Shit, you’re losin’ it, Booker. Fucking good mood you’re in going all nostalgic and shit, eh?
Yeah, OK, admit it, it is nice sittin’ here in the sun and watching the beach and waiting for a good-looking athletic woman coming to meet you for lunch. And she’s a wheelie and a cop, just like you.
Well, not exactly like you. She at least has her shit together a little. She went back to her job. She’s doing her sheriff’s office work even if it is on the inside. How long would it take for you to ever make it on the inside, man? Riding a desk? No fucking way. You’re a street man- always have been, right?
Well, look at yourself now, dude. You’re just veggin’. Existing like a fucking tomato. Admit it, what do you have? It’s not like you can keep on pumpin’ over at the gym and your legs are going to grow back.
OK, don’t go all negative now, man, and screw up the lunch. Take another Vicodin and chill. As long as you can still keep the pain down and be a stand-up guy you’ve got something, right? Hah! Stand up- nice joke, Marty. Maybe you can use that one on her.
Yeah, you’re stand up, all right, staying true to those guys at the gym even though they won’t have a fucking thing to do with you anymore. What, you lose your quads and they kick you to the street? I don’t need their fucking steroids anymore. Yeah, they can still get me the pain meds, as much as I want. But I oughta rat those fuckers out on this drug thing. I can get the scripts from the rehab doc just as easily now.
Hell, you were gettin’ close to doing that anyway, weren’t you? Well, maybe, but there were some good times with those guys. That gig you did with Jesse Holshouser when you were both third-year patrol and went charging into that burning house to get the lady out. That was pretty cool. Hell, we didn’t even think about it, just did what first responders are supposed to do. Everybody high-fivin’ us after that one, like heroes, right? The old man would’ve liked that one, right? Doin’ it the way your dad wanted you to do it, makin’ him proud.
Still, it wasn’t long after that when the gang really started up at the gym. Guys pumpin’ up, feeling good about being strong and stronger. Maybe it was just a competition thing.
Admit it, it was kinda sweet that these guys were so hungry not just for the steroids to get all pumped up, but also the oxy and the Dexedrine and Adderall-and we were the ones who had it.
Then comes McKenzie: The guy was turning it into some kind of business, supplying everybody in the gym, whether they were fellow cops or not. Shit, we all didn’t mind going along with it as long as he was just sharing it with other officers from our jurisdiction, guys you could trust, because they were really layin’ their own asses and careers on the line. But fucking McKenzie was starting to sell it to his bar bouncer buddies and guys from other departments-and that was just stupid.
You knew it was getting crazy, Marty. But shit, get it out of your head man, ‘cause here comes the detective now. And whoa, look at her, with her blonde hair blowin’ in the breeze. She’s crankin’ that chair. Look, even the walking guys are checking her out. Man, those triceps are cut. No wonder she kicked McKenzie’s ass on those dips.
Look at her, Marty: This chick is way confident. How the hell does she do that, man? I need to get that back. I need to be proud of myself again.
– 15 -
Sherry met me for dinner at Lester’s because I like the meat loaf with real mashed potatoes, and I think she likes putting her chin up and overpowering the handicap ramp that climbs at a ridiculous angle because it’s grandfathered-in and thus legal. It’s her statement: Make it difficult, I’m coming in anyway.
I also like the old-style diner for its monster-size coffee cups and the vinyl-covered booths that afford at least a little privacy when you’re talking shop. Lester’s used to be a hangout for sheriff’s deputies and Fort Lauderdale cops on coffee breaks, but that changed after the sheriff’s office moved to its Broward Boulevard palace years ago. The addition of I-595 effectively detoured the truckers who used to frequent the place. But the joint is still quaint and familiar, especially if you like gum-cracking waitresses who call you “hon.” You can also trust that there will be a tiny tin pitcher of real cream on your table instead of those infernal little peel-n-pour thimbles of who knows what.
I was still sipping my first bowl of coffee-the sixteen-ounce porcelain one with the faded blue stripe around the rim-and taking my time to respond to Sherry’s bomb of a theory.
“Maybe the car wreck wasn’t an accident. Maybe somebody tried to kill him.”
“OK,” I said, swallowing, and running the statement through my head while the warm caffeine was hitting my brain. “Where the hell did that possibility come from?”
“The guy opened up to me a little,” Sherry said, her fingers pushing a napkin around on the table in front of her. We sat in a booth in the far corner of the dining area. Sherry had pulled alongside, and then slid herself into the opposite side to face me, the side that would allow her words to be absorbed by the wall behind me.
“This on the second time you’ve had lunch with a legless man who wouldn’t talk to any of his professional therapists and shrinks?”
“Yeah,” she said, putting that little smile on the corner of her mouth. “I’m pretty good.”
“I agree with half of that statement,” I said. “You are pretty.”
She smirked.
“You’ve always been a jealous man, Max.”
“Agreed,” I said, and took another sip of coffee. “So lay out the theory, Detective. I mean, I’m guessing it isn’t an official case yet, right?”
She looked up at me as if she thought I was being smart-assed about the statement, but I wasn’t.
“Booker says that the group at the gym was pretty much into the whole steroid thing. They’d started it just wanting to see what it could do, and then it blossomed on them-some sort of competitive thing he couldn’t really enunciate.”
“Yeah, well, the steroids were pretty apparent by the acne all over that McKenzie guy’s neck and shoulders,” I said.
Sherry chuckled. “And you didn’t even see the way his face turned purple when he was trying to beat me at the dips-definite high blood pressure syndrome. Anyway, they started out small-time. But pretty soon, everybody in the core group was on board.”
The waitress came to our booth, cracked her gum, and refilled my cup with the glass orb of coffee that seemed to be locked into the hand of every server in the place. I ordered the meat loaf and Sherry got chopped salad, uh, without the ham, please, and can you take the yolk out of the boiled egg, uh, and no onions and just oil and vinegar dressing, thanks.
The waitress smiled a perturbed smile. Sherry gave her that fake “too bad I’m the customer and you’re not” look. I shook my head and kept my mouth shut as the she gathered the menus and left.
“Booker told you all this?” I said.
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“I think he trusts me. I told him I had nothing to do with IA, and that it was the behavioral unit that asked me to meet him. I told him they never said anything about a drug use problem. And anyway, I wasn’t the one who brought it up to begin with.”
“He offered to talk about drugs?”
“Yeah, sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“Well, I did say that I’d done some digging on his case. I told him the stuff about the clean car, the wiped-down clean car, and how weird that seemed.”
“And?”
“He agreed. That’s what they told him every time he tried to check on the status of the investigation of the hit-and-run driver who pinned him. They always told him they didn’t have any leads. Even he was smart enough to wonder what the hell was going on.”
“And the drugs?” I said, looking directly into Sherry’s eyes.
“Well, that brought me to the blood tox report that I’d seen off the record-which led to the steroid discussion.”