by Paul Levine
I ignored him and tightened my grip on Townsend. "Tell me his name! Tell me, you sanctimonious son of a bitch or I'll give you a headline: 'Reporter Drowns in Publisher's Pool.'"
His eyes showed fear, but he shook his head. I dragged him across the patio toward the deep end of Foote's splendid twenty-five-meter pool. Foote let out a yelp. I hoisted Townsend over a shoulder, then dangled him by the ankles, dunking his head. He thrashed around and I hauled him up, sputtering, and he called me several names they don't print in a family newspaper. I lowered him again.
"Now see here, Jake," Foote was saying from behind me.
I saw very clearly. I saw my six-figure retainer slipping away and didn't care.
I let Townsend stay under long enough to consider a career change, then pulled him out, choking and gagging. I dropped him into a chaise lounge, where he burped up a couple of jiggers of chlorinated water, and then I asked again. "Who is he?"
He hawked and coughed and wheezed and finally said, "You know. You already know, you bastard."
I knew I knew. I had to hear the name. "Say it!"
"Alejandro Rodriguez."
"Why did he talk to you? What was his motive?"
He drank in some air. "I don't know. That's not my department."
"Then how do you know Rodriguez was telling the truth?"
The sound was half gag, half laugh. "We never know that. We just print what people tell us. It's not our job to tell the public what to believe. We just give them choices."
Sunday. A breeze from the east tickled the leaves of the live-oak trees. Just a breath of air, but it makes a difference. I called the weekend crew at the state attorney's office every hour like a guy on house arrest. I thought a lot about Nick Fox. I needed to trip him up, to bait him and trap him. I couldn't call Metro because there was no telling who was loyal to him, and the feds would take too long. I thought of the logistics and came up with a plan. But it would take two of us, and one had to be somebody Fox wouldn't recognize. That left out Charlie Riggs, the only person I trusted completely other than my granny. So where did that leave me?
I lay in the hammock again and thought about Marsha Diamond. TV Gal, I've let you down. Been too wrapped up in saving my own semiprecious hide. I walked into the house, pulled out three cardboard boxes, my copies of the Diamond file. I reread the printouts. Bobbie Blinderman had chatted with Marsha, pitching crude woo, but got shot down. A short time later, Marsha gets strangled. I read the rest of them-Oral Robert, Bush Whacker, and the other cheap-thrill hackers.
I found the photos Dr. Whitson had taken of the scene. There was Marsha, head jammed into the monitor. There were scenes of the room. There were the close-ups of the body, and the shots of Pam and me, Charlie demonstrating the fallacy of the crescentic fingernail abrasion. There were a variety of shots of the room itself, Nick Fox pacing in the background.
I spread all the photos on the floor, moving some empty pizza cartons out of the way. I tried different arrangements. All body shots here, all room shots there. I arranged them by field of view. Long shots here, close-ups there.
Then here.
Then there.
And there it was. Where it had been all along.
CHAPTER 41
Kiss Me Quick Before I Die
The grand jury would convene at nine a.m. Monday, take up old business, and approve a report on the sorry state of the county's juvenile detention facilities. The jurors would break at noon and reconvene at 1:30 to hear new cases including In re Alejandro Rodriguez. Which would soon become State of Florida v. Jacob Lassiter.
At 7:30 p.m. Sunday I called Fox's office and left a new message with the weekend crew: Leaving for Rio on nine o'clock flight. Five minutes later, my phone rang.
I picked it up and said, "Hello, Nick, what took you so long?"
"I'm glad you're there, asshole. I want to talk to you. Maybe we can work something out."
"Wonderful. Great, Nick," I slavered, gratitude and humility coating my voice like honey.
"I'll be there in an hour."
"I won't be here," I said.
"What?"
"I'm going fishing."
"Are you nuts?"
"Snook are running, or at least swimming."
"Don't jerk me off, Lassiter. The grand jury's going to hear-"
"Nighttime bridge fishing, good for the soul. I'll be on the MacArthur Causeway just east of the tender's shack. I'll have an extra spinning rod."
Then I hung up and didn't answer the phone when it rang ten seconds later. Twenty minutes later, I was putting my gear in the trunk when it rang again. I went inside, lifted the receiver, and listened.
"Hello, Jake, is that you, darling?"
The crisp British accent that first sucked me in.
"It's me, darling," I said.
"Oh Jake, I wanted to say good-bye."
"Good-bye?"
"I just finished my last lecture and I'm booked on the red-eye to Heathrow."
Whoa. Too much was happening too fast. I couldn't deal with both of them at once.
"Can't you stay a little longer?"
"Would that I could. We could spend some time together, perhaps rekindle that spark." Her voice tinkled with promises. "But my work calls."
"Wait. Where are you?"
"On Miami Beach, at Mount Briar Hospital."
"Great. On your way to the airport you can stop and say a proper good-bye. I'll be on the causeway. Fishing."
"Fishing?"
Why didn't anyone believe me?
I told her where and said nine-thirty, and she'd still have time to catch the flight.
And then I went to find some bait.
The moon was three-quarters full and rising over the ocean. Silky moonbeams flashed across the surface of the bay and bounced off the steel and concrete of the bridge. I had watched the late summer sun set, dangling over the Everglades, the sky tinged vermilion from the foul breath of our two million cars, most of which seemed to be passing on the bridge just now. Carbon monoxide hung heavy and low, the air was soggy with heat and moisture, and I wondered why anyone would fish here. It was like jogging in the Lincoln Tunnel.
I wore jeans and a sleeveless vest. On the vest was a lamb's-wool patch festooned with flies. Streamers and poppers and super bugs and flipping shrimp, and my all-time favorite, the cockroach. I held a stout rod with a heavy butt and an open-face spinning reel, and if Nick Fox wanted to fish, I had another one, too.
Four lanes of traffic rattled the bridge, cars heading from downtown Miami to South Beach and back again. I stood on the catwalk near the tender's shack, just off the steel grating of the drawbridge itself. The metal hummed and sang with each passing tire. Kids on bicycles rode along the catwalk, and a collection of old coots sat in lawn chairs, digging bait out of tin cans and dropping their lines into the water. Near the lower portions of the bridge, weekend shrimpers shone their flashlights toward the bottom and swung fine-meshed, long-handled nets into the water. Two swarthy men in T-shirts angled their casts near the shrimpers. Fish are attracted to shrimp, and fishermen aren't far behind. Ten feet from me, a guy who needed a shave and a bath dangled a pole over the side. He had already borrowed some pinfish for bait and was now asking if I had any mullet. When he came close, the smell of cheap wine overpowered the tang of the bait. Despite the heat he wore a heavy plaid work shirt and a cap with earflaps pulled down.
"Tank you kindly, guv'nor," he said.
At five before nine Nick Fox's impressive bulk appeared over the rise of the bridge. He was backlit by the powerful vapor lamps on the eastern tower. He wore a light gray suit and was alone. He arrived a moment later, sweating and furious.
"You're a first-class number-one asshole, Lassiter."
"Good evening to you, too," I said.
"I parked at the marina and walked a mile in this heat, a man could have a heart attack."
"Most men would take their suit coats off."
"There are voters who use this bridge," he said. "T
hey expect me in a suit."
"Image," I said.
"Don't knock it. It may not get the job done, but it makes it possible to get the job done."
"What's the job, Nick? Besides getting elected?"
"Law and order. Sending away your basic shitheads. Making streets safe for little old ladies and children coming home from school. Locking up your burglars and your strong-arm robbers."
"And your drug barons," I said. "Let's not forget about them."
He studied me. "We didn't come here to talk about my work. What the fuck's going on?"
I baited my hook, raised the rod, flicked my wrist, and watched the twenty-pound test line drop toward the water in a poor imitation of a cast. "Told you. Wanted to fish. When the tide starts in, I think my luck's going to change."
He studied my outfit. "What the hell are those flies for? You can't use 'em up here, you'll give an earring to some asshole in a Benz convertible."
"Flies are just for decoration. Like your medals."
"I'm trying to help you out, Jakie. Don't fight me."
"Help me out! That's a hoot. You framed me for the Rodriguez murder."
He studied me. "I can get you out of it. I'm willing to compromise my position to help you."
"What are you talking about?"
Just then the distinctive aroma of rotgut breath invaded our space. "Scuse me, gentlemen, could you spare a shrimp?"
"The fuck out of here!" Fox ordered, and my wino friend shrank away.
"You killed Rod," Fox said, "and I'm ready to cut a deal with you."
"No. You killed him, and I'm going to nail you."
"You are so fucking stupid, Lassiter. Why would I kill Rodriguez? He was my friend."
"So was Evan Ferguson."
He took a step toward me, thought better of it, and looked around.
"What's the matter, Nick, too many voters here?"
"Okay, asshole, you got something to say, say it."
I took a deep breath and loaded my ammo. I only had one round. "I know all about you and the Medellin cartel. I know about the prosecutions you tanked and the information you passed to Bogota. I know about the bank accounts in the Caymans and Panama and just about everything else that could put you away. And in case you're thinking about using that howitzer under your coat, everything gets delivered to the Journal in case I miss my breakfast meeting tomorrow."
Nick Fox didn't call me an asshole and he didn't pull his gun. His bluster was just for effect. I had tried enough cases to know that. Now it was all business, Fox trying to figure if I had the proof to back up the allegations. What cards does the guy with the fishing rod hold?
A minute passed. He still hadn't said a word. A second minute that seemed like a year. The bridge rattled under our feet as the cars thundered past. Three hundred yards away in the channel, a fully rigged custom Swan, maybe fifty feet, tooted its horn three times. The bridge tender pushed a button, the yellow lights flashed, and a moment later the traffic gates lowered and the bridge began its slow ascent.
Finally Nick Fox said, "Rodriguez told you all this."
"Yep."
"Just words, and hearsay at that. Just a dead man's words."
Already he had considered the evidence and decided I had nothing admissible. So I bluffed. "Plus photocopies, microfilm, and a bunch of bank records he delivered to me for the paper."
That stopped him, but only for a second. "Bullshit. He never had access to the accounts."
Confirmation. Instead of denying it, just letting me know I couldn't prove anything.
"Never? You never sent him to pick up cash, make a deposit. While he's there, maybe a friendly banker gives him what he wants in exchange for a tip."
He chewed it over. It must have made sense. "That shithead Rodriguez! That simpleminded fuck."
And this is how he talks about his friends, I thought.
"Once Prissy was killed, Rodriguez cracked," Fox said. "He loved her, always loved her. When we broke up, I gave him the go-ahead. But she wasn't interested in him except as a friend. He was still hoping and groping until she was killed. I should have figured he'd do something like this. He never wanted a piece of the action. Wanted to live a simple life as a cop. I was gonna make him head of a statewide crime commission. Supervisory powers over all capital cases. The best investigators, the latest equipment. I needed to get elected, that's all, and I needed a middleman for the financing."
"To tote your bags, to haul your drug money. To aid and abet you in selling out your office. Maybe he got tired of it."
"Drugs are bullshit, Jakie. Read the papers. Federal judges, congressmen, your egghead professors are all calling for legalization. We can't stop the flow. We close down Colombia, they move to Peru and Ecuador. Christ, they're manufacturing in Europe now. We seal off the Bahamas for transit, they move to Mexico. We put on the heat in Miami as a port of entry, they come in through Texas and North Carolina. Forget drugs. It's like booze. You can't stop it if the people want it."
"You can rationalize anything, can't you, Nick? Killing your best friend, selling out your office, framing me."
There was a tug on my line, then a leap, and a silver fish with a black streak from gills to tail took off. The wrong way. It headed under the bridge. Snook. Maybe twelve pounds. I yanked on the rod and tried to drive it out. Too late. It had fouled the line on a piling. I jerked the rod this way and that and then the line broke free.
"Damn shame, guv'nor," said rotgut breath from a few feet away.
Fox was thinking. I didn't know what, but I was hoping. He didn't disappoint me. "Okay, let's assume you have what you say you have. All the more reason we work this out. You have something I want. Two somethings, as it turns out. I hold your keys to the jailhouse. You give me the Vietnam log plus whatever documents Rodriguez gave you, and you've got a free pass."
The Swan had putted through, its mast towering above us. Inside the shack, the tender pulled a huge lever and the bridge lowered again.
"I've already got a free pass. I didn't do it. You did. You had me under surveillance at Cindy's apartment. When I limped home, you took the gun. Then you killed Rodriguez and planted it."
He gripped the handrail and stared toward the flickering lights downtown. "Jake, think about it. I didn't know the asshole talked to you. I never suspected. It was suicidal for him. He'd have to do time. Look, I've been straight with you. I told you I killed Evan Ferguson. I ran dope out of 'Nam, and I skimmed shipments here when I was a cop. As a prosecutor, I dumped some cases, and I took major-league bread from some very bad actors because I had other priorities. But I never killed Rodriguez…"
Over the rise of the drawbridge appeared a figure shimmering in the artificial light. Pamela Maxson.
Oh shit. Early. Just when I was getting ready to lower the boom. I couldn't deal with both of them at once.
Fox saw her, too. "Hey, Jakie, isn't that your English squeeze?"
She wore a beige linen suit and matching shoes and pursed her lips walking across the steel grating of the catwalk. She called to me: "Jake, my cab is at the end of the bridge. Double-parked. I must say, this is a most unconventional meeting place. And I must catch-"
"A lady in our midst," proclaimed the old wino, bending from the waist and extending an arm.
"Dr. Maxson," Nick acknowledged, nodding. "Perhaps I shouldn't say this, but you have the greatest legs I've ever seen, and I've seen them from here to Hong Kong."
Pam nodded politely but kept her eyes on me. "Well, Jake, you seem to have drawn us together in this hellhole. What is the purpose of it?"
"I wanted to tell you a story. Nick, you might as well listen, too."
Pam cocked a hip and pouted. "Jake, really. It's stifling and smelly"-she looked toward old fishbait nearby-"and I have to catch-"
"A short story about a beautiful woman. She grew up in the English countryside, a picture-postcard place. But she was unable to resolve what they call the positive Oedipal complex. She couldn't transfer her love for he
r father onto other men. At the same time she hated her mother's promiscuity, which had driven Father off. She once told me, 'Never underestimate the damage a mother can do.' So she had a horrible dilemma. She was attracted to other girls, yet hated them for it, especially their heterosexual promiscuity, which reminded her of Mother. She began experimenting with homosexuality while a teen, and when she learned that her lovers, also country girls, had taken up with boys, too…"
"You're no good at this, Jake," she said, an edge to her voice. "You're just as wrong about me as you were about Bobbie."
"We'll get to her in a minute. Let's cut to the chase. The heroine of our story killed two of the Cotswolds girls, strangled them in their barns or pastures or wherever they met to entangle limbs. The experience fascinated and repelled her at the same time."
"Jesus, Jake," Nick said, "what's going on?"
"Shut up for once and listen. This girl was different than most psychopaths. She wanted to stop, really wanted to be normal. And maybe she could. After all, we are all born psychopaths. Maybe she could find the emergency brake. And she was smart enough to learn everything there was about the subject. Study, become a doctor, a psychiatrist. Spend years interviewing serial killers, dissecting their psyches, staffing mental wards. And for a while it worked. She ran group therapy and no one knew she was one of the patients. Except maybe the real patients. What was it the Fireman said? That she wasn't my type, only I didn't know it yet.
"She'd take an occasional male lover and tried to convince herself that everything was in sync. But sometimes she drifted back to those early days in a hayloft in the Cotswolds. And the urges returned. To love and to kill. Finally she found radical psychiatry. She stopped delving into the reasons why. After all, the unconscious is a myth. There's no such thing as mental illness. Her choices were as rational as those of an officer who killed his best friend on a rainy day in a muddy village far from home."
Fox's eyes hardened and he started to say something, but I kept going. "So now she finds occasional lovers, and when they stray, they die. But it's suspicious if your girlfriends keep dropping off. So she controls it, maybe confines the killing to her travels. If we studied her passport and air tickets, what correlations would we find? An unsolved murder of a young woman killed in Paris, Barcelona-who knows, Miami Beach? And the corpses, some evidence of sexual activity, but of course, never any semen."