Jake Lassiter - 02 - Night Vision

by Paul Levine

  “Bobbie, you’re not a woman…”

  Great sobs racked her body. “I am, I am.”

  “You’re a man and you blame them for it, hate them for it.” She whirled and brought her hand toward my cheek. Her slim-fingered boy-girl fist wouldn’t have hurt, but it held a Miami Dolphin mug half-filled with hot tea. The mug glanced off my forehead, and the tea splashed square across my face. I yelped and hopped backward on my one good leg. My eyes were half-closed, but I sensed her bending over, and something black was in her hand. I tried to pivot, and if my left leg had held the weight, I would have dropped her with a straight left hand. But it couldn’t and I didn’t, and the leg collapsed, and as I fell without help from anyone she bashed me square on the skull. It felt like a hammer, and great gongs went off as I crumpled to the kitchen floor. I started up and she hit me again, this time at the base of the skull. The world lit up and I lay down.

  I took a futile stab at a leg as she stepped over me, and as she stepped away I saw the blurry image of her shapely calves and stockinged feet. In each hand she held a stylish black shoe with a stiletto heel.

  ***

  I was woozy but awake. I had not been out long.

  The kitchen floor was cool and sticky against my face. I looked for my own blood, would maybe send some to Nick Fox. But there was no blood. Last week’s spilled beer, tacky on my skin.

  I touched my face. Raw skin that would blister from the hot tea. I felt my head. Two bumps with round dents where the metal-tipped heel had jolted me. I pulled myself up with my good leg and totaled the score. I figured I was the first guy to be KO’d on consecutive days by Mr. and Mrs. Max Blinderman. Even if the missus was nearly a mister, it would not look good on my resume.

  The cobwebs were clearing and I picked up the phone. First I called Nick Fox, who didn’t believe me and wanted to know why the hell I hadn’t delivered my blood and my gun. I yelled at him to shut up, then told him about the hermaphroditic nature of Robert Simon aka Bobbie Blinderman.

  “You touched it?” he asked, incredulous. “You really touched it?”

  “Listen, Nick. She or he is the killer. Get somebody to the Sunset Beach Hotel right now. Pam Maxson’s suite.”

  He was still skeptical but said he would take all necessary precautions. I hate the way politicians talk.

  I called the hotel, hoping Pam Maxson was there.

  Her laugh was filled with derision. “Are you trying to tell me you just learned of her sexual identity? I find that hard to believe, though it’s not surprising she was at your house. Tell me, were you doing her or vice versa?”

  “What are you talking about? Do you think I—”

  “You and that promiscuous creature…”

  “Pam, if you’re jealous, let me assure—”

  “Jealous! Of her, of you? Do you think either of you means anything to me?”

  “Pam, listen to me. I’m trying to tell you she’s a killer. She wants to kill you.”

  “Rubbish. She’s had sadistic fantasies quite normal among transsexuals, and she’s as slutty as the rest of them, but—”

  “Pam, I’m telling you she’s coming over there.”

  “I know that. She called from the lobby a minute ago. I would expect that’s her at the door just now.”

  CHAPTER 39

  A Freak Accident

  The medical examiner’s van was angled in front of the hotel, its front tires sinking into a bed of geraniums. The van bore little resemblance to the emergency vehicles favored by police and fire rescue. There was no oxygen, no plasma, no sophisticated electronics for monitoring hearts and brains.

  There was no need.

  The state attorney’s car was pulled off the driveway under a sweet-gum tree. Nick Fox hadn’t spent four years as a patrolman without learning the first rule of survival in south Florida: never park in the sun.

  A uniformed sergeant stood guard at the suite’s double doors. He looked at my cane and at my face and let out a low whistle. Then he blocked the door and made me negotiate.

  “Let ‘em in!”

  It was Nick Fox. “Been expecting you, Jakie…” He did a double take. “Jesus H. Christ, you look like shit warmed over.”

  I looked around the room. No Pamela Maxson. No Bobbie Blinderman. “You were too late,” I said hoarsely.

  “It happens that way sometimes.”

  “Where’s the body?”

  He jerked a thumb toward the balcony. The sliding glass doors were open, and a humid breeze from the Atlantic puckered the flimsy curtains. I hobbled out. A police photographer was crouching, taking a shot of something on the concrete slab of the balcony. He was blocking my view. I stepped around him.

  A woman’s shoe.

  A black shoe with a stiletto heel cleanly broken off. The heel was jammed in the track of the sliding glass door. The rest of the shoe lay forlornly on its side near the edge of the balcony. I looked straight down over the railing, gripping it tight. One hundred twenty feet below, on the pool deck, lay a body in a black dress. The legs were splayed at an unnatural angle, and a pool of blood seeped from beneath her head and across the hard Chattahoochee. Alongside, a man in a white coat was taking photos. Another man was on his hands and knees, whisking the deck with a brush.

  “Dr. Maxson’s in the bedroom,” Nick Fox said, standing behind me.

  My eyes must have had a desperate look. “She’s okay, don’t worry. Now, before you go in there, I gotta ask you a couple questions. The other night, you were at your secretary’s place, and you had the .38, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Did the gun discharge?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did Dr. Maxson shoot the gun?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why did she shoot?”

  “To get my attention.”

  “Maybe I should try that. How many shots?”

  “One.”

  “You’re sure, just one shot.”

  “Yeah. What the hell—”

  “You ever shoot it?”

  “Never.”

  “Okay, c’mon. Let’s see your girlfriend.”

  Pam Maxson sat on the bed. She wore a double-breasted coatdress in purple-and-black houndstooth. Epaulets and padded shoulders, not your typical daytime resort wear. A female detective sat next to her, scribbling notes on a pad. The detective wore a blue skirt, white blouse, and blue jacket, and her holster was visible on the left side. Clipped to the jacket was a plastic shield with her photo and name and large black letters spelling “Homicide.” I moved closer. Her name was Sigorsky. She was short and bleached blond, but she hadn’t made it to the beauty salon in a while. She was wide through the hips, and her dark eyes walked me up and down, taking their sweet time. Her report would probably record each welt, bruise, and blister. Two other cops in uniform stood around, admiring the wet bar, every liquor under the sun in miniature airline bottles. Cops always travel in packs.

  “Jake, oh Jake, thank God you’re here. It was so awful.”

  Pam Maxson stood and rushed to me, throwing her arms around me. If she noticed that my face looked like steak tartare, she didn’t mention it. I held her. It was impossible to do anything else. I felt her tears against my neck.

  Detective Sigorsky said, “That will be all, Dr. Maxson, unless you want to add anything.”

  Pam just shook her head.

  I eased up on her padded shoulders. “What happened?”

  She shook her head again, tears streaming from her green flinty eyes.

  “A freak accident,” Sigorsky said.

  Behind me Nick Fox chuckled. “A freak’s accident is more like it.”

  The detective continued: “Dr. Maxson was treating the subject for psychological disorders related to her…or rather, his sexual-identity confusion. Did I get that term right, doctor?”

  “Gender-identity disorder. Possible schizophrenia.”

  “Maybe he wasn’t used to walking in those high heels,” Sigorsky said. “Lord knows, I have trouble
with them; maybe he wasn’t watching and he stepped in the door track, the heel broke, he fell forward and flipped over the railing.” Sigorsky shrugged and smiled a rueful smile. “We’ve had some of those spring-break college kids go off balconies, but usually they’re trying to climb from floor to floor when they’re all liquored up. Now a shoe does it. I tell you, it gets weirder every day.”

  I heard Charlie Riggs’s voice. Accident, suicide, homicide, and natural.

  Pam gathered herself and sat down again. Nick Fox came up and nudged me. “Hey, Jakie, know a good lawyer, maybe sue the shoe manufacturer, or the hotel, eh?”

  I ignored him.

  “Too bad the little jockey won’t be around to collect the settlement,” Nick continued.

  “What’s that mean?” I asked. “What happened to Max?”

  “Nothing till the grand jury meets Monday. Then I’d say he’ll be indicted for Murder One, just like you said.”

  “No. I was wrong. Bobbie did the killing.”

  “Jakie, shut up and take some praise. You ain’t gonna hear it for long. You were right the first time. Old Max couldn’t handle Bobbie’s flings. He’d tail her, wait around, and just after she left, he’d go to the door, knock, and imitate her voice. He’s pretty good at it, if you want to hear. Then he’d push his way in. With that jockey’s quickness, he was on them in an instant. Manual strangulation. When he came over here and saw his so-called bride like that, he just broke down. Said he wanted to talk. Confessed to killing the Rosedahl girl and Prissy. He’s in a room down the hall giving a sworn statement right now. We Mirandized him ten ways from Sunday, but he refused a lawyer. Wish they were all like that.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Don’t worry, Jake. You’ll get the credit for breaking the case. It may help you.”

  “But Bobbie…her poetry. It cried out with her guilt.”

  Pam Maxson was shaking her head. “Oh Jake, that’s the problem with laymen thinking they’re analysts. The poetry expressed her psyche’s guilt, her confusion about her sexual identity, but had nothing to do with her actions. Fantasies, Jake, nothing more.”

  Now they both looked at me. Why was I so out of it? But something else was bothering me now. Sometimes, my brain rolls a thought around like a chrome pinball, bouncing off the bumpers before finding the hundred-point socket.

  “What did you mean, Nick, it might help me?”

  “With the judge, Jakie. One of the crime-scene boys found a Smith and Wesson bodyguard .38 in the bushes outside Rodriguez’s house. Blue steel with the checkered walnut stock. Three bullets still in the cylinder, two fired. Serial number matches the gun assigned to you, my friend. The gun had two sets of latents. Want to know whose?”

  I already had a pretty good idea, but Nick just kept going.

  “One set matched Dr. Maxson’s, who was kind enough to lend us her pinkies.”

  She looked at me. “A dicey situation, Jake. They asked me not to tell you.”

  “One set matched yours,” Fox said, “which we took when you were sworn in. We dug a .38 caliber bullet out of Alex’s bed. Ballistics fires the gun, and guess what, it’s the murder weapon. Are you with me, Jake, or you want I should slow down?”

  I just glared at him, and he continued: “Now we know that Dr. Maxson fired only one shot. Who fired the other one, Jake?”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Where were you yesterday, Jake?”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “Okay, I’ll tell you. In the morning, you were in this very hotel suite, and at about eleven you caused a hell of a scene out front when you got your clock cleaned by a shrimp who used to ride the ponies at Hialeah and for the last few years pretended to be married to a broad with a dick. From there you went to Mercy Hospital for X-rays, but you were out of there by twelve-thirty. You didn’t get to your office until two o’clock, spent maybe twenty minutes there, and got to Rodriguez’s house at about three, when you called me upon allegedly finding the body. That about right?”

  “Yeah, what of it?”

  “ME says Rodriguez was shot between noon and three, most likely around one p.m. Where were you, Jake?”

  “Home changing clothes. I try not to mix blood and plaid in the office.”

  “Great. Somebody corroborates that, you’ll beat the rap.”

  “I live alone. Not even a parakeet. You know that. I’ve got no witnesses. Look, somebody must have stolen the gun from Cindy’s place. Go pick up Tom Cat. C’mon, Nick. I didn’t kill Rodriguez, and you know it. Why would I kill him?”

  Fox showed me his wise, political smile. “You and Rodriguez were rivals in the investigation. I’d seen you argue, myself. You both sought my approval, wanted to be my right-hand man in the new administration…”

  “What new administration?”

  “Don’t you read that daily fish wrapper? I announced yesterday for governor, Jakie.”

  “Sorry, I been busy killing detectives, fell behind on my current events.”

  Fox gave the cops his sad, tolerant look. See what I have to put up with. “Still the wise-ass, aren’t you? I should take you in right now, Jakie. Call a press conference. Your pals at the Journal have been mighty friendly ever since I leaked the story on Compu-Mate. But considering your clean record, if you’ll agree not to leave town and to let me know at all times where you are, and I mean call my office every hour, I’ll wait. Who knows, maybe the grand jury won’t indict. Maybe they’ll think some phantom stole your gun and killed the guy that stood between you and your career goal.”

  “Are you fucking insane? You’re setting me up, you phony bullshit artist. My career goal? Shining your shoes in Tallahassee, reminding you to zip up when you come out of the john. What the fuck is going on here?”

  I stepped toward him. The two deputies had some quickness for guys who had a liter of booze in their pants, all in three-ounce bottles. Each grabbed a wrist. But there was nothing wrong with my arms, and I shook one off the left and used it to hook the other one in the gut. He wheezed and fell back. I wobbled toward Nick, who had drawn his weapon from a shoulder holster.

  I stared down the barrel of his service revolver. It looked like a cannon. Then I saw his face. He was ready to squeeze. I was a problem for him, just like Lieutenant Evan Ferguson, and in a second I could be just as dead. I wondered if he would see my face in his sleep. I put my hands over my head.

  “Now, we could tack on simple assault and resisting arrest with violence if we wanted to,” Fox said, “but I’m cutting you a break, Jakie. Stay out of trouble over the weekend, and I’ll be in touch. Remember, I’m your friend. Maybe I can even come up with a way to help you out. Maybe I can still teach you.”

  “Teach me what, you miserable fuck?”

  He smiled. So wise, so kind. “To keep your ass down, Jakie. Before it gets shot off.”

  CHAPTER 40

  The Source

  Friday came and went. It was a day of oppressive heat, and I lay in the hammock strung between live oak and chinaberry trees in my backyard jungle of overgrown weeds and bushes. I wore canvas shorts and nothing else and let the sweat trickle down my chest as I thought it over.

  And over.

  They had it nailed down pretty good.

  Item one: Max kills Mary Rosedahl and Priscilla Fox. No doubt there. In tortured mourning, Max spills his guts.

  Item two: Bobbie trips over the raised track of the sliding door and cartwheels to the pool deck. Clumsy in those high heels, the lady detective said. But I had seen Bobbie gliding through life on four-inch sticks, and they suited her like fins on a fish.

  Item three: An envious lawyer named Jacob Lassiter uses his government-issued .38 to kill a homicide detective, then conveniently drops the weapon in the bushes. Oh, come on, good and true citizens of the grand jury, you will see through that malarkey, won’t you? No. Because a grand jury is the tool of the prosecutor, and if one of those eighteen faithful citizens asks the question, smiling Nick Fo
x will be ready.

  “It was not a carefully planned execution,” Fox will say. “Perhaps they argued, Lassiter becomes enraged. He is a former football player prone to sudden violence. You have heard the testimony of Dr. Maxson and Mr. Carruthers as to his propensity for unprovoked aggression. Without warning, Lassiter shoots his rival for a high government position. Panicked, he flees, discarding the weapon. Ladies and gentlemen, murderers act irrationally. If they did not, we might never apprehend them.”

  Oh well, under that scenario, it’s only second degree.

  All buttoned up tight. Bodies get buried, files closed, Blinderman and Lassiter imprisoned, and Nick Fox becomes the governor.

  But how tight is it? Somebody killed Marsha Diamond. Did everybody forget about her? That was how I got into this. Investigate Diamond’s murder and prosecute the bad guy. Only I didn’t find the bad guy. Instead, I managed to get myself framed for somebody else’s murder. And with that thought, I had a cold Grolsch and dozed off in the muggy shade of my infinitesimal slice of the planet Earth.

  ***

  Saturday arrived, just as hot, just as sticky. My leg and foot were healing in the steaminess. My face looked better, though I hadn’t shaved in three days and I needed a trim, shaggy hair covering the ears, flapping down the neck. Lying on the warm, crinkly grass I did fifty stomach crunches, twenty one-armed push-ups, first right then left, then used both arms for fifty more. I gave myself the rest of the day off and resumed my place of contemplation in the hammock, two cold beers to battle the elements.

  I thought about Alex Rodriguez. I remembered the phone message. Got story for your friends at the paper, on the record this time.

  This time.

  Last time was Compu-Mate.

  Or was it? What was it Nick Fox said yesterday? The folks at the Journal were mighty friendly since he leaked the story on Compu-Mate. I had always assumed Rodriguez was the source. If he wasn’t, when did Nick talk to the paper and why?