“Getting his knob polished,” Gershwin said.
“On Friday mornings?”
“Yeah, I’ve never been horny on a Friday morning, Detective. I save it for Tuesdays and Thursdays between two-seventeen and three twenty-two a.m.”
I ignored the sarcasm as probably warranted and nodded toward the Paraiso. “Think he was looking for love at one of the titty bars?”
“They don’t open that early. Gotta have time to mop up the previous evening’s diseases. Think Perl-O-Man might have been keeping the books for one of these joints?”
I waited until traffic on the four-lane was stopped by lights and stepped into the street to study all the businesses. The lights changed and cars rushed my way.
“I don’t see any of these ratholes bringing in enough money to need an accountant,” I said, jumping from the street as a garbage truck rumbled by, the driver giving me a blast of horn. “Unless they’re selling more than lap dances and tires.”
“We can always ask. I’m sure they’ll be happy to answer our questions.”
“Right now I got just one question, Ziggy,” I said.
“What did Perlman do to end up in a cistern beneath a stack of Hondurans?”
“Nope. Perlman’s hacked-off hands tell us he stole something. My question is, Who did he steal it from?”
We jumped inside the Rover and I watched the rearview for an opportunity, squealing out a U-turn. I was looking into oncoming traffic when I snapped my head to follow a dented gray sedan rushing past in the oncoming lane, the suited, tie-wearing driver now seeming to duck away as he slipped on a pair of shades.
“What?” Gershwin asked, seeing the swerving trajectory of my gaze.
“That guy in the beater gray Caprice,” I said, looking in the mirror as the car turned a hard right without signaling. “I swear he looked just like Lonnie Canseco.”
“A Latin-lover type?”
“I know, not exactly a rarity in Miami. Plus there was a woman beside him, blonde like Valdez, but her face turned away.”
“Canseco’s in Jacksonville,” Gershwin said. “And Valdez is off today. It’s on the board at the department. Besides …”
“Yeah,” I realized, still shooting glances at the rearview. “I haven’t exactly spent a lot of quality time with my colleagues. I’m amazed I can remember their names.”
36
Gershwin and I retraced our steps to the department. I passed Degan’s office and saw him at his desk, sleeves rolled up, the huge revolver in a shoulder rig and looking like an upholstered cannon. A case file was spread across the desk. Tatum stood beside the hulking Degan. Instead of tormenting a Styrofoam cup, he was shuffling pages in a file. I stuck my head in the door.
“Roy in today?” I asked.
“Jacksonville,” Degan grunted. “In tomorrow.”
“Hot case?” I asked, nodding at the file.
Tatum shrugged, not looking at me. “Counterfeiters.”
“I thought you were in Boca Raton today, Detective Degan.”
“Guess I got back.” He didn’t look up.
Six words from two colleagues, I tapped the door frame and continued down the hall. “You know McDermott’s in Jacksonville,” Gershwin said. “You told me that yesterday. What’s with the question?”
“Just gauging today’s enmity quotient.”
“And?”
I waggled a hand. “Chilly but not frosty. I think they’re starting to love us.”
“Yeah. And tomorrow’s forecast is for twelve feet of snow.”
We went to the office and I kept my phone close, but nothing from the girl. I tried not to think of her brave face at the information desk a dozen stories below my feet, but kept wondering how she was surviving. Twice I stood from my desk and went to the window. Call me, I thought, trying to beam my thoughts through the city. Call me.
My friend Clair Peltier – physician, pathologist, scientist – believed in synchronicity: hidden interstices below time and space where wishes, dreams, actions and events formed linkages unfathomable to the human mind. Clair might say that if I wished hard enough, I could create a ripple in the bosons that would nudge Leala to a phone.
My bosons weren’t rippling, and I was at the window a third time when my cell rang, Delmara. “We need walkie-talkies,” he said. “So I don’t have to dial every time I have something cool for you.”
“I’ll get Roy to buy us some. What you got, buddy?”
“A guy got busted yesterday for a smash and grab, Blaine Mullard. For some reason Mullard asked to see me, hoping I could get him a break. I asked what he had to trade. It’s a story you’ll want to hear.”