Lassiter jl-8

by Paul Levine

  26 A Hard Night’s Sleep

  The metronomic swoosh of the bedroom ceiling fan usually puts me to sleep.

  Not tonight.

  I couldn’t get comfortable. Not while on my back with a pillow tucked under a bum knee. Not on my side. Not on my stomach.

  I listened to the wind rustle the palm fronds outside my bedroom window. I listened to a police siren wail away on Douglas Road. I listened to the creaks and moans of the old house.

  I was thinking about Amy.

  We should have been on the same side. Amy felt guilty about telling her sister that dear old stepmom planned a religious intervention, prompting Krista to run away. I felt guilty for delivering Krista into the lion’s den. Being fired meant little. I needed to find Krista Larkin for myself, as much as for Amy.

  I considered for the hundredth time the actions-or inactions-of Alex Castiel. Why was he protecting a scumbag like Charlie Ziegler? What did he get out of it? I’m not naive. I know how the game is played downtown where power and money form an unholy alliance. But I’ve been pals with Alex a long time and, until now, I’d never seen anything to make me think he was dishonest. Ambitious, yes. Corrupt, no.

  I got out of bed and padded barefoot to the kitchen. I was wearing my nighttime fashion statement, ancient Miami Dolphins boxer shorts, with the logo of Flipper leaping through hoops. I pulled a liter bottle of Jack Daniel’s from the cupboard. Poured three fingers in a glass. Lassiter-size fingers, including two broken knuckles. Skipped the ice.

  Went back to the bedroom, tucked myself in. I heard more nighttime sounds. Crickets or some other clickety-clack insects outside. A car engine on my street. Then I must have dozed off.

  An hour later, or maybe it was five seconds, Csonka started barking. Sometimes he howls at the possum who climbs into my garbage can. Sometimes at the green parrots who escaped from the zoo during a hurricane. And sometimes he turns guard dog. Once, he captured some sky-high tweaker who pried open the jalousie windows of a rear bathroom and foolishly crawled inside. I had to pull the beast off the guy’s butt.

  Now I heard Csonka’s claws scratching at the terrazzo as he scrambled down the corridor to my bedroom. He slid around the corner, propped his forelegs on my bed, wailed, and slobbered on me.

  I got out of bed and followed Csonka down the corridor. I checked Kip’s bedroom first. Sound asleep. I could hear Granny’s snoring from outside her door. After her bedtime coffee cup filled with what she called “rye likker,” the woman could sleep through a squall on a dinghy.

  Outside, a car engine was starting up. I headed for the foyer and found the front door open a foot or so. I grabbed a baseball bat from an umbrella stand and barreled outside. Moonless night. Lights off, the car was already moving toward the intersection of Douglas Road. I couldn’t see the driver. I couldn’t even tell the car’s make or model. It screeched around the corner, heading north toward Dixie Highway, and I stood there in my boxers, holding my baseball bat, watching Csonka take a leak against the chinaberry tree. After a moment, I lowered my shorts and did the same.

  27 No One Breaks Into the Grand Jury

  The next morning, I drove north on Dixie Highway, headed to the office. On the radio, Leonard Cohen was complaining that there “ain’t no cure for love.”

  I’d walked around the street, asking a couple neighbors if they’d seen anyone lurking in the hibiscus hedges during the night. But no one had. So who the hell had it been? A random intruder or someone with a connection to Krista’s case?

  As I pulled onto I-95, I noticed a gray Hummer H2 behind me. Big as a battleship, it would have been hard to miss. I’d already seen it on Sunset Drive earlier this morning when I stopped at a bakery for coffee and a pastelito de guayaba.

  Was I getting paranoid? First the Escalade owned by a guy in prison. And now this behemoth? Made as much sense as tailing someone in a Rose Bowl float.

  I stayed in the right-hand lane in order to take the exit for the flyover to the MacArthur Causeway. The Hummer was directly behind me.

  I was looking in the rearview mirror, trying to make out the driver’s face, when my cell phone rang.

  “Jake, get your ass over to the Grand Jury chambers now!” Castiel’s voice.

  “You’ve changed your mind? You’re bringing Amy’s case up?”

  “Your crazy client just chained herself to the door. If you don’t get her out of here, I’m gonna have her arrested.”

  I swung left out of the exit lane, barely missing the sand-filled barricades. The Hummer braked but couldn’t make the turn Lost you, pal. Whoever the hell you are.

  Twenty-three citizens, good and true, make up the Grand Jury. They hear evidence presented by the State Attorney and render an indictment if they determine there is probable cause that a suspect committed a crime. It takes fourteen votes to indict, and the jurors usually do whatever the prosecutor tells them to. It’s an old expression, but still true: a Grand Jury will indict a ham sandwich. Not, however, if the State Attorney fails to bring the meat and bread to their chambers.

  The jurors gather in the civil courthouse downtown, an eighty-year-old limestone tower shaped like a wedding cake topped by a pyramid. In the winter, turkey buzzards circle the parapet near the peak of the building, inspiring jokes about predators in feathers above and Armani below. A colorful mural of old Florida is painted on the ceiling of the lobby. Who knew that Native American tribes were overjoyed to find Spanish sailors with muskets landing on the beaches?

  I hopped into a balky elevator, surrounded by a passel of lawyers. They were jabbering about prosecutors who cheated, judges who fell asleep, and clients who don’t pay their bills. Lawyers are great whiners.

  I heard the commotion as I stepped into the corridor near the door to the Grand Jury chambers. A woman shouting.

  “The State Attorney is corrupt! Can you hear me in there?”

  A man shouting back, “Quiet down, now!”

  The woman was a frantic Amy Larkin.

  The man was a pissed-off Miami cop.

  Three other cops formed a bulwark between them and the passersby in the corridor. One more guy in uniform and they’d have enough for a basketball team. That’s the thing about cops. They travel in flocks, like the buzzards. On the floor were a pair of busted handcuffs and a three-foot-long bolt cutter. Amy had cuffed herself to the door. The cops had snapped off the cuffs, but now Amy was staging a one woman sit-in.

  “Investigate!” Amy chanted. “Investigate! Investigate!”

  Castiel came up behind me. “You’ve got exactly thirty seconds to get her out of here or she’s going to jail.”

  “Amy, c’mon, let’s go,” I said, shouldering my way through the phalanx of cops. She was sitting cross-legged, arms folded across her chest, her back against the wall. A Gandhi pose, daring the constabulary to pick her up and carry her out.

  “I want to testify. Testify!”

  “I swear I’ll have her Baker-acted,” Castiel said. “Lock her in the loony bin.”

  “Amy, c’mon,” I said. “No one breaks into the Grand Jury.”

  “Where is justice? Where is justice for my sister?”

  “Amy, it’s over,” I said. “You made your point.”

  “Charlie Ziegler killed Krista! If you won’t do something about it, I will.”

  “All right, enough,” the first cop said, taking a step toward her.

  I held up a hand, like a guard at an intersection. “Just a few seconds, okay?”

  He swatted my hand away, and without my telling it to, my arm shot out, and I grabbed his wrist. He didn’t pull away. He just looked at me. Hard. The look seemed to come naturally. He was three inches shorter than me but just as heavy, with a body builder’s torso. A lot of cops are into steroids and HGH, and this guy made Barry Bonds look puny.

  “You don’t lay a hand on a peace officer,” he said.

  I let go of his wrist but stayed put between him and Amy.

  “Peace officer? Who the fuck are you, John Wayn
e?”

  “And you don’t use profanity in a public building.”

  “Fine. Let’s go outside. But let me get her out of here first.”

  “We’re taking her in. She’s refusing a lawful instruction by a peace officer.”

  Peace officer, again. Going all True Grit on me.

  “I’m only going to ask you once, sir.” His voice cranked up a notch. “Move!”

  “ ‘Move’ is not a question.”

  “Jake, you’re crazier than your client. Do what he says.” Castiel crashing our party.

  “Amy, please come with me or we’re both going to jail,” I said.

  “Miami cops are dirty!” she shouted.

  “That’s it,” the beefy cop said. He pushed me aside, and I pushed him back. Which is when two of his pals slammed me, face-first, against the wall. Another grabbed my right arm and twisted it behind my back. A fourth cop, with nothing else to do, twisted my left arm to meet my right. That sent a lightning bolt through my shoulder. I’d had rotator cuff surgery back in my playing days, and the joint still bothers me when I do something foolish like hail a cab, shoot the bird, or get shackled.

  The cops tried to get their handcuffs off their belts, which resulted in a jangling that resembled a bell choir. That gave me the chance to wrestle one arm free. Hercules unbound, I wheeled around, and the first cop zapped me in the chest with his Taser.

  My knees turned to jelly, but I didn’t fall. The second blast made me claw the air, searching for something to grab on to. I hit the floor, my legs splayed, my feet twitching. My ears were humming with static, so I barely heard Castiel. “Wrong way, Lassiter. Wrong way, again.”

  28 The Pork Barn

  Charlie Ziegler did not want to be on a porn set. He’d made his movies, done his blow, banged his girls, and was smart enough to bail out when amateur video hit the market, and every kid with a Wal-Mart camera and an uninhibited girlfriend became a porn director. Doubly smart, because he sold the production end of the business for a bundle, while hanging on to the library and the low-overhead, high-profit distribution network.

  Today, Ziegler drove to a dingy warehouse in the crotch of pavement where the turnpike met I-95. Once it had been his production office and soundstage. Today he came to see Leonard “Lens” Newsome, the finest porn cinematographer who ever lived. The man could make a pop shot-spouting beads of jism-look like the Trevi Fountain.

  Lens had called last night.

  “Some old shit’s hit the fan, Charlie, and I don’t wanna talk about it on the phone.”

  Which is what brought Ziegler to the pork barn on a stormy afternoon when he should have been casting Texaz Hold ’Em amp; Strip ’Em, a TV game show based on strip poker.

  Much was still familiar. The crew dragging equipment carts, wheels clacking across concrete slabs. The smell of sawdust and fresh paint. Cables snaking along the floor, lights blazing, a makeshift dressing room with lighted mirrors, the girls pasting on their eyelashes. A metallic, air-conditioned chill in the air, goose bumps everywhere, nipples poking through flimsy lingerie.

  Some things had changed, Ziegler knew. OSHA inspections, condoms, accounting departments with payroll deductions for taxes. Taxes! The party had become a business.

  The crew looked younger, but maybe he had gotten older. Unshaven kids, earbuds plugged into their iPods, zoning out on the latest shit music.

  Today’s set was a bedroom-big surprise-propped up on a platform of two-by-fours. Klieg lights were just clicking off, a sizzle in the air. Leonard Newsome bent over awkwardly and struggled getting down from the platform. A touch of arthritis, maybe. His beard had gone silver, his thin hair tied back in a ponytail.

  Time, Ziegler thought, is a ball-busting mistress who will bend your body and break your will.

  “Lens, how they hanging?”

  “Lemme buy you some coffee, Charlie.” Newsome directed him to what passed for a craft service table. A sheet of plywood balanced on two sawhorses. A stained coffeemaker and a basket of pretzels. Two actresses in thongs and open bathrobes were sipping coffee and whining about an actor with a bent penis.

  “Like it wants to sneak around the corner, but I don’t have a corner.”

  “I know him,” the other one said. “They call him ‘Roto Rooter.’ ”

  “Girls, why doncha go out for a smoke?” Leonard told them.

  “Smoke? Do I look like I’d put a cigarette in my mouth?”

  Lens rolled his eyes but kept quiet. The girls took off, shooting dirty looks at the men.

  “What’s up, Lens?” Ziegler poured himself some coffee that could flush a clogged drain.

  “A woman showed up at my condo yesterday asking about a girl from the old days.”

  “Amy Larkin, looking for her sister?”

  Lens nodded. “I was playing pinochle in the card room. I don’t even know how she found me.”

  “The woman’s an insurance investigator, Lens. She’s not stupid.”

  “No shit. She asked what I remembered about Krista.”

  “What’d you say?”

  “Told her, too many years. Too many girls.”

  “Thanks, Lens.”

  “Hell, it’s damn near true. I hardly remember any of them unless they gave me a dose.”

  “What else she want to know?”

  “That’s where it got hairy. Wondered if you ever shot snuff films.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Told her, hell, no, not your style. Asked if I ever went to your house for parties, and I said sure. Asked who else was there, and I said I’m just a photographer. I don’t see anything that’s not in the lens.”

  “That end it?”

  “She wanted to look at all the old films and videos, track down actors who worked with her sister. I told her there were a couple thousand titles and no one ever used their real names. It’d be like looking for a pubic hair in a haystack.”

  All Lassiter’s fault, Ziegler thought. Giving the woman hope, stirring her up.

  How the hell can I put a stop to it?

  “I’d watch out for this woman, Charlie.”

  “Whadaya mean?”

  “You remember Kandy Kane, Charlie?”

  Ziegler cracked a smile, thinking about the day Kandy bit into Rex Hung’s scrotum and spit out a testicle. It was Rex’s fault, slipping it in her back door when Kandy’s contract specifically forbade it. “Sure, I remember Kandy. So does One Nut Hung.”

  “I was looking through the lens at Kandy, just a second before she chomped old Rex. Same look on Amy Larkin’s face when she mentioned your name.”

  Ziegler was processing that when he heard his name called, as if being paged in a hotel lobby. “Charles W. Ziegler!”

  A short, trim man with a set of headphones draped around his neck approached.

  “What the fuck are you doing on my set?” Rodney Gifford demanded.

  The guy had directed most of the Charlie’s Girlz videos and was as miserable a prick as ever told an actress to spread wider and moan louder. A dozen years ago, Gifford had bought Ziegler out, wildly overpaying for the studio. Instead of blaming his own stupid-ass self, he carried a grudge against Ziegler.

  “Relax, Gifford. I come in peace.”

  The director waltzed over to confront him. “Closed set, Ziegler!” Raising his voice to impress the crew.

  “Why, you shooting The Da Vinci Code?”

  Gifford seethed. “You never understood the craft.”

  “What’s to understand? Suck, fuck, and pop.” Charlie looked to the growing crowd for agreement. “Your problem is, you complicate everything.”

  Gifford was dressed as if Calvin Klein might pop in and ask him to pose for an ad. Even now, at fifty-something, he played the role of preppie with an artistic bent. Pleated khaki pants, loafers without socks, a black silk shirt, tinted glasses, and that exaggerated glide in his stride.

  Gifford had gone to film school and thought he was Ingmar Bergman. His interiors always had odd angles, quick cuts,
and shadowy lighting, when all the whackers wanted were brightly lit close-ups of winking twats. “Off my set, Ziegler.” Gifford pointed to the door.

  “I’m leaving, Gifford. Only came by to say hello to an old friend, and that ain’t you.”

  “Bullshit. I know why you’re here. It’s that Larkin woman asking questions.” Gifford smiled maliciously, his teeth bleached as white as a porcelain toilet. “You can’t bury your past, Ziegler.”

  “What do you know about it?”

  “I got a call yesterday from an Amy Larkin. Ever hear of her?”

  “What’s your point?”

  “Enterprising woman. She got my unlisted home number. Asked me to lunch.”

  “So?”

  “I had the salad nicoise. Want to know what we talked about?”

  “Fuck you, Gifford.” Ziegler wouldn’t give the prick the satisfaction of asking.

  “The woman thinks you’re scum, Charlie. I applaud her good taste.”

  “Fuck you twice.”

  Most of the crew were paying attention now. A topless Lolita type in a plaid cheerleader’s skirt put down her book-Sudoku for Dummies-and watched the two men.

  “Maybe I should have told her what I know,” Gifford said, in a teasing tone.

  “You don’t know shit.”

  Gifford moved closer and whispered, his breath smelling of coffee and peppermints. “I was at your house that night, Ziegler. I know exactly what happened to Krista Larkin.”

  29 Boy Meets Punching Bag

  Granny was preparing chicken-fried steaks and yammering about the money I owed her for posting my bail. I was not hungry. Maybe because I’m not partial to beef dipped in milk and eggs and then fried. Maybe because I was worried about Amy.

  “Exactly what did she say to you?” I asked.

  “Told you three times. I bailed her out of the Women’s Annex before I got you. Figured you’re more used to jail than she is. She said she’d be over for dinner because she favored my cooking.”

  “That’s it?”