Mortal Sin jl-4 Page 26

  “…the management company’s gross.” Carlos de La Torre again. “You’re not dealing with the Indians here, Nick. I want a dime of every dollar from every slot machine, craps, and blackjack table in the place. Not to mention the roulette and poker and whatever other legalized thievery you’re planning.”

  “It’s a lot of money,” Florio said.

  “Yes, for a…what did you call me in the contract?”

  “A consultant.”

  Laughter, Gina joining in.

  “My friends on the water board must not know-” Cloppity-clop-clop.

  “No, of course not,” Florio responded. A piece of silverware banged against a plate. I pictured Nicky Florio gesturing with a fork. “The bastards would each demand ten percent, and what would I have left?”

  More laughing all around. What a hilarious group.

  They resumed their small talk, Carlos drawing Gina into the conversation. Then a discussion of diets, and which friends had stopped eating red meat. The waiter returned, and they ordered. Angel hair pasta with fresh tomatoes for Gina, a whole fried snapper in ginger sauce for Carlos, and a Porterhouse steak, medium rare, for Nicky. Caesar salads all around, hold the anchovies.

  “One more thing,” Nicky said, his voice a shade lower. I pictured him leaning closer to De La Torre. “We’ve got more soil tests to do out there, and I’d love to drop the water level another foot.”

  “So?”

  “I can’t tell the board members because they don’t want the Big Cypress any drier, and I don’t want to send the water south through the park because the rangers will scream we’re flooding the gator holes. So, Carlos, can you use a few billion cubic feet of water?”

  “Water,” De La Torre mused. “What is it the Bible says? ‘If thine enemy be thirsty, give him water to drink.’”

  “Carlos, what are you saying? We are friends.”

  “ Verdad, and the very best kind, friends of convenience. Our friendship floats on a river of water. Is there another commodity so precious? In a drought, my company would pay anything for water, but we don’t have to because the Water Management Board would drain the Big Cypress for us. In my business, we have a saying, ‘Water flows uphill, toward the money.’”

  There were the sounds of utensils clicking against plates, some mumbled words, feet shuffling under the table.

  “We don’t need the water now,” De La Torre continued, “but to help a friend, we’ll take some for the fields and dispose of the rest through canals. It’ll be in the Gulf before anyone knows. But not a word-” cloppity-clop “-or there’ll be hell to pay.”

  “Thank you, Carlos. You and I understand each other perfectly.” Then Nicky excused himself. Too much bourbon, he said, provoking another laugh.

  At first, Gina’s voice was so soft I could barely hear her. But I knew it was her. I had heard that tone before. And the words, too. So many times over so many years. “I’ve missed you, Carlos.”

  “And I have missed you, chiquita. ” His voice a whisper now.

  “I thought tomorrow…”

  “No, business first. Besides, I promised your husband I’d be there.”

  “Business, business, business. The two of you are so much alike.”

  A soft chuckle. “That is not what you whispered to me when…” Cloppity-clop.

  “I should never have gotten involved with you. That first time, it was such a close call, we shouldn’t-”

  “That’s why you did it! Don’t you know that? It is the risk you enjoy. In your husband’s home, a hundred people around, it turns you on.”

  “We were nearly caught.”

  “Nearly! We were…”

  A throat cleared. “Would you care for coffee now, or are you waiting for the gentleman to return?”

  Damn. Like a policeman, you can never get a waiter when you need one. But when you’d rather be alone…

  “Espresso now would be fine,” Carlos said. Here was a man who didn’t wait for anybody.

  “Two,” Gina said.

  Silence except for the background noise. I wanted to hear more. Come on, Gina.

  A mumble. “…comes now.”

  The scraping of a chair against the floor. Straining to listen through the earphones was giving me a headache.

  “So what were you two talking about?” Nicky Florio asked.

  “Price supports for the sugar industry and its effect on the international trade of commodities,” Carlos de La Torre said, and everybody had a good laugh.

  My mind was buzzing as I raced down the staircase of threadbare carpeting to the main floor. There was so much I didn’t understand about Gina. What made her tick, anyway? Did boredom make her a thrill-seeker? Was it for the sex, or the power she could wield over men? I had never understood her.

  Passing by the dining room and the bar, I headed toward the lobby, aiming for the front door and the parking lot. Etched into the glass wall of the bar was a schooner under full sail. It made me think of open seas and steady winds. I chased the thought away and tried to concentrate on what I had just heard. The door to the bar opened, emitting sounds of happy chatter. A man came out, but I never looked his way. I was still thinking about water and roulette wheels, bribes and sugarcane, Carlos and Gina. Always Gina.

  “Lassiter? Lassiter, that you?”

  A smart guy would have kept going, head down. A guy in control wouldn’t have jerked around and gaped, a puzzled look on his all-too-visible face. But that’s what I did.

  “Jesus H. Christ, Lassiter.” Gunther wore a golf shirt under a brown plaid sport coat. His thick cop neck filled the open-collar shirt. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  It wasn’t so much a question as an accusation.

  I stared dumbly at him.

  He reached inside his sport coat, patting for the shoulder holster that wasn’t there. His mouth formed the word “shit.”

  “Hey, Gunther, you’re out of uniform.”

  “But you’re not,” he said, examining my leather pants. “Looks like you’re trolling for queers. You’ll have plenty to choose from where I’m taking you.”

  “Where’s that, the Policemen’s Ball?”

  He growled at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Think about it. It’ll come to you.”

  “I’m taking you in, asshole.” He reached behind his back and came up with a pair of handcuffs. I took a step backward and raised my hands.

  “Look, Gunther. Try to get this through your thick skull. We’re on the same side. Nicky Florio is the guy you want. He’s a con man, a murderer, and probably cheats at poker.”

  Gunther took a step toward me, so I took another step back. I was pressed against the wall of the corridor. The front door was twenty paces away. I saw Sam Terilli, the felonious maitre d’, standing in the service entrance to the kitchen, thirty paces the other way. He made a slight gesture with his head, telling me to come that way. Okay, Sam, I’m trying.

  Next to me was a glass trophy case filled with tarnished silver bowls, dusty plaques, and antique golf clubs. I was aware of men in brightly colored slacks surrounding us. Most were gray-haired businessman types in their fifties. A man in a teal pullover sweater tried to step between us. “What’s the trouble here?” he asked.

  “I wouldn’t let this mug play through on fifteen,” I said.

  “Shut up, Lassiter!” Gunther’s face was reddening. “I’m a police officer, and if you’ll all kindly back away, I’ll place this man under arrest.”

  Gunther took a sideways step as if to reach behind me, but I moved the same direction. Sort of a fox-trot. Then a familiar voice. “I see you have encountered the fugitive,” Nicky Florio said. “Be careful, he’s quite dangerous, Officer.”

  This caused a stir in the golf-slacks-and-sweater crowd. A bald man, about sixty, approached Gunther, seemingly to offer help. I’ll bet this was the most excitement they’d had at the club since women were allowed in the Men’s Grill.

  “Jake, you look like a Ti
mes Square cowboy,” Florio said.

  “And you look like a cold-blooded killer.”

  “Do I now? Well, I ask you who has been charged with murder? Who is a respected businessman, and who is under indictment?”

  I was aware of two dozen eyes staring at me as if I were a cockroach on the pantry floor.

  “Officer, I believe the man is quite deranged,” Florio said. “I have testified before the grand jury as to his deeds.” He looked at me with a self-satisfied smirk. Now I saw Gina half a step behind him, biting her lip. I felt my neck redden, embarrassed for her to see me this way, cornered and defenseless. A handsome man with a black mustache-Carlos de La Torre-was gently holding her arm, as if to protect her.

  Gunther nodded in their direction. “No problem, Mr. Florio.” He looked back at the posse of duffers. “But one of you gentlemen might just call nine-one-one and ask for some backup.”

  Two sweaters disappeared into the crowd. Not much time now. I stepped to my right and banged into the trophy case. Gunther moved toward me, his broad shoulders blocking my path. “Okay, Lassiter, it’s over.” He extended his right hand as if to grab me above the elbow. His left hand still held the handcuffs.

  I let my body sag. “You win,” I told him. “I know when I’m beaten.”

  Gunther smiled and stepped forward. I pivoted my left hip and threw a jab a tad too high. It bounced off his sloping forehead, but not without snapping his head back. His eyes closed, then opened wide. He roared like a wounded elephant, from anger, not pain, dropped the handcuffs, and charged me. He missed with a looping roundhouse right that I ducked. I feinted with a left, tapped his skull with a glancing right, tried to dig a hook into his kidneys, but he blocked me. As he backed up, I did my best imitation of a place-kicker. My pants rustled as I brought up a black boot aimed at his crotch. But the pants were too tight and the kick too slow. He caught me by the heel of my cowboy boot and slammed me backward into the trophy case. The door shattered, and shards of glass cascaded over me. My feet were slipping, and my right hand reached reflexively toward the wall to gain my balance. Instead, it went into the trophy case. I knocked over a couple of bowls and then felt my hand wrap itself around the wooden shaft of an ancient golf club that might have been a six iron.

  I was shoving Gunther away with my left hand, but he was clawing at my face, trying to get both hands around my neck. I bent my knees, got leverage, and pushed him off, at the same time tearing the golf club out of the case.

  Gunther stood three feet away, facing me, and I jammed the iron under his nose.

  “No!” cried a man in a peach sweater and mauve polyester slacks. “That’s Ben Hogan’s mashie niblick.”

  “Gunther, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to knock your teeth from here to Augusta. Now back off!”

  I jabbed at his chest with the old iron, and he backed up. So did everybody else. I moved forward three steps, and everyone backed up some more. I kept going, and so did they. This was more like it. Outside, I heard the wail of a police siren. Then another. Damn, no use heading for the front door.

  “Jake, it’s useless to run,” Nicky Florio said, his voice soothing. “Turn yourself in. Let them get you some professional help.” Now he was my friend, trying to steer me away from my life of crime and depravity.

  I was under the crystal chandelier. I raised Ben Hogan’s old stick over my head and took a giant swipe at it. The crystal broke, bulbs popped, sparks flew, and everyone ducked and scurried out of the way. Gunther covered his head with his hands but came at me anyway. I dropped him with a solid whack to the knee. Not a bad stroke, though I didn’t have enough hip in it. He yelped and fell, cursing at me, clutching his knee, and rolling onto his side. The sirens shrieked closer.

  I moved twenty paces toward the service entrance to the kitchen, neither running nor walking, just moving at a good clip. Florio broke from the crowd and followed me. I turned toward him, and he stopped. “You can run, Jake, but you can’t hide,” he said, taunting me in a voice just above a whisper. “If the cops don’t get you, I will. You’d better hope they find you first.”

  I left him standing there and pushed through the door where Sam Terilli was waiting. He grabbed me by an arm, guided me past a stove brimming with pots of soup, around the freezers, and then hustled me out the back door. By a smelly Dumpster, two kitchen workers were speaking in Creole and smoking a reefer as big as a cigar. Terilli pushed me into a waiting taxi. I thanked him, and he said don’t mention it, but forget about applying for membership at the club anytime soon.

  Charlie Riggs was sitting on a stool at the counter of a Cuban sandwich shop on Calle Ocho. He sipped at a cafe Cubano. A tired waitress with dyed red hair took my order: a beer and a bowl of black bean soup, heavy on the onions. It was just before midnight, or just after, I couldn’t tell which. My shoulders ached from two days of rowing a canoe. My back was stiff, and I pulled my hamstrings while launching the kick toward the balls of the loudmouthed detective. I hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in days, or was it weeks, and my head was spinning because I still didn’t know what was going on.

  So I told everything I knew to Charlie. He asked me to go over it again, and I did. I showed him the map I had taken from the shiny truck on the woody hammock. He asked me to describe the truck in as much detail as I could, and I did that, too.

  What else did Nicky say to De La Torre about lowering the water level? he wanted to know.

  Nothing.

  What kind of soil tests?

  I didn’t know. Nicky hadn’t said.

  Hmmm. Charlie ordered another syrupy cafe Cubano and poured enough sugar into it to make Carlos de La Torre even richer. “Anything else? See anything unusual out there?” He cocked his head to the west.

  “Nada. ”

  “You’re sure?”

  “It was the Everglades, Charlie. Peaceful, except when I had to use a pen as a dagger, or I was ducking shotgun pellets. Quiet, except for the birds squawking and an occasional explosion.”

  He looked up at me from under bushy eyebrows. “What sort of explosions?”

  “I don’t know. The loud kind.”

  “Where?”

  “Out there somewhere. Who knows where? I heard them first at Nicky’s house the morning after Gondolier was killed. For a while, I thought it was thunder. Then, when I was paddling the canoe, I heard some more.” I watched Charlie digest the information. “Why do you ask?”

  Charlie harrumphed and thought it over. I had finished the soup and just realized how hungry I was. When the waitress came by, I ordered a media noche and an order of sweet plantains.

  “The computer printout in the truck,” Charlie said. “Describe it, please.”

  “Just a bunch of squiggly lines, like an EKG.”

  He scowled at me. “You might have thought to bring it with you.”

  “Hey, Charlie. I was traveling light. I didn’t even have pants.”

  “Sorry. Let’s have a look at where you found the truck.”

  The sandwich arrived, but I slid my plate away and spread the map over the counter. Charlie studied it, then tapped a pudgy finger on what looked like a tiny island among hundreds of others. “A-653-G2,” he said, reading the handwritten notation. “That’s where you were. Notice anything different about A-653-GI?”

  I looked at a hammock maybe a mile away. “It’s underlined. That’s all.”

  “How about A-653-G3?”

  It took me a while to find it. “Not underlined.”

  “Which means what?”

  “I don’t know, Charlie. C’mon. I got bored with the Socratic method my first semester in night law school.”

  “Not only does the numbering system identify the islands, it’s the order they’re being examined.” His finger stayed on A-653-G3. “You were on G2. So were the workers, maybe a day or two before you got there. Next, your boys are headed to G3. Think you could find it?”

  I looked at the map. A hammock like all the others. Teardrop-shaped,
with the fatter end toward the north. The southerly water flow tended to erode the hammocks in that direction. “Not quickly, I couldn’t. You get out there, they all look alike. It’d take a week.”

  “What about from the air?”

  “Yeah, maybe. But so what? Do you know what’s going on out there?”

  “I think so.”

  “What! What is it?”

  “ Sapiens nihil affirmat quod non prohat. A wise man states as true nothing he cannot prove.”

  “Then what am I supposed to do? What am I going to do when I find the hammock?”

  Charlie smiled at me. It was the sad smile of the patient teacher to the slow student. “You’re a lawyer, Jake. What is it that you do?”

  “Breach confidences, commit malpractice, sleep with my client’s wife. Why do you ask?”

  Charlie frowned with disapproval. “As I understand what you’ve told me, there’s a hearing tomorrow…” He looked at his watch. “Dear me, look at the time. There’s a Water Management Board hearing today at two P.M. in Belle Glade. The press will be there. The public will be there. Environmental groups will be out in force. You’ve got to find your witnesses, Jake. You’ve got to present your testimony. You’ve got to win your case.”

  Chapter 26

  Dredge and Drain

  Shrimp boats were chugging down the Miami River, heading out on their predawn runs. Across the black water, the high-rises on Miami Beach blinked in the darkness. I sat in the isolation of my thirty-second-floor office, thinking and waiting.

  One chance. A long shot. Even if Charlie was right, I didn’t know if I could bring it off. Like a double reverse to the wideout coming around, the timing had to be perfect. I needed a witness who would talk, a public forum to hear what he had to say, and enough people around to keep me from getting a machete in the back. And I needed it all by two o’clock this afternoon.

  Cindy arrived at 3:00 A.M., bleary-eyed and curly-haired. Copper-colored curls, tight against her skull, like a 1920s flapper. She wore white jeans and a red T-shirt emblazoned SOME GIRLS DON’T, BUT I JUST MIGHT.