The Death Box

“Special?” I said. “How is Gershwin so special?”

“A couple months back a trio of Albanian psychopaths grabbed a ten-year-old kid from West Palm, wanted five mil in ransom. The family called the authorities. BOLOs went out on a green van noted at the scene, everything real hush-hush. Gershwin was a newbie county cop working in Glades County, rural, west of Okeechobee. Two days after the grab – by then the family had received a pinky finger—”

“Jesus.”

“Gershwin is roaming the backcountry and sees a green panel van parked outside a rental house …”

“He gets curious.”

Roy nodded. “He pulls down the road and sneaks back. Blinds are tight, nothing moving, just a single-story ranch with an outbuilding separated by a hundred feet of open grass. He creeps to a side window, peeks inside and sees the Albanians in the living room and the kid taped tight on the couch. Gershwin also sees a freakin’ armamentarium: Uzis and AKs, handguns, grenades and even a goddamn mounted RPG. It looked like an NRA convention in there.”

“He calls it and sits tight?”

“SWAT positions behind a canebrake on the far side of the house, everyone scared a full-on assault meant a dead kid.”

I felt my heart thumping. Roy pulled a cigar and began twirling it.

“In the meantime, one of the Albanians is getting progressively freakier. He’s suddenly got a knife out, grabbing the kid’s hair and pulling his face up. Gershwin realizes the guy is gonna slice the kid’s nose off.”

Roy studied the cigar as if wondering whether he could get away with smoking in the building.

“Christ, Roy, don’t leave me hanging. What’d Gershwin do?”

“Radioed the commander that the Albanians were dragging the kid out the back door.”

“Gershwin lied?”

“Said he needed a fast distraction. Naturally, the SWAT team charges toward the rear. The Albanians hear the commotion, forget the kid and run for the artillery.”

My palms had started sweating. “Damn. And?”

“Gershwin smashes the window and tosses two grenades, a flash-bang and a stunner, comes in after them. He nails one in the chest and the others dive out a side door screaming, ‘No shoot, no shoot.’”

I replayed Gershwin’s action in my head. Saw the looming knife. The need for a split-second decision. “You know the odds against that kid coming back alive, Roy? Gershwin did a helluva job.”

Roy sighed. “What troubles folks is how he did it. If the Albanians had launched an RPG a dozen cops could have been massacred. Gershwin didn’t have the pay grade to make that decision, Carson.”

“Maybe Gershwin didn’t have time to argue seniority.”

Roy started to argue, paused. “Thing is, Gershwin is here and we gotta deal with him for a few days.”

I gave him a puzzled frown.

“History lesson, Carson: The abducted kid’s grandfather hit Miami with ten pesos in his skivvies and within a year owned a grocery store selling Latin specialties. Now they’re coast to coast. The kid’s family has power in Tallahassee and told some major politicos that Gershwin deserved his assignment of choice.”

I nodded. “Gershwin picked the FCLE, obviously.”

“I get a lot of favors from Tallahassee, Carson. Sometimes I have to do one.”

“What’s gonna happen with Gershwin?”

“I’ll let Degan seem to train the kid for a couple weeks, then get Gershwin a desk in Vehicle Theft.” Roy winked. “You can’t hotdog much there.”

7 (#u1c272a9a-a57c-5d98-b54d-f1b3d45cec31)

I left Roy to his Machiavellian hijinks and headed out to the forensics dig, since I now owned the case. The site was as busy as a beehive in spring, chisels tapping, soil being sifted through mesh, photos flashing as bits of fabric or bone were removed from the grisly sculpture, new horrors revealed beneath the old. Morningstar was beside the column, arms folded as she watched a pair of techs extricate shards of clothing from a torso still half-buried in the matrix. I stood aside as they fastidiously bagged the evidence and passed me on the steps.

Morningstar shot me a look when I hit bottom.

“Rumor has it this monster is gonna be your first case, Ryder.”

“Not my choice, Doctor.”

“Roy’s concept of baptism would be to fling the kid into a pond. You still on board with Delmara’s serial-killer theory?”

I circled the mass of concretized humanity, still unable to absorb the full horror. “If so, he’s as angry as a psycho can get. Incredible rage.”

“We have four complete bodies free. Every spine is shattered, most limbs broken, usually compound. A jumbled mess.”

A tech called out a question from above and Morningstar muttered, “Do I have to do all the thinking?” and started up the steps. “Look, but don’t touch, Ryder,” she said over her shoulder. “It may be your baby, but I’m in charge of birthing it.”

It was just me remaining in the pit and I leaned against the buttressed wall and stared as if waiting for a voice to call from the tumble of bodies, a voice to say, Here is the story of our death, please let it not be in vain.

But the stone lay as silent as the ruins of Ozymandias, and after a few minutes I climbed to the upper level and quietly left the tent. Until Morningstar’s team found something to point me in a direction, I was a compass in a world without North.

Orlando Orzibel was bored. Most of the clients were paying their fees and he’d not had to go out on a threat run, always a nice time-killer: one hand held the knife, the other an open palm, fingers waving for money. If the money didn’t materialize, arrangements were made. If the arrangements weren’t honored, the knife went to work.

He checked his phone, no word from Chaku, who should be dumping the hillbilly biker, Ivy, in an hour or so, five minutes to throw the fat scuzzer down the hole, pour a couple bags of dry ’crete, book away. That fucking hole had been a gift from the universe.

Orzibel sighed and grabbed his remote, playing a porn DVD on the five-foot screen in the corner. He watched for several minutes, his hand drifting to his crotch as a burly bodybuilder with lightning-zagged tattoos pounded away at a diminutive Asian. The woman screamed and pretended to resist, but it was obvious she was a professional, probably wondering what kind of pizza she’d order after she drank the guy’s jizz.

Fuck fuck. Orzibel flicked off the video and tugged at his genitals. How long since he’d gone to the basement? There were four girls tucked away down there, plus Chaku’s new toy. All were fresh procures, raw, not yet ready for assignment, though getting close.

The process could always be sped up.

With the pounding bass of electronic dance music pulsing through the walls, Orlando Orzibel descended to the shadowy basement of the nightclub, a warren of concrete-walled rooms. The nightclub had been built by Mob money during Prohibition, the main floor a speakeasy, the basement used for prostitution and other illicit activities. The water-seeping wall was still strung with dozens of ancient and fraying wires mounted on ceramic insulators; the wires originally connected to banks of telephones forming a subterranean bookie operation, the largest in all Miami.

Orzibel wrinkled his nose at the smell of mold and unlocked the heavy gate at the base of the steps. Built of cyclone fence welded within a reinforced steel frame, the gate had taken three powerful men plus Chaku Morales to hang it on its industrial-grade hinges. Orzibel pushed open the first door he came to, seeing two girls asleep on a mattress, a ragged cover over their bodies. What were their names? Did it fucking matter? They were heading to Jacksonville tomorrow. He bypassed the next portal, the room holding Chaku’s fresh bride, not Orzibel’s business. He pushed open the following door, saw one of the new acquisitions – Yolanda? Her eyes grew huge and terrified. He’d had a session with her yesterday.

“Later, puta,” Orzibel said, pulling the door tight. He reached the next door. Who was in here? Ahh … little Leala, the pretty one. Orzibel replayed the trip back from the delivery, felt her struggle under his hands. He touched himself.

Yes!

Orzibel pushed open the door to a cramped room, the walls gray and stained with leakage, pipes and ducts crowding the ceiling. Two king-size mattresses were on a frayed green carpet and an open toilet was in the corner. A small and battered television sat on a stool in the corner, the program – a soap opera on Univision – blurry and tinted a bilious green.

On a mattress and swiftly pushing back into the corner was the girl. She was a beauty and Orzibel felt a wild grin propelled to his face. “Ah, how’s our little Leala today?” Orzibel crooned. The girl cowered in the corner, pulling a blanket over her ragged yellow dress.

“G-go away, señor.”