Suffer Not Evil: A Florida Action Adventure Novel

by Scott Cook

  “What I want,” I said, “is to know why you sent those men for me and my client.”

  “That’s my business, Jarvis,” Cardoza said. “Why should I tell you anything, huh?”

  “I can make things very unpleasant for you, Lou,” I said, taking a step forward. “Very unpleasant indeed.”

  “You want me to take him out?” Eddie, the cadaver, said in what sounded like a raspy whisper, although it was certainly loud enough to be heard clearly. It was as if the man were straining his voice through a coffee filter or something.

  “Not yet, Eddie,” Cardoza said. “Let’s see how it goes, huh? As for you, Jarvis, I already told you on the phone that this was just business. Nothing personal.”

  “I take men coming to kill me and my client very personally, Lou,” I said.

  Cardoza waved his cigar again and shrugged, “Don’t get emotional. That’s my advice, mang.”

  “Don’t fuck wit Jarvis, that’s my advice,” I heard Sonny say, and then he chuckled.

  “Does the name Doctor Felix Campbell mean anything to you?” I asked.

  Cardoza grinned, “He’s the doctor who delivered my son. Both of my sons, in fact. Porque?”

  I grinned back, “He’s involved somehow. I think he is what we detectives used to call a ‘wrong G.’ I think he’s crooked and has done some unsavory things in the past. Quite a few birth-related deaths, and he was watching over a man who was on Veronica’s boat the day it exploded. Know anything about that, Lou?”

  Cardoza laughed, “That wasn’t me, Chico. I was only brought in later.”

  “Giving me a name might go a long way with me,” I said. “Remember what I said on the phone the other night? I was able to get your personal cell number, Lou. That’s the least of what I’m capable of.”

  “Maybe I’m not so easy to handle,” Cardoza said more seriously. He leaned in and speared me with a hard look. “I’m no Derrick Walker. I’m no Nicaraguan rebel or fucking Columbian mule. Maybe ICE will have a harder time nailing me down, comprende? Oh, I know all about you, Jarvis.”

  “Then I’d advise you to cooperate,” Lisa said.

  Cardoza’s sudden hardness vanished in a good-natured laugh, “Oh, and I would like to, mija. I’m no fool. I do you a favor, Jarvis, and you owe me. Pays to make powerful friends. But I’m also no fink and no liar, comprende? I give my word, and I keep it. I may be a filthy no-good pinche drug dealer, as you say, but I do have my own set of rules.”

  This was getting me nowhere. Cardoza would need an object lesson or need to be pushed. Or maybe need something to make giving up his contact worthwhile.

  “All right, Cardoza,” I said. “I tried to play nice. I guess we can’t come to an agreement. Too bad. Let’s go, kids.”

  I turned toward the door. Now that I was looking, I could see Sonny and Bernardo standing to either side of it, holding their weapons on each other. Lisa was between me and the door holding her pistol trained on Eddie. I nodded.

  “Jarvis,” Cardoza said. I turned to see him standing behind his desk and holding out a small wooden box. “Take a couple of these for the road, huh? I know you’re a cigar man. Consider it a peace offering.”

  I opened the box and withdrew three large cigars, each one sealed in its own clear plastic tube, “Thanks. But a couple of stogies hardly makes up for multiple attempted murders.”

  Cardoza shrugged, “You did kill my men and burn my boat, Jarvis.”

  I nodded, “That’s what happens when you make a run at a guy like me, Cardoza. In war, assets are lost.”

  He nodded, “Okay. But I don’t want a war with you, Jarvis. So I’ll make another gesture. I won’t send anyone else after you or your client. At least not her. You and I might have a problem in the future, but as for now, if I’m asked to send men… I’ll refuse.”

  “Kind of you,” I said coldly.

  Cardoza chuckled, “I’ll go one more step, amigo. Doctor Campbell is in no danger from me. When my wife and I were trying to have a baby, it took a long time. She finally got pregnant, and we almost lost our boy. Campbell saved both of them in the delivery room. I owe the man.”

  I nodded, “Okay… and his lawyer friend, Ted? He’s already been killed.”

  Cardoza’s eyes flashed with something. It was fleeting and quick, but I thought it was surprise. His face remained impassive when he said: “I don’t know anything about that. I meant what I said, Jarvis… I wasn’t involved with that first thing.”

  We left without incident. Back out on Seventh Avenue, we walked toward where I’d parked my Jeep. None of us said anything until we got into the car and were driving back toward Saint Pete.

  “You believe that fuckin’ guy?” Sonny asked.

  “I think so,” I said. “He’s got no reason to lie, exactly. Still… I find it interesting that good ole Doc Campbell seems to keep cropping up in everyone’s lives.”

  “Why didn’t you ask him where Veronica was?” Lisa asked.

  I drew in a breath, “I’m not sure he knows. And if I let it slip, he might pass the info along to his… to whoever hired him.”

  “So what do we do about her?” Sonny asked.

  I shrugged, “We’ll try to figure out where she’s gone. We’ll check the doctor’s house, the BA offices downtown… worst-case scenario, she mentioned First Friday… if we haven’t found her by then, we’ll head downtown and spread out. Maybe with six of us, we can spot her in the crowd or at a bar… I don’t know, it’s not much, but it’s all we’ve got.”

  19

  For the next forty-eight hours, everyone in my little six-person group took turns looking for Veronica and staking out several locations. The end result, however, was that by late Friday afternoon, there was no sign of her. She hadn’t called, and when I spoke with Jean Belmar again after she landed Friday afternoon, Veronica had apparently not contacted her either.

  The lack of contact was ominous. I tried to remain positive, but after two days of nothing, it was growing more and more difficult to do so. Whatever her motivation for slipping us, Veronica knew her life was in danger and was smart enough to realize that staying out in the cold was not doing her any good.

  The only thing that even resembled a lead was that Joey Knuckles mentioned that he thought that it was possible that late Wednesday night that Campbell might have gotten a visitor. A car pulled into the driveway of a neighboring house and then drove off. Probably an Uber or Lyft. A figure that might have been a woman went into the house’s backyard and disappeared. He never saw the person again, but another car, a black sedan, showed up at the doc’s shortly thereafter and stayed for a while.

  I didn’t know what to make of it, but once again, it seemed ominous. However, other than this vague news, we had nothing to go on, so it was decided that some of us would indeed go downtown on Friday night and take our chances.

  For perhaps as far back as ancient pre-history… or maybe a decade or so… downtown Saint Petersburg has celebrated the first Friday of each month by closing off Central Avenue between Third and Second Streets. They set up a stage for a series of live bands, made room for a variety of vendors and thousands of people to congregate on the street and in the half dozen or so bars on the block. The entire area gets in on the act, but the 200 block of Central is definitely the party’s epicenter.

  We all parked in a garage on Second Avenue at about six in the afternoon. From here, we could branch out and prowl the main parts of downtown where Veronica might show. It was flimsy at best, but it was all I had at the time.

  “So you really think she’s gonna show up around here?” Joey Knuckles inquired as we all met at Lisa’s GLC.

  I shrugged, “No idea, but it’s as good a plan as any. I guess no luck at the BA offices down here?”

  Joe scoffed and waved a hand in the air, “They ain’t seen her in a couple tree weeks.”

  I originally felt that if the six of us split up, we could cover more ground and cover it faster. There were a lot of bars and restaurants do
wntown, and with more and more people being vaccinated for Covid, more and more people were returning to the weekend nightlife. However, if trouble arose, it meant that each of us would be alone without backup. I instead chose to pair us up. A shooter and a puncher, more or less. Sonny and T would start at the pier and work their way toward Central. Jimmy and Joey Knuckles would start at the Sun Dial on Second Avenue and work their way toward Central. Lisa and I would take the main center of First Friday, and then we’d all meet up and see what we could see.

  “Where do you think she went?” Lisa asked as we ducked into Central Cigars and then through the back entrance to Ruby’s Elixir.

  I shook my head as I scanned the patrons. To our left, a small band was just beginning to play. Ella Jet, a young musician who was no more than twenty-three but had a talent and a voice as strong and with as much range as Ella Fitzgerald, began to belt out an energetic blues tune.

  “I can’t imagine,” I said… well, half-shouted. “She knows her situation. She came to me because of what happened and only last Friday, three men made a run at her. I don’t get it.”

  We went back out through the cigar bar and next door to Café Del Mar. The bar was a long room that went far back into the building. Again nothing. Next, we moved down to Five Bucks, which was similar in dimension to Del Mar.

  “Do you really think she’d just come down here?” Lisa asked. “I mean… the situation is hardly the right time for clubbing or whatever.”

  “I don’t know,” I said again, feeling frustrated that this was the only answer I seemed to have. “I have to think that she snuck away for a good reason. Good to her, at least.”

  “And when she goes back to the house and sees us gone, she’ll come here looking?” Lisa asked.

  I shrugged as we went back out and fought the crowds down to the Yard of Ale, “You said she wanted to do this… I know this is kind of lame… but what else can we do?”

  Veronica seemed to be nowhere near us. We checked the Oyster Bar and Caddy’s and got nothing. The crowd in the street was heavy and the band loud. People were dancing, laughing and shouting conversations at each other. A vendor selling vodka-fume-filled balloons was doing a land rush business. I elected not to try the odd method for taking in alcohol.

  We worked our way back to Third Street and decided to split up. Lisa would go south half a block and check in the Red Mesa Cantina, and I’d go north and spot check The Galley and the Ale and the Witch. We’d meet back at Ruby’s and go through the process all over again.

  By now, we’d been at it for nearly two hours. The sun had sunk below the buildings, although darkness was still more than an hour away. The deeper shadows of the shaded evening made identifying individuals a little harder, and it would only get worse once night fell. Not impossible, just more challenging.

  I was just crossing the opening to the alley next to the Ale and the Witch when something solid bumped into my right side hard. I turned to say excuse me and had to look down to see a thick, squat figure standing a pace away glaring at me.

  “Well, well, well,” I said. “If it’s not Big Top. Out here all by yourself, stretch? What if you run into a little person with an attitude?”

  “Hey, fuck you, Jarvis,” he rejoined cleverly. “Do yourself a fuckin’ favor… make like an egg and beat it.”

  I chuckled, “Was that Noël Coward?”

  “Who?”

  “What’re you doing here, Big Top,” I said. “And where’s your handler?”

  Big Top took what he must have felt was a menacing step toward me. He held up a thick left fist, “You’ll find out when you need to fuckin’ find out, gumshoe. Till then, I’d advise you to watch your mouth.”

  “Or what, sawed-off?” I asked. “I’ll have to spend as many as thirty, perhaps forty seconds whippin’ your ass for ya’?”

  The left fist vanished, and his right came out, this time holding a matte-black revolver. His unpleasant and porcine face sported a nasty grin, “Now it’s me got the gun, smartass.”

  “Gonna shoot me in broad daylight and in a crowd?” I asked. “You think you’ll get more than half a block before those cops down there blocking off the street will have you eating pavement?”

  Big Top only laughed, “You’re so far behind on this thing, Jarvis… you don’t even know how fucked you really are. I’ve got—“

  “Put it away, Paul Bunyan,” Lisa said from behind the wide man. She was about the same height but considerably slimmer.

  Big Top froze and looked over his shoulder at her smiling face. I couldn’t see it, but I knew her Glock was pressed into the small of his back. The wrestler, at least that’s what he looked like, slid the revolver back into his hip pocket.

  “You like that?” Lisa asked. “Like the irony there? You know… I called you Paul Bunyan, who was really big. A direct contrast with you, because you’re really dinky.”

  I couldn’t help but chuckle, “Where is Otter, Big Top?”

  The man only glared, his piggy eyes boring into mine and the unpleasant grin… more of a sneer really… still plastered across his kisser.

  “Let’s take a walk,” I said. “Down the alley and over to Second Street. Move.”

  We moved away from the street and the sounds of revelers. Big Top went without protest, being herded at the end of Lisa’s gun. I pulled out my phone and did a three-way call with Joe and Sonny.

  “I got a fish,” I said. “Not the big fish, or even our main goal, but it’s a start. Where are you guys?”

  “In that park near Beach,” Sonny reported. “We ain’t seen nothin’ at the pier.”

  “We’re in front of some joint called Mac Dinton’s,” Joey Knuckles reported.

  “You’re on First Ave. North,” I said. “Head east to Second Street and then take a right. We’ll come out of an alley on Second Street in front of an open-air parking lot. Sonny, you and T head up First Ave. and come into the lot. We’ll be there with our friend.”

  Five minutes later, the three of us walked across Second Street and into the crowded parking lot. We moved to the center, using the cover of the variety of vehicles to obscure the fact that one of us held a gun on the other. Not long after, Joe and Jimmy seemed to materialize a few cars down from us. Less than a minute later, Sonny and T did the same. We stood near the rear of a gargantuan Lincoln Navigator and surrounded Big Top.

  “Start talkin’,” Joey Knuckles started in, grabbing a fistful of Big Top’s loose button-down shirt. “Where’s the broad?”

  Big Top didn’t seem phased by the larger man’s aggressive attitude, “Who the fuck are you assholes?”

  “We’re the guys gonna break you into little fuckin’ pieces wittout you make with some real good fuckin’ ansiz’,” Joe said, shaking the man.

  Big Top swung a short hard right that connected solidly with Joe’s ribs. The boxer let out an umph and stepped back. He wasn’t disconcerted, though. On the contrary, he was smiling at the shorter man.

  “You trow a good sucker punch, midget,” Joe said. “Now let’s see how good yiz can take one.”

  From the end of the aisle we stood in, a black sedan screeched around the corner, its engine revving as it barreled toward us. We all had to scatter to avoid being run down. The car didn’t even slow down as the rear passenger door flew open, and something… no, someone tumbled out and rolled into a heap near the bumper of an old Cadillac. The car roared away and turned at the other end of the lane, its tires squealing in protest.

  At the same time, I thought I heard a muffled and high-pitched pew from behind me. I looked around in time to see Big Top pitching forward and tumbling, a spray of red gore blooming from the middle of his chest. Sonny was already in the process of stowing his 9mm.

  “Scott!” Lisa shrieked, and I turned again.

  I saw her kneeling beside the body that had been pitched from the moving car. I stepped closer and saw that it was a woman. Her athletic body was wrapped in a simple but elegant sundress, and one of her strapped heels h
ad come off, leaving a pedicured bare foot sticking out at right angles to where she lay. A wave of jet-black hair covered her face… but I knew. Even as I walked toward Lisa and the body, the scene taking on the sluggishness of nightmare… I knew.

  I bent down and rolled the woman over, revealing a pretty face now devoid of that special spark of life that made all the difference. The line between death and life seemed so vast, until you saw it up close. Then you realized how insignificant the demarcation really was.

  Veronica Bradford was dead. I placed the index finger of my right hand to her carotid artery and there was no pulse. I knew there wouldn’t be one, but I had to check. With automatic movements, I carefully lifted the hem of her dress and saw that she wasn’t wearing panties. There was enough light to see that something sticky coated her inner thighs and that there was a small amount of blood near her mostly shaved vagina. I pulled the hem of the dress back down, stood and stepped between the Caddy and the SUV and vomited.

  We managed to keep things quiet for a little while. Long enough for Lisa to call Alex on my phone and for him, Sergeant Maglashan, Captain Cutler and a prowl car to show up on the scene. It wasn’t long after that, however, that the news vans began to show, and crowds of onlookers began to congregate in and around the parking lot. Two more police cars had to be called in and the officers posted to create a perimeter.

  The Saint Pete crime scene investigators came along with the medical examiner and were taking photos and collecting what evidence there was to collect.

  “So let me get this straight,” Cutler said, lighting a cigarette and spearing me with a look that would’ve drawn blood if possible. “You brace this Big Top guy and bring him out here. Then a car pulls in, dumps Ms. Bradford’s body and in the process, you shoot the other guy.”

  She was directing this question to Lisa, Sonny and myself. We’d instructed the other three to disappear immediately. I asked Sonny to go also, telling him to leave his gun with me, but he refused. He said that he was licensed to carry and that he wasn’t worried about getting jammed up with the local Johns.