The Death Box (5 page)

“My top people, Carson,” Roy boasted. “There are fifteen other investigators and you’ll meet them all soon enough, but this is the A-plus Team: Major Crimes. When it’s too much or too big for the munies to handle, even the big-city departments, it comes to our division of the FCLE, right, my cupcakes?”

No one so much as nodded. A squealing sound pulled my attention to the guy heading the table, pressing fifty and looking like a retired heavyweight boxer, six-four or five, two-fifty or thereabouts, heavy features under a slab brow and steel-gray crew cut. Thick fingers were busy pinching pieces from the lip of a Styrofoam cup. He’d pinch, add the piece to a growing pile beside the cup, pinch again. Each pinch made the cup squeal.

“This is Charlie Degan,” Roy said. “It was Chuckles here who almost single-handedly took down the Ortega mob back in 2004.”

I smiled and nodded. “I remember when the Ortega enterprises went belly-up. Helluva job, Detective Degan.”

He nodded without commitment as the fingernails chomped at the cup. I doubted anyone else could have called the monster Chuckles, but it sounded as natural as rain from Roy McDermott.

Roy moved down the dour queue to the sole woman in the room, early forties, her olive face holding huge dark eyes framed by hair as brightly strident as a new trumpet. Her teeth were toothpaste-commercial white and could be glimpsed in flashes as she chewed pink gum.

“This is Celia Valdez,” Roy said. “Ceel was the FCLE agent of the year last year.”

My offer of congratulations was cut off by a snap of gum. Roy moved to the next guy, fortyish and olive-complected with flint-edged cheekbones and slender, cruel lips below a pencil-thin mustache. His chestnut hair was just long enough to display a curl and he wore a gray silk suit with a pink shirt and turquoise tie. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Roy’d found the guy at a Samba competition.

“That brings us to Lonnie Canseco. Say hi to Carson, Lon.”

Canseco rolled eyes. I hoped it was how he showed joy.

“Lonnie came here from Pensacola, where he did first-rate work in Homicide. But the advancement breaks weren’t coming his way. So I grabbed the collar of his Bill Blass suit and yanked him to my crime crew.”

Canseco yawned. Roy smiled and progressed to the last face at the table, a slender black guy. He was in his mid-thirties with a mobile, puckish face and short hair, wearing a loose brown blazer over blue slacks, his white shirt open at the neck.

“And this fella on the end is Leon Tatum. Lee was a county mountie who got fired for asking questions about the local landfill. He spent the next four months digging into records and asking questions. What you get for that, Lee?”

“Fired.”

“But Lee moved to Tallahassee to root through records up there. Turns out the fill was being used for dumping hazardous chemicals and had been for years, a huge moneymaker for some corrupt politicos.”

“Four or five years back?” I said. “I recall the FBI perp-walking a Florida politico who’d been involved in a chemical-dumping scheme. That was yours?”

Tatum shrugged, no big deal. Roy shook his head. “Unfortunately, our brothers at the federal level managed to grab the lion’s share of the credit and we all know how that goes.”

“Fuckers,” Degan grunted, torturing the cup. “Dirty, rotten, underhanded, ass-sucking federal snotlickers.”

“Two weeks later Lee was here.” Roy beamed. “Jeez, has it been five years, Lee?”

Tatum puckered and blew McDermott a kiss. “Every day one of sweetness and light, Roy.”

Roy looked out over his crew with paternal joy. “And that’s the crime crew, our crème de la crima of investigative specialists and my sweet beauties. Plus there’s our art expert, gang consultant, computer whiz, financial guy. You’ll meet them as you need their specific services.”

A cleared throat. Everyone turned to the guy in the corner, chair tilted back against the wall. When I scanned him my eyes didn’t register
Cop
, they said,
Skate Punk
. I ballparked him at twenty-five or so, with the whippy build of a skateboarder though the upper body had spent time with the weights. He wore a floppy tee advertising a bar in Lauderdale under a black leather vest, tight and beltless Levis pulled from the bottom of the laundry basket, white socks and blue suede Vans with rubber soles.

“Sorry,” Roy said. “This here’s Ziggy Gershwin, Carson. He’s currently with us for, uh, training. Charlie’s his mentoring officer.”

I looked at Degan, still tormenting the cup. Pinch. Squeak. He didn’t look thrilled. Roy slapped my back, gave me the
Say Something
look and I pushed a bright and false smile to my face and started to stand. Before I could open my mouth, Canseco pushed from the table.

“Can we go now, Cap?” he said. “I got work to do.”

The rest of the crew made the motions of escape. No one so much as glanced at me. Roy held up both hands. “Hold on … As I mentioned to y’all yesterday, Carson’s gonna lead on the cistern case. That means you folks have to be his resources.”

Someone moaned. It wasn’t Valdez since she was already complaining. “… guess my big question, Cap, how come Ryder’s getting this action? We know the rules, we know the territory, we’ve got the chops. A cistern stuffed with corpses should be ours.”

Roy crossed his arms and leaned the wall. “You know what I been telling you, sweet peas. Mr Ryder knows how crazies operate. He’s the best.”

“It’s fucking Florida, Roy,” Degan growled. “Every fourth person is a psycho. We’ve all tracked ’em and taken them down. We don’t need a freakin’ profiler.”

“There’s more than profiling,” I said. “You’ve got to—”

“Figure out are they organized or disorganized,” Canseco interrupted, “sexual or nonsexual. Sadistic? Vengeful? We all know how to read psychos and every shrink tries to turn it into a bigger deal than it is.”

“Fucking A,” Valdez popped. “Fucking A-plus.”

Roy rubbed his big palms together. “How often do you hear me say my mind’s made up, chillun?”

‘’Bout once every two years, boss,” Tatum said.

“Then you got nothing to worry about for the next twenty-three months. Class dismissed.”

The group filed out like scolded schoolchildren. Only Gershwin acknowledged my existence, pausing to extend his fist as he stepped past. I knocked my knuckles against his.

“Nice meeting you, Alabama,” he grinned. “Welcome to the Sunshine State.”

6

“Leala Rosales? That’s your name?”

“Y-y-yes, señorita.”

“Stop your bawling. You look like you have something to say. What is it?”

“Th-the man, the man who b-brought me here … h-he did things to me in the car. Fi-filthy, sinful things and—”

A crack like a whip.

“Do you know what that slap was for little Leala? LOOK AT ME WHEN I TALK TO YOU! It was for being a snitch. NEVER tell me such things. And what the gentleman did was not filthy … it’s how you make money. And you better start making money, little Leala. You have a debt to be paid off.”

“P-please, señorita. I want … to go back. To g-go home.”

“In that case you must pay what you owe plus the return costs. Do you have thirty thousand dollars?”

“I HAVE NOTHING! I w-was told that …”

“You must work, Leala. It’s as simple as that. And there is one very important thing you must know: It is about the police. They are
muy peligrosa
, dangerous. They hate illegals and will throw you in prison for ever. Look into my eyes, Leala, so that you will see the truth. Do you see it?”

“Y-yes.”

“The man who told you of our service. Back in Honduras. Does he not know exactly where you are from?”

A tentative nod. “
Si
. He has been to my home.”

“Then here is God’s truth, Leala: If you are ever stupid enough to talk to the police, you will never see your mama again. You will return to a headstone.”

“No … please …”

“So now you know what you must do. Pay your debt.”

“I c-c-can cook, I can clean. I-I was told I might be a housekeeper.”

“Are you a virgin?”

“I-I did not hear. What did you say?”

“You seem as stupid as you are beautiful. I’ll say it slowly so maybe you can understand: Are you a virgin, Leala Rosales? Have you managed to keep the peasants and priests from your pussy?”

“The man in the car, he …”

“He fucked your mouth. Hopefully you learned something useful. Come here and lift your dress. My finger will tell me.”

“P-please señorita, I beg you. No.”

“No is not a word you can use any more, Leala Rosales.”

The footsteps of the investigative staff disappeared down the hall. Roy broke the silence. “That went well, I think.”

“Went well? I was smelling a lynching.”

“You’re over-reacting, bud. My guys are intuitive detectives, edgy and a bit self-centered. Like most natural-born dicks they’re basically high-strung children.”

I shot Roy the eye. He said, “Present company excepted, of course.”

“It was like they had a personal grudge against me, Roy. I understand being pissy about me having the case, but it seemed bigger than that.”

Roy beamed at me like I’d just called every winner at Hialeah an hour before the starting bell. “You are beautiful, Carson. Reading people, situations. You absolutely nailed it.”

“Nailed what?”

“Initially I planned to add a junior investigator to the staff, got Tallahassee to budget the extra bucks, with enough left over to bump my guys up a well-deserved grade in pay, two actually.”

“And?”

“Then I thought, why a junior investigator? I’ll put the money into a seasoned pro. The idea felt so good I thought,
Go even further, Roy
. So I decided to not only hire a senior investigator but one who was a specialist in crazos as well, more bang for the buck. Bingo, here you are.”

I replayed Roy’s scenario in my head, following the money. I was making double my salary in Mobile. I sighed. “Degan, Valdez, Canseco, Tatum … not one of them got a raise, did they, Roy? What would a two-grade jump average, about seven grand?”

“Closer to ten, actually. No big deal, there’s another state budget session in the winter. I’ll get the guys their jumps then.”

Not being a high-strung child I avoided banging my head against the wall. “So not only do I grab a plum case from your crew, I’ve pulled ten grand from their wallets.”

Roy’s brow wrinkled in puzzlement. “I told you some of this, right? Before you got here?”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Sorry, things get tangled in my head at times. Probably because I’m still figuring it all out.”

“The crew hates me,” I said, perilously close to a moan. “They won’t rest until I go down in flames.”

Roy’s hand fell over my shoulder. “You’re a pro and they’re pros. Maybe it’ll be a teensy bit tough at first, but I know you, buddy. You’re gonna fly like an eagle.”

I slumped in Roy’s footsteps as he led me to where my office would be when in Miami, right now just a fifteen-by-fifteen box with a cheap metal desk and chair and a phone on the floor. The
why-am-I-here?
thoughts started afresh.

“You can work from wherever suits you, Carson. Here or at your place or from a ship at sea. If a police chief from Deltana says he’s got a perp killing hookers and chopping off their toes, you can advise what to look for. Or go to Deltana and handle the case directly. Your decision.”

“You give your people a lot of autonomy.”

“I’m a lazy bastard. When my crew handles stuff without me even knowing it, I’m thrilled. Basically, all I want to see are files stamped
Case Closed
.”

“Speaking of crew, what’s the word on that other guy? The kid who looks like a skate punk?”

Roy frowned, a rare event. “Ziggy Gershwin. Christ, did you ever hear a goofier name? Gershwin’s kind of a special case.”

A trio of clerical types passed by the open door, two women and a guy. They shot micro-glances inside:
Look at the new guy.

“Special?” I said. “How is Gershwin so special?”

“A couple months back a trio of Albanian psychopaths grabbed a ten-year-old kid from West Palm, wanted five mil in ransom. The family called the authorities. BOLOs went out on a green van noted at the scene, everything real hush-hush. Gershwin was a newbie county cop working in Glades County, rural, west of Okeechobee. Two days after the grab – by then the family had received a pinky finger—”

“Jesus.”

“Gershwin is roaming the backcountry and sees a green panel van parked outside a rental house …”

“He gets curious.”

Roy nodded. “He pulls down the road and sneaks back. Blinds are tight, nothing moving, just a single-story ranch with an outbuilding separated by a hundred feet of open grass. He creeps to a side window, peeks inside and sees the Albanians in the living room and the kid taped tight on the couch. Gershwin also sees a freakin’ armamentarium: Uzis and AKs, handguns, grenades and even a goddamn mounted RPG. It looked like an NRA convention in there.”

“He calls it and sits tight?”

“SWAT positions behind a canebrake on the far side of the house, everyone scared a full-on assault meant a dead kid.”

I felt my heart thumping. Roy pulled a cigar and began twirling it.

“In the meantime, one of the Albanians is getting progressively freakier. He’s suddenly got a knife out, grabbing the kid’s hair and pulling his face up. Gershwin realizes the guy is gonna slice the kid’s nose off.”

Roy studied the cigar as if wondering whether he could get away with smoking in the building.

“Christ, Roy, don’t leave me hanging. What’d Gershwin do?”

“Radioed the commander that the Albanians were dragging the kid out the back door.”

“Gershwin
lied
?”

“Said he needed a fast distraction. Naturally, the SWAT team charges toward the rear. The Albanians hear the commotion, forget the kid and run for the artillery.”

My palms had started sweating. “Damn. And?”

“Gershwin smashes the window and tosses two grenades, a flash-bang and a stunner, comes in after them. He nails one in the chest and the others dive out a side door screaming, ‘No shoot, no shoot.’”