Contraband

24

Tommy drove slowly down Duval Street, which was jammed with traffic. A cruise ship had come in, and half the passengers were stuffed into shops, buying expensive junk, while the others had hailed cabs and rickshaws and were fouling up traffic.

Tommy inched forward and mused that, with this bad a tie-up, there must be a cop somewhere directing traffic; that always made things worse. He stopped at a traffic signal, and pedestrians poured across the street: a woman pushing a twin baby carriage, a teenager on a unicycle, somebody in an iguana suit advertising expensive junk. A man crossed on a bicycle, with one arm in a sling, his balance precarious; a man with a cigar sent a cloud of brown smoke his way.

Tommy sat bolt upright. The bicycler with his arm in a sling was Al Dix. He checked his side mirror and saw him navigating his way between traffic and illegally parked cars and turning the wrong way down a side street.

Tommy got out of his seat and stood up on the door opening. He saw the top of Dix’s head disappear. He considered abandoning the police-issued car and sprinting after him. But, he reflected, it had been a long time since he had sprinted; he wasn’t sure that pace was still in his repertoire. He stuck with the traffic.

By the time he had made his way to Simonton Street, which was flowing freely, Dix was nowhere in sight. His phone rang; it was probably the captain firing him. He clawed his iPhone from its holster. “Scully.”

“Tommy, it’s Max. How you doing?”

“Terrible,” Tommy replied. “This morning, I pretty much told the captain to go fuck himself.”

“Why did you go off on the captain?”

“He questioned your and my personal integrity.”

“What?”

Tommy related the conversation to her.

“It sounds like he’s looking for an excuse to fire one or both of us,” she said.

“Then who the fuck would solve the crimes? You and I are the only ones in the squad with any real kind of track record.”

“God knows the captain doesn’t have much of one,” she said.

“I think he’s on the take, and he thinks we’re on to him.”

“On the take how?”

“Have you ever noticed that we get a new car every two years?”

“We do?”

“I just noticed, myself, this morning. I think the dealer is greasing the cap’s wheels.”

“That sounds like something a team of crack detectives should investigate,” Max said.

Tommy laughed. “I’d love to see the captain’s face when we send him the first report.”

“I don’t think either of us should be seen looking into that. Let’s just look and listen and wait for more indications.”

“Well, yeah.”

“Or maybe, look for other ways our management could be on the take. If they’re taking from one place, they’re taking from every place they can.”

“Good idea. Oh, and I just saw Al Dix riding a bicycle across Duval with his arm in a sling.”

“Well, well, well,” Max said. “Dixie lives. I thought he was somewhere out beyond the reef, attached to an anchor.”

“He’s alive, but I lost him in the traffic.”

“Oh, shit, I almost forgot why I called you,” Max said.

“Okay, why?”

“Jocko, the lineman at the airport, called and said there’s activity at the mysterious hangar.”

“What kind of activity?” Tommy asked.

“He didn’t get any further than that before he lost his signal, and I couldn’t get him back.”

“Okay, I’ll check it out.”

“My Mercedes arrived today. I sold it to Stone.”

“And I was so looking forward to driving it all over the place.”

“I couldn’t afford to drive it or have it driven. It’s for the best.”

“Then I’ll choke back my tears. Bye.” Tommy made a turn and headed for the airport.

He managed to get through the security gate and looked around for Jocko. Nowhere in sight. He drove slowly across the ramp and turned down the row of hangars. As he approached the one belonging to South Florida Import & Export at the end of the row, he could hear machinery noise coming from that direction. He parked a couple of doors away, took his weapon out of its holster, and put it in his front pocket, then he strolled toward the open door. The noise grew as he approached. He paused, listened, then took two quick steps and faced the inside of the hangar.

Inside, a man with an industrial-style vacuum cleaner was sweeping the concrete floor. Tommy holstered his gun. “Hey!” he shouted over the noise. No reaction. He thought of firing a round through the roof, but he knew that the bullet would come down somewhere. He walked up to the man and realized he was wearing a hearing-protection headset. Tommy tapped him on the shoulder.

Jocko simultaneously dropped the vacuum, spun around, and jumped back. When he saw Tommy he picked up the vacuum again and switched it off. “Jesus!” he said, whipping off his headset, “you scared the shit out of me.”

“Sorry about that, Jocko. What the hell are you doing here?”

“Cleaning up. They’ve sold the hangar, and I had to clean it out.”

“Clean it out of what?” Tommy asked.

“I don’t know, a lot of junk. It’s all in a dumpster around the corner.”

“Go ahead and vacuum,” Tommy said. He walked out of the hangar and around the building and saw the dumpster. He found a box to stand on and hoisted himself up. Junk was an accurate description of what was inside: chunks of plywood, unused stationery, a couple rolls of toilet paper. There were two pieces of luggage that interested him: one was an old typewriter case, the other an aluminum suitcase with a broken handle and some scars from having been opened by some method other than with the combination. He fished out both.

The typewriter was an old Royal, maybe from the thirties or forties, and seemed to be in working order. The Halliburton case was lined in foam rubber and had a not-unpleasant scent, slightly sweet, that he couldn’t place. He tossed the dead Halliburton back into the dumpster and took the typewriter with him.

Jocko had finished vacuuming and was closing the hangar door.

“Nothing else in there?”

“Not a thing,” Jocko replied. “Clean as a hound’s tooth.”

“Who bought the hangar?”

“Dunno.”

“Who sold it?”

“Dunno.”

“Swell,” Tommy said. “Back to square one.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind.” He went back to the car and called Max. It went straight to voice mail.