Max got back to MTF an hour later, tired as hell. The benzedrine had worn off. His tongue felt like galvanized rubber, there was a coppery taste in his mouth, dull aches in his arms and legs, and a hangover waiting to drop on his head from an almighty height. He looked forward to going home and crashing.
He started heading towards his desk and saw Joe sitting there, thick arms folded across his big broad chest, looking right at him with an almightily pissed-off expression.
'You said an hour. It's been four.' Joe glared at him when he sat down. There were plenty of people in the office. Alex Teixeira, who sat nearest to them, was eating lunch off a yellow styrofoam plate-black beans in thick sauce, white rice, fried sweet plantain and avocado. He never touched meat but always denied being a vegetarian.
'Got a break on the Moyez case. Had to run with it.' Max sat down, opened his top drawer and pretended to rummage for something so he wouldn't have to meet Joe's eye.
'Oh yeah? You find the perp at the Well? What's his name? Jack Daniels?' Joe sneered.
'I ran a check on this guy, Octavio Grossfeld…'Max began, then stopped when he realized the absurdity of what was about to come out of his mouth: that he'd been looking through the Comic Book and somehow found the perp right there, between the pages; that he'd then, on a hunch, rung Pete Obregon up and, lo and behold, he happened to have a mule in custody who said she was working for the suspect; and then he'd have to try and get Joe to believe him. Here they schooled you to lie to everyone but each other. That you chose to do on your own. 'Can we get a drink?' he said instead.
'No. No more drinks for you. You've had enough.' Joe shook his head. 'What you need is Cuban coffee, food and aspirin to get yourself right. Then we'll talk.'
'You know, the first time we got one of these cases, ones that seemed to just solve themselves-the Jerome Perabo case? I wondered about that one for the longest time. I mean that lead come out of nowhere, right? As good as if it fell right out of a tree-knowhumsayin'?' Joe wiped his mouth after he'd finished eating. They were in Calle Ocho, Little Havana's main drag, in a small restaurant right opposite Maximo Gomez Park, where the old men played dominoes, smoked cigars, reminisced about the good old days and bitched about that singao Castro. Joe had ordered everything in Spanish. He'd gone for shrimp tortillas and fresh orange juice, while Max had opted for a deluxe Cuban sandwich-half a pressed and toasted baguette with spicy roasted pork, ham, melted Swiss cheese, dill pickles and mustard-delicious, but he'd only managed to eat one bite of it before he'd felt full. The dexedrine had killed his appetite for anything other than liquid and cigarettes. He downed his sweet, thick Cuban coffee and ordered another.
And there was another reason he couldn't eat: Joe was talking about the very first Turd Fairy mission they'd done-the first time Eldon had asked Max to find a patsy to fit up for a headline-grabbing case and make it stick. They'd never discussed the case before.
Thursday 26 May 1977, St Alban's primary school, Coral Gables. As the children were going home someone started shooting at them. Two fifth-grade girls were killed immediately and seven others, including two teachers, badly wounded. Three died from their injuries within days, among them Anthony Tabrizi, the nephew of a New York mobster Aniello Pastore, a high-ranking member of the Gambino family. The two girls, Norma Hughes and Charlotte Mazursky, were best friends who always sat together in every class. The gunman got away. Witnesses reported seeing a blue Eldorado speeding from the scene. A burnt-out blue Eldorado was later found in a stretch of wasteland near Overtown. The car was traced and found to have been bought from a second-hand dealership in Atlanta. Not that any of this ever came out because that wasn't the direction the investigation went in. Eldon had had other ideas.
'Jerome Perabo, out of town mob trigger man.' Joe shook his head with a smile. 'Man, I never told you this at the time, but I really wondered about that one. Kept me up nights. How could someone like him get so careless? Remember what we found when we tossed his house?'
'Yeah.' Max lit a cigarette for something to do to distract his mounting nervousness. Where was Joe going with this? 'A pistol with his prints on it. The pistol had been used in a hit on Angel Quisqueya, who owned all that beach-front land in Miami Beach. Perabo's prints matched a shell casing from an M1 carbine we found in some bushes opposite the school.'
'What's wrong with that whole picture?' Joe asked.
Max shrugged. The waitress set down his coffee.
'Trichloroacetic acid,' Joe said. 'As in the shit they use in face peels. We found three big bottles of that in Perabo's pad. Perabo was a real meticulous motherfucker. He'd been doing hits since he could crawl. He used the acid to peel the skin off his hands, get rid of gun residue.'
'How do you know?'
'I asked him.'
'When?'
'Last year. I went to see him in prison. A little off the record chit-chat.'
'Why?'
'I needed answers,' Joe said. 'Like how it was that someone who went to the trouble of burning off his skin would leave a shell casing with his prints on it at a murder scene. And don't even get me started on the pistol. A nickel-plated Colt. Mingus, that's a born-to-lose stickup kid's gun! All shiny and flash. Perabo would never have used shit like that in a hit. Too visible. And no way in hell would he have held on to it. Professional hitmen always lose their pieces.' 'So what d'he tell you in prison? That he was innocent?' Max laughed and took a sip of coffee.
'Of killing those school kids? Yeah.'
'And you believed him?' Max did his best to appear casually amused, but he couldn't pull it off. His stomach was tightening.
'What Perabo told me was the day he was meant to have killed them kids, he was really out smokin' some mob rat in Fort Lauderdale. Guy called Vinnie Ferrara.'
'So?' Max finished his cigarette and crushed it out on the ashtray, which had Castro's face on it. 'Doesn't prove he didn't do the Coral Gables shooting. He could've killed Ferrara too,' Max said.
Joe shook his head.
'I believed him. He didn't do it.'
'Why?'
''Cause I never believed you. You found an asthma inhaler in the bushes, remember? You had a cast made of the footprint too.
'I didn't say nothin' at the time. I thought maybe someone else found the bullet. But you told me to leave out the inhaler and the blue Eldorado. Said they were "irrelevant". You already had Perabo in the frame for this. It all had something to do with them South Beach hotel developments. Gave the city an excuse to investigate them, and we all know what got found.'
Max put another cigarette in his mouth but fumbled trying to light it with his brass Zippo.
'It wasn't Perabo I was interested in. One way or another he gets the chair. But I want you to tell me what happened to the real perp.' Joe took the Zippo off him, lit Max's cigarette and snapped the lighter shut.
Right then Max felt like one of those cartoon characters who unknowingly sprint off the edge of a cliff, spend a few seconds treading thin air before realizing where they are, and then plummet to their own destruction surprised and suddenly very stupid.
'Why do you wanna know now, Joe?'
'You think I'm Stevie Wonder, Max? Think I need Braille to read what's going on, huh?' Joe leant over the table, just like he did with suspects, when he got in their faces to intimidate them. He had sweat in the creases of his brow. 'Which part of Alaska's Eldon transferring me to?'
'Shit! How did you know?'
'NSP-Nigger Sensory Perception. Works every time.' Joe eyeballed Max. 'You weren't planning on tellin' me, were you?'
'No, I'm sorry, I…'
Joe cut him off with a wave of the hand and sat back. 'I understand. It ain't your call. Eldon's never liked me. Way it is everywhere. Doesn't matter how good you are at your job, if your face don't fit no way are you going anywhere. Where's he puttin' me?'
'Public Relations.'
'I s'pose it beats Traffic.'
'I tried to talk him out of it.'
'I'm sure you did, Max. You shoulda gone and talked to the wall instead. He tell you when?'
'Once we wrap up this Moyez thing.'
'As I thought.' Joe nodded. 'Go out in a blaze of good publicity.'
'Eldon says there's gonna be big changes in the force. Give it a year or two and you'll be back on Homicide.'
'Bullshit and you know it, Max. I ain't goin' anywhere he doesn't want me to go. I predict that within two years they'll have brought all the different Miami police departments under one big roof, with Eldon sitting on top running things. That's going to be his trade-off for doing the Turd Fairy's bidding.'
Max didn't know what to say. Joe was right. Eldon had often talked about how he'd reform the police force, turn it into the Southern equivalent of the LAPD, with specific units tackling the city's biggest problems-cocaine and money laundering. And MTF was his pilot, the trailer for the big picture.
'Now. Back to Perabo,' Joe said. 'You killed the real perp didn't you?'
Tanner Bradley. White male, forty-six years of age, five feet ten inches, 217 pounds. Taught English and gymnastics at St Alban's Primary. Taught Norma Hughes and Charlotte Mazursky. He'd been there for two years. His pupils all loved him. Felt he was their big brother, their best buddy. They had a nickname for him, 'Tan Your Hide Bradley', but it was meant affectionately. He was well-respected by his colleagues-always on time, always willing to help out in after-school activities, but, they all said after he disappeared, something of a loner. None of them really felt they knew him.
And they were right about that. If the school had bothered to cross-check his references it would have found them to be bogus. Tanner Bradley hadn't spent the last ten years as a teacher in Hawaii and LA, like it said on his resume. He'd worked as a caretaker in an orphanage. He'd molested five girls in his care. He liked them blonde.
Norma and Charlotte were blonde.
That's what Max got back when he ran the prints they'd found on the asthma inhaler. Ray 'Tanner' Bradley. Got his teaching qualifications in San Quentin-that was when he wasn't getting assaulted and raped by the inmates. Prison was hell for everyone who didn't want to be there, but it was double that if you were a kiddie rapist. It was open season on you and everyone was taking their best shot. The guards wouldn't help-as far as they were concerned, you had it coming.
The footprint was from a size 12 US Army issue para-trooper boot. You could see the markings quite clearly on the sole. He'd also found a small scrap of olive-coloured fibre in the bushes, which could have come off fatigues. He'd killed the girls because they'd presumably threatened to tell their parents he was molesting them.
Max had never had time to discuss any of this with Joe because Eldon had called him up to the roof and told him they were going to pin the killings on Perabo and make them stick. When Max tried to complain, Eldon told him the Turd Fairy had visited. He had no choice but to follow orders.
The Perabo bust went like a dream. They gave him the option of voluntarily putting his prints on the carbine shell and pistol they planted in his apartment, therefore voluntarily fucking himself. When he refused, two MTF officers broke his right wrist and got their evidence anyway. Max and Joe took the credit and got the glory, but all they'd had to do was listen to Perabo calling them criminals for twelve hours straight.
After Perabo's arraignment, Max broke into Bradley's apartment in Opa Locka. He found pictures of Bradley in full Second World War US Marine uniform. In all of them he was holding the carbine. Max didn't find the gun or the uniform, but he did discover a pile of Disney lunchboxes filled with Polaroids of naked blonde girls. Among them were pictures of Norma and Charlotte. And he found the boots. He scraped some dirt off the sole and had it analysed; it matched the dirt from the bushes.
He tracked down the car dealer who'd sold the blue Eldorado spotted leaving the scene. He identified Bradley as the buyer from a mugshot.
Max told Eldon. Eldon told him to do what he felt had to be done, only he couldn't bring Bradley in because of Perabo. Max was confused. So Eldon told him about all the people he'd taken down 'off the books' because it was the right thing to do and the world was better off without them, but there hadn't been enough physical or corroborative evidence to get a conviction. Then he told Max that if he chose that course he was on his own as far as MTF was concerned. This was an extra-curricular kill and all on him.
Max bought a second-hand Browning BDA 380 and filed off the serial number. Wearing thick surgical gloves, he loaded the magazine with thirteen hollow-point shells and slipped one in the chamber.
Two nights later he broke into Bradley's home, gagged and blindfolded him and put him in the trunk of his car and drove him out to a clearing near Lake Surprise. It was part fresh, part saltwater and home to crocs and gators alike.
Bradley had got on his knees, looked Max in the eye and started crying. He'd said he was sorry, over and over again. He said he wasn't a bad guy, he just needed help. He said he was no different to faggots and people who fucked animals. He said he had a medical condition.
And when it came down to it, Max found he couldn't do it. Not like that, not in cold blood. He lowered his gun. It could all end peacefully. He'd tell Bradley to get out of Florida immediately and stay gone.
But before he could speak, Bradley began to cough and splutter. Then suddenly he'd stood up. Max told him to get the fuck back down on his knees. Bradley wasn't listening. Bradley was coming at him fast. Max raised his gun. Bradley reached for his waistband. Instinct overruled sense. Max shot him twice in the head and Bradley fell backwards.
When he checked Bradley's pants he found what he'd been reaching for-his asthma inhaler. He'd been having an attack.
He wiped the Browning down and tossed it off the Rickenbacker Causeway into the ocean. A while later he pulled over to puke.
Then he'd gone to a club on Washington Avenue for a drink. A fat woman in a silver sequinned blouse and gold satin pants called Harriett asked him if she could join him. He realized she was his alibi if there was any comeback; he was thinking like a murderer and wanted to be sick again. He said sure, sit yourself down, my name's Max Mingus, and I'm a cop. Evenin' officer, she'd giggled. They'd danced a while and then he'd taken her home and tried to get her so drunk she'd pass out. But she could handle her liquor, so he'd had to fuck her. He'd kept his eyes closed through most of it and thought of Pam Grier. He'd asked her what his name was. She'd called him Daddy or Danny or something in-between.
The next morning she couldn't remember his name at all, no matter how many times he told her. She didn't believe he was a cop either. In fact, she really didn't want to know him. She insisted she'd never done anything of the sort before. She was happily married, she said, with a son called Max.
No one missed Tanner Bradley, at least not after they found the pictures in his house and discovered his past. The headteacher at St Alban's resigned, as did the head of personnel who should have checked his references.
Max never forgot him. Not his face, not the way he'd looked, not the way his body had shaken when he cried, not the way he'd pissed his pants as he begged for his life, for forgiveness, for understanding, for a cure for the way he was. The memory had diminished a little over the years, but the colours were still fresh. It didn't matter that what he'd done might have been right to a lot of people; to him it had felt wrong. He'd crossed a line then for sure. Again. Another one.
Up on the roof, the morning after he'd done it, Eldon had given him a simple piece of advice: 'Never kill someone who's looking you in the eye, 'cause you're the last thing they see and the first thing they take away with 'em. Always turn 'em around. Shoot 'em in the back. You'll sleep sweet that way.'
Which is exactly what he did when he shot the next two child killers he'd discovered but hadn't been able to move on officially because the Turd Fairy had spotted another opportunity to make capital out of atrocity.
'So, how did you know?' Max asked, when he'd finished talking.
'I'm a detective. It's what I do,' said Joe. 'But you gotta be careful now, 'cause there's a real clear pattern forming. Child killers and rapists ending up dead in the middle of nowhere, close-formation double-tap entry wounds to the head, nine millimetre hollow-point shells fired at point-blank range from an automatic-speed shootin'-your speciality. Guns different both times, but the victims and MO are identical. Points to a cop on a spree.'
'There's nothin' tyin' me into any of this.'
'I know,' Joe said. 'But sooner or later, someone somewhere will be asking questions.'
'So what are you sayin?' Max lit another Marlboro. He'd smoked so many today they were burning his throat.
'Stop before you get caught. Stop now.' Joe looked Max in the eye and held his gaze. 'Think about it. Is killing those scumbags worth destroying your life for? They catch you they'll give you life. And you know what happens to ex-cops in prison, Max. Eldon's filled your head up with his good ole boy, Wild West vigilante bullshit. I've heard all his campfire stories, how he used to bring people in tied to the back of his Crown Victoria. Times are way different now, man. You can't be takin' people out to the Glades and cappin' 'em. Doesn't matter what they've done. We're the police, Max. We uphold the law. We don't break it.'
Max knew Joe was right, that what he'd done was indefensible, but then what about the people he'd killed? Thanks to Eldon and the Turd Fairy, he'd had to let proven child abusers go free, unpunished, and-inevitably-emboldened by their success at evading the law, primed to strike again. And they always struck again. And again, until they got caught or killed. Knowingly letting one of them off the hook to walk the streets wasn't something he was sure he could live with. Killing them was a different matter. He was protecting the public. Doing his job.
'Now I want you to see this.' Joe placed the NYPD file he'd brought with him on the table.
Max looked. He was glad he hadn't eaten much because his stomach contracted hard, like he'd taken a right hook to the gut. Then he couldn't look any more, so he read. He came to the list of recovered evidence. He saw something familiar.
Joe was holding it up-the red and white striped candy wrapper they'd found at the Lacour family home-sealed in a glassine evidence bag.
'You were right: Preval Lacour did have help,' Joe said. 'Drugs plus property equals money laundering equals a highly organized gang. And don't start running Eldon's case past me neither. We both know it's bullshit.'
'So what d'you wanna do?'
'This is gonna be my last case as a real cop. After that I'm window dressing. I don't want it to be some bullshit frame-up. I want to be able to look at myself in the mirror and know I did my best at all times, that I did what I swore to do.'
'You wanna take these guys down?'
'No.' Joe shook his head. 'I want to bring them in, through the front door, cuffs on their wrists. I want to see them get booked, tried and executed. I want to see them punished, not by us, but by the law. Will you help me?'
'If we do this-'
'There's no 'if' about it. You're either with me on this or I'll take my chances alone.'
'What about Eldon? The Moyez case?'
'We'll work his phoney shit too,' Joe said, 'and we'll go after the real perps.'
'Say we bring 'em in, it'll throw out the Moyez case.'
'We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, all I need to know is whether you're with me.'
'I'm with you,' Max said without hesitation, but inside he was worried as hell. He was backing Joe over Eldon. In other words, he was going up against Eldon. And no one did that-especially not one of his own. They'd have to work the case in secret, make sure no one found out. And they'd have to work it quick too, crack it and bring it in before Moyez was wrapped up. It was impossible. Maybe that's what he was counting on.
'Are you sure about this?' Joe looked him in the eye, reading him. 'I'll understand if you don't want to do it.'
'I am sure,' Max said, holding out his hand. 'We're partners, remember?'
'Then it's done.' Joe smiled and they shook hands across the table.
God help us, Max thought, for we know not what the fuck we're getting into.