“Everything will be fine,” I assured her, then hung up and staggered into the kitchen to make coffee. No fan of the supernatural, I don’t discount anything, either. I knock on wood, toss spilled salt over my left shoulder, and say my prayers. Nothing like covering all the bases.
As a reporter in a high-tech world at the tail end of the century I seek only hard facts. But on scorching streets and in the shadows during the pursuit of life and death, certain events and people defy explanation. The young cop who awoke in a cold sweat after dreaming he was shot—and was, hours later, exactly as in his dream. The woman whose searing vision of fire terrified her into staying home next morning—the day that fire swept her workplace, killing three coworkers. Active, healthy people who suddenly know they are about to die—and do, in freak accidents or random acts of violence.
In this magic place, at sea level, at the foot of the map, we are surrounded by water, beneath the tidal pull of a huge moon in endless skies that seem lower than anywhere else in the hemisphere. The temperature soars, the barometer falls, the full moon rises, and all hell breaks out. At one time in my life I sought logic in everything. Now I know better. We are constantly bombarded by unseen radio and television signals we would never receive without the proper equipment. Now I suspect that some people, for unknown reasons, become receivers, sensitive to other invisible signals.
A year ago, my Aunt Odalys warned me to wear the red and white beads and the resguardo, a talisman she had given me for protection. I ignored her and nearly lost my life.
As the smell of coffee filled my small kitchen, I scooped the newspaper off the front stoop, still in my nightgown. The sky was hot and pink as I slid the News from its plastic sheath and began to fillet it, flinging the advertising sections into the green recycling bin without a glance.
Charles Randolphs innocent smile greeted the world from the top of the local page. I smiled back. No late-breaking news had knocked my story off local. It read well. I love perusing my stories in the morning paper, aware that half a million strangers are reading them too. I imagined them, in hair curlers, bathrobes, fighting hangovers, over scrambled eggs or bloody marys, couples still in bed, swapping sections, families at breakfast tables. I hoped the right person was reading it and would talk. My bomb follow was at the bottom of the local, beneath the fold.
The phone startled Billy Boots off my lap. I answered eagerly, hoping for Kendall McDonalds voice.
It was Lottie.
“How’d your date go?”
“Just shoot me now,” she muttered.
“What happened?”
Her romantic evening had never materialized. The Polish Prince failed to show up at the appointed hour so she had gone out to hunt him down. Cruised by his town house, his office, and prowled his favorite watering hole. No sign of the man.
“What would you have done if you spotted him?”.
She paused. “Depends,” she finally said, “on who he was with and whether or not he tried to make a run for it. But that ain’t all.”
When she finally gave up and went home, furious and sworn off the man for good, she found his business card in her door, along with a single red rose. She quickly called him, but he wasn’t home.
“A damn cakewalk of musical chairs,” she said.
“Oh, Lottie, I’m sorry. Why didn’t he call to say he’d be late?”
“Dunno. That man has got me bumfuzzled for sure. At least he didn’t think I was home waiting up for him. The question now is, who stood who up?”
We both laughed. “Did you see the paper?”
“Yeah, good story. Hope you find that young ‘un. Think he’s alive?”
“Common sense says no, after all this time, but his mother believes he is.”
“Mothers always do. You see that story in the A section?”
“Which one?” I reached for the paper.
“Wire story. Some Harvard Ph.D. says seven percent of the population is pure evil.”
“Only seven percent?”
“That’s what surprised me. Hell all Friday, why’d they all settle here?”
“What’s the breakdown on the rest of us?” I asked. “Fifty percent good and the rest undecided?”
“Don’t say here.”
I hate it when there’s a hole in a story. I sipped my coffee, a wickedly rich, hearty brew that jump-started my batteries. “My Aunt Odalys called just before you did and said something bad is sneaking up on us.”
“Maybe she’s right. I feel something in my bones. Hope I git to shoot color.”
I attended a nine o’clock church service on sun-splashed Lincoln Road Mall. As the congregation sang “safe and secure from all alarms,” a violent thunderstorm blew up, triggering blinding bursts of lightning and a chorus of wailing, beeping, and honking car alarms. The sounds reminded me of Alex and the WTOP parking lot. By the time the service ended the air was radiant, with the only sign of the fast-moving storm the flower petals, leaves, torn branches, and water strewn in its wake.
I could feel my hair curling in the sultry heat. I drove home for a quick pit stop, parked the T-Bird, and got out. A stranger waited, seated on my doorstep. A boy, slim, blond, about twelve or thirteen, shifting nervously. He looked up, his blue eyes a shade darker than the short-sleeved cotton shirt he wore with twill trousers and sneakers. I swallowed, my mouth suddenly gone dry.
“Britt?” He leaped eagerly to his feet, gangly and long-legged. “Were you looking for me?”
I stared, mouth open.
He squinted suspiciously. “You know who I am, don’t you?”
“Of course,” I said weakly, mind racing.
“She said you wouldn’t forget. You promised my grandmother you’d show me around the News and take me out on some stories with you. Well, here I am!”
He gave me the once-over with the incipient lechery of a would-be Groucho Marx. “Va va voom!” he said, stepping boldly forward to shake my hand. “Awesome. Real baaaad. I’m Seth.”
“Seth?”
An Instamatic camera hung from a leather strap around his neck and a reporter’s notebook jutted out of his back pocket. Three Pilot Explorer pens were clipped to his shirt pocket. He fished out his card.
“Seth Goldstein,” he said, handing it over. “Assistant city editor of the Eastside Junior High School Gazette in Hopewell, New Jersey.”
“Of course I didn’t forget,” I lied, and began to breathe again. “I was simply startled because you look so much like somebody I just wrote about.” What was I thinking when I made this promise? What was I drinking? Manischewitz. At a Seder, at the Goldsteins’ during Passover. A conversation began to come back to me. Smart as a whip, high IQ, a would-be journalist. Seth.
“Saw it. Today’s paper. MISSING BOY A MYSTERY. Grandma sends me all your stories. We hang them on the bulletin board in our newsroom,” he said, at my elbow as I inserted my key into the lock. Showing no signs of going away, he followed me inside, trailing behind me like a puppy. He declined my offer of a soft-boiled egg but wolfed three pieces of raisin toast and drank the last of my coffee.
Despite my warnings that it was a slow Sunday on the police beat and my suggestion that he might rather go to the beach, his enthusiasm knew no bounds.
“How often does a future journalist get the chance to go one-on-one and pick the brain of a Green Eyeshade Award winner for best deadline reporting?” he demanded, showing off that he had done his homework. “Why do you think I wanted to spend the last two weeks of my summer vacation with my grandparents?” He rolled his eyes. “This is my chance to see action with an ace street reporter for a big-city newspaper.”
“Think we’ll go to the morgue?” he asked eagerly as we drove to the office.
“Only if it’s feet first.”
One of the perks of working weekends is the nearly empty newsroom. Reaction to my story should have started coming in by now. I punched my personal code number into the phone, then, accompanied b
y Seth, all eyes, ears, and questions, went to the wire room where my messages were printing out. And printing out, and printing out. My heart swelled as the list lengthened.
I tore them off the machine, eagerly scanning the list, willing the solution to Charles Randolphs disappearance to be somewhere among these forty-eight calls.
One from my mother. I’d call her later. The Randolphs; perhaps they’d heard some news. Their line was busy twice. The third try was successful. Randolph answered, and Cassie picked up an extension. Surprised that I worked Sundays, they were grateful for the story and said their phone had been ringing nonstop since 6 A.M. No new information, just former coworkers, friends, neighbors, and total strangers, calling to offer support and sympathy.
“They all want to help,” Randolph said. “They’re asking what they can do. I don’t know what to tell them.”
A blinding flash of light stunned me for a moment and I continued to see spots, even after blinking several times. Seth was crouched in front of my desk and had just shot my picture with his little camera.
“They can be valuable,” I told Randolph, one hand over my blinded eyes. “Take names and numbers. If no solid leads come in, maybe you can ask volunteers to distribute fliers, demonstrate, or conduct candlelight marches. Anything we can think of to keep the story alive. The more exposure the better.”
“A reporter from Channel Ten wants to come over to talk to us and take pictures of Charles’s bedroom. You think that’s all right?” He sounded doubtful.
“Sure,” I said, shaking my head in warning and glaring murderously at Seth, who appeared to be focusing on me again. “But don’t let them touch anything. Now that there’s publicity about the case, the police might want to come lift prints off Charles’s books or belongings and try to take hair samples from his comb or brush.”
“But I thought it was your story.”
“All I want is to be sure that you tell me about any new developments first, right?”
“Of course, you’re the only one who would help us.”
“Any crank calls?”
He hesitated; obviously he had not intended to mention it. “A couple. Some kids called and were whimpering, ‘Daddy, Mommy, come get me.’ We could hear ’em giggling in the background. Then a young girl, a teenager, called and asked to speak to Charles.”
Kids’ cruelty amazed me, as usual. I could have cheerfully wrung their scrawny little necks. The scary part was that they may not have all been kids.
“How could they?” I murmured, as Cassie hung up to tend to something in the kitchen.
“It’s all right,” her husband said. “We can handle it. We’re thrilled that other people care and want to help. Anything that will help find him.”
“Right. That’s what counts. Meanwhile, if you get any more prank calls, say: ‘It’s them, officer,’ in a stage whisper, as though a cop is standing next to you. That’ll give ’em something to think about.”
Seth, wearing his pass from security, was pounding away on the computer terminal at Ryan’s desk. “Be careful,” I warned him. “Don’t touch a thing.”
“Man, is this system a dinosaur!” he said.
I began returning calls. A Broward County man was not interested in Charles Randolph. He had his own obsession. His mother had vanished without a trace when he was ten. Foul play was likely, his abusive stepfather long a suspect, but no charges were ever filed. I referred him to a reporter in the Broward bureau.
A Hialeah Gardens schoolteacher had no information about Charles Randolph either. She wanted me to help find her own missing person. At age forty, shy and never married, she had been swept off her feet by a handsome stranger. After a three-week whirlwind courtship, they married. Eight blissful months later he hooked his boat to his trailer and drove off for a day of fishing. That was a year ago. Unlike skeptical police, she believed he had met with an accident or foul play. I might have agreed, except that when she had tried to notify his family in San Antonio that he was missing she found that they were, too. Neither they, nor their addresses, existed. The man she married had no history, at least not in the name he had given her.
Scowling, teeth on edge, I began punching in the next number as Bobby Tubbs waved to me from the city desk. I saw the look on his face and moaned.
“They’re shooting over at the Miami Dream Motel on Northeast Second Avenue!”
“Shooting? Again? Damn!” I snatched up a notebook and my purse. Whatever happened to quiet Sunday mornings in the Magic City? “You’re sure?” I hate wild goose chases.
He shrugged. “Lottie called it in. She’s out there.”
“Shooting? Cool!” said Seth. He beat me to the elevator.
The Miami Dream Motel was wrapped like a gift in bright yellow crime scene tape, its rosy pink facade dimpled by large-caliber bullet holes. “Stick with me and try to stay out of the way,” I warned Seth.
Traffic was blocked and the building crawled with cops. Their third shooting in two months, this could cost the Miami Dream its license. In a crackdown on violence, the city was enforcing a point system against occupational licenses, as states do against drivers licenses. Points are logged for each murder, shooting, prostitution arrest, drug bust, and SWAT team raid. When they lost their licenses to operate, of course, the vacant buildings usually converted to crack houses, presenting more problems.
The motel patio resembled a blood-streaked battle-ground, with one dead and four cursing, moaning, and whimpering wounded. Looked like another skirmish between embattled Jamaican sects, country boys from Montego Bay versus city slickers from Kingston. Winners today were Miami cops, who had captured most participants too injured to run away.
This would give me a chance to review the players and update my scorecard. A Jamaican had staggered into county ER a week earlier, shot in the back and chest. He told police his name was Desmond Whitaker and that he was taking a walk, minding his own business, when a Rastafarian he knew as Dino drove by in a white Cadillac and shot him for no reason. He had survived surgery and gone to intensive care.
This could be related, I thought, scanning the street for a white Caddy.
“They’re all Rastafarians, right?” I asked Cal Woodruff, a skinny detective in a dark suit.
He looked disgusted and stared at Seth, hovering behind me, notebook and pen in hand. “Jesus, Britt, bad enough I have to put up with you. Now you’ve got a shadow.” He adjusted his sunglasses with a slight wince. Woodruff obviously would have preferred being someplace else, preferably air-conditioned, on this moist summer Sunday. “They look like Rastas, they talk like Rastas, but I haven’t met a real Rasta yet,” he snarled.
Woodruff could be right, I thought. The Jamaican Tourist Board insists that few real Rastafarians live in Miami and those who do are peaceful, artistic, and much maligned. Not everybody who wears dreadlocks is a Rastafarian.
“I fucking hate it when they get shot,” Woodruff was griping.
“So do they, I’m sure.” He ignored my remark.
“They’re lousy goddamn victims,” he said bitterly. “They never give their right names—ever. Most of ’em are illegals, but they claim to be from South Carolina. Now you know that ain’t no southern accent.” He slammed his clipboard onto the back of his unmarked car and took a pen from his pocket. “INS ain’t worth shit. And if the bastards don’t die, they disappear the minute they get outta the hospital and we can’t find ’em again.”
“A bummer when you have to hunt victims down like thieves,” I said soothingly. His voice had the same frustrated edge I had heard in Lottie’s when she recounted her pursuit of the Polish Prince.
I got to speak briefly to a sweating victim on a gurney. Bullet wounds in both legs had hampered his getaway. His name was Rat, he said, wincing, and he knew nothing. He was taking a walk, minding his own business, when he was shot. At that moment, however, a crime scene tech was photographing two guns, a mean-looking Walther semiautomatic and a Browning with a
twelve-shot clip, lying where he had fallen. Each had apparently been fired until empty.
“Who were the guys shooting at you?” I asked him.
“Ah, mon, they sell smoke … They just drive by and shoot at people.” He batted bloodshot eyes at me, trying hard to sound virtuous. “I was just walking on the sidewalk and there comes this car down the street and they just start shooting.”
“Are they mad at you?”
He stared straight up at puffy clouds overhead as he was bundled into the ambulance. “Probably.” The medic slammed the door.
“Who the hell is that?” a cop shouted.
I spun around. The dead man in dreadlocks still lay sprawled flat on his back, arms outstretched. But now, inside the roped-off area, stood Seth, straddling the body, bending from the waist, snapping the victim close up with his Instamatic.
Cops bellowed. “No, no,” I yelped. “He’s just a tourist. I’ll get him.
“Get away from there, Seth!” I insisted he step outside the yellow rope. He ignored me until he ran out of film. He was good. His face glowed. Bet his friends pay attention, I thought, when he whips out the snapshots from his Miami vacation. “What would they think of us in Hopewell, New Jersey? What will his grandmother think of me?
He was everywhere, peering over the medics’ shoulders, tailing the technicians, dogging the detectives. Never, ever give him coffee again, I told myself, as cops tried to determine which bullet holes were fresh and which had been left by the last shooting. I talked to witnesses, found Lottie, and introduced her to Seth, who was instantly intrigued by her camera equipment. She had been driving out to breakfast when the shooting call went out on her scanner.
I tried to send Seth back to the paper with her, but he insisted on going with me to the hospital where Woodruff planned to sort everybody out. Reporters are barred from the emergency room, but if I simply breeze in with the cops, wearing press ID, which from a distance resembles police ID, I often escape detection.
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