by Otto Penzler
“If you say so, Reverend.”
The man winked again and then, with a vast gesture of his meaty arm, motioned toward the far end of the hut, where Bobby saw a barren altar with a wooden pulpit and behind it not a cross but an enormous Nazi flag pinned to the wall.
“The faithful love that shit,” said the reverend. “Hitler, swastikas, burning crosses. Keeps ’em happy.” He shook his head mournfully. “But so what? If that’s what they want, fine, I’ll give it to ’em.” “Where were you ordained, Reverend?” Bobby said.
“Where?” The man glared. “Where? Right fucking here. I came out here one night and ordained myself.” He crossed the room and unlocked a door to the right of his pulpit. “I’m my own fucking god, Bobby. After you.”
Bobby stepped into a smaller room filled floor to ceiling with cardboard boxes. They were stamped in black letters: brno.
PRODUCT OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA; ISRAELI MILITARY INDUSTRIES; LLAMA GABILANDO. PRODUCT OF SPAIN; NORINCO. PRODUCT OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA; BERETTA.
product of italy. The reverend opened a box stamped nor-inco and held up an AK-17. “I believe this is what you’re looking for?” He racked the side, aimed the AK at Bobby’s forehead and pulled the trigger. Click. He threw back his head and roared again, his booming laughter echoing off the aluminum walls. He tossed the AK to Bobby and began to open other boxes, producing CZ-75 pistols, Uzis, a Llama 45.
Bobby handed back the AK. “Everything but the Llama,” he said. “My man doesn’t like those spic guns.”
“A man after my own heart. Here, let me show you something.” He went over to a closet and opened the door. Ten big tins labeled survival crackers were stacked on the floor. The clothes rack was lined with satin Ku Klux Klan robes in several colors. “I got red,
I got green, I got yellow.” The reverend touched them. “Robes for every occasion. Formal, casual, beachwear. They love it. But this” — he pulled a box from one of the upper shelves and held it out to Bobby— “is what I wanted to show you.” He opened the lid and gently parted the layers of tissue paper.
It was a Cuban flag. Three blue stripes, two white stripes, a white star in a red triangle. The flag was soiled and ripped in places, blackened with gunpowder, stained with dried blood. The reverend watched Bobby as he looked at the flag, then he, too, looked at it.
“I fought for this flag,” he said, tapping Bobby’s arm for emphasis. “I believed in it. It was the only thing I ever believed in. I carried it into battle in the Sierra Maestra, and into Havana after we routed Batista. I was mobbed, like a god. The people shouted, “Gringo! Gringo!” I could have had anything I wanted. Anything! But I only wanted the revolution to work. They were good people. I became an outlaw in my own country for them.”
He spat on the floor. “And how did that bastard Castro repay me? He waited until we cleaned the Batista forces out, then he came in two days later, the conquering hero. He pinned a medal on my chest in the middle of Havana, with a couple hundred thousand people screaming, “Gringo! Gringo!” Fidel bent over and whispered in my ear, ‘You think you’re bigger than me, gringo?’ So he put me in charge of the execution squads. The dirtiest fucking job, to humiliate me. I told him the Batistas had fought bravely, that we should let them into the revolution now. But he wouldn’t listen. I went around the countryside with a firing squad. A shit detail.”
The reverend shook his head. “But I only once pulled the trigger myself. Fidel was going to shoot this poor little bastard himself, with the guy’s wife and little kid watching, the worst thing you can think of. They made the guy kneel in front of Fidel, but the bastard had heart. He looked right into Fidel’s eyes and told him to pull the trigger. Fucking Fidel tossed me his gun and told me to do it. I’ll never forget it. A chromed P-38, a Nazi gun. Fidel was never a Communist. He was a Nazi.” The reverend’s eyes went blank. “So I shot him, poor guy Two weeks later, Fidel put out a warrant for my arrest. Treason.” He slammed the lid on the box and shoved it back into the closet. “I took a slow boat to Miami.”
When he turned back, Bobby saw with surprise that there were tears in his eyes. “After that, I didn’t give a shit. Fuck ’em all. I’ll
13° Beyond Dog
arm everyone. The Jews, Hamas, the IRA, the Ulster Defense Force, both sides. Let ’em kill each other off. God can sort ’em out.” He smiled. “So you see, Bobby. I don’t give a shit who these guns are for, as long as they’re not for spies. Spies like to kill their own. They enjoy it.”
When Bobby and the huge man came out of the Quonset hut, pushing a dolly loaded with boxes, Sheila sighed with relief. Bobby signaled for her to back the van up to the hut. She did, and heard the van’s back doors open and the thud of boxes dropping. As she lit a cigarette, she saw the pit bull sitting outside her door, staring up. Hoshi climbed onto her lap, put his paws against the window and growled. “It’s all right, Hosh,” she said. “It’s all right.”
When the van was loaded with the boxes, the doors slammed and Sheila opened the window to hand Bobby the briefcase. Bobby counted out a wad of bills and handed it back to Sheila. He shook the man’s hand.
“Good to do business with you, Reverend.”
The reverend nodded. “You, too, Robert Redfeather.”
Bobby opened the driver’s side door and Hoshi leaped out. “Get back here,” Bobby yelled, but the dogs had already squared off. Before he could reach them, they sprang, snapping and snarling, their teeth flashing. The pit bull, less agile, lunged at Hoshi like a clumsy boxer, but Hoshi pranced sideways, avoiding the lunge and snapping at the pit bull’s rear haunch, drawing blood. The pit bull reared back, faked to the left and caught Hoshi by the scruff of his neck, also drawing blood. Three quick shots rang out, kicking up dirt at the dogs’ feet, and they separated, startled and whimpering. Both eyed Sheila, who now held her Seecamp steady at the pit bull. Bobby scooped Hoshi into his arms, while the reverend fell to his knees and hugged his scarred warrior, crying, “Dog-Dog, Dog-Dog, are you all right?”
Dog-Dog writhed in his grip, straining to get at Hoshi, but Bobby already had him in the van with the door closed, snarling at the open window. Sheila pulled Hoshi onto her lap and hugged him while Bobby started the engine and drove off.
“Is he all right?” Bobby said.
Sheila pressed a handkerchief against his neck. “I think so. It’s just the skin.”
Bobby glanced in his sideview mirror at the reverend, still on his knees and hugging his dog. “That poor old bastard.”
They drove in silence for a few minutes until they were back on State Road 84, heading east. Sheila inspected the bites on Hoshi’s neck. “The bleeding’s stopped. You’re OK, aren’t you, Hosh?” The dog licked her face.
“Tough guy, eh, Hosh?” Bobby smiled. “Bit off more than you could chew this time. Why didn’t you kill him, Sheila? The dog, I mean.” -
“He’s a dog, Bobby. Only people deserve their own executions.”
‘Yeah, well, a couple more minutes, maybe Hoshi would have had his own execution.”
“Then I would have killed the dog.”
At two a.m., they pulled into the diner parking lot, now crowded with cars. Cowboys filled the tables at the windows, having breakfast. Bobby drove around to the back and parked the van next to his SHO.
“The spic’s inside, Raoul,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
“I’m going in, too. I want to clean Hoshi in the ladies’ room.” Sheila looked down at her own shirt, soaked with blood. “And myself.”
Bobby grabbed the briefcase and Sheila hoisted Hoshi into her arms.
Inside the noisy diner, she brushed through the crowd back toward the ladies’ room. A waitress stopped her. ‘You can’t bring a dog in here, honey,” the waitress said.
“Watch me.”
Meanwhile, Bobby looked for the spic. I’ll never find that bastard with all these rednecks, he thought. They were all dressed up like cowboys, talking loud, letting out rebel yells and eating wit
h their hats on. Some of the rednecks glanced at him, a big muscular guy with a briefcase and a ponytail. “Faggot,” one of them muttered.
“Honey,” Bobby said to one of the waitresses. She balanced a tray of eggs and grits on her arm. “Did you see a little Latin guy in here?”
The waitress blew a wisp of hair off her eyes. “I got time to look for spies?” She brushed past him.
Another waitress told him, “Baby, I ain’t seen or heard nothing since 1967. I thought I was deaf and blind till I seen you standing there.”
The third waitress remembered him. “A couple hours ago. Nervous little guy. Had a quick coffee, made a phone call and split.”
Bobby wondered if maybe the rednecks had scared him off. He decided to check for messages. “Where’s the phone, hon?” he said to the waitress.
She pointed to the end of the diner. “By the little boys’ room.”
The telephone was next to an open window that faced the back parking lot. He dialed his own number, and it began to ring. Through the window, Bobby saw his SHO, then the white van, the white van with all those guns in it, the white van with nobody watching it, no alarm turned on. “Shit,” he muttered. He dug the keys from his pocket while the phone still rang, found the remote with the red tape on it, held it out the window and pressed the button.
The van’s rear lights blinked twice, the alarm chirped and then the whole thing exploded. The rear doors blew off, the side panels blew off, the guns blew out of the van in pieces, engulfed by flames and black smoke, and scattered all over the lot. The van was in flames, twisted grotesquely out of shape, and the whole left side of his SHO was caved in. Glass was everywhere, metal gun parts, van doors and the bumper.
‘Jesus fucking Christ,” said Bobby.
He dropped the phone, rushed out and almost bumped into Sheila, wide-eyed and scared, still holding Hoshi. “Bobby! What happened? Are you all right?”
He grabbed her hard by the arm and half-dragged her out of the diner. The cowboys and waitresses were already outside. Bobby led Sheila through the crowd toward the highway and started walking very fast along the side of the road. In the distance, he could already hear the sirens of police cars and fire engines. They walked in the darkness until Sheila jerked him to a stop. “Enough! What happened?” She put Hoshi down.
Bobby looked back at the smoke billowing above the diner. “It was a setup.” he said. He told her about the reverend’s story. “I should have figured it out. Medina knew who I was getting the guns from. He set us up. Medina didn’t give a shit about the guns. It was revenge he wanted. ‘Be my friend, Serior Esquared,’ yeah. Friends or enemies, it made no difference to him. The reverend was right. They kill their own.”
They started walking again, with Hoshi trotting at their feet. When they came to a pay phone, Bobby called a taxi. They waited, Bobby, Sheila and the dog. Bobby reached down and stroked the fur behind Hoshi’s ears. “I should have listened to you, Hosh,” he said. The dog’s tail wagged.
When the taxi arrived, Sheila got in first and Hoshi jumped in beside her. When Bobby got in and shut the door, the cabbie, a Pakistani, turned and said, “No dogs.”
Bobby looked at Sheila. ‘You see a dog in here, baby?” he said. “Nope.” She smiled and shook her head.
Bobby smiled at the cabbie in the rearview mirror. “We don’t see any dog, Mr. 7-Eleven. Just drive.”
Find Miriam
from New Mystery
“How old would you say I am? ”
I looked at the dark handsome man standing next to the railing of his penthouse balcony overlooking Sarasota Bay. He was just a bit bigger than I am, about six feet and somewhere in the range of one hundred and ninety pounds. His open blue shirt, which may have been silk, showed a well-muscled body with a chest of gray-brown hair. The hair on his head was the same color, plentiful, neat. And he was carefully and gently tanned. He had a glass of V-8 in his hand. He had offered me the same. I had settled for water. There was a slight accent, very slight when he spoke and I realized he reminded me of Ricardo Montalban.
I’m forty-four, on the thin side, losing my hair and usually broke or close to it. I’d come to Sarasota two years earlier, just drove till my car gave out and I felt safely in the sunshine after spending my life in the gray of Chicago. I had driven away from a wife who had dumped me and a dead-end investigator’s job with the State’s Attorney’s Office.
Now, I made my living finding people, asking questions, answering to nobody. I had a growing number of Sarasota lawyers using me to deliver a summons or find a local resident who hadn’t turned up for a court or divorce hearing. Occasionally, I would turn up some street trade, a referral from a bartender or Dave the owner of the Dairy Queen next door to the run-down two-story office building where I had my office and where I lived. I had a deal with the building manager. The landlord lived in Seattle. By giving the manager a few extra dollars a month beyond the reasonable rent for a
seedy two-room suite, he ignored the fact that I was living in the second room of a two-room office. The outer room was designed as a reception room. I had turned it into an office. The room behind it was a small windowed office which I had turned into a living space. I had fixed it up to my satisfaction and the clothes I had brought with me from Chicago would hold out for another year or two. I had a bed, an old dresser, a sink in the corner, a television set and an aging green sofa and matching armchair. The only real inconvenience was that the office, like all the others, opened onto a balcony with a rusting railing facing a parking lot shared with the Dairy Queen and, beyond it, the heavy traffic of Route 301. To get to the bathroom, which had no bath, I had to walk past five offices and take whatever the weather had to offer. I showered every morning after I worked out at the downtown YMCA.
There was nothing but my name printed on the white-on-black plastic plate that slid into the slot on my door. I wasn’t a private detective, didn’t want to be. I did what I know how to do, ask questions, find people.
‘Just a guess,” Raymond Sebastian asked again, looking away from the beautiful sight of the boats bobbing in the bay and the busy bridge going over to Bird Key.
Answering a question like that could lose me a job, but I hadn’t come to this town to go back to saying “yes, boss” to people I liked and didn’t like.
“Sixty,” I guessed, standing a few feet away from him and looking him in the eyes.
“Closer to seventy,” he said with some satisfaction. “I was blessed by the Lord in many ways. My genes are excellent. My mother is ninety-two and still lives in good health. My father died when he was ninety-four. I have uncles, aunts . . . you wouldn’t believe.”
“Not without seeing them,” I said.
Sebastian laughed. There wasn’t much joy in his laugh. He looked at his now-empty V-8 glass and set it on a glass-top table on the balcony.
“Lawrence told you my problem?” he asked facing me, his gray-blue eyes unblinking, sincere.
“Your wife left. You want to find her. That’s all.”
Lawrence Werring was a lawyer, civil cases, injury law suits primarily, an ambulance chaser and proud of it. It had bought him a beautiful wife, a leather-appointed office and a four bedroom house on the water on Longboat Key. If I knew which one it was, I could probably see it from where Sebastian and I were standing.
“My wife’s name is Miriam,” Sebastian said handing me a folder that lay next to the now-empty V-8 glass. “She is considerably younger than I, thirty-six, but I believed she loved me. I was vain enough to think it was true and for some time it seemed true. And then one afternoon ...”
He looked around as if she might suddenly rematerialize.
“. . . She was gone. I came home and her clothes, jewelry, gone. No note, nothing. That was, let me see, last Thursday. I kept expecting to hear from her or a kidnapper or something, but...”
I opened the folder. There were a few neatly typed pages of biography. I skimmed them. Miriam Latham Sebastian was born in Utah, earned an
undergraduate degree in social science at the University of Florida and moved with her parents, now both dead, to Sarasota where she worked for a Catholic services agency as a case worker till she married Sebastian four years earlier. There was also a photograph of Miriam Sebastian. She was wearing red shorts, a white blouse and a great smile. Her dark hair was long and blowing in the breeze. She had her arm lovingly around her husband who stood tall, tan and shirtless in a pair of white trunks looking at the camera. They were standing on the wide sands of a Florida Gulf Coast beach, a few apartments or condos behind them.
“Pretty,” I said closing the folder.
“Beautiful,” he corrected. “Exquisite. Charming.”
“Any guesses?” I said. “About what happened?”
He shrugged and moved from the balcony back into the penthouse apartment. I followed as he talked. We stopped in front of a painting of his wife on the wall over a big white sofa. The whole room was white, but not a modern white. There was a look of tasteful antique about the place. Not my kind of home, but I could appreciate it.
“Another man perhaps, but I doubt it,” he said. “We have had no major quarrels. I denied her nothing, nothing. I am far from a poor man, Mr. Fonesca and ...”
He paused and sighed deeply.
“And,” he continued composing himself, “I have checked our joint checking and savings accounts. Most of the money has been removed. A little is left. I have my corporate attorney checking other holdings which Miriam might have had access to. I find it impossible to believe she would simply take as much money as she could and just walk out on me.”
“You had a little hitch in your voice when you mentioned another man,” I said having decided the chairs in the room were too white for me to sit on.
“She has had a good friend,” he said gently. “This is very difficult for me. I am a proud man from a proud family.”
