“Honestly, Manny, it’s been a while since I was transported anywhere, by a book or anything else. I’m pretty much a here and now kind of guy. And to tell you the truth, I’m much better at getting information from people than from books. But that’s a discussion for another day. Tell me what happened, and then I’ll fill you in on my day.”
“Of course. The Society Library was my last stop of the day. No one else at any of the other libraries recognized the man in my photograph. But when I showed the photograph to a woman at the Society Library, her eyes lit up. She said it looked very much like a man who had been in earlier in the week. She said that he inquired as to where the magazine room was and she gave him directions. She said he was there a little over an hour.”
“She’s sure it was him?” I asked, as the waitress plopped our burgers, surrounded by heaps of fries, in front of us.
“As sure as she could be. You know how these things are, Charlie Floyd. Witness identification from photographs is not very reliable. However, she also described him physically as on the small side, slim, with a very muscular build. She said he reminded her of a gymnast named Bart Conner. I looked him up on the internet and she is right. Francis Hoyt does bear a remarkable resemblance to the former American gymnast. I am certain that was our man.”
“So now we know for sure he’s up here.”
Manny nodded as he bit into his burger, the juice spilling onto his plate. “It is only a first step, but it is a step in the right direction,” he said, wiping his face and hands with a napkin.
“Did you find anyone in the magazine room who recognized him?”
“I am afraid I did not. But this means that Francis Hoyt is already researching his potential targets. I am afraid there is no way of knowing precisely what magazines he read, but I made a list of all the relevant magazines in the room. Now I will find a local library and read through all of them to see if I can discern some kind of pattern which will tell us where he plans to target his criminal activity.”
Manny popped a couple of fries, dipped in ketchup, into his mouth, as if rewarding himself. He’d been successful and he was proud of himself. There was something almost cute about that. He was taking all this so personally that I couldn’t help but start to make it personal myself. And the more personal it became, the more excited I became. What was it Sherlock Holmes used to say? The game’s afoot, right? Well, now this definitely felt like it had legs.
As we finished our burgers and fries I told him about my day. We agreed we’d made pretty good progress for the first day out. As I drove us home I couldn’t help wondering what Hoyt was doing and where he was at that very minute. Had he already pulled his first job up north? Or was it still in the planning stage?
When we got back to my place we sat at the dining room table figuring out our next moves. And I don’t think that smile ever left Manny’s face.
Manny Perez
Criminals are creatures of habit. Criminals adhere to patterns. Some patterns are quite simple, as is often the case with the criminal himself. Other patterns are far more complex and therefore more difficult to ascertain. The patterns of Francis Hoyt were difficult because he, having a very brilliant criminal mind, is aware that he has patterns and that if those patterns are discovered, his criminal career might well be brought to an abrupt end. And so he is very aware that his best defense is to be unpredictable. And yet he is human and therefore he cannot help himself from developing distinct patterns of behavior. To function successfully he must find methods that work to his advantage, methods that end in his reaching his goal: to take from people what is rightfully theirs. By taking from others he enhances himself, not just financially but emotionally. As a result, his patterns, and he does have them, are more difficult to expose. Sometimes, with a man like Francis Hoyt, it is his unpredictability that becomes predictable. Unfortunately, unpredictability is impossible to anticipate but it can and should always be factored into the equation.
The job of a detective is to uncover these patterns, make sense of them, and somehow disrupt them so the criminal is apprehended or forced to improvise. With improvisation comes the distinct possibility of error.
Francis Hoyt is as nimble in his thinking as he is on his feet. Nevertheless, he is human and to be human is to err. It was up to Charlie Floyd and me to get to know Francis Hoyt better than he knows himself. In effect, we would become Francis Hoyt and by becoming him we could perhaps anticipate his next move. And if we could not anticipate, perhaps we could, as the Americans say, “throw him off his game.” As Charlie Floyd would say, “shake his world up a little bit.” We would turn his world upside down and he would fall out.
To that end, as Charlie Floyd and I sat across from each other at his kitchen table, having just returned from dinner, I asked my new partner if he could get the states of Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey to provide us with a list of the high-end break-ins in the past two years that could possibly have been the work of Francis Hoyt.
“That’s not going to be so easy, Manny. Remember, I’m no longer one of the boys. I’m just a regular civilian. Any help I get would be totally unofficial. What Georgie did for me was out of friendship. Something like this would mean a lot of man hours, and I’m not sure I could ask him or anyone else to go that far to help us out. But how about you? You could probably make an official request to the attorney generals of all three states through the Miami Police Department.”
This was a question I was hoping Charlie Floyd would not ask. There was a problem, a problem I had not informed him about. Was this the time? Would he understand? Or might it lead to the end of our collaboration?
“Is there something wrong with that?” he asked, cocking his head to one side, an indication to me he very well knew that something was amiss.
Charlie Floyd is a good investigator. Good investigators know when someone is lying, or holding something back. It might be a slight change in the tone of voice, an unexpected silence, a shift of the eyes downward, telltale body language. I suspect at that moment it was quite possible I was guilty of all those telltale signs.
“You’re not telling me something, Manny. I’ve done this long enough to know.”
He had me. I knew he would. I would have been disappointed if he had not. He reached out and touched my arm. I saw the same thing in his eyes that I saw in my father’s eyes when as a child I had done something wrong and my mother expected him to punish me. It was something he did not wish to do because he hated even the idea of inflicting pain, but knew he had to. That is the same look I saw in Charlie Floyd’s eyes. Compassion. Understanding. Resistance.
“Give,” he said and so that is exactly what I did.
Charlie Floyd
You want to know our dirty little secret? Cops lie. They lie to perps. They lie to their superiors. They lie to their wives. They lie to their kids. They lie to other cops. They lie to themselves.
In other words, they’re no different from anyone else.
You work in law enforcement long enough you become cynical. That’s not a maybe that’s a certainty. You believe nothing. You trust no one. Everyone is guilty till proven innocent, not the other way around. You have to think that way. Otherwise you could never do your job. I know it’s not the way it’s supposed to be, but when you get down to it, our job is to prove you innocent. If we can’t, then chances are you’re the one we’re looking for. This attitude can’t help but spill over to the rest of your life. Your family becomes the enemy. If no one’s innocent until proven innocent, then the default setting is that everyone is guilty, which means everyone is lying to you. That mindset might make you a good cop, but it sure doesn’t make you a good family man. You look at your wife and kids as liars and probable wrongdoers. Believe me, no good can come of that. I don’t think about it much, but it’s probably what did in my marriage and resulted in an estrangement from my kid.
At that moment, sitting across the kitchen table from Manny, I knew something was off. I didn’t know exactly what i
t was, but I knew it was something. Either Manny was holding something from me or he’d lied about something. It was so many things. His eyes, for instance. He’s someone who looks you right in the eye when he’s talking to you. It’s his way of forcing you to interact with him. But at that moment his eyes were cast down. He was staring at a spot on the table. And at one point he picked up a napkin and started trying to wipe the spot clean. Not only was he avoiding my eyes but he was trying, unconsciously I’m sure, to take my attention away from the direction the conversation was headed.
These are the tip-offs. They’re there. You just have to pick up on them.
I figured I should put him out of his misery.
“You might as well come clean, Manny, because you know sooner or later you’re going to have to spill the beans.”
He looked up from that spot and made eye contact again. I had him. I knew I was about to get the truth.
“You remember, Charlie Floyd, how I did not answer when you mentioned something about the Miami Police Department paying my expenses.”
“I do.”
“For that, my friend, there is a good reason.”
“And that would be?”
He hesitated. He bowed his head. I could see this wouldn’t be easy for him. He was ashamed. Of what, I was about to find out. But first I had to reassure him. Not because I thought of him as a suspect I was interrogating. Not because I was trying to break him down to get to the truth. But because he was a friend. I don’t have that many but I now considered Manny to be one of them. And more than that, we were now partners, which in a sense made us as close as two human beings can be. That’s not something you want to admit to your wife or your lover or your kids, but it’s true. When you’re in law enforcement, a partner is someone you must trust with your life. It doesn’t get any closer than that.
“Manny, whatever it is, believe me, I’m not going to think any less of you. Unless, of course, you’ve murdered someone. And maybe even then, depending on who…”
He laughed, but it was one of those forced laughs. A laugh to break the tension. A socially obligatory laugh, because he was obviously not in a jovial mood.
“No, Charlie Floyd, I have not murdered anyone. Not today, at least.” He forced another laugh.
“Then what is it?”
He cleared his throat. He tapped his fingers on the table. Finally, digging deep inside his psyche, his head bowed, the words came tumbling out.
“I am on suspension.”
He said it so quickly that it came out as one word. “Iamonsuspension,” is what it sounded like. Nevertheless, I got it.
“You. Suspension?” I couldn’t help myself. I laughed. I laughed because the thought of Manny doing something that would result in a suspension was indeed a joke. Now if it had been me, well that would have been something else. But Manny Perez? It just didn’t make sense. So, I laughed.
Manny, his eyes still cast downward, shook his head back and forth.
“I am afraid it is not a laughing matter, Charlie Floyd.”
“I know. And I’m sorry. It’s just that the idea of you doing anything that would get you suspended is really kind of laughable. What the hell was it?”
“I am very much embarrassed, Charlie Floyd.”
“I can’t imagine there’d be anything you should be embarrassed about. Hey, you’re talking to Charlie Floyd, the man who’s probably broken every rule there is and probably a few there aren’t.”
He lifted his head and stared at my face, his deep brown eyes boring through me, fixing me solidly in place. It was as if I couldn’t move even if I’d wanted to. Manny was about to confide in me. With his eyes, he was bonding me to him. I would know his secret and it would be a secret I would keep. It would be our secret. Why? Because for this moment in time I was Manny and he was me. Before this we were two professionals working on a case. But now we were something a lot more. We were partners.
“But I do not believe, Charlie Floyd, that you have ever been suspended.”
“True, but only because I’ve been damn lucky. And because I’ve been smart enough to avoid anyone finding out what I’ve done. Give,” I said, offering him no choice. He couldn’t go back now. The toothpaste was well out of the tube.
“I was assigned to the burglary division and so it was my job to investigate high-end robberies. As I’m sure you are aware, we have many, many wealthy people in Miami Beach and Fort Lauderdale. As a result, men like Francis Hoyt, men who take what does not belong to them, are attracted to the homes of these people. Several of these mansions had been burglarized within in the same two-week period and I knew it was the work of Francis Hoyt. But I could neither prove it nor could I find him. And then one day an anonymous tip came in. From whom, I still do not know. Most likely, it was from someone who held a grudge against Francis Hoyt. A former business associate, perhaps. Someone who felt aggrieved and wished to get back at him. The tipster told me that I could find Francis Hoyt at a motel in West Hollywood, just off Collins Avenue. And so, I traveled up there to find him and bring him back to Miami for questioning.”
I knew what was coming and it wasn’t pretty.
“Let me guess. You didn’t inform the local cops and you probably didn’t inform your bosses either, which means you didn’t have a warrant or probable cause.”
He nodded.
“There’s more, though, isn’t there?”
“Yes, Charlie Floyd, I am afraid there is more. You must remember, Francis Hoyt was my white whale. I became obsessed with him. Even my wife, Esther, could see that I was not the same man I was before Francis Hoyt entered my life. He was all I talked about, all I thought about. I could not let him get away with what he was doing. And I knew he was not finished. It was much too early in the season. There were too many other people to steal from, too many other houses to break into. When I received the tip that he had checked into that motel in West Hollywood, I went up there on my own, with no backup, with no official authority.
“I arrived at the motel, a rundown horseshoe-shaped building across the street from ocean. It was a wreck, but it was just the kind of anonymous place Francis Hoyt would most likely choose. I confronted the desk clerk and asked if a man named Francis Hoyt had checked in, knowing full well that he would not have been foolish enough to use his own name. But much to my surprise he had used a variation of it, registering as F. Harold Hoyt. A fiction, of course, since Francis Hoyt has no middle name.
“I showed the desk clerk my badge. He did not realize I was not with the West Hollywood Police Department and I did not enlighten him otherwise. I asked for the room number. I lied and told him I had the authority to enter the room. He gave it to me, of course, along with a passkey I had requested.”
Manny hesitated a moment. He cleared his throat. He was getting to the hard part.
“Excuse me, Charlie Floyd, but would it be possible for me to obtain a glass of water?”
“Of course.” I got up, went to the cabinet, grabbed a glass, opened the refrigerator, took out a pitcher of water and poured him a glass. It was only when I got back to the table and handed it to him that I noted the ironic circumstance of how many times I’d done the very same thing for a suspect I was interrogating.
He took a large gulp, then a couple of sips before he put down the glass. “My mouth was very dry.”
“This isn’t easy for you, is it, Manny?”
He shook his head.
“We don’t have to talk about this now if you don’t want to.”
He shook his head again. “No, Charlie Floyd. If we are to work together to find Francis Hoyt we must be honest with each other. I would expect nothing less from you therefore I expect nothing less from myself.”
He took another sip of water.
“I made a choice, Charlie Floyd. It was not the correct choice nor was it the proper choice, but I am afraid that if I had it to do over again, if the circumstances were the same, I would most likely do it again. That is how much I wanted Francis Hoyt i
n prison and out of my life.”
I noticed beads of sweat forming on Manny’s brow.
“Manny, let me turn on the AC. It’s probably a little warm in here.”
He shook his head, picked out a napkin from the holder, wiped his forehead and said. “No need for that, Charlie Floyd. The temperature is fine. It is me who is a little overheated. I shall continue. I went to the room, knocked on the door and waited. There was no answer. I knocked again. Still no answer. And then I did something I should not have done. I used the passkey that I had been given by the desk clerk and I entered the room.”
“Without a warrant.”
“Yes, without a warrant. I proceeded to search the room.”
“You must have known that anything you’d have found would have been inadmissible as evidence.”
He nodded.
“I was not thinking about any of the right things, Charlie Floyd. I was only thinking about finding something that would help me to trap Francis Hoyt. I wanted to confront him, to face him man to man. The room, unfortunately, did not have much in it of value to me. It was small. It smelled of antiseptic and insect spray and yet I still saw cockroaches scampering into the bathroom. There was a bed that looked as if it had not been slept in, a night table with nothing on it, and a small dresser. I opened the drawers and found nothing of interest. I entered the closet and found a small bag. Excited, thinking I might have found where Francis Floyd carried the tools of the trade he used to commit his crimes, I was disappointed. I found only common, household items. A flashlight. A screwdriver. A small vial of some kind of clear solution. Drugs, I hoped, but when I sniffed it there was an alkali-like odor. I put it in my pocket. Later, when it was tested, we found it was simply a solution used for verifying silver content. I was hoping to find maps, perhaps notes pertaining to the next place Francis Hoyt intended to burgle. But there was nothing of the sort. It was as if the room had been inhabited by a ghost. Perhaps, I thought, he would soon be returning from a job and have with him the spoils of his labor. If that were to occur, I could arrest him for being in possession of stolen property. And so, I made what would become a fateful decision.”
Second Story Man Page 8