“Caller reports Subject B appeared to be resisting, and was possibly nude. Subject A reported to be carrying a handgun with a flashing red light (??). Search of area by Units 2334 and 4511 proved negative.”
Jim Tile knew of no pistols with blinking red lights, but most hand-held video cameras had one. From a distance, a frightened elderly person might mistake a Sony for a Smith & Wesson.
Maybe the old woman had witnessed the abduction of Mr Max Lamb. Jim Tile hoped not. He hoped the Quail Roost sighting was just another weird Dade County roadside altercation and not the act of his volatile swamp-dwelling friend, who was known to hold ill-mannered tourists in low esteem.
The trooper made a copy of Mrs Lamb’s report and slipped it in his briefcase along with several others. When he had some free time, he’d try to interview her.
There was only twenty minutes left for lunch with Brenda, before both of them had to start another shift. Being able to see her, even briefly, was well worth the ordeal of working the batty streets of South Florida.
Jim Tile was most displeased, therefore, to personally witness the hijacking of a Salvation Army truck while he was driving to the Red Lobster restaurant where Brenda waited. The trooper was obliged to give chase, and by the time it was over he’d missed his luncheon date.
As he disarmed and handcuffed the truck hijacker, Jim Tile wondered aloud why anybody with half a brain would use a MAC-10 to steal a truck full of secondhand clothes. The young man said his original intention was to spray-paint a gang insignia on the side of the Salvation Army truck, but before he could finish his tagging the driver took off. The young man explained that he’d had no choice, as a matter of self-respect, but to pull his submachine gun and, yo, steal the motherfucking truck.
As Trooper Jim Tile assisted the talkative hijacker into the cage of his patrol car, he silently vowed to redouble his efforts to persuade Brenda Rourke to transfer out of this hellhole called Miami, to a more civilized hellhole where they could work together.
Snapper was proud of how he’d acquired the Jeep Cherokee, but Edie Marsh showed no interest in his conquest.
“What’s the story?” Snapper pointed at the dachshunds.
“Donald and Maria,” Edie said, annoyed. The animals were pulling her back and forth across Tony Torres’s front yard and peeing with wild abandon. Edie was amazed at the power in their stubby Vienna-sausage legs.
“By the way,” she said, straining against the leashes, “it took that asshole all of three minutes before he grabbed my tits.”
“Big deal, so you win the bet.”
“Take these damn dogs!”
Snapper backed away. Numerous encounters with police German shepherds had left him with permanent scars, physical and mental. Over the years, Snapper had become a cat person.
“Just let ’em go,” he said to Edie.
The moment she dropped the leashes, the two dachshunds curled up at her feet.
“Beautiful,” Snapper said with a grunt. “Hey, look what I found.” He flashed the chrome-plated pistol he’d taken from the gangsters. Palming the cheap gun, he noticed the chambers were empty. “Damn spades,” he said, heaving it into the murky swimming pool.
Edie Marsh told Snapper about the tough guy with the New York accent who came for Tony Torres. “You picked a peachy time to disappear,” she added.
“Shut the fuck up.”
“Well, Tony’s gone. Even his damn beach chair. Figure it out yourself.”
“Shit.”
“He won’t be back,” Edie said gravely. “Not in one piece, anyway.”
A concrete block occupied the spot where Tony’s chaise had been. Snapper cursed his rotten timing. The
ten grand was history. Even in the unlikely event that the salesman returned, he’d never pay. Snapper had fucked up big-time; he wasn’t cut out to be a bodyguard.
He said, “I don’t guess you got a new plan.”
A siren drowned Edie’s reply, which she punctuated with a familiar hand gesture. An ambulance came speeding down Calusa Drive. Snapper figured it was carrying Baby Raper to the hospital, for some unusual surgery. Snapper wouldn’t be surprised to read about it in a medical journal someday.