Osceola didn’t smoke, spit, or talk. His creased face took it all in and didn’t let any of it out. I told him the projections on traffic and population and visitors. I told him how this information probably got Peter Tupton killed. I told him I couldn’t represent the tribe, but I could get him a lawyer to challenge the lease. Get some publicity on how the slick developer cheated the Native Americans. Turn it all around. Invalidate the lease, maybe get the federal government to investigate.
He studied me for a while. Outside the windowless office, a scratchy public-address system was announcing a special cooking demonstration.
Finally, he said, “We know all about the gambling.”
“You do?”
“It was disclosed by Mr. Florio. Not in the documents, of course. They become public records, and we understood the need for confidentiality until the time is right.”
“I don’t understand. Why would you let him do this? You’re being shortchanged, taken advantage of. You’re selling Manhattan Island for twenty-four bucks.”
“The gambling is secondary. Surely you know that.”
“Secondary!” The rest of it, I thought. Just as Gina said. But what was the rest of it? “Secondary to what?”
He leaned back in his chair, his hand automatically reaching for the Camels. The pack was empty. His fingers crushed the paper and tossed it into the stained waste can. “The other contract, of course. As Mr. Florio’s lawyer, you must know…”
My face had given it away.
“You don’t know, do you?”
I could have tried to bluff it- oh that contract — but I wouldn’t have known what to say. Maybe I wasn’t a good enough actor to be a lawyer. Maybe I was just a lousy liar. I shook my head. “No, I don’t know, but you could tell me.”
“Your concern for our welfare is heartening,” Henry Osceola said, “though I wonder about your loyalty to your client. Rest assured that we are quite aware of what we have given and what we shall receive in our dealings with Mr. Florio.” He made a point of looking at his watch, an old Timex on an alligator band. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to pay the hills of the froggers and crabbers and other thieves who supply the restaurant, to say nothing of the fuel and electrical bills for the village.” He smiled pleasantly at me. “And at five o’clock, the classics channel is showing Fort Apache with John Wayne. I never miss it.”
I didn’t know whether that was a joke, but I know when I’m being asked to leave. As I let the door close behind me, I peeked over my shoulder and took one last look at Henry Osceola.
The smile was gone. With the telephone cradled to his ear, he punched out a number he must have known by heart.
Chapter 21
The wind whipped along Tamiami Trail, tugging at Charlie’s top-heavy pickup, which shimmied and shook, rattled and rolled. It was cold enough to fire up the heater, but the knob was missing. I twisted the threaded screw and was hit in the face with a blast of fumes that would have shut down Three Mile Island. Ahead of me, a full moon hung over Miami. I headed due east, the saw grass waving in the wind on each side of the road.
I was still thirty miles east of town when I saw the blue light in the rearview mirror. I checked my speedometer. The needle was jumping between 50 and 55. I slowed to make sure the police car meant me. It pulled to within a few feet, and a voice over its loudspeaker politely asked me to please bring my vehicle to a safe stop.
When I pumped the brakes and clunked to a halt on the berm, the same voice told me to please exit my vehicle, step to the rear, and bring my license and registration with me. I got out and did most of what I was told. The police car had its high beams on, and the blue light kept flashing. I squinted at the officer who approached me, one hand on the butt of his still-holstered revolver, just the way they teach them. He was dark-complexioned with long, straight black hair and, like so many cops these days, he had the overblown trapezius muscles that sloped from shoulders to neck and revealed the serious weight lifter.
The uniform was unfamiliar to me. Then I read the arm patch. MICANOPY TRIBAL POLICE. The nameplate identified him as “G. Alachua.” I handed him my license, explained that I’d borrowed the truck and didn’t have the registration unless it was in the glove compartment with some fishing lures and road maps that predated Ponce de Leon. He didn’t crack a smile. They teach them that, too.
G. Alachua studied my license for a moment. “Please wait here, Mr. Lassiter.”
He returned to the police car, this time approaching the passenger side. For the first time, I noticed another cop. They spoke to each other through the open window. Then the door opened, and both officers walked toward me. In the glare of the headlights, I couldn’t make out the features of the second one, who was shorter than his partner. This one was carrying a nightstick, and somehow his walk seemed familiar. I recognize people that way sometimes. On the football field, even if the number was obscured and the face hidden beneath a face mask or behind another player, I identified teammates and foes alike by the way they carried themselves.
Alachua spoke first, drawing my attention to him. “Mr. Lassiter, we must ask you to take a roadside sobriety test.”
“What for? Was I driving erratically? Was I speeding? Why was I stopped?”
Lawyers are trained to ask questions.
With amazing agility, the other cop turned away and spun around, his back facing us as he unleashed his right foot in an explosive kick that shattered the right rear brake light on the old Dodge. The ushiro mawashi-geri, the back roundhouse kick in karate, impressive because it’s delivered blind. “Faulty equipment,” he answered.
Then he faced me directly and smiled, and a chill went through me. The same short dark hair, the same broad shoulders, the same short, powerful legs.
“Jim Tiger! You’re a policeman?”
“Captain Tiger,” he responded calmly, the smile gone, replaced by the familiar taciturn expression of the guy with few words but a sharp machete. “Now, are you going to voluntarily submit to the sobriety test, or do we take you in?”
“In where? Where’s your station?”
“Back at the village, though sometimes we take a short cut through the saw-grass prairie.”
“That wouldn’t be a short cut,” I said. “The village is a straight shot west on the Trail.”
Tiger turned toward Alachua. “Mr. Lassiter wants to teach us geography.”
“Okay,” I said. “You’ve made your point. I’m not welcome in your territory. Fine. I’ll head home.” I started to move toward the cab of the pickup, but Alachua grabbed my shoulder. I could have shaken him off. I could have pivoted with my left foot and caught him in the gut with a hook. I could have done a lot of things, but I just stopped and looked at Jim Tiger. I was big and strong, but he was cruel and vicious. I could hit hard, but he could kill and do it without blinking, do it calmly and dispassionately. “I’ll take the sobriety test,” I said.
Tiger reached into his back pocket and smiled again. That made two in one night. He pulled out a silver flask that glittered in the headlights, blue sparks flying from the metal with each revolution of the police car’s light. He unscrewed the cap and offered me a drink.
“No, thanks. I never drink when my constitutional rights are being violated.”
“Drink it!”
I took the flask and sniffed at it. Cheap bourbon or something like it. “Who you saving the good stuff for, Jose Canseco?”
I considered the alternatives. Alachua still had his hand on his gun. Tiger still held his nightstick. In the movies, the hero would toss the whiskey in one bad guy’s face and kick the other one in the balls. But in the movies, they choreograph it. The second bad guy has the reflexes of a mollusk. He stands by and allows the hero to take out the first bad guy before being surprised himself. In real life, two against one is just a shitty bet. I took a
