cocked her head at me again. She put the binoculars back into their foam-cushioned spot in the aluminum case. “So what took you to the justice building this morning?”
“Francisco Crespo, a murder case. Probably a reasonable doubt defense. I need a witness to put somebody else at the scene, maybe find somebody who had a grudge against the victim.”
“Is that all? No signed confession from a notorious serial killer?”
I like a woman with a sharp sense of humor. Especially when she isn’t afraid to aim it at me. “You’re right,” I conceded. “I sometimes ask for too much. Right now, I’d settle for knowing a little more about my client’s employer. Crespo worked for an importer named Matsuo Yagamata. Ever heard of him?”
Her lips played with a smile, then let me have it. “Francisco Crespo used to work for my father. And my father used to be in business with Matsuo Yagamata.”
Oh.
“You knew I was representing Crespo, didn’t you?”
“A good investigator ought to know what’s going on around town.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier? Why the life and times of Lourdes Soto?”
“I wanted you to hire me based on my qualifications, not my contacts.”
The waitress brought the check. I tried to sort it out. Lourdes Soto had information I wanted. Or she could get it. What did I have that she wanted?
“Crespo’s not telling me everything,” I said. “Or he’s telling me too much.”
“What do you mean?”
She was staring intently at me, her body perfectly still. This was happening a little too fast. I wasn’t ready to entrust Francisco Crespo’s future, or lack of it, to a woman I had just met, a woman who encouraged wives to illegally wiretap their husbands, and who probably knew what I ate for dinner last night. Still, I could use her.
“I need to find out everything I can about Yagamata. Why don’t we start with your father? Will you set up a meeting?”
She smiled and nodded. “I guess that means I’m hired.”
Back went the photos and the transmitter pen. As she slipped the pen into its slot, her hand brushed the leather divider of the case, revealing another compartment. It was visible for only a second, but I know a voice- activated tape recorder when I see one. Of course, it could have been turned off. Probably was, right?
“Glad to be on the team,” she said. “Now, tell me everything you know.”
That wouldn’t take long, I figured, watching the little red light pulsate with each word as she snapped the case shut.
5
Usually, I don’t show off.
Some guys blast up to the shore, carve a hard jibe, and shower a rooster tail of spray over a bouquet of bikinis. Sort of a male boardsailor’s adolescent fertility rite. I’m too old for that.
Then there are the ones who rig their boards, slip into harnesses, and tune their sails until the wind dies, never getting their booties wet. Swilling brew all day and talking a good game but never playing it. I like the sport too much for that.
I just rig and go. On an April day, a steady northeasterly wind of twenty knots, the temperature a perfect eighty-one degrees, I was chop-hopping the green squirrelly waters off South Beach. Puffy white clouds scudded across the sky, darkening the water with their fleeting shadows. The windows of the high-rise condos winked at me in the morning sun. Okay, so it’s not like windsurfing at Sprecklesville Beach in the shadow of Haleakala, the great Maui volcano. No ten-thousand-foot peak hidden in the mist. But it’s the best we can do in these parts. Four feet of chop for jumping, a steady wind for speed, and if you are so inclined, a beach full of tourist gals from every corner of these here United States, not to mention a wide collection of Central and South American chicas plus some Germans and Danes thrown in on a package tour.
I was so inclined.
My board was a nine-and-a-half-foot custom-made sliver of fiberglass with a five-point-four-meter square of orange Mylar for a sail. I was bouncing over the chop, leaning back into the harness, guiding the boom with a light touch, and generally luxuriating in the beauty of the day.
And showing off. Near the shoreline, beginners climbed onto clunky floaters in the frothy surf, unsteady as rookie riders at a dude ranch. Just why do they call this horse Dynamite? Windsurfing is a sport with a steep learning curve, and the first few tries can be frustrating. Watching an experienced boardsailor tear through a series of bottom turns and slashbacks on the offshore waves can be inspiring to the newcomer, or so I rationalized my blatant showboating. On occasion, I could even be persuaded to teach a grateful beach bunny how to tie a bowline or a Prusik hitch knot, all in the spirit of sportsmanship, of course.
Approaching the shoreline at warp speed, I leaned a heavy foot on the rail, and the board carved into the wind. I let go of the boom and dragged my aft hand in the water, a flare jibe. In theory, the hand acts as a daggerboard and pulls the board through the turn. In reality, it’s a grandstanding technique equivalent to a hot- rodder fishtailing on the asphalt. Hey, look at me! I finished the jibe, flipped the boom, then shot back out over the chop, the wind snapping my sail and whistling a tune like a flute through the holes in the mast extension. I squinted into the sun, jibed again, and rode heavy rollers into the shallow water near the Fifth Street beach. I shot past startled swimmers, a couple of teenage sailors in a Sunfish, and some novice boardsailors. Nearing the shore, I pulled the foot of the sail over my head as the leech swung through the eye of the wind-a flashy duck jibe-and just as the board should have started on a new tack, the tail sunk and the bow shot up like a leaping marlin. I toppled backward into five feet of surf. Served me right.
Shaking water out of my eyes and sand out of my trunks, I recognized the sound of sail crackling in the wind, somewhere behind me, moving closer. It is equivalent to hearing a trucker’s horn when you are on a bicycle. I turned just in time to have a mast topple onto me, whacking my right shoulder, and I went under again. This time, I had company.
She was a tall, sunburned blonde, who hadn’t seen thirty. She wore a white one-piece Lycra suit, and when she crawled back onto the board, I could see telltale scraped shins. Her hair was plastered to her skull, and she breathed heavily through pouting lips. If anyone had ever taught her to boardsail, they hadn’t taught her right.
“Oh, sorry,” she said, clinging to the board, which teetered in the surf. “This is so much harder than it looks.”
“First time,” I guessed.
“No. Yes. I mean, in the ocean. I’ve sailed on Lake Minnewaska. But this…” She gestured at the rollers.
“Lake Minnie…”
“In Minnesota.”
She had a faint singsong accent. Swedish maybe. “It’s a different sport in the waves,” I agreed. “Try again. I’ll give you some pointers.”
Jacob Lassiter, Esq., to the rescue. Accused murderers and sopping wet damsels, walk right in. She looked at me the way they do when sizing you up. Deciding whether you’re Tom Cruise or Charles Manson. I crinkled my best beach smile at her and must not have looked too lethal, because she allowed as how my assistance would be peachy, got to her feet, grabbed the uphaul, and pulled, straining to get the sail out of the water. She had some fine ripples in her triceps, but the mast stayed put, weighted down by what must have seemed like a ton of water burying the sail. Beneath the white Lycra, her nipples were perking up.
“Heavy son of a bitch,” she muttered.
At first I thought she meant me.
I like a woman who curses. Makes me think she’ll be honest in personal relationships. It’s stupid, I know, like believing a guy who doesn’t look you in the eyes is shifty, when he may just be bashful.
“Damn right,” I said, adapting my lingo, chameleonlike, to my companion. “Try leaning back. Let your legs do the work. Don’t be afraid. You won’t fall, just keep hold of the uphaul.”
