The Meter Maid Murders

by Andrew Delaplaine

  He still had plenty of time to meet Alice, so he called her and told her he’d meet her in the usual place and that he’d pick up lunch.

  He drove down to SoFi (what the locals call “South of Fifth Street”) and double parked in front of Joe’s Stone Crab and dashed in to get some lunch: seafood bisque and crab cakes for Alice, shrimp salad for Bricker (they put a lot of dill in it). He added a slice of key lime pie for Alice, and got a huge, gooey chocolate chip cookie for himself.

  Then he drove down to the park on Government Cut and made his way with his bag of goodies through the park to a nice patch of grass shaded by a trio of closely planted coconut palms, just where the grass met the beach sand. Couldn’t be a more idyllic setting, thought Bricker, gazing out at the turquoise waters rolling into South Beach, then glancing warily over his shoulder, hoping no one would catch him with a meter maid.

  The sea was up, and the usually gentle rollers were surging into the beach now. A few surfers rode the turbulent waves, one wearing a yellow and black wet suit that really stood out. Twenty shades of greens and blues mixed in the water as clouds moved across, occasionally blocking the sunlight.

  He settled down on the grass and tried Billy again, then texted him. He got a text back saying Billy had been at Scilly Hall the past two hours covering yet another news conference with Governor Kudzue, Mayor Germane and Colonel Mouldy, where they were doubtless telling the populace to relax, they had everything under control.

  Alice showed up, her pretty blonde hair bouncing as she made her way to the shade beneath the palm tree. They kissed, Bricker looking over her shoulder to see that there were no onlookers. He didn’t want anybody to see her sneaking through the park to meet him.

  But someone did see her.

  Missy Cuthbert was making out with Slimy Salazar in his TWERP Towing truck behind a neck-high hedge of yellow and red hibiscus bushes, tossed by the rising wind.

  As Slimy grunted, nibbled her neck and pawed violently at her breasts—“Hey, take it easy, willya?”—she saw Alice come into view, and her eyes followed Alice as she made her way to Jake Bricker waiting under a palm tree by the roaring ocean.

  She saw Alice sit, kiss Bricker on the lips and then settle into his arms as they leaned back against a gently curving tree trunk.

  “Son of a bitch!” Missy said.

  “Whaaaat?” moaned Slimy without coming up for air.

  “Nothin’.”

  “We’re makom’ a lot of cash, Missy, you’n me.”

  “I know, Slimy, I know.”

  He finally raised his head to give her a big slobbering kiss, and at the same time pinched her nipple.

  “Hey! Motherfucker! Cut that shit out.”

  Meanwhile, down among the sheltering palms, Bricker and Alice wrapped up their lunch. Alice took a dainty bite of the creamy key lime pie, smooth-as-silk. Now she was getting much too sentimental for Bricker. She leaned her head against his shoulder.

  “You like me, don’cha, Jake?”

  “Of course I like you. I sleep with you, don’t I?”

  Alice purred into his neck.

  “We’re never gonna break up, are we, Jake?”

  He stroked her hair tenderly and kissed the top of her head, looking wistfully into the roiling waters and crashing waves.

  “Well, even if we do, we’ll always have Paris.”

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing. It’s—˝

  His cell rang. It was Billy.

  “Sorry, the press conference went on forever. What’s up?”

  Alice was pointing to her watch.

  “Hold on.”

  He put Billy on hold and gave Alice a quick kiss.

  “Later?” she said.

  “My place. I’ll call you.”

  She sprang to her feet and was gone.

  “I’ve gotta bring in Smarney Weiner, Billy. Just got to.”

  “What happened?” Billy had that “don’t tell me bad news” sound in his voice.

  “Bad news.”

  “He didn’t kill Fatso?” asked Billy.

  “He did.”

  “And where the fuck were you, asshole?” Billy demanded.

  “I was right there, standing on a rock looking in the back window at Fatso while she—˝

  “While she what?”

  “You don’t wanna hear it.”

  “You mean to say you saw him kill her?”

  “Well, I saw his hands. He wears black gloves.”

  “Black gloves?”

  “Black.”

  Well, why didn’t you fuckin’ stop him?”

  “I went to get him at the front door and he went out the back.”

  There was a pause on the line.

  “Well, it was a fifty-fifty chance, right?” He was begging Billy to understand. “Front door, back door.”

  “Fifty-fifty chance? You fuckin’ saw the killer and you didn’t catch him?”

  “Hey—˝ Bricker was getting defensive now. “I saw his hands ... his gloves. Not him.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ.”

  “Billy, enough of this shit. I’m gonna bring Smarney Weiner in. I don’t know why I let you talk me into waiting this long. All this shit could be over already, you’d be winning an Emmy and I’d be a captain by now.”

  “I still think you’re wrong about this guy Smarney.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ll meet you later at the Deuce and we’ll talk.”

  Billy abruptly hung up. Lately, Billy-Boy was doing everything “abruptly,” thought Bricker.

  Bricker leaned back against the coconut palm and looked out to sea, a pensive mood coming over him as the wind whipped through his thick wavy hair and the breakers surged into shore, a few whoops and hollers from the excited surfers reaching his ears over the great expanse of foamy water. He couldn’t see why Billy-Boy didn’t understand. He was trying as hard as he could.

  Fuck it, he thought, and started gathering the debris from lunch and noticed Alice had left half her key lime pie, so he finished that off and saved the chocolate chip cookie for later.

  As he got up with the carry-out bag from Joe’s holding the trash from their lunch, be noticed a TWERP Towing truck heading out of the parking area behind a hedge of hibiscus. He couldn’t make out the driver, but he did catch a glimpse of someone looking straight at him in the passenger seat which faced him: Missy Cuthbert.

  Fuck! he thought. I wonder how much she saw.

  About forty minutes later, Bricker was cruising up in the Lincoln Road area and saw a bevy of meter maids flocking to the big parking lot across from the Fillmore-Gleason Theater and behind the new Frank Gehry concert hall designed for the New World Symphony. Dozens of Cushman scooters descended on the area. The combined stuttering of their Cushman putt-putt-putts made them sound like a swarm of hungry locusts descending on a particularly nutritious cornfield. One of the locusts was none other than Missy Cuthbert, who was standing outside her meter maid mobile smoking a Marlboro Red and talking to Wimpy Wimpole. Obviously, something was up. Bricker pulled over and parked across the street under a shady oak tree and rolled down his window. A couple of birds sang in the branches above him, odd this late in the day. The air was heavy, still and moist.

  In a moment, Major Bunstable pulled up in her chauffeured Cushman Deluxe. The canvas top had been lowered, so when she grabbed the roll bar and stood up to address the meter maids, she bore more than a passing resemblance to Mussolini reviewing the troops before they embarked on their conquest of Ethiopia.

  As the meter maids formed up, Bricker saw Louie Lewis pull up in a rented car a hundred feet behind the gaggle of meter maids and roll down his window. He was obviously tailing Major Bunstable, who addressed the troops in a take-charge stentorian voice that rang like thunder bolts across the street.

  “All right, girls! What we have here today is a ‘perfect storm.’ We have a big winner here,” she announced. “Melissa Cuthbert, report!”

  “I checked with the house manager like
you told me, Major,” Missy spoke up.

  “And it’s as I said?”

  “Yes, ma’am. We got a Phantom of the Op’ra matinee goin’ on over there at the Fillmore, and the show runs three hours and eight minutes.”

  “Perfect. Just as I planned,” Bunstable beamed. “You see girls—uh, and Barney Weiner—all these meters where the customers parked are timed for a maximum of three hours. Knowing that Phantom runs two hours and fifty-four minutes, I merely asked the house manager at the Fillmore to extend the intermission by a few minutes. Thus, every meter in this lot will expire one minute before the show is over. By the time people get to their cars, we’ll be long gone.”

  “There are two thousand one hundred four people in the theater, Major,” said Missy, who now caught Bricker’s eye as he got out of his car and leaned against the hood. He clipped off the head of one of Guillermo Garza’s valued panatelas, and lit it. Missy nodded, a sly “busted you” glint in her stare. Bricker nodded back, trying to look as nonchalant as he could.

  Bunstable was rattling on, her voice a study in fanatical, fevered excitement and obsession.

  “And we have about nine hundred meters here. At eighteen dollars a ticket, we can write sixteen thousand, two hundred dollars in tickets in the next hour and a half.” Bunstable exhaled with great satisfaction. “A good day’s work, eh, girls?”

  The meter maids mumbled their subdued agreement.

  “And let’s not forget, girls—and Barney—this show runs for two weeks, eight performances a week. We’ll be here for every one of them, collecting the money due the city. Over the course of the sixteen performances, we ought to be able to write about two hundred sixty thousand dollars in tickets.” The major nodded to Missy. “All right, Melissa.”

  Missy turned to address the meters maids.

  “Okay, girls! Battle stations!”

  Missy Cuthbert wasn’t the only one to notice Bricker get out of his car and light up his Joyita. Louie Lewis saw him, too, and in no time was out of is car and crossing the street to speak to him.

  “How are you, Detective?” Lewis asked pleasantly, still with that creepy John Waters-Steve Buscemi smile with the snaggle-toothed yellow teeth. Bricker wondered that the FBI didn’t have a better dental plan. (You couldn’t beat the one the cops’ union negotiated with the slack-ass officials who represented the city.)

  “Doin’ just fine, Louie. And yourself?”

  “It’s a little warm for my taste.”

  “Well, you are wearing a black suit. And it is the middle of summer.”

  “Just habit,” Louie said, noticing that Bricker was dressed immaculately in a light blue Armani suit that fit him perfectly and wearing $500 shoes. “When you wear black, everything matches.”

  “Well, there’s that, I guess,” Bricker said.

  “Cigar smells pretty nice.”

  “Yeah. I like ‘em.”

  Lewis pulled out a pack of Winston Lights and Bricker beat him to the punch, lighting the cigarette with his gold Baume & Mercier lighter.

  “Nice lighter.”

  “My mom gave it to me for Christmas.”

  “What kind of cigar is that? I’d like to try one.”

  Bricker’d already removed the collar, so he was safe there.

  “Can’t remember. Just picked it up at random. Love to give you one, but this is my last.”

  Lewis paused as he looked over the cop.

  “I see you’re following the meter maids.”

  “Just trying to protect them. I see you’re doing the same thing.”

  “Just getting the lay of the land.”

  They chatted about nothing in particular for a few minutes, then went their separate ways, each highly suspicious of the other.

  Bricker didn’t like the little weasel.

  He went to meet Billy at the Deuce and let him talk him out of bringing in Smarney Weiner—again. But if he didn’t catch the guy in the act when he tried to kill the next meter maid, Bricker warned, he was hauling Smarney into the station house and charging the motherfucker.

  Billy agreed. One more chance.

  When he wasn’t following meter maids, Bricker spent a little time over the next few days tailing Slimy Salazar. On a slow day for towing—it was a Wednesday—he followed Slimy to the old Publix on Dade Boulevard. Slimy parked his truck and went in with two large plastic jars of coins, like those big jars of mustard you see at the Marlins game when you buy a hot dog. Bricker knew Publix had these coin counting machines. You brought your coins in—the odd change you throw into a jar when you get home from work every day—and dumped them into one of these machines. The machine counted up the coins, spit out a receipt, and you presented that receipt to the clerk who gave you cash.

  Slimy was out in fifteen minutes, probably with a thousand bucks in his pocket. Bricker then followed him to the Publix over in Sunset Harbour where he went through the same routine, going in with three big jars of coins this time and coming out a few minutes later with empty jars and more bucks in his pocket.

  Slimy then drove down to the Publix at Lenox and Fifth Street and went through the same process. And then he crossed the MacArthur Causeway and went to the Publix at Bay Point.

  At the end of this process, Bricker then followed the guy down to South Pointe Park where he went to the parking lot behind the hibiscus hedge and parked next to a meter maid scooter. Missy Cuthbert got out of it when he parked, gave him a kiss and took some of the cash from Slimy. They laughed it up for a minute and then drove off.

  Bricker pulled up to the hibiscus hedge after they left and took a look at the ocean. Missy’d had a clear view of him and Alice. He didn’t know if that mattered at this point, but it couldn't be good.

  He then caught up with Missy and followed her as she putt-putt-putted her way back to PMS HQ where she used her cell phone to call somebody. In a few minutes, Major Bunstable came out of HQ and Bricker saw Missy slip her an envelope. It was a crisp exchange. Bunstable went back into HQ and Missy hit the road again on her endless quest to inflict misery and extract money from the residents and clueless tourists of South Beach.

  18 – Missy and Wimpy Commiserate

  There was a noticeable chill in the air among the customers at the Dunkin’ Donuts on Sixteenth Street and Alton Road when meter maids Missy Cuthbert and Wimpy Wimpole came in to have their lunch.

  All the customers immediately changed their demeanor. Chatting happily with each other one minute, they became repressed and quiet, whispers replacing their normal tones. A few of them stared long and hard at the two meter maids, and Missy glared back at them ferociously.

  “Howyadoin’, Missy?” asked the clerk.

  “Fine, Cindy, how you doin’?”

  “So-so. Hiya, Wimpy.”

  “Hi, Cindy.”

  “Bavarian Kreme?”

  “I feel like the blackberry today,” said Missy. “What about you, Wimpy?”

  “Oh, I think I’ll have two crullers.”

  “Two black coffees?” asked Cindy.

  “No, I want cream. You’re thinking of Fatso,” said Wimpy. “She liked it black.”

  “A shame about Fatso. And the others,” said Cindy.

  “Scary,” Wimpy agreed.

  “Hey,” Missy jumped in, “when your time’s up, it’s up. At least it was quick.”

  Cindy turned to Missy.

  “You call electrocution quick, and let it go at that? What about the terror of the moment before she died? The indescribable horror that raced through her mortal soul in the few remaining instants she had before she passed into another world, a further dimension?”

  “Ohhhhhh,” Wimpy whined.

  “Shut yet face, Cindy,” snapped Missy. “You’re makin’ Wimpy worry. “Maybe I’ll have a cruller, too. Splurge. I might be next. Look, I didn’t say it was fun—what she went through—but it was quick...” Missy paused. “And maybe a honey-dip.”

  “How do you girls handle the stress?” asked Cindy.

  �
��Cindy, we’re meter maids, okay? We can handle anything. Look at what our average day is like and you get some kind of idea.”

  Wimpy shook her head, her bob cut bouncing around under her piss-cutter.

  “It’s no bed of roses.”

  “I hate roses,” Missy snarled.

  “Hey!” said a customer in line behind them. “How long you gonna hold up the line?”

  Missy turned to face him.

  “As long as we fuckin’ want, see?”

  She moved away to a table as Wimpy followed her, sipping at her coffee.

  As she sat down, Wimpy went into some kind of grotesque, paranoid, hallucinatory haze. The bright sunshine streaming through the plate glass windows fronting Alton Road faded into sepia tones. As her gaze moved from customer to customer, their distended faces took on the aspects of tortured gargoyles.

  “Meter maids hate everything!” hissed one such apparition.

  “Meter maids eat their young!” said another.

  “Meter maids are bitches!”

  “Meter maids are assholes!”

  “Meter maids are tools of the capitalist conspiracy!”

  “Meter maids are butt ugly!”

  Suddenly, all the other customers in the place started pelting Missy and Wimpy with their donuts.

  Everything blurred and faded as Wimpy slowly became aware that Missy was shaking her by the shoulders.

  “Wimpy! Wimpy! You okay?”

  She shook her head from side to side.

  “Oh! I guess so. Just a kind of dream, I guess.”

  “Snap out of it, girl.”

  “Can I have half your honey-dip? I really love honey-dips. They’re the best.”

  “How’d you ever decide to join the PMS Force, Wimpy?”

  “Oh, I was in a bad relationship, you know?”

  “Did he beat you?” Missy leaned in.

  “Um-hmm.”

  “Hard?”

  Missy nodded as she munched on a honey-dip.

  “Um-mm.”

  “A lot?”

  “Yeah. I took it for as long as I could until I finally decided there had to be something better. I wanted the kind of position where I could get some kind of respect. A sense of power.”