Nobody Lives Forever (23 page)

Dusty reluctantly kept the appointment with Dr. Feigleman. She dreaded and resented it. Seeing a shrink was, to her, a sign of weakness. On the farm where she'd grown up, back in Jericho, you did not whine, or cry, or run for help when things went wrong. You worked through it, you carried on. Strong and self-disciplined, she kept her secret hurts to herself.

She hoped all the people she worked with would not learn about her session with the shrink. Feigleman was not famous for keeping secrets. Though in private practice, he was also consultant to the department. His quotes about the problems of police officers appeared regularly in the newspapers, and he often granted radio and television interviews. He never mentioned names, but everybody always seemed to know who he was talking about and who was seeing him. Dusty did not want to become a case study for one of the many articles he wrote for police and FBI journals.

Feigleman did not see officers at headquarters, in order to preserve their privacy. His office was located in a medical building, but it was near the justice complex, and there is no more fertile ground for gossip than the police community. Talk about little old ladies, Dusty thought, cops are the worst of all.

She cringed inwardly at the touch of Feigleman's cool but clammy skin as they shook hands. His mustache was neatly combed, and his face over the bowtie was attentive and almost too eager. She made it clear that the session was not voluntary on her part and she considered it unnecessary.

“The first step to solving our problems,” he said cheerfully, “is to confront them.”

She did not answer, and he began to discuss stress management, stress overload, conflict management, chronic tension and burnout.

“People change when they become police officers,” he concluded, folding his hands in front of him. “You become tough and hard and cynical, because you must. It helps you to survive, but sometimes you find yourself behaving that way all the time and it becomes a problem.”

“But if you became emotionally involved with all the things you see on the job, you'd wind up in a padded cell.”

“Are you ever afraid?”

“Of course. Anybody who's not afraid is a fool. It's cops who are not afraid, who think they will live forever or who become complacent and fatalistic, who get hurt or killed. Fear is your best friend. The trick is that you can never show it.”

“Any job-related personal difficulties?”

“I like to handle my own problems.” She knew as she spoke the words that she'd said them too quickly, too sharply. He seemed pleased and waggled a warning index finger at her.

“That is typical of the subculture police officers belong to. Emotional problems are seen as weaknesses, and therefore a threat to your macho image as ‘the crime fighter.' ”

“I like to think of it as being grown up,” she said sweetly.

“Any problems with alcohol?”

“I drink socially, but no problem.”

“How much do you drink?”

“Wine, with dinner.”

“How much wine?” He was trying to appear casual.

“Doctor, there is no problem there, I can assure you.”

“Are there ever mornings after when you can't remember what happened the night before?”

“Good God, no. Maybe sometimes I wish I
could
forget.” She could not resist that little self-deprecatory remark, though she knew she should have. He scribbled something on a yellow pad in front of him.

“Sex problems?”

“Only lack of. I'm single, doctor, with no immediate prospects.”

“Do you have a problem relating to men?”

“Not as much a problem as most men have relating to a woman who carries a badge and a gun and can put them in jail.”

The way he fidgeted and rubbed his smooth hands together while discussing her sex life made her uncomfortable. He was obviously eager for something kinky, something to write about in his next article.

“How's your relationship with your father?”

“It was fine.”

“He's no longer with us?”

“He lives in Iowa, still operates the farm where I grew up. I haven't been back there for some time.”

“Is there some reason?”

She hesitated. “Yes,” she said. “I love Miami.”

“It isn't much like Iowa, is it? Working in homicide, how do you manage to cope with the horrors you encounter daily, such as opening the freezer in that suspect's apartment the other day?”

She suddenly realized that her arms were tightly folded in front of her, body language that must make her look defensive, like a suspect, for God's sake. She quickly unfolded them and for a split second was not sure what to do with them. She wished she had accepted the coffee he had offered when she arrived. A cup would have been something to hold on to. She placed her hands demurely in her lap. “As a professional,” she said carefully, “you can't express emotion, disgust or anger, but as a human being, you do have feelings. I try to convert that energy into motivation, to get the job done, to solve the case, to seek justice for the victim. And I try to work off the physical stress with exercise. Want to see my bicep?”

He smiled, his long fingers forming a pyramid in front of him. “Am I that intimidating? You're acting like a little girl sent to the principal's office.”

“Maybe I feel like the little girl sent to the principal's office for no good reason.”

“Do you like your life? Is it good?”

“Almost,” she said, and smiled wistfully. “Only one thing missing, and I'm working on it.”

After she left his office, he glanced at what he had scribbled on his notepad: “Needs to get laid.” Chuckling, he tore off the page, crumpled it and tossed it into the wastebasket.

Dusty strode into homicide, relieved that the session was over. A message was waiting.

J.L. had called, wanting her to meet him “in the garden with the Fat Man.”

“Can you make any sense of that?” asked the puzzled secretary who took the message.

“Yeah.” Dusty smiled. “When did this come in?”

“Ten, fifteen minutes ago.”

It was a short drive to the Japanese Garden on Watson Island, just off the MacArthur Causeway. Donated to the people of Miami by a friendly Japanese industrialist years ago, the garden is just minutes from downtown. The perfect place to meet a confidential informant, centrally located and safe. The only other visitors are strangers. Out-of-towners. Local people almost never visit their own tourist attractions.

A small, open-sided teahouse and a pagoda grace the garden, but the centerpiece is a giant stone statue of Hotei, the incarnation of happiness. The Fat Man. Rub his big round belly, so goes the tradition, and good fortune will find you.

The garden was one of J. L. Sly's favorite haunts. He was practicing his kung fu moves at the edge of the reflecting pool.

“Miss Dustin, or should I say Miz Dustin, or perhaps Detective Dustin?” Loquacious as usual, he wore a white shirt open at the throat and white trousers.

“Just Dusty,” she sighed. “We've known each other long enough, J.L. Once you read somebody their rights and put them in jail, I guess you're on a first-name basis.”

“Dwelling upon the flaws in the universe can lead to bad karma.”

“I'd glad it's behind us,” she said. “No hard feelings?”

“It was but a moment in infinity.” They strolled together over the small wooden bridge. “But something is troubling you.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“You may hide something from the world but nothing from a true friend of the spirit.”

She sighed aloud. “It's a long story that neither you nor the spirits want to hear.” They sat on a stone bench shaded by a silver buttonwood.

“Perhaps I can brighten the day of one so beautiful.”

“Try me.”

“At the occasion of our last meeting, after the unpleasantries we have all put to rest, I recall your partner referring to two gentlemen of the Colombian persuasion, one of whom might have certain characteristics about his countenance.”

“You mean a singed face.” Dusty was suddenly all attention.

“You are full of wisdom, as well as beautiful.”

“You have a line on where they are?”

“Indirectly. A certain lady of their acquaintance has come to my attention.”

“Where can we find her?”

“In business at the Jolly Roger Motel and Dream Bar on Biscayne Boulevard. The name is Little Bit. She has been heard to discuss a number of encounters with the two gentlemen in question, both before and after one of them lost all the hair on his face in an unfortunate mishap. She entertained them at a location shared by a brief acquaintance of mine. He was extremely uncommunicative. He wore a tag on his toe.”

“Bingo! Thank you, J.L.,” she said fervently.

“And now, tell me what dark cloud has cast its shadow across your countenance? Is there some dragon I can slay, some wrong I can right, in order to restore your smile?”

“No, this information sounds good. It really helps. The rest I have to take care of myself. But thank you.”

“If happiness be your destiny,” he told her, “you need not be in a hurry.”

She brightened. “You know, you're beginning to make sense, J.L. That probably should worry me.”

She fought the ridiculous impulse to hug him. His words, she thought, are the second good omen in twenty-four hours. Everything will be all right, she told herself. She rubbed the big belly of the grinning statue for luck and left the garden.

They picked up Little Bit not long after dark. She was flagging cars on the Boulevard. Business must have been slow at the Dream Bar, an intriguing establishment with only twenty stools but at least eighteen “waitresses” usually on the premises.

A thin dishwater blonde with a ruddy complexion, Little Bit smoked crack and spoke a smattering of both Spanish and Creole, just enough for basic communication with her clientele. She was wearing cutoff blue jeans and a halter top. More provocative attire was currently unfashionable among the Boulevard hookers because of recent vice squad crackdowns. In more modest dress, the girls could insist they were not loitering for purposes of prostitution but simply on the way to the store. Which is exactly where Little Bit maintained she was going when their unmarked car pulled up and spooked the middle-aged motorist with whom she was conversing. He drove off in a hurry.

She was smart and streetwise and all of nineteen. “What is this fucking shit!” she screeched. “I was just going to the store for a quart of milk and some bread! The guy was asking directions. I'm a taxpayer! You've got no right to stop me, you, you're not even vice cops,” she howled.

“Aha, bound for the supermarket with no money, no ID, no underwear and a pocket full of condoms,” Dusty said, as she searched the pint-sized prostitute. “And, oh, look at this neat little device.” She removed a box opener the size of a pocket comb, with a razor-sharp blade, from Little Bit's waistband and passed it to Jim. “The perfect accessory to wear for shopping.”

“Ya never know what you'll encounter in the checkout line,” Jim said reasonably.

“It looks like she was obstructing traffic, soliciting for prostitution and carrying a concealed weapon,” Rick said.

“And she seemed like such a nice girl,” Jim said. “Too bad we have to put her in jail.”

“You can't get away with this!”

“Maybe we won't have to,” Rick said.

Little Bit was hyper, red in the face, and watery-eyed with anger. “What do you assholes want with me?”

“Just a little information.”

“Go fuck yourself!”

“Tch, tch,” Jim said. “Add public profanity and disorderly conduct.”

“We're looking for two friends of ours,” Dusty said. “Latinos. One had a little accident, burned his face.”

“Those assholes?” Little Bit looked repulsed at the very thought of them.

“I see you're acquainted.”

“I ain't saying nothin'. They're crazy.”

“We know,” Rick said. “Just tell us what make of car they're driving, where they're staying, their names.”

She opened her mouth, then her too-bright eyes flickered for a moment as though recalling something unpleasant, and she thought better of it. “I ain't saying nothin'.” Little Bit had apparently come to the conclusion that she was better off in jail than risking the wrath of the Colombians.

“Okay, fuck you, lady!” Jim said. “You're going to jail.”

Little Bit shrugged her skinny shoulders and looked unconcerned. “Not only that,” he growled, “I'm gonna put your ass in jail every time I drive down the Boulevard. Your days of live and let live with the policemen on the beat are all over, because I'm gonna bad-mouth you to them, and they're gonna put you in jail too. You're not only gonna go to jail whenever I'm working, you're gonna go to jail everytime you stick your little fart face out the door.”

“Come on, Jim, don't be so tough.” Rick turned to Little Bit and flashed his boyish smile. “Just tell us what we need to know and you can be on your way, sweetheart.”

“I'm not your sweetheart,” she glowered.

“Add accessory to armed robbery and illegal transportation of a dead body,” Jim said, ticking more charges on his fingers.

Little Bit was becoming unnerved, not by their threats, but by the scrutiny of other street people across the Boulevard. “It's gonna cause me problems, being seen talking to you pigs. Arrest me. Hurry up,” she said. “I don't want to be seen standing here with you.”

“Loved your good guy, bad guy act,” Dusty teased after Little Bit was booked at the women's detention center. “Too bad it didn't work.”

“It will,” Rick said. “We'll ask the judge for ninety days and then have another little chat with her.”

“I wonder if she's had an AIDS test lately,” Dusty said. “The poor little thing really should have a checkup. Did you see how pale she is? I wonder how long she's been on the street?”