Strip Tease (38 page)

Sgt. Al Garcia watched, a relaxed spectator on the hood of the Caprice. He was out of cigars so he’d resorted to bubble gum. Donna was retrieving two beers from the mini-bar in David Dilbeck’s limousine. Erin walked up, bouncing Angela in her arms. The detective said she certainly had a flair for the dramatic.

“Now don’t be mad,” Erin said.

“Who the hell’s mad?”

“Al, I didn’t want to get you in trouble. Shad, either.”

“Whatever,” Garcia said, chiding. “I’m just grateful for the invitation. This is more fun than Wrestlemania.” He pointed at the doughy figure hunched in the government sedan. “So that’s your guy. Congressman Romeo.”

Dilbeck rapped his cuffed wrists against the glass, beckoning Erin. She waved airily over one shoulder.

“Will you speak to Agent Cleary?” she asked Garcia.

“A genuine FBI man! I would be greatly honored.” Garcia offered Angela a stick of grape-flavored gum.

Erin said, “I think there’s a way to pull this off.”

“I think you’re absolutely right.”

Shad lumbered to the car, holding the Barbie dolls like two sticks of dynamite. “You owe me,” he said to Erin, who couldn’t help but laugh.

He took her aside and told her about finding Malcolm Moldowsky dead in the fishbox. Erin was stunned. In a whisper she recounted Darrell Grant’s mad narco-escapade. Shad generously offered to hunt him down and beat him into puppy chow. Erin said no thanks, she and Angie were out of danger for now.

“We’re taking a vacation, starting tonight.”

“You deserve it,” Shad said, thinking how much he would miss her. David Lane Dilbeck, believing himself a master of supple oratory, assumed that he could talk his way out of the trouble. To bolster his credibility, he audaciously scoffed at the suggestion that he call a lawyer. So the FBI agents perched him on the bumper of the car and gathered in a tribal semi-circle to listen. Cleary allowed Al Garcia to join them.

The detective was tickled by the spectacle—the moon, the crickets, the rustling cane fields. “All we need is a campfire,” he whispered to Cleary, “and some marshmallows.”

Dilbeck told quite a story. The agents took notes by pen-light. Garcia pitied their secretaries.

When the congressman was finished, Cleary said: “Let’s get this straight. You are the victim here, not the perpetrator.”

“Absolutely, yes, abducted at gunpoint.”

“Hmmm,” Cleary said. Al Garcia thought the moment called for a stronger response, something along the lines of hooting and derision.

David Dilbeck said, “She’s been after me for weeks.”

“So you’re alone on the yacht,” said Cleary, “working on a campaign speech, when all of a sudden this crazed woman breaks in and attempts to seduce you?”

“Forcefully,” Dilbeck added, “and when I rebuffed her, she became enraged.”

“And for this attempted seduction she wore a nine-dollar cotton bra from Kmart?”

“No, she wore red. Lace cups. P-p-paisley G-string! Later she changed all into white, when we were in the car.”

Agent Cleary realigned his glasses. “So we’re to believe that Ms. Grant kidnapped you for sexual purposes. Is that a fair summary?”

“She was infatuated,” said the congressman. “Certainly you’ve heard of such sad cases.”

Garcia piped in: “Politicians have groupies, too? I thought it was just rock stars and homicide cops.”

Cleary, keeping order: “Mr. Dilbeck, explain the injury to your chest.”

“She bit me,” he said, “like a wild animal!”

The agent asked Dilbeck who might verify that he was being stalked by a nude dancer. “One person,” he replied. “His name is Malcolm J. Moldowsky. He’ll confirm every detail.”

“Unlikely,” said Garcia.

“What do you mean?” the congressman bleated.

Garcia turned to Cleary. “May I tell him? Please?”

“Yeah, go ahead.”

‘Tell me what?” Dilbeck demanded.

“Your friend Malcolm,” said the detective, “he sleeps with the fishies.”

The congressman slumped sideways off the bumper. The agents dutifully rushed forward to pick him up out of the dirt.

Cleary sighed, frowning at Al Garcia. “Was that really necessary?”

The two men sat alone in the Caprice. Garcia balanced a bottle of beer on one knee. He jangled the gold bracelet in the congressman’s face. “You lose this?”

Dilbeck turned away coldly. He said, “I’ve changed my mind about contacting a lawyer.”

“Too late.” Garcia popped his gum. It didn’t taste too bad with Beck’s dark. He coiled the bracelet in the palm of his hand. “You’re cooked,” he told Dilbeck.

“Now listen—”

“Just shut up,” suggested the detective, “and try to comprehend what’s happened here. The FBI gets an anonymous call about a kidnapping in progress. The alleged suspect is a U.S. congressman. The alleged victim is a former employee of the Bureau. You with me?”

“Erin worked for them?”

“Ain’t it a hoot. Anyhow, the agents arrive to find the suspect—that’s you—stripped to his skivvies and armed with a machete. You’re chasing the alleged victim across farmland belonging to Joaquin and Wilberto Rojo. Subsequent investigation will reveal that the weapon used in the assault also belongs to this prominent and influential family. Congressman, I want you to imagine all this on the front page of the Miami Herald”

Dilbeck rocked sideways, tugging absently on his lower lip. Al Garcia wondered if he was lapsing into autism.

“Now if I’m you,” the detective said, “I’m trying to guess how my version of the story is going to play with the Rojos and also the voting public—namely, that I was kidnapped by a nympho stripper. Remember there’s no gun, no evidence, not a single witness to back you up. Even your driver says the lady is telling the truth.”

“Impossible,” Dilbeck said, thickly. “He speaks no English.”

Garcia smiled. “Your driver is a modest guy. He’s got a degree in hotel management from FIU. Didn’t he tell you?”

The congressman stopped rocking. He wrapped both arms around his head, as if bracing for incoming mortars. “There was another man on the yacht,” he said, a dry rasp. “Durrell something.”

“You mean Mr. Darrell Grant, currently a fugitive on several violent felonies.” Garcia spoke from behind a fat purple bubble. “I were you, I wouldn’t count on a junkie for my alibi.”

“But what about this!” David Dilbeck slapped at his bandaged chest. “I’ve been viciously attacked! Any damn fool can see.” He clawed at the tape and gauze until the bloody crater was exposed. “Look!” he said. “My goddamn nipple is gone! I mean gone.”

Al Garcia said, “I hate to be negative, chico, but that’s your basic defensive bite wound. Man’s got a woman pinned, what else can she do?”

The congressman gathered up the mangled bandage and, half-wittedly, attempted to replace it.

“Prosecutors love bite wounds,” Garcia elaborated. “One time we had a victim chomp some guy’s pecker half off. That’s how we caught him, too—turned up in the E.R. at Jackson, said it was a freak gardening accident. Anyhow, we got forensics to match the punctures in the guy’s schlong with the bite pattern of the victim’s teeth. The jury was out maybe thirty seconds.”

Bereft, Dilbeck stared at his mutilation as if branded. “What will happen now? The campaign and all.”

Garcia said, “It was up to me, I’d throw your fat ass in jail. Lucky for you, it ain’t.” He took the empty beer bottle and slid from the car.

Erin Grant got in. She crossed her legs and adjusted Agent Cleary’s suit jacket to make sure her breasts weren’t showing; she wanted Dilbeck undistracted.

“David,” she said, “what a mess you’re in.”

The congressman pulled back like a scalded snail, huddling against the opposite door. His voice cracked with reproach: “You even called me ‘sweetie.’”

“Maybe I call everyone ‘sweetie.’”

He shouted: “I don’t love you anymore!”

“Oh yes you do.”

After a few moments of silence, Dilbeck offered a squirmy apology for his coarse behavior. He inquired whether Erin intended to press charges.

“That’s Plan B,” she said.

“And Plan A?”

“You go home tonight,” she told him, “and have yourself a heart attack.”

The congressman sneered. “That’s not the slightest bit funny.”

“A mild one,” Erin proposed, “requiring weeks of bed rest, bland dieting and seclusion.”

“In other words, tank the election.”

“Davey, I’m trying to cut you a break. Now if you’d prefer Plan B, that’s fine. Have you ever been on ‘Hard Copy’?”

The last of Dilbeck’s hope drained away. “A heart attack, for God’s sake. Is there more?”

“Sweetie, of course there’s more.” Erin reached up and turned the congressman’s cowboy hat, so it wasn’t backward on his head.

Breakfast, predawn. A truckstop on old Route 441, jammed with semis, dump trucks, dairy tankers, pickups, flatbeds hauling farm equipment. The place smelled like a diesel fart.

Shad, Donna Garcia and her detective husband sat three abreast in the front of the unmarked Caprice. Donna nursed a black coffee, Shad inhaled his seventh glazed donut and Al Garcia attacked spicy pork sausages with the hope of scouring multiple layers of grape, beer and stale cigar from his palate.

“Disney World,” the detective mused, munching steadfastly.

“I think it’s sweet,” said his wife, “though I’m not sure about the driver.”

Shad said don’t worry, the driver’s cool.

Pierre was gassing up the limousine at the high-test pump. He felt the weight of the gold bracelet in the left pocket of his trousers; a gift for your wife, the cop had said. Very strange, Pierre thought. The whole evening.

Angela was curled asleep in the jump seat. Erin had changed into her jeans, T-shirt and sandals; her hair was tied in a ponytail. She stood at the door of the limo and chatted with

Cleary, the FBI man, finishing his notes. He looked haggard, rumpled, eager to leave. It pleased Garcia to see another lawman labor in that familiar hollow-eyed condition, particularly a Feeb.

Donna asked, “Where are the others?”

“They escorted the congressman home,” her husband said. “He wasn’t feeling so great.”

Shad interrupted his donutfest to complain that Dilbeck was getting off easy. “I vote for jail,” he said, “or a bullet in the brain. That’s what the sonofabitch deserves.”

Garcia disagreed good-naturedly. “For politicians, some fates are worse than death. Erin came up with a beaut, no?”

Donna said that Angela was excited about the Disney World trip. “Her favorite ride is the teacups. She says it’s fun to get dizzy.” Donna paused. “On the way here, she asked about her father.”

Garcia said that Darrell Grant remained at large in the cane. “He’ll come out when they bum the fields. Him and the rest of the critters.”

Shad, his cheeks stuffed bulbously: “Any luck, he’ll sleep through the goddamn fire.”

Donna told him to stop, don’t take another bite. She lifted a half-crescent of donut from his hand. “This is so gross,” she said. “A damn bug!”

Shad snatched it away, flipped on the dome light and examined the find. His hopeful expression faded.

“It’s awful damn small,” he observed, doubtfully. He extracted the culprit from a dry crumb of donut—a centipede with a shiny, cocoa-colored carapace. It drew into a protective ball at Shad’s touch.

“Long shot,” Garcia remarked. “You’ll need a jury of total suckers.”

“Yeah?” Shad placed the bug on the tip of his pinkie and held it near the light bulb.

“It was me,” said Garcia, “I’d wait for another jumbo cockroach.”

Donna, annoyed: “What in the world are you talking about?”

“Dreams,” said Shad. “Nothing important.” He flicked the centipede out the window and inserted the remainder of the donut in his glaze-crusted lips.

Agent Cleary had trundled his notes to a pay phone, where he was deeply absorbed in official conversation. Pierre backed the Cadillac away from the gas pumps. Erin Grant stuck her head out the window and gave a high-spirited wave. Shad and Donna waved back; Al Garcia pantomimed operatic applause.

“Great smile,” he said, as the limo drove away.

“She looks sixteen,” said Shad, “I swear.”

Garcia eased the Caprice up to the gas pumps to top off the tank before the long drive home. He had one leg out the door when the car shuddered violently. He heard the tinkle of taillights breaking, and said, “Aw, shit.”

A tractor-trailer had crunched the rear of the unmarked police car. The driver stood sheepishly over Garcia’s crimped bumper. Damage to the Caprice was minor, but the detective was not consoled: another lengthy accident report would be required, in triplicate. Witnesses interviewed. Tedious diagrams sketched. Polaroids snapped for the insurance company and Risk Management. Hours of useless department bullshit.

“Congratulations,” he told the trucker. “You just hit a cop.”

“Sorry.” The man was a wiry redhead with twitchy Dexedrine eyes. “I never saw you guys.”