He looked at the man, who was a little shorter than Scarne and maybe 50 pounds heavier, to judge by the size of his belly jiggling under his sweat-stained Miami Dolphins t-shirt. He would be very slow. He walked over to the farm workers.
“Anyone here know guns?”
One of the men said he did. Scarne handed him the shotgun. Then he took off his jacket and put his own gun in its holster. He handed both to Cassie.
“What are you doing?”
“Labor relations,” he said.
Scarne walked over to the leader. Held out his arms.
“See. No gun.”
The man looked at his crew and snickered. Then he swung wildly at Scarne, who twisted and took the blow on his left shoulder, which went numb. The man could punch. Scarne pivoted, bent his fingers inward and delivered a commando jab against his opponent’s exposed neck below his ear. The man grunted and reached for Scarne, trying to close the gap between them. Scarne put his fists together and lifted his arms violently before the man’s hands reached his throat. Then he punched him in the mouth and kneed him in the groin. That got an even louder grunt and the man doubled over. Scarne hit him on the back of his neck with the edge of his hand and he pitched forward in the dirt.
The other thugs looked at their chief in disbelief. He probably slapped them around at will and Scarne had reduced him to a lump in the dirt in 10 seconds.
Scarne grabbed the man by his shirt collar and raised him to his knees. He was now moaning louder than the other two injured men. One more and I could start a chorus, Scarne thought. He dragged him over to where Cassie Mulloy was standing, mouth open. He let the man catch his breath.
“Now, apologize.”
“Huh?”
“You called the lady a nasty name. I want you to apologize. Or I’ll wash your mouth out with my shoe.”
The man looked at Cassie Mulloy. He spat out a bloody tooth.
“Sorry.”
Scarne stood him up and walked him back to his men.
“Now, listen to me, boys,” he said, lowering his voice. “If I hear that you bothered these nice people again, or that reporter, I’m going to come back and really lose my temper. And tell the slime bucket you work for that he will be getting a hospital bill for the man you hurt and he better pay it. Or he’ll be paying his own. Got it?”
They all nodded.
Scarne went back and retrieved his gun and put on his jacket. The worker holding the shotgun tried to hand it back to him.
“No. You keep it. And take those bats. You might need them.” He looked at the woman who said she could drive. “You better get going.”
The workers piled into the truck and they rumbled off.
“You took him like he was a baby,” Mulloy said when they were gone. “You didn’t have to do that. What if you lost?”
“I try not to get into fights I think I’ll lose. He was fat, slow and stupid. I liked the odds. I don’t think they will bother those folks again. What about the owner of the farm?”
“I’ll talk to the union. They’ll land all over him.”
“I told my sparring partner to tell him to pay the worker’s hospital bill. Make sure he does.”
“You are a piece of work, Mr. Scarne. I owe you.”
“Enough to tell me who your source is?”
Cassie Mulloy looked conflicted. But she shook her head.
“No. I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“Good for you. But I had to try. Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
As they walked to their cars, the man Scarne fought shouted at him.
“Hey! You gonna leave us out here?”
Scarne looked at the sun.
“Great day for a walk, don’t you think?”
CHAPTER 14 - TURTLE CLUB
After his battle in the tomato fields, Scarne went back to his hotel and spent several hours working on his iPad. He ordered a hamburger and beer from room service while he organized a rough report of his investigation. At one point he called Sharon Ross and invited her to dinner, asking her to pick a restaurant.
“There’s a nice place called the Turtle Club on Gulf Shore Drive just north of Vanderbilt Road in North Naples. One of the few restaurants in town where you can eat on the beach. The sunsets are fabulous.”
Scarne offered to pick her up but she said she had a stop to make before dinner and wanted to take her own car. They made arrangements to meet a half hour before sunset.
***
“You know what I like about you, Jake?”
“My dashing good looks?”
“Other than that. You told me up front that you are leaving tomorrow and might not be back. And you didn’t even sound the slightest disappointed that I have my own car and you won’t have to drive me home. You gave me an out in case I’m having second thoughts about sleeping with you.”
“I didn’t know you were having first thoughts.”
“Come off it. I picked you up on the tennis courts, remember.”
Scarne and Sharon Ross, drinks in hand, were among a dozen or so people sitting in chairs the Turtle Club provided for those who wanted to watch the approaching sunset. The restaurant itself was almost directly on the beach and was part of a small resort. The Gulf was calm and the sky clear, with only a few wispy clouds in the distance.
“It’s better when there are some clouds,” Sharon said, sipping her gin and tonic. “They provide more color.”
A woman sitting in front of them turned and said, “I thought we weren’t supposed to look directly at the sun. You could go blind. Every time there’s an eclipse they say that.”
The sun was now only just above the horizon.
“When the sun rises or sets, the light has to travel at much more of an angle and through more of the atmosphere than when it’s higher in the sky,” Sharon told her. “So, it’s safer to look at it. And at sunset it’s even safer than sunrise because the atmosphere has been heated. But I wouldn’t stare at it too long at either time. The infrared isn’t all that great for your retina.”
Scarne looked at Sharon, who shrugged.
“I spend a lot of time in the middle of the ocean. I know my sun.”
“What about the green flash?” the woman asked. “Is that true?”
“If the conditions are just right, you might see one on the horizon just after the sun drops below it. I’ve only seen it once, down in the Keys. Of course, it might have been the gin and tonics.”
They all laughed. And, as advertised, the sunset was truly spectacular, with streaks of yellow and orange lighting up the clouds. There were some “oohs” and “aahs”, and even hand-clapping, from people who were walking on the beach in front of the restaurant.
“No green flash,” Scarne said.
“What do you want for free,” Sharon said. “Let’s eat. I’m starving.”
The restaurant had tables inside and out. She had reserved one inside with a view of the Gulf.
“The sunset is one thing,” she explained. “Air-conditioning is another.”
***
“Don’t you just love hot uncomplicated sex?”
“I think I can speak for all men everywhere when I say I agree with you,” Scarne said.
Sharon laughed.
“You know what I mean. Two adults attracted to each other, who trust one another and don’t care that they may never see each other again.”
“You never want to see me again?”
She laughed again and her hand moved to his groin.
After a delicious dinner of “Oysters Turtlefeller” and broiled grouper, washed down with a bottle of Cakebread Cellars Sauvignon Blanc, a slightly tipsy Sharon had informed Scarne that the resort had some vacant rooms “if you are interested.”
“And how do you know there are rooms avaialble?”
“I checked when I made the dinner reservation.”
“No wonder you insisted that I have the oysters.”
“I think that’s an old-wives’ tale, like the green flash probably
is.”
Now, her hand ministrations having been successful, she straddled Scarne. As she sank down on him she said, “Does that feel like I never want to see you again, big boy?”
Scarne looked up at her small, but pendulous breasts, swaying with her exertions. It was the kind of sight he knew he’d never get tired of.
“They’re not just for looking, you know,” Sharon said.
He took both orbs in his hands and began kneading her nipples with his thumbs.
“I love that,” she said with a slight moan. “Harder!”
A minute later her whole body tensed.
“Oh, I’m coming!”
A half hour of energetic lovemaking later, they lay side by side again.
“What are you thinking about, Jake?”
“I may buy a condo down here.”
Sharon punched him on the shoulder. The wrong one. He suppressed a grimace. Chalk one up for the tomato field goon. Scarne knew the shoulder would be sore as hell in the morning.
***
The noise from the shower woke Scarne. He got up and put on his pants. There was a mirror at the foot of the bed. His left shoulder sported an ugly bruise, and he could barely raise his arm above parallel. Despite what he told Cassie Mulloy, he knew that had the “ugly, slow and stupid” slugger connected with his jaw, the fight might have had a different ending. Scarne checked his watch. It was 7 A.M. He was due to have breakfast with Cassie in his hotel at 9 A.M.
Sharon came out of the bathroom wearing only a towel, which she dropped casually and then began to dress. Then she ran back into the bathroom and Scarne heard a hair dryer. Five minutes later she emerged, looking wonderful.
“I have a breakfast meeting at the Botanical Garden this morning,” she said. “I have to run.”
“How the hell do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Look like a million dollars on hardly any sleep.”
“Good genes and lots of sex,” Sharon said.
She walked over and kissed him.
“I had a terrific time,” she said. “The room is already paid for, by the way.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Don’t sweat it, kiddo. You bought dinner. And I’m liberated. Though I wouldn’t mind if you called me if you’re ever in the neighborhood again.”
She gently touched the bruise on his shoulder.
“Did I do that?”
“No.”
“Thank God.”
***
When he got back to his own hotel, Scarne changed into a bathing suit and went down to the pool. After two dozen laps the shoulder loosened up and he went back to his room, showered, shaved and changed.
There weren’t many people in the hotel coffee shop. A couple with three young children occupied one table that seemed to be covered with pancakes. A man dressed in a white seersucker suit was sitting in a booth drinking orange juice. He smiled at Scarne as he passed. Scarne smiled back, noting that the man appeared to be Vietnamese, and tall for that nationality. Scarne chose a table at the rear of the coffee shop, far from the table full of kids, who were making a bit of a racket.
“I don’t like blueberries in my pancakes,” one of the kids shouted. “They look gross.”
“But you put blueberry syrup on them,” his mother said, “What’s the difference?”
It was an argument Scarne knew she was bound to lose.
He tried to tune out the pancake debate and had just sat down when Cassie Mulloy arrived.
“How’s the guy who got hit with the bat?”
“His arm was broken in two places,” she said, sitting across from him. “The farm owner is going to get quite a bill.”
“Think Simon Legree will give you any trouble?”
“No. He actually came to the hospital. He’s scared witless. The goons apparently told him you must be some sort of enforcer, or something.” She smiled. “I thought it best to let him think that. I told him you were with the Teamsters.”
Scarne laughed.
“And you call me a piece of work.”
“Speaking about arms, how’s that shoulder?”
He was surprised.
“How did you know?”
“I’m a reporter, remember. You are favoring your left arm. And that’s where that goon hit you when you were showing off.”
“Showing off?”
“What else would you call it? Why do men do that? It makes no sense.”
“I don’t like bullies,” Scarne said lamely.
She gave him the “woman” stare.
He smiled.
“Well, maybe I was, just a little.”
A waitress came over with a coffee refill for Scarne and looked at Mulloy.
“Just coffee, for me, thanks,” Cassie said.
After the waitress left, Scarne said, “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Were you out at that farm yesterday as a reporter or as a advocate for the downtrodden migrant workers?”
She considered the question.
“A little of both, I guess.”
“Honest answer. But dangerous ground for a reporter. Especially one that hopes to one day get a position on The New York Times.”
“You think the Times doesn’t take sides?”
“Sure they do, and not only on the editorial pages. But they might not look kindly on one of their reporters making the news.”
Mulloy looked angry.
“You don’t know what you are talking about, Mr. Scarne. Many people wind up as staff reporters on papers or on TV after being advocates of some kind. They are the ones with the knowledge from being in the trenches.”
“The trenches are overrated. Take it from someone who has been in a few. You come out a different person from the one that went in them. Your passion for justice and your ambition, both of which I admire, may be coloring your objectivity in the Herrera case. I don’t think you have a story yet. At least not the one you are pitching to Baquet. I haven’t found any compelling link between Alva Delgado’s murder and Weatherly and Landon. And neither have you. True, you can put them at the party at Desiderio’s house. And you can probably put them on the yacht with her. You believe Herrera didn’t kill Alva. Fine. But you have no proof that those two boys had anything to do with her death. Do you?”
Cassie Mulloy looked miserable.
“No.”
“Then why pitch a story saying they did?”
“Because they lied about seeing her. Because Desiderio lied about her being with them. Because the cops botched the investigation and suppressed evidence.”
“How do you know that? About the evidence. Your famous source?”
“Yes, damn it. Don’t mock me!”
“This so-called evidence pointed at the Touchdown Twins?”
“No. Not yet. But I’ll get there.”
Scarne was exasperated.
“Let me get this straight. You want The New York Times to run an article implicating, or rather, hinting that two of the most famous athletes in the country, the idols to millions of kids, were responsible for the rape and murder of a cocktail waitress whose body was found in the possession of her blood-stained ex-boyfriend. Just because they lied about seeing her at a party?”
“I want the Times to show some balls.”
“Don’t you read the financial pages, Cassie? The paper is bleeding money. They can’t afford balls on a story that isn’t rock-solidly sourced.”
“So, you won’t help me?”
“I wasn’t sent down here to help you. I was sent down here to help your editors decide whether you had the goods. Which you don’t.”
Scarne refrained from telling her that he’d found out that Landon and Weatherly weren’t the angels portrayed in the media, and were undoubtedly narcissistic bastards. She was already convinced they were possibly rapists and murderers. Her opinion of them, and her story, were already skewed enough.
“I could go to another paper, or TV or one of the bl
ogs.”
“Why not the National Inquirer or one of Murdoch’s British rags. They’ll print anything. Or put out a video on YouTube. Really end your career with a splash. I like you, Cassie. Don’t be a fool. You have a lot more work to do.” Scarne paused. “Don’t you?”
Now, she really looked miserable.
“Listen, kid,” Scarne said gently. “You may never get this story. It might not be there. But there will be other stories, other chances. You will never get anywhere threatening the goddamn Times. You will only antagonize them. They’ll never trust you again.” Scarne put his hand over hers. “The woman I saw out in those tomato fields isn’t the kind who puts ambition ahead of integrity.”
“I won’t stop digging.”
“I don’t expect you to.”
***
Loc Moi followed Scarne and Mulloy out of the coffee shop. Thanks to the noisy kids at the table near him, he’d been unable to hear any of their conversation, some of which looked heated. He stopped at a tourist kiosk by the front desk and pretended to read some brochures while Scarne and Mulloy exchanged goodbyes in the vestibule. The girl looked upset.
Scarne passed him on his way to the elevators. If he had any say in the matter, Loc Moi would have taken care of the man right there in the hotel, that day. He knew a dangerous adversary when he saw one. But Stupachi had been adamant. Nothing was to happen to the private investigator while he was in Florida. Other plans were being made. Loc Moi shrugged. It was a mistake, but he had his orders.
He pocketed a brochure about air boat rides in the Everglades — something he decided he might actually want to try — and followed Cassie Mulloy out of the hotel.
CHAPTER 15 - BEST MAN
When he got back to New York, Scarne spent a full day working with Evelyn polishing his report for the Times.
“These footballers aren’t exactly the paragons of virtue they are portrayed in the media,” she said after putting the finished report on his desk. “I don’t think it would take too much to knock them off their pedestal.”
“You would be surprised,” Scarne said. “There is so much corruption and hypocrisy in politics, finance, sports, you name it, that it takes an awful lot to shock Americans. We’ve been inoculated by Hollywood and the Internet to ignore just about anything. Weatherly and Landon may be frauds, morally, but they are probably no worse than a lot of other celebrities. Their pedestals may wobble eventually, but that’s about it.”
PEDESTAL (JAKE SCARNE THRILLERS Book 5) Page 14
