Midnight Guardians Read online

  In all his roles as lawyer, friend, and a hell of a smart human being, Billy listens. His end of the conversation was nonexistent until I finished giving all the details I could of the last few hours. In his silence, I could almost hear his analytical mind at work. There was a long pause before he spoke.

  “Max, from your directions to the cul-de-sac, you were in county jurisdiction. Go straight to the sheriff’s office off Broward Boulevard and wait for me in the parking lot. We’ll go in together. You’ll turn yourself in.”

  I took a few seconds to think of what he was asking, conjuring up the scene in my head, thinking about the ripples: I did not enjoy an endearing reputation with the sheriff’s office, having stuck my nose in some of their investigations in the past. And more than a few high-ranking officers knew of my relationship with Sherry. We’d long ago agreed not to blur the line between personal and professional agendas, but tongues wag in any organization. Then, of course, there was the possibility that I’d have to spend the night in jail. I’d hate like hell to have to do that again. But Billy was right. The alternative was to wait for them to come for me—that always turns out badly.

  “OK, Billy,” I finally said. “But what about the kid—you know they’re going to track him down, too.”

  “I’m going to call Luz Carmen right now. If she knows how to get in touch with her brother, maybe she can convince him to do the same thing we’re going to do,” Billy said.

  Good luck with that, I thought. “An illegal immigrant tied to a federal Medicare scam who’s suddenly the target of a bunch of drive-by shooters isn’t going to turn himself in, Billy.”

  “I said I’d ask her to try, Max. I’ll give him the same opportunity as we’re taking. He can come in with me.”

  I almost told him not to hold his breath.

  “I’ll be in the parking lot of the sheriff’s office in an hour,” I said instead, and hung up.

  MY TRUCK WAS making a hell of a noise. I had to pull over twice to yank a warped fender away from the left front wheel to keep it from rubbing on the tire and setting up a burring wail, like an empty barrel being rolled down a back alley. The steering wheel was pulling hard to the right, a sure sign that a tie-rod was bent. The temperature gauge was running hot. I’d probably left a puddle of coolant on the street where I’d rammed the ass end of the Monte Carlo. I was staying off the main roads as best I could. It was dark now. I figured that even if a there was a “be on the lookout” with my truck’s description and tag out on the police radio, I might be safe for an hour. A few blocks from the sheriff’s office I pulled into the Dunkin’ Donuts shop and parked as deep in their lot as I could, to stay out of sight. If I was going to jail, I wasn’t going on an empty stomach.

  Not the most popular spot at 8:00 P.M., the doughnut shop was nearly empty when I walked in. There was an old guy in the back wearing a tattered-wool winter coat, even though it was eighty-four degrees outside. His gray hair was matted, and he was having a hushed conversation with someone who appeared to be at the bottom of his Styrofoam coffee cup. There was no one within earshot.

  A couple of tables away, a younger version of the same sad story was lounging in a corner. His head was shaved on two sides, but he’d left a strip of oiled-up black hair running down the middle. He was wearing dirty jeans and a pair of black-and-white sneakers that looked like a rip- off of the old Chuck Taylors; I winced to see such tradition fall so low, even if they were fakes. The kid was balancing a cigarette on his lip and looked up when I came in, but his focus was on the counter girl, not me. Dramatically, he checked his watch and rolled his dull eyes at her. The “hurry the fuck up and let’s get outta here” message was clear.

  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 Andrés 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.

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re in the parking lot,” he said.

  “Southeast corner.”

  “I’ll drive around.”

  A minute later when I saw his Mercedes make the corner, I flashed my lights once. He started my way, and I got out and stood in the lot while he backed into a spot. He joined me, dressed in a conservative dark suit complete with a carefully knotted tie.

  “M-Max. You are not l-looking well,” Billy said, readjusting his usual greeting while taking my measure from head to foot.

  “Yeah, funny how that happens,” I said as I shook his extended hand.

  Following his lead, we started walking toward the front entrance.

  “I sp-spoke to Assistant Chief Hammonds, who has graciously agreed to m-meet with us.”

  “Pretty high up the food chain for a leaving the scene and a handful of moving violations,” I said. Billy stared straight ahead and kept walking.

  “I w-would not be m-much of a lawyer if I didn’t have c-connections, Max.”

  “Yeah. And how much info did you promise to feed him if he agreed to handle this?”

  “I believe the ch-chief has followed your c-career, M-Max: the abducted children, the serial killer, the b-bodies in the Glades. He is a m-man who knows the value of information. In a s-situation like this, you do not deal with clerks.”

  I looked at the side of Billy’s face, and I believe he felt my look on his skin.

  “I know how elitist that s-sounds, Max. B-But I am trying to keep you out of jail.”

  “How much do we tell him?”

  “You tell him nothing,” Billy said. “I w-will do the talking.”

  After we emptied our pockets of all metal objects, cell phones, and foil-wrapped chewing gum, we walked through a metal detector and were directed to a Plexiglas enclosure we used to call a fishbowl. After Billy told the officer inside of our appointment with Chief Hammonds, she made a call to confirm, and then took our driver’s licenses through a slotted drawer akin to a bank teller’s. Then she directed us, one at a time, to stand before a camera to have our photos taken.

  I shook my head. I knew from previous experience that there were no prisoners housed in this building, and if there were any criminals inside, they were most likely being interviewed with a half a dozen detectives surrounding them—but hell, yes, safety first.

  While the aide printed out photo ID visitor’s badges, I looked up from the marble inlaid floor to the eight-story atrium, the ceiling soaring up into a grand dome. Like Fort Knox with a gilded courthouse decor, I thought. The security consultants had watched too many reruns of Assault on Precinct 13 and the planners studied too much Roman Architecture 101.

  Finally, we were given a fifth-floor room number and directed through a now unlocked pair of heavy glass doors to the elevator.

  “You’ve been here before, right?” I said to Billy.

  “N-Not on a traffic violation.”

  “Not to the fifth floor.”

  “N-Not on a traffic violation,” Billy repeated.

  When the elevator doors opened, we were met by a thin man in civilian dress: oxford shirt, tie, suit pants, and polished loafers.

  “Gentlemen,” he said. “I’m Detective Sergeant Meyers.”

  No hand was offered, by either Meyers or us.

  “Chief Hammonds will see you in his office,” Meyers said as we followed him through a slight maze of beige-colored hallways and through two doors, before our guide stopped in front of an office and rapped lightly on the door.

  “Come,” was the answer from the other side. The voice and phrase made me think of Sean Connery in a submarine movie. Meyers opened the door and let us pass first. The room was small, with a big desk that took up most of the space. The dominating presence of the man standing behind it seemed to take up the rest.

  “Chief,” Billy said, reaching across the desk and shaking the man’s hand, which enveloped Billy’s like a catcher’s mitt, “this is M-Max Freeman, sir. I believe you’ve met.”

  Hammonds had been a couple of ranks lower when we’d crossed paths in the past. He’d been the lead on Sherry’s case involving the abducted children. During that investigation, Hammonds had used me as bait to finally draw out the killer. I didn’t hold the tactic against him. He’d done what he thought he needed to do to stop a serial killer.

  I extended my hand without reservation. The chief was as tall as me, but a good fifty pounds heavier. And even though I couldn’t see his legs below the desktop, my guess was that the majority of his weight was in his barrel chest and draft horse butt.

  “Mr. Freeman,” he said, taking my hand. I doubted that the chief shook the hands of most criminals turning themselves in. “It’s been a while.”

  I simply nodded. Usually, I like occupying the upper ground, but in this instance I was in the position of depending on others to decide my fate. With a wave of his huge paw, the chief directed us to
two chairs flanking his desk. The detective sergeant remained standing behind us. When I glanced over my shoulder, it looked suspiciously as if he were guarding the door to block any escape—which made me nervous. Hammonds knew of my background as a Philadelphia cop, and hence realized that putting a desk between us and a man behind me would set any cop’s teeth on edge.

  Once we were seated, he wasted no time.

  “Gentlemen, after Mr. Manchester’s call, I did some checking. Traffic enforcement does indeed have several digital photographs of what is being described as a three-vehicle chase being executed through heavy evening traffic, and causing multiple rear-end collisions as other innocent drivers were forced to take defensive measures to avoid those vehicles,” Hammonds said, glancing down at a sheaf of paper in front of him, but mostly holding my eyes.

  “We then have reports from our patrol officers on what appears to have been the terminus of that chase in the fourteen hundred block of Southwest Forty-fifth Court, where one of said vehicles was disabled, and upon arrival of several squad cars, abandoned. Foot pursuit of at least four individuals resulted in the arrest of three. The fourth is still in the wind, but I’m confident we’ll find him.”

  No doubt of that, I thought. Hammonds was an old bull, a cop who looked the part of a warrior who started in the street and then worked his way up the line, learning political tricks along the way to reach up into the ranks where a less ambitious officer would never tread, nor care to. He made no attempt to cover his gray hair, nearly white, in fact, at the temples. His jowls hung loose, and he had a way of keeping his massive hands clasped in front of him on the desk. He didn’t flex or point, and didn’t use his hands to talk for him or with him. They lay instead in a pile before him, their size and potential enough to catch and keep your eye. I thought of sleeping dogs and the time-honored warning not to rouse them.

  “Also included in the report, gentlemen, is the confiscation of, uh, let me see…” he hesitated for maximum effect, “three submachine guns, one being an AK, which we don’t often see out on the streets; two large caliber handguns concealed in draw holsters mounted under the seats; and in a false compartment behind the glove box, a substantial amount of cocaine.