I shook off that siren song and padded back to my room. The first light of morning was beginning to creep through the curtains when I finally managed to doze off.
Chapter 25
It was after eleven when I woke. The room remained shrouded in false dark, except for that uncloseable crack where the light got in. A bright, thin line crossed the floor and ended at the foot of the bed. I rolled away from it. The events of the previous night flooded back. I closed my eyes again, but it was no good. Despite my longing for apathy I couldn’t just lie there. Cass was being accused of two murders she couldn’t have committed. I climbed from bed and moved toward the bathroom. I smelled Tasha’s scent still clinging to my skin. Decided to skip the shower. I wanted to keep the sense memory close, for as long as it wanted to linger.
The first matter of business was transportation. I had a vague plan in mind, and cabs or Uber wouldn’t work. The desk clerk was the same well-dressed gent from the day before. He offered a cheery smile and asked if I’d slept well.
“Nope,” I said. “But it’s not the bed’s fault.”
“And what can I do for you this afternoon?”
“Where’s the closest place I can rent a car?”
He thought about it for a moment in a theatrical pose with thumb and index finger pressed to his chin. He gazed off, pressed his thin lips together, and narrowed his eyes in actorly thought.
“There’s an Enterprise,” he said at length. “About two miles away, on Ponce De Leon, this street right out here? Would you like me to call you a car?”
“That’s okay, I think I’ll walk.”
He gave me a twisted look.
“I’m from New York,” I told him. “I know it’s an unfamiliar concept elsewhere.”
His eyes lit. The bright lights of Broadway were a long way from the lobby of the ChateauBleau. “God, I adore Manhattan,” he said.
“Try living there.”
I turned to the exit and paused as the doors swung open. Two miles in which direction, that would be helpful.
“Turn left!” he called. “You can’t miss it.”
The heat outside hit me like a wet fish to the face. The sky was dull, the humidity absurd. I almost turned back and asked for that cab after all. But I’d made a prideful point about walking. Dumb ego prevented retreat. I was drenched within a block. At the intersection of Alcazar I lingered in front of the BioVida building. I spotted Tasha’s silver Camry parked curbside; I ignored the impulse to leave a note. I’d be back this way in a few hours. Much as I stirred at her scent and the memory of her contorted face below me, I needed to let her be. I spotted a Starbucks around the corner and sought air-conditioned refuge, along with a supersized iced coffee. Fortified and temporarily cooled, I made it the rest of the way without heatstroke.
The Enterprise lot was tucked behind a bland beige stretch of businesses. It was empty midday on a Thursday and I had my choice of rides. I chose a black Crown Vic for its cop sensibility. And then I was pulling out into the jungle climate of Miami with windows up and AC blasting.
I drove north on U.S. 1 through Coconut Grove, past the AmericanAirlines Arena, home of the Heat, and followed the signs for the MacArthur Causeway toward Miami Beach. On one side of the bridge there was a long, ugly stretch of industrial need—stacked rows of shipping containers and cranes and utilitarian tankers being loaded in the trench. On the other side there were the glittering gated islands of the loaded. First Palm and Hibiscus, then a little farther down, Star Island, home to a certain type of celebrity and the stupid rich. They said Shaq lived there, along with Sylvester Stallone and Gloria Estefan and P. Diddy. Those sorts, you get the idea. Their neighbors were families of dubious fortunes, often drug related, pharmaceutical and otherwise. I remembered that Al Capone used to live on one of those island enclaves. I couldn’t remember which one. This was a town so shameless that it didn’t matter where your money came from, as long as you had it—and just as important, as long as you flaunted it. Not unlike Manhattan, but at least there the big wealth would always be hidden behind doormen and wrought-iron gates, with the six-figure cars parked underground, and no nine-figure yachts parked out front like neon advertisements for the self.
I had no plan in Miami Beach other than to walk on the sand, people watch, and clear my head in the salt water. I found a spot near Joe’s Stone Crab and crossed through a cluster of new condos to the water.
The ocean was more Caribbean here than the clouded coastal waters along the eastern seaboard. There was no surf and the turquoise sea lapped placid on the white sand. Under a palm tree at the edge of the beach, I took off my shirt and wrapped it around my waist in a modified deck change. I slid off my jeans and pulled on my suit. Yesterday’s blast of sun had left a light red burn across my layer of pale skin. I ignored the need for sunscreen. I walked straight to the water like I was being summoned by some unseen power, strode in without hesitation, until it was up to my waist. Then I dove forward and under. Bliss, instant brain-clearing bliss . . . Why did I live in a place where I didn’t have this tonic on offer at all times? An indoor pool was such an inferior substitute. So were any pools for that matter. Nothing could compare with the cleansing shock of diving beneath salt water. I told myself I’d have fewer problems if I could be near this more often. Maybe I could patch things up with Tasha; I could convince her to quit BioVida and find work elsewhere; we could make a life down here. Fool, what a fool I was, always musing on the impossible, that it might be possible for me to leave New York. I was a prisoner there, like everyone else. I remembered a line from wise old Jim Harrison. Written soon before he died at his desk, with pen in hand, an unfinished poem before him. “We are all on death row living in cells of our own devising.” As I swam underwater, with open eyes in the blurry brightness, I resolved to toast that line with a whiskey when I got out and found a place to eat.
I considered Dr. Eberhard Lipke and his partner, Dr. James Crowley. I needed to learn more about them, needed to chat with Dr. Lipke, whether he liked it or not. Tasha had painted him as a kindly aged doc, beloved by his patients and staff. Bring me your old and your impotent, your young and strong. Are you desperate to enhance performance without detection? Come on in. Her moral blindness was difficult to reconcile with the sharp woman I’d spent the evening with. I doubted she was aware of his past activities behind the Wall. This was no order-following innocent. This was a man who injected poison into developing bodies, someone who fucked with body chemistries in the name of sport. He helped lead a mass sacrifice for the greater good of the state.
Lipke drugged thousands, with substances that gave no high, no pleasure, beyond the false pride of winning by cheating. He got away with it all. Maybe he wasn’t a card-carrying member of the Aryan Brotherhood like his partner, but he had plenty to answer for.
I swam around for a half hour like an agitated manatee. Then I walked across the sand, gathered my jeans, and let myself drip-dry under the hard midday sun. I strolled along the low tide, taking in the bodies around me. Everyone was fit and bronzed and proudly exposed. I saw men in their sixties that could have passed for Men’s Health models. I saw women in G-strings that I could have sworn I’d seen on YouPorn. It was a raw parade of the body beautiful. I found myself walking with a straighter back, a sucked-in gut, but it was no use. I was a pasty Yankee visitor, made all the more obvious by my increasing burn. When I touched my finger to my shoulder, I saw the telltale blotch.
Driving back over the Causeway, I was feeling almost sane. It would all work out. Cass’s prints were on the javelin: There was sure to be a good reason for that. Even if Kruger forbid others from touching it, it was difficult to deny Cassandra Kimball any request. There were marks of “torture” on Victor Wingate’s body. He had to be into some kinky shit if he was with Cass. That didn’t mean she followed him out into the woods and pushed him over a waterfall at his favorite spot, where she knew he hiked every day. What was her motive? Did she think she would inherit that house of his? Had I b
een called to help establish her distress and innocence, as the grieving ersatz “widow”?
I remembered telling Lea about her. It always bothered me, the unequal footing of our relationship. Cass knew it all, from my father’s fall to my mother’s death, the details of my time in jail to my rehabilitated badass years on parole, when I learned aikido and established my reputation as an investigator, albeit unlicensed. She was there for my descent with the pain pills and the bottle after taking a bullet in the gut trying to protect her from a stalker. She’d been with me ever since. And in those years, I’d learned little about her. I’d never been to her apartment in the city, knew only that it was in Chinatown, or at least that’s what she said. I knew about her dungeon work at the Chamber, where she whipped and berated conflicted men desperate to submit. But what else did I know? Our relationship was about the cases we worked together. Despite my affection for her and our rather unconventional working arrangement, she was always careful to keep it professional. Lea was right, I didn’t really know her, especially since she reciprocated with a bullet of her own, taken for me during our last case together. She disappeared after that. I’d seen her once in the hospital while we both recovered, and then she fled the city. Joined a Zen retreat upstate near Woodstock, and met Victor Wingate. Fallen in love . . .
Is it a sign of clarity or madness when you begin to doubt those closest to you? Is it paranoia closing in, or an overdue recognition of the truth behind the layers? I tried to banish this tumbling line of thought. If I couldn’t trust Cass, then all my instincts as an investigator were a joke. It would bring down the whole delicate construct. The swim gave me illusions of lucidity, but as I recrossed the Causeway, my mind was muddied with doubt and confusion.
* * *
It was a little before four p.m. when I returned to Coral Gables. I found a spot across the street from the BioVida offices and settled in for a late-afternoon stakeout. I searched Miami’s FM radio options. The majority of stations were either Spanish or hip-hop. I settled on 105.9, a classic-rock station that had decided the nineties were old enough to be classic. I could abide the Nirvana, but when Pearl Jam came on, I turned off the radio and chose silence over Eddie Vedder.
The building began to empty a few minutes after five. I noticed the platinum-haired, fake-titted Tiffany talking to a toned Latino stud in a shirt that was two sizes too small. I’d spent untold hours watching workers leave their offices back home, while I was spying on something or other. They all looked the same in the city, moneyed and exhausted, too past it to look back at anyone. Down here folks moved with a peacocking that was disconcerting. Instead of eyes cast down and inward, everyone seemed to search out, scoping for connection. When I spotted Tasha, I sank low in my seat and looked away. She had no reason to recognize the Crown Vic, but I was a little disappointed when she climbed into her Camry and drove off without a glance in my direction.
I was beginning to think I had missed Lipke’s exit when a black S-class Mercedes sedan pulled from the lot beneath the building. My only image of the doctor was a decades-old photo posted online during his German court trial. But Tasha’s description was apt. Behind the wheel he looked like a kindly Kraut Santa. His cheeks were ruddy, his hair and beard white and neatly trimmed. The vanity plates on the Benz read: AGE DOC. He turned right and I pulled out and followed a few cars back. Lipke turned onto U.S. 1 and we headed north. Just before we reached the downtown, he signaled and turned onto the Rickenbacker Causeway bound for Key Biscayne.
The bridge was longer and prettier than the MacArthur artery to Miami Beach, with clear expanses of Biscayne Bay in that soft shade of blue unique to South Florida. As we reconnected with land, we passed through a stretch of protected mangroves before reaching the settled patch of the Key. It was a short drive from the mainland, an island hop from showy South Beach, but Key Biscayne felt like a separate civilized universe.
There was the sense that mothers and children seldom left. There were schools and playgrounds and all the water sport you could wish for. The breadwinners would be forced to leave each day to Miami proper, but there was a peace and calmness here not present in the rest of the city. Still, that didn’t mean the wealth was any less conspicuous. As I followed Lipke down Harbor Drive, the homes behind the gates announced themselves like loud art spread beneath the palms. There were no cars between us now. If he’d been paying attention, he would have made me. When Lipke slowed and signaled in front of a high white gate, I passed without glancing over. In my rearview I watched as the Benz went through and the gates closed behind him. I turned around and double-parked on the corner. There were cameras visible in the treetops, no pedestrians, and a Neighborhood Watch sign in front of me. I wouldn’t be able to loiter for long.
Five minutes later the gates reopened and the man himself appeared between them. He was short and paunchy, with a proud manner. He moved lightly in his loafers. Lipke was dressed in blue linen pants and an orange silk shirt, which covered a deep tan. He looked at my car and lifted an arm and waved like he was greeting an old friend recognized across a room. I almost waved back. I watched him approach, rolled down the window. If he wanted to talk, wonderful, so did I.
“Guten tag,” he said, leaning in.
I looked down at his fingers resting on the window frame. They were small and stubby and expertly manicured. Trumpian. He waited until I met his gaze and gave me a relaxed smile. He was a man in confident control of his environment. I didn’t know when he picked up my tail, but I’d done a shit job.
“Why don’t you join me inside?” he asked. “It’s much more comfortable in there.” He glanced up at the dull, heavy sky. “It is too warm out here. Come, I’ll get you a drink.”
He nodded and walked back toward his property, never doubting that I would follow. I turned off the car and opened the door and tripped after him like a kid late for school. He pressed an opener in his pocket and the gates swung wide. He didn’t wait for me to catch up. As we approached the house, I noticed her car. Tasha’s silver Camry, parked by the front door. Lipke glanced over his shoulder.
“Yes, she is here too,” he said. “We’ll all talk, the three of us, ja?”
I sensed him smiling with his back to me. I looked up at the house. It was a white beast of right angles and dark glass, an emblem of the eighties, when the city preened in its Miami Vice heyday. It looked like a film set, a home fit for a fictional drug dealer with a cache of automatic weapons in the closet and bodyguards lurking in the shadows. At the door he turned and said, “I’m so glad you followed. We have much to discuss.”
Chapter 26
The open interior was an expanse of marble, in white and black, with matching black or white furniture and lighting. The walls were covered with a thorough looting of Art Basel. Some savvy art advisor had whispered in his ear and helped Lipke pick out an array of inexplicable work. His Italian loafers tapped over the marble, leading the way without a word. We found her seated at a white kitchen island with a tall glass of white wine before her.
“There you are,” he said.
He went to her and kissed her on the forehead, wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and turned to me. “I understand you met Natasha yesterday?”
“Nice to see you again,” I said.
Tasha didn’t raise her gaze. She took a sip of wine, crossed her legs. Yesterday’s green sundress was replaced by a cream skirt and fitted black tank top. Her feet were bare. Despite the evident betrayal the sight of her flesh stirred an instant longing.
“You bought her a drink, ja?” asked Lipke. “At Books and Books? I do love that store.”
“I did.”
Lipke looked at his nurse. I wasn’t sure how much she’d told him about our encounter, but I wanted to believe it ended there.
“It seems you had a nice chat,” he said. “Natasha, would you mind repeating what you told me earlier about your conversation with this gentleman?”
For the first time I sensed the menace beneath his jovial veneer. His
request carried the undertone of demand and threat of punishment. I remembered my coach Teddy Marks, and other coaches I’d encountered as a kid. They often had that same note of smiling cruelty. Within many adults who’ve worked with young athletes, there exists a seed of sadism. It was easy to spot in Lipke.
“I told you, Eberhard,” she said. “He was asking about you and Dr. Crowley.”
He positioned himself behind her and rested his small hands on her shoulders, close to her neck. Tasha tensed as he squeezed; Lipke smiled. “What else, dear?” he asked.
“He said some divorced mother of one of our clients hired him,” she said. “Apparently, the woman doesn’t like us treating her son, and wants to get back at her ex-husband. Something like that.”
“ ‘Something like that,’ ” he repeated. “It was the Nestors he mentioned specifically, is that right?”
Tasha nodded, took another nervous sip.
“Was that all?” he asked.
“It was a short conversation. I first saw him in our waiting room, pretending he was lost, then I spotted him following me at the bookstore, and he sat down next to me and started a conversation. It creeped me out.”
“Interesting,” said Lipke. “How interesting.” He massaged Tasha’s shoulders. It was all she could do not to hunch them up and swat away his little hands. Then he asked me, “What would you like to know about Alex Nestor and his treatment at BioVida?”
I decided to join the game. Maybe the kid’s parents really were divorced. Maybe that’s all she told him. “You’re helping him cheat, aren’t you?” I asked. “Along with plenty of other athletes. Just like you used to do back home in East Germany.”
Against Nature Page 20
