Hard Case Crime: Dutch Uncle (16 page)

“He wouldn’t do what you said he’s done. He couldn’t have. I know his side of the story.”

“Then why don’t you let me in on it?”

“Would it change your opinion?”

“It might.”

“Harry went to do a job for the man who was murdered. When he returned to the man’s room, he found him dead.”

Martinson said, “A job, huh? What kind of job?”

She double-clutched and broke eye contact. She said, “I don’t know.” She was lying.

“Let me guess. He made a delivery for the victim.”

“I don’t know,” she said again.

“And wonder of wonders, the victim was already gone by the time your boyfriend got back with his money? Is that what he told you?”

This time, she didn’t answer.

“And you believe him? Look, at one point there had been a fairly large amount of cocaine in the victim’s room, and by the time his body was discovered, those drugs were gone.” Martinson went right at her. “Your boyfriend stole those drugs and killed that man. This guy you’re trying to protect.”

“Then why bother with the story?” she argued. “Why wouldn’t he just steal my money and steal my car and disappear in the middle of the night? If he’s the kind of man you say he is?”

“What was he selling you? A frame? Prisons are full of guys who didn’t do it. You know that, right? If he’s so innocent why didn’t he give himself up?”

No answer for that, either.

Martinson said, “So where is he now?”

“I have no idea,” she said. Another lie.

“I don’t believe you. And I wonder if you know that aiding and abetting a fugitive is a felony you could be prosecuted for?” Put some heat under her ass.

“And I’d like to meet the prosecutor who’d try me on those charges. You’re not scaring me, detective.”

“I’m going to find your boyfriend, Ms. St. Denis, and I’m going to bring him back here to stand trial for this crime, with or without your help.”

“We hung out for like a month. We ate some meals, we watched some movies, we worked together. But I want to separate you from the notion that I have some special knowledge pertaining to this case. I don’t. And I don’t have anything more to say to you.”

She walked to the door and held it open. She was lying about not knowing his whereabouts, but Healy did have her convinced he didn’t do it. When she said she didn’t know anything thing beyond Healy’s version, she had told the truth. About that, anyway. Which was more than he could say for himself, and that yarn about his grandfather, who had been dead for years before Martinson’s parents even met.

With a reminder beamed at him just about every time he turned on the TV, Leo was feeling guilty about Manfred’s murder. But then a rapist got loose in Gainesville, forcing these college chicks to do it at knifepoint, and after that, some Homestead trailer-court mom buried her twin daughters alive. She claimed she had visions the kids were agents of Satan, who was behind like every other shrub in rural Florida, and this was way bigger news than some drunk getting offed in his hotel room, fabulous South Beach or not. In about a week or so, the Pfiser story died down. Leo’s feelings about him died down along with it.

Though he felt zero remorse over smoking JP Beaumond, Beaumond did come to visit him in a nightmare. Beaumond showed up in his army fatigues, settling once and for all the question of whether you dreamed in color. Leo distinctly saw the brown and khaki, the olive drab that made up Beaumond’s foul camouflage pants. Shirtless into the next world, his pink potbelly hung over his belt. The scary thing was, he had a huge bite out of his chest, a big chunk shaped like an alligator jaw. It wasn’t bleeding. Just a hunk of flesh that wasn’t there. Leo could see light coming through the back of him.

“Yew sum bitch,” Beaumond said in the dream, “Ah’m gwan git yew fer this.” It came out slow, like Beaumond had to think about it.

“Hey,” Leo said, startled by the wound and the fact he could hear Beaumond’s drawl so clearly, “you’re dead. Fuck you.”

Beaumond looked disappointed with the news, but he didn’t bother Leo at all after that, and Leo didn’t devote him any waking thoughts.

Alex Fernandez called and said he was sorry about jumping out of the car that day, but he was really freaked and he hoped Leo would forget it. He told Leo he was thinking about going to Cuba until things cooled off, some story about a sick relative he was going to peddle to Immigration, if it wouldn’t fuck with his green card. Leo thought it was a good idea. He also thought it was a good idea if Alex didn’t call the house any more.

Before he hung up, he asked Fernandez if he’d seen Vicki.

“Vicki?” Fernandez said. “Not at all. Do me a favor, Leo. If you see her, don’t tell her where I am.”

Since Leo didn’t know where he was, and didn’t want to know, he didn’t think that was going to be a problem.

But now he had to worry about Vicki. Leo hated worrying. It got in the way of his fun.

He would’ve started worrying before, had he run into Vicki anywhere, but he hadn’t. Which was weird. South Beach was an incestuous scene that got smaller by half if you lived here year round. You saw the same faces, whether you wanted to or not. It was inevitable. But now that he was looking for Vicki, she seemed to have disappeared. She wasn’t wandering Washington Ave. in the afternoon, or haunting the clubs at night, the stuff she did every day when she was on bivouac at the house.

Leo made up his mind to find her. He was sitting on a café terrace overlooking Ocean Drive, hung over bad from chugging cheap champagne at an agency party. Drinking espresso and profiling with a Marlboro, he peeped the parade of Euros and crude modelitas from behind his Revo wraparounds. Not a hide or a hair of airhead Vicki, her Chihuahua either, whose snout would be poking out of a basket bag that matched the hat Vicki was sure to be sporting. He ordered another espresso to stay alert. If he did get Vicki in his crosshairs, he wanted to be sharp, in case he had to reach some kind of decision.

After two hours, he still hadn’t seen Vicki. But the time hadn’t been wasted, since this bouncing blonde bundle two tables over was staring right at him. Leo played it off with a dramatic drag on his Marlboro, pushing his hair off his forehead, and sipping from an empty espresso cup, as if he were deep in thought, which he was not. He snuck a peek back. No question. She had the Kid locked right in the old pin-spots.

She had a rocking tan under her white bikini and the white shirt she had tied around her neck. Leo scanned the table for signs of neurotica. There were dozens, if you knew how to read them, but on the positive side, every blonde signal was go. She was drinking a glass of wine. Excellent. Sometimes they didn’t drink because they were uptight about their weight, and that could mean they’d be in the bathroom after a pricey meal, barfing up their supper.

Another positive vibration: no miserable mutt anywhere near her. And if Leo was not mistaken, that binder sitting on the empty chair was a portfolio. The genius of it all. Now he could walk up and ask what agency she was with.

He got the waitress’s attention and told her he’d be drinking a Cuervo margarita, straight-up with salt, at that table where the blonde was sitting, and to bring the blonde another glass of whatever she was having.

He picked up his cigarettes, walked over, and introduced himself. Did she mind if he joined her? Of course she didn’t. Leo lifted her book off the chair and asked who represented her.

“I’m not with any agency right now,” she said, implying she’d been with some agency in the past, though Leo knew that was impossible, unless she worked when she was a kid.

Was that a nervous giggle he heard? He believed it was.

Her name was Whitney and she was nineteen, a real corn-fed, hand-spanked, all-American type with either blue eyes or green eyes, a tough call from behind the shades.

Pretty was not Whitney’s problem. Height was. She wasn’t tall enough to model any kind of clothes, and she had the wrong shape for it besides, her plump titties touching the tabletop. Leo imagined she was thick through the waist and the hips, too, stealing a glance downstairs without being too obvious. The girls who got work were all starvation skinny, five-nine at least (a sixfooter was not unusual), all legs and necks and big flat feet that held them up.

Leo took a look through her book. A natural disaster, it was, in a way, better than he could have hoped. The pictures were poorly lit and the styles were so whack the clothes must’ve come from her closet. A photo of Whitney wearing a floor-length gown chopped a muchneeded three inches off her height. Somebody sausaged her into a one-piece bathing suit with a horizontal pattern; she looked like a zebra-striped fire hydrant. There wasn’t a single tear-sheet, not one shot from a magazine or a catalogue or any actual job she had done.

But toward the back of the book things got interesting. Whitney had a banging body she wasn’t bashful about showing off, and there was no denying those boobies, flowering fully in one photo, no annoying bathing suit blocking his view. The last few shots — the whole cheesebucket, woolly little pubic patch and everything. If her sights were set on the pages of
Ass N’ Bush
, this was a fine example of her work, but she’d get laughed out of every office on the Beach.

“This is a terrific book,” Leo said. “You’ve got a lot of talent.”

“I’m glad you think so,” Whitney said. “Now all I’ve gotta do is convince those agencies.”

“You know, I just might be able to help. You’d be surprised,” he said, trying to get his mouth around this outrageous lie, “you’re better off than most. But I’ll tell you what.”

Leo took a card from his wallet. He had them printed when he rented the house, cards that said he was associated with the Top Girl Agency, a completely false claim, but if the play was ever going to work, Whitney was the type of girl he had in mind for it.

She swallowed a sip of wine from her fresh glass. “You’re so nice. I wish I’d met you a couple weeks ago.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Leo said. “The important thing is, we know each other now. I could be an important contact for you.”

“Your hair is really cool,” Whitney said. “Take off your sunglasses so I can see your eyes.”

Leo drove her back to the house. She didn’t have any clothes with her besides the cut-offs in her knapsack, but stripping off the bikini was Whitney’s idea. Leo let her run with it. Hunting down a roll of Kodachrome, he realized Vicki could’ve passed him ten times while he was out there on the Drive charming the pants off of Whitney and he never would have known it, but Vicki was going to have to wait. He was having too much fun right now to worry about Vicki.

Whitney put on a CD that featured the Iggy Pop oldie, “Real Wild Child.” She ignited a spastic dance around the living room, throwing a kick that knocked over a lamp and broke the lightbulb, Leo snapping away at the action. She kept right on moving, ending up in his face, giving him her tongue. He carried her to the couch, his fingers squeaking on the sweat-slicked small of her back, and fucked her wearing all of his clothes. She wanted to quit and videotape it, but Leo didn’t own a Handicam. He promised her he’d buy one, and he promised himself the same thing. A camera and a tripod, too.

That Top Girl front he laid on her came back to haunt him. Even though Whitney checked out the competition and had to understand her brand of sexy was not what the agencies were looking for, she’d taken what he said to heart. Leo moved things around to let her know, not in so many words, that she wasn’t going to be modeling fashion in this or any foreseeable lifetime. What client wanted those big rounds boobs blowing his product off the page? But if they required a face, for cosmetics or jewelry, maybe Whitney had a shot.

Her eyes came off violet, Elizabeth Taylor-eyes in the right kind of light, blue-grey in another, slate-grey from a third angle, slate-grey and sparkling. Leo didn’t think she’d be that tough of a sell. It’d involve calling in favors and creating some he’d owe, but Leo had the juice to get it done.

First things first. That dirty picture book masquerading as a portfolio had to get kicked to the curb, and in a rush, if Whitney was going to get anywhere in the business. But she had to replace it with something. He called Stuart A. Homes-Leighton. A monied Brit who fancied himself a homeboy, Homes-Leighton had been kicking around the Beach for the last few winters, arriving at New Year’s, breaking out after Easter for destinations north. He got a lot of shit for his receding hairline and his double chin, for his fire-engine red hair and the pasty English skin that turned a luminous lobster in the sunshine, but mostly, he got shit because he was from a rich family and the other scenesters were jealous of him.

He had a raft of shortcomings, weaknesses that played right into Leo’s strengths. He would do anything to be around models. Professionally, he was vulnerable: He was a solid photographer, but the agencies all treated him like a troll. And he was a wicked blowhound. The mere suggestion of lines was enough to bring him running. There was no way he was going to refuse this job. He didn’t, calling Leo back ten minutes after Leo left a message with his service.

Homes-Leighton rolled up in a 1974 Oldsmobile Delta 88, red with a white convertible top. The odometer had flipped at least once, but the engine ran smooth and her body was solid aside from a raggedy patch-up somebody slapped on her left rear quarter panel. He could afford any car he wanted, but he went out of his way to look like he was struggling. This was a Homes-Leighton thing Leo didn’t get. The way Leo saw it, the more money, the better. Why hide it?

He had a delicate creature named Fraunces in tow, and when Leo said, “Hey, Francis, what’s up,” Fraunces cued him to the phonetics and spelled out the name for him. He was as tall as Leo and he might’ve weighed a hundred and thirty pounds with lug bolts in his pockets.

Leo went out to the Olds to help Homes-Leighton hump in his gear. He said, “Where’d you get this guy?”

“Fraunces is the mack-est of all make-up daddies.”

“I’m not paying him,” Leo said.

“No, I am. By the hour. So if your girl’s good to go, let’s set this shit off.”