The water splashed onto his trousers. Three hundred bucks in Bal Harbour. Not that Franklin would care in his Sears polyester. Where was the guy? Was he so good at his job I won’t know he’s here?
Berto thought he heard something — a movement, a broken twig. He turned in the darkness but saw nothing, his Gucci loafers sinking into the mud. He strained to hear over the pounding of his heart and the buzz of mosquitoes around his ears. Then a jolt from behind, his feet out from under him, and he landed in the muck, his first thought a wild incongruity — could the dry cleaner get the mud out of his bird’s-egg pleated Italian slacks? A moment later a vague feeling that his neck hurt.
“Heavy links,” said the voice from behind him. “Gold? You would like gold, wouldn’t you?”
The grip tightened on his chain and Berto swallowed and tried to look over his shoulder. A snap on the chain, a knee in the small of the back, and he was staring straight ahead into the blackness. “You’ll turn when I tell you,” the voice said in a controlled tone barely above a whisper.
Dense clouds covered the moon now, the curtain of mangrove trees closing around them, drawing them nearer in the muck of the swamp.
He strained to talk. “What do you want?”
“The money,” the voice ordered.
“In the duffel bag,” Berto whimpered. He kicked at the canvas sack at his feet. “ Por favor, some air.”,’
The gold noose loosened a bit and Berto sucked in a long, greedy breath. At the same time he rubbed his neck, wondering if he could reach the pistol in his ankle holster. It was not going the way it should, not the way it had been planned. Where the hell was Franklin? Another absurd thought — maybe the budget-crunching feds refused overtime for a DEA bodyguard.
“Is it all there?” Another whisper in the darkness.
“Twenty thousand now, the rest when you bring the stuff in. Plus a bonus.”
“Liar!” The voice startled him, strange and unfamiliar, and another yank from behind. The chain lifted Berto to his feet, the links digging into his neck, drawing blood. “Turn around,” the voice commanded, a firm grip steering him. Berto staggered in a circle, gasping, blinking through tears from the pain, a blaze of lights behind his eyelids, torches of agony igniting the darkness.
Silence, then a whisper again, frightening in its softness. “Are you afraid to die? Maybe you will come back as a warrior, instead of the worthless little snitch you are.”
Berto shivered with cold fear. “Please, just take the money,” he begged, the words barely audible above the crazed song of a million insects.
“Of course I’ll take the money.” A hint of amusement now.
The pressure on the chain loosened. Then a hard punch, palm upward, knuckles clenched, aimed precisely at the Adam’s apple. In the dark Berto never saw it coming, never flinched. There was a crunch, then a sickening gurgling sound. Berto collapsed into the mud, gasping for breath that would not come.
A second later, powerful, gloved hands circled his wounded neck. The hands pressed steadily. Deprived of air, Berto’s body began to shake, his feet dancing a palsied jig. Pinpoint hemorrhages popped out on his eyelids and scalp, then the cartilage of the larynx cra-acked like a chicken’s wishbone, and finally, his tongue, elevated by the pressure of the hands on the neck, shot out of the mouth, at first bloody and red, but by sunrise, long after the killer had left, black and grotesque as death itself.
CHAPTER 15
Thursday already. The race two days away. Time to take inventory, Jake Lassiter thought, knowing he’d come up a few items short. No leads on the missing coupons. No word from the Miami Beach cops, what could you expect? And Lila on his mind, clouding the sky. A vague feeling of uneasiness. Paying too little attention to work. Thaddeus G. Whitney had been calling all day, and Lassiter had ducked him. A bunch of other phone messages piled up, but then Cindy buzzed.
“Your favorite policia on line dos, jefe.”
“G’day, Lassiter,” Sergeant Carraway announced cheerfully.
“Picture was clean, no prints. I’ll keep it in my wallet as a souvenir. Hey, the slut’s got some pair.”
The cop sounded so happy Lassiter wondered if he’d been drinking. No, he was probably a nasty drunk.
“Here’s something else might interest you, Counselor. Last night, me and my partner spot a couple greasers prying open a soda machine at Alton Road Texaco after hours. I don’t move so good anymore, but Georgy boy, excuse me, Whore-hay, he thinks he’s fast, runs on his toes like the girls are watching. Fact is, he’s muscle-bound and a meathead, would never have caught up except one of the punks is limping like a horse kicked him — shit, at first I thought he was crippled. Anyway, my partner grabs him halfway down the block, poor kid musta tripped ‘cause his collarbone seems to have fractured by the time he’s put in the blue-and-white which, by the way, is where I been waiting ‘cause I ain’t chasin’ no more greasers down alleys.”
What’s he getting at? The fat sergeant didn’t move fast and he sure as hell didn’t tell a story fast.
“Anyway, while Whore-hay is working up a sweat catching one out of two, I do what you might say is your basic police work.”
“Sergeant, spare me the details. What the hell’s this got to do with Sam Kazdoy’s coupons?”
“I’m getting there, Counselor. I look over at the soda machine, figure I might have me a diet Coke, ‘cause I’m watching my girlish figure, and of course, caffeine-free ‘cause I’d like to get some shut-eye. Well, what do I see on the ground but a little crowbar they were using to bust open the machine.
Wouldn’t have thought nothing about it, except we’re Mirandizing the kid and Whore-hay, he’s a stickler for the rules, tells the little prick he’s being charged with malicious mischief, attempted larceny, trespass, resisting arrest with violence, and possession of burglary tools, to wit, one crowbar. So the kid, who’s dumber than a lump of yeast, he says it’s not his crowbar, some guy gave it to him the other night. And where’d this guy give it to you, I ask real innocent. He says, in the alley behind the South Side Theater.”
Carraway paused, letting it hang there, basking in the silence. “You like this story, Counselor?”
“It’s getting better. He give you a description?”
“Not much a one. Short guy dressed like those assholes in the Everglades, you know, the ones throwing grenades at the snakes, training to overthrow Fidel?”
“Bay of Pigs Brigade,” Lassiter said.
“Right, a dark little guy in a camouflage jacket, probably Latino. This mystery man supposedly comes out the back door of the theater, has a… discussion with our two soda banditos, ends up giving them his crowbar as a gift.”
“What about the crowbar?” Lassiter asked. “Any prints, any scratches?”
“Good questions, Counselor. Very good. You could be a dick. Maybe you are a dick, eh?”
Let him have his fun, Lassiter thought. Making you drag it out of him. Still pissed at the way you rubbed his face in it at the theater.
“Only prints are the kid’s. Name’s Rodriguez, ain’t they all? Lassiter, you know how many pages of Rodriguezes in the Miami phone book. No? Take a guess. Okay, I’ll tell you, fifteen fuckin’ pages, a septic tank full of Rodriguezes.”
“Sergeant, what’s this got to do with — “
“You’re wondering how Phil Carraway knows this. ‘Cause Rodriguez is a juvenile and the old sarge gotta call the dipshit’s mother, only the kid’s got a bad memory for addresses and phone numbers.”
“Sergeant, what’s — “
“Now this Rodriguez ain’t even Cuban. He’s a Puerto Rican, musta got lost on his way to New York. Hey, Lassiter, how come there are so few Puerto Rican doctors?”
Lassiter was silent, knowing the burned-out cop would provide his own punch line.
” ‘Cause you can’t write prescriptions with spray paint.”
Lassiter had to wait for the sergeant to stop laughing at his own moronic joke. “Carraway, the Beach ought to enroll you in an ethnic awareness program.”
