CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
They sat for a while, Sugarman eating pork rinds, Thorn staring at the Clay-Liston photograph. Those five people sitting side by side. Four of whom they had names for. Only the blond woman was left.
Every few seconds while Sugar munched, he took a look out the blinds.
A minute or two later Thorn drew the cell phone from his pocket and dialed 911 for the second time in a few hours.
“Turning yourself in?” Sugar said.
Thorn said to the dispatcher, “I want to report a homicide.”
Sugarman turned back to the venetian blinds.
“Name is Alan Bingham.” Thorn gave her the street and approximate address. Then he hung up while she was asking him for more information.
“You’re guessing these guys, Snake and Carlos, they killed Bingham?”
“They showed up at Alexandra’s and knew Lawton had the Clay photo. Bingham gave it to Lawton as a gift. Who else would know that but Bingham? Lawton thought he heard gunfire at Bingham’s last night, and I blew him off. Bingham didn’t show up at his gallery this morning like he was supposed to, and didn’t answer his phone when the gallery guy called. And when I was up on the roof I saw his cleaning lady arrive and the key wasn’t in the mailbox like she was expecting. His car was there, but he didn’t answer her knock. My bet is he’s inside that house and he’s dead.”
“Aw, man,” Sugarman said.
“Something else I want to know,” Thorn said. “Why’d some seventy-year-old government goon show up in Alex’s hospital room, trying to strangle her? I’m getting the feeling there’s two different agendas working here.”
“You’re losing me.”
Thorn stood up, dug the invitation list he’d gotten from Carbonnel out of his back pocket. Scanned it fast.
“Stanton King and wife Lola were at the gallery opening last night.”
“You got a list? How’d you manage that?”
“Lawton and I dropped by there first thing this morning. I was just sniffing around at that point.”
“You been a busy man.”
“Okay, here’s how it went,” Thorn said. “Mayor goes to a gallery opening. He spots himself in a photo up on the wall. There he is, 1964, he’s sitting two down from Lansky, cheek to jowl with these other people, two of whom, Humberto Berasategui and Runyon, were at the murder scene later on that night.
“The photo’s hanging up on the wall for anybody to see. All it would take is one person standing there, noticing the young mayor or remembering one of these guys. Lansky was a public figure, so was the mayor, then eventually Runyon became one, too. A lot of people in this town might’ve even recognized Humberto Berasategui from the newspaper stories. If somebody identifies one of these people, starts asking questions, there’s a reasonable chance it all gets exposed.
“So what does the mayor do? He freaks and sics his deranged sons on the thing. Snake and Carlos break into the gallery, destroy the photos, go to Bingham’s house. Before they kill him, they squeeze Lawton’s name out of him, somebody else who’s holding a copy, bingo, we’re off to the races.”
Sugarman thought about it. He didn’t say anything for a minute, looking down at his Coke can.
“That’s means King has a different motive than Snake. Snake wants to know who killed his family. He thinks the photo’s going to show that.”
“Yeah, I think that’s it,” Thorn said. “The two times I’ve been around him, he wanted to examine the photo, not destroy it. He and Carlos had it in their hands long enough, if they wanted, they could’ve just ripped it up right then.”
“King and Edward Runyon coming from one direction, Snake coming from another. I don’t like the sound of that.”
“It’s like Sophocles,” Thorn said. “Oedipus.”
“Oh, boy.”
“A father tries to keep the truth from his son but accidentally winds up doing stuff that causes the son to discover the very thing the father’s trying to hide. Cosmic irony.”
“There’s another way to read it.”
“All right.”
“There are no accidents.”
“Stanton subconsciously wants to be exposed?”
“Maybe it’s not something he can put words to.”
“Well, if that’s true, then I’d like to help him out.”
Thorn stood up, carried the morning Herald over to a green chair near the tiny kitchen.
While Sugar kept an eye out the blinds, Thorn opened the paper and began to read the article on the Porn Shop Massacre. They’d printed an old police photo of Lawton and had run a fairly current shot of Alexandra posed against a white background like a school picture. She looked beautiful nonetheless. Black hair freshly brushed, a slight, knowing smile. Those dark eyes that Thorn found fascinating: probing one minute, alluring the next.
At the bottom of the front page the article mentioned a suspect wanted in the killings. A man of about six feet, medium build with dreadlocks.
Dreadlocks?
Thorn read the sentence again, then turned the page and there was the artist’s rendering of the prime suspect in the porn-store murders.
It was a sketch of a black man, early twenties with a blocky face, a scar across his right cheek, and long Rasta dreads.
Thorn got up, carried the paper to the table, and lay it in front of Sugar.
“This is their person of interest for the porn-shop thing.”
Sugarman looked at it for several seconds, then looked up at Thorn.
“They missed the twinkle in your eye.”
“This isn’t funny, Sugar.”
Sugarman ate the last pork rind, had a sip of Coke, looked out the blinds, then turned back to the newspaper.
“Where’d they dig up this guy?”
“They invented him,” said Thorn. “Article says two witnesses identified him as the killer of Carlos Morales and Lawton Collins. Old lady clerk at the porn shop and some customer. Their descriptions matched.”
“Putting it on a brother, wouldn’t you know?”
“Why doesn’t this make me feel relieved?”
“What it means is, Snake or Runyon or somebody got to the clerk, gave her her marching orders. Send the cops wild-goose chasing in one direction, so Runyon or whoever is free to come after you. Neat trick.”
“It’s why they attacked Alex in the hospital. So she wouldn’t contradict any of it. Last thing they want is for the cops to start digging around. Alex knows about the photo, she knows what really happened at the porn shop. She’s a danger to them.”
“So are you, Thorn.”
Sugarman wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. Took a long drink of his Coke. Stifled a belch.
“Whole thing’s getting complicated,” Sugar said.
“We need the blonde,” Thorn said.
“Maybe she’s just a floozy, somebody’s date.”
“Doesn’t look like a floozy to me. Looks like a tough broad.”
“Forty years later, that isn’t going to be easy, identifying some woman. A town like this, everybody coming and going. She’d be in her sixties by now. She could be a grandmother in Milwaukee. Waste a lot of time looking, and it might not explain anything.”
“I know somebody I can ask. Guy with links to that time. Boxing, gambling, you name it, he was into it.”
Thorn looked again at the sketch of the black man with dreadlocks. Then he folded up the paper and laid it on the floor by the chair.
“Who the hell do you know in Miami?”
“Remember Jimbo?”
“Jimbo? That old crook still alive?”
“I don’t know,” Thorn said. “But I know where to find him if he is.”
“If it were me running the investigation,” Sugar said, “I’d go confront the mayor. He’s smack in the middle of this.”
“I’ll put him on the list.”
“And this guy Shepherd Gundy.”
“Gundy?”
“One of the investigators of the Morales m
urders.”
“I must’ve missed that.”
“It’s in the pages you Xeroxed, a few days after the murders. Second Lieutenant Shepherd Gundy, military investigator based at Homestead Air Force Base.”
“Military? Why was the military investigating this?”
“That’s exactly the reason I’d want to talk to him.”
Sugarman looked out the blinds again.
“Look, Sugar,” Thorn said. “You and Alex need to get back down to Key Largo till this is over. Keep her out of harm’s way. Take her to a doctor down there. She’s going to need somebody to look at that arm.”
“And leave you in the middle of this.”
“It’s my mess, Sugar. I need to clean it up myself.”
“I’m okay with getting Alex somewhere safe. But leaving you on your own in Miami? I don’t know, man. We’ve already seen how that turns out.”
“You could keep on arguing. But you know it won’t change my mind.”
“Yeah, I know that. I surely do.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Your skills, Edward, they’re in serious decline. You used to be such an efficient killer.” Stanton took the last bite of his fish sandwich and pushed it aside.
“The guy ambushed me. I got the fuck out.”
“Perhaps it’s a precipitous drop in your testosterone level. I’d have it checked. You’re going to lose your charter membership in Bullies of America.”
“She was dead when I left.”
“Well, she wasn’t dead enough, Runyon. Her Prince Charming saved her and took her away.”
Runyon’s green aloha shirt was rumpled, but the burn in his eyes still simmered. An injured bull, more dangerous than a healthy one.
They were at an all-night Burger King, Dixie and Twenty-seventh, on the fringes of Coconut Grove. A booth in back. Except for the Asian kid mopping the floor, the place was empty. It was three in the morning. Runyon halfway through his second double cheeseburger and down to slurping the foam at the bottom of his chocolate shake.
“You’ve played one round of golf too many, Edward. Lost your edge.”
Runyon drew a breath and said, “I know when I’ve killed someone.”
“My source tells me otherwise. Security tapes show her walking out with her arm over the shoulder of a tall sandy-headed fellow.”
He folded three more fries into his mouth.
“You’ve got a spy at the hospital?”
“This is my hometown, Runyon. Sixty years, you make friends.”
“The sandy-haired asshole is the one who ambushed me.”
“His name is Thorn. I’m told he’s the woman’s boyfriend.”
Runyon swallowed the last pinch of burger, wiped his lips on the paper napkin, missing a trickle of grease at the corner of his mouth.
“If she’s still alive, then I’ll just have to kill her again, and her boyfriend.”
“How many would that make for you, Edward? Adding it up over the years. Do you keep count?”
“What do you care?”
“Just curious. It’s a lot, isn’t it? So many, you can’t remember.”
“I remember fine.”
“Forty-odd years, a handful a year, that could be over a hundred.”
Runyon pushed the food away and glanced at his reflection in the glass.
“You going to finish your fries?”
“I try to imagine how it is to be someone like you, Runyon. Blameless and self-certain. Triggerman for presidents.”
“Prisses like you never get it.”
“Oh, yes, I know all the clichés. You’re on the frontline defense for democracy. Without you and your black-ops comrades, we wouldn’t have burgers and fries. The only reason we enjoy the pampered life we do is because animals like you are prowling the perimeter.”
Runyon picked at his mustache, eyeing King with a shadow of disdain.
“How many have I done?” Runyon said. “Face-to-face, it’s not that many. Ten, fifteen. Other things I was involved in, bigger operations, that kicks the number up. But I don’t keep track of those.”
“You’re amazing, Edward.”
“Numbers don’t mean shit. It’s the fucking target that matters. Kill the right guy, you could be tipping the balance, save a million lives.”
“Is that how they brainwash you? Get together on weekend retreats, sit around in a circle, and tell each other lies about how many lives you’ve saved?”
Runyon wet his finger and ran it around the inside of the empty box of fries. Getting his salt quotient.
“Here’s what you really want to hear,” Runyon said. “I get off on it. That creeps you out, doesn’t it, old liberal pussy like you? All these years, taking someone down still gives me a hard-on.”
Runyon grinned. He sucked his finger clean and dabbed it into the box for the last grains.
“I called Caufield earlier. Warned her we’re in over our head.”
Runyon met Stanton’s eyes in the window.
“You stupid fuck. You don’t play footsie with that woman. I met rattlesnakes I trusted more.”
“She’s giving us a bit more time to set things straight before she calls for reinforcements.”
“Don’t call her anymore. You want to talk to somebody, talk to me.”
Edward turned the gaudy diamond on his finger. His eyes were as bitter and gray as thawing ice.
“You underestimate me, Runyon. I know you’ve been calling her, too. You want me to have no contact so you’ll be in full control. Well, forget that. I have as much at stake in this as you. I’ll consult with Pauline whenever I like.”
Stanton King smiled. He couldn’t help himself. All evening he’d been in a buoyant mood. An old weight finally lifting. He’d been thinking of Hotei, the happy Buddha, his arms thrown skyward in hilarious celebration. His large ungirdled belly jutting out. So absurd, all of it. Casting aside all his cares. What did any of it matter? The sins of Stanton’s youth, the even more egregious sins of his nation’s leaders, a poisonous boil that festered silently and out of sight for lo these many decades had been revealed by a random snapshot taken at a cosmically inappropriate split second. A wonderfully absurd coincidence.
A chance for Stanton to make amends in the twilight of his life for the one horrendous misstep he’d made forty years before. Let it all pour forth, let Humpty Dumpty come crashing.
“Tell me something, King. Nineteen sixty-four, that operation, I always thought it was suspicious, a guy like you, all-American Joe, apple cheeks, mixed up in that. Soon as you came into it, that operation started to stink.”
Stanton’s smile backed down.
He glanced over at the Asian kid tirelessly mopping the floor. The lad was going to run his own Burger King franchise one day. America was still grinding on, full of dreams and dreamers. Optimists, true believers.
“You’re right about one thing, Edward. Murdering eight men, women, and children for a political pipe dream, yes, I’d say that smells. Even after all these years, it still reeks.”
Runyon snapped the lid off his shake and tipped it up for a last swallow.
Digging the cell from his pocket, Stanton dialed Friendly Cab.
When the dispatcher answered, Stanton said, “Nelson, it’s me again. You talk to him yet? Find out anything?”
“I was just dialing you,” Nelson said.
“What do you have?”
“This is gonna cost you extra, Mr. King. Double what we said.”
“Yes? And why’s that?”
“I know where Snake is going to be in about five minutes. The exact address. And the other guy you mentioned, too.”
“Thorn?”
“Same place,” Nelson said. “What’s it worth to you?”
Stanton shut the phone and looked at Runyon and smiled.
“You ready to ride?”
“You’re not going to check in with your boss lady first?”
“Sure,” he said. “Why not? I’ll tell her where we’re headed. Mak
e her feel better.”
“Don’t do it, Stanton. The less she knows, the better.”
Stanton smiled. He opened his phone and punched in Pauline’s number. It rang twice and there she was. Stanton feeling a ripple of the old power. People like Caufield taking his calls again. Just like the old days.
Up in the dark attic. Aiming through the slats. The pool, the patio spread before her. A possum waddled from the woods. It snuck along the edge of the water, had a sip, waddled on.
From her sniper’s lair, she’d brought down a handful of birds. Late one night she winged a rat and watched it crawl away to die. She’d nailed half a dozen cats, sent them yowling. Sharpening her aim. Sharpening.
She steadied on the gray possum, its hairy back.
Beside her the nest was quiet. The paper wasps were at rest.
Plonk, plonk, plonk. Two out of three found flesh. The possum jerked. It skidded forward on the flagstone. Then pushed itself up on its tiny feet and toddled toward the safety of the woods. Plonk and again plonk.
Its back legs failed, but it dragged itself on. Dragged itself on toward the dark woods.
She lowered the Walther Red Hawk, went back to her rocker. Sat.
Killing was no longer the point.
Stinging was.
Sting as she’d been stung.
The prick, the stab, the throb of pain. Sting, sting, as she was stung. There were worse fates than dying.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The TV people had shut down for the night. Snake’s street, St. Gaudens, was clear. He’d decided his taxi was too noticeable and wanted to switch cars. He dumped his cab in a neighbor’s drive, stole back through the yards. Went inside the house, got Lola’s keys from the desk in the foyer, then went out and eased her gray Audi down the drive.
He headed west on Poinciana, across Le Jeune into Coral Gables, and on to the Riviera Motel. Half a block away he killed the lights, eased down the street and into a church parking lot across from the motel. He surveyed the area and picked his spot.
Staying low, Snake slid through the shadows to a clump of bushes at the base of a tree. Foliage meant to shield the expensive homes from the distasteful sight of the motel and the busy highway. He had to shift around before he got the view he wanted. Lit up orange by the security lights, the parking lot stretched the entire back of the motel.
Magic City Page 19
