"Thanks," Debs said, pulling her hand away. "I kind of like it."
"Uh-huh," Lonoff said. "Well, then…" He put a hand on Lloyd's shoulder and said, "Help them out. I've got a patient waiting." And with a last longing look at Deborah's overbite, he turned around and disappeared into the back room again.
"It's over here," Lloyd said. "On the computer." He pointed to the desk he'd been sitting at when we came in, and we followed him over.
"I'm going to need some parameters," he said. Deborah blinked and looked at me, as if the word were in a foreign language-which I suppose it was, to her, since she did not speak computer. So once again, I stepped into the awkward void and saved her.
"Under twenty-four," I said. "Male. Pointy canine teeth."
"Cool," Lloyd said, and he hammered at the keyboard for a few moments. Deborah watched impatiently. I turned away and looked at the far side of the waiting room. A large saltwater fish tank sat on a stand in the corner next to a magazine rack. It looked a little crowded to me, but maybe the fish liked it that way.
"Gotcha," Lloyd said, and I turned around in time to see a sheet of paper come whirring out of the printer. Lloyd grabbed it and held it out to Debs, who snatched it and glared at it. "There's just four names," Lloyd said with a touch of the same regret Dr. Lonoff had shown, and I wondered if he got a commission on the fangs.
"Crap," said Deborah, still looking at the list.
"Why crap?" I said. "Did you want more names?"
She flicked the paper with a finger. "First name on here," she said. "Does the name Acosta mean anything to you?"
I nodded. "It means trouble," I said. Joe Acosta was a major figure in the city government, a sort of old-school commissioner who still carried the kind of clout you might have found fifty years ago in Chicago. If our Vlad was his son, we might be in for a fecal shower. "Different Acosta?" I asked hopefully.
Deborah shook her head. "Same address," she said. "Shit."
"Maybe it's not him," Lloyd said helpfully, and Debs looked up at him, just for a second, but his bright smile vanished as if she'd hit him in the crotch.
"Come on," she said to me, and she whirled away toward the door.
"Thanks for your help," I told Lloyd, but he just nodded, one time, as if Debs had sucked all the joy out of his life.
Deborah was already in the car with the motor running by the time I caught up with her. "Come on," she called out the window. "Get in."
I climbed in beside her and she had the car in gear before I got the door closed. "You know," I said, fastening my seat belt, "we could leave Acosta for last. It could just as easily be one of the others."
"Tyler Spanos goes to Ransom Everglades," she said. "So she hangs with the upper crust. The fucking Acostas are the upper crust. It's him."
It was hard to fault her logic, so I said nothing; I just settled in and let her drive too fast through the midmorning traffic.
We drove over the MacArthur Causeway and let it take us onto the 836 all the way to LeJeune, where we went left into Coral Gables. Acosta's house was in a section of the Gables that would have been a walled community if it was built today. The houses were large, and many of them, like Acosta's, were built in the Spanish style out of large blocks of coral rock. The lawn looked like a putting green and there was a two-story garage on the side, attached to the house by a breezeway.
Deborah parked in front of the house and paused for a moment after turning off the engine. I watched her take a deep breath, and I wondered if she was still going through the same strange molecular meltdown that had lately made her seem so soft and emotional. "Are you sure you want to do this?" I asked her. She glanced at me, and she did not really look like the fierce and focused Deborah I knew so well. "I mean, you know," I said. "Acosta could make your life pretty miserable. He's a commissioner."
She snapped back into focus like she'd been slapped and I saw the familiar sight of her jaw muscles working. "I don't care if he's Jesus," she snarled, and it was very good to see the old venom return. She got out of the car and began to stride up the sidewalk to the front door. I got out and followed, catching up to her just as she pushed the doorbell. There was no response, and she shifted her weight impatiently from foot to foot. Just as she reached a hand up to ring a second time, the door swung open, and a short, square woman in a maid's uniform peered out at us.
"Yes?" the maid said in a thick Central American accent.
"Is Robert Acosta here, please," Deborah said.
The maid licked her lips, and her eyes darted from side to side for a moment. Then she shivered and shook her head. "Why you wan' Bobby?" she said.
Deborah held up her badge and the maid sucked in her breath loudly. "I need to ask him some questions," Debs said. "Is he here?"
The maid swallowed hard, but said nothing.
"I just need to talk to him," Debs said. "It's very important."
The maid swallowed again, and glanced past us out the door. Deborah turned and looked, too. "The garage?" she said, turning back to the maid. "He's in the garage?"
At last, the maid nodded. "El garaje," she said, softly and very fast, as if she was afraid she would be heard. "Bobby vive en el piso segundo."
Deborah looked at me. "In the garage. He lives on the second floor," I translated. For some reason, in spite of being born and bred in Miami, Debs had chosen to study French in school.
"Is he here right now?" Deborah asked the maid.
She nodded her head jerkily. "Creo que si," she said. She licked her lips again and then, with a sort of spasmodic lurch, she pushed the door closed, not quite slamming it.
Deborah looked at the shut door for a moment, then shook her head. "What was she so scared of?" she said.
"Deportation?" I said.
She snorted. "Joe Acosta wouldn't hire an illegal. Not when he can get a green card for anybody he wants to."
"Maybe she's afraid to lose her job," I said.
Deborah turned and looked at the garage. "Uh-huh," she said. "And maybe she's afraid of Bobby Acosta."
"Well," I said, but Deborah jerked into motion and headed around the corner of the house before I could say any more. I caught up with her as she got to the driveway. "She's going to tell Bobby we're here," I said.
Deborah shrugged. "It's her job," she said. She came to a halt in front of the double-size garage door. "There's got to be another door, maybe some stairs," she said.
"Around the side?" I offered, and I took two steps farther toward the left side when I heard a rumbling sound and then the garage door began to roll up. I turned back around and watched. I could hear a muted purring coming from inside and it got louder as the door opened wider, and when it was up far enough to see into the garage, I saw that the sound came from a motorcycle. A thin guy of twenty or so sat on the bike, letting it idle and looking out at us.
"Robert Acosta?" Deborah called to him. She took a step forward and reached to grab her badge to show him.
"Fucking cops," he said. He revved the engine once, and then kicked it into gear, very deliberately aiming the bike right at Deborah. The motorcycle leaped forward, straight at Deborah, and she barely managed to dive to one side. Then the bike was into the street and accelerating away into the distance, and by the time Deborah got back onto her feet, it was gone.
THIRTEEN
In the course of my work with the miami-dade police Department, I had heard the phrase "shit-storm" used on more than one occasion. But in all honesty, I would have to say that I had never truly seen the actual meteorological event until after Debs called in a BOLO for the only son of a powerful county commissioner. Within five minutes we had three squad cars and a TV news van pulled up in front of the house next to Debs's car, and at the six-minute mark Debs was on the phone with Captain Matthews. I heard her say, "Yes, sir. Yes, sir. No, sir," and not much else in the course of a two-minute conversation, and by the time she put the phone away her jaw was locked shut so tight I didn't think she could ever again eat solid food.