And how could that be done? However it happened, the killer had gotten away with it. The question was: would the killer be satisfied with taking six lives, or would there be more to come?
I sat and stared at the parrots outside my window. If they knew the answer, they sure weren’t saying. I was going to have to come up with an individual who would have the opportunity to commit the murders. And in the clubs in South Beach, that might be anyone. I knew that when someone went clubbing on South Beach, the pattern was often to start off at one club and visit two or three others before the night was finished. So the killer — who committed his crimes at three different clubs over the course of two Saturdays — wouldn’t have been unusual in moving about from place to place in a relatively short period of time.
I figured I could dismiss club owners as suspects — from what I knew, they tended not to go to clubs other than the ones they owned, and they would have been spotted if they visited the competition. Besides, it didn’t make sense that one of them would knock off his or her own customers.
Another possibility would be people who worked at the clubs, maybe a disgruntled employee. But that would be self-destructive. If the clubs were eventually closed as a result of the deaths, then they would be out of work. Plus, why run the risk of going to other clubs to commit the crime? It didn’t fit.
Then there were the city commissioners who wanted the clubs shut down on moral grounds. They weren’t likely suspects, since they were older and ostensibly straight and would stand out in the clubs. And from the sound of it, they wouldn’t be caught dead in such dens of sin.
I looked down at my notes. There was only one place left for me to go. I picked up the phone to call Leonardo. I hoped he would be free that night. I needed an escort for my night of clubbing.
Six
Leonardo and I agreed to go clubbing together in one car; he was going to pick me up at home at midnight. I didn’t want him to ring the doorbell and wake everyone up, so I was waiting by the window when he arrived. When he got out of his car, I was pleasantly surprised to see him dressed in conservative clothes — matching black polyester body-hugging pants and shirt, and boots that John Travolta might have sported in Saturday Night Fever. I was also in black satin jeans and a sheer Lurex T-shirt. We headed off for South Beach together, looking as if we were headed for a seventies funeral.
Traffic was relatively light at that hour, and we got there in about thirty minutes. Fate blessed us, and we found a parking spot on Collins Avenue, just a couple of blocks from Washington. Instead of going into the first club — Neptune — I took Leonardo’s arm and stopped us across the street, in the shadows, where we could watch the entrance.
“What are we looking for?” Leo asked me, staring across the street in a visibly anxious attempt to look calm and relaxed.
“Anything,” I said. “We’re just watching.”
I took my miniature binoculars out of my purse and focused on the Neptune. The first thing I noticed was the fact that, by night, Washington Avenue looked a lot more glamorous and sophisticated than it did by day.
There were about thirty men outside the Neptune, most dressed in blue jeans and white “wife-beater” T-shirts. Two red-velvet ropes cordoned off the in-crowd from the wannabes. I knew the first set of ropes was for normal customers, out-of-towners and the like. Even though the club might be empty inside, those poor souls would be made to wait outside for half an hour anyway. The second rope was for VIP clients, who were let in immediately and without a cover charge.
“That’s the door-god,” Leo said. “The big black guy in the yellow jacket.”
Non-VIP patrons were subject to the whims of the door-god, a big guy with a shaved head who decided who was let in and who had to wait. Next to him were a few men in dark suits — not particularly nice ones — who were checking IDs. I refocused my binoculars when I saw another man move out of the shadows. It was Jimmy de la Vega.
“Jimmy’s here,” I said in a low voice. “I sure found him quick.”
Jimmy had been dressed pretty conservatively earlier that day at Starbucks, but now he was wearing a tailored Italian-cut black suit that made him look like chief undertaker at a Mafia funeral home. I watched him pat down a couple of customers after they had been given the nod to pass through the velvet rope. Jimmy took them aside by the door, as their final obstacle before they could enter the hallowed halls of the club.
I knew Jimmy’s pat-down was for drugs and weapons, although I knew from what he told me that the clubs’ drug policies were basically to wink and look the other way. Leonardo leaned back against the wall and sighed. I knew this wasn’t his idea of an exciting start to our evening.
I watched Jimmy pat down a couple of young guys. Something seemed strange to me. I couldn’t be sure, so I handed over the binoculars to Leonardo.
“Watch Jimmy, over there by the door,” I told him.
Leo focused the binoculars. “Oh, yeah. I remember him. Jimmy de la Vega.” He paused for a second. “Um, he really seems to be getting into his job.”
“You see what I’m seeing?” I asked him.
“I don’t know,” Leo said. “But when he patted those guys down, it looked almost like he was feeling them up.”
I watched Jimmy perform the next pat-down. His hands were all over a young guy in a black T-shirt and jeans. I didn’t know, but there seemed something inappropriate about it. Jimmy was a family man, though, married to his high school sweetheart. I figured I was just overreacting. I saw Jimmy’s hands reach deep into the guy’s front shirt pocket and pause for a second. Jimmy said something to him, then clapped him on the shoulder and waved him in.
None of the other security men or the door-god seemed to notice what Jimmy was doing, but then, none of them were paying attention to much of anything outside their direct line of responsibility. I watched the next pat-down. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I saw the young man Jimmy was touching react with a flinch of surprise.
“Let’s go inside,” I said to Leo.
“Finally,” my cousin replied.
Leonardo and I darted across Washington Avenue, and approached the club. Jimmy spotted us and waved us over to the VIP rope.
“Lupe!” he said in a welcoming voice. “You should have called ahead, like you said you would.”
I recalled saying nothing of the kind, but I smiled at him anyway. “Hey, Jimmy,” I said, “You remember Leo?”
Jimmy gave Leo a nod and an awkward smile. Leo blinked in the bright light outside the club, taking Jimmy in.
“We wanted to check out the clubs,” I said to Jimmy. “It’s been awhile since I’ve been out in South Beach.”
Jimmy took two tickets from a stack the door-god was holding in his hand. He handed them both to me. “Have a good time,” he said. “So how are things going on the matter we talked about this morning?”
“Nothing major,” I said. “That’s why I’m having a look around.”
Jimmy nodded. We were holding up the line. Jimmy held up his hand in the call-me gesture and waved us in. He began searching the next patron in line.
We reached a window in a tiny vestibule, where our tickets were exchanged for drink vouchers. I saw that, had we not been comped by Jimmy, the charge for coming in would have been twenty dollars each. And that didn’t include drinks.
As soon as we stepped inside, the music was too loud to talk over. It was a sort of tribal rock, part electronic, instrumental with no lyrics. It was so dark in the entryway that Leonardo and I had to grope our way upstairs while our eyes were adjusting.