Verses for the Dead

19

Roger Smithback drained his bottle of porter and placed it on the scarred wooden table. Moments later, the barmaid — blond, fortyish, with spandex shorts worn over a swimsuit — came over. “Another, sugar?”

“Hell, yes.”

She plucked her order pad from a pocket of her shorts. “You boys ready?”

“I’ll have a grouper sandwich,” Smithback said. “Extra banana peppers, please.”

She turned to Smithback’s companion.

“The usual,” he said. The waitress smiled, scribbled on her pad, then turned away.

Smithback glanced across the table. The man who stared moodily back at him was ordinary in almost every way: average height, tanned, mouse-brown hair with a two-day stubble, wearing a Ron Jon T-shirt and baggy Bermudas. It was one of the getups Miami undercover cops favored — if you knew what to look for.

And Roger Smithback knew what to look for. He’d been working the town for six years now, starting as a lowly researcher at the Miami Herald and battling his way up to full-fledged assignment reporter. And Casey Morse had, more or less, risen along with him. They’d met during Smithback’s second week at the Herald. Back then, Morse was a newly minted patrol officer, assigned to Little Haiti. He put in his time pounding the pavement, spent two years on a narco rotation, and now he was a vice sergeant in the central district. And Smithback had been buying him cheeseburgers — rare, fried onions, no lettuce — once a week for the whole ride.

The waitress put a fresh bottle of Morning Wood on the table. Smithback grabbed it and took a long pull. The strong flavors of coffee, maple, and — yes, there it was — bacon that washed over his taste buds were stimulating and comforting. The beer was brewed just up the coast by Funky Buddha, and it was usually available only seasonally. But the Sunset Tavern always seemed to have a supply on hand, and that was the main reason Smithback frequented the place — that, and because it was a typical cop bar, where he knew Morse could chill out and relax.

They shot the usual shit for a while — the depressing prospects for the Marlins’ upcoming season; the new Zika outbreak in Liberty City; the tyrannical behavior of Morse’s new lieutenant. Morse was a pretty decent cop, but he never seemed to get along with his immediate superiors. Smithback wondered if that said more about the bosses or about Morse himself.

Smithback let the small talk continue, fiddling aimlessly with his porkpie now and then, until their dinners arrived. He’d done this for so long, he had it choreographed down almost to the individual dance steps. It wasn’t that he played Morse or his one or two other cop friends, exactly — it was more of a give-and-take in which both sides benefited. Police never liked to be thought of as leakers to the press, except of course when it benefited them directly — but they were as gossipy as anybody else. If they thought you already knew something, they wouldn’t change the subject... as long as they could rationalize they hadn’t been the first one to give up any dirt. But naturally, they were as curious as the next guy. So if you, as a reporter, had picked up an interesting tidbit of your own here or there... well, you could barter. That’s one reason Smithback often frequented neighborhoods like this one, where he might uncover tips that would interest a sergeant on the vice squad.

Smithback knew his style wasn’t flashy, but he didn’t care. He’d known plenty of reporters who lived just for the big leads. His older brother, Bill, had been one of them — always looking for an angle, antennae never at rest, pissing people off, a bull in a china shop who’d do almost anything to get another story above the fold. It wasn’t that he was a bad guy — Bill had been a great big brother, with a heart as big as a house, and Roger missed him and mourned his untimely death every day — it’s just that their work styles were as different as their personalities. Bill had liked jazz and poetry and Damon Runyon, while Roger preferred mathematics, Marvel comics, and classical music.

Their father had been a newspaperman, too, and in a funny way Bill and Roger had grown up mirroring two different sides of his personality. On the one hand, as a reporter their father had been the terror of their quiet Boston suburb, chasing down leads and local scandals with the determination of an ink-stained harpy. On the other, once he took over the reins of the Beverly Evening Transcript, he’d become more nuanced and strategic in his thinking: planning for the long term, seeing beyond the next big scoop, and carefully grooming both his paper and his sources. Roger understood that approach. The Transcript had been his dad’s first and last love — and he’d died at the tiller, so to speak, suffering a massive heart attack while sitting hunched over the phototypesetter.

Outside on Northwest Eighth, traffic hummed. The cars would slow down later, when the hookers came out. Morse was enjoying his burger, giving it his full attention. That was good, Smithback mused. Funny how cops always seemed to prefer comfort food when they went off shift — just like they seemed to prefer bars with the word Tavern in their names.

“How’d you make out with that commissioner?” he asked nonchalantly. He’d gotten a tip that a certain Miami commissioner had been hiring escorts using county money, and he’d passed it on to Morse.

“It’s looking good.” Morse licked ketchup from his fingers. “Damn good, in fact. Of course, the fucking lieutenant is going to snag a piece of the collar if we do bring him in.”

“That sucks ass.” Smithback watched as Morse drained his gin and tonic, signaled the waitress for another. “Sounds like my life story.”

“Yeah? That editor — what’s his name, Kraski — still riding you?”

“Always.” This was a bit of an exaggeration, but it never hurt to get in some brotherly bonding over shared sufferance.

“Wish I had a bone I could throw your way in return,” Morse said. “But it’s been pretty quiet. Except for those two killings, of course.”

“Yeah.” Smithback took another sip of his beer. He was faced with a bit of a dilemma. It was true he normally didn’t handle homicides — and Morse knew it. On the other hand, the two Herald reporters who usually monopolized the murder beat were presently on vacation. His father had always harped on the importance of instinct — “trust your gut,” he liked to say — and even though the cops were being unusually tight-lipped about the recent killings in Miami Beach, it was obvious they were linked. Both victims were women who had their chests hacked open with “a heavy, bladed instrument.” That was all the cops would say, but he’d happened to be in the right neighborhood two days before, when half of the law enforcement of South Beach suddenly peeled off for Miami City Cemetery. It was no secret there’d been a big fuss at another cemetery just a few days earlier. He’d kept his ear to the ground, heard rumors that a body part — a heart, supposedly — had been found. Didn’t take a rocket scientist to put the pieces together. And Smithback’s own gut was telling him he should take advantage of his colleagues’ vacations before some stringer did.

He wanted this story. But he didn’t want to alienate Morse, lose him as a source. So he’d surprise the sergeant with a nugget of information that not only was tasty, but would imply he knew more than he actually did — a version of what, in game theory, was called the “ultimatum game.” If he played it right, maybe he’d learn something.

“Yeah,” he said. “The killings. Someone must be going ballistic.” He finished his Morning Wood. “Otherwise, why call in the feds?”

Morse looked at him with surprise and suspicion. “You know about that?”

Smithback shrugged as if it weren’t important. After all, he wasn’t a homicide reporter. “Sure. Pendergast wouldn’t be down here otherwise.”

“Pendergast?”

“Yeah. Special Agent Pendergast and I go way back.” This was the nugget; and it was, in fact, partially true. His brother had spoken of Pendergast many times, in a tone alternating among frustration, admiration, and fear. Roger had even met the agent a few times: first, at Bill’s wedding, and again when Bill was murdered and Pendergast handled the case. The last time he saw the FBI agent was at Bill’s funeral. So when he’d spied the gaunt, black-clad man at the city cemetery two days before, it had not only been a huge surprise but also confirmed his own suspicions — serial murder. The agent hadn’t answered his question on the subject, but then, he hadn’t needed to.

The suspicion in Morse’s expression receded, but the surprise remained. “This Pendergast tell you much?”

Smithback had guessed right: the sergeant seemed almost as curious about the case as he was. But he’d have to tread carefully. Trust your gut. “Not all that much. Just that weird shit at the cemeteries.”

To his relief, Morse nodded. “Weird isn’t the word,” the cop said as a fresh G&T was placed before him. “Those notes are definitely from a psycho. I mean, who’d use a candy-ass name like that?”

Damn. Time to improvise. “Yeah,” Smithback said, still hitting the nonchalance hard. “When I first heard about that, I figured the guy was, you know, messing with you. Like Jack the Ripper or something.”

Morse snorted. “At least Jack the Ripper has some balls. But Mister Brokenhearts? How fucked up is that?”

“Seriously fucked up.” And Smithback looked down as quickly as he dared, picking up his sandwich and taking a bite to conceal a look of triumph. Not only had he just confirmed some suspicions and made a huge score — that the killer called himself Mister Brokenhearts — but he also hadn’t burned his bridges. Morse would think he’d gotten everything from Pendergast.

He’d lied, but only to get the truth. And he’d done it subtly, successfully employing the ultimatum game. Both sides of his dad would be proud of him.

“How’s the burger?” he asked the sergeant through a mouthful of grouper.