She could still see him sometimes in her worst dreams at night, coming through the mudroom door, stumbling, and her father never stumbled. The frigid air from outside seemed to have ushered him in, the white vapor billowing off his overalls and jacket and coming with short, erratic puffs from the misshapen hole of a mouth. His big jaw was lopsided and hanging like a flour box tilted and about to fall off the edge of a counter.
"Daddy?" She could hear herself say the word and the brittle sound of it usually jerked her out of her sleep before she had to endure the sight of him falling, helplessly, against gravity and death to the linoleum floor. One eye was dropped and already sightless, but the other was clear and blue and wide like he was trying to record as much of his daughter's image as he could in the seconds he had left.
She had stood alone next to an uncle at her father's burial. The marble marker that held her mother's name, the one she had been taught to pray at from the time of her first memories, was replaced by a single headstone bearing both her parents' names. For some reason when she recalled that day, she remembered the clods of earth piled up on the grave, misshapen hunks yanked out of the frozen ground and too ice-hardened to smooth out. And she also remembered swearing to herself, "To hell with the rules. I'm leaving this place before it kills me."
Yes, Daddy would like the idea of her dating a cop. But he wouldn't like the rule breaking. And man could Kyle break the rules. That thing with the patrol car on the expressway. She thought she was going to pee! Then the drinking, while he was driving! "So what's to worry? They're not exactly going to pull me over."
And that time he was picking her up and before she could get to the curb those punks with the leather and nose-buttons started wolfing on her? She'd never seen anyone move so fast. She had ignored the two and went to open Kyle's passenger door and all she could figure later was that he had popped open his own side at the same time. When she sat down and her eyes cleared the roofline, he was gone, like a magic trick. A yelp from the sidewalk snapped her head around and there he was. One of the rivet boys was up against the wall of Nadine's Nail Design, hands up flat on the brick, legs spread and shaky. Kyle had the other one hooked by a fistful of black T-shirt and she heard the splat of that police billy club thing against the slick leather of his pant leg. When Kyle had them both against the wall she could tell he was talking but keeping his tone low, like he did sometimes with her when he got pissed and all she could hear was that low bass rumbling that came from his chest. She stayed in her seat, knew, even that early in their relationship, not to enter that bristling zone of electric air that surrounded him.
He was up close to the guys, in between them, his jaws working and both of them seemed like they didn't even want to turn their heads to look at him. She could tell what he was doing with the club that was now in front of him. She thought he was going to step down when the one on the left bobbed his head, saying something, and suddenly Kyle had a piece of the guy's ear, ring and all, in his grip, stretching it like the guy was some kinda Gumby toy and she could hear the dude whining: "OK, OK, man. OK."
Only then, after he made the guy cry, did he back away and come around and get back in the car as cool and unruffled as though he'd just checked on a locked door during some night patrol.
"Jesus, Kyle," she'd said as he started the car. "What was that about?"
"I don't let street turds like that insult my girl," he said, looking over at her, giving her that closed-mouth smile.
They had sex that afternoon at her apartment in a straight- backed kitchen chair and when he'd dropped his belt and the butt of that gun hit the floor she'd felt it thump in her heart and Christ, there was that guilt thing again. But she couldn't help herself for getting off on the excitement and twinge of danger that the guy carried around with him. What girl didn't like that page of fantasy that had her man standing up for her honor?
So why was she still lying in bed knowing, not just thinking, but knowing, that it wasn't going to work out and she was going to have to go through that whole high school-like breakup thing that never changed no matter how old you got. She watched the lines of sunlight hit the corner of her room like bars of paint and with each minute shear off at a new angle. Scared to tell him? Yeah, maybe. That whole thing with him disappearing out of Kim's when those other cops came in. The punch he'd bruised her with last night. Did he hit her high on the thigh because he knew it wouldn't show? That people wouldn't ask her what happened? They learn about that, cops did, didn't they? Sure, he'd snapped at her before, but he always apologized, always told her how sorry he was and how much he really, really cared about her. But what had once been flattering and endearing was starting to make her feel wary, like one of Daddy's stewing rabbits out in the pens in the barn. They'd get petted and fed and cooed at for being so cute and fluffy but every older kid knew what happened to stewing rabbits when it was time. Kyle was waiting for something. And there was no way she was going to wait and see what it was.
CHAPTER 18
I was up in north West Palm Beach, three blocks from the hotel where Rodrigo was staying, waiting for him to meet me under the huge poinciana near the corner of Twelfth and Wright streets. The "flame tree" Rodrigo called it, because it was the time of year when the poincianas bloomed and the trees' blossoms were thick and the color of fire feeding off an unlimited supply of clean, dry wood.
I parked my truck in the shade of the tree's canopy and watched as the earliest blossoms, already leached of their life, fell on my hood like splotches of paint. The soiled orange color made me think of the scar on Rodrigo's face and then there he was across the street. He was walking with his eyes down, hands in his pockets in the unobtrusive but wary manner that people other than beat cops will never notice.
"Mr. Max," he said, climbing into the cab.
"Rodrigo, Kumusta ka?"
"OK," he said and immediately, wanting to please, pulled a sheet of ruled notebook paper from his jacket pocket and smoothed it on his thigh before handing it to me.
"For Mr. Manchester. Names of others hurt in the fire," he said and his eyes looked up through the windshield into the blossoms and he blew a short whoof of air from his nose at the irony of meeting under an umbrella of flame to discuss the matter at hand.
"But they are afraid," he said. "For the jobs they are afraid to talk to you, Mr. Max."
"Has anyone been scaring them, Rodrigo? Has there been anyone talking about organizing some kind of labor union or threatening you not to?"
The small man averted his eyes and his short, thick fingers went nervous.
"There is always talk. But only in whispers, Mr. Max. And we are only a few here now and we know it takes numbers, this union."
I reached into the space behind his seat and took the manila folder Billy had given me and showed him the DOC photos of the Hix brothers.
"Have you seen these men? Talking with the workers or just hanging around?"
He studied the faces, holding them side by side.
"This is the one," he finally said, fluttering the picture of David Hix, whose jaw I had broken with the top of my head.
"He is big, like you. Yes, Mr. Max?"
"Yeah, he's big. Where?"
"He big here." The little Filipino patted his stomach with both hands. "Fat, here."
"No, no," I said, unable to keep from smiling. "Where did you see him?"