Night vision jl-2 Page 6

  I parked next to an outdoor cafe where men with leathery skin smoked cigars and drank espresso from tiny plastic cups. Next door, three teenagers were making a mess of a transmission, pulled out of a twenty-year-old Chevy propped onto concrete blocks.

  I already knew a lot about Compu-Mate. I knew it was the latest way to profit from people's fears of loneliness. Like-minded consenting adults just a whir and buzz away, courtesy of your personal computer. Talk sweet, talk dirty, titillate your partner, and tickle your fancy until you get a phone number and address. Then cross your fingers, take a deep breath, and wait for the truth. The guy who called himself a "Paul Newman look-alike" has the gray hair, all right, but the blue eyes are milky, a paunch hangs over his belt, and he's three months behind on the alimony. "Buxom blonde looking for fun" means overweight and bleached, a manic-depressive.

  I had some background on Max and Roberta Blinderman, president and secretary of Compu-Mate, Inc., a Florida for-profit corporation. Previously, they operated a video dating service that went belly up, and before that, a modeling studio that left a trail of unpaid bills and unfinished portfolios. As far as Cindy's research showed, Roberta had no criminal record. Max had been a fair-to-middling jockey twenty years ago, once nearly winning the Flamingo Stakes at Hialeah before getting suspended in a horse-doping scheme. Lately he had pleaded guilty to bouncing some checks, was put on probation, and made restitution. Two other penny-ante cases: a mail-fraud case was nolle-prossed, and a buying-receiving charge was dropped when the state couldn't prove the jewelry was stolen. By local standards, he was clean enough to run for mayor.

  The office was no-frills, a Formica counter up front, a green metal desk in back. Next to the desk was a decent-sized, freestanding computer that was probably leased month to month. No waiting room, no sofa, no friendly green plants. A man sat at the desk staring into a video display terminal. A woman stood at the counter licking stamps and pasting them onto envelopes-monthly bills to the customers, I figured.

  "I'd like to sign up," I told the woman behind the counter.

  "This ain't the army," she said, putting down her envelopes and shoving a form in front of my face.

  She was six feet tall and seemed to like it. Her dark eyes were spaced wide and the lashes were long, black as sin, and well tended. The complexion, which had that cocoa-butter, coppery-tanned look with a healthy dose of moisturizers, creams, powders, and blushes, was smoothly sanguine. The black hair was layered and purposely messed, a wild look. Her nose was thin and straight and so perfect it might have cost five grand at a clinic in Bal Harbour. Her body was long and lean with some muscle development in the shoulders and small breasts that were uncaged under a white cotton halter top. The top of a denim skirt was visible below her flat, browned tummy, but her legs were hidden behind the counter.

  I licked the end of the pencil like Art Carney playing Ed Norton, made a whirling motion with my right arm, and began filling out the form in block letters.

  "Most of our clients just punch us up on their modems and do the paperwork by filling out the form on their computer screen," she said.

  "My modem's in the shop for an oil change."

  If she thought I was funny, she kept it to herself. She just watched my seersuckered self as I filled in the blanks. I wrote my real name and address, chose "Stick Shift" as my handle, used my old jersey number as a secret password, and pretended to struggle with the rest. When I was done, I handed her the form. She scanned it and scowled.

  "This ain't a dining club," she said.

  "Or the army," I agreed.

  "What's 'rare steak and cold beer' supposed to mean?"

  "It asked my preferences," I said, putting some Iowa corn into my voice.

  "Sheesh. Your preferences in bed, Gomer. Are you straight, gay, or bi?"

  "Straight as an arrow, slim. Wanna see?"

  "In your dreams. Hey, next blank you skipped. You go for French or Greek?"

  "No habla nothin' but English."

  "Oh brother! You got any fetishes? B and D, S and M, water sports?"

  "I'm a pretty decent windsurfer," I admitted.

  She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. "Where you been, the friggin' North Pole?"

  "Maui, Aruba, the Baja," I told her. "North Pole's too cold, even with a dry suit."

  "Listen, Ricky Retardo, I ain't got all day. You don't fill in the blanks, the computer will spit out your application, so you gotta tell me what you like. Now, Greek, that means bum fucking, get it?"

  "Even the poor got a right to get laid," I said. "It's in the Constitution."

  She narrowed her dark eyes and gave me a sideways look. "You know what French is, right?"

  I didn't say oui, madame. I just gave her my big, dumb-guy look. It isn't hard to do.

  "Like in the poem," she said, "'The French, they are a funny race. They fight with their feet and fuck with their face.' Get it?"

  I scrunched my face into its genius-at-thought mode. "I get part of it."

  "Part of it?"

  "I mean, fighting with their feet, I get…"

  She turned toward the back where the man was now hunched over the keyboard of the computer. "Max! C'mere."

  A little guy, all wires and gristle in black pants, black knit shirt, and white patent-leather loafers. A tattoo of a snake showed green on a veined, browned forearm. A worm of a mustache wriggled under his nose. He squinted at me through suspicious eyes. All he needed was a switchblade to pick his teeth, and he could have been a small-time grifter in Guys and Dolls.

  "Yow, Bobbie," he answered.

  "Whyn't you help Mister…"

  "Lassiter," I announced proudly.

  They traded places. Her high heels clackety-clacked as she legged it toward the back. Sleek, fine legs with a comely curve of the calf undulating with each step. As she slinked by Max he said, "Foot Long's just about got Naughty Nurse's panties off."

  She sat down at the desk and peered into the monitor. "Nurse's been putting out for everybody and their cousin," she called back.

  Max took his time examining my application. I wondered if anyone ever failed the entrance exam. "You can listen in?" I asked.

  "Huh?"

  I pointed toward the computer where Bobbie sat, her long, lean body bent toward the screen.

  "Someone's gotta be the sys-op," he said. "Work the panel in case there's a glitch online. We can tap into any talky-talk, just like Southern Bell."

  "You must hear-or read-it all."

  "Yow. Till after while, it puts you to sleep. Like how many ways can they describe it?"

  He returned to the form, moving his lips and tracing each line with a finger. "Say, you were just kidding here, huh?"

  "Yeah."

  "Bobbie don't have much of a sense of humor. Comes from having a hard life as a kid. You gotta make allowances with a filly like that." He grinned and showed me two rows of shopping-center dental work. "You're a straight shooter looking for old-fashioned cooze in the missionary position, yow?"

  "Yow," I answered right back at him.

  He gave me a temporary membership card and a book of rules. I gave him a twenty-dollar bill.

  "Ever have any trouble with your clients?" I asked.

  The word "trouble" made the mustache twitch. "Whaddaya mean?"

  "Like any women complain about guys putting the make on 'em, they don't like what's being offered?"

  His eyes had put up a shield. "No trouble. Woman gets hassled, she can bug out of the call. She invites a guy over or goes out with him, that's her business. We don't give no guarantees."

  "You keep records of the calls?"

  He sneaked a peek at the wall where his occupational license was taped over a crack. Probably figured me for a city inspector and wondered when I'd show him my palm.

  I pointed back to his main computer. "All the calls stored in there?"

  "Hell no! I wouldn't clog up our hard memory with that shit."

  "How many members you have?"

  "Three
hundred fifty men. Almost two hundred women. Hey, we're a member of the BBB."

  "So what's stored in there?"

  "It's programmed to record how many times members call in and how long they talk. After fifty hours, you gotta renew."

  "So it records who they talk to…"

  "That'd be an invasion of privacy," he said with undue formality.

  "But it could be done, if you wanted to know who a client spoke with, say, two nights ago?"

  "The calls are coded numerically. It could be-"

  "What the hell!" Bobbie Blinderman demanded, towering over Max the Jockey. "Just who the hell are you, buster?" In her bare feet now, she was three inches shorter, but no friendlier. She had silently prowled back to the counter from her position as gatekeeper of erotica and her ebony eyes glared at me.

  I gave her a daffy grin. "Just a lonely guy-"

  "Get your jollies somewhere else!" she ordered, pointing toward the door.

  "With a grand-jury subpoena," I added, pulling a blue-backed paper out of my back pocket and sliding it across the counter. Max stared at it a moment, then picked it up as if afraid to leave prints. Bobbie looked straight at me with those long-lashed eyes, the sanguine complexion a tone redder. "Flatfoot faggot," she hissed. " Your preference?" I politely inquired.

  CHAPTER 7

  Ladyfingers

  Alejandro Rodriguez sat in the upholstered chair, a Smith amp; Wesson. 38 in one hand, a Glock nine-millimeter in the other. He put down the. 38, fondled the Glock, and sniffed at its oily barrel with his squashed policeman's nose. Then he picked up the. 38 and did the same thing. He shifted the gun hand to hand and repeated the ritual with the Glock.

  He wore black oxfords with rubber soles, khaki pants, a blue shirt unbuttoned at the neck, and a polyester blue blazer. A paunch from too much desk riding hung over his belt. Even a nearsighted three-time loser could spot him as a cop.

  Rodriguez hefted both guns, then put down the. 38 again. He pushed a magazine into the plastic grip of the Glock and pulled back the spring-loaded slide, smiling at the reassuring click.

  "?Caramba! Seventeen rounds instead of six. High-velocity steel jackets. Only eight pounds of pull. When the hell's Metro gonna get us these babies?"

  Nick Fox sat at his polished mahogany desk, head down, eyes scanning a file. "Just what I need. One of your rookies pumping an innocent bystander with seventeen slugs instead of six."

  I cleared my throat.

  Nick Fox kept reading.

  Five minutes later he put down the file. By then I was impressed with what an important guy he was, just as I was supposed to be. "Hey, Jake, here's one for you downtown mouthpieces," he said, winking at Rodriguez. "A man asks a lawyer his fee, and the lawyer says a hundred bucks for three questions. 'Isn't that awfully steep?' the man asks. 'Sure is,' the lawyer says, 'now what's your final question?'"

  I laughed and stored that away for the next partners' meeting. Rodriguez pointed the black plastic gun at the wall where a color photo showed Vice-President Quayle shaking Nick Fox's hand. "Miami's had the Glock two years already," the detective whined.

  The county cops hate it when the city boys get something first. Doesn't matter what. Sharper uniforms, faster cars, or looser women.

  "Glock, schlock," Fox said. "Stop worrying about your firepower and solve a few crimes." He swung his chair toward me. "That's all the cops want these days, technology. Computers and helicopters and automatic weapons. I could get a dozen more prosecutors with what they spend for one armored vehicle."

  I nodded agreeably, still waiting.

  "Of course, you high-rise lawyers don't have those worries, eh, Jake?" Fox asked.

  I was used to this. Little darts to remind me I was no longer a player in the criminal-justice game. Two hundred pending criminal cases, a trial every morning, sometimes another in the afternoon. You meet your witnesses five minutes before they testify by shouting their names in the corridor. The pay is lousy, the office drab, but there's a camaraderie among foxhole buddies slogging through the mud. When you leave and your pals and adversaries stay behind, they stick it to you. Hey, nice suit, life's okay downtown, huh? Some of them never leave the grimy catacombs because they can't cut it on the outside. Others, like Nick Fox, could write their own tickets downtown but choose to stay. They feel vaguely superior to those who escape to cushy partnerships in skyscrapers with luncheon clubs and ocean views. They have a right to.

  "Right now I've got lots of worries, Nick," I said.

  "Hey, Jake," Rodriguez said, "what's the difference between a porcupine and two lawyers in a Porsche?"

  "Dunno," I said.

  "With a porcupine, the pricks are on the outside."

  Having been taught etiquette by Granny Lassiter, I smiled politely.

  Rodriguez laughed so hard at his own joke he nearly dropped the gun.

  I sat there, still waiting for the warm-up act to end.

  Finally Fox stuck a finger in his shirt collar, stretched his brawny neck, smiled his winning smile, and said, "Jake, I thought you'd want to fill me in on your progress."

  "What?"

  "On the Diamond murder. That's why I asked for you and Hot Rod."

  "Forget it," I said. "I'm not reporting to you. Either it's my investigation, or get someone else."

  It crossed his face then, a moment of doubt or regret. "Easy, Jake. I'm not trying to interfere-"

  "Good. I'll take your statement while I'm here. But you're not getting copies of Rodriguez's reports or any part of the file. Understood?"

  He grinned at me as if we shared some secret. Maybe my toughness was just an act and he knew it because he played the same game. "Understood," he said, still smiling.

  "I met Marsha through Prissy," Nick Fox told me. "Priscilla, my soon-to-be ex-wife. They belonged to some bullshit women's awareness group."

  I nodded and pulled out Rodriguez's inventory of Marsha's apartment. Her bookshelves were a road map to her personal life. Smart Cookies Don't Crumble. How to Love a Difficult Man. Men: An Owner's Manual. Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them. The Secrets Men Keep. The rest of her library was an amalgam of get-in-shape, dress-for-success, and get-rich-quick books with a smattering of soft-core paperbacks on women's sexual fantasies.

  Fox turned toward the window. "I came home early one day and there were a bunch of them in the living room. Yackety-yacking, sipping tea and eating, whaddayacallit…pussy food."

  "Quiche?" Rodriguez guessed.

  "No, that lady-shit…"

  "Ladyfingers," I suggested.

  "Yeah, picking 'em up real dainty so not to mess up the nail polish, sitting around complaining about men, comparing orgasms, who the fuck knows…"

  "Amazing you and Prissy don't see eye to eye on things," I offered. "You're so sensitive to women's concerns."

  He hunched his massive shoulders and glared at me. "What the fuck's that supposed to mean?"

  I didn't answer, so he continued: "One of the women was this cute, short number I recognized from TV."

  "Marsha Diamond," I said.

  He nodded. "Prissy introduced us, real sly like she was getting a kick out of it. So we started going out. Prissy knew all about it, told me Marsha was early in her development, but later she'd bust my balls. I said that was okay, I was used to it."

  "Was Marsha seeing anyone else?"

  "Not that I know of. All she did was work, shop, and screw, and screwing wasn't her favorite."

  It had been three days since they'd been together, Fox said. They talked by phone the night before she was killed. It wasn't serious, just a mutually enjoyable physical relationship.

  "She called herself my transition woman," Fox said.

  "What did you call her?"

  "Look, she wasn't that important to me, okay? She was a young one on the make who wanted to play in the majors. She was an okay-looking babe who wore too much makeup and was a halfway decent lay, and I'm real sorry she got aced. All right?"

  "What did you talk
about?"

  "Talk?"

  "Yeah. What two people do to communicate thanks to some magical connection between the brain and the mouth."

  "I don't know. Her career, my career, whether she wanted a pillow under her ass."

  "That's it? Did she want more out of the relationship?"

  "Hey, great question, counselor," he said, lacing his voice with sarcasm. "What are you, Dear Abby, or that pygmy…"

  "Did she want commitment?" I asked.

  "Dr. Ruth," Rodriguez said.

  "What do you think, that Marsha was pressuring me to divorce Prissy and marry her, so I got pissed off and killed her? What kind of asshole are you, Lassiter?"

  "A duly appointed grand-jury kind," I said.

  "Then get the fuck busy investigating and stop bothering me."

  If he expected me to get up and leave, he had a long wait. I just sat there looking at him while he went back to work, scanning files, signing papers. Rodriguez continued playing with his guns, pretending to shoot Fox's plaques off the wall, sixteen times without reloading.

  "If you don't have time now, Mr. State Attorney, I'll issue a subpoena for you. If you refuse to waive immunity, the papers will love it."

  He stopped signing, dropped his pen in disgust, and looked up. "Fire when ready, Jake. Take your best shot."

  "You're missing the point, Nick. I'm just gathering data, trying to figure out who Marsha Diamond was."

  "Then let me save you some time. She was a ballsy broad who wanted to get ahead in TV land. She wanted to meet the politicos. She wanted tips about corruption probes. She wanted her bottom rubbed by the state attorney. Hey, I knew she was blowing smoke up my ass, but it didn't feel half bad."