J. Kerley - The Apostle

I was crossing the parking lot when my phone rang: Belafonte.

“Can we speak?” she said.

“We are.”

“I mean … meet somewhere? I really need to talk to you, hopefully today.”

“Where are you?”

“Flagami, tracking down information on Kylie.”

“Gimme an address. Preferably a bar where I can get a decent beer.”

“I’m, uh, in uniform.”

“Go home,” I told her. “And await further instructions.”

I hung up and pressed the fifth number down on my speed dial. Three rings.

“Carson, what’s up?” Vince Delmara. He sounded beat.

“What did you do to me, Vince?”

“Belafonte? She’s all I could find, Carson. Really. Every detective or soon-to-be detective is beating the streets on Menendez. Did you see any news show last night? All they talked about was lack of progress. We’re in crash-and-burn mode here.”

I sighed. “OK, Vince. But I gotta problem with Officer B.”

“I figured. She’s smart like a whip, but I think she was born with a broomstick up her—”

“Not that. She’s in uniform.”

It took a second for Vince’s frazzled mind to grasp. “Shit, of course. I’ll get her reclassified as undercover. Anything else?”

“Call and tell her when it’s done. I’m not sure she likes the sound of my voice.”

Twenty minutes later my phone rang, Belafonte. “Detective Delmara just phoned. He said—”

“I know. Jump into street clothes and let’s reconvene near a beer tap.”

I drove over and parked outside a decent-looking place in West Buena Vista named the Sea Breeze – something of a stretch, since the bay was about fifteen blocks distant, but perhaps they meant during hurricanes. Belafonte pulled in two minutes later, driving a venerable Crown Victoria, a former cruiser, given that I could see the logo beneath the fading paint job supposed to cover the previous usage. I stepped out as she did, finding she’d transformed from officer to female, the creased brown uni now blue slacks and a white safari shirt buttoned to the top. Both the slacks and shirt had been pressed rigid. Her shoes were pumps with a two-inch heel. She looked like an advertisement for Sears, except Sears models tended to look happy.

I passed by the bar, the woman behind it offering a smile and a “What you folks need? I’ll bring it over.”

I glanced at the taps and I ordered an Eldorado IPA from the local Wynwood Brewing Co. Belafonte said, “A glass of water, Pellegrino if possible.”

The joint was mostly empty and I angled toward a booth in a far corner, sat as Belafonte followed suit. I stared at her and offered my widest smile, receiving only an anxious look.

“There’s something I wanted to say, Detective Ryder.”

I stuck my fingers in my ears.

“What are you doing?” she said.

“I can’t hear you. My fingers are in my ears.”

“Have you gone daft?”

“I’m not going to listen until you order a freaking drink, Belafonte. Unless you’re a confirmed teetotaler or a recovering alcoholic, we’re going to sit here like two standard-issue cops and sip an honest and refreshing beverage while we talk.”

“It’s not professional to drink during duty,” she said.

“You’re now plainclothes, Officer Belafonte. It’s not professional to get drunk on duty, or otherwise impaired. I expect this case to take us to some pretty low places. We can’t go into a joint where people are banging down whiskey shots and order Pellegrino.”

The big eyes challenged me as the waitress arrived with one beer, one fizzy Italian H 20. “Will that be all?” she asked.

“I’ve changed my mind,” Belafonte said, the eyes holding on me. “Please be so kind as to bring me a Rum Collins, light.”

“Atta girl,” I said. “Now, didn’t you have something to discuss?”

The big eyes dropped, came back up. “I should have gone with you to the procedure, Detective Ryder. I know nothing of autopsies. And never will unless I attend one.”

“Stop by the morgue any day and tell Dr Davanelle I sent you. Now, what do you know about Kylie? Did she have a pimp?”

A nod. “It may have been why she needed to get back to the street. Fear of the guy. Or maybe he had the drugs.”

“Did she, Kylie, mention a name?”

“Someone named Swizzle. Should we go out and try and find him?”

“We don’t go out, not yet. First we ride on the coattails of others.”

My call went to Juarez, a detective with Miami Vice. He was dedicated and bright and a favorite of Vince Delmara.

“Swizzle?” Juarez said. “You’re probably talking about Shizzle, Shizzle Diamond. Real name’s T’Shawn Matthews. Collects runaways and confused girls from the streets and bus stations. He’s good at being what they need, uncle or daddy or friend, then takes a few weeks to feed ’em and fuck ’em and hook ’em on heroin.”

“I think there’s a rap song there.”

“I ain’t writing it. Matthews – I ain’t using that idiot pimp name – rides his herd hard and moves them around, sometimes as far north as Orlando. But mostly it’s Liberty City or the sadder parts of Flagami and so forth. He might run ’em over to the Beach, but he tends to venues with dark alleys and cheap motels, usually watching from a car or the window of a bar, sipping brandy while his sad little troupe services johns.”

“Any idea where I can find this particular bag of garbage?” I asked.

I heard a hand cover the phone, a question yelled out. After a minute the hand fell away. “Feinstein says he saw Matthews a couple days back at Black’s Lounge, lower Liberty, probably got his crew working there for a while.”

I thanked Juarez and pocketed the phone. “Drink up,” I told Belafonte. “We’re going hunting.”

We headed outside and I saw the Crown Vic. “Who gave you that junker? I can see the goddamn cop logo under the paint.”

“Motor pool. It’s all they had.”

“We’ll use my wheels,” I said. “Jump in.”

I drive a green Land Rover Defender with every possible option for safari use: racks, grille and headlamp shields, spare tire bolted to the roof, heavy-duty suspension. It had been confiscated from a dope dealer and though it rode a bit rough, it was, I figured, the only veldt-ready copmobile in the country and if a case ever took me to the top of Kilimanjaro, I was ready.

Night was deepening as we went to the corner where Shizzle Diamond had been spotted. It was not a neighborhood Miami would feature in a tourist ad, unless the tourists were looking for peep shows, strippers and the uglier side of street life, as demonstrated by the wino puking into the gutter as we passed.

“Get close to me,” I told Belafonte. “Whisper in my ear and play with my hair.”

“ What? ”

“We need to look like a guy who’s just picked up a woman. Or maybe a guy and a woman wanting a third hand at cards.”

“Cards?” She thought a moment. “Oh.”

Reluctantly, she scooted as close as the shifter allowed. Her hand patted my head like I was a Welsh Corgi. “Try for passion,” I said.

She moved her head closer and twirled a lock of my hair. “Is this how you behaved with your male partners?”

“When it was necessary.”

Which was true. Harry and I had several times gone hand-in-hand into gay bars or situations to hunt for a perp or gather information. In one memorable instance I had donned a dress and wig to play a cross-dresser, Harry dubbing me “the ugliest woman he’d never been with”.

Thus engaged in mock passion, Belafonte and I cruised toward one of the bars supposed to contain the pimp. There were two damsels of the dark on the street, but there were recessed doorways in the buildings and alleys and I figured there might be ladies back there, either waiting or working on a customer.