by Paul Levine
Now Granny was helping me raise my nephew, and I try to pass on her lessons, though without the clops on the head she dealt out for random acts of disobedience.
My mom left town two weeks after my father was knifed to death at Poacher’s, a shitkicker saloon outside Key Largo. Dad was a shrimper. Mom was a bottle blonde who hung out by the jukebox and wiggled her butt to Elvis and Johnny Cash. That’s right. We’re Florida Crackers.
I miss my old man. He used to lift me in one hand and swing me over his head. It was like flying. When he held me close, I inhaled the aroma of sea-crusted salt and diesel fuel and fish guts. Nothing ever smelled sweeter.
“Where’s Kippers?” I asked Granny, as she dropped a breaded catfish fillet into the fryer.
“In his room, and he needs a talking to.”
“Yo, Uncle Jake.”
Kip shuffled barefoot into the kitchen from his bedroom, where he’d likely been playing a video game in which a gang of criminals obliterates a major city. He wore my old Dolphins’ jersey, number 58, which hung to his knees. The boy was towheaded and fair-skinned with a faint blue vein showing on his forehead. He’s gangly and shy with a quirky intelligence and a smile so sweet, it clutched at my heart.
I hugged him, which under the rules, I can only do in the house, so his buddies can’t see us. He smelled of potato chips and bubble gum.
Then I saw it, a purple welt under his left eye. “What’s with the shiner, kiddo?”
He shrugged-no big deal-and headed toward the sweet potato pie.
“No dessert till after supper!” Granny wagged a finger at him. “Now tell your uncle what happened.”
“I got in a fight with Kountz.”
“Carl Kountz? He’s two years older than you.”
Carl was big for his age. Hell, he was big for my age. He was already starting at fullback on the Tuttle-Biscayne J.V. team. A frame like a set of box springs. By his junior year, the ’Canes, ’Noles, and Gators would come calling.
“So, why’d Carl pick on you?” I asked.
“I hit him first.”
“No way.”
“Carl said my mom’s a whore and I’m a bastard.”
Oh.
Genealogy-wise, Carl was spot-on. My half sister, Janet, was the unintended byproduct of a match made in hell, my alcoholic mother and Chester Conklin, a roughneck from Oklahoma. Just as Conklin and the Widow Lassiter never married, neither did Janet and her beau, whoever he was. Janet could only guess which unemployed, shiftless loser had fathered Kip.
Every six months or so, Janet drifted into town to see her son, dropping off presents and apologies. Then it was back on the road with some petty thief or drug-dealing boyfriend. Then a spell of rehab paid by me. The Lassiter family tree is not exactly the House of Windsor. Closer to the House of Pancakes.
“I told the boy you’d teach him to fight,” Granny said. “He’s gotta defend the family name.”
What name? I wondered. “Trailer Trash”? But what I said was, “Granny, you don’t understand these fancy private schools.”
“You’d fight back, Jake. Hell, you did.”
“When?” Kip asked.
“Never mind, kiddo.”
I’m not proud of the story, and Kip wasn’t yet ready to hear even a sanitized version. I was sixteen, working part-time mopping up puke at a roadside bar in the Keys. A couple biker punks got drunk and razzed me. Time and again.
“Ain’t you the Lassiter kid? I fucked your momma in the parking lot.”
“Shit, Billy,” the other one said. “Who didn’t?”
Wiry and mean, filthy jeans, dusty boots, and greasy hair. Born stupid, reared stupid, and they’d doubtless die stupid.
“Your mom takes it up the ass, kid.”
“Only when she’s drunk, Billy.”
I barreled into the first one, bounced him off the wall, shattering the neon Budweiser sign. Clinched him and broke his nose with a head butt. Same move I’d use years later the night I wore a wire for Alex Castiel.
The punk’s friend snapped a pool cue across his knee and whipped it across my temple. I staggered sideways and when he swung again, I stepped inside the arc and splintered his jaw with a straight right. I could have left it there, but I didn’t. When he fell to the floor, I stomped him. Kicked him in the head, the gut, the balls.
Stomped him, not because I loved my mother, but because I hated her. Stomped him for all the pain of my childhood, for losing my father to a blade, not ten feet from where I stood, kicking the piss out of the biker.
The two punks landed in the hospital, and I did three months in juvie detention. Granny framed a copy of the judge’s order, as if it were an Ivy League diploma.
“Jacob Lassiter is hereby adjudged delinquent.…”
I didn’t want Kip to follow in my footsteps. But deja-fucking-vu, those dang Lassiter genes.
“We’ll work the heavy bag tomorrow,” I told Kip. “Teach you to jab, a couple combinations, maybe some kick-boxing, too.”
“I can’t fight Carl. He’s too big.”
“No one’s too big.”
“Maybe not for you, Uncle Jake.”
“For all of us. No one’s too big and no one’s too strong.”
“Carl will kill me!”
“Listen up, Kip. I’m gonna teach you to hit Carl in the gut so hard, his eyes will pop out of his head, he’ll shit his pants, and he’ll vomit all over his shoes.”
“That’s my boy,” Granny said.
16 Naked Came the Night
Kip was asleep in his bedroom and Granny was snoring in the rocking chair on the back porch when the phone rang. Cindy. The red Escalade, license plate U R NXT, was registered to a Miguel Sanchez of Homestead.
“Never heard of him, Cindy.”
“Doubt he was driving, anyway.”
“Why?”
“He’s at FCI, awaiting trial on cocaine charges.”
That solved nothing. Who the hell was driving the con’s car, and what did they want with me? I was thinking a Jack Daniel’s on the rocks might help answer the question when there was a knock at the door. A knock so dainty I barely heard it over the whompeta of the ceiling fan.
It took three tugs to yank the door open. Standing on the front step was a six-foot-tall caramel-skinned young woman in a stretchy mini-skirt and high heeled, strappy sandals sloped like a ski jump. Her breasts, round as cantaloupes, threatened to tumble out of her fluorescent orange tube top. A bare tummy, tanned and taut. Hair bleached white-hot platinum. She gave me a small, knowing smile, as sinful as the devil’s laugh.
“Jake Lassiter?” she asked.
I said “Yes” on the assumption that she was neither a process server nor a Jehovah’s Witness.
“I’m Angel Roxx. Rhymes with ‘cocks’ but spelled with two ‘x’s.”
“Yeah?”
“Would you like a blow job?”
“Is that a trick question?”
“I work for Charlie Ziegler.”
“Let me guess. Spiritual adviser?”
“P.R. consultant. And I act.” She cocked a hip. You could have put a saddle on it. “Did you ever see A Tale of Two Titties. Or Lawrence of a Labia?”
“Not unless they were on ESPN. Why don’t you come inside? Fewer mosquitoes.”
She sashayed inside, dropping her bag on the wine barrel filled with umbrellas, fly rods, and a tarpon gaff. Csonka waddled over, jammed his nose under her mini-skirt and sniffed. She didn’t flinch.
Angel’s eyes danced around the living room, which looked like a garage sale at a fraternity house. My coffee table, a sailboard propped on empty milk cartons, seemed to amuse her. Or maybe it was my tree stump end table topped by a lamp in the shape of a vintage Miami Dolphins helmet.
She made an exaggerated motion of fanning herself. “What’s with this heat? A/C broken?”
“I’m saving the earth, all by my lonesome.”
“So what’s Charlie want with someone like you?”
“You tell
me.”
“All he told me was to make sure you were in his office at nine A.M.”
“After blowing me tonight?”
“He didn’t get specific. Just said to prep you.”
“Great idea. Lately, I’ve been prepping myself.”
“You’re kinda cute in a beat-up sort of way. You look a little like Studley Do-Right.”
“Studley …?”
“Duh. Major porn star, like a thousand years ago.” She settled herself onto my old, lumpy sofa. Made of Haitian cotton, it had looked fine until one of my teammates dropped a lit joint between the cushions, starting a small but sweet-smelling fire.
“I hope you’re not on steroids. I hate when guys have shriveled balls.”
I put the pieces together. Earlier today, Alex Castiel had refused to investigate Ziegler and warned me to back off. Ziegler could be bad for my career, though Castiel failed to mention the guy could be good for my sex life. Either way, the State Attorney had called Ziegler and told him about me.
“Help me out here, Angel. If Ziegler wants to see me …”
“Why not just call you?”
“Yeah.”
“Charlie’s gotta be different. Gotta do things big. The grand gesture, he calls it.”
“I still don’t get it.”
She pursed her lips, which seemed to gorge cute little lines in her forehead. Deep thinking mode. “Charlie needs to impress people. And to be liked. So, when you see me at your door, you’re supposed to think, A present for me? What a guy!”
Actually, I was thinking, Charlie Ziegler, what a jerk, but I followed the logic.
“Anyway, that’s the sweet Charlie,” she continued. “The good Charlie.”
“But there’s another one?”
“You kidding? Lots more. Mean Charlie. Potty-mouth Charlie. Smack-you-around Charlie. You ought to see him when his face turns all red. Jeez!”
“I’m gonna go see Ziegler,” I told her, “but not tomorrow.”
“Why not?”
“Other plans.”
Actually, I had other people to see first. Sonia Majeski had called an hour ago. She’d talked to a couple of stripper friends from the old days. They’d put together a list of five men who used to drift in and out of Ziegler’s party circuit. No way to tell if any had been there the night Krista disappeared, but I would sure as hell ask. I also had a ton of questions for them about Ziegler.
Sure, I wanted to talk to him personally, but I might only have one shot at him, and I wanted to be ready. Young lawyers make the mistake of rushing to depose the main witness on the opponent’s side of a case. They should be talking to everyone else first. Build your dossier before you put your antagonist under oath. By the time you say, “State your name for the record,” you’d better know more about the son-of-a-bitch than his own saintly mother.
“We could still have some fun tonight,” Angel offered.
“Yeah?”
“I can do you while you watch one of my flicks. It’s a parallel universe thing.”
I was tempted. How could I not be? I was single and unattached, and here was Angel, hot and willing, and with no demands that I be attuned to her needs or go shopping at Pottery Barn during the NFL playoffs. In another time, I would have been incapable of saying no. These days, I require some semblance of an emotional connection.
“Thanks,” I said. “But I gave up one-night stands a long time ago.”
“I could come back tomorrow night, too.”
“Sorry. Doesn’t work for me.”
She crunched up her forehead again, as if presented with an especially tough algebra question. “No one’s ever turned down my b.j. before.”
“If it’s any consolation, it’s my first time, too.”
There was the sound of bare feet padding across the Mexican tile. Kip, all sleepy-eyed, appeared from the corridor wearing his Miami Marlins pajama bottoms.
“I thought I heard voices,” he said, eyeing my guest, or rather the twin globes rising from her tube top.
“Kip, this is Angel Roxx,” I said.
“I know! A Tale of Two Titties.”
17 The Road Goes on Forever
The air was soggy as a steam bath as I started my morning run. The violet morning glories in my neighbor’s yard were yawning open for the day, just like me. The grass wet with morning dew, the sweet tang of jasmine in the air. No breeze, the palm fronds hanging as limp as laundry on the line.
It’s not a fancy neighborhood of mini-manses and well-tended lawns. More like a tropical jungle, small houses on crowded lots overgrown with ragged ficus hedges and creeping bougainvillea.
I wore an old pair of Penn State shorts and a T-shirt with the slogan “A Friend Will Help You Move, but a Real Friend Will Help You Move a Body.” I’d only recently started carrying an iPod and wearing headphones. Off-season training would have been a lot easier if we’d had them in the old days. Still, there was a tradeoff. I missed the slap of shoes on asphalt and the call of the wild parrots in the neighborhood.
I slogged along, sweat streaming down my chest. Loquat to Solana to Poinciana, then south on LeJeune toward the Gables Waterway. A black-and-white wood stork strutted across the street, apparently lost. I wanted to point it toward Biscayne Bay. In my earphones, I heard Joe Nichols worrying that his lady was going out for the evening, and “tequila makes her clothes fall off.”
Traffic was already building, and car fumes had overwhelmed the jasmine. I hung a right on Barbarossa, planning to cut over to Riviera and then north toward Dixie Highway. A pair of land crabs the size of catchers’ mitts scuttled across the pavement, headed toward the waterway.
A black Lincoln followed me through the turn, then slowed to keep pace. I tried to see through the tinted windows but could not, the morning sun shooting daggers into my eyes. I picked up my speed, and so did the Lincoln. I slowed, and the car edged closer, until it was directly alongside me.
I stopped short, and the car braked. The passenger door opened, and a man in khaki pants and blue blazer hopped out. Nimble for a big galoot. Gray-blond crew cut, Marine neck, maybe fifty or so.
Ray Decker. Jesus!
“Where you going, turd face?” Decker said. He came onto the sidewalk and stood in my path, just out of arm’s reach.
Turd face? And they say our era lacks sophisticated wit.
“Nice to see you, Ray. When’d you get out of jail?”
“Never been in jail, shyster.”
“Another failure of our justice system. When will it ever end?”
He glared at me. The look of a man who wanted to step on a cockroach but didn’t want to soil his shoe.
Decker had been a detective in the Sheriff’s Department. In a marijuana case-possession with intent to distribute-I’d sweated him for five hours on cross-exam to show he lied on his affidavit. A judge dismissed another of his cases when I proved Decker repeatedly smacked my client in the testicles with a phone book while interrogating him. I didn’t personally get Decker tossed from the force, but I didn’t help him win any commendations, either.
The driver’s door opened and another man stepped out, staring at me over the roof of the car. African-American, early thirties, smaller but with the broad, sloping shoulders of a body builder. Identical blazer and pants. There is no good reason to wear a jacket in the Miami summer unless you’re hiding a shoulder holster.
“You got a license for that thing, Decker?”
“CWP signed by the State Attorney himself.” He patted his jacket over the bulge. “I’m head of security for Ziegler Enterprises, and my boss wants to see you.”
“Last night a woman delivered the same message. Offered a blow job. Same deal, Decker?”
The driver chuckled and Decker’s face heated up. “Get in the car, asshole.”
“Answer one question first. When Shorty isn’t chauffeuring your fat ass, do you drive a red Escalade with spinners and lake pipes?”
“You think I’m a Liberty City pimp?”
&nb
sp; “Nah. They have to be good at math.”
“That’s enough, dickhead. Get in.”
“Changed my mind. If Ziegler wants to see me, he can make an appointment.”
I turned away as if to resume plodding down Barbarossa Avenue. Decker’s gun was holstered on his left shoulder. Meaning he was right-handed. I figured he would take one step and reach for me with that right hand.
He did.
I spun around and locked onto his right wrist. First with my left hand, then with both hands. I whipped his right arm behind his back, kicked him on the side of his left knee, and pushed him face-first to the ground. I reached around him, grabbed the lapels of his jacket and ripped downward, tearing the fabric at the shoulders, pinning his arms in the sleeves.
I knew the Lincoln’s engine was running. I knew the driver would race around the car. I wasn’t sure whether he’d pull his gun, but it didn’t matter. By the time his top-heavy body rounded the hood, I had dived into the car through the open passenger side. I scrambled into the driver’s seat without closing either door. Threw the gearshift into drive. Floored the accelerator. Heard the shriek of tires and the thwomp of the open door smacking the driver and cartwheeling him to the ground.
I hung a right on San Vicente and headed north toward Ponce de Leon and downtown Coral Gables.
Charlie Ziegler, you want to talk to me?
I got some things to say to you, pal.
18 Humanitarian of the Year
The sign on top of the building read, Ziegler Enterprises. The sign on the parking garage read, Exit Only. So there I was, plowing ass-backward into trouble, right past the sign that read, Danger! Tire Damage.
I drove Ziegler’s Lincoln straight onto the sharp end of the curved spikes. I hit the gas and the spikes harpooned the front tires, tearing the steel radials to shreds. Accelerated again and bounced forward. Spikes punctured the rear tires, too. I listened to all four tires farting, then hopped out, entered the building, and rode the elevator to the top floor.
The receptionist was a flame-haired, warhead-breasted young woman in a black silk blouse two sizes too small. For a second she didn’t sense anything unusual about the thick-chested man in running shorts and a sweaty T-shirt.
