Bricker had just settled into his chair near the front of the briefing room and Chief Ramirez was beginning his usual morning spiel when there was a commotion outside in the hallway.
Suddenly, the briefing room door swung open and Mayor Johnny Germane and Matron of All the Meter Maids, Major Enid Bunstable, marched in followed by a handful of ass-licking aides.
“I was just going to say that the mayor wanted to speak to everybody this morning. Welcome, Mr. Mayor... and Major Bunstable.”
Ramirez got his fat ass out of the way and Mayor Germane took the lectern, holding the sides of the squared-off top and leaning slightly forward the way politicians always do when they stand behind lecterns, looking solemn. (It was none of Bricker’s business, of course, but he thought they all looked like Nixon in that pose, the one where he kept saying, “I am not a crook.”)
“Detectives, Major Bunstable and I just wanted to stop by to give you a little pep talk. We know you’re doing everything humanly possible to apprehend this vicious killer.”
Major Bunstable kept tapping her riding crop against her patent leather knee-high boots, throwing Germane off his speaking pattern a little. He glanced at her, his eyes drifting down to her boots. The tapping stopped. Her sour frown grew more sour.
Germane rattled on a while before he turned things over to Bunstable.
“As you all know, the city’s been trying to convert all of our parking meters from the old fashioned coin operated meters to a new wireless system. There’s been a leak in our security system, and our auditors tell us that we’re probably losing two million dollars a year to theft from the parking department.”
Whispers in the room.
Germane butted in and gently pushed Bunstable out of the way.
“And even though we’ve tightened up on security at the parking department, the losses are mounting. It had been our plan to assign more detectives to solve this problem, because without parking department revenue, the City of Miami Beach would cease to exist as we know it. But the meter maid murders come first, and as soon as we catch this nefarious killer, we’ll nab the son of a bitch who’s stealing our nickels, dimes and quarters!”
Germane was almost triumphant, and seemed a little taken aback when nobody applauded.
After Germane and Bunstable left, Ramirez took the lectern.
“Now, remember, people: no talking to the media.”
Everybody mumbled assurances.
“What about that pal of yours, Bricker?” Ramirez asked. “That Willoughby? I’m always seeing you two together.”
“Nah, it’s nothing, Chief. We’re old high school buddies.”
“You’re telling him nothing?”
“He asks, sure. I keep my mouth shut.”
“See that you do.”
The briefing ended.
Like what was he going to tell Billy? There was nothing to tell Billy. Billy already knew more than anybody in the room except for Bricker himself, and he was keeping it under his Trilby till he caught the fucking killer.
Bricker got into the parking garage and fired up a Joyita, lighting it with his gold Baume & Mercier lighter. He went to his car and drove over to the PMS HQ behind TWERP Towing. The last few days he’d been trying to figure out how to find out the daily routes of the meter maids running from Miss May to Miss December without arousing suspicion, so he thought the best way was to let the PMS Force know he was checking up on the security of their HQ.
He went inside the reception area, already pretty well fortified with bulletproof glass, and introduced himself to a not-so-ugly, in fact very cute and perky little blonde meter maid named Alice, manning the front desk.
“Oh, sure—I know you, Jake Bricker,” Alice fluttered.
He knew now exactly how he was going to keep fully up-to-date on the whereabouts of the meter maids he had to keep tabs on. Alice wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. (Most meter maids were single, it goes without saying—who had the stomach to come home to one of them?)
“I’m here—the chief sent me—to check on security here at PMS HQ. Why don’t you show me around?”
“I’d be happy to,” the poor thing gushed. “My break’s in ten minutes and I can show you all around the perimeter.”
This was going to be easy, Bricker thought. But then, everything came easy to Jake Bricker.
“That’s fine. I’d like that,” he added with a sexy twinkle in his eye, his dimples working their effortless magic. “I notice you’re not wearing the usual meter maid uniform.”
“Well, I’m actually a trainee. I’m enrolled in the Miami-Dade Academy of Parking Meter Science. So I’m more like an intern. I do office work here, answer the phones, and they don’t have to pay me.”
“No wonder you’re so pretty—you haven’t been subjected to the harsh realities of the street.”
Alice was positively numb with excitement.
“Why don’t you wait in the break room? Have a cup of coffee?”
“Great,” he said.
She led him into a large room behind reception that served as a combination break room, briefing room with lots of chairs lined up in rows, mail room, etc.
“Coffee’s right over there,” Alice smiled. “I’ll be right back.”
“I can’t wait.” He even winked.
She closed the door behind him, leaving him alone.
Maybe after sleeping with Jake Bricker, he thought, she’d come to understand there might be better things in life than the soul-deadening career she could look forward to as a meter maid. He let out a hopeful sigh. He was about to do another Good Turn.
He went over and pulled out the coffee pot to smell the coffee. Old and bitter. He dumped it and made a new pot, and as the water started to flow, he glanced above the coffee pot and saw the entire weekly schedule for all the meter maids.
Yes!
Sammy Succubus’s route was clearly marked. Sammy was working a Middle Beach section of town, up by the Fontainebleau and the Eden Roc. There were several huge city lots up there—huge potential revenue every day from unsuspecting tourists or stupid-ass kids from the mainland heading for the beach.
In a few minutes, Alice came in and gave him a tour of PMS HQ, inside all the rooms and even outside where he made a show of inspecting the perimeter fences. He took special note of the surveillance cameras outside, and when they were behind a tree and out of camera range, he took Alice in his arms.
“So, Alice, when do you get off duty?”
“At three,” she mumbled, looking star struck up into his gorgeous eyes.
“How about a late lunch?”
She just nodded and waited for him to kiss her.
Which, of course, he did.
Bricker met her down at Clarke’s, just enough out of the way.
Since Alice didn’t wear a meter maid uniform, nobody would know she was one (or almost one). But Bricker was taking no chances, and found himself thanking God it was so late in the lunch hour that the place was deserted except for a table with an older couple up front. He’d taken a table in the back of the restaurant, away from prying eyes.
Mike (bartending that day) eyed them suspiciously as he made a trip to the kitchen (Bricker never sat this far back), but he winked nonetheless.
Alice ordered the patty melt and Bricker had Laura’s rightly famous burger (rare) and drank three of her superb Bloody Marys (the secret ingredient was a dash of some kind of steak sauce). He wanted to dull the edge so he could take this meter maid home and fuck her good and solid.
He established that she was twenty-two, in her first semester at the Academy of Parking Meter Science, lived way down south in Kendall with her parents, so that meant they had to go to his place. It had been her dad’s idea to enroll in the Academy.
“He’s just trying to get me to earn a living so I can pay rent and help him pay off the mortgage.”
“You’re only twenty-two,” he offered, rubbing her thigh under the table when Laura wasn’t looking.
After lu
nch, he took her up to his cottage on Eighth Street and Lenox Avenue, an old Deco building from the late 1930s.
A gate led into a lush tropical garden planted by the gay guy who’d lived there before him, so his yard was totally invisible from the street. French doors at the top of a few steps led into the house. It was very Coconut Grove, very Key West.
The interior was “bachelor casual,” though the place had the softening benefit of a couple of Oriental carpets and antiques his mother and sister had given to him because they didn’t want to store them anymore. Large windows in every room looked out into the private garden.
Alice wanted a beer. She sat down awkwardly when he motioned to the sofa. Bricker’s cat Marilyn pounced onto Alice’s lap, giving her a start.
“Say ‘Hi’ to Marilyn Monroe.”
Alice smiled and started petting the black alley cat as Bricker went into the kitchen to get two beers. Marilyn started purring and the tip of her red tongue stuck out of her mouth.
“I think she likes me,” Alice said, stroking the cat.
“She’s got good taste.”
“How long have you had her?”
“About five years. My mom saved her from the pound and gave her to me... so I wouldn’t get lonely here in my little bungalow.”
“You’ll never be lonely, Jake Bricker,” Alice said, looking at him with that dreamy look girls get.
He came back and sat so close to Alice that his thigh was touching hers.
Alice hadn’t taken two sips of her beer before Bricker was all over her, kissing her deeply and massaging her breasts. Her groans of ecstasy got louder.
He pulled back, looked soulfully into her eyes.
“Alice, I... I...” he stuttered. Not knowing what to say, he just kissed her again. He knew that’s what women wanted from him anyway, not a speech.
His bedroom was on the southeast corner, so he got the good breezes coming off the Caribbean when the weather was right. And it was a beautiful late afternoon in May, with still a hint of spring in the air, and none of that heavy, stifling summer humidity.
Alice only got to drink about half of her beer before Jake took her into the bedroom, opened the windows to let the breezes in, switched on the ceiling fan above them and gently lowered her into bed, his lips stuck on hers like a vice grip while he performed all these maneuvers. (She didn’t seem to mind.)
“I can’t wait any longer, Alice,” he said urgently, passionately stripping their clothes off. He began making love to Alice the way she’d never had it before.
In the back of his mind Bricker was thinking he had to get this over with fast because he had to meet Billy at the Feinberg-Fisher court for some basketball at five-thirty.
6 – Sammy Succubus Takes Off!
Miss May, otherwise known to her friends and colleagues as Sammy Succubus, didn’t live on Miami Beach. Most of the people who worked on the Beach didn’t live there. Too expensive.
Bricker was happy to find out when he followed her home the first time that she didn’t live in Hialeah or Kendall—too fucking far away to be traipsing after her every night. Luckily for Bricker, Sammy lived just across the Julia Tuttle Causeway in a small rundown house with her elderly mother, Serena Succubus, in that iffy neighborhood west of Biscayne Boulevard on Thirty-third Street.
It was “iffy” because next to million dollar homes currently undergoing gentrification you were very likely to find five Haitian families in a two-bedroom house with chickens squawking around in the backyard. Bricker was never sure whether the chickens were to be used for religious ceremonies, or dinner, but what the hell? Didn’t matter to him.
But following her home every night was not up for debate. Because, whatever it took, Jake Bricker was determined to be at Sammy’s side when the meter maid murderer made his move. With the beginning of the New Moon, that meant twenty-four hour surveillance.
He was into his sixth day following her, day and night, and he was exhausted. Billy would spell him on occasion, but he was doing most of the work himself. He’d catch little naps from time to time, like when Sammy was in the PMS HQ where he knew she was safe, under the ever-watchful eye of Major Bunstable.
Sammy wasn’t scheduled to be working at night during the New Moon, so that meant she was probably safe when she was at home at night. But Bricker wanted to be sure, so when the New Moon came around, he staked out the house every night, all night.
He even followed her on her day off, not that it was very exciting. She did things like take her mom to the beauty shop, pick up the laundry, go to Publix, things like that.
Usually, he waited in his Crown Vicky whenever Sammy went into a store or shop, but when she stopped and went into Epicure, the gourmet market on Alton Road, he parked illegally and dashed in after her—it was Wednesday and on Wednesday Epicure had brisket, his favorite. Even better than his mom’s.
All Sammy ended up getting was four jars of their Roquefort dressing, nothing else. (Bricker looked at the ingredients later: the only difference between this and other blue cheese dressings was Epicure used buttermilk.)
He’d cased her house quite thoroughly. There was an alley in the back used by garbage trucks. There was a little half-basement, no more than crawl space beneath the old clapboard house built in the 1940s. He’d crawled through the bushes around the house, scoping out every possible angle the meter maid murderer might use to gain entry into the broken down little house. He even ruined a perfectly good tie crawling around in the dirt. He was just below an open window one night when he heard Sammy’s mom call out when she came home.
“Is that you, dear?” she warbled.
“Who the fuck you think it is, ma?” she’d said in no uncertain terms. “Bring me a beer.”
Sammy was about as feminine as Attila the Hun.
She did have a famous sister, however, who was also from Miami. Sara Succubus was senior host of The Morning Show, the top-rated morning news show in the country, broadcast from XYZ News HQ in New York. (Billy worked for the local affiliate of the XYZ Network, WHY-TV.) Bricker wondered how Sara could let her family live in such squalor—she must make $20 million a year.
Still, Sammy was a nasty piece of work. Must run in the family, Bricker thought. Just the way she treated her mom Serena was enough to turn Bricker’s stomach. If he hadn’t been so hell bent on catching the meter maid murderer, he’d just as soon let the killer have his way with Sammy.
But he had a duty. And his duty was to “Preserve and Protect.”
“Preserve your ass and Protect your pension.” That’s the way they looked at it in the department. There wasn’t much incentive for city employees to care about Miami Beach. Bricker was one of the few cops who actually lived in the city.
Across the street there was a little-used park, long ago abandoned by the City of Miami. Homeless people had taken it over, so when Bricker climbed a tree to have a good look at Sammy’s house, he had to throw some homeless guy off a branch he was sleeping on so he could get a good view.
Bricker watched the house day and night. He took pictures of the house so he could study it carefully. Anybody coming or going, he could see.
As he massaged a sore elbow pressed too hard against the branch he was perched upon, he reflected on his great good fortune: here he was in such an enviable position (not the one in the tree, but the one in re: the meter maid murders). A killer was at large. A serial killer, no less. National news. Worldwide news. But he, Jake Bricker, knew who the fucking target was ahead of time! How could he fail to catch a killer when he knew ahead of time who the fucking killer was going to kill?
Well, it seemed pretty cut and dried to Bricker, he ruminated as he watched Sammy’s silhouette pass a lighted window shade.
That’s why Bricker took it hard when he was awakened by a terrible explosion at two in the morning, his arm numbed by the pressure against the branch, as Sammy’s house exploded into smithereens, debris falling into the park and hitting some of the homeless guys there with two by fours and
roof shingles. (Bricker even found a piece of tarpaper on top of his Trilby when he got home.)
“Fucker went up like a rocket,” was what he told Billy later.
Of course, he’d had to sneak out of there with his fucking tail between his legs. How could he explain what the fuck he was doing there when the uniformed guys and fire department showed up?
He couldn’t.
So he skedaddled.
Next day, when he was tossing hoops with Billy and he asked him how he could have missed the meter maid murderer, he didn’t have a ready answer.
“All I can say is I couldn’t have got any closer to the bitch without gong to bed with her.”
But it wasn’t enough.
He didn’t like the look Billy gave him.
Obviously, the meter maid murderer had sneaked into the crawl space and planted a shit load of explosives.
Ka-Boom!
“What was left when the media showed up?” Bricker’d asked Billy.
“Left?” he’d said. “We couldn’t even find her sunglasses.”
“And the mother, Serena?”
“Dead like Sammy. You know, she was a former meter maid. It’s why Sammy when into the PMS Force.”
“A meter maid, huh?” Bricker said as he swished a smooth one from thirty feet. “So not a big loss.”
Billy just stared at him contemptuously with “that look” he’d been giving Bricker since high school.
The Meter Maid Murders Page 4
