"Yeah."
"Max."
"Billy. You're keeping late hours."
"Your Mr. O'Shea has just awakened me. He has been arrested at his apartment in Fort Lauderdale," Billy said. "As you predicted, Detective Richards has put together a probable cause statement charging him with the aggravated assault of Robert Hix.
"Mr. O'Shea informs that the primary evidence is a DNA match of a blood sample found on the boots that were obtained during the search of his residence."
Billy sounded professional, but not pleased.
"No surprise there," I said.
"He will be in magistrate's court at nine in the morning."
"You're still willing to do this?"
"I made you a promise, Max."
"I'll see you there, Billy," I said.
"Two other matters, Max."
"Yeah?"
"I am presently at the hospital in West Palm."
"What?"
"Rodrigo was beaten early this evening near the Cuban grill where he said you two have met on occasion."
"Jesus, Billy. Is he OK?"
"Cuts and abrasions. But nothing too serious," Billy said. He was using the clean, efficient diction he always fell into when pressed. Don't waste time on emotion or early supposition.
"It appears that the Hix brother you warned him about made a visit. Rodrigo tried to avoid him, but was cornered. The others backed away when Rodrigo was singled out."
"What was the message this time?" I said, trying to swallow back an anger that was souring the back of my throat. I could see David Hix's flat face in front of me. The sneer and the cocky way he'd wielded the bat.
"All he could make out was 'Go home' and an indication that he tell the others the same," Billy said. "He seemed to be blaming Rodrigo for costing him money."
"If Hix is working for cruise worker contractors and his handlers don't see progress, he doesn't get paid," I said.
Billy was silent on the other end of the phone for a moment.
"He may be in for a payday then, Max. Rodrigo is telling me no one will speak to us now. He's contacted his wife. He wants to leave and return to the Philippines."
This brother act was getting old, I thought.
"You said you had two other matters, Billy."
"When O'Shea called he also downloaded a photo of some man that appears to be sitting in a bar somewhere. He said you had asked him to take it."
"Yeah," I said. "Any felon that you recognize? Maybe of the drug distribution species?"
"No. I'll bring a copy with me in the morning," he said, and I could hear the question in his voice.
"It's just a hunch, Billy," I said. "I'll see you outside the courthouse at eight thirty."
I put the cell phone in my pocket and stood staring out over the Glades, the wind still moving the sawgrass, rippling through it like giant snakes below were bending the stalks in long curved patterns. I worked my way back down the berm, digging my heels into the soft dirt to fight against the angle. I was knee deep in the water when I got the canoe floated and then climbed over the gunwale and pushed out onto the river. I would have time to stop at the shack for a change of clothes and then get to the landing to clean up. I might get a nap in my truck if I got to the county jail in Fort Lauderdale early enough. It would be a long night but not as long as O'Shea's. He'd be in with a bunch of drunks and punks and scofflaws and perhaps even a few innocents who got swept up by a justice system that would take its time separating the merely tarnished from true bad boys.
The troubling stones I'd been grinding had, in the span of a phone call, taken on sharp new edges. I stroked the canoe downriver feeling their jagged rub, and the moon followed with me. At eight in the morning I was outside of the jail, sitting on a concrete bench, watching men moving on a construction site across the New River in the morning sun. They were working the kind of miracle that people like me unfamiliar with the building trades always find unfathomable.
Their project was already some thirty stories high. You could watch the damn thing go up day by day as an observer, from poured foundation to concrete columns to prefabricated steel floor stacks and still find yourself stunned at the end of a month to see what men could raise. As I sat sipping a large Styrofoam cup of coffee I'd watched the distant small figure of a tower crane operator climb hand-over-hand like an insect up a ladder enclosed in a tall column of crisscrossed steel. When he got to the glass box at the top, he disappeared inside. I was too far away to hear him start the electric motors that powered the crane, but I saw it begin to move, swinging its balanced, perpendicular arm to the west and silently dropping its hook three hundred feet to pluck yet another load of materials needed at the top. A project manager in Philly had once told me that a good tower crane operator controlled nearly everything that went on at such a site. He had a bird's-eye view of all that was below him and as the building went up he was the one bringing the world up to join him. At thirty bucks an hour he was the master each and every day. Not a bad feeling, I thought, for a working man to hold.
At eight thirty I saw Billy walking up the wide stairway of the jail. He was dressed in a dark business suit. Conservative, not showy. Professional, not overly so.
"M-Max. You l-look tired," he said, shaking my hand.
"Sleep deprivation therapy," I said. "Does wonders for the soul."
"Yes. Those b-bags under your eyes certainly do m-make you look wiser, and older."
"Thanks."
He opened his leather briefcase and took out a photograph and handed it to me. Even though the lighting was dim and the shot too close, the detail was sufficient. The man was handsome. A strong cleft chin. Cheekbones high but perhaps that was from the shadows. The bridge of his nose was as straight as a rule. Never been broken, I thought. He wasn't a close-in fighter. The eyes were dark and even though they were focused off in another direction, one had the feeling that they were very aware of the photographer if not the actual lens of the phone camera. In the background I could make out the front of the jukebox at Kim's and the reflection of mirrors.
"F-From our client," Billy said. "You can explain later w-why you are farming out surveillance. R-Right now, we are due in c- court."
Inside, the lobby of the county jail was done in all government design. The floor was that easy-to-clean polished stone. The walls an institutional bone white. Floor-to-ceiling windows, double pane, made up the wall to the east and, since the entrance was actually two floors above ground level, there was a view of the river and the condo building going up on the other side. The preconstruction prices across the way were starting at $375,000 to $1.2 million for the top floors. The future residents would have a wonderful unobstructed view of the seven-story jailhouse. Real estate in Florida, I thought. Some gang of government officials had approved the building of a house for criminals on waterfront property. Location, location, location.
On the other side of the lobby were three lines queuing up to Plexiglas-covered windows as if they were selling tickets. There were women in work clothes, two toting small children. A man wearing navy, grease-stained pants and a light blue shirt with his name over the pocket was arguing with a young woman whose tear-stained face held a look of worry, heartbreak and befuddlement all at once. Both of them were comparing the content of their wallets, searching, I figured, for some way to make bail for a family member inside.
Down a wide corridor a security checkpoint was set up and beyond it a single wood-veneered door. It was topped with the sign MAGISTRATES COURT. We passed through the metal detectors with all the requisite emptying of pockets, removal of pagers and cell phones. Billy went through with smiles and nods. I had to stop for a wand check of belt buckle, sunglasses and the metal buttons on my canvas shirt.
"Clothes m-make the man, Max," Billy said.
"And the terrorist?" I answered.