Miami Burn (Titus Book 1)

by John D. Patten

  She looked over at the tables and bit her lip.

  “You need to talk to someone,” I said. “I can see it in your eyes.”

  The driver sneered at me again.

  A tear ran down her cheek and she wiped it. She nodded, closed the car door and turned to the driver.

  “I’ll be right over there, Chester,” she said. “I won’t be long.”

  Like Chester had big plans. He nodded and got in the car. Pam Hayes and I walked across the street and sat at one of the five little empty tables. We were the only ones there besides an old man with white hair in a green polo shirt smoking a cigar. He rubbed a quarter on a scratch ticket. A small stack of them sat on the table in front of him.

  Pam Hayes removed a handful of tissues from her purse and dabbed her eyes.

  “Agent Erwin said you were like this,” she said.

  “Like what?” I said.

  “Like a pit bull. Once you decide something, you grab hold and don’t let go.”

  “Character flaw.”

  I scratched the back of my neck and caught the eye of the old man in the polo shirt. He quickly looked away and resumed rubbing.

  “What did Agent Erwin tell you I could help with?” I said.

  “He said you used to be a police detective,” she said.

  I looked down at the seagull droppings on the pink sidewalk, and then up to the slightly darkening sky.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Once.”

  “You don’t look like a police detective,” she said.

  “Part of why I’m not a police detective anymore.”

  “Clark said you were—how did he phrase it? ‘One of the good ones.’”

  I laughed, unable to hear those words coming from his mouth. “Clark Erwin said that?”

  “Yes.”

  I shook my head, folded my arms, and laughed again. Something’s up here.

  “Not sure what he meant by that,” I said.

  “Well, you see, Mr. Titus—” she said.

  “Just Titus.”

  “Titus, I need some help finding my daughter Allie. The thing is, the reason I came to you is, nobody can know about it, especially my husband. Also, I need someone who can look in places in which an average person might feel somewhat, uh, threatened.”

  Her words flowed with an educated lilt.

  “And I look like I wouldn’t feel threatened?” I said.

  She blushed.

  “You look like you can handle yourself,” she said. “The last time I needed a private investigator, he appeared brilliant on paper but lacked certain—skills of resiliency. Agent Erwin assured me you possess these skills in abundance. You just proved it to me by following me to my car. You are indeed a pit-bull. I can see it.”

  A gentle hot wind kicked up. Far away in the sky, thunderheads gathered. The daily deluge that hits Miami at approximately 3:17 every summer afternoon would soon be upon us.

  “I’m not a cop anymore,” I said. “I’m not even a licensed investigator. I sling drinks at a dive bar.”

  “I can make it worth your time,” she said. “My husband and I are—please don’t take this as bragging—we are quite well off. I can offer you a rather large retainer today.”

  I glanced over at the old man. His arms were folded. His lifeless tickets lay in a little forlorn pile on the table next to him. The blank look on his face was a million miles away. I decided to play along with Pam Hayes, out of curiosity.

  “You said your daughter is missing,” I said.

  She nodded and removed her phone from her purse. She scrolled and turned it toward me. A montage of a very attractive young woman appeared on the screen.

  “That’s Allie,” she said.

  Allie likes skin-tight dresses, that’s for sure. There was a picture of her in a yellow one, a green one, a red one, and a blue one. In several of the pictures, she is holding up various drink glasses.

  “When did Allie go missing?” I said.

  “Two months ago,” she said. “Right when the spring semester ended. Allie is a freshman at the University of Miami. Or was, anyway. She stopped attending classes three months ago and didn’t come home when the semester ended. God, I hate that school. Rex and I wanted her to go to his alma mater Yale, but, ah, that wasn’t in the cards. It was all we could do to get her to sign up for classes at ‘the U’, as they call it.”

  “What does your husband do?”

  “Oh, you must have seen him on TV. He’s a real-estate developer, very well-known. He’s running for the Senate.”

  “I don’t watch TV and I don’t follow politics. Your husband sounds like he’s in a position where he likely knows people who could find Allie. Has he had anyone looking for her?”

  She pursed her lips and glanced away.

  “Well,” she said, “you see, that’s another reason I wanted to hire you discreetly. Rex thinks Allie is with friends. That’s what I’ve told him, anyway.”

  Alarm bells went off in my head.

  “I’m confused,” I said. “Why wouldn’t you want your husband to know his own daughter is missing?”

  “My husband has important work to do and I don’t want this to get in the way. Plus, I think I know who Allie is with, and it might cause Rex to become very angry. I wouldn’t want him to hurt anybody.”

  “Your husband has a temper?” I said.

  Her fist clenched.

  “Sometimes,” she said.

  “Who do you think Allie is with?” I said.

  Her fist unclenched and she hid it under the table. “His name is Jake Preston. He’s from a troubled family. He and Allie met a couple of years ago. They dated for a while, and then broke it off. I was so excited when Allie met another boy at an event I sponsored at the Leucadendra Country Club—a sweet decent boy from a very good family, just graduated from Yale. I was sure she was falling for him but then she breaks up with him and vanishes. I think she’s back with this awful Jake Preston. In fact, I just know she is.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “Mother’s instinct.” I saw a flash of something nasty behind her eye, then it vanished.

  A hot breeze grabbed hold of the palm tree across the street and shook loose a dead brown frond. It fell in the middle of the street.

  I leaned back and folded my arms.

  “I don’t know what to say,” I said. “I’m not in the business of finding missing college girls.”

  “I know,” she said. “That was part of the appeal of hiring you. I just want to know where she is, that’s all.”

  “If I find her and she’s safe and she doesn’t want to come back, I won’t be able to make her come back. She’s over eighteen.”

  “I understand that. I just want to know where she is.”

  “She may not even want to talk to you. I can’t make her do that either.”

  “I understand.”

  I looked over at the sky, now nearly black in spots, and saw a distant flash of lightning. I also noticed a black SUV parked with its engine running a block up at the corner.

  “Won’t your husband realize she’s missing when school resumes in the fall and there’s no college bill to pay?” I said.

  Pam Hayes frowned.

  “Yes,” she said, “which is why I’d like to get this handled now, before the fall. Rex is very focused on his election campaign. Busy all day long—morning, noon, and night—planning committees, fundraising luncheons, thousand-dollar-a-plate dinners. There’s one tonight over in Coconut Grove.”

  “Sounds like he doesn’t spend much time with his daughter.”

  She nodded. “Yes, unfortunately that is true. Allie is closer with me. Rex is a very busy man. Don’t get me wrong. He’s a wonderful man. He’s just not—oh, how do I say this without sounding cruel?—he’s not your average American dad. He doesn’t spend much time at home.”

  “Strikes me as kind of odd you want to keep this from your husband.”

  Her nostrils flared. “He needs to focus on his campaign. He lost
last time because he wasn’t focused enough. In politics, you need to be focused twenty-four hours a day. This time, he will win. No distractions like six years ago.”

  “But it’s your daughter.”

  “I know, but it’s important to the country that Rex be elected to the Senate. We must save South Florida from what’s going on in Washington, D.C.”

  “Have you called the police?” I said.

  “The police must stay out of this,” she said. “It will leak to the press, and the press are vile. Titus, let me be blunt with you. I know Allie is not dead. I know she’s with this Jake Preston. Right here in South Beach. I just want to know where.”

  I noticed her hands were clenched again. She noticed I noticed and unclenched them. She put them underneath the table on her thighs, and a soft lovely smile reappeared on her face.

  “Tell me more about this Jake Preston,” I said.

  “He’s from a wealthy family,” she said, “but they lost everything. His father is in prison for securities fraud and his mother is in some kind of mental institution. He’s—oh, how do I say this without sounding cliché?—he’s slick.”

  “Slick?”

  “Slick as a whistle. A fast-talker. He could sell hamburgers to McDonald’s and they’d be thanking him for the opportunity. He also likes to ‘party’ as the kids say.”

  “Drugs?”

  “I presume so. He spends a lot of time in those awful dance clubs.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Back when Allie started seeing him a couple of years ago, I hired a private investigator to check up on him.”

  “The not-so-capable one?” I said.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “What was his name?”

  “Tom Langston.”

  “Here in South Beach?”

  “Yes, but he’s, uh, no longer with us.”

  “Dead?”

  “I’m afraid so. I saw it in the papers about a year after I last spoke with him.”

  “Huh. What did this Tom Langston find out?”

  She gritted her teeth.

  “That Allie likes those awful places, too,” she said. “She likes them a lot, as I’m sure you can deduce from her dreadful attire in the pictures.”

  The old man stood up with difficulty, picked up his pile of scratch tickets, dropped them in the trash, and slowly walked away.

  “So you think Jake Preston has corrupted Allie?” I said.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Does Allie have brothers or sisters?”

  “No, she’s an only child. I wanted another, but I—decided it would be best not to.”

  “Where did Allie go to high school?”

  “She started off at a preparatory school, but her grades were somewhat, ah, lacking, so despite our protests she graduated from—oh, God—Coral Gables High School.” She nearly spat the words out.

  “Tell me about Allie’s friends,” I said.

  “She had a couple of close ones in high school,” she said, “but they went off to big colleges up north. I don’t even know if she had any at the University of Miami. Allie was never good at keeping friends. She’d get one or two close ones, but then they’d drift away. Allie always liked hanging around with older kids, especially boys. Especially club boys.”

  “She do drugs?”

  “Never. Well, I shouldn’t say that. All parents say that, but who knows? You see so many parents on the news these days saying, ‘My sweet girl would never do drugs.’ Yet, there they are in the morgue.”

  I glanced over at the darkening sky. Pam Hayes is lying to me. I’m not sure what the lie is or if she’s just leaving something out. The pieces don’t fit.

  I should walk away. That would be the smart thing to do. The girl is probably fine, probably happier away from her prissy mother and politician father. Maybe even better off.

  I bet dear daughter Allie just couldn’t take it anymore, sick to death of haughty parties with tiny plates of lobster under tents having pictures snapped for Daddy’s photo ops. Hell, I’d run away from that too.

  But sitting there at that outdoor table with the threatening storm moving in, I felt something. Something I hadn’t felt in a while.

  This is how it always starts. A puzzle that needs to be solved, challenging me. I start lining up the pieces and then just can’t let go. Like a pit bull, according to Clark Erwin, apparently. Then, I usually end up knee-deep in shit with guns pointed at me.

  Don’t get involved, Titus. Go back to Cap’n Jack’s Seafood & Bar, throw out a few drunks, collect your tips, and finish your task.

  I moved to get up and leave, but I saw a picture of a picture in my mind. The ugliest one I ever saw. Ariel’s lifeless body on the medical examiner’s table, her beautiful eyes open, looking at nothing.

  If only I had followed the lie back then, maybe my angel would still be alive. I couldn’t save her, but maybe I could save someone else.

  No, Titus. Stop the heroics. You fucked it up before, you’ll fuck it up again. You’ve proven you can’t save people. Stop trying. Let it go, complete your task, and get out.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Hayes,” I said. “I can’t take this offer. You’ll have to find someone else. Tell Clark Erwin I said to go—uh—well, just tell him I said he was wrong.”

  Her face dropped. I felt a pang of remorse. I had to leave before changing my mind. I stood up, the first raindrops hitting the ground.

  “What’s your price?” Pam Hayes said, standing up now. There was the steely determination of a politician’s wife in her voice. “Whatever it is, I’ll double it. I’m very very wealthy, Titus.”

  I paused at that for a moment. Chester, ever vigilant, was out of the car with an umbrella walking across the street toward her.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I have no price. I don’t do this anymore. I’m not that person anymore. I wish you the best.”

  I turned and walked back to the bar. Halfway there, the storm kicked up and I sprinted. By the time I reached the door and stepped into the cold air conditioning, I was soaked.

  Great way to start a shift, huh?

  THREE

  I DRIPPED WATER EVERYWHERE. JENNY PRETENDED TO be mad at me for causing her to miss time with her on-and-off boyfriend Matt, who’s apparently on again this week. Although that didn’t stop her from drying me off with bar towels while feeling my muscles and suggesting naughty ways I could make it up to her.

  Tempting, but I’m a grand champion master of discipline and self-control. Or so I keep telling myself.

  After she left, it was the usual slow build, picking up between five and eight. Pablo, who works all by himself fourteen hours a day, seven days a week in the hot little kitchen out back, did his usual amazing performance art of creating several plates simultaneously while screaming at himself in Dominican-accented Spanish.

  Paulie once told him to stop because it was scaring customers, but Pablo kept it up so Paulie installed a thicker door between the bar and the kitchen. It didn’t help. Everyone could still hear Pablo. Now, it’s just part of the accepted ambience of Cap’n Jack’s. Even a review on Yelp! mentioned it as a positive.

  I served beer-battered fish n’ chips, shrimp scampi, fried catfish, French fries, burgers, crab soup, conch chowder, and seared grouper. A couple of martinis, a handful of scotch-and-sodas, and a metric ton of beer.

  Only one loud drunk, but I didn’t need to throw him out. One hard look with a sharp “Hey!” stopped the argument he was having with another guy before fists went flying.

  Paulie came in at midnight with his girlfriend Trina. They went to the tiny office in back behind the kitchen. Paulie is about sixty, pale, mostly bald with clipped hair of an indeterminate color on the sides. He was in his typical white polo shirt, black slacks, black socks, and black shoes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him without a lit cigar.

  Trina is Jenny with an added thirty years of daily South Florida sun exposure. Tonight she was wearing her usual jean cutoffs and a yellow
halter top that struggled to prop up her large round breasts. Her leathery brown shoulders were covered in freckles and sunspots. She carried a huge orange knit bag.

  Paulie nodded at me as they went by. I nodded back.

  “Hi, Titus,” said Trina with a girly wave. Her smile was all glossy pink lipstick.

  “Hi, Trina,” I said.

  A guy in a five-dollar captain’s hat watched her rear as it, she and Paulie vanished through the door to the kitchen. He turned and said to me, “She shouldn’t wear those. Nobody wants to see that.”

  I lowered my voice and said “Hey” with a hand motion like I wanted him to move closer to me. He did and I leaned down with my forearms on the bar. Bro talk. On the downlow.

  “Yeah?” he said with an eager smile and wide eyes, expecting a joke.

  “Shut the fuck up,” I said coolly and evenly with my hard stare, then went back to putting glasses away. His mouth hung open and he trembled. Then, he downed his gin-and-tonic and made a beeline for the door.

  By one-thirty, there were only two guys left.

  “Last call,” I said.

  Marty from Jersey had his final Bud Lite draft of the night, although I always suspected he moved up to The Abbey after here. They’re open until five a.m.

  When the place was empty, I added my receipts. Then, I turned off the TV and cleaned the tables. I emptied the trash, locked the front door, and went out back.

  Paulie sat at his ancient metal desk, smoking and adding receipts. Trina was on the small couch to the side chewing gum and sipping a Diet Coke while watching the TV that sits atop a green metal filing cabinet. She mindlessly twirled her stringy blonde curls.

  I put the evening’s take on the desk. Paulie hadn’t been in for three nights so there were papers everywhere. Paulie could use a secretary or a computer, but he refused to get either. He still used those old thick ledger books with a No. 2 pencil.

  The ancient office chair on the other side of the desk creaked and squealed when I sat down on it.

  Paulie looked at me over his bifocals, cigar hanging from his lip, and said, “You look different tonight.”

  “Good different or bad different?” I said.