Pineapple Grenade (4 page)

“What’d you find?”

The examiner scraped inside with what looked like an ice cream scoop and held the results toward the officer.

“That’s disgusting. Get it out of my face.”

The examiner set it aside. “Extensive internal burns.”

“You mean like he was in a fire?”

The M.E. took another scoop from the abdomen. “There are many kinds of burns besides fire, and no indication here of external heat trauma.”

“This just gets worse and worse.”

“When I make some slides from tissue samples, we’ll know a lot more.” The examiner bent down again. “Now, if you leave me alone, I can work faster.”

“You’ll call?”

“Got you on speed dial.”

The lieutenant put his hat back on and headed out. He stopped in the doorway, neck muscles seized. Behind him, giggling. “A cape.”

Consulate of Costa Gorda

The receptionist glared at Serge.

He produced an envelope and glanced around again. “Give this to your spy.”

“Spy?”

“Every consulate has a spy.”

“But we don’t—”

Serge winked. “They trained you well. And since you hold such a low position,
you
might even be the spy, like the submarine cook in
The Hunt for Red October.
If so, open that envelope and read it yourself.” Serge chugged the rest of his coffee, then held the empty cup to his left eyeball. “Some spies have to put things in their butt. I don’t want that job, unless it’s something very, very small. Coleman would do it, but his bowels are unreliable whenever you need to count on them. In the 1965 James Bond movie
Thunderball,
the skydiving frogmen are supposed to be jumping into the Bahamas, but downtown Miami is in the background. Or am I lying? See how I turned that around? That’s critical in the shadow world: The truth is the lie, and the lie is the truth. Sometimes it’s a limerick or a productive cough. I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand. Dead shark in the street. The code word now is
monkey-pox
 . . .”

One of the building’s elevators reached the ground floor. Five beefy men rushed Serge and Coleman out the front door and threw them down on the sidewalk.

Coleman got up and rubbed his hands on his shirt. “Don’t take it too bad. Maybe the next people will hire you.”

“What are you talking about?” Serge checked his backpack and threw a broken thermos in the garbage. “Those guys hired me.”

Coleman looked puzzled. “I haven’t been hired much, but when it has happened, they don’t rough me up and throw me really hard on the ground.”

“Everything in the spy world is opposite.” Serge hoisted his backpack. “Remember the constant surveillance? If they took us out to dinner and had loads of laughs,
that
would mean I wasn’t hired. This way, anybody watching would mistakenly think we annoyed them. Standard protocol to distance themselves before they activate me.”

“But who would be watching?”

Serge shrugged and headed east toward the waterfront.

A city truck pulled up. Workers threw a shark in the back like they were picking up a discarded sofa on the side of the highway.

The truck drove off, revealing a black SUV with tinted windows parked on the other side of Flagler. The back window rolled down and a telephoto lens poked out.

Miami Morgue

A door flew open.

“You said you had something on the carjacker?” asked the lieutenant.

“And how,” said the examiner. “I’d love to meet the killer.”

“I’d love to kill him. So how’d he do it?”

The examiner clapped his hands a single time. “Okay, this is really cool. The mind that thought this up . . .” A whistle in admiration.

“Will you just spill it?” The lieutenant glanced at the foot of the autopsy table and tilted his head like a cocker spaniel. “Wait, what’s that metal canister with the evidence tag?”

“After I checked slides in the microscope, I went back to the police report. Your guys got lucky. During their neighborhood canvass, one of the uniforms found the canister in a trash bin behind a convenience store. He thought it was unrelated, but because of what it is, and the location, he logged it into evidence anyway as probable stolen property. More on that later. Take a look in the microscope.”

The lieutenant bent over and adjusted focus on twin eyepieces. “What am I seeing?”

“Chemical burn. Liquid nitrogen.”

The officer stood back up. “That’s all Greek.”

“It is to most people, so I set up a demonstration . . . This makes my whole month!”

“Can you get on with it?”

“Right . . .” The M.E. slipped on his thickest gloves and went to cold storage, retrieving a round thermal container the width of a punch bowl. Then he grabbed a disarticulated cadaver hand. “Don’t worry, we were going to throw this out anyhow. Now watch closely . . .”

The lieutenant didn’t need to be told. He leaned with rapt attention as the examiner unscrewed the container’s lid. Wisps of vapor wafted out the top.

The examiner held up the lifeless, severed hand, then giggled and dipped it wrist-deep in the jug. He listened to a wall clock tick. Then pulled it out.

The lieutenant scratched his head. “Looks the same, just a different color.”

Another giggle. He grabbed a tiny surgical hammer off the instrument tray and smacked the hand just below the knuckles.

“Jesus!” The officer jumped back as frozen slivers scattered on the floor. “It shattered like an ice sculpture.” A closer look. “There’s . . . nothing left.”

“And that’s liquid nitrogen, minus three hundred Fahrenheit.” The M.E. grabbed a dustpan and swept up the pieces. “But here’s the critical step.” He dumped the pan’s contents in a sink and turned on the hot water.

The lieutenant watched the remains melt and circle the drain until they were gone. “I still don’t get how he did it.”

“Easier than you’d think—if you’re as sharp as this guy. He probably poured the nitrogen down the dead man’s throat with a long funnel. But had to roll him around so it wouldn’t settle and freeze through a cavity wall. And for even distribution, he needed to repeat the process over and over, each time pouring in hot water to melt what he had just iced over, suctioning it out.”

“Suction?”

“You could do it with items as simple as a gas-can tube and turkey baster.”

“But where the heck does somebody get liquid nitrogen?”

“Anyone can get it,” said the M.E. “Just call the agricultural agent in any county and ask who maintains cryogenic chambers for animal husbandry, usually prize bulls.” He pointed at the metal tank near the foot of the autopsy table. “They even deliver, refills as low as thirty bucks.”

“Mother of God! I thought this might calm those reporters, but it’s even worse.” The detective grabbed the M.E. by the arm. “I don’t know who’s leaking to the press, but we cannot under any circumstances let this get out. Can you imagine the headlines?” He released the examiner and rubbed his own forehead. “How on earth am I going to identify the killer?”

“Might be able to help you there.” The examiner walked over and patted the top of the tank. “The sample chamber wasn’t empty. We can do a genetic test.”

“What? You mean you can identify the bull semen and maybe track down where he bought it?”

The examiner shook his head. “Not bull semen. Human.”

The lieutenant felt sick. “This definitely can’t get out.”

“Mum’s the word.” The examiner turned his back. “I’ll send it for DNA immediately after I write up the official cause of death.”

“Please tell me it’s something that won’t make a good headline.”

The examiner saved his biggest giggle for last.

“He froze to death in Miami.”

Palmetto Expressway

“Damn, it’s hot.”

The driver of a white van switched on a small, battery-powered fan glued to the dashboard.

The front passenger looked up from the
Herald
’s sports section. “Take the next exit.”

They got off the highway, and two others trucks followed.

Opa-locka is one of the rough older areas, just north of Hialeah. Often tops national crime charts. Like driving through Baghdad. But not the violence part. Back in the 1920s, local founders kind of got hung up on
Arabian Nights,
and it now boasts the country’s highest concentration of Moorish architecture. City hall looks like a flying carpet might sail out a window. One of the streets is named Ali Baba Avenue.

There’s also a small airport that used to be big. The Graf Zeppelin paid a visit. Amelia Earhart took off on her fateful flight from here, and there’s now a public park in her name where people honor the pilot by playing Frisbee golf and visiting the insect museum.

Three white vans skirted the north side of the park and passed through galvanized airport gates. They raced toward the civil aviation side of the runways, across from the Coast Guard air-sea-rescue helicopters.

A twin-engine Beechcraft waited with its side door flopped down. Vans parked. A bucket brigade passed wooden crates up the airplane’s steps.

Behind the tail, a stretch Mercedes. Four solemn men in a row. Banker suits and haircuts. Arrogance. Victor Evangelista strolled across the tarmac with a loud smile. “Is that for me?”

The suits looked down. A briefcase handcuffed to a wrist. A key went in the lock. Airplane engines sparked to life.

Victor’s hair whipped from the propellers. He grabbed the briefcase in a deafening drone and tossed it to one of the jumpsuits. Victor never counted. And the men never looked in the crates. That level of business. Not trust. Certainty of consequence.

They stopped to watch the Beechcraft take off into the setting sun. The plane banked hard south until it disappeared behind rain clouds, casting long angular shadows over the glades.

The suits stared across the runway at the Coast Guard detail, staring back. “After all this time, how do they not suspect?”

“Because they know for sure,” said Vic. The smile broadened. “And under specific orders to stand down. But don’t worry: You’re paying a lot for those connections.”

The tallest suit: “Dinner? Versailles?”

Vic shook his head and pointed up. “Got another shipment.”

“Do you ever stop?”

“I’m the best.”

Four men laughed and climbed in the Mercedes. It headed for the exit as another Beechcraft cleared the limo’s roof and touched down in waning light.

A cell phone rang.

Evangelista excavated it from a pocket under his flowing Tommy Bahama shirt. He checked the number on the display and flipped it open. “I thought you didn’t like to make phone calls. Hear it’s snowing in D.C.”

“Vic, Jesus, what the fuck blew up at our warehouse?”

“My car.”

“But how’d it happen?”

“How do you think?”

“Scooter again?”

“My cross to bear.”

“You let that moron near the shipments?”

“You’re the one who forced me to bring him along,” said Vic.

“Because of politics,” barked the voice on the other end. “Doesn’t mean let him play with the rocket launchers.”

Vic turned and shielded himself from the wind as another plane landed. “Thanks for caring about my car.”

“This ain’t a joke! We got budget hearings Monday. And this is just the sort of thing that could expose everything.”

“You worry too much.”

“That’s my job! A few more shipments and we’re in the clear.”

Twin propellers jerked to a stop. “Another just landed.”

“No more screwups,” said the phone. “Have one of the boys take Scooter to get a milk shake or something.”

“Speaking of which, what happened to that reporter who was poking around our offshore accounts.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The one who went missing after getting drunk in Costa Gorda.”

“Accidents happen.”

“You’re the one who’s so worried about drawing heat,” said Vic. “Holy God, taking out a reporter—”

“Not on the phone! How many times do I have to tell you? No more phone calls!”

“You’re the one who called me.”

Click.

The Next Day

Downtown Miami.

Two pedestrians reached the corner of Flagler and turned left toward the basketball arena. “There’s Bayside Market,” said Serge. “They have a picture of Shaq next to a powerboat that takes tourists on runs past the Scarface mansion.”

“What’s that UFO-shaped building by the marina?”

“The Hard Rock Cafe.”

“Didn’t it have a giant guitar on the roof?”

“Hurricane blew it off and sank a yacht.”