She admitted she finally believed me. That I had nothing to do with Krista’s disappearance and she’d been impressed by my taking on the State Attorney. Then she asked if I had a backup plan. I did. We’d find Ziegler’s friends and his foes and learn everything we could before confronting him. Sonia Majeski promised to come up with the names of a few men who were regulars at Ziegler’s parties all those years ago. If she did, I’d start knocking on doors.
I checked the rearview. The Escalade was holding its position. On the C.D. player, Waylon Jennings wailed about riding a bus to Shreveport, then on to New Orleans.
“It’s been making me lonesome, on’ry, and mean.”
I sped up, slid from the left lane to the middle to pass two cars, then back again. The Escalade bobbed and weaved its way into position three cars behind me.
My thoughts returned to Amy. An exterior as hard as oak, but there seemed to be a brittleness to her. Before we got into our separate cars at the Justice Building, I had asked her to have dinner and she said, “Why? We did that last night.”
“Actually, I eat every night,” I told her.
“Are you asking me out on a date?” Her tone implying the absurdity of such a thing.
“No, I meant dinner with my family. My granny and my nephew.”
She declined, saying she had paperwork to do for her job. I guess insurance fraud in Toledo, Ohio, is pretty damn rampant.
I checked the mirror once again. The Escalade was still there. I hit the left-turn signal as I approached Douglas Road to go south into Coconut Grove. The green turn arrow was lit but I came to a stop. The Mini Cooper behind me blasted its horn. In the mirror, I saw the driver shoot me the bird. No problema. In Miami, you only worry about road rage when a driver waves a semi-automatic.
Just as the yellow turned to red, I hit the gas and burned rubber turning left. The guy in the Mini stayed put. The pimpmobile pursuer was trapped behind him.
I could have continued into the Grove and lost the Escalade, but that would have just kept me wondering all night. So I swerved into the alley behind Don Pan International Bakery, where I sometimes stop for ham bread and guava pastries. Tonight, I just wanted to hide out a moment.
Once the traffic light went through its cycle, the Mini Cooper turned, followed by the Escalade. I pulled out of the alley and onto Douglas. The prey was now the hunter. I crept up behind the Escalade, saw its Florida vanity plate.
U R NXT
The traffic light at Grand Avenue turned red. I stopped behind the Escalade, hopped out, and sprinted to the driver’s door. The windows were tinted black, and at the dark intersection, I couldn’t even make out a silhouette behind the wheel. Whoever it was hit the gas, yanked the wheel hard left, and peeled out. I jumped back, the rear left tire barely missing my big feet. The car screeched left onto Grand, and I was left standing there, adrenaline pumping.
“Next time, asshole!” I shouted. “Next time, I’ll drag your ass through the window and wipe up the street with you.”
The adrenaline ebbed. Other drivers were pulling around my Eldo, giving me wide berth.
“What are you looking at?” I yelled at everybody and nobody. A moment later, with no one to hit and no one to shout at, I got back into my car and drove home.
U R NXT
Next for what?
15 Adjudged Delinquent
I live in a two-story coral rock pillbox that could withstand an attack by tanks and mortar fire. It did withstand the Great Miami Hurricane of 1926, a storm that pretty much blew the city straight into the Everglades.
I parked under a chinaberry tree and pulled up the canvas top to save what was left of the upholstery. Red velour does not appreciate juicy yellow berries. I got out of the car and called Cindy, my loyal assistant, on the cell, catching her at an unlicensed beauty salon in a friend’s house just off Calle Ocho. I gave her the Escalade’s vanity plate and asked her to get me the name of the owner. She used to date a Miami cop who still did favors for her, either because he had a kind heart, or because she had dirt on him.
The front door to the house wasn’t locked. Seldom is. The humidity has swollen the door shut, but a solid thwack from my shoulder opens it.
My dog, Csonka, greeted me inside with a slobbery hello. A couple years ago, he showed up, crapped on my front step, and challenged me to do something about it. He’s a mix of bulldog and something else, maybe donkey, and has the personality of a New York cabdriver. If you don’t get out of the way, he’ll barge into you. And yeah, I named him after Larry Csonka, the Dolphins’ fullback who used his forearm the way Paul Bunyan used an axe.
The tang of cinnamon floated from the kitchen. Granny’s sweet potato pie.
“You in the mood for catfish, Jakey?” Granny said, as I joined her at the stove.
“As long as it’s not deep fried.”
“No other decent way to make it.”
I watched her drag a fillet through a bowl of cornmeal. Having grown up on Granny’s cooking, I thought everyone made chocolate chip cookies with bacon and considered giblet cream gravy a beverage.
Granny’s skin was still smooth and her hair was still black, except for a white stripe down the middle. “Give that pot a stir.” She gestured toward her simmering swamp cabbage.
I did as I was told, all the while eyeing the sweet potato pie, cooling on the counter.
“Keep your mitts off,” Granny ordered.
Dorothea Jane Lassiter was not my grandmother. A great-aunt, maybe. We never straightened that out. She just took over raising me after my mom took off. When I was a kid, Granny filled a bushel basket with her do’s and don’ts. She taught me never to start a fight but to know how to end one. To be wary of the rich and powerful. And to go through life doing the least damage possible. Thanks to her, I favor the underdog. I root against the Yankees, the Lakers, and the Patriots. If Germany invaded Poland-again-I’d take the points and go with the Poles.
Now Granny was helping me raise my nephew, and I try to pass on her lessons, though without the clops on the head she dealt out for random acts of disobedience.
My mom left town two weeks after my father was knifed to death at Poacher’s, a shitkicker saloon outside Key Largo. Dad was a shrimper. Mom was a bottle blonde who hung out by the jukebox and wiggled her butt to Elvis and Johnny Cash. That’s right. We’re Florida Crackers.
I miss my old man. He used to lift me in one hand and swing me over his head. It was like flying. When he held me close, I inhaled the aroma of sea-crusted salt and diesel fuel and fish guts. Nothing ever smelled sweeter.
“Where’s Kippers?” I asked Granny, as she dropped a breaded catfish fillet into the fryer.
“In his room, and he needs a talking to.”
“Yo, Uncle Jake.”
Kip shuffled barefoot into the kitchen from his bedroom, where he’d likely been playing a video game in which a gang of criminals obliterates a major city. He wore my old Dolphins’ jersey, number 58, which hung to his knees. The boy was towheaded and fair-skinned with a faint blue vein showing on his forehead. He’s gangly and shy with a quirky intelligence and a smile so sweet, it clutched at my heart.
I hugged him, which under the rules, I can only do in the house, so his buddies can’t see us. He smelled of potato chips and bubble gum.
Then I saw it, a purple welt under his left eye. “What’s with the shiner, kiddo?”
He shrugged-no big deal-and headed toward the sweet potato pie.
“No dessert till after supper!” Granny wagged a finger at him. “Now tell your uncle what happened.”
“I got in a fight with Kountz.”
“Carl Kountz? He’s two years older than you.”
Carl was big for his age. Hell, he was big for my age. He was already starting at fullback on the Tuttle-Biscayne J.V. team. A frame like a set of box springs. By his junior year, the ’Canes, ’Noles, and Gators would come calling.