Lassiter

16 Naked Came the Night

Kip was asleep in his bedroom and Granny was snoring in the rocking chair on the back porch when the phone rang. Cindy. The red Escalade, license plate U R NXT, was registered to a Miguel Sanchez of Homestead.

“Never heard of him, Cindy.”

“Doubt he was driving, anyway.”

“Why?”

“He’s at FCI, awaiting trial on cocaine charges.”

That solved nothing. Who the hell was driving the con’s car, and what did they want with me? I was thinking a Jack Daniel’s on the rocks might help answer the question when there was a knock at the door. A knock so dainty I barely heard it over the whompeta of the ceiling fan.

It took three tugs to yank the door open. Standing on the front step was a six-foot-tall caramel-skinned young woman in a stretchy mini-skirt and high heeled, strappy sandals sloped like a ski jump. Her breasts, round as cantaloupes, threatened to tumble out of her fluorescent orange tube top. A bare tummy, tanned and taut. Hair bleached white-hot platinum. She gave me a small, knowing smile, as sinful as the devil’s laugh.

“Jake Lassiter?” she asked.

I said “Yes” on the assumption that she was neither a process server nor a Jehovah’s Witness.

“I’m Angel Roxx. Rhymes with ‘cocks’ but spelled with two ‘x’s.”

“Yeah?”

“Would you like a blow job?”

“Is that a trick question?”

“I work for Charlie Ziegler.”

“Let me guess. Spiritual adviser?”

“P.R. consultant. And I act.” She cocked a hip. You could have put a saddle on it. “Did you ever see A Tale of Two Titties. Or Lawrence of a Labia?”

“Not unless they were on ESPN. Why don’t you come inside? Fewer mosquitoes.”

She sashayed inside, dropping her bag on the wine barrel filled with umbrellas, fly rods, and a tarpon gaff. Csonka waddled over, jammed his nose under her mini-skirt and sniffed. She didn’t flinch.

Angel’s eyes danced around the living room, which looked like a garage sale at a fraternity house. My coffee table, a sailboard propped on empty milk cartons, seemed to amuse her. Or maybe it was my tree stump end table topped by a lamp in the shape of a vintage Miami Dolphins helmet.

She made an exaggerated motion of fanning herself. “What’s with this heat? A/C broken?”

“I’m saving the earth, all by my lonesome.”

“So what’s Charlie want with someone like you?”

“You tell me.”

“All he told me was to make sure you were in his office at nine A.M.”

“After blowing me tonight?”

“He didn’t get specific. Just said to prep you.”

“Great idea. Lately, I’ve been prepping myself.”

“You’re kinda cute in a beat-up sort of way. You look a little like Studley Do-Right.”

“Studley …?”

“Duh. Major porn star, like a thousand years ago.” She settled herself onto my old, lumpy sofa. Made of Haitian cotton, it had looked fine until one of my teammates dropped a lit joint between the cushions, starting a small but sweet-smelling fire.

“I hope you’re not on steroids. I hate when guys have shriveled balls.”

I put the pieces together. Earlier today, Alex Castiel had refused to investigate Ziegler and warned me to back off. Ziegler could be bad for my career, though Castiel failed to mention the guy could be good for my sex life. Either way, the State Attorney had called Ziegler and told him about me.

“Help me out here, Angel. If Ziegler wants to see me …”

“Why not just call you?”

“Yeah.”

“Charlie’s gotta be different. Gotta do things big. The grand gesture, he calls it.”

“I still don’t get it.”

She pursed her lips, which seemed to gorge cute little lines in her forehead. Deep thinking mode. “Charlie needs to impress people. And to be liked. So, when you see me at your door, you’re supposed to think, A present for me? What a guy!”

Actually, I was thinking, Charlie Ziegler, what a jerk, but I followed the logic.

“Anyway, that’s the sweet Charlie,” she continued. “The good Charlie.”

“But there’s another one?”

“You kidding? Lots more. Mean Charlie. Potty-mouth Charlie. Smack-you-around Charlie. You ought to see him when his face turns all red. Jeez!”

“I’m gonna go see Ziegler,” I told her, “but not tomorrow.”

“Why not?”

“Other plans.”

Actually, I had other people to see first. Sonia Majeski had called an hour ago. She’d talked to a couple of stripper friends from the old days. They’d put together a list of five men who used to drift in and out of Ziegler’s party circuit. No way to tell if any had been there the night Krista disappeared, but I would sure as hell ask. I also had a ton of questions for them about Ziegler.

Sure, I wanted to talk to him personally, but I might only have one shot at him, and I wanted to be ready. Young lawyers make the mistake of rushing to depose the main witness on the opponent’s side of a case. They should be talking to everyone else first. Build your dossier before you put your antagonist under oath. By the time you say, “State your name for the record,” you’d better know more about the son-of-a-bitch than his own saintly mother.

“We could still have some fun tonight,” Angel offered.

“Yeah?”

“I can do you while you watch one of my flicks. It’s a parallel universe thing.”

I was tempted. How could I not be? I was single and unattached, and here was Angel, hot and willing, and with no demands that I be attuned to her needs or go shopping at Pottery Barn during the NFL playoffs. In another time, I would have been incapable of saying no. These days, I require some semblance of an emotional connection.

“Thanks,” I said. “But I gave up one-night stands a long time ago.”

“I could come back tomorrow night, too.”

“Sorry. Doesn’t work for me.”

She crunched up her forehead again, as if presented with an especially tough algebra question. “No one’s ever turned down my b.j. before.”

“If it’s any consolation, it’s my first time, too.”

There was the sound of bare feet padding across the Mexican tile. Kip, all sleepy-eyed, appeared from the corridor wearing his Miami Marlins pajama bottoms.

“I thought I heard voices,” he said, eyeing my guest, or rather the twin globes rising from her tube top.

“Kip, this is Angel Roxx,” I said.

“I know! A Tale of Two Titties.”