Tanzi's Ice

by C I Dennis

  “What the hell are you doing sending goons to pick me up? Don’t these idiots have any training?”

  “Where are they?”

  “Lying in a heap at my feet,” I said.

  “I told you to stay clear,” he said. “I’m going to have to detain you for a few days.”

  “If you’re chasing Burleigh, how’s that going to sound? I can’t fly back with them because I’ve been picked up by the Border Patrol? Is that what you want?”

  “You can’t tell him that,” he said.

  “I have the feeling he knows already, and I haven’t even met him.”

  “Fly back. Keep your mouth shut. Then go to your mother’s and stay the fuck out of it.”

  “I’ll give you two out of three,” I said. “Tell your clods here to go away.” I passed my phone to Big #2 and they talked. He handed it back to me and stood up, rubbing his neck.

  “Rematch?” he said, “Without the pussy-kicks?”

  “Fuck off,” I said, and I left them there. I went out to the car, got in, and started it. Barbara saw my expression and didn’t say anything. “I have to stop at Roberto’s,” I said. “Then let’s get drunk and screw.”

  “You Vermonters sure know how to sweet talk a southern girl,” she said.

  *

  Lilian, Roberto’s mother, met me at the door. “Hi Vince,” she said, with just a lingering trace of an accent. She was a phlebotomist at the Indian River Medical Center, where her husband Gustavo also worked in the accounting department. All of their relatives lived in Miami, but they had decided it was “too Cuban” and moved to Vero Beach, which was pretty much black or white back then. Now it has a fast-growing Latino population like anywhere else. There was even a Latino food section at the Publix, and I hung out there a lot because in my next life I want to be able to cook like Lilian—there wouldn’t be enough time to master the subtleties of her stews, gumbos, and sauces in this one, but I was trying.

  “What’s that smell?”

  “Witch doctor stuff,” she said. “I’m trying to get Roberto to eat some.”

  “How is he?”

  “Not good. The mononucleosis gave him a terrible sore throat,” she said. “He’ll be glad you’re here. Go on back.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I won’t stay long. Barbara’s in the car.”

  “OK,” she said.

  I knocked on Roberto’s bedroom door, and he croaked an acknowledgement.

  “Dude,” I said.

  “Dude,” he managed to say back. He sat up in his bed. “May have to text you. I can’t speak.”

  “Take it easy,” I said. “I brought the computer.” I handed it to him, and he rose out of bed and put it on a desk in front of a gigantic computer of his own. He opened it and a security page appeared.

  “Weird,” he said.

  “What?”

  “This wasn’t here before. You sure this is the same computer?”

  I thought about that. “Actually, not a hundred percent.” It was possible that I’d picked up Yuliana’s laptop when I was leaving the plane.

  Roberto tapped the keyboard with the same seemingly effortless virtuosity that my brother Junie applied to the guitar fret board. “It’s here,” he said. “The same porn vid. But this is a different computer.”

  “Show me,” I said. He opened a file named STANDULL121312.mov. The video player started and began to show raw, amateurish footage of a couple standing next to a four-poster bed. There was only one camera, and it appeared to be resting on something, not handheld. It had an audio track, but it was difficult to hear. A silver-haired man was naked, facing a much younger woman who held something in her hand. She was partially dressed. Partially, because her black, skintight outfit was missing fabric in the womanliest areas, and her breasts and pubic mound were clearly visible. She was exceptionally good-looking, and my first thought was that she was a pro, because although the john was handsome he was at least forty years her senior.

  The fun began, and it involved what she held in her hand, which turned out to be a leather riding crop. Hi-ho Silver, and away! The audio track came to life, and the groaning and howling became loud. The door to Roberto’s bedroom suddenly opened. It was Gustavo.

  “Oh shit,” I said, as if my own mother had caught me with a Penthouse.

  “What’s going on here?” Gustavo said.

  “Let me explain,” I said, and I went out into the hall with Gustavo and closed the door to the room.

  “It’s a case,” I said. “I had no idea this was part of it. Roberto is checking out a computer for me, and that was on it.”

  “OK,” Gustavo said. They liked me and trusted me, so he would cut me some slack. “It’s not as if he doesn’t see that stuff every day.”

  “I know,” I said. “You have to wonder what the effect is going to be on these kids.”

  “Not good,” he said.

  We re-entered Roberto’s room. “Vince says you’re helping with a case,” he said to his son.

  Roberto was still facing the computer, typing. “No big deal, Dad.”

  “Let me watch,” Gustavo said. “Replay it.”

  Roberto started the video again. I was twisting myself into a pretzel of awkwardness.

  “That’s Dulles Stanton,” Gustavo said.

  “What?” I said. I took a closer look at the patriarchal-looking naked guy. “Holy shit, you’re right.”

  Dulles Stanton was the current chair of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. They were responsible for, among other things, the Border Patrol.

  *

  Barbara drove us the few blocks from Roberto’s house to mine. The tires squealed as she pulled into my driveway and stopped the Yukon in front of the garage. I laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Do you have an agenda?”

  “Yes. Get your ass upstairs and take off all your clothes.”

  “Can I at least get a drink of water?”

  “Sorry, we don’t have time,” she said.

  “We have all afternoon to make love,” I said.

  “Exactly,” she said. She gave me her hundred-watt smile, and I got my ass upstairs.

  *

  Barbara was in the shower and I was alone in the bed with my guilt. My internal soundtrack was playing “Who Were You Thinking Of”, the Doug Sahm song that hit a little too close to what had just happened. Barbara was as sexy a woman as I had ever known, but my mind had been elsewhere. Specifically, my mind had been sitting on a soft leather seat in a private jet, watching something right out of Victoria’s Secret. This one was going to take a lot more than a dozen Hail Marys and Our Fathers.

  She came out, partially wrapped in a towel. Barbara was forty-five years old, and she kept in excellent shape. She didn’t have the body of a twenty-year-old, but she didn’t say “like, omigod” to begin every sentence, either. She was beautiful. She looked at me and frowned.

  “You OK?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “You don’t look like a guy who just got lucky.”

  “Sorry. I’m…distracted.”

  “The case?”

  “Yes,” I said. Good recovery. “It’s getting strange.”

  “How so?”

  “My dad had a porn movie on his computer. Roberto found it.”

  “That’s a little awkward,” she said.

  “You got that right,” I said. “Gustavo was right there.”

  “Omigod,” she said.

  “It was a U.S. senator,” I said. “It was also on Yuliana’s computer. I think it’s blackmail.”

  “Miss Capri Pants?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good,” she said. “Put her away for a long time, OK?”

  “You’re jealous?”

  “Should I be?”

  “No comment,” I said. Barbara’s mouth opened, and I realized I had just inserted my size-13 foot into my own mouth. “Barbara—”

  “Are you fu
cking her?” she said, with the volume all the way up.

  “Of course not.”

  “But you would, if she let you.”

  “Barbara—I—”

  “Don’t say it,” she interrupted. “Don’t start lying to me. If you want to fuck her, go ahead, just don’t lie about it.” She was hurrying into her clothes. She tugged on her top, and stuffed her bra into her pants pocket. Before I could get out of bed she was halfway down the stairs.

  “Hey!” I yelled, but the only answer was the slam of the front door.

  *

  My phone buzzed on the bedside table while I lay there wondering how the hell I was going to fix this. The caller ID said it was Yuliana. Oh great, just what I needed.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “I believe you have my laptop,” she said. Her voice was flat.

  “Oh,” I said. “Sorry about that. It looks like mine.”

  “I’ll be over to get it,” she said.

  “I’m here,” I said. “I live at—”

  “I know where you live.”

  “That figures.”

  *

  I stared out the window at the cream-colored Bentley Continental GTC as it oozed into my driveway. Nothing like it had ever occupied that space, or ever would again. Yuliana had the top down, and her dark hair was tied in a ponytail that protruded from the back of an L.A. Dodgers baseball cap. The Dodgers had ditched Vero for spring training in Arizona some years ago, but their swag remained. She had changed, and wore a mint green, strapless tube top over the same white Capri pants, with a white leather jacket and shades that looked appropriately expensive for a woman driving a Bentley. I met her at the door.

  “I’m not interrupting anything?” she asked.

  “Come on in.” She entered, and checked out the surroundings. “It’s not much,” I said.

  “I’m not a spoiled brat,” she said. “I grew up with nothing.”

  “Here’s your computer,” I said, and handed her the shiny silver laptop.

  “Here’s yours.” She put a shopping bag that held my dead father’s Mac on the kitchen counter. It felt like a prisoner exchange.

  “Aren’t we supposed to be doing this at the 38th parallel?”

  She smiled. “Where’s your friend?”

  “She had to leave.”

  “She’s very attractive,” she said.

  “Yes, she is,” I said.

  Yuliana took one of the chairs at my kitchen table and held it by the back. She was looking at it, not moving. I couldn’t read her expression, but something was going on.

  “Take a seat if you want,” I said. “Limeade?”

  “No,” she said, as she sat down. “Sit.” She pointed to the other chair. I took the seat across from her.

  “How much do you know about us?” she said.

  “Not much,” I said.

  “But you’re investigating.”

  “No,” I said. She frowned. “OK. Yes.”

  “Brooks is going to offer you a job,” she said. “Probably on the plane, tonight. You need to tell him no. He won’t like it, but just be firm.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I like you,” she said. She pushed the sunglasses back over her hat and looked straight at me. For the first time I saw some vulnerability in her dark eyes.

  “Yuliana, what are you involved in?”

  “I can’t talk about it,” she said.

  “But you’d like to get out.”

  She waited a long time to answer. “It’s all I have,” she said.

  “I can get you out,” I said.

  She stood up and walked toward the front door.

  “No, you can’t,” she said. “Your father already tried.”

  *

  She was gone, and I had learned nothing except that whatever was going on, my abusive, ex-lush of a father had apparently been deeply involved. The hardest part to accept was that people obviously liked him—at least Yuliana did. I couldn’t get my head around that. I had long ago pushed him to a far corner of my mind; a sort of solitary confinement for people I detested. There weren’t many in there, but there were a few. When you are a cop for as long as I was, you find out that not everyone has your well-being in mind, and that some people are evil, cruel, or stupid, and sometimes all of the above.

  My cell rang. It was John Pallmeister.

  “Tanzi,” I said.

  “Where are you?”

  “Florida,” I said. “Back tonight.”

  “Patton wouldn’t say. He’s apoplectic. He can barely speak.”

  “Apoplectic? That’s an awfully big word for a cop.”

  “I’ll ignore that,” he said. “Bad news, Vince.”

  “What?”

  “Your brother. We picked him up.”

  “For what?”

  He paused a while before he spoke. “You know what. You saw the scratches on his arm.”

  “You got a DNA sample?”

  “Not yet. They’re going to rush it, but it’ll be three weeks, which is fast by the usual standards. But there was definitely skin under your father’s fingernails, and we found out from Burlington P.D. that Junie was in scrubs that night. The only break for him so far is that nobody ID’d him at the hospital. I’m not telling you this, by the way.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “There’s more. He’s on the security tape, both entering and exiting. Main lobby. The times line up.”

  “Shit,” I said. “How do I get to look at those tapes?”

  “Ask his lawyer,” he said.

  “Where is he?”

  “Back in the South Burlington lockup,” he said.

  “He didn’t do it. He told me, and I know when he’s lying.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said. “You’re back tonight?”

  “Late,” I said.

  “Have you seen the weather?”

  “No.”

  “It’s warmed up to the thirties. Been raining for the last hour, and the roads are a sheet of ice. I’m in my cruiser and I’ve already run out of flares.”

  *

  It was five o’clock, and I had a few hours to kill before I got a cab to the airport. I’d already packed my P.I. tool bag. No word from Barbara. I wasn’t about to call her; I was somewhat peeved at her accusations and her fast exit. Normal people talked these things out. I take that back—normal people seldom talked these things out; they’d rather scream, throw crockery, stomp off and generally behave like four-year-olds. What I mean is that theoretically, according to the self-help book industry, people are supposed to be calm, ask the other person about their feelings, and not make judgments. It saves on the crockery damage, but I suppose it’s not nearly as satisfying as the four-year-old approach.

  I decided to organize my desk and look for any bills that I should pay now in case I stayed in Vermont longer than a few more days. Everything appeared to be under control. I found a black and white picture under a stack of papers that needed to be filed. Carla had sent it to me over a year ago, when I was in prison. There was no note attached and no return address, but I knew her handwriting. It was a photo of my parents, taken on their wedding day. They’d married in a Catholic church in Groton, Connecticut, where my father was stationed before they moved back to Vermont. He’d served two years in the Navy; he didn’t get seasick and he could fix anything. But the M.P.s had dragged him home from the bars one too many times, and they discharged him. He looked young, handsome and full of hope in his uniform. Everyone does at some point, although the look eventually fades and becomes brittle around the edges like this old photograph. I tucked it into an envelope—my mother might want it.

  *

  I warmed up some salmon that was left over from the night before I’d left for Vermont, which seemed like an eternity ago. The phone buzzed in my pocket. It was Yuliana again.

  “Can you leave early?” she said. “I don’t mean to spoil your plans.”

  I didn’t tell her that they
had already been spoiled. “What’s up?”

  “Brooks wants to go now. Ed called from the airport. He said the weather is getting ugly up North.”

  “What time?”

  “Pick you up in half an hour?”

  “OK,” I said.

  “Do you have a passport?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bring it with you,” she said. “If we can’t land, they might divert us to Montreal.”

  “OK,” I said.

  “Remember our conversation,” she said. “Brooks is very persuasive.”

  “I can handle Brooks,” I said, and we hung up.

  *

  I dialed my mother, and Mrs. Tomaselli picked up. “Oh Vinny!” she said, “My Vinny, I just love my Vinny!” It felt like I was getting hugged tight to her ample bosom, right over the phone. Mrs. Tomaselli doted on me, spoiled me, gave me candy (which was usually months past the sell-by date), sent me birthday cards, and I could do no wrong as far as she was concerned. Everyone should have someone like that.

  “Is my mom there?”

  “She’s indisposed,” she said.

  “Would you please tell her I’m coming back late? And it may be tomorrow, if the weather gets bad.”

  “It’s bad already,” Mrs. Tomaselli said. “Horrible. You should see the cars, sliding all over. I don’t even dare walk home, the ice, it’s awful. Francine is going to make a bed for me on the couch.”

  “You girls stay out of trouble,” I said.

  She giggled. “You’re lucky I’m too old to chase you, Vinny,” she said. “I’d hunt you down like a jackrabbit.”

  I couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so I just laughed.

  “I could have had any man I wanted in my day,” she said.

  “I don’t doubt you,” I said. She’d shown me pictures, and she wasn’t kidding—she’d been a hot peperoncino a few decades and dress sizes ago.

  “Goodbye, Mrs. Tomaselli.”

  “Goodbye, my Vinny.”

  *

  I was wrong about the Bentley being the fanciest machine that would ever park in my driveway. This one was a deep-green Maybach, and even in the fading afternoon sun the paint job shimmered like the northern lights. Brooks Burleigh was at the wheel, instantly recognizable by his shock of thick, white hair and bushy eyebrows. He wore chinos and a polo shirt, like he’d just been horseback riding or working outdoors. Yuliana got out of the passenger side, still in her Capri pants and leather jacket. In the rear seat were two people—a balding, somber-looking guy in a summer-weight grey suit that smelled slightly of cigarette smoke, and a young woman with short blonde hair who might have given Yuliana a run for my most-beautiful-creature-on-the-planet award, except she looked out of place, and a little scared. So far, Yuliana had never looked scared of anything.