So to bring an end to what would have been an endless ramble that had already started its deadly course, Bricker excused himself, drawing an evil eye from Lewis, to go to the men’s room. He then gave the maitre d’ his phone number and told him to call as soon as he went back to the table.
So in a matter of minutes, The Halls of Montezuma rescued the guys from an eternal afternoon with Louie Lewis.
“What’s with that guy?” asked Billy when they got outside.
“Don’t ask. Put some quarters in your meter and we’ll take my car.”
Back on the trail of the remaining calendar girls, they found Miss November, Saturnina “Satty” Gomez, working the commercial area on North Beach, along Seventy-first Street that led over to the Causeway. She was giving a ticket to a midnight blue Bentley convertible in front of Café Prima Pasta (meter maids loved to write tickets for Bentleys and Rolls Royces).
Bricker and Billy pulled up two cars behind her.
Suddenly, the actor Matt Damon rushed out, a Peroni in one hand and a plastic bag holding a take out order in the other.
“Hey!” he called out. “I was just leaving.”
”Not before you get a ticket for double-parking, mister.” Satty Gomez looked up, recognized him. “Oh! Matt Damon! Oh, my God.”
He turned on the charm, flashed his still boyish smile. (He had more teeth in him than Godzilla.)
“Well, listen, I really appreciate this.”
“What’d you get to take out?”
“Well, my wife likes the chicken limone and I’m partial to the gnocchi formaggi.”
“The what?” Satty’s brow wrinkled up.
“It’s potato dumplings with a combination of different cheeses and cream sauce.”
“Oh, that sounds lovely. I always get double cheese at Papa John’s,” Satty fluttered.
“Well, it’s been nice chatting, but I’ve gotta get home before this stuff gets cold. Those potato dumplings get pretty thick after a while.”
Satty was busily writing something.
“Oh, do you mind?”
“You want an autograph?” Matt beamed as he got into the open convertible.
“No. Here’s the ticket for double-parking. And another one for carrying an open beer bottle. Nice to meet you.”
“Fuckin’ bitch!” Damon yelled, throwing the beer bottle at Satty, his tires squealing like a stuck pig as he sped away in disgust.
The last meter maid on the list, Miss December, the highest ticket-writing meter maid of them all, the champion of the world, was the redoubtable Melissa “Missy” Cuthbert. They found her on Seventh Street, in front of the Avalon Hotel where she was yelling at an aristocratic looking lady in her seventies.
“Stop it!” Missy yelled. “Stop it now!”
It seems the lady was walking ahead of Missy dropping quarters into every meter that had expired, frustrating Missy’s attempt to write tickets. If she waited for the meters to run out, she lost valuable time. If she moved ahead, the woman followed her in a chauffeur driven Town Car and put quarters in any meter that needed them.
“I will not!” the lady retorted in a well-bred accent that reminded Bricker of a Boston Brahmin.
“You’re breaking the law!” Missy railed from her Cushman. Putt-putt-putt.
“Young lady, you are slime!” the lady rebuked Missy.
“You’re obstructing justice!”
“I’m protecting people’s rights!”
“People don’t have rights when it comes to parking on South Beach.”
“Nevertheless, I shall continue my mission. Oh, James!” she called out, and her Town Car pulled up and her driver handed her two more rolls of quarters. “Thank you, James.” The lady went about her business. Missy was beside herself.
“I got my quota to worry about!” yelled Missy.
Missy jumped out of the Cushman cart and ran over to the lady, quickly cuffing the lady to a parking meter as she muttered into her shoulder mic for backup.
The lady started wailing.
“Help! Help!”
“You’re under arrest, bitch!”
“And what’s the charge, if I may ask?”
“Fuckin’ with my quota, that’s the fuckin’ charge!”
“Help! Help!”
“You’re going to jail, bitch!”
Bricker and Billy were silent as they watched all this unfold. James the chauffeur had burned rubber as soon as Missy made a face at him, disappearing around the corner at Eighth Street. Minutes later, backup arrived and took the lady to the slammer.
They followed Missy further up Ocean Drive, crawling slowly behind her and pulling over when she stopped to write a ticket. They witnessed several more brutal confrontations that must have kept Missy’s adrenalin pumping big time.
“I hope she doesn’t drink a lot of Red Bull,” said Billy. “She’d have a heart attack.”
As they approached The Palace, the restaurant filled with gay people, they saw two shirtless gays with buff bodies whip into a metered spot in a Lexus convertible and get out of the car. Missy was right behind them. Putt-putt-putt.
One of them spotted her.
“Hey, sweetie, you got any quarters? There’s a meter maid.”
The other guy cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled across the street at all the gay guys eating lunch at The Palace.
“Hey, we got a meter maid here—anybody got some quarters?”
Immediately, every single customer at The Palace, in the restaurant and at the bar, got up and ran out to the street, stopping traffic and tossing quarters to the two guys who quickly filled their meter.
Then all the people turned on Missy Cuthbert and started pelting her with quarters.
“You want quarters, bitch! Take this!”
“Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!” Missy screamed, holding her hands up to protect her face from the onslaught of quarters. “Fuck you, all you faggots, fuck you! I’m gonna get you! And when I get you, I’m gonna fuck you the way you like it ... hard!”
Bricker looked at Billy.
“I think our killer’s gonna meet his match when it comes to this one.”
“It’s not going to come to this one, is it, Bricker?”
“No. Right,” Bricker stammered quickly. “He’ll never get to Missy Cuthbert.”
15 – Pep Talk at PMS HQ
The following week, Bricker felt an early morning urge for a hearty breakfast. So he drove down to Puerta Sagua at Seventh Street and Collins, a Cuban diner that had been there for decades. He ordered eggs over easy, hash browns, sausages, Cuban toast and a café con leche from the dizzy Cuban waitress, who rattled on in torrential Spanish (Bricker didn’t catch a single word) at another dizzy waitress, both of them full of giggles, both with bad hair and both of whom had consumed way too much of Puerta Sagua’s high carb meals of rice and beans.
As he waited for breakfast, he read the South Beach Mullet Wrapper. (Bricker didn’t really read newspapers, he glanced through them.) He saw the Marlins were not doing too well in the National League.
When the dizzy waitress dropped his plate in front of him with a noisy clatter and moved away while still jabbering nonstop, Bricker stared at two very sunny side up eggs, not over easy, but sunny side up. He looked after the waitress, but she’d already gone around the corner, her voice fading away like the putt-putt-putt of a meter maid mobile.
He thought of the raw egg Louie Lewis had ordered for his steak tartare and his stomach got queasy.
He slipped his knife and fork under the two eggs and quickly flipped them over. Ah, that was better. Now he broke the yoke and mixed the eggs in with the hash browns. He took a bite. The eggs tasted funny. Maybe he was coming down with something. Eggs always tasted funny when he was coming down with something. Or maybe it was just the thought of Louie Lewis and the raw egg running down the side of his steak tartare. Or the mushy pieces of hardboiled egg stuck between his snaggled teeth.
He realized as he took another bite of the eggs and
hash browns that he was eating a whole chicken. It just hadn’t been born yet. And wouldn’t be born because he was eating it. He suddenly felt queasy and barbaric. He grabbed the Tabasco and dashed a few drops onto the mishmash of eggs and hash browns and gulped down some steaming café con leche.
An hour or so after Bricker’s stomach began acting up at Puerta Sagua, Missy Cuthbert sauntered into the break room at PMS HQ, punched in and went over to get some coffee. Wimpy was already there, pouring a cup for her.
“How was your day after I left ya, Missy?”
“Fine, but so hot and muggy. I can’t stand the summer.”
“You never complain.”
“I’m tough.”
“What’s the briefin’ about today?”
“Dunno. Must be important for the major to call the whole day shift in for a pep talk.”
“Yeah,” said Wimpy as she looked over her shoulder as dozens of other meter maids streamed in, punched the clock and came over for coffee. Others were busily unfolding chairs and adding them to the ones already set up in rows facing a small platform with a lectern.
“I just can’t get over Pretty Rios getting strangulated with her very own hair. Missy, it’s terrifying.”
“Wimpy, it’s strangled, not strangulated.”
“Yeah ... whatever. I’m a bundle of nerves.”
“You were a bundle of nerves before Pretty got strung up.”
“Just like Saddam Hussein, she got hung.”
“Wimpy, Jake Bricker is hung. Pretty got hanged.”
“That’s seven—count ‘em—seven meter maids killed so far.”
“You don’t think I can count?”
“So you think this whole thing is just ... just the fickle finger of fate?”
“We ain’t got nuthin’ to worry about, Wimpy. You'n me got nuthin’ to worry about.”
Missy drew another cup of coffee from the huge banquet-style pot on the sideboard set up for the large gathering.
“Still...”
“Lissen, Wimpy, this is Miami—people get murdered all the time. Doctors, lawyers, plumbers, immigrant workers, you name it. It’s all just a coincidence.”
At this point Smarney Weiner came into the break room and over to the coffee sideboard carrying about ten boxes from the Dunkin’ Donuts store on Alton Road, every meter maid’s favorite hangout.
“Whatcha got there, Smarney?” Wimpy finally had a smile on her face.
“How’s it hangin’, Smarney?” Missy said in her best poor girl imitation of Mae West. Smarney’d always had the hots for Missy, and she liked to tease him.
“Long ’n low, just the way you like it, Missy,” said Smarney with a raised eyebrow, thinking he was Bruce Willis.
“You bring my favorite?”
“Yeah, Missy. Bavarian Kreme. I know how you like Kreme.”
“You two!” Wimpy interrupted with a giggle and a blush. “Stop it! Stop it, now!”
“I got plenty,” said Smarney, excited, reverting to his former dorky self. “I figured we’d need extras since there’s a big meetin’, right?”
And Mae West was gone as well.
“As long as you got Bavarian Kreme,” gushed Missy, if Missy rightly could be said to gush.
“I got more,” Smarney went on. “I got Chocolate Frosted, Chocolate Kreme, Cinnamon Cake, Glazed, Jelly Filled, Marble Frosted, Sugar Raised, Vanilla Kreme, French Cruller, Bow Ties, Coffee Rolls, Glazed Fritters, Plain Cake Sticks, Powdered Cake Sticks and Glazed Chocolate Cake Sticks.”
Smarney smiled the smile of a man happy in his world and proud of his place in it. You couldn’t be on the PMS Force if you didn’t like donuts. In fact, at the Academy of Parking Meter Science, free donuts (provided as a courtesy by Dunkin’ Donuts’ corporate offices, no fools they) were given out every morning with coffee. And at lunch. And at dinner. There was no such thing as a donut-free police department anywhere in America, or so they were told at the Academy.
Meter maids and misters crowded around the donut delivery man and began to chow down, more excited than the frenzied spectators at an illegal Cuban cockfight in Hialeah.
Satty Gomez elbowed her way in.
“Hey, Missy! Grab me a coupla Sugar Raised,” she called out over the din.
Missy passed two Sugar Raised over to Satty, who promptly swallowed one whole. Meter maids are trained at the Academy to eat donuts the way a python swallows rabbits and rats. Satty quickly inhaled the two Sugar Raised.
“Here’s two more,” said Missy, tossing them over the heads of other meter maids clamoring for more.
“Thanks,” said Satty, licking the sugar off one of the donuts. “Say, Missy, I saw you yesterday at David’s Café talkin’ to that Jake Bricker. What’s your deal with him? You ever get him in the sack?”
“Naw. I’m makin’ ‘im beg for it,” Missy teased as she swallowed her third Bavarian Kreme.
“That’s an awful lot o’ man to let go to waste.”
Smarney was listening and he was not pleased.
“Well, what about me?” he butted in.
“What about-cha?” Satty snarled.
“Jake’s got something ... extra,” Missy said to Smarney, dismissing him.
“Whad’da ya mean?”
“He’s got somethin’ extra... above the belt, Smarney.”
Satty was not buying it.
“Oh, Missy... that Jake Bricker. From what I can tell, he’s got plenty below the belt, too.”
Moments later, Major Bunstable came through the door, tapping her riding crop against her polished boot. She was all business, marching straight to the head of the briefing room to stand in front of the lectern.
“Let’s come to order, shall we?” she said in a raised voice. “People, I will have you sit down, now!”
Everybody rapidly took a seat. Bunstable began.
“All right, girls ... and boys. I think we’ve had enough coffee and donuts. It’s time to get serious. There’s a very big convention in town and I expect this shift—in the next eight hours—to write thousands of tickets generating hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue for the City of Miami Beach.”
A hand went up.
“What kind of convention is it, Major?” asked Cassie Castro.
“Thank you for asking, Cassandra. It’s always nice when a meter maid wants to look at the people behind the tickets, the people who actually pay for this paradise we live in, the people responsible for our lifelong pensions.”
Missy shot Cassie a glance.
“Brownnosing bitch,” she whispered to Wimpy.
“It’s the International Association of Roto Rooter Executives meeting in conjunction with the Fraternal Order of Plumbers.”
“Oh, a scholarly group,” said Fatso Farhat.
“Yes, Fatiwa, a scholarly group. You see, because Miami Beach is the most overbuilt and densely populated barrier island on the Eastern Seaboard, they’re here specifically to study the theory that if the people in every condo flushed their toilets at the same time, the overtaxed inferior pipes built under the island to carry the excrement away would cause Collins Avenue to ... well, Collins Avenue would explode.”
“A sea of shit,” mumbled Wimpy.
A distinctly unpleasant scowl suddenly clouded Bunstable’s face. Her mouth took a downward slant, as nasty as Scrooge before he saw the light. Everybody slowly turned, following her gaze to the back of the room where Jake Bricker was slipping in quietly. With everybody looking at him, Bricker was embarrassed, and whipped off his Trilby. He spotted Alice and gave her a wink.
“Any questions?” Bunstable asked in a tone that did not invite any.
A brave hand shot up.
“Any word on the meter maid murderer?” asked Satty Gomez.
“I’m glad you brought that up, Saturnina,” said Bunstable, giving Satty a death stare that made everybody in the room shrink in fear. “I wouldn’t worry about it. I met with the mayor and the chief late last night, along with Colonel Mouldy of the National
Guard. There will be Guardsmen stationed every two or three blocks, ready to respond to your needs in any emergency. The chief says he’s doubling the number of police cruisers available for backup. Don’t forget their motto: the boys in blue are there for you!”
“Well, they oughta be watchin’ our backs. We pay their salaries,” said Missy just loud enough for everybody to hear her.
“And their pensions ... for life,” added Fatso.
Smarney Weiner jumped to his feet.
“I think the major’s right. We don’t have anything to worry about. I think it’s time to get out there and write some tickets!”
“Well said! There’s my Weiner! Now, let’s get to work!” Bunstable said with a slap of the riding crop to her black boot that produced a loud thwack. “Let’s get out there and write those tickets! As you all know, officially, we have no quotas. However, new unofficial quotas will come down next week. The City of Miami Beach is depending on you!”
An excited buzz filled the room as everybody got up and moved outside to their Cushman scooters.
“See ya later, Missy,” said Wimpy. “Wanna meet for coffee at David’s in an hour?”
“Naw, I have to do something first. Maybe in three hours.”
“Okay.”
Wimpy headed out.
Missy went over to Major Bunstable, who was busy with the head of the Counting Room, Meter Maid Second Class Holly Hernandez. Holly’s staff wheeled up the last few days’ worth of change collected from the meters, piled high in canvas bags housed in heavy-duty plastic containers that looked like large milk crates.
“Hey, Holly, how-ya doin’?” said Missy.
“Good, Missy, good. We got a big shipment today.”
“Let’s get on with it, Holly,” Bunstable ordered as she saw Bricker making his way toward them.
Holly hit a red button at the loading dock. A heavy garage door rose slowly.
“Everything cool, Major?” Missy whispered.
“Yes,” she whispered back. “You’ll be escorting the truck this time, as we discussed.”
“Sure thing,” Missy whispered before they turned to face Bricker.
The Meter Maid Murders Page 13