I stepped up and ordered a large coffee with cream and sugar and two blueberry cake doughnuts. The girl nodded her bleach blonde head at me but didn’t move at first. Her dark eyes were looking up at the top of my forehead instead of in my face, and when I widened my own eyes in question, she reached over and pulled a wad of napkins from the dispenser next to us, handing them across the counter.
“You need a napkin for that?” She was still looking up past my eyes.
When I took the wad and wiped at my forehead, the napkins came back smeared with blood. I wiped some more, and then looked at the girl, who was watching with an expression that said she was a little embarrassed for me.
“Good?” I said.
Her fingers came up to a spot along her own temple, and I mocked the gesture, wiping away more blood. I must have split my skin open when my head hit the windshield after colliding with the Monte Carlo. I’d never even felt it.
The girl nodded when I’d apparently wiped away enough of my blood to be presentable, and then repeated my order. I gave her a five for the $2.30 bill and left the change as I took my order and walked to a table as far from the other two occupants of the store as possible. As I passed him, the boyfriend watched me from under eyebrows pierced with small silver rings. When I winked at him, he turned away sullenly. It was only after I’d sat down and pried the lid off my coffee and took a sip that I noticed that my hands were dirty from pulling at the wheel well of my truck, fingers and palms dusty with a rust-colored film. I got back up and headed into the men’s room.
The older guy in the back was still staring into the bottom of his cup, and his fingers were stained with more grime than my own, their blunted tips caressing the Styrofoam. As I got closer, the shabbiness of his clothing became more apparent, and I could see he was wearing a worn baseball cap with AIG stitched on the front. He was muttering something about “sub-prime credit default swap derivatives.”
I went into the restroom and locked the door behind me. When I looked in the mirror, I saw a haggard, dirty, and unexpectedly older looking face staring back. Granted, I am not used to looking into mirrors. My river shack out on the edge of the Glades doesn’t have one. At Sherry’s, I shave by touch in the shower, feeling my way through the process with the tips of my fingers instead of looking for missed spots. I’ve always done it that way.
When I looked at my reflection now to see if I’d removed all the blood, I was slightly surprised by the dark bags under my gray-colored eyes. There were prominent crow’s-feet at the corners that I didn’t recall being there before. My skin was tanned recently from long runs on the beach and from the canoeing I did to and from my semi-isolation on the river, before I spent much time at Sherry’s. I cranked a sheet of paper towel from the dispenser on the wall and moistened it beneath the faucet.
After wiping away some flecks of blood still on my forehead, I inspected the split. It wasn’t deep, but the dark color of a slight contusion was growing just below it. Satisfied, I brushed back my brown hair, only to see more of the gray at my temples. Again, I was stupidly surprised: What, Max, you didn’t think you were aging out there in the Glades?
Yes, I am a pirate, two hundred years too late
The lyrics came into my head even though I’m not even a big Jimmy Buffett fan. The line about being an over-forty victim was too self-pitying. I finished up and went back out into the store, where I sat back down at my table and drank my coffee. As I took a few decent swallows of the now cooled-down brew, I reminded myself I still had a case to work.
In my mind, I reviewed what I had so far: A paranoid woman presents herself as a whistle-blower on a scheme to rip off Medicare funds, but she’s afraid to go to the feds-why? Because she’s illegal, or because her brother’s involved, and he’s illegal? If true, where’s the motivation to rat out the scam to begin with? If they’re both illegal and flaunting the law by working without documentation, what does it matter to her if someone on the side is ripping off her adopted government?
I have an automatically cynical attitude about people who simply do the right thing because it’s the right thing. Human beings work on age-old motivations: greed, self-preservation, protection of family or those close to them. Seldom, I believe, do they give themselves up for the greater good.
Billy says I’m a sad person for carrying such thoughts. I say it makes me careful.
Say we have a good soul who’s trying to do the right thing, but also to protect her brother. When we follow him, we spot the Brown Man, a known drug dealer. What the hell is he doing with his fingers in a Medicare scam? The players are suddenly getting shadier.
Then after our new addition, the Brown Man, just happens to make a cell call, along comes the Monte Carlo AK-47 shooters, who were obviously put onto some kind of contract to do away with our friend Andres Carmen. Though these players are about as rough as they come, dumb-ass Max gets involved anyway, ruins his truck, and is now sought by the cops. Meanwhile, the kid he tried to save is probably on his way back to South America by now.
In half an hour, I’m going to have to spill all this to save my own ass from a night in the county jail. Maybe it’ll fly, and maybe it won’t. Just on the edge of saying “I don’t need this shit,” I decided that just in case I was looking at lockup, I’d better eat something. But when I picked up the wax-covered bag of blueberry cake doughnuts, I could tell just by the weight that something wasn’t right. I opened the top and peered inside; there was now only one doughnut inside.
I’m not so old yet that I worry about losing my mind. I’m positive that the counter girl did indeed put two in there. When I looked around, I saw the old AIG guy still sitting there, discussing high finance with his cup, though there were new flecks of crumblike detritus in his matted beard. I just shook my head, drained my coffee, then picked up the bag with the remaining doughnut inside, and dropped it on AIG’s table as I left. Behind me, I heard the old man mutter something that sounded like “provide additional liquidity” along with the crinkling of the bag being reopened.
When I got to the eight-story sheriff’s administration building, I again looked for a spot in the rear of the lot and then parked nose in. The actual garage area was down the block, so only a few squad cars were nearby. There were mostly civilian employees and detectives on this side, and they wouldn’t be aware of the BOLO alerts being put out on the radio describing my truck. I rolled down my windows. I had the automatic power windows disabled and cranks installed when I bought the truck. Even though the engineers tell you the electricity will keep running to your windows when you dive into one of the millions of canals in South Florida that run alongside the roads, I don’t trust them. If I go into the water, I’m gonna be able to roll down the window myself and climb out.
A night air blew in, filled with the odors of auto exhaust and daily dust, of standing water and heated asphalt. I swore I picked up the faint scent of cigar smoke, which caused me to look around for a glowing tip along the car roofs, but I saw nothing. How long does a distinct puff of air last before it gets dispersed and assimilated into the common atmosphere? I once read a science magazine article that claimed we have all been breathing the same recycled air molecules since the beginning of time. Every one of us has the chance of sucking a molecule that once came out of Shakespeare’s mouth. Oh, rapture. At 9:42 P.M., my cell phone rang, with Billy’s number on the screen.