by Paul Levine
I ducked under a soggy white slip and panties, hanging limp on a clothesline. It took a few minutes, but I found Crespo’s trailer, one of those old models that looks like a thermos jug. I found it by staring right at its shiny aluminum side and having the glare of the sun nearly blind me. I closed my eyes and watched a parade of red and blue dots march across my eyelids. The trailer sagged onto deflated tires. Two folding chairs with torn straps sat under a red-and-white awning out front. Curtains were drawn on a side window. The front steps were two concrete blocks which led to a screen door. Inside, a dragonfly buzzed and snapped against the screen.
I thought there was movement inside the trailer when I banged on the door, but it could have been my imagination. I put my face to the screen, but it was dark inside. Sweat began to trickle down my neck.
“Francisco, it’s me, the best abogado in town.”
Nothing.
Suddenly, a radio was turned on inside. The tinny sound of a Cuban talk show, turned up too loud.
“. . . para opinar sobre lo que dijo la señora esa que llamó hace un ratico para protestar sobre las fincas que ella perdió en Las Villas, que se las quitó Fidel a sus abuelos en 1961.”
I called his name again.
“. . . es que todo eso es ‘lo que el viento se llevó.’ Hav que ‘hacer borrón v cuenta nueva.’ Sí no, nos vamos a quedar aquí treinta años más.”
“Francisco. Are you in there?”
Still nothing. I listened some more. On the radio, the deeper voice of the comentarista. “Yo estoy de acuerdo. Ademas, aquí en Miami dicen que si Cuba en realidad hubiera tenido tantas fincas cómo las que los exilados dicen que les fueron confiscadas por Fidel, que Cuba tendría que tener el tamaño de los Estados Unidos …”
Then what sounded like a pop-pop, but it could have been the radio.
I let the dragonfly out and myself in.
It took a moment to get used to the darkness.
“Francisco.”
The living room had a small sofa and cheap mica coffee table. A twelve-inch TV with rabbit ears sat on the floor. Yesterday’s issue of Diario Las Americas was on the table, open to the sports page. The talk show was coming from the galley kitchen where a portable radio sat on the counter. But no one was there. I walked to the counter and turned off the radio. Two Key limes sat in a basket and half a dozen potatoes were soaking in a sink full of water.
The only sounds now came from outside, the blaring of a television from across the row of trailers, the midday news in Spanish. The announcer competed with the voice of a woman in a nearby trailer, then silence, then her voice again, talking with someone on the phone. A dog barked, one of those small yip-yap-yappers that make you think the Vietnamese have the right idea. From somewhere on Tamiami Trail, a police siren wailed.
The door to the bedroom was partly open. Sweat rolled down my back, chilling me. It was no more than three steps to the bedroom. I took them slowly, listening for movement. The only sound from inside the trailer was the creak of metal under my feet.
I slowly pushed the door open, took a half-step into the room, and saw Francisco Crespo on the bed, lying on his back. Two blackened holes stained the front of his T-shirt. I had stepped on something that squished under my shoes, and I looked down at the floor. As I did, the door snapped back, smacking me a glancing shot on the shoulder and a solid thwack on the forehead. I heard something crack and hoped it was the paper-thin door. I had been hit harder by skinny wide receivers who know how to throw a crack-back block. But still I staggered backward, from the blow or the surprise, I didn’t know which.
A shape rushed past me, a man dressed in brown or black who was either tall or short, young or old. He passed eight inches in front of my face, and I never got a look at him. I have always been dumbfounded at witnesses who give such god-awful descriptions to police when they’re really trying. And now here I was, unable to focus on who just bashed me on the head and most likely put two holes in the chest of Francesco Crespo. I had only an instant to think about the wiry guy who used to bring me Gatorade, who once put his life on the line for me, and who most recently trusted me to protect him. There was the flash of shame, the realization I had let him down, and worse, that somehow I had led him to his death.
I heard the screen door bang, realized I should do something, and took off. I skipped the concrete block steps and jumped to the ground, just catching sight of him from behind, weaving his way around an old Chevy slouched onto cinder blocks and a splintered wooden dinghy that sat on the ground. He was wearing brown, or maybe khaki, work pants and a matching shirt.
He looked stocky, but he didn’t run stocky. Gliding steps. Coaches have a word for it. Fluid. No wasted motion. The head stays still, the arms pump but not too high. There’s a word for my running style, too. Herky-jerky. All arms and legs, grunts and groans, working hard, getting nowhere fast.
The man in brown was a decent broken-field runner. He did a nifty job avoiding an overturned tricycle, a hibachi, and a woman in curlers with coppery red hair. I remembered the agility drill with the tires as I hopped the tricycle and hibachi but didn’t try it with the woman, though she was nearly short enough. Ahead of me, the man ducked between two trailers, heading toward the outer boundary of the lot.
When I turned the corner, there was just a streak of brown, turning left between a pink-and-white trailer and a canal that separated the lot from the cemetery. I kept my eyes on the trailer and picked up my pace. Coach Shula always started summer practice with the twelve-minute run. Not a jog, a run, and in the ninety-degree heat, ninety-percent humidity, a lot of my teammates left their breakfast on the practice field. I may not have led the pack, but I never hurled either.
I made the turn and saw him scrambling on all fours near a live oak tree that bordered the canal. It occurred to me then what I was doing. Here I was, without even a stick, a stone, or an Italian leather briefcase, and I was chasing a guy who had a gun. And had just used it.
I didn’t know what I’d do if I caught him. He was thirty yards or so away when I saw him duck as he neared the tree, then . . . whoosh . . . my feet were swept out from under me. My body was jolted upright, my feet were off the ground, continuing their running motion like Wile E. Coyote, and I wondered who had crushed my Adam’s apple. No one threw a flag or blew a whistle, and I crumpled to the ground, looking up to see the clothesline humming like a guitar string.
***
The sweat was pouring off me when I got back to Crespo’s trailer. I gingerly walked into the bedroom, felt a squish beneath one foot, and looked down to see a potato splattered in pieces across the floor. It made no sense to me.
I was trying to swallow but couldn’t. In football, a forearm across the throat is called a clothesline, for obvious reasons. As a linebacker, I had lots of chances to level receivers coming across the middle that way. Never did it intentionally, so why aren’t the gods kinder to me?
I looked toward the bed. I half expected the body to be gone, like something from a Hitchcock movie. Now, Mr. Lassiter, you say you saw Mr. Crespo with two bullet holes in him. Really, had you been drinking?
But Crespo was still there, lying on his back, hands beneath him. I rolled him over. The hands were tied at the wrists with baling wire. I felt for a pulse. Not a flicker. As I held his wrist, I saw a metallic glint in Crespo’s palm. I pried open the fingers, and something fell out, rolling across the bed and onto the floor. I found it among the potato pieces—a gold rabbit holding an egg of what looked like brown glass flecked with gold. A loop that would have held a thin chain was fastened to the bunny’s head. Somehow, I doubted that the gold rabbit was part of Francisco Crespo’s personal jewelry.
I picked up Crespo’s phone with two fingers and called the police, Abe Socolow, and Charlie Riggs. The cops were there first, Abe next, and Charlie last, but he had to interrupt a med school lecture on figuring date of death by the extent of insect larvae in the corpse.
I was sprawled on the sofa holding my throat whe
n Socolow came in. He took a look at the body and said, “Looks like somebody saved the state some money.”
“Abe, do you try to be an asshole, or does it come naturally?”
“Oh, excuse me, counselor, I forgot. This was one of your minions. Presumed innocent until proven an asshole.” He looked at the red welt forming on my neck, did a double take, and smiled. If I’d been shot, he’d probably bust a gut laughing. “Somebody doesn’t know you, Jake, they’d say you struggled with your client, then shot him.”
“Somebody doesn’t know you, Abe, they’d say you were a supercilious son of a bitch. In fact, somebody who knows you would say the same thing. So, before you shoot off your mouth anymore, let me tell you something. Francisco Crespo was more than a client. He was a friend, and you keep it up, the only arrest you’ll make today is for assault on a state official.”
“Okay, okay, keep your cool. Don’t be so touchy.” He wiped his forehead with a handkerchief and turned to a uniformed cop. “Must be the weather. Makes everybody crazy.”
An assistant medical examiner opened the door, followed by Doc Riggs. A homicide detective came in, then the crime scene investigators, then a man in a gray suit who looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite place him. Maybe he was a homicide detective I didn’t know. Cops like to travel in flocks, stand around and shoot the bull, reminisce about other cases, and gossip about who’s screwing the new divorcee in communications. One of the lab technicians was shining a laser at every nook and cranny in the trailer, trying to pick up invisible fingerprints. Another was using a portable computer to draw the crime scene.
“What the hell was he doing, making potato salad in the bedroom?” Socolow asked nobody in particular.
Charlie Riggs scratched his beard. “A silencer,” he said.
Socolow wrinkled his forehead. He didn’t enjoy someone else figuring out something first. The man in the gray suit whispered something to Abe Socolow, and then it occurred to me. He was the guy in the courtroom who came up to Socolow during voir dire. Now Socolow was listening attentively. Something in Abe’s body language showed deference, a trait for which he was not well known.
“The gunman used a potato for a silencer,” Riggs continued. “Or two potatoes, actually, one for each shot.”
“A potato silencer?” Abe Socolow repeated, incredulous.
“Messy, but effective,” Charlie said.
Somewhere in my mind, a children’s rope-skipping rhyme was singing to me. One potato, two potato, three potato, four . . .
The man in the gray suit walked to the sofa where I was sitting. He had a lean leathery face and walked on his toes. He wore wire-rimmed glasses, and his body gave the impression of rangy strength underneath the baggy business suit. His hair was short, dishwater brown, and had a cowlick at the peak of his forehead. A vein protruded from his neck as he spoke to me. He asked me to tell my story, and I did.
He tossed a pad and pen on the sofa and pointed with an index finger. “Would you write it out and sign it,” he said. He didn’t make it sound like a question. The lawyer in me said not to do it. But now I was a client, and I knew I didn’t kill Crespo, so I scribbled a statement, going through it step by step, then signed my name, putting an “Esq.” at the end of it, which sounded more impressive than ex-linebacker.
When he asked whether I could identify the assailant, I told the truth for once. When he asked whether I had left anything out, I lied. Then it was my turn. I asked his name, and he handed me a card.
Robert T. Foley and a phone number, area code 703. No gold stars, embossed titles, or even an address. I’ve known some heavy-hitting businessmen like that. Maybe you’re just supposed to know who they are. That might work with Galileo or da Vinci, but Robert T. Foley didn’t mean anything to me.
Socolow was scowling. Silencers meant assassinations, organized crime, or Colombian cowboys. Not just a murder of a nobody in a trailer park. Even worse, a potato silencer was screwy enough to interest the newsboys. Socolow looked straight at Charlie Riggs. “You can buy a silencer on the street for a hundred bucks. Why would anyone use a potato?”
Five potato, six potato, seven potato, more.
“Maybe he wasn’t going to kill Crespo,” Charlie said, “at least not here. Maybe he wanted to talk to him, didn’t like how it was going, and made a hasty decision. Maybe Jake spooked him by coming to the door. Or maybe it was just a botched robbery.”
Socolow looked around the tiny trailer. “What would you steal from this place?”
Nobody answered him.
“Jake, you know anybody who would want to kill your client?”
I shrugged. Inside my pants pocket, a gold bunny rabbit was growing warm. “Maybe Vladimir Smorodinsky had a friend.”
“My thought exactly,” Socolow responded. “Maybe just a revenge killing, one slimeball’s pal knocking off another slimeball. Crespo tell you anything we ought to know?”
“I don’t know any more than you do, Abe.” I’m not sure why I didn’t tell Socolow and his gray-suited friend about the gold rabbit. Part of it had to do with Emilia Crespo. She had trusted me to protect her son, and I had failed. I was responsible. Part of it was Francisco Crespo. He had trusted me, too. He took my advice, and my advice killed him. I had owed him something— everything—and I let him down. Now, it seemed, I owed him even more, and I needed to set things straight on my own.
Finally, part of it was my natural suspicion of authority. I remembered the reporter’s line from Graham Greene’s book about the French-Indochina war. Something about not giving information to the police because it saves them trouble.
Socolow turned back to Charlie Riggs. “Doc?”
“Who knows? Maybe it was the weather. It’s well known that violent crime goes up seven to ten percent during a heat wave.”
“C’mon, Doc. You can do better than that.”
“Sapiens nihil affirmat quod non prohat.”
Socolow squeezed his eyes shut. “Yeah?”
“A wise man states as true nothing he cannot prove,” Charlie translated.
“Good advice for opening statement,” Socolow agreed, “but I’m looking for some leads here.”
Charlie shrugged and Socolow turned away to speak to one of the cops. Before opening his mouth, Socolow swung back to Charlie Riggs. “Where?”
“Where what?” Charlie asked.
“The potato silencer. Where’s it come from? Who invented it? Where’s it used?”
“Why, Russia, of course,” the bearded wizard said.
13
ART HISTORY 101
Charlie Riggs shoved an oversized book in front of me, tapped the cover with a pudgy forefinger, and leaned back in his chair, chewing a cold pipe.
“Not another one, Charlie. My eyes are bleary, and I need a beer.”
“Perhaps if you’d had a well-rounded education, this wouldn’t be necessary.”
“Hey, I studied every linebacker’s assignment in the split six and knew every cheerleader by the shape of her thighs, so give me a break.”
Charlie tsk-tsked his chagrin at the decline of the liberal arts. We were on the second floor of the downtown library, huddled into a corner with every book Charlie could find on Russian art museums. After five hours, everything looked alike. Still, I worked, looking at pictures and turning pages like a robbery victim scanning mug shots.
I had told Charlie that Soto’s painting looked “sorta, I dunno, modern.” Charlie regarded me skeptically, then gave me a crash course on Russian art at the turn of the century—Korovin, Vrubel, Konchalovsky, Mashkov, and other names that were meaningless to me—but that was only the beginning. The Russians were great collectors. Prior to the Revolution, Charlie told me, the nobility had gathered the finest artwork from throughout Europe. So here I was, leafing through books I had successfully managed to avoid in pursuit of more or less higher education. We had finished the Italians, Dutch, Germans, English, and Spanish, and were halfway through the French. I had overdosed on winged horses, M
adonnas, and naked women who obviously never took high-impact aerobics.
“If you were able to describe the painting with any degree of particularity, I could identify it, and I do not pretend to be an expert. Even a basic class in art history—”
“Friday afternoons from three to six,” I said.
“What?”
“Art History 101. Fall semester, every Friday from three to six P.M. Conflicted with road trips and Happy Hour chugging contests. Also kept out the guys who just wanted to meet coeds, which was the primary purpose in the days when we figured a woman’s chastity could be determined by her major.”
“No?”
“Sure. Art majors did and business majors didn’t. Petroleum engineering, no way. Elementary education, maybe, but you had to talk marriage first. The gals in creative writing would, especially during their Anais Nin phase.”
Charlie slipped his pipe into a buttoned pocket of his blue chambray shirt, harrumphed, and removed his crooked eyeglasses. He fiddled with the fishhook that held them together, breathed on the lenses, wiped them off on his shirt, and slid them absentmindedly on top of his bushy head. His eyes were weathered, the crinkled face a tanned hide, and he was starting to show his age.
“You miss your nap today, Charlie?”
“I can still out fish and outwork you, and don’t forget it.”
Outthink me, too, he could have said.
Charlie Riggs was as close as I had ever come to having a father, and my look must have betrayed some of the feelings I usually tucked deep inside, because he turned away and slid the glasses back down. Charlie limited his emotions to a healthy academic inquiry, and it wouldn’t do to give him a hug and get misty-eyed over personal feelings. But the truth for me was simple. I loved my Granny who raised me after my father was killed and my mom took off, and I loved Charlie who taught me just about everything worth knowing.
