The Memory Killer (3 page)

I poured his ceramic mug full of caffeine and Vince’s toucan-sized beak sniffed. He drank, leaned back his head, moaned, then, as if his day had been re-booted, set his eyes on Gershwin and me. “Jesus … too much Scotch last night. I’m surprised I didn’t wake up wearing a fucking kilt.”

“Your wife still make you stop and get a few pops before you come home?” Gershwin asked.

He nodded. “Says it makes me easier to live with.”

“She must have found you real easy to live with last night,” Gershwin said.

“Beatrice is in Tampa visiting her sister.
I
had to live with me last night.” He took another blast of java. “What can I do you gents for?”

“We’ve got a guy who was a Missing, Vince. He’d been drugged, kept for a week, then dumped. We’re planning to pull the case into our purview. Doc Morningstar thinks it’s a psycho at work.”

Vince gave me a raised eyebrow. “Last I noted, Carson, the gorgeous doc was a pathologist and—”

I sighed and raised my hand. Had everyone been handed the same libretto? “I know, Vince. But I figured you might smooth the way, politics-wise.”

He sucked coffee and thought. “Well … given that details are just getting clear, the case will transfer from Missing Persons to Sex Crimes, but I’ll bet it’s still officially in MP. Lemme see what Missing Persons has listed.” He sat at a blank screen, pecked the keys. Nothing happened.

“Works best when you turn it on, Vince,” Gershwin said. “Let me do the honors.”

Gershwin flipped the switch and seconds later we saw a photo of Dale Kemp in the corner of a screen of missing persons. His well-attended blond hair sparkled with highlights above sculpted cheekbones and penetrating gray eyes. His occupation was listed as medical-products salesman, and I figured his good looks created a buzz among the female staff when he entered a physician’s office.

Vince read the investigative report: “Moved here last April from Minneapolis. Liked to hit the beach and bars, but who doesn’t when they’re twenty-seven and in Miami.”

“Gay?” I asked.

“Yep, but you got to read between the lines. Lemme see who owns the case.”

Vince expanded the screen to the full report, tapped a bottom line. “The case is still in Missings, headed by Katey Beltrane, twenty years in the biz, eight in MP, and a pro. She’ll thank you for lightening her case load. Step in and snatch a case from an insecure pissant and you’ll—”

“Wind up in shit-fight corral,” Gershwin finished.

Vince tipped back the fedora and nodded at Gershwin. “For a young buck, you know a couple things. Let’s get it done so I can see how much I lost on jai-alai last night. Here’s a tip, never call your bookie when you’re smashed.”

We elevatored down to a wide hall, a sign above the first door saying M
ISSING
P
ERSONS.
Opening the door revealed a thirtyish guy with his feet propped on the desk and reading a
Hustler
magazine. He stood, six feet plus, heavy in the shoulders, with hair so blond it had to be dyed. He wore it long over his ears and down his neck. His face was oddly lopsided, and his nose slanted off to one side. He slipped the mag into a folder as if filing official business.

“Where’s Lieutenant Beltrane?” Vince asked.

“Getting her ass fixed,” the big guy said.

“What’s wrong with her ass?” Vince said. “I always liked it.”

“Beltrane busted her hip falling off a ladder. She’s got physical therapy for six weeks.”

The guy glanced at the clipped-on temp IDs Gershwin and I had received at the desk. He made no effort to extend a hand, so neither did I.

“I need to speak to whoever’s running the department,” Vince said.

Big boy crossed his arms and leaned the wall. Even with full sleeves I could see the guy had guns. “So start talking.”

“
You’re
heading the unit?”

The guy looked irritated at Vince’s emphasis. “I came here two months before the loot took the big dive. Smith retired two weeks later, Jalesco transferred to Bunco. I outranked the others, so when Beltrane hit the floor, I was in charge.”

Vince simply stared like the guy was a scotch-generated mirage, the first time I’d seen Vince at a loss for words. I stepped in, glancing at the nameplate: Det. Figueroa.

“Look, Detective Figueroa, given certain insights into the case by the pathologist, the FCLE has decided to put Dale Kemp’s case under our jurisdiction.”

The guy scowled. Delmara’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it, muttered “Got to take this. A snitch who usually pays off.” Vince hustled to the bathroom across the hall, an appropriate venue for talking to a snitch.

I turned back to Figueroa, who was squinting in thought. “
Your
jurisdiction?” he said.

I tried upbeat. “Look on the bright side, bud: one less hassle to deal with.”

“Fuck your bright side, mister. This is Miami-Dade, not a bunch of county clowns with cowshit on their boots. We can handle it.”

Upbeat wasn’t his preferred métier, so I tried making nice. “I mean no disrespect to your abilities, amigo, but our interest in the case stems from—”

“I read the report,” Figueroa interrupted. “It smells bogus. I’m not even sure it should be here.”

“The victim was drugged, abducted and raped,” I said, puzzled. “How’s that not a crime?”

Figueroa shook his head like I was a moron. “A couple hot boys meet up at a bar, go somewhere to hook up and do drugs. They get all sexed up and time don’t mean jackshit. Then one guy decides he’s tired of it. The other has a hissy fit, gets his butt-buddy all dopey and drops him in the Glades to teach him a lesson. Don’t say you haven’t seen it.”

I had encountered variations of Figueroa’s scenario, and had considered it in this case, but the drug combo wasn’t anything near recreational.

“You didn’t see the tox reports, Detective Figueroa. He’d had some nasty stuff.”

Rod Figueroa smirked, probably his default expression. “I’ve seen these dudes on Ecstasy, heroin, crank, ice, PCP, mushrooms, glue, cough syrup, paint thinner, and mixes of them all … what you got to beat that?”

I thought about explaining the calculated potency and effects of the mixture given Kemp, but it would have been like trying to open a twelve-foot stepladder in a room with an eight-foot ceiling. And anyway, I was tiring of Rod Figueroa.

“If it’s your opinion that this wasn’t a crime, Detective,” I said, ju-jitsuing him with his own words, “then we’ve taken nothing from you. If you could be so kind as to send us any files you have, I’ll be appreciative. Have a nice day.”

I set my card on his desk and backed away. I nodded at Gershwin and we spun and left the office. I heard the sound of tearing paper, but didn’t turn. We retreated down the hall and waited until Delmara appeared.

“How’d it go?” he asked.

“Figueroa doesn’t seem cut out for the job, Vince, an obvious bias against gays. Most Missings cops I know are past that.”

“Figueroa’s an asshole. He comes by it naturally – his daddy’s an asshole, too. But a high-ranking asshole in MDPD, which is why junior’s got way too much pull for a guy barely thirty. Little Roddy was in Theft last I saw, but I guess Daddy wanted junior to get some Sex-Crimes cred on his way up.”

“Daddy is?”

“Captain Alphonse Figueroa. A guy who started on a beat in Little Havana and made all the right moves. Knew he was making ’em, too.”

“Political type?” I asked.

“Understudied with the old school macho types who ran the place a couple decades back. They pushed Figueroa upstairs, gave him a cushy desk in Community Relations. Daddy Figueroa’s a piece of work … I think he’s on his fifth wife. Unfortunately, he’s high-profile in the older Cuban community, one of the department’s PR assets. So junior gets a lot of sway.”

“What’s wrong with Figueroa’s face?” Gershwin asked. “Looks like someone scrunched it in a vise.”

Delmara shrugged. “Some kind of accident when he was a kid, running a jet ski while drunk, plowed into a boat. No one’s ever really said.”

“Figueroa’s moving up in the department?” I asked.

“Daddy says, ‘Maybe my sonny boy should get experience in the Missing Persons unit’ and you can hear the
yessirs
and pens filling out transfer forms.”

“The asshole’ll probably be Chief some day,” Gershwin muttered.

Delmara slapped a hand on my partner’s shoulder.

“You are indeed old beyond your years, Detective.”

Gershwin and I crossed Biscayne to Miami Beach, heading to the Stallion Lounge, the last place Dale Kemp had been seen. I figured it had to open early to air out from previous evenings, the smell of beer and bodies and a gazillion drenchings of cologne thick as fog in the semi-darkness. It was booths and a few tables, half of the floor set aside for dancing. The walls were dark wood with sconces for light. A mirrored ball hung from the ceiling.

I saw four guys in a back booth. Two were in full black leather regalia, like they were rehearsing for the Village People, the others resembled prep-school wannabes, clean-cut, white tees tucked into dark jeans. Loafers at the end of long and crossed legs. Except when they turned our way, their eyes looked a thousand years old.

A guy stood behind the long bar rinsing glasses, and I knew he’d made us from the moment our heels slapped the floor. He was inches over six feet and looked carved from a block of chocolate, pneumatic biceps rippling as he toweled the glassware, his chest broad and ripped under a blue denim vest that glittered with studwork.

We walked his way, but his eyes stayed on his drying. “You’re wasting your time,” he said in a sing-song voice that didn’t fit the physique. “We card everyone.”

He meant they asked for proof of age, though I figured a faux driver’s license printed on construction paper would pass muster.

“Good for you,” I said, pulling Kemp’s photo from my jacket. “But that’s not why we’re here. Know this guy?”

The bartender flipped the towel over a cannonball shoulder, took the shot and held it closer to the light. “Dale. He’s in here pretty regular, though I haven’t seen him in a few days.” The eyes got serious. “He all right?”

“We think he may have had his drink spiked. It would have been about ten days ago.”

“That’s just fucking
nasty
.”

“Dale have any enemies you know about?”

He blew out a breath. “Dale could be cruel sometimes. Especially to ugmos who hit on him.”

“Ugly people?”

“Dale never dispensed charity.”

I took it that meant deigning to frolic with less attractive beings. “Anyone seem particularly interested in Dale that night?” I asked. “Hit on him?”

“Are there bees around honey? People are always scoping Dale out.”

“Anyone buzzing around that particular evening?”

“I can’t recall anyone who …” he stopped and frowned.

“What?” I asked.

“Dale got a call on the house phone. That doesn’t happen much, everyone having cells. He was at a table and I yelled over that someone wanted to talk. Dale took the phone and handed it back, said there was no one there.”

“Male voice?”

“Deep and kind of raspy.” He lowered his voice an octave. “‘Hello, is Dale Kemp a-boot?’ Those were his words.”

“You’re using a Canadian pronunciation,” Gershwin said. “Kind of.”

The barkeep nodded. “Or maybe it was kind of British.”

I leaned close. “Tell me this, if you remember. When Dale came to the phone, was he holding his drink?”

He closed his eyes. “He held the phone in one hand and put the other over the receiver, asked who it was. He must have left his drink behind.”

“That’s the picture in your head?” Gershwin asked. “For sure?”

“I always like looking at Dale.”

We returned to the Rover where I tapped my fingers on the wheel. “The perp sits in the corner, watches. When Kemp’s friends aren’t near, he calls the landline, asks for him. The barkeep calls, Kemp gets up …”

Gershwin finished the scenario. “The perp hangs up and walks by Kemp’s booth, pausing to spike his drink with homemade witches’ brew.”

I put the safari wagon in gear and we pulled into a balmy afternoon, the street a festival of brightly plumaged youth bustling from bar to bar, called by music or hormones, the world an endless caravan of vibrant moments. They were young and beautiful and invulnerable.

Or so they supposed.

Debro left his downstairs apartment and walked upstairs with his feet crunching on the wood-plank steps. The ancient building had been a small auto-parts warehouse and the red-brick walls were crumbling on to the steps. The door at the top was metal. He unlocked it and stepped into a spacious antechamber furnished with a table beneath a wall-mounted cabinet. The far end of the chamber held a door with a small wire-reinforced window at eye level.

Debro went to the window and flipped a switch on the wall. The room beyond the chamber lit up, the light from track-mounted spots screwed into the ceiling joists. After purchasing the building last year, he’d machine-sanded the floor to be an inch higher in the center, sloping down to small gutters, the gutters feeding into the drainage system from the roof. He’d then covered the floor in linoleum, caulking the seams.

All he had to do to clean up after his penitents was hook the hose into the wall faucet and rinse the floor. Debro allowed his boys twenty ounces of water a day, which was easily mopped up, food a few nutritional gel packs squirted past their lips daily, nothing solid.

It took time to do things right … to make things right.

Debro put his eyes to the window. Two lovely sluts were in attendance, Brianna in the corner, and his latest penitent, Harold, propped against a wall and dodging invisible birds or missiles or whatever. He tried to scream but only wet croaks emerged. Every couple of minutes he’d try to stand but even his glorious, dancing legs crumpled under the weight of the black locust.

Brianna was a different case, curled in the fetal position, pissing and emitting watery gruel from her sphincter. Brianna and her sphincter had ceased to be fun. Beside, she’d been here for over a week now, and had learned her lesson.