Ironstone and Baxter were hauled out of Baxter’s car and put into handcuffs. I watched Ironstone scream at the Federal officers as the ambulance took Lena and me away to the hospital.
All the while the Seminoles stood silent and staring, like concrete statues.
And Baxter, the poor bastard, was crying like a little kid.
TWENTY-SIX
When Lena went into surgery, I was there. When she came out, completely still, I was there. I stared at her face, willing it to light up. The room was filled with that alcohol smell and depressing florescent lighting. Add in the crappy fake Scandinavian furniture and the busted blinds, it was pretty much a typical hospital room. And after a very long while, the machines hooked up to Lena started beeping and blinking a little differently.
And when she opened her eyes for the first time after that, there I was.
‘You’re awake,’ I said.
‘Maybe I am,’ she responded, trying to get her bearings.
‘You took a bullet for me.’ I shook my head.
‘Yeah,’ she acknowledged.
‘Nobody ever did that for me.’ I smiled. ‘And plenty of people have had the opportunity, believe me.’
‘Oh, I believe you,’ she answered.
‘I guess this makes us even.’
She tried to sit up. ‘Not by a long shot, buckaroo. You saved my life, like, ten times. Plus, you found my sister like you promised. Taking a bullet for somebody, sure, that’s tough. But keeping a promise? Rare as hen’s teeth in my experience. So I still owe you big.’
I shook my head. ‘In the first place, it wasn’t ten times; in the second place, we found your sister; third, who’s counting?’
‘OK.’ She shifted in bed; it hurt to watch. ‘Give me the news.’
‘Ironstone’s in Federal custody,’ I began plainly. ‘Baxter’s in his own jail, and John Horse is everyone’s favorite hero. Showed up like the cavalry at the last second.’
‘Probably not the comparison he’d choose,’ she mumbled. ‘My side hurts.’
‘The bullet went through, more or less,’ I told her, ‘but your hip bone deflected it and got chipped in the process.’
‘Am I going to walk funny?’
‘You mean funnier than you already do?’ I asked, smiling.
‘Where’s Ellen?’
‘Talking with the Feds,’ I answered. ‘I think she’s trying to arrange the much vaunted Witness Protection scheme I told you about.’
‘No.’ She fussed a little, still trying to sit up. ‘Don’t trust those guys. They set my sister up, almost got her killed, didn’t help when she was on the run, and their guy, that Crew Cut guy – some help he was.’
‘Yeah,’ I agreed, ‘turns out that’s on Baxter. He’s the one who tipped Ironstone. He’s the one, in fact, who’s kind of the force behind the force.’
‘Meaning that he was working for Ironstone all along, and finding out about the Feds as a so-called officer of the law.’ She closed her eyes. ‘Ratted out my sister.’
‘That’s about the size of it,’ I agreed. ‘You tired? You want me to shut up so you can sleep?’
‘No,’ she sighed, ‘I’m trying to think where we can go – my sister, my niece, and me. If the Feds are that stupid, I don’t want anything to do with them. Certainly don’t want them to know where I am.’
I sat still for a second, pondering.
‘I don’t know your real name,’ I said finally.
‘Yes you do,’ she scoffed. ‘It’s Lena. You got a head injury?’
‘No, see,’ I complained, ‘you told me that your sister picked a name out of the obits when she split from your mother’s house. Her last name’s not Greenberg, neither is yours.’
‘Oh, I see,’ she began.
‘So what I’m wondering, first, is why she chose Greenberg.’
‘No idea, really, who our fathers were,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘So we went with the maternal side of the family. Jews, as you probably know, dig matrilineal heritage.’
I blinked.
‘Your mother is Jewish?’
‘Ruthie Schmeltzer,’ she sighed. ‘The Whore of Rio, Florida.’
‘Nice,’ I said, ‘very Biblical – but you’re telling me you’re Jewish?’
‘I don’t think I’m anything, really,’ she answered. ‘I’m a troubled youth. You know: Dead End Kid.’
‘So.’ I nodded. ‘You get some sleep, now. I’m going to go shake a couple of trees.’
‘I don’t know what that means,’ she mumbled, ‘but I could use a little nap.’
She was asleep before I was out the door to her room.
My office, I found, had been put back together nicely. New furniture, better lighting – somebody’d even swept. The walls were still that sickening green, cracked and peeling, but at least it wasn’t a disaster area. I wasn’t quite sure what had happened.
I called the main office of Child Protective Services in Miami. They were happy to report the reinstatement of my little satellite in Fry’s Bay – without so much as an apology or a thank you. They also told me that the rest of my paperwork on the case involving Lena Greenberg was overdue. Which brought up the problems with Lena’s case. Baxter hadn’t produced the all-important, child-exonerating syringe. He’d probably destroyed it. So in a very real sense, Lena was still up on a murder charge. I told Miami as little as I possibly could, although I did mention Mister Redhawk’s name a couple of times. That seemed to help. Then, before they could ask me anything else, I thanked them for fixing up my office. Turned out they had no idea what I was talking about.
My guess then was that Hachi or John Horse had overseen its reconstruction. A Seminole had wrecked it; a Seminole had to fix it.
I sat down behind my desk and tried to wend my way through the labyrinth of ugly possibilities for Lena and her sister – and the baby. The Feds had not, in fact, done much of a job protecting Ellen so far. I saw no reason to trust that they’d do any better in the future. Local law was a weak sister to the DEA, not remotely to be taken seriously. The Seminoles might help, but it really wasn’t their tribe.
It was my tribe.
So what else could I do but reach for the phone and call on that tribe?
It only rang once.
‘Hello, Ma,’ I sighed into the phone. ‘Yes, it’s Feibush. Yes, I’m still in Florida.’
The next few minutes were spent accepting her loving critique of everything that was wrong with me, but it ended with the phrase, ‘I’m so glad you called.’
‘All right listen, Ma,’ I said as soon as I could get a word in edgewise. ‘You’re not going to believe what I found in Florida: a couple of nice Jewish girls names Moscowitz!’
A moment of profoundly stunned silence was followed by the sentence I was hoping to hear.
‘Bring them to Brooklyn,’ my mother said. ‘What are they going to eat in Florida?’
‘Well,’ I told her, ‘if you say so. Look. As long as they’re coming anyway, how about if they stay with you and Aunt Shayna for a while?’
‘No more than three years,’ she said. ‘That’s my limit on company from Florida. They can stay in the second bedroom.’
‘They have a baby.’
‘I have a crib.’
‘Don’t you want to ask me,’ I began.
‘You know your business,’ she interrupted. ‘I’m assuming they’re in some kind of trouble and they need to get out of town. So now can you tell me: are they really Jewish?’
‘Jewish as you or me,’ I assured her.
‘Well.’ It wasn’t the sound of someone who believed me, necessarily – but it was the voice of compassion. ‘I guess they’d better come right up. Shayna!’
And then I tried for the next thirty minutes to get off the phone. What with catching up on who died and who got married, I knew more than ever before about an extended family I had never met.
When it was all said and done, the Florida sisters with the flexible last names had a place in Brook
lyn to stay for a while.
My next call was to Pan Pan.
‘So,’ I began as soon as he picked up the phone, ‘I’m still alive.’
‘Well, that’s something, anyway,’ he admitted.
‘Here’s the thing,’ I went on. ‘There are some people coming to live with my mother for a while and I’d like to see that they have protection.’
‘Don’t say anything more,’ he interrupted, ‘because I don’t want to have any more facts than I can divulge under duress. But I believe I understand and I’ll see to it.’
‘Get some of Red’s old guys, I guess,’ I suggested.
‘Yeah,’ he sneered, ‘if I can spring them from whatever senior citizens’ facility they live in. How about someone under a hundred?’
‘Such as?’
‘I had in mind Delbert Two Shoes and Mickey Miller.’
‘Oh.’ I sat back in my chair. ‘Nice. How – why would they do it?’
‘Maybe you don’t quite understand the size of your rep,’ Pan Pan said softly. ‘You’re a guy who boosted anything that wasn’t nailed down, then absconded to Florida where he saves little kids. And sends money home. You’re like a hoodlum saint.’
‘Pan Pan,’ I objected.
‘Plus, you’ll pay, right?’
‘Of course.’ I had no idea how I’d pay, but I would.
‘So it’s settled. I’ll look in personally, the other guys will be like ghosts, but they’ll be around.’
‘Might not be any trouble at all,’ I said.
‘You kicked the Black Tuna in the ass, my friend,’ he countered. ‘If they find out about this, there’s going to be trouble.’
‘Yeah.’ I rubbed my eyes. ‘I’m going to worry about that, like, tomorrow.’
‘Right,’ he agreed. ‘Be Here Now, man.’
‘Absolutely.’
We hung up without goodbye.
Before I could muster my energy to head back to the hospital, John Horse and Hachi suddenly appeared in the doorway of my office.
John Horse was in a black business suit. I’d never seen him dressed like that, and it was unnerving. Hachi was equally decked out: sleek grey suit, knee-length skirt, low black heels.
‘Is there a funeral I don’t know about?’ I asked them both.
‘Come on,’ Hachi said firmly.
‘Where?’ I stood. ‘I want to go back to the hospital, see Lena.’
‘It’s about her,’ Hachi said. ‘Judge Arnett’s having a look at a motion of mine. You should be there.’
‘What’s it about?’
She shook her head. ‘I’ve seen you improvise. Better if I say nothing and you go with your instinct when we get there.’
They were both serious as a heart attack, so I acquiesced and followed them out the door.
Judge Arnett was a no-nonsense sort. He’d been a judge in Fry’s Bay for twenty years, and no one I knew had ever complained about him, which was saying something. Somebody always hates a judge.
His office was like a movie set of a judge’s chambers: lined with books, golden gavel on the desk, American flag in one corner; a window that looked out toward the sea. It smelled like pine and was more silent than a church.
The old man sat behind his desk adjusting his bifocals and reading over stacks of papers in front of him.
Hachi sat in one of the chairs opposite him; John Horse was in the other. I stood behind Hachi.
After about a half a century, Arnett looked up.
‘This is without a doubt the strangest thing I have ever seen here in Fry’s Bay,’ he pronounced.
‘Yes, sir,’ Hachi said firmly. ‘Who could have imagined that the police department in our town could be so thoroughly involved in so many illegal activities?’
He looked at her sternly. ‘Detective Baxter does not comprise the entirety of our police department.’
‘But his investigation does comprise the entirety of the case before you,’ she countered.
‘No murder weapon?’ he asked.
‘None that the police could produce,’ she answered, ‘no, your honor.’
‘And this syringe that is in evidence was suppressed in the initial reports?’
‘It was,’ she confirmed.
He glanced up at me.
‘You are the director of Child Protective Services for our area,’ he began.
‘In that I am the only one in the office,’ I interjected, ‘I suppose you could call me the director.’
‘And you were on the scene the night of the David Waters murder.’
‘I was.’
‘Did you see a murder weapon in the bar that night?’
‘No I did not,’ I answered honestly.
‘Did you see this syringe that counsel mentions?’
‘I saw the agitated state of the child in question, the accused,’ I said quickly, ‘who later revealed the deceased’s intention to assault her with the syringe. I realize that’s hearsay, your honor, but we’re talking about a child, the product of a terrible home life – a lost girl. Not exactly the sort of person to fabricate such an event, or wield the sort of weapon that killed David Waters. He was shot three times in a well-targeted burst. Is that the action of any little girl?’
He sighed.
‘Maybe the drug dealers from Cuba and Columbia, they killed David Waters,’ John Horse said. ‘Doesn’t that make a lot more sense?’
‘Frankly,’ the judge said, ‘it does. Baxter fabricated this ridiculous murder charge against the child in order to protect his nefarious cohorts.’
‘And you do understand that the girl, Lena Greenberg, is currently in the hospital,’ I said, ‘having jumped in front of me to shield me from a bullet fired by Ironstone Waters.’
Judge Arnett closed a folder on his desk. ‘Yes.’
‘I recommend,’ Hachi began.
‘Not necessary, Counselor,’ the judge interrupted, waving his hands. ‘These ridiculous charges against Elena Greenberg are dropped and we’ll start a new investigation, from the beginning, into the death of David Waters. Although, confidentially, good riddance. Anything else?’
Hachi stood. ‘No, thank you, your honor.’
‘Might I just interject,’ I began.
But Hachi took my arm and squeezed it hard.
‘Thank you, your honor,’ she said again, more emphatically.
‘Exactly,’ I said.
And we left the judge’s chambers immediately. Hachi was locked onto my arm like a C-clamp, and John Horse was moving faster than I’d ever seen him walk before.
Once we were out of the courthouse, John Horse began to whisper.
‘Do you have some place to take Lena and the other two?’ he asked.
‘As a matter of fact,’ I said.
But once more Hachi squeezed. ‘Don’t tell us. Don’t tell anyone. You understand that we still don’t know who’s working for the Columbians or the Cubans or the Federal government.’
John Horse shook his head. ‘It’s all the same to me: dangerous white men with no souls and lots of guns. I have to take off this suit before it starts bonding with my skin.’
With that he was gone, off down the street headed God knows where.
‘It was a great thing you did in there,’ I told Hachi, trying not to enjoy how close she was standing to me. ‘Getting Lena off, I mean. You’re really a remarkable person.’
She smiled. It affected me the same way jasmine always did: I closed my eyes and sighed.
‘I think I’d say the same thing about you,’ she said, finally releasing my arm.
‘Me?’ I blinked. ‘The only thing remarkable about me is how tired I am at this moment.’
‘Well,’ she acknowledged, ‘you’ve been shot, beaten, pursued by drug lords, betrayed by the boys in law enforcement, and nearly killed by a certified Seminole demon.’
‘And all on very little sleep and not enough good food,’ I added.
She patted me and inclined her head toward the docks.
‘May
be we could take care of one of those things,’ she suggested. ‘Yudda’s got blackened swordfish and hot chicory.’
TWENTY-SEVEN
The next morning, before the sun was up, I was yawning at the Greyhound bus station. Ellen and her baby were already on the bus. Ellen had dyed her hair again – black as a crow’s wing. Lena was dolled up in her misleading child’s apparel: a sensible black skirt, white blouse, hair pulled back into barrettes. She looked ten, and even I might not have recognized her in a crowd.
‘Pan Pan Washington is meeting you at Port Authority,’ I said for the third time. ‘He’ll have—’
‘Foggy,’ Lena said sweetly, putting her hand on my forearm, ‘we’ll be fine. I really don’t have any way to thank you for – everything.’
‘Good,’ I said, ‘because there’s really no need. After about a week with my mother and my aunt, you’ll start to regret the whole thing, what with the food and the cheek patting and the hovering.’
‘Yeah,’ she said softly, ‘must have been tough growing up with that kind of motherly attention.’
I looked away. ‘All right.’
‘I’ll never forget this,’ she said with all the fervent conviction of the very young. ‘You’ll always be the most important man in my life.’
I nodded. I didn’t say anything. I knew it wasn’t true, but I didn’t want to muddle her mind. Wouldn’t be long before she met plenty of people who would mean more to her than a guy she knew for a couple of weeks in Fry’s Bay, Florida. That’s kids, though: you have to walk a very careful line between taking them seriously and not believing a thing they say.
Still, it was a nice thing to hear that morning.
The bus revved its engine and she sighed.
‘Right.’ She got up on her tiptoes and planted a little kiss on my left cheek.
And without further ado, she was gone.
Ten minutes later I was back in my apartment, but it wasn’t really my apartment. It was a last impression of everything that had happened in the days preceding. The sofa was the last place Lena had slept while her sister and baby Ester had occupied my bed. The big chair, the one by the double glass doors that looked out onto the ocean, had been my restless nest. The sad, disheveled blanket was witness to my restless tossing and turning.
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