Paul Levine - Night vision

"I don't believe it."

"Don't worry, Jake. You'll get the credit for breaking the case. It may help you."

"But Bobbie…her poetry. It cried out with her guilt."

Pam Maxson was shaking her head. "Oh Jake, that's the problem with laymen thinking they're analysts. The poetry expressed her psyche's guilt, her confusion about her sexual identity, but had nothing to do with her actions. Fantasies, Jake, nothing more."

Now they both looked at me. Why was I so out of it? But something else was bothering me now. Sometimes, my brain rolls a thought around like a chrome pinball, bouncing off the bumpers before finding the hundred-point socket.

"What did you mean, Nick, it might help me?"

"With the judge, Jakie. One of the crime-scene boys found a Smith and Wesson bodyguard. 38 in the bushes outside Rodriguez's house. Blue steel with the checkered walnut stock. Three bullets still in the cylinder, two fired. Serial number matches the gun assigned to you, my friend. The gun had two sets of latents. Want to know whose?"

I already had a pretty good idea, but Nick just kept going.

"One set matched Dr. Maxson's, who was kind enough to lend us her pinkies."

She looked at me. "A dicey situation, Jake. They asked me not to tell you."

"One set matched yours," Fox said, "which we took when you were sworn in. We dug a. 38 caliber bullet out of Alex's bed. Ballistics fires the gun, and guess what, it's the murder weapon. Are you with me, Jake, or you want I should slow down?"

I just glared at him, and he continued: "Now we know that Dr. Maxson fired only one shot. Who fired the other one, Jake?"

"You've got to be kidding."

"Where were you yesterday, Jake?"

"You can't be serious."

"Okay, I'll tell you. In the morning, you were in this very hotel suite, and at about eleven you caused a hell of a scene out front when you got your clock cleaned by a shrimp who used to ride the ponies at Hialeah and for the last few years pretended to be married to a broad with a dick. From there you went to Mercy Hospital for X-rays, but you were out of there by twelve-thirty. You didn't get to your office until two o'clock, spent maybe twenty minutes there, and got to Rodriguez's house at about three, when you called me upon allegedly finding the body. That about right?"

"Yeah, what of it?"

"ME says Rodriguez was shot between noon and three, most likely around one p.m. Where were you, Jake?"

"Home changing clothes. I try not to mix blood and plaid in the office."

"Great. Somebody corroborates that, you'll beat the rap."

"I live alone. Not even a parakeet. You know that. I've got no witnesses. Look, somebody must have stolen the gun from Cindy's place. Go pick up Tom Cat. C'mon, Nick. I didn't kill Rodriguez, and you know it. Why would I kill him?"

Fox showed me his wise, political smile. "You and Rodriguez were rivals in the investigation. I'd seen you argue, myself. You both sought my approval, wanted to be my right-hand man in the new administration…"

"What new administration?"

"Don't you read that daily fish wrapper? I announced yesterday for governor, Jakie."

"Sorry, I been busy killing detectives, fell behind on my current events."

Fox gave the cops his sad, tolerant look. See what I have to put up with. "Still the wise-ass, aren't you? I should take you in right now, Jakie. Call a press conference. Your pals at the Journal have been mighty friendly ever since I leaked the story on Compu-Mate. But considering your clean record, if you'll agree not to leave town and to let me know at all times where you are, and I mean call my office every hour, I'll wait. Who knows, maybe the grand jury won't indict. Maybe they'll think some phantom stole your gun and killed the guy that stood between you and your career goal."

"Are you fucking insane? You're setting me up, you phony bullshit artist. My career goal? Shining your shoes in Tallahassee, reminding you to zip up when you come out of the john. What the fuck is going on here?"

I stepped toward him. The two deputies had some quickness for guys who had a liter of booze in their pants, all in three-ounce bottles. Each grabbed a wrist. But there was nothing wrong with my arms, and I shook one off the left and used it to hook the other one in the gut. He wheezed and fell back. I wobbled toward Nick, who had drawn his weapon from a shoulder holster.

I stared down the barrel of his service revolver. It looked like a cannon. Then I saw his face. He was ready to squeeze. I was a problem for him, just like Lieutenant Evan Ferguson, and in a second I could be just as dead. I wondered if he would see my face in his sleep. I put my hands over my head.

"Now, we could tack on simple assault and resisting arrest with violence if we wanted to," Fox said, "but I'm cutting you a break, Jakie. Stay out of trouble over the weekend, and I'll be in touch. Remember, I'm your friend. Maybe I can even come up with a way to help you out. Maybe I can still teach you."

"Teach me what, you miserable fuck?"

He smiled. So wise, so kind. "To keep your ass down, Jakie. Before it gets shot off."

Friday came and went. It was a day of oppressive heat, and I lay in the hammock strung between live oak and chinaberry trees in my backyard jungle of overgrown weeds and bushes. I wore canvas shorts and nothing else and let the sweat trickle down my chest as I thought it over.

And over.

They had it nailed down pretty good.

Item one: Max kills Mary Rosedahl and Priscilla Fox. No doubt there. In tortured mourning, Max spills his guts.

Item two: Bobbie trips over the raised track of the sliding door and cartwheels to the pool deck. Clumsy in those high heels, the lady detective said. But I had seen Bobbie gliding through life on four-inch sticks, and they suited her like fins on a fish.

Item three: An envious lawyer named Jacob Lassiter uses his government-issued. 38 to kill a homicide detective, then conveniently drops the weapon in the bushes. Oh, come on, good and true citizens of the grand jury, you will see through that malarkey, won't you? No. Because a grand jury is the tool of the prosecutor, and if one of those eighteen faithful citizens asks the question, smiling Nick Fox will be ready.

"It was not a carefully planned execution," Fox will say. "Perhaps they argued, Lassiter becomes enraged. He is a former football player prone to sudden violence. You have heard the testimony of Dr. Maxson and Mr. Carruthers as to his propensity for unprovoked aggression. Without warning, Lassiter shoots his rival for a high government position. Panicked, he flees, discarding the weapon. Ladies and gentlemen, murderers act irrationally. If they did not, we might never apprehend them."

Oh well, under that scenario, it's only second degree.

All buttoned up tight. Bodies get buried, files closed, Blinderman and Lassiter imprisoned, and Nick Fox becomes the governor.

But how tight is it? Somebody killed Marsha Diamond. Did everybody forget about her? That was how I got into this. Investigate Diamond's murder and prosecute the bad guy. Only I didn't find the bad guy. Instead, I managed to get myself framed for somebody else's murder. And with that thought, I had a cold Grolsch and dozed off in the muggy shade of my infinitesimal slice of the planet Earth.

Saturday arrived, just as hot, just as sticky. My leg and foot were healing in the steaminess. My face looked better, though I hadn't shaved in three days and I needed a trim, shaggy hair covering the ears, flapping down the neck. Lying on the warm, crinkly grass I did fifty stomach crunches, twenty one-armed push-ups, first right then left, then used both arms for fifty more. I gave myself the rest of the day off and resumed my place of contemplation in the hammock, two cold beers to battle the elements.