A local TV crew marched up the steps, around Bloodworth, into police headquarters. He thought: What if Garcia had given them an interview, too? What if the detective actually said something important on television? Identified El Fuego, for instance? Bloodworth’s flesh turned clammy. Christ! He’d completely forgotten to ask Sergeant Garcia about El Fuego.
In a panic, Bloodworth dashed back up the steps. He couldn’t go back to the newsroom empty-handed, too much was riding on this story—a raise, his very own column, maybe even a job with the New York Times. The stakes were too fantastic to let an oafish Cuban cop ruin everything.
Bloodworth hopped off the elevator at Homicide, but the TV crew was nowhere in sight. He scurried from office to office, unimpeded. At the end of a long hall, he finally spotted the bright TV lights.
It was too late. Through the window of a soundproof interview room, Bloodworth saw Al Garcia talking expansively to a pretty brunette television reporter. She was holding a microphone and he was smiling like it was cocktails at the Four Seasons. The camera rolled.
Bloodworth watched in wretched helplessness, struggling to read the detective’s lips. Garcia glanced at Bloodworth’s face in the window and mouthed three words: “Up your ass.”
In a fury, Bloodworth retreated to Garcia’s empty office, where he fumed and cursed and looked at his wristwatch every thirty seconds. How long could it last? What could he be telling her? Bloodworth felt a damp stripe settle down the back of his shirt. He was getting beaten, beaten badly. By a TV bimbo.
A man with a plastic badge that said “Mail Room” came in and piled papers and packages on Garcia’s desk.
As soon as the messenger left, Bloodworth slid over and sifted through the goodies. A two-page memo on weapons training. A ten-page memo on pensions. An invoice for softball uniforms.
Crap!
Next he sampled the unopened mail, scanning the return addresses. He found something from the FBI fingerprint section in Washington and held it to the light, without success; the clever Feebs used opaque envelopes.
Underneath the stack of letters was a brown box the size of a toaster.
A bright red courier sticker was glued to the box: Same-day service, fourteen bucks. Oddly, whoever had sent the parcel had tied a luxurious bow in the twine, the kind of bow you’d see on a Fifth Avenue Christmas package.
The address label had been typed neatly:
To Sgt. Alberto Garcia, Maggot and Traitor
Metro-Dade Police Pig Department
Miami, City of Pigs, Florida
Ricky Bloodworth excitedly opened his notebook and copied everything.
In the upper-left-hand corner, on the top of the box, the sender had written:
“De un guerrero y patriota.”
From a warrior and patriot.
Ricky Bloodworth went to the door and peered down the hallway. Amazingly, the TV lights were still blazing away. God Almighty, he thought, not even Joe Wambaugh yaps this much.
Bloodworth returned to the desk and picked up the brown box. It was much lighter than he expected. Bloodworth shook it cautiously at first, then briskly. Nothing. It was packed solid.
Bloodworth trembled at the thought of what he was about to do.
We’re talking felony, he told himself. This is police evidence, no doubt about it.
But screw Garcia—he busted my tape recorder.
Ricky Bloodworth put the box under one arm and hurried out of the Homicide office. He went down three flights of stairs and came out in the Traffic Division, which was deserted. He found an empty rest room and locked himself in a stall that reeked of ammonia and bad cologne.
The reporter sat on a toilet and set the box on his lap. He propped his notebook on the tissue rack. He stuck the red pen behind his left ear.
Bloodworth’s heart was drumming. He actually felt himself getting hard—that’s how much he loved this job. Ricky savored his coup: a treasure chest of clues from the Nights of December. An exclusive, too … that was the part that gave him a hard-on.
He had already decided what he would do.
As soon as he was done peeking, he’d send the package right back to Garcia. He’d wrap it exactly the same and steam the labels—who would ever know?