Midnight Guardians (25 page)

So when she left, you looked around the garage. You rolled down off the ramp and over to the counters, the ones you’d built with your own hands. You had measured the wood yourself, the thick oak, the kind that couldn’t just be kicked in by some skinny dickweed breaking into your garage. You’d put on the heavy-duty hinges, double-drilled the stainless-steel hasps, and locked it down with a round cylinder stainless padlock. It was better than a safe ‘cause no one would assume what it contained. Key it open, and there she is, the old Mossberg 500 your father gave to you before he died—and what better weapon to use, huh? Make your father proud, after all the fucking up you’ve done.

OK, you took her out of the cabinet and slipped the old carrying case off. She smelled like aged gun oil. It had been about two years since you last had her out and took her down to the range in Markham Park and did some skeet with a couple of the guys. You should have taken better care of her. Yeah, should’ve done a lot of the things.

It actually hurt your heart to take her and put her in the vise on the workbench, clamping her in hard right along the pump action. You could feel the nonslip pattern of the vise teeth sinking into the wood. When you took the hacksaw and started that cut on the barrel to bring it down to size, you could hear Daddy yelling, “Son, what the hell are you thinking?”

But this was the only way, wasn’t it? Saw off the barrel and strip the shoulder stock to give her a kind of pistol grip. That’s the way you’d be able to hide the shotgun along your leg in the wheelchair without drawing too much attention. The Brown Man might be a useless drug dealer, but he was also street smart. He’d probably seen a dozen competitors and pissed-off clients coming at him in the past, and knew what to look for. But a cripple cop loaded up with 00 buck? The man wouldn’t know what hit him.

So you sanded off the rough metal at the working end of the barrel and loaded her with four shells, even though you knew you’d only need two. You wrapped her up in a black field jacket and then used the cell phone to call a cab. Hell, you had the number memorized by now. Even the daytime dispatcher knew your voice by now after all the times you’d called them. “Oh, yeah, the legless guy who has to have a ride to the beach for a workout at the gym, or down to Bootlegger’s for a beer, or to Publix for a bag of microwave dinners.”

Sure, the driver will just toss the chair in the trunk and then set it up by the back door. Then you can use your arms to wiggle your ass out and crawl into the seat.

“Yeah, thanks, pal, and here’s a tip for helping out. I’d give you a twenty if you’d wipe my ass. Fuck it, I’m just kidding you, buddy, really, keep the change.”

The driver had given you a strange look, like he wasn’t sure if you were a smart ass or a whack job. And to tell the truth, you weren’t sure yourself. When the cab finally dropped you off, there you were in front of the compound of Carlyle Carter, a.k.a. the Brown Man, in Northwest Fort Lauderdale, looking up at the white metallic gates and the surveillance cameras on the house.

You rolled your chair right up to the mounted intercom and punched the speaker button. Would the guy even answer? Hell, yes, you figured. This was someone who flaunted his shit. I mean, look at this place. Every cop in the county knew who lived here, and where the money came from to build it. The Brown Man couldn’t help himself. He’d be too curious not to see you.

So when the melodious male voice came over the speaker—“Yes, may I help you?”—you flipped open your badge case with your sheriff’s star and held it up for the camera.

“I need to speak to Carlyle Carter.”

There was silence. But you stayed put, holding up the badge, the one you’d disgraced. The sawed-off shotgun was hard against your right hip. You were forty feet away from the man’s front door. You kept your face as calm as possible, no hint of anger, no look of consternation, only what you thought of as a look that a determined businessman might wear.

Come on, fucker, you thought. Have some balls.

After five minutes of silence, you heard the front door of the house open and Carter stepped out, dressed in a bright white linen suit that you could never afford on your salary. Under his loose jacket, he wore a white shirt, buttoned tight at the collar, and white loafers that looked like golf shoes to you, but who the fuck knows? In the harsh sunlight, the getup seemed to glow, making the Brown Man’s coffee-colored face appear to be floating as he moved carefully down the driveway. You were looking to see if he was armed, but the man’s hands were deep into his loose trouser pockets and could have been concealing all but the largest of handguns. He stopped some thirty feet from the gate.

“It is unusual for police officers, especially simple foot patrolmen, to visit my private home, Mr. Booker,” he said. If the use of the phrase
foot patrolmen
was a purposeful dig, his voice didn’t show it. He looked back at his house, head tilted up toward the cameras.

“Most officers don’t like the idea that they could be filmed here, and that such evidence could end up on a desk in your internal affairs division.”

No shit, Sherlock, you thought. But you’d already practiced your response. The words felt dry and dirty in your mouth. Still, you got them out.

“I need your help, Mr. Carter,” you said.

The Brown Man’s eyebrows went up, a near imperceptible response. He took three casual steps closer.

“I would caution you, Mr. Booker,” he said, cutting his eyes to the right where the intercom box was mounted. “There is a recording device that will also preserve everything you say.”

But there wasn’t anything you were going to say now that you hadn’t already said to the blonde detective. It was already out there, man. Only one thing left to do: If this fuck wad would only come another twenty feet closer, it would be over. And that’s when you saw the movement behind him, the Brown Man, someone else moving at the door to the house. Your hand moved down to your hip: You could blow this man away before some kind of bodyguard came out and capped you first.

The Brown Man turned at the look in your eye, turned to see what had pulled your attention. “Go back inside, Andrew!” Carter said. “This is nothing for you.”

But the kid stepped out, the ten-year-old, the same one who’d made all those drug drops to you. He was dressed in the typical style of the day: long baggy shorts that came down to his calves, an oversize T-shirt, ball cap turned sideways on his head. His eyes were too calm and effortless for a kid that age, too “I don’t give a shit” for a boy who would have a natural energy and inquisitiveness. The Mustang had brought that childlike joy in his eyes whenever the boy made a delivery.

Now it was more of a feral sizing up the situation. Hell, without your car, he might not recognize you at all, never mind without your legs.

“He’s your son?” you said, not meaning to let the words slip out. The Brown Man turned back, and now his eyes were different, too.

“Not that’s it’s any of your business, Booker. But yes, he’s my son. And the smartest employee I have. You have a problem with that?” Carter said, and you could tell you’d hit a live wire.

“You use your own son as a drug mule, a kid to make your deliveries?” you said without thinking, letting the emotion slip through. And instantly, you knew you’d lost the plan, lost the ruse to pull the man into a faux business deal that would ease his reluctance by appealing to his greed and bring him within range.

But he stepped forward anyway, this time with anger in his face.

“What, Mr. Dirty Cop? You’re going to tell me how to raise my own son? You with the drug habit, you handing out the money that goes into my pockets, you with the tin shield—you think that makes you better than me?”

Hell, you couldn’t have planned it this well: Carter getting pissed, coming closer, railing at you to make it that much easier to pull the trigger.

“Is that what your daddy taught you, Mr. Cripple? I teach my son how to survive, how to do business with the likes of you. His generation ain’t so stupid if you show them the way of the world, Mr. Righteous Cop.”

Our eyes met then, the Brown Man stepping close enough now that you could see the freckles on his dark face, the now damp stain on the collar of his white shirt, the anger pulsing in the vein at his neck.

Your hand was already on the makeshift grip of the shotgun. And when it came forward, barely three inches of the sawed-off barrel poked out of the jacket that hid it, and you shoved it forward between the rungs of the gate and fired nearly point-blank into the Brown Man’s sternum. The blast echoed through the neighborhood, the 00 buckshot, nine large pellets, ripping through cloth and flesh and lung tissue and ruining the spotlessness of the man’s suit with an instantaneous spread of red blood, like the snarling mouth of a rabid dog.

The man only took a short hop back, and then crumpled like a marionette suddenly cut loose of its strings. When the Brown Man fell onto the driveway pavement, you could see the son standing beyond him, his eyes wide and his mouth frozen.

You did not say a word—only pumped the shotgun once, heard the ejected shell hit the sidewalk, and then rotated the barrel so that the newly sanded aperture fit snug under your chin. Then you pulled the trigger once more.

W
E GATHERED AT Billy’s penthouse apartment overlooking the ocean in West Palm Beach. The moon was down, and there was a hint of a breeze coming in with the tide. Luz Carmen was out on the patio, looking out into the dark, listening to the hush of waves. We were not worried that she might throw herself over the railing.

Billy and his wife were on one of the leather loveseats in the sunken living room. They sat close, Billy sipping one of the martinis that he prided himself on making in the classic mode, dry, with the open bottle of vermouth only passed over the top of the vodka, allowing barely more than the aroma to insinuate the drink. Curiously, Diane was not imbibing as she usually would. Sherry and I were on the couch, sharing a bottle of Rolling Rock.

Billy’s place has a museum quality about it: the African hand-carved ebony sculptures, a fascinating collection of Southwest paper clay art, and a stunning copy of
The Guardian of the Seraglio
by Eduard Charlemont dominating the southern wall. Billy once told me the sword-bearing chief depicted was said to guard the women in his Moorish palace.

When I looked from the painting to Billy, he showed no indication that he was reading my mind. But the allusion was not lost on me.

“Horace D. Wiggins is apparently s-singing an aria d-down at the Broward Sheriff’s Office,” Billy said, using the now known name of our “assassin.”

“He’s already admitted t-taking assignments from Carlyle Carter, the so-called Br-Brown Man, and seems quite enamored with himself as a real hit m-man. When he is charged with the m-murders of Andrés and his girlfriend, the attempted murders of Booker and of b-both of you, I suppose he will at some point realize that he can’t just push the reset b-button on the game and start all over again.”

“How old is he?” I said.

“Twenty.”

The disappointment in Billy’s voice was once again stronger than I was used to. “B-Barely more than a child himself. He’ll see soon enough that the inside of a m-maximum-security prison is not nearly as intriguing as the television version.”

“He admitted to setting the bomb under Max’s car?” Sherry said.

“Apparently, the Medicare fraud people got nervous about one of their satellite operations. They shared their concern with Carter, and since it threatened his drug supply chain, Carter put word out on the street that he wanted the Carmen family scared into silence,” I said.

“The shooters at the park and the gang who tried to hit Andrés from the car?” Diane asked.

“That’s how you got involved,” Sherry stated the obvious, a favorite dig of hers that referred to my recurring ability to get my ass in trouble.

“Wh-When that d-didn’t work, our Mr. Carter w-went to his n-next line of defense. He p-put his young assassin on alert, and Mr. Wiggins began following his t-targets with GPS trackers that apparently were being pl-placed by Carter’s own son at his father’s instructions.

“They will m-match the fingerprint from the GPS found in the Gran Fury. Another child will go into the system.”

I watched as Diane’s free hand moved to cover Billy’s. They had always been an affectionate couple since their marriage three years ago, but there was something else going on.

I turned to Sherry, passed the beer to her, and changed the subject.

“What about Booker?”

“His parents are coming down from New York to claim the body. His father is an ex-cop,” Sherry said. “Not a good situation. He’ll lose his pension. Probably be buried with no recognition from the office. I know some deputies who thought he did the world a favor by taking out Carter, but there are at least a few knuckleheads over at the Oceanside Gym who are sweating bullets right about now.”

“You p-put in your report on what Booker told you?” Billy asked.

“Damn straight,” she said. “Hammonds will roll some heads.”

“And all without so much as lifting a finger,” I said.

Sherry took a sip of the bottle and laughed.

“That’s what he has you for, Max.”

“He played me,” I admitted.

“That’s what a good manager does when his manpower is down in a bad economy. He uses good freelancers—doesn’t have to pay benefits.”

“Law enforcement follows a b-business model,” Billy said, tipping his martini glass.

“Damn straight,” I said, mocking Sherry.

“You’re both full of shit,” Diane said, but she was smiling.

“That may be true,” I said. “But since we’re on the subject, what happens to the other criminals in this entire cluster that started the whole thing—the guys running the Medicare scam? The guys making the big bucks behind their computers and paperwork and licensing and stolen social security numbers…”

We all looked at one another, trading eye contact, avoiding the fact that we had no ready answers.