by Paul Levine
"A sport fuck."
"You got that right."
"So there was a better chance of Nick coming back than if he found some divorcee looking for commitment."
She seemed to sigh. Her look spoke of lonely nights, of the anguish Nick caused her, of the love she still had for him. The brave front was crumbling. "It was almost as if I still had him. I liked Marsha. She'd tell me what they did, what he said about me. Usually he complained. I was always pushing him, he'd say, which was right. I pushed him to go to law school, to run for office. I pushed him to become the man he is."
"And then he left."
She nodded and turned her head away.
"Life never goes the way you plan it," I said.
I got that right, too.
CHAPTER 12
Alibis
I hit every red light for fifty blocks heading east toward Coconut Grove. They're timed that way by our traffic planners, who are either sadists or extortionists who get kickbacks from the oil and tire companies.
My little coral-rock house was dark, quiet, and hot. I turned on the lights, pulled the cord on every ceiling fan, and opened the windows. The soggy air inside was soon joined by soggy air outside. I turned on the eleven o'clock news just to have some background noise.
It had been a slow news day by local standards. No gangland executions, no cockfight raids, no riots in the streets. No DC-3s dropping bales of marijuana through the roofs of convents. Just the usual assortment of mondo bizarro Miami news.
Lead story, a woman nine months pregnant and just off the plane from Barranquilla, sitting in a wheelchair at the airport. She told the customs agent her stomach hurt. Any other city, they would have thought the woman was going into labor. Here, they asked what she had swallowed before leaving Colombia.
Condoms filled with cocaina, she reluctantly admitted.
How many, the agent asked.
Ciento diez, she said, beginning to cry.
The agent didn't believe her, but sure enough, after a handful of laxatives, agents recovered a hundred and ten condoms filled with nearly two pounds of cocaine. "The woman's a real swallower," the anchorman solemnly concluded.
Then there was the Green Thumb Gang, ripping up expensive plants from residential yards. Nick Fox's face appeared on the screen. "I'm declaring war on the black market for flowers and plants," he announced. "We'll have men working undercover at the flea markets, and we advise all citizens not to buy lilies or liriopes from anyone you do not know."
And rounding out the news, two highway attacks, only one a homicide. A woman tailgating in her Honda was shocked when the driver in front stopped his Nissan, walked back to her car, and wordlessly poured his coffee through the window and into her lap. Then a man in a Hyundai apparently turned left too slowly to suit the man in the Corvette behind him. After being hung up at a traffic light, the Corvette driver took chase and peppered the slowpoke with a burst of nine-millimeter shells from an Uzi.
"Stay cool on our hot highways," a police major was saying. "Don't blow your horn except for safety reasons. Never get out of your car unless absolutely necessary."
Welcome to Belfast. Or maybe Beirut.
I was glad there were no new stories about the Marsha Diamond case. Mary Rosedahl hadn't even made television and was awarded only four paragraphs in the Journal under the headline flight attendant slain. As long as we didn't release the Compu-Mate connection, the news media probably wouldn't link the two killings. Not that they weren't still pestering me. That very afternoon, a reporter, a photographer, and a grip from Channel 8 ambushed me outside the courthouse with camera rolling.
"Any new developments in the anchor-lady murder?" Rick Gomez yelled over the traffic.
I picked up my pace and cut toward the street, hoping to tangle Gomez's mike cord on a parking meter. "Your fly's open, Rick."
He looked down, cursed at his own gullibility, and tried again. "Is it fair to say the investigation is stalled?"
"We'll have an indictment about the time your paternity case comes to trial."
"C'mon, Jake! Gimme something I can use."
"Have you tried condoms?"
"Jake, please."
"See if they come in petite."
The grip was getting a charge out of this, even if Rick Gomez wasn't. If nothing else, they could show it on the blooper reel at the station's Christmas party.
I jaywalked across Miami Avenue, cut close to a city cop on horseback, using him as a pick like in a basketball game. Gomez, a veteran street reporter, stayed on my heels. "Critics have questioned your qualifications to head the investigation."
"So has my granny."
"How many homicides have you prosecuted?"
"Same number of Emmys you've won."
I was within sight of my office building, but Gomez wouldn't give up. "There's a rumor that the state attorney couldn't handle the Diamond case because of his personal involvement with the victim. Care to comment?"
"I heard a rumor that you got run out of the Atlanta market after an incident with a fifteen-year-old cheerleader."
"Jake!"
I hit the revolving door and left Gomez and his crew in the heat of Flagler Street. I was halfway to the elevator when I heard his plaintive cry: "She was seventeen, you second-string son of a bitch!"
***
With the TV still jabbering in the background, I prepared dinner in a kitchen so small the roaches walk in single file. I opened a can of tomato soup and a can of tuna. The Grolsch comes in a bottle, so I didn't open any more cans.
I heard the weather guy explain how it would be ninety-two with an eighty percent chance of afternoon thunderstorms. He could have mailed it in.
The anchorman was inviting me to stay up late and watch a comedian tell semi-dirty jokes when the glare of headlights swung through the front window, a set of brakes squealed, and rear tires kicked up gravel where my lawn is supposed to be. Cops like to make entrances.
Alejandro Rodriguez walked in, helped himself to a beer, and nearly said thank you. He ran a hand through his short black hair and removed his made-for-Hollywood reflecting sunglasses, which was a good idea, since it was close to midnight. He tossed his wrinkled sport coat over a chair and removed his rubber-soled oxfords. Then he turned off his portable two-way radio, crackling with police jargon, threw down a crumpled old briefcase, and dropped into the sofa to watch TV. At the first commercial he said, "What's black and brown and looks good on a lawyer?"
"Dunno."
"A Doberman."
He had another beer, and at the second commercial he asked, "What's the difference between a rooster and a lawyer?"
"Dunno."
"The rooster clucks defiance."
I was running out of beer, so I was happy when he stood up, turned off the tube, and simply said, "Passion Prince is an English professor with a potbelly."
Then he opened the briefcase, removed a file, and slid it across my sailboard, which, when propped between cinder blocks, makes a fine coffee table. I lifted the porcelain top on my last sixteen-ounce Grolsch, sat down, and started reading. Rodriguez had handled the old-fashioned gumshoe work himself, checking out the nighttime callers. Four to Marsha Diamond, nine to Mary Rosedahl the night each was killed. Two men chatted with both. Biggus Dickus never left his house either night, Rodriguez said. His wife corroborated the alibi. Wife?
They played the game together. Biggus bedded down the women, conversationally at least. They talked it right down to panting, penetration, and popping. The missus did the men. Made them both so hot, they'd get off together. For real.
Oh.
Of the other ten men, seven had alibis that also checked out. That left Passion Prince, Harry Hardwick, and Tom Cat. Passion Prince was Gerald Prince, fifty-one, an English professor at Miami-Dade Community College. Other than Biggus Dickus, the only man to talk to both women the night they died. Divorced, lives alone. No criminal record. Expressed shock at the deaths, Rodriguez said, but seemed to enjoy the attention. W
as home alone at time of both killings. Or, in the words of Rodriguez's report, "Subject allegedly asleep between 2300 hours and 0600 on dates of homicides, no corroborating witnesses."
"Does Prince teach poetry, by any chance?" I asked.
"Nope. I checked. Specializes in theater."
I turned to the next file. Harry Hardwick was Henry Travers, forty-six, retired postal worker on full disability. Ordinarily found at the horses, dogs, or jai alai, depending on the season. Never married, no criminal record. Willing interview subject. Admits computer connection with Mary Rosedahl early on evening she was killed. Claims to have been at jai alai, maybe on way home at time of homicide.
Tom Cat was Tom Carruthers, thirty-five, wilderness guide. Never married, one arrest for assault in a tavern brawl, case dismissed. Refused to be interviewed, or as Rodriguez wrote, "Subject provided minimal assistance and informed undersigned officer to 'fuck off, asshole.'"
"What do you think?" I asked Rodriguez.
He sighed and stretched out on the sofa, one tired cop. "I don't know. Travers and Carruthers spoke only to Rosedahl, so you gotta start with the professor because of the double match. The retired guy walks with a limp and would have a hell of a time attacking anybody. The outdoorsman is a hardass, one of those survivalist freaks with about thirty guns, but..."
"Nobody got shot here."
"Right." Rodriguez grazed his chin with the back of his hand, scratching his five o'clock shadow plus seven hours. "And another thing. You deal with enough homicides, you get a feeling. Like you can talk to a guy and you just know he's a killer. I don't get that feeling here, not with any of them."
"I'm told that psychopaths can be very charming."
"None of them's exactly a charmer either." He paused, then said, "One's a weirdo, though."
"Which one?"
"Don't know, but look at this."
Rodriguez shoved a sheet of computer paper in front of me. "The crime-scene guys got this to print out of Mary Rosedahl's computer. According to the directory, it was her last Compu-Mate conversation. She saved it into hard memory about two hours before she was aced."
HELLO, FLYING BIRD, CARE TO CHAT?
SURE. HAVEN'T SEEN YOU AROUND THE CLUB BEFORE, HAVE I?
NO. WHAT DO YOU DO FOR FUN, OH SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH?
JOG, WORK OUT, RIDE.
RIDE?
YOU KNOW, HORSES.
AH, FLYING BIRD. EQUUS THE KIND...THE MERCIFUL!
WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?
EYES LIKE FLAMES. GOD SEEST!
ARE YOU ONE OF THOSE BORN-AGAIN GUYS? 'CAUSE I GOTTA TELL YOU THAT SHIT DOESN'T
EQUUS...NOBLE EQUUS. GOD-SLAVE...THOU GOD SEEST NOTHING!!!!
OH FORGET IT. NICE CHATTING. SIGNING OFF NOW...FLYING BIRD
"A real sicko, huh," Rodriguez said. "Wish she had mentioned his handle. Which one you think—" "Rod, that English prof, what's his name?"
"Prince, just like his handle."
"You say he teaches theater?"
Rodriguez flipped open his file and read aloud. "'American and British Drama, 1930 to 1980.'"
"Thought so."
"That shit's from a play?"
I nodded. "He's playing the disturbed boy. Trying to get Mary Rosedahl to be the psychiatrist, but she doesn't know the lines, has no idea what he's talking about."
"I got no idea what you're talking about," Rodriguez said. "Galloping horses. Passion. Seeing in the dark."
"Huh?"
"Welts cut into a boy's mind by flying manes."
"Sounds like you're the one needs the psychiatrist," he said.
"In due time," I said. "In due time."
CHAPTER 13
Truth and Illusion
I slid into an empty seat in the back row of the classroom and got my first look at the Prince of Passion. Gerald Prince had a fine thatch of silver hair swept over his ears, a florid complexion, and a face that had clearly been handsome in his youth. His shoulders were rounded and the brown sweater was threadbare at one elbow. A paunch hung over his belt, and the pants were baggy in the seat.
He was pacing in front of the class on an elevated stage, wagging a finger at a skinny young man near the front. About thirty students were scattered throughout the classroom in various stages of semi-somnolence. "And what does the playwright tell us about truth versus illusion?" The voice surprised me. Strong, resonant, a hint of a British accent. An aging actor, a tired Jason Robards maybe.
The young man shook his head. "No se, man."
"Now, Mr. Dominguez," Prince sang in soothing tones, "did you read the play?"
Sí, sort of."
"And its theme? Its meaning? What did it say to you?"
"That bitch, man. Liz Taylor. What a ballbuster."
A few laughs from around Dominguez. I saw him only from behind. Dark hair short on the sides, a tail in back.
The professor strutted across the bare stage, coming closer to his student. "You're talking about Martha?"
"Si, Martha. I rented the video, man. I thought something was wrong with my Sony till I figured it was in black-and-white."
Prince's theatrical sigh carried to the back row. He spread his arms, threw back his head, and wailed, "'Blinking your nights away in the nonstop drench of cathode-ray over your shriveling heads.'"
"Huh?"
"Never mind. I suppose it's better to have seen a few fleeting images than not to have encountered the playwright's words at all."
"I liked it okay."
"Good. Edward Albee will be pleased. And its theme, Mr. Dominguez? Its message?"
Dominguez scratched his head with a pencil. "No se, pero, si fuera mi esposa, I'd have popped her one, the way that bitch talked."
The class mumbled its agreement. Prince shook his head and turned to another student, a young black man in the front row.
"Mr. Perry, your review of the play?"
"What it is," Perry said, "talking trash like that, putting him down. My old lady do that, she'd be seeing stars. That George character, no balls."
"No cajones," Dominguez agreed, and his classmates—at least those who were conscious—mumbled their agreement.
"Has it occurred to any of you," Prince asked, quite certain that it had not, "that the conflict between George and Martha, the humiliation Martha heaps on him, is essential to their relationship? That they relieve the tedium with it? That it is part of their game?"
The classroom was bathed in silence.
Prince went on; "What does Martha say about her abuse of George in Act Two?"
A thin black woman next to me called out, "That he can stand it, that he married her for it."
"Yes!" Prince boomed.
For a moment his eyes seemed to catch the light, and his shoulders straightened. "Thank you, dear girl. Then, in Act Three, 'George who is good to me, and whom I revile, who understands me, and whom I push off, who can make me laugh, and I choke it back in my throat, who can hold me at night, so that it's warm, and whom I will bite so there's blood.'"
Prince paused, then asked, "What does it all mean? What is the play about?"
"Conflict," the woman suggested tentatively.
"Yes, yes, and more." Prince moved from center stage and descended three steps toward his students, never looking down. He had been on stages before, I thought, had vaulted landings on rickety sets, and now had settled for a final run in front of a polyglot of nineteen-year-olds for whom high culture was MTV.
"Conflict is the purifying flame," he nearly shouted, heading toward the young woman next to me. "Conflict separates truth from illusion, fact from fantasy. Now, what are their illusions?"
"They pretended to have a child," the woman said. "And George had fantasies about all sorts of things. That he killed his parents, that he sailed the Mediterranean."
"Yes, and when Martha says, 'Truth and illusion, George, you don't know the difference,' what does George respond?"
The class was silent, so I piped up, "'We must carry on as though we did.'"
> Prince whirled, scanned his audience, found me, wrinkled his forehead, and asked, "Do they?"
"Yes, but only for a while," I answered. "Eventually they must confront the illusions, strip them away from their relationship. They have no son. George will never be a great writer or even a decent professor. Martha's early dreams are lost in fogs of booze. They must face life the way it is."
The young woman next to me chimed in, "No matter how painful, they must face the truth. In the end all is truth."
Prince raised his arms in triumph. Two or three students nodded their heads vigorously. They understood. The rest had that empty stare of the young. It had been, after all, forty-five minutes without physical movement, roughly nine times the attention span of most adolescents.
Prince strutted back toward the stage, and Dominguez called out.
"I get it, man. But who the hell's this Virginia Woolf?"
***
Gerald Prince ordered Plymouth gin on the rocks and not for the first time. Up close, the florid complexion was crisscrossed with tiny, engorged veins. The eyes—if they had any color at all—were gray. The brown sweater smelled of tobacco, the fingernails were long and stained. He had snapped at the luncheon invitation, and I brought him to a bayfront restaurant downtown. Near us, bankers and lawyers feasted on expense-account lunches of rack of lamb with mint jelly.
"Even from the stage, I spotted you—the stranger—in back of the class," he said with a sly grin. "In my day, I could see right through the floodlights. One summer in Maine, in a barn—literally a barn—I saw a woman with glorious red hair, fifth row center. Three nights in a row she came. We were doing Long Day's Journey into Night."
