Lincoln Road was bustling and she cut over to Pennsylvania, a quieter side street, with relief. After servicing the peculiar needs of three Mamma’s Boys, she was not in the mood for any stimulation. Just peace and quiet. Tantra was perfect until it started jumping as a disco. They had at least a couple of hours. The night was young for South Beach.
Tantra, with its grass floors, marble water wall, and red and yellow décor was unique and sexy. The menu items had suggestive, aphrodisiacal names. She was looking forward to Wild Sea Bass Aphrodite with lots of veggies, including artichoke hearts. She had cut out fish and eggs, but recently began eating them in moderation. Her second job was draining and she craved the energy these foods gave her. Soon she’d quit and return to her no fish, no eggs policy. Tofu all the way.
Amanda was already situated in a booth, secluded in the back. Sophia sat down, fascinated by her spindly wrist and bony hand grasping a glass of water.
“You’re early, Amanda. I thought I’d be here first and sneak in a glass of wine. Tough day,” Sophia said as she slid onto the cool bench, grateful for a respite from the pervasive humidity.
“What’s tough about it?” Amanda snapped, her simmering anger boiling over early in the evening.
“What’s gotten into you?” Sophia, usually prepared for Amanda’s wrath, was caught off guard.
“Keith. Keith’s gotten into me.” Her eyes were volcanic. Sophia pictured the hot lava flowing down her cheeks.
“What happened?” She was going to need flagons of wine tonight. She gestured to the waiter, sexy in his tight black jeans, with long flowing flaxen hair, and confident ramrod-straight posture. He may be a dancer. Ballet? She loved dancers. He was a younger version of Kurt, down to the ice blue illuminated eyes peering into hers, waiting for an order. She’d like to order him to bed right now.
“Blue and green are such a beautiful combination,” she simpered, taking him aback.
“What?”
“I’m talking about our eye colors. They go together so well. What’s your name, blondie? I’m a sucker for blond hair in case you haven’t guessed.”
“Stephano.”
“Hmm. Are you Northern Italian? I thought you were a Viking.”
Amanda, her voice roiling with tightly contained fury, interjected, “Sophia, I have some serious business to discuss. Let the waiter do his job.”
“I’ll have a bottle of Masa, the baby Amarone.” She looked up from the wine list and winked. She couldn’t resist adding, “I’ll be enjoying watching that tightly clad ass walking away from us.”
“Sometimes I wonder if you’re a sex addict. Just kidding,” she quickly added. Amanda could never thrust without parrying in an altogether different direction. She would never win at fencing. Sophia always thought of an abused dog, angry but having to cower to avoid punishment. Amanda thrived on the passive/aggressive. She felt safe there.
“If I am a sex addict, so be it.” She had raised her voice so that Stephano would hear her as he approached with the wine.
He uncorked the wine, poured a taste into the crystal goblet, and waited for her verdict.
“Delicious,” she said, after making a show of pouring it down her throat, thrusting her head back while she tasted, and licking her lips deliberately, moistening them, before she pronounced the thumbs up.
“Pour generously, my friend,” she commanded, holding his hand down when he attempted to stop too soon for her taste. “I might as well earn the epithet wino to go with sex addict. It seems like a winning combination like our eye colors, Stephano.”
Without a word, Stephano placed the wine ceremoniously on the table and strode away.
“Keith is gone,” Amanda said, verging on the hysterical.
“What do you mean he’s gone? He’s ten years old.”
“I know he’s ten. He’s my fucking son. He ran away. Last night.” Amanda looked like she wanted to tear her hair out.
“What happened?”
“The usual. Nothing out of the ordinary. But I told you how anxious he is. I finally made an appointment with a psychologist. A stranger. No one we know. Maybe that scared him off.”
“I don’t know what to say.” Sophia took a big swallow of a wine that deserved better. “Have you called the police? Do they make you wait twenty-four hours?”
“Yes. They’re looking. No they don’t make you wait. It stands to reason that the sooner you look, the better.”
“Do you want to go look now? I’ll go with you? Do you have any ideas?”
“You eat first. The police are looking and I’ve looked night and day.”
“Have some of this excellent wine. I insist. You need a little relaxation. It’s not fattening. Not one glass.” She gestured for the intimidated waiter and asked for a second glass.
When he came back with the glass, she ordered the sea bass and insisted Amanda have something. Amanda settled for a plate of stir fried vegetables.
While Amanda was picking at her veggies, Sophia unashamedly attacked her fish with gusto.
“Let’s have a little dessert. Split something?” Sophia coaxed after the dinner plates were cleared. Sophia had polished off most of the wine and now craved an Amaretto with her espresso and flan.
Amanda’s glare chastised her.
“No dessert then. I know. I should call Jack.”
“No. Let’s just go and look around. Maybe later.”
They hurried out into the night, which now felt dangerous, a runaway ten year old could be in all sorts of danger. The possibilities were endless.
As they roamed from street to street, they peered down allies, scrutinized suspicious-looking buildings, and generally searched for children, none of whom were out this late.
“It’s not like London or New York where pedophiles are out in their areas. South Beach is small. Gays may be out in full force, but the depraved are more hidden.”
“Pedophiles?” Amanda screeched.
“I’m just saying…I do think we should call Jack,” Sophia pressed. She really wanted to call Maria. She would know what to do!
Sophia had an epiphany right there on Espanola Way near the deserted, ill-lit Feinberg Fisher Elementary School, looming shadowy and ominous in the nighttime gloom.
“Listen.” She grabbed Amanda by her scrawny shoulders, her stringy unkempt hair limp, and shook her. “Remember that big story about the homeless colony under the Julia Tuttle Causeway? The sweeping beauty of the causeway traversing the sparkling water to Miami Beach while underneath lurks the monstrous ugliness of a myriad of pedophiles mingling with the other homeless? Miami Herald drama and hyperbole. I remember the article. That’s where he is!” She pointed towards the mainland like a pointer targeting his master’s prey.
“Isn’t that a stretch?” Nevertheless, Amanda’s eyes lit up with hope.
“Call me psychic.” She dug out her phone, noticing many missed calls from Maria and Ma. What were they getting hysterical about? She didn’t have time to think about that. She breathed a sigh of relief when Jack answered.
“Jack, I can’t explain. Keith ran away yesterday. Amanda and I are in South Beach on Espanola by Feinberg Fisher and we need you to get us to the causeway. Under the causeway. We’ll meet you on Washington and Espanola. Bring your gun and hurry.”
“He’s on his way.” Sophia told a wide-eyed Amanda.
Thirty Eight
Maria was frantic. Sophia wasn’t answering. She needed to speak to her. To share the horror. She’d witnessed plenty of murders, seen countless corpses, and done her fair share of killing. But nothing that prepared her for this ritualistic slaughter. Gouged out eyes, a carved-in-flesh bloody swastika. Shit, it was creepy. She tried Sophia again. When it went to message, she disconnected. What kind of message could she possibly leave?
Remy reminded her of his existence when he began wriggling in her jacket pocket. She unlocked the back room and tossed him in, returning with some cheese pieces and water and an aluminum turkey pan, which she hoped, but d
oubted, he would use as his toilet. She vaguely remembered someone telling her rodents preferred fruit and nuts. Tough. If he’s hungry, he’ll eat cheese. She locked the door carefully. If Gloria was anything like her namesake, the man-eater, she would be a mouse-eater.
She was pacing and peeing. Nerves made her pee. Just as she sat down with a drink and smoke after her fifth trip to the john, an insistent knock at the back door made her jump.
“Who the fuck could that be?” she asked an alerted Gloria. “Sometimes I wish you were a dog and you barked,” Maria looked down fondly at the little princess whose sharp ears, tinged translucent pink on the delicate inside, were pricked up at full alert.
Together, they went to the door. Maria, brandishing her aromatic cigar, flung the door open. She welcomed a distraction.
A tall lanky man with shaggy blond hair, piercing blue eyes, and milky skin, which looked like it was never exposed to sunlight, an irresistible smile on his face, dressed in pale blue denim, a glorious compliment to his eyes, and scruffy tan desert boots, greeted her with a cheery British hello.
“I’m Jonathan Constable. MI6.” He produced his badge and credentials, which Maria carefully examined. “I wonder if I may come in.”
Maria stepped aside, letting him in. She led the way to the cluttered living room. She held up her drink, miming, “Want one?”
He nodded yes and took out a pack of black Balkan Sobranies as he seated himself on the shabby leather chair across from her seat on the couch, her drink at hand on the coffee table.
Maria returned from the impromptu bar with his drink. She eyed the Sobranies, elegant thin gold-tipped black cigarettes.
“I had a dear girlfriend who smoked the multi-colored ones,” Maria said, a pained look crossing her face. “Haven’t thought of those in ages.”
“I take it, it was not a happy ending?”
“What? Oh no it wasn’t. It ended badly.” She looked at him suspiciously.
“I was here about a week ago looking for you and encountered a delightful ginger haired woman. We had a nice chat.” He lit up and inhaled deeply before releasing a steady stream of smoke through his nostrils.
“Oh? She never mentioned it.” Maria flashed on the two of them rolling around in the bed. That Sophia was a sex pistol.
“I neglected to tell her I was looking for you. I just came upon her basking in the sun by the bay like a contented cat. I felt no need to disclose my business.”
“Do you always use back doors?”
“Whenever I can, dear lady. Whenever I can.” He winked at her.
She bridled. The sexual innuendo, his cavalier attitude, and plaguing visions of Sophia and the Brit alone together upset the balance of her equilibrium. She couldn’t take much more after finding Rudy, murdered and mutilated.
“So what brings you here Mr. Limey secret agent?” She bent down and stroked Gloria, who was lounging at her feet, for reassurance and as a way to put the brakes on. She wanted to lunge at this pretty boy and cause some damage.
Completely unruffled, Jonathan answered, “Your chum Mousey pointed me to you. You were CIA mates and I told her about my dilemma. She and I buddied up behind the scenes on different cases. Invaluable that. Having a CIA insider when the need arises. I end up travelling to the States quite often. They give me the total crap cases. Impossible to solve. Codswallop. My age. I’m always treated as the initiate.”
His glass was empty and she obligingly brought the bottle over to him and free poured.
“Ta,” he said, lighting up another stylish stick.
“So why me? What’s going on? I’m long gone from the agency. I’m a massage therapist now.” At this rate they’d be here all night.
As if he’d read her mind, he said, “I won’t take up much more of your time, Maria. Mousey gave me a few particulars about you and you’re my man in South Florida by the sounds of it.”
“Man?” Maria arched an eyebrow.
“Man. Woman. Doesn’t make a difference to me. In a nutshell, we’ve fallen into some generous funding from an anonymous private agency seeking to reopen some compelling World War Two cold cases. This particular case I’m working involves Germany, France, and England, and, now, the States, and a serial killer, deeply deranged, who left a message carved into each of his victims. Ten in all that we know of. He killed over the course of ten years. Maybe one a year? I haven’t checked into those details yet. Can’t be sure on that point. Nineteen forty-four to nineteen fifty-four. The case is no longer cold because either he or a copycat struck again last month in Pittsburgh. He killed number eleven. Probably a copycat because the original man would be quite the codger. The victim was a son of Alois Brunner, a vicious, unrepentant SS-Hauptsturmfuehrer, in charge of rounding up Jews from Drancy, a ghetto in Paris. Eichmann considered him his right hand man. Believe it or not this Brunner was CIA after the war until he moved to Syria to instruct them in efficient torture methods.”
Maria’s heart was pounding. “Describe the bodies.”
“A clean shot between the eyes, eyes gouged out, and a small swastika carved into the belly.”
Maria’s cigar tumbled out of her mouth onto the cat’s fur. She hastily retrieved it. “I just found that body. A junkie pimp who also rented himself out as a clown. Looks like victim number twelve.”
“I’m gobsmacked. Coincidence comes calling. Did you call anyone? How did you leave the body?”
“No. A trannie across the hall let me in and saw the body. I flashed my defunct CIA badge and chased him off. I left the body intact. I wore gloves.”
“I’m curious. How did you come to be there?”
“He was threatening a friend – this woman you met here in fact- whose mother was involved with him and I was going to warn him off.”
“Stranger and stranger. Several clues led us to Miami Beach. But this is astounding. We’re in synch with the killer. Why was he threatening Ginger?”
Maria stood up, a bit shaky on her pins, found the address and handed it to him.
“It’s a long, complicated story.”
He copied the address onto the back of one of his business cards and handed Maria another. “Call me day or night. I’ll be in touch. Regards to Ginger.” He rose swiftly, extinguished his Sobranie in the ashtray, shook her hand, and was out the back door in a shot, like a fleeing bat rousted from its cave.
Maria, mouth slack, clutching his card, sat back in a semi-stupor, nevertheless wondering if that was a lascivious smirk when he mentioned Sophia.
Thirty Nine
Max and Mathilde were sleeping, wrapped in each other’s arms, post-coital bliss written all over their serene slack faces.
A contemptuous Ada, wrapped in a red and yellow kimono, towered over them, watching them, taking it all in, before thundering, “Wake up Max. I’m in trouble. Help me. Help me.”
“Schweig,”Max said, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, disoriented and confused by Ada’s presence. “Go in the living room. I’ll come out.” He was waking up quickly now, aware that having these two women together in his bedroom was not a good idea. Might be incendiary. “Shoo.” He gestured that she should leave the room with a sweeping dismissive motion of his hands.
A sleepy Mathilde, bewildered by Ada’s presence, gaped at her wordlessly.
“Vos iz mit dir?” Max asked when he emerged from the bedroom wrapped in a plain white terry robe.
“Rudy is gone. He didn’t come when he said. He didn’t call. He doesn’t answer. Hours and hours.” She covered her face, wet with tears, with her delicate hands. “He must be dead.”
Max placed a reassuring hand on top of her head. “He’ll be back. Maybe a new boyfriend?”
Ada’s head shot up, dropping Max’s comforting hand. “Never. A boyfriend before me? Nein. Nein. Nein.”
“New sex? Maybe you don’t come first then,” Mathilde was talking before she appeared, her customary shriek flying out from the bedroom. She was dwarfed in Ada’s gold and emerald green kimono, the one Max wa
s last wearing in Ada’s apartment. Her high-pitched voice, like an all-encompassing siren, was grating to Ada’s ears. Her get up was making Ada increasingly irritable.
“Sex for Rudy?” Ada snorted. “It’s over fast. A suck, a hand, a hole in the toilet stalls. I come first. I’m so much more to him.” She forgot her irritation while emphasizing their special relationship. Now it came roaring back, ferocity in her voice.
Mathilde was blown over by Ada’s stormy anger.
Max grabbed Mathilde by the elbow, sidestepping the overflowing folds of the kimono, and ushered her into the bedroom. “Stay in the room, take a shower, get ready. We’ll go soon.” When she tried to protest, he put a hand over her mouth, closing the door firmly behind him.
“A koorvah,” Ada snapped dismissively.
“Schweig,” Max admonished her again. “Don’t get hysterical. You called?”
“I told you I called.” She started to cry again. “He’s dead. I know it. I feel it in my bones.”
“You have the address? We’ll go. Maybe he’s hurt. Maybe someone killed him.”
“Of course I have the address. I know the address. But I never go to his place. He always comes to me.”
“I’ll send Mathilde home and we’ll go.” He went into the bedroom to dress.
“Oy. Rudy, wo bist du?” Ada was crying in earnest now. Great heaving sobs wracked her body. Snot was running from her aquiline nose. She was about to start tearing at her hair when Max and Mathilde came into the living room, dressed and ready to go their separate ways.
Three heads turned when they heard heavy footfalls on the creaky stairs and a resonant voice boomed out, “Ma? Are you in the house? Ma? Ta?”
They looked at each other.
“It’s the bucher,” Ada said.
“Aah,” Max said. He looked at Ada knowingly.
“Who?” Mathilde asked no one in particular.
Max hurried to the door, opened it, and shouted, “Down here, Maria.”
Time's Harlot: The Perils of Attraction, Seduction, and Desire Page 15