When he hung up, he took a breath and turned back to Joe. She handed him a plate of pizza.
“She okay?”
Louis nodded, taking the plate to the sofa. The first few bites were gobbled down, but as he picked up the second piece, he started looking around the living room. His eyes were drawn to two photographs sitting on a bookshelf near the TV. Two uniforms. He recognized the black one as Miami-Dade. But the other was blue...with a skirt.
He rose and walked to it, chewing the pizza. The woman in the black uniform was a younger Joe. He guessed the older woman was her mother. They could have been twins, except for the hairstyles and uniforms. The mother’s uniform looked like something a stewardess might wear, complete with a little hat. But there was a badge on her jacket.
Joe came up behind him.
“Your mother?” Louis asked.
“Yes. She was a cop in Cleveland. She was my inspiration, but things were pretty sucky for women back then.”
“Not the best, even now,” Louis said.
“You got that right.”
His eyes caught sight of a small plant on the shelf. It was brown and withered.
“You need to throw that thing away,” he said. “It looks dead.”
She reached past him to get the plant. She held
it, picking at the brittle leaves. “I used to have a slew of plants. Filled up that whole wall.”
“What happened to them?”
“I got promoted,” she said.
She went back into the kitchen and tossed the plant in the trash. “I had no time after that. No time to cook, take care of my cats, or water plants. I got stuck once on a four-day stakeout and when I got home, they were all dead.”
“The cats or the plants?” Louis asked.
“You’re not a cat person or you wouldn’t make jokes like that.”
“Actually, I have a cat.”
He frowned and Joe saw it. “What’s the matter?”
“I forgot to tell someone to look after her.”
“Cats can take care of themselves. She’ll be okay for one day.”
“She’s in heat.”
“You better get her spayed.”
“That’s what Mel said.”
“Like Mel knows about cats.”
Louis walked to the kitchen, setting his plate in the sink. “I think Mel knows about a lot of things people don’t think he knows about.”
The coffee was done brewing and he poured himself a cup, glancing around for the sugar. A gigantic orange cat was watching him from the counter.
“Where’s your sugar?” he asked.
“Sorry, I don’t use sugar,” Joe said, disappearing into the bedroom.
Louis stared at the black liquid in the cup then drank it, grimacing. He dumped it in the sink. He went back to the living room, sinking into the sofa. He rubbed his face then rested his forehead in his palms. He had been sitting a few minutes when a pillow hit him in the shoulder.
“We’ll head to Eighth Street around nine, when the businesses open,” she said.
Louis looked at her, then at the pillow. There was a yellow blanket folded across the arm of the sofa.
“Yeah, okay,” Louis said.
She disappeared and Louis heard a door close.
Louis remained sitting, his eyes drifting to the photo of Joe with her mother, across the
dark TV and finally coming to rest on the sliding glass door. He rose and walked to it. He could see the lights of downtown Miami, back-dropped by the weak pink glow of dawn.
“Louis. Go to bed.”
He turned. She was standing by the sofa. Her hair was down around her shoulders, her face in the shadows.
“It’s hard to do nothing,” he said.
“There’s nothing you can do right now except sleep.”
“It doesn’t seem right to sleep.”
She was quiet for a moment. “This isn’t just any kid, is it?”
He looked back out the glass door. “He’s pretty special.”
“You have a relationship with the mother?” she asked.
He glanced back at her, surprised by the question.
“I’m only asking so I know how close you are to this,” she said, coming toward him. “You’re a liability to me if you’re emotionally involved. You know that.”
“I can handle it.”
“Hope you’re right.”
She was standing there in the middle of the room, holding a cat, and wearing a long, baggy T-shirt that came to her knees. Her face was scrubbed, her feet bare.
She didn’t look like a cop right now. But she was. She had all the power and he knew there was nothing he could do in Miami without her.
“Don’t leave me out of this,” he said.
She looked at him for a moment then started back to the bedroom, the calico cat in her arms. “I’ll wake you at eight- thirty. Get some sleep.”
He heard the bedroom door close and he turned to the sofa, dropping into it
. He wedged off his sneakers, and propped the pillow in the corner, pulling the blanket up over him.
He had been lying there a few minutes when the orange tabby jumped on his legs. His first instinct was to push it away, but before he could, it settled in the crook behind his knees. It felt strangely familiar. Strangely comforting. He let it stay.
Saturday, January 16
Joe gave him an old sweatshirt to wear. It was a faded orange color with a snarling cartoon dog head on it under-scored with the words CLEVELAND BROWNS DAWG POUND.
It was ugly but it was clean and warm, and Louis was glad to have it on under his jacket as he headed back to Eighth Street the next morning.
The s
un was out but the temperature was still hovering around forty-five. Louis parked the Mustang and walked to Pacific Imports. The scene was still cordoned off with yellow tape and there were a couple of Miami-Dade squad cars blocking the parking lot. The two uniforms were standing around drinking 7-Eleven coffee. With the fake-fur collars of their jackets pulled up, they looked like kids bundled up in snowsuits going out to play.
Louis glanced around. There
were a fair number of people out on the street, considering the cold. But all he could hear around him was Spanish, a babble that was as intimidating as the foreign signs. He stood there, looking for some place to start.
A small park sat catty-
corner to Pacific Imports. There was a pavilion enclosed in heavy iron bars, but beyond the gate, Louis could see men sitting at concrete tables. As he drew closer, he could hear a muted clicking sound.
The old men pl
aying dominos at the tables didn’t look up as he came through
the gate but Louis could feel their eyes on him, watching him furtively. One younger man, lounging near a tree smoking a cigarette, stared openly as Louis tried to ask questions.
“Excuse me
...”
Click-
clack-click-clack.
“I need to talk to someone
-- ”
“No
habla inqles."
Clack-clack-click.
Finally, he gave up, driven out of the park by the cigar smoke and the stare of the young man.
He had no luck at any of the businesses he tried. Everyone seemed to be looking at him with weirdly strained expressions, like he was a plague carrier or worse. When he went into a hair salon,
the lone woman backed away from him, gripping the scissors she had been using and muttering something in Spanish. She had the same look on her face that everyone did.
He knew the look
—- fear of a strange young black man. He knew one of the words she said, too.
“
Vete.
”
He had heard it before from the Mexican workers back in Immokalee.
Vete
...go away.
Back out on the street, he stood on
the corner, trying to figure out what in the hell to do next.
He looked at his watch. Joe said to
meet her at Pacific Imports at ten. He had only a couple minutes to wait. As he stood there, trying to warm up in the sun, his eyes drifted back across the street, stopping on an old man and a girl sitting at a table in front of the café across from Pacific Imports. They had not been there when Louis had gone in to question the owner. The little girl was looking at Louis. He tried a small smile.
She didn’t smile back, but at least she wasn’t looking at him the way the others had. He went over to the
m.
“Hello,” he said.
The old man was wearing heavy dark sunglasses and a tattered brown jacket. A cane rested against his chair. His claw-hand was wrapped around a tiny cup of mud black coffee and a Spanish newspaper was folded in his lap. He looked away from Louis but the girl was staring at Louis’s sweatshirt.
“Is that a dog or a bear?” she asked, pointing.
Louis glanced down at the emblem. “A dog, I think.”
“He looks mad.”
“He’s a mascot, for a football team.”
Her brown eyes came up to Louis’s face
. Not friendly, really, but curious.
“I was wondering if you could help me,” he said. “I have some questions
—-”
“Celia,” the old man said sharply, "
No hables el Negro
.”
The girl glanced at Louis and then said to the old man, "
Esta bien, abuelo. Esta perdido y le hace salta directiones
."
The old man gave a grunt and grabbed his cane, pulling it closer. The girl looked back at Louis. She was about twelve or thirteen, pretty, with her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail and tiny gold hoops in her ears. She still didn’t smile at Louis
—- he had a feeling there would be hell to pay from Grandpa if she did —- but her brown eyes were warming.
“I don’t want to get you in trouble,” Louis said.
“It’s okay. I told Grandpa you were just asking me for directions. Are you lost?”
“No.” Louis pointed across the street. “I’m trying to find out some information about what happened over there yesterday.”
“Some people were killed,” she said.
“Yes, I know. I’m helping the police find out who did it.”
She tilted her head, as if looking at him in a new light. “Do you live around here?” Louis asked.
“Yes, around
the corner,” she said, pointing.
“Did you see anything strange here yesterday? Anything at all?”
She shook her head. “I was in school. But Grandpa was here,” she said. “He is always here. He comes here every morning to drink his coffee and read
La Verdad
.”
Louis looked at the old man, who was just staring straight ahead, his eyes hidden behind the dark glasses.
“Can he see okay?” Louis asked the girl.
“Oh, sure. He had cataract surgery last year.”
Louis turned and roughly aligned himself with the old man’s sight line. The old man had a direct bead on the lot, stairway, and front door of Pacific Imports.
“Could you ask him some questions for me?” Louis asked the girl.
She hesitated. “I don’t think he will answer.”
“Why not?”
She fidgeted in her seat. “He doesn’t like black people.”
L
ouis’s eyes went to the old man’s face. But he was still staring straight ahead, mouth set in a hard line.
“Could you try, please?” he asked the girl.
“Maybe he will talk to you if I tell him you are a policeman.”
Louis hesitated. “Okay.”
She spoke softly to her grandfather. The old man still would not look at Louis, but at least his grip on the cane lessened some.
“Okay,” the girl said. “What do you want to know?”
“Ask him if he saw anything strange yesterday.”
The girl touched the old man’s arm. “
Abuelo, vistes algo raro ayer?”
“
Ese negro esta muerto
,” he spat out. “
Se lo merecia!”
The girl glanced at Louis then back at her grandfather.
She began to speak to him softly but firmly. The old man listened and then began to speak again, pointing toward Pacific Imports. The girl leaned close to listen then looked up at Louis.
“He said there is usually only one black man who works up
there, but a
couple days ago, another black man came.”
“What day was that?”
She asked him and looked back at Louis. “The other man came here on Monday in a black BMW.”
“He’s sure it was a black BMW?” Louis asked.
The girl nodded. “Grandpa loves cars. He is sure. He says he saw the second black man leave the next day. He had a suitcase in the trunk. He didn’t come back.”
“How does he know?”
The girl shrugged. “Grandpa sits here all day. He doesn’t like to be home because my baby brother cries a lot.”
Louis ran a hand over his face. That meant Austin made an appearance at his office five days ago, left for Fort Myers a day later, and hadn’t been seen back here since.
“Ask him if he ever saw a boy with the man,” Louis said. “A black boy.”
The girl translated and turned back. “No, just the two men.”
“Ask him if he saw anyone go in who looked...” Louis hesitated. “Who looked strange.”
The girl frowned and spoke in Spanish again to her grandfather.
“He saw...” she sighed. “He says he saw
dos Yankis
—- two white men —- go up there yesterday after lunch. Someone shut the blinds and then soon after, the white men came back out.”
“Why did your grandfather think that was strange?”
“They were wearing gloves.”
“Gloves? It’s cold. Lots of people are wearing gloves.”
“Yes,” the girl said, “but Grandpa says the men put on their gloves before they went into the office.”
Louis hesitated, wondering where to go next. “Is there anything else?” he asked. “Can he remember what kind of car they had?”
She asked and turned back to Louis. “He says it was a big, old blue Cadillac, with dark windows, you know, tinted? He says it looked like a car a drug dealer would drive.”
“Anything else? Anything at all?” Louis asked the girl.
She spoke again to her grandfather. She looked up at Louis and shook her head. “No, I’m sorry.”
The old man started speaking again, pointing toward the parking lot across the street. He seemed to be upset about something.
The girl looked contrite when she looked back at Louis. “I’m sorry,” she said. “He gets mad sometimes about things. Men broke into our home and stole some things once and now we have bars on the windows. Grandpa isn’t mad at you. He’s just mad at everyone.”
The old man said something under his breath, pointing again at the lot. Louis heard the word
Yankis
again.
“What did he say?” Louis asked.
“He says he thought the
Yankis
had come to steal that car over there.”
Louis looked to where the girl was pointing. There was one car in the lot of Pacific Imports beside the two police cruisers. It was an old Chevy
Bel Air, red and black, and restored to its pristine 1953 condition.
The old man was talking again, but his tone had changed. He was pointing toward the old car, speaking softly, reverently.
“Grandpa said he had a car like that back in Cuba, only his was blue,” the girl told Louis.
The old man muttered something.
“What?” Louis asked the girl.
She blushed. “He called the man a bad word. He said he hated seeing him touch that beautiful car.”
Louis’s eyes shot back to the Chevy. Fingerprints? Damn, could they get that lucky? He turned back to the girl.
“Thank you very much,” he said. “And thank your grandfather for me.”
This time the girl smiled.
Louis jogged back across the street, stopping at the tape that stretched across the lot. He was considering approaching the two uniforms when he saw Joe’s red Bronco pull up. She got out and came toward him, her shoulders hunched in the leather jacket, her hands stuffed in the pockets of her black jeans. She was wearing huge tortoise-shell sunglasses that covered a good part of her face. Her hair was back in its ponytail.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said. “I was over at the station getting an update.”
“No word on Austin Outlaw, I take it?” Louis asked.
“No, but we checked all the flights out of MIA last night and he wasn’t on any of them. Checked Fort Lauderdale, too, just in case. Nothing. The BMW was due to be turned in to Avis last night. No sign of it. So, you find anything?”
“Would you believe fingerprints?”
She stared at him. “Prints? Where?”
Louis nodded toward the caf
e across the street “Some old guy over there saw two guys go up to Pacific Imports.” Louis pointed to the Bel Air. “And before they went up, one of them was looking in that car over there.”
“Damn,” Joe said softly. “Can we get that lucky?”
“I don’t think the car has been moved,” Louis said. “It has a For Sale sign in the window.”
A faint smile tipped Joe’s lips and she ducked under the yellow tape. Louis followed.
One of the uniforms was leaning against the back fender of the Bel Air.
“Harvey, move your ass,” Joe said.
The cop looked up at her. “Why? Nothing going on down here, detective.”
“No, I mean, move your ass off the car. We need to dust
it.”
The officer straightened, looking at the Chevy. Louis waited as Joe filled him in
then she went upstairs to the Pacific Imports office. She spoke for a moment with a guy in a brown sports coat, who looked down at Louis. Louis recognized him as the detective he had approached on the first day, the one who had told him to go back home to Captiva. The guy looked like he was giving Joe a hard time.
After a moment,
the detective went back inside the office and a crime unit tech came out. Joe led the tech down to the Chevy and then she came back to Louis.