head grind was not the kind that had standoffs and faced up to those he intended to kill. He was the kind that set off a propane tank explosion while you were asleep. He was the kind that put a bomb under your car, waiting in the weeds to blow you to hell with a garage opener. He was the kind that might work for a notorious drug dealer who was trying to get rid of all wit nesses and connections to his “expanded” operations in Medicare fraud and the prescription drug trade.
The only person who I could recall having access to my Gran Fury to plant the tracking device was the Brown Man’s son, the fascinated kid I let climb into the passenger seat while I was trying to rattle his father’s cage. If the former street dealer had set one of his other proteges on to Andres and Luz Carmen, and by extension to me, then we were being stalked. And considering the methods of the stalker and clues he’d left in his wake, he wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.
But a wannabe hit man can be as dangerous as the barely believable Hollywood types you see in movies. And as Baghdad’s bombers taught us all, they don’t give a damn about collateral damage to innocents.
When I got through to Billy on his cell, I told him I’d left Luz at the ranger’s station with a dozen cops and firefighters. He said he was already en route with a federal witness protection agent. I gave him an abbreviated rundown on the bombing attempt, while I whooshed around three minivans pulling some sort of convoy in the inside lane. I wished I had the old Whelen rumbler police siren that came with the original Gran Fury to rattle their windows.
“Any idea who this guy is?” Billy asked.
“The sheriff’s office will know as soon as they run that print, but I’m not waiting around,” I said. “If he’s stupid enough to be blowing up witnesses, he’s stupid enough to try and set up something at Sherry’s.”
I tossed the cell in the passenger seat just as I came up on the Broward Boulevard exit and passed the waiting lines in the side lane. Then I cut everyone off with a wide and illegal turn east. I knew this was the fastest route and would also take me past the Fort Lauderdale Police Headquarters. If I was lucky, doing twice the speed limit in front of the cops would get me a tail, and I’d lead them all to Sherry’s house and explain later.
It didn’t work that way. When I rolled into the neighborhood, I was alone, and doused my headlights. Sherry’s car appeared to be untouched and covered. The house windows were dark. I parked one driveway up the street and got out. It was just past twilight, and Victoria Park was the essence of a quaint and quiet place, inhabited by working folks, some singles, some families who got in when real estate was low, and then held on when the property taxes started climbing.
There was a car parked on the street a block north. Most people who were home were in their own driveways, so the Jeep Cherokee stuck out. I memorized the plate number and then thought: paranoid Max. But still, I went around the house, not using any of the usual entrances, the gate to the backyard, or the front door. I stopped at the side fence, and listened.
First thing wrong: The pool motor was off. Not just the motor that creates the hard current for Sherry to swim against, but the regular skimmer motor that ran constantly. The underwater lights were on. I could see the aqua glow reflecting high in the oak tree. I eased down the property line to the back where Sherry had installed just a thigh-high wire fence that blended into the ficus hedge. Through the leaves I could see the raised deck, the French doors to her bedroom, the sliders that led into the kitchen-nothing.
I was starting to embarrass myself, casing my own girlfriend’s house, when I picked up the movement at the pool-side motor stand. Something black slipping out of the shadow-the hump of a man’s back and the movement of arms.
The motor stand is about the size of a small doghouse, and my visitor was on the far side, bent where the electrical circuit box opens, seemingly preoccupied. I slipped off my shoes, and then moved barefooted as quietly as I could along the backside of the hedge. The neighbors had recently mowed their Saint Augustine lawn, giving me a cushion of spiky grass that poked at the bottoms of my feet, but muted any noise. At the corner, where the hedge meets the opposite fence, I stopped and evaluated. I was maybe eight yards away from the motor stand, as close as possible without coming out into the open.
I watched and listened, my night sight gaining efficiency. My hearing focused. I heard the scrape of metal on metal, and the slight echoing clink of something being dropped into, what, a pan?
A maintenance guy? Not at 7:00 P.M. And there was no truck out front. The regular pool guy drives a pickup with one of those little trailers in back that holds vacuum hoses and yellow bottles of chlorine. As I watched, a figure appear over the stand, the aqua light illuminated only the underside of his chin, shadowed his eyes. He was black, with a thin build. It looked like he was wearing a watch cap-in Florida, eighty degrees, and humid? He was no maintenance guy.
He came around the pump stand, staying low, moved to my side, and crouched again. I could see that he was dragging his right leg, and now had to extend it behind him to bend and reach down into the water above one of the submerged pool lights. A dog bite will do that to a hamstring.
I felt the adrenaline hit me again. I was pissed, but had to fight the anger. This asshole was trying to booby- trap my girl’s pool. I took three deep silent breaths and did the scenario in my head: over the thigh-high fence, through a weak spot in the ficus, eight yards to the crouched figure. If he’s armed, he’ll hear me coming and shoot me before I make five yards. He took the dog out with a silenced pistol. I breathed again, felt around me with my palms.
On the ground were a gaggle of hard half-inch berries. The back neighbor had planted a wild olive tree in the corner. Maybe he thought he was going to use them in his martini, but down here, the berries fall when they’re still hard. I needed a diversion, and the old ways are often the best simply because they work.
I grabbed up a handful of berries, then carefully raised one foot to gain purchase on the top crossbar of the fence. My true target was half-lying on the apron of the pool, both hands doing something in the water. I leaned back, and like a WWII infantryman lobbing a grenade, I looped a handful of the berries into the air over the hedge, hoping the arc would carry them to Sherry’s deck. While they were still airborne, I mounted the fence. When the fusillade of berries rattled down on the wooden planks of the deck, I exploded through the leaves.
The man only made it to one knee, his head turning first to the deck noise, then to me as I burst through the ficus. I made two long strides and launched myself, head first like a spear, arms spread wide like a linebacker, and met him shoulder high.
My momentum carried us both into the water, where my fingers went straight for the guy’s face. Go for the eyes, make him panic.
We twisted together, slower in the water than we would have been on land, soaked clothes pulling us down and deterring any quick blows. The heel of the man’s hand came up under my chin, a classic defensive move, but the slickness of water made it easy to dislodge. He tried kicking with his feet, shoes dragging, bereft of velocity. I couldn’t get my fingers in his eye sockets and went for the head. The watch cap was long gone. I got a handful of hair and yanked back and down.
I was a good swimmer. Sherry had always been amazed how long I could hold my breath when we used to go reef snorkeling. With a fistful of hair, I took the guy to the bottom with me. He tried to punch me in the throat, but again the movement was slowed by the water. This wasn’t the street, or a karate dojo. I kicked my bare feet, got behind him, and rode his back toward the bottom. In the deep end, Sherry’s pool was only eight feet. I’d gone down several times to clear the bottom suction drain of big oak leaves. Sometimes I’d empty my lungs of air and just sit down here, looking up at the sun rippling at the surface. On those occasions, I felt I could stay down here for days.
My adversary was not made of the same stuff. I could feel his struggle weakening, his arms going limp. I could actually hear the bubbles of oxygen leaving his throat. Maybe he was screaming, or begging. I couldn’t tell. I hadn’t opened my eyes since diving forward off the fence.
When we made the surface, I heard a gasp. It was mine. I opened my throat and my eyes at the same time and started stroking to the shallow end, dragging a shirt collar in my hand. The man had gone full limp, and when I got to the point I could stand, I drew him near. He was faceup in the water. I pushed my fingers into the side of his cheeks, pried open his jaws, and pulled his head back so his throat was in a straight line. As soon as his airway was open, a huge gurgling intake of breath went into the vacuum and then came back out sputtering.
“What the fuck, man? What the…”
Consciousness came back when the air started going in and out. I was still jacked up with adrenaline. I pulled back hard again on his hair. “Ah, ah, ah,” he yelled.
I took an arm up behind his back, putting some pressure on the shoulder joint when I felt muscle function
