Octopus Alibi (29 page)

25

F
IRST STOP, THE OTHER
brother of a missing sister. At worst, he could understand Sam’s plight. At best, he might offer help in some form I couldn’t imagine.

Miami traffic runs at two speeds. A full-stop jam can park you for hours. The map told me to take the Palmetto, but common sense argued a traffic snarl. I went back to 836, then north on 1-95, and lucked into a balls-to-the-wall phase at a steady seventy. I kept a watch for Odin’s green Cavalier while I clear-sailed to Griffin Road. No one out there but me and ten thousand maniacs, most of them in small Japanese cars that sounded like pissed-off large-winged mosquitoes.

I was northbound, with no sun, a different approach. With my scattered frame of mind, I didn’t make the connection. After going west a half-mile on Griffin, I recognized the route our cab had taken on Monday. I was driving the path that Sam and I had taken to the Broward Medical Examiner’s Lab.

I pulled over to check the map. Sure as hell, Barry Marcantonio’s odd-numbered address backed up to Southwest 31st Avenue. The only way I could reach his place was to drive past the lab. He had moved from South Carolina to a spot fifty yards from the morgue. Coincidence went to hard fact. In his search for his sister, he was ten steps ahead of Sam, but they were hunting the same rat.

The Lockwood Estates mobile home park was all speed bumps, hanging planters, and sprinkler heads. A few trailers had trellises, cute mailboxes, striped awnings. I saw no open doors, humans, or animals. Also, no Camry, license tag MJC-547.

I parked in Barry’s short driveway, walked to his door. Fat raindrops hit my face and arms. The wind kicked and shrubs tossed, preludes to a squall. An ominous prelude to my inquiries.

Under the trailer home’s corroded aluminum awning, two parched aloe plants sat on a cheap iron rack. His door had a dead bolt and a peephole. He had shut his miniblinds, installed antitheft clamps on his window frames. A fake-looking decal told me the trailer was under constant security watch.

A man’s muffled voice came from nearby: “He ain’t home.”

Not so fake a decal.

I turned, saw no one. I shouted, “What time does he get home?”

The rain fell harder.

“He ain’t home!”

Brilliant.

I hustled back to the Lexus, drove around to Southwest 31st. No sign of Marlow’s green Chevy, but he could be driving a county car or anything else. I counted the ass-ends of mobile homes until I found Barry’s. His west-facing rear window was the only one in the line of trailers not covered by reflective foil. Again, no surprise. He had lucked into a perfect home, with a clear view of the morgue’s service road.

What had Goodnight Irene Jones said?
“I saw what came through the back, the messes they offloaded.”

I felt like a detective. I knew that two men were running parallel courses. But if his mission was to watch the morgue, where was Barry? Had he hit the same legal roadblock as Sam? Or illegal roadblock? On second thought, I felt like a failed detective. Every answer led me to more questions. The more I learned the less I knew.

The rain hit harder, the windshield began to fog. The wipers came on automatically, as did the defroster. I was living in luxury.

*   *   *

Odin Marlow’s place in Pembroke Pines was in a group of six two-story buildings, six townhouses each, all in need of paint. They wrapped around a paved parking lot and a littered Dumpster plaza. No guard gate, no class, but no speed bumps. Casuarina trees and scrawny oleander failed to break the monotony. I counted seventeen parked vehicles, two with windows open to drizzling rain.

I angled into the slot nearest Odin’s unit, but still had to walk sixty feet to a door with no awning. Like the trailer court a half hour earlier, no animals or people around. I almost pressed the bell, but caught myself. I had no idea what to say if someone opened the door. I could claim I was looking for Sam Wheeler, but why at a private residence instead of the sheriff’s department?

Screw it, I thought. Play it as it falls.

I punched the bell, waited a half minute, hit it again. Nothing. I was off the hook for a bullshit story, but doomed again to learning zip. I was already soaking wet. I decided to nose around.

Odin’s screen-enclosed patio had no plants or furniture, but it screamed of potential. An exercise machine dripped rust onto faded outdoor carpet. A sliding glass door was wide open, as if Marlow dared anyone to violate his space, dared mildew to come in and take root.

My first thought said to go in. The second suggested that someone had beaten me to it and may still be in there. Or someone besides Odin had left and forgotten to close up. I thought about getting Liska’s gun from the Lexus. I thought again. Felony plus weapon possession equals mandatory prison time. I palmed my handkerchief to mask fingerprints, and let myself onto the patio. If I got caught, sure as hell I would be accused of trying to steal his ritzy watch. Worse, they would find Sam’s bankroll in my pocket, and Marlow would claim it as his. I had never been fitted for an orange jumpsuit, but I guessed a size forty-four would do it. If I didn’t take a forty-five slug beforehand.

Marlow’s pad was a study in contrast. His furniture was upscale, his filth downscale. He had a sixty-inch TV, a pocket-sized stereo, and loudspeakers you could camp in. The sofa, recliner, and easy chair were made of matching blond leather. A glass-and-chrome coffee table sat on a huge Persian rug on top of wall-to-wall gray berber. His primary decorations were spindly, iron figurines with that lopsided Picasso look. His pastimes got deluxe treatment. A magnificent glass-front case displayed Odin’s collection of beer can insulators. He had swiped them from every hangout in town. Two shelves down I found enough X-rated DVDs to satisfy a prison population for months. None of his fixtures matched the fundamental mess.

I waded through stacks of junk mail and
National Enquirers
, evidence of blended whiskey and Diet Coke, crumpled take-out bags, boxes from pizza deliveries. Odin had left his dirty socks on a chair, skivvies on the kitchen counter. Worse was the garbage smell, stacks of plates caked with residue, and four full plastic bags that he hadn’t carried to the Dumpster.

The bedroom carried on the theme. High-end, tasteful furniture, with his white bed sheets gone gray. They matched the carpeting. Two lamps, a pile of jackoff magazines, and a roll of paper towels were next to his bed.

I put my handkerchief away. I wasn’t going to touch a thing.

Odin had hung photos in cheap frames, his own little shrine. I couldn’t tell if his “ready” stance in jersey 48 was college or high school football. A more recent Odin posed on a yacht stern with a medium-sized tarpon. His fish looked too perfect, as if borrowed from someone’s den wall. In a slightly larger picture, Odin was surrounded by four blondes in bikinis. The women pretended to snuggle, but none looked like a friend. In early shots Odin was just another poser with a smile. In newer shots his scowl revealed hatred.

He may have been big in Podunkville, but he was a scrambler on the tide line. Marlow had too much disposable income for a sheriff’s detective, even with an inheritance. He was drawn to high life, dragging his anchor through the dregs of a previous existence. Odd that a boy from Greenwich, Connecticut, had picked up his sense of style at the mall.

I had been inside too long. I wasn’t even sure what I had wanted to find. When I finally noticed the safe in the bedroom corner, bolted to the floor, I knew I’d find nothing of interest.

On my way out I bumped an end table, disturbed a stack of bills. Under the stack, the corner of a photograph. A picture of Marcantonio’s Camry.

I stopped, paid more attention. That morning’s
Miami Herald
was spread across a stool. The Gomez murder case got minor coverage on page three of the South Broward section. But the piece was accompanied by a sidebar that hadn’t been in the Keys section. Its lead sentence said, “Could people doing business with Key West have harmed the mayor?” The piece listed eight pending commission decisions, including the three that Marnie had told me about on Tuesday. A circle was penciled around the mention of the Borroto Brinas Development Corporation’s resort proposal for bay waters adjacent to North Roosevelt Boulevard.

Marnie would be brokenhearted. She had been scooped on the Gomez murder, then double-scooped on background.

I speculated on Odin Marlow’s interest in old Keys developments. The project’s time frame matched his years in Key West. He wouldn’t have circled the Borroto Brinas mention if it hadn’t meant something to him. I gazed to the ceiling, searched for guidance. A beacon shone down. It wasn’t beaming me insights and truth. I looked closer at the eye above the sliding glass door. I gave the video lens a contrite wave.

I should have guessed. He had cash for leather and sculptures, pretend opulence. Why wouldn’t he have it for technology?

I made it to the car and scanned the parking area one last time. Nothing but get-by rides. Beyond those, obscured by a hedge, was a red Eldorado. A new Cadillac, as out of place as a cruise ship.

The last good anomaly.

I hadn’t learned a thing, and I’d gone backward in a hurry. Marlow knew my face, my name, and where to find me. He would probably be more bitter about my reactions to his detritus than my trespassing.

I drove back to Southwest 31st Avenue and took another pass at Barry Marcantonio’s. No car next to his trailer. A quarter-mile away, on the corner of Griffin Road, I found a phone on the front wall of a convenience store. I had one last chance and only one way to reach her. I called Cozy Cab for a pickup at the morgue. I asked them to send Goodnight Irene.

I went in and got a PayDay, a Coke, a small bag of Fritos. Jazzy nutrition to make up for no breakfast or lunch. The rain had quit, so I went back out to wait. When Irene Jones drove by, I would follow, meet her in the medical examiner’s lot. I would ask about the Broward ME, see what she knew about Odin Marlow, maybe find myself at another dead end.

I waited twenty minutes before the shit storm hit.

A black Dodge Intrepid turned off Griffin and sped down Southwest 31st. It went about seventy-five yards, hit the brakes, then hit reverse. It backed until it reached the convenience store driveway, stopped, whipped into the lot, and drove straight for me. Its bumper stopped ten feet from my knees. I saw three men in the car.

The front passenger got out, crouched behind his door, and pointed a pistol. All I could see was a crew cut and a gun muzzle.

He bellowed, “Face down, fuckhead.”

I dropped my Coke and took his suggestion. My clothes absorbed greasy water from the blacktop. I struggled to keep my face off the ground. The man was on me fast. He put a knee to my shoulders, cuffed my right wrist, yanked it to my spine.

“The other arm nice, or you like pain?” he said.

Another man thrust an ugly weapon at my nose. The muzzle’s black eye stared me down. I moved my left arm to the restraint.

Crew Cut stripped my watch, snapped the second cuff. “What’s your name, boy?”

“You don’t know?” I said, from the side of my mouth.

“Believe me,” he said, “you want to cooperate.”

“I’m Jack Shit. Tell your friends you know me.”

He pulled my arms upward, wrenched my shoulders and elbows. Pain shot down to my toes. “Cute, dickweed,” he barked at the back of my head. “We just changed it to Deep Shit.”

26

T
HE GUNNER WITH SHORT
white hair tongue-fired thin saliva squirts through his teeth. Expelling hatred or the childhood demons that led him to his line of work. He stood back while the driver, a five-five mouth-breather, did his macho act. The bastard flipped and gut-poked me, tore open my pockets, and hoisted me like a sugar sack. No witnesses came to my rescue. A kid gassing his tricked-out pickup watched it go down like street theater.

I peered into the market. The good Samaritans were grabbing their asses back by the milk and yogurt. To a passerby, I was a drunk being helped by friends. No one on the road had time or the guts to butt in.

Where’s a cop when you need one?

Macho heaved me into the backseat. He secured my feet to manacles on the floor, then latched my cuffs to a clip behind me. You don’t see that many sedans customized for abduction. Before he slammed the door, he hooked my shoulder strap. Only the best kidnappers are safety-conscious. Macho smelled like baby powder. I didn’t mention it.

The third man, a sullen, pock-faced tough with massive shoulders, drove east in Liska’s Lexus. Macho turned his sled into a Dodge Teflon, boogied out of the C-store lot, then west on Griffin. He oozed through traffic, lane hopping, a contender in the urban derby. I’ve never suffered motion sickness, even at sea, but my snacks wanted freedom. My shoulders ached, and my pits reminded me that I hadn’t showered. Odor was the least of my worries. I wasn’t being judged on hygiene. Goodnight Irene had set me up. I had called for a cab, but I was getting a different ride. My brain, for once aligned with common sense, told me to stay in high gear.

I could bank on only one fact. I wasn’t dead yet. I might, some day, drink beer with Monty Aghajanian. On second thought, he had told me to back off. I had done the opposite. Monty would be unsociable the next time I saw him.

Crew Cut, up front, huffing for breath, kept dialing, canceling, redialing. I sensed a frantic soul under his scalding veneer. They had grabbed me like pros, but had lost their way. Why didn’t he call Irene Jones? Driving a hack, she had to be an ace with directions. I absorbed like a son of a bitch. Crew Cut wore a wedding band, my first good sign. I had to think that married men make poor hit men.

Fit the ugly pieces. How had I wound up shackled to a floorpan? She had quit the morgue, drove a cab, but Irene was moonlighting the dark side. She was working with Odin and my hosts in the Dodge. Sam had stumbled into the web and I, like a lemming, had followed him in. Our bad luck, because the machine would grind us up and keep chugging. Where would these boys throw me my private party? First guess: an empty industrial park.