The Killing Sands

by Rick Murcer

  After a half hour watching the girls, I had picked out the oldest, nastiest, most desperate woman I could find. She was getting no free drinks, no dances, no attention at all.

  She was perfect.

  I drank and waited until she looked at me. When she did, I held her eye contact and gave a slight lift of the chin.

  Within thirty seconds, she appeared at my booth like a dog who’d just graduated from obedience school.

  “Would you like some company?” she said. Her voice sounded like a worn-out belt sander.

  “Boy, would I,” I said.

  “My name’s Pammy,” she said.

  “Great.”

  Compassion has never been my strong suit. But the sagging skin, the wrinkles, the faded tattoos, I knew she was prepped for serious exploitation.

  I bought her two shots of tequila at ten bucks a pop and slipped her a hundred-dollar bill.

  “Look, I’m not gonna lie,” I said. “I don’t want a dance; I only want information.”

  “What do you want to know?” she said. This girl had seen it all. Nothing surprised her.

  “Kiki.”

  “What about her?”

  “Who ran her?” I said. “And don’t say Juju.”

  “Same guy who runs most of the young ones,” she said. Her voice took on an especially bitter tone when she said the word “young.”

  “And that would be Juju’s boss, right?” I said. “Who is he?”

  Pammy glanced around the club. She knew where Juju was, and if he was watching.

  “Okay, here’s the deal,” she said. “I’ll tell you, but you have to take me in the back, get a dance, then come back and take a couple more girls back, so they don’t know who told you.”

  “I’m not the kind of guy who talks,” I said.

  “They can make you talk,” she assured me. “They can make anyone talk.”

  I made a mental note of the cash I had on me. More than enough.

  “You got it,” I said.

  She tossed off a third shot that had magically appeared at our table.

  “His name is Darko Fama,” she said. “Everyone just calls him Darkie.”

  “That’s nice,” I said. I thought about a Dalai Lama joke but figured it’d been done a few million times.

  “Where can I find him?” I said.

  “He hangs out at a coffee place around 15 Mile and Hayes. Called Goodfellows. He’s there all day, every day.”

  I nodded.

  “Time for you to take me back,” she said.

  “No problem,” I said.

  I was a man of my word, after all.

  6.

  I knew I had a decision to make. Until now, I’d just asked around a bit, bought drinks for some dancers, maybe gotten a lap dance or two.

  But going into Goodfellows was a whole new step.

  There would be no going back.

  I sat in my rental car outside the coffee shop. I’d spent the night at a Holiday Inn a few blocks away. The breakfast buffet had looked like a scene from Overeaters Gone Wild. I’d stuck with some toast and coffee.

  As I waited for my Albanian friends to show some signs of life in Goodfellows, I thought about why I was doing all of this in the first place. And was there a way to avoid it? I could, after all, just skedaddle back to my hideaway in northern Michigan on Drummond Island. No one could get to me there.

  But I’d taken the little Florida housesitting gig, and it had gone off the rails. No point in looking back.

  The easy answer: I knew Crystal Stafford. I actually knew her as Kristen, even though her stage name was Kiki.

  And I had known her quite well.

  Since I had found her body, the Lee County Sheriff’s detectives would be looking at me as their prime suspect. I had to figure out who was responsible fast and get back to Florida before they realized I was gone.

  Which brought me back to Goodfellows and Darko Fama, or the politically incorrect nickname “Darkie” to his friends.

  Things were about to get ugly, but I saw no better option.

  Two guys pulled up in front of the coffee shop in a silver Cadillac.

  One of them looked familiar to me.

  After a few minutes, I got out of the car and went inside.

  •

  The first thing I noticed was a tattoo on the forearm of a short, squat guy with a T-shirt that read “The only thing to fear . . . is a lack of beer.”

  Classy.

  The tattoo, however, was nothing to scoff at. It was worn by a lot of Albanian gangsters and more than a few soldiers who had fought, if you want to call it that, for the Kosovo Liberation Army. As a group, they were legendary for the kind of atrocities that would give John Wayne Gacy nightmares. I’m sure their opposing counterparts were equally guilty of war crimes, but the only gangsters from that part of the world I’d run into were all from Kosovo.

  There were two other guys in the shop besides Squatty. A thin guy in a track suit sitting at the coffee bar with an iPhone in his hand. He was just playing with his phone. I could tell that most of his attention was focused on me, try as he might to not make it look that way.

  There was an old man standing behind the counter, next to a wall of stainless-steel, coffee-brewing equipment from the 1950s.

  I walked up to the counter.

  No one said hello. The old man didn’t speak. I glanced around, saw a security camera in the back, and a door that was partially open.

  Sloppy.

  “I’ll take an espresso,” I said. The old man contemplated me for a moment, then slowly turned and started making my coffee.

  I turned to the guy in the track suit, who had set down then picked up his phone twice. Clearly, I was creating a bit of anxiety for the young man.

  “How you doin’, Darkie?” I said to him. Much like Juju, I’d never met Darkie, but I knew who he was. He seemed to twitch a bit at the sound of his nickname but tried to act like he hadn’t heard me.

  Over the sound of the old man clanking around near the coffeemaker, I heard a strange sound behind me, which I identified instantly.

  When a man wearing a ring slides his hand along a wooden baseball bat to get a better grip, the little scrape is unmistakable.

  Trust me on this one. It’s years of experience talking.

  The stainless-steel coffeemaker in front of me was not a good mirror, but the reflection of something light-colored moving up and to my right told me exactly what was about to happen.

  I spun and caught Squatty in full backswing. I lashed out with my steel-toed boot and caved in his knee. There is nothing quite like seeing the confusion on someone’s face when they feel a key body part is suddenly not working correctly.

  The swinging bat still came, but its force was vastly reduced. I blocked it easily, then wrenched the bat from his hands and swung a huge looping strike that landed squarely on top of his bald head. If it had been an axe, I would have cleaved his skull nicely in two. Squatty’s neck bulged oddly to the side. He sank to his knees and then tipped over onto his face.

  I swung from the same position at Darkie, who had flung his iPhone onto the counter and was trying to fumble a gun from his waistband.

  The bat connected solidly on his left side, and I heard—and felt—a little crack. It could have been audible, or simply the vibration through the wooden bat.

  Gosh, I really liked this bat. It was a beauty.

  Darkie went down, and I carefully retrieved the gun from his waistband.

  The old man hadn’t moved.

  Darkie struggled back to his feet. His face was pale, and he was hugging his midsection.

  Self-love is so important to one’s well-being.

  I pointed at the old man with the baseball bat.

  “See that, Darkie?” I said. “That’s experience.”

  “Fuck you,” Darkie said, wincing with each word.

  The old man just stared at me.

  “He didn’t do anything stupid like you did,” I continued. “He knew imm
ediately what was happening. His thought process centered on surviving what I was about to do and then figuring out how to kill me, eventually. And as painfully as possible.”

  I glanced over at Darkie.

  “I think I got your eleventh or twelfth rib,” I said. “Those are called floating ribs, not really connected to the sternum. Also less likely, if broken, to puncture anything serious. So you should consider yourself lucky.”

  “Fuck off,” Darkie said. His voice was somewhat high-pitched, something he’d probably spent a lot of his life trying to compensate for.

  I looked at the gun. It was a Glock .40, all the rage these days. Walking backwards I went to the coffee shop’s door and slid the lock, then flipped the OPEN sign to CLOSED.

  “Where’s my coffee?” I said to the old man.

  He put my cup on the counter, but I ignored it. Using the barrel of the gun, I waved Darkie and the old man toward the partially open door in back.

  “Move,” I said.

  The old man walked slowly without complaint. Darkie shuffled along, muttering curses under his breath.

  The old man opened the door, and I made sure the safety was off the Glock. There was a chance, extremely slim, that someone else was in the office. But I doubted it. The last occupant had left the door slightly ajar.

  My little Albanian coffee party went into the office, where there were two chairs facing an old steel desk.

  “Have a seat,” I said to them.

  “You asshole, you are a dead piece of man-shit,” Darkie said.

  “Well put,” I said.

  I was at a crossroads. Darkie seemed like a punk, but sometimes the Albanians could be stubborn, even after a lot of torture. I know this from experience.

  The old man was no pussy. It would be even harder to get the truth out of him. He probably despised Darkie, so threatening injury to the younger man was not a viable option.

  So I could torture and kill both of them.

  Or I could snoop.

  I chose to snoop.

  The office was a treasure trove of information. Bills on the desk, a calendar, and a computer. File folders.

  I leaned the baseball bat up against a small, metal filing cabinet. With the Glock pointed squarely at Darkie, I flipped through the paperwork on the desk.

  The bills were mostly utilitarian: water, energy, a couple of credit cards, a phone bill. There was a brochure from Kohl’s. A catalog from Victoria’s Secret.

  “Buying yourself a nightie?” I said to Darkie.

  “Shitty head,” he said.

  “I wish I had your vocabulary,” I said.

  At the bottom of the pile, I came across another phone bill. This one from Century Link. That was not a Michigan company.

  I knew.

  It was from Florida.

  I looked closely at the name on the phone bill. It was a business. There was a Florida address with a post-office sticker partially covering it that said the letter had been forwarded.

  I committed the name of the business and the Florida address both to memory then slid it back into the pile of mail. I spent a few more minutes going through the desk and some files, but I already had what I wanted. There was no need for Darkie and the old man to know that, though.

  Before I could leave, however, I still had to do two things.

  It took me three more minutes to find the hard drive linked to the security camera. I unhooked it.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  The old man and Darkie walked out of the office. There was no desire on my part to kill the old man, so I swung a bit easier than when I had clobbered Squatty. Instead of trying for a home run, this was more like going for an opposite-field base hit. The old man dropped to the floor. I was quite pleased with my bat control.

  Darkie made a break for the door, but I tripped him with the bat then dragged him back to the coffee bar.

  I put the security camera’s hard drive on the counter. The bat whistled through the air, and the hard drive exploded. Next to it, Darkie’s iPhone still sat on the counter, undisturbed.

  I swung again, this time a beautiful arc, and the phone shattered. Bits of plastic bounced off of Darkie’s face. He looked very sad to see his phone demolished. Yet not a trace of emotion over the old man.

  Kids these days.

  I reached into the old man’s pockets, found a set of car keys, nodded to Darkie, who reached into the pocket of his sweatpants.

  I picked a point on the center of his left temple.

  The bat was still in my hands.

  This time, I went for extra bases.

  7.

  I landed back at Fort Myers Airport, got a rental car, and drove directly to the name on the phone bill.

  Dream Breezes, Inc.

  74200 Cypress Cove Road. Estero

  Just a half mile from my house-sitting job.

  I took 41 South, hooked over onto a road called Jamaica Bay Road, then followed that to Cypress Cove.

  It was a run-down street full of small houses about to fall down with the occasional brand-new subdivision thrown in for comic relief.

  One yard had two small horses in the yard.

  The last house on the street was 74202. Next to it was a giant electric installation complete with towers and coils and metallic objects looking like something from a sci-fi movie.

  I looked across the street.

  There was no 74200 Cypress Cove.

  Not surprised, but I sighed just the same.

  When would these guys learn that these cheap parlor tricks never worked?

  It just took me longer to track them down.

  It did succeed in pissing me off, though.

  •

  Back at my apartment, I dug out the Yellow Pages. Dream Breezes had a little ad touting their work installing screens over pools and lanais. Even fake businesses have to run advertisements. It’s enough to fool the tax people but not enough to dupe the Feds.

  Dream Breezes’ motto: No bugs, just the breeze. No address. But a phone number with the area code 239. Same as mine.

  I called the number.

  After twelve rings, it was finally answered. The guy didn’t say “Dream Breezes,” he just kind of grunted.

  When I said I had a job for him, he told me they were booked.

  His voice had a thick accent, yet it conveyed the tone of his unfriendliness quite clearly.

  “I want to put a big screen over an entire property,” I said. “Even the house. I’m an architect, and my client has an unlimited budget. This thing will be massive. I’m prepared to pay top dollar, sir.”

  He told me to hold on.

  A different guy came on the line.

  “What’s the address?” he said.

  8.

  I was expecting something ridiculous, and I pretty much got it. Instead of, say, a working pickup truck with a side decal displaying the Dream Breezes logo, two thick-looking guys showed up in a white Lincoln Town Car.

  “Thought you said you were building a house,” the first guy said. He stood with his legs spread. He had on dress slacks and a black T-shirt. Inside his right forearm was a tattoo. The red, double-headed eagle.

  “Building an addition,” I said. “The world’s biggest lanai. I’m hoping to get into Architectural Digest.” I paused. “Again.”

  It sounded ridiculous, even to me.

  “Seventy-five grand,” the second guy said. He was dressed like the first, but he was younger and had black Vans on his feet.

  I could tell by the way he stood that he had a gun in the back of his waistband.

  “Wow, that’s the fastest estimate I’ve ever gotten,” I said. “You don’t want to walk around? Take some measurements?”

  “I already did,” the second guy said and tapped his temple. And then he nodded, knowingly.

  “Me too,” the first guy said.

  It took everything I had not to bust out laughing. These clowns needed to go to gangster finishing school.

  “So, for seventy-five gr
and, you’ll build a screen over this entire house?” I said. “Guaranteed to keep bugs out?”

  “Guaranteed,” the first guy said.

  “Okay,” I nodded. “Do you have any examples of your work? You know, a portfolio? Testimonials from previous customers?”

  The two guys looked at each other.

  “We don’t work that way,” the first guy said.

  “How do you work?” I asked.

  “You cut us the check for half, we’ll be here tomorrow and start working,” he said. “When we’re done, you pay us the second half.”

  I shook my head, tried to look like I was tempted. “I need to know a little bit more about your company. You know, where you’re headquartered, your address, who owns the business,” I said. “Just so I can check with the Better Business Bureau to make sure you’re, you know, on the up and up. I mean, I’m sure you guys are.”

  Their matching two-pound eyebrows furrowed in unison.

  “The fuck’s that supposed to mean?” the second guy said.

  I acted a little scared. “Whoa, whoa, no offense meant. You guys seem like legitimate businessmen. I mean, that Town Car is bitchin’.”

  They looked at me, trying to decide if I was fucking with them.

  “However, I’ve got another guy coming to give me an estimate.” I glanced at my watch. “In fact, he should be here in about ten minutes. Do you want to leave me a card?”

  The second guy looked at the first. I could tell what he was silently asking. He wanted permission to kick the shit out of me, or at least create enough pain and fear to result in a nice, big check.

  The first guy looked up at the house. There was a little security camera over the rear of the house.

  “You’ve got our number,” he said.

  They turned and got back into the Lincoln.

  They backed down the driveway and when I heard their tires squeal on Broadway, I jumped into my rental, roared down the driveway and out, just in time to see them turning onto Highway 41 North.

  •

  I knew where they were going before they got there.