Lassiter

51 The Right Reverend Snake

My nephew is a damn smart kid. Hey, someone in the family had to be. But he doesn’t bat a thousand. For weeks, he’d been surfing the Net, armed with the last name “Aldrin,” looking for a man they called “Snake.” Coming up empty.

Still, the kid persisted. Each morning, he Googled and Lexis-Nexised and scoured the Web. He dug into arrest records and Corrections Department files. Nothing. Until yesterday, when he found the man.

In church.

Or rather, in a newspaper advertisement for services at All Angels Recovery Church in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea. The reverend’s name was George Henry Aldrin. A self-described ex-addict, ex-biker, ex-con. Current lay minister at All Angels and, incidentally, owner of Foot Longs, a sub shop on Commercial Boulevard in West Broward.

The day before jury selection was to begin, I took the turnpike north and found Foot Longs in a strip mall just west of University Drive in Lauderhill. A U-shaped counter, four tables inside, another four outside. A high school kid was mopping the floor, smearing mayonnaise from one tile to another. A large, bearded man in an apron was at the cash register, counting one-dollar bills. He wore a small, gold cross around his neck, and his thin gray hair was pulled straight back and tied into a ponytail. A round helipad of a bald spot crowned his head. A worn copy of the New Testament poked out of a pocket of his apron and, true to his name, the tattoo of a cobra crawled up his arm.

Aldrin might have once been handsome and rugged. Now his eyes were rheumy, and his skin was as gray as a mullet’s belly. I guessed his weight as just south of three hundred pounds.

“George Aldrin?” I said.

“Yeah?”

“I’m Jake Lassiter.”

The name didn’t cause him to either salute or reach for a shotgun. “It’s good to meet you, Jake Lassiter,” he said evenly. “What kind of sandwich can we fix you today?”

“I’m looking for Krista Larkin.”

“Sweet Jesus,” he said, looking skyward.

“Do you have any idea what happened to her?”

He shook his head, sadly. “She disappeared, when was it …?”

“Eighteen years ago.”

“Another lifetime. Lassiter, you said?”

“Right.”

Now a glint of recognition in those moist eyes. “The football player?”

I nodded.

“The night Krista stabbed that jerk. You were there.”

“Yeah.”

“Krista told me all about you.”

Oh, shit.

I expected the worst, but then he said, “She liked you.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Why? ’Cause you tossed her out of your place the next morning?” He said it matter-of-factly, no note of judgment in his voice.

“Because I didn’t help her. I …”

“Soiled her.”

I nodded. Not the word I would have used, but yeah.

“One of many, Lassiter. Yours truly included. Have you repented?”

“Not in the way you mean. But I’m trying to do the right thing now.”

“Godspeed, then.” He turned to the kid with the mop. “Yo, Javier. Take a break. But no smoking weed.”

The kid shrugged and left. “Rehab,” Aldrin said. “I’m his mentor.”

He flipped the Closed sign around on the glass door, looked through the window at the parking lot, and motioned for me to sit at one of the small tables.

When we were seated, he said, “Who knows you found me?”

“Why do you ask?”

“There are a couple guys from my past who I’d just as soon never see again.”

I hazarded a guess. “Charlie Ziegler and Max Perlow.”

He nodded.

Obviously, Aldrin spent more time reading the Bible than the newspapers. I told him Perlow was dead. Gave him the shorthand version, including Amy going to trial for murder.

“I don’t countenance the slaying of a fellow man,” he said, “but I shed no tears for him.”

After a respectful moment of silence-about two seconds, I said, “My gut tells me Ziegler is responsible for Krista’s disappearance, but I can’t prove it.”

“Ziegler never wiped his butt without Perlow’s okay.”

“Meaning what?”

“I supplied Ziegler with coke and meth. Which made Perlow crazy. He thought Ziegler talked too much when he was fried.”

“Was he right?”

“A hundred percent. Krista was always telling me shit those two were doing. The girl knew too much, and Perlow realized it.”

“You saying Perlow might have had Krista killed?”

He shrugged. “The man was ruthless, I can tell you that.”

All this time, I’d been thinking Perlow was only protecting his business partner Ziegler from prison and his beloved Alex from bad press.

“What’s Ziegler say happened?” Aldrin asked.

I told him about my conversation that rainy night in Gables Estates. Ziegler claiming that the reverend, in his Snake days, had shown up on the set, scared about getting picked up on a probation violation. That he left town with Krista on the back of his Harley.

“Peckerwood’s telling half the truth,” Aldrin said. “I saw them both that day, but not at the set. At the party.”

“Krista was there?”

“Just arrived. It was early.”

I sat back in my chair and let out a breath. Aldrin was the first eyewitness to place Krista at Ziegler’s house the night she disappeared. Meaning everyone else had lied. Castiel. Perlow. Ziegler. Whatever happened to Krista, they were all in it together.

“I was delivering some very fine Colombian blow to Ziegler,” he said.

“Tell me everything you remember.”

“Not much to tell. I was only there four or five minutes. Told Krista I was headed west. Asked her to go along, but she chose to stay with her sugar daddy.”

“I thought she wanted out of that life.”

“Maybe she did, but coast to coast on a Harley must not have sounded like a step up.”

He was silent a moment, maybe considering the role he’d played in Krista Larkin’s short life. “She woulda left Ziegler for you, Lassiter.”

“I only knew her for about twelve hours.”

“Yet look at the impact she made. All these years later, you’re looking for her. Trying to make amends would be my guess.”

“Maybe.”

“Then take it from me, Lassiter. Fucking things up only takes a few minutes. Making things right, now, that’s a lifetime job.”