“So?”
“Don't you get it?”
“No.”
“What you acting so pissed off about, Jack?”
“I'm sorry, Julie, but you're wasting my time.”
She threw the french fries and hit me in the head. I jumped out of my chair.
“I don't have time for this,” I said angrily.
She wagged her finger in my face. “Listen to me. The cable guys didn't have to dig in the yard. The problem was on the pole.”
“So?”
“The cable guys knocked the cable out on purpose. Then they dug a hole when me and Ernesto were sleeping, and put my sister's body in it. Get it?”
Hookers work at night, sleep during the day. Someone could have come into Julie's backyard and dug a grave while she and Ernesto were sleeping.
“What about the gold crucifix that was in your sister's hand?” I asked. “It was identified as Ernesto's.”
Julie dragged me into the kitchen and pointed at a bookshelf beside the rattling fridge. Two gold crucifixes stood upright in a display meant to hold three. The middle crucifix was missing.
“One of the cable guys came inside to get a glass of water, and he stole one,” Julie said.
I stared at the display. Two days earlier, when I'd stood in the driveway in handcuffs, there was a truck on the street with a trenching machine and two guys inside. Cable guys.
“Show me the pole,” I said.
We went outside to the backyard. Carmella's grave was still open, and it gave me goose bumps. Julie pointed at the telephone pole in the corner of her property.
“That one,” she said.
I borrowed a ladder from the garage, put it on the pole, and climbed up. The cable had been stapled to the pole, and halfway up I found where it had been cut. The cut was right above a staple, which minimized the chance that anyone might see it from the ground. I looked down at Julie, who had her arms crossed.
“See?” she said.
“Yeah, I see.” My eyes drifted to the open grave. “Who called the police and told them about the skeleton?”
“The cable guys. They were trenching and said they found pieces of jewelry in the yard. They started digging and found Carmella's body.”
“Or so they said.”
“You finally believe me?”
I nodded.
“It's about fucking time.”
I started to climb down, then froze. I could see over Julie's house to the street. A white van with two Hispanic guys was parked behind my Legend. The guy in the passenger seat got out and approached my car. He was husky and wore a red bandanna around his head. He got on his knees and began looking beneath my car. It took a moment before I realized what he was looking for.
The transmitter.
Buster was asleep on the backseat. Waking up, he began barking through the half-closed window. The Hispanic guy jumped to his feet and saw me perched on the ladder. He got into the van, and it pulled away with a squeal.
I scurried down the ladder. I wanted to tell Julie I was sorry, but there was no time. Instead, I told her to go inside, and lock the doors.
“And call the police,” I said.
As I started my car I made a decision. If I were running from someone, where would I go? I decided on the interstate.
Within minutes I reached 595. Traffic was heavy heading into Fort Lauderdale, and I guessed this was the way the van had gone. Soon I was heading east doing ninety, the wind punishing my face through my open window.
A lone white van occupied the left lane. I pulled up alongside it and made eye contact with a thirtyish male talking on a cell phone. He winked flirtatiously, and I roared past him.
Hope is something I never give up on. Several exits later, I spotted another white van hurtling down the interstate like a stock car. I floored my accelerator and got behind its bumper. The license plate was from Broward and was caked with mud. Three digits were visible. I memorized them.
Getting in the right lane, I eased up to the van's passenger side. The Hispanic with the bandanna was leaning out the passenger window, smoking a cigarette. He was in his forties and had a pirate's scar running down the side of his face. Something told me he was a Mariel refugee, the most notorious group of criminals ever to invade south Florida. He tossed his cigarette, then saw me.
The Hispanic scrunched up his face as if trying to place me. Then he spotted Buster, and panic set in. Ducking down, he grabbed something off the floor.
I knew I was in trouble, but I didn't think my car was powerful enough to pass him. I tried to slow down, only a delivery truck was riding my bumper. I was stuck.
The Hispanic leaned out his window. In his hand was a steel pipe, which he threw at me. The pipe hit my windshield lengthwise, and a thousand spiderwebs appeared in the glass. Unable to see, I banged out the broken glass with my fist.
My car was like a wind tunnel without a windshield. I tried to watch the road, but a popping sound that reminded me of firecrackers made me look at the van. The Hispanic was holding a shiny revolver and taking target practice at my car.
Buster yelped in fear as I swerved off the interstate.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I stood on the shoulder of 595 with Buster pressed to my side, the white van long gone.
My Legend sat twenty feet away. The windshield was a memory, and there were smoldering bullet holes in the passenger seat and both backseats. One bullet had missed my head by less than six inches. I should have been grateful that I was still breathing, but all I wanted to do was run those bastards down.
Cars roared past, but no one stopped. Their drivers stared through me as if I were invisible. Next to a deserted island, there was no lonelier place than the shoulder of a highway. I called 911, and an automated answering service put me on hold.
Buster barked at the cars. I had leashed him out of fear that he might step into traffic and add an exclamation point to my already miserable day. I went to the Legend and turned the radio to my favorite FM station. They were playing a song by the Fine Young Cannibals called “She Drives Me Crazy.” Once upon a time they were my favorite band; then they suddenly disappeared. It seemed like a metaphor for my own sorry situation, and I leaned against my car and sang along.
I should have been dead. Three shots and you're usually out. I got spared, except now I didn't have wheels. I was one step closer to becoming a homeless person. I imagined myself pushing a shopping cart filled with garbage through Dania, a beaten and forgotten man.
A female dispatcher came on the line. I gave her my name and explained what had happened. She asked if I was hurt. I knew that if I said yes, a cruiser would be here in a New York minute.
“I'm okay,” I said.
“Hold tight,” the dispatcher said. “I'll get a car out there soon.”
I folded my phone. A tow truck was barreling down the interstate toward me. I'd been saved.
The tow truck parked, and an enterprising young guy hopped out. He gave my car a cursory inspection, then shoved a business card into my hand. It had his smiling picture on it and embossed lettering. larry littlejohn's 24-hour towing. i tow, you go!
“What the heck happened?” Larry asked.
“I ran into some old friends. Can you tow me to Dania?”
“What's the address?”
“Sunset Bar and Grille. It's over on the beach.”
He scratched his chin. “Yeah. I can do that.”
“Second question. Do you take IOUs?”
As the tow truck drove away I tore up Larry's card. The radio was playing another song from a vanished band. This time, I didn't sing along.
Fifteen minutes later a cruiser appeared with Bobby Russo at the wheel. He parked on the shoulder in front of my car and got out. He was wearing his suit from the news conference and steel-framed aviator's glasses turned to mirrors by the blinding Florida sun. He halted six feet from where I stood.