The Mango Opera

by Tom Corcoran

  “Good God,” said Marnie.

  “Good,” said Carmen.

  Emilio’s scalpels had gone to war.

  Monty came out of the bedroom. “Paybacks.”

  “I hope he makes it,” said Sam. “Anglo castrati get all kinds of preferential treatment in prison.”

  “They think he’ll pull through,” said Bernier.

  “Good,” said Carmen.

  “By the way,” I said to Bob Bernier, “Carlos bragged on two things while he was waiting to pull the trigger. He implicated Palguta in Billy’s death, and he knew for certain that Kemp had killed Julia. I don’t know how he knew it…”

  “Maybe Ray admitted it after they cut off the first nut,” said Sam.

  I needed to make a call. I ducked into the bedroom. As I closed the door, I caught an inquisitive look from Monty. I looked up the number and hoped that Anselmo was back in his office. Bad luck. It rang four times and a voice-mail tape grabbed the call. Shit. Leave a message or not? As the beep sounded, I heard someone pick up the receiver.

  “Anselmo here.”

  He did not sound surprised when I identified myself.

  “What can I do for you, Alex?” The perfectly modulated voice of the legal professional. As if nothing out of the ordinary had been happening for the past thirty days.

  “A favor,” I said. “I got dragged into the periphery of the Mary Alice Noe murder case. I don’t mean to pry into your personal life, but I understand you once dated the woman.”

  This time he hesitated. “Okay, let’s say I did.”

  “She ever discuss her previous gentlemen friends?”

  “No. I didn’t appreciate that topic of conversation. My job, every minute, every day, I deal with near-term history. I prefer to deal with the future in my friendships.”

  “Did you tell her that, Mr. Anselmo?”

  This time a long wait. I looked out the window to the side yard. All of the uniforms were gone. Liska and Riley were talking. Chicken Neck still wore the bad-lavender trousers and purple shirt. He also wore a grim expression.

  Anselmo cleared his throat. “I don’t recall exactly what I told her.”

  “How about pictures in her house? Any where she’d been photographed with male friends?”

  “Yes, one. I found it upsetting, and she discarded the damned thing.”

  I made a sniffing noise, then remained silent. He knew the next question without my asking. The name he gave surprised me at first, but I realized that it confirmed a deep, almost subliminal suspicion. I thanked him and hung up. Have fun with the IRS, pal. And all your future friends.

  I slid open the window. “Detective Liska, you got a minute?”

  I met him at the porch door and ushered him toward the bedroom. Sam, Marnie, and Carmen were out in the yard. Monty sat in the chair near the fan, staring at the Pearlcorder. I was glad that he’d saved my life. I also was glad it wasn’t me who’d had to kill a man.

  “What’s up?” said Liska.

  “I need you to call Sheriff Tucker. He won’t give me straight answers.”

  “What am I supposed to say?”

  “Ask him what time he heard about Fernandez being found dead. Ask him what time he told Avery about it.”

  Chicken Neck looked puzzled, then suddenly deflated. He sat on the bed and nodded, slowly recovering his swagger, as if things were adding up for him, too. “I was just talking to Riley. I brought up the Jacuzzi Murders. That boy’s got some heavy secrets locked in his head.”

  Liska dialed a number I did not recognize. After he’d spoken with Tucker he looked worse. “Why am I a goddamned detective?” he said. “I accept Avery’s shit about Mary Alice Noe. I check out the Guthery suspect. That shrimper’d lived with the woman for months. Naturally his fingerprints were all over the place. But he also had a previous manslaughter charge. I figure that part of Avery’s story was legit. His Ray Kemp details made sense, too. I never would’ve bought the pizza…” He shook his head. “My ex-wife is gonna be pissed.”

  “You go with your gut…” I said. “Avery knew Billy was toast. We didn’t.”

  “I could tell before he said good-bye, Tucker knew how big a shitstorm would hit his department. He’ll blame the messenger.” Liska paused, then said, “He can’t fire me. I don’t work for him. What made you think…?”

  “When Sam got picked up on Sunday, was Avery the arresting officer?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I figured so, since Billy was in Miami trying to hustle Raoul Balbuena for five grand. So I wondered why Billy was worried more about reward money than covering his tracks for a murder. Then I wondered why Avery would arrest Sam on a total long shot, especially if he secretly knew that Billy was the killer. The detail that never locked tight was the GM sedan that Sam used to see parked by the Noe house. Billy’s Oldsmobile, Avery’s Buick … There was one too many GM sedans. Sam can’t tell one GM sedan from another, but Avery didn’t know that.”

  Liska shook his head. “He knew the charge against Wheeler wouldn’t hold, but he needed him cooped up and shut up…”

  “… until the Noe rap had come down solidly on the late Billy Fernandez.”

  Liska bit his lip and punched the mattress. “A nervous breakdown. He tells the wife to call me instead of 911. He confesses to crimes too old to prosecute, tells the truth about Kemp’s crazy spree, then passes off the Noe murder on his dead partner. What do you think, he went over for a piece of ass?”

  I shrugged.

  Liska rolled with the thought: “I’ll bet he raped her to get his nut, then killed her to protect his career. My old lady is gonna be pissed.”

  “Avery’s going to miss his cigars.”

  “Gonna miss his wife, too. We better go wake his ass up. You want to bring your cameras?”

  “If you say so. Who killed Sally Ann Guthery?”

  “One thing at a time,” said Liska. “What the fuck happened to your face?”

  32

  The arrest did not turn out to be a dignified, Monday-afternoon, “Let’s go now, Avery,” Murder, She Wrote affair. It didn’t come close.

  Before we left my cottage, Chicken Neck phoned the duty-desk sergeant to request that two black-and-whites and an unmarked unit meet us at Flagler and White. He specifically demanded that no one use the police radio to discuss the rendezvous. Then he asked Monty Aghajanian to use his personal car, a red Geo two-door, to scope Hatch’s house on Laird and meet us at Flagler and White. Bob Bernier opted not to join us, claiming lack of jurisdiction. After garnering for The Citizen a promise of exclusivity and first choice of any photos I might get, Marnie Dunwoody agreed to wait with Sam Wheeler two blocks from Hatch’s house. She’d get a call from Liska’s cellular the minute something happened.

  Liska drove the Taurus down White, the same route as the lightning-bolt trip I’d survived that morning. This time the pace promised fewer dents on parked cars.

  Only the two black-and-white prowl cars were waiting at Flagler.

  “Shit,” said Liska. He turned right and parked it. “I need a car at each end of the street and one with me. We don’t fucking need to be waiting around.” He got out of the Taurus, so I did, too. “Very Key West,” he said, leaning his rear on the front fender. “We got too few; they’ll send three more, we’ll have too many.”

  “Like mangoes and shampoo,” I said.

  “What the fuck is that?” snapped Liska.

  “Why am I here, anyway?”

  “You had a rough day. You don’t want to be here, walk back home. Take you twelve minutes.”

  “That answers my question?” I said.

  Liska gazed down White Street, the direction from which we’d come. His profile was that of a man freshly reacquainted with good posture, and with a chip on his shoulder. The afternoon sun had begun to work on Chicken Neck’s polyester. Sweat beads covered his upper lip, the furrows in his forehead. “I only had one wife in my life, Rutledge. You’re the one with all the dead girlfriends.”

&n
bsp; Hardball, zipper-high. “You missed my drift.”

  Liska laughed and shook his head, but was not humored. “No, I didn’t. You helped out, you want praise. It ain’t over yet, and go back six notches, Rutledge. Contrary to common gossip, Avery Hatch didn’t steal my wife. I let her slip away. You might even say I pushed her away, but she happened to slip in his direction. We never had no kids … no family, I don’t know if I was ever in love with the woman. ’Course, I didn’t foresee the outcome—that she’d wind up with a douchebag like Hatch. You think I resent it, you bet your ass I resent it. So, say I’ve got a personal stake in this…”

  “Getting back to my…”

  He turned to face me. “You got a dork ten streets away who killed a friend of yours. Then he tried to hang the beef on your buddy Sam. You want revenge? You fucking can’t have it. You’re in line behind me, and we can’t have revenge because he’s a murderer and we aren’t. The best we get, which is better than most people get, is we get to push his face up next to the fan when the shit starts to fly. Mick fuckin’ Jagger can’t get no satisfaction. We get ours, even if it ain’t of the first order. You follow?”

  “Okay.”

  “And … I’ll fucking say it,” Liska added, “I couldn’t have gotten this far without you. It’ll be my bust on your sweat. Wheeler’s, too, I guess.”

  I slapped my knee and grinned. “That’s what I wanted to hear.”

  He gave me a disgusted look. “You bastard. You get off on this?”

  I didn’t, and I didn’t want to carry it any farther. I dropped the smile. “I’m a photographer, also with a personal stake. You really want pictures?”

  “No. I want that buddy-buddy shit that worked this morning.”

  The unmarked car drove up from the direction of the Casa Marina. A black-and-white behind it.

  “My prediction.” Liska, disgusted.

  Monty cruised down Flagler and stopped his red Geo coupe. “Hatch’s Buick is in the garage,” he said. “The door is open, the car is pointing outward. The whole neighborhood smells like gasoline.”

  “Shit,” said Liska. “Plan A and Plan B down the toilet.”

  I spoke up: “Does it cross your mind, he killed Mary Alice Noe, he might harm his wife?”

  Liska nodded and looked away. “Also, if he bullshitted me about Fernandez killing Mary Alice, he might have bullshitted me about wanting to live. He could be in a mood to take himself out, and other people along with him.”

  “You figure your ex-wife’s in the house with Hatch?” said Monty.

  “Call Mrs. Sweeting on your walk-around phone,” I said.

  Liska closed his eyes, pissed that I’d thought of it first. He dialed information, then Mrs. Sweeting. The uniformed officers gathered around Monty’s car.

  Liska clicked off. “Half hour after we left, Avery came across the street, all showered and shaved, in go-to-work civvies, carrying a cold pizza. He talked her back into the house. Then he backed out and drove away, but returned fifteen minutes later and backed it in. As of right now the Buick’s still facing the street. No sign of movement.”

  “In fifteen minutes he went where?” I said. “Six minutes each direction, max, three minutes to do what he went to do. What did he need that he didn’t have?”

  “Gasoline,” said Liska. “Or the bank for cash.”

  “Either way, something’s happening. He’s not taking a long nap.”

  “We’re playing ‘Beat the Clock’ with a cuckoo bubba,” said Monty.

  Liska made one more phone call—to Marnie—then huddled the uniforms and laid down Plan C procedures. Fewer than fifteen minutes passed before Liska and I walked from Marnie’s Jeep to Hatch’s front door. An officer in a tree behind a house on Rose Street had a clear rifle shot at the door. Cruisers blocked the intersections on George Street at Johnson and Rose, and at Venetia and Bertha. An EMT van and a pumper truck had been alerted to stand ready behind the Conch Train Storage Depot over on Flagler. Two officers hid behind the wooden fence that ran the rear property line. Most of the neighbors had been shuttled out of their homes to safer turf.

  Marnie sat bravely in the driver’s seat of her vehicle, a Kevlar vest under her T-shirt. I, too, wore a borrowed vest; Liska’s service .38 was tucked into my belt. Both were covered by a Gators sweatshirt we’d found in the Jeep. One of my cameras hung from a strap around my neck.

  “Don’t press the doorbell,” Liska said firmly. “We don’t know what’s been rigged.” A digital radio in his shirt pocket was open-keyed on a noncop freak: the pseudo-SWAT team listened in. “Lemme knock, Rutledge. You stand back, over here. Jesus, the stench. If the asshole torches the place, don’t let me be a hero.” He rapped his knuckles against the doorframe. “Avery, Candygram!”

  No sound inside. Liska rapped again and tried the screen door. Unlocked. “Hey, yo, Detective Hatch,” he shouted. He held the door open. “It’s me, Liska. Wake up for the media, hotshot. Ten minutes of fame out here.”

  No response.

  Softly into the mike Liska said, “Weimer, that Buick starts to roll, take out the radiator first, then a front tire.”

  Liska rattled the handle. “Avery, you okay in there?” Locked. “You all right, Avery?” Liska pulled a key ring and tried one. The big door swung. Gas fumes poured out of the house.

  Marnie shouted, “Fire in the garage!”

  Liska pulled it shut. Into the mike, fast: “Flames in the garage. Hit the back and get her out. Take him down if you have to.” He motioned me to the side of the house away from the garage. “Don’t break a window unless you see her.”

  I slipped as I rounded the corner, landed flat on my belly, the wind knocked out of me. The camera had bounced against my chipped tooth. I stayed low and scrambled. A metal-framed window, open miniblinds, flowery curtains, dark in the room. I pulled the pistol and fitted my forefinger to the trigger. I felt wholly out of my league. Half-crouched, I pressed against the wall. Above me, a loud whoosh and a roar.

  Hell, an F-18 inbound to Boca Chica. Not part of this war.

  The window toward the rear clattered. The lower half jittered upward. Her head poked, then Mrs. Hatch’s whole body came out. I scootched and pulled her sideways as a uniform somersaulted. His feet brought the whole upper window casing with him. Broken glass flying, he didn’t give a shit. Had her like a rag doll, over the fence, out of sight in a heartbeat. Fumes out the window. Sirens from all directions. No idea where Hatch or Liska might be.

  Over my shoulder, Marnie no longer in her Jeep. Behind me, a young cop in a KWPD nylon jacket, gut crawling, gesturing toward the open window. “I don’t know who you work for, man, but I hope you’re writing this circus report.”

  Splashing. I looked behind me. A rainbow: the fire truck arcing spray. Is that how to fight a gasoline fire? Water dripped from a sabal palm next to the fence.

  Liska’s voice inside, distant, getting louder: “Avery, you don’t want that.”

  Mumbling, probably Hatch. A shout more like a bark. Breaking glass, more like dinner plates than another window.

  Louder still: “Look at it, Avery. It’s not what you need right now.”

  Sounds of scuffling. Quiet outdoors. The fire truck shut down. Inside, a door slammed. A loud whoosh. The curtains blew inward, then back out. Along with the curtains came Avery. The KWPD guy jumped and cuffed him. Out came Liska, facing upward, his arms full of garden hose, the ass of his pants on fire. He rolled across the lawn and sat in a puddle under the palm. I knew he was hurt. I managed not to laugh at the steam rising from the purple trousers.

  Liska looked at Hatch and shook his head. “The asshole shot his own Buick with a fucking flare gun. What the fuck did that prove?”

  “He’s going to miss his cigars,” I said.

  The pumper truck revved again. Marnie and a female EMT ran to Liska. I wanted to get away from Avery Hatch. I barely had the strength to stand.

  * * *

  I wished I’d eaten one of Chicken Neck’s doughnuts a
t eight-thirty that morning. On the way back to my house we stopped so Wheeler could make a munchies run into the Sunbeam. Two remote broadcasting trucks from Miami TV stations had set up on Fleming. At the house a city investigator named Straughn took my statement and the tape that Monty had recorded earlier. We consumed beer and junk food in lieu of lunch. Carmen went to meet Maria’s school bus so the little girl wouldn’t be hassled by onlookers.

  Later in the afternoon Bob Bernier called and asked for Monty. Two things: Word had been passed up the ranks regarding Monty’s heroics earlier in the afternoon. And the FBI in Miami had arrested Raoul Balbuena for complicity in the murder of Billy Fernandez. Monty called to let his wife know that his future with the Bureau looked promising. A while later he went on home. Sam and Marnie went out and rented a movie. A current-day spy-versus-spy epic with submarines and computers.

  I have no idea what time I fell asleep or how I got into my bed.

  33

  At first light I heard a car door slam. A foreign reverberation. It was not a car from Dredgers Lane.

  Or else it was in front of my house. Something alerted my sleeping mind. I no longer had protection; the police had taken Sam’s Walther. I didn’t need any more surprises. I heard a car pull out of the lane and roar up Fleming. The clock said six-forty. My head ached.

  I checked the front window. When I walked outside to inspect my Shelby, I apologized to the car for not recognizing the solid thunk of its door. As much as I could see in the half-light of dawn, everything was intact. Annie had stuck her handwritten note under the driver’s-side windshield wiper. I carried it inside to read by the kitchen light.

  Dear Alex,

  I didn’t want to wake you early. I’ve got mucho many errands in addition to packing stuff and driving back to Florida this P.M. Start new job—Pompano Beach—on Monday. Benjy Pinder batshit over my departure. The new firm wants me in office tomorrow to start health-insurance papers, Sonitrol, etc., and I need to find apartment. Don’t worry that Michael is helping me today. It is you in my heart, dear soul, but you have been through so much this past week … I will come back between 11 and 12. Hope you are home then. Yes, the balalaika belongs in Key West.