Midnight Rambler_ A Novel Of Suspense Part 13

I cursed like someone with Tourette's syndrome. On the TV, a blow-dried male newscaster appeared beside his perky colleague.

"How about Vince Vaughn?" the male newscaster suggested.

"You mean to play Jack Carpenter?" the female newscaster said.

"Absolutely. I saw him play a sociopathic killer in a movie called Domestic Disturbance Domestic Disturbance with John Travolta," the male newscaster said. "He was terrific." with John Travolta," the male newscaster said. "He was terrific."

"I saw that movie, too. Good choice!"

I picked up the napkin dispenser on the bar. Sonny yelled "No!" but it was too late. The dispenser left my hand and shattered the TV screen. Gla.s.s rained down on the bar. Sonny said something about history, then got a broom and started cleaning up.

"What did you say?" I asked.

"You're history if you don't replace the TV."

"You're going to throw me out?"

"I will if you don't replace the TV."

"Can you lend me the money?"

He swept around my chair. "No."

"Come on, just for a couple of days," I said. "I'll pay you back. You know I'm good for it."

Going behind the bar, Sonny removed a black box from behind the register, pulled out a card, and showed it to me. It contained my two tabs. The little tab had caught up to the big tab, and I owed the bar nearly five hundred bucks.

"Replace the TV and pay your tabs and your rent, or you're history."

"You're serious."

"d.a.m.n straight."

He retrieved the napkin dispenser and replaced it on the bar, then resumed his sweeping. I felt as if I'd lost my last friend in the world.

I turned on my stool and looked out the window at the bright blue ocean. Should I just go take a swim and not come back?

The thought had crossed my mind before, but never seriously. This time, it was serious.

The bar phone rang. Sonny answered it, then handed me the receiver.

"It's your girlfriend."

I figured it was Melinda accepting my offer from last night, but I was wrong. It was Julie Lopez.

"I know who put my sister's body in my backyard," Julie said.

I drove past Julie Lopez's house a couple of times, not wanting to run into any cops or reporters who might be hanging around. The place was quiet, but I still looked over my shoulder when I knocked on her front door.

Julie ushered me into the living room and bolted the door behind me. Her eyes were ringed from lack of sleep, her puffy face void of makeup. Her dirty short-sleeved s.h.i.+rt and faded cutoffs only hardened the picture.

There was no real furniture in the living room, just three folding metal chairs and a card table with a greasy bag from McDonald's in its center. The last time Julie saw her sister it was over breakfast at McDonald's, and I was surprised that she still ate their food. We sat on two of the chairs and faced each other.

"Who put your sister's body in your backyard?" I asked.

Julie looked around the room before answering me. The look in her face was best described as paranoid. I looked around the room as well. There were no wall hangings, unless you considered mold art.

"Are you afraid of something?" I asked.

She nodded. She was a big woman, with large b.r.e.a.s.t.s and curvaceous hips, and was considered a hot number with the older Hispanic men who enjoyed her services. In a whisper she said, "It was the cable TV guys. They put Carmella in the backyard."

"The cable guys?" I repeated.

"Yeah."

"Is that why you called me over here?"

"Yeah, Jack."

I felt the strength leave my body. Opening the McDonald's bag, I removed a large order of french fries and helped myself. Julie threw me a wicked stare.

"That's my breakfast," she said angrily.

"You get any for me?"

Julie didn't understand the question. I was p.i.s.sed off and not ashamed to show it. I had important things to do. Like replace the TV in the Sunset and figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life. She grabbed the fries out of my hands with a catlike quickness and shoved several into her mouth.

"I can prove it," she said.

"All right, prove it."

"Last week the cable on the TV stopped working. Ernesto called the cable company, and two repairmen came out that afternoon. They said the wire in the backyard was old. They dug a trench and laid a new wire. But guess what?"

I had no idea where this was heading, and shook my head.

"The cable don't come back on. Ernesto looked at the work they did. Then he climbed up on the pole. When he came back in the house, he called them dumb f.u.c.ks. I ask him why, and he said the problem was on the pole. That was why we weren't getting HBO. The problem was on the pole."

"So?"

"Don't you get it?"

"No."

"What you acting so p.i.s.sed off about, Jack?"

"I'm sorry, Julie, but you're wasting my time."

She threw the french fries and hit me in the head. I jumped out of my chair.

"I don't have time for this," I said angrily.

She wagged her finger in my face. "Listen to me. The cable guys didn't have to dig in the yard. The problem was on the pole."

"So?"

"The cable guys knocked the cable out on purpose. Then they dug a hole when me and Ernesto were sleeping, and put my sister's body in it. Get it?"

Hookers work at night, sleep during the day. Someone could have come into Julie's backyard and dug a grave while she and Ernesto were sleeping.

"What about the gold crucifix that was in your sister's hand?" I asked. "It was identified as Ernesto's."

Julie dragged me into the kitchen and pointed at a bookshelf beside the rattling fridge. Two gold crucifixes stood upright in a display meant to hold three. The middle crucifix was missing.

"One of the cable guys came inside to get a gla.s.s of water, and he stole one," Julie said.

I stared at the display. Two days earlier, when I'd stood in the driveway in handcuffs, there was a truck on the street with a trenching machine and two guys inside. Cable guys.

"Show me the pole," I said.

We went outside to the backyard. Carmella's grave was still open, and it gave me goose b.u.mps. Julie pointed at the telephone pole in the corner of her property.

"That one," she said.

I borrowed a ladder from the garage, put it on the pole, and climbed up. The cable had been stapled to the pole, and halfway up I found where it had been cut. The cut was right above a staple, which minimized the chance that anyone might see it from the ground. I looked down at Julie, who had her arms crossed.

"See?" she said.

"Yeah, I see." My eyes drifted to the open grave. "Who called the police and told them about the skeleton?"

"The cable guys. They were trenching and said they found pieces of jewelry in the yard. They started digging and found Carmella's body."

"Or so they said."

"You finally believe me?"

I nodded.

"It's about f.u.c.king time."

I started to climb down, then froze. I could see over Julie's house to the street. A white van with two Hispanic guys was parked behind my Legend. The guy in the pa.s.senger seat got out and approached my car. He was husky and wore a red bandanna around his head. He got on his knees and began looking beneath my car. It took a moment before I realized what he was looking for.

The transmitter.

Buster was asleep on the backseat. Waking up, he began barking through the half-closed window. The Hispanic guy jumped to his feet and saw me perched on the ladder. He got into the van, and it pulled away with a squeal.

I scurried down the ladder. I wanted to tell Julie I was sorry, but there was no time. Instead, I told her to go inside, and lock the doors.

"And call the police," I said.

As I started my car I made a decision. If I were running from someone, where would I go? I decided on the interstate.

Within minutes I reached 595. Traffic was heavy heading into Fort Lauderdale, and I guessed this was the way the van had gone. Soon I was heading east doing ninety, the wind punis.h.i.+ng my face through my open window.

A lone white van occupied the left lane. I pulled up alongside it and made eye contact with a thirtyish male talking on a cell phone. He winked flirtatiously, and I roared past him.

Hope is something I never give up on. Several exits later, I spotted another white van hurtling down the interstate like a stock car. I floored my accelerator and got behind its b.u.mper. The license plate was from Broward and was caked with mud. Three digits were visible. I memorized them.

Getting in the right lane, I eased up to the van's pa.s.senger side. The Hispanic with the bandanna was leaning out the pa.s.senger window, smoking a cigarette. He was in his forties and had a pirate's scar running down the side of his face. Something told me he was a Mariel refugee, the most notorious group of criminals ever to invade south Florida. He tossed his cigarette, then saw me.

The Hispanic scrunched up his face as if trying to place me. Then he spotted Buster, and panic set in. Ducking down, he grabbed something off the floor.

I knew I was in trouble, but I didn't think my car was powerful enough to pa.s.s him. I tried to slow down, only a delivery truck was riding my b.u.mper. I was stuck.

The Hispanic leaned out his window. In his hand was a steel pipe, which he threw at me. The pipe hit my winds.h.i.+eld lengthwise, and a thousand spiderwebs appeared in the gla.s.s. Unable to see, I banged out the broken gla.s.s with my fist.

My car was like a wind tunnel without a winds.h.i.+eld. I tried to watch the road, but a popping sound that reminded me of firecrackers made me look at the van. The Hispanic was holding a s.h.i.+ny revolver and taking target practice at my car.

Buster yelped in fear as I swerved off the interstate.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

I stood on the shoulder of 595 with Buster pressed to my side, the white van long gone. stood on the shoulder of 595 with Buster pressed to my side, the white van long gone.

My Legend sat twenty feet away. The winds.h.i.+eld was a memory, and there were smoldering bullet holes in the pa.s.senger seat and both backseats. One bullet had missed my head by less than six inches. I should have been grateful that I was still breathing, but all I wanted to do was run those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds down.

Cars roared past, but no one stopped. Their drivers stared through me as if I were invisible. Next to a deserted island, there was no lonelier place than the shoulder of a highway. I called 911, and an automated answering service put me on hold.

Buster barked at the cars. I had leashed him out of fear that he might step into traffic and add an exclamation point to my already miserable day. I went to the Legend and turned the radio to my favorite FM station. They were playing a song by the Fine Young Cannibals called "She Drives Me Crazy." Once upon a time they were my favorite band; then they suddenly disappeared. It seemed like a metaphor for my own sorry situation, and I leaned against my car and sang along.

I should have been dead. Three shots and you're usually out. I got spared, except now I didn't have wheels. I was one step closer to becoming a homeless person. I imagined myself pus.h.i.+ng a shopping cart filled with garbage through Dania, a beaten and forgotten man.

A female dispatcher came on the line. I gave her my name and explained what had happened. She asked if I was hurt. I knew that if I said yes, a cruiser would be here in a New York minute.