Suitable for Framing

by Edna Buchanan

  “That’s my Jordan Marsh,” I protested, rebuckling my seat belt. “It’s only a few blocks from where I live.”

  Rakestraw stomped the gas and the car jumped the curb back out onto the boulevard. A Beach unit had been run off the road near the Coast Guard base and rescue had been summoned.

  “Damn, they’ll kill a cop before they’re through!” Rakestraw snatched up the mike, took a deep breath, and drawled in an unnaturally calm and casual voice, “Unit Seven-twenty-four. Think I’m gonna swing by and have a look-see in case the Beach needs assistance.”

  Then he floored it; the car leaped forward with such power that I was glad we’d skipped the coffee.

  “The chase policy,” he explained.

  “Right.” Now I understood his oddly passive voice to the dispatcher.

  Talking on the air is like speaking on the record. Taped radio transmissions are the only official documentation of what happens out on the street.

  Miami Beach officers can pursue fleeing felons at high speeds. Miami cops, however, are forbidden to do so in crimes against property. Cops hate it when bad guys get away. The unpopular policy was established after four teenagers ran from police in a stolen car and wiped out in a fiery crash. Instead of reflecting on how they managed to spawn car thieves, the irate parents filed wrongful death actions against the city. They charged that the youngsters would not have crashed if the police hadn’t chased them. They also sued the hapless owner of the stolen car and his insurance company.

  Now Miami cops can engage in hot pursuit only when lives are threatened, such as by shots being fired.

  We raced south on the boulevard, the staccato adrenaline-charged voices of the Beach officers reporting their progress by radio.

  One had to stop and investigate what appeared to be several dozen Haitian boat people wading ashore near Palm Island. At the sight of flashing lights, they had run in all directions.

  The remaining cops were chasing the fleeing cars across the straightaway at speeds exceeding one hundred miles an hour, past Watson Island, still coming west.

  “They’re exiting onto the boulevard, into the city!” a Beach officer shouted.

  “He’s not gonna make it. He’s gonna lose it!” one cried as the fleeing cars hit the exit ramp.

  “He made it! But we lost unit two-fourteen; he hit the barrier! He’s got right-side damage. There goes a tire! Oncoming units use caution, there’s a tire rolling down the westbound right lane!”

  How could teenagers, probably still unlicensed, out-maneuver cops trained in pursuit and combat driving?

  The exit ramp loomed ahead. The oncoming wails of distant sirens merged into stereo with the same sounds on the radio frequency.

  Sirens converged from other directions now, and radio traffic increased: Miami officers advising circumspectly about plans to mosey on by, then jamming pedals to the metal.

  We saw them now, three blocks distant, headlights out. The battering ram, a black 1981 Olds, roared down the ramp, closely followed by a new Grand Marquis that took the curve on two wheels and a skidding Toyota.

  “Here they come!” yelled Rakestraw.

  I braced and held on. Wide awake, Bitsy crouched on the floorboard, ears at full alert, tail wagging. I failed to share her elation. If we crash head-on, I thought, my poor mother, whose calls I neglect to return, will not collect a cent. But had I stolen a car, run from the cops, and crashed, she would be able to sue for enough to retire to Barbados.

  The suspects never slowed down. All three cars blew a red stoplight at 13th Street at seventy miles an hour. The Toyota whined like a jet engine as it hurtled straight into Overtown. The battering ram turned north, toward us, and the Grand Marquis fled south. Blue and red lightning flashed, beams bouncing and whirling through the night as half a dozen Beach units careened down the exit ramp, sirens screaming.

  “You hear something?” Rakestraw barked.

  “What?”

  He snatched the mike. “Seven-twenty-four. I believe I just heard gunshots in the vicinity of the Beach’s chase. I’m in pursuit.”

  “Affirmative,” radioed another city officer. “I heard the shots.”

  Rakestraw smiled wickedly and slid the blue flasher onto the dash. Another siren came up fast behind us. The driver of the oncoming Olds saw us and skidded into a U-turn, sliding sideways for half a block as Rakestraw stood on the brakes. So did the cop behind us as I braced for an impact that did not come.

  The Olds’ tires gained purchase on the pavement, and the car shot across the boulevard like a bullet. I thought I heard shouts and saw a backseat passenger perched high atop what had to be Jordan Marsh merchandise stacked all around him.

  “We’ve got ’em boxed in now!” I saw Rakestraw’s eyes and did not want to be any of those kids.

  The Olds bounced across a sidewalk, ran two stop signs at a flat-out sixty, and accelerated the wrong way on a one-way street, aiming at an expressway entrance ramp. A tire blew and the driver lost it. They crashed into an expressway piling under the overpass, near the homeless encampment. A hubcap soared high into the air, bounced, then clattered across the roadway.

  Smoke rose lazily from the wreck as both doors burst open and three skinny figures hurtled out into the haze. They hit the ground running in three different directions.

  “They bailed!” Rakestraw shouted into his mike. “I’ll take the one in the T-shirt and baseball cap, headed toward Second Avenue.” Police cars skidded to stops all around us, with cops taking up the foot chase.

  “Stay here.”

  “I’ll go with you,” I said.

  “No way. You can’t keep up and you can’t run around out here alone. I can’t watch out for you.”

  I watched him dart up the embankment, scale a fence halfway up, and run surefooted across sloping concrete at a 90-degree angle.

  I hated this part. If I stayed with the car, I’d miss the action. Had FMJ been driving the Olds? Where was he now?

  The busy radio was my only link. Breathless patrolmen reported their locations as they pounded down alleys and checked abandoned buildings. The Grand Marquis had ignored warning signals and roared across the Miami Avenue Bridge as it was about to open for a boat. The pursuing police cars didn’t make it, and the Marquis had vanished on the other side of the river. Overtown, scene of Miami’s last riot, seemed to have swallowed up the Toyota. The suspects on foot had eluded pursuers so far. Nobody can outrun a scared teenager. One patrol unit was called away to check a report of dehydrated Cuban rafters beached at Dinner Key near City Hall. The remaining searchers called for K-9 units and set up a perimeter. The harsh glare of powerful spotlights exposed the barren postapocalyptic nightmarescape of predawn downtown Miami. Chopper blades rent the air, hovering low, as the search focused on an area about four blocks away. Where is the Miami of my memories, the clean and gentle city where I grew up? I wondered. How did this happen?

  Bitsy began to whimper and I stroked her head. Then I saw it. Furtive movement near the still-smoking wreck. Heart pounding, I caught my breath.

  Shadows had come alive. Dark shapes, skittering figures emerged from everywhere, swarming over the Olds.

  Homeless people rousted in the night by the commotion, they were looting the stolen merchandise in the smashed car.

  I scrambled out, leaving the door of the unmarked open. Bitsy stood growling under her breath, eyes watching me expectantly. What would Francie have done? “Hey,” I yelled indignantly. “Hey, you!”

  Nobody paid attention. A wraith in ragged clothes glanced up dismissively, then continued to load his shopping cart.

  I kept shouting until one turned and took a short menacing step in my direction, the way someone would stomp to scare off an annoying cat or dog. Oh, for Pete’s sake, I thought, got back in the car, and slammed the door. This is insane.

  In daylight, I could reason with them face-to-face, but in the dark it’s different. I am only a reporter, I told myself, not
a cop.

  When the cops straggled back, breathless, sweating, and empty-handed, the stolen car had been stripped clean by the homeless. Even the battery was gone. Rakestraw was mad as hell, sorry he had invited me. This had turned into the Chernobyl of local police work. The Beach had lost two cars in the chase, one patrolman was hospitalized with a neck injury, another was being checked out at the emergency room, and a city cop searching an abandoned building had plunged through a rotted floor. He too went to the hospital, for shots and stitches.

  More than twenty thousand dollars in loot was gone, as were the culprits, at least ten kids, three of whom had eluded the cops on foot.

  We drove to the Beach to see the tape from the store security camera. After the Olds exploded through the glass double doors, the kids swarmed inside like a mob of looters. I did not see Howie among them. Maybe he was telling the truth, I thought. The thieves, organized and fast, seized armloads of the most expensive merchandise. They took nothing cheap.

  Rakestraw pointed out FMJ: wiry, slightly built, and short, clearly in charge and enjoying himself. The kid looked younger than his age, with a mop of wavy hair, the fuzz of a thin mustache, and a grin that would have been engaging had there not been a handgun stuck in his waistband, right next to his digital beeper. A few others wore dark glasses or scarves across their faces like the highwaymen from the bad old days of the Wild West, but FMJ did not. He mugged and swaggered, rolled his tongue at the camera, and mouthed obscenities.

  Like Howie had said, he was cold. He didn’t care.

  The ill-fated chase had been launched when a Miami Beach patrolman arrived at the store on a routine alarm call and three cars sped away. The wrecked Olds wore a fresh license tag stolen from an apartment house parking lot during the night In the trunk the cops found a piece of luggage belonging to a wounded Chicago tourist shot in the knee. He had been driving the Toyota.

  The amount of paperwork required by both departments was staggering. It was nearly sunrise when Rakestraw drove me back to the station for my car. The city looked innocent like a watercolor, soft-edged in the dawn light or maybe my eyes were bleary. As we rolled west on Northeast Sixth, a homeless man shuffled across the street in front of us dragging a large piece of cardboard. He wore a brand-new Ralph Lauren shirt, price tag still dangling. Rakestraw slowed for a better look, and the man gave us a toothless grin.

  Too late to catch a nap, I showered, dressed, and ate breakfast at the Villa Deli. I ordered fuel for my body engine, the special: two eggs over easy, grits, bacon, and a toasted bagel slathered in cream cheese. I had the waitress wrap a cheese Danish to go. When lack of sleep caught up with me, chewing would keep me awake. The upside about staying out all night is that I can eat anything and never gain an ounce.

  I wrote the story, turned it in, then plodded out to check my beat, tired and irritable. Only Bitsy had had fun. Now she would expect to ride in police cars again every night. Even Lottie was mad as hell.

  We met for coffee after the first edition. “Did you notice on the way in today that all the windshield washers downtown looked well dressed?” she said. “I could have sworn that one who jumped on my hood was wearing an Armani jacket.”

  “Probably was.” I told her why.

  “You and the cops were out chasing those little rodents all night and didn’t call me?”

  “I swear I thought about it but figured it wouldn’t pan out, so I let you sleep.”

  “Are you crazy? I could’ve shot some great stuff.”

  “Who knew?”

  “You should have called me.” She pouted.

  My mother called when I got back to my desk. The home of Heidi, the stylist, had been cleaned out while she and her husband attended the play.

  “I didn’t tell her it could have been prevented if you had only called me back,” she said.

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  Too weary to argue, I answered the next call with feelings of foreboding and resignation. It was good news.

  “Is that you, Britt? Finally! We did it! We did it!” It was Trish Tierney. “I start in the newsroom Monday, general assignment. Thank you!”

  There is some justice in the world after all, I thought.

  Chapter Six

  “I want you to come by for dinner. To celebrate,” Trish said.

  “Tonight?”

  “Right, when you get off.”

  “Well, I’ve got a couple of stories I’ll be working on for a while, and then I’m probably gonna go round and round with the city desk. And I’m really tired, so I don’t think I can, but it’s great news. It’ll be fun having you in the newsroom.”

  “Britt!” Her hearty tone was positive and persuasive. “No excuses. You are my best and only friend in Miami. I owe you a lot. And you have to eat sometime. Remember, I’m a reporter. I know. It doesn’t matter how late. Sounds like you could use a nice little dinner. Nothing fancy, for God’s sake. Nothing that won’t keep warm. Just some good nourishing food.”

  “You wanna meet somewhere?” I said uncertainly.

  “No. I’m cooking,” she said firmly. “Look, call me as you leave the paper, I’ll pop dinner in the oven, and it’ll be hot and ready to eat when you walk in the door.”

  The woman would not take no for an answer, and her offer was tempting and convenient. She lived on the Beach, she said, not far from me. The frozen wasteland in my freezer influenced my thinking. “You’re on,” I said. “Shall I bring something?”

  “Not a thing. Just yourself.”

  Nice. I called my wonderful landlady, Helen Goldstein, to ask if she would take Bitsy out for a few minutes so I could go straight to Trish’s.

  Mrs. Goldstein, married to the same man for sixty years and sold on the concept, agreed as usual, sounding pleased. “So,” she said optimistically. “You have a date. Your lieutenant? The skipper? Or somebody new?”

  “I’m just going to grab a bite with another reporter. A woman,” I added, dashing her hopes.

  The skipper, Curt Norske, was the dashing captain of the Sea Dancer, a sightseeing boat that catered to tourists and cruised Biscayne Bay. Sparks flew when our eyes met over a submerged body. So far, that relationship had been intermittent and casual, but “my” lieutenant, Kendall McDonald, was a longer story. I dismissed his image and focused on work, the prospect of warm food a tantalizing incentive. Living on coffee, adrenaline, and headlines gets old. One of these days, I thought, I have got to go to the supermarket and stock up. My problem is time; I am either too busy, too late, or too impatient for endless checkout lines. My pantry is well stocked only with pet food and my aging hurricane supplies, untouched for years, mostly outdated canned tuna and bottled water.

  Trish’s address was on a neon stretch of Collins Avenue hotels and high-rises. Somehow I had pictured her in an efficiency with a hot plate. I double-checked my notebook. This was it, I thought, if I took it down right.

  The building was a condo conversion, the latest trend, Miami Beach’s new look, wrought by enterprising developers. Older oceanfront hotels from the city’s glory days are renovated, updated, and converted into condominiums. The lucrative market appeals to young local professionals, wealthy Europeans, Asians, and Latins, and anyone looking for a part-time Miami Beach residence.

  The phenomenon is another metamorphosis in a city that has evolved in less than forty years from world-class resort to shabby retirement community to the new playground of the rich and famous. Trendy New Yorkers find it simpler to jet to Miami for the weekend than fight traffic to Connecticut, the Jersey shore, or upstate New York.

  This pink and lavender building had been the Star Light Hotel, designed by one of the most prominent Art Deco-era architects. In the forties it was the place for celebrities and nightlife; in the sixties it hosted international beauty pageants. Encroaching shabbiness overtook it in the seventies and eighties. The glamour, the history, and the excitement faded into ghosts. But now the Star Light was back, restored t
o splendor, with all-new windows, a remodeled lobby, new cabanas, security, and renovated corridors.

  My heels clicked across the mirrored and marbled lobby. The security guard took my name and said I was expected.

  He must have telephoned my arrival. When I emerged on the fifth floor Trish was standing in the spill of light from her open doorway.

  She wore shorts, a blue silk blouse, and sandals, a wisp of a girl with a contagious smile.

  “It’s been the most wonderful day. I just can’t tell you.” She was nearly giddy with excitement. “I’ve been jumping up and down all afternoon! Of course, I’m also scared to death.” She looked closer at my face. “You look exhausted. Poor thing!” She drew me inside to rosy lighting, good music, and comforting aromas from the kitchen.

  Sliding glass doors stood open to the terrace, sheers billowing in the breeze off the ocean, vast night sky and sea beyond. The apartment was gorgeous, including a crystal chandelier, plush carpet, and glass brick. My jaw must have dropped. This poor jobless reporter’s apartment put mine to shame.

  “What a nifty place!”

  “Terrific, isn’t it?” she said, smiling. “Let me get you a drink.”

  The bar was built-in and well stocked, with crystal wine goblets suspended overhead. I opted for Dubonnet over ice. She pressed the glass into my hands. “Here, relax, make yourself at home and I’ll be right back. I think I smell something burning.” She declined my offer of help and disappeared behind the glass brick.

  I wandered out onto the terrace with my drink, my hair blowing in the evening breeze. The dark Atlantic was one with the midnight-blue horizon; the only lights twinkled from ships at sea. The music made the atmosphere instantly inviting and relaxing. There were breakers on the beach below and laughter from people in the outdoor pool.

  I drank in the view and stepped back inside the magazine-perfect apartment, uncluttered, scarcely lived in, no cats, no dogs, no confusion. The only personal touch was a photo in a silver frame on the mahogany breakfront, a child that must have been Trish and a frail-looking boy who resembled her enough to be a brother or a cousin. Wearing jeans and plaid shirts, they sat on ponies.