The Death Box(81)

I shook my head. “Nope. Guess the shopping center people were the first to see somethin’ useful in that scrubby ol’ parcel. Prob’ly useless since the dinosaurs.”

The hand was over. Roy reached out and pulled his winnings close, about three bucks from the look of it. The others flipped cards to the table.

“You’re wrong there, buddy,” Roy said, setting his coins in stacks. “It was owned from a long time back.” He scraped his chair around to face me, happy to set a stranger straight. “Walt Driscoll owned forty or so acres, ran some cattle there from the late sixties to early eighties. Walt was a buddy. I spoke at his funeral.”

I took a sip of beer and affected benign curiosity. “Walkin’ that parcel tonight? I nearly fell into a big ol’ hole in the ground. Driscoll ever mention a well or cistern on the land? If I’d gone down that sumbitch I don’t believe Lassie coulda found me.”

Laughter, but it was an easy room to play. Roy tipped back the hat and the eye crinkles deepened as he scratched his stubbled chin. “’Y’know, I recall Walt digging something for groundwater to seep into. A stash for the occasional drought. Wasn’t long after that Walt got into Brahma bulls and moved the herd to his main ranch by Okeechobee.”

“Better forage, I expect.” I fake-yawned. “Land go dead after that?”

“Walt made a few bucks from the land rental. More, I expect, when he sold it to some New York Jew. The guy was gonna build houses, but died.”

I knew about Feldstein, but this was the first I’d heard of the land being rented out. “Rental?” I asked. “To another rancher?”

A shrug. “Some company used it to store stuff until it was needed. Derricks, or maybe it was scaffolds. Stacks of long metal frames. There were a couple ol’ trailers parked out there as well, prob’ly to haul the stuff. It was a buncha years back.”

I drank the rest of my beer and knocked the bar with my knuckles. “Thanks for the history, gennulmen.”

“Enjoy the Weather Channel, mister.”

I stood a couple rounds for the house which, judging by the response, was a rare experience. I drove away to a pull-off along the road, telling Gershwin what I’d dug up, then pulled my phone and called Delmara. I heard sounds in the background, muted voices and a jazz tune.

“Question, Vince. You mentioned the cab-company owner who bought Driscoll’s parcel, remember?”

“Not well. But I’m here in Scully’s with my trusty briefcase by my side. My wife won’t let me in the door until I’ve had a couple pops.”

“Good woman. You mentioned the cab guy’s wife saying something. What was it?”

“Lemme check, lemme check.” A briefcase snapped open. Pages rattled for a minute. “Yep … Myrna Feldstein. What she said was hubby walked the parcel exactly once to see if he could get all that stuff cleared off.”

Stuff? Stuff!

“Thanks, Vince. I owe you a bottle of whatever you’re drinking.”

“Shit. I went bottom shelf. How ’bout I lie?”

I assured him he was drinking single-malt and rang off. I turned to Gershwin, tapping a rhythm on his thighs to burn off nervous energy.

“Damn, Zigs. I’d figured Feldstein was talking about brush, clearing it off for houses. He was talking about clearing out some kind of equipment that looked to the guy at the bar like derrick superstructure or scaffolding.”

“Which you think it was?”

“Neither. I think the land was rented as an overflow lot for crane towers and booms. They take up a lot of room.”

“Cranes?” Gershwin frowned. “Where have I heard that before?”

“Our preacher man out at Redi-flow, Ziggy. Kazankis’s daddy had a rental-crane biz, remember? Olympia.”

“The old Olympia building’s by Redi-flow, Big Ryde. Miles from here.”

“Doesn’t matter. All Kazankis needed was a few acres of cheap land to store the big crane parts. This is actually closer to Miami, where I figure the bulk of the cranes got hauled to.”

Gershwin went still as stone. I saw him making the connections in his head and considering the implications.

“We go see Kazankis now?”

“Not with the hazy recollections of one old card sharp to go on. Let’s see what Clayton comes up with. And let’s put the microscope on salvation man before we talk. I want to see into his holy pores.”

George Kazankis sat at the wooden desk in his shadowed office, penciling on a spreadsheet under the amber glow of a desk lamp. Outside his window the light on the high tower blazed over the black cross and the conveyor assemblies resembled skeletal remains set against the stars. He rose and checked the main room a second time just to be sure: a half-dozen empty desks; he was alone.