The Death Box (25 page)

“You’re telling the story, bud.”

“Oh, sure.”

I looked at the guy, head heavy with the weight of his rancid recollections, his breath smelling of rotting teeth and vomit. From here, I knew, he would invent memories just to go to a cell, do his time, and get back to suicide by street life.

Vince shot me a glance; he knew it, too. The guy was empty.

“We’re finished here,” I said, reaching over and giving the man’s shoulder a squeeze. It felt like a Tinker-toy connection. “Thanks, Blaine.”

He grinned lazily and looked at me as if he was wondering who I was and might I have a laptop he could steal. A uniform came and led Mullard back to his cell. The three of us leaned the wall by a water cooler.

“Double Ought?” I said. “Sounds like a gang handle. Double Ought make any connections, Vince?”

“I think of double-ought buckshot, the heavy-gauge stuff.”

I saw Gershwin frowning over pursed lips. “Got a thought in there, Ziggy?”

“If the gangster’s a blade man, how does he get a handle you’d use for a shotgun killer?”

“Nice thought,” Delmara said. “I’ll talk to our gang people, see if they have anything.” He paused, pushing back the fedora. “It’s so weird, but cool, you think about it. You’re looking for a blade man, Mullard calls me with his story.”

“Freaky,” Gershwin agreed.

“Yeah …” Delmara said, shaking his head in disbelief. “It’s like someone beamed him to me.”

37

It was past two when we left the precinct house and drove to Tiki Tiki for lunch. I once looked into my rearview and saw a couple that looked like Degan and Valdez. When I slowed, so did they, turning off at the next light.

No way, I thought. You’re getting flaky.

Ms Amardara hovered less, thankfully, staying in the kitchen to supervise a catering job for three hundred people. Ziggy and I shared its largesse, making sandwiches from
ropa vieja
and chomping pickled jalapeños. A minute of resolute
No’s
by Gershwin had restrained her from pushing a dozen-item banquet cart to our table.

“I’m gonna operate on the assumption the coyote is John Doe Bottom Layer,” I said, sandwich in one hand, papaya juice in the other. “It fits Morningstar’s time frame and Mullard’s time speculation.”

“Mullard’s brain is gooey. But I’ll buy in.”

“So we got a guy with a knife who kills a coyote. Though it happens two years ago, it revolves around human smuggling. He goes into the ground first. One year later Mr Knife gets ripped off by Perlman, so he removes the accountant’s hands as punishment. I figure a sadist like this guy probably watched Perlman howl for a bit, then sliced his throat.”

“Ouch. Bet the Perlster wished he’d been watching Johnny Wadd beaming aboard Princess Jasmin while Mr Spock locked on.”

“No doubt,” I said. “And somewhere around that time the shipment of Hondurans went bad. It must have been right after Perlman got whacked—”

“Because he got dumped in the cistern first.”

“Yep. A separate incident. Next came the Honduran problem, when Carosso got called: ‘Hey Paul, could you come over here with a truck full of concrete? We need you fast.’”

Gershwin nodded and sucked a gulp of mango soda. “Carosso shows up and loads bodies into the mixer, an inspired solution. The mixture goes down the hole and it’s all over. ’Cept no one figured on developers.”

I stared aimlessly into the restaurant. The lunch crowd was gone, the ubiquitous Bert and Lenny kvetching at the bar, the ladies playing their mah-jongg. I heard clatter from the kitchen and snatches of Amardara’s voice as she orchestrated the proceedings.

“You in there, Big Ryde?” Gershwin asked after I’d spent a stretch in the ponder zone.

“I’m still bugged about who knew the cistern was there. The damn thing is in the middle of the center of the nexus of nowhere and surrounded by brush, besides.”

“That why you stare at the brush and kick at the ground at the site? Pissed off that it’s got secrets?”

I grunted, not having noticed. “Maybe. Subconsciously.”

“Could it have been Carosso? He drove the truck there, after all.”

“Nothing links Carosso to the area, never lived nearby, never pulled a job below Fort Pierce. Miami and points south were outside his comfort zone.”

Criminals, especially the dullards, tended to operate in circumscribed locales, places they knew and were comfortable within. I put Carosso in that batch.

“But Delmara did the due diligence,” Gershwin said. “A rancher had it for years, then it was owned by a guy who didn’t go near the parcel, afraid a python would bite his tootsies.”

“Someone knew. We figure that out, we’ve got a window into this thing.”

I started the thousand-yard stare again.

“You’re not going to be happy until we visit the site again, are you?” Gershwin said.

We stepped outside and found the sky was a roiling, unsettled gray as an afternoon thunderhead swept over the city, the sun buried and the air thick with the smell of incoming rain. The gulls seemed lost in the imposed twilight, wheeling without purpose or joy, and winging for cover amidst the low buildings of the neighborhood.

Gershwin and I walked the gangplank toward the lot, the tiki torches flickering in the freshening breeze. I saw the usual vehicles in the lot, the two six-passenger golf carts used by the Jewish folks from the nearby retirement center, and Amardara’s bright red Caddie. It fit, the retirees were the only clientele in the restaurant.

No
, my mind said, another vehicle was at the side of the building, tucked behind a corner planting of foliage and palms. I studied the vehicle, a white panel van with the engine rumbling. The van shivered on its springs, like weight was shifting inside and the darkened passenger-side window rolled halfway down. A raindrop pinged off of my forehead as the truck started to move. Something made me throw out my arm and stop Ziggy in his tracks. “Down!” I screamed as the van charged. I saw shivering bursts of flame and dove into the shallow pool of the fountain. Gershwin crouched behind a palmetto as bullets shredded the foliage and whined off the rock border of the pool.

“Jesus,” Gershwin said, eight feet away and pulling his hat tight to his head.

It started to rain, hard. I stuck my head up for a split second and a burst sent me back down. The van was under fifty feet away and approaching.

“
Vamos
,” a voice yelled. “Go and kill him.”

Lightning lit, thunder answered. Rain poured down my forehead as I heard the van’s side door roll open and footsteps on the ground, splashing. They were coming for us. I jabbed my head up and down again, saw the van being used as a barricade, two or three men behind as it moved in, wipers beating.

A burst of fire turned the rock beside me into dust and I flattened against the bottom of the pool, warm water filling my nostrils and choking me. I jabbed the barrel of my weapon above the short wall and fired three blind shots, hoping to slow them for a few seconds. I’d been ambushed twice before; you might save yourself if you had time to think. The trouble was you never got it.

My shots took return fire. A lot of it. Rounds stripped through the palmetto in front of Gershwin. I wiped rain from my eyes.

“You OK, Zigs?”

“Can you get them to concentrate on you, Big Ryde?”

He pointed to the nearest stone bench, better cover. Another round of fire pushed me below the water. A goldfish wriggled beneath my chin. I stripped off my soaked jacket and felt a round sizzle past my elbow. I balled the jacket in my hands, set to mimic what countless cowboys had done in hundreds of westerns: throw their hat as a distraction, kind of.

I rolled on my back and clutched the jacket like a football. I willed every bit of strength into my arm and whipped the jacket the other direction from Gershwin, hoping every eye followed the sudden motion. I rolled to my stomach as I threw the garment, two-handing my weapon above the wall and firing low and fast. The Glock had fourteen remaining rounds and I burned through them in seconds.

A glance showed Gershwin rolling to the bench, a dozen feet to his side. The shroud of rain helping keep him hidden.

I heard shots from my side, Gershwin pulling off rounds before he flattened behind a bench splintering under returning fire. But underneath the shots I heard screaming. The firing drizzled to a stop. More screams ended with a door slamming and the sizzle of tires on drenched asphalt as the assailants pulled into the street and raced away, lost in dense rain.

I sat up as Gershwin approached, gun at his side. He was trying to find something witty to say, but his brain was aboil with adrenalin and he had no breath, besides.

Been there.

Chaku Morales stuck the phone back in his pocket and turned to Orzibel, who was pacing his office and scowling.

“There is news?” Orzibel said.

Morales shook his head. “It’s uncertain whether Ryder is dead. There was not time to look for a body.”

“But he was shot, no?”

“It’s not known. But Valdone is shot in the face and dying. Montega has a bullet in his chest. It did not pass through and could be anywhere inside him.”

“Fuck them,” Orzibel hissed. “They failed me. I pay thousands of dollars to buy failure.”

“Ryder might be dead, Orlando. No one knows yet.”

“He
will
be dead. If not today, tomorrow. The police … they know nothing?”

“The escape was clean, the plates stolen. The van is in the warehouse and will be painted another color.”

Orzibel paced and considered the situation. He was a warrior and Miami was his battlefield. If Ryder had somehow survived, it was a small battle, no? The war was the thing. He always won … he was Orlando Orzibel. The thought buoyed him and he congratulated himself on his calm in battle.

“Call the man and find out if Ryder is dead or wounded, Chaku. If he is alive, it won’t be for long. Perhaps the distraction will give us more room to find Leala Rosales. So maybe it is a good thing, hey? Let us get back to business.”

Morales nodded. “Mr Chalk? Did you again hear from him?”

Orzibel made the OK sign with thumb and forefinger. “The deal is done. Now it’s only a matter of time.”

A half-hour passed and the taped-off Tiki Tiki grounds were a scramble of activity. The rain had come and gone, ten minutes of pounding replaced by blue sky and benevolent cumulus as fluffy as cotton. Ziggy and I had given our statements and regained our feet. He was inside with Ms Amardara, who was less unnerved than angry anyone would wish Zigs harm, and I was showing Roy the courtyard where we’d made our stand.

“What’s Polynesian for OK Corral?” he said.

“Dunno. I’m just happy you don’t have to ask it about Boot Hill.”

“Not your Boot Hill at any rate. We’ve got blood out on the lot, and plenty of it. Someone got hit.” Roy smiled, the thought pleasing him. “We’re checking hospitals, of course.”

“Gershwin made the hits, I’ll bet. I was firing blind. He rolled from the palmetto to the bench, got a better angle. Gershwin was cool as ice all the way.”

“That’s why I brought him on board.”

“You didn’t. He was thrust on you.”

Roy snapped his fingers. “Oh yeah. That.” The eyes studied me. “So what have you done that makes you a target, bud?”

I shrugged. “No idea, but I’m a threat to someone. Thing is, Roy, there aren’t many people who know what I’m into. Hell, I’m barely on the books.”

Roy considered my words. “That bothers me. It’s like someone has insider info. You’ve kept all this real low-key, right?”

I nodded. “And we haven’t blundered into anything I’d consider a strong lead.”

Roy pulled a cigar for twirling. “Whoever did this is scared of what you might find, a cautious type. I’m gonna put walls around you, a detail.”

“Thanks, but no bodyguards, Roy. Gershwin and I need room to move. We’ll be cautious.”

“You’re getting a couple units at your place. At night, at least.”

“I can live with that.”

“Found new digs yet?”

“Uh, getting close.”

He whapped my shoulder and retreated to a vehicle on the far side of the lot, got inside. There were two others in the vehicle, I noted, Tatum and Degan. They didn’t even get out to see how I was. I saw Degan’s eye scanning the battlefield and was waiting for them to light on me so I could fire a one-fingered flare, but heard footsteps at my back and turned as Deb Clayton ran up, pixie hair beneath a blue cap announcing
FORENSICS UNIT.

“You heard about the blood, right? Come take a look.”

I followed her a dozen steps into the lot, saw the pool of red diluted by the rain, one side tracking off in twin rows. “Heel marks,” I said. “One of the assailants was dragged away.”

“Figured you’d seen it before. Doubt y’all had time to get a tag number.”

I laughed and shook my head. “I saw a white work van, smoked windows, eight to ten years old. Then the shooting started.”

She did a one-eighty turn. Techs had gridded out the lot and set numbers, photographing all the shell casings where they lay. We stepped past a young female tech crouching with a Nikon, clicking like a fashion photog.

“True gangland style,” Clayton said. “More shells than Sanibel.”

“It’s why they prefer rapid-fire weaponry. Country guys can go out in the woods and practice precision shooting all day long. Inner-city gang types are lousy shots, so they spray-shoot and hope they hit something. More often than not it’s an innocent bystander.”

Clayton shook her head and trotted off to supervise something. I saw Morningstar walk up wearing a simple white linen dress, the material stopping just above her knees. She twirled sunglasses in her long fingers.

“You’re all the buzz, Ryder. I had to come see the scene and, uh …”

She paused. I had just survived a close-range assassination attempt and was feeling bolder than usual and winked.

“To see if your favorite imported detective was all right?”

She looked at me like I’d lapsed into gibberish. “To make sure the blood evidence got handled correctly. I heard about the rain and it was on an asphalt parking lot. That means grease and petroleum and other adulterants.”