Magic City (4 page)

Loaded with pellets. Lead lumps with cinched waists and pointy tips. Shaped like minarets. Twice the weight of BBs. Sent flying by spurts of pressurized gas
.

Lethal, oh yes, if the muzzle was snug against an ear, fired into the soft interior channels, one after the other, or into an eyeball. That could bring death or leave them pleading for it
.

From the distance she was shooting, no, not fatal. Oh, but at five hundred feet per second, what a beautiful, vicious sting
.

Her days of killing were finished. All done. No more guns and blasts of gore. This was more fitting. Sting, not kill. More fitting for a woman her age, her station. Her twisted history
.

So many targets on parade today. So many men in their cocky Speedos, the bulge of crotch. The flaunting display. They swaggered by. A mouth like his. Like his
.

An unbroken pageant of nearly naked men. So many, many Hispanics. The dark hair, insolent smiles, long lashes. Sensual macho lips
.

She saw one coming. Red clingy suit. Head high, dark wraparounds
.

Tightened her finger. Tensing to a pound of pressure, two, then backing off. Letting this Speedo pass. This bulge of prideful meat. She wasn't ready yet. Too quick. Too early. No reason to rush
.

Drew her hand from beneath the towel, wiped her palm dry. Slid it back inside, fitted her fingers to the molded stock. The molded stock
.

She waited, watched them pass. Looked down the beach. The crowd around her drowsing, talking, reading paperback novels and magazines. She was simply one of them, a lady in late middle age, basking in the sun. No one knew. No one ever knew
.

Five minutes passed before she spotted an even better one. Forty yards off, ambling the hard-packed sand, with gold around his neck; long, loose limbs; a gaudy lump in his black thong. Watching him approach, that smug stride. Deciding, yes, this was the target for today. To hush the drone, the nagging hum inside her skull, the buzz buzz buzz
.

Curling the finger
.

Fifty feet, forty, coming into range. She aimed for the crotch, the tender thighs. Navel to knees, that was her zone
.

He slowed, then halted, stooped for something in the retreating surf. A white chip of shell. He stood, holding it. Examining. A sensitive fellow. A willing target
.

She squeezed and squeezed again, then once more. Three quiet
plonks
lost amid the noise around her
.

He dropped his shell, slapped a hand to his thigh, looked down to see the blood drooling from a tiny hole. He crumpled to his knees, a husky roar
.

“I'm shot! Someone shot me!”

At the brim of his thong, a second puncture in the flesh. Then she saw the ragged slash in the nylon crotch
.

Three for three, a notable day. Sting, sting, sting
.

As once she was stung
.

Shrieking women ripped up their towels and blankets, fled
.

A panicked exodus, which she joined. Simply another woman padding up the hill of sand toward Ocean Drive. A Jeep roared up. Beach patrol. It had been happening for years. Blamed on gangs, soulless teens. A dangerous prank. Police were on alert but always came too late
.

She mounted the dune. The buzz had toggled off. Sweet silence swimming up her spine. Brain quiet. Buzz gone. Just the ocean, the restless sea
.

While on his knees on the hard-packed sand, the man, the random man, screamed and screamed and screamed
.

Eight o'clock on Sunday evening, Stanton King trailed his lovely wife, Lola, through the snooty throng at Merrick Gallery. As usual when Lola passed by, men nodded in approval and spoke her name, women smiled with icy politeness and edged closer to their partners. It was the same performance Stanton had witnessed for the entire span of their marriage, and he took more than a little pleasure in watching it unfold.

After all these years, Lola King had lost none of her power to excite. As they made their way across the gallery, male libidos drummed in counterpoint to the hiss of female envy. At times such as these, in crowded rooms, Stanton took an honored place beside his wife, matched her step for step, received her cool hand on his offered arm, feeling more intimate with her in such public gatherings than he ever did when they were shut together in private.

Nearly once a week they were similarly engaged. Gallery openings like tonight's, or dedications of halfway houses, fund-raisers for homeless shelters and historical-preservation-league functions, environmental campaigns, thousand-dollar-a-plate dinners for one or another of Lola's charitable causes.

It delighted Stanton that even in her sixties Lola was the object of such palpable lust and that he as a result could bask in covetous esteem. Sadly, the display was all pretense, for Lola had not shared her bed or body with Stanton in decades and they rarely engaged in conversation on topics more intimate than the grocery list, but still, the wave of arousal that rippled through the gallery cheered him. It was the reason he accompanied her to these stuffy events, simply to live out the public version of what he no longer enjoyed in private.

Tonight Stanton's white frizzled hair was unruly as always, an electrified mass that bore a resemblance to Einstein's. He wore a blue aloha shirt decorated with white oversize hibiscus blooms. White slacks and white shoes. A costume that in Miami was considered formal wear.

Lola was tricked out in a pastel pink sheath dress with a scooped neckline that displayed the ample cleavage she'd possessed since her twenties. Her waist was slim and the swell of her hips still well within ideal proportions. For tonight's occasion she'd swirled her red hair into a dramatic display, and her complexion, an unblemished creamy white, was undusted by powder.

Within her blue eyes, a dark light fluttered like a volatile magnetic field. It was Lola's custom to fix her gaze on whoever was closest at hand. She was not one of those annoying women always scanning for a better circumstance. It was part of her charm, part of her wondrous attraction, that she could bring the full force of her allure to bear on a single individual.

After greeting several acquaintances, Stanton and Lola joined the line that moved in a slow clockwise amble around the perimeter of the gallery to view the artwork. Behind him Lola settled into quiet pleasantries with Miguel Marquez Estefano, a squat, silver-maned Cuban gentleman who operated the largest Toyota dealership in the city. Lola and Estefano occupied seats on several boards together, and after a brief acknowledgment of Stanton, Estefano held Lola's attention as the conga line progressed past the black-and-white photographs that were the cause of the evening's celebration.

In the far corner of the room Stanton noted Mr. Alan Bingham, the photographer whose work they were honoring tonight. Stanton identified him from the snapshot on the printed program, a gaunt man in his fifties, surrounded by well-wishers and friends. He seemed a quiet sort. Wispy and unassuming. The type of individual who could slip here and there and snap his photos without stirring the air around him.

His exhibit displayed the seamy edges of Miami with a wry, good-hearted slant. Strippers and drunks, obese tourists frolicking inelegantly, forlorn immigrants trapped behind razor-wire fences, all of them staring frankly into the lens and revealing some angle of themselves that was cocky or profoundly desperate or just plain goofy. As the line moved forward, Stanton entertained himself by looking past the obvious subjects of the photos and trying to place the locations where each was shot. Krome Detention Center, Miami Beach, Opa-locka, a strip club on Biscayne Boulevard. All of them rendered in the unsparing black-and-white manner of Diane Arbus but tinged with a hearty humor Arbus never managed.

Midway through his journey around the large hall, with Lola and Estefano trailing behind, Stanton confronted a shot of Cassius Clay and Sonny Liston poised mid-ring on that night in 1964. He halted briefly and craned forward for a sharper view, his heart rising quickly to a hammering percussion. A wave of chilly sweat broke out across his back.

Beyond the fighters, in the third row of the Miami Beach Convention Hall, sat a group of fans who were watching the proceedings in various degrees of attention. Framed perfectly by the rope rings, these fight fans were most certainly the focus of the photograph. Five of them sitting side by side.

It was, Stanton saw with horror, a collection of notorious people who might easily be recognized by any of a dozen patrons in the gallery tonight if they bothered to stop and take a longer look and burrow back into their memories for faces and events from forty years ago.

Stanton slid forward, his breath tight, and behind him Lola and Estefano passed by the boxing photograph, unaware of its import. But as they were edging forward to the next selection, Lola halted and reversed course. For several seconds she absorbed the image before her.

When she turned to Stanton, the faint smile that had been fixed on her lips all evening had vanished. Her eyes were blurred and her features tensed into a grim, rubbery mask. Her lips drew open as if she meant to scream.

“It's nothing, darling, I'll take care of it,” he assured her. “Would you excuse me for a moment?”

Stanton broke from the line and headed for a rear exit. The moment he was in the alley, he drew his cell phone from his trousers and made the call.

In his panic he misdialed and got an angry man who clicked off as Stanton was apologizing for the wrong number. He looked up and down the dark alley, drew a long breath. He counted to ten, then to twenty.

He focused on the keypad and punched the numbers, and after a single ring the familiar voice answered.

“I have a job for you,” Stanton said. “It's of the utmost importance.”

Stanton stepped farther from the rear exit.

“It will involve illegal acts. It must be done tonight. Are you willing?”

 

One in the morning, in the alley behind Merrick Gallery, Carlos Morales splashed kerosene on the heap of framed black-and-white photographs. Snake stood watching. When he'd emptied his can, Carlos scratched a match with his thumbnail, flicked it into the pile, and they watched as the flames meandered through the photos.

“Now for the good part,” Carlos said. “Mr. Photographer.”

As he was turning to leave, Snake glimpsed an image he hadn't noticed before. The photo lay on top of the pile, flames moving around it. He went back, leaned over the fire. A shot of a boxing ring, two black men at arm's length, behind them the crowd. Cassius and Sonny. February 1964.

“What the hell're you doing?”

Without thought, Snake thrust his hand into the flames. Gripped the frame, but the heat crippled his fingers and the photograph slid away, wedging deeper into the bonfire.

As it was consumed, he studied the image, watched it darken and crinkle, turn to red and yellow ribbons of fire twisting into the night. Cassius up on his toes, Liston heavy and slow. Behind the boxers, rows of men in suits and white shirts and narrow ties, some with kerchiefs in their breast pockets.

Then he saw the two men sitting side by side, and his heart roared.

Three rows from the ring was a man with a birthmark on his cheek, Mayor Stanton King. Next to him a stocky man thrust a cheering fist toward the boxers. A diamond flashed on his pinkie finger. Exactly like the ring on the man Snake had confronted in his sister's room forty years before.

By the time Snake noticed the stocky man and his diamond, the flames had eaten away his face, and seconds later the fire consumed the rest of him.

“Your hand, man, doesn't that hurt?”

“Don't worry about my hand.”

On a middle-class street, South Miami, with stucco houses on small lots, Snake parked his Friendly Service yellow cab and they walked along the sidewalk toward the man's home. Tile roof, big oak out front.

Snake was trying to reconstruct the photo, bring it up from the hazy developing pan of memory. The way his brain worked, he absorbed every image passing before him, stored it away. Things he didn't register at the time, he could go back and pick out, see as fresh as the original moment. But not this time.

The stocky man's face wouldn't coalesce. It remained a shadowy smudge. Stanton's features, yes, those were sharp and clear. A frown of tension. A troubled look Snake had rarely seen him wear, this congenial man who'd raised him, fed, clothed, housed him and Carlos for the past four decades.

One house away, Snake halted and whispered to Carlos, “Look for that boxing photo, I want it.”

“The old man said burn everything.”

“Our mission has changed.”

“It has?”

“This is no longer about what Stanton wants. It's about what I want.”

Carlos said, sure, that was cool, whatever.

“I need to study the image,” Snake said. “Grasp its meaning.”

“Yeah? Why's that?”

“It's the answer. Why Carmen died and our parents were killed.”

“Oh, shit, Snake. That's so over. Fucking ancient history, man.”

“It's not over, Carlos. Not by a long way.”

It was nearly one in the morning. Nobody around. Even the dogs asleep. Snake rang the man's bell. He rang it again, then again.

Finally there was a voice behind the door asking what in the world they wanted. A mild-mannered guy.

Snake kept his face close to the peephole.

“It's a neighbor,” Snake said. “There's a fire. I'm warning everybody.”

“A fire!”

“A fire,” Snake said. “It's moving this way. Fast.”

The man inside the house weighed it for a few seconds, then unbolted his front door, and that's when Carlos kicked it into his face and the two of them went inside.

Once they trussed up the man with plastic ties, they took their time.

One by one Carlos smashed all the man's cameras and pulled out the film, then they opened each drawer and checked for photographs, and when Snake made sure the boxing photo wasn't among them, Carlos piled them up and set them ablaze in the man's fireplace.

They had the man tied up in his darkroom, center of the house. Heavy curtains, thick stucco walls. Better than a dungeon, scream all he wanted.

Snake's brother was a thick-chested man of medium height with a head one size too large for his body, a square face and dense black hair that he kept shaved in a bristly skullcap. He had the bloodshot eyes and puffy cheeks of a pro wrestler gone to seed. His eyes juked constantly, and every minute or two he waved a hand in front of his face like he was swiping at a cloud of mosquitoes. Except there were no mosquitoes there. None at all.

After the night their family was slaughtered, the Morales boys were ruined in different ways. Carlos lived on constant high alert, forever vigilant of things whisking at his face, seeing danger where there was none, his hand lashing out to squash imagined creatures, taking offense when none was meant.

Snake's memory was his curse. At least once a day, a stray moment from those long-ago hours flared to life. The same ancient images recycling. A bullet blasting through the bedroom wall. Snow of plaster in his hair. Carlos sobbing. Carmen lying dead in the long spring grass. Cassius and Liston, LBJ unfolding from his limo, his cool dry hand enclosing Snake's.

“What is this about?” the man said. “What do you want?”

“Your photos,” Carlos told him. “We already did the museum, all those are taken care of. Now we're doing these.”

“You went to Merrick Gallery?”

“Just came from there,” Carlos said. “Nice place, all that marble. Not much of an alarm system, but they'll probably upgrade after tonight.”

“And you stole my photographs from the show?”

Carlos waved an imaginary gnat from his face.

“Piled 'em in an alley and torched them. Sorry. That's just how it is. Nothing personal, just doing a job.”

“I don't understand.”

“So this is all your photos?” Carlos said. “What we're seeing here? You don't have an office, a warehouse, there might be more stashed in boxes?”

“I work at home.”

“Hey, don't be getting jiggy with us.”

Carlos got his face up close to the man's, gave him a stare, then swung around, and with a wave he cleared a path through the cloud of bugs and marched into the house to resume his search.

The man's name was Alan Bingham. He was in his late fifties. Tall and lean like a distance runner, still with a good head of silvering hair. Wearing faded jeans and a white T-shirt.

“Look, Alan,” Snake said. “Don't make this difficult.”

Carlos was in the living room, rummaging.

“You break in, tie me up, destroy my cameras. I'm supposed to cooperate like none of that happened?”

“Yeah, I know. It's disgraceful, smashing your fine equipment. My partner gets carried away. You've seen him. He's rash and volatile.”

“Every single photograph? Is that what you're saying? You want to know where every single one of them is?”

Snake could hear Carlos wrecking the furniture in another room.

“Okay.” Snake took his voice lower. “Here's the truth. We don't care about
all
your photos. What we care about is one particular shot, okay? One that was in your show at Merrick Gallery.”

“Which one?”

Bingham was peering into Snake's eyes like he was trying to bond. Or maybe searching for some fiber of humanity. Good luck with either.

“Cassius Clay and Sonny Liston.”

“You want that photograph? Why, for God's sake?”

“What were you, about twelve when you took that?”

“Fifteen,” he said. “My first real photo.”

“I listened on the radio,” Snake said. “Nineteen sixty-four Miami Beach Convention Hall. Louisville Lip versus the Big Ugly Bear. Seven-to-one odds against Clay. Liston had an eighty-four-inch reach. Bone breaker for the mob, in and out of jail, everyone thought he'd kill Clay. Howard Cosell doing the color commentary. Les Keiter on the play-by-play. Ref was Barney Felix.”

“You're a boxing fan.”

“No. I just remember things. Useless trivia. When I was a kid, I saw Clay a few times. I watched him work out at the Fifth Street Gym, saw him on the streets in Overtown, strutting around. Later on after he won the title, driving that tomato red Cadillac convertible.”

“He was a beautiful young man,” Bingham said.

“But in the photo you weren't interested in him. It's more about the crowd. I just got a peek. Couldn't make out all the faces, but a couple of guys in one row looked bored. How the hell could they be bored at that fight? A night like that. History in the making.”

Bingham nodded.

“But then, you never know it's history in the making till it's over, do you? Living your life, you got no perspective. That's what you were after, I bet. Being part of something big, but not knowing it at the time.”

Bingham shook his head, not believing this.

“What was it about the boxing shot made you put it in the show?”

“Just what you said. The looks on the people's faces.”

“That's it? Nothing more than that?”

“That's a lot. All those different points of view.”

Snake gave Alan a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

“I made a pledge to myself,” Snake said. “On that very night, the Cassius-Liston fight. I made a pledge, but then I kind of let it drift away.”

“A pledge?”

“A promise to myself, a life mission. But after all these years, I lost hold of it. It's hard to hang on to one idea that long. Keep your focus.”

Alan was peering uncertainly at Snake.

“But you did it, didn't you, Alan? You held on to your pledge. You were taking photographs at fifteen, here you are, all these years later, you're still doing it. You stayed devoted to your quest.”

Alan Bingham's face softened, his eyes drifting toward the wall.

“There's always ups and downs,” he said. “Passion is hard to sustain.”

Snake nodded. His own fervor had melted away, nearly vanished, but just tonight, it was back.

“I want that boxing photo,” Snake said.

“Jesus Christ. You could've just come in and asked for it. You didn't need to get rough.” He shook his head, squirmed against the restraints.

“I've been patient with you, Alan. This doesn't have to get messy.”

“All right, damn it. In the oak cabinet. The studio, two doors down. There's negatives of everything.” Alan's eyes were muddy, body limp.

Snake was turning to the door when Carlos rolled into the room, sweating—his green polo shirt with a dark butterfly of sweat on the front.

“Your freaking air-conditioning broke?” he said. “Or you just cheap?”

“I don't have air-conditioning,” Bingham said.

“What're you, crazy?”

“Alan's old-school,” Snake said. “Living close to nature like the pioneers. Isn't that right, Alan?”

“Fuck nature,” Carlos said. “And the camel it rode in on.”

Alan Bingham said nothing, looking off toward the far wall.

“I think I got 'em all,” Carlos said.

“And the one I want?”

Carlos shook his head.

“Well, there's negatives,” said Snake. “Oak cabinet, two rooms down.”

“I burned 'em already. They're history.”

“You didn't check them first?”

“Check them?”

Snake cursed and pushed past him and found the oak cabinet. Drawers empty. He hustled to the fireplace, but it was too late. Just ash and rubble.

He walked back to the darkroom. Carlos swished a hand through the air.

“Okay, man, it's go time.”

“I need that photograph,” Snake told him.

“Aw, shit. The old man says burn 'em all, we burned 'em all. This is getting to be a major buzz kill. Let's just go.”

Snake turned to Alan.

“Tell me, Alan. Where can I find a copy?”

Alan shook his head, mouth clamped.

Snake said, “Show him the pistol, Carlos.”

Carlos dug the .22 from his waistband, pressed it to Alan's temple.

“Where, Alan?”

Bingham swallowed again.

“All right, all right. There's one I can think of. But it's not here.”

“Where?”

“If I tell you, you have to promise you won't hurt the man.”

“Have we hurt you, Alan?” Snake said.

“We're cool with that,” Carlos said. “We look like stone-cold killers? Hey, we're pulling a job for a guy. Torching some snapshots. He gave us work, we're doing it. That's all. A little harmless destruction of property.”

“Who would hire you to do such a thing? Why?”

“I said his name, you'd know it.”

“Zip it,” Snake said. “Alan doesn't need to know our business.”

Carlos turned a make-believe key in front of his lips.

Almost fifty, Carlos had never matured past adolescence, as though some crucial hormone had failed to kick in. A dash of gray sprinkled his hair, wrinkles setting in around his eyes, but otherwise, he was still a junior-high punk.

“So who has this copy?” Snake repeated. “Tell us that, we cut you loose, we're gone like a bad dream.”

Carlos lowered the pistol to his side and patted Alan on the shoulder.

Alan thought about it. Looking at Carlos, then shifting back to Snake, still trying to read him but getting nowhere. Finally he sighed.

“He lives across the street. He's an old gentleman losing his memory.”

“How fortunate for him,” Snake said.

“You've got to promise me you won't hurt him.”

“It's all good,” Carlos said. “We're straight up with that.”

“His name, Alan,” said Snake.

“He's a frail old guy. Look, I'll go over there myself and get it back.”

“No,” Snake said. “We wouldn't want to put you to the trouble.”

“Just ask him for the photo, he'll give it to you. No rough stuff.”

“Alan, his name.”

“Lawton Collins. He's a sweet old man.”

“Directly across the street? White house, tin roof?”

Alan nodded.

“He admired the boxing shot, so I gave him a copy. I'm longtime friends with him and his daughter. Nice neighbors.”

“That's good, Alan. That's very good.”

“Now you've got them all. A lifetime of work. Gone. Irreplaceable.”

“There's nothing can't be replaced,” Carlos said, shifting the pistol to Bingham's chest. “Not even you, dawg.”

“No, Carlos, there's no need for that.”

Snake lay a restraining hand on his brother's arm, but it didn't stop him.

The tiny pistol wasn't loud, which was a virtue, but the downside, a caliber that small, it took three shots to quiet Alan's gurgling.