Midnight Guardians mf-6 Page 8

  “And your client’s case is drug-related?” Hammonds said.

  “It w-wasn’t until today,” Billy said. “My client is a wh-whistle-blower on a Medicare fraud scheme. The man in the lead car is someone we surmised was transporting records pertaining to that enterprise. During his surveillance, Mr. Freeman determined that this person of interest was indeed in danger. Thus Mr. Freeman took steps to aid him.”

  “And was there probable cause for Mr. Freeman to assume such danger?” Hammonds said.

  “A pr-previous drive-by shooting,” Billy answered, “in Mr. Freeman’s pr-presence, in Palm Beach County. My client was the target.”

  Hammonds gave himself the same thirty seconds of silent thought-fulness that Billy had given himself. The guy behind us never moved. I watched the chief’s eyes. I could tell he was thinking advantage, figuring politics, working it like a poker hand.

  “Well, that’s quite a story. I’ll grant you that,” Hammonds finally said. “But it doesn’t do shit for me.”

  I’ve always admired the way some people can switch their syntax and vocabulary, not to mention their manners, at the drop of a dramatic hat. I wonder if they practice in front of a mirror like DeNiro in Taxi Driver: “You talkin’ to me?”

  Whether or not the chief’s tone caught Billy off-guard was impossible to tell. His face remained professionally stoical as Hammonds continued.

  “The Medicare scam is joint state and federal, Counselor. The FBI might be interested, but I’m not. The drive-by was in someone else’s jurisdiction. No good to me. I don’t need to know your client’s name since I already have, uh, Andres Carmen’s,” Hammonds said, looking down at his sheaf of paper again. “I doubt that Mr. Carmen is your client, Mr. Manchester, you don’t do that kind of work. And I know Mr. Freeman doesn’t hang his ass out for some small-time drug sniffer.” Hammonds had shifted his gaze to me. I shrugged.

  “My guess is that this Carmen is a relative of your client, Counselor. Mother? Young wife with child?” he said to Billy. “You’re a bleeding heart, Counselor. But even up in the judicial hierarchy, people know your leanings only go so far.”

  The not-too-guarded reference to Billy’s wife might have set another man’s teeth to grinding. Instead, he laid out what we had to offer.

  “What we can give you, Chief, is the location of the w-warehouse building, in your jurisdiction, where Mr. Freeman witnessed the exchange of information. We can give you the name of a prominent drug distributor from one of your districts who obviously has ties to the fraud scheme and quite possibly the movement of prescription drugs you’ve now confiscated.”

  The chief again took his full thirty seconds to consider. It was a game everyone played: pimps, prosecutors, confidential informants, detectives, judges, and witnesses.

  “Very well, gentlemen,” Hammonds finally said, standing up. “If you give that information to Detective Meyers on the way out, Mr. Freeman will still be receiving a summons for leaving the scene of an accident, but his able attorney can just mail in the fine.”

  After Billy nodded, we all stood. The game was over; the winner would be determined at a later date. As we headed for the door, Hammonds came around his desk and said, as he placed a condescending hand on my shoulder, “Max! How is Sherry doing these days? I mean, with her recovery and all?”

  I turned, maybe a bit too fast, the movement causing the hand to slip from the fabric of my shirt. Even when looking directly into the man’s eyes, I couldn’t read them. Hammonds’s face gave no indication whether the question about Sherry was truly an innocent inquiry of a fellow cop; or a warning that the deputy chief knew all about me, a subtle declaration he had some measure of control over me.

  “She’s doing fine, Chief,” I said. “I’ll let her know you were asking about her.”

  After we walked out into the hallway, the chief’s door was closed softly behind us, the sound of its quiet snicking making me feel it wouldn’t be long before I was back here again.

  When I left Billy in the parking lot, he said he’d continue trying to call Carmen to warn her that there was a BOLO out on her brother’s car, and that he would be arrested if he was stopped. If the kid was illegal, he’d be looking at deportation. And that was the good news. If the guys who were after him found him first, he’d be dead.

  On the way to Sherry’s I stopped at the 7-Eleven, again parking in the shadows, even though Hammonds said I was off the hook for now. I went in looking for a six-pack of Rolling Rock and was disappointed that they were out of bottles. I had to settle for the cans. I hate drinking beer out of metal; it’s so damned uncouth.

  Back in my truck, I popped the first one, trying to relax and let some of the anxiety go down with the taste of alcohol on the back of my throat. Hammonds was old and cagey. I didn’t see him as the kind to give someone like me a free pass for nothing. He’s more the kind who works the system 24/7. In each new situation, he’d take away an advantage. Every person who entered his universe had a possible use. I knew guys like him back in my life as a Philly cop. They were ambitious. They were political. They didn’t give without getting back. It was the way of their world. Oh, we were going to dance again, Hammonds and I. I was going to have to tighten my moves.

  I was halfway down the street toward Sherry’s when my fan belt started making a hell of a squealing noise. Even I was wincing at the shrill sound as I eased the truck up her driveway. I went inside from around back as usual, but the pool was silent. The patio doors were unlocked, and the only light on was the stove overhead. I locked up behind myself and found Sherry in the bedroom, lying on top of the covers with her mirror, staring at two legs.

  “Hi,” I said, pulling the tab on one of the beers. The sharp crack of aluminum sounded like something breaking. Sherry hadn’t looked up at my greeting but turned her head to the sound.

  “Since when do you go for cans,” she said, her tone carefully non-accusatory. I looked at the container as if I’d just discovered it in my hand.

  “Yeah, you’re right. I always said I’d rather have a bottle in front of me…”

  “Than a frontal lobotomy,” Sherry finished the old saw, but she was smiling when she did so.

  I kicked off my Docksides, sat down on the edge of the bed, and propped my back against the headboard.

  “Or maybe you just like the sound of crunching metal these days?” she said as she looked back down at her mirror, avoiding eye contact. I looked at the side of her face and noted the pinching of skin at the corner of her eye; she was having fun at my expense. I stayed silent and waited her out, a small victory.

  “Well, I am a cop,” she finally said.

  “So how’d you hear?”

  She looked over and let the smile escape. “I have my sources.”

  “Right! Any single woman cop who’s a pretty, long-legged blonde is going to have sources on the job who are interested in besmirching the character of the present boyfriend,” I said, matching her smile.

  But something I said caused a flickering deep behind her eyes. She pushed it back, and then shook her head “All right, Mr. PI, a couple of uniforms did recognize the description of your truck on the radio and called me to see if you’d gone off your meds,” she said, slipping back into teasing mode. “The old beast didn’t sound too good when you pulled up.”

  I took another hit of the Rolling Rock. “I won’t be filing an accident claim,” I said. “But my guy up at the body shop on Indiantown Road is going to get some business.”

  Silent again, I watched the aqua glow from the pool flow through the bedroom window and dance on the ceiling.

  “You gonna tell me what happened?” Sherry said.

  I took another drink and laid it out for her, from the time I started tailing Andres Carmen, until I left Chief Hammonds’s office. Like most good detectives, Sherry’s a good listener. She let the story come out without interruption, and in the end said, “Jesus, Max.”

  “Yeah, I think I said the same thing a couple of times tonight.�
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  Sherry reached over and put her hand on the side of my face, slid her fingers into my hair, and gave me one of those “poor baby” looks. The show of affection was nice. Though I’ve never been one who expects the whole sympathy thing, everybody’s human.

  I took her hand and kissed her palm. “I love you, baby,” I said.

  “I know you do, Max. Sometimes I just don’t know how you can.”

  – 10 -

  Ok, enough of what if, Booker. You’ve got to stop talking to yourself: What’s done is done. You’ve got to catch up and live in the real world. Right?

  Yeah, but in the real world, people are walking around on two fucking legs. You’re not. In the real world, people can walk up a set of stairs. In the real world, you used to squat three hundred pounds, and now you can’t even climb out of this chair on your own.

  All you can remember are those goddamned dimmed headlights, knowing they were going way too fast, and that total lack of screeching brakes. And hey, guess what, your stupid life did not flash in front of your eyes. You just reacted. They say you jumped, and that’s what saved your life, such as it fucking is. Next thing you know, you’re lying in a hospital bed and you wake the hell up and get as much of a grip on what’s happened as you can, given that when you look down there’s no lumps in the sheets below your waist.

  Fuck it, you don’t even want to look-so you don’t. For days, you don’t. Even after the docs come in and give you all that bullshit about how amputees can do anything anyone else can. And they know it’s a shock, but medical science has come such a long way… blah, blah, blah.

  So you’re pissed. And you’re always gonna ask: Why you? Who the hell did this to you? And you hold on to that anger ‘cause you know what? It makes you feel a little bit alive. Why the hell haven’t they caught the rat bastard who did this to you? Six months and they can’t find a car thief? Hey, I’m a cop, too. And every cop, not just the fucking detectives, knows that people repeat a story like mine. It gets told in some sleazy shooting gallery somewhere, some fucking bar, on some shit-heel corner with a bunch of losers hanging out smoking and trying to build themselves up, so they can be better than the loser next to them: “Hey, man, you seen that shit on TV about the cop who got his legs chopped off on I-595? Whoa, awesome, dude.”

  “Yeah, I heard Jimmy the Fuckup did it.”

  “No way, Jimmy the Loser? That kid who’s always stealin’ cars when he’s fuckin’ high?”

  “Yeah, Petey the Prick said he was doin’ forties with Jimmy and he told him he was all fucked up and drivin’ an old boosted Chevy and smacked ass into the back of somebody on the freeway and pinched that cop and just got out and boogied.”

  “No shit. Did Petey turn him in, man? There’s a big fucking reward out for anyone rats the dude out. If Petey didn’t, I sure as hell will.”

  Which is why you gotta be even more pissed-I mean, come on! The sheriff’s office put a fifty-thousand-dollar reward for information out there a week after it happened, and they haven’t gotten a single lead worth a damn? Fuckups talk when something like that goes down. Somebody’s gotta hear something-unless it wasn’t just some fuckup.

  I mean, you have to wonder about the forensics on the thing. When the so-called detectives who are working the case come to you and say they couldn’t lift a single usable print off the inside of the car that almost killed you? A screwup like some Jimmy the Loser doesn’t go to the trouble of wearing surgical gloves and wiping down the interior of the car he’s joyriding in for the night. They couldn’t find any hair? No fibers? No empty Buds in the back seat with DNA all over the mouth of the bottles? Come on, man!

  All right, all right, Marty, calm yourself; you’re a real cop. You know that CSI television is bullshit. But you gotta wonder, don’t you? Yeah, you listened to the shrinks talk on and on about the anger and frustration that’s normal after an amputation, the anxiety and all that shit- and how this is all an ongoing gradual process. But what about those guys at the gym? What happened there? What? They don’t want to associate with a gimp wheelie? You were tight with those guys, and now they are definitely pulling away. Yeah, you know things were getting a little hinky about the other thing. But shit, they were your boys, liftin’ and studdin’ over at Marbury’s together, man. Maybe you were getting a little away from the drugs and stuff, but you weren’t gonna spoil it for the rest of them. They understood that, didn’t they-all except that asshole McKenzie, anyway.

  Ha! McKenzie. Wasn’t that a kick when that Richards broad came in and showed that fucker up on the dip bars? Little prick turning red in the face, blowing like some kinda wounded cow, while she just kept on kicking out the reps. Man, the woman was impressive. But what was up with that anyway, her coming down to shoot the shit? You knew the department shrinks would get around to it sooner or later, trying to find a way to dig inside your head and get you to “accept.” You were all ready to blow her off, too, but there was something about her, and not just because she’s a wheelie like you. When you were talking at the cafe, man, it wasn’t like she was trying to psychoanalyze you. It was more like she was asking questions that she needed some answers, too, you know. I mean, you ain’t stupid. You know they sent her in. But she ain’t bad to look at, and with that display on McKenzie, you gotta respect the lady’s workout ethic, right? And everybody’s heard about that time she put a 9 mm in that serial killer dude’s face. Righteous shoot. You gotta like a girl like that.

  But you also gotta watch it. They tried to get a lot of internal affairs guys into the gym before, and we always smelled them out. What makes her different-because she’s missing a leg? You gotta be careful, man. And you were, right? All you talked about at the cafe was that stuff about the forensics, and why the hell they hadn’t found the guy who fucking rammed you. And she said she’d ask around. That can’t hurt, her being a detective and all.

  So you make a date, right? She gave you her cell. Meet her at the cafe again. Why not?

  – 11 -

  To say that Billy Manchester and I were rolling down an asphalt lane through a decrepit mobile home park at dawn in Billy’s Lexus is enough to say that this case had become unique. The sun had not yet surfaced from the edge of the Atlantic Ocean when I met Billy, on his insistence, at his building. He’d called at the uncharacteristic hour of five in the morning:

  “Max, I need you to get here as soon as possible. We have a seven A.M. appointment with Ms. Carmen and her brother.”

  Billy does not do this kind of thing-I do. It’s what PIs do: Meet with the scumbags, hook up in the alleys, and sit with coffee for hours on surveillances. The attorneys don’t do this, especially Billy. Just look at him: He’s dressed down this morning in a light, camel-hair sport coat and tailored poplin trousers. His white shirt is impeccably pressed. He deigned to leave the tie at home.

  “I was able to reach Ms. Carmen late last night, and told her that if she had any way to contact her brother, she should do it. At four this morning, she called and said she was meeting with him here, and begged me to come,” Billy said, looking out beyond the headlights in the still neighborhood.

  I knew he was concentrating. He rarely drives. Hell, he rarely leaves his apartment unless he’s in court or walking to lunch along Clematis Boulevard in downtown West Palm Beach. His eyes were focused. When he’s concentrating, he can lose the stutter in someone’s presence. Even I take note, because it’s as if you weren’t even there. But I don’t take it personally.

  “Now I fear he’s put his s-sister in harm’s way,” Billy said.

  I looked at the side of his face but withheld my urge to respond: “Duh, you think so?”

  “It is an enduring tragedy to see what family will do to one another,” he said. Having an intimate knowledge of Billy’s upbringing, I kept my mouth shut.

  We’d slowed to a near crawl as Billy’s GPS system announced, “Destination two hundred feet, at 320 Harriett Street.” The pleasant computer voice was highly inappropriate for the milieu of sagging
, broke-back trailers, autos up on cinder blocks, rotting fences failing in their attempt to offer some privacy from the trailer next door, and the ubiquitous scarred picnic table set out on a grassless strip of yard as a respite from what it must be like inside each home.

  “There’s her car,” I said to Billy when I spotted Luz Carmen’s little red Toyota in the driveway ahead. He pulled perpendicular to her car, with just enough room to open his driver’s door. She would not be leaving before we did. Billy turned his car alarm on manually before getting out, thus foregoing the bleeping sound of doing it with his remote. When I joined him at the side of Carmen’s car, there was just enough sunlight to see the address of the trailer spray-painted on a piece of plywood covering the front windows. It had been a year since the last hurricane. Most people took down even their minimal barricades against the storm to let the light in and reconnect with the view. But when I surveyed the trash-strewn landscape around us, I figured even that act of procrastination might have made sense in this case.

  There were no obvious lights in three windows on our side of the trailer. I’d been in a few of these tin cans before and worked the layout in my head: kitchen at the south end where plywood covered the small front bow of paned glass, living area behind the entrance door, bedroom or bedrooms at the north end. Billy stepped up onto the cinder blocks that formed a stairway to the base of the door. Before he could raise his hand to knock, I heard a low roll of guttural vocal cord, vibrating just enough to be audible. Both of us looked to our left and saw the muddy yellow-brown eyes of a pit bull watching us from the inside of a low fence.

  Even in the low light, I could see the whitened slashes of scar tissue across the mutt’s face, but also the ripple of muscle in its neck and front quarters. The dog turned its head just so, with the kind of curious look you find endearing in some species. But in this one, it seemed more like that of a beast assessing which mouth-size chunk of human calf it’d like to chew into first. There would be no advanced warning of a bark or howl that would spoil its inherent surprise. This was the kind of dog that comes up in silence and buries its teeth deeply before you realize it. Billy looked at me and then rapped lightly on the metal door.