Lassiter jl-8

by Paul Levine

  Castiel held up his cigarette lighter. “This belonged to my father. Solid gold.”

  He tossed it to me. Heavy as a hand grenade. I ran a finger around a raised ridge of gold in the shape of a crocodile with a diamond for an eye. The ridge was the outline of the island of Cuba. The diamond was Havana.

  “Lansky must have been paying well,” I said, tossing the lighter back.

  “Bernard didn’t buy it. President Batista gave it to him as a fortieth birthday present. Can you imagine its value to me?”

  As much as a John Dillinger’s Tommy gun to his heirs, I thought. But what I said was, “A lot, Alex. I know your family lost everything to Castro. And I know how your father lost his life.”

  The story was part of the Castiel mythology, and it helped propel Alex into public office. In January 1959, Castro’s ragtag army was running amok through Havana. Looting, burning, killing. Bernard Castiel came across three rebels dragging a woman from a home in the ritzy Miramar section, beating her and stripping off her clothes. Castiel knocked one man unconscious and was pulling a second rebel off the woman when he was bayoneted in the back. He bled to death in the gutter, an early victim of Castro’s butchery. Rosa was pregnant with Alex. Within two years, she would die of breast cancer, and Alex became an orphan.

  “So, tell me, Jake. How do the scales tip? Does mi padre’s work for Lansky make him evil? What was he, hero or gangster?”

  “He died heroically. That’s good enough for me.”

  “But a hero can’t be all good,” Castiel prodded me. “And a gangster can’t be all bad.”

  “I get it. Ziegler is okay because he gives money to good causes, not the least of which is the re-election of Alejandro Castiel.”

  He ground his teeth and his jaw muscles danced. “We’re done here, Jake. Just do your client a favor and tell her to go back home to Indiana.”

  “Ohio.”

  “Marry the clerk at the John Deere store. Have a couple kids. Overcook burgers in the backyard.”

  “Don’t be a patronizing jerk.”

  He shook his head sadly and pointed his cigar toward the door. “I’ll see you around.”

  “Yeah, see you.”

  I walked out without another word, feeling cruddy. Guys can argue, maybe even take a swing at each other, and get over it. But this felt different. Like I was losing a friend.

  Outside the door was the desk of his executive assistant, an efficient, older woman who began stuffing envelopes in her boss’s first campaign and now held the keys to the palace gate.

  “Charlene, which way to the rest room?”

  “You know very well where it is, Mr. Lassiter. Down the hall to the left.”

  “I’ll be quick.”

  She gave me a look that said, “Like I give a hoot?”

  “We’re doing a conference call in a minute,” I said, matter-of-factly. Lies are best told with no gestures, little expression, and few effects. “With Charlie Ziegler.”

  Charlene wrinkled her forehead, punched a button, and an LCD display lit up. “You might want to hurry up,” she said. “Mr. Castiel is already on with Mr. Ziegler.”

  Which is just what I feared. The door had barely closed behind me, and my old buddy was giving aid and comfort-and information-to the enemy. Now my job was to figure out why.

  13 The Prince of Porn No More

  Charles W. Ziegler, proud owner of the third largest house on Casuarina Concourse in Gables Estates, was pissed off. Ten minutes ago, his wife, Lola, had told him he might think about cutting back on the cheesecake. Not in those words.

  “Charlie, you’re looking positively porcine.”

  Porcine? Where’d she get that? The woman barely had a GED.

  Yeah, okay. He was blubbery and mostly bald, and at fifty-eight needed a little blue pill to get it up. But why rub it in? He didn’t give Lola grief about her liposuctioned thighs and shortened schnozz. Why couldn’t his wife be more like his mistress?

  Ziegler had met Lola back in his days as a tycoon of tits and ass. She wasn’t one of Charlie’s Girlz, his posse of porn stars. Just a hot, downtown secretary, looking to marry well. In those days, when still in the hunt for big game, Lola busted her ass to please in the bedroom. And damn, if her rusty trombone didn’t make Ziegler come so hard he felt his skull was exploding. Then, once wedding vows were exchanged, big surprise: no more ass-licking.

  Today, Lola’s tongue never left her mouth, except to taste caviar, and Charlie Ziegler was legit. Honored and respected. A big hitter and major donor around town. He still enjoyed putting on a show and ruffling society feathers. Not long ago, he took some heat for hiring a massage parlor girl to give a rub and tug to a critically ill fourteen-year-old boy. But they call it “Make-A-Wish,” and that’s what the kid wanted.

  Ziegler owned Reelz TV, where his reality shows were sprinkled with nudity and profanity but no money shots. His biggest hit was Cheeterz, a boffo show that featured wives catching husbands with their pants down. Then there was the teen gross-out show Zitz, syndicated in thirty-seven countries, despite a Variety review that called it a “steaming pile of excrescence.”

  He put the first letter of his last name in the title of every show. He’d even asked Lola to change her name to “Zoey,” but she told him to go fuck himself, along with the script girl on Size Zero, his modeling show, and the babe at Beach Motors who sold him a vintage Datsun 280Z after blowing him under the cargo hatch.

  Back in his hard-core days, he’d won the People’s Porn award for Driving Miss Daizy Crazy. This year, he won the Miami Humanitarian of the Year award, presented by Archbishop Gilchrist.

  From porn to priests in twenty years.

  Now, at sunset, he stood in his front yard, puffing a Cohiba. Whenever he lit up, Lola evicted him from the house, which had cost him a cool eight million, land not included. The place was designed by one of his wife’s pals, a trendy architect known for stylistic flourishes and skylights that leaked. The house was a shiny, snake-shaped cylinder of steel and glass, described by the architect as “curvilinear lines reminiscent of Le Corbusier.” Ziegler thought the place looked like a giant plumbing fixture.

  The bayfront neighborhood was bathed in orange light from a ribbon of clouds, backlit by the setting sun. Ziegler glanced toward the lot next door where a big-ass mansion was under construction. His neighbor-a pretentious trust fund kid-had two hundred seventy feet of waterfront, a full twenty feet more than his own, goddammit.

  Something caught Ziegler’s eye, a flash of movement next to a pallet of rebar. The construction crew was gone for the day, and building inspectors never worked this late unless they were picking up bribes. He pulled his eyeglasses out of a pocket, put them on, and squinted.

  A tall slender woman, staring his way.

  Shit. Was it her?

  Alex Castiel had called him earlier. A woman named Amy Larkin had hit town, looking for her long-lost sister. Her lawyer, some ex-jock, named Ziegler as a suspect in the disappearance. The news had been eating at him all day, and he wondered what the hell he should do. He thought about calling Max Perlow but was afraid what the old hood would say.

  Ziegler was too far away to get a good look at the woman, but it had to be the girl’s kid sister. Stalking him, after all this time.

  Blast from the past. Krista Larkin.

  How did so much trouble get off the bus with that runaway girl? It seemed like a thousand years ago. There’d been a big market for Lolitas in those days. Saudi sheiks salivating over blondes from the Midwest. Billionaire pervs willing to pay big bucks for new talent.

  He recalled the day he met the girl. He’d walked over to the 10th Street beach from the little office he rented next to a kosher bakery. Two cameras dangled from his neck, that professional photographer look. Still had most of his hair and an almost flat stomach. Krista Larkin had been in town two days. Sleeping on the beach under an umbrella. Tall girl with a peachy complexion. Said she’d come to Miami to model, and when she had saved enough mo
ney, she planned to enroll in the fashion design college she’d read about in Parade. From the moment he first saw her, Ziegler had other ideas for her. To fuck her, sure. But to make money off her, even better.

  He talked her into coming back to his studio, so she could pose. Telling her he was locked into the top modeling agencies, and she’d be on the cover of Vogue, no doubt about it. Maybe get her into the movies, too. Of course, she took the bait. Innocent as a spring day, fresh as milk from a cow. In his experience, some of these sweet Midwestern girls couldn’t wait to take their clothes off.

  He even remembered what she was wearing. Flip-flops, khaki shorts, a white cotton blouse. Carrying a backpack with everything she owned. He told her about all the money she could make. That, at least, was no lie. Lolita in Lauderdale made a ton of dough, and she shot a sequel every week for two months. But that first day, he planned to keep PG-rated. Or at least start that way.

  In the studio, she squinted into the quartz light and fidgeted as he clicked off the first few shots. Awkward, embarrassed, amateurish.

  “You’re tense,” he told her. “Self-conscious. Your body’s locked. Let’s try something.”

  As if the idea had just come to him.

  “Leave your blouse on, but take off your bra.”

  A girlish giggle.

  “Don’t be a kid now. Think Cosmo.”

  He punched up a C.D., Wreckx-n-Effect hip-hopping to Rump Shaker.

  The music thumped with hot and sweaty sex. “All I wanna do is zoom-a-zoom-zoom and a boom-boom.”

  “Loosen your hips, Krista. Let the music flow through you.”

  She came alive, all fluid movements and breathy sighs.

  “Now, unleash your sexuality. Feel the fabric on your nipples.”

  She was a natural. The sexiest girls, he knew, were the ones who didn’t try. He might get a year or two out of her before she got used up or beat up or knocked up.

  “Let’s go for another effect. Now, this is going to be cold.”

  He tossed a glass of water on her blouse.

  She writhed with the music. Peeled herself out of the blouse without being asked.

  He did her that night, bent over his cluttered desk. And the next day and the day after that.

  Who knew, Ziegler wondered now, that the kid would end up holding the keys to his fortune and his life?

  He glanced toward the construction site, shielding his eyes from the setting sun. Whoever had been there moments before had disappeared into the gloaming like a distant dream.

  14 Pimpmobiles on Parade

  It was suppertime, as my granny called it, when I headed home. Canvas top down, I aimed the Lassiter chariot south on I-95, passing the darkened skyscrapers, many as empty as a loan shark’s heart. Bankruptcy and foreclosure had hit the downtown corridor hard.

  The expressway ended at South Dixie Highway. On maps, that’s U.S. 1, better described as Useless 1. In my rearview, I caught sight of a candy-apple red Cadillac Escalade two cars behind me and one lane over. I’m not sure why I noticed it. The spinning wheel covers and rumbling lake pipes, maybe? Or because I’d seen the same car earlier today.

  The Escalade-or its twin brother-had been double-parked on 12th Street when I pulled out of the Justice Building parking lot after my meeting with Alex Castiel. I hadn’t thought anything of it. Now I wondered if someone was tailing me. But what a strange choice of vehicles. As inconspicuous as a stone crab in your Wheaties.

  Besides, who would it be? A plainclothes cop or a private eye? Not in that car. Maybe a carjacker lusting after my Biarritz Eldo ragtop with its red velour upholstery. Put the two cars together, you’d have Pimpmobiles on Parade.

  To hell with it. I just kept driving. I was worried about Amy’s reaction to our meeting with Castiel. I had promised to get his help, and he drop-kicked my butt out of his office. I expected Amy to be pissed. Instead, when we exited the Justice Building, she gave me a small smile and a big thank you. No hug, though. Not from a woman so damned uncomfortable with physical contact. If she owned a dog, it would be in need of some serious ear scratching.

  She admitted she finally believed me. That I had nothing to do with Krista’s disappearance and she’d been impressed by my taking on the State Attorney. Then she asked if I had a backup plan. I did. We’d find Ziegler’s friends and his foes and learn everything we could before confronting him. Sonia Majeski promised to come up with the names of a few men who were regulars at Ziegler’s parties all those years ago. If she did, I’d start knocking on doors.

  I checked the rearview. The Escalade was holding its position. On the C.D. player, Waylon Jennings wailed about riding a bus to Shreveport, then on to New Orleans.

  “It’s been making me lonesome, on’ry, and mean.”

  I sped up, slid from the left lane to the middle to pass two cars, then back again. The Escalade bobbed and weaved its way into position three cars behind me.

  My thoughts returned to Amy. An exterior as hard as oak, but there seemed to be a brittleness to her. Before we got into our separate cars at the Justice Building, I had asked her to have dinner and she said, “Why? We did that last night.”

  “Actually, I eat every night,” I told her.

  “Are you asking me out on a date?” Her tone implying the absurdity of such a thing.

  “No, I meant dinner with my family. My granny and my nephew.”

  She declined, saying she had paperwork to do for her job. I guess insurance fraud in Toledo, Ohio, is pretty damn rampant.

  I checked the mirror once again. The Escalade was still there. I hit the left-turn signal as I approached Douglas Road to go south into Coconut Grove. The green turn arrow was lit but I came to a stop. The Mini Cooper behind me blasted its horn. In the mirror, I saw the driver shoot me the bird. No problema. In Miami, you only worry about road rage when a driver waves a semi-automatic.

  Just as the yellow turned to red, I hit the gas and burned rubber turning left. The guy in the Mini stayed put. The pimpmobile pursuer was trapped behind him.

  I could have continued into the Grove and lost the Escalade, but that would have just kept me wondering all night. So I swerved into the alley behind Don Pan International Bakery, where I sometimes stop for ham bread and guava pastries. Tonight, I just wanted to hide out a moment.

  Once the traffic light went through its cycle, the Mini Cooper turned, followed by the Escalade. I pulled out of the alley and onto Douglas. The prey was now the hunter. I crept up behind the Escalade, saw its Florida vanity plate.

  U R NXT

  The traffic light at Grand Avenue turned red. I stopped behind the Escalade, hopped out, and sprinted to the driver’s door. The windows were tinted black, and at the dark intersection, I couldn’t even make out a silhouette behind the wheel. Whoever it was hit the gas, yanked the wheel hard left, and peeled out. I jumped back, the rear left tire barely missing my big feet. The car screeched left onto Grand, and I was left standing there, adrenaline pumping.

  “Next time, asshole!” I shouted. “Next time, I’ll drag your ass through the window and wipe up the street with you.”

  The adrenaline ebbed. Other drivers were pulling around my Eldo, giving me wide berth.

  “What are you looking at?” I yelled at everybody and nobody. A moment later, with no one to hit and no one to shout at, I got back into my car and drove home.

  U R NXT

  Next for what?

  15 Adjudged Delinquent

  I live in a two-story coral rock pillbox that could withstand an attack by tanks and mortar fire. It did withstand the Great Miami Hurricane of 1926, a storm that pretty much blew the city straight into the Everglades.

  I parked under a chinaberry tree and pulled up the canvas top to save what was left of the upholstery. Red velour does not appreciate juicy yellow berries. I got out of the car and called Cindy, my loyal assistant, on the cell, catching her at an unlicensed beauty salon in a friend’s house just off Calle Ocho. I gave her the Escalade’s vanity plate and as
ked her to get me the name of the owner. She used to date a Miami cop who still did favors for her, either because he had a kind heart, or because she had dirt on him.

  The front door to the house wasn’t locked. Seldom is. The humidity has swollen the door shut, but a solid thwack from my shoulder opens it.

  My dog, Csonka, greeted me inside with a slobbery hello. A couple years ago, he showed up, crapped on my front step, and challenged me to do something about it. He’s a mix of bulldog and something else, maybe donkey, and has the personality of a New York cabdriver. If you don’t get out of the way, he’ll barge into you. And yeah, I named him after Larry Csonka, the Dolphins’ fullback who used his forearm the way Paul Bunyan used an axe.

  The tang of cinnamon floated from the kitchen. Granny’s sweet potato pie.

  “You in the mood for catfish, Jakey?” Granny said, as I joined her at the stove.

  “As long as it’s not deep fried.”

  “No other decent way to make it.”

  I watched her drag a fillet through a bowl of cornmeal. Having grown up on Granny’s cooking, I thought everyone made chocolate chip cookies with bacon and considered giblet cream gravy a beverage.

  Granny’s skin was still smooth and her hair was still black, except for a white stripe down the middle. “Give that pot a stir.” She gestured toward her simmering swamp cabbage.

  I did as I was told, all the while eyeing the sweet potato pie, cooling on the counter.

  “Keep your mitts off,” Granny ordered.

  Dorothea Jane Lassiter was not my grandmother. A great-aunt, maybe. We never straightened that out. She just took over raising me after my mom took off. When I was a kid, Granny filled a bushel basket with her do’s and don’ts. She taught me never to start a fight but to know how to end one. To be wary of the rich and powerful. And to go through life doing the least damage possible. Thanks to her, I favor the underdog. I root against the Yankees, the Lakers, and the Patriots. If Germany invaded Poland-again-I’d take the points and go with the Poles.