Miami Noir (22 page)

Rebel grabbed my wrist and yanked me back into my seat.

“Twenty-five percent,” Dmitri said.

I live well, but not fancy, in a nice one-bedroom a block from the beach in Surfside. I have my T-bird. I have $70k sitting in a box at Banque de Geneve in Nassau, $20k buried in coffee cans in the trees lining the seventh fairway at Doral, and my working bankroll of $10k stashed in a shoebox in my AC vent. If they hit for $1.5 mill, the lawyer took a third—$250k would make a gigantic difference in my life. Enough to bankroll me for a shot at the World Poker Tour, maybe the big one at Binion’s. Maybe even buy a little condo. “No,” I said.

Rebel moved her hand up under the table and unsnapped my pants, pulled down the zip of my jeans, and slipped her hand into my boxers.

“All right,” Dmitri said. “Even split. One-third each.”

Rebel gently ran her nails up and down my rock-hard dick. She came close and whispered in my ear with hot breath, “Please, Two-ways?”

I shook my head no. “Okay. A third.”

Friday I got up early, around noon, and drove up the Palmetto to Alligator Alley and cruised across the Everglades to Fort Myers in my T-bird with the top down. I found a Super Wal-Mart and bought a black long-sleeved shirt, two pairs of black socks, a Yankees cap, wraparound shades, a pair of flared black jeans a couple of inches longer in the inseam than usual, four dog leashes, a roll of duct tape, a box of flesh-colored latex gloves, a box of safety matches, a $12 Casio watch, a dark-blue bandanna, a showercap, a small plastic wastebin, a five-gallon gas can, a bottle of Astroglide, a package of three condoms, and a small backpack. Cash, of course. Then I went to Payless and purchased a pair of size-eleven shoes with four-inch cork platforms—told the nearly oblivious clerk they were a gift, to explain why a size-nine guy was buying elevens. I bought a roll of quarters at a beach-front arcade, then stopped into a Supercuts for a buzzcut.

I drove home across the Alley, the winter sun setting behind me. I headed to the never-ending traffic construction on Biscayne, found a job on a deserted side street, hopped out of the T-bird, grabbed two orange traffic cones and a barricade, threw them in my trunk, then drove across the bay. I cruised South Beach waiting for a suitable parking space to open up on Washington. One finally did right where I wanted, just south of Lincoln Road. I pulled up alongside it, set the cones and barricade in it, and headed home.

I filled the T-bird and the five-gallon gas can at the Mobil on Harding around the corner from my apartment, then put the gas can in the trunk. In my apartment-house parking lot I looked about, found a perfect pebble—about a quarter-inch, rounded, with no sharp edges—and pocketed it. I placed my purchases in the backpack in the order I’d need them, last items on the bottom, first on top, shoved in a big green trash bag, then set the radio alarm for 9:45 and settled in for a nap to catch up on my lost sleep.

Jimmy Buffet woke me singing “Margaritaville” on the classic rock station. I spent a half hour shaving every hair off my body from the eyes down. I trimmed my eyebrows, made sure I had no loose eyelashes, then showered, wiping every speck of hair off my body. I dressed in my usual blue jeans and tee, strapped on the Casio, grabbed the backpack, put the pebble, quarters, and a plastic hotel key card Dmitri had given me in my pocket and headed out. In the parking lot I unscrewed the little light bulb over my license tag, put the trash can from Wal-Mart in the trunk with the gas, and threw the backpack on the passenger seat. I checked the Casio—an hour forty to go.

I drove past the Jackie Gleason across Lincoln Road to Washington Avenue, with all its spiffed-up Deco buildings—pastel paint jobs and colored lights showing off the architectural accents. I pulled up to my space, threw the cones and barricade back in the trunk, and parallel parked. South Beach parking spaces on weekend nights are like gold. I filled the meter with four hours’ worth of quarters, then ambled down to the 11th Street Diner. The 11th is famous for the best meatloaf sandwiches this side of your mom’s kitchen and the best milkshakes anywhere. But it suited me this night because it’s 24/7 and bustles with club-goers from around 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.

I made my way past the crowded booths to the john in back, stepped into a stall, and hung the backpack on the hook on the door. I pulled out the Wal-Mart black jeans, socks, and black shirt and changed into them. I put on the showercap, tied the bandanna around my head so that not a single hair showed, pulled the Yankees cap over it, and slipped on the wraparounds. I shoved the extra socks into the toes of the platforms and set the pebble carefully so it rested just under my arch, and put on the shoes. I pulled on a pair of the flesh-colored latex gloves, shoved my sneaks, jeans, and T-shirt into the backpack.

Then I sat on the pot for five minutes so nobody who’d been in the bathroom still lingered, stepped out of the stall, through the diner, and back onto Washington. The SoBe party crowd milled about, just starting to cook. Teenagers wanting to be older, boomers wanting to be younger, loads of twenty-somethings wanting to be seen. Glitz, glamour, and grunge, hip-hoppers in baggy shorts with legacy hoops jerseys and hooded sweatshirts, supermodel-wannabes in short, slinky dresses, random retros in Goth, buffed-up boys in muscle shirts, bikers and beachboys and babes. I blended right in.

Rap, industrial, and hip-hop boomed from a parade of tricked-out cars circling through the Deco District, bass throbbing from over-powered woofers. Lines formed outside the most popular clubs. I ambled amid the throng up and across to Collins Avenue, the platforms making me a six-foot-one guy, not five-nine, with a marked limp from the pebble in my shoe. Poker players not only observe body language as part of the art of reading tells, but notice what their opponents observe, and then try to use that knowledge to deceive them. Real winners make this observation a habit of their lives. I’d discovered over years of watching what people see that you always notice, at least subconsciously, how people walk. The limp disguised me as much as the shades and the platform shoes.

Two blocks up Collins stood the former Hotel Roosevelt, a streamlined, thirty-five-story Art Deco masterpiece, restored beyond its former glory, renamed the Delano and now owned by an over-the-hill rock diva struggling to stay cool. Right that moment I found myself in my own struggle to stay cool. My palms were sweating in the latex gloves, a sharp ache throbbed in my shoulders. I took a deep breath. Focus, I told myself. Think, don’t react. Adjust as each card comes off the deck. I breathed deeply, put myself in game mode, all focus, focus, focus. Just keep on reading the situation and make the right play. One card after another, one hand then the next, one step after another, then the next, until I found myself walking past the valets and doormen into the Delano’s ornate lobby. I checked the Casio—still running good.

Bodies ebbed and flowed through the lobby from the adjoining coffee shop and nightclub. Dmitri stood at the concierge’s desk. As I made my way through the bustle to the elevators at the back, the concierge handed him a slip of paper and made some motions with his hands as if giving directions. Dmitri tipped the concierge and headed out the grand entrance I had just come through.

I rode the elevator alone to the fourth floor. Dmitri had scouted two cameras on every floor, each pointing toward the center, showing half the hallway to the elevator. If he’d done his job, the camera at the east end would be tilted upward, leaving a blind spot so that the doors to the last four rooms or so were out of view.

I turned west and stopped at the end of the hall, in clear camera view, and tried a random door with the Holiday Inn key card Dmitri had given me at the Road. It wouldn’t open the door, of course, but I wanted the cameras to see. Then I tried another door. I slapped my forehead as if I’d screwed up and walked to the east end, and now out of camera view went through the fire-escape door and took the stairs down to the third floor.

The camera here should be tilted too, but ever so slightly, so just the last room was unwatched. I opened the fire-escape door a crack and peeked down the hall. A lone couple entangled in an embrace stood waiting for the elevator. I checked the room numbers on both sides of the fire escape door. On my left, 327, just as Dmitri had said. I pushed on the door and it gave way. The small piece of matchbook that Dmitri had stuck in the latch so it wouldn’t catch fell to the floor. I shut the door quietly behind me, picked up the bit of matchbook, put it in my pocket, and slipped into the room.

Rebel didn’t look up as the door latch clicked. She sat on the edge of the canopied, king-size bed wearing only her panties—pink bikini bottoms—sucking on a cigarette, clinking ice cubes in a cocktail glass. A half-empty bottle of Jack stood on the nightstand. The bedcovers had been tossed on the floor. She caressed the bed. “Never in my life have I slept on sheets this soft, Two-ways,” she said. “But at five hundred a night, you should get nice sheets.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I just nodded.

She stood and faced me. Near-naked she was as perfect as I’d imagined.

Rebel handed me a buck knife. “Dima said you should cut the panties off with this, then before you go, hold it against my throat hard enough to make a mark. And leave the knife when you’re done. It leads someplace a million miles from any of us.”

I took the knife from her, opened it, slipped the blade between the skin of her hip and the panties, and cut. They fell to the floor. Her pubes were shaved. Above her pussy,
DIMA
was tattooed in script, inside a heart. “You look nice.”

“I don’t look ‘nice.’ I’m fucking
hot
. So fucking hot that you lose all control and just fucking take me. So hot you can’t think straight.” She grabbed my crotch. “Jesus Christ. Here I am, the hottest woman you’ll ever fuck as long as you live, standing buck-naked for you to take, and you don’t even have a hard-on.”

I’d wanted to bed Rebel since the first time I saw her. Here she stood naked in all her glory for me to have. I couldn’t remember a less erotic moment with a beautiful girl in my life.

“Two-ways, let’s do this. We’re on a schedule.”

I took the leashes, Astroglide, duct tape, and condoms from the backpack and set them on the bed.

“You’re going to wear a condom? Rapists don’t wear fucking condoms.”

“It’s the twenty-first century, Reb. Rapists worry about STDs as much as the next guy. And smart rapists don’t leave a load of DNA inside you for some crime-lab geek to analyze. If I’m going to be a rapist, I’m going to be as smart a rapist as I can be.”

“Dima won’t like it.”

“Screw Dima.”

“No—screw me. Right fucking now! Get naked already.”

I stripped clumsily, sure I looked foolish in the bandanna, platforms, and latex gloves.

“Jesus Christ, Bobby, you’re still not hard.” She grabbed my dick and squeezed. “Doesn’t this thing work?” She pushed me onto the bed, deftly manipulated my dick until it finally stood at attention, then tore open a condom and slipped it on. She crawled on the bed and threw her arms and legs wide, spread-eagled.

I looped a dog leash around each of her wrists and ankles, then tied them to the feet of the bed, snapped the d-ring at the end of each into place.

She strained at the leashes. “Left arm’s not tight enough,” she said.

I adjusted the leash securing her left arm, then crawled atop her—and realized I had gone soft.

She laughed. “Do you have this problem often?”

“N-n-never.”

“Jesus Christ, untie me.” I did as she said.

“You should have taken some Vitamin V.” She pressed against me, kissed my neck while holding my dick, wrapped her legs around me, massaged my thigh with her pussy. My dick grew, this time with conviction. She went down on me, playing with my balls while she moved her mouth up and down my shaft, until I was about to come. She climbed up my body, whispered in my ear, “Hold that thought for five minutes.”

I tied her again to the bed, opened another condom, pulled it on, climbed back atop her, and tried to slip myself into her. She was completely dry. I rolled off her and, rubbing my dick against her leg to keep my hard-on, began to massage her clit.

“That won’t work,” she said. “Use the Astroglide.”

I squirted the lube on her pussy, massaged her insides with my fingers, filling her with wetness. I climbed on top again—but again I had gone soft.

“Listen, Two-ways, you don’t have to come, but you do have to get it inside me. I know from experience the police rape kit will show whether or not you penetrated.”

I untied her and she repeated her oral magic, bringing me once more to the edge of orgasm. This time I didn’t tie her but let the animal in me take over—I threw her back on the bed and mounted her quickly, shoving and humping and grunting until I exploded. I rolled off her onto the bed and began to laugh, a little nervously—at myself.

“We’re behind schedule,” she said matter-of-factly. “Get me tied down.”

I tied her to the bed for the third time, pulled the leashes tight as I could.

“Now hit me in the face. Hard.”

I hesitated. “I’ve never hit a girl and I’m not going to start now.”

“Goddamnit, Two-ways. The more I’m hurt, the more we can win. Hit me.”

I shook my head no. “Sorry, Reb. I won’t. Can’t.”

“Dima’s going to be pissed.”

“Screw Dima.”

“You said that already. Don’t ever say it to him. He’s not one to be fucked with.”

I dressed in my Wal-Mart outfit, shoved the used condoms and wrappers into the pockets of the jeans, and put the Astroglide in the backpack. I picked up the knife.

“At least hold the knife against my throat,” Rebel said. “Cut me some.”

I did as she said, leaning over her with the blade held tight against her throat, but away from her jugular.

“Harder,” she said.

“Shit, Rebel, how the hell do I know how much is hard enough?”

“Just do it, Bobby. Harder!”

I pressed down harder, afraid that I might hurt her. I managed to break the skin without doing any more damage. A rivulet of blood trickled down her neck.