Paul Levine - Night vision

" The Manchurian Candidate, " I said, remembering my earliest thoughts about Nick.

"Yeah, bizarre, isn't it? Create an image exactly opposite of reality."

"Truth and illusion. Distinguishing the two is your job, Townsend, and mine."

"Well, I was still working on my source, trying to get him to go on the record. He claimed to have documents, cables in code, bank accounts in the Caymans and Panama in Nick's name."

It was all starting to fit together. "When's the last time you talked to the source?"

"A week ago. Said he would think about it. Then…"

"Then what?"

"I can't say."

"I can. Then he got shot, right? Somebody took him out. Does your pledge of confidentiality survive his death?"

He looked a question at the publisher, didn't get an answer, and said, "Even if your supposition is correct, I could not confirm-"

While he was busy not confirming, I came out of my chair and grabbed him by his T-shirt. I yanked him to his feet and drew his face close to mine.

"Jake!" Symington Foote was profoundly unhappy with his legal representation. "I hardly think this is necessary…"

I ignored him and tightened my grip on Townsend. "Tell me his name! Tell me, you sanctimonious son of a bitch or I'll give you a headline: 'Reporter Drowns in Publisher's Pool.'"

His eyes showed fear, but he shook his head. I dragged him across the patio toward the deep end of Foote's splendid twenty-five-meter pool. Foote let out a yelp. I hoisted Townsend over a shoulder, then dangled him by the ankles, dunking his head. He thrashed around and I hauled him up, sputtering, and he called me several names they don't print in a family newspaper. I lowered him again.

"Now see here, Jake," Foote was saying from behind me.

I saw very clearly. I saw my six-figure retainer slipping away and didn't care.

I let Townsend stay under long enough to consider a career change, then pulled him out, choking and gagging. I dropped him into a chaise lounge, where he burped up a couple of jiggers of chlorinated water, and then I asked again. "Who is he?"

He hawked and coughed and wheezed and finally said, "You know. You already know, you bastard."

I knew I knew. I had to hear the name. "Say it!"

"Alejandro Rodriguez."

"Why did he talk to you? What was his motive?"

He drank in some air. "I don't know. That's not my department."

"Then how do you know Rodriguez was telling the truth?"

The sound was half gag, half laugh. "We never know that. We just print what people tell us. It's not our job to tell the public what to believe. We just give them choices."

Sunday. A breeze from the east tickled the leaves of the live-oak trees. Just a breath of air, but it makes a difference. I called the weekend crew at the state attorney's office every hour like a guy on house arrest. I thought a lot about Nick Fox. I needed to trip him up, to bait him and trap him. I couldn't call Metro because there was no telling who was loyal to him, and the feds would take too long. I thought of the logistics and came up with a plan. But it would take two of us, and one had to be somebody Fox wouldn't recognize. That left out Charlie Riggs, the only person I trusted completely other than my granny. So where did that leave me?

I lay in the hammock again and thought about Marsha Diamond. TV Gal, I've let you down. Been too wrapped up in saving my own semiprecious hide. I walked into the house, pulled out three cardboard boxes, my copies of the Diamond file. I reread the printouts. Bobbie Blinderman had chatted with Marsha, pitching crude woo, but got shot down. A short time later, Marsha gets strangled. I read the rest of them-Oral Robert, Bush Whacker, and the other cheap-thrill hackers.

I found the photos Dr. Whitson had taken of the scene. There was Marsha, head jammed into the monitor. There were scenes of the room. There were the close-ups of the body, and the shots of Pam and me, Charlie demonstrating the fallacy of the crescentic fingernail abrasion. There were a variety of shots of the room itself, Nick Fox pacing in the background.

I spread all the photos on the floor, moving some empty pizza cartons out of the way. I tried different arrangements. All body shots here, all room shots there. I arranged them by field of view. Long shots here, close-ups there.

Then here.

Then there.

And there it was. Where it had been all along.

The grand jury would convene at nine a.m. Monday, take up old business, and approve a report on the sorry state of the county's juvenile detention facilities. The jurors would break at noon and reconvene at 1:30 to hear new cases including In re Alejandro Rodriguez. Which would soon become State of Florida v. Jacob Lassiter.

At 7:30 p.m. Sunday I called Fox's office and left a new message with the weekend crew: Leaving for Rio on nine o'clock flight. Five minutes later, my phone rang.

I picked it up and said, "Hello, Nick, what took you so long?"

"I'm glad you're there, asshole. I want to talk to you. Maybe we can work something out."

"Wonderful. Great, Nick," I slavered, gratitude and humility coating my voice like honey.

"I'll be there in an hour."

"I won't be here," I said.

"What?"

"I'm going fishing."

"Are you nuts?"

"Snook are running, or at least swimming."

"Don't jerk me off, Lassiter. The grand jury's going to hear-"

"Nighttime bridge fishing, good for the soul. I'll be on the MacArthur Causeway just east of the tender's shack. I'll have an extra spinning rod."

Then I hung up and didn't answer the phone when it rang ten seconds later. Twenty minutes later, I was putting my gear in the trunk when it rang again. I went inside, lifted the receiver, and listened.

"Hello, Jake, is that you, darling?"

The crisp British accent that first sucked me in.

"It's me, darling," I said.

"Oh Jake, I wanted to say good-bye."

"Good-bye?"

"I just finished my last lecture and I'm booked on the red-eye to Heathrow."

Whoa. Too much was happening too fast. I couldn't deal with both of them at once.

"Can't you stay a little longer?"

"Would that I could. We could spend some time together, perhaps rekindle that spark." Her voice tinkled with promises. "But my work calls."

"Wait. Where are you?"

"On Miami Beach, at Mount Briar Hospital."

"Great. On your way to the airport you can stop and say a proper good-bye. I'll be on the causeway. Fishing."

"Fishing?"

Why didn't anyone believe me?

I told her where and said nine-thirty, and she'd still have time to catch the flight.

And then I went to find some bait.

The moon was three-quarters full and rising over the ocean. Silky moonbeams flashed across the surface of the bay and bounced off the steel and concrete of the bridge. I had watched the late summer sun set, dangling over the Everglades, the sky tinged vermilion from the foul breath of our two million cars, most of which seemed to be passing on the bridge just now. Carbon monoxide hung heavy and low, the air was soggy with heat and moisture, and I wondered why anyone would fish here. It was like jogging in the Lincoln Tunnel.

I wore jeans and a sleeveless vest. On the vest was a lamb's-wool patch festooned with flies. Streamers and poppers and super bugs and flipping shrimp, and my all-time favorite, the cockroach. I held a stout rod with a heavy butt and an open-face spinning reel, and if Nick Fox wanted to fish, I had another one, too.

Four lanes of traffic rattled the bridge, cars heading from downtown Miami to South Beach and back again. I stood on the catwalk near the tender's shack, just off the steel grating of the drawbridge itself. The metal hummed and sang with each passing tire. Kids on bicycles rode along the catwalk, and a collection of old coots sat in lawn chairs, digging bait out of tin cans and dropping their lines into the water. Near the lower portions of the bridge, weekend shrimpers shone their flashlights toward the bottom and swung fine-meshed, long-handled nets into the water. Two swarthy men in T-shirts angled their casts near the shrimpers. Fish are attracted to shrimp, and fishermen aren't far behind. Ten feet from me, a guy who needed a shave and a bath dangled a pole over the side. He had already borrowed some pinfish for bait and was now asking if I had any mullet. When he came close, the smell of cheap wine overpowered the tang of the bait. Despite the heat he wore a heavy plaid work shirt and a cap with earflaps pulled down.