Powder Burn - Carl Hiaasen [68]
“Muy bien.”
“I will be sending you some more names.”
“It is no problem.”
“You have two weeks. Work quickly and well, hermano.”
“In Mono’s memory,” promised the Peasant.
The old man in Bogotá was slower to the phone, but no less obliging.
“Things are moving nicely here,” said Bermúdez.
“I am very pleased, Ignacio. Here as well.”
“Will you be coming for dinner?”
“Whenever you say.”
“Two weeks from tonight.”
“It will be my pleasure. But not spicy food, please. My stomach rebels.”
Chapter 17
WHEN HARRY APPEL called Monday morning to say he had an interesting new homicide victim, Captain Octavio Nelson wanted to retch. It was no way to start a week.
“This one’s special, for a drug murder. White, young, affluent,” Appel reported. “Shot late Friday, by the looks of it. You’d better come see for yourself.”
“Shit.” Nelson sighed. The architect, had to be. And it was Nelson’s fault, deserting the poor bastard like that. What seat-of-the-pants insanity, sending him into Hidalgo’s to eyeball those pukes! Jesus, what if Pincus ever found out about that little brainstorm?
Nelson was morose by the time he got to the medical examiner’s office. Appel led him directly to the morgue, where a bare pale corpse gleamed on an autopsy table.
“I’ll be damned,” Nelson said.
“You were expecting somebody else?” Appel said.
“Yeah. Who is this asshole?”
Appel lifted a clipboard and read aloud: “Dale Lane Redbirt, attorney at law. Age: thirty-four. He lives at—”
Nelson waved an arm. “Who? Who? I said.”
Appel shrugged. “You’re the detective.”
“Harry! Tell me what you know.”
“It’s a small firm, even smaller now, Smith, Turner, Redbirt and Feldman. They do mostly criminal defense work. Redbirt here specialized in hookers and two-bit possession cases. In either event he often accepted fees in services rendered, if you know what I mean. His law partners say he was doing OK, no F. Lee Bailey, but pulling in maybe thirty thou a year. Has a wife, two kids and a secretary who screws anything that walks, him mostly.”
“Sounds like the all-American dream.”
“Right,” Appel said. “Except for the new Porsche and a refinished thirty-eight-foot Bertram. And how about a condo in Vail? And, oh, yeah, there’s this.” Carefully Appel opened a small brown envelope and turned it upside down in his hand. A heavy gold bracelet slid into his palm like a small glittering viper.
“Solid gold, of course. Cost about five grand,” Nelson mused. “You think he was freelancing, right?”
“Nelson, that is only an opinion.” Appel grinned. “I’m just a coroner.”
Nelson studied the body. He counted three wounds, one in the face, two in the scrotum.
“Not nice,” Nelson said. “No more screwing around for you.”
“He got shot in his office over near the river. The weapon was a Beretta, not the usual Cuban doper’s choice. A Colombian preference.”
Nelson asked, “And his wife?”
“Truly bereaved.”
“His partners?”
“In shock.”
“His friends?”
“Catatonic. Total disbelief.”
“Any drugs in the blood?”
“Some coke, a touch of speed,” Appel said. “Nothing lethal.”
Nelson and Appel walked out of the dank morgue. “Can I have some coffee?” the detective asked. “It’s been a lousy morning.”
“Captain?” It was a thin red-haired secretary in one of the office cubicles. “You partner phoned. He wants you to call him…some report you forgot to sign.”
Nelson groaned. “See what I mean?”
He and Appel drank in silence for several minutes. Appel scribbled some notes on an autopsy report, stopping only to hit the intercom button and fire directions to scattered employees.
“It was not robbery,” he said finally.
“The gold chain?”
Appel nodded. “They would have snatched the bracelet.”
“Anything else?”
“They didn’t touch the office, and they didn’t take the cash.”
“How much cash?”
“Two grand, and change.”
“Dopers for sure,” Nelson concluded.
“Yup,” said Harry Appel.
TWO HOURS LATER Nelson slouched in a phone booth in Coral Gables, sweating like a pig. He was almost out of quarters.
“¿Oye, gusano, qúe tu sabes?”
“Hey, Capitán, cómo estás, chico?”
The punk’s Spanish was atrocious.