seawall looking across the intracoastal. It was bright and sunny, but the humidity was up and interesting clouds were jostling on the horizon. I felt better for the bagel but not for the thinking time. The three Heisman thefts were linked, of that I was sure. And The Cowboy, as Danielle had started referring to him in that typical law enforcement way, had escalated. Maybe not from burglary one to burglary two. We didn't know what he’d had at BJ’s as no one saw him. But if The Cowboy was Rivers, it was easy to believe he had access to a knife. And, from the knife at the Bellingham’s to the gun at Orlando Washington’s, there had been a definitive step up. Knives were often handy and spur of the moment. Guns rarely were. Even if he owned it before, he still had to make the decision to take it, and then actually take it. Getting the gun would have been easy enough for Rivers, especially if he was doing the job for Bartalotto. What I found small relief in was the fact that Orlando described him as holding the gun nervously, like an amateur. And he had not used the gun, or at least not fired it.

  I wondered about that as I headed back to the office. The Cowboy not firing the weapon may have been a sign that he was unwilling to do so. That meant it would take another escalation for him to do it. Or it could simply have been because Orlando had tackled him and taken the Colt out of play.

  As I arrived at the office I made myself two mental notes. One, if I wanted to regain my confidence about catching The Cowboy, I had to get my skates on and crack the case open fast. And two, I had to stop calling Rivers The Cowboy. I took the fire stairs up to the office. Ron and Lizzy had both arrived. I called them into my office for an update.

  They both had coffees. I grabbed some water from the cooler and sat behind my desk. Ron and Lizzy took the chairs. I started by giving them a debrief from Tampa.

  When I was done Ron chimed in. “Will you tell Ronzoni?”

  "Not today."

  “So breaking it open? How do we do that exactly?" said Lizzy.

  "Danielle is going to rattle the cage of the email provider. I'll do the same with the Heisman Trust. We need to know one of two things: if this is Rivers and where he’ll strike next. We get one of those questions answered, then we grab the lever and pull."

  They both nodded.

  "So, what's the news here?"

  Ron sat up. “While you were in Tampa, I took the opportunity to see what our friend Dennis Rivers had been up to."

  “Alibi?”

  “Shaky. He hasn't worked for the past couple days. Nothing on."

  "So where has he been?”

  "That I can't speak too. The Camry he was using after the yacht club job is registered to his mother. It hasn't been parked at the house at all when I've drifted by."

  "Could he get from here to Tampa, recon the job, do over Orlando Washington and get back in two days?"

  "You did," he said.

  I nodded. And I hadn’t been in any hurry.

  “We need to have a more serious conversation with Mr. Rivers," I said.

  “Stake him out?"

  “He’s not doing any more lingerie shows, is he?"

  Lizzy clucked her tongue at me.

  Ron shook his head. “They have a charity function at a private residence on Jupiter Island. Thursday afternoon.”

  "Then we'll catch him right after. What else you got?"

  “Got a call yesterday from a hedge fund here in town. They think one of their execs is licking the icing off the cake to fund a mistress or three. I’m on it."

  “Have fun. Lizzy?"

  "Mrs. Ferguson and her missing husband. I've gone through their bank accounts, credit cards, insurance policies. All the normal stuff.”

  “And? Foul play or runner?"

  "If I had to hazard a guess, and I hate to say it, I think he may have hurt himself."

  “Trail?”

  "Nothing concrete yet. He upped the life insurance, which goes to Mrs. Ferguson, but is still pretty meager. But here's the thing. He took out five hundred at an ATM in West Palm a week ago. Not a massive amount, but a fair bit more than usual. Then three days ago he filled his tank and got another two hundred dollars at a gas station in Belle Glade.”

  “Didn’t they live there before they moved to West Palm?”

  "It's his hometown. He left to go to college and came back after."

  “Gone home to mommy and daddy?"

  "Both dead. Here's another thing. He lost his job."

  “When?”

  “Two weeks ago."

  "Why?"

  "Guy wouldn't say. Not ve
ry helpful."

  “So he might have found himself at the end of his rope.”

  “Yes. But I don’t get the cash out. Looks like travel money.”

  "True," I rubbed my eyes. “Maybe for drugs? Suicide attempt? Ron and I should drop by his workplace, see what's what. You see if anything else floats to the top. Then if there's nothing, I think we've done all we can right now."

  “That’s what I was thinking. I'll keep digging."

  “Thanks, team. Meeting adjourned."

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  RON BOUGHT TUNA salad sandwiches and we sat in my office mapping out a plan of attack for his hedge fund executive case. I struggled to keep my mind on things. I was drifting off, thinking about Orlando and the Heisman thief. I had to admit, The Cowboy sounded better. But we needed to focus on keeping the pipeline going. One case does not a business make. And right now, I had one case going nowhere fast, Lizzy was working pro bono and Ron had this job. And he had just finished a well-paying insurance fraud case. Ron was becoming a regular rainmaker.

  Ron was eating and laying out the players for me. Who was whom, who was where. Who might look good to hit up for some inside mail. We were interrupted by the intercom on my phone.

  “State Attorney Edwards,” said Lizzy.

  We looked at the door as it opened and Eric Edwards stepped through. He was in a long dark pinstripe, blue shirt, pink tie. That combo shouldn't have worked on him, but it did. He had five o’clock shadow at noon. He was tall and thin, and looked like immaculately dressed bamboo.

  "Eric, always a pleasure." I said.

  He looked at me, then Ron. He didn't say hello to Ron, a registered voter and I knew it must be bad news. “Are you mentally defective, Jones?"

  "I'm not the one dressed for a wedding in eighty-five degree heat."

  “This is not the time or the place for your stupid humor."

  “Actually, given you are standing in my office, I'd say it's exactly the place." I thought calling my humor stupid was a touch harsh.

  "I told you to stay away from Sal Mondavi."

  "Who?"