“What causes this G hole?” I wondered aloud. “I mean, GHB is sold in individual vials, so that’s probably pretty effective in keeping people from overdosing.”
“It had to be alcohol,” Leonardo said. “Everyone knows not to mix GHB with alcohol. It leads to a very bad trip and can kill you.”
“But why risk it?” I asked. “These guys took GHB; they knew they were going to get high. Why try to get drunk on top of it, if everyone knows this is the one rule not to break?”
“I’m not sure,” Leonardo admitted. “Maybe—”
As he spoke, my voice joined in: “—they didn’t know they’d taken GHB.”
I got up and started to pace, which always helped me think. Leo was sitting up very straight, watching me.
“What if they thought they were taking something else?” I asked.
“Remember Ruffies, Lupe?”
“That was the date-rape drug,” I said. “Guys were slipping them into girls’ drinks, or else telling them they were something a lot weaker.”
“It was awful,” Leo said. “Guys were prosecuted and sent to jail — and they deserved it.”
“What if something similar is going on here?” I stopped pacing when I reached the big picture window. “I’d love to see the autopsy reports on those guys, but I know that’s not going to happen. We’re not even supposed to know the deaths occurred in the first place.”
I walked over to my chair and slumped down heavily. Leonardo seemed lost in thought; I didn’t usually involve him so closely in my investigations, and he was giving the moment his undivided attention.
“And what if there were no autopsies conducted?” I said, thinking aloud. “If the authorities are bent on keeping this under wraps, it’s possible they kept autopsies from being performed.”
“You can’t search public records, like in other cases,” Leonardo said. “This is like a lot of other things in the gay world: underground.”
I paused and considered what he had said. He was right. This case was murky, hidden from public view.
And what was hidden was a killer. I was sure of it. If everyone knew that alcohol combined with GHB resulted in a lethal body chemistry, then those six young men didn’t know they were consuming GHB. Two and two made four. They had been tricked or manipulated into consuming a deadly cocktail.
I looked up at Leonardo. He had finished his coffee and gotten up from the sofa.
“You’re going to have to be creative on this one,” he said. Which was, of course, quite an understatement.
Three
“So how do you decide who to let in and who to keep out?” I asked the burly, balding man sitting across from me. I noticed he was sporting a couple of new tattoos since the last time I’d seen him.
I was drinking a double-latte-extra-espresso shot at Starbucks on Lincoln Road. Jimmy de la Vega was having a black coffee. Jimmy was a private investigator who’d become a security guard. I knew Jimmy well enough to confide in him, and I’d told him the bare outlines of my new case. It was no surprise that he’d already heard about the deaths.
Jimmy worked for me a few years back, on a contract basis, first as a moving-surveillance specialist and then as a bodyguard when one of my clients needed protection. Jimmy liked being a security guy, and in a couple of years he had set up his own business, which was now one of the most successful in South Florida. We kept in touch and referred clients to one another. If we weren’t friends, we stayed friendly.
I knew that the South Beach clubs had security guys stationed at the front door, where they checked IDs. According to Jimmy, there were guards inside as well.
“We don’t let anyone inside who looks drunk or stoned on drugs,” Jimmy said. “Or anyone who seems like they’re looking for trouble. People are there to have a good time. We’re in charge of making sure things don’t get weird or heavy.”
Jimmy was on the fast track in Miami, and his clients were trendy clubs and stars who needed someone to watch their backs. In spite of the company he was keeping, though, Jimmy was a serious, laid-back family man. Those characteristics were probably why he survived and prospered in such a tough business, while so many others had crashed and burned.
“And you should see the fake IDs,” Jimmy said with a chortle. “I have a stack of them back at my office. I mean, I’ve seen a little five-foot blond kid with hay sticking out of his ears hand me a green card saying his name is Pedro Flores and that he’s six foot one and lives in the Bronx!”
“Ridiculous,” I agreed.
Jimmy’s smile turned rueful. “Well, now there’s an outfit in Calle Ocho that’s selling green cards! Can you believe that? Green cards for IDs so that kids can party. No respect for anything!”
Jimmy was first-generation Cuban-American. For him, the United States could do no wrong. The idea that someone was selling coveted resident alien cards was abhorrent and borderline sacrilegious.
I liked Jimmy, but now I was remembering that his conversation tended to go off on tangents. I tried to gently steer him back to the subject at hand.
“What about the security in the clubs?” I reminded him.
“Right. Security.” Jimmy looked faintly embarrassed. “Well, the first step is at the door. If a person looks suspicious, then we pat him down for drugs.”
“What kind of drugs are they taking these days?” I asked.
“The usual club drugs,” Jimmy said with a shrug. “Ruffies, GHB, Ecstasy, Special K. There’s probably even some new ones I don’t know about. These bathtub chemists are always trying to come up with the next big thing.”
“What do you know about GHB?” I asked. I already knew that GHB — gamma hydroxybutyrate — was sometimes referred to as ‘liquid Ecstasy’ and sometimes mistaken for E in cases of overdoses. It’s broken down quickly in the body, which makes it very difficult to recognize through autopsy. And, as Manny and Leonardo had told me, it could be lethal when mixed with alcohol.
“It comes in little vials — like those perfume samples they give out at department stores,” Jimmy told me. “Most of the time they take it with cranberry juice. You probably know how nasty it can be when it reacts with alcohol.”
“That’s my theory for what’s going on,” I said. “And it doesn’t make sense that all six men would make the same stupid mistake in such a short period of time.”
“You’re saying someone slipped it to them?”
“Or else they thought they were taking something else.” I paused. “People can drink on Ecstasy, can’t they?”
“Yeah.” Jimmy rubbed his chin. “Are you saying you think there’s a killer working the clubs in South Beach?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
Jimmy made a sour face. Part of his job was keeping the peace in the clubs, and I knew he would take this personally. “You let me know if there’s anything I can do to help,” he said gravely. “And I mean anything.”
“Which clubs do you handle security for?” I asked.
“Almost all the ones on Washington Avenue.” Jimmy rattled off the names of ten clubs. I recognized some as exclusively gay, some as mixed. Among the clubs were the three where young men had died.
“Look, Lupe, to be honest with you, this is reflecting badly on me and my company,” Jimmy said.
“I understand.” I rubbed my eyes, trying to mine a new idea. “What about when you find drugs on someone, Jimmy?”
He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Listen, this is between you and me. The club owners say there’s a zero-tolerance policy on drug use in the clubs, all right? Well, that’s bullshit. If they cracked down too hard on drugs, then people would stop coming to the clubs. A lot of the time when I find drugs on someone, I just tell them to be careful and stay out of trouble that night. Sometimes I confiscate the stuff, but then there’s a hassle turning it in to the police.”