Buzz Cut (18 page)

As he peered through the parking lot at Rochelle and her friends, Rover sniffed his sweaty ankle, gave it a tentative lick. Thorn looked down at the dog. Rover was wagging his tail as he cleaned the salt from Thorn's ankle. A good dog. Damn good dog.

Thorn stepped away from Rover, opened the door to the VW, dropped inside. He nagged the car to life, slammed the door, backed out of his space. Rochelle didn't look his way.

Heading across the lot, Thorn glanced once into the rearview mirror. Rover had joined Rochelle and her friends, licking the sweat off their ankles now.

As Thorn accelerated over Jewfish Creek onto the dark stretch toward Miami, the steering wheel tore loose from his hand and jerked hard left. He wrenched it back in line but it shimmied wildly in his grip. Must've knocked the VW's front end seriously out of line when he'd bashed Sugar's office door.

In five minutes he was breathing hard. His T-shirt soaked, hands slippery on the ridged plastic wheel. The car was trying desperately to merge with the opposing headlights.

After some grueling experimentation he found that below forty, things were bearable. Over forty he had to use both hands and half his weight to wrestle the car into a wobbling line.

For the next hour he pushed the VW to fifty, then on to sixty, battled the sultan of swerve to a standstill. By the time he reached Cutler Ridge, it was after midnight and the muscles in his arms were failing, sharp spasms were breaking out in his lower back. And he still had another thirty miles across town to the Port of Miami.

And now there was something else. Traffic. It was Saturday and even the highways in the outskirts of the city were packed. He'd read somewhere that on weekend nights, two-thirds of the drivers in Miami were crocked. He could see why. You'd need a good buzz to navigate those highways at that time of night. As many cars were doing twice the speed limit as were doing half of it. Drunks and dopers, geriatrics and teenagers stupefied on puberty, tourists who'd apparently arrived from some part of the world where driving was a branch of warfare.

Car after car came hurtling up to Thorn's bumper, blooming large in the rearview mirror, then, with inches to spare, they bounced out to the passing lane, roared past, then cut in a foot from his front bumper. Some new game being played. Everyone in on the rules but Thorn.

He hung on to the wheel, dragged it to the right. The car steadfastly determined to veer across the median, turn ever tighter counterclockwise circles till it ran out of gas. At least it gave him something to do, something other than thinking about Sugarman, replaying the voice on the phone line, the look in Rochelle's eyes, any of it. He tried to stay focused on the three lanes in front of him, on his hands clenching the wheel. The tick of the next second.

A minute or two later while he was scrambling to remember which combination of highways was the most direct route downtown, his front right tire blew. The tension in the steering wheel abruptly vanished. The flat equalizing things, letting him steer with one hand for the first time in an hour. But a minute later he heard the rim grinding against the asphalt, saw sparks whisking past.

He took the first exit he came to, Kendall Drive. Into the concrete heart of Miami's condo district. Thumped down the ramp and pulled into the first gas station that was open. A minimart, six pumps out front.

He drew up to the side of the grocery, parked in the shadows. He hammered the wheel, cursed the gods, then cocked his arm, aimed his fist at the windshield. A dark-haired woman in the passenger seat of a bright yellow Corvette next to him gazed over, smiling. Knew just how he felt. Thorn lowered his fist. Gloria Estefan doing a raunchy salsa on the Corvette's speakers.

He didn't have a spare tire. Didn't have a nickel in his gym shorts. He dug through the coins in the ashtray. He'd spent his last fifty cents on the toll back in Cutler Ridge. All that remained were seven pennies, a paper clip, and a bonefish fly he'd tied about seven years ago. A Crazy Charlie. Quirky thing that used to knock the bonefish dead. The guy that tied that fly seven years ago had been fifteen pounds lighter, twice as hard. A man who never let blown tires defeat him. Never sat in minimart parking lots, slamming his knuckles into safety glass.

Thorn opened the door, stood up, shook the kinks out of his arms. To his right coming out of the minimart was a heavyset man in a metallic shirt and black trousers. He had a bottle of wine tucked under his arm and was opening a pack of cigarettes. Thorn watched him crumple the cellophane and let the wind take it. He was headed toward the Corvette, whistling to himself as he smacked the pack of cigarettes hard against his palm.

Thorn beat him to the sports car by five steps, ducked inside, slammed the door and locked it, shot the window up. He had the engine started as the guy reached the car. The man hammered his fist against the hood, yelled at Thorn in Spanish, and grabbed hold of his aerial.

Thorn buried the accelerator, smoked the big tires backward, narrowly missed the pumps. The guy shouting at him, slinging his pack of cigarettes as Thorn fishtailed onto Kendall. Not much of an arm.

"Don't worry," Thorn told the woman. "I'm a safe driver."

He ran two red lights, hit eighty before he had to slow for the entrance to the Palmetto Expressway. He glanced over at her.

"Hell," she said. "I thought we'd never get rid of that dork."

Twenty minutes later they were at the Port of Miami and Thorn was convinced he'd done the Corvette guy a favor, kidnapping his date. The woman's name was Sherry. She was a waitress with three kids. Fired from six jobs in the past two months. She'd been drinking white wine from a plastic cup when they left Kendall, and by the time they reached the docks, she was glubbing it direct from the bottle. She guessed she had a drinking problem. But then who could be sure when something was a problem? Look at the French, look at the Russians, all the shit they drank, and those people lived forever. She just liked the taste of the stuff. And it made everything sharper, clearer. Gave her good ideas. It also, by the way, made her want to dance. She knew some great dance places. You could rub against ten people at the same time in one of them. Forget South Beach. That was all transsexuals and trendy wanna bes. Give her Tobacco Road. Good old-fashioned boogie, tight little dance floor, smoke so thick the visibility was down to a foot. Sherry's kids were home with Mom. Sherry was worried about her daughter. Fourteen and with aspirations to be a stripper. Had knockers out to here, took after her mom in that department. The girl said she might as well get paid for having such giant headlights since everybody stared at her all the time anyway.

"There're cabs over in that far lot," Thorn said as he swung into a space and shut down all those horses.

The M.S.
Eclipse
was brightly lit. The gangway down. A little activity at the bottom of the ramp.

"You going on a cruise, honey, and you're not inviting Sherry? Your old friend, all the things we been through. 'Cause look here, I can be very romantic, you know. Cruises make Sherry incredibly horny."

Thorn told her good night and jogged over to the ramp. He could hear Sherry shrieking at him fifty yards away.

"I'm a friend of Lola's," he told the red-faced security guard at the bottom of the ramp. The guard was chewing thoughtfully on a pink drinking straw. He craned his head and listened to Sherry's curses, then grinned at his cohort, a supple young Latin man with a manicured mustache. The Latin guard grinned back. Then both of them gave Thorn a long look. In his gym shorts and sodden T-shirt. Must've smelled like a mildewed jock strap.

"Well, well, Hector, if it isn't another friend of Lola's."

"Lola has a great many friends," the young Hispanic said.

"Whole fucking world is a friend of Lola's. She's in their living room nine o'clock every morning, yes sir, Lola's their old buddy."

"Look, I spoke to her a couple of hours ago. She called me, told me to get up here."

"She called you, did she? The two of you had a fine chat."

"Yeah, Lola telephoned him to get up here. His friend Lola." The Greek chorus plays Miami.

"You got any ID, perchance?" The red-faced guard twiddled his straw with his tongue. He had an old-time Boston brogue, like the baaing of an Irish sheep. Another place, another time, Thorn might've invited him out for a pitcher of beer. Swap lies.

"Call Lola, ask her if she wants to talk to Thorn."

"That your name? Thorn?"

"Kind of fucking name is that, Thorn?" The Hispanic kid was trying hard to sing harmony with the cop but was half an octave off. "Not any kind of fucking name I heard before. How about you, McDaniels?"

All three of them turned to watch the Corvette roar out of the lot, clip a parking barricade, and disappear into the night.

"You see," McDaniels said. "Here's how it is, old chum. Everybody and his retarded brother-in-law wants to go along on this cruise. We been getting you dumb fucks all day long. Please, mister. Please, mister, I'll do anything. Down on their knees, willing to perform unnatural acts if that would get them on board. But the problem is, see, you got to purchase a ticket before you go for a boat ride. And the tickets are gone. Sold out weeks ago. So it doesn't matter if you had yourself a holy psychedelic vision telling you Lola Sampson wanted to see you. You don't have a fucking ticket, you can take a fucking hike."

"She said she was leaving a ticket for me."

McDaniels grinned painfully. But the kid's face went soft and he turned and slunk away behind the cop, went over to the bulletin board that was set up beside the gangway. He plucked an envelope off the board and brought it back to the cop.

Sheepishly he held out the envelope to the older man. McDaniels snapped out a hand, gripped the young man's slender wrist, drew the envelope close, then, still clenching the kid's wrist, the cop reached into his breast pocket, drew out his glasses, and peered at the writing.

"Thorn," McDaniels said. He seemed older now. Aged fifteen years in a few seconds. The pleasant flush of arrogance draining away, leaving behind a tired man who was paid to do grunt work for the monied few. "Thorn," he said again. "All right. Well, I'm still waiting to see some ID."

Thorn told him he didn't have any. Smiling coldly at the man now, pushing it. Telling McDaniels that people like Thorn ordinarily didn't trifle with ID, because most citizens of this planet were perceptive enough to recognize who he was without showing them a little card with his photo on it.

"Is that right? You're a celebrity, that's what you're telling me? I'm supposed to know who you are?"

"Hey, Barney, there's a note on the envelope there. Says don't delay Mr. Thorn. Says send him straightaway on board." McDaniels cut his gaze to his partner, burned him with that look. There was going to be hell to pay for this, and the supple one was about to start coughing up.

"Well, Mr. Thorn, enjoy your cruise." The cop looked his way, took a healthy chew on his pink straw. "I guess we'll be seeing you at the party."

"Lucky me," Thorn said.

***

The ship's hospital was two floors below the waterline. Behind the nurse's desk sat a young Asian man reading a paperback romance novel. Lavish script emblazoned over the image of a longhaired man without his shirt, his damsel sinking into quicksand, clutching his thighs for salvation. The Asian man behind the desk was slender and had a small mouth. He glanced up at Thorn and rubbed his eyes. A rough reentry into the shabby world.

He took a peek at Thorn, then lifted off his chair a few inches to get the full view. He let himself down and squinted at Thorn's face.

"You need see doctor or nurse, they no duty now. Come back tomorrow you sick."

"I'm looking for a man named Sugarman."

The Asian man tried to repeat the name but failed.

"Sugarman. Sugarman."

"Oh," he said. "You here for stiff? You from coroner office."

Thorn stared at him, felt his head nod.

"Got two stiff tonight. You take your time getting here. What, you very busy with shooting on street?"

"That's right," Thorn said. "Murders, lots of them. Bodies stacked up."

"America terrible place. Miami bad. Very much murders."

The man stood up, came around the desk. Green surgical pants, a dirty white T-shirt.

Thorn followed him out of the infirmary, down a short hallway to a shiny steel cabinet. The silver box was humming. Thorn had seen them before, portable meat lockers. He knew the sound of the tray sliding out, knew the sterile chemical odor, the dizzy jolt when the bloodless body came into view.

The man swung open the door. Both trays held cadavers, soles facing out.

"Have heart attack on last day of cruise. Too much party."

He rolled out the first tray and held the sheet aside so Thorn could view the naked body of an elderly woman. Thorn shook his head. The man pushed her back and slid out the bottom tray. It was a black man. Six two, slender build. Thorn stared at the corpse's face for a long time before he was certain it was not Sugarman. This man was seventy, seventy-five with a white mustache.

"Neither of these," Thorn said. "Younger. A black man."

"What say name again?"

"Sugarman. Sugarman."

The man worked it in his mouth like a glop of peanut butter.

"Ah," he said. "Slugger man."

"Right," said Thorn. "Slugger man."

He nodded wearily, finally unraveling Thorn's abysmal enunciation.

"Where is he?"

"He upstairs. No room here." The man waved at the locker.

"Where?"

"In spa," he said.

"Where?"

"He go spa," he said. "Spa. No room here, he go spa."

***

Thorn couldn't locate the elevator, so he climbed the eleven stories to the uppermost deck. The ship was a garish blur around him. Tinsel-flecked mirrors, tacky neon, carpets and walls in feverish shades of fuchsia and iridescent purples as gaudy as the lipstick of hot-tempered whores. There was music oozing from the PA system, some processed gruel with echoes of Mancini.