Shadow Men Part 6

For the next hour I sat in the shade in a cheap lounge chair listening to an odd form of Cuban rap while Ramon and two of his boys crawled in and under my truck with a variety of tools and sensors and voltmeters. I was lost trying to eavesdrop on their conversations, which were carried out in some form of hip Spanglish peppered with street slang. When they were finished, Ramon walked me outside holding two chunks of electronics. One was the size of a cigar box. The other, a single cigarette pack.

"Both of these are tracking devices, Mr. Freeman. Whoever is keeping the leash on you, man, they ain't taking no chances. This one is a real-time vehicle tracking device. They had it plugged into your battery so it could run constantly. It's got a modem so they can access it from a PC and map exactly where you been and for how long. It's long-range and very expensive, man. The local law can't usually afford them, even when they're trying to follow the stolen car s.h.i.+pments to the islands.

"And since the serial numbers are gone," he said, pointing to a rough acid burn on the metal casing, "I'd say it was a private enterprise doing the installation."

He looked in my face for reaction. I didn't give him any and he shrugged it off.

"This other is more run of the mill. Works like a LoJack. Once we unhooked them, they're deactivated and your friends are going to know, claro?" claro?"

"Si. Pero es no use por tu?" I answered, bringing a smile to Ramon's serious face. I answered, bringing a smile to Ramon's serious face.

"We have our uses for them-and a market, my friend."

"I'll bet you do," I said, peeling off five twenty-dollar bills. "No listening bugs?"

"Nada. But that's not so much anymore," Ramon said. "It's hard for the transmitters in a car. Too much noise, and now with cell phones, man, they just use an intercept." But that's not so much anymore," Ramon said. "It's hard for the transmitters in a car. Too much noise, and now with cell phones, man, they just use an intercept."

"A cell phone intercept?"

"Yeah, sure. Someone with the money for something like these would probably use a Strikefisher. It's compact enough, they can carry it around. It's got plenty of range. They can pick up your cell frequency and hear everything you're saying, no problem."

I was thinking about the white van, the thirty-five-foot fis.h.i.+ng boat on the river near my shack, any place I'd made a call to Billy.

"Thing about these private guys, they don't need no warrants, man. It's all fair game, dude."

"So how do I avoid it?"

Ramon smiled. "Stay off the phone, man. Do business face-to- face," he said, pointing his finger at me and then back at himself. "It's old school. But it's safe."

I shook Ramon's hand and got in the truck.

"Good doing business with you, Mr. Max. And tell Billy Manchester ciao for me, eh?"

CHAPTER 9.

"Ciao," I said to Billy, and he gave me one of those quizzical looks that when held long enough by an intelligent man makes you feel stupid enough to ruin your attempt at humor.

"Ramon and his electronics crew down in Forest Hills," I said.

"Ahh. Ramon Esquivil. How is m-my young inventor friend?"

My turn to look quizzical. Billy was pouring a boiling pot of angel hair pasta into a colander at his sink and waiting for the billowing cloud of steam to rise to the ceiling.

"I represented him in a patent c-case. Some b-big electronics company trying to claim the r-rights to a pneumatic bypa.s.s switch that Mr. Esquivil had invented in his g-garage."

"And?" said Diane McIntyre, Billy's attorney friend who was standing at the counter sipping chardonnay and watching him cook.

"And w-we were quite successful," he said, shaking the colander and flopping the pasta into a bowl. "And so is Mr. Esquivil, if I r- recall correctly that the c-contracts he eventually signed were worth over seven figures."

I took a long drink of beer and filled Billy in on the discovery of the tracking devices on my truck and Ramon's guess that we were probably dealing with civilians.

"S-So. Your suspicions of the van and the c-call to Ms. Richards?"

"And your attempted buyout."

"That's why our f-folks at PalmCo are very, very n-nervous," Billy said, stirring a saucepan of sauteed bacon, scallions and garlic into the pasta.

"Sounds like you boys have your fingers into something nasty again," McIntyre said, scooping up the bowl and taking it to the table. She was dressed in the conservative suit she'd probably worn in court that day. And as was her habit, she'd kicked off her shoes at the door and was padding about in her stocking feet. She smoothly shrugged out of her jacket, laying it carefully on the back of the sofa, and then sat herself in front of one of the places she'd set.

"Please, gentlemen," she said, her fingers splayed out in invitation. "Sit and tell me all about it. I am freakin' starving."

Between bites and compliments to the chef and several gla.s.ses of wine, we hashed through the discovery by young Mr. Mayes of his great-grandfather's letters and their allusion that extraordinary means had been used to keep the laborers on the brutal job in the Glades. Billy had as much luck as Mayes finding death certificates, employment tax records or any public notice of even a pauper's gravesite.

"PalmCo is big, Billy," McIntyre said. "They could stonewall you forever, even if you did file suit."

"At this point we don't have anything t-to file about," he said. "But if we f-find proof that Cyrus Mayes was indeed there, and that he and his s-sons and other workers were trapped out in the Glades by Noren or their representatives, and that they d-died out there eighty years ago and were n-never accounted for, then we've g-got a wrongful death suit, and a possible payday for our young Mr. Mayes."

"And that'll hold up?" I asked. "Even after eighty years?"

"Corporate ties," said McIntyre. "All the advantages and all the liabilities follow."

She raised her half-drunk gla.s.s. "Sins of the fathers," she said. Neither Billy nor I looked up from our plates, and McIntyre quickly read the reaction and gathered herself. "But you're saying you haven't got any of those pieces together yet."

"Which begs the question. Why w-would these PalmCo people be tailing and snooping and tossing out b-bribes to cover something no one can p-prove, even if it is t-true?"

"Hedging against the possibility of a multimillion-dollar suit," McIntyre said. "Remember the Rosewood survivors v. the state?"

Billy had schooled me on the case. In 1923 in the northwest part of the state, an entire town had been burned to the ground and many of its black residents killed in a racist attack that was essentially ignored by local and state law enforcement. The shame and bloodletting had been buried by the years and the dream-soaked fears of those who survived. The story had remained untold, whispered only by a handful of the old like a secret nightmare, until a group of historians and journalists revived and proved its truth nearly seventy years later. The state had broken its essential promise to all of its citizens of a lawful protection.

"The state legislature finally paid two million in compensation to the survivors and the heirs of those people who died," McIntyre said. "But the public relations. .h.i.t was the worst of it. Imagine that happening to a private company. That's why PalmCo wants to nip this thing early. How about a new slogan: 'We built Florida on the bones of our workers.'"

Billy and I looked at each other while McIntyre looked with dark, innocent eyes over the rim of her winegla.s.s.

"Have you ever considered a career in t-tabloid journalism, m- my dear?"

She did that thing she does with one eyebrow.

"Possibly."

We triple-teamed the dishes and then moved out to the patio. The wind was nonexistent, and even from this height you could hear the slight sh.o.r.e break brus.h.i.+ng the sand in rhythm. The sky was moonless and the ocean black and vast, with only a few scattered flickers of light from overnight fishermen out on the shallow swells.

"The Everglades is like this, black and silent, late at night, isn't it, Max?"

McIntyre was sitting on the chaise, her back propped up against Billy's knees and s.h.i.+ns as he sat back with a brandy.

"If you're far enough in it, yeah," I said. "And most of the time even quieter."

"I can't imagine those men out there, not knowing quite where they were or what the next day was going to bring."

"I can," I said, sipping the cold bottle in my hand. "More of the same. Day after day until they got desperate."

Then we were quiet. Maybe all three of us were looking out on the blackness and trying to visualize what desperation looked like. After a time, Diane got up and made her apologies to leave. "Court again at eight."

She and Billy walked back inside. I stood up at the railing and found one of the boat lights out on the blackness, and as I watched it flicker I tried to put myself into the head of a man in the hot, choking and foreign Glades, his sons next to him, working through his hope of money and the stability it might bring his family as the only motivation to push back his fear. The light in the distance would fade and then come back again. I knew it was the rise and fall of the swells. Sometimes it would disappear completely, but then come back. It didn't move north or south. The captain must have her anch.o.r.ed, I thought. Maybe over one of his favorite night spots. A place he felt lucky or comfortable.

I heard the foyer door close and a minute later Billy came back out and the aroma of coffee came with him. He set a cup on the small gla.s.s-topped table beside me and leaned his elbows on the railing, his own cup in both hands, extended out over the empty one hundred feet to the pool below. He may have been watching the same floating light I was.

"You tell any of this to Mayes?" I asked.

Billy nodded. "He r-reacted very quietly. Not w-what I had expected."

"You tell him it was going to be a long haul?"

He nodded again. "I told him it c-could eventually l-lead to a civil suit. But I'm not s-sure our Mr. M-Mayes wants to s-see this through," Billy said. "He has t-told me that he is d-debating whether to enter the s-seminary in Georgia. He s-seems quite at odds with the p-proposition."

The cross at his neck, I thought.

"Can't make up his mind until he finds out what happened," I said, guessing.

"No. I b-believe he is looking for something m-more than that," Billy said. "Something about m-motivation."

The surf was like a soft broom below. We both listened for some time.

"You ever think about your father?" I finally said. "I mean, I know he wasn't there when you were growing up. But, you've got him in you."

Although I had not met Billy until we were grown men, our mothers-a white Irish Catholic from South Philly and a black Baptist from the north side-had cemented our friends.h.i.+p.

"He p-played chess when he was young," Billy said. My question did not unnerve or offend him. "My mother said it was one of the th-things that attracted her when they m-met in high school. Once, without her knowing, I l-looked up his picture in an old school yearbook. He hadn't m-made the official photos, b-but he was in the back row of the chess team picture."

I was quiet and let him look out at the darkness, and the picture.

"I think of him w-when I feel anger, M-Max. The uselessness of it."

I sat and picked up the coffee.

"You're m-meeting with your Mr. Brown tomorrow?" Billy said, moving to the door.

"Noon," I said.

"I h-hope he is helpful. Good night, m-my friend."

I remember the uniforms. Men, all lined up in a row, all with the same dark blue uniforms. They all seemed tall to me, as an eight-year- old sitting on a folded chair trying, at first, to pry my mother's hand from mine and then forgetting and letting her hold it as the line of men took their places on the small stage. My father was the third man on the right, his own uniform brushed and creased, the b.u.t.tons polished and shoes buffed to a gloss by my mother late into the preceding night. I remember being fascinated by the lights from the television crews gleaming off the bra.s.s b.u.t.tons and bars and yellow gold stripes on some of the men's sleeves. They were all wearing their hats, what my father called his lid, even though we were inside and my mother would have called it impolite. I remember the man at the microphone beginning to speak and my father looking out to find us, and under the brim of his lid he winked at me. The man at the microphone told the story that I had already heard so many times, though he did not include the harsh laughter and cussing that my uncle and my fathers other policemen friends used in the backyard when they were drinking beer. The man used my father's full name and when he was finally called to the podium, he dipped his head and the man draped a gold, s.h.i.+ning medal around my father's neck and everyone clapped and I looked at my mother's face to see her reaction and saw a single tear that she caught halfway down her cheek with a gloved finger, and I did not know as a child whether she was too proud or too sad.

For years afterward I would secretly seek out that piece of gold with the red-striped ribbon. I would wait until the house was empty and go into my parents' bedroom and open the bottom drawer of the bureau and find the dark blue case pushed hard against the back corner, buried under the old Arnold Palmer sweaters that I never saw my father wear. I would take out the case and lay it in my lap and open it and stare at the thick carved gold that seemed to grow richer in color over time. Then I would again unfold the newspaper clipping that showed the uniformed men in a line and I would read the story.

Philadelphia police yesterday awarded the medal of valor to one of their own in a ceremony to honor the officer credited with killing the celebrated Mifflin Square Molester in a shootout last spring.

Anthony M. Freeman, 28, a six-year veteran of the department and the son of another decorated officer, was wounded in the gun battle with Roland Previo after Previo was confronted with evidence that he was the man who had brutally raped and killed four young girls in his own South Philadelphia neighborhood three years ago.

Freeman, a.s.signed to the detective unit just days before the discovery of the first victim in the killings, had "tirelessly pursued the case with the dogged determination of a true veteran," read Det. Commander Tom Schmidt.

Although the case had run dry of leads and legal evidence, Freeman's superiors said the young detective developed his own information over two years. While confronting Previo with newly discovered stained clothing that tied the ex-convict to two of the slayings, "Freeman, acting without regard to his own safety, attempted to make an arrest and was twice wounded by his suspect before returning fire and mortally wounding his a.s.sailant," Schmidt read during the ceremony.

When asked later for his reaction, Freeman said he did not consider his actions to be heroic and that his determination to find the killer had been a simple pursuit of the truth.

"I just wanted the truth to come out. There were a lot of rumors and lies and legal bull-being pa.s.sed around over the years. But the families of those little girls deserved the truth," Freeman said.

Freeman's father, Argus, was also a decorated officer for the department. He had been awarded a medal of distinction for his work as a street sergeant during the years of racial unrest in the late 1960s.

I would refold the clipping, pat it against the golden medal and return the box to its place tucked deep in the drawer, and wonder again why my father hid it there.

I was still sitting up in the patio chaise when I woke. The purple gray light of a dawn that was still an hour away glowed dusky and cold out past the horizon. My mouth was dry and my knees cramped. I rubbed my hand over my face and got to my feet, gathered a half-empty coffee cup, and placed it in the sink before making my way to Billy's guest room. I lay down on the bed with my clothes on and fell into a hard and dreamless sleep.

CHAPTER 10.

The sun was high and hot and reflecting off the white-sh.e.l.l parking lot of the Frontier Hotel like heat off a stove. I cracked the truck windows before I got out and knew it would make little difference. I'd still be climbing into a hotbox when I got back. Inside the bar it appeared that the same two card players were still at the same game. The bartender appeared to have added an earring to the other seven. I sat on one of the stools and let my eyes adjust to the dark and the woman pulled a cold beer from the cooler and walked down to set it in front of me.

"You've got you some ugly enemies, Mr. Freeman. An' that's your business," were her opening words. No h.e.l.lo. No "Can I get cha?"

"But folks here don't like you draggin' 'em round behind you."

"Is there a message in there somewhere?" I said, not reaching for the beer.

"There was a couple of city boys come in after you left last week, askin' questions."