Mortal Sin jl-4 Read online

  I was still thirty miles east of town when I saw the blue light in the rearview mirror. I checked my speedometer. The needle was jumping between 50 and 55. I slowed to make sure the police car meant me. It pulled to within a few feet, and a voice over its loudspeaker politely asked me to please bring my vehicle to a safe stop.

  When I pumped the brakes and clunked to a halt on the berm, the same voice told me to please exit my vehicle, step to the rear, and bring my license and registration with me. I got out and did most of what I was told. The police car had its high beams on, and the blue light kept flashing. I squinted at the officer who approached me, one hand on the butt of his still-holstered revolver, just the way they teach them. He was dark-complexioned with long, straight black hair and, like so many cops these days, he had the overblown trapezius muscles that sloped from shoulders to neck and revealed the serious weight lifter.

  The uniform was unfamiliar to me. Then I read the arm patch. MICANOPY TRIBAL POLICE. The nameplate identified him as “G. Alachua.” I handed him my license, explained that I’d borrowed the truck and didn’t have the registration unless it was in the glove compartment with some fishing lures and road maps that predated Ponce de Leon. He didn’t crack a smile. They teach them that, too.

  G. Alachua studied my license for a moment. “Please wait here, Mr. Lassiter.”

  He returned to the police car, this time approaching the passenger side. For the first time, I noticed another cop. They spoke to each other through the open window. Then the door opened, and both officers walked toward me. In the glare of the headlights, I couldn’t make out the features of the second one, who was shorter than his partner. This one was carrying a nightstick, and somehow his walk seemed familiar. I recognize people that way sometimes. On the football field, even if the number was obscured and the face hidden beneath a face mask or behind another player, I identified teammates and foes alike by the way they carried themselves.

  Alachua spoke first, drawing my attention to him. “Mr. Lassiter, we must ask you to take a roadside sobriety test.”

  “What for? Was I driving erratically? Was I speeding? Why was I stopped?”

  Lawyers are trained to ask questions.

  With amazing agility, the other cop turned away and spun around, his back facing us as he unleashed his right foot in an explosive kick that shattered the right rear brake light on the old Dodge. The ushiro mawashi-geri, the back roundhouse kick in karate, impressive because it’s delivered blind. “Faulty equipment,” he answered.

  Then he faced me directly and smiled, and a chill went through me. The same short dark hair, the same broad shoulders, the same short, powerful legs.

  “Jim Tiger! You’re a policeman?”

  “Captain Tiger,” he responded calmly, the smile gone, replaced by the familiar taciturn expression of the guy with few words but a sharp machete. “Now, are you going to voluntarily submit to the sobriety test, or do we take you in?”

  “In where? Where’s your station?”

  “Back at the village, though sometimes we take a short cut through the saw-grass prairie.”

  “That wouldn’t be a short cut,” I said. “The village is a straight shot west on the Trail.”

  Tiger turned toward Alachua. “Mr. Lassiter wants to teach us geography.”

  “Okay,” I said. “You’ve made your point. I’m not welcome in your territory. Fine. I’ll head home.” I started to move toward the cab of the pickup, but Alachua grabbed my shoulder. I could have shaken him off. I could have pivoted with my left foot and caught him in the gut with a hook. I could have done a lot of things, but I just stopped and looked at Jim Tiger. I was big and strong, but he was cruel and vicious. I could hit hard, but he could kill and do it without blinking, do it calmly and dispassionately. “I’ll take the sobriety test,” I said.

  Tiger reached into his back pocket and smiled again. That made two in one night. He pulled out a silver flask that glittered in the headlights, blue sparks flying from the metal with each revolution of the police car’s light. He unscrewed the cap and offered me a drink.

  “No, thanks. I never drink when my constitutional rights are being violated.”

  “Drink it!”

  I took the flask and sniffed at it. Cheap bourbon or something like it. “Who you saving the good stuff for, Jose Canseco?”

  I considered the alternatives. Alachua still had his hand on his gun. Tiger still held his nightstick. In the movies, the hero would toss the whiskey in one bad guy’s face and kick the other one in the balls. But in the movies, they choreograph it. The second bad guy has the reflexes of a mollusk. He stands by and allows the hero to take out the first bad guy before being surprised himself. In real life, two against one is just a shitty bet. I took a short swig, letting a little of the warm liquid into my mouth but plugging the bottle’s opening with my tongue.

  “More!” Tiger ordered. “Drink it all.”

  Again, I sipped at the flask. “ Hmmm, good. Firewater strong medicine.” It was a line I thought Henry Osceola would like.

  Jim Tiger didn’t share the chairman’s sense of humor. “Do you think Native Americans are funny?”

  On the road, a pair of eighteen-wheelers rumbled past, kicking up dust clouds in the glare of the headlights.

  “No. I just make bad jokes when I’m scared.”

  “Mr. Florio was wrong about you. He said you were smarter than you looked.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Is there anything you want to tell us before we get on with this?”

  “Did you hear the one about the bosomy blonde who was trying on dresses with plunging necklines?” I asked, stalling for time. They both stared at me as if I’d lost my mind. “She asks the saleswoman if the dress she had on was too low-cut. ‘Do you have hair on your chest?’ the saleswoman says. ‘No, of course not,’ the woman responds. ‘Then it’s too low-cut.’”

  “That’s enough!” Tiger shouted. “Drink it. Drink the whole thing. Now!”

  I leaned my head back and let it flow. The whiskey was warm and raw in my throat. It was still gurgling down when I sensed movement in front of me.

  A blur.

  Oomph.

  Tiger’s left fist plunged deep into my gut, and I spit whiskey all over my herringbone suit. I dropped to a knee, gasping. It wasn’t the hardest I’d ever been hit. It wasn’t the hardest I’d been hit today, but I wasn’t going to tell Tiger that.

  I was sucking in air, and Tiger was talking. “Faulty equipment, driving under the influence, and resisting arrest. Get to your feet.”

  I pulled myself up, using the rear gate of the pickup for leverage. I was huffing and puffing, but part of it was an act. Playing possum. Enough of the scaredy-cat.

  “Cuff him,” Tiger ordered. He had backed up a step.

  Alachua took his hand off his gun and reached behind his back to find the handcuffs. I needed a step to get to Tiger, but I didn’t want to leave my feet by lunging at him. I didn’t knowhow much quick I had left after having the wind knocked out of me, but I didn’t have a choice. I took the stutter-step on wobbly knees, feinted with the left, hoping to bring the nightstick in that direction, so I could have a clear shot with a short right at his jaw.

  I didn’t get within two feet. Tiger saw me coming and lifted the nightstick toward my chest. It never touched me, but a green explosion caught me square in the sternum, a fluorescent flash that knocked my feet out from under me and sat me on my ass.

  I didn’t see stars.

  Stars would have been better.

  My legs were noodles, my arms paralyzed. My teeth felt loose. My tongue was swollen, and my ears were playing Mozart’s Turkish March. I felt wet and clammy. I looked down. I had pissed my pants.

  “Whoa, baby!”

  It was Alachua. He was cackling. “Whoa, baby!” Over and over, or was it just bonging back and forth in my brain?

  He cackled again. “Never saw the Zap Stick used before on a person. Holy shit.”

  �
�Twenty thousand volts will do that,” Tiger said.

  I was aware of the noise. A droning whir.

  It made me want to sleep. Maybe I was in bed. But my head seemed to be bouncing off a metal floor. Cold metal. And that noise. It made my jaw ache. Or was that the cold?

  I felt myself shiver. Trying to sit up now. Jerked back down again, my right arm refusing to follow the rest of me. Shaking my arm. A rattling. My wrist cuffed to a cold, rusted railing.

  Above me, the moon. The sensation of movement. Fast. I listened to the droning whir. I propped myself up on one elbow and looked over a low railing. I was right. We were moving. Flying through a wheat field.

  No, not a wheat field. A jungle, maybe. I’d been here before, but when? I couldn’t remember. A splash of water came over the rail and smacked me in the face. I tried sitting up. In a chair above me, a shadowy figure with his hand on what looked like a rudder. I started to say something. With his other hand, he picked up what looked like…no, not that again. I remember that.

  The world exploded into green fluorescence.

  Somebody said something. What was it?

  “He smells boozy and pissy. Like my old abuelo. ”

  I wasn’t flying anymore. No more water. I cracked my eyes open. I was lying facedown on a smooth wooden floor. It smelled of clean, fresh varnish. I wanted to lie there awhile.

  “Are we going to wait for the boss?”

  A different voice. Familiar. I’d have to roll over to see who. The last time I rolled over, somebody put me back to sleep.

  “ El jefe’s busy making money. He gave me the papers, but he should be here in time for the closing.”

  A chuckle. “The closing. I like that.”

  I didn’t.

  I turned my head an inch and peeked. One alligator cowboy boot. One shiny black shoe. My astute powers of reasoning-inductive or deductive or whatever-told me the same man wasn’t wearing both. In all probability, there were four feet altogether, divided by two equals two men, one belonging to each voice. Very good, Lassiter, go to the head of the class.

  Another peek across the room. Dark furniture, shuttered windows. I knew this place. I’d been here before. Nicky Florio’s humble fishing cabin.

  Heaven on earth.

  I rolled my head just enough so I could look up. The ugly face of Guillermo Diaz was staring down at me. “ Hola, abogado! Ey, Sleeping Beauty is up.”

  The pudgy creep was wearing low-slung pants, a western shirt, and cowboy boots to make him taller. Another head appeared. My old pal Captain Tiger of the tribal police. It was his strong dark hand that reached down and grabbed me by the scruff of the neck. I still had on my suit coat and felt overdressed for the occasion. I helped him get me up, swinging my feet underneath me and standing on rickety legs. He guided me to a chair at a card table. A table with a green felt top. Hey, I remember the table, too. But there weren’t any stains. The table was new. I looked toward the ceiling. No dark spots. Then at the floor. It had been sanded and refinished. Not a trace of Rick Gondolier’s spurting blood.

  Diaz and Tiger took seats on either side of me.

  “No thanks, boys,” I said. “The last time I played poker here, I lost my shirt, and somebody else lost his…”

  A thin leather briefcase sat on the table in front of Diaz. He reached inside and withdrew a file. Inside the file was a document he pulled out and shoved in front of me. It had my name on top, how flattering: Statement of Jacob Lassiter. But the typing was haphazard.

  “Read it!” Tiger ordered.

  “‘Drink it, read it.’ That’s all I get from you. Nag, nag, nag.”

  “Okay, shithead, just sign it.”

  “No, I think I’ll read it. Hey, you don’t see many manual typewriters anymore. That floating e makes it look like it was typed on my…”

  Diaz smiled his lowlife’s smile. “Ey, how come you don’t lock your door? Not that it would matter. I could break into Fort Knox if the price was right.” He allowed himself an egg-sucking laugh. “You like my typing?”

  I started reading to see what I decided to say. “To Whom It May Concern.” Ah, the personal touch.

  I kept reading: “I’m sorry for everything I’ve done. I’m sorry it had to come to this.” The words seemed to be floating all over the page, and not just because the old Royal was one step from the scrap yard. My head was swimming. I put a finger on a line of type and traced along as I read.

  “I’m sorry that I lost sight of right and wrong.”

  I seemed to be sorry about a lot of things. I’d let down my partners and my friends and my Granny. That was a nice touch, throwing Granny in there. How about Coach Paterno and Coach Shula?

  I’d gotten greedy, too. A lot of greed and sorrow, it seemed to me.

  I’d lost sight of ethics. Well, that was certainly believable.

  Greed’s the reason I stole the money from the bingo hall.

  And killed my buddy and co-conspirator Rick Gondolier.

  And tried to bribe Abe Socolow.

  “What, nothing else, fellows? Wasn’t I on the grassy knoll in Dallas?”

  I kept reading. It looked like something I might have typed. Lots of typos, a few words misspelled.

  “If you two think Nicky Florio can get away with this, you’re crazier than he is,” I said. “This confession is worthless. I’ll disown it in a minute. It won’t be admissible. It isn’t worth the paper it’s-”

  “Keep reading, shithead,” Tiger said. I did.

  Oh. There it was in the last paragraph. The statement wasn’t a confession, at least not one I’d have a chance to repudiate. It was a suicide note.

  Chapter 22

  Die Easy, Die Hard

  Nicky Florio gently swirled the delicate finnish goblet by the stem, smiling to himself as he sniff-sniff-sniffed the crimson liquid. “Full-bodied,” he proclaimed after a moment. “A hint of violets, ginger, and tobacco.” He turned toward me. “Care to sample France’s finest?”

  I shook my head, and various hinges and latches groaned where they fastened my neck and shoulder muscles to my bones. “You want to slip me a Mickey, why not just bash me over the head?”

  Florio showed his patient, tolerant look. “In due time, if it is your desire. But I think we can be more creative than that, don’t you?”

  “You gonna get me drunk and freeze me to death? You have a wine cellar here, too?”

  “Not necessary. Just an air-conditioned room to keep the Bordeaux at sixty-eight degrees.” He picked up another goblet. “Chateau Carbonnieux from the Graves area. It’s a Bordeaux 1961.” He gestured toward the table full of bottles. “They all are. The greatest year ever, even finer than 1945.” He poured a glass for me. “Let it sit for a while. It’s not as delicate as the Chateau Cantemerle, which I allow to breathe for a full hour, but no more.”

  I stared at the wine, wondering how long Nicky Florio would let me breathe. We were sitting at the knotty-pine picnic table on the porch of the high-stilted cabin. The slough was alive with sounds of birds tuning up their voices and unseen animals rippling the water just before dawn. Was it only two days ago that I sat at this table, eating snook with cabbage palm, boiled corn, and pumpkin pie? Jim Tiger had been the cook, Rick Gondolier a guest. Tiger wasn’t doing any cooking today. Still in his cop’s clothes, he was hauling bottles of wine from a back room as Nicky Florio shouted instructions. A Latour and a Petrus, two Lafite-Rothschilds.

  Florio sat across from me at the table in his safari khakis, his dark face brooding at his wine. A cool breeze stirred through the slough, the air ripe with the pungent aroma of fermentation, of growth and death and renewal of life. Tiger silently poured from half a dozen bottles into two sets of glasses.

  “Lassiter, do you understand what I’m doing?” Florio asked.

  “Sure, you’re showing me just how much savoir-faire you’ve got. You want me to know you’re something I’m not. It all goes back to Gina, doesn’t it?”

  “Does it?”

  “L
ook, Nicky, she chose you. She’s your wife. You won. You don’t have to prove anything to me.”

  “Quite right, quite right.” The French wine was making him sound like a phony European count. Florio sniffed again, then took a sip from one of the goblets. “Complex and opulent,” he opined, putting the glass down and savoring the taste, his eyes closed. “Tell me, Lassiter, how would you describe the Lynch-Bages?”

  I studied the contents of a freshly poured goblet. “Red. It’s definitely red.” I took a dainty sip, then polished it off in a second try. “I don’t knowhow opulent it is, but it tastes damn good.”

  “Let’s compare the Mouton, another Pauillac wine.”

  Tiger, the homicidal sommelier, poured me a fresh one.

  “By the way,” Florio said, “you may want to savor the wine a bit more and not…chug it.”

  I stuck my nose into the goblet and sniffed with the earnest diligence of a Labrador retriever. “Rich,” I intoned judiciously. “And, of course, red, still red.”

  He nodded. Maybe I was a natural at this. I drank up, finishing it off, letting him frown at my lack of couth.

  “Next, perhaps a Chateau Petrus from the Pomerol region.”

  I tried it and found a new word. “Fruity,” I told him.

  Again, he nodded judiciously. “Spicy and fruity, to be sure.

  Today it would go for twenty-five hundred dollars a bottle-if you could find it.”

  I nearly squirted him with about a hundred bucks’ of the stuff. When I finished coughing, he was pouring more wine. We sipped along with each other for a while, running through a Lafite, which I agreed was delicate, a powerful Pichon-Lalande, and a sturdy, somewhat acidic Figeac. Over yet another bottle, we debated whether a Montrose was drying from age, but we agreed that some of the wines from Saint-Julien were past their peaks.

  And so was I.

  In the last sixty hours, I had watched a man decapitated, then helped dispose of the evidence. I got hooked into a bribery scheme and was framed for a million-dollar heist. I had been punched by two cops, one of them apparently honest, which is about the average in these parts. I had been zapped twice by a stun gun and shanghaied aboard an airboat. I’d read my own suicide note, insulted the guy who wanted to kill me, then drunk enough wine to drown a cat. I wanted to ponder the cosmic significance of these events, but at the moment my head was throbbing, my temples were in a vise, and my eyes were pressed shut. Somebody was saying something, but I wasn’t interested.