Paul Levine - Riptide

“Great, Berto,” Lassiter said. “You came to the right place for advice.” He didn’t believe a word of it and couldn’t figure out what Berto was doing with Keaka Kealia. Real estate developer turned doper going into the windsurfing business. What a crock.

Then Berto flashed his old smile and said, “Funny we don’t see each other for years, then twice in two days, our paths cross. Must be the stars, verdad? By the way, I stopped by your office this morning and signed those papers, the deeds to the bank. Cindy’s got them. Glad to get it over with.”

“Sorry I missed you,” Lassiter said, aware Berto had changed the subject. A diversionary tactic, and any lawyer worth his wing tips would not be thrown off the track. Why had Keaka sailed a mile down the beach to discuss the latest in equipment? Why did he try to keep his rig from view? What was Berto’s sudden interest in the sport, and where the hell was the DEA agent?

Lassiter would have loved to grill these two under oath, but he didn’t have a subpoena in his surfing trunks. After quick good-byes, he left them there and jogged back over the dunes to retrieve his rig. Nearing a roped-off area, he was careful to avoid the sea grass, which was more than a guy with binoculars was doing. Tourists were always tromping around where they didn’t belong. Lassiter wished he was wearing his favorite T-shirt, the one with the slogan “Welcome to Florida, Now Go Home.”

“Hey, you’re not supposed to be in there, beach erosion,” Lassiter called out. The guy lowered the binoculars and scowled. There was something familiar about him. Sports coat. Short blond hair going gray. Sure. “You’re the DEA guy. Franklin, right?”

“Get the fuck outta here,” the man said, lifting the binoculars again, aiming toward the beach where Keaka, Berto, and Lee Hu still huddled.

“Okay, just glad to see my tax dollars at work. Shame the federal government cut your funds for charm school.”

“… the fuck out ‘fore I bust you for obstruction.”

“You too?” Lassiter asked. “I know a Beach cop would love to nail me for a B and E. Maybe my picture will be in the post office next week.”

The man’s sports coat swung open, revealing a shoulder holster filled with a. 38. “Maybe so, you don’t watch out the company you keep.”

“Berto’s not a hard guy, just someone who took a wrong turn.”

The man laughed. “Who the fuck’s talking about him?”

Only in Miami, Jake Lassiter thought, reading the morning paper while sipping guava juice in the tiny kitchen of his coral rock house.

Only in Miami was the theft of $1,640,712.50 in negotiable securities considered small potatoes. That was the total Cindy came up with after putting the old man’s records into the calculator, and where did that get you? It got you on page 7-B of The Miami Herald, only four paragraphs plus a thumbnail photo of Sam Kazdoy, a shot taken sometime after his bar mitzvah but before he lost his hair.

Jake Lassiter had been hoping for more. A lot of publicity and the burglars, if they were still in town, would have to wonder. Is it safe to leave through the airport or would bags be searched? Are banks on the lookout? Is the FBI involved? But four paragraphs told the world that nobody gave a shit about a B and E, not in a town where there’s more than one homicide a day, 365 days a year, and without a good angle, a murder gets five measly paragraphs and a one-column headline body found, next to ads for lingerie models and body shampoo massage parlors in North Miami Beach.

The burglary was lost in the day’s crime news, heavy even by Miami standards. One hundred grams of cocaine is hardly worth mentioning and it wouldn’t have been, except a federal juror stole it while deliberating the fate of an accused drug dealer. The evidence was being passed around the table when it disappeared, probably crammed into a juror’s Jockeys for a late-night toot. It was the first time anyone could remember a jury being read its Miranda rights.

Then there was the middle-aged Cuban driver who rammed his Marriott catering truck into the nose gear of a Cubana Airlines jet at MIA. A million dollars’ damage to the plane, and a great shot of the driver shouting “Cuba Libre” on the front page. Yes, Lassiter admitted, it was too heavy a news day to pay much attention to a burglary.

The newspaper devoted a portion of its Local page to yet another mystery at the Miami police station, thirty-eight bales of marijuana missing from a padlocked bin in the property room. Two weeks earlier the police lost seven hundred abandoned bicycles that were to be auctioned off for charity when a wise guy took them from an unguarded lot. Then, $150,000 in cash was stolen from the police safe, evidence in a drug case.

Of course the newsboys were going bonkers with the missing marijuana, the papers and the TV stations yukking it up. And why not, more crimes are committed in the Miami police station than on the streets of most cities. Still, the Kazdoy burglary might have gotten some notoriety had a major-league drug dealer not been machine-gunned at high noon in Little Havana by assassins firing MAC-10s. For the third time in a month, a copy editor tried to slip the phrase “MAC Attack” into a headline and for the third time an assistant city editor killed it.

After reading the morning paper, Lassiter still didn’t have a lead. Maybe he should confront Violet, one-on-one. Put some pressure on her, more than Sergeant Carraway would do. Except first he had to file three mortgage foreclosures and review title documents to a dozen real estate transactions.

Cindy was missing from the cubicle where she usually perched, cursing at her word processor. Wrong day of the week for riding the chopper in the Keys. Lassiter opened the door to his office and found her doing a pirouette, modeling a bikini for Tubby Tubberville, who overflowed the high-backed chair and whose black motorcycle boots were propped on the oak credenza. Tubby had a round face, a neck that no collar could contain, and powerful arms that ended in thick, stumpy hands. He wore grease-spotted jeans, a T-shirt advertising a Key West oyster bar — “Eat ‘em raw” — and a sleeveless leather vest with slots for shotgun shells.

“Make yourself comfortable, Tubby.” Lassiter slipped a managing partner memo — scolding secretaries for using the Xerox machine to photocopy their private parts — under Tubby’s boots.

“Thanks, don’t mind if I do.”

“Hey, Cindy,” Lassiter said, “how about typing the complaint in the First Savings mortgage foreclosure?”

“Sure, boss, but whadaya think?” Cindy spun three hundred sixty degrees, arching her back to show off her tight bottom in a black-and-yellow cheetah print, the fabric little more than a Band-Aid covering her crotch, a strap as thin as a shoestring between her cheeks, the top a shred of spandex over small breasts.

“I think you’re going to catch cold. Now, you two mind if I sit down and bill some time?”

“Ay, bro, don’t give me no bull,” Tubby said, riffling Lassiter’s documents. “All you got here are papers from a bank that don’t make no sense, three windsurf magazines with pictures of beach bunnies with some radical deltoids, and a note about a reunion of your old college team.”

“Thanks, Tubby. Maybe you could also return my calls and answer the mail while you’re here.”

“For what you’re paid, why not? To you high-rise types, talking on the phone is work. You guys got it good. Private clubs, fancy lunches, pheasant under glass.”

“I just eat the glass. Thanks for stopping by and brightening my day.”

Tubby lifted his bulk from the swivel chair with unusual grace for a man whose 260 pounds bulged around a five-foot-nine-inch frame. “Don’t mention it. But I gotta go work on the Harley and I hate being downtown anyway. Anybody left here who speaks English?”