The Death Box

by J. A. Kerley

  thump

  “That’s my partner, Leala,” I said. “Ziggy. When you meet him you can ask how he got such a weird name. He knows Spanish. Do you need him to talk to you?”

  thump thump

  I thought a moment, though my heart knew the answer before I asked the question. “Leala, is the driver a man named Orlando Orzibel? Do you know?”

  thump

  I blew out a long breath and shook my head, then asked Leala to relax and let us listen. Gershwin and I put our heads together and listened intently for long minutes. The tire sound would slow and stop, then pick up again, traffic lights, we assumed. Or stopping at intersections. The vehicle wasn’t on an interstate or deserted highway. We also heard traffic in the opposite direction or passing, and the occasional growl of a motorcycle or horn honk.

  Gershwin looked at his watch. “Twenty-five minutes. If she started in Miami …” He let it hang and I knew where he was going.

  “Do you know how long you’ve been …” I asked. “No, wait. Have you been in the car longer than a half-hour, Leala?”

  thump

  “She’s outside the city by now,” Gershwin said. “But which direction?”

  It started raining. We retreated to the kitchen and I plugged my phone into the charger and set it on the counter.

  “Check this out, Big Ryde.”

  Gershwin had turned on the TV and was pointing to the regional Doppler radar. A slender circle of showers was crossing swiftly from northeast to southwest, the lower band now crossing over Upper Matecumbe. The northern edge was swinging into central Miami. Brilliant.

  “Leala,” I said. “Can you tell if it’s raining?”

  thump

  Rain meant she’d headed south from Miami. There wasn’t much land south, everything turning to water save for the Keys.

  “Hello?” an electronic voice said. The gate. “Hello in there?”

  I opened the gate and seconds later saw a cop cruiser whip down the drive and slide to a halt. An older guy jumped from the cruiser with a brown duffel in hand, said, “Should just take a few.” He crouched under rain, a short, pudgy man with twinkling eyes behind silver glasses. “I’m Frank Craig, a ham from Islamorada, ten minutes away. I got a call you might need some help.”

  Ham was shorthand for an amateur radio operator, folks whose hobby was communicating around the world on special radio frequencies. I’d never met a ham who wasn’t a default electronics geek.

  “You’re not with the FCLE?”

  “No way your people could make it here fast enough. I brought a couple things. That the phone?”

  I nodded. Craig produced what seemed a shoebox-sized tackle box with electronic gizmos inside and a couple small speakers facing outward. “A reception booster for the signal and output amp to enhance volume and fidelity, especially in the voice spectrum. I build these things for hearing-impaired folks.”

  He duct-taped the phone to the box and attached some wires. It looked like a makeshift bomb. “You can charge everything by plugging it into a wall socket,” Craig said, which he did. “If you need to move, this is the plug for the car socket.”

  “Any way to block our voices from going out unless we want them to?” Gershwin asked.

  “Not without getting inside the phone, dicey. Best thing is this.” Craig handed Gershwin a small square of soft putty. “Put it over the mic when you need muting, lift to speak.”

  Craig flipped a switch and sound filled the room, the hiss of wet tires now so distinct I heard seams in the roadbed. We could hear the moan of a powerful engine, the shifting of the transmission.

  “Damn,” Gershwin said. “It’s like being there.”

  “Leala,” I said. “You still OK?”

  thump

  The sound filled the room like a bass drum. Craig picked up his duffle and boogied away to our complete admiration. We turned back to the phone and startled to a furious scratching sound that seemed to echo from my walls.

  Then, utter silence.

  “What the hell?” Gershwin said, eyes wide.

  “They’ve stopped,” I said, leaning close to the speaker. “I can’t hear an engine.”

  “Leala,” I whispered to the phone. “What is it?”

  No response. I thought I could hear a faraway drumming of rain on metal. Or maybe it was a terrified heart.

  “Jesus,” Gershwin said, a shade whiter. “What was that sound?”

  “I’m hoping it was Leala hiding the phone,” I said.

  47

  Orzibel parked to the side of the roadhouse, the wipers beating against slackening rain. Seconds later Morales splashed into the lot in the Escalade and strode into the bar. A minute later Orzibel saw a man leave the roadhouse. He wore a creamy white suit, a briefcase in his left hand, umbrella in the right. Orzibel flashed his headlamps and exited the car as the suited man approached.

  They went to the rear of the Lincoln and Orzibel opened the trunk. The light inside had a yellow cast, like buttery candlelight.

  “Is everything to your liking, señor?” Orzibel said.

  Chalk stood spellbound, his mouth drooping open. A shaking hand passed the briefcase to Orzibel. “Yes,” he finally said. “Everything is beyond perfect.”

  Chalk started away, looking like a child lost in a dream. He paused and turned to Orzibel. “Have you finalized instructions for when she is … when I am done?”

  “Ah, that has been made easy,” Orzibel said. “Folded in the back seat is a large and reinforced cardboard box marked with the name of a local charity. It is used to donate books and clothes and other discards. Put the object in the box and call me. I will give you a time to put the box on your porch. Minutes later the box will be removed. Everything will appear perfectly normal to neighbors’ eyes.”

  “You have thought of everything,” Chalk said, retreating to the driver’s seat. Orzibel’s lips twisted into a malicious sneer as he leaned into the trunk and stared into the eyes of Leala Rosales.

  “Do you love your mother?” he asked. “And she you?”

  Leala’s eyes were wide with terror, but she nodded yes.

  “I was going to tear out one of her eyes. But now I will tear out her heart. They say such is the pain when a child disappears.” Orzibel’s hand reached to the trunk lid. “Farewell, little Leala. My friends will gather your remains next week.”

  He closed the trunk.

  I heard the trunk shut and pulled the putty from the phone mic, keeping my voice calm, though my heart rang in my throat and my palms were cold. The meaning of the words was clear: Leala was doomed.

  “Leala? Are you there?”

  thump

  “Did you see anything when the trunk was open? Anything that suggested where you are?”

  thump thump

  “Is Orzibel still driving?”

  A pause. Then in quick succession: thump thump thump brief pause thump thump

  “Five?” Gershwin frowned.

  I sat perplexed until her math made sense. I turned to Gershwin. “An I don’t know added to a no gives you an I don’t think so.”

  “Oy caramba. We can’t let anything happen to this girl, Big Ryde. The world needs her.”

  “The rain is lessening,” I said, canting my head. “Or maybe stopped completely.”

  Gershwin ran to the TV and looked at the Doppler radar picture. “The north edge of the band is in Fort Pierce or thereabouts. South edge is moving east from the Saddlebunch or Sugarloaf Keys area.”

  Stay calm, my head told my heart. Calm is control. I pulled the phone assembly closer. “Hey there, Leala, I need a weather report. Is it still raining?”

  thump thump

  “Did it just recently stop?”

  thump

  Gershwin pointed to the screen. “She’s minutes from Key West. It’s the only answer. Either that or she’s way up north. Everywhere else is rain.”

  I stared at the television. Leala was heading toward Key West.

  “Get Orzibel’s pic on a
BOLO to the Key cops. If he’s seen, notify us ASAP, but do not approach, right?”

  “On it. Then what?”

  I was picking up the board wired together by Frank Craig. “See you in the Rover.”

  We hit the highway and turned west with lights flashing and siren howling, racing toward the end of America.

  48

  Leala squinted toward the phone at her waist, the only light left in her life. In the upper corner was a box that showed how much talking was left. The box was mostly empty which in her aunt’s phone meant it would soon stop working. She thought a moment and tapped the phone on her leg, first fast, then slowing down.

  “Leala?” the man named Ziggy said. It sounded like they were in a car as well. “What is it?”

  She repeated the pattern. thumpthumpthump … thumpthump-thump-thump … thump … thump Trying to make the sounds fainter as they progressed.

  “We don’t understand.”

  Leala again performed the tattoo. She heard the men talking between them. “Slowing then stopping,” Detective Ryder yelled. “Do you mean your phone charge is getting low?”

  thump

  “Can you turn the phone off and turn it back on when you need to?”

  thump

  The phone box went as silent as death. I kept my foot deep in the accelerator as cars pulled to the side of the road. The radio crackled as we crossed Big Coppit Key, minutes from Key West. “Got it,” Gershwin said, putting the mic on speaker. Roy McDermott’s voice filled the Rover, hissing and popping with interference from the storm between us and Miami.

  “Pinker’s spilling his guts,” Roy said through the static. “He’s sure Kazankis is behind it, but never had any direct contact. Communications went through a guy named Chaku Morales. They’d meet at a health club downtown, but main operations are centered in a titty bar called the Paraíso. Ownership is buried under a bunch of dummy corporations, but Orlando Orzibel is listed as the manager. We just put surveillance on the place.”

  “Down the block from where Perlman got a couple tickets,” Gershwin said. “Friday mornings.”

  I recalled the joint, a ghastly three-story building with silhouettes of naked female forms painted on the walls. “Probably picking up his paycheck,” I mumbled.

  “Any input?” Roy asked.

  “Just watch the joint for now,” I yelled toward the mic. “If Orzibel shows up, take it all down. Careful around Orzibel, he’s a cutter.”

  “Bang,” Roy said. “What a happy sound.”

  The Escalade slipped down the side street and pulled into the back entrance of the warehouse. The rain was still pouring and if they parked in the club’s lot Orzibel would have to splash through rain and puke from the Saturday-night conventioneers. He planned to hand Amili her cut, have a quick celebration fuck, then a late dinner at a fancy restaurant. To enter with a woman as beautiful as Amili Zelaya would pull every eye to Orzibel. She would be his whore queen. In a year, with planning and stored money, they could take over the operation. Kazankis would have to die, of course.

  Orzibel’s heart was dancing as he started up the stairs, but Guzman waved him to stop. “Señor Orzibel … I have a message from Señorita Zelaya.”

  “What has she said?”

  Guzman nodded to a closed door. “She is behind here. Sleeping. She had the migraine.”

  Orzibel frowned as he approached, boots echoing from the concrete floor. “Why here?”

  “Her idea. A place to rest where I would be sure she had no way to communicate. She said sleep would restore her.”

  “And what was this message she had for me?”

  “When you returned you were to enter. And awaken her with a kiss.”

  Orzibel beamed and pointed to the stairs. “Go upstairs, Guzman. Tell the barman you have earned a bottle of Dom Pérignon. In fact, I wish all the men to drink Dom tonight. A gift from me.”

  The man grinned and started away. “Gracias, señor. You are muy generoso.”

  “Close the door at the top of the stairs, por favor,” Orzibel winked. “I don’t wish the club’s music to be overwhelmed by the sounds of passion.”

  The man disappeared up the stairs. Orzibel inserted his key in the lock. “Here comes your king, mi puta,” he said, pushing open the door. “Prepare for the night of your life.”

  Amili Zelaya waited for him on the mattress, her arms outstretched and her long legs spread wide, the vomited froth of her overdose now dried on her chin and neck, the syringe still hanging from her cold arm.

  Tomorrow had passed.

  49

  “It’s him,” Lonnie Canseco said to Roy McDermott, the phone clutched to his cheek. “The Orzibel guy.” Canseco was crouching beneath a soaked poncho on a rooftop across from the Paraíso and watching through binoculars. “I dunno how the fuck he got inside. Must be a hidden entrance.”

  McDermott was smoking a cigar in a command vehicle parked in an alley a block away, Degan at the wheel, Valdez and Tatum in the rear. Canseco had drawn the short straw and was leading the reconnaissance team.

  “How do you know it’s Orzi-doodle?” McDermott asked Canseco. “If he’s inside.”

  “Because he just kicked open the front door and ran outside, Roy.”

  “In the rain?”

  “Hang on a sec, Roy, he’s uh … holy shit.”

  “What?”

  “Orzibel’s shaking his fist at the sky and screaming curses. Not a happy man, Roy. Wait a minute, I uh … this keeps getting weirder.”

  “What now?”

  “Some huge bald muthafuck just ran out. He picked up Orzibel like a baby and is carrying him back inside the club. What should we do?”

  “Take the place down, Lonnie. That’s per instructions from our very own Detective Ryder.”

  A pause. “You mean the asshole who stole all my money, Roy?” Canseco said.

  Back in the command vehicle, Roy McDermott smiled and blew a smoke ring.

  Minard Chalk turned down his foliage-shrouded drive and parked in the grass behind the looming white house. The rain had blown northeast to leave a full moon hung above his house like a beacon. Through the trees and over the sea wall Chalk saw the dark sea, its surface sparkling under the moonlight as if sleeping beneath a blanket of stars.

  He walked softly to the trunk and put an ear to the metal. Not a sound. She would be immobile in fear, terrified. Thinking of her fear, Chalk’s hand drifted to his crotch.

  Whoops. He hadn’t dressed for the meeting.

  It would only take a few seconds to strap in place.

  Midnight was nearing and we’d parked in the lot of a shopping mall in the center of Key West. Being Saturday, the major streets were a traffic blitzkrieg. Horns honked, lights flashed, music blared from bars.

  “The locals are on standby?” I asked Gershwin.

  “That’s the third time you’ve asked.”

  “Sorry.”

  He pointed to the far end of the lot. I saw two KW cruisers. “If we need an escort somewhere, that’s our entourage. I’ve got it all set up, Big Ryde.”

  I started to lean back when Roy came over the radio. “We took down the Paraíso, Carson.”

  “Orzibel showed up?”

  “Canseco was surveilling from across the street. Orzibel ran out front screaming when a monster now known as Chaku Morales followed and carried Orzibel inside. That’s when we went in.”

  “You get Orzibel to talk?” I mentally crossed my fingers.

  “The scumbucket didn’t say a word. He just handed over a card with the name of a local criminal lawyer, an Armani-wrapped turd, but the absolute best in Miami at springing these bastards.”

  I figured Kazankis had the same representation. And also figured there’d be nothing in the club to implicate Mr Redi-flow. He’d probably never been within a mile of the joint.

  “What’s the place like, Roy?”

  “Gets interesting here. The first floor has the standard strip-joint ambience that makes you wanna put on a hazma
t suit. Upstairs are two offices, one quite fashionable. The other looks like Elvis’s finest wet dream. Then there’s the club’s basement, Carson, a hellhole of rabbit-warren rooms, cells. Fifteen in all. They’re currently empty, at least of living people.”

  I heard Roy take a puff on a cigar, blow it out.

  “Living? Why the distinction?”

  A pause. “We found a dead woman sprawled naked on a mattress, a needle sticking from her arm. Healthy-looking carriage, classy make-up, expensive-smelling cologne. There was a reeking, shit-stained commode in the room. You’ll never guess what was in the bowl, Carson.”

  “What?”

  “A diamond-studded Piaget watch. Can you freakin’ believe that?”

  The car had been stopped for several minutes. Then, the slam of a door like on a house, then footsteps. Leala had furiously pressed the On button as the feet drew close.

  Please do not open the trunk while the sparkly sound happens.

  The light flashed on the phone. The sound. As Leala tapped the numbers she heard the latch click on the trunk. She jammed the phone back into her panties and went still.

  The trunk opened. A head leaned in. Far above it the sky was filled with stars.

  The head said, “Buenas noches, Xaviera. Good to see you again.”

  50

  Roy was telling me about the Paraíso bust when my phone rang: Leala.

  “Gotta go, Roy.” I bent close to the phone and heard rustling, bumping: Leala moving. We weren’t going to attempt communication without a signal from Leala, the putty over the mic. Then, the sound of a trunk latch. We held our breath as a male voice filled the Rover.

  “… next, Xaviera, I need to put this collar around your lovely neck, then clip this to it. Think of it as a … an elegant necklace. Sit up, Xavie. DO IT!”

  I looked at Gershwin; like me, he was barely breathing. More rustling. Another click. “Sit up, that’s it. Give me your hand. HAND! Welcome to Key West, Xavie. Doesn’t the evening smell beautiful?”

  “Come on, pervert,” I whispered. “Introduce yourself.”

  If we got a name, Gershwin would relay it to the Key West cops. They’d match it with an address. Even a non-resident who owned a vacation home would be named on tax records, but I figured we were dealing with a resident, given Orzibel’s reference to the perp’s porch and neighbors. Plus my experience suggested that if this monster had bought Leala for the purpose it seemed, he would create a special venue for the event, a place to sit and fantasize prior to the act. The concept was grim and grisly and something I’d learned from my brother years ago.