My flight landed at Palm Beach International and I found my truck deep in long-term parking. When I opened the door, a wash of stale air spilled out. It was eighty degrees in the sun. Compared to Philly, the humidity felt like it was at ninety percent. Welcome back.
I tossed my travel bag into the passenger seat and then rolled up the new coat and stuffed it behind the seat where it might stay for another twenty years. I rolled down the windows and headed east, my cell phone in my ear and feeling anxious to talk with Billy. When I got to his office and he opened the door I realized that I looked like a slob, but then next to William Manchester, Esquire, most men fell to some level of slobdom.
Billy was dressed in a two-thousand-dollar Armani suit that was a dark, deeply woven color. The fabric contained shades of black and gray and held a textured shadow that could only be named subtle money, or unmistakable class. His short-collared shirt was such a brilliant white against his mahogany skin that the contrast was like a razor cut. I sat down on the leather couch in my blue jeans and crossed my legs like a gentleman, exposing the sweat socks tucked into the newly scuffed work boots I'd bought at the Army/Navy store in Philly. I balanced a saucer and cup of coffee on my knee and watched him move like I'd fallen into a damn magazine ad. My mouth may have been slightly open.
"D-don't stare, M-Max. I've seen you l-look that way at a b- blue heron out near the Glades and it's very discomforting."
"Ain't no bird got nothin' on you, partner," I said, almost whistling.
"We have b-been invited to a p-political fund-raiser downtown this evening," Billy said, snicking up the fabric of his trousers by the sharp creases as he sat across from me.
"Ah," I said. "If you can't beat them, join them?"
"No. As Diane would s-say: You beat them by joining them."
"The woman's got smarts," I said.
"We shall see."
Billy picked up a file and opened it in his lap. He was done explaining himself.
"OK, M-Max. While you were away, I ran the t-two individuals who attacked you in the alley," he said, clipped and businesslike. "A David and Robert Hix. S-Small-time thugs and n-not very g-good at being criminals."
"Brothers?" I said.
"Yes. David just g-got out of Glades Correctional on a r- robbery jolt that looks like it was probably a drug rip-off. He's on six years p-probation after d-doing three. Brother Robert has done c-county time in b-both Palm Beach and Broward. Check k-kiting, burglary and identity theft. W-with all these cross references, it l-looks like they travel as a t-team, but Davey does the h-heavier work."
Billy passed me the folder and I scanned the booking photos that he had downloaded off the Department of Corrections Web site.
"Did you show these to Rodrigo yet?"
"I've called him twice. B-Both times he's been short, almost whispering and asked for you. He says he's all right, but I could hear the fear in his voice," Billy said. "Hard to see how a Filipino middleman gets these two as leg breakers."
"It's a global village, Billy. We learned the hard way that the criminals have cell phones and Internet sites, too. If their job recruiter in Manila gets squeezed because his people are making noise about legal representation on work problems, he makes a call to a fellow shit-heel in Miami, who farms it out," I said. "I'll talk to Rodrigo. Can I take these mug shots?"
Billy flipped the backs of his fingers and stood up.
"While I w-was asking around, I also t-talked with a prosecutor friend in Broward about your Mr. O'Shea."
He walked over to the wall of windows and looked out toward the ocean. Though we were twelve stories up, he never looked down over the edge and into the streets. Billy never looked down.
"He tells me he's had to t-turn Sherry down on filing a probable cause on O'Shea t-twice. He t-told her all she has is circumstantial evidence, even with the Philadelphia incident. No b-body. No forensics. Just a couple of witnesses willing to say they saw him with two women who m-may be missing."
"As far as I know, he's right," I said.
"She's also all alone on th-this according to him. Her p-pursuit of these cases in general and O'Shea in p-particular is causing hard feelings with her b-bosses and at the state attorney's office."
"Your friend say what they're going to do?"
"G-give her some slack for now b-because of her past record. Nobody's telling her she's wrong. They all know the kind of investigator she is. B-But she needs some substance."
"I wish I could help her."
"Nothing fr-from Philadelphia?"
"Nothing of substance," I said, thinking of the portrait of Faith Hamlin on the wall of the store, of tears in O'Shea's ex-wife's eyes, the smell of whiskey and the guffaw of old cops and their younger, too confident brethren. "I doubt you'd like the changes, or the lack of them."
"I have n-no intention of ever experiencing them, my friend."
Billy looked at his watch.
"I need to m-meet Diane."
"Good luck with the Romans," I said.
"Et tu, b-brother," Billy said. "Et tu." I spent most of the next day on the beach, letting the sun seep into my bones where the twenty-three-degree Philadelphia gray had chilled the marrow. Your blood does get thinner down here. It has to be a proven, scientific fact. Somewhere there's a university study working on a government grant to tell us all a fact that we all know.
I ate breakfast in the bungalow and then called Richards. When I got her answering machine I hung up before the beep. I spent an hour out on the sand and then stretched out and took an easy two- mile run. The sun was hard and white in a blue sky. The salt cream of big breakers caught my shoes. The wind was still blowing out of the east and the tallest palms along the shore leaned into it, their fronds blown back like the long hair of women with their faces into the breeze.
Back at my chair, with my heart still thrumming, I pulled off my running shoes and shirt and hurdled into the waves. When I was thigh deep I dove into and under an oncoming crest, dug my fingers into the ocean floor and then pulled while bringing my feet up under me, and then drove forward and up. With my arms spread in a butterfly stroke I burst to the surface, grabbed a lungful of air and immediately dove forward and down to the bottom to repeat the motion. It was a technique I'd learned from the summer lifeguards in Ocean City, New Jersey, where we escaped as teenagers from the hot asphalt streets of South Philly. It was called dolphining and it was exhausting but twice as fast as swimming to get through the shallow surf. Once out past the breakers I turned inland and bodysurfed a wave to the beach, and then dolphined back out. After five trips I was done, arms heavy and lungs aching from gulping and holding air. I sat heavily down into my beach chair. When my breathing returned to normal I reached into my small cooler and uncapped a bottle of Rock, took a long drink and turned my face into the sun.
I came awake when a shadow changed the light on the back of my eyelids and I fluttered them open. In front of me was the passive round face of the same small boy who had caught me unawares on my porch. Again he was staring down at the longneck bottle I'd unconsciously wedged in my lap and the notion flashed into my head that I was breaking the law by consuming alcohol on the beach. Maybe a look of consternation came into my face because the boy looked into my eyes, turned and ran. When I turned to see who the kid would run to, to report me, my cell phone rang.
"Yeah?"
"Freeman?"
"Hey, Sherry," I said, not quite out of the blur of sleep. "What's up?"
"You tell me."
Ahh. The beauty of caller ID. Even if I hadn't left a message on her machine, the detective's calls would all be digitally recorded, giving her the option to at least know who had tried to reach her.
"I thought we could get together again on this O'Shea deal," I said. "I took a side trip to Philly, maybe something you should hear."
I heard her hesitate and wasn't sure how she was going to take the word of my nosing around in Philadelphia without her knowing.
"Is this information that's going to help me, or hurt my investigation, Max? Because right now I've got another girl missing and I'm about this close to locking up your friend."
"Another one?"
"Susan Martin, Suzy. The missing persons unit is funneling anything they get with earmarks of my guy's M.O. to me. I have another frantic mother who's been everywhere, talked to a dozen friends of her daughter's, the girl's landlord down here and nobody's helping."
"Bartender?"
"Yes."
"When did she quit showing up?"
"Six weeks ago."
"Knew O'Shea?"
"I don't know yet. I'm going to question the bar manager now."
"I'll meet you," I said, taking a chance.
"Kim's Alley Bar during the eight o'clock shift change. You know where it is?"
"Yeah," I said. "I've been there before." Kim's is an oddity in the present-day city of Fort Lauderdale. It's a neighborhood bar tucked in one corner of a landmark shopping center. The land was once occupied by Clyde Beatty's Jungle Zoo. In the 1930s the site was a training and birthing facility for the big cats of the circus; lions and tigers, predators all.
The present-day center holds restaurants and antique stores, a funky bookstore and a Laundromat. Across the street to the west is the Gateway Theatre which in 1960 held the premiere of Where the Boys Are and changed the atmosphere of Fort Lauderdale for the next twenty years.
But only half of Kim's changed since it was established in 1948. Once a true alley bar with a small entrance obscured in the shadows, it was later split into two separate rooms by its layout. On one side is a modern place with pool and Ping-Pong tables and dartboards and a small uninspired bar top. But down a narrow, dim hallway, on the parking lot side of the shopping center, is a treasure. In this room is an ancient bar-back crafted in rich African mahogany by artisans from a different century who knew intricate scrollwork and woodcraft. The cabinetry is old school, built in Baltimore in 1820 and then dismantled and moved to New Orleans. Kim's owner purchased it there and moved it to Fort Lauderdale in 1952. Without knowing its final destination, the proud head of a lion had been carved high in the center of the scrollwork, somehow a testament to the land's history. I had been inside a few times and never once drank a drop in the gamer's side.
I arrived just before seven and half the stools at the bar were taken. I took an open one at the close end near the windows and the door. A Steve Winwood CD was playing on the juke and the manager, a pretty woman with shoulder-length brown hair who I knew as Laurie was gathering receipts while a younger woman was refilling ice. Laurie looked over first.
"Hey, stranger. Haven't seen you in a while."
I nodded my hello.
"Rolling Rock, right?"
"Perfect."
Laurie turned to the other girl who pulled a cold bottle from the cooler and set it on a napkin in front of me.
"Hi," she said. "Run a tab?"
"Hi. No. Thanks," I answered, putting twenty on the bar top. "I'll pay as I go."
She had a clean, pretty face. Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota came to mind. She was bringing my change back when Richards came through the door. Determined.
She was wearing jeans and a collared blouse and her hair was pulled back and twisted into a severe bun. I turned away once she spotted me and looked down the length of the bar and my eye caught movement. A man at the opposite end got up faster than most comfortable drinkers would and started for the dim hallway. Guy just recognized a cop walk in the room, I thought, a grin pulling at my mouth. I marked him at about six feet tall, lean, clean trimmed dark hair from the back, and I would have let his image slip right through my head but for the look that the young bartender had on her face when she did a double take. First on the man, then back on Richards as she made it to my elbow and then back to the man disappearing into the hallway. There was a touch of confusion in her eyes that had melted into suspicion when she turned back to us. Richards said something to me but I was watching the girl as she walked down to the vacated place at the other end, picked up the money the man had left and the half-drunk bottle of beer. It was my brand.
"Max?"
Richards was repeating my name.
"Sorry," I said, turning to her. Her eye color was a definite gray and the eyes themselves were tightened down from lack of sleep.
"This is the manager?" she asked, nodding at Laurie.
"Yeah."
Laurie looked up from her receipts and Richards bobbed her chin up in a beckoning motion. Laurie raised an index finger, one minute please, calculating something in her head before coming over. Richards didn't like the finger, I could see it in the flex of her jaw muscle. But she let it ride.
"Sherry Richards, we talked on the phone?" she said when Laurie made it over.
"Oh, hi, yeah. Just let me get my things. We can sit back there if that's OK?"
The three of us took a table in the far corner. I brought my bottle with me.
"You two obviously know each other," Laurie said, and I apologized.
"Max Freeman," I said, reaching across the table to shake her hand.
"Rolling Rock," she said, smiling.
"You're very good at that. Remembering, I mean."
She shrugged.
"Part of the business. Half the people who come in here I know by their drinks. Half I know by their first names."
"Any full names?" Richards said.
"A handful," she said, looking Richards in the eye. "You know, it's informal. It's just the way it is."
"You ever see this guy in here?" Richards asked, taking out a shot of O'Shea and handing it across the table. She wasn't wasting any time worrying about tainting an eyewitness with a single suspect photo.
"Yeah. Not a real regular and not recently, but yeah, he's been in here. Uh, bottle of Bud and Irish whiskey, I think."
"Do you know if he knew Suzy? Dated her? Took her home some night?"
Laurie brought out a manila file folder and opened it on the table. Now she was all business, too.
"Like I told you on the phone, Detective, Suzy only worked here four months, till the end of the year. September eight, to, uh, just after New Year's, the third," she said, looking at the dates on the top sheet in the file. "Biggest paydays of the year, then she splits."
She looked over at me like I'd be sympathetic.
"I never had a complaint, but she mostly worked the later shifts when I wasn't around. She worked that last weekend and left."
"Disappeared," Richards said. "No forwarding address. No calls back to you for references. Didn't pick up her last check."
Laurie was answering each question with a shake of her head.
"I hadn't even heard her name mentioned until last week when her mom called all upset and then I reported it like she asked.
"I wish I had more for her mom, and you, but I don't," she said and pushed the folder an inch closer to Richards and crossed her arms. The manager was getting defensive.
"Laurie," I jumped in, pulling her eyes to me. "How unusual is that? I mean for an employee to just walk away?"
"It happens a lot. Not as much in a place like this, but in the big, high-traffic clubs, a lot. The girls can make good money, but they move around from place to place. Sometimes they'll work in three different bars at the same time. Different shifts, different days. If they decide to drop one, they just do it. Sometimes without telling anyone."
"What do you mean by not so much in a place like this?" I said.
"This is more of a neighborhood place. Quieter. You don't have to yell over the bass music just to take an order. The girls actually like to work here to take a break from those places. At least you can talk to the customers here."
"Was Suzy friendly with any specific customers?" Richards asked, pulling the conversation back on line.
"Not that I know of. A couple of guys asked where she went but they're our regulars. They get uncomfortable if things change. It's like a routine for them."
"So you don't know if anyone tried to pick her up?"
Laurie smiled.
"Honey, they're always trying. But Suzy was pretty shy. Kinda quiet. Some of the bartenders get into the girl talk thing. Even know each other's last names. But mostly they hang out with each other and do the other bars together, but they don't get that personal.
"They'll say 'whoa, check out gin and tonic down at the end' or they'll describe some date they had with the big tipper who went dutch over at Coyote's. You know, typical stuff. You were there."
This last comment was directed at Richards, who tried to look surprised.
"Yeah. I heard about you working some shifts over at Runyon's and Guppy's," Laurie said. "Gossip like that gets around."
"Not that it did any good," Richards said, looking away, the first time I'd seen her lose that hard edge of hers in public.
"Well, it did scare the shit out of everybody," Laurie said. "The girls started being more careful. They did this little half-serious game of picking out the killer in each shift."
"Yeah? And did they come up with any consensus?" Richards asked, digging right back in.
"Sure. Carmine. That creepy little delivery boy from the Italian place who is under age and is always trying to schmooze a drink."
She laughed at some mental image of Carmine. Richards was not amused.
"So, what? It's a joke and everything goes back to normal?"
"Almost," Laurie said, tightening her mouth back up. "But not until Josie, this girl who worked three different places and then dropped out of sight and nobody knew where."
Richards got out a notebook from her jeans pocket to write something down.
"Three weeks later she comes waltzing back in here one night with a big rock on her finger telling everybody how the Chivas Regal guy and her eloped to Vegas," Laurie said, again looking straight at Richards. "Then everything went back to normal."
The table went quiet for a couple of moments.
"Anyone else here close to Suzy we could talk to?" I said, making an obvious motion to the girl working behind the bar who I had been watching in the mirrored wall next to us. It may have just been her curiosity, but somebody she had more than a customer relationship with had bolted out of here when Richards came in and the bartender noticed it, and now she was way too twitchy watching her boss talk to us.
"No. Not really. Marci only worked weekends and didn't come on full until a few weeks ago. They never even met," Laurie said. "Carla worked with her. I think she tried to get Suzy to share rent on an apartment. But like I said, she was kinda shy. Had a place of her own.
"Carla's got the Sunday shift this week. But you're not going to get the girls all scared again, are you?"
Richards put her notebook away and pushed the folder one inch back to the other side of the table.
"I'm sorry," she said as she stood. "But maybe they ought to be scared."
I followed Richards outside and stayed a step behind as she walked down the sidewalk toward the street that ran behind the shopping plaza. She didn't turn or say a word and I was just about to say fuck it and reverse myself and head back to my truck when she stopped at the trunk of a two-door convertible and leaned her butt against the back fender and looked up at me.
"New ride?" I said, trying to cut the tension.
"What do you have for me, Max?" she said, folding her arms in front of her. The paring lights high above put an unnatural shine to her tight blonde hair and a slick paleness to the planes of her face. She looked years older than I knew her to be.
"You're taking this too personal, Sherry."
I put my hands in my pockets. Neutral. Unthreatening. You learn body language when you are a cop.
"Somebody has to, Max. You haven't talked to the mothers of these last two girls, who haven't seen their daughters or heard from them for weeks or even months. They read me their last letters. They send pictures that are years old. High school portraits you get in those same envelopes with the gummy flaps and the sizes and package deals printed all over them. They want to show me Mother's Day cards they got from a completely different state three years ago. They tell me their daughter's hobbies. 'Oh, she loves the beach and horseback riding.'
"They're desperate, Max. And every goddamn agency that they get passed to next tells them until there's evidence of a crime…"
She lowered her head and I took a step toward her and she put up a palm to stop me.
"I'm sorry, Max." She looked up. "What do you have for me?"
I put my hands back in my pockets. I told her about the trip to Philly and the meeting with O'Shea's ex-wife. Without getting into my background with Meagan, I gave her a rundown on my conversations with IAD.
"Christ, you'd at least think that hard-ass lieutenant up there would want to throw some help into this," she said, and I had to work to sustain a poker face.
"The ex-wife says O'Shea never got threatening. Never physical. In fact, she of all people was sure he wouldn't have the guts to carry something off like this and I gotta tell you, Sherry, I get the same vibe."
She turned her face away and looked down the shadowed street and her lips were pressed into a whitening crease.
"Be objective, Sherry. You've got an ex-cop who liked to bounce from bar to bar, dates some bartenders, has a couple of failed trips with women and the capacity for violence with assholes on the street," I said. "That's a profile that could fit me and another two dozen guys in the business we're in. Maybe he's carrying some kind of guilty stink from what happened up in Philly, but you've got nothing on him."
"We'll see," she said and pushed herself off the car with a flex of her thighs.
"What does that mean?"
"I've got a warrant to search his place," she said, walking around to open the driver's door. "One of your muggers from the other night is filing charges saying your buddy tried to kick him to death. He was bleeding and we think we might get some forensics from O'Shea's boots to match it."
I hoped my face didn't look as stunned and stupid as it felt.
"What the hell does that have to do with missing women?" I said.
"You know the game, Max. Maybe we can squeeze him. You never know what a little pressure will bring out once you have somebody inside."
She got in her car and started the engine and I stepped back as she pulled away. Maybe my former girlfriend hadn't just used me. But that's what it felt like.
After Richards left I walked back to my truck and sat in the parking lot watching the door to Kim's, grinding, nowhere to be and not feeling like going back inside. At eleven I walked over to Big Louie's, the Italian restaurant and pizzeria at the front corner of the strip mall. I got some manicotti and coffee to go. I may have even seen Carmine the delivery boy, an angular kid with coat hanger shoulders and a definite acne problem. He had a horselike face and a patch of peroxide blonde hair. He actually had some kind of tattoo on his calf that was impossible to decipher as it wrapped around a leg the diameter of a garden hose. If he tried to abduct one of the bartenders they would have slapped him silly.
Back in the truck I lowered the window to let the gathering odor of red sauce and garlic escape and had my dinner off the passenger seat. On occasion a lone man would approach the door of Kim's and I would focus my small field glasses from the glove box on him. What the hell was I on surveillance for? Had walking around on my old beat for a couple of days put me back in the zone?
I took another bite of pasta and watched a couple bend their heads together at the corner, instantly thought drug deal, and then chastised myself when I saw the flare of the man's lighter as they shared the flame to light their cigarettes. It was then that I realized the new fissure I was grinding was the man I'd seen slip away from the bar in Kim's when Richards had walked in. I'd caught the white glow of his skin between his hairline and collar as he disappeared into the dark and the smooth, athletic grace that got him to the hallway without a stumble or hesitation. There would of course be lots of reasons for someone to bail out of the back of a bar when a detective walked in the front, even if she was plainclothes, even if she just looked the part, and we both probably looked the part to someone paying attention. But the bartender had added to the feel that it wasn't right. If young Marci had some kind of drug dealing going on under the bar, even small-time stuff, they'd be careful. But there had been something in her eyes that lit my suspicion. Whether it was a carryover from my walk down South Street or not, here I was and it didn't necessarily feel wrong. Nice warm night. Box of manicotti. Hot coffee. Shit. I used to hate surveillance.
At one in the morning I decided to move. The lot was clearing and I had counted three times that a city patrol car had cruised through the center and now he was back. I watched the cop pull into a darkened spot almost in a direct line between me and the windows of Kim's, obstructing the view I'd had of Marci's bobbing blonde ponytail. It looked like he was going to stay awhile. Maybe he was there purposely to look after employees of the restaurants and the bar who were getting off work. Maybe some shift sergeant was paying attention to Richards's concerns after all. I did know that if this cop was smart he was going to notice me before long-single male in a pickup truck parked for hours and up to no good.
I started the engine and pulled out of the lot through the back street exit and swung west. There was another parking area used by movie patrons of the multiplex next door. With the right angle, I could still see Kim's front door and would hopefully see when Marci left and if she was picked up by a six-foot athletic man who shied away from the smell of cops.
An hour later my coffee was long dead and cold. The movie had let out and I'd watched couples stroll to their cars and head home, chatting about the merits of plot and pyrotechnics and performances. The last movie I'd been to was with Sherry and the damn thing was out on DVD and could have been having its broadcast debut by now. The night had settled into that long after- hours feel when the city drops in decibels and the streetlights take on a more noticeable presence and the cut of headlights across a brick facade sends shadows moving that you would not have seen at ten o'clock.
At 2:20 Marci walked out through the wide wooden door. An older man was behind her and had his fist up against the deadbolt on the inside. We both watched the girl go to a late model, light blue two-door parked right in front and unlock the driver's side. She waved at the old guy who stepped back and pulled the bar door shut. Marci backed out of her spot and came my way, her lights flashing off my truck windows as she bounced over a speed bump and then turned onto the street. All right, I thought. It was an old cop's hunch. Sometimes that's all they are. I sure as hell wasn't going to follow the girl home. I pulled out of my own parking space and as I approached the street another set of headlights met mine. They jounced over the speed bump and I caught the opaque blue tint of the light bar on top. It was the patrol car. Done for the night. Everybody out safe.
He turned left, without a signal, in the direction Marci had gone. My headlights caught the outline of a dark-haired male officer, clean-cut, and then I turned north toward the beach house. The annoying trill of the cell phone woke me the next day, snapping a dream that had me somewhere in the Everglades, someplace other than my river, someplace where I was unfamiliar and lost in a wooded hammock of gumbo limbo and poisonwood trees. It was night and I was crouched in a cover of fern, watching the glowing red spots of a gator's eyes that were becoming larger, though for some reason I felt no fear of them and as I tracked their movement through the trees they took on the shape of a car's taillights and I suddenly heard the sound of a horn in traffic which became the ring of my phone.
I swung my legs off the bed and blinked away the odd smell of the exhaust and marsh grass and picked up the cell.
"Yeah?"
"Freeman?"
It was a man's voice.
"Who's this?"
"It's O'Shea, Freeman."
I registered the Philly accent and recalled I'd given O'Shea my card at Archie's.
"Yeah, Colin. What's up?"
"I don't want to say you dropped a dime on me, Freeman. So tell me it isn't true," he said, biting off the ends of accusatory sentences.
"Well, you just said it, O'Shea," I answered, my head quickly clearing. "So tell me what the hell you're talking about."
"The sheriff's office just executed a search warrant on my apartment."
I was recalling Richards's squeeze plan.
"Did they arrest you?"
"Not yet. But I would like to know how the fuck they put me with you when your two muggers tried to take you off the other night and I saved your ass, again, brother."
I felt my anger mix with an unexpected whiff of guilt which tempered my response.
"I didn't tell them you were with me, O'Shea. But you're also not dealing with some dumb-ass detective with Richards," I said. "She was the one who put me onto you at your local hangout and a description by those two assholes and your patented boot work wouldn't be hard to put together. Your IAD file back home isn't exactly vague on the excessive-force complaints, either."
There was nothing but an empty electronic buzz on the other end of the line for several long beats.
"I'm gonna need a lawyer if this goes any further, Max," he finally said. "How's this guy Manchester you work for?"
Billy was brilliant, but the idea of him acting as a criminal defense attorney for a guy like O'Shea gave me more than a few seconds of doubt. I still couldn't say why I was walking a line with him. But guilty or not, he was going to need a good lawyer.
"Give me a number where I can reach you," I said.