Jake Lassiter - 02 - Night Vision Read online

  “Would you be as upset if I left for a man?”

  “I don’t know, maybe not.”

  “Why?”

  I was getting tired of her analyzing me. “While we’re talking about why, tell me why you’re the way you are.”

  “Do you really want to know or do you need reinforcement that your manhood isn’t diminished by my choices?”

  “No. I want to know. I came here today because I missed you, couldn’t understand why you left. So now I know part of it, the tip-of-the-iceberg part…”

  “I suppose I could tell you about the positive and negative Oedipus complex. For a girl it’s very complex. To become heterosexual, she has to transfer her love from her mother to her father, then must repress that love and transfer it to other men while still identifying with the mother. If the girl has incomplete identification with her own sex, she combines characteristics of both sexes. If she cannot resolve the positive Oedipal complex, if she cannot transfer her love for her father to other men, she will become homosexual or bisexual.” Pam studied me to see if I was following the lecture. I just looked out the window and watched the tanker steam south, black puffs belching from its smokestacks.

  “You get an A-plus for clinical psychology,” I said, “but I want to know about you. Your childhood, your parents. What made you what you are?”

  “What I am!”

  “Wow,” Bobbie breathed. She squirmed on the sofa and turned toward Pam. “He thinks you’re a thing, an it, a lesbianic creature from outer space.”

  “You two are having fun with this, aren’t you? Baiting me.”

  Pam stood and walked toward the balcony. The tanker was gone.

  “Jake, it doesn’t greatly concern me what you think of me, though I should like to enlighten you. A hundred years ago, Dr. Krafft-Ebing declared that heterosexual cunnilingus was a perversion of fetishists.”

  “He probably didn’t like oysters, either,” I said.

  “My point is that attitudes change. In ancient Greece—”

  “I don’t care about ancient Greece. I really don’t. But I care about you, or I wouldn’t have come here.”

  “Good. I care about Bobbie. And there is no reason we cannot all care about each other.”

  “Before we start caring too much,” Bobbie said, hoisting herself up on long legs, “I gotta go to work.”

  “Me too,” I said. “Too much enlightenment before breakfast gives me a headache.”

  “Your sarcasm is readily apparent,” Pam said.

  I shrugged. The two ladies said ta-ta and their lips brushed, Pam giving Bobbie a little squeeze on her burnt-orange behind.

  ***

  I examined the tops of my shoes as Bobbie Blinderman and I shared an elevator. A middle-aged man with a fresh sunburn, an aloha shirt, and a conventioneer’s tag identifying him as a risk-loss specialist from Omaha stopped talking to his wife and stared at my six-foot-tall orange lollipop. Bobbie showed her hundred-watt smile, and then turned to me. “I’m gonna be sore for a week, you big moose.” My risk-loss friend snickered and slapped me on the back when the doors opened at the lobby.

  It took the valet ten minutes to coax the Olds out of the stable. If you drive a Rolls or a Jag convertible or if you arrive by limo, they leave your machine out front in the shade of the palms. Impress the tourists, justify the room rates. If it’s a convertible older than the valet, they often put it on a concrete deck in the broiling sun where the salt spray can speckle it.

  A sleepy-eyed teenager in a red vest was opening Bobbie’s door as I got in on the driver’s side. I had my right foot inside and my left foot on the ground when I saw the blur.

  The blur hit the side of the door and slammed it into my shin. The pain shot through me and I fell backward into the car, my leg still pinned by the door to the frame. The blur opened the door a few inches and slammed it back again, smashing me harder. It felt like a sledgehammer had crushed me.

  Then my leg stopped hurting but only because my head ached. Something hit me above the eye. A fist.

  A left fist that did it again. Not much of a punch, but I couldn’t move. My leg was on fire, still pinned in the car. Red flashes streaked across my brain. Then a flurry of punches bounced off my forehead and chin. Quick combinations, pop, pop, popping off my skull. I felt two hands reach for my neck, and I heard Bobbie screaming. Somewhere on the edge of my peripheral vision I had the impression of people staring. Parking attendants, tourists, a crowd frozen by the sight.

  I pivoted with the leg inside the car, got both hands on the door, and shoved. It tossed him backward into the driveway, and he stumbled but didn’t fall. I struggled out of the car, one-legging it toward him.

  He glared at me, dark eyes blazing with hate. “Nobody fucks with Bobbie,” Max Blinderman declared.

  CHAPTER 36

  The Message

  The Harman and Fox receptionist didn’t bat an eye. She just wished me a pleasant afternoon and tapped a glowing button on the phone with the tip of her polished nail. A law clerk stopped in the corridor, started to ask, thought better of it, and ducked into the copying room. My partners were either at a late lunch or an early golf game, so I was unmolested all the way back to my two-window, bayfront office where Cindy sat in her cubicle, pretending to type.

  “Holy shit! Did you get the license number?”

  I lifted my standard-issue, rubber-tipped aluminum cane and said, “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

  “It looks like you stuck your leg in a manhole and your head in a beehive.”

  True. I could barely walk, little welts were popping out of my forehead, and my right eye was swollen shut. Max’s jabs had left more marks than pain. The leg wasn’t broken, but not for lack of trying, and the foot still hurt from where Carruthers danced on it. I stretched out the leg and eased into my high-backed chair.

  “Musta been a mean hombre,” Cindy said, fishing.

  I didn’t bite.

  “I mean, he musta been one big nut crusher.”

  “Right. Runs about a hundred twenty, including his saddle.”

  “C’mon. Probably a whole gang of thugs with chains and clubs.”

  “Cindy, it was a tough morning. Bring me the mail and the messages and any work you may have inadvertently done, then leave me alone.”

  “Okay, okay, I been working. The usual pleadings to sign. Motions to continue, motions to defer, motions to forget. Nothing in the mail to interest you except a trial lawyers’ convention in Aruba.”

  “Great winds,” I acknowledged, wondering when I would be able to put weight on my left leg. If I couldn’t windsurf in the Aruba-Bonaire classic, maybe I could qualify for the wheelchair races.

  “Bunch of calls piling up since you been out of touch. Charlie Riggs says the bass are biting. Granny Lassiter asks whether you’re eating enough greens. Dr. Katzen wants to talk. Oh, your friend Rodriguez called.”

  I picked through the stack of pink forms.

  “What the hell does this mean?” I asked her.

  “Dunno. Figured you would…”

  I read the Rodriguez message aloud: “‘Got story for your friends at the paper, on the record this time.’”

  “What else did he say?”

  “That’s it, word for word, or best I can do since shorthand isn’t my strong suit. Said it was priority one, or category red, or some cop talk.”

  I dialed Rodriguez’s number, but it rang busy. I signed some letters and some pleadings, barely pausing to note the typos.

  Tried again. Still busy. I reviewed some memos from the managing partner about indiscriminate use of the firm’s credit cards at a Surfside massage parlor.

  Tried another time. Still busy. What did Rodriguez want? Last time he talked to the paper, he was a “source close to the investigation” and let everyone know about the Compu-Mate connection.

  One more try, then I rang the operator. I told her my name and semiofficial part-time government position, and through infinite willpower, she concealed how
impressed she was. She took a moment plugging into the line. Off the hook, she said.

  Okay, maybe he was taking a nap. Could have been at a homicide scene half the night. I grabbed the cane and my cotton duck Tilley hat with the wide brim to hide my battle scars and hobbled toward the parking garage. Cindy advised me not to pop two Tylenols with codeine, but it was the only way to use the clutch without my left leg declaring mutiny. By the time I reached I-95, nothing hurt that much. I felt fine. Even the traffic seemed more tolerable than usual, though there was an inordinate amount of horn-honking headed west on the Don Shula Expressway just south of the airport. I looked at my speedometer and discovered I was doing thirty-five in the passing lane. A little too mellow, the pills woozing me into outer space.

  I slapped my face a couple of times, stuck my head into the wind, and put the old buggy into fourth gear, giving it hell. Ten minutes later, I pulled into Alex Rodriguez’s driveway, bouncing over the curb when I missed the cutaway.

  It was a small concrete-block, stucco house with faded green shutters and a carport. The county-owned Chrysler was there, locked up tight, the hood cool in the shade. The house was old and the yard belonged to a guy who didn’t know crabgrass from crawfish. There were no children, so when Maria left him, she really left, heading to Honduras with a man who said he owned twenty-seven percent of a coffee plantation.

  I rang the doorbell and waited.

  I tried the door. Unlocked.

  I stepped inside. The air-conditioning was on, whimpering and groaning. The coils could use cleaning. I called his name. The compressor whimpered. I tried again, louder.

  I eased my way, cane-first, through a small living room with lime shag carpeting. The dining room was a raised section to the rear. The kitchen was dark. I flipped on a light. Rodriguez would never win a homemaker-of-the-year award. Beer cans, paper plates, and the fossilized remains of home-delivery pizza covered the sink and counters. The kitchen phone dangled down a wall by its cord. I put the receiver back on the hook and called his name again. Nothing.

  Down a narrow hall were two rooms. The first was the master bedroom. The bed was unmade. A rumpled short-sleeve shirt was draped over a chair. Heavy black oxfords sat on the floor, a sock balled in each one.

  I peeked back into the hall. One other door to try. It would be a spare bedroom used as a study. The Biggus Dickus sanctuary. Despite the air-conditioning, I started sweating.

  The door was cracked an inch. I pushed it open with the tip of my cane. No one went in or came out. I raised the cane like a sword, figuring I could handle anybody armed with an umbrella, maybe even a crutch.

  The room contained a chair, a desk, a phone, bookshelves, a computer.

  And Alex Rodriguez.

  He lay on his back. His bare feet stuck out from beneath the desk. The chair was overturned. He wore gray slacks and a white T-shirt. The T-shirt had a small, blackened hole just over the heart. The hole was surrounded by a spray of gunpowder. Somebody had gotten close. I felt for a pulse, didn’t expect to find any, and wasn’t surprised.

  I was breathing hard and my mind was racing. I tried to think like Charlie Riggs. What would he do? Slow down. Talk to me, Charlie. There are four manners of death. Accident, suicide, homicide, and natural. Even I knew it wasn’t a heart attack. I looked around for a gun. Suicide or accident, and it would be right there on the floor. No gun. Okay, Lassiter, it’s a homicide. Very good. Step to the front of the class.

  Now, try not to disturb anything and look around. What do you see? A fairly neat desk. Some bills, a day-old newspaper, some advertising fliers, and a police-department fingerprint kit. Something else that looked familiar, the logo of interlocking male and female symbols. I picked it up. It asked for name, address, handle, and password. It asked how often you used the service and if you had any suggestions. It asked, on a scale of one to ten, how you would rate the overall quality of the fantasy and the flesh produced by your pals at Compu-Mate.

  Alex Rodriguez never answered the questions. Before he had a chance to fill in the blanks and stick on his stamp…wait. There was no return envelope. The questionnaire didn’t come in the mail. It would have been brought by Bobbie Blinderman, who personally surveyed her customers.

  Satisfaction guaranteed.

  Somewhere in the back of my mind a buzzer was going off. The Compu-Mate connection. Of course.

  Nick Fox and Alex Rodriguez didn’t kill anyone. The murders weren’t to silence anyone. And they weren’t the work of a motiveless serial killer. They were planned and carried out for the oldest and best of reasons. Jealousy and revenge.

  Nobody fucks with Bobbie.

  Bisexual and promiscuous, Bobbie Blinderman waltzed door-to-door with her cockamamie surveys. You never know who’ll invite you in for a drink and a tickle. Maybe a TV Gal, a Flying Bird, a Forty Something. And you never know who’ll be right behind. An enraged husband who borrows a dead guy’s poetry and a drunk guy’s handle. He finds the bedroom, too, gets his revenge. Uses a gun to force his way, then ends the rivalry with his powerful jockey’s hands. Until the next one comes along.

  Larynx snapped in two. Fractured hyoid, thyroid, and cricoid cartilage, the whole shebang.

  I remembered his hands, clawing reflexively at my own throat. With the women, it was easy enough. But that’s not how you kill a man. If you target a man, a cop, you bring a gun and use it.

  I gingerly picked up the phone, trying not to leave prints. I called the state attorney’s office and told Nick Fox where I was and who lay on the floor.

  “Oh Jesus,” he said.

  I told him about Bobbie and Max Blinderman, and he said it sounded crazy.

  “Nick, the guy’s flipped out. He assaulted me this morning because he thinks I’m diddling his wife.”

  “Are you?”

  “No! What’s that got to do with it?”

  “You musta beat the shit out of the little punk.”

  He waited. “No, I took it easy on him.”

  “Okay, I’ll send homicide out there. You stay put. Let’s hope we get lucky, and somebody saw him going in or coming out of the house, or we come up with a gun.”

  “Lucky! We’ve got the printouts, and Max had the motive and the ability to sign on as Passion Prince. He raped the women and strangled them, and now he’s shot Rodriguez. What more—”

  “Jakie, simmer down. And start returning your calls, or don’t they teach that downtown? Your pal Doc Katzen stopped by about twenty minutes ago. Blinderman’s blood doesn’t match up.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me, Jakie. No match on the DNA. You got nice theories, tying everything up and all. And maybe you’re right for once. But Max Blinderman didn’t do the screwing, so you tell me how you’re gonna prove he did the strangling…”

  I didn’t know.

  “And one other thing, Jakie.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re fired. I’m taking you off the investigation. Back to your divorces and whiplashes. I’ll handle it from here. Turn in your badge and your gun. And give me some blood.”

  “Blood?”

  “Yeah, Jakie. Bleed a little. You like to take it. Time to give. It’s for a worthy cause. Just stop at the lab and see Dr. Katzen. And bring the gun into ballistics.”

  “The gun. Why?”

  “Standard procedure. A man says he found a gunshot victim and the man doing the finding has a gun. Routine request, nothing more.”

  The gun.

  The last time I saw the gun it was on a black enamel table in Cindy’s apartment taking a breather after Pam fired it.

  Oh brother. It’s one thing to lose your new fountain pen, another to lose a county-owned gun. But what was I worried about? I hadn’t done anything wrong. My blood would be red with just the right amount of calcium, phosphorus, and potassium, and a tad too much cholesterol. The gun would be right there where I left it, oiled and shiny. Wouldn’t it?

  CHAPTER 37

  The Saint

  Max Bli
nderman. Ex-jockey, penny-ante con artist, a life told in a series of yellowed newspaper clips and scraps of microfilm.

  Roberta Blinderman. Goes by Bobbie. Ex…Ex-what?

  Just who the hell was Roberta Blinderman? No criminal record, at least not under that name. I had been watching her swiveling walk but not paying attention to anything else.

  My thoughts were interrupted by someone pounding on my front door. They do that after pushing the button half a dozen times. The doorbell hasn’t worked in years. I yelled that it was unlocked. I heard some feeble pushing, but the door didn’t budge. In the humidity it swells up like a patrolman’s feet.

  “Hit it with your shoulder,” I yelled.

  A thud, a curse, and a moment later Bobbie Blinderman high-heeled it into my combination library, living room, conversation pit, and entertainment area. It’s a library because the sports pages are usually spread across the floor. I spend most of my time here, hence the living room, and I entertain myself with one-sided conversations. At the moment I was lying on a sagging sofa, nursing a sixteen-ounce Grolsch, my gimpy leg propped up.

  “I was just thinking about you,” I said, telling the truth.

  She wore a black scooped-back dress, molded to her body, with a sweeping skirt. It was the first time I couldn’t see a mile or so of thigh.

  “You look very nice,” I said. “Almost ladylike.”

  “We need to talk.”

  “About Max.”

  “No. About Pam.”

  “Pam?”

  The name sounded familiar, but I hadn’t thought about her since she had hustled me into an elevator at the hotel. The emotional wounds must be healing, or were they only superficial? I hoisted myself to a sitting position, offered Bobbie a seat, and she gracefully bent at the knees and lowered herself into the cushion at the far end of the sofa. She had spent some time tending to herself. The blush emphasized the sanguine complexion, the black hair was in a cultivated shag that suggested wildness under control. Her dark, wide-set eyes were accented with liner, shadow, and mascara.