Midnight Rambler

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I stood on the shoulder of 595 with Buster pressed to my side, the white van long gone.

My Legend sat twenty feet away. The windshield was a memory, and there were smoldering bullet holes in the passenger seat and both backseats. One bullet had missed my head by less than six inches. I should have been grateful that I was still breathing, but all I wanted to do was run those bastards down.

Cars roared past, but no one stopped. Their drivers stared through me as if I were invisible. Next to a deserted island, there was no lonelier place than the shoulder of a highway. I called 911, and an automated answering service put me on hold.

Buster barked at the cars. I had leashed him out of fear that he might step into traffic and add an exclamation point to my already miserable day. I went to the Legend and turned the radio to my favorite FM station. They were playing a song by the Fine Young Cannibals called “She Drives Me Crazy.” Once upon a time they were my favorite band; then they suddenly disappeared. It seemed like a metaphor for my own sorry situation, and I leaned against my car and sang along.

I should have been dead. Three shots and you're usually out. I got spared, except now I didn't have wheels. I was one step closer to becoming a homeless person. I imagined myself pushing a shopping cart filled with garbage through Dania, a beaten and forgotten man.

A female dispatcher came on the line. I gave her my name and explained what had happened. She asked if I was hurt. I knew that if I said yes, a cruiser would be here in a New York minute.

“I'm okay,” I said.

“Hold tight,” the dispatcher said. “I'll get a car out there soon.”

I folded my phone. A tow truck was barreling down the interstate toward me. I'd been saved.

The tow truck parked, and an enterprising young guy hopped out. He gave my car a cursory inspection, then shoved a business card into my hand. It had his smiling picture on it and embossed lettering. larry littlejohn's 24-hour towing. i tow, you go!

“What the heck happened?” Larry asked.

“I ran into some old friends. Can you tow me to Dania?”

“What's the address?”

“Sunset Bar and Grille. It's over on the beach.”

He scratched his chin. “Yeah. I can do that.”

“Second question. Do you take IOUs?”

As the tow truck drove away I tore up Larry's card. The radio was playing another song from a vanished band. This time, I didn't sing along.

Fifteen minutes later a cruiser appeared with Bobby Russo at the wheel. He parked on the shoulder in front of my car and got out. He was wearing his suit from the news conference and steel-framed aviator's glasses turned to mirrors by the blinding Florida sun. He halted six feet from where I stood.

“Keep that monster back,” Russo said.

“He's a nice dog once you get to know him.”

“I heard he took a piece out of a guy's ass in the Grove.”

“You talk to Tommy Gonzalez?”

“Yeah,” Russo said. “He said you were a star.”

It was the nicest thing anyone had said to me in a while.

“How did you know where to find me?” I asked.

“The dispatcher recognized your name and gave me a call. Mind if I examine your car?”

“Be my guest.”

While Russo fly-specked my car, I told him what happened at Julie Lopez's house and gave him the numbers I'd memorized off the van's license along with a description of the vehicle. Without a word, he went to the cruiser and climbed in. I felt invisible again and knelt beside his open window.

“Are you going to help me, or not?” I asked.

“What do you want me to do, Jack?” Russo said, staring straight ahead. “Kill my day figuring out which white van in Broward belongs to the guys who potshotted you?”

“You could run a partial license check.”

“Those are expensive.”

“That never stopped you before.”

“In case you hadn't heard, we have a budget freeze. I now need authorization to run partial license checks. If I tell my boss you're involved, he'll say no.”

“Tell him it's connected to the Skell case,” I said.

“You don't know that for a fact.”

“Yes, I do. These guys bugged my car. They also put Carmella Lopez's body in her sister's backyard. For Christ's sake, Bobby, they're involved. You need to drag them in and put their feet to the fire. You don't want to see Skell released from prison, do you?”

“That's the judge's decision, not mine.”

“I have evidence that Skell isn't acting alone,” I said. “Don't you think the judge needs to know that?”

Russo shook his head, his mind made up. He wasn't doing it.

“What the hell's wrong with you?” I asked.

“What's wrong with me? I tell you what's wrong with me,” Russo said. “I have a wife and two kids and a sick mother-in-law. I have responsibilities, in case you've forgotten what those were.”

I had no answer for this, and hung my head in shame.

“Jesus, Jack, I didn't mean that. I'm sorry.”

I lifted my gaze. “Help me. Please.”

“Do you have the transmitter these guys were using to bug your car?”

The transmitter was lying on the bottom of the ocean outside the Sunset. I decided to lie to him.

“Yes.”

“Bring the transmitter to my office, and I'll put in a request for a partial license run to be done on all vans in Broward with those three numbers. If my boss squawks, I'll show him the transmitter, and tell him it's regarding another case.”

Russo was in my corner again, fighting the good fight. He started the cruiser, and I asked him for a lift back to Dania.

“Why don't you take your own car?” he suggested.

“Last time I checked, not having a windshield was against the law.”

“I'll escort you home,” Russo said.

I dropped my car at a body shop in Dania, and Russo drove us to the Sunset. He parked in the lot and left the engine idling. It was another beautiful day in paradise, and we sat in his car and watched waves crash against the shoreline.

“I've got a gang examining the Skell file,” Russo said. “Half of homicide, two investigators from Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and one of those crackerjacks from the FBI. I'd bring in the Boy Scouts if I thought it would do any good.”

“Nothing, huh?”

“Actually, there is something I think we can use.”

I felt a spark of hope. “What did you find?”

“Melinda Peters.”

“But she testified at the trial. The judge has already heard her.”

“I read her testimony and compared it with the deposition she gave before trial,” Russo said. “Her testimony at the trial was shorter. She left out some really sick things that Skell did to her when she was locked up in the dog crate in his house.”

“She was traumatized by the experience, so the prosecutor toned it down,” I explained. “It was the only way Melinda would agree to testify.”

“Would she tell the whole story now?”

I shook my head. Victims of sexual crimes were slow to heal and sometimes never healed at all. I couldn't see Melinda reliving the experience.

“I want a judge to hear what happened to her,” Russo said. “It's hard evidence that Skell is a sexual predator. Predators can be held in jail indefinitely in Florida if they're considered a threat.”

“But Skell wasn't put in prison for being a sexual predator.”

“It doesn't matter. If the judge determines that he is one, the state will hold him. It's called the William's Law, and we'll ask him to invoke it.”

I shook my head again. I didn't see Melinda doing it.

“Melinda likes you, doesn't she?” Russo asked.

“What does that have to do with this?” I asked.

“You can talk to her,” Russo said. “Take her out to dinner, beg her; hell, sleep with her if you have to, but get her to help us. She's our last chance.”

Melinda's coming on to me was still fresh in my mind. She probably would agree to testify if I tricked her by lying about my feelings, but I wasn't going down that road.

“I'll try,” I said.

I got out and retrieved Buster from the backseat. Russo backed out of the spot and pulled up alongside me. He leaned out his open window.

“I'll be by later this afternoon with the transmitter, and we can run those list of partial license plates,” I said.

“You do that,” Russo said. “Oh, by the way. I don't take IOUs. You still owe me three hundred bucks for the repairs on my Suburban.” Before I could tell him I didn't have the money, Russo drove away.