Florida Getaway

by Max Allan Collins

  “I can find them.”

  Through the picture window they could see a patrol car pulling up to park behind Caine’s Hummer.

  Mrs. Rosselli looked pleadingly at the CSI. “Would you make them go away now?”

  “Glad to,” he said. “But if this is a wild-goose chase, Mrs. Rosselli—we’ll be back. Siren and all.”

  Caine and Sevilla rose to leave, the CSI taking the sunglasses from around his neck to stick in his pocket, now that night was falling. As he did, he turned to see the wall of photos next to the door.

  One of them, right at eye-level, showed the three old friends—Anthony Rosselli, Vincent Ciccolini, and Abraham Lipnick. It was a portrait of the trio from the chest up, standing in front of the Rosselli home.

  “Did you take this photo, Mrs. Rosselli?” he asked, pointing to the photo with the stem of his sunglasses.

  “Yes.” She swallowed and her voice turned melodramatic. “That was the last picture of the fellas together.”

  “Taken when?”

  “Maybe…two months ago.”

  Caine studied the photo and Sevilla studied him, wondering what the fascination was.

  All of the men were smiling, Rosselli and Ciccolini framing their late friend in the center, just three old men enjoying the good life in South Florida; casually dressed, Vinnie in a Dolphins Polo shirt, Tony in a red cardigan, and Abe wearing a brown V-necked pullover sweater over a tan shirt. Nothing special, really…

  …except that Abraham Lipnick had a hearing aid in his right ear.

  Looking at the photo, not Mrs. Rosselli, Caine asked her, “Mr. Lipnick—did he always wear a hearing aid?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “For as long as I knew him, he did.”

  “It wasn’t an old-age malady?”

  “Oh no, not at all! Abe had a bomb go off near him in Korea—screwed up his right ear real good. Never seemed to give him any problem, though—I mean, that the hearing aid didn’t make up for.”

  Sevilla said, “When I saw him in the casket, he didn’t have it in.”

  Mrs. Rosselli gave the detective an acid smile. “He doesn’t need it, dear, where he’s going.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Rosselli,” Caine said.

  “Hurry back,” Mrs. Rosselli said, at the door, and her sarcasm wasn’t buried deep at all—not even as deep as Thomas Lessor’s head.

  The CSI and the detective were halfway down the sidewalk when the woman called out, “And would you please get that goddamn squad car out of here before someone sees it?”

  “My pleasure,” Caine said.

  He and Sevilla stopped at the curb by the Hummer. Caine said, “Adele, catch a ride back with the squad, would you?”

  “Why—where are you going?”

  “To the river.”

  “After our fishermen?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And where, pray tell, am I going?”

  “To find a judge who will issue an exhumation order for Abraham Lipnick.”

  “On what grounds?”

  “I think I know where our murder weapon is.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “And how do I convince a judge to do that?”

  “Remember the funeral home?”

  “I’m not likely to forget.”

  “Jewish law states that Lipnick had to be buried within twenty-four hours. His friends were trying to see that he got his wish, in their own inept way.”

  “Right.”

  “Which means that as soon as they were finished at the funeral home, they went straight to the cemetery.”

  “Oh-kaay,” Sevilla said.

  “And what were they going to do?”

  “Put keepsakes in with him.” Then her eyes widened. “They put the gun in the coffin!”

  Caine nodded. “Along with the Sinatra stuff—smokes and roll of dimes and bottle of booze. Can you sell a judge?”

  “I know just the one,” she said.

  As Sevilla climbed into the squad car, Caine got into the Hummer and started the vehicle with one hand and got out his cell phone with the other.

  With Speedle and Bernstein already busy, he called Calleigh and told her what he needed; then he called Eric Delko, dropped the Hummer into gear and drove off…

  …to do a little fishing, himself.

  10

  Gone Fishin’

  THE FIVE-AND-A-HALF-MILE run of the Miami River was as diverse as the inhabitants of the city it bisected. Flowing roughly from Miami International Airport to the sea, the river was home not only to major shipping industry but recreational boaters, houseboats, and even the odd fishermen—like Anthony Rosselli and Vincent Ciccolini, if the former’s wife could be believed about their current whereabouts.

  Though night had touched the city like a cool, calming hand, few places in Miami were truly dark after sunset. From the brightly illuminated skyscrapers to the colored deco lighting along Miami Beach’s Ocean Drive, the city glowed after dark—a glimmer that settled over the whole area, making it at once exotic and accessible.

  Aiding Caine tonight were the parking lot lights where he left the Hummer and met up with Eric Delko.

  “What’s up, H?” Delko wore a light tan jacket over a cream-colored T-shirt with chinos; he might have been club-hopping.

  “Our two surviving elderly hit men,” Caine said, “are trying to make a catch along here, somewhere…. So are we.”

  “What’s my job?”

  “Back me up.”

  Delko grinned his boyish grin. “You think you need help, handling a coupla geezers?”

  Caine looked at Delko sharply. “You might ask Thomas Lessor that question…just be prepared to divine the answer from his non-response.”

  “Uh, yeah. I get you.”

  “Good.”

  Streetlamps bordered the sidewalk that ran along the high ground, providing a yellowish glow. Once the two CSIs got down closer to the bank, Caine noticed that the lights of the city seemed to ride downriver with the current—it was a beautiful, slightly other-wordly shimmer.

  As he and Delko walked along the grassy bank, Caine had more light than he’d hoped for; it was almost like dusk, though the sun had long since set. Every now and then they would pass a fisherman or two sitting in a lawn chair, maybe with a small Coleman lantern next to him, a line tossed casually into the water.

  They had traveled nearly a mile, stopping by three different pairs of fishermen, and Caine was just starting to think Rebecca Rosselli had outfoxed him when they came upon the two men.

  The suspected contract killers were sitting in lawn chairs, lines in the water, enjoying the peaceful evening, looking about as deadly as Felix and Oscar or maybe Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton.

  Both men wore nylon warm-up jackets—Ciccolini’s with a Dolphins logo, Rosselli’s with a Marlins logo—and Ciccolini wore a matching Dolphins baseball cap while Rosselli had on a shapeless cotton hat with the brim turned down all the way around.

  Ciccolini, in the far chair, saw him first. The yellow-tinged smile seemed amused, but the eyes were hard and cold and glittered in the night.

  “Lieutenant Caine,” Ciccolini said, as if tasting the words and not liking them. “What brings you out on the riverside on such a cool evening? I don’t see any fishing gear.”

  Rosselli was frowning. “Who’s the muscle?”

  Delko seemed almost embarrassed by that, and Caine—genuinely amused—said, “This is one of my crew…Name’s Delko. You know all about having a crew, don’t you, fellas?”

  Sounds of gentle laughter, possibly from a father and son they had passed up the bank, echoed off the rippling water. A peculiar combination of nature sounds and nearby traffic provided a unique soundtrack to the tableau.

  “Well, all due respect, boys,” Ciccolini said, “we have this spot staked out. Find your piece of the river-bank.”

  Caine nodded, stared out on the water. “We’re not going to interfere with your fishing. Caught anything yet?”

  “No,” Cic
colini said. “How about you?”

  “I think so.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I could use an opinion—an informed one. Mind if I share my thoughts? I’ll keep my voice down…try not to scare the fish.”

  Rosselli, shifting nervously in the lawn chair, said, “Free country.”

  Caine gazed at the lights of the city glistening on the river’s mirror-like surface. He said, “It started with your niece, Mr. Ciccolini—Maria.”

  In the muted darkness, Caine could easily make out the discomfort registering on Vincent Ciccolini’s face.

  The CSI continued: “Maria Chacon, she calls herself now. She was jealous of Lessor’s other women, or perhaps scared for her life, after Lessor killed that other singer in Vegas. We’ll have a talk with her and nail that down. Either way, it was Maria’s contract.”

  The two old men said nothing. Rosselli started fooling with his reel, probably just a pretense to cover his nervousness. Ciccolini might have been a statue of an old man fishing.

  And Caine told the two men. Told them what they had done….

  Maria comes to her uncle Vinnie, needing help. The Trenton chapter of Murder, Inc. has come out of retirement already, in recent days…boredom, tight money, problems with Medicare. At least five hits in five months…Maria either knew of this return to homicidal form, or put the pieces together: Uncle Vinnie and his pals were back in business. And Vinnie and his two partners have a lifetime of experience—three lifetimes of experience—dealing with the kind of problem that Maria had.

  And Maria’s problem was called Thomas Lessor.

  So the Trenton Social Club meets Lessor at the airport. Maria knows when her boyfriend’s plane is getting in, and has tipped off Uncle Vinnie. It’s late, middle of the night, fairly dead…which is good, because things would soon get deader….

  All three killers meet and greet Lessor and his chauffeur as the pair enter the parking garage. Two are wearing rubber masks, the other a disguise—a fake beard and mustache. One hustles Lessor into the car while the other two truss up the chauffeur with duct tape and toss him in the trunk. Lessor’s bags are shoved inside with their owner, and the hijacked limo takes off.

  “That much is on the airport videotape,” Caine told them.

  One man drives the limo, one rides in the back with Lessor, holding him at gunpoint, while the third brings up the rear in the trio’s own car. The trip to Miami Beach doesn’t take too long—traffic’s light, and anyway, it’s late, not too many people around, so they march Lessor right out onto the beach and pop him twice in the back of the head—an old technique which ain’t broke so needs no fixing—using the same gun with which one of ’em shot Johnny “The Rat” Guzzoli, back in Trenton, in 1987.

  “Now the gun I find particularly interesting,” Caine said.

  Delko was listening attentively, too, though the two elderly fishermen acknowledged no interest in anything but their lines.

  “You like that .25, don’t you, Vinnie? It’s light, efficient, a good weapon in your line of work. I don’t know which of you is the triggerman—maybe the late Abe. Maybe it was his favorite piece. Maybe it’s yours, Tony.”

  Delko said, “Being sentimental over a weapon…not a good idea.”

  “Not in this day and age,” Caine said. “Of course, how could you know that when the case in Trenton got thrown out of court, the ‘sentimental’ CSI up there would hang onto his ballistics test results, and eventually enter them into a national bullet database?”

  Ciccolini said, “No such thing. You’re bluffing.”

  “It’s called NIBIN,” Delko said.

  Up till now, everything’s going fine. Only a distant security camera as witness to the kidnapping, and nobody was around when the trio popped the target. Looking like a piece-o’-cake hit for the Trenton three. That’s when things start to go south.

  The machete and garbage bags are in the trio’s own vehicle, and the three old assassins—it’s not as easy as in the old days, but it gets done—haul Lessor up onto a picnic table. Chop off the head and hands, the key identifiers; hack the torso into more easily disposable, portable chunks.

  As Caine spun his scenario, Rosselli still fussed with his rod and fidgeted; Ciccolini, though, dropped all pretense of fishing and fired up a cigarette and turned toward Caine, sitting sideways on the lawn chair. He seemed to be enjoying the narrative.

  “We found blood on the table,” Caine was saying, “and cuts in the table matched those in Lessor’s hands and feet—that’s how we know you used a machete.”

  But somewhere in the midst of the butchery, Abraham Lipnick—possessor of a bum ticker—goes and has a heart attack. Now things get complicated. Ciccolini and Rosselli have just killed and carved up a victim, have a kidnapped witness stuffed in the trunk of a stolen car, and suddenly their accomplice is threatening to flat-line on ’em.

  Abe is on the ground, writhing in pain, perhaps semiconscious. The remaining two quickly confab. Ciccolini will drive Abe to the hospital, and do his best to make it seem as if Rosselli is also present…by mentioning him to nurses, “Tony’s parking the car, Tony’s got the trots….”

  But what Tony is really doing is finishing up with disposing of Lessor’s body.

  “Tell me, Tony,” Caine said. “Did it bother you?”

  Without looking at Caine, the old man, eyes on the river, said flatly, “Did what bother me?”

  “That Vinnie left you alone, on the beach, to deal with a dismembered body? Did you always get the shit jobs?”

  Ciccolini frowned at Caine. “Be polite.”

  “Didn’t mean to step over the line,” the CSI said. “But that’s what happened, Vinnie—you took Abe to Mt. Sinai…not because that’s where Abe wanted to go, but because it’s the closest to where you were on the beach. If you’d been at the club on Drexel, where you’re supposed to have been—and where you established a sort of alibi, earlier in the evening—you’d have taken him to South Shore. It’s a no-brainer—much closer. Your pal’s in trouble, after all—big trouble.”

  “I was at the hospital too,” Rosselli said, eyes still on his line and the water.

  “Sure—several of the staff at Mt. Sinai remember seeing the both of you…but no one can nail down seeing you in the flesh, Tony, till much later. Maybe as late—or as early, depending on how you look at it—as five in the morning.”

  While Vince Ciccolini rushes Abe to the hospital, Anthony Rosselli cleans up the picnic area. The head, hands, and Lessor’s personal items go into one garbage bag, the rest of the body into two or three or four more.

  “You see,” Caine said, “I’m not sure at what point in the process Abe had his heart attack. If it happened early on, Tony might’ve been left to do most of machete work himself.”

  “See?” Rosselli said, finally turning to look at Caine, with a sneering smile. “You’re just guessing.”

  “That’s how criminalistics works. We find evidence that provides puzzle pieces, then we extrapolate what the missing pieces are, or might be. For example, the bags that the torso went into. Maybe you buried them on the beach, too, Tony. Or maybe you just buried the bag with head and hands, and carted the other garbage bags off to pitch off a bridge or over the side of a fishing boat. We’ll probably never know where the torso went, unless you fellas are nice enough to tell us.”

  Rosselli sneered some more. “You need a body to make anything stick.”

  “Oh, we have a body. Enough of one.”

  The old man on the beach, left alone to dispose of the dismembered corpse, is tired. It’s been a hard night, he’s beat, he’s scared, so when he buries the head, hands, and personal effects, he doesn’t go as deep as he might on a different occasion, on a different night, when he had two old friends to help him.

  And as Rosselli is cleaning up after the murder, he finds Abe’s hearing aid, where it fell when Abe’s heart attacked him and the old boy had hit the ground. But Rosselli didn’t realize that when Abe took his tumb
le, and the hearing aid popped free, the mechanism’s battery slipped out…providing a tiny metal clue….

  “We found the battery on the beach, fellas,” Caine told them. “But it didn’t make its special meaning clear to me until about an hour ago…at your house, Anthony, where your charming wife was kind enough to invite us in.”

  “You’ll need a warrant next time,” Rosselli said.

  Delko said, “We’ll have one.”

  “The death of the chauffeur was an accident,” Caine said. “You’ll only do manslaughter on that death—plus kidnapping, of course. From what I’ve read of your file, you boys have never taken out a civilian—no innocent bystanders. But this time that policy, well…it kinda got away from you.”

  When Rosselli finishes burying the parts of Thomas Lessor, he still has one job left—he has to leave the limo where it will be found easily and Felipe Ortega…

  “That’s the chauffeur’s name, by the way,” Caine said, “in case you boys like to keep track of who you kill.”

  …and Felipe Ortega would be freed. After all, the hit is supposed to be on Lessor, not some innocent driver. Only Rosselli—perhaps a little flustered, a little frazzled, working on his own, in a hurry to get to Mt. Sinai and improve his alibi—never thinks to remove the duct tape gag…so when Felipe starts throwing up, the foul stuff has nowhere to go except his lungs.

  “When I saw a photo of the three of you good fellas,” Caine said, “I noticed that Abe was wearing a hearing aid. Mrs. Rosselli told me that Abe had worn a hearing aid since Korea, but I hadn’t noticed, because the only time I’d seen him, in his casket, he hadn’t been wearing it.”

  Ciccolini stood, tossing his fishing pole to the bank. He strode up to Caine. Hands on his hips, he said, “You don’t have enough, Lieutenant. A hearing aid battery found on a beach frequented by hordes of seniors like us? Forget about it.”

  Caine smiled gently. “We will have something…very soon. Remember when we dropped by, the evening of Abe’s visitation?”

  “I’m not likely to forget you guys spoiling that sad occasion, no.”

  “Again, I’m not sure which of you carried the .25. Maybe it was Abe’s gun, and you decided to bury his ‘sword’ with the fallen samurai. Or maybe it was just a good place to make a murder weapon go away. Maybe it’s your favorite piece, Vinnie, and you were packing it, and when you saw us cops at the party, you panicked and decided to stuff it in Abe’s coffin.”