Suitcase City (13 page)

Teach finished with the offer he had conceived in the car driving over here. He would pay the boy’s medical bills and any other fair restitution, and apologize. He knew he had spoken well, kept his tone even and firm, his narrative clear and free of self-serving flourishes. Man-to-man, he had made his offer. It was fair, he thought. Fair.

Battles closed his eyes and seemed to consider it, the forefinger going to the temple again, the eyes squeezed tight. Then Battles armed himself up from the chair and walked to the windows again, his back to Teach. As the older man moved, Teach noticed for the first time the energy of a fading athleticism in his movements. That loose, oiled-in-the-joints, almost bouncing way he’d crossed the room. Waiting, Teach wondered if Thurman Battles had the same athletic past that promised to be Tyrone’s future. If he did, then he and Teach had something in common.

Battles turned from the window and stood facing Teach, his hands clasped in front of him. “Mr. Teach, what do you know about me?”

Teach didn’t know what to say, but knew the question was rigged. Should he say,
Not much
, and risk offense? Should he fake it, say that he knew the biography of an extremely accomplished local attorney and risk failing to answer any follow-up questions? He took the middle way: “I’ve heard you’re very good at what you do, Mr. Battles.”

“I see, and that’s all?” Battles watched him now with some impatience. Clearly, Teach had somehow offended.

He had to say more. “I know you’re committed to the cause of civil rights.” Would this do?

“Ahhh.” Battles threw back his head and smiled broadly. “Mr. Teach, I have devoted an entire career to trying to rid the world of the kind of KKK, vigilante impulse that made you strike down a poor, unarmed honor student who had merely stopped in a bar in the white section of this city to use the lavatory.”

Oh shit
, thought Teach.
Oh my Christ, here it comes
. As Battles unbuttoned his coat, warming to this thing, working himself up, Teach realized how pathetic had been what he’d quaintly thought of as his offer. He had been let into this fine, high office so quickly because the man had offers of his own.

Battles’s voice was soft. “Mr. Teach, you are a contributing member of society, are you not?”

Teach was being invited into the game. He chose not to play. Only looked straight into Battles’s eyes.

Battles said, “You have a good job in a decent business? Your daughter is a dancer of some talent?”

Teach stiffened, was about to say,
Leave my daughter out of this
. Battles held up a hand, blocking any objection. “Oh yes, I remember you at the recital, taking pictures. A loving father, proud of a graceful and talented child.”

Teach nodded. Thinking:
All right, now what?

“And you tell a lively story about what happened in a men’s room. Some of how you see things I’ll chalk up to perspective; we all see things differently. Some of it I’ll peg to your being a salesman, Mr. Teach. A man with the gift of gab.”

Battles smiled, more to himself than to Teach. He began to pace up and down in front of the windows, giving Teach the uneasy feeling that he was walking on purple sky, striding the air in front of a storm. He closed his eyes as he walked and still walked straight, opening them occasionally to glance at Teach as though he thought Teach might crawl away during one of his pauses.

“Oh, I know the gift of gab, Mr. Teach. I have seen what it can do in a court of law. Some have even said I possess the gift in some small measure myself, but . . .” Battles chuckled softly, “they flatter me. Oh yes, Mr. Teach, you tell a lively tale, but even as I listen to it, I am reminded of the many young black men I have known over the years who have found themselves pleading before the bar of justice. Some of them have told very compelling stories, indeed. Perhaps you have heard of the young black man who was sitting in the very electric chair itself, in a Mississippi prison, sitting there with that steel cap on his shaved head and his poor legs strapped down; sitting there with that white hood about to fall over his eyes. Sitting there knowing that a white man stood a few feet away with his hand poised above the switch that would send thousands of volts coursing and burning through his body. Do you know what that boy said, Mr. Teach? Do you know?”

Teach sat there growing numb, sweat breaking out on his forehead, the bourbon headache thumping at his temples. Battles took two steps toward him, bent at the waist, and pushed his face forward. “Do you know?”

“No, Mr. Battles.”

Battles drew back, lowered his voice, and smiled. “I shall tell you, Mr. Teach. I certainly shall.” He started pacing again, chin lifted, eyes closed. “That boy said,
Save me, Joe Louis. Save me, Joe Louis. Save me, Joe Louis.”
And suddenly, Battles was that boy, breathless, parched, his face twisted, his words a prayer.

Teach sat there thinking:
He’s good. He’s very damned good. And he’s going to do this to me. In the courtroom, he will become Tyrone Battles, and Tyrone Battles will become someone I have never seen.

Battles opened his eyes, stopped pacing, and gave him a sidelong glance that seemed to invite him into an agreement. “Imagine it, Mr. Teach. A young boy crying out to an athlete, a sports hero, for salvation in his hour of travail. Well, Mr. Teach, I am not Joe Louis.” Again the dry, soft chuckle, the sound of a man in a room alone, appreciating the humor in his own thoughts. “I have very little talent in the area of sports. I am a clumsy black man, Mr. Teach. Think of it. I can fall on my face walking flat ground in broad daylight. I had to work my way through Howard University washing dishes in the cafeteria and doing yard work for the wealthy white folks of our nation’s capital. I possess no athletic prowess, but I possess the law, and that is a powerful possession to have in your hands when a young black man cries out to you for justice. I can’t punch like Joe Louis . . .”

Battles did a little time-step now, kicking his feet out toward Teach in a creditable imitation of the Mohammed Ali shuffle. He made a few jabs at the air and finished with a tight left hook. “No sir, I am not Joe Louis, but I can hit hard in the courtroom, and I intend to do that. You, Mr. Teach, are going to be on the hot seat, and it is going to be my hand on the switch.”

Battles smiled brilliantly now, and his grin, his glittering eyes, seemed to Teach to draw their brilliance from the high white sky that poured into the windows. “Mr. Teach, you won’t believe me when I say it, but there is nothing personal in this. In my own way, I wish you well. Good day to you, Mr. Teach.”

Teach rose and looked at the man, trying to decide what was left here to save. Certainly, he could not renew the negotiations. They were closed. He might appeal to the man, drop to his knees right here on this plush carpet and beg for his career, his assets, his very life, throw himself on the mercy of a man who possessed more money, more wit, and an infinite and brutal resource, the law and its cost, its endless delays, and its perverse reliance on the whimsy of juries. Or Teach could simply preserve dignity, step forward, and shake the man’s hand. Say goodbye and walk out.

Even as Teach chose this last alternative, his body rocking forward slightly, he stopped himself. Battles might refuse to shake his hand, and that would be too much.

Teach steadied himself and said, “Goodbye, Mr. Battles. I’m sorry we couldn’t come to an agreement.”

“Oh,” replied Battles, lifting his chin to release that dry chuckle again, “we have an agreement. We agree to meet in court.”

Teach nodded, turned on gummy legs, and walked out past the pretty, matronly secretary who did not look up from her work. In the outer office, he stopped, cleared his throat, and asked the young woman with the red fingernails where he might find the nearest restroom. She smiled, glanced at the door Teach had just come through, and then pointed at the door leading to the elevators. “Outside,” she said, “then left and left again.” Teach thanked her.

In the men’s room, Teach bent over the sink drinking tap water, cooling his muddy throat, filling a huge and fragile hollowness. Then he vomited for a long time, a wracking chain of heaves, his only pride that they were silent.

FIFTEEN

So,” Detective Delbert said, “your family in an uproar over this thing with Tyrone?”

They were parked at the edge of the county landfill under a flowering jacaranda tree. Those beautiful purple blossoms spiraling down onto the car hood like little umbrellas dropped by tiny tree people. Aimes’s briefcase was open on the console between them, case files, photos of four crime scenes, and scraps of lunch spread on it. Aimes looked at the chicken wing he was eating and then at the picture of a dead Cuban prostitute, Carmelita Rojas.

“Only the boy’s father’s side of the family, far as I know,” Aimes said. Word was getting around the city about the lawsuit cooking over at Battles, Brainard, and Doohan. Damages sought for the violation of a young man’s civil rights. Compensatory and punitive. Seven figures to salve the wounds. In the crime scene photo, a young, honey-skinned woman lay, legs splayed, in a pile of garbage in the landfill. Some of the Cuban girl’s pubic hair was visible in the picture and it made Aimes put down the chicken wing and wipe his mouth with a paper napkin. He cleared his throat. “Delbert, you notice anything about this guy’s choice of victims? I mean, assuming the same guy did all four of them.”

Delbert looked at him. Was this some kind of test? “Well . . . they were all prosties. Is that what you mean?”

“No, not really.” Aimes watched the young cop patiently, letting his eyes say,
Take your time.

Delbert thought about it, squinted hard, closed his left eye, then opened it. “The same MO—all three shot execution-style, tied up but no bruising, no sign of struggle with the cord, all dropped in dumpsters.”

Aimes nodded, not because he liked Delbert’s answer, but for emphasis. The idea that had come to him was a good one. He knew this because it was, once you saw it, obvious. In fact, it was plain as the balls on a tall dog. Once you saw it. “The third one, that Phuong Van Tran, was Vietnamese, right?”

“Right.” Delbert scooped up a forkful of jambalaya and shook Cholula hot sauce onto it. He brought the hot sauce bottle to work with him in his briefcase every day and doused every forkful of food that went into his mouth. He hot-sauced Chinese, Cuban, even the meatball sandwiches they picked up from Mama Leone’s out on North Dale Mabry.

Aimes said, “And the second one?”

Delbert chewed. “Uh, that was, I believe—”

“She was a black girl, name of Aleesha Soyar.”

“Right,” Delbert said, chewing, his eyes saying,
So?

“You see anything there?”

Delbert swallowed and said he had to admit it, he saw nothing.

Aimes sighed. “Well, either it’s just the bad luck of the draw, or this guy likes them in colors. And he doesn’t do the same color twice.”

The hot sauce bottle stopped shaking over a forkful of rice, red beans, and andouille sausage. Delbert lowered it, cleared his throat, and whistled like he was calling the dogs back to the fire. “Damn, this guy likes the foreign ladies.”

“No,” Aimes said, with a little more emphasis than was reasonable. “Not
foreign.
Aleesha Soyer was as domestic as your great-granddaddy, Dwayne the Third. What makes her part of the pattern is she was a woman of color.” Aimes thinking he hoped nobody else got onto this, at least not too soon. He could see the headlines:
Rainbow Killer Stalks Tampa. Diversity Murders Continue in Bay Area.

Delbert was back at the trough. Forking, sprinkling, and chomping. Aimes looked at his chicken wings and felt his stomach maneuver a little. The tuft of pubic hair that sprouted from Carmelita Rojas’s bright-red underwear came to a dark, curly point that drew his eye to a pool of dried blood in her navel. Forensics said she had not been raped, although, as with the others, there was evidence of recent sexual activity. The blood came from the single gunshot wound to the crown of her head, indicating, according to forensics, that she had been shot from above and behind and had remained in an upright position long enough for blood to flow down under her clothes to her abdomen and dry there. And that, Aimes thought, was the odd detail. Had the woman been placed standing up in some kind of container for a while before she was taken to the dumpster? And there was another odd thing: analysis of skin scrapings from all of the women had revealed the presence of peanut oil.

Delbert said, “So, you think maybe some twisted character with a taste for alternative cultural experiences?”

Aimes frowned. It was possible. On the other hand, it was just as possible that the killer hated people of color for any of a dozen half-cooked reasons. Or loved them and liked to send them to their eternal reward. Or the guy was just crazy as a poothouse rat. Always a possibility, some guy with his Walkman tuned to that Crazy Station.

They sat in silence for a while, Aimes watching the purple blossoms spiral down. Most of the year, the jacaranda tree was an ugly and useless thing. It gave only patchy shade and dropped a carpet of seed pods that had to be raked and carried away. But in the spring and early summer, it put on this gorgeous lavender show. Looking out over the city from a rooftop, you could see the trees like puffs of purple smoke among the green. If you had to eat lunch in a car, and if the wind was blowing in the right direction, it was not bad under this tree at the county landfill, but it put Aimes in mind of the way of the world: beauty and ugliness cheek by jowl, all mixed up together and boiling like the water when a tarpon hit a school of mullet. Aimes had devoted his life to keeping right and wrong apart.

Delbert changed the subject: “So, the boy’s other uncle, this Thurman Battles, he’s going to put it hard to our Mr. Teach?”

“Apparently,” Aimes said, “he’s going to cut Mr. Teach long and deep.”

Delbert kept bringing up the thing with Teach, a matter that Aimes considered closed, at least until something official happened that made it his concern again. And it didn’t look like anything official was going to happen. The case had moved on to the civil arena. Aimes loved his sister and embraced at least some of an uncle’s responsibility for her only son, but he did not like the boy’s other uncle, Thurman Battles. Aimes worked for the City of Tampa and Thurman Battles was a bomb thrower. When he threw bombs, they hit the mayor, the city council, or the police department.