Hawk Channel Chase (13 page)

“You been on the pussy trail?” I
 
said.

“Trail, yes, but not that one. I should have guessed that she would worry in that regard. But that isn’t it.”

I looked him in the eye. “What is it? Is there any of the old Sam left in the shell?”

He risked a quick grin, really a smirk. “I saw this obese woman on Simonton Street last weekend with a T-shirt that said, I
T’S
N
OT
N
ICE
TO
S
TARE
. Half an hour later, out by the Bight, I saw a knockout. She was maybe forty-five, great legs, nice figure, beautiful hair. She was wearing a T-shirt that said, I
T’S
N
OT
N
ICE
TO
S
TARE
. So that begs the question. What do we nice guys do? Gouge out our eyes?”

“That’s a passable version of the old Sam.” I tried not to stare at the three or four days of stubble on his chin.

“This is my fish camp look,” he said. “The girl you’re looking for. Is her name Sally?”

I didn’t move a muscle.

“Oh, fuck,” he said.

“Do I give the man back his money?”

Perspiration streamed down his face. “No, keep looking for her. Just act as if you don’t know a thing. If her old man gets outraged and goes to the media, my dear Marnie included, we’ll have a worse cluster on our hands.”

“Do I want to know?”

He looked away, fixed his gaze focused down the road. “Can I wait to tell you? Now is not a good time.”

A small brown dog ambled up the road, saw us, stopped and started to bark. Sam kneeled down, held out his hand, whistled softly. The dog, quieted, hurried over to sniff us out, then retreated to other territory.

“I spoke with Liska ninety minutes ago,” I said. “I brought up Sally by name and he got upset.”

Sam turned his head, closed one eye against the sun, waited for more.

“Liska said it was only by chance that he learned the names.”

“He used the word, ‘names,’ plural?”

I nodded.

“Double fuck.” He stood and looked around. “That’s especially not good.”

“Where’s
Fancy Fool
?” I said.

“Hung on a davit in seawall suburbia, where it will stay. Totally out of sight.”

“I saw the Bronco parked on Flagler.”

“Right,” he said. “The result of an evasive action.”

“You found a GPS transmitter?”

Sam nodded.

I said, “They may have put something on the Triumph.”

Sam grinned. “A GPS tracker device? They’d need a search warrant. Which is not to say they won’t try. If you happen to find one in the next day or two, don’t mess with it. They wire it to your battery and if their signal goes out, they know you’re trying to evade. That could bring down a full-court press.”

“You act like you’re on the lam,” I said. “You sound like you’re in the eighth inning of a doom game.”

“Everybody’s normal life is a doom game, Alex. I just hope I’m in the fourth or fifth inning. Certainly no farther than the seventh-inning stretch.”

“I didn’t mean life span,” I said. “I meant this week.”

“Shit, we may only be in the top half of the first inning.”

“Where to from here? Are you through making deliveries to Cuba?”

“The first few times we knew that I was clear to go down and back. The last time I went, this past weekend, I had the same assurance. But I had to make use of my… call it local knowledge. I had to evade an ugly boat with multiple motors.”

“So until someone straightens out the mix-up…”

“Right,” he said. “The whole deal’s on hold. Or washed up. Which is too bad because I know we were helping out.”

“So I keep pretending to be a private eye?”

“Do everything you should be doing,” he said. “Just don’t do too good a job. If you learn something that, say, takes you to another level, that’s when you back off and shut up and play stupid as a weed.”

“Meanwhile, where will you be?” I said. “Full tilt or heavy whoa?”

“I’ll be around. If I have to leave the county, I’ll go up into Florida and find a down-and-out motel that will let me register without a credit card.”

“Go stay with Annie Minnette.”

“If things go as I suspect they might, at least at first, she could be disbarred for harboring me.”

“Have you got any money?”

Sam scratched his head, looked puzzled, then held out his hand. I dug out the ten Bens.

“Take it one day at a time,” he said. “Whatever you’d give the father for his money, which I’ll match. Double-dip your ass off.”

“Not a cent,” I said.

“Cash only,” he said. “This is not a beer job. One thing, though. See who she was with. Get a name. But cut the father out of your moves.”

“I already did. Can I have one more clue?”
 

“Stay alert for the name Cliff Brock.”

“Is that mister or sergeant or…”

“Mister civilian,” said Sam. “Though some are more equal than others.”

“Is that the other name that Liska knew?”

“We hope not,” said Sam.

I had never seen such a forlorn expression on his face.

“Is there anything you can do in person for Marnie?” I said. “I’m not too good with it falling on me.”

“I’ll figure something tonight or tomorrow. Where’s that pistol I loaned you a couple of years ago?”

“Back with you,” I said.

“You got that concealed permit, right?”

“Last year.”

“Next chance I get, I’ll loan it to you. Make it a habit to carry.”

“Let’s not use that hook behind the shower,” I said. “Copeland Cormier knows about it.”

“Why should he be a worry?” said Sam.

“This is all new to me, captain. I trust only you, sunrise, sundown and the brakes on the Triumph.”

“That may be one too many,” he said. “That garage Carmen rents you for your Shelby, what kind of lock has it got?”

“Bingo,” I said, and told him the combination. “There’s an old Granday canned turtle crate in there. It’s full of wax and WD-40 and towels.”

“I’ll wrap it in the towels.”

“Maybe you should tell me one or two things that might constitute red flags. Reasons to carry a weapon.”

He looked away, said nothing.

“Have I ever pushed you for anything?”

“Okay,” he said. “Be alert to cops you’ve never met being far too friendly. Don’t tell Copeland or his wife that you spoke with me. You’re a wise man, Alex. If it gets hinky, you’ll know when to back off.”

“And for two beers you’d send me into a cave full of razor blades?”

He knew I was making light of the dilemma, but his tone went grim. “If anything weird goes down, get in touch with Captain Turk at the Bight. He’s on our side. But don’t talk to him before any odd shit comes down. Turk can get a little frantic.”

“Does truly weird mean you’ll be dead?”

A cell phone rang, not mine. It was in the fish-knife pocket of Sam’s shorts.

“Just as you never saw me, you did not hear that,” he said.

“In exchange for one favor,” I replied.

“Name it.”

“If I die, please keep an eye on my obituary. I hate the phrase ‘sorely missed’ and I don’t know what it means, anyway.”

Sam smiled. “It’s a way of saying you pulled out too fast.”

I let myself grin. “Thanks for the beer.”

Explaining that he needed to be “up the road, right about now,” Sam put our empties back in the Igloo, wedged himself into the Mustang, and dragged a dust cloud down Bad George.

I sat on the Triumph and viewed my surroundings. Two abandoned utility poles capped with insulators, aluminum scrap. A gutted Volvo. The upturned base of an office chair. A stripped, rusted-out motorscooter. Even the grass and shrubs looked depleted. I didn’t hear birds, but a quarter-mile away the dog barked at a new target. A few miles to the south, one mile higher, a military jet hot out of Boca Chica sped toward the Gulf of Mexico.

I was back to playing solo.

9

This time I knew why Carmen Sosa was on my porch recliner, palm to her forehead. I locked the Triumph in its Shed Deluxe, tossed my helmet in the front room then joined her in the warm shade. An open bottle on the porcelain-top table dripped condensation. The wine glass in Carmen’s other hand tilted almost to the point of spilling. She hadn’t changed out of her postal service uniform.

“Your phone rang five minutes ago,” she said. “You might have a message.”

“It can wait,” I said. “You’re first in line. I’d rather plop down right here and share your…”

“Pinot Grigio. It’s cold.”

“You bet. I’ll get a…”

“Your glass is right here behind the bottle.”

“…and sit here and talk to you.”

“About…”

“The death of a co-worker,” I said.

“Not to mention neighbor.”

“Whom I never knew and you never mentioned before.” I placed my helmet on my threadbare director’s chair.

She looked away. “He was the neighbor I denied. I wanted to think ignoring him would make him go away.”

I almost said, “I guess it worked,” but my self-censor clicked in.

I went inside to urinate. I had demolished a strict rule about drinking while driving. Sam’s beers plus the one I slammed at Mangrove Mama’s had been three too many for riding the motorcycle, but they hadn’t inspired me to act crazily or head-butt a phone pole. They had combined to dissuade me from stopping at the college to inquire about the late Sally Catherman. From Upper Sugarloaf to Stock Island a tall thunderhead had chased me. I’d also had the Florida Highway Patrol on my tail from the Saddlebunch Keys to Key Haven. Instead of making me wish I had drunk fewer beers, he boosted my thirst for several more. I could’ve given him a run for his money like I did with the Impala on Ramrod. Why should I act intelligently when all those around me are making shit choices?

Now, at home, it occurred to me that the trooper had been put on my ass by a government agency with initials for a name.

I pissed for two minutes. During that time I reminded myself that I had to meet Copeland Cormier at Virgilio’s at 5:30. Meet with the man who had urged me to collect Catherman’s money for a useless task, a job for which I had no skills. Sam hadn’t appeared surprised by Cormier’s request nor had he argued for a different approach. Both men had shown lack of respect for the father of a girl presumed to be dead.

Someone could think they knew Catherman and already had lost respect.

Hell, I thought. If the trooper had been sent by someone, what about Catherman? Had he come to Dredgers Lane as part of Cormier’s scheme? If so, Carmen’s plans to sell her home and move her parents to Ocala could be skunked from the get-go. I begged myself to return to reality. Sam wouldn’t put up with that style of game playing.

I returned to the porch, poured some wine, my arms still twitching from road vibrations. I sat facing the door, wishing I could stop for the day and stare at my shrubs. Think about overdue yard work or wonder if I needed to clean more fan blades. The sympathetic buzz from the motorcycle engine stayed with me, helped me into the zone. But I popped out of my reverie when I wondered when Sam would hide his pistol in my garage.

Carmen sipped from her glass, shook her head. “If Hammond had ever touched Maria, I would not have killed him. I’d have chained him to a cop car and chopped off his balls, kicked them down the street and let his future keepers clean up the mess.”

“Please don’t repeat that in front of another soul. Why would he touch Maria?”

“Oh, I’m not sure he would. But there’s always been talk of his taste in young ones. Not cradle robbing, not under the line, but almost. Hell, he spread most of the gossip himself. He made sure his pals knew that the ‘sweet chickadees’ were legal. He made no secret that he liked to taste them. That tidbit trickled through the office about once a year.”

“You think some father…”

“That would be my first guess. That’s what I told the detectives.”

“Julio Alonzo said that Hammond volunteered at the Bahama Village music school.”

“I’m sure the investigators will run that one down,” she said. “The problem is, every little flute player in town will have to answer to some stranger about whether an old man fiddled with her panties.”

“Unless they find his killer first,” I said. “One that’s unrelated to his…”

“Go ahead, I said it first,” said Carmen. “His tastes.”

Time again to stay silent. I reached over and poured for Carmen until she motioned for me to quit.