by Ralph Zeta
I looked at the popcorn ceiling and the dingy floors and wondered the same. “Compassion?” I finally suggested. “Look, all I know is, she needs help and I’m here. Let’s leave it at that.”
“So is it pity, then?” The woman didn’t mince words.
I shrugged.
“Pity,” Mrs. Mullen said, shaking her head. “Worst of all possible traps, Mr. Justice.”
Maybe so. Elizabeth had bet the farm in a rigged game and lost big. She didn’t deserve that. Still, bad things happened to good people every day, and I couldn’t possibly help them all. But I was here. I had started something, and I would finish it.
Mrs. Mullen finally agreed to look after our ward, and we settled on a fee. I told her I had checked Elizabeth’s bank statements and there seemed to be sufficient funds to pay outstanding bills and buy groceries for quite some time. I gave her one of my business cards and asked her to keep me posted.
On my way out, I stopped for a moment in the small entryway. I stood there among the planters of dead flowers as a white Ford Econoline van bearing the local gas company logo drove slowly down the wet street, its driver obscured by rain and mist.
The sky was still a murky shade of gray. It was raining again, but the angry winds had died. Maybe the storm would soon be over. I hunkered against rain, and Sammy and I jogged out to his black SUV. It was time to follow yet another lead. I prayed this one would lead us straight to the ghost we hunting.
Something way deep in the back of my mind told me it would.
Seventeen
Our search for Lowell Pinkus, Esquire, was a complete bust. The telephone number on the business card Elizabeth had given me was answered now by an accounting firm. The law firm had dissolved long ago, and a nationwide search did not produce any records of a Lowell Pinkus ever having been a member of any state bar. The absence of such records suggested something I already suspected; Baumann may not be working alone.
Subsequent searches for Mr. Pinkus, as well as a quick check of several private telephone and credit report databases available to professional investigators, anxious debt collectors, and law enforcement types, produced several insubstantial records. Other than a few old banking records, there was very little information on Pinkus. He had once been a registered voter in Florida and had registered a car once, twenty-five years ago. There was, however, a single recent record, showing a Lowell Pinkus, home owner, living in Plantation, Florida close enough to Miami to pique my interest.
“Let me guess,” Sammy said as he turned south out of Elizabeth’s neighborhood. “Next stop, Plantation?”
I nodded. Turning east on State Road 206, we drove by a strip mall anchored by a chain supermarket. The nondescript center also sported a small pharmacy, a pet store, and a sandwich shop. I debated stopping for a quick lunch, but I wanted a private meet-and-greet with Lowell Pinkus as soon as possible. As I shifted my gaze away from the strip center, I noticed, parked side by side, two white Ford Econoline gas company vans like the one I had seen in Elizabeth’s neighborhood.
We filled up the Denali’s gas tank before taking the southbound exit to I-95. While I filled up the cavernous gas tank, Sammy took the opportunity to check in on police and court records for Mr. Lowell Pinkus of Plantation. He found very little of interest: Pinkus had been a Florida resident for the past six years. According to credit records, he was a retired government employee. There was nothing to suggest he had ever been married or practiced law. He had a clean criminal record not so much as a parking ticket. He had worked for the State Department in D.C. for over twenty years and had been assigned to a series of overseas posts. That explained why there was so little information on the man he had not been a U.S. resident until recently. He had graduated with a BA in history from Catholic University in 1972, owned a modest home in a typical south Florida golf community, paid taxes, leased a newer-model Chevy van, and had a few credit cards, which he always paid on time. In short, there was nothing remarkable about this man. And nothing to indicate he was the Lowell Pinkus, attorney-at-law, we were searching for. His background was too clean, too sanitary. Almost too perfect.
That thing in the back of my mind kept telling me we were finally on the right track.
Eighteen
Florida is a land of plenty. Even after all of overdevelopment and exploitation by unscrupulous promoters for the last fifty plus years, there are still plenty of unspoiled open grasslands and swampy terrain almost everywhere you care to look. It is simply amazing to think that so many people, especially during the winter months flock to Florida in such massive numbers, their flabby winter weary bodies crowding every beach, road and restaurant in a profusion of silver hair, over baked skin and suntan lotion, the air tinged with coarse speech inflections that seem as out of place as Tony Soprano delivering the keynote address at the Kennedy Center Honors. But what really troubled me the most is the fact that there is so much more room still available for even more snow birds, strip-mall developers and the slick lawyers that would surely follow. The prospect made me cringe with dread.
Lowell Pinkus lived in a typical southern Florida gated community complete with a manned security checkpoint and video cameras. I wasn’t interested in announcing my interest or leaving a record of my visit. Even if he was indeed the same Lowell Pinkus who had introduced Baumann to Elizabeth Gage, I had to assume he would be reluctant to implicate himself in anything easily construed as criminal activity. There was also the strong possibility he may need a little help remembering or admitting to his involvement help that I had some practical experience in providing.
During my time in Afghanistan there had been a pair of intelligence operators assigned to my unit. Their duty; to obtain intelligence information from captured prisoners that could lead us to the whereabouts of Al-Qaeda and its leaders. I, along with a dozen members of my 10th Mountain Division squad, three members of a Special Forces detachment fluent in local Pashto language and Pashtun customs, the intelligence operators experienced in interrogation tactics and an FBI counterintelligence agent, along with several Pakistani and Afghan military intelligence types assigned to work with us, operated in the lawless region as an autonomous unit. For well over a year we lived and fought in the high peaks and dusty valleys of Waziristan, the remote mountainous region in which most intelligence agencies suspected Al-Qaeda went into hiding after we invaded their country. Any warrior captured by our unit was subjected to a series of interviews by our intelligence operators. Some of these battle hardened prisoners required a measure of assistance and prodding before they were ready to share their valuable nuggets of information. The intelligence operators, aided by their Pakistanis counterparts, were masters at the craft of making reluctant men talk. I learned about how little it took to turn a hostile enemy into a talking, babbling fool willing to give up his own mother. It didn’t matter much who you were, or how strong a person you thought yourself to be, once these guys subjected you to their “cocktails” and tactics it was just a matter of how long before you spit everything out. Everyone had a breaking point. Some last more than others. A few even endured impressive amounts of pain but in the end they all broke. You witness several dozen such sessions and it will get to you, it separates you from your humanity, and in the process, somehow, we stop behaving like humans, and we become something else.
It did not take me long to realize that even the men tasked with obtaining information from enemy warriors were not immune to the experience. It mattered little who you were or where you came from, the images were forever burned deep in the psyche of operators and victims alike, both shedding varying degrees of humanity in the macabre and never ending saga of conflicting ideologies and warring civilizations, where men inflict unspeakable atrocities against each other in the name of an ancient dogma proclaiming, above all else, and at all costs, their divine provenance. There is really no way to forget the bloody images of humanity gone astray; the agony, the emotional scars, the distant unfocused gaze of the victims, their small sprits forev
er broken by an endless streams of drug cocktails and ordinary shop tools turned sinister. The vanishing soul of the torturers. Man at its worst. For the inflictors there is no God or salvation to be found in their toils, only forlorn misery. It dawned on me later, even though I never directly participated in any of it, that I too, was not immune to the experience. No one really is. And here I was again, years later, about to relive those experiences one more time.
We could not get into Pinkus’s neighborhood without leaving some evidence of our presence. Luckily, Sammy had found something useful, something we could exploit. According to Pinkus’s credit card records, the man had a routine. Routines are a part of life. They also make us predictable, an easy target. It appeared our subject was a regular visitor to a “gentlemen’s club” known as the Pink Heel, in nearby Fort Lauderdale. According to his records, the man had never married, had no dependents. No wonder he appeared to have a fondness for pole dancers.
In about fifteen minutes we were pulling into the Pink Heel’s sizable parking lot. I reconnoitered the area for surveillance, found the two cameras, and pointed them out to Sammy. We would have to be mindful of how much of ourselves we presented, in case someone should become interested in our presence here. Judging by the number of cars scattered about the dimly lit parking area mainly a mix of SUV’s, pickup trucks, and a few Asian pseudo-luxury cars the place did not seem to be brimming with revelers. But it was only a soggy Tuesday night, and still fairly early in the evening. Even so, finding Pinkus would be not be a gimme. Sammy had found no driving record, and since the guy had never had a Florida driver’s license, we had no funny-looking picture of him so even if he was here tonight, we had no clear idea whom we were looking for.
Sammy parked out of camera range, and we entered the club separately. I went in first. Sammy marched in a few minutes later. A gaudy sign by the club’s entrance informed prospective patrons that the cover charge included two drinks, no guns or pets or minors were allowed, and the place was closed Mondays. I gave the well-endowed hostess with the bright smile and tight black knit top a twenty, she stamped my wrist with an invisible stamp, and was promptly led to a table near the stage.
Inside, the place was a throwback to a sixties Las Vegas nightclub, only more risqué: the perfume-scented atmosphere and overly frigid air, the same degree of aloof servitude, the servers in teensy black outfits and pink heels, and the faux columns and gaudy pink decor. The strategically placed lighting, startlingly and dramatic, and loud, thumping music added to the overall effect. The two poles onstage were occupied by two dancers in shiny pink heels and microscopic black leather and chrome G-strings, performing subtle acts of playful bondage behind glassy smiles. The effect was the same as any other strip club; you wait for the dancers on stage to finish their rehearsed act only to then watch for the pimped-out ring master with the practiced grin to announce the beginning of the next act and a new set of dancers, fresh T & A, prance in from somewhere dark and begin their suggestive and alluring dance while enticing onlookers to fill their flimsy G-strings with crisp bills.
We had decided to split up before entering the club. I sat at a table left of the stage, and Sammy sat some distance off to my right. Some two-dozen patrons were scattered at other tables facing the stage, and there was room for at least a hundred more. Near the back of the room, a middle-aged guy in a wheelchair sat alone, a half-empty drink in his hand. A few other lone men sat on bar stools directly beneath the stage. They sat so close to the dancers they were occasionally showered by perfumed sweat. These were the hard-core fans, with small stacks of dollar bills laid out before them candy at the ready to beckon the dancers closer. It was a sad pathetic and platonic exchange that somehow passed for cheap flirtation. It was as close and as intimate as these men were likely to get to firm young flesh without putting up serious bucks. From the looks on the dancers’ faces, it was pretty clear that if circumstances were different say, a casual encounter anywhere else none of them would not even grant their drooling admirers a second look. I still wonder why some men become regular strip club patrons. Maybe the main reason was because they have no one to go home to or, perhaps, they do not want to go home to whatever awaits them.
I ordered a margarita and some pretzels and sat back just another Joe enjoying the show. I scanned the faces present, then glanced in Sammy’s direction. He, too, was scanning the crowd, searching for God knew what. He gazed in my direction and gave a look that said he was coming up empty so far. A waitress approached, and I casually asked if she knew one of the regulars, a guy by the name of Lowell a friend of mine who visited this place every now and then. I had lost touch with him and wondered if he had been by recently. Harmless, right? After giving me a cool, skeptical once-over, she said she didn’t know anyone by that name, and walked away. I saw Sammy talking to another shapely waitress, her chest almost in his face as she leaned over to listen. She shook her head and was soon gone.
We were getting nowhere fast. I decided to call Elizabeth. She had spoken to Lowell a couple of times and perhaps even met him. The club was too noisy, so I stepped outside to make the call. I pushed my chair back and bumped into something. I glanced over my shoulder and saw a man in a wheelchair. I had accidentally bumped into his motorized rig. He smiled and apologized. As if on cue, the music stopped, the pole dancers bowed, and the patrons clapped unenthusiastically. The girls picked up their discarded clothing and disappeared behind the stage, and a few men scurried off to the restroom. The next set of dancers would soon be up.
“Not at all,” I said to the man in the wheelchair. “My fault.” He gave a friendly smile and glided quickly away in the direction of the bathrooms.
I dialed Elizabeth’s number, and Mrs. Mullen answered in the crisp tone of someone who had better things to do. Her tone improved markedly once she recognized my voice. I inquired about her ward, who, she said, was improving slowly but steadily. Elizabeth’s appetite was returning, and Mrs. Mullen had gotten rid of all the liquor in the house no sense in leaving temptation lying around. I asked to speak with Elizabeth. Again, Mrs. Mullen warned me about pressuring her. I heard her shuffle away, then her voice telling Elizabeth I was on the phone.
“Did you find him?” Elizabeth asked. She sounded anxious.
“Not yet,” I replied. “I was calling about that lawyer, Lowell Pinkus. You ever met him?”
“No, we never met. Only spoke a few times on the phone.”
“Anything you can tell me about him that stands out in your mind?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Anything peculiar or different about him. Any little thing you remember could be helpful.” I needed to jog her memory. “How about his voice anything that stands out in your mind? Maybe he had an accent?”
Silence. Then she said; “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” I said, trying to reassure her. “I’m just trying to jog your memory a little.”
“I know,” she said in almost a whisper.
I spotted the emcee stepping back onstage, headed for the microphone. The next show was about to start.
“Close your eyes and take a deep breath,” I said. “Think back. Think of Pinkus. Go over your conversations. Think about his words. Sentences. Anything you can think of. I’ll call you back shortly.”
The disco music’s volume rose again, followed by a man’s voice introducing the next act. Sheena and Jade, exotic dancers from Brazil, were about to dazzle us. The spectators who had answered nature’s call, their liquid burden no longer an issue, their prostates momentarily relieved of discomfort, rushed back to their seats, not wanting to miss a beat. The man in the wheelchair glided in deftly behind them. He didn’t want to miss a beat, either. Nearing my table, he slowed down and said in a loud voice, “You don’t want to miss these two, you know.”
“Oh?” I said, glancing at the two new dancers contorting suggestively onstage to the cheers of their lust-crazed admirers. Like the dancers before them, they too were young, busty and curva
ceous and full of tight dark skin.
“Yes,” he said behind a knowing smile. His voice was deep and booming. I also noticed something else... a slight lisp, perhaps? I couldn’t tell. “Theiw act is all S and M. They have studs and piewcings evewywhewe. Lovely show.”
There it was: a bit of a problem with his “r’s.”
“Nevew seen you hewe befowe,” he said.
“No,” I said, trying to be friendly. “First time.”
“Well, enjoy,” he said as he moved the joystick protruding from the left armrest and glided back to his table.
I looked Sammy’s way. He had been watching this exchange. He raised an eyebrow as if to say, Well? I shook my head, indicating I had nothing. My cell phone came alive in my pocket. Caller ID said it was Elizabeth Gage. I went outside to get away from the blaring music.
“I think I remember something,” she said.
“Yeah?”
“About the lawyer, I mean,” she added, as if we could be talking about anyone else. “The way he spoke.”
“What about it?”
“He had trouble saying some words... like a lisp or something.”
I told her to stay on the line, then hurried back inside and discreetly scanned the shadows in the back of the room. The man in the wheelchair was in the same spot, his rapt attention on the spectacle before him. Elizabeth had no way of knowing whether he was in a wheelchair, since she had never met the man. It could well be him. I needed more corroboration. I walked down the entrance to get away from the thumping music.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“What kind of a lisp?” I said, ignoring her question.
“Oh, I don’t know...”
“Think hard. This could be important.”
“Well... I know this is probably going to sound very silly, Jason,” she said. “But he sounded a little like that cartoon character, Elmer Fudd.”
