Nothing happened last night?
You mean did we go to bed? No. What do you want? We just met. You go to bed with every guy you meet and happen to like?
Michelle paused. No, not every guy.
Just the ones throw TV sets out the window.
Why're you upset?
I'm not. You want to know what happened, I told you. Nothing.
Now Michelle seemed to be appraising her, eyes narrowed. Are you saying he didn't try anything or you didn't let him?
It wasn't like that.
Like what? You're alone in his apartment
That doesn't mean he has to jump me, does it?
No wonder you're upset. What's wrong with him?
Nothing. He's a nice guy. He wants me to go with him next Sunday, meet his folks.
Well, I guess if you hang in there long enough I really like his hair. He'll never get bald.
And he's clean-cut, he's polite, Kathy said, and you think he's a little weird, don't you?
I wouldn't say weird.
What he does with his National Geographics.
Well, that. No, but I think he is different. You know, maybe he's shy. I mean with women.
He might be.
Self-conscious, afraid of being turned down. When they're like that you have to let them know it's okay. Bring them out, so to speak.
Like unzip their fly?
That would work. You know the old saying, Michelle said, once you have their balls in your hand, their minds are far from Siberia.
Inez came around from the side of the house where she was hanging wash and yelled at Dale to get back inside, what was wrong with him? Elvin waved at her and brushed through the opening in the hedge that hid the street and his black Cadillac sedan. He was only going to show it to Dale, how it told you all kinds of stuff on the dash panel when you pressed buttons; but when Inez started yelling he said, Shit, get in the car.
Dale was in the front seat before Elvin was even around to the other side. He yelled at Inez, We going for a ride. Be back directly.
Driving off he saw Inez in his rearview mirror standing out in the street, the size of her, like a man wearing a housedress. All you could say about Inez Campau, there was a big ugly woman. He said to Dale, You don't want to stay there no more, do you?
She's making me leave by tomorrow anyways, Dale said, once I'm a fugitive.
You run, you know what they'll do.
I don't care, I'm not going to prison.
They'll add on five to the five you already got.
If they catch me.
Sounding like the boy had made up his mind.
Elvin said, Prison ain't that bad, you get the hang of it find yourself some buddies, a little housekeeper to take care of your wants
Dale wasn't talking.
They drove out of this back-end part of Belle Glade where people like the Crowes and Campaus lived in old frame houses, their pickups and boat trailers in the yard alongside rusted washing machines, car parts, skiffs past use. Old boys sitting on porches drinking beer waved at the Cadillac driving past.
Now it crept down the main drag of storefronts, Elvin always amazed at the sight of cane cutters, hundreds of black faces on the street buying Walkman radios and little TVs to take back to Jamaica, their season almost done. Elvin said, I ain't gonna say nothing but, Jesus Christ, how come we bring all these people here when our own niggers could be doing the work? I know it's a filthy dirty job and you can get hurt swinging them machetes, but they could at least try it, shit. Don't let me get off on that, the invasion of the boogers. You think they're gonna be happy staying only six months? Pretty soon they'll be living here, as the Cuban and different other kinds are, taking our jobs.
Excuse me, Dale said, but when did you ever work?
Elvin didn't like Dale's snippy tone of voice, but let it go, the boy scared and angry at the same time.
I took folks for airboat rides, Elvin said. I even took rich boogers for airboat rides and it like to killed me. I had a mind to dump em in the swamp. I got a deal on right now with a rich booger. He's paying I mean top dollar for me to do a special kind of job. If it was only for pay, shit, I wouldn't do it. But it turns out it's for me and you mostly. You know the guy, Dr. Tommy, the one in Ocean Ridge. You want to guess what the job is?
The boy didn't answer. Not interested or too busy feeling sorry for himself.
I understand where you're at, Elvin said, facing up to a system known for not being fair.
Dale said, Shit, all I did was hit a cop. Why're they any different?
Elvin said, I know, I've done it and paid. I've learned if you're ever angry enough to hit somebody, don't do it. Cool down and get yourself a pistol. There's a cop pulled my hair I was dying to hit. Unh-unh, I'm waiting till the right time. Elvin hunched close to the steering wheel, turning his head as he gazed up through the windshield. Look it how they live.
They were passing migrant housing now, two-story concrete barracks, wash hanging to dry on the upstairs rails.
Day off, they drink rum and chew sugarcane. You go inside there, everyone of em's playing a radio. I never saw people liked radios so much.
Dale said, When'd you ever go in there?
Looking for an argument in his frame of mind.
I worked one time for a guy ran the bolita. You know, the numbers? I'd have to go in those places they lived, be the only white person in there, boogers looking at me like they wanted to cut my balls off with a cane knife. Ugly people but, man, did they love to play the bolita. They'd love this car too, wouldn't they? They'd keep house in it.
Out on the highway the sky to the south was full of black smoke where they were burning off the last of the fields. Trucks whipped past hauling cane stalks to the sugar house for processing. They drove their Ford tractors fast, dumped the loads off the trailers and headed back for more. It was a job Dale used to have and Elvin thought he would brag on it now, but he didn't. That's how mean his disposition was.
Oh my, what to do, Elvin said. All right, I'm gonna make you a proposition.
Dale didn't even ask what it was. Didn't say one word till they'd driven the forty miles back to civilization, took the freeway down to Boynton Beach and turned into the parking lot of the cocktail bar on S. E. 15th.
Dale said, That's my truck. Not snippy at all now, more surprised than anything.
Elvin checked, didn't see any surveillance, before saying, Why yes it is. The pickup still sitting where he'd left it yesterday. And the keys are in it.
They sat in a booth with their drinks, Jim Beam and 7-Up, dark in here this Sunday afternoon, Elvin relaxed with something he was anxious to tell, but irritated the drinks were served in skimpy glasses. He'd wave to the waitress for two more. She'd bring them and he'd quit talking and tell her to take it from the change on the table. The waitress would poke through the pile there, car keys, bills and silver, Dale's cigarettes and matches, and pick out what she needed.
Elvin spoke of prison for a while, about sports and movies, making it sound not too bad. Though advised Dale to get laid tonight; be his last shot at some front-door lovin'. Dale wouldn't talk about it. So Elvin said, All right, you made up your mind. On their third drink by this time. Go on get in your truck and take off. By tomorrow they'll have detainers on you clear across the country. But if that's what you want to do
On their fourth round Elvin was telling him about the deal with Dr. Tommy. Top wages to shoot the judge and he'd give Dale, let's see, two thousand to drive for him. How did that sound? Take off in your old beat up truck or drive a Fleetwood Cadillac while we set up the judge.
It got Dale to fidget around some in the booth.
I'm thinking we'll move in with Dr. Tommy, Elvin said. Have a party out there tonight, huh? Get some girls. I'll tell you one I'm thinking of having sometime, that little probation lady. I've had Cuban puss and it ain't too bad. We could have us some tonight, you want. Or this go-go whore I had over to your house last night.
You want
to kill the judge?
The boy finally waking up.
I call it paying back. How about you?
They already think it was me tried.
Listen, that dink, whoever it was, he's an amateur. You're working with a pro here. I've done it.
And you went to prison.
Hey, that's something else entirely. We set this one up right, it'll work slick. You take off after with some cash on you.
Dale was quiet, looking at his drink.
Come on, what do you say?
I'm thinking.
While you're doing that, Elvin said, I'm gonna go shake the dew off my lily.
He got up and walked to the men's room, all the way in back. Elvin was gone maybe five minutes. He washed his hands after, for no reason, then had to hold them under one of those goddamn machines you pushed the button and it blew hot air as you were supposed to briskly, it said, rub your hands together. That's what took the time. Then after that drying his hands on his shirttail and having to stick his goddamn shirttail in his pants again. When he got back to the table Dale was gone.
The waitress said, He didn't leave but a minute ago. Elvin ran outside hoping to catch him driving off. Beat some sense into the boy if he had to. He stopped short in the parking lot, around on the side of the building. Dale's pickup was still there, nosed against the cinder-block wall.
It was the space where he'd parked the Cadillac that was empty.
They must have seen him drive up in the taxicab. Hector opened the door and Dr. Tommy was standing in the hall waiting for him.
Elvin said, You know what happened?
Dr. Tommy said, Tell me.
Elvin said, Somebody stole your car.
Chapter 19
They stopped a hundred feet or so from the entrance to Dr. Tommy's, on the opposite side of Ocean Boulevard. It was dark inside the unmarked Dodge, going on ten. Through a wall of trees and sea grape they could see lights on in the house. Gary said, I guess you know what working surveillance is like, as she was thinking this could be the time to bring him out, if he was willing to be brought. But no grabbing. With the right words, tone of voice.
I do it a lot, Kathy said, keeping track of my cases. Okay, where were you? The drugstore, had to get some medicine. Why didn't you come in today? I was sick. The same thing over and over.
You're bored.
She wanted him to touch her and they'd kiss. She was dying to kiss him. She said, No, this is different.
The idea was to see if Elvin was around. He wasn't home in Delray Beach and he wasn't using Dale's pickup. Yesterday he'd left it in Boynton. This morning TAC pulled off its surveillance and gave the job to Boynton PD. Well, requested they keep an eye on the truck. Elvin could be here, at Dr. Tommy's. But if he was, Gary said, it didn't make sense.
He had looked up Dr. Vasco. Key witness in a homicide. Almost implicated. Fingered his houseman, Sonny, who was convicted and drew twenty-five to life at FSP.
Where Elvin was, Kathy said.
Gary said he'd thought of that, wondering how Elvin had found Dr. Tommy. So he called the prison and what do you know. Elvin and Sonny were sweethearts. Elvin would cut anyone who even looked at Sonny with lust.
With lust? A corrections officer said that?
I think it was looked at Sonny's ass.'
That's more like it.
Sonny tells Elvin about Dr. Tommy, who fingered him and, for all we know, might have been implicated.
As an accessory?
Sonny claims he killed the girl trying to protect the doctor. They got in a fight, the doctor accusing her of blackmailing him with some home movies, and Sonny hit her over the head with an iron poker. The doctor says no, it was Sonny who wanted to blackmail him, but not with home movies, something else, writing phony prescriptions. They had him on that anyway. He said on the stand the girl told him what Sonny planned to do and that's why Sonny killed her.
What were the home movies?
Porno stuff, the doctor and different girls. Sonny's lawyer wanted them admitted as evidence, but the judge ruled against it. They had Sonny cold, picked him up driving the girl's car, her body and the murder weapon in the trunk. The funny thing is, the tapes are still in our evidence room. Never returned because the doctor said they weren't his. Sonny must've taken them without his knowledge.
Did you look at them?
There must be at least a dozen tapes.
What are they like?
The usual, mostly kinky sex. I only saw a couple.
She said, What's kinky to some people isn't to everybody.
These were kinky.
I'll have to take your word.
Well, like in some of them the doctor had more than one girl in bed with him.
I thought you only saw a couple of tapes.
I might've looked at three or four, to get an idea.
Yeah? You learn anything?
I meant get an idea what they were about.
They turn you on?
You're not serious.
Yes or no.
Is this another test?
Come on, I won't tell anybody.
He said, Well, they weren't bad for home movies.
Was he smiling a little? She wasn't sure.
Even the kinky ones?
I mean the camera work.
She said, You're not shy, are you?
I never thought I was.
But you're steady, always composed?
I'm not sure what you mean.
You don't like to take chances. You're cautious.
I suppose, up to a point.
Really? You let go sometimes?
If I know what's gonna happen.
You're safe, Kathy said, moving close enough to take his face in her hands. She kissed him on the mouth, lingered and said, Relax, okay? She kissed him again, staying on it longer this time before she said, I've had enough surveillance for one night. How about you?
Elvin brought the go-go whore in the front way, opening the door with a key on the ring that had the keys to the Lincoln, the car he was driving since Dale stole the Cadillac this afternoon.
Elvin'd had to argue Dr. Tommy out of reporting it. You want police coming here while we're working our deal? My nephew won't hurt your car. By the time they pick him up the job'll be done. Then had to argue the doc into letting him use the Lincoln, a big gray one. You want me to ride in taxicabs while I set up the judge? Dr. Tommy had seemed nervous at the way things were going, not as cocky, but stoned and half drunk was easy to handle. He might not like it, but what could he do?
Booger music was coming out of hidden speakers and the go-go whore was moving to it on the terrazzo floor, looking around bug-eyed like she'd died and gone to whore heaven. Mumbo on down the hall, Elvin said. He followed her cute butt sliding side to side in a little skirt that barely covered it, no backs to her high heels clicking on the marble. She wasn't too bad looking for a crackhead junkie. Had her G-string on under the skirt to give Dr. Tommy a show.
There he was in his den, lamps shining on the gold wallpaper that looked like stucco: the doc crapped out in a fat sofa full of pillows, swallowed up in there, his drink on the round gold-metal table: the doc a drunk prisoner among all this glitter shit, eyes closed Elvin said to the go-go whore looking over the den, hand on her hip the same way she'd checked out Dale's house, See that rug? It's the hide off a skinned zebra. Feel the wallpaper.
Elvin noticed Dr. Tommy had his eyes open now but didn't seem about to move, bent low in the sofa with his legs sticking out, barefoot and glassy-eyed. Sunday night, Elvin said, how come you aren't watching TV?
The doc blinked his eyes and then rubbed them. He was looking at the go-go whore now.
Doc, this here is Earlene. She's gonna do her go-go number for you and then I'm on take her upstairs. You want, you can have a turn after. Hey, Earlene?
She came over from feeling the wall, hips sliding, eyes sparkling with crack.
Elvin grinned at her. Honey, show the doc yo
ur little G-string.
It was good to see a guy in his underwear again, a nice guy this time, not anything like Keith. Keith, taking his clothes off, would be looking at himself in the mirror on the door to the closet. The mirror still there, full-length. Gary, taking his clothes off, looked at her taking hers off. She pulled the dress over her head and he was motionless, looking. Even when they were in bed Keith, the catalogue model, would watch himself in the mirror, very serious. Gary came over to the bed in his shorts, pushed them down and said, I'm on the wrong side. She said, There is no wrong side. There was to him. He crawled over her as she squirmed her way to the middle of the double bed and now he was on the left side. Is that better? She could see him in faint light, the bed close to the window. He seemed happy. He said, From driving a car She didn't ask what he meant and he didn't say more than that because it was getting good now, doing all the things with a man she had not done in a long time, getting to the best part, letting go and letting him hear small private sounds come out of her until, finally silence.
It was nice.
It wasn't the kind where you get totally carried away, lost in it or quite like falling off the edge of the world. It wasn't sweaty.
It was nice.
He said, When you made out in a car the guy's on the left, because usually he drove.
You like to do it in a car?
I mean when you're younger.
Or on surveillance, Kathy said, getting out of bed. She stepped into white panties.
Is that it for tonight?
It gave her hope. Don't move. I'll be right back.
She went to the kitchen, turned on the light and got two cans of beer from the refrigerator. As soon as Gary mentioned being in a car, that business about the left side, she was in the unmarked Dodge again seeing the dark street, the doctor's house it reminded her of a British colonial building in the Bahamas. If Elvin was there it would be for one reason. If the doctor put the stuff on Sonny at his trial and Elvin was Sonny's boyfriend and the biggest thing in Elvin's life was paying back Something didn't make sense.
In the bedroom again with the cans of beer, she placed Gary's on the nightstand and turned on the lamp. He seemed happy to see her navel looking him in the eye.
You think Elvin wants to kill the doctor?