Clownfish Blues Page 10

  The lieutenant smiled again. “Unless someone knew how to tamper with such a fuse to cover their tracks. Some arsonists learn from their mistakes.”

  “And someone can pick up a lot of tips during a two-year stretch in the can.”

  “You said that, not me.”

  Reevis continued writing. “Where is the cook now?”

  “Pulling another deuce. Larceny.”

  “Oh, I get it now.” Reevis leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. “May I theorize?”

  “Be my guest.”

  “You think the cook did it, but you don’t have a complete case. Lucky for you, he’s currently being detained in prison, so there’s no need to file charges and set the constitutional speedy-trial clock ticking. Your office will probably put a hold on him at the prison just before his release date.”

  Another grin. “That’s an interesting theory.”

  “Any guidance you’d like to pass along?”

  “Nothing really. But the Sawgrass Lounge is an interesting piece of old Florida. You might want to check it out.”

  “Already been there,” said Reevis. “But I know where you’re going with this. The missing woman never set foot in the bar, which existed a world away from her normal lifestyle. Yet her car was abandoned there. So if the cook was known to frequent the bar, it would link everything together.”

  “Funny thing how some places don’t like to open up to the police.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” Reevis looked back at his cameraman. “But I might have to mend some fences.”

  The pair stood and shook hands.

  “Great seeing you again, Reevis.”

  “Thanks for the help, Lieutenant.”

  They were startled by a single, sharp clap of hands. “Exquisite!” said Nigel. “Now could you do it again from the beginning, but this time argue like you’re very angry with him for questioning your lax investigation.”

  “Argue?” said the officer.

  Nigel nodded. “Then throw him out.”

  “Why?” asked the lieutenant. “I don’t have any reason to throw him out.”

  “Excuse me,” said Nigel. “What’s that on your desk?”

  “Oh, this?” A proud smile. “It’s an old cast-iron model police car with the vintage bubble-top light. They presented it to my grandfather when he retired from the force.”

  Nigel pulled out his keys and scratched the side of the small car with a cringe-inducing sound.

  Episode 2

  Chapter 9

  The Gulf Coast

  A silver Corvette sped south on the Tamiami Trail. The sun had only been up a couple hours, but the heat felt like noon.

  “This time you’ve got me stumped,” said Serge. “We’re definitely not going to do it, but curiosity is killing me: Why on earth would you want to fake that you’re a scuba diver with the bends?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Coleman unwrapped an aluminum-foil package. “To get inside a decompression chamber.”

  Serge’s eyes reflexively crossed. “I guess it’s a two-part question. Why a decompression chamber?”

  “Because it gets you higher.” Coleman peeled back the last piece of foil. “That’s why I made these brownies. Ingestion lasts longer with a delayed onset for a smooth, extended ride when there’s no opportunity to blaze one. I’m really looking forward to a decompression chamber.”

  “But wasn’t it enough for you to fake the bends last summer?”

  “I didn’t fake anything. They simply assumed I had the bends.”

  “Why? Just because the rescue helicopter found you floating incoherently miles off the coast, completely naked except for the scuba inflation vest that kept you from going under?”

  “That’s right.”

  “How did you even end up like that in the first place?”

  “Beats me,” said Coleman. “I just went out one night for a beer, and then there I was. Stuff like that keeps happening to me.”

  “This topic is going nowhere fast,” said Serge. “I’m picking the next one.”

  “Which is?”

  “Race relations in America.”

  Coleman’s head snapped sideways. “Jesus, Serge! You’re really going to talk about race?” He nervously glanced around the road. “I think that’s a bad idea. Everyone’s really angry right now.”

  “Screw it, I’m going there!”

  “Hold on.” Coleman quickly fastened his seat belt. Then he pulled something out of a duffel bag and put it on his head.

  Serge looked over. “Where’d you get the football helmet?”

  “I went out for a beer one night and the next thing I know I’m staring out through a face mask—”

  “Never mind.”

  Coleman snapped the chin strap and stiffened his arms against the dashboard. “I’m ready now. Talk about race.”

  “Remember the movie The Color Purple?”

  “Oprah.”

  “That color represents a whole subtext that defines relations in our country.” Serge hit his blinker. “You know I hate trendy buzz phrases, but there’s one that sums it all up: Own it.”

  “Own what?”

  “Your life. We can discuss huge racial differences as long as it comes from a position of love, like telling your aunt at a funeral that she’s got toilet paper stuck to her shoe. Awkward, but you work through it as a family. The problem is the people who refuse to sit with us and break bread at the Great American Dinner Table. Why? Deep down they realize their lives suck, but they won’t own it. ‘Gee, maybe I should have done some planning and put in a little effort and not spent all my money on porn and fog lights. Could that possibly be it? Naw, someone else did this to me.’”

  “That’s just not being responsible,” said Coleman.

  “Their entire life drive is to make others as miserable as they are,” said Serge. “There’s no excuse for that. Everyone should be ecstatically happy every second! We’re alive on earth, after all! When did that get taken for granted? I don’t exactly know how the program works. Maybe there are a bunch of people floating around somewhere looking down on the planet and going, ‘Damn, I missed the cut.’ If those guys have shitty people skills, I could understand it. But the ones among us constantly taking dumps in the fun pool are just missing the point.”

  “How do we know who they are?”

  “We don’t even have to look; they readily identify themselves,” said Serge. “Making comments like, ‘They call each other the N-word all the time, then get all upset if . . .’ Or: ‘Did you know the original slave traders were other black people in Africa? . . . Oh, but I’m not a racist.’”

  “So you’re saying that we actually can criticize black people?”

  “Of course,” said Serge. “But only from a position of love, which brings up the title of the Oprah movie. I’ll be watching some sports awards show on TV, and one of my favorite pro athletes will go up to get a trophy wearing a purple suit. And I’m sitting on the couch saying: ‘Dude, I love you, man, but Christ! Purple?’”

  “So purple suits are a black thing?”

  “Most certainly,” said Serge.

  “What’s an example of a white thing?”

  “Laughably playing the victim card,” said Serge. “‘Hey, where’s my affirmative action?’ Dude, I love you, man, but in case it’s not shockingly obvious, it came with your birth certificate.”

  “Are we done?”

  “For now,” said Serge. “I’ll bet I’d look pretty snazzy in a purple suit.”

  “But I thought you just said—”

  “I’ve evolved on that,” said Serge. “Purple is the new white.”

  The Corvette continued on. Serge reached under his seat and passed something to his pal. “We’re getting close to our destination. We need to focus on our next Route 66 jobs.”

  Coleman held it up and read the yellow block lettering on the back. “Another Windbreaker?”

  “Rule number one in life: Windbreakers with stuff written on th
e back are the key to making nosy people step back so you can have room to work. Along with clipboards and orange cones, the Windbreaker is rarely questioned.”

  “Like the other time when you got jackets that said ‘Bail Recovery Agent’?”

  “That’s right.” Serge placed a portable emergency scanner in his lap that squawked intermittently. “There’s no rule against putting whatever you want on the back of your own jacket—just no ‘Police’ or ‘SWAT’ or ‘ATF’—or you can be charged with impersonating a law enforcement officer.”

  “Then we’ve got a problem with these jackets,” said Coleman. “They’re bound to arrest us for impersonating.”

  “Not if you stop and really break it down.” Serge slipped his own jacket on while driving and swerving. “Wear one of these, and most people just automatically assume you’re law enforcement, but the law is all about the fine print, or in this case the large print.”

  “I’m confused.”

  “The Windbreakers or life generally?”

  “Both.”

  “People say this is a free country so often that it’s lost meaning. I’m only tapping into the possibilities that everyone else just assumes are off-limits simply because they lack the imagination to think of it themselves.” Serge leaned over and tapped the back of the jacket in Coleman’s hands. “Right now, only law enforcement is doing that, but what’s to prevent a private citizen from taking it up as a hobby?”

  Coleman looked down at his jacket again: Hostage Negotiation Team.

  “But how will we find a place to use these?”

  “At any particular moment in Florida, an average of fifteen standoffs are under way,” said Serge. “It’s only a matter of paying attention.”

  The other side of Serge’s brain had been monitoring all the verbal traffic on the emergency radio in his lap. He set his course for an address below Sarasota. The Corvette turned a corner in a neighborhood of ranch houses where they used to cut the grass.

  “Serge!” Coleman shouted. “Look at all the police cars and flashing lights!”

  “It might be wise to pull around back.”

  He stopped in an alley as two patrol officers guarding the perimeter came running up. “You can’t park there! We have a situation!”

  Serge turned around to show them the back of his jacket. “Who’s in charge?”

  “Right this way.”

  They were briskly led across the front yard of the house. “Sergeant,” said the first officer. “These two men—”

  Serge urgently shook his hand. “Hey, boss, I’m Serge and this is Coleman. Sorry if I must be curt, but the clock is ticking. What’s our status here?”

  “Who are you?”

  Serge quickly turned around to display his jacket. “Tick-tock. How many in there?”

  “Just two.” The sergeant pointed. “We were serving warrants when shots came through the door. He’s holding his live-in girlfriend.”

  “Have you alerted the phone company to block all calls and redirect them to your command post?”

  “Already done.”

  “What about electricity?”

  “Cut that off, too,” said the sergeant. “No air-conditioning. Figured we’d sweat him out.”

  “Turn it back on,” said Serge. “There’s a new way of thinking on that.”

  “Behavioral studies at Quantico? The heat might make him irritable?”

  “No,” said Serge. “It makes me irritable.”

  “Are you authorized?” asked the sergeant.

  “We have Windbreakers.”

  “Who did you say you were with again?”

  “Nothing personal, but I’m afraid this has already flown above your pay grade,” said Serge. “The perp is on a watch list.”

  “So this has gone federal?” The sergeant nodded to himself. “I thought the jackets looked FBI.”

  “FBI, NSA, CIA, it’s all the same alphabet soup since we lost our innocence. I’m not supposed to say anything, but you seem like a good man who has a right to know since this is your community. We’ve been a step behind this guy in six countries, and his luck finally ran out here. When this is all over, I expect a punch-bowl-ful of commendations to go around, but the ceremony will have to be classified and held at a secret location we can’t tell you about. Sorry.” Serge turned and walked away with Coleman.

  “Hey!” yelled the sergeant. “Where are you going?”

  “To negotiate.”

  “But you can’t just walk in the house!”

  “It’s a free country. Hobbies are underrated.” They went inside and closed the door.

  A gunshot splintered back through the wood.

  Serge’s voice echoed out a window: “Hold your positions! Just a warning shot! . . .”

  On the Other Side of the State

  Young knuckles struck polished wood.

  “Come in.”

  Reevis opened the door.

  “Have a seat,” said his assignment editor at Florida Cable News.

  Reevis slumped into the chair and loosened an already unkempt polyester tie. “I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry. I never want to be thought of as an unhappy camper.”

  “Reevis, we’re all family here,” said the editor. “And we know you well enough to never question your positive attitude. But you have to understand that the whole business is in transition, and we all must make adjustments.”

  “Adjustments?” Reevis let his neck relax over the back of the chair as he stared up at hypnotic holes in the particleboard drop ceiling. “Did you see what went on the air last night?”

  “Caught a bit of it.”

  “Unbelievable!” said Reevis. “The confrontation with the desk officer, and later getting thrown out of the building after Nigel keyed the lieutenant’s model car, not to mention all the unnecessary camera shaking. Then they spliced everything together to make the police look all suspicious like I’d uncovered Watergate.”

  “We received a lot of calls on that,” said Shug. “Mainly positive. The people in corporate are very happy with you.”

  “But it’s not real!” said Reevis. “I spent a lot of time building my relationship with that police department. And since when is my middle name ‘Danger’?”

  “I think most viewers understand there’s a little license going on with the new emphasis on drama.”

  “Who says?”

  “Focus groups.”

  “I know you,” said Reevis. “I know that’s not how you really feel.”

  A purposeful pause and then a deep exhale through the nostrils. “No, it’s not. Journalism is about honesty, and I don’t like this any better than you. But this comes straight from the top. Ratings and advertising revenue are way up with this crap, so until things change, we have to make the best of it. Look at it from my position, two daughters in college.”

  “Okay, because of all you’ve done for me, I’ll play along,” said Reevis. “But can you get them to stop piecing together footage that makes my interview subjects look ridiculous? I have to go back on the street and maintain sources.”

  “Say no more,” replied the editor. “That’s the least they can agree to. In fact, I think they may be coming around to your position. This morning I had a very productive conference call about the ethics of journalism that we take rather seriously around here.”

  “And they were receptive?”

  The editor nodded with vigor. “They said they were eager to learn more about our moral standards, and that it would actually make for a better show. They have an appointment to meet with me right after you leave. I honestly think they’re genuine about respecting your professional integrity.”

  The door to the assignment editor’s office burst open. Günter Klieglyte led with a giant TV camera, followed by Nigel.

  “Excuse me!” Shug jumped up. “We’re not supposed to meet until I finish with Reevis! And nobody said anything about filming!”

  Günter swiveled his camera down for a wide-angle close-up of the reporte
r. “What are you trying to hide?”

  The reporter’s hands covered the lens. “Get that thing out of my face!”

  The camera swung toward the assignment editor. “Any comment?”

  “I’m not finished with my reporter! Get the hell out of here!”

  Günter knelt and pressed his eye hard against the rubber viewfinder. Nigel crouched over his shoulder like an umpire behind a catcher. “You said on the phone that you were upholding the integrity of the fourth estate, but this stinks of a massive cover-up!”

  “Get the fuck out!” yelled the assignment editor.

  Another close-up of Reevis.

  Hands went to the lens again. “I’ll break that goddamn thing.”

  The editor came out from around his desk. “Do I have to call security?”

  Nigel made a fist and mouthed the word more.

  The editor grabbed his phone off the cradle. “I don’t care what happens anymore! Reevis is right! This is a disgrace!”

  Nigel turned to his cameraman. “We got it?”

  Günter gave him the thumbs-up.

  “Super.” Nigel broke into a pleased expression. “You were both fabulous! Standing your high ground in the face of scandalous accusations. Priceless! . . . Now, what was it that you wanted to talk to us about?”

  “Out or I’ll kill you!”

  “Oh, right,” said Nigel. “You were having a private meeting. Don’t let us interrupt you.” A show-business wave as he shuffled backward through the office door. “We’ll just be waiting for our meeting in the chairs outside your door. Can’t wait to hear what great ideas are on you mind.”

  Chapter 10

  Standoff

  A sweaty, sunburned man in a camouflage tank top stood in the hallway, clutching a Bushmaster .223 carbine rifle across his chest. “Get the hell out or the next shot will be on target!”

  “Is that any way to start a friendly negotiation?” asked Serge.

  “Are you hard of hearing? I told you to leave my house!”

  “Leave?” said Serge. “Did you see all the police in your yard? The last thing I need in my life is cops.”