Cooler Than Blood (17 page)

CHAPTER 28

I
awoke in a panic when I realized the first hint of light had cracked the darkness and I was still in bed. Few things in the world disturb me more than being in bed when light comes around again. Starving children do—because I feel they should. I left Kathleen and headed to the pink hotel, which was less than a mile from my home.

I entered the pool before sunrise and swam for forty minutes. I followed that with a three-mile barefoot sprint on the beach. While running, I came across a tidal pool and attempted to clear it, like we do in our dreams when we take great leaps and almost fly. But like my attempt to cover the length of the pool to retrieve the girl’s bone, I came up short and landed in two feet of water, which resulted in a slight twist in my left foot. I figured it would nag me for days. I rinsed off under the outdoor faucet on the boardwalk by the edge of the sand. At the far end of the pool, a thick man dressed in Johnny Cash black sat in a wheelchair that struggled to contain him. He had a cigar in one hand and his other hand pressed a cell phone to his ear.

I shaved in the locker room—the hotel has facilities that allow members to use it as a club—and fixed a cup of Columbian dark. I snatched a banana and a couple of newspapers and went to the second-floor balcony. I sat in a white rocking chair that overlooked the flowered tropical courtyard, the pool, and the Gulf of Mexico. The sky hung like a blue baby blanket draped over an impressionist painting. I placed the newspapers on the table to my left and tasted the first drops of coffee. I was in my office. We pick our places.

My phone rang. Binelli.

“What do you got?” I answered.

“Common courtesy, for one thing. That’s more than you can muster, cowboy.”

I took a bite from my banana. “What do you got, please?”

“Joseph Dangelo,” she said. “From Chicago. The Mexicans are moving into the Windy City, so the Outfit is retiring south. He’s been in Tampa for a little less than a year and is of mild interest to us. Tampa Bay, to fill you in, was the playground of the Santo Trafficante family, the Tampa Mafia. Typical bootleggers—they whacked a few of their own while managing to stay an indictment ahead of the feds. These guys, though, caught a slice of history when the CIA recruited them to hit Castro, and then later Santo Junior testified before a congressional committee on the assassination of JFK. You know this, don’t you?”

I did. “Tell me about
now
.”

“Long gone. The old New York families the Trafficantes were loosely associated with have bigger markets and bigger problems, and so do we. The trouble in the Sunshine State comes from points south. That’s where we focus our resources.”

“If I was smuggling drugs, I’d bring them in a U-Haul from the north.”

“Jeepers, am I ever glad I called you today.”

“You guys should have dialed me up years ago.”

“We suspect that Dangelo runs some narcotics and attempts to get people like the Colemans to supply him product without upsetting larger organizations. He also oversees several strip joints, and we think their primary purpose is to launder the cash from the drugs. His businesses include loan-sharking, prostitution, and protection services.”

“Run that last one by me again.”

“Protection services. Racketeering. You pay his organization a monthly fee, and they make sure you’re safe. If—”

“I know what it is.”

“Then why ask?”

“People still fall for it?” Below, in the courtyard, a man sang “Happy Birthday” while he simultaneously held his phone over his head and took a panoramic view of the resort. Someone was getting a video birthday card.

“No choice. They’ll break your front glass or mug you on the way to the night deposit. It’s a clean business compared to drugs. They still tend to shy away from the hard-core narcotics.”

“Little old-school, isn’t it?” I picked up the local paper and noted the tide schedule as well as sunrise, sunset, and the moon’s phase.

“The classics never go out of style.”

“Anything else?”

“Dangelo’s associates have ownership in three casinos in Vegas. Nothing whole, but they don’t exactly put out an annual report.”

“He thinks someone ripped him off a hundred forty-two grand. Half the two eighty-four that’s missing.”

“That would prick the hairs on his head.”

I described Captain Tony, but Binelli had nothing on him. I bent my head down. A nasty spider the size of a Hummer darted out from under my rocker. I took my right foot and squished the arachnid. I wondered why I’d killed it when I’d merely flicked off the spider that was on my left hand when Garrett and I lay in the grass at the Coleman property.

“How can I get to him?” I asked.

She paused then continued. “Usual means, I assume. But that’s your area. You think he has the girl?” I didn’t know whether the pause was the result of our conversation or something that distracted her on the other end.

“Jenny?”

“Right. You think Dangelo has her?”

“Yes, unless he’s stringing me along. Leading me to believe he does so I clean up his kitchen for him and find the missing dough. Would he risk kidnapping for that kind of cash?”

“Are you awake?”

“Withdrawn,” I told her.

“Besides, it’s not just the cash.”

“Tell me.”

“We think he was sent south to see what he can do, if he can handle his own operation and show some growth. He loses cash, he loses face. His career is done.”

“Do those careers typically wind up on the wrong side of the grass?”

“Unlikely. The days of Eliot Ness are long gone.”

“However…” I said, but let it go.

“The classics never go out of style,” she said for the second time.

“What can you tell me about Dangelo’s family life?”

Binelli didn’t respond. I finished my banana and tossed it toward a seashell waste can. Below, Johnny Cash motorized across the courtyard, phone still pressed to his ear. He’d lost his cigar.

“Vassar, you still with me?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Just a question.”

“Don’t screw with me.”

“Tell me what you know.”

“Don’t boss me either,” she said.

I blew out my breath. If I can’t screw or boss around, I’m out of things to do. Her tone reminded me of Susan admonishing me while we sat at the end of her dock.

She was silent, so I prodded, “I’m the good guy, remember?”

“That’s right. But you don’t play by rules.”

“Nor do you, sweet pea.” It came out fast and with intended sharpness.

“That was one time and—”

“We got the job done.” I stood up and paced. “We worked well together. We did the right thing. That’s what we’re doing know.” I decided not to back down or soften my tone with her. “I know Dangelo’s got a daughter. Tell me about her.”

For a moment, the phone was a silent instrument of hope and desire, pressed hard into my ear. “I’m not sure about any of this,” she said.

“About what?”

“Don’t fu—”

“I’m not. Just tell me.” I tried to soften my tone.

“I don’t know if I like where you’re going…your course. Helping you—”

“Let’s save a girl’s live. Help me do that.”

I gave that line less than a fifty percent chance and was upset with myself for having cut her off.

“You didn’t get it from me.” She was talking before I had a chance to reply.

“One more thing,” I said when she had finished.

“Shoot.”

“He in the same boat as Mendis?”

“Don’t think so.”

“One, one more.”

“You’re kidding.”

I asked her to run the plates on the truck Garrett and I had ridden to Ybor City in.

Binelli said, “Your turn.”

“At your service.”

“Would you have?”

“What?”

“The wrist.”

“I don’t know.”

She disconnected.

I picked my banana off the gray concrete balcony floor and dropped it into the can. I can never make that shot.

Garrett was on my back porch reading a newspaper when I returned. His iPad rested on the table. Kathleen was gone. She had informed me what her meeting was about—I’m thinking two, maybe three times—but of all my senses, listening is the one that shuts down on its own. I blame it on an explosion in Afghanistan that my ears, particularly my left one, never recovered from. Pulsating tinnitus. That’s mixing the literal and the figurative, like no man’s land, but they often go well together.

“Binelli called,” I announced, and plopped down beside him. He had the overhead fan on high, and it whipped the sticky air into a frenzy. On the water, a barge carried iron beams for the new bridge. A Jet Ski skimmed around it like a gnat circling a wounded elephant.

“And?” Garrett asked.

“Theresa Ann Howell. Lives in Austin.”

“What happened to ‘Dangelo?’ Not like the name?”

“Married, divorced, and kept the married name.”

“Kids?”

“Don’t know.”

“We can trade her for Jenny and—”

“Hold her over Dangelo’s head if he makes us for the beach scene.”

“What else?” Garrett put the paper down and guzzled half a bottle of water.

I recapped my conversation with Binelli then asked, “You run this morning?” “I did. Also performed a number on that pink, smiling face.” He finished the water and opened another. “You need a new one.”

“Seriously?”

“Split it with my right foot.”

For more than a year, I’d tried to destroy my punching bag, but all it did was smile at me. And now Mr. Greek God informed me that he’d split it? “No doubt,” I said, “the canvas became weak due to my constant punishment.” A great blue heron took flight and let out its ice-age cry when a snowy egret invaded its territory.

“Austin?”

“That’s what the lady said.”

“We’ve got to move on this.” He flipped open his iPad and punched some keys. “A flight leaves in three hours. We can—”

“A round trip blows a day, at minimum. We know—”

“Holzman.”

“He’s in Austin?” I asked.

“Dallas. Can be there far quicker than us.”

“That man is junk. He’s an open-and-closed case on crimes against humanity.”

Garrett shrugged. “Perfect qualification.”

“Didn’t you tell me he was nearly killed his first day back by a repeat-offender drunk in a pickup, but his girlfriend wasn’t as lucky?”

“I did.”

“That’s not the whole story.”

“Driver of the truck died six months later. A slow death.”

“How do you know he’s in Southfork?”

“We talk. I’ll give him a call and text him the information.”

“Tell him, ‘Do not touch.’” An osprey flew by with a fish in its talons. The tail was still flapping, as if the fish were swimming in the air. I wondered whether Patricia Wilkinson ever lost sleep worrying whether she’d ever see her dog, Happy, being flown away. “I don’t know how long she’ll work with us.”

“Who?”

“Binelli. She’s nervous. On the edge. Could shut me out at any moment. It would be good to cultivate a reliable source in Hoover.”

“Pass her a little cash,” Garrett suggested. “She can work for more than one agency.”

“I don’t think cash enters the equation.”

“Give it a try. It’s like aspirin; it cures nearly everything.”

He stood and walked out the screen door. I assumed he was heading to the outdoor shower. I left Binelli a voice mail. Every time I called her, I wondered whether she would even return the call. I could be detrimental to her career or introduce her to a new one. During the short time I’d spent with her while I recovered the stolen Cold War letter and shut down Raydel Escobar, I sensed within her a taste for adventure. She had volunteered to work undercover as Escobar’s mistress. It was a job that had demanded certain extracurricular activities that demonstrated not only a willingness to practice backseat morality but also the desire to venture outside the tedious boredom of everyday life in exchange for the unknown. She had displayed an intuitive understanding of clandestine operations, which could make her a useful asset. She called back a minute later.

“You do like me, don’t you?” I answered.

“You’re becoming a major drag on my time.”

“Just a quickie.”

“Just a guy.”

I pitched her the monetary element but kept it low-key. I didn’t think it would mean much to her and might even backfire. Nonetheless, I wanted to set the hook. She said she’d think about it and disconnected. I didn’t remember the last phone conversation I’d had when someone actually had said good-bye.

I relaxed back in my chair. A crab boat came by with two men in it. They were checking their traps, which were marked by single buoys. Pelicans kamikazed the surface, and a flock of roseate spoonbill glided through the summer sky as the sun’s rays blazed their pink feathers. I searched for a reason to believe the Chicago Outfit knew that Garrett and I had buried four of their own on a beach. I had no reason to believe they suspected Lauren Cunningham was alive under a new name. Even if they did know, they may well have realized she never had been a threat and had moved on. Nor did I have any reason to believe Joseph Dangelo knew of any of that. Or that Walter Mendis was plotting payback. I didn’t have any reason to believe my actions to find Jenny would, in some unforeseen manner, throw a spotlight on those activities. But I also knew the world was governed with far less reason than anyone suspected.

And if the stars
were
aligned against me? Fine by me. I had my Excalibur: Theresa Ann Howell. My intellect faded as my instincts gathered arms like a Hun preparing for battle. I would use her to free Jenny and cast a protective shield over Kathleen. A two for one.

I headed out for breakfast. After all, an army marches on its stomach.

CHAPTER 29

I
took a counter seat at Sea Breeze, a pine-walled breakfast-and-lunch establishment that had been flipping eggs since the 1930s. The air was thick with grilled breakfast and REO Speedwagon.

“The usual, Jake?” Peggy asked.

“I was thinking of doing something different this morning,” I replied as I perused the menu, which I hadn’t glanced at in more than a year. “Maybe fresh fruit and a bagel with light cream cheese. Do you have any yogurt?”

She had one hand on a hip, and the other clutched a coffee pot. She snorted, spun, and stalked off.

Garrett and Morgan had taken off to buy new speaker wires for
Impulse
. I planned to stake out Dangelo’s hangout in Ybor City while Garrett kept an eye on the Winking Lizard. We wanted to see who came in and out and try to pick up any sign of Jenny. I also wanted to talk to Kelly, the waitress at the Cubana Grille. She seemed well acquainted with Dangelo.

The guy to my right wore a Pier House T-shirt and was reading
The Wall Street Journal
. He pestered me with questions about the local economy. I asked him if the current banking regulations were strict enough considering that it had taken Wall Street only ten years after the repeal of Glass-Steagall to leverage their own money by thirty to one and bring the developed nations’ financial systems to their knees and nearly plunge the world into an unimaginable dark age. We jostled for a while. He was a talker, and you know how I feel about that breed. He asked what I do for a living. I said I fish and plug the occasional bad guy. He laughed and said, “That’s different. What do you really do?”

“I just told you.”

It worked.

He pulled out a twenty, left it on the bar, and scooted out the door. He also left a strip of bacon on his plate. I ate it. I slid the
Journal
over and started reading.

“Here you go, Casanova,” Peggy said a few minutes later as she dropped a plate on top of “Money and Investing.” A red bowl of onions followed and blotted out a graph of the ten-year treasury.

“No yogurt this morning?” I asked.

“You ask that girl to marry you yet?” She punched it out the same way she dropped food on the counter.

“How do you—?”

“Whole beach knows. And let me tell you, you won’t do any better than her. Don’t blow this one, you hear me?”

“Yes, ma’am. But I’m still trying to get in touch with—”

“You’re so full of it, I don’t know how you squeeze through the door. You grab her and never let go. And stop scaring away the new patrons. I heard what you said to that guy.”

“I was being truthful—”

“Don’t be.” She pivoted and vanished into the kitchen.

I dumped the sautéed onions over the eggs and crispy hash browns. I showered the plate with pepper. What a gorgeous canvas—it was almost a shame to tear into it. When I was finished, I left Peggy a buck more than usual. She’d be insulted with anything more.

I strolled out the front door, hesitated a beat, and went to an apparel store half a block toward the Gulf. I was supposed to meet Kathleen for lunch downtown. I got that part; I’d just forgotten what her plans were for the morning.

I spent the next two hours helping Morgan help me fix my boat speaker. Garrett already had departed for the Winking Lizard. We were treading water while we waited for Holzman to come through; it’s not my favorite activity, but it’s not sinking. When we finished, I showered outside; donned a clean, button-down, silk shirt and pressed shorts; and hopped into my truck. I found Kathleen inside Mangroves at a corner two-top that overlooked Beach Drive and the side street. I had a little more than an hour before I wanted to camp outside the Cubana Grill; I wanted to be in there in case Kelly got off work after lunch.

“Not outside?” I asked and bent down to kiss her. We exchanged a quick peck. No parted lips and open eyes. Not today.

“I hope you don’t mind. It’s just too hot.”

“I’m good.” She had taken the seat that looked outside, and I sat across from her with my back to the glass. She wore a murderous butter-yellow dress. Her jewelry, which I didn’t recall seeing before, had a Western flair that complemented the dress.

A young man wearing the name “Irving” on his left chest took our food and drink orders simultaneously. I gave him my credit card with our orders. He stomped off. I wanted to be in and out as quickly as possible, but even when I’m not in a hurry, I give the card well before the check comes then review the chit when I sign the receipt. I leave a restaurant when I want to leave. I can’t tolerate waiting and having someone else determine when I stand and walk. Irving departed, and I explained to Kathleen why I had to eat and run. She said that was fine; after her busy morning, she was pressed for time as well.

“How
was
your morning?” I asked. With a little luck, she’d fill me in on whatever it was she had told me she was doing that I hadn’t paid attention to. We’ve all been there.

“Good. How was yours?” She did that occasionally—deflected questions about herself with a short answer then lobbed a question of her own. It was a ploy I constantly used as well. I figured very few people really gave a damn, so why fake it? The real test is whether they bring the question around again.

I took a sip of water that had been waiting for me. “I went to Sea Breeze for breakfast and enlightened my stool mate that I fish and don’t like bad people. I got a free strip of bacon out of the deal.”

“It would behoove you to be a mute sometime.”

“Behoove?”

“Yes.” She smiled. “You need to work on behooving.”

“That word should be reserved for admonishing a ranch hand. And your morning?” I asked for the second time, because even if I was a poor listener, I gave a damn about Kathleen more than the heavens would ever know.

“It was a good seminar, but it cut short my morning reading session on your dock.”

I had no idea what seminar she was even referring to, so I went with her reading comment, thankful that she’d thrown it out there. “Well, you can return to your experiment tomorrow.” I took another sip of water and let an ice cube sneak into my mouth. It was the square type with a hole in the middle, which I stuck my tongue into.

“I suppose, but it might be more difficult due to what we all decided at the meeting.”

Did she rope me in on purpose? I went in over my head and said, “That’s good. Everybody show up?”

Kathleen gave me a sympathetic smile. “You’re totally lost, aren’t you?” It came out with an appropriate dose of pity.

“I just wasn’t there last night. What
did
you do this morning?” That was three times now.

“What’s in the box?” And twice for her. She sucked her left cheek in between her teeth. She really was a little ticked. Good thing I had the box.

I placed it on the table. “For you.” I said.

Another smile. Point for me. “What’s the occasion?” she asked, as she picked it up.

“Felt like it.”

I heard Peggy’s voice telling me not to blow it. Kathleen opened the box, and a copper-tone summer dress spilled out. She gushed that it was beautiful, that she loved the color, that it went with the jewelry she had on, that it was the right size, and how’d I know? All that stuff I barely heard. Then this: “It’s the first thing you’ve bought me.”

I started to protest; after all, certainly I’d bought her a gift before, right?

She leaned over and gave me a kiss. She reclined back in her chair. “You’re a lucky fellow. Your timing couldn’t have been better.”

“So what
did
you do this morning?” That made four times, and despite my efforts, I was sensing a pattern here. I wasn’t going to take that hill. Not today.

“Oh, no,” she replied with a smile and slight shake of her head that was just enough to jiggle her earrings, “you don’t skirt that easy. Tell me about what you’re doing to find Jenny.”

Irving dropped off our lunches. Kathleen speared a piece of salmon, and I took a Grand Canyon bite out of my cheeseburger. Breakfast seemed like eons ago. I told her we suspected Dangelo to be part of a larger group, but I left it at that. I debated telling her he was organized crime with connections in her old stomping grounds. I sensed she thought of asking more, but she remained silent. Irving asked us if there was anything else he could get for us. “We’re done,” I proclaimed, but he already had spun and headed to his next table. Little twit. Why even ask? Kathleen commented that one didn’t see many young Irvings, which led to a litany of Irving writers. Stone. Wallace. John. She got stuck when she tried to recall the name of Garp’s youngest son.

“You know, don’t you?” she asked.

“Think Sidney,” I said, and my mind flashed to the Laundromat.

“That’s a clue?”

“It’s a variation of ‘Disney.’”

“Disney. Okay, I’ll run with that. Goofy, Donald—”

“Think corporate.”

“Fine. Walt…Walt!”

We clanked our glasses in jubilation. Irving dropped off the bill. The pen he provided had the name of a gastroenterology practice on it. Did the same group that owned the restaurant also own the medical practice? Hopefully there’s a law against such an alliance.

We strode outside, and the heat socked me back to reality with an uppercut of guilt
as I recalled Garp’s mother.
Jenny
. Like the night of the banana cream pie,
I had just enjoyed a cheeseburger and an air-conditioned brainteaser lunch with a woman who knew me yet still loved me. An unusual combination for any of us. If only briefly, my biggest concerns in life had been a waiter who hadn’t sucked up to me and a pen that never should be found in a dining establishment.

I was Jenny’s hope? Her wrecking ball?

I begged off walking Kathleen back to her condo, as my truck was in the opposite direction, and I had to hustle. As I cut the corner, I glanced through the window at the table where Kathleen and I had just lunched. It was neatly set for the next patrons.
Like we were never there.
Garrett called as I opened the driver’s door to my truck.

“Anything?” I asked. I knew he was at the Winking Lizard.

“Not here, but I talked to Holzman.”

“And?”

“Hopefully by tonight. With the time difference, my bet is after midnight our time.”

“Sure it’s the same girl?” I climbed into the truck.

“I texted him the photo. Positive ID.”

“He knows not to touch?”

“He’s not really wacko. That’s—”

“No, that man flies without radar.”

“On certain occasions those are the perfect people to have on your side.”

“Kathleen’s not to know of this.” I turned the key and put the truck in drive.

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

I disconnected and headed to Ybor City.

The rest of the afternoon crawled by with the dull consistency of a metronome. No one entered or departed Dangelo’s building. Kelly was working, but her shift must have run through the afternoon, as she never ventured outside. I ducked into cafés and consumed a gallon of iced tea. I dodged a cloudburst and sauntered into an independent corner bookstore. I wondered whether in the future, buried deep in some doctoral thesis of bygone species, independent bookstores would be listed as
Liberum editio negotium
, right next to some South American ant. I grabbed a beer at a sports bar with seven flat screen TVs all broadcasting a different event. I found a kettle corn stand and devoured half a bag.

At our luncheon, Dangelo had informed me that he preferred his St. Pete office for its proximity to both points south and north. I hadn’t asked him where that office was; I should have. He may or may not have told me, but that doesn’t excuse my mental lapse. I doubt it was the Winking Lizard; he had too much class for that.

He finally exited at six thirty and headed straight to the Cubana Grille. I took a high stool in a coffee shop window across the street, which I’d scouted out earlier as a perfect vantage point. He claimed the same table he had with us, but this time a white cloth dressed up its surface. The Tweedle team took up its post. I wondered whether the bookstore carried a copy of Lewis Carroll’s
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,
which is where the pair originated.

Dangelo had a dinner guest whom I didn’t recognize. The man joined him shortly after Dangelo sat down. His dinner partner was a stocky man in an ill-fitting summer suit. While Dangelo was in short sleeves, his guest kept his jacket on. They dined for a little more than an hour. When they left, I snapped some pictures with my Canon as well as my cell phone. I followed Summer Suit to his idling, generic, black town car with the limousine sticker in the rear widow. A ride to and from the airport. An out-of-town visitor. I realized Binelli hadn’t gotten back to me yet on the plate on the truck Garrett and I had ridden in from the Winking Lizard to meet Dangelo. Without some formal commitment from her, I was always afraid that our last conversation would be our last conversation. I went back to my post and kept an eye on Kelly.

She left at nine twenty-five. A long day. I scampered across the street and followed her to the three-dollar lot. I wondered if she needed to pay that every day or if the restaurant cut a deal for the staff. I closed in on her just as she reached into her purse for what I assumed were her keys.

“Kelly?”

She jumped and turned; I had scared her. “Yes?” She held keys in her right hand.

“My name’s Jake. I wonder if I could have just a couple of minutes with you? I’d like—”

“Are you some off-duty cop?” Her shoulders slumped. She drew the word
cop
out, and it lasted longer than the first four words combined.

“A cop? No, I just want to—”

“Listen, man”—she pitched her head off to her left—“I haven’t been
near
that mama’s boy since—”

“Near who?”

“Leonard. You’re not here about my restraining order?”

“No. Nothing to do with that. I just got a couple of questions about someone you serve.”

“Well”—she brightened up a bit and picked up the pace—“who are we talking about?”

“A regular patron of yours, Joseph Dangelo.”