The Pope of Palm Beach Read online

  The driver nodded.

  Salenca stood with his associates from the Benz, watching the pickup swing around back and unload the cargo into the trash bins.

  “Now I’m totally confused,” said the accountant’s driver.

  “We didn’t get as many contracts as I had hoped,” said Salenca. “I only intended to use the threat of violence, because roughing up civilians is bad business. Some of the companies called my bluff. So it’s time to thin the competition.”

  “Would I be correct to assume that what’s being tossed in those Dumpsters right now is similar to the manifest of what we dropped off here yesterday?”

  “Identical.”

  Salenca waited until banking hours before calling in the anonymous tip on a burner phone.

  The feds did what they do best. Be feds. Hazmat teams collected the illegal waste from the Dumpsters. Padlocks snapped shut on the receiving bay’s roll-down doors. TV cameras filmed agents escorting executives from the building.

  Salenca’s regular cell phone began ringing nonstop. All the holdout companies had garbage stacking up, and they were now calling him.

  Salenca was happy, and his bosses even happier.

  Collections multiplied. They added more trucks. Dumps at the rallying points became logistical operations. Offshore accounts bulged. Everything going like silk.

  Until the police car showed up.

  Future subdivisions were not on the officer’s routine patrol because they were just empty lots. But the officer was on the nearby expressway when he caught a glimpse of the bulldozer chugging away in the middle of the night. And a Mercedes.

  Luckily, the last load had been dropped, and the dozer was pushing soil back into the hole.

  The cop exited his patrol car with a flashlight. Salenca smiled and met him halfway. “How can I help you, Officer?”

  “Why are you here at this hour?”

  “Wish I wasn’t,” Salenca said with an air of disgust. “We’re pouring twenty foundations in the morning. I was spot-checking and found improperly prepped footprints. That’s how you end up with cracked slabs and lawsuits. And now I have to be back out here in four hours.”

  All the officer saw were people working. Strange hour, but no potential crime except maybe vandalizing dirt. “Okay, take care.”

  “You, too, Officer.”

  Later that day, an emergency meeting in the warehouse. Salenca walked down a line of men at attention, handing them pages.

  “I’m sure you’ve all heard about our close brush last night,” said Salenca. “From now on, we’re using a new disposal technique.”

  “What kind?”

  “One that eliminates the cost of a bulldozer.”

  Chapter 18

  1989

  The sound of typewriter keys in the bungalow was something that always made Darby smile. “How’s it coming in there, kid?”

  “Half and half.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Well, I’ve got lots of great action for the first part of the book with all the crazy exotic animals and stolen cars, but I don’t have an ending, and I always start at the ending. Hell, I don’t even have the middle bridge.”

  “That can be fixed,” said Darby. “I’ll give you all the bridges and endings you need.”

  “Plus I personally knew my subject matter in the other ones, but I really don’t know anything about the Port of Palm Beach. I’m running low on details to paint it in the reader’s mind.”

  “That’s an even easier fix.” Darby grabbed his cane. “Let’s go.”

  “Now? It’s really late.”

  “Best time.”

  They arrived at the port, and Kenny drove toward where they had parked the other day when he met Brady and the rest of the old welding gang. Darby surveyed the nightscape, which he could read like the waves. “Let me out,” said the Pope. “Then park on the other side of the dock, by the rail yard, and walk back.”

  “Why?”

  “The late hour. In certain situations it’s helpful to create separation from your vehicle,” said the Pope. “There are many reasons, and if one ever comes up, you’ll understand the value.”

  Kenny shrugged but did as he was told. After parking, he began the hike back along the desolate industrial waterfront. Nobody around to ask any nosy questions. This would be impossible today, with all the Homeland Security after 9/11. But it was still the 1980s, when few could envision the day that the port would need to start inspecting cargo containers with Geiger counters.

  The young writer completed his trek and rejoined Darby at their regular spot on the docks behind the welding shop. They dragged over plastic chairs, and Kenny got out his notebook.

  “Don’t take notes,” said Darby. “Just sit and absorb.”

  Kenny absorbed. The twinkling lights on the waterfront mansions across Lake Worth. Running lights on motorboats. Headlights crossing the tall arch of the new Blue Heron Bridge. Security lights blazing in the rail yard. The moon was just bright enough to make out the pines and palms on Peanut Island.

  Over at the adjacent marina, it was dark in a particular spot where it usually wasn’t. Only someone who knew the port like Darby would have noticed.

  “What are you looking at?” asked Kenny.

  “Shhh.” He kept his eyes on a boat ramp where the security lamp was out. This time it wasn’t a Zodiac. It was a scuba diver. He had just swum under a nearby cargo ship and unfastened a load of cocaine from a giant magnet, which another scuba diver had attached to the hull in South America.

  The diver left his fins and tank on the pier and delivered the load to the open bed of a waiting pickup truck. Then he went back to the ramp and swam away toward Peanut Island.

  Darby turned to Kenny and raised his eyebrows.

  Kenny continued typing during the day, and hanging out at the port at night. It wasn’t eventful like the first two times. In fact it was boring.

  “This is boring,” said Kenny.

  “Boring is when you notice stuff.”

  Kenny noticed inbound planes from Europe. Some kind of party going on behind a mansion. The police cruiser that had just pulled up. Then footsteps. Kenny’s hands reflexively covered his face when the flashlight beam hit them.

  “What the hell are you doing here!”

  “Roger.”

  “Oh, it’s you, Darby.” The officer clicked the flashlight off. “Listen, you really shouldn’t be out here this late.”

  “Why not?”

  The cop exhaled. Darby, don’t bust my balls. You know what’s going on.

  Darby moved in and out of all circles in town, including some he couldn’t exactly tell Kenny about. He wasn’t involved in anything himself, but he was trusted.

  The officer headed back to his car. “Just be careful . . .”

  . . . The typing in the bungalow accelerated with each new trip to the port. “I need some of that plot help you were talking about.”

  “I’m there.” Darby hobbled into the kitchen. “I wrote down a few ideas.”

  “Thanks.” Clack, clack, clack. “I can actually see the rest of book in my head now . . .”

  Darby was asleep in his chair, dreaming about a bygone time when his body was whole, on top of a wave beside a rusty, grounded ship. Something roused him.

  Kenny shook his shoulder. “Sorry to wake you, but I’m at an important part in the second draft. Remember how you said that if I couldn’t vividly visualize something myself, there’s no way I could get the reader to?”

  A groggy Darby tried to clear the fog. “I remember what I told you. What do you need?”

  “Go back to the port to get my head in the right place to see everything with new eyes. The slow-motion climax needs more details.”

  “Give me a minute to get my bearings.” Darby rubbed his face. “What time is it?”

  “Almost two.”

  They were soon back on the dock in their usual plastic chairs.

  “I love the ending you gave me,” said
Kenny. “They’ll never see that coming.”

  “Glad you liked it. And you might even get some more material tonight.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Don’t be obvious,” said Darby. “Just act like you’re talking to me and peek over my left shoulder.”

  “A police car? But we see them all the time.”

  “Except there are two officers in the car tonight. That means something’s on.”

  “You notice everything.”

  The black-and-white cruiser sat fifty yards back, officers facing the water with their lights off. Eating egg-salad sandwiches and drinking coffee from Styrofoam. Killing time.

  Darby and Kenny were enjoying the uncomplicated pleasure of a balmy breeze off the water. Most of the mansions’ lights were out across Lake Worth. Traffic on the giant arch bridge to Singer Island was down to nothing. Darby felt a subconscious tug from the days of the old low drawbridge. Some of the best bridge fishing in Florida, practically deep-sea with the huge stuff that swam in that inlet.

  Kenny was having his own throwback moment. Aroma memories of fresh fried catfish, hush puppies and slaw from the Crab Pot under the end of the bridge.

  “Ever camped on Peanut Island?” asked Darby.

  “Many times,” said Kenny. “Scouts, Little League, skinny kids lining up for that rope swing from the giant tree near the edge of the shore.”

  “Every kid around here remembers that rope swing.”

  “But remember how you had to swing way out to clear all the land and roots before letting go and diving in the water? We could have broken our necks.”

  “Wouldn’t have been worth doing otherwise.”

  Kenny turned around. “What was that?”

  “Be still.”

  They listened. A deep motorized sound out in the water. They looked in that direction, but no running lights. “This is a big one, diesel,” said Darby. “Running slow.”

  Kenny glanced to his left. “Someone unscrewed the lightbulbs on the pier again.”

  They sat back to enjoy the show. From the darkness appeared the fiasco of an old shrimp boat pumping way too much smoke and laboring as it chugged toward the docks like something important was about to snap in the engine.

  A few curt shouts, and a couple of guys low on the totem pole leaped onto the pier and tied off the boat. Movement on the dim deck.

  “That settles that,” said Darby. “They didn’t use any knots to tie the boat off. Just wrapped the rope a bunch of times around the cleats.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “These are no legitimate shrimpers.”

  Kenny smiled. “The eyes of the dock see all.”

  They watched a minivan pull up. No dead drop this time. Shipment must be too large. Cooler after cooler came off the boat.

  From behind them: “Enjoying yourselves tonight?”

  How did one of the police officers sneak up like that? I must be getting old. Darby turned around. No police officer. Instead, tank top, shorts, non-skid boat shoes. Bushy hair and mustache, almost a gray complexion. He stooped and set down a leather satchel, boxy on the bottom, tapering to the latch and handle. He straightened back up.

  “Not doing too bad,” said Darby, looking by the man’s side. “What’s the sawed-off shotgun for?”

  “What? This?” He waved it offhand toward the water. “Comes in handy. Kind of a universal tool in my line of work.”

  “Why don’t you have a seat?” said Darby. “It’s a pleasant evening.”

  “Was pleasant.”

  Okay, we’re definitely drifting in the wrong direction. Darby knew interpersonal dynamics. An escalation like that meant the man wasn’t trying to arrive at a decision. One had already been made. Darby needed to undo it.

  The man lit a cigarette. “We’ve been noticing that you’re frequent visitors down here at night.”

  “We like the water.” He turned to Kenny. “Isn’t that right?”

  Kenny was about to stroke out. His eyes responded: How can you even function, let alone talk so calmly?

  A drag on the cigarette. “Your friend’s the quiet type . . . And nice touch with your cane. Nobody would ever suspect.”

  “Suspect what?”

  “That you’re DEA.” He waved the shotgun toward them. “Get up, both of you.”

  “Just stop,” said Darby. “Listen, whatever it is you’re thinking, I’m only a guy who used to weld in that shop behind you before I went on disability. I’m not a narc.”

  The cigarette was flicked into the water with a sizzle. “Get up!”

  “You’re making a huge mistake,” said Darby.

  “Don’t act like you don’t know what’s going on.”

  “Of course I know what’s going on,” said Darby. “The whole dock does. You’re too obvious. But I don’t go talking about what’s none of my business. Ask around.” Darby pointed. “Heck, ask those cops over there.”

  “Oh, I’ll be having a nice, long discussion with those gentlemen about letting a couple of feds in here after all we’ve paid them.”

  Before that point, it was just drifting the wrong way, but now they had crossed the Rubicon. Admitting to bribing cops. Not the sort of thing you tell people that you let go.

  The end of the twelve-gauge poked Darby’s ribs. “Up!”

  Chapter 19

  The Present

  “Silly Putty.”

  “I remember Silly Putty,” said Coleman. “It came in a little plastic egg.”

  “Forget what the experts say, Silly Putty was the great generational divide.” Serge raced south on Dixie Highway out of Miami. “Today it’s all flashy game boxes, but back then kids were hands-on.”

  “Remember pressing Silly Putty on comic strips in newspapers, and then you’d peel it off and the comic strip would be on the putty?”

  “I took it to the next level,” said Serge. “My folks wouldn’t buy me a Xerox machine no matter how many times I asked. I even put it on my Christmas list, which is supposed to go unquestioned, like a papal decree. ‘Serge, why on earth do you need a Xerox machine?’ ‘We’re living in important times. That’s all I can say.’ So I had to improvise, and Silly Putty became my copy machine that I’d use to make duplicates of newspaper articles on Nixon.”

  “I ate Silly Putty,” said Coleman. “Didn’t taste bad unless it was after comic strips and full of ink, and then my kindergarten teachers asked why my tongue was black again.”

  “Did you used to put everything in your mouth?”

  “Pretty much.” Coleman put a hardcover book to his mouth and sucked. “Where to now?”

  “Coleman, what on earth?”

  He exhaled a cloud of pot smoke. “Oh, this?” He opened the book to chapter three. “I hollowed out some pages, used a liquid-soap pump bottle for the chamber, made the stem from a metal pen, the carburetor is on the back end of the pages, and I suck right here in the middle of the title.”

  “You made a bong from a novel?”

  “Figured since we’re on your literary tour.” Another hit.

  “No, you’re missing my meaning,” said Serge. “Why would you make a bong from a book in the first place?”

  Coleman exhaled more smoke. “So people will think I’m smart.”

  Serge blinked hard to reset his brain. “I lost my place.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Right, the next literary-tour stop.” Serge took his hands from the wheel and rubbed them with high friction. “When you mention Florida authors, people always blurt out Hemingway and Tennessee Williams, but they weren’t full-time Floridians. Interestingly enough, our biggest lifelong literary lions were women, and we had a bumper crop. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, Zora Neale Hurston. For some reason they all had three names, like assassins.”

  The green Nova hung a right on Sunset Drive and entered the thriving subtropical jungle of a neighborhood called Coconut Grove.

  “Banyan trees!” said Serge. “I can’t ge
t enough of banyans! I’m all about banyans!”

  “Didn’t a chick get stuck in one last year in Key West?” asked Coleman.

  “Yes, and she was only three feet off the ground,” said Serge. “Instead of a single trunk, many have complex support structures that you can climb inside and get stuck. That’s the beauty of banyans.”

  Ten minutes later, neighbors gathered on the sidewalk. The homeowner stormed out his front door. “What in heaven’s name is going on?”

  “We’re stuck,” said Serge, only an arm exposed. “Isn’t it great?”

  “Help,” said Coleman, wiggling a sneakered foot out the side of the trunk.

  “Get the hell off my property!”

  “Maybe you need to look up ‘stuck’ in the dictionary,” said Serge. “Banyans are also in the fig family, another big selling point.”

  “I’m calling the police!”

  “I’m also an escape artist,” said Serge. He hoisted himself up by an aerial root, then pulled Coleman free. They hopped down. “You have this magnificent, century-old banyan on your property and you’ve never gotten stuck in it? You’re living a lie.”

  “Leave! Now!”

  “We have an appointment with history anyway.” The Nova took off.

  Coleman looked out the back window at the gawking crowd in the street. “What was their problem?”

  “It’s all political.” Serge cut the wheel. “People say they want change, but whenever I show up . . .”

  The Nova passed a street sign: Stewart Avenue. Serge slowed as they navigated a winding, tree-canopied road just a spit from Biscayne Bay.

  “Almost there. Allllllllmost there . . .”

  “Look at these big honkin’ houses,” said Coleman.

  Serge checked street numbers. “There it is! Three-seven-four-four!”

  “Where?”

  “Back in all that vegetation.”

  Coleman hung out the passenger window. “What’s that tiny little home doing in the middle of all these mansions?”

  “Being preserved, thank God!” Serge eased up to the curb. “It’s Marjorie Stoneman Douglas’s old home, exactly the kind of place I’d expect her to live.”