She was dressed in one of those baby-blue shirts, and Merselus was sitting in front of a rack of nine-pound pink bowling balls, so he knew exactly what she was after, but he turned it into something else.
“Lady, your only hope of squeezing by anybody is a ten-week gig on
She looked more hurt than angry, but she just stood there.
“Take a hike, fatso,” said Merselus.
She hurried away. Merselus watched her ass shake as she made a beeline to another rack on the other side of the alley. He was about to check his phone again for the time, then stopped himself. Patience was normally one of his virtues, but on a night like this, after all the planning, even Merselus had to remind himself to be cool.
His gaze swept the alley. A guy on lane fifteen was in the seventh frame of a perfect game, and a crowd was beginning to gather. Merselus ignored the excitement, his focus shifting back and forth from the main entrance to the men’s locker room.
It took about a week to get approved for a locker at Bird Bowl, and Merselus had reserved one with a stolen ID and fifty bucks in cash. The bait was inside the locker. It was just a matter of minutes before the dumbest fish in the sea came along to take it. Merselus recognized him the minute he walked through the main entrance doors.
The dossier Merselus had compiled on Brian Hewitt was pretty simple. Twenty-seven years old. Unmarried. Unemployed. Two years of community college. He’d lived the fast life during Miami’s real estate boom, once upon a time having owned a town house in Coral Gables, a duplex in Hollywood, and six waterfront condos from Fort Lauderdale to Miami Beach. His typical Friday night had involved two lucky friends and a table full of women who were thrilled to take turns going down on a guy who could shove enough fraudulent mortgage applications through the system to afford a thousand-dollar bottle of Cristal at a South Beach nightclub. The burst of the subprime bubble had left him sharing a shitty two-bedroom apartment with three other losers who had been on a downward spiral since their glory days of high school football. Bankruptcy had seemed like the only answer to seventy thousand dollars in credit card debt. Until Merselus had come along. Not that Mr. Hewitt would ever hear the name Merselus, or have even the slightest idea who he was dealing with.
Merselus allowed himself one more check of the time: seven P.M. Hewitt probably wasn’t as stupid as he looked, but he was prompt. And desperate. Not to mention way out of his league.
Merselus watched Hewitt weave through the crowd, past the game room, past the billiard tables, past the ladies’ lounge. He walked briskly, a man on a mission, a complete newbie who had never been on the receiving end of a drop in his life. The clincher was the telltale glance over the shoulder before stopping at the water fountain. He knelt down and pretended to tie his shoe-
Merselus drank his beer and waited. He had no fear that Hewitt or anyone else would recognize him. The eyeglasses, the flat-billed baseball cap, and the three-day stubble were disguise enough for this simple task. Across the bowling alley, he could see the agents in plainclothes moving into position, which gave him a rush of excitement and satisfaction. His call to the FBI had been anonymous, and he was pretty sure that he’d shared enough details to make his tip credible. But there had been no guarantee that the bureau would act on it. Thankfully, they’d not only acted on it, but they’d been smart enough to figure out for themselves that flooding the bowling alley with uniformed police officers would have scared off Hewitt and blown the setup.
A minute later, Hewitt emerged from the lounge with a bowling-ball bag tucked under his arm-the same bag Merselus had left inside the locker. The excitement on his face quickly turned to fear. Two men stopped him right outside the men’s lounge. One flashed a badge. The other took the bag, zipped it open, and looked inside.
There was no bowling ball in there, of course.
A split second later, Hewitt was up against the wall, feet spread, hands cuffed behind his waist as the FBI read him his rights. The bowler who was working on the perfect game in lane fifteen had suddenly lost his audience. The curious crowd was gravitating toward the men’s lounge. The manager stepped out from behind the counter and pushed toward the center of the commotion.
Merselus finished his beer and headed for the exit. The heat and humidity of another summer night hit him as the doors opened. He was in the parking lot, halfway to his car, when he noticed that someone had followed him out.
“Hey, asshole,” the guy called out.
Merselus kept walking.
The heckler kept coming, now just a few steps behind him. “Hey, you owe my wife an apology.”
Merselus wanted to ignore him, but the footsteps were closing in from behind. Merselus stopped, turned sharply, and cast a laserlike glare that very few people had seen and lived to remember.
The guy nearly screeched to a halt.
“Back off,” said Merselus.
Two simple words and the expression on Merselus’ face were enough to make the guy’s voice shake in response.
“You are, uh, gonna go back in that bowling alley and you’re gonna, uhm, apologize to my wife.”
The fear was audible. Merselus approached slowly, looking him straight in the eye, not stopping until they were nearly nose to nose.
“No. I’m not.” His tone wasn’t agitated or even argumentative-just a simple statement of fact, which made it all the more effective.
The guy was built solid, obviously no stranger to the gym, and there was no question in Merselus’ mind that he’d successfully defended his wife’s honor in the past. This time, however, the knight in shining armor nearly dissolved on the spot, smart enough to sense that he wasn’t dealing with just another bully at a bowling alley. Not even close.
The man took a step back, then turned and started away, walking at first, but nearly at a trot by the time he reached the doors and retreated into the safety of the bowling alley.
He reached deep into his pocket and dug out his keys-sans the locker key-and headed toward his car.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jack drove himself to Jackson Memorial Hospital that Thursday night. Rene’s murder made a thing like a civil lawsuit seem trivial, but the Facebook posting was a bona fide legal emergency, and to Jack’s knowledge no judge had ever excused a direct violation of a court order based on the there-are-other-things- in-life-that-are-more-important defense. A frank conversation with his clients was in order.
Jack stopped for the red light at the main entrance to the medical campus. A homeless man working the left-turn lane flashed a cardboard sign that said NO FUCKING JOB OR FAMILY, NEED MONEY TO GET DRUNK. WHAT’S YOUR EXCUSE? Jack could relate. He rolled down the window and gave him a couple bucks for being honest.
“Bless you,” the guy said.
Jack’s “You’re welcome” caught in his throat. He’d suddenly noticed the green directional sign posted on the other side of the intersection: MEDICAL EXAMINER’S OFFICE, it read. The crushing reality had set in hours earlier, and Jack wasn’t headed back to the ME’s office. But the mere sight of the sign took the pain to another level, and the words just came out.
“Rene, I am so sorry.”
“Who you callin’ Rene?” said the homeless guy.
A horn blasted from behind. The light had turned green, and someone was in a hurry. Jack put the car in gear, followed the street to the parking garage, and walked across the courtyard to the hospital entrance. He met Ben Laramore in the ground-floor cafeteria, seated at the same table where, less than twenty-four hours before-it
