Contraband

10

Max and Tommy got back into the car. “Where do we start?” she asked.

“The Lame Duck,” Tommy replied. “Where else we got?”

The Lame Duck was getting crowded that time of day. They had to push into the bar server’s station to get at the bartender.

“We need to speak to you, Danny,” Max said.

“Are you kidding me? I’m working on four piña coladas right now,” Danny replied. He was a blur of motion.

“You can talk while you do that,” Tommy said, “or we can talk outside — or even at the station.”

“Whaddya want?” Danny demanded.

“Has Dixie been in today?” Max asked.

“No!”

“Where does Dixie live?”

“Beats me.”

“Does he have a girlfriend?”

His hands full, Danny nodded across the room at a waitress. “Try her. She’s Mayzie. The one with the big bazooms.”

Tommy elbowed his way across the crowded bar, with Max in his wake. “Mayzie?” he said.

“Who wants to know?”

“We got some questions,” Tommy said. “You want them official or unofficial?”

“Ask fast,” she said, scribbling a drinks order on her pad.

“Does Al Dix live with you?”

“Sometimes, if you can call it living.”

“What’s your address?”

She gave him a street address in Old Town. “Number six,” she added.

“Is Dixie there?”

“He’s in the fucking hospital. Don’t you guys know anything?”

“Not anymore.” Max handed her a card. “If you hear from him, we need to know. He’s running around with three broken ribs, and that could kill him.”

“Yeah, sure,” Mayzie replied, then headed for the bar.

Max and Tommy went outside and got into the car.

“I don’t even know where that address is,” Tommy said, consulting his notebook, “and I’ve lived here for twenty years.”

Max checked the address. “It’s a little alley off Truman Avenue.”

“Don’t tell me, show me,” Tommy replied.

Apartment six was three flights up; it was ninety outside, with the humidity crowding one hundred percent, and even worse inside. They trudged up the stairs and knocked loudly on the door. “Dixie!” Tommy yelled. “Open the goddamned door!”

A woman in a housedress stuck her head out the door of the apartment next door; a puff of chilly air came with her. “You looking for Al Dix?”

“That’s right,” Max said.

“He’s in the hospital.”

“Used to be,” Max replied, handing her a card. “If you see him, tell him to call me. It could save his life.”

“Is he contagious? Is he a carrier?”

“Of what?” Tommy asked.

“I don’t know: smallpox, TB, whaddya got?”

“None of the above,” Tommy said.

They ran back down the stairs. Max checked the mailbox for number six, while Tommy got the car and the air-conditioning going.

The mailbox locks were all broken, so it was easy to check. In number six, there was an electric bill addressed to Mayzie Birch and a single business card. On the back was written: Dixie, call me pronto, and everything will be okay. Max flipped it over. The words “South Florida Import & Export” were printed on the other side, with an address and a phone number. Max got back into the car and drew a couple deep breaths of cold air. She showed Tommy the card.

“Where’s that?” he asked.

“At the airport, I think.”

He put the car in gear and loosened his collar to let more cold air in. “I’m gonna get me some Bermuda shorts,” he said.

They drove around the airport property looking for the address but came up empty. Tommy stopped outside the only FBO, Signature Aviation. “Go in and ask them,” he said.

A young man walked up to the car and rapped on the passenger-side window. “You need some help?” he asked, looking down her cleavage.

“I’m looking for this,” Max said, showing him the card.

“Follow me, I’ll show you.” He got onto an airplane towing tractor nearby and used a card to open the gate, then both vehicles drove through. “Wait until the gate closes behind us,” the young man said.

They waited, then followed him at a snail’s pace across the ramp and down a row of hangars. He stopped in front of the last one.

They got out of the car and checked the small door in the big door. A small sign read: SOUTH FLORIDA IMPORT & EXPORT. Max tried the knob: locked. She banged on the door, but no one came. She got out her phone and called the phone number on the card. It rang once, then she heard a beep. “Please call Max,” she said, and left her cell number.

Tommy walked around the hangar and checked the side and rear, but there was no other door.

Max peered through a crack and found no airplane inside.

“They must be out importing or exporting,” Tommy said.

“Thanks,” Max said. “You’re a big help.” They got back into the car, which Tommy had had the presence of mind to keep running with the A/C on.

“Okay,” Tommy said. “What now?”

“Your turn to come up with something,” Max said.

“What, I gotta do everything?”

“So far, your most valuable contribution to this effort has been to turn on the air conditioner.”

“Well, you’re not melting, are you?”

Max put the car in gear. “Let’s go find that lineman,” she said, turning the car around and pointing it at the ramp, where they saw the young man parking a King Air with his tractor. Max drove over to him.

“Hey, any luck?” the lineman asked.

“Nothing at all — nobody there.”

“I could have told you that, if you were nice to me,” he said.

“You first,” Max said.

“Well, there’s never anybody there, except sometimes at night.”

“Which nights? What times?”

“It varies.”

“I don’t like that answer... What’s your name?”

“Jocko.”

“Come on, Jocko, give me some information here.”

“That’s it.”

“Is there ever an airplane parked in that hangar?”

“Sometimes.”

“What kind of an airplane?”

“It varies.”

Max tried hard to hang on to her temper. “You know what a Cessna 206 is?”

“Sure, it’s a Stationair.”

“Has there ever been a Stationair parked there?”

“Last week.”

“For how long?”

“I dunno, a couple of hours, I guess.”

“Did you get a tail number?”

“Funny,” he said. “I don’t remember seeing a tail number.”

Max handed him her card. “Jocko, please call me immediately, day or night, when somebody is occupying that hangar, airplane or no airplane.”

“Then you’ll be nice to me?”

“We’ll have to have a chat about that,” Max said, then put the car in gear and drove away.

“A fount of information,” Tommy said.