Lassiter

62 Lawyers, Guns, and Money

The next morning, I was cruising north on I-95. No court today. I had twenty-four hours until Charlie Ziegler appeared as a witness for the prosecution. I still wasn’t sure what he would say when Castiel asked the magic question: “Can you identify the shooter?”

Traffic slowed near 125th Street, where a refrigerated truck had overturned, spilling several tons of Florida lobsters onto the pavement. The critters scrambled across the expressway into the high-occupancy lane. Unless they’d purchased SunPasses, they’d likely get tickets.

Cars crunched the crustaceans. A few drivers hopped out, trying to corral their supper. I swerved through the traffic and made it to a warehouse district near the Broward County line. Last night, as I was eating Granny’s deep-fried frogs legs, Pepito Dominguez had called. He’d been tailing Ziegler. The idea had been to find Melody Sanders, but Ziegler had a different destination. His old porn production facility, now owned by Rodney Gifford.

Pepito told me that Ziegler and Gifford drove to Morton’s in North Miami Beach where they ate steaks and drank martinis, Ziegler picking up the tab. My semi-pro P.I. took a table nearby but couldn’t hear their conversation. That didn’t keep him from ordering double-rib lamb chops and faxing me the bill. At the end of the meal, Ziegler and Gifford hugged. Pepito couldn’t be sure but he thought he saw tears in Ziegler’s eyes.

What the hell was that about?

Today’s job was to find out. I guided the old Eldo into the parking lot beneath the sign that said, Gifford Worldwide Productions. On the radio, Warren Zevon was gambling in Havana, where he had gotten into trouble. The solution seemed to be “lawyers, guns, and money,” which in my experience often make things worse. With that thought, I killed the ignition and headed inside.

A heavily tattooed young man with a pimpled butt was having sex with a life-size silicone doll named Candy. I knew her name because young Olivier kept grunting “Fucking you good Candy; fucking you good, Candy,” as if reviewing his own performance. Candy kept quiet, except for an occasional silicone squeak.

“In the second act, the doll comes to life and kills him,” a production assistant told me.

They were shooting Killer Candy 8, a video about homicidal love dolls. The tattooed guy made some disturbing guttural sounds of distress, like a boar in cardiac arrest, then spritzed his money shot all over Candy’s 38-DDD boobs. Rodney Gifford yelled, “Cut,” called for the Windex guy, and gave cast and crew a ten-minute break.

I walked up to Gifford as he was thumbing through a script. He was a trim, khakied man in his fifties. Khaki slacks, khaki safari vest, khaki chest hair.

“I’m Jake Lassiter. Can we talk?”

“How big’s your dick?”

“What?”

“Does it take two hands to handle your whopper?”

“You start all conversations this way?”

“You’re here for the casting, right? White Men Can’t Hump.”

“I’m a lawyer.”

“No shit. You look a little like Studley Do-Right. Guy had a helluva wad.”

“I’ve got some questions about Charlie Ziegler.”

“You got a subpoena?”

“Nope.”

“So why should I talk to you?”

“Why wouldn’t you? Do you have something to hide?”

“Doesn’t everyone?” Gifford rasped a smoker’s laugh and squinted at me through eyes the color of snot. “C’mon, Studley. You got ten minutes, not a second more, unless I find you fabulously entertaining.”

We walked up a set of steel stairs to his office, a cluttered rat’s nest just off a catwalk, overlooking the production set. He offered me lukewarm coffee and a chair with torn, upholstered arms. I took the chair, declined the coffee, and asked why Ziegler came to see him yesterday.

“None of your business, Stud-bug.” He drummed his manicured fingernails on his desk. On the wall were a pair of movie posters. Don’t Ask, Do Tell showed women in military uniforms, tunics open, breasts exposed. Saving Ryan’s Privates showed men in unzipped combat fatigues. Apparently, Gifford also made patriotic films.

“The way I hear it, Ziegler screwed you on the sale of the business,” I said.

“Old news.”

“Stole your girlfriend and married her.”

“Lola? His loss, not mine. Monogamy is overrated, don’t you think?”

“Not compared to celibacy.”

“Touche,” he said, waving an index finger like a saber.

“Then yesterday, you and Ziegler are seen eating steaks and hugging.”

“Charlie’s going through some changes, okay? Trust me, it has nothing to do with your case.”

“Ziegler expressing remorse for his past, is that it?”

I was just repeating what Castiel had said yesterday. Ziegler, too, had used the word the night I ate sushi at his house. “Looking back now, I’ve got a lot of remorse.”

“Any law against being sorry for the shit you did?” Gifford asked.

I hope not, thinking of myself.

“If the shit includes murder,” I said, “that’s pretty much against the law.”

“Ziegler’s a prick. But he’s not a killer. If you must know, yesterday he apologized for screwing me over. He’s sorry, sorry, sorry.”

Ziegler apologized to Gifford, and to Amy at their jailhouse visit. He was on an apology tour. I tried another angle.

“A few days before Perlow was shot,” I said, “my client came around and asked you some questions.”

“Lovely woman-but so filled with anger.”

“You lied to her. You said Krista wasn’t at the party, but I have a witness who places her there.”

“I told your client I saw Ziegler with three or four girls, and Krista wasn’t one of them. That’s as far as I went.”

“You chose your words carefully.”

“As I do my lovers.” His smile showed me two rows of ultra-white crowns.

“Tell me who Krista was with,” I ordered.

“Why should I?”

I bounded out of my chair, grabbed the collar of his safari jacket, and jerked him to his feet. “Because I’ll toss you through the wall and off that catwalk.”

“You wouldn’t.”

I lifted him off his feet. “You better hope you land on silicone tits instead of a concrete floor.”

“Why not spank me instead?”

I wheeled him into the wall so hard, the poster of Booby Trap XXIII crashed to the floor. “Bumper cars!” he yelled.

It occurred to me that he was enjoying this.

“Spanky, spanky, spanky!” he said.

“I don’t spank. I punch.”

I wrapped my hand around his throat. “What’d you see that night at Ziegler’s?”

A croaking sound came from Gifford’s throat and his eyes bulged.

“Tell me!” I said, loosening my grip just a bit.

“A man asked for some ludes. Krista was with him, half-zonked already.”

“Who was he?”

“I gave him a handful of pills, and he carried her to the Fuck Palace.”

“Who? Give me a name.”

“He’s scary. Scarier than you.”

I grabbed a handful of mousse-slicked hair and yanked him away from the wall. Headlocked his skull with my right arm, then pasted my big left mitt over his mouth and nose, pinching his nostrils shut. I waited until he started bucking. “Who was he! Who took Krista to the Fuck Palace?”

His cheeks were turning crimson. Then I let go with my left hand and let him suck in a breath.

“More,” he begged me. “More, sir.”

“I don’t have time for this shit.” I propped him up with my left arm and threw a short, right hook into his gut. Solid, but not a pile driver calculated to make him expel his breakfast onto my shoes.

His knees buckled and he dropped to all fours. He looked up with dancing eyes, a horse awaiting a rider. “The man …” He gasped. “The man with Krista was Alex Castiel.”