Dexter by Design

NINE

Hernando Meza lived in a section of Coral Gables that was nice, but not too nice, and so, protected by its own mediocrity, it hadn't changed much over the last twenty years, unlike most of the rest of Miami. In fact, his little house was only a little more than a mile from where Deborah lived, which practically made them neighbors. Unfortunately, that didn't seem to influence either one of them into acting in a neighborly way.

It started right after Debs knocked on his door. I could tell by the way she was jiggling one foot that she was excited and really thought she might be on to something. And then when the door made a kind of mechanical whirring sound and opened inward to reveal Meza, Deborah's foot stopped jiggling and she said, “Shit.” Under her breath, of course, but hardly inaudibly.

Meza heard her and responded with, “Well, fuck you,” and just stared at her with a really impressive amount of hostility, considering he was in a motorized wheelchair and without the apparent use of any of his limbs, except possibly for a few fingers on each hand.

He used one of the fingers to twitch at a joystick on the bright metal tray attached to the front of his chair, and it lurched a few inches forward at us. “The fuck you want?” he said. “You don't look smart enough to be Witnesses, so you selling something? Hey, I could use some new skis.”

Deborah glanced at me, but I had no actual advice or insight for her, so I simply smiled. For some reason, that made her angry; her eyebrows crashed together and her lips got very thin. She turned to Meza and, in a perfect Cold Cop tone of voice, she said, “Are you Hernando Meza?”

“What's left of him” Meza said. “Hey, you sound like a cop. Is this about me running laps naked at the Orange Bowl?”

“We'd like to ask you a couple of questions” Debs said. “May we come in?”

“No” he said.

Deborah already had one foot lifted, her weight leaning forward, anticipating that Meza, like everyone else in the world, would automatically let her come in. Now she lurched to a pause and then stepped back half a step. “Excuse me?” she said.

“Noooooo” Meza said, drawing out the word as if he was talking to an idiot who didn't understand the concept. “Noooo, you may not come in.” And he twitched a finger on the chair's controls and the chair jerked toward us very aggressively.

Deborah jumped wildly to one side, then recovered her professional dignity and stepped back in front of Meza, although at a safe distance. “All right” she said. “We'll do it here.”

“Oh, yeah” Meza said, “let's do it here.” And flipping his finger on the joystick he made the chair pump a few inches forward and backward several times. “Yeah baby, yeah baby, yeah baby” he said.

Deborah had clearly lost control of the interview with her suspect, which the cop handbook frowns upon. She jumped off to the side again, completely flustered by Meza's fake chair sex, and he followed her around in his chair. “Come on, mama, give it up!” he called in a voice somewhere between a chortle and a wheeze.

I'm sorry if it sounds like I am feeling something, but I sometimes get just a little twinge of sympathy for Deborah, who really does try very hard. And so, as Meza whirled his chair in a stuttering arch of mini-lurches at Debs, I stepped behind him, leaned down to the back of his chair, and pulled the power cable off the batteries. The whine of the engine stopped, the chair thumped to a halt, and the only remaining sound was a siren in the distance and the small clatter of Meza's finger rattling against the joy stick.

At its best, Miami is a city of two cultures and two languages, and those of us who immerse ourselves in both have learned that a different culture can teach us many new and wonderful things.

I have always embraced this concept, and it paid off now, as Meza proved to be wonderfully creative in both Spanish and English. He ran through an impressive list of standards, and then his artistic side took full flower and he called me things that had never before existed, except possibly in a parallel universe designed by Hieronymus Bosch. The performance took on an added air of supernatural improbability because Meza's voice was so weak and husky, but he never allowed that to slow him. I was frankly awed, and Deborah seemed to be too, because we both simply stood and listened until Meza finally wore down and tapered off with, “Cocksucker.”

I stepped around in front and stood beside Debs. “Don't say that” I said, and he just glared at me. “It's so pedestrian, and you're much better than that. What was that part, “turd-sucking bag of possum vomit?” Wonderful.” And I gave him his due with some light applause.

“Plug me in, perro de puta,” he said. “We see how funny you are then.”

“And have you run us over with that sporty SUV of yours?” I said. “No thanks.”

Deborah lurched up out of her stunned appreciation of the performance and back into her alpha role. She pushed me to one side and resumed her stone-faced staring at Meza. “Mr Meza, we need you to answer a couple of questions, and if you refuse to cooperate I will take you down to the station and ask them there.”

“Do it, cunt” he said. “My lawyer would love that.”

“We could just leave him like this” I suggested. “Until someone comes along and steals him to sell for scrap metal.”

“Plug me in, you sack of lizard pus.”

“He's repeating himself”1 said to Deborah. I think we're wearing him down.”

“Did you threaten to kill the director of the Tourist Board?” Deborah asked.

Meza started to cry. It was not a pretty sight; his head flopped nervelessly to one side and mucus drooled from his mouth and nose, joined the tears, and began to march across his face. “Bastards” he said. “They shoulda killed me.” He snuffled so weakly that it had no effect at all except for the thin wet noise it made. “Looka me, looka what they done” he said in his hoarse, husky voice, a croak with no edge to it.

“What did they do to you, Mr Meza?” Debs said.

“Looka me” he snuffled. “They did this. Looka me. I live in this chingado chair, can't even pee without some maricon nurse to hold my dick.” He looked up, a little defiance once again showing through the mucus. “Wou'nt you wanna kill those puercos, too?” he said.

“You say they did this to you?” Debs said.

He sniffled again. It still didn't do anything. “Happened on the job” he said a little defensively. I was on the clock, but they said no, car accident, they don't pay for it. And then they fire me.” Deborah opened her mouth, and then closed it again with an audible click. I think she had been about to say something like, “Where were you last night between the hours of 3.30 and 5.00” and it occurred to her that he had most likely been right here in his powered chair. But Meza was sharp if nothing else, and he had noticed, too.

“What?” he said, snuffling mightily and actually moving a small stream of mucus, ever so slightly. “Somebody finally killed one of those chingado maricones? And you don't think it could be me “cause I'm in this chair? Bitch, you plug me in I show you how easy I kill somebody piss me off.”

“Which maricon did you kill?” I asked him, and Deborah elbowed me, even though she still had nothing to say.

“Whichever one is dead, motherfucker” he wheezed at me. I hope it that cocksucker Jo Anne, but fuck, I kill them all before I finish.”

“Mr Meza” Deborah said, and there was a slight hesitation in her voice that might have been sympathy in somebody else; in Debs it was disappointment at realizing that this poor blob of stuff was not her suspect. Once again, Meza picked up on it and went on the attack.

“Yeah, I did it” he said. “Cuff me, cunt. Chain me to the floor in the back seat with the dogs. Whatsa matter, you afraid I'll die on you? Do it, bitch. Or I kill you like I kilt those asshole-suckers at the Board.”

“Nobody killed anyone at the Board” I said.

He glared at me. “No?” he said. His head swivelled back to Deborah, mucus flashing in the sunlight. “Then what the fuck you harassing me for, shit-pig?” Deborah hesitated, then tried one last time. “Mr Meza” she said.

“Fuck you, get the fuck off my porch” Meza said.

“It seems like a good idea, Debs,” I said.

Deborah shook her head with frustration, then blew out a short, explosive breath. “Fuck” she said. “Let's go. Plug him in.” And she turned and walked off the porch, leaving me the dangerous and thankless job of plugging Meza's power cord back into the battery.

It just goes to show what selfish and thoughtless creatures humans are, even when they're family. After all, she was the one with the gun —shouldn't she be the one to plug him in?

Meza seemed to agree. He began running though a new list of graphically vulgar surrealism, all directed at Deborah's back. All I got was a quick, muttered, “Hurry up, faggot” as he paused to catch his breath.

I hurried. Not out of any desire to please Meza, but because I did not want to be standing around when he got power back to his chair.

It was far too dangerous —and in any case, I felt that I had spent enough of my precious and irreplaceable daylight listening to him complain. It was time to get back out into the world, where there were monsters to catch, even a monster to be, and with luck, there was also at some point a lunch to eat. None of this could happen if I remained trapped on this porch dodging a motorized chair with mouth to match.

So I pushed the power connection back into the battery and vaulted off the porch before Meza realized he was plugged in again.

I hurried to the car and climbed in. Deborah slammed the car into gear and accelerated away even before I got the door closed, apparently worried that Meza might disable the car by ramming it with his chair, and we were very quickly back in the warm and fuzzy cocoon of Miami's homicidal traffic.

“Fuck” she said at last, and the word seemed like a soft summer breeze after listening to Meza, I was sure he was going to be it.”

“Look at the bright side” I said. “At least you learned some wonderful new words.”

“Go shit up a rope” Debs said. After all, she wasn't exactly new to this herself.