The Meter Maid Murders

by Andrew Delaplaine

  “By being a meter maid?” Missy asked, incredulous.

  “Well, at least when they shit on you, they have to pay a ticket. Why did you become a meter maid?”

  “I dunno. My dad was a cop, in Jersey. When I was a kid I wanted to grow up like him. He was so big, so masculine.”

  “You’re big and masculine,” Wimpy said, sipping her coffee.

  “But when I grew up, my grades weren’t good enough for college. I tried to get into the Police Academy, but my grades weren’t good enough for that, either. But there were a coupla openings in the PMS Force. So here I am.”

  “How long you been in?”

  “Eighteen long years, Wimpy.”

  “Two more and you’re out with a pension.”

  “If the meter maid murderer doesn’t get me first. One thing he’s done, he’s got everybody in America talking about meter maids. If it keeps up much longer...” her voice trailed off. “I dunno, I had a dream last night. That Mattel was coming out with a new Meter Maid Doll. It would outsell that Barbie bitch. Only it would come with a knife in the package and when you opened it, you’d stab the meter maid to death.”

  Wimpy looked at Missy for a long moment.

  “Eeuuuw,” she finally croaked.

  “Yes, Wimpy, this is a sick country.”

  Over the next few days, Bricker went through his list of contacts to see if he knew anybody well placed enough to find out how often Louie Lewis had made trips to Miami in the past six or seven months. But he had to tread lightly. Louie Lewis was not just a freak that looked like a cross between John Waters and Steve Buscemi. He was FBI Special Agent Louie Lewis. Bricker was a mere detective sergeant on the Billion Dollar Sandbar, the lowest of the low in law enforcement in a place people joked as being nothing more than a “Sunny Town for Shady People.”

  It turned out the information was as close as Boobs McCoy’s tits, so to speak, right under his nose.

  “What’s-a-matter, Pussy-Boy?” she asked one day, leaning that stupendous rack over the bar in his direction. So close and yet so far away, he thought. She didn’t even do her two-cube dance with him. “You look a little glum.”

  “I am. Tryin’ to find out how often this FBI special agent’s been comin’ down to Miami and I don’t know anybody who can find out.”

  She gave him a quizzical look.

  “Lissen, sweetie, I’ll get Rwanda to find out.”

  “How would she know any of this?”

  “That bitch knows everything.”

  She went back to get her cell phone, called Rwanda Tutsi-Hutu, and put her on the case.

  Thirty minutes later Boobs’s cell phone tinkled and she answered, writing down the details.

  “Here ya go, Pussy. The guy’s been down here at least once a month since January, sometimes twice.”

  “Really?” said Bricker, clearly surprised, taking the two bar naps from Boobs and looking at the dates scribbled down.

  “Yep. Rwanda says you owe her, big-time.” She filled his glass to the rim with Ezra Brooks, gave him a friendly wink, said “On the house,” and walked back to the dyke she’d been talking to before at the other end of the bar.

  The copycat killings began to spread from city to city—from Maine to Arizona, from Key West to Juneau. Though Congress was in recess, President Quince went on the air in a nationally televised address to warn mayors and governors that he was prepared to call Congress back in session and that he’d seek authority to use the Armed Forces to ferret out these meter maid murderers if they couldn’t do it on the local level.

  And though some of the killers were regularly caught in other cities, the one in South Beach continued to elude law enforcement personnel. Quince also said he’d ask Congress to pass a new law: that the killing of a meter maid, in no matter how small the town, henceforth would be considered a federal crime, with the death penalty in force.

  “The economic underpinning of the American way of life is at stake,” he said, looking seriously into the camera. “We shall not—we cannot—afford to fail.”

  The relentless media coverage, led by Sara Succubus on the XYZ News morning broadcast in New York, was blistering. Every morning in the first half hour she had a segment detailing the latest murders (and other affronts) suffered by meter maids the world over.

  After a couple of days following Louie Lewis as he tailed various meter maids, Bricker was convinced this was the guy. Okay, he admitted now, he’d been wrong about Smarney Weiner, dead wrong. Lewis had an abnormal obsession with meter maids. He followed them at all hours of the day or night.

  Finally convinced he was on the right track, Bricker stormed into Chief Ramirez’s office one morning.

  “Well, well, well,” said an unimpressed Rwanda. “What brings yo’ sorry ass up here, Bricky-Man? You fin’ us a meter maid murderer?”

  “As a matter of fact, my sweet Rwanda, I have,” he smiled a cocky smile, “and I want to surprise the chief.”

  He moved toward the chief’s door impulsively as Rwanda beckoned for him to hold back.

  “Wait! You can’t go—˝

  Bricker swung open the chief’s door dramatically and marched into Ramirez’s office with a confident glow on his face. The chief was sitting at his desk, obviously engaged in some other business.

  “Whatever you’re doing, Chief, drop it! I’ve got news for you.”

  “Ramirez leaned his bulky frame far back in his black Office Depot fake leather-like chair. A spring groaned under his rice-and-beans belly.

  “I guess you arrested the meter maid murderer, because if you didn’t, you’re gonna have to explain why the fuck you think you can barge into my office without Rwanda announcing you.”

  “I have found the meter maid murderer, Chief. I haven’t arrested him yet. I wanted you to be with me when I make the collar.”

  Ramirez nodded his head doubtfully.

  “Okay, I’m waiting.”

  Bricker approached the desk and put his palms down on it, leaning over the chief.

  “A very sneaky, sinister guy, Chief. And right under our nose all the time. It’s Special Agent Louis Lewis.”

  Bricker straightened his shoulders and crossed his arms across his chest, a goofy grin spreading across his face.

  Ramirez nodded doubtfully.

  “Well, we better be sure he doesn’t escape, right?”

  “That’s right, Chief. If I were you, I’d call out the SWAT Team and let’s go get this guy.”

  “Oh, I don’t think that’ll be necessary. Just go lock the door to my office and he won’t get away. He’s standing right behind you.”

  Bricker’s smile flickered and he turned around tentatively. Louie Lewis had been standing right beside the door when Bricker walked through it, but he hadn’t been looking there—he’d been looking at the chief.

  Lewis’s smile was a piece of work. It started off with lips curling up for a laugh, then turned into a pursed lip look, finally settling for a twisted snarl. He approached Bricker and held out his hands.

  “I hope you didn’t leave your cuffs at home, Detective Sergeant,” Lewis hissed, gratuitously emphasizing the word “sergeant.”

  “Yeah, why don’t you go ahead and book ‘im, Danno,” said the chief with a weary shake of his head.

  “Would you like to explain to me and the chief, Detective, why exactly you think I’m the meter maid murderer?”

  Bricker had momentarily lost his voice.

  “Uh, well, I ... uh, you see...”

  “For God’s sake, Bricker, spit it out,” said the chief. “And this better be good.” The chief couldn’t control a big belly laugh.

  “I saw him tailing one meter maid after another.”

  “And I saw you tailing one meter maid after another, Bricker. By that definition, you’re as likely to be the meter maid murderer as I am.”

  “Well, but ... I work here. You flew down to do it.” Bricker wasn’t going down without a fight. He had proof, damn it! “I checked your flights into M
iami, and you’ve made at least one trip a month since January when the murders started, long before the FBI sent you in to advise on this case.”

  Ramirez cleared his throat. Bricker looked around to him.

  “And how is your sick mother, Louie?”

  “She’s better, even since she was diagnosed with skin cancer in January. My visits every month have really cheered her up.”

  “Yes, give her my best,” said Ramirez.

  “Your mother?” Bricker eeked out.

  “Now, if you don’t mind, Bricker,” Ramirez said, his temperature rising precipitously, “get the fuck outta my office!”

  “Sorry,” Bricker said to Lewis, and with his tail between his legs, walked out, closing the door behind him.

  Rwanda, who’d heard the whole sordid episode through the open door, looked at him like a fool.

  “I tol’ you not ta go in there, fool.”

  Before he could answer, the door opened and Lewis stepped out.

  “I’ll tell my mother you asked about her, Chief, thanks,” he said, closing the door. He turned and looked at Bricker with complete disdain, then walked right by him without a word. Then, thinking better of it, he turned around and said, “Don’t crowd me, Detective Sergeant. Unlike you, I know what I’m doing.”

  Then, after a deadly glance at Rwanda, he turned and left.

  Bricker didn’t think it was necessarily for Lewis to spit out the word “sergeant” quite the way he did, but he let it pass.

  19 – Bricker Loses Another Round

  Soon enough it was the first day of another New Moon.

  “I’m covering a story in the Design District. Meet me over here for lunch,” Billy practically ordered Bricker.

  “What’s up?”

  “I got another letter from the meter maid murderer.”

  “Okay—where do we meet?”

  “Joe Allen?”

  “Sure, that’s really good.”

  Bricker’d let Billy-Boy talk him out of hauling Smarney Weiner in, so Bricker’d gone out and found another suspect, Louie Lewis, and look how that ended up!

  And even though the evidence was slim for both suspects (Bricker was all about hunches when there wasn’t any evidence), he still thought it was a mistake not to finger the snarky meter mister as the killer to begin with. Then he wouldn’t have embarrassed himself in front of the chief.

  Bricker slid into the cool little restaurant and nodded to the manager, Drew, who knew that Bricker would seat himself at the bar. Bricker saw two empty seats at the very far end, went down and got them and ordered up what they called “pizza bread,” which was pizza dough rolled paper thin, slathered with olive oil and garlic and put under the boiler for a couple of minutes. Tasty. Al, the other floor manager who was tending bar, had just brought his second Sam Adams draft by the time Billy plopped down in the bar stool next to him.

  “You want a Stella, William?” asked Al.

  “Yeah. Thanks, Al.”

  Al went back to draw the beer.

  “Okay, let’s see it,” Bricker said.

  Billy handed the letter over.

  Bricker read:

  “‘The next one is condemned to a slow and painful death. I know you’ve been to Bricker. Catch me and win an Emmy! You’re a pathetic loser. Is he in Heaven or is he in Hell? That damned elusive Pimpernel!’”

  Bricker looked up at Billy.

  “What the fuck’s the ‘damned elusive Pimpernel’?”

  Billy frowned.

  “You never heard of him? ´Course not. You don’t know old movies.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  Al waiter returned and put down Billy’s Stella Artois.

  Billy took a healthy drink, followed by a deep satisfying sigh.

  “Al, lemme have the bacon burger medium rare with cheddar cheese,” Bricker said.

  “And I’ll have the tuna tartare and the steak sandwich, medium,” said Billy.

  “Sure thing, guys,” said Al, who drifted away.

  “It’s from an old book, an old movie, The Scarlet Pimpernel. Leslie Howard was in it. You know, the guy that Scarlett O’Hara loved in Gone With the Wind instead of Clark Gable? Ashley Wilkes?”

  “I don’t think I ever saw this movie, what’s it?—The Scarlet Pimpernel? But I’ll get it and look at it later tonight.”

  “Tonight’s the first night of the New Moon. You have to follow Miss September.”

  “Oh, yeah. That’s right. I’ll get it right after lunch—if I can find it.”

  “Call me when you get it and I’ll come to your house.”

  “Right.”

  Bricker went home and ordered The Scarlet Pimpernel through Netflix (it wasn’t available to stream online), but he didn’t want to wait a day for it to arrive, so he drove over to Fifteenth and Alton to what had to be one of the last Blockbuster video stores in America to see if they had it.

  There was some young guy with way too many piercings behind the counter. He obviously didn’t know that Bricker was a cop, not the way he kept flirting after Bricker’d innocently smiled at him. It’s the dimples, thought Bricker, for sure it’s the dimples.

  “I want The Scarlet Pimpernel.”

  “Huh?”

  “The Scarlet Pimpernel.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “Well, it’s old. Thought you guys would have it—you’ve got everything else. Leslie Howard was in it. You know, the guy that Scarlett O’Hara loved in Gone With the Wind instead of Clark Gable?”

  “Clark Who?”

  “Clark Gable.”

  “Clark Kent?”

  “No. Clark Gable. He’s dead.”

  “Clark Gable—yeah.” A light came on somewhere inside the guy’s head. Maybe he was getting microwaves through is piercings, Bricker thought. “What was he in?”

  “Gone With the Wind. And something else, I’m sure.”

  “We’ll, if he’s dead it would be in our Classics Section—over there on the right. If we have it.”

  “I don’t want Gone With the Wind. I want The Scarlet Pimpernel.”

  “Well, it would be there, too.”

  “John Belushi’s dead and he’s not in your Classics Section.”

  “Yeah, he is.”

  Bricker went and found the movie. An old black and white picture from 1934 starring Leslie Howard, Merle Oberon and Raymond Massey.

  He called Billy and they agreed to meet at his house in an hour.

  Before he went home, Bricker went around the corner from the Blockbuster store to Cha Cha Cha Café & Grill for a cup of chicken soup (the guy used his grandma’s recipe and called it Sopa de Pollo de la Abuela, and boy, was it good!). $3.50. As good as David’s Café and way better than Epicure, where they can’t put any salt in anything because all the old people that go there complain about the salt. So none of the soups have any flavor. He also grabbed a medianoche (a sandwich named after the word “midnight,” though Bricker wasn’t sure why). Anyway, it was good. He scarfed the sopa down along with the medianoche and rushed home, stopping only to pick up a six-pack of Anchor Steam at the Alton Road Market run by some Bangladeshis or Indians or Pakis, or whatever they were, Bricker wasn’t quite sure, and by the time he pulled into his parking spot by his house, Billy’d arrived and was getting out of his car.

  “You get some beer?” Billy asked.

  “Yeah, right here.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Bricker handed the DVD to Billy as he opened the French doors.

  Billy went straight to the TV and turned it on, along with the DVD player.

  The movie began.

  Halfway through, Billy said:

  “You hungry?”

  “It’s four o’clock in the afternoon—why would I be hungry?” feeling guilty that he’d just had a bowl of Sopa de Pollo de la Abuela as well as a medianoche, but he didn’t tell Billy that. “We’ll get something when the movie’s over.”

  When they were half way through the movie, Bricker hit the “pa
use” button.

  “I don’t get it. Is there a lead here?”

  “Let’s finish watching it, then we’ll get Italian from Bella Napoli on Alton Road.”

  “Okay.”

  Bricker hit the “play” button on the remote and The Scarlet Pimpernel resumed. He clipped the head off a fresh Joyita and lit up.

  “Do you have to smoke that thing?” Billy asked with a sneer.

  “Yes,” Bricker replied blithely.

  “What do you call those things? Montecristos? Right?”

  “This is a Joyita, a short Montecristo. A panatela.”

  “I thought Montecristos were these long stogies.”

  Bricker shook his head sadly.

  “Joyita is a type of Montecristo, but there are many Montecristos besides this one. You’ll never appreciate how special these things are to me.”

  When the movie was over, Bricker still didn’t get it. He went on:

  “Maybe I’m wrong, but the only thing I can come up with is that the meter maid murderer is somebody that everybody basically knows. But they don’t really know him. They see him in one role, so to speak, doing what he does as that person. But then he’s this other person that they’re all trying to catch. So he’s really two people.”

  Billy blinked furiously. He’s getting close, he thought. He’s getting close! C’mon, Jake, old buddy. You can do it!

  “So you think he’s somebody prominent?” Billy asked.

  “Well, Leslie Howard’s prominent in the movie when he’s acting like a prissy fag, so yeah, best I can figure.”

  “That means I would know him? Or you would know him?”

  “Or we both would know him. But he sent you the letter.”

  “He said before he knows I came to you. So he knows I’d bring you the letter.”

  Bricker paused as he mulled over the facts, drew on his Joyita and blew smoke in Billy’s face.

  “He’s trying to tell us that he’s right under our nose. That I could reach out and touch him.”

  Bricker put his arm on Billy’s shoulder.