Margin of Error

by Edna Buchanan

  Too late. Two young men appeared, crossing the street toward us. Three more emerged from shadows at the corner we were approaching. I did not turn, but heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps behind us. More than one set.

  Fifty feet from the corner, too damn close to an open alley, we were surrounded. Lance, a big man, was no match for seven or eight youths, most likely armed. Probably doesn’t even do his own fight scenes, I thought.

  “Yo, what’s up?” Lance swung forward to high-five the closest menacing figure. The kid jumped like a startled cat, taken by surprise. They were young somewhere between the cradle and the electric chair. Their pants looked four sizes too big. They wore loose plaid flannel shirts over Raiders T-shirts and Raiders caps with price tags dangling. Price tags, the new status symbol. Some manufacturers, aware of the trend, now attach permanent plastic tags instead of flimsy cardboard, so they survive washing by fastidious gang-bangers.

  “You him!” one screamed. “Mako. Mako the shark!”

  “The shark never lets go!” said another.

  “You got it, dude,” Westfell said.

  “Why you kill that punk-ass lawyer who stole the money?”

  “It just wasn’t his day.”

  The sharper ones all talked at once in a mélange of streetspeak. Two others, slow or drugged, remained silent and uncertain. One skinny kid whose front teeth flashed gold was squinting, as though perplexed.

  “You still got that car, wid the spikes on the hubcaps?”

  “The trus and volves?”

  “You really make it wid that big blonde?”

  “Those tits real? Or did she have a boob job?”

  “Whatcha doin’ here?”

  “This your woman?” The one wearing a red bandanna under his Raiders cap was in my face.

  “Yeah, this is my woman.”

  He stepped back as everybody turned to leer, and I managed a little wave.

  “We not gonna take ‘em?” mumbled Squinty Face, still looking puzzled.

  “Fuckit, man, this is Mako, the man. Fu’get that shit.” Red Bandanna turned to Lance. “You still got that big piece, the forty caliber?”

  “A Desert Eagle, made in Israel.” Lance nodded. “Yeah, but not with me at the moment. Glad we ran into you guys, we’re doing a little research for the new movie, shooting here, in Miami.”

  “Any gang action?”

  “Yeah, you need a consultation?”

  “Yeah, you hire us. We the Thirty-fourth Street Players,” Red Bandanna said, strutting back and forth in front of Lance. “You put us on the payroll as advisers.”

  “That’s something to think about.” Fist under his chin, Lance seemed to think about it. “You know how we like realism. Right now, we’ve got us a problem.”

  “Who givin’ you shit? They gonna deal with us,” said a skinny kid, inexplicably referred to by the others as Fat Boy. “They hafta deal with us.”

  “Just the fucking car,” Lance said. “Piece of shit. Died back there, a coupla blocks away. Think we need a jump.”

  “No problemo,” Red Bandanna said. “Felipe here, he be the mechanic.”

  They escorted us back to the car, cock-walking, strutting in rhythm to some inner music, displaying their kick-boxing techniques, showing off, and rapping with “Mako” about his weapons, his kills, and his blondes. I stubbornly scanned the streets, desperate for a squad car, convinced that this was about to turn bad.

  It did not. Two of the gang met us at the T-Bird with flashy late-model cars. A screwdriver still protruded from the steering column of one of them. They left their headlights on and I popped the hood.

  I mentioned to Fat Boy that I was a writer. “For the Miami News,” I said.

  “Like Lois Lane.” He nodded wisely.

  “Sort of. You hear about that security guard? The guard down at the Metrorail station? I wrote that story.”

  “Yeah.” Fat Boy looked deliberately vague. “Yeah, guess he got capped by somebody collectin’ guns.”

  “Yeah,” I said mildly. “That’s right. They took his gun.

  Red Bandanna sniggered with ill-suppressed glee. “Yeah, somebody, they need ‘em.”

  “Who would that be?”

  “Maybe the PLO.” He shrugged. “They collectin’ guns. Must be expectin’ trouble. Maybe wid the Brickell Boys.”

  The Powerful Latin Organization. Unwilling to push my luck in our current situation, I merely raised an eyebrow and handed him a business card, in case he ever had any news to report.

  Felipe was disgusted and disappointed to find nothing more challenging than the battery cable, which had come off. After a series of high fives, we were safely on our way.

  “I don’t believe that!” I whooped at Lance, as I turned right on the Boulevard, much to my relief. “What just happened back there?”

  Mako the shark was Lance’s rogue cop character in a gang-banger movie called Streets of Death. We had just met his audience. He shook his head. “Reality succumbs again to the magic of twenty-four frames a second. Scary, ain’t it?”

  He hung around the newsroom until I finished the stories.

  “I’m starved,” he said. “Let’s eat.”

  I didn’t argue. Fear always makes me ravenous. We drove back to his hotel. Water splashed and danced in ornate stone fountains surrounded by jewel-like flower beds. The uniformed doorman greeted Lance by name as I gave the T-Bird to the valet. The dining room was still open, with candlelit tables and sparkling crystal. We were seated in a private nook, the only ones there.

  He smoked, casually perused the wine list, ordered a bottle, then asked about Dorothy Fairborn. “She works cleaning houses,” I said, heartsick and weary at the thought of her. “How will she afford to take her son home, much less bury him? Did you know it costs more to ship a dead body than to buy an airline ticket for a live traveler? Of course she doesn’t know much about airline tickets yet. She rode a Greyhound bus here to claim his body.”

  “What you learn on this job,” he said quietly, “most people never have to think about.” He flicked his Marlboro into an ashtray delivered by a waiter so obsequious he probably would have been thrilled to have Lance grind out the cigarette butt in his hand.

  “You know,” he said, “earlier, when you said you got ‘great’ quotes from the dead guy’s mother, you struck me as so incredibly cold. I felt you were in no position to consider acting shallow.”

  I didn’t realize my feelings had been so obvious.

  “But it’s clear from reading your story and seeing you now that you genuinely care about these people. That is very interesting to me.” Leaning back in his chair, he studied me for a long moment. “How do you sleep?”

  “Like a baby,” I blurted, too quickly. “At least I did, until—until the incident after the storm.”

  “The shooting?”

  “Yeah. Stories have never bothered me; in fact in some crazy way they made me feel…”—I groped for the right word—“valid, as though my job is important because I know I do right by the victims. I tell their side, which is all I can do. Sometimes there is nobody else to speak for them.”

  Westfell was surprisingly easy to talk to. Maybe our shared experience had created some sort of bond.

  “So,” I suggested casually, after we ordered stone crabs, “tell me all about the supermodel.”

  He grinned ruefully. “Between us?”

  I nodded. “Scout’s honor.”

  “She used me, simple as that. Modeling wasn’t enough. Nothing ever is for Lexie. It made her crazy that Cindy Crawford got to star in a movie before she did. Her ambition is scary; you can actually feel it when you’re with her, like something white hot that radiates from every pore. She’s driven.”

  He licked his lips thoughtfully and lit another Marlboro before he continued.

  “First time I saw her was on the cover of that sports magazine, the swimsuit edition. You probably saw it. Everybody did.” He
rolled his eyes.

  “When she put out the word that she wanted to meet me, I was intrigued. Who wouldn’t be? She called when I was in New York. Said she was driving in from a shoot, the cover of Vanity Fair. Had a car, offered to pick me up so we could have a drink. I was game.” He shrugged. “I got in the limo.” He made it sound so final. “I got in the limo,” he repeated thoughtfully.

  “She was gorgeous, that million-dollar face. She’s one of the few that looks even better in person. Had her hair down and was wearing a full-length fur and high heels. The limo pulls away from the curb and she takes off the coat. In the middle of downtown Manhattan. It was all she was wearing, except for the high heels.” He paused to smoke and to reflect. “That was one wi-i-ild ride. It was eighteen months before we ran off the road and crashed.” He sipped his wine and glanced up to see how I was taking all this.

  I hoped my mouth was not hanging open. “The coat should have been your first clue,” I said. “Fur coats are only good on their original owners. So it really was love at first sight?” I adore hearing about other people’s sex lives. Perhaps because mine is so dull.

  “I was dazzled. She wanted to be a movie star. Lexie always gets what she wants.”

  “What happened?”

  “She got what she wanted.” He gestured casually with his cigarette. “The wedding was eight weeks after that limo ride. My agent helped her get a small role in Starlight Express. The movie did well. Then I went to London to shoot Ground Zero, while she went to Vancouver for a slightly bigger role in Deadly Sin. We spent two weeks together before I went to Texas to shoot The Last Gunfighter, and she went to Hawaii to shoot Dreams of Darkness.”

  His cigarette butt sizzled as he flipped it into a nearly empty saucer.

  “When people keep leaving each other, even if they’re really in love, eventually one doesn’t come back.” His eyes shone with the look of a wounded spaniel.

  I felt a twinge of pity, then wanted to pinch myself. Was he playacting?

  “There was also the little matter of the pool boy,” he added nonchalantly. “And the football hero, an ex-boyfriend who, I later learned, was never entirely out of the picture.”

  “How did you find that out?” I drowned a luscious hunk of stone crab in butter sauce.

  “Skipped the wrap party on The Last Gunfighter, came home a day early. He was wearing my bathrobe, lounging next to my pool. The tabloids had a field day. Embarrassed the hell out of me and my kids. The whole world knows about it.”

  As he signed the check, our waiter murmured something and tried to hand him a package. Lance declined, shaking his head and apologizing.

  “What was that?” I asked, as we left.

  “He’s a would-be writer, wanted me to read his script.”

  “Why wouldn’t you?” I asked accusingly, rooting for the struggling artist. “Somebody took a chance on you once.”

  “And risk a lawsuit? Having somebody say I stole his idea? It’s happened. Believe me, it’s happened.”

  “But it’s so sad. The guy might be a great undiscovered talent.”

  “I agree. But that’s the business. It’s hard, but you have to say no,” he said firmly. “It’s survival.”

  He invited me to the bar for a nightcap after dinner. I declined. “Great meal,” I said. “Thanks. But I can’t drive if I drink any more.”

  His wistful eyes made the offer he didn’t.

  Was he a con man or just lonesome? I did not have to go home, but I did. When I strolled in at 2 A.M., the phone was ringing.

  “Britt, where the hell have you been? I hope I know, and it was good. Have you heard the news? Put on your hard hat.”

  4

  Two A.M. phone calls are never good news. During a brief family vacation before flying to Miami to begin shooting Margin of Error, actress Meredith Page had been critically injured in an accident on a Telluride, Colorado, ski slope. Rescued by helicopter, she had been airlifted to a Denver hospital.

  “You think Lance knows?” Lottie asked.

  “I’m sure he doesn’t. I just left him.”

  I quickly told her about our encounter with the Thirty-fourth Street Players.

  “Hell all Friday, Britt. Just like in his movies. That man’s place of birth must be the planet Krypton.”

  “Planet Hollywood is more like it.”

  Did he need to hear the bad news now, or could it wait until morning?

  “Better call him,” Lottie said.

  Me, I would want to know. But then I always want to know … everything. Knowledge, good or bad, is power. Turned out to be a moot point. He was registered under the name Gardiner Bowles, his reporter/agent character in Margin of Error. No answer from his room. I had Gardiner Bowles paged in the bar. No response. Where was he? I left no message.

  Page, an excellent skier, had been startled by a videocam-toting paparazzo on skis. She had swerved to avoid a collision and hit a hidden obstruction. The cameraman to blame for it had captured her spectacular cartwheeling spill on unpacked snow. By morning it aired during every newscast, along with touching footage of her grim husband and two bewildered small children arriving at the hospital where she was being treated. Her condition had been upgraded to fair. She would survive, but she would not be shooting a movie in Miami, or anywhere, anytime soon.

  Lance called during my phone checks from home next morning. Hoarse and weary, he sounded as though he hadn’t slept.

  “Probably won’t get to join you until late,” he said. “You heard?”

  “When I got home last night. Tried to call you.” Billy Boots, curled up in my lap, closed his eyes and purred as I scratched between his ears.

  “Oh,” Lance said, his voice a raspy croak. “Met some of our crew in the bar and went to South Beach. Ever been to one of those foam parties?”

  “Once. Wouldn’t do it again without a wetsuit and goggles.” Foam is the rage in South Beach. It is sprayed from the ceiling onto enclosed dance floors where strangers gyrate through wet wild bubble baths together. Shorter dancers risk total immersion, while bouncers armed with high-powered water guns stand by to blast revelers caught doing the wild thing beneath the suds.

  “A real trip,” Lance said.

  “What happens now? Do they postpone the movie?”

  “Hell, no. We’re here; the meter’s running. We’ve got a schedule. Everybody has other commitments. The cameras have to roll. What have you heard? Maybe she’s not hurt as bad as they say. You know how the press exaggerates. We could probably shoot around her until she recovers. If not, she has to be replaced. Damn shame. She was perfect for this.”

  “All I know is what CNN is reporting” I said coldly, miffed by his remark about the press. “I’ll check the wires when I get to the office, but multiple leg fractures don’t sound like she’ll work—or even walk—soon.”

  “Son of a bitch!” His voice cracked with frustration and exhaustion. “Who the hell goes skiing right before an important film? Damn! Everybody’s job depends on the principals. I have a meeting at eleven with the producers, the director, the lawyers, and the insurance people. Should be a trip.”

  “Try spraying them with foam.”

  “Catch you later, woman.”

  News was breaking in the southwest section, another chupacabra sighting. The mythical goat sucker, a cross between Big Foot, Dracula, and an alien—from outer space, not a third-world country—had struck again, animal carcasses scattered in its wake, all drained of blood.

  The chupacabra is described by eyewitnesses, almost all Spanish-speaking and superstitious, as a four-foot-tall, hoofed, red-eyed, reptilian creature, with the oversized head and eyes of an extraterrestrial and the nasty fangs of something savage. If he is from outer space, it is definitely a third world planet, and like so many other aliens he brought bad habits with him.

  Six goats, four pigs, and half a dozen chickens had been slaughtered and their blood drained on a Northwest Dade ranch du
ring the night. The owners were at home and heard no commotion, as usual. A Spanish-speaking ranch hand discovered the massacre, heard rustling sounds in the bushes, and swore he saw the chupacabra in the moonlight, blood dripping from his fangs.

  County officials offered rational explanations as usual, including wild dog packs or “something” escaped from a zoo.

  By the time I arrived, Everglades animal trackers, every TV reporter in town, and most of the local paranormal crowd, mystics, gypsies, psychics, and UFO chasers, were trampling through the underbrush.

  Sergio, the witness, was retelling his story, rolling his eyes and sweating. “Dios mío, los dientes, the teeth.”

  The cops had examined the carcasses, all with curious puncture wounds on the hindquarters.

  By the time I drove back downtown, Dade County Animal Control and the police department had issued a statement identifying the culprit as an “unidentified bad dog” still at large, attributing reports to the contrary as “mass hysteria.”

  A Kendall McDonald sighting briefly brightened my morning as I checked the overnight logs at the Miami police PIO. I glanced up from the press desk and there he was. Buenísimo. Lean, long-legged, and strong-jawed, his grin deepening the cleft in his chin. So muy macho in his dark blue uniform that he could be national police poster boy of the year, if such a title existed. He had wandered in to see the commander, Happily, I was enjoying a good hair day, thanks to the low humidity, and was wearing my sandy silk slacks, a tailored white blouse, and my navy blazer, crisp from the cleaners. I had even added slick rosy lipstick, a touch of blusher, and my mother’s antique gold earrings.

  “See anything interesting?” His unimaginative opening line belied the expression in his silvery-blue eyes.

  “Lining up a one-on-one with the chupacabra.” I smiled coyly.

  “Where’s your sidekick?”

  I drew a blank.

  “The tough guy, Westfell.” Was that a hint of decision in his voice? “The matinee idol.” No mistaking it there.

  McDonald’s eyes swept the room, as though the star might appear to take a bow. Somebody did, but it was only Danny Menendez, bustling to the fax machine with his chupacabra press release.