hit. Push and threaten. With huh! Huh! Mouth not work.”
My cell phone rang and I took the folder and replaced it while answering.
“Yeah?”
“Freeman? It’s O’Shea.”
“Don’t tell me you’re already in jail.”
“No. Not yet. I took a few days off work and I’m trying to lay low. Did you ask your man Manchester about me? I mean, I don’t have a lot of cash, Freeman, but I’d feel a hell of a lot better if I had some back-up on this.”
Rodrigo was staring out at the tree shade, trying to be invisible. Unlike in the new American cell phone society, conversations between individuals were still considered private events in his world.
“I talked to him. You can call his number if they arrest you,” I said to O’Shea.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. But he doesn’t do this thing often, O’Shea. So it’s a favor to me and since you’ve got some time, you might be able to help me to help you.”
“Name it.”
“Meet me in the parking lot in front of Big Louie’s in the Gateway Shopping Center at eight,” I said.
“All right. You, ah, need me to be carrying?”
“Not that kind of help,” I said.
“I’ve got a carry permit, for the security job,” he said, getting defensive.
“You really think it’s a good idea to be carrying a gun when you’re waiting for the sheriff’s office to pick you up on an arrest warrant?”
He didn’t answer and Rodrigo was cutting an occasional look at me. He knew enough English to be uncomfortable with what he was overhearing.
“Just meet me, Colin. I’ll give you what you need to carry.”
I punched off the phone and apologized to Rodrigo, who now had his hands folded on his thighs, holding his nervous fingers down as if he were trying to keep a small bird from fluttering off his lap.
“OK. If you see the big man again, stay away,” I said. “And try to call me or Mr. Manchester. All right?”
He was nodding like a bobble-head doll.
“OK, Mr. Max. OK.”
I smiled at him and told him to be careful and he nearly sprung out of the seat when he popped the door. I watched him walk away with the same gait, but using a different route. I sat staring out at the empty lot in front of me and two more spent blossoms of flame hit with a wet smack on my hood and I wondered if I was doing O’Shea or anyone else any favors with the next plan I’d concocted.
I took US Highway 1 to Fort Lauderdale. In South Florida US 1 is boringly homogeneous. Driving south you can pass through a dozen municipalities and never tell when the string of car dealerships, strip shopping centers, pastel business buildings and gas stations fall into another jurisdiction. It matters little to anyone except maybe a speeder whose city P.D. pursuers will actually give up the chase when he crosses into another town’s turf. The sameness of the landscape and the parochial attitudes of the cops are a dichotomy for a road named US 1, which Billy the historian points out stands for Unified System 1 and not United States 1.
I’d called ahead and stopped at Billy’s office and Allie had one of the firm’s cell phones with a digital camera on it waiting. I then went on to Fort Lauderdale and swung down to the beach and parked near the Parrot Lounge and walked out to the sand. In the salt air and purpling sky I sat on the low beachfront wall and tried to figure out the cell phone camera. I took a shot of the Holiday Inn by mistake. I got a nice shot of a couple walking their pit bull on a silver chain leash. A young woman came off the sand and propped one foot on the wall near me and bent to wipe the grains from her ankles and calves. While faking a call I covertly took a photo of her. She looked up once at me and smiled politely and I said something about refinancing a mortgage to my nonexistent phone caller. Hey, it was a test.
By sundown I had the camera figured out. I attempted a couple of low-light shots that were adequate. When the darkness deepened I tried to capture “the disappearing blue.” But even the digital quality couldn’t do justice to the mystery of the melding colors and at seven thirty I walked back to my truck and drove back across the intracoastal bridge. At the shopping center I parked in