The Death Box(65)

Morales pumped harder. The veins in his arms stood out like the burrows of miniature moles. “You have advice about what … can be done?” he grunted. “Can the hotshot be convinced to go blind to certain things?”

“I know these types. He can’t be bought, a believer.”

“Leverage?” Morales grunted.

“No wife, kids, not even fucking anyone at present.”

“Advice?”

“I’ll keep an eye out. If he starts down a road dangerous to us all, you might have to take him off the board.”

“But someone else takes his place, isn’t that” – Morales pushed the barbell above him like it was a broom – “what happens?”

“A new nose will be sniffing the air, true. But this Ryder guy has a unique nose. You don’t want it near the business. You don’t want it near Miami. It’s a dangerous nose.”

“I will pass this on. Gracias.”

“Nice spotting for you, buddy.”

Morales watched his spotter disappear into the locker room and emerge a minute later in khakis and blue polo shirt, neither man acknowledging the other as the spotter disappeared out the door. Morales followed ten minutes later. He knew Orlando Orzibel well enough to hear the man’s response before he told him the news and advice:

“Why wait, Chaku? Let’s take Ryder off the board now, and be done with him.”





34





I hit the department a bit past nine and headed to the investigative section to finally introduce myself to the rest of the dicks, then grudgingly seek a place to live. But I arrived to find the place as empty as a politician’s promises and I realized it was Friday and everyone was on the streets trying to get far enough ahead to take a couple days off.

Pushing dark thoughts to the back of my head, I took the stairs up a floor to my office, passing the small whiteboard giving the crew’s current whereabouts, Canseco in Jacksonville, Degan in Boca, Valdez listed as DO, Day Off. Tatum was in town, just not here. I pined for one of my so-called colleagues to pass me in the hall, say something like, Got a tough case with a perp in Fort Myers, looking like a psycho. Gotta couple minutes to kick it around, bud?

All was silence save for the sound of a radio nearby, an announcer giving the forecast.

“… rain giving way to clearing skies and the heat and humidity returning …”

I headed to my corner office until stopped by hearing my name, and turned to see Bobby Erickson, a retired Florida State Police Sergeant who worked the phones. He proudly wore his dress blues daily, but had bad feet so Roy allowed him to wear slippers, big pillows of tan suede with fleece pushing up around his ankles. Erickson was short and round and looked perpetually concerned, lips pursed, eyes in a frown over half-glasses. He seemed to bear me no animosity and I figured I hadn’t waylaid any of his money.

“Morning, Bobby,” I said. “Whatcha need?”

“A woman came to the downstairs desk a half hour ago. She asked if there was a detection man named Señor Ryder in this building.”

“Detection man?”

“The desk folks have your name, of course. They phoned up here but I told them you hadn’t arrived yet, expected soon. When they went to tell that to the woman, she was gone.”

“A half-hour ago?”

“There’s more. Five minutes later this note was left at the desk. It was delivered by a clerk with the assessor’s office, asked to deliver it by a woman resembling the one at the desk.”

I opened the folded note, my name on the outside.

MET AT A POOL FOR SWIMING PLESE 10 TO-DAY it said in a flowing hand more precise than the spelling.

“Met at a swimming pool at ten?” I scowled. “Met what?”

Erickson eyeballed the note. “Maybe it’s meet. You’re supposed to meet her at the swimming pool.”

“Where’s a swimming pool around here?”

He shrugged and pushed the lips out further. “Got me.”

I started away but he called again. “Almost forgot, Detective. She asked what you looked like.”

Though I hadn’t seen surveillance at the entry, I figured it was there, just nicely tucked away. “There are cameras at the entry, right? How can I get a look?”

“The surveillance center’s in the basement. But unless it’s an emergency it’s gonna take an hour to pull the stuff.”

Erickson padded away on his tan cushions. I gazed out windows, wondering if there was a nearby hotel with a pool. My eyes wandered the plaza, wide walkways overhung with shade trees, people strolling or sitting the steps around the fountain, a center spray of water into a shallow circle pool of …