“Will you just stop it about the killer? Stop!”
“Sorry,” Wimpy muttered.
“I’ll see you back at headquarters after our shift.”
“Okay.”
Coffees finished, they headed out.
Wimpy pulled her Cushman out into traffic and headed down toward the Alton Road Marina at Third Street.
Bricker watched as the two meter maids separated, and then he followed Wimpy.
Behind him, Billy followed in a nondescript car rental, his mouth twitching and his nostrils flaring.
Wimpy parked her Cushman scooter on the end of a pier that jutted out into the bay and walked to a row of cars with expired meters. These were the old fashioned kind that still accepted coins.
Bricker saw a comfortable spot under a shade tree and pulled up, rolled down the windows, turned off his engine and lit up a Joyita.
Billy pulled up a block behind him. He surveyed the area, and knew it well because this was the marina where he and Bricker always came for the cheap oysters at Monte Trainer’s.
He noted Wimpy’s scooter at the edge of the pier. He also noted that the scooter had a clear shot down the pier and into the water. He grabbed his tool kit and supplies from the back seat and got what he needed. He smiled a sick, sick smile. This would be easier than he thought.
Billy crept unseen along the edge of the marina. He saw that Bricker was watching Wimpy keenly, but he wasn’t watching her scooter.
He quietly opened the engine compartment and snipped the brake line. Then he stole around to the inside of the scooter and applied a special glue to the floorboard just beneath the accelerator.
Then he slipped away back to his car and waited.
Wimpy finished writing about thirty tickets (at $18 each, that was $540), all in about forty minutes. She went back to her scooter and got back in.
Billy saw that Bricker had gotten out of his car and was leaning against the hood smoking another Joyita.
Bricker watched in horror as Wimpy started the engine, pushed down on the pedal and the Cushman took off like a bat out of hell down the length of the pier—a straight shot to the water.
He also knew Wimpy could not swim.
Bricker took off running like a sprinter, hauling ass down the pier after Wimpy, whose shrieking screams of terror could be heard for blocks.
Bricker worked up a sweat getting to the end of the pier, but was only a third of the way down it when he saw the Cushman take a flying jump at full speed off the end of the pier, and, with a final scream from Wimpy, crash into Biscayne Bay.
By the time Bricker got to the end of the pier, all that was left of Wimpy were a few trace bubbles popping to the surface. In a moment, her piss cutter rose to the surface and floated there like a dead grouper.
“God damn it!” he muttered to himself.
Bricker thought twice about striping down to his skivvies and jumping in after the poor doomed meter maid, but then he knew this water was at least thirty or forty feet deep, dredged to allow for sailboats to get in, and that there was no way he could go down thirty feet in murky water and save the bitch.
And there would be questions about why he was there in the first place.
He glanced around. Since it was October, the season hadn’t started yet, and the marina was half empty.
He made a beeline back down the pier, doing a fast-walk so he could get the hell out of there. He’d call it in anonymously when he was in the clear.
No, it wouldn’t do to be here soaking wet and have to answer all those difficult questions.
Plus, he was wearing a $1200 suit from Neiman’s that his mother got him for Valentine’s Day.
Bricker made it safely back to his car and was just about to pull onto Alton Road when a Cushman drove by moving pretty rapidly, heading toward South Pointe.
“Wow!” he said aloud to himself. “If it isn’t Smarney Weiner.”
His eyes narrowed as he analyzed the situation: there was just no way, no way Weiner could be on this road by coincidence. Absolutely out of the question.
As he pulled out onto Alton Road, he paused for a car to cross in front of him, exiting the marina parking lot. It was none other than FBI Special Agent Louis Lewis.
A silent little voice sang out in Bricker’s heart. It said:
Help!
21 – Weiner Takes the Fall
Bricker crawled out of bed, exhausted after a long night.
He went to his Senseo machine, made some coffee and grabbed for his remote so he could see the morning news. He didn’t even bother bringing in The Mullet Wrapper—there was never anything in it.
Anchor Bob Blunt blinked into the camera.
“And now, William Willoughby, our chief investigative reporter, has the latest developments on the most recent meter maid murder.”
Billy was at a news desk in the WHY-TV studio.
“Thanks, Bob. The number rose yesterday to ten—that’s ten meter maids killed this year, one every month since January.” There were cutaway shots to Wimpy Wimpole’s Cushman being hoisted out of the water at the Alton Road Marina. “Winifred Wimpole was the latest victim of a serial killer responsible for this rash of high profile meter maid murders that has gripped the world. She died by drowning as she plunged to her watery death at the end of a lonely pier at the Alton Road Marina at the helm of a meter maid mobile authorities confirm had been tampered with.”
There was more footage of Slimy Salazar winching Wimpy’s scooter onto a flatbed tow truck. Slimy smiled at the camera. In the distance, Bricker could see Missy Cuthbert standing in a silent vigil.
Billy went on:
“Crime lab technicians examined the vehicle after it was hauled out of the water and discovered the brake line had been severed and the accelerator pedal rigged.”
Bob broke in at this point.
“I guess the pressure’s really on the authorities now, eh, William?”
“If not now, when? The police and leadership of Miami Beach are under intense pressure to catch this ruthless killer, Bob. Every official from the governor to the president has expressed alarm that there are no leads. Tourism officials, originally up in arms, have actually reported an increase in tourism. A recent study commissioned from Mayor Germane’s brother indicated tourism was rising because tourists had the incorrect impression parking would be easier now that meter maids are being slaughtered. Other officials, however, are crying for an answer as negative news about Miami Beach and these devastating meter maid murders circles the globe. We have some reports.”
The image then switched to a Japanese reporter speaking from a studio with a Japanese garden backdrop behind him. Bricker read the subtitles.
“The Foreign Ministry is warning visitors to Miami Beach to beware. They are concerned that the meter maid murderer may soon tire of killing meter maids and start killing innocent tourists from Japan.”
Bricker winced. Although he knew he wasn’t, he somehow felt personally responsible for all this mayhem. Could he have stopped it all by going to the chief with Billy-Boy’s tape early on? Would they have caught the meter maid murderer in some kind of mammoth dragnet?
Oh, well. He consoled himself with the reality that he could never really be sure. And let it go at that.
Now there was a German reporter with the Brandenburg Gate behind him. Bricker read the subtitles.
“The prime minister has expressed serious concern to the American ambassador, urging the governor of Florida to do something substantial to stop the ongoing slaughter of meter maids in Miami Beach. Two meter maids here in Berlin were assaulted by angry motorists, and government officials fear that the practice of harassing meter maids—and even killing them—may continue its plague-like progress around the world, reflecting the universal hostility people feel for meter maids in every culture.”
Next there was a reporter standing in front of the Old City Hall Building right here in South Beach next to the police station.
“This is Mariana Morning
star of the Australian National News Service on special assignment. We’re in Miami Beach to begin a week-long series documenting the so-far ineffective efforts of officials here to stop the notorious meter maid murderer. The international press have descended on Miami Beach to cover one of the biggest stories of the year. And officials here are not happy about it.”
They cut to footage showing Mayor Germane’s hand in the camera lens as he pushed it away, making his way to his office in Scilly Hall through a sea of reporters from three dozen nations.
“Get out of my way!” he screamed.
Cops surrounded the mayor, pushing their way through the crowd. Bricker wondered why the mayor didn’t just use the garage entrance underneath Scilly Hall where the press had no access if he was trying to avoid them. (He decided it was all for show.)
Bricker switched off the TV and jumped in the shower, singing to himself as he lathered up. He’d decided to spill the beans about Smarney Weiner, and fuck what Billy thought.
Highly focused, he dressed, fed Marilyn her Friskies, got in his car and drove to the station house.
He went straight to the chief’s office. He had a look when he said he wanted to see the chief that even the indomitable Rwanda didn’t question.
He told Ramirez what he had and they went straight over to the mayor’s office.
“I think you’ve got something this time, Bricker. Yes, it makes sense, Weiner being the thirteenth highest ticket writer on the PMS Force. He’s got a motive!”
“Why didn’t you call the mayor first, Chief?” Bricker asked as they squeezed their way through all the press to get inside the mayor’s suite.
“Wanna surprise him,” the chief said with a gleam in his eye.
The mayor’s secretary sent them right in.
“Come on in, Chief,” said the mayor. “Quite a madhouse out there, eh? Have a seat. I’ll get to you in a minute. Freddie Flumenbaum was just finishing with the tourism report. Now go on, Freddie.”
“Well, Mr. Mayor, it seems our tourism numbers have actually risen since this whole nasty business began.”
“That’s what I heard on the news.”
“Well, the county has their numbers, but I wanted to verify everything with our internal survey and it’s even better than we thought.”
“So what you’re saying is this: the more this maniac murders meter maids, the bigger our tourism numbers?”
“Exactly.”
There was a pregnant pause as people exchanged glances.
“And what’s to be done about it?”
“Well,” Flumenbaum loosened his tie, “if you were to look at it from a strictly scientific point of view...”
“A strictly scientific point of view... okay. What?”
“You’d continue killing meter maids indefinitely.”
“You mean after we catch the maniac that’s killing the meter maids, we launch a program to kill them ourselves?”
“Well, it depends on what your goals are. Human life or tourism figures.”
“That’s tough,” Germane mused.
“The tourists seem to have this in a better perspective than we do. It’s not like the guy is killing tourists. It’s just meter maids.”
“Thank God for that!” said the mayor.
“Our study does include the finding that since most people consider meter maids to be sub-human, their loss, even in the dozens, wouldn’t be seen as a negative development.”
So, as Martha Stewart would say, killing meter maids is a ‘good thing’?”
Flumenbaum cleared his throat.
“Depending on your point of view, Mr. Mayor.”
“Well, we’ll have to study this later. Tell me what’s on your mind, Chief?”
Just then the mayor’s secretary popped her head in the door.
“Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Mayor, but President Quince has called twice, the governor three times and your campaign manager.”
The mayor paused a second.
“What’s my campaign manager want?”
“He said to remind you of that dinner tonight at the Eden Roc to raise money for your re-election.”
“Ah, forgot all about it. Call my wife and ask her if she got my tux back from the cleaners. The president and the governor can wait.”
“Yes, sir.”
She left. He turned his attention back to the chief.
“The press out there’s been killing me,” said the mayor.
“We could throw them off city property,” Bricker threw in.
“If that’s what you want, Mr. Mayor, my people can clear them outta here in five minutes.”
Flumenbaum shook his head.
“It would look bad to throw them out, Mr. Mayor,” he said. “Bad.”
“That’s true. Just look at what I had to go through to get in here.”
“There’s always the underground entrance,” Bricker offered, remembering he’d thought of that earlier when he was watching TV.
“But then the people couldn’t see me coming in to fight for the public safety. It’s important that they see me, understand?”
“Especially in an election year,” added Flumenbaum.
“Still, they’re like rabid dogs out there. I need a couple of bones to throw their way because I’m sick and tired of getting my ass chewed out by everybody from the governor to reporters from fuckin’ Australia, for God’s sake. Now Chief, I’ve got a press conference in a little while, and when I go out there, I’ve gotta have something. What’ve you got?”
“Bricker here thinks he has something.”
All eyes turned to Bricker.
“I think I’ve got us a killer,” he said with a broad smile.
Germane actually got out of his chair.
“You shittin’ me?”
“No sir. Okay, the evidence is a little weak, but I’m tellin’ you, this guy is the killer. He is the meter maid murderer.”
“How do you know?” asked Flumenbaum.
Bricker smiled that cocky smile of his and tilted the Trilby to an even more rakish angle.
“It’s a hunch. My gut feeling.”
“Well, I don’t care who the sonofabitch is. I don’t give a good
God damn if you dig up the guy that kidnapped the Lindbergh baby, just bring me in a killer. Any killer!”
“Who is he?” asked Flumenbaum.
“Smarney Weiner,” said Bricker proudly.
“Who?”
“I mean, uh, Barney Weiner.”
“Who the fuck’s Barney Weiner?” the mayor asked.
“He’s a meter mister,” Bricker fairly beamed.
The next day they arrested Barney Weiner and forced him through the obligatory “perp walk” through the lunging, surging press corps gathered outside the police station.
Barney was screaming out his innocence.
“I didn’t do it, I tell ya, I love my girls. I’d never hurt them! I bring ‘em donuts, fer Christ’s sake! You guys must be crazy!”
Mariana Morningstar was among the press, reporting back to Australia.
“They never suspected one of their own, never suspected that it was a meter mister who was killing off the meter maids in a fit of professional jealousy that only bloodlust could cure.”
As they reached the top of the steps leading into the station, Bricker called out in a loud voice:
“Take ‘im in and book ‘im!”
Morningstar was beside him.
“Could I have a word?”
“Sure.”
“You’re the detective responsible for bringing in Barney Weiner?”
Bricker was beaming.
“I certainly am.”
“It must be gratifying to feel like you’re the one who’s single-handedly responsible for saving the lives of any number of meter maids who might have fallen prey to this dastardly killer.”
“Lady, that’s putting it mildly.”
“I’m not a lady. I’m a reporter.”
“Well, report this: people can s
leep safe and sound tonight knowing the meter maid murderer is behind bars.”
Then Bricker smiled at the camera (smiling always made his dimples stand out) and, as an added last touch, winked.
22 – Louie Lewis Takes Credit
“You fucking idiot!” Billy screamed at the TV the next morning at home in Farrey Lane when he saw the clip for the thousandth time.
He could not get away from Jake Fucking Bricker. He was on every fuckin’ channel. It was driving him crazy.
Billy was up earlier than usual. When there was breaking news, he always had to get up by three or four in the morning to do his on-camera bits for the morning show segments. And with Sara Succubus in town, he had to make it even earlier.
When his alarm had gone off, he’d reached over and slammed his hand down on the button. He’d left the window by his bed open a crack, so there was a sharp bite in the air when he finally woke up. There’d been a light rain sometime during the night, and Jill the weather girl at WHY-TV had said on the Eleven O’clock News that might dip down into the 60s.
After he switched on the TV to see the coverage the all-night cable channels gave the case, he went in and got his Cuisinart percolator up and running. He pulled a robe on over his underwear and ran out into the rain to grab The Miami Herald and The Mullet Wrapper. He hadn’t bothered to put on his slippers, so his feet were wet when he got back.
Dashing back into the kitchen with a “Brrrr,” he poured out a cup of steaming Folger’s and glanced at the papers, keeping a keen ear attuned to the TV, punching the remote as he moved from channel to channel to see what angles and slants the other stations were using on the meter maid story. Every time he got a new channel, there was fucking Bricker hamming it up for the camera. Problem was, he was so photogenic that the camera simply loved him, and the female reporters of course were all madly in love with him.
Hah! thought Billy, if only they knew!
All this footage, of course, was from yesterday afternoon. Thoroughly disgusted, he tossed aside the papers and went into the bathroom. He looked in the mirror and saw his sick, sick, sick face.
The Meter Maid Murders Page 18