“No.”
“Had to do it yourself, right, Max? Knight in shining armor stuff.”
I looked straight out into the darkness. OK, the woman knew me- no wiggling out of it.
“But I did try to call…”
“I was out with Marty Booker,” she said.
I turned to look at her face, the one that has never lied to me.
“He admitted the steroid drug use to me, Max. And he gave me the boxes that the stuff came in. I took the lot numbers to the guys who raided the warehouse and matched them up with the stuff they removed from the place. Booker and his friends were pipelined into the same operation. The Brown Man was supplying the drugs. When Booker got sick of it and told the rest of them he was getting out, that’s when they turned the cold shoulder on him.”
“And how long after that did he end up getting squashed in the accident on the I-595?” I said.
She was running the possible permutations in her head. I was doing them out loud.
“The Brown Man hired an assassin to clean up anyone who could lead back to him,” I said. “He put the asshole onto everyone, including Booker. The collision that crippled him was done by the same idiot they just hauled out of here.”
Sherry was staring at me. Even in the dim light, I could see incredulity on her face, and Sherry does not do incredulity often. “Big supposition, Max.”
I looked out on the pool water, the dark surface reflecting some of the ambient light, the small ripples from a breeze catching glints of it.
“He admitted it.”
“The hit man?”
“Yeah. He named the Brown Man. He said Carlyle named the targets, and then paid him when it was done.”
“Jesus, Max, how’d you get him to give that up?”
“Persuasion.” I couldn’t look up at her.
“The kind that causes unconsciousness and a knot on the back of the head?” she said.
“And probably a little chlorine in the lungs,” I said, still looking away from Sherry’s eyes.
Again, there was silence, but there wasn’t a question in it, more a weighing of justice deserved or denied.
“They won’t be able to use that in court,” she finally said.
“They can flip him,” I said. “A good prosecutor can use the attempted murder of a law enforcement officer to make that kid sing like an American Idol.”
“That would be one legal way to do it,” Sherry said, and the implication was clear.
“I’m not a cop; I’m a PI,” I said, justifying.
She let that excuse sit for several beats, and then reached out and put her hand on top of mine.
“You’re a good man, Max.”
I waited as long as she had before answering.
“Sometimes,” I said.
– 25 -
You should have been smarter. But fuck it, man-this was the way it had been pointing all along, isn’t it? You’ve been walking, ha, rolling, down this path, and now it comes to this.
“Marty, I don’t know what to tell you,” the blonde detective said after you spilled your guts.
Yeah, she did know what to tell you. She could have told you straight out that you’d broken the law. Cheated, did the steroids, bought illegal drugs, conspired with a known drug dealer, and broke your entire fucking covenant with the law enforcement community you’d always dreamed of being part of.
But it’s always what if, isn’t it?
Enough what if, Marty: You know what has to be done.
So when she left, you looked around the garage. You rolled down off the ramp and over to the counters, the ones you’d built with your own hands. You had measured the wood yourself, the thick oak, the kind that couldn’t just be kicked in by some skinny dickweed breaking into your garage. You’d put on the heavy-duty hinges, double- drilled the stainless-steel hasps, and locked it down with a round cylinder stainless padlock. It was better than a safe ‘cause no one would assume what it contained. Key it open, and there she is, the old Mossberg 500 your father gave to you before he died-and what better weapon to use, huh? Make your father proud, after all the fucking up you’ve done.
OK, you took her out of the cabinet and slipped the old carrying case off. She smelled like aged gun oil. It had been about two years since you last had her out and took her down to the range in Markham Park and did some skeet with a couple of the guys. You should have taken better care of her. Yeah, should’ve done a lot of the things.
It actually hurt your heart to take her and put her in the vise on the workbench, clamping her in hard right along the pump action. You could feel the nonslip pattern of the vise teeth sinking into the wood. When you took the hacksaw and started that cut on the barrel to bring it down to size, you could hear Daddy yelling, “Son, what the hell are you thinking?”
But this was the only way, wasn’t it? Saw off the barrel and strip the shoulder stock to give her a kind of pistol grip. That’s the way you’d be able to hide the shotgun along your leg in the wheelchair without drawing too much attention. The Brown Man might be a useless drug dealer, but he was also street smart. He’d probably seen a dozen competitors and pissed-off clients coming at him in the past, and knew what to look for. But a cripple cop loaded up with 00 buck? The man wouldn’t know what hit him.
So you sanded off the rough metal at the working end of the barrel and loaded her with four shells, even though you knew you’d only need two. You wrapped her up in a black field jacket and then used the cell phone to call a cab. Hell, you had the number memorized by now. Even the daytime dispatcher knew your voice by now after all the times you’d called them. “Oh, yeah, the legless guy who has to have a ride to the beach for a workout at the gym, or down to Bootlegger’s for a beer, or to Publix for a bag of microwave dinners.”
Sure, the driver will just toss the chair in the trunk and then set it up by the back door. Then you can use your arms to wiggle your ass out and crawl into the seat.
“Yeah, thanks, pal, and here’s a tip for helping out. I’d give you a twenty if you’d wipe my ass. Fuck it, I’m just kidding you, buddy, really, keep the change.”
The driver had given you a strange look, like he wasn’t sure if you were a smart ass or a whack job. And to tell the truth, you weren’t sure yourself. When the cab finally dropped you off, there you were in front of the compound of Carlyle Carter, a.k.a. the Brown Man, in Northwest Fort Lauderdale, looking up at the white metallic gates and the surveillance cameras on the house.
You rolled your chair right up to the mounted intercom and punched the speaker button. Would the guy even answer? Hell, yes, you figured. This was someone who flaunted his shit. I mean, look at this place. Every cop in the county knew who lived here, and where the money came from to build it. The Brown Man couldn’t help himself. He’d be too curious not to see you.
So when the melodious male voice came over the speaker-“Yes, may I help you?”-you flipped open your badge case with your sheriff’s star and held it up for the camera.
“I need to speak to Carlyle Carter.”
There was silence. But you stayed put, holding up the badge, the one you’d disgraced. The sawed-off shotgun was hard against your right hip. You were forty feet away from the man’s front door. You kept your face as calm as possible, no hint of anger, no look of consternation, only what you thought of as a look that a determined businessman might wear.
Come on, fucker, you thought. Have some balls.
After five minutes of silence, you heard the front door of the house open and Carter stepped out, dressed in a bright white linen suit that you could never afford on your salary. Under his loose jacket, he wore a white shirt,
