Castro Directive (26 page)

"How many floors?"

"What?"

"How many floors are we going up?"

"To the top. The penthouse."

A paroxysm of fear clutched his spine. Oddly, the idea of taking an elevator suddenly overshadowed his anxiety about being arrested and jailed. Hell, he'd climb the stairs in leg irons if he could avoid the elevator. "I want to take the stairs."

"I don't. And you won't."

"Carver, I'm serious. I can't do it." The door opened, and Carver pushed him forward. "Get your ass in there."

Pierce stumbled into the cramped box and sucked in his breath. The door shut and dread tightened around him. He knew instantly he wasn't going to make it. His shoulders trembled, his legs wobbled, the elevator walls pulsed inward. He squeezed his eyes tight; darkness closed around him like a vise. As the elevator rose, an invisible hand cranked the vise harder, pressing down upon him.

He gasped for air, sputtered, coughed. He was suffocating in a black hole, being crushed like an insect. Time was stuck; seconds felt like hours. A shriek poised at the tip of his tongue. He gripped his throat. Lost his balance. Hands grabbed him, pulling him upright.

The motion stopped. Light and air exploded around him. He gulped for air, filling his lungs with the scent of floor wax. "You motherfucking asshole. You're not going to fall apart on me," Carver said, dragging him from the elevator.

He never thought going to jail would be a relief. But after the elevator ride, it was. Carver turned him over to a guard, and he became official fodder for the legal system, processed like a product passing along an assembly line. No one told him what was going on, and when he asked if he could make a phone call, he was ignored. He was led into a booth and a light flashed in his face. His fingertips were pressed into an ink pad, then printed on paper. He emptied his pockets, and his belongings were inventoried.

Carver and a man in a dark suit stepped out of an office; they studied him like an insect. Carver had probably told him he was prone to seizures, that he was a danger to himself and other inmates, that he might need a psychiatric evaluation.

Carver left with no parting word to the new prisoner, and after the processing was finally finished, Pierce was led along a row of cells. Eyes watched him from behind the bars. The guard unlocked the door of a roomy cell. Inside on the right were several smaller cells. He directed Pierce into one of them. "When can I make a phone call?"

"Later." He slid the gate shut.

His cell, about the size of an elevator, was furnished with a wooden bench and a toilet. He'd sat there less than a minute when he heard the gate of one of the other small cells sliding open and realized he wasn't alone. He looked over and saw a black kid in his early twenties watching him. He was shirtless and wore jeans; one of his wrists was bandaged.

"You don't have to hang your ass in there, you know. Just open your gate."

He saw that the kid was right. The cell wasn't locked. He slid open the door and stepped out into the larger cell. "Thanks."

"You bust out?"

Pierce frowned, uncertain what he meant. "What?"

"You bust out of another jail?"

"No. Why do you say that?"

"Because this is where they put guys they want to keep an eye on. Guys they think might bust out."

Pierce glanced up and saw a video camera panning the cell. He hadn't thought about escaping, and had no idea how he would do it. Even if he somehow got out of the cell, he would still need to get out of the cell block, and the locked gate was right next to the guard station.

"You're on TV day and night, and they never cut the lights. Never."

"How long've you been here?"

"Since last night. I took a walk from Z-Hills."

"From what?"

"Zephyrhills, man. Minimum security playpen. It's been my crib for six months. Had enough."

Pierce nodded. "Think they'll send you back?"

"Not if they wanna keep me around!" He laughed. "I'm going to court this morning, and then I get a new crib at the county detention center until my trial. Least that's what happened last time. They got real beds there, and food that you can eat, you know. Not the crap they shove at you here. You'll like it there."

"Yeah." Like hell, Pierce thought. "I'm Nick. What's your name?"

"Richard."

Pierce extended a hand, but Richard swatted the air above it "Man, if you be here in jail awhile you gotta learn how to act. Make a fist, and go like this." They knocked knuckles a couple of times. "Now like this." They opened their hands and slapped their palms a couple of times. Pierce figured there was more to it than that, but Richard seemed to think that was enough for his first lesson.

"What happened to your wrist?"

"Fuckers cut me. They wanted blood. What they get you for?"

"Don't know. Probably murder."

The kid reappraised him, nodded. "Who'd you get?"

"No one. I didn't do it."

Richard grinned, flashing his teeth. "Yeah. I didn't escape, either." He laughed and punched fists with Pierce again. This time he jammed his forearm at him after slapping palms. Part three of the fraternal cellmate handshake, he thought, and walked back into the small cell—his crib. He laid down on the bench and stared up at the camera. It was going to be a long wait, no matter how quickly he got out of here.

An hour later, a couple of guards picked up several inmates for arraignment. Richard was one of them. He put on his shirt and, as he left, told Pierce he'd see him in the county detention center.

"When do I get my call?" Pierce asked the guard. "Just hang on. You get it as soon as these guys are out of here."

It was five to eleven when he made his phone call. He kept it short, explained what had happened, asked Gibby to arrange for a lawyer. He also told him to take his spare key, open his office, and find his address book. In it, he'd find Redington's phone numbers. "You've got to find him, Gib. He's my alibi."

"Jesus Christ, Nick," Gibby said for the third time. "Anybody else you want me to call?"

He thought a moment. "Yeah, if you can't find Redington, call Elise Simms. Her home and office numbers are in the same book. She may know where he is." He didn't know if she'd be any help, but it was worth a try.

"What about Raymond Andrews?" Gibby asked.

"Not yet." Andrews was his last option, his ace in the hole. If Redington didn't show up, he'd turn to Andrews. But for the moment, he hoped to avoid getting him involved.

He'd missed breakfast. Lunch was a salami sandwich, potato chips, and coffee. He devoured it and waited. He tried to rest, but couldn't get comfortable on the bench. Mostly, he paced back and forth in the cell, considering what had happened from every possible angle.

Finally, late in the afternoon, he was taken to a visitor's room. Gibby wheeled over to the doorway and greeted him, shaking his hand and clasping his forearm. Behind him, seated at the table, was a slight, dark-haired man in his middle to late forties. Gibby spun his chair around and introduced Carlos Rodriguez. The man nodded, smiled, shook his hand.

"My lawyer suggested Mr. Rodriguez because he has experience handling criminal cases, and —

"Because I'm Cuban. Like the victim," Rodriguez said, standing up and shaking Pierce's hand.

He looked Rodriguez in the eye. "I didn't kill Fuego. I want you to know that."

The lawyer sat back down, and Pierce took a seat across from him. "So far no one says that you have, Mr. Pierce. You haven't been charged with anything. The prosecutor's office can hold you for up to seventy-two hours. If formal charges haven't been filed, they must release you."

"You mean they might just be harassing me?"

"Not harassment. That's against the law. They are simply holding you as a suspect while the case is being investigated."

"It's harassment to me, because like I said, I didn't do it."

He turned to Gibby. His curly hair looked even wilder than usual, his eyes even bulgier. When they were partners, Pierce was called the sleepy guy, because of his droopy eyelids, and Gibby was the wide-awake guy.

"Did you find Redington?"

"He's gone. No one's seen him since yesterday afternoon, including Elise Simms."

"I'm not surprised. They set me up."

Gibby looked confused. "Why do you say that?"

"I think Simms is behind the whole thing and Redington is protecting her. She wanted Fuego killed because he was on to her. That's what I think."

Gibby shook his head. "I don't know if you've got that right, Nick. She was pretty upset when I talked to her." Upset about what?"

"About your arrest, about Fuego's murder, and about Redington's disappearance. She thinks he was kidnapped, and that Ray Andrews was behind it."

"Christ. She blames him for everything. I don't buy it. Besides, Redington was seen leaving his house with a suitcase."

"But if Redington didn't want to be your alibi, he didn't have to disappear. All he'd have to do was say you weren't in his office."

Pierce shrugged. "Maybe once I was out of the way, he had other business to attend to." Like turning up the second skull, he thought.

"What other business?" Gibby asked.

"Excuse me," Rodriguez said. "I don't think speculation will do any good right now. Let's wait until you are charged, and see about getting you out of here. Then we'll talk about your defense."

"You think they'll let me out on my own recognizance?" he asked.

"Mr. Pierce. This is a murder case. I can't be sure there will even be any bail."

T
he sunbaked beach spread out in front of him, a mirage of seemingly endless sand, palm trees, and oil-slicked bodies. Several of the women within Thor's view from the veranda of the Sea Horse Hotel wore only string bikini bottoms. He watched with curiosity, but was aware of the irony. The only place on Miami Beach where topless sunbathing was tolerated was directly in front of a hotel known for its homosexual clientele.

The hotel bar was called the Sandscape because fifty yards or so from it, the sand rose in a dune that blocked the view of the ocean, and all you could see from here was a desert, a sandscape specked with near-naked bodies. He tilted his beer to his mouth and knocked back half of it. He was glad he was here, and not in Key West. Maybe Miami Beach was decrepit, but the place at least had some sense of class.

Key West used to have class, but he wasn't so sure anymore. He'd been there last month investigating a particularly violent Miami-based smuggling syndicate that was running an arm of its operation out of a boutique. He didn't have a name, only that the boutique was somewhere on Duval Street. Some help that was. Duval Street was one string of boutiques, broken, only by the occasional gallery, restaurant, or bar.

He and one of his investigators had looked for leads at several of the bars, including the unforgettable Kokomo Tiki, which that weekend was offering a "Caribbean-style luau." He'd joked with the bartender, telling him that next week they ought to hold a Caribbean-style dogsled race. At first he thought the guy didn't hear him over the pounding disco beat that was nothing more than a tape loop playing the same synthetic refrain over and over. The bartender heard him, all right; he just didn't get it. Instead, he asked Thor if he was looking for some snow. Bingo.

He looked at the man, smiled at his sidekick. He'd found the lead he'd needed, and now his underlings were doing business with the syndicate. Another major cocaine bust was imminent, but, of course, it wouldn't matter. New syndicates quickly replaced defunct ones. Same drug, new people. And sometimes even the same people, out on bond.

Key West had been tolerable for Thor mainly because of the tropical flora. It was a botanical paradise, an island arboretum, where exotic and bizarre growth was to be found literally at every turn. There were scheffleras with glossy leaves; gumbo limbo trees with peeling red bark that made them look sunburned; massive banyans with aerial roots as thick as his thighs. On one street were flaming blossoms of poinciana trees, on another the night-blooming cereus, a South American cactus that looked as if it belonged in a desert. And, of course, there were the palms, from bushy ones like the Canary Island date palm and the fan palm to the towering Cuban royal and the Iatania.

"Thor. There you are."

He bolted out of his chair as he realized that Odin was standing next to him. He took pride in his ability to observe without being detected, and was himself rarely surprised by anyone. But he'd been lost in reverie.

"Sit down," Odin said.

"Would you like a drink?" Thor looked around for a waiter as Odin pulled up a chair.

"I've already told the waiter to bring me a spritzer." He grinned as he looked out at the beach. "Enjoying the view?"

"You bet."

He wondered whether Odin liked the view of the topless women on the beach, or whether perhaps he preferred to look at the handsome young men in tight shorts who stood at the bar. Odin had chosen the meeting place. Just as he'd chosen their names. He wondered how he would react if Thor called him by his real name. Probably not well. He'd consider it a deviant act, and Odin didn't tolerate rebels, at least not in his rank. That was why Gore was dead and Pierce was in jail.