The Death Box

by J. A. Kerley

  Gershwin and I walked the gangplank toward the lot, the tiki torches flickering in the freshening breeze. I saw the usual vehicles in the lot, the two six-passenger golf carts used by the Jewish folks from the nearby retirement center, and Amardara’s bright red Caddie. It fit, the retirees were the only clientele in the restaurant.

  No, my mind said, another vehicle was at the side of the building, tucked behind a corner planting of foliage and palms. I studied the vehicle, a white panel van with the engine rumbling. The van shivered on its springs, like weight was shifting inside and the darkened passenger-side window rolled halfway down. A raindrop pinged off of my forehead as the truck started to move. Something made me throw out my arm and stop Ziggy in his tracks. “Down!” I screamed as the van charged. I saw shivering bursts of flame and dove into the shallow pool of the fountain. Gershwin crouched behind a palmetto as bullets shredded the foliage and whined off the rock border of the pool.

  “Jesus,” Gershwin said, eight feet away and pulling his hat tight to his head.

  It started to rain, hard. I stuck my head up for a split second and a burst sent me back down. The van was under fifty feet away and approaching.

  “Vamos,” a voice yelled. “Go and kill him.”

  Lightning lit, thunder answered. Rain poured down my forehead as I heard the van’s side door roll open and footsteps on the ground, splashing. They were coming for us. I jabbed my head up and down again, saw the van being used as a barricade, two or three men behind as it moved in, wipers beating.

  A burst of fire turned the rock beside me into dust and I flattened against the bottom of the pool, warm water filling my nostrils and choking me. I jabbed the barrel of my weapon above the short wall and fired three blind shots, hoping to slow them for a few seconds. I’d been ambushed twice before; you might save yourself if you had time to think. The trouble was you never got it.

  My shots took return fire. A lot of it. Rounds stripped through the palmetto in front of Gershwin. I wiped rain from my eyes.

  “You OK, Zigs?”

  “Can you get them to concentrate on you, Big Ryde?”

  He pointed to the nearest stone bench, better cover. Another round of fire pushed me below the water. A goldfish wriggled beneath my chin. I stripped off my soaked jacket and felt a round sizzle past my elbow. I balled the jacket in my hands, set to mimic what countless cowboys had done in hundreds of westerns: throw their hat as a distraction, kind of.

  I rolled on my back and clutched the jacket like a football. I willed every bit of strength into my arm and whipped the jacket the other direction from Gershwin, hoping every eye followed the sudden motion. I rolled to my stomach as I threw the garment, two-handing my weapon above the wall and firing low and fast. The Glock had fourteen remaining rounds and I burned through them in seconds.

  A glance showed Gershwin rolling to the bench, a dozen feet to his side. The shroud of rain helping keep him hidden.

  I heard shots from my side, Gershwin pulling off rounds before he flattened behind a bench splintering under returning fire. But underneath the shots I heard screaming. The firing drizzled to a stop. More screams ended with a door slamming and the sizzle of tires on drenched asphalt as the assailants pulled into the street and raced away, lost in dense rain.

  I sat up as Gershwin approached, gun at his side. He was trying to find something witty to say, but his brain was aboil with adrenalin and he had no breath, besides.

  Been there.

  Chaku Morales stuck the phone back in his pocket and turned to Orzibel, who was pacing his office and scowling.

  “There is news?” Orzibel said.

  Morales shook his head. “It’s uncertain whether Ryder is dead. There was not time to look for a body.”

  “But he was shot, no?”

  “It’s not known. But Valdone is shot in the face and dying. Montega has a bullet in his chest. It did not pass through and could be anywhere inside him.”

  “Fuck them,” Orzibel hissed. “They failed me. I pay thousands of dollars to buy failure.”

  “Ryder might be dead, Orlando. No one knows yet.”

  “He will be dead. If not today, tomorrow. The police … they know nothing?”

  “The escape was clean, the plates stolen. The van is in the warehouse and will be painted another color.”

  Orzibel paced and considered the situation. He was a warrior and Miami was his battlefield. If Ryder had somehow survived, it was a small battle, no? The war was the thing. He always won … he was Orlando Orzibel. The thought buoyed him and he congratulated himself on his calm in battle.

  “Call the man and find out if Ryder is dead or wounded, Chaku. If he is alive, it won’t be for long. Perhaps the distraction will give us more room to find Leala Rosales. So maybe it is a good thing, hey? Let us get back to business.”

  Morales nodded. “Mr Chalk? Did you again hear from him?”

  Orzibel made the OK sign with thumb and forefinger. “The deal is done. Now it’s only a matter of time.”

  A half-hour passed and the taped-off Tiki Tiki grounds were a scramble of activity. The rain had come and gone, ten minutes of pounding replaced by blue sky and benevolent cumulus as fluffy as cotton. Ziggy and I had given our statements and regained our feet. He was inside with Ms Amardara, who was less unnerved than angry anyone would wish Zigs harm, and I was showing Roy the courtyard where we’d made our stand.

  “What’s Polynesian for OK Corral?” he said.

  “Dunno. I’m just happy you don’t have to ask it about Boot Hill.”

  “Not your Boot Hill at any rate. We’ve got blood out on the lot, and plenty of it. Someone got hit.” Roy smiled, the thought pleasing him. “We’re checking hospitals, of course.”

  “Gershwin made the hits, I’ll bet. I was firing blind. He rolled from the palmetto to the bench, got a better angle. Gershwin was cool as ice all the way.”

  “That’s why I brought him on board.”

  “You didn’t. He was thrust on you.”

  Roy snapped his fingers. “Oh yeah. That.” The eyes studied me. “So what have you done that makes you a target, bud?”

  I shrugged. “No idea, but I’m a threat to someone. Thing is, Roy, there aren’t many people who know what I’m into. Hell, I’m barely on the books.”

  Roy considered my words. “That bothers me. It’s like someone has insider info. You’ve kept all this real low-key, right?”

  I nodded. “And we haven’t blundered into anything I’d consider a strong lead.”

  Roy pulled a cigar for twirling. “Whoever did this is scared of what you might find, a cautious type. I’m gonna put walls around you, a detail.”

  “Thanks, but no bodyguards, Roy. Gershwin and I need room to move. We’ll be cautious.”

  “You’re getting a couple units at your place. At night, at least.”

  “I can live with that.”

  “Found new digs yet?”

  “Uh, getting close.”

  He whapped my shoulder and retreated to a vehicle on the far side of the lot, got inside. There were two others in the vehicle, I noted, Tatum and Degan. They didn’t even get out to see how I was. I saw Degan’s eye scanning the battlefield and was waiting for them to light on me so I could fire a one-fingered flare, but heard footsteps at my back and turned as Deb Clayton ran up, pixie hair beneath a blue cap announcing FORENSICS UNIT.

  “You heard about the blood, right? Come take a look.”

  I followed her a dozen steps into the lot, saw the pool of red diluted by the rain, one side tracking off in twin rows. “Heel marks,” I said. “One of the assailants was dragged away.”

  “Figured you’d seen it before. Doubt y’all had time to get a tag number.”

  I laughed and shook my head. “I saw a white work van, smoked windows, eight to ten years old. Then the shooting started.”

  She did a one-eighty turn. Techs had gridded out the lot and set numbers, photographing all the shell casings where they lay. We stepped past a young
female tech crouching with a Nikon, clicking like a fashion photog.

  “True gangland style,” Clayton said. “More shells than Sanibel.”

  “It’s why they prefer rapid-fire weaponry. Country guys can go out in the woods and practice precision shooting all day long. Inner-city gang types are lousy shots, so they spray-shoot and hope they hit something. More often than not it’s an innocent bystander.”

  Clayton shook her head and trotted off to supervise something. I saw Morningstar walk up wearing a simple white linen dress, the material stopping just above her knees. She twirled sunglasses in her long fingers.

  “You’re all the buzz, Ryder. I had to come see the scene and, uh …”

  She paused. I had just survived a close-range assassination attempt and was feeling bolder than usual and winked.

  “To see if your favorite imported detective was all right?”

  She looked at me like I’d lapsed into gibberish. “To make sure the blood evidence got handled correctly. I heard about the rain and it was on an asphalt parking lot. That means grease and petroleum and other adulterants.”

  “Oh? You didn’t care if the blood was mine or not?”

  She put the shades on and stared at me through expressionless black. “Sometimes you make sense, Detective, sometimes you don’t.” She started away, paused, turned. “But I’m happy you survived.”

  “As long as I keep making sense?”

  She backpedaled and spun away. “Actually, I’m beginning to prefer when you don’t.”

  “Oy caramba,” said a voice at my shoulder, Gershwin. “The doctor lady has wheels.”

  “Consuelo all right?” I asked, ignoring his reference to Morningstar. “Not distraught about the damage?”

  “Auntie has plenty of insurance. But I’d hate to be one of our attackers if she got hold of them. Ever see a roast suckling pig?”

  “I’d help baste. Where were we before we were sitting ducks, Zigs?”

  “You wanted to look at the cistern site. Or do you need a nap after the big dance?”

  38

  Leala had taken a wrong turn. The streets were growing dirtier and there were bars and nightclubs and fences on the windows and the smell of drinking and garbage made the air feel like oil on her face. Cars were on the street, growling, honking, radios blasting rock, rap, mariachi. There were taxicabs as well, as yellow as flame.

  She pushed back into the vestibule of a store with wood where once were windows. If she’d been smarter, she’d have bought a map, and not blundered into this busy, dirty area.

  She decided to re-trace her steps one block over, cutting down a slender side street. At the corner was a drive-in taqueria, its window thick glass with orders passed through a little door. A tall and skinny Hispanic man was at the window, a sequined cowboy hat on his head and sequins on his white cowboy shirt. His trousers were tight and black and he wore white boots. Leala had seen such men when visiting Tegucigalpa …

  He was a proxeneta, a pimp.

  Leala backed up until hidden by the corner of a building while the pimp received a bag of food and drinks. He complained about something and whoever was behind the window told him to irse in the style that meant get lost, loser. The pimp cursed at the window and spat on it, turning and striding back to the big car. Leala shot a look inside and saw four women, all crushed together in the back seat so the man could own the front.

  One of the women was Yolanda.

  Leala almost gasped aloud as she watched the man pass out a taco and drink to each of the women. Yolanda shook her head, no, but the man barked something and she took the food.

  The car screeched from the curb, heading down the block and stopping at a red light. Leala started to run after it but realized the futility. She saw a taxicab and waved it to a halt. Leala climbed into the back seat, pointing forward, breathless. “Please, sir. You must follow that black car.”

  The driver was a heavy man with a mustache like a line drawn over his lip. He spoke in the Caribbean manner.

  “The pimpmobile, hon? Why? You get lef’ behind?”

  “Please to follow black car.”

  “You gotta the dinero, girl?”

  Leala threw all her remaining bills at the man and he pulled away, following as the pimp crossed Flagler, went right another several blocks. Leala’s mind registered the street: it would lead her back to her safe place. Get Yolanda, run, wait until Monday and call Johnson.

  The neighborhood grew even worse. Bars lined the street. They passed a burned-out shell of a car. Windows were broken or filled with wood. Once-bright paint was faded toward memory. A skinny dog vomited yellow froth as two women laughed from the steps of a dirty building. The women were barely dressed, their faces painted like corpses.

  The car holding Yolanda pulled to the curb. Yolanda and a second girl exited, both in tiny skirts and tube tops and high-heeled boots that climbed to skinny knees.

  “Stop,” Leala told the driver. “I must get out.”

  Leala jumped from the cab and flattened against a brick building. When the black car drove away she ran to her friend.

  “Yolanda! I found a woman who might help us. Her name is Victoree—”

  Yolanda turned, her eyes wide with fear. “Go away, Leala. You are in great danger.”

  “You must come with me,” Leala pleaded.

  “They will kill mi madre if I do not do as they say. They are filth and they are making me into filth. Go fast, run.”

  “Not without you.” Leala grabbed Yolanda’s arm, but Yolanda yanked it away. Yolanda’s companion looked between the two and slunk off as if the drama was a threat to her life.

  “What are you doing?” Leala said. “I came to save you.”

  “I am here for ever, Leala,” Yolanda said. “Get away.”

  Leala saw motion and turned to see two young men with hollow eyes and ragged, dirty clothes, one black, one white. They stared with open mouths. The white junkie pointed. “IT’S HER!” he screamed. “WE GET THE STUFF!”

  The junkies circled like wolves, backing Leala into the vestibule of a vacant storefront. The black one pulled a small knife from his pocket.

  “Easy, chicka,” he said. “Stop right there and you don’t get cut, right?”

  Leala feinted left and jumped to the right, but the knife was ahead of her. The other junkie pulled a gun from his pants, small and rusty, the grips gone from the handle, now just a frame wrapped with string.

  “Keep your mouth shut and don’t move, chicka,” he told her. To the junkie with the knife he said, “Keep her there and I’ll call the number.”

  Leala held up her hands in surrender as her eyes searched for escape. But there was none: the vestibule surrounded her on three sides and the junkies held the fourth.

  Then, seemingly for no reason, the white junkie spun across the pavement and fell to the ground, landing atop the gun.

  “THE FUCK YOU DOIN’ WITH MY BITCH?” a voice yelled.

  Leala looked up to see the big-hatted pimp, his car twenty meters away, the door wide. He held a bat like the kind used for the béisbol, but smaller. The junkie with the knife retreated.

  The pimp stared at Leala. “You ain’t my …” his mouth moved from surprise to gold-toothed grin. “Are you the one they’re looking for? It’s you, ain’t it? Baby, you gonna make me money an’ all I got to do is make a call.”

  Leala spun to escape but the pimp was on her, one hand clamped over her mouth, pulling her to his body, his dirty breath against her cheek. Yolanda grabbed the pimp’s arm, pulling with all her might, but the pimp grinned as his fist caught Yolanda in the mouth. She tumbled backwards to the pavement.

  “NO!” a voice screeched. Leala felt the arms loosen on her throat. She struggled loose as the pimp staggered backwards, the black junkie hanging from his neck and stabbing wildly at the pimp’s face with the little knife. The cowboy hat tumbled to the pavement.

  “She’s ours, bitch,” the junkie yelled. “WE SAW HER FIRST!”

 
The pimp swatted the junkie away, blood streaming from torn cheeks as he lurched back to find room to swing the bat. The white junkie stumbled to his feet and stood in front of the pimp, pulling the trigger on the pistol. All it did was click. He hit the pimp across the face with the gun, which broke into pieces, the magazine tumbling one way, the frame another. The pimp slashed with the bat, catching the junkie’s arm. A scream. The black junkie sunk his knife into the pimp’s forearm, the blade breaking off as the bat rolled into the street. The pimp roared as the white junkie began kicking at the pimp’s groin. The pimp caught him in the nose with a fist as a kick landed. Both went down. The junkie, nose pouring blood, screeched and fell atop the pimp, slapping desperately at everything in reach as the black junkie furiously kicked at the pimp’s legs.

  Leala staggered to her feet and looked at Yolanda, moaning on the ground but alive, beside her the grunting, screaming, furious tangle of pimp and junkies. Yolanda waved her away.

  “Run, Leala,” she gasped, blood streaming from her nose. “Run to save your soul.”

  Leala turned and ran. She was too frightened to look back and did not see the black junkie break from the tangle and turn after her with a phone in his hand.

  39

  There were still a couple hours of daylight, so I opted for the cistern site, one reason being its potential for opening up the case, the other being that the locale was peaceful and rural and after this afternoon’s mayhem, some quiet was called for. I also liked that the landscape made it hard for anyone to sneak up on us.

  With the column dismantled and carted to the lab, all that remained was a forlorn rectangular depression with the bottom now swampy from the afternoon rain and, it being Florida, probably breeding mosquitos the size of fruit bats. Beside it was the mound of excavated earth. The construction would begin anew on Monday and I hoped the first job was filling the grave.

  I parked a dozen paces from the pit. Somehow on our journey a six-pack of Newcastle Brown Ale had fallen into Gershwin’s lap and we exited with bottles in hand. “You think the answers are here?” Gershwin asked, looking out over low, gnarled trees and desert-brown soil.