He put the first letter of his last name in the title of every show. He’d even asked Lola to change her name to “Zoey,” but she told him to go fuck himself, along with the script girl on Size Zero, his modeling show, and the babe at Beach Motors who sold him a vintage Datsun 280Z after blowing him under the cargo hatch.
Back in his hard-core days, he’d won the People’s Porn award for Driving Miss Daizy Crazy. This year, he won the Miami Humanitarian of the Year award, presented by Archbishop Gilchrist.
From porn to priests in twenty years.
Now, at sunset, he stood in his front yard, puffing a Cohiba. Whenever he lit up, Lola evicted him from the house, which had cost him a cool eight million, land not included. The place was designed by one of his wife’s pals, a trendy architect known for stylistic flourishes and skylights that leaked. The house was a shiny, snake-shaped cylinder of steel and glass, described by the architect as “curvilinear lines reminiscent of Le Corbusier.” Ziegler thought the place looked like a giant plumbing fixture.
The bayfront neighborhood was bathed in orange light from a ribbon of clouds, backlit by the setting sun. Ziegler glanced toward the lot next door where a big-ass mansion was under construction. His neighbor-a pretentious trust fund kid-had two hundred seventy feet of waterfront, a full twenty feet more than his own, goddammit.
Something caught Ziegler’s eye, a flash of movement next to a pallet of rebar. The construction crew was gone for the day, and building inspectors never worked this late unless they were picking up bribes. He pulled his eyeglasses out of a pocket, put them on, and squinted.
A tall slender woman, staring his way.
Shit. Was it her?
Alex Castiel had called him earlier. A woman named Amy Larkin had hit town, looking for her long-lost sister. Her lawyer, some ex-jock, named Ziegler as a suspect in the disappearance. The news had been eating at him all day, and he wondered what the hell he should do. He thought about calling Max Perlow but was afraid what the old hood would say.
Ziegler was too far away to get a good look at the woman, but it had to be the girl’s kid sister. Stalking him, after all this time.
Blast from the past. Krista Larkin.
How did so much trouble get off the bus with that runaway girl? It seemed like a thousand years ago. There’d been a big market for Lolitas in those days. Saudi sheiks salivating over blondes from the Midwest. Billionaire pervs willing to pay big bucks for new talent.
He recalled the day he met the girl. He’d walked over to the 10th Street beach from the little office he rented next to a kosher bakery. Two cameras dangled from his neck, that professional photographer look. Still had most of his hair and an almost flat stomach. Krista Larkin had been in town two days. Sleeping on the beach under an umbrella. Tall girl with a peachy complexion. Said she’d come to Miami to model, and when she had saved enough money, she planned to enroll in the fashion design college she’d read about in Parade. From the moment he first saw her, Ziegler had other ideas for her. To fuck her, sure. But to make money off her, even better.
He talked her into coming back to his studio, so she could pose. Telling her he was locked into the top modeling agencies, and she’d be on the cover of Vogue, no doubt about it. Maybe get her into the movies, too. Of course, she took the bait. Innocent as a spring day, fresh as milk from a cow. In his experience, some of these sweet Midwestern girls couldn’t wait to take their clothes off.
He even remembered what she was wearing. Flip-flops, khaki shorts, a white cotton blouse. Carrying a backpack with everything she owned. He told her about all the money she could make. That, at least, was no lie. Lolita in Lauderdale made a ton of dough, and she shot a sequel every week for two months. But that first day, he planned to keep PG-rated. Or at least start that way.
In the studio, she squinted into the quartz light and fidgeted as he clicked off the first few shots. Awkward, embarrassed, amateurish.
“You’re tense,” he told her. “Self-conscious. Your body’s locked. Let’s try something.”
As if the idea had just come to him.
“Leave your blouse on, but take off your bra.”
A girlish giggle.
“Don’t be a kid now. Think Cosmo.”
He punched up a C.D., Wreckx-n-Effect hip-hopping to Rump Shaker.
The music thumped with hot and sweaty sex. “All I wanna do is zoom-a-zoom-zoom and a boom-boom.”
“Loosen your hips, Krista. Let the music flow through you.”
She came alive, all fluid movements and breathy sighs.
“Now, unleash your sexuality. Feel the fabric on your nipples.”
She was a natural. The sexiest girls, he knew, were the ones who didn’t try. He might get a year or two out of her before she got used up or beat up or knocked up.
“Let’s go for another effect. Now, this is going to be cold.”
He tossed a glass of water on her blouse.
She writhed with the music. Peeled herself out of the blouse without being asked.
He did her that night, bent over his cluttered desk. And the next day and the day after that.
Who knew, Ziegler wondered now, that the kid would end up holding the keys to his fortune and his life?
He glanced toward the construction site, shielding his eyes from the setting sun. Whoever had been there moments before had disappeared into the gloaming like a distant dream.
14 Pimpmobiles on Parade
It was suppertime, as my granny called it, when I headed home. Canvas top down, I aimed the Lassiter chariot south on I-95, passing the darkened skyscrapers, many as empty as a loan shark’s heart. Bankruptcy and foreclosure had hit the downtown corridor hard.
The expressway ended at South Dixie Highway. On maps, that’s U.S. 1, better described as Useless 1. In my rearview, I caught sight of a candy-apple red Cadillac Escalade two cars behind me and one lane over. I’m not sure why I noticed it. The spinning wheel covers and rumbling lake pipes, maybe? Or because I’d seen the same car earlier today.
The Escalade-or its twin brother-had been double-parked on 12th Street when I pulled out of the Justice Building parking lot after my meeting with Alex Castiel. I hadn’t thought anything of it. Now I wondered if someone was tailing me. But what a strange choice of vehicles. As inconspicuous as a stone crab in your Wheaties.
Besides, who would it be? A plainclothes cop or a private eye? Not in that car. Maybe a carjacker lusting after my Biarritz Eldo ragtop with its red velour upholstery. Put the two cars together, you’d have Pimpmobiles on Parade.
To hell with it. I just kept driving. I was worried about Amy’s reaction to our meeting with Castiel. I had promised to get his help, and he drop-kicked my butt out of his office. I expected Amy to be pissed. Instead, when we exited the Justice Building, she gave me a small smile and a big thank you. No hug, though. Not from a woman so damned uncomfortable with physical contact. If she owned a dog, it would be in need of some serious ear scratching.