“I don’t get it, Abe,” I said. “Why would Nicky want me to bribe you to do something you’re going to do anyway?”
“Well, that’s not the way Nicky sees it. He told me you were coming to offer me a bribe all right, but not on his behalf.”
I waited.
“For yourself, Jake.”
“I still don’t get it.”
He seemed to be thinking about how much to tell me. I watched Brush Cut take a pair of scissors from Socolow’s desk and begin cutting the lining out of the duffel bag. “You’re wasting your time,” I told him.
He scowled at me. “Really, asshole?” He picked up the phone and dialed a number. After a moment, he said, “Gunther here, what’d you find?” He listened a moment. “How much?” He paused again, then smiled. I was hoping he wouldn’t smile at me like that. He hung up the phone and walked over to the window, squaring his shoulders and looking me in the eye. We were the same height. He was ten years older, but in good shape. Square shoulders, flat gut.
He reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a blue-backed piece of paper. “Do you own a motor vehicle, a 1968 Oldsmobile 442, license plate J-U-S-T-I–C-E with a question mark at the end? Is that right, JUSTICE?”
“Yeah, why?”
“What a shitty plate. Like the dickheads who used to wear the American flag on their jeans.” He handed me the paper. “I’m serving you with a copy of the search warrant obtained for your motor vehicle. The search was carried out in the parking lot across the street just a few minutes ago. In the wheel well in the trunk, instead of a spare tire, there was found a substantial quantity of fifty-dollar bills. It’s being inventoried now, but apparently it’s in the range of a million bucks.”
I turned to Socolow. “See, Abe, that corroborates what I’ve been telling you.”
Socolow was thinking about it. He seemed profoundly unhappy. “Not the way I see it. Nicky Florio gave us a sworn statement saying you and somebody named…”
“Gondolier,” Gunther helped out.
“Yeah, you and Gondolier skimmed a million dollars from the bingo hall. You were supposed to be the company’s lawyer and Gondolier the manager of the hall, but the two of you ran your own little scam with the cash.”
I was shaking my head, as it was becoming clear how Nicky Florio had framed me.
“Gondolier’s missing,” Socolow said, “and here you are with the money in the trunk of your car. According to Florio, you planned to offer me a piece of the action to buy some protection when he blew the whistle on you.”
“And you believed that?”
“I told him I’d known you a long time, and I couldn’t believe you were a thief, but that I’d follow through. When you called to see me, I set up the sting. But the way it looks to me, you changed your mind.”
“I did?”
“You show up without the money but wired, trying to incriminate me on tape. You didn’t know I’d already given my blessing to the gambling, so you want me to agree to a bribe. If I had, you’d have dirt on me, and that was your protection. You wanted to compromise me, not pay me.”
“Abe! You can’t believe…”
Socolow left me by the window and walked to his desk, his shoulders slouching. “You got greedy. You’re dirty, Jake, and you thought you could buy me.”
“That’s so stupid. Everybody knows you can’t be bought.”
“Then what were you doing with the bag and the wire? What the fuck were you trying to do to me, Jake?”
“Like I said, Florio told me you were for sale. I didn’t believe it, but I just had to know. I had to know if I could trust you, or if you already belonged to Nicky Florio.”
“And if I had turned it down cold?”
“I would have told you the truth. Everything. Including what happened to Gondolier.”
“I’m listening.”
But I was finished blabbing. I’d already said too much. In a minute, they could add accessory to murder to the charges, or maybe worse. “I think I’d like to talk to a lawyer now.”
Gunter was in my face again. He called me a familiar two-syllable name to get my attention, then got down to business. “Additionally, Mr. Lassiter, you’re under arrest for the crime of grand larceny. You have the right to remain silent. You have-”
“Oh shut up!”
Gunther’s face lost most of his expression, and there hadn’t been much to start with. I started past him toward Socolow. I never saw the short right. Gunther threw it from his hip and caught me squarely in the solar plexus. A sucker punch. I folded in half and dropped to a knee, gasping. I couldn’t get a breath in. My stomach heaved.
I heard Socolow’s voice. “Gunther, Jesus Christ, was that necessary?”
“Hate the asshole’s license plate,” he answered.
The wave of nausea hit me quick and hard. Two heaves, then I let it go, soiling Gunther’s black brogans like a spooked vulture.
“Goddamn it!” Gunther backed away, shaking his shoes, leaving a trail across the state of Florida’s gray industrial carpeting. “Cuff him, Hank.”
I was still on one knee.
“Jesus, let him clean up first,” Socolow said.
My old buddy. He thought I was a thief, but he didn’t want to deprive me of my dignity. Once I got out of this jam, I would thank him, take him out for steaks and beer. I would also kick Gunther’s ass from here to Sopchoppy.
Socolow took me by the arm and helped me up. He pointed to a door leading to his private bathroom. I nodded, walked unsteadily to the door, went in, and closed the door. I turned on the water and washed out my mouth. I threw what passes for cold water on my face. There was an old-fashioned eight-paned window that had been painted shut, probably during the Eisenhower administration.
I wanted some fresh air.
That’s all.
I wasn’t going to escape. After all, where was there to go?
I strained to push the window up. It didn’t budge. I flexed my knees and got my center of gravity lower. The window frame began to creak, or was that my knee?
“Hey, Lassiter, hurry the hell up.” Gunther’s impatient voice.
I flushed the toilet, and while the water was rushing, flipped the lock on the door, hoping they didn’t hear the click. Back at the window, I tried again, and this time, the dried paint cracked away from the window frame, and it shuddered open. A blast of cold air smacked me in the face. I took several drags.
I bent over and stuck my head out. The south side of the building. A splendid view of the elevated Metrorail tracks, the high-rises of Brickell Avenue running along the bay, and farther south, heavily wooded Coconut Grove, where only this morning I was cozy and safe.
There was an impatient knock-knock at the rest room door.
“Be right out,” I hollered.
And I was, stepping right out onto an old balcony three hundred feet above Flagler Street, stepping out into knee-deep birdshit, stepping out among my feathered friends, who eyed me warily, spreading their wings and hopping a safe distance away along the parapet, probably all thinking the same thought: What’s the asshole up to now?
Chapter 19