The Death Box

by J. A. Kerley

  I smiled and nodded. “I remember when the Ortega enterprises went belly-up. Helluva job, Detective Degan.”

  He nodded without commitment as the fingernails chomped at the cup. I doubted anyone else could have called the monster Chuckles, but it sounded as natural as rain from Roy McDermott.

  Roy moved down the dour queue to the sole woman in the room, early forties, her olive face holding huge dark eyes framed by hair as brightly strident as a new trumpet. Her teeth were toothpaste-commercial white and could be glimpsed in flashes as she chewed pink gum.

  “This is Celia Valdez,” Roy said. “Ceel was the FCLE agent of the year last year.”

  My offer of congratulations was cut off by a snap of gum. Roy moved to the next guy, fortyish and olive-complected with flint-edged cheekbones and slender, cruel lips below a pencil-thin mustache. His chestnut hair was just long enough to display a curl and he wore a gray silk suit with a pink shirt and turquoise tie. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Roy’d found the guy at a Samba competition.

  “That brings us to Lonnie Canseco. Say hi to Carson, Lon.”

  Canseco rolled eyes. I hoped it was how he showed joy.

  “Lonnie came here from Pensacola, where he did first-rate work in Homicide. But the advancement breaks weren’t coming his way. So I grabbed the collar of his Bill Blass suit and yanked him to my crime crew.”

  Canseco yawned. Roy smiled and progressed to the last face at the table, a slender black guy. He was in his mid-thirties with a mobile, puckish face and short hair, wearing a loose brown blazer over blue slacks, his white shirt open at the neck.

  “And this fella on the end is Leon Tatum. Lee was a county mountie who got fired for asking questions about the local landfill. He spent the next four months digging into records and asking questions. What you get for that, Lee?”

  “Fired.”

  “But Lee moved to Tallahassee to root through records up there. Turns out the fill was being used for dumping hazardous chemicals and had been for years, a huge moneymaker for some corrupt politicos.”

  “Four or five years back?” I said. “I recall the FBI perp-walking a Florida politico who’d been involved in a chemical-dumping scheme. That was yours?”

  Tatum shrugged, no big deal. Roy shook his head. “Unfortunately, our brothers at the federal level managed to grab the lion’s share of the credit and we all know how that goes.”

  “Fuckers,” Degan grunted, torturing the cup. “Dirty, rotten, underhanded, ass-sucking federal snotlickers.”

  “Two weeks later Lee was here.” Roy beamed. “Jeez, has it been five years, Lee?”

  Tatum puckered and blew McDermott a kiss. “Every day one of sweetness and light, Roy.”

  Roy looked out over his crew with paternal joy. “And that’s the crime crew, our crème de la crima of investigative specialists and my sweet beauties. Plus there’s our art expert, gang consultant, computer whiz, financial guy. You’ll meet them as you need their specific services.”

  A cleared throat. Everyone turned to the guy in the corner, chair tilted back against the wall. When I scanned him my eyes didn’t register Cop, they said, Skate Punk. I ballparked him at twenty-five or so, with the whippy build of a skateboarder though the upper body had spent time with the weights. He wore a floppy tee advertising a bar in Lauderdale under a black leather vest, tight and beltless Levis pulled from the bottom of the laundry basket, white socks and blue suede Vans with rubber soles.

  “Sorry,” Roy said. “This here’s Ziggy Gershwin, Carson. He’s currently with us for, uh, training. Charlie’s his mentoring officer.”

  I looked at Degan, still tormenting the cup. Pinch. Squeak. He didn’t look thrilled. Roy slapped my back, gave me the Say Something look and I pushed a bright and false smile to my face and started to stand. Before I could open my mouth, Canseco pushed from the table.

  “Can we go now, Cap?” he said. “I got work to do.”

  The rest of the crew made the motions of escape. No one so much as glanced at me. Roy held up both hands. “Hold on … As I mentioned to y’all yesterday, Carson’s gonna lead on the cistern case. That means you folks have to be his resources.”

  Someone moaned. It wasn’t Valdez since she was already complaining. “… guess my big question, Cap, how come Ryder’s getting this action? We know the rules, we know the territory, we’ve got the chops. A cistern stuffed with corpses should be ours.”

  Roy crossed his arms and leaned the wall. “You know what I been telling you, sweet peas. Mr Ryder knows how crazies operate. He’s the best.”

  “It’s fucking Florida, Roy,” Degan growled. “Every fourth person is a psycho. We’ve all tracked ’em and taken them down. We don’t need a freakin’ profiler.”

  “There’s more than profiling,” I said. “You’ve got to—”

  “Figure out are they organized or disorganized,” Canseco interrupted, “sexual or nonsexual. Sadistic? Vengeful? We all know how to read psychos and every shrink tries to turn it into a bigger deal than it is.”

  “Fucking A,” Valdez popped. “Fucking A-plus.”

  Roy rubbed his big palms together. “How often do you hear me say my mind’s made up, chillun?”

  ‘’Bout once every two years, boss,” Tatum said.

  “Then you got nothing to worry about for the next twenty-three months. Class dismissed.”

  The group filed out like scolded schoolchildren. Only Gershwin acknowledged my existence, pausing to extend his fist as he stepped past. I knocked my knuckles against his.

  “Nice meeting you, Alabama,” he grinned. “Welcome to the Sunshine State.”

  6

  “Leala Rosales? That’s your name?”

  “Y-y-yes, señorita.”

  “Stop your bawling. You look like you have something to say. What is it?”

  “Th-the man, the man who b-brought me here … h-he did things to me in the car. Fi-filthy, sinful things and—”

  A crack like a whip.

  “Do you know what that slap was for little Leala? LOOK AT ME WHEN I TALK TO YOU! It was for being a snitch. NEVER tell me such things. And what the gentleman did was not filthy … it’s how you make money. And you better start making money, little Leala. You have a debt to be paid off.”

  “P-please, señorita. I want … to go back. To g-go home.”

  “In that case you must pay what you owe plus the return costs. Do you have thirty thousand dollars?”

  “I HAVE NOTHING! I w-was told that …”

  “You must work, Leala. It’s as simple as that. And there is one very important thing you must know: It is about the police. They are muy peligrosa, dangerous. They hate illegals and will throw you in prison for ever. Look into my eyes, Leala, so that you will see the truth. Do you see it?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “The man who told you of our service. Back in Honduras. Does he not know exactly where you are from?”

  A tentative nod. “Si. He has been to my home.”

  “Then here is God’s truth, Leala: If you are ever stupid enough to talk to the police, you will never see your mama again. You will return to a headstone.”

  “No … please …”

  “So now you know what you must do. Pay your debt.”

  “I c-c-can cook, I can clean. I-I was told I might be a housekeeper.”

  “Are you a virgin?”

  “I-I did not hear. What did you say?”

  “You seem as stupid as you are beautiful. I’ll say it slowly so maybe you can understand: Are you a virgin, Leala Rosales? Have you managed to keep the peasants and priests from your pussy?”

  “The man in the car, he …”

  “He fucked your mouth. Hopefully you learned something useful. Come here and lift your dress. My finger will tell me.”

  “P-please señorita, I beg you. No.”

  “No is not a word you can use any more, Leala Rosales.”

  The footsteps of the investigative staff disappeared down the hall. Roy broke the sile
nce. “That went well, I think.”

  “Went well? I was smelling a lynching.”

  “You’re over-reacting, bud. My guys are intuitive detectives, edgy and a bit self-centered. Like most natural-born dicks they’re basically high-strung children.”

  I shot Roy the eye. He said, “Present company excepted, of course.”

  “It was like they had a personal grudge against me, Roy. I understand being pissy about me having the case, but it seemed bigger than that.”

  Roy beamed at me like I’d just called every winner at Hialeah an hour before the starting bell. “You are beautiful, Carson. Reading people, situations. You absolutely nailed it.”

  “Nailed what?”

  “Initially I planned to add a junior investigator to the staff, got Tallahassee to budget the extra bucks, with enough left over to bump my guys up a well-deserved grade in pay, two actually.”

  “And?”

  “Then I thought, why a junior investigator? I’ll put the money into a seasoned pro. The idea felt so good I thought, Go even further, Roy. So I decided to not only hire a senior investigator but one who was a specialist in crazos as well, more bang for the buck. Bingo, here you are.”

  I replayed Roy’s scenario in my head, following the money. I was making double my salary in Mobile. I sighed. “Degan, Valdez, Canseco, Tatum … not one of them got a raise, did they, Roy? What would a two-grade jump average, about seven grand?”

  “Closer to ten, actually. No big deal, there’s another state budget session in the winter. I’ll get the guys their jumps then.”

  Not being a high-strung child I avoided banging my head against the wall. “So not only do I grab a plum case from your crew, I’ve pulled ten grand from their wallets.”

  Roy’s brow wrinkled in puzzlement. “I told you some of this, right? Before you got here?”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “Sorry, things get tangled in my head at times. Probably because I’m still figuring it all out.”

  “The crew hates me,” I said, perilously close to a moan. “They won’t rest until I go down in flames.”

  Roy’s hand fell over my shoulder. “You’re a pro and they’re pros. Maybe it’ll be a teensy bit tough at first, but I know you, buddy. You’re gonna fly like an eagle.”

  I slumped in Roy’s footsteps as he led me to where my office would be when in Miami, right now just a fifteen-by-fifteen box with a cheap metal desk and chair and a phone on the floor. The why-am-I-here? thoughts started afresh.

  “You can work from wherever suits you, Carson. Here or at your place or from a ship at sea. If a police chief from Deltana says he’s got a perp killing hookers and chopping off their toes, you can advise what to look for. Or go to Deltana and handle the case directly. Your decision.”

  “You give your people a lot of autonomy.”

  “I’m a lazy bastard. When my crew handles stuff without me even knowing it, I’m thrilled. Basically, all I want to see are files stamped Case Closed.”

  “Speaking of crew, what’s the word on that other guy? The kid who looks like a skate punk?”

  Roy frowned, a rare event. “Ziggy Gershwin. Christ, did you ever hear a goofier name? Gershwin’s kind of a special case.”

  A trio of clerical types passed by the open door, two women and a guy. They shot micro-glances inside: Look at the new guy.

  “Special?” I said. “How is Gershwin so special?”

  “A couple months back a trio of Albanian psychopaths grabbed a ten-year-old kid from West Palm, wanted five mil in ransom. The family called the authorities. BOLOs went out on a green van noted at the scene, everything real hush-hush. Gershwin was a newbie county cop working in Glades County, rural, west of Okeechobee. Two days after the grab – by then the family had received a pinky finger—”

  “Jesus.”

  “Gershwin is roaming the backcountry and sees a green panel van parked outside a rental house …”

  “He gets curious.”

  Roy nodded. “He pulls down the road and sneaks back. Blinds are tight, nothing moving, just a single-story ranch with an outbuilding separated by a hundred feet of open grass. He creeps to a side window, peeks inside and sees the Albanians in the living room and the kid taped tight on the couch. Gershwin also sees a freakin’ armamentarium: Uzis and AKs, handguns, grenades and even a goddamn mounted RPG. It looked like an NRA convention in there.”

  “He calls it and sits tight?”

  “SWAT positions behind a canebrake on the far side of the house, everyone scared a full-on assault meant a dead kid.”

  I felt my heart thumping. Roy pulled a cigar and began twirling it.

  “In the meantime, one of the Albanians is getting progressively freakier. He’s suddenly got a knife out, grabbing the kid’s hair and pulling his face up. Gershwin realizes the guy is gonna slice the kid’s nose off.”

  Roy studied the cigar as if wondering whether he could get away with smoking in the building.

  “Christ, Roy, don’t leave me hanging. What’d Gershwin do?”

  “Radioed the commander that the Albanians were dragging the kid out the back door.”

  “Gershwin lied?”

  “Said he needed a fast distraction. Naturally, the SWAT team charges toward the rear. The Albanians hear the commotion, forget the kid and run for the artillery.”

  My palms had started sweating. “Damn. And?”

  “Gershwin smashes the window and tosses two grenades, a flash-bang and a stunner, comes in after them. He nails one in the chest and the others dive out a side door screaming, ‘No shoot, no shoot.’”

  I replayed Gershwin’s action in my head. Saw the looming knife. The need for a split-second decision. “You know the odds against that kid coming back alive, Roy? Gershwin did a helluva job.”

  Roy sighed. “What troubles folks is how he did it. If the Albanians had launched an RPG a dozen cops could have been massacred. Gershwin didn’t have the pay grade to make that decision, Carson.”

  “Maybe Gershwin didn’t have time to argue seniority.”

  Roy started to argue, paused. “Thing is, Gershwin is here and we gotta deal with him for a few days.”

  I gave him a puzzled frown.

  “History lesson, Carson: The abducted kid’s grandfather hit Miami with ten pesos in his skivvies and within a year owned a grocery store selling Latin specialties. Now they’re coast to coast. The kid’s family has power in Tallahassee and told some major politicos that Gershwin deserved his assignment of choice.”

  I nodded. “Gershwin picked the FCLE, obviously.”

  “I get a lot of favors from Tallahassee, Carson. Sometimes I have to do one.”

  “What’s gonna happen with Gershwin?”

  “I’ll let Degan seem to train the kid for a couple weeks, then get Gershwin a desk in Vehicle Theft.” Roy winked. “You can’t hotdog much there.”

  7

  I left Roy to his Machiavellian hijinks and headed out to the forensics dig, since I now owned the case. The site was as busy as a beehive in spring, chisels tapping, soil being sifted through mesh, photos flashing as bits of fabric or bone were removed from the grisly sculpture, new horrors revealed beneath the old. Morningstar was beside the column, arms folded as she watched a pair of techs extricate shards of clothing from a torso still half-buried in the matrix. I stood aside as they fastidiously bagged the evidence and passed me on the steps.

  Morningstar shot me a look when I hit bottom.

  “Rumor has it this monster is gonna be your first case, Ryder.”

  “Not my choice, Doctor.”

  “Roy’s concept of baptism would be to fling the kid into a pond. You still on board with Delmara’s serial-killer theory?”

  I circled the mass of concretized humanity, still unable to absorb the full horror. “If so, he’s as angry as a psycho can get. Incredible rage.”

  “We have four complete bodies free. Every spine is shattered, most limbs broken, usually compound. A jumbled mess.”
>
  A tech called out a question from above and Morningstar muttered, “Do I have to do all the thinking?” and started up the steps. “Look, but don’t touch, Ryder,” she said over her shoulder. “It may be your baby, but I’m in charge of birthing it.”

  It was just me remaining in the pit and I leaned against the buttressed wall and stared as if waiting for a voice to call from the tumble of bodies, a voice to say, Here is the story of our death, please let it not be in vain.

  But the stone lay as silent as the ruins of Ozymandias, and after a few minutes I climbed to the upper level and quietly left the tent. Until Morningstar’s team found something to point me in a direction, I was a compass in a world without North.

  Orlando Orzibel was bored. Most of the clients were paying their fees and he’d not had to go out on a threat run, always a nice time-killer: one hand held the knife, the other an open palm, fingers waving for money. If the money didn’t materialize, arrangements were made. If the arrangements weren’t honored, the knife went to work.

  He checked his phone, no word from Chaku, who should be dumping the hillbilly biker, Ivy, in an hour or so, five minutes to throw the fat scuzzer down the hole, pour a couple bags of dry ’crete, book away. That fucking hole had been a gift from the universe.

  Orzibel sighed and grabbed his remote, playing a porn DVD on the five-foot screen in the corner. He watched for several minutes, his hand drifting to his crotch as a burly bodybuilder with lightning-zagged tattoos pounded away at a diminutive Asian. The woman screamed and pretended to resist, but it was obvious she was a professional, probably wondering what kind of pizza she’d order after she drank the guy’s jizz.

  Fuck fuck. Orzibel flicked off the video and tugged at his genitals. How long since he’d gone to the basement? There were four girls tucked away down there, plus Chaku’s new toy. All were fresh procures, raw, not yet ready for assignment, though getting close.

  The process could always be sped up.

  With the pounding bass of electronic dance music pulsing through the walls, Orlando Orzibel descended to the shadowy basement of the nightclub, a warren of concrete-walled rooms. The nightclub had been built by Mob money during Prohibition, the main floor a speakeasy, the basement used for prostitution and other illicit activities. The water-seeping wall was still strung with dozens of ancient and fraying wires mounted on ceramic insulators; the wires originally connected to banks of telephones forming a subterranean bookie operation, the largest in all Miami.