Sutter looked across at the young black woman, her hands secured behind her back with plastic flex cuffs. He recognized her from the neighborhood over the years but had never spoken to her. She was pretty, with a full-framed gold front tooth and funky, slicked-down hair. He didn’t like it when they just swept up everyone in a big net like this, but he knew it had to be done. Crack sales were killing neighborhoods all over the country. The regular people who lived here had to put up with it every day, and that was definitely not right.
As Sutter filled out the top part of the form, the woman said, “I gettin’ out tonight?”
“Doubt it. You’ll see a judge tomorrow.”
“He just let us out then. Why bother with this tonight?” She wasn’t nasty, just exasperated.
“ ’Cause this is my job.” Now he really started to miss Tasker and the big cases. He came to the prisoner-information section on the form. Looking up at the woman, he asked, “Last name?”
“Williams.”
Sutter wrote in block letters and asked, “First?”
“Sha-theed.”
He started to write, then said, “Spell it.”
“S-H-I-T-H-E-A-D.”
Sutter wrote it in, then stared at the name until it made sense. “Funny. Now what’s your first name?”
“That is my first name. Look at my ID.” She nodded toward the small plastic evidence bag containing her personal property.
Sutter retrieved the official Florida identification card, usually issued if you couldn’t get a license for some reason, and found that the young woman’s name was, in fact, Shithead Williams. Sutter let a smile slide across his face and said, “I bet you have a nickname.” He was about to write “Shitty” before she even answered.
The woman said, “Yeah, my brothers call me Anita.”
Sutter stopped writing and looked up at her again. “Anita, where’s that come from?”
She shrugged.
“Is that what you use everywhere?”
“No, I likes to be called Sha-theed. It’s prettier.”
Sutter was about to explain the mean joke her parents had played on her when a big sergeant walked over, rotated his head on his massive shoulders and said, “Sutter, can you run down to the Gables and see if that guy is staying at the address he just gave us?” He pointed to the small, dark, Latin-looking man at the end of the row who Sutter had caught earlier. His head drooped down and shoulders hunched.
Sutter said, “No problem, Sarge.”
The big man said, “That package you found had eight grand cash in it and we need to know who he is for sure. He may be a good link to something else. Figured you caught him, you’d want to do the follow-up. I know you been kicking around in south county with your FDLE buddy. I send one of my guys out of the city, he’s liable to end up in Tampa.”
Sutter laughed. “I hear ya. I’ll call when I find anything out.”
“If it looks like he lives there, see if we need to get a search warrant for the house.”
“How do you want me to do that?” Sutter asked.
The sergeant just looked at him. “You’ll know what to do.”
Sutter nodded and handed the lovely Shithead, or Sha-theed, off to another cop and found his issued Buick parked around the corner. There was a good-sized crowd on the street watching the cops complete the search and haul away the prisoners.
Half an hour later, Sutter had determined that the address provided by the suspect was a Publix shopping center. He cruised the lot and asked a few questions about the man in case he was homeless and really did live here. The Publix produce manager explained that Coral Gables didn’t have any homeless people and assured Sutter that he had never heard of the suspect.
After Sutter reported this info back to the Vice sergeant and was told to head home for the night, he found himself driving south on US 1. Since his adventures in the southern Dade area, he’d found he liked the idea of there being such a diverse and different place only a few miles from the city that he loved. He would’ve liked to have Tasker with him now, but his friend had agreed to watch his girls so his wife could get away for the weekend. That made Tasker either one of the greatest guys he’d ever met or a sucker. He’d seen the FDLE agent’s ex-wife and figured she could’ve turned him into a sucker, too, if she wanted to.
Sutter noticed a bar attached to the end of a little strip mall in what Sutter believed was South Miami, a separate little town just south of the Gables. He was about to pass it when he saw it was a nude bar. His favorite kind.
The bar had no visible name until he entered and saw it was called the Tittie Shack. Probably not a name the landlord of the shopping center wanted outside the club. He paused, looking past the sign, and the doorman demanded a ten-dollar cover. The vibe the big man threw Sutter’s way wasn’t positive, but Sutter ignored him. The small façade hid a good-sized place with two stages. He thought, What the hell, and handed the giant bouncer a ten-dollar bill. There were only five customers and at least ten girls, most sitting around in skimpy outfits, looking bored. A pretty Latin girl with too much makeup smiled and patted the empty space next to her on a bench by the rear wall. No one else seemed interested, so he strutted over, letting the girls look him over, and took a seat on the padded bench. As he sat, he realized that the table had hidden the girl’s substantial lower body, but to Sutter that was a plus. She introduced herself as “Diamond,” and Sutter said his name was “Gold.” She accepted it just as he had accepted her stage name. Half an hour and two drinks later, Sutter felt his groove coming on. He thought this girl might be good for a party. As he worked his mind around how to ask if she’d like to see his South Beach apartment, he noticed the blond dancer on the far stage. She had a body but not many moves. Still there was something familiar about her. He stared at the light-skinned dancer until his Latina flicked his ear. The rest of the night was a blur.
Daniel Wells cringed as he squished the last cone under the wheels of the big tractor-trailer. Counting the two garbage cans before he’d even entered the course, he had hit twenty-two objects. He didn’t figure that to be a passing score. He looked over to the fifty-year-old heavyset instructor.
The older man said, “Mr. Westerly, that was god-awful.”
“Don’t pass yet, huh?”
“I’m not sure you should be allowed to drive a car.”
“I just need to get a feel for the distance from the driver’s seat to the bumper.” The big Freightliner Coronado made him feel like he was driving from the second floor of a building.
“No offense, but I seen fellas drunk on moonshine calculate distances better than you. Once, for a prank photo, we put a monkey behind the wheel. I believe he did a better job than you.”
“Need more practice, that’s all.”
“Mr. Westerly, I don’t usually say this, ’cause the school needs students and the income, but you been coming for lessons a long time and you ain’t ready to drive a pickup, let alone a semi.”
Wells nodded. The only thing he’d done right at this school was use a fake name and answer to it when someone addressed him. “Just let me work on cornering and some narrow lanes and I’ll be happy.”
The big driving instructor hesitated.
“I’ll pay the full tuition again. Start from scratch.”
The instructor shrugged. “Okay. I think you’d do better finding other work, but we can try again.”
Wells slapped him on the shoulder. “Thank you. This is all part of my dream.”
fourteen
Bill Tasker threaded his Monte Carlo through the typical Kendall-north-to-Miami traffic with his mind never once registering what he was doing. A hundred other things seemed to press in on him as he tried to get control of his life. He needed to figure out exactly what he wanted. What would it take to be happy? The answer kept coming back to his girls. He needed to spend more time with them and less time worrying about the million things a police job can throw at you.