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  I eased onto a red vinyl bench, and Trouble swayed to the music, her long dark hair brushing her shoulders. She was thin and slim-hipped with outsize breasts as round as volleyballs, courtesy of those discount plastic surgeons, I figured. She whirled around and waved her skinny butt in my face, giving me a view of several tattoos on her back: a butterfly, a hawk, and several snakes. A real animal lover.

  Just before she lowered her butt into my lap, I grabbed her elbow.

  “Hey, no touching!” she said, spinning away.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean anything. I just—”

  “Didn’t you see the sign? No touching, spanking, groping, or grabbing.”

  “I don’t want a lap dance. Just sit down and talk to me.”

  “Oh, one of those. Sure.”

  “I’m looking for a friend of mine. His name is Clark Calvert, but I don’t know if he goes by that name in here, or by any name, for that matter.”

  “Doesn’t ring a bell.” Sitting alongside me, she still moved to the music.

  “He’s a doctor in Miami.” I reached into my suit pocket and pulled out a three-by-five head shot Barrios had given me. I showed it to Trouble and immediately saw her eyes widen just a bit.

  “Maybe I know him,” she said.

  “Maybe I have another Ulysses S. Grant in my pocket.”

  “A pair of them will do.”

  I handed over the money, and she said, “Sawbones. That’s what he likes to be called.”

  “Is he a regular?”

  Before she could answer, the beaded curtain flew open, and an elephant barged into the VIP room. Okay, not an elephant. A man in black jeans and a gray pin-striped vest with no shirt underneath. He had massive sloping shoulders covered with curly black hair. His arms were slabs of beef. Not much definition, but if he could throw a punch, it would land like a sledgehammer. Sticking out of the front pocket of his vest were four plastic-wrapped Slim Jims.

  “It’s okay, Corky,” Trouble said.

  Corky? I’d been thinking something along the line of Bruiser.

  “He’s not touching me or nothing,” she said.

  The cowgirl bartender was standing off to the side, nearly obscured by one of Corky’s hairy shoulders.

  “Beat it, T,” Corky said.

  Trouble slithered off the sofa and ducked past him and through the beaded curtain. The bartender followed.

  “You’re asking a lot of questions,” Corky said, once we were alone.

  I spotted a camera mounted on the wall near the ceiling. There’d be a microphone somewhere, too, everything wired into the manager’s office. I took Corky to be the manager-bouncer-guy-who-unloads-beer-kegs-two-at-a-time.

  “Just tracking down a guy,” I said.

  “You a cop?”

  “Close. Assistant State Attorney.”

  “We cooperate with the law. We pay our taxes, run a clean place. No drugs, no prostitution. No underage girls or patrons.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “You got ID?”

  I reached inside my suit pocket and pulled out a genuine imitation leather billfold and handed it over. Inside was a similarly genuine imitation gold star with the seal of Miami-Dade County. The seal portrays a Spanish sailing ship approaching the sun-drenched virginal shore of Florida but omits any imagery of the sailors bringing syphilis to the natives.

  Corky took a moment examining the slip of flimsy paper with my name and title handwritten in ink. “This is dated last week.”

  “I was just appointed. I’m special, that is, specially appointed for one case.”

  “So you’re a temp?”

  “I didn’t think of it that way, but sure. A part-timer. A freelancer. A temp.”

  “Like some of my girls who go to community college during the week and can only work weekend shifts here.”

  “Same principle.”

  On the speakers, the DJ was advising patrons to get change at the bar. Two-dollar bills for their tips. Or as he put it, “Ten Tom Jeffersons in return for a twenty.”

  “Sometimes cops come in here,” Corky said, “and we give them free lap dances. Maybe someday they can do us a favor. But you’re down in Miami and just a temp, so . . .”

  “I can’t ever do you a favor.”

  “So why should I help you?”

  “Maybe ’cause you’re a concerned citizen.” I handed him the head shot and waited.

  “Sawbones,” Corky said. “I doubt he’s a criminal.”

  “I just need to know if he was in here on Saturday, June 3.”

  “That’s almost a month ago. No one’s gonna remember.”

  On the speakers, R. Kelly was wailing “Feelin’ on Yo Booty.”

  “You have a video security system, right?”

  “Everywhere but the restrooms, and if you got a subpoena in your other pocket, we’re in business.”

  “I can get one and have you served tomorrow, or you can just take a few minutes and go through the hard drive now.”

  “Cloud. It’s in the cloud.”

  “Isn’t everything? It won’t take long, and I’ll be out of here.”

  He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and the building didn’t collapse. “Your ID says Jacob Lassiter.”

  “Guilty as charged.”

  “There was a Jake Lassiter who played for the Dolphins when I was a kid.”

  “You must have been a hell of a fan. I never started a game unless two guys were hurt. Usually I sat so far down the bench, my ass was in Kissimmee.”

  “But you were a holy terror on the suicide squads. Made your share of tackles.”

  “Only way I could stay on the roster was to sacrifice my body.”

  “My old man couldn’t afford tickets, but we watched every Dolphins game on TV. He was a bettor, but not a very good one. Would bet the rent money, the food money, money he borrowed, money he swiped from the collection plate at church. When I was about twelve, he says to me, ‘Corky, I’m gonna buy you a pair of Air Jordans with the money I win today.’ He’d scraped together five or six hundred bucks, a fortune for him, and he had this feeling about the Dolphins game on the road against the Jets.”

  Oh, shit. I know where this is going.

  “December game at the Meadowlands?” I said. “Frozen turf. Swirling snow. Misty fog.”

  “Yeah, that’s the one. Crazy day. Like the game was being played on the moon.”

  Why, God? Why does the past cling to me like mud on rusty cleats?

  “Jets led by six late in the game,” Corky said, “and the Dolphins scored to take a one-point lead. On the kickoff, you made a helmet-to-helmet tackle we could hear on the TV. Like a tank hitting a brick wall.”

  So that’s what a concussion sounds like from the outside. From inside, it’s strangely silent.

  Corky said, “The Jets’ returner fumbles. The ball spins on the ground like a top. You’re staggering around, but somehow you pick up the ball. Remember what happens next?”

  In truth, I don’t remember the play, or anything else that happened that day, but I’ve seen the video a hundred times. My mind will probably replay it on my deathbed.

  “Vaguely,” I said.

  “You get turned around and run to the wrong end zone, where about six Jets pile on top of you. Two points! Safety. Jets win by one.”

  “I’m sorry, Corky,” I said. “Sorry your dad lost all that money.”

  “Lost? He took the Jets straight up. And I got my Air Jordans.”

  Corky laughed so hard the wall behind him shook. “C’mon back to my office, and we’ll look for the video.”

  He led me out of the VIP room and into a dark corridor that led to a small office in the back of the building.

  “You say June 3 was a Saturday?” he asked.

  “It was. Does that make any difference?”

  “Not with the recording system, but that’s the day he usually brought her along.”

  “Who?”

  “His wife. On Saturdays, Sawbones
usually brought his wife along.”

  -31-

  Blowing Smoke

  One day after Corky gave me the proof that Calvert had lied about his whereabouts the day Sofia disappeared, I walked into an office where three men were sucking on Cuban cigars. The big, fat, expensive Cohiba.

  I just hoped no one would start waxing ecstatic about the Cohiba’s pungent coffee flavor or its earthy spices. I don’t know which group is more insufferable, wine snobs or cigar aficionados.

  Leaning back in his black leather chair, his shiny black wingtips perched on his desk, Ray Pincher, the duly elected state attorney of Miami-Dade County, waved his cigar in my direction and said, “Jake, this is Pedro Suarez.”

  “Call me Pepe.” Suarez sat in one of the deeply upholstered client chairs, his shrewd eyes studying me. “Thank you for everything you’re doing on behalf of my daughter.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Pepe,” I said. “Sorry it has to be under these circumstances.”

  His hair was combed straight back and was the same color as the cigar smoke. His suit was a shimmering blue, probably light wool, and custom tailored to disguise his blocky build. Handsome man, early fifties, plain gold wedding band and a diamond pinky ring. A jagged scar ran from the corner of his right eye toward his ear, and then back again, stopping an inch from his mouth. It occurred to me that a plastic surgeon could repair the scar, but Suarez must have chosen not to do it. Maybe it was a negotiating tactic. Let the bankers or competing sugar barons or EPA investigators know they were dealing with a tough hombre.

  Suarez gestured toward the large, bearded man sitting next to him. “This is JT.”

  I said, “Howdy,” maybe because the man wore scuffed cowboy boots. Big guy in his late forties, blue jeans and a khaki shirt with epaulets and military pockets. If he stood up, he would probably be around six-four, and I guessed 250 pounds. I pegged him as head of security for Suarez Farms. “Nice to meet you, JT.”

  The big man grunted a “Hullo” back at me.

  Examining the glowing tip of his cigar, Pincher said, “Jake has some good news for you, Pepe.”

  “Potentially good news,” I corrected him. Like all politicians, Pincher puts topspin on his first serve. I didn’t want him making promises I couldn’t keep. “A couple days ago, frankly, we had nothing but suspicion. Now we have something.”

  “Let’s hear it.” Suarez was not a man given to long preambles.

  “Calvert lied to the police about his whereabouts on the day Sofia went missing. He didn’t spend the day looking for her, didn’t even stay on Miami Beach. We can prove that.”

  “That son of a bitch. That’s huge.”

  “It can be, but we need to know why he lied. Sometimes there are innocent reasons.”

  “Jesus, Jake!” Pincher thundered. “Stop talking like a defense lawyer. Forget the nuance.”

  “You’re right, Ray. Old habit. What I should be saying is generally one lie leads to another and another, and at the end of that trail is the truth. We’re following that trail.”

  “Just tell me what you’ve got,” Suarez said.

  I told him about the good detective work of George Barrios in establishing when Calvert left the house, when he got on the turnpike, and where he got off. I told him about my lucky guesswork at where he went—at least his first stop—in Pompano Beach. I filled him in on Corky’s story. Calvert was a regular at the Titty Trap. On weekends, Sofia would often come along. She’d join him in the so-called VIP lounge, where he’d buy lap dances. Mostly she’d watch. Sometimes she’d kiss and fondle him while the stripper was grinding his lap.

  “That damn weirdo perverted her,” Suarez said.

  “Security video shows Calvert pulling into the parking lot at twelve fifty-three p.m. on June 3 and leaving just thirty-one minutes later. He was alone. He had one nonalcoholic drink at the bar, exchanged pleasantries with the barmaid, and paid for a single three-song lap dance with a stripper who calls herself Trouble. Tipped her fifty dollars. He didn’t seem nervous or agitated. There was nothing unusual about the visit, except he stayed a shorter time than usual. Detective Barrios theorizes the reason he left so soon . . .”

  “He had Sofia in the trunk,” Suarez said grimly. “The dirtbag was disposing of her body and stopped to get jerked off. Jesus!”

  “That’s the theory,” I said.

  “Sick bastard. Where’d he go from the strip club?”

  “That’s the next stop on the trail, but we’re not there yet. We only know that at nine-oh-seven p.m., seven hours and forty-three minutes later, the Ferrari pulls back into his garage on North Bay Road.”

  Suarez spit out a fleck of tobacco. “Bastard could have gone hundreds of miles.”

  “Or just a few,” Pincher said. “You’ve got the ocean, what, twenty minutes away?”

  “Less,” I said. “Barrios is checking boat rentals for that day up and down the coast. He’s had a couple cases over the years where husbands drop their wives’ bodies in the Gulf Stream.”

  Pincher’s cigar had flamed out. He struck a wooden match with the tip of his thumbnail and relighted. “Jake, tell Pepe what else you’ve got.”

  “Did you know that Sofia was involved with the tennis pro at their country club?”

  Suarez shrugged. “Who the hell could blame her? And now you got a motive to play with. Jealous husband takes revenge.”

  “Like a lot of evidence, it cuts both ways. Sofia recently made the tennis pro the beneficiary of her life insurance policy. If you ask me, the guy’s not a killer. But that won’t keep the defense from pounding the table and claiming Burnside is a suspect we overlooked.”

  “Is that it?” Suarez asked. “That’s all that’s new?”

  “The nurse,” Pincher said. “Jake, tell Pepe about the nurse.”

  Damn. I had told Pincher in confidence, leaving out that the tip came from Solomon.

  “Just a rumor,” I said. “There’s a nurse, someone involved with Calvert before he married Sofia. Back when he was on staff at a hospital in Boston. She filed a complaint that he choked her into unconsciousness.”

  “You have a name?” Suarez asked.

  “Not yet. It could be a blind alley. But it could also mean there are other women out there. Look at the Bill Cosby case. First one, then a torrent. Same with Harvey Weinstein and all those other guys.”

  Suarez was quiet a moment. Then he pointed his cigar at me, as if dotting an i.

  “I gotta be honest with you, Lassiter. I was skeptical when Ray told me he was appointing you.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Now I’m sure I was right and Ray was wrong. You’re all wishy-washy. Following a trail. Evidence cutting both ways. Stuck in blind alleys, taking your sweet time, and meanwhile Calvert is flying to Vietnam . . . When, Ray?”

  Pincher exhaled a puff of smoke. “Two days.”

  “He’s coming back,” I said. “He’s not setting up a practice in Ho Chi Minh City.”

  “Just answer this,” Suarez ordered. “Can you indict by tomorrow?”

  “No,” I said, just as Pincher said, “Yes.”

  “Ray, you guys gotta get your shit together.”

  Before Pincher could dig a deeper hole for me, I said, “We need time.”

  “Time is what you don’t have. Ray told me you can indict now.”

  “Getting the grand jury to indict is easy,” I said. “The problem’s securing a conviction. If we charge without sufficient evidence, the defense will demand a speedy trial and beat the tar out of us.”

  “Indict his ass and worry about that later.”

  “Not the way the process works,” I said.

  “‘Process’? I don’t give a shit about process. I care about results.” Suarez nailed me with a withering look, then swiveled his head toward Pincher. “Ray, I warned you. This guy’s a burnout, a punch-drunk, de-nutted wuss of an ex-jock.”

  Wow. I’ve been insulted multiple times over multiple decades but seldom so many times in one sentenc
e.

  Pincher held up one hand, like a crossing guard in front of a school. “Now, Pepe.”

  “Don’t ‘Now, Pepe’ me! This is who you give me to go after my daughter’s killer.”

  “Lassiter has his own way of doing things, but once we get into court, I swear, he’s the man we want. He’s dynamite on his feet, and jurors love him.”

  “Bullshit! This stiff is painting by the numbers when I need a Picasso.” Suarez turned to the large man who had been silent since grunting hello. “I’m getting JT involved.”

  “Pepe, that could come back to bite us in the ass.”

  “You telling me what I can and can’t do, Ray? Do you want to be governor, or dogcatcher of Calhoun County?”

  Pincher stayed silent, the Cohiba drooping from the corner of his mouth, the phallic symbol gone limp.

  “I take that as acquiescence,” Suarez said. “JT, you’re gonna handle the street operation and report only to me. First item of business. You make sure Calvert doesn’t get on a plane to Vietnam or anywhere else.”

  “Whoa,” I said. “Who the hell is this guy?”

  The big man stirred in his chair, uncrossing his legs and leaning forward. He smiled for the first time, his teeth gapped as gravestones and jagged, as if he’d been gnawing on bones to suck out the marrow. “We’ve met before, Lassiter. Don’t you remember?”

  -32-

  Of Spitting and Pissing

  Pincher tapped ashes from his Cohiba into his black onyx ashtray. Suarez craned his neck upward, exhaling a blue-gray smoke ring. JT sat there with his jagged-tooth, shit-eating grin, waiting for me to try to remember who the hell he was.

  I studied his face, came up empty, shook my head. “My memory’s not what it used to be.”

  The man said, “I didn’t have the beard then. J. T. Wetherall. Ring a bell?”

  A distant chime, but I still couldn’t place him. Normal aging, maybe. Sometimes I forget the names of ex-teammates and former lady friends. Then again, maybe misshapen brain protein was clogging my memory banks.

  “Sorry, JT, you seem familiar, but . . .”

  “No worries, Lassiter. Long time ago. Criminal case in Orange County. Started as a business dispute between two brothers who owned a citrus grove. Then one of them got busted with a stash of cocaine in his pickup. You defended him.”