The King of Swords Read online

  ‘Max,’ Joe called out, ‘come see this.’

  Joe was standing by the windowsill, holding up one of a row of photographs he’d picked up from there. It showed Lacour standing on a stretch of grass with his sons and daughter. They were all holding hands with chimps dressed in shorts and Primate Park T-shirts. When they looked closer they saw the picture had been taken at roughly the same spot on the grass verge where they’d found Lacour’s body.

  ‘Looks recent,’ Joe said. ‘Maybe that’s why he went back there.’

  ‘Who knows?’ Max sighed. ‘Who’ll ever know?’

  Max noticed the evidence bag Joe was holding.

  ‘What’ve you got?’

  ‘Found it in the parents’ bedroom.’ He handed Max the envelope. ‘Smells of almonds.’

  It was a small red and white striped candy wrapper.

  ‘Where d’you find it?’

  ‘Under the cot.’

  ‘Babies don’t eat candy.’ Max gave him the bag. ‘And this house is clean and tidy, orderly. My guess is, when they run prints on that wrapper they ain’t gonna find any, ’cause the person who dropped it was wearin’ gloves. But if they do get something, it won’t belong to any of these people.’

  ‘So you’re sayin’…?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Max nodded grimly, ‘Lacour didn’t do this on his own. He had help.’

  PART TWO

  April–May 1981

  5

  ‘Man. I dunno why you keep on lettin’ freaks like that out, ’cause y’all know they gonna do it again–sure as man followed monkey,’ Drake murmured, passing Max Mingus a book of matches over his shoulder. They were from a motel called the Alligator Moon in Immokalee, a small town right in the middle of the Everglades.

  Max memorized the address as he lit a Marlboro, and then gave the matches back without turning his head. He now had the information he needed: the child-killer Dean Waychek’s whereabouts, his hiding place, the rock he’d crawled under as soon as he’d come out of prison.

  Drake and Max had been doing business like this for most of the ten years Max had been a cop. Drake was by far and away the best snitch he had. The guy was plugged into the Miami criminal mainframe like no one else. He knew everything there was to know and everyone who was doing it.

  Max would tell him what he needed and Drake would call him back with a time and place to meet–always breakfast at a diner, usually one that had just opened up because, Drake reasoned, the food was more likely to be better in a new joint, as they’d be making an extra effort to attract repeat custom. The two would sit back-to-back in adjoining booths and whisper to each other out of the corner of their mouths.

  Today they were in a place called Al & Shirley’s, off 5th Street in Miami Beach. Max remembered the building well. It had once been a photographer’s studio. The owner had taken some shots of Muhammad Ali shortly after he’d won the heavyweight title for the first time. He’d blown up one of the photos to lifesize–Ali in his white shorts, championship belt around his waist, throwing a jab, exuberant expression on his face–and proudly exhibited it in the window, only for someone to smash the glass and steal the picture. Max and Joe had caught the thief a couple of weeks later when they’d seen him standing outside a school Ali had just opened, with the six-foot-plus-sized blow-up at his side, waiting for an autograph. The incident made the front page of the next day’s Miami Herald. The accompanying photograph was a surreal sight: Joe hauling the thief away in cuffs, Max walking just behind them, carrying the Ali blow-up under his arm; while standing very clearly in the background, unbeknown to all, the real Muhammad Ali and his entourage were watching the spectacle and laughing.

  Max looked through the same window and took in the desolate view of the near empty forecourt beyond, its entrance flanked by two tall but frail-looking palm trees, with weak trunks and drooping, dried-out leaves. His brown 1979 Camaro was parked in-between a white Ford pickup and a gleaming dark blue Mercedes coupé he guessed was Drake’s. It had been there when he’d arrived. The sky above was thick with ash-and sour-milk-coloured clouds which broke the sunlight down to a feeble glow full of shadows. The air was dead and still. Everything was on pause, waiting on the heavens to make up their mind.

  Inside were two rows of booths starting from near the entrance and ending at a glossy mural of Old Glory which filled up the back wall, shot-up and dirt-caked, but billowing defiantly–American pride and endurance at its most fundamental.

  The cop and his snitch were in the last two booths at the end, to the left, away from the window, Max facing the door as he always invariably sat, even off-duty. He liked to know what was behind him and what was ahead of him as best he could.

  The place was nearly empty, which wasn’t surprising, given the time–just shy of 9.30 a.m.–but it felt like this was as busy as it was going to get today.

  Max listened to Drake eat, the sounds of his chewing recalling a platoon trampling in time across dry undergrowth. Although Drake had once claimed to eat only breakfast, Max wondered where on his six foot three, raggedy-ass bird-leg frame he put all the calories he was wolfing down–a greasy pile of crispy bacon, sausages, ham, hamburger, beans, hash browns, grilled tomatoes, four eggs fried two different ways and toast; so much food, they’d had to serve it up on two plates, one for the meat alone.

  Drake dealt coke, poppers, pills and grass to an upmarket clientele of interstate jetsetters, white-collar lost weekenders, college kids with more bucks than brains and Miami’s burgeoning gay community. Max helped him by regularly busting his competition and keeping him off the police radar. He also occasionally kicked some of the coke he seized in the line of duty back to him. He didn’t feel too good about the last part, but that was the way it was in Miami right now. The town ran on coke and coke ran the town. For every three kilos seized, one would make the papers and two would make it back on the street.

  ‘Ain’t no cure for that kinda evil thing,’ Drake continued. ‘Ain’t no jail bad enough, ain’t no religion good enough, ain’t no shrink shrunk enough to undo that. Only a bullet can cure that.’

  Drake was getting worked up, like he always did whenever Max asked him about child abusers and child killers. He hated their kind with such intensity that Max often wondered if he hadn’t himself been molested when he was a boy, but it wasn’t the kind of thing you ever asked a street-forged hoodlum like Drake–not that he’d ever tell anyway, because it’d make him look how he couldn’t afford to be seen: weak, a victim, a sissy. If he got a rep like that it’d be bad for business. He’d have armies of rivals on his tail, and there’d be nothing Max could do to save him.

  ‘I hear you,’ Max said, barely moving his lips, ‘but you know how it is. It’s the law.’

  ‘Then the law’s all fucked up. Shit needs changin’. You get mo’ time for peddlin’ reefer than you do rapin’ some lil’ girl.’

  ‘I hear that too.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Drake leant back a little so his mouth was closer to Max’s ear. ‘You hear so good, why you still a cop?’

  ‘Same reason I had when I joined: I thought–and still do think–I can make a difference. Even if it’s a small one no one notices. Somewhere, to someone, what I do counts. For better or worse depends on the someone. And that’s why I’m still here, meetin’ you for breakfast,’ Max answered.

  ‘You believe in Santa Claus too?’ Drake chuckled and Max could almost hear him flashing his smile, that same sardonic, knowing, each-day-as-it-comes-and-fuck-tomorrow nonchalant expression that had landed him more pussy than he could handle and a bullet in the leg from a husband he’d cuckolded.

  Max shook his head and grunted negatively. The mention of Christmas saddened him. He’d driven to Key West with his girlfriend Renée on Christmas Eve, for a make-up or break-up vacation. They’d broken up before they got there, midway down the Seven Mile Bridge. An argument about the faulty passenger window had escalated into one about the faults in their relationship. They’d both said things they shouldn’t have, but
meant anyway. She’d got out at Mallory Square with her bags and tears streaming down her face, and boarded the bus back to Miami. Max had returned home, where he’d drunk until he’d passed out. The next day he’d called Joe, who’d come over with a crate of beer, a bottle of bourbon and a bag of reefer. They’d sat on the beach and got palooka’d. Max had spent the rest of his vacation that way, and was still finding his way out of that zone, slowly.

  The radio was on low and playing Beatles songs back to back, non-stop, still mourning John Lennon, shot dead in New York the previous December. You couldn’t escape the programmed grief on the airwaves right after it had happened. Even black stations had played soul, funk and disco versions of Beatles tunes, and whenever Max had turned to talk radio for relief, all he’d heard were people arguing away about the murder and what it all meant and how it was probably a CIA-organized hit. It had driven him nuts. Some psycho misfit with a gun and a grudge plugged innocent family men on the street all the time in Miami and barely anyone noticed or even cared. Even Reagan getting shot just last month hadn’t quelled Beatlemournia.

  The waitress came over with the coffee pot. Max hadn’t touched his. His stomach was burning again–booze-binge acid–and his medicine cabinet at home was fresh out of Pepto-Bismol.

  ‘You no like café?’ she asked him. Her name tag said Corrina and she was cute as hell–bright brown eyes, almond-shaped face, tan skin, flawless complexion, beestung lips. She could have passed for twenty-one, but Max suspected she was much younger.

  ‘I forgot to drink it.’ Max smiled.

  ‘You want new cup?’

  ‘Sure,’ Max said.

  She was about to turn and head back when Drake reached out and stopped her with a quick but gentle hand on her arm.

  ‘Any for me?’ Drake asked, holding out his empty coffee cup, bright dental beam right behind it.

  She apologized with a giggle, gave him a refill, and then hurried back towards the counter.

  ‘She waaay too fine. Kinda waitress you wanna order from juss to watch walk across the room, but,’ Drake said, leaning over and watching her go down the aisle, ‘thass’s a whole heap o’ trouble on two legs, right there.’

  ‘How so?’ Max asked.

  ‘Don’t wanna be goin’ mad over no pussy when you makin’ moves on the street. Gotta keep yo’ mind on yo’ game, and keep that game tight. Fine bitch like dat? Turnin’ every nigga, spic and cracker head in dis town? Fo’ you know it that pussy be havin’ a entoorage, an’ you gotta be swattin’ ’em away full time, so you got no time to be makin’ money, dig? Pussy like dat be worse fo’ a nigga than dope.’

  ‘So you only date ugly women, is that it?’ Max said.

  ‘They ain’t ugly, ’zactly–they mo’…You know them hey-good-lookins always turn up wit plain Jane as a best friend, make deyselves look better? Plain Jane be the one I be flyin’. Most o’ tha time she be so got-damn grateful to even have herself a man she do anythang fo’ a nigga–cook, clean, wash yo’ back–every damn thang. An’ most of ’em fuck real good too. Them good-lookin’, straight-offa-cover-of-a-magazine bitches? They ain’t never gonna do that ’cause they think they too good.’

  ‘Whatever floats your boat, Drake,’ Max said. He did exactly the same thing in clubs, but he didn’t want to start comparing scoring technique with his snitch. You had to keep a professional distance. ‘Me, I like to have something nice to look forward to when I wake up in the morning.’

  ‘I work anti-clockwise,’ Drake said.

  Max chuckled and pulled out a Marlboro. He lit it and took a deep drag, tasting lighter fuel mixed with the tobacco. He thought about Dean Waychek.

  Dean Waychek had killed Billy Ray Swan, aged four.

  Dean Waychek hadn’t gone to trial because his lawyer had managed to convince the grand jury that his confession had been obtained under ‘duress’. He’d produced photographs of Waychek’s bruised torso and an X-ray of his broken nose. Max had claimed that Waychek had taken a dive out of their car. Joe had backed him up. It wasn’t enough. Apparently there should have been more broken or fractured bones. Max wished he’d been able to beat him up a lot more. Joe wished he hadn’t pulled him off, saying, ‘You don’t want to kill him.’

  He hadn’t then. He did now, but not by his own hand. Not this time. He’d do something else with the information Drake had given him.

  After Waycheck had walked, Max’d finally come to the conclusion that he didn’t want children of his own. They would bring him no pleasure, only dread: he’d seen what people could do to them, and he knew he’d be such an overprotective parent he’d make their lives a misery. So he’d had a vasectomy at the end of January. He hadn’t told anyone about it. He’d just booked himself in and had his tubes snipped. The procedure, the surgeon had informed him, was completely reversible. But the things he’d witnessed and the effect they’d had on him were not.

  A few moments later Drake said goodbye and stood up. He was dressed head to foot like a tennis player–white shoes, socks, shorts and a polo shirt. He even had two blue-finished metal rackets with him. It was always a different look with him.

  Max watched him leave and was surprised he didn’t get into the Mercedes, but instead walked out of the forecourt altogether, turned left and continued down the road.

  Max finished his cigarette and went over to the counter to pay.

  The brown-skinned man in the emerald-green suit and shiny shoes he’d noticed come in half an hour ago was still there, perched on his counter stool like a ravenous crow. He had brilliantined wavy hair and wore a thin gold bracelet on his right wrist. He was holding Corrina’s hand close to his mouth, poised to kiss it. She was blushing and looking at him through wide, sparkling eyes. She was smitten. Was he her boyfriend? It didn’t seem so. He looked a lot older, early thirties.

  Max reached the counter and pulled out his wallet. Corrina didn’t notice him until the man nodded Max’s way and straightened himself up. She apologized, took the check down from a hook near the register and handed it to him.

  But something was nagging at him, stopping him in his tracks. The guy was all wrong.

  None of your business, he told himself. Pay and go.

  Max had the right change, but he handed Corrina a twenty so he could stick around a little longer, check the guy out some more. Wouldn’t hurt.

  The guy watched Corrina’s back as she turned. Max followed his stare to her ass, watched as he licked his bottom lip and mumbled something to himself.

  The guy wasn’t her boyfriend.

  Max broke him down: the suit and shirt were real expensive, the sort that spoke money to burn. No one dressed like that to go to work, and most people couldn’t afford those kind of clothes.

  He checked the shoes. Black and green gator loafers, gold band across the middle–$500 a pair.

  Drug dealers didn’t dress like that in the day time.

  But pimps did.

  The guy sensed he was being observed because he turned his head and looked straight at Max. They locked eyes. The pimp had sharp green eyes, which matched his suit and probably explained why he’d chosen it. He had a smattering of freckles across his nose. Hispanic with a black bias. Handsome motherfucker, but with a very hard edge to him.

  He frowned aggressively at Max and stiffened his posture. A challenge moved to his lips and his eyes narrowed. Then he caught sight of Max’s gun on his belt under his jacket, read the situation and turned away in one almost interchangeable motion.

  Max told Corrina to keep the change and walked out.

  6

  Hot bitch, thought Carmine Desamours as he watched Corrina bend over to pick up the spoon she’d just dropped.

  ‘You a dancer, baby? Es usted bailarín?’ he whispered to her, taking in the shapeliness of her ankles, the smooth, almost mannish musculature of her calves and the width and firmness of her thighs. She was two or three inches over five feet tall–the kind of size most men would want to protect. Protect and fuck: the perfect combination
in a woman. He could almost see the money he’d make off her sweet ass.

  ‘No,’ she said, turning her head round and smiling at him over her shoulder, a strand of hair falling down past her cheek. He swore right then she was the best little thing he’d seen in at least six months–a straight up Diamond with Heart potential.

  ‘Coulda fooled me.’ He smiled, still keeping his voice low so he wouldn’t wake the old codger sitting snoozing at the end of the counter by the kitchen door–Al, the manager. He could see Shirley back in the kitchen smoking a cigarette, listening to a Beatles song on the radio, lost in her memories.

  They’d had their grand opening on the Monday John Lennon got shot, 8 December, last year. He and his friend Sam had been their first paying customers, coming in after gator hunting out in the Glades. That was when he’d first clapped eyes on Corrina.

  The diner was close to deserted as usual. He counted four other people. In the window booth near the entrance, a woman with short grey hair and a bright yellow T-shirt, nibbled on a bagel, while the man opposite her was shovelling scrambled eggs and toast into his face and talking at the same time, spraying his plate with debris. Right at the very back were two other customers–a black man dressed up like Arthur Ashe, and a broad-shouldered white guy in a leather jacket, despite the stifling humidity outdoors.

  After she’d served him the first time, Corrina had come back and told Carmine the white guy stank so bad she wanted to heave. He’d sprayed the inside of her wrists with the little bottle of French aftershave he always carried around with him, telling her it would ward off any evil stench. He’d held her hands and blown the perfume dry on her skin, looking her straight in the eyes as the alcohol evaporated. He’d watched her olive skin blush purple as that little bit more of her gave in to him.