by C I Dennis
“You don’t have anything else?”
“The juice processing plant had some trace chemicals around, but it could have been anything—household cleaners, brake fluid, whatever. The people at the vending company won’t talk. We leaned pretty hard on some of them, but I suspect they’re being paid off.”
“Did you try looking in the computers at the vending company?”
“Yes,” he said. “Nothing. Believe me, we look bad on this one. The guy has a lawyer, and he’s all over us. The judge is ripshit.”
“What if I testify?”
“Sorry, but I don’t see it,” he said. “He’s free, for now. Is that going to cause trouble for you?”
“I don’t know yet,” I said.
“What kind of mess are you in, Tanzi? I got a call from a deputy named Bove. He told me about the bakery shoot-out. I stood up for you, but maybe I shouldn’t have.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
I called the hospital to check on Barbara. They had moved her out of the CCU and into a patient room, which was good. I got Vicki.
“She can’t talk to you,” she said.
“I just want to know if she’s OK.”
“Listen, mister. She don’t want to talk to you, you got that?” she said. She hung up the phone. I was getting stonewalled, or maybe she was telling the truth and Barbara had had enough of me, permanently. Either way, it was clear that I did not have an ally in her sister.
*
Sonny pulled into my driveway in a dark green Subaru Outback. I could see him looking up and down the street after he got out of his car. He obviously didn’t like doing this. I came out of the house into the heat and met him in the driveway.
“Nice ride,” I said, smiling. “I see from your bumper sticker that you support Maine Public Radio; that’s very commendable.”
“I don’t support nothin’ except my ex-wife,” he said. “I got the car from a friend who runs a funeral parlor.”
“You could be a Subaru kind of guy,” I said.
“Cheap transportation, man. Those old people move down here from up North, they suck on their oxygen tanks and die. Motherfucker only has six thousand miles on it.”
“Plus you’re saving the planet.”
“Let’s go inside, man. It’s hot, and we got business.”
I let him in, and we stood in the cool of the kitchen.
“Nice place,” he said. “You look even more like shit than last time.”
“You must have flunked out of charm school,” I said.
“I ain’t gonna lecture you.”
“Don’t,” I said. “It’s been a truly rotten week.”
“That’s what all the pill-heads say. They always have some reason that they got to have some more.”
I shook my head. He was wrong. I was in real pain.
He reached into his pocket and took out a small envelope. “I got you fifty more. After that, you’re on your own.”
“What do I owe you?”
They go for forty bucks each on the street. That’s two grand. You can give me five hundred, but that’s it, man. I ain’t getting you any more of this shit.”
I took the money from my stash and paid him. “Don’t worry so much, Sonny,” I said. “I got it under control.”
“That’s what the pill-heads say too, man.”
*
I tried Barbara’s cell, and it went to voicemail. I tried the hospital room again, but Vicki answered and I hung up. I got off the couch and turned on the TV, but it was all bullshit. If it had been two weeks ago, before I’d met Barbara, I would have already been well into a thirty-pack by now, and things would be just an acceptable blur. The pills did as good a job as the beers did, in fact, even better. I popped two of them and then took a third, just for the hell of it. After a few minutes somebody could have hit me in the face with a two-by-four, and I wouldn’t have felt it. Lilian came back at dinnertime, but I couldn’t be bothered to get off the couch, and I asked her to leave it in the kitchen and thanked her, slurring my words.
The pain came roaring back at midnight, and I got out two more of my little yellow pills. I didn’t bother to eat Lilian’s food, which was still on the kitchen counter. I called Barbara’s cell again and left another rambling message. Sooner or later she would answer. Until then I didn’t want to feel any pain, I was sick to death of pain.
WEDNESDAY
Sonny’s envelope lay on an end table next to my couch, where I had taken up residence. The packet was nearly empty—I’d hit the stash hard since the weekend. Take two pills, call Barbara, go to voicemail—repeat every eight hours. In between I’d slept badly, showered ineffectively, and eaten sporadically. However, I had done a very good job of feeling sorry for myself.
Lilian had just dropped off my lunch when the phone rang. It was Bobby Bove.
“They’re not going to charge you,” he said. “But you ought to be nicer to Thornton.”
“I’ll make sure to send him a big bouquet of roses,” I said. “Fuckhead.”
“He’s the one that made the case for you, once he understood it was you that found the meth lab. He lost his younger brother to an overdose.”
“He’s still an asshole,” I said.
“Yeah, and you can be one too sometimes,” he said.
“Sorry, Bobby,” I said. “That was out of line. I’m in a shitty mood.”
“By the way, that guy’s in Vero,” he said.
“What guy?”
“The one everybody was looking for, and then they called it off. Charles Butler. Some deputy spotted him and then found out they weren’t looking for him anymore.”
“Where was he?”
“He’s tied up at the Vero Beach Yacht Club,” he said. “Him and a kid. The deputy said they’re living on a boat. It’s called the Numb Nuts or something like that.”
“Nickels and Dimes.”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
C.J. was back in Vero, with Philip. I tried Barbara’s cell one more time, but it went to voicemail. I called the hospital, but they said she was no longer a patient. I tried the house, and it just rang with no answer or voicemail, but Barbara had to be there. I wondered if I could drive. There was only one way to find out.
*
Getting out of the BMW took a superhuman effort, even with a fresh couple of pills in me. I’d driven it to Barbara’s without incident, but steering with my left arm wasn’t easy and the rigid sport suspension made it hurt every time I ran over a palmetto leaf. What I really needed was an ambulance, with a svelte blonde nurse to dab the perspiration off my forehead.
Vicki answered the door. “She ain’t here.”
“This is important,” I said, and I pushed past her. Barbara was in the living room, sitting in a recliner with a tray across her lap. The TV was on in the background, and she switched it off with a remote. Vicki chased after me.
“She can’t talk to you now,” Vicki said. “She’s—”
“It’s OK, hun,” Barbara said. “Leave us, please. Sit down, Vince.” She motioned to me toward a chair as Vicki left the room, huffing on the way out. “She’s a little over-protective.”
“I can see that,” I said.
“So were you ever going to call me again?”
“I must have called you a hundred times,” I said. “Check your voicemails.”
“Vicki won’t let me use the phone.”
“Seriously?”
“When she’s here it’s like I’m a prisoner in my own house. You should see the crap she’s making me eat. Have you ever had a fish oil smoothie?”
“Are you feeling OK?”
“It’s a little hard to breathe,” she said. “It’s getting better. I run out of energy pretty quickly.”
“Barbara—C.J. is in Vero.”
“I know,” she said. “He’s been here twice. The first time he took the van, and some of his things. He was here this morning, too. We had a talk.”
“What did you tal
k about?”
“Nothing, really.” She looked away.
“Nothing?” I said. “Really?”
“Just some things about the house, how I was, and so on.”
“What? Why are you not telling me?” I said. “Let’s back up. Le shot you, and I killed her. She’s dead. You were almost dead. His drug business is blown into tiny pieces in Lake Wales, which is about the only good thing to happen because he’ll stop killing a bunch of teenagers. The cops were chasing him all over Florida. And you’re telling me he dropped by for some chitchat. Excuse me, but that’s bullshit.”
“There are some things I can’t talk about, that’s all.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to get into it, Vince.”
Vicki popped her head in the door. “Are you upsetting her? You’d better go on home, mister.”
“Back off,” I said, too loud.
“I’m calling the cops,” she said, and she disappeared.
“Barbara, I don’t get it. You hire me, and then you fire me. Then you hire me again because you find out C.J. has a boatload of money. And I find out where it’s coming from. And now you won’t even talk to me.”
“I didn’t get your phone messages,” she said. “I—”
“Bullshit,” I said. “I was a cop for twenty five years, remember? I can tell when people are lying to me.”
Vicki walked into the room. “The police are on the way,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’m done.” I slammed the door hard on the way out. I don’t like it when clients lie to me—it’s a waste of my time. Worse than that was that I had thought that Barbara trusted me, and it hurt that she didn’t. I eased myself back into the BMW, which felt like a leather-clad torture rack. What I should do is go home, take another two pills, and get some rest.
No. What I should do, I decided, is drive over to the yacht club and get in C.J.’s face, whether I was in pain or not. Barbara was lying to me, and I needed to find out why.
*
A young woman sat at the reception desk of the club, texting on her phone when I walked in. She looked up, and I could see by her reaction that I looked a little scary. I had tried to calm down, but my confrontation with Barbara had really made me angry. “Which slip is Mr. Butler’s boat in?” I said.
“I’m sorry but we can’t—” she began.
“Fuck it, I’ll find him.” I brushed past her, out the back door to the boat slips.
The Vero Beach Yacht Club is a small marina in the shadow of the Barber Bridge. There are only about fifty boats tied up, and I immediately recognized the Nickels and Dimes; it was in the last slip of a dock that extended directly behind the clubhouse building. There was someone aboard, too. As I got closer I recognized C.J. and he recognized me. I let myself aboard the big Riviera, clutching the rail with my good hand as I swung my legs onto the deck.
“Mr. Tanzi,” he said. “You should be resting.”
“How does it feel to be down to one wife, Butler?”
“There’s no need to be rude,” he said. I showed myself around the boat while we talked. It was practically new, or at least it had been kept in pristine shape as it showed none of the fading and wear that the Florida sun does to boats. After a few years down here the gel coat gets dried up and crackly like the shell of a sea turtle.
“So where’s the Empex money?” I said. “Offshore?”
“We can come to an arrangement,” he said. “Even if you’re above that sort of thing, there’s Barbara to think about.”
“She’s your wife, not mine.”
“Come on,” he said. “We both know better than that.”
I wasn’t going to admit I’d slept with her, but he’d scored a point. I peered down into the cabin. It was all polished teak and sleek upholstery, as spotless and comfortable as the interior of a Bentley. There was a head with a shower, a spacious galley and dining table and two double berths. A charcoal gray Lenovo laptop was open on the dining table. I eased myself down the steps and looked at the screen. It was displaying a spreadsheet. “Whose is this?” I said.
C.J. came from behind me and snapped the computer shut. “That’s Philip’s,” he said. “And now it’s time for you to get off my boat.”
“Where’s Philip?”
“He left to run an errand,” he said. He took me by the elbow on my good arm and tried to hustle me back up the steps. I was in no condition to put up a fight, and I let him lead me to the deck.
“I remember a kid about Philip’s age when I was a deputy,” I said. “He’d lost all his teeth and his face was covered with zits. He was a good student and he had a future, until he got fucked up on meth. We busted him three times, and he OD’ed the day after he got out, the third time. I went to his funeral.”
“Leave now or I’ll call the police.”
“That’s what your sister-in-law said fifteen minutes ago.”
“If you haven’t figured it out, Barbara’s playing you,” he said. “You’re not her first boyfriend. And you’re not very bright for someone in your business.”
I didn’t have an answer for that, but it didn’t matter. I had just opened one last lock, one that I hadn’t even noticed before, and I was about to step through a whole new door.
*
Roberto was home from school when I reached him on his cell. “Hey,” I said.
“Hey,” he replied.
“Do you remember when you found that program on the Johannsen’s computer? The one that got you into some kind of server?”
“Yeah,” he said. “It wasn’t necessarily a server, it was just a link to another computer.”
“We were thinking that it might be a computer in Le’s office, right?”
“Right.”
“Could it be a laptop?”
“Sure,” he said. “It didn’t have to be anything with a lot of power. The programs don’t use a lot of space.”
“So if it’s a laptop, could you get into it?”
“Probably, as long as the computer in the Johannsen house is on,” he said. “I’ll try.” I waited while he typed. I could hear the clicking of his keyboard through the phone.
“Nope,” he said. “It’s not booted up.”
“Stay by your computer,” I said. “I’ll call you in a couple hours.”
*
I now knew every landmark between Vero Beach and Tampa like it was my daily commute. The sun was in my eyes for much of the trip and every muscle and bone in my body ached, but it felt good. I’d stopped at the house and packed my gear. I had also dumped the last few OxyContin pills into my toilet and flushed them away. It was time to focus, and I was starting to scare myself. Sonny was right, I was turning into a pill-head, and that needed to stop.
I was closing in on this case, and as usual, it was about money. Most of the seven billion of us on the planet don’t have any more than a food bowl and a mat to sleep on at night, but the people who do have some money can’t ever seem to get enough.
Barbara never went to college and never found a career, but she had latched onto a cash machine. And C.J.’s mental instability had turned him into a greedy, paranoid opportunist who could rationalize owning a meth lab because it generated huge profits, whatever the danger or the social cost. If something unpleasant went on in C.J.’s life he could always assign it to his “brother”. How convenient.
But something had changed, and C.J. was now moving his money around. My guess was that it started a month ago, and Le had found out about it and decided that Barbara was the threat. The money was moving in Barbara’s direction. That was why she’d started shooting. She may have known about Barbara all along and accepted it, but she sure wasn’t going to accept getting the short end of the financial stick.
It could have been Philip doing the shooting, but I guessed it was Le, although the boy may have been along for the ride. He was definitely under her sway. He’d probably kidnapped Barbara to deliver her to his mother.
Then Barbara had
confronted C.J. and he somehow got her on his side, at least enough to where she was happy to fire me before I found out anything more. Then she overheard C.J. moving the money, and she decided to hire me again, just to hedge her bets. And then she puts up a wall.
It was reckless of C.J. to say she was playing me, but I’d pissed him off, and he wanted to hurt me. He must have thought that he was going to get away with all of this.
Not if I could help it.
*
Hawkeye was out watering his lawn in the evening heat. I parked the BMW in the Johannsen’s driveway, got out my tools, and walked up to the front door. I could see the alarm panel through a window and could tell by the red LED light that the cops had left it unarmed. Hawkeye wandered over while I worked on the front door lock, which was putting up a struggle.
“They got a spare key in one of those magnetic boxes,” he said. “Over there under the electric meter. The kid uses it when he forgets.”
I smiled. “Thanks,” I said. He waited at the door while I collected the key.
“You’re not a bank security guy, are you?” he said.
“Nope,” I said.
“Sure hope I’m doing the right thing.”
“You are. They’re drug dealers,” I said.
“Lot of that here. Lots of kids on dope. I’ll stick with my martinis.”
I opened the lock with the key and entered the dark house. Hawkeye went back to his lawn as I switched on a light and went to the computer. I booted it up and called Roberto.
“It’s back on,” I said.
“Stay on the phone,” he said. I kept the cell phone to my ear while I walked around the house. It was a mess; the DEA guys and the cops had taken it apart. The plastic slipcovers for the upholstery were piled in a heap in a corner—someone must have checked out every seat cushion. They had wanted to bust these people real bad, but they didn’t have a damn thing.
“I’m in,” Roberto said, and I returned to the computer. I watched the cursor move as he manipulated it, remotely. He opened a program and a spreadsheet appeared on the screen. At the top of it was a heading that said “EMPEX”.