The dark-haired man whirled around, revealing a naked look of surprise, almost fear, Lassiter thought. After an awkward moment of silence, Humberto Hernandez-Zaldivar said, “Jake, mi amigo, good to see you.”
Lassiter kept running in place. “Berto, what’re you doing here?”
Silence.
Lassiter had questioned enough witnesses to read the look on Berto’s face. He’s making it up, winging it.
“I thought I would find out what you saw in this windsurfing,” Berto said finally. He was wearing shorts and rubber thongs and a sleeveless top with tiny holes for air vents, a look popular in Little Havana. He nervously twirled a finger around his heavy gold chain.
Next to Berto was an Asian girl who looked about fifteen but must have been the flight attendant he’d mentioned in the restaurant. Then a bare-chested man slowly stood up from where he was crouching in the sand like Johnny Bench behind the plate.
Keaka Kealia.
Jake Lassiter stopped running in place and stood there with his hands on his hips, breathing hard. No one spoke.
Keaka’s board was pulled up on the beach, resting on its side in the shadow of the lighthouse, much farther out of the water than necessary to protect it from the shore break. Now what the hell was going on, Berto collecting autographs? Seemed like he should have more pressing things on his mind, like staying out of sight. The DEA agent was nowhere to be seen. A sniper could pick him off from the sand dunes, if there really were assassins.
Berto smiled and regained his composure. “Jake, this is Lee Hu, sweetest tiger lily in the land, and I think you know Keaka Kealia.”
“Hello, Lee Hu. Berto, I didn’t know you and Keaka were acquainted.”
“Just met,” Berto said. “Thought I might open a ski shop out west, have windsurfing equipment for summer business. Who better to talk to than the best, right, Keaka?”
Berto’s head swiveled to Keaka Kealia, looking for help, but the Hawaiian was silent. Lee Hu looked down at her tiny feet, and Lassiter looked too: nails painted glossy red, her toes positively edible. Her halter top was plastered against her small body by the November easterly. Long black hair fell in bangs in the front and straight to her shoulders in back, where the wind tossed it leeward. The total impression, Lassiter thought, was one of childlike sensuality.
“Great, Berto,” Lassiter said. “You came to the right place for advice.” He didn’t believe a word of it and couldn’t figure out what Berto was doing with Keaka Kealia. Real estate developer turned doper going into the windsurfing business. What a crock.
Then Berto flashed his old smile and said, “Funny we don’t see each other for years, then twice in two days, our paths cross. Must be the stars, verdad? By the way, I stopped by your office this morning and signed those papers, the deeds to the bank. Cindy’s got them. Glad to get it over with.”
“Sorry I missed you,” Lassiter said, aware Berto had changed the subject. A diversionary tactic, and any lawyer worth his wing tips would not be thrown off the track. Why had Keaka sailed a mile down the beach to discuss the latest in equipment? Why did he try to keep his rig from view? What was Berto’s sudden interest in the sport, and where the hell was the DEA agent?
Lassiter would have loved to grill these two under oath, but he didn’t have a subpoena in his surfing trunks. After quick good-byes, he left them there and jogged back over the dunes to retrieve his rig. Nearing a roped-off area, he was careful to avoid the sea grass, which was more than a guy with binoculars was doing. Tourists were always tromping around where they didn’t belong. Lassiter wished he was wearing his favorite T-shirt, the one with the slogan “Welcome to Florida, Now Go Home.”
“Hey, you’re not supposed to be in there, beach erosion,” Lassiter called out. The guy lowered the binoculars and scowled. There was something familiar about him. Sports coat. Short blond hair going gray. Sure. “You’re the DEA guy. Franklin, right?”
“Get the fuck outta here,” the man said, lifting the binoculars again, aiming toward the beach where Keaka, Berto, and Lee Hu still huddled.
“Okay, just glad to see my tax dollars at work. Shame the federal government cut your funds for charm school.”
“… the fuck out ‘fore I bust you for obstruction.”
“You too?” Lassiter asked. “I know a Beach cop would love to nail me for a B and E. Maybe my picture will be in the post office next week.”
The man’s sports coat swung open, revealing a shoulder holster filled with a. 38. “Maybe so, you don’t watch out the company you keep.”
“Berto’s not a hard guy, just someone who took a wrong turn.”
The man laughed. “Who the fuck’s talking about him?”
CHAPTER 12
Only in Miami, Jake Lassiter thought, reading the morning paper while sipping guava juice in the tiny kitchen of his coral rock house.
Only in Miami was the theft of $1,640,712.50 in negotiable securities considered small potatoes. That was the total Cindy came up with after putting the old man’s records into the calculator, and where did that get you? It got you on page 7-B of The Miami Herald, only four paragraphs plus a thumbnail photo of Sam Kazdoy, a shot taken sometime after his bar mitzvah but before he lost his hair.
Jake Lassiter had been hoping for more. A lot of publicity and the burglars, if they were still in town, would have to wonder. Is it safe to leave through the airport or would bags be searched? Are banks on the lookout? Is the FBI involved? But four paragraphs told the world that nobody gave a shit about a B and E, not in a town where there’s more than one homicide a day, 365 days a year, and without a good angle, a murder gets five measly paragraphs and a one-column headline body found, next to ads for lingerie models and body shampoo massage parlors in North Miami Beach.
The burglary was lost in the day’s crime news, heavy even by Miami standards. One hundred grams of cocaine is hardly worth mentioning and it wouldn’t have been, except a federal juror stole it while deliberating the fate of an accused drug dealer. The evidence was being passed around the table when it disappeared, probably crammed into a juror’s Jockeys for a late-night toot. It was the first time anyone could remember a jury being read its Miranda rights.
Then there was the middle-aged Cuban driver who rammed his Marriott catering truck into the nose gear of a Cubana Airlines jet at MIA. A million dollars’ damage to the plane, and a great shot of the driver shouting “Cuba Libre” on the front page. Yes, Lassiter admitted, it was too heavy a news day to pay much attention to a burglary.
The newspaper devoted a portion of its Local page to yet another mystery at the Miami police station, thirty-eight bales of marijuana missing from a padlocked bin in the property room. Two weeks earlier the police lost seven hundred abandoned bicycles that were to be auctioned off for charity when a wise guy took them from an unguarded lot. Then, $150,000 in cash was stolen from the police safe, evidence in a drug case.
Of course the newsboys were going bonkers with the missing marijuana, the papers and the TV stations yukking it up. And why not, more crimes are committed in the Miami police station than on the streets of most cities. Still, the Kazdoy burglary might have gotten some notoriety had a major-league drug dealer not been machine-gunned at high noon in Little Havana by assassins firing MAC-10s. For the third time in a month, a copy editor tried to slip the phrase “MAC Attack” into a headline and for the third time an assistant city editor killed it.
After reading the morning paper, Lassiter still didn’t have a lead. Maybe he should confront Violet, one-on- one. Put some pressure on her, more than Sergeant Carraway would do. Except first he had to file three mortgage
