The Death Box. J. Kerley A.

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      “The Carson Ryder morning show here. You want something, right?”

      “We have to start looking into concrete mixing companies, Detective. We need someone who can ask the right questions and tell when the answers are shaky. A pro.” I used the inclusive we, hoping to spark camaraderie. There was a coterie of FCLE investigators at Roy’s disposal – and, I supposed, mine as well – but I wanted the experience of the department’s top people, hoping a few hours of working together might diminish the wall between us.

      Valdez reached to the floor for her briefcase and popped it open, coming up with a two-inch-thick folder. She dropped it on the table, whump.

      “These are my current cases. Where does we fit in?”

      I resisted the urge to look to Roy for assistance and didn’t hear any, the silence of the Buddha.

      “Or,” I said, “I could grab some folks from the pool investigators downstairs.”

      “That sounds like a good idea,” Valdez said, standing.

      Delmara followed suit, tucking his notepad into his suit jacket and forcing a half-smile to his face. “Nice idea on the mixer, Detective,” he said, following Valdez out the door.

      Roy grabbed my shoulder. “Great theory, Carson! Morningstar was gushing over the idea.”

      “Gushing?”

      “If Vivian isn’t pissing on an idea, it’s gushing. You’re winning her over, bud.”

      “Yeah? What about the others?”

      We heard a cleared throat and turned to see Gershwin, chair tipped back, dressed in black jeans and a T-shirt advertising a surf shop. Both Roy and I had forgotten about the kid. “If y’all don’t need me for anything,” he said, “the folks in maintenance would like me to mop the bathroom with my tongue.”

      Roy tucked away his notes and nodded absently. “Good for you, kid. Keep it up.”

      Gershwin shook his head and was gone.

       10

      Roy and I elevatored down to the investigators’ floor, a horizontal hive of cubicles like I’d vacated in Mobile. Harry and I had our jammed-together desks closest to the elevator and my eyes turned there when the door opened, seeing not a lineman-sized black man dressed in a clashing color palette, but a white guy in his mid fifties with a wind-tunnel blowback of gray hair and Elvis Costello glasses. It wasn’t Harry but a Florida version of Martin Scorsese, and for a moment the world felt unsteady.

       Where am I?

      “Here you go, Carson,” Roy said, snapping me back to the present. “Grab who you need.”

      I studied the cubicles, most empty. The ones holding people held busy people: some guys on phones furiously scribbling notes as they talked, two women and a man bent over a desk and arranging photos, a pair of guys arguing in another cube.

      “Everyone looks busy, Roy.”

      He laughed. “What … you think I keep my lovelies sitting in a corner and jiggling their nuts while they wait for an assignment? Who looks good, Carson? Pick an assistant or two. Shit … wait … let me introduce you to everyone.”

      I heard myself giving my Happy to Be on the Team speech a dozen more times while trying to remember a roster of names.

      “How about Gershwin?” I said, seeing the kid reading in a far corner. “He doesn’t look busy.”

      Roy looked uneasy, like I might actually be serious. “That would make Gershwin a member of the crew, Carson, maybe not a great idea right now. The others might get a bit miffed that—”

      “Who gave me the You’re-in-Charge speech, Roy?”

      Roy puffed out a resigned breath. I walked across to Gershwin, still licking his thumb and turning pages. “What you reading?” I asked.

      He held up the Yellow Pages for Miami-Dade. “I’m scoping out the concrete section. I didn’t know anything about this crap before.”

      “You got anything going on right now?” I said. “I might be able to use you.”

      He tossed the book and leaned back in the chair with his hands behind his head and kicked his heels up on the desk. His smile was as wide as it was false. “What, Alabama … you need coffee? A shoe shine? Someone to run your laundry to the cleaners?”

      “You seem to have an attitude problem, Gershwin.”

      “I came here to work and instead I get treated like I spit in the face of everyone in the FCLE. You know what F-C-L-E spells, right? Fickle. McDermott treats me like I’m transparent, and everyone else looks the other way when I walk in a room.”

      I pushed his feet off the desk. He wasn’t expecting it and it brought him to sitting erect. I sat where his feet had been and looked him in the baby browns. “If you’re unhappy all you need to do is complain to the family of that kid you saved and have them pull strings on your behalf. Again.”

      The chin jutted. “I never asked them to push for me.”

      “Your refusal technique must be flawed. A powerful family offered you an unearned step up and you took it.”

      I’d scored a hit. The kid started to argue, had nothing. He nodded at me. “Truth is, I was tired of handling DUIs, brain-dead methheads and crackers screwing their dogs and daughters. I wanted action and when the kid’s family said to pick my spot, I said Miami.”

      “And here you are. What do you expect to happen?”

      “What else? McDermott’s gonna dump me at some backwater desk until I get tired of pushing paper and retreat to the sticks.”

      “And that’s what you plan to do … quit?”

      “That’s McDermott’s plan. Mine is to, to …” He pulled up short and frowned.

      “What?”

      “I dunno,” he said, honestly perplexed. “I don’t have a clue.”

      I pushed the Yellow Pages his way. “Here’s an idea: start checking concrete companies for employees with criminal records. Or does that lack the action you’re looking for?”

       11

      The dark-haired woman finished tapping on the MacBook Air and switched it off. She sat behind a mahogany desk, antique and polished to a soft gloss. The sole light flowed from a Tiffany-shaded desk lamp and the woman’s olive skin seemed to glow in the light. She wore a sedate navy ensemble, her dark hair curled in a businesslike chignon.

      “I’ll be finished in a moment, Orlando,” she said.

      There СКАЧАТЬ