"Privileged, my ass," Corallo said. "You wanna go to jail?"
"For what?" I said. "A dinky little misdemeanor?"
Cruz folded his thick hands and got judicial. "Criminal trespass is a misdemeanor," he agreed. "Evidence tampering's a felony. One to five."
Weakly, I said, "Years?"
The muscle-bound cop leaned closer and I smelled him. Sweat mixed with deodorant is much worse than sweat alone. "And not in this fucking country club down here," he said. "Upstate." He raised his arm to point. "Where the real criminals go. Rapists. Killers. Lemme ask you something, Amsterdam. You like it up the ass? You fond of sucking big black dicks? Little white wuss like you, you'll be some bad boy's nancy ten minutes after you check in."
I knew they were just trying to scare me. It was working pretty well. I thought about my accountant and his bright ideas. Benny. Smart guy, with his sharpened pencils. Let him get corn-holed by the chain gang!
I shuffled my feet. I stalled for time. The big old greasy fans turned slowly, their heads shaking in mock sympathy.
Finally, feeling defeated, but feeling too the bleak relief that goes with losing, giving up, I said, "Okay. Let's talk about the boat."
15
Fearing complications, fearing I'm not sure exactly what, I told them as little as I thought I had to. Problem was, that's not the kind of thing I'm good at gauging. Since leaving the world of bosses and meetings, I'd lost the reflex of dishonesty. I could still bullshit when I had to, but now I really had to concentrate. The malarkey no longer flowed by second nature, as it must for people who have jobs.
But I didn't see how I could avoid telling them about Kenny Lukens. About his phony suicide and his intention of reclaiming what he'd stolen from Lefty's bar. About his one visit to my "office." About his murder that same night.
The cops looked at each other. The dimple on Cruz's chin seemed to get deeper; the bristly hairs looked darker. "The stiff from Sunset Key," he said.
"Exactly," I said. They'd let me sit down by now. I went to cross my legs. The bulk of the orange jumpsuit made it a difficult and somewhat clownish maneuver.
"And the second killing," said Corallo, in that sudden clarinet voice of his, "they're still looking for what Lukens stole."
A regular Holmes and Watson act. "Seems that way," I said.
We all took a moment to think. The sound of obsessive typing still came from some other office. The greasy fans turned slowly side to side.
Cruz leaned closer to me and said, "So wha'd he steal?"
"Excuse me?"
"What Lukens took," put in Corallo. "What the murderers are looking for. What is it?"
He was leaning toward me too, his heavy arms cantilevered into space. All this leaning changed the geometry of the room in a very unpleasant way. I said, "I have no idea."
"No idea?" said Cruz. His baseball hairline moved and I could have sworn that the stubble on his chin was growing before my eyes.
"Lukens didn't even know," I said. "He just thought he'd grabbed an extra shift's worth of cash. Couldn't understand why Lefty cared so much."
The cops looked at each other and apparently agreed that they were unconvinced. "Then what the hell were you looking for on that boat?" Corallo pressed.
"I don't know what I was looking for."
"Don't know what you were looking for," Cruz echoed, giving me a chance, I guess, to hear how dumb or how improbable I sounded. "Just casually snooping around."
I managed a moment's feistiness. "Just trying to figure out who killed my client."
"All by yourself," piped Corallo mockingly. The scorn narrowed his eyes and suddenly made his face seem waxy. Steroids probably, all those muscles. "Glory seeker."
Right, I thought. That's me all over.
There was a pause. Some drumming of thick fingers on metal desks. Finally Cruz said, "Wait a second. That's why you look familiar. You were at Ortega's funeral."
I hoped I didn't stiffen when he said that. Prominent among the many things I hadn't told the cops about—my talks with Maggie and with Lydia and with Andrus; the Hibiscus guest house and the matchbook; the men in snorkels and the confrontation on Green Turtle Cay—was my visit with Lefty at the hospital. I sure didn't want to go into it now. "That's right," I said. "I was."
"How come?" said Corallo.
"To see if there was anything to learn."
"Like?" said Cruz.
I shrugged. "Like—who knows? Just to get a sense of who his friends were, how he operated."
"And wha'd ya figure out?" Corallo pressed.
"I figured out about that thingie they use to cram the coffins into the high-up crypts."