Nameless Night

by G. M. Ford

  The kid nodded his understanding.

  “Give me the keys,” Randy whispered.

  Acey rummaged around in his assorted jacket pockets until he came out with a heavy set of keys attached to an electronic keypad. “Green button opens the doors,” he said. Randy fished in his own pants pocket and came out with the VW key. “Put this in his pocket,” he said to the kid, who snatched the key and hurried back inside.

  Randy poked his head around the corner. Looked like they were waiting for backup. A pair of Florida state mounties had the VW covered. They’d used their patrol car to prevent a retreat and had assumed the combat position, arms resting on the top of their patrol car, guns at the ready.

  Randy shifted the bag to his left hand and took the kid by the shoulder. Together, they stepped out into the hazy sunshine. As they came down the walk, the cops frantically waved them away from their line of fire, over toward the far end of the lot and the Mercedes. The pair turned and walked quickly in the specified direction.

  As they approached the car, Randy opened the doors and stood for a moment at the passenger door while Acey belted himself in, all parental-like. He dropped his bag onto the backseat, closed the door, and turned to the cops.

  “Guy’s in the bathroom,” he said. “I was just gonna call 911.” The cops relaxed a bit. Randy went on, “Looks like he’s had some sort of fit or something. Bit his own tongue. Y’all probably better get a wagon out here.”

  Randy stood still. He watched as one of the cops got on the radio. Watched as they loped up the walk together, guns along their sides. Minute they stepped out of sight, he slid into the driver’s seat, slipped the key into the slot, and started the car.

  “You fucking crazy?” Acey said. “You know that man?”

  “You do what I told you? You take everything?”

  “’Lessen he had it up his ass,” the kid said.

  23

  Fifty miles disappeared under the tires before either of them spoke. Randy kept one eye glued on the rearview mirror and the other bouncing up and down between the speedometer and the road. Over in the passenger seat, the kid had looked like he was watching a tennis match, rotating his head back and forth like a bobblehead doll.

  “You think they comin’?” he asked finally.

  “No,” Randy said. “They was coming, they’da been all over us by now.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’ve been driving the speed limit. Besides…your friend back there…he’s got no ID at all. He’s got the key to the VW in his pocket. Not to mention the fact that the first thing those cops are going to do is slap him on a gurney and get him to the nearest hospital. Assuming he wakes up somewhere along the way, he’s still gonna have a hell of a time explaining himself with that busted-up mouth of his.”

  The kid took it in. He allowed a narrow smile to form on his lips. “That was smart, dog. That thing wid the key in his pocket.” He nodded his admiration. “That was hella smart.” Randy felt the boy’s eyes on the side of his face.

  A minute later, Acey began to empty his pockets onto the console. First a black wallet. Randy picked it up and flipped it open. Florida driver’s license. Chester D. Berry. South Miami address. From the corner of his eye Randy saw the kid set something else down. He adjusted the steering wheel and peeked down. His throat felt like Chester Berry still had him around the neck. An automatic. Nine-millimeter from the looks of it. He picked it up and hefted it in his hand.

  “Where in hell did you get this?” he asked.

  “Offin him,” Acey said.

  “You know he was carrying?”

  Acey gave him a “damn you’re dumb” look. “Shit, yeah. Them assholes always packin’.”

  “What assholes is that?”

  Acey pulled what looked like another wallet out of his pocket. He held it up and allowed the case to fall open. Big gold badge. Miami-Dade Police Department. Detective First Class. Chester Berry.

  Randy put both eyes back on the road and took several deep breaths, trying to still the rampant beating of his heart.

  “You coulda told me the guy was a cop,” he said after he’d calmed down a bit.

  “Ain’t no real cop.”

  “What kinda cop isn’t real?”

  “The pimp kind,” the kid said. “Kind don’t help people.”

  “If he doesn’t help people, what does he do?”

  “He line himself up, dog.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “He’s a rock cop, dog.” Acey looked disgusted. He banged his fist against the passenger window. “Where you think he got this ride, dog? You think cops got the cheese to be buying a short like this?”

  “How’d you end up with him?”

  “It’s a long story,” the kid said, turning his face away.

  “I’m in no hurry.”

  The boy continued to look out the side window. They were driving through a low forest, dwarf pines, palmetto, and swamp grass running off in all directions, as far as the gaze could follow. Dawn was done, traffic was picking up. From the corner of his eye, Randy watched the boy’s reflection change from exasperation to embarrassment.

  “My mama give me to him,” Acey said after a moment.

  “Gave you to him?”

  “She owe him money.”

  “For what?”

  “For rock, dog. What you think?”

  “How was I supposed to know?”

  “She’s a rock ho. Ain’t nothin’ in a rock ho’s min ’cept rocks.”

  “So…what were you and Mr. Berry doing in the restroom there?”

  “You saw, dog. He was kickin’ my ass, is what we was doin’.”

  “For what?”

  “For tryin’ to jump out his fuckin’ car.”

  “Why in the bathroom?”

  “’Cause he doan wanna fuck up his car, man. Whadda you think?”

  Randy processed the words and then asked, “What was he gonna do with you?”

  “Gonna take me up to Atlanta. Gonna sell me to this pimp he know up there.”

  Randy had already decided not to ask another question, but the kid went on.

  “Gonna have me work off my mama’s freight.”

  The fiery ball rising in the east forced Randy to swing the sun visor around to keep the left side of his head from melting. He reached for the air-conditioning, fumbled unsuccessfully with the controls several times before the kid slapped his hand away and did it himself.

  The Mercedes was everything the VW wasn’t: fast, luxurious, roomy, and responsive to the touch. He felt at home behind the wheel but didn’t know why.

  Randy asked, “So where you headed now?”

  The boy thought it over. “Goin’ to my auntie’s, I guess,” he said.

  “Won’t she just call your mama?”

  He made a face. “She give up on that dumb ho sista o’ hers years ago. I’m the only fool still hung wid that crazy bitch.” His lower lip began to tremble. He set his jaw like a bass. “Auntie Jean say anytime I get so’s I can’t deal wid it anymores, I’m welcome to crib wid her.”

  “Where’s your auntie live?”

  “Port St. Lucie.”

  “I’ll buy you a bus ticket first chance I get.”

  The kid went through his pockets and came out with a big roll of cash.

  “Gonna take me a fuckin’ cab,” the kid said.

  “That his?” Randy asked.

  “Not no more,” he said with a flash of a grin.

  “What else you got in those pockets? You got a sandwich in there somewhere? I’m hungry as hell.”

  The boy laughed. “Just this,” he said, waving a cell phone.

  “Lemme see,” Randy said.

  The kid handed the phone over.

  “You don’t want to be using this,” Randy said. “He’ll find your butt in a heartbeat, you start using his phone.”

  Acey nodded his understanding. “Smart,” he said.

  Acey glanced down at the wallet, the cash, the badge case,
the automatic, and the silencer. “What about this shit here?” he asked.

  Randy handed him back the phone and pointed at the glove box. “Put it all in there,” he said. After the kid had shoveled everything inside, Randy bent over and locked it.

  “So what’s your story?” the boy asked.

  Randy set the cruise control on sixty and settled back into the plush seat. “What story?”

  “The story where a couple of cops are bringin’ serious heat on your POS back there. You seen ’em. They was roustin’ your ass hard.”

  “What’s a POS?”

  “A ‘piece of shit,’ dog. Doan fuck wid me. What’s the deal?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “I got time.”

  Randy smiled and then told him, sort of like the Reader’s Digest abridged version. Took about five minutes. “So lemme see I got this lined up,” the boy said. “You doan know who the fuck you are.”

  “More or less.”

  “Mostly more.”

  “Yeah.”

  “All you got is the address of some crib in Cocoa Beach where this dude you think you might be…but you ain’t sure…might fuckin’ live.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Sheeeeet. You even more fucked up than me.”

  “Are you capable of forming a sentence that doesn’t include some form of the word fuck in it.”

  “Why the fuck would I wanna do that?”

  Randy threw a glance his way. The kid grinned. “I’m just clownin’ wid you, dog. Lighten up. Doan be getting brittle on me now.”

  “Brittle, huh?”

  “Where you goin’?”

  “I told you…Cocoa Beach.”

  “The address, dog. The address.”

  “Four thirty-two Water Street, Cocoa Beach, Florida. 32932.”

  The kid pushed a button on the dashboard. A panel slid upward revealing what looked like a small computer keyboard. The kid pushed some more buttons. A map and a set of directions shared the screen.

  “There you go,” the kid said. “Hundred eighty-one miles.”

  “Wow,” Randy said.

  “GPS,” Acey said.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “On Star.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Fucked if I know.”

  24

  The ambient light flickered. Kirsten looked up from the deposition she was reading. The estimable Bruce Gill didn’t wait to be invited in. He elbowed the door closed, crossed to the green leather chair, and plopped himself down. In general, if the D.A. wanted to see you, you were summoned to his office. Precedent for arriving elsewhere unannounced, while not unknown, was sufficiently unusual as to command Kirsten’s undivided attention.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  He pulled a sheaf of legal papers from the pocket of his suit jacket and dropped them into his lap. “You remember the Robbins case?” he asked.

  She silently repeated the name to herself several times. When nothing came into focus, she said, “Not really?”

  “Me neither.”

  “So?”

  “So we…you and I…are being hauled before the state ethics board.”

  “For what?”

  “Jury tampering. Suborning perjury and hindering prosecution.”

  “On this Robbins case?”

  “Yup.”

  “What’s the Robbins case?”

  “Remember…” He unfolded the document and peeked inside. “Nineteen ninety-nine. The guy named Neil Robbins owned a pawnshop. Guy who was using street people and junkies to commit burglaries for him.”

  “Okay…” she said, nodding. “I’ve got a glimmer. Guy was a real scumbag, as I recall. Identity theft. Lots of mailbox burglaries.” She slapped the desk. “Feds tried to hijack the case from us.”

  “Guy got out on appeal.”

  “I hadn’t heard.” She leaned forward and held out her hand. He made no move to hand the document over.

  “Let me save you the trouble,” he said. “The gist of the charge is that you and I took money…” She started to protest, but the D.A. held up a forestalling hand. “Me in the form of illegal political contributions and you in the form of a direct injection into an offshore account.”

  “In return for what?”

  “In return for creating enough doubt and confusion to virtually ensure the case would be reversed on appeal.”

  “Didn’t we get him fifteen, sixteen years, something like that.”

  “He did four months.”

  “Wasn’t Irving Reist his attorney?”

  “Yup.”

  “Irving’s good.” She spread her hands. “We don’t win ’em all.”

  His brow was knit and his face beginning to color. “Where in hell did this come from?” He leaned closer. “I don’t need this crap in an election year.”

  “Don’t look at me,” she said. “I was second chair. You made the case.”

  “It was a good case.”

  “That’s the way I remember it, too.”

  “It was also a damn good choice.”

  “What was a good choice?”

  “The Robbins case,” he said. “Whoever’s trying to bust our collective chops here chose a hell of a good case. Our witnesses were a bunch of winos and junkies. All of them with sheets; all of them willing to say whatever as long as the price was right.”

  “And most of whom we pressured into testifying against Robbins.”

  “Kind of people it’s easy to pressure.”

  “The case was solid.”

  He looked at her with an unspoken question in his eyes.

  “Not only all of that, but we resisted when the feds wanted to take over,” he said. “Like we had some agenda other than just the law.”

  “Wouldn’t take a leap of faith to see it that way,” she admitted.

  Not the answer he wanted to hear. “Where in hell did this come from?”

  “Don’t look at me,” she said. “I was just along for the ride.” She held up her right hand. “Not to mention the fact that I don’t have an offshore bank account. Hell, I’ve barely got an onshore bank account.”

  The D.A. waved her off as if to say she was preaching to the choir.

  A knock rattled the door. “Yeah,” Kirsten said.

  One of the pool secretaries entered. “For you,” she said, handing over an oft-used manila envelope to Kirsten. On other days Kirsten might have been amused by the look on the girl’s face when she realized who the other party in the room was, but not today.

  Kirsten thanked her. They watched her disappear.

  “If this is Morgan’s doing…” Gill muttered.

  Brent Morgan was a local personal-injury attorney who’d parlayed a series of earnest TV commercials and a complete absence of ethics into a multimillion-dollar practice and was the best bet to be running against Gill in the upcoming election. The courthouse rumor mill held that Morgan had a team of researchers electronically combing the incumbent’s past cases looking for anything they could parade before the public in the next election.

  “That would be a new low…even for Morgan,” Kirsten threw in.

  She unwound the little red string holding the envelope closed and pulled out a sheet of computer paper.

  “If that son of a bitch—” the D.A. began.

  “Whoa, Nellie,” Kirsten said.

  “Nellie who?”

  “Talk about timing.”

  He reached across the desk and snatched the paper from her hand. Under other circumstances, with other people, she could have taken offense. Bruce Gill, however, was used to being the big dog and generally expected a certain degree of forbearance regardless of the situation. Kirsten calmly sat back and watched as he read his way down to the bottom of the page.

  “Timing indeed,” he said when he’d finished.

  “You really think…?”

  He rattled the paper. “Tell me about this,” he said.

  Took about a minute to tell the ta
le of Helen Willis and Ken Suzuki visiting her office, of checking to see if any Wesley Allen Howard had been reported missing during the years in question.

  “First the carrot, then the stick,” Bruce Gill said.

  “Excuse?”

  “They tried to bribe both of us…exciting new job for you…expanded national exposure for me…” He paused to be sure she was with him and then continued. “…aaaaaand when we didn’t immediately jump on board…”

  “This thing shows up,” she finished.

  He got to his feet.

  “As you know…I don’t believe in coincidences.”

  “As you know…that makes two of us.”

  “End of carrot,” he said. “We had our chance to nibble and we didn’t. Now they’re gonna kick our ass.”

  “All they’re accomplishing is they’re getting my attention,” Kirsten said.

  His teeth were showing, but it wasn’t a smile. “You send the glass to IAFIS?”

  She shook her head.

  “Don’t tell me you threw it away?”

  She hesitated just long enough to make him sweat. “Yeah, sure,” she said, levering herself to her feet and retrieving the paper bag from the file cabinet.

  “Gimme that thing,” he said. “It’s about time we started getting a little more proactive around here.”

  “YES…I UNDERSTAND. Thank you.” Helen set the phone back on the desk.

  Across the room, Ken Suzuki read the news on her face. “Well?”

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “I’da thought…with all those names…” he began.

  “Me, too.”

  “What now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Any word on the fingerprints?”

  “No.”

  “I guess that takes longer.”

  She flicked a glance his way and then got to her feet and walked over to the sink, where she turned on the water as if to wash dishes. She hoped to hide her frustration, lest he misinterpret and think she was unhappy with him, which couldn’t be further from the truth. He was a dear man. Always trying to put a good face on things whether he believed it or not. She turned her head and smiled at him.

  “She didn’t make any promises anyway,” he reminded her.