"Old news. You think Kreeger pushed the guy overboard and clobbered him with a gaff."
"It's all I've got. I can't nail Kreeger for killing Nancy Lamm."
"Double jeopardy. They already convicted him of manslaughter."
"Exactly. But Kreeger was never charged with murdering Beshears. I need someone who was there. A witness. Beshears' girlfriend is too vague about what happened. But there was one more person on the boat."
"The charter captain."
"Oscar De la Fuente. He was on the fly bridge, holding the boat steady, yelling instructions. He had the angle to see everything. But I never found him."
"Shouldn't be hard. The state would have his charter license."
"The computer records only go back ten years. The incident was nineteen years ago. If De la Fuente had a license then, he doesn't anymore."
"County property records?"
"Doesn't own anything in Miami-Dade, Monroe, or Collier. No business license. No fictitious-name license. No phone, listed or unlisted."
"At least you've done your homework."
The compliment sounded grudging, but Steve took it just the same. "Now I'm gonna pound the pavement. Or maybe the sand."
"What? Wear some lawyer's suit down in the Keys, poke around asking questions?"
Actually, he'd been planning on wearing cutoffs and a T-shirt that read: "Practice Safe Sex. Go Screw Yourself." But his father was on a roll, so Steve let him go.
"The Conchs will think you're DEA," Herbert warned him. "No one will talk to you. And if anyone knows this De la Fuente character, they'll warn him to stay away from you. Problem is, you don't know the territory, son."
There it was, Steve thought, his old man hauling out the knives to carve him up. "What choice do I have?"
"You got me, you shmoe! Who knows the bars and marinas better than me?"
True. When Herbert wasn't crashing on a sofa in Steve's spare bedroom, he was fishing off his leaky houseboat on Sugarloaf Key. "You'd do that for me?"
"I'm your father. You gotta ask?" Pleased with himself, Herbert grabbed a white straw hat he would wear over his yarmulke for the walk to the synagogue. The hat had a small, upturned brim. Steve thought it was called a porkpie, but maybe not. That didn't sound kosher.
"Thanks, Dad. I really appreciate it."
"Don't mention it. By the way, how much are P.I.'s charging these days?"
"Good Shabbos, Dad."
Herbert started for the door. "Bobby's dinner is in the fridge."
"Where is the Bobster?"
"In his room with that gypsy girl."
"What? Who?"
"That harlot-in-training with the jewelry in her belly button. The Juban girl from a block over."
"Not polite, Dad. We don't describe people by their religion or ethnicity."
"That so, matzoh boy?"
"Very old-school, Dad."
"Well, kiss my kosher tuches. Ain't my fault the girl's both a Yid and a Cubana. Tell her to change her name if she's so ashamed of it. Like some of our chickenshit landsmen. Cohen becomes Kane, Levine becomes Landers. Schmendricks." Herbert gave a snort of disapproval.
"Her name's Maria Munoz-Goldberg, and I doubt she's ashamed of it," Steve said.
"Fine by me, but if I were you, I'd go peek in Robert's bedroom. Or next thing you know, there'll be a little tyke named Munoz-Solomon running around the house."
Eleven
Steve finished off the glass of kosher wine his father had left on the table. It tasted like liquified grape jelly. Bobby was in the bedroom with Maria, and Steve needed to fortify himself before moseying down the hall. He planned to knock on the door before entering. If it was locked, he'd batter it down like a SWAT team at a meth lab.
Just what were the rules with pubescent kids these days, anyway? Only recently had it occurred to him that Bobby, on the hazardous precipice of puberty, might need a fatherly lecture on the birds and bees. When he talked to his nephew about it, the boy said he knew all about STDs and condoms and even told Steve about a girl at Ponce de Leon Middle School who got pregnant.
"After that, none of the girls would, you know, do it, but there were a lot more rainbow parties, not that I've ever been invited."
"Rainbow parties?"
"C'mon, Uncle Steve. Where the chicks all put on a different color lipstick and the guys drop their pants, and the idea is to get as many different colors on
your-"
"Jesus!"
Now Steve paused outside Bobby's door, sniffing the air like a bloodhound. No tobacco, no pot. But something odd. A citrus scent. Oranges or tangerines.
Steve knocked once and headed inside.
Both kids had textbooks open. Wearing baggy shorts and a Hurricanes football jersey, Bobby was slouched in his beanbag chair. Maria was sprawled across Bobby's bed. She wore low-riding jeans with enough holes and shreds to give the impression she'd stepped on a land mine. A sleeveless mesh T-shirt revealed a lacy bra underneath. Her complexion was a rich caramel, and her bright red lipstick was as slick as fresh paint. A shiny rhinestone peeked out of her twelve-year-old navel.
Bobby waved at Steve but kept talking to Maria, sounding like a little professor. "The Battle of Gettysburg was a big-time accident. Lee and Meade never said, 'C'mon, let's meet in this little town in Pennsylvania and have a big battle.' That's just where the Union decided to stop the Confederate advance. I mean, if they hadn't, Lee's army could have taken Philadelphia, and then maybe Washington, and the South would have won the war."
"That'd suck," Maria said. "Hey, Mr. Solomon."
"Hi, Maria. So what are you guys studying?"
"Duh. Like calculus," Bobby said. Showing some spunk for his little hottie.
"American history, Mr. Solomon. Bobby knows everything that ever happened."
"It's no big deal," Bobby said.
"It is to me." Maria smiled at Bobby. An inviting come-hither smile. The citrus aroma was stronger
here.
"What's that smell?" Steve asked.
"Oh, probably my perfume, Mr. Solomon."
Perfume! Bobby doesn't have a chance.
"Boucheron," Maria continued. "My mom's."
First they take their mothers' perfume. Then their birth control pills.
Steve knew Maria's parents from a Neighborhood Watch committee. Eva Munoz-Goldberg, the proud daughter of an anti-Castro militant, frequently roamed the neighborhood, passing out flyers that called for bombing Venezuela and assassinating Hugo Chavez. As a child, Eva spent weekends with her father and a pack of cousins, trekking through the Everglades, shooting Uzis at cardboard cutouts of Fidel Castro. Later, they would all head home to grill burgers, drink Cuba Libres, and watch the Dolphins on TV. Recently, Steve had seen Eva piloting her black Hummer through Coconut Grove, an NRA bumper sticker pasted on the rear bumper.
Maria's father, Myron Goldberg, was a periodontist with an office on Miracle Mile in Coral Gables. Myron's hybrid Prius sported bumper stickers for Greenpeace and Save the Manatees, and the most dangerous weapon he owned was a titanium root-canal shaft. The Munoz-Goldbergs were Exhibit A in South Florida's paella-filled melting pot of cross-cultural multiethnicity.
Looking at the two kids lounging in the bedroom, Steve was certain he should lecture his nephew about exercising self-control in a time of raging hormones. Another thought, too. A contrary one. Could this little vixen be just using Bobby to pass her courses? As much as Steve adored his nephew, he had to admit the kid was not exactly a candidate for the Abercrombie amp; Fitch catalog. Basically, Bobby was a skinny, love-able loner in thick glasses who didn't fit into any of the cliques.