Lassiter

The story was part of the Castiel mythology, and it helped propel Alex into public office. In January 1959, Castro’s ragtag army was running amok through Havana. Looting, burning, killing. Bernard Castiel came across three rebels dragging a woman from a home in the ritzy Miramar section, beating her and stripping off her clothes. Castiel knocked one man unconscious and was pulling a second rebel off the woman when he was bayoneted in the back. He bled to death in the gutter, an early victim of Castro’s butchery. Rosa was pregnant with Alex. Within two years, she would die of breast cancer, and Alex became an orphan.

“So, tell me, Jake. How do the scales tip? Does mi padre’s work for Lansky make him evil? What was he, hero or gangster?”

“He died heroically. That’s good enough for me.”

“But a hero can’t be all good,” Castiel prodded me. “And a gangster can’t be all bad.”

“I get it. Ziegler is okay because he gives money to good causes, not the least of which is the re-election of Alejandro Castiel.”

He ground his teeth and his jaw muscles danced. “We’re done here, Jake. Just do your client a favor and tell her to go back home to Indiana.”

“Ohio.”

“Marry the clerk at the John Deere store. Have a couple kids. Overcook burgers in the backyard.”

“Don’t be a patronizing jerk.”

He shook his head sadly and pointed his cigar toward the door. “I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah, see you.”

I walked out without another word, feeling cruddy. Guys can argue, maybe even take a swing at each other, and get over it. But this felt different. Like I was losing a friend.

Outside the door was the desk of his executive assistant, an efficient, older woman who began stuffing envelopes in her boss’s first campaign and now held the keys to the palace gate.

“Charlene, which way to the rest room?”

“You know very well where it is, Mr. Lassiter. Down the hall to the left.”

“I’ll be quick.”

She gave me a look that said, “Like I give a hoot?”

“We’re doing a conference call in a minute,” I said, matter-of-factly. Lies are best told with no gestures, little expression, and few effects. “With Charlie Ziegler.”

Charlene wrinkled her forehead, punched a button, and an LCD display lit up. “You might want to hurry up,” she said. “Mr. Castiel is already on with Mr. Ziegler.”

Which is just what I feared. The door had barely closed behind me, and my old buddy was giving aid and comfort-and information-to the enemy. Now my job was to figure out why.

13 The Prince of Porn No More

Charles W. Ziegler, proud owner of the third largest house on Casuarina Concourse in Gables Estates, was pissed off. Ten minutes ago, his wife, Lola, had told him he might think about cutting back on the cheesecake. Not in those words.

“Charlie, you’re looking positively porcine.”

Porcine? Where’d she get that? The woman barely had a GED.

Yeah, okay. He was blubbery and mostly bald, and at fifty-eight needed a little blue pill to get it up. But why rub it in? He didn’t give Lola grief about her liposuctioned thighs and shortened schnozz. Why couldn’t his wife be more like his mistress?

Ziegler had met Lola back in his days as a tycoon of tits and ass. She wasn’t one of Charlie’s Girlz, his posse of porn stars. Just a hot, downtown secretary, looking to marry well. In those days, when still in the hunt for big game, Lola busted her ass to please in the bedroom. And damn, if her rusty trombone didn’t make Ziegler come so hard he felt his skull was exploding. Then, once wedding vows were exchanged, big surprise: no more ass- licking.

Today, Lola’s tongue never left her mouth, except to taste caviar, and Charlie Ziegler was legit. Honored and respected. A big hitter and major donor around town. He still enjoyed putting on a show and ruffling society feathers. Not long ago, he took some heat for hiring a massage parlor girl to give a rub and tug to a critically ill fourteen-year-old boy. But they call it “Make-A-Wish,” and that’s what the kid wanted.

Ziegler owned Reelz TV, where his reality shows were sprinkled with nudity and profanity but no money shots. His biggest hit was Cheeterz, a boffo show that featured wives catching husbands with their pants down. Then there was the teen gross-out show Zitz, syndicated in thirty-seven countries, despite a Variety review that called it a “steaming pile of excrescence.”

He put the first letter of his last name in the title of every show. He’d even asked Lola to change her name to “Zoey,” but she told him to go fuck himself, along with the script girl on Size Zero, his modeling show, and the babe at Beach Motors who sold him a vintage Datsun 280Z after blowing him under the cargo hatch.

Back in his hard-core days, he’d won the People’s Porn award for Driving Miss Daizy Crazy. This year, he won the Miami Humanitarian of the Year award, presented by Archbishop Gilchrist.

From porn to priests in twenty years.

Now, at sunset, he stood in his front yard, puffing a Cohiba. Whenever he lit up, Lola evicted him from the house, which had cost him a cool eight million, land not included. The place was designed by one of his wife’s pals, a trendy architect known for stylistic flourishes and skylights that leaked. The house was a shiny, snake-shaped cylinder of steel and glass, described by the architect as “curvilinear lines reminiscent of Le Corbusier.” Ziegler thought the place looked like a giant plumbing fixture.

The bayfront neighborhood was bathed in orange light from a ribbon of clouds, backlit by the setting sun. Ziegler glanced toward the lot next door where a big-ass mansion was under construction. His neighbor-a pretentious trust fund kid-had two hundred seventy feet of waterfront, a full twenty feet more than his own, goddammit.

Something caught Ziegler’s eye, a flash of movement next to a pallet of rebar. The construction crew was gone for the day, and building inspectors never worked this late unless they were picking up bribes. He pulled his eyeglasses out of a pocket, put them on, and squinted.

A tall slender woman, staring his way.

Shit. Was it her?

Alex Castiel had called him earlier. A woman named Amy Larkin had hit town, looking for her long-lost sister. Her lawyer, some ex-jock, named Ziegler as a suspect in the disappearance. The news had been eating at him all day, and he wondered what the hell he should do. He thought about calling Max Perlow but was afraid what the old hood would say.

Ziegler was too far away to get a good look at the woman, but it had to be the girl’s kid sister. Stalking him, after all this time.

Blast from the past. Krista Larkin.

How did so much trouble get off the bus with that runaway girl? It seemed like a thousand years ago. There’d been a big market for Lolitas in those days. Saudi sheiks salivating over blondes from the Midwest. Billionaire pervs willing to pay big bucks for new talent.

He recalled the day he met the girl. He’d walked over to the 10th Street beach from the little office he rented next to a kosher bakery. Two cameras dangled from his neck, that professional photographer look. Still had most of his hair and an almost flat stomach. Krista Larkin had been in town two days. Sleeping on the beach under an umbrella. Tall girl with a peachy complexion. Said she’d come to Miami to model, and when she had saved enough money, she planned to enroll in the fashion design college she’d read about in Parade. From the moment he first saw her, Ziegler had other ideas for her. To fuck her, sure. But to make money off her, even better.