Criminal Justice Read online

  The band had been nervous as cats all week, Martha pushing them hard, Kelly screaming at Martha, the guys fucking up every other song. But tonight they were pulling it all together. By God, they were. They were playing to a couple hundred people jammed into a South Beach penthouse, the place all lit up with neon, the music screaming off the turquoise and pink walls.

  “Come on, baby. Come on,” Rick murmured to himself, watching Scott Irwin. His solo was coming up. “Right on the beat. Come on.”

  Going into the bridge, Scott reached out to tap an effects pedal with the toe of his high-top sneaker. Kelly was singing, her face red, spittle flying out, working her head around the mike as if her mouth were a pivot. Scott hit the pedal again. Waited for the drum. Did his four bars of fast fretwork. Then back into the blues beat.

  Rick thrust a fist into the air. “Yes!”

  Now Kelly was jumping up and down with her guitar. Martha grabbed the microphone over her keyboard with one hand, and Scott leaned over to sing into his. Arlo Pate just pounded the drums, sweat pouring down his face, scraggly red hair bouncing under a bandanna. He had a big gut and big arms; he could have bench-pressed a cow. Rick had felt his heart seize up when Arlo told him that Leon had gone back to Ecuador. It didn’t make sense. A guy didn’t just walk away from a band on the verge of making it. He was afraid that Leon had taken a ride to the Everglades to play with the alligators and land crabs.

  People were dancing where there was room for it. A bunch of them had spilled outside onto the terrace.

  Miguel had wanted to throw this party in his backyard, but Rick had said no way would anybody drive forty miles to the Broward County suburbs for an unknown band, didn’t matter how much free booze you gave them. It just wasn’t hip. Rick had told him, What you do is, you rent a penthouse in an Art Deco hotel on Ocean Drive. You get a caterer to lay out stuff like goat cheese, thin-sliced raw tuna, and curried black bean dip. The bartenders are very buff, preferably models. Buy a dozen cases of pretty good champagne, invite the pivotal people in the club scene, the local music critics, a few literary types, a couple of drag queens, and whatever B-list rock musician might be in town that weekend. Put out the rumor that Madonna might drop by. Then stand back.

  Martha had set up her tape machine in the other room, recording it all. Tomorrow they would pick it apart, see what they needed to fix. Rick had never seen her so frantic. He told her to chill, that these people wouldn’t make or break the band, but she had barely looked up from her cables and amps. Next week the band would do some final bass guitar overdubs and patch up the vocal tracks a bit, if they had time. If they got into the goddamn studio.

  Rick felt queasy with dread. He had told the manager of the studio, Victor Ramirez, that he could get him a deal with Miguel, but so far, Miguel hadn’t responded. Ramirez wanted an answer and he was starting to be a prick about it. He’d said, No deal, no demo tape. Rick needed to get Miguel alone, find out what was going on.

  He stood on tiptoe and looked around one of the drag queens, who was dressed like Courtney Love. Miguel was over there with some of his buddies, the silk-jacket-and-Rolex crowd from South America. Rick put a fist to his sternum and pressed hard. Was it the speakers making his bones shake, or was he having a coronary?

  The band was getting near the end of the song now. Scott Irwin shuffled across the floor toward Kelly. They sawed the air with the necks of their guitars. Her hair hung over her face. She hit the reverb and leaned back into the final chord. Martha slammed her hands onto the keys, and that was that.

  The people applauded and cheered and whistled. Rick wondered if they had liked it. Most of them were either drunk or stoned. Aside from the few important people who had showed up, they were various hangers-on, party people, and out-of-town asswipes. One guy saying he knew the president of MCA. Another who owned a gallery in SoHo. Experts in how to wear black and look cool. Maybe they were waiting to see if anybody jumped up on the bar and started stripping.

  Rick went over and gave each of the musicians a hug. Except for Arlo Pate. Rick said, “Good job, Arlo.”

  “Yeah. Thanks.” He mopped his face with a towel and reached for a long-neck beer, which he chugged in three seconds flat.

  An arm went around Rick’s waist. Sandy had come up behind him.

  “What’d you think, cookie?”

  She said, “I’m ready to get on back home. This is the most phony-baloney bunch I ever did see.” Sandy had teased her hair and put on a tight, fringed miniskirt and a sequined cowboy shirt, making people snicker behind her back. Rick knew she got a charge out of it, and if he’d had the guts he would have worn his Elvis costume from last Halloween.

  He said, “No, what’d you think of the band?”

  She looked up at him—long black lashes and shiny blue eye shadow. The corners of her eyes crinkled when she smiled. “Honey, I think you got yourself a winner.”

  “It’s ours, baby. You and me.” He kissed her forehead. “Go find us a drink. I need to talk to Miguel.”

  Kelly signed a few autographs and had her picture taken with people she didn’t know, then asked Martha if she could use Miguel’s telephone. Kelly took the phone out onto the terrace, found a more or less quiet spot, and dialed Elaine McHale’s office number, waiting for the voice mail to pick up. Nobody would be at the U.S. attorney’s office at midnight, but Kelly didn’t want to talk to a real person, who would start asking questions.

  Leaning on the railing on the sixth floor, Kelly stared out at the black ocean, no way to tell sea from sky, except for the tiny dots of light—boats, way out there. Below her, cars moved slowly by on Ocean Drive. People filled the sidewalks, looking funny from this angle.

  Elaine McHale’s voice said to leave a message. Kelly cleared her throat, raw from so much singing. “Hi. This is Kelly Dorff. I’m sorry for the way I acted at the restaurant. I was like totally freaked. I’m really sorry. I already called Vincent and took back what I said about Dan. And listen. I didn’t tell him about you and Dan being friends and everything, okay?” She exhaled. “I guess that’s it. Oh. Don’t forget about the demo tapes. You promised. Bye.”

  Kelly disconnected, then stared at the phone for a moment. “Okay, you bastard.” She punched in Vincent Hooper’s number, not expecting him to answer. He never did. There was never even a message on the other end, only a beep. “This is Kelly. I need to talk to you. Call me at my apartment before ten o’clock tomorrow morning. After that I won’t be there. You’d better do it.”

  More people started coming out to the terrace with their drinks, laughing and talking. Kelly retreated behind a potted tree with a braided trunk. She dialed Dan Galindo’s number at home. She counted four rings. Then his answering machine came on.

  “Dan? If you’re there, pick up.” She waited. “You’re there, aren’t you? Or maybe you have company. Hey, chick. He’s a dangerous man. Be careful.” She laughed. “Or maybe you’re really out. Well, what I wanted to tell you— Here I am on the sixth floor of a fabulous penthouse on Ocean Drive—” Kelly crooked her arm over her eyes, moved the phone away from her mouth to take a few breaths, then said, “The party went really great, in case you’re interested. What I called about was … I’m really sorry for freaking out on you. I left some stuff at your house. Maybe I could come get it sometime. Or you could bring it to me. I’ll be staying with Martha for a while.”

  A long beep came from the other end of the line.

  Kelly clicked the off button and let her head fall on her arm. After a while she squinted to find the redial button in the dark. She poked around and finally heard the tones again. Then his message. She wiped under her nose with the hem of her T-shirt.

  “It’s me again.” She felt tears burning her eyes. The line was silent. “I have to go back in. They want us to do another number, I think. Leave me a message or something. And … I hope you’re happy. No lie, okay?”

  By the time Rick got to him through the crowd, Miguel Salazar was telling one of the suckups that he hi
mself would pay for publicity—spots on radio, ads in the Miami Herald—if the man would book Mayhem into his club in Coconut Grove the night before the concert at the Abyss, three weekends away. The important thing, he told him, was to make sure that the A&R scout from Capitol Records, and the others who might be at the Abyss, all believed that the band was popular in Miami.

  The man’s hair was gelled to stand straight up, and his glasses were long black rectangles. “Three weeks? Oh, please. If you’d called me before Christmas, then maybe. But look. We’re not the right venue for a rock band. Miami likes dance music, you know? The town where disco never died. It’s the demographics. Half Latin, twenty percent black. Dance music. Cutting-edge rock and roll just limps along. Oh sure, the clubs on South Beach, but it’s so derivative. Miami has only two presumptive rock stations, and those are so into, like, pop rock and altie you could just gag.”

  “How much do you think to get a single on the radio?” Miguel asked.

  Martha, standing next to him, rolled her eyes. “Miguel, forget it.”

  “Oh, she’s right,” the man said. “You can’t get on a P-l station. That’s like the Holy Grail. They only do national hits. You can’t even pay to get on, and if you did, it wouldn’t affect the national market, would it? Drop in the bucket. There’s a local music show on Sundays, but like, is anybody listening?”

  He came in closer to Miguel and reached out to pull Rick over, fingers like spiders crawling around his wrist. “Rick, my friend, come here. Can I offer an irreverent prediction? You’re gonna restructure this band sooner or later.”

  “You think so?”

  “Oh, yeah. Martha is way too much for these guys. Mayhem. Oh, God. Excuse me, but is that juvenile or what? She’d get further on her own with a backup band.”

  “What should we call it?” Miguel asked.

  “I’d call it simply ‘Cruz.’ It’s ethnic, but not too. Can you see the headline in Billboard? ‘New band on Cruz control.’ Subhead—‘Martha Cruz goes platinum.’ What do you think? Perfect?”

  “I like it,” Miguel said.

  Rick said, “Hey, Miguel. I need to talk to you.”

  Kneeling on the wood floor, hiding behind the drums, Kelly wiped off her guitar while Arlo and Scott started packing everything away. She shined the chrome tuning pegs and worked the cloth down the strings.

  It was a Fender Jaguar made in 1969, worth about $2,000. The old hippie who had sold her the Jag thought he was ripping her off for the four-fifty she’d paid him. He said that Jimi Hendrix had played it, then passed it on to Carlos Santana. A total lie, but she liked the sound of it and the color—Lake Placid blue—and the curves of the body, and she liked to imagine that his stories were really true.

  She noticed that her arms were shaking. It was partly muscle fatigue. The rest was … cold, stone fear. Knowing she had been at the furthest edge tonight, playing as well as she could, and it wasn’t good enough. Her hands had felt stiff, and she couldn’t concentrate. In her solo on “Let It Ride,” she had screwed up for a bar and a half. Martha had covered her. Scott got a little confused, but Arlo didn’t miss a beat. Rick had looked scared for a second, but nobody else had noticed.

  She saw a pair of blurry canvas high-tops. She dried her eyes with the cloth. Scott asked her what was wrong. “I’m okay.” She stood up.

  He grabbed her arm before she tripped. “Kelly, what’s the matter with you?”

  “I have to get out of here.” She gulped in a breath, feeling like she might scream.

  Sandy Robbins put her arm around her. “C’mon, honey. We gon’ find ourselves a glass of nice cool water. Maybe just lie down for a sec. Thank you, Scott. She’s okay. She’s just fine. Aren’t you, hon?”

  “I wanted to play my music, that’s all. That’s all I wanted.” Kelly let Sandy walk her down the narrow hall away from the penthouse living room. “Oh, God. I’m so sorry. Sandy, I’m sorry.”

  “You hush. Not a thing to be sorry for.”

  “There is, there is.”

  Voices behind them were curious, asking if she was sick, or what. Sandy yelled, “Y’all leave her alone. She’s all right. Where’s Rick?”

  There was a bedroom down the hall. It had a picture of Marilyn Monroe, a white chenille bedspread, and a little table shaped like a flying saucer. Sandy made Kelly lie down, then got her a glass of water out of the bathroom and a wet washcloth. Told her to sip the water. Sandy wiped off her face. Kelly felt so heavy she couldn’t move. After a while she stopped crying.

  “Are you all right now, hon?” The sequins twinkled on Sandy’s cowgirl shirt. There were gold lassos on the pockets, and the buttons were mother-of-pearl.

  “You’re very nice, Sandy.”

  “Oh, well. We girls have to look out for each other.” Sandy wagged a finger. “You gonna start bawlin’ again?” Her face softened. “Anything you wanta talk about, Kelly? Man trouble? I think I know who.”

  “No. I’m okay now.” Kelly closed her eyes. “I’ll take care of it.”

  Out on the terrace, Miguel told Rick to go find his telephone. Martha had it, he thought. Rick got it from her, then came back out. Miguel lit a cigar and talked with some of his friends while Rick dialed the number that Victor Ramirez had given him. Victor came on the line.

  Rick told him who he was, and that someone wanted to talk to him. He tapped Miguel on the shoulder. “Hey. Can you possibly do this now?”

  In Spanish Miguel told the other guys to excuse him for a minute. He took the telephone, walked a little farther down the terrace, and put an elbow on the railing.

  “Victor? This is Miguel, how are you?… Yes, the band is sounding great. Rick says you’re doing a good job for him at the studio. We should talk about it sometime. Maybe lunch, what do you say?… Monday is better … I’ll call you that morning and let you know where.… Not yet. First let’s get to know each other, okay? Then maybe we’ll do business.… Good, I’ll see you then.” He hung up and handed the phone to Rick.

  Sweat was running under Rick’s arms and down his back. He forced a laugh. “Finally. For this you should give me a break on what I owe you.”

  Miguel eyed Rick over the glowing end of his cigar, then walked back to his buddies. A bimbo in a tight minidress glanced past Miguel’s shoulder for a second, then started laughing at whatever it was he said to her.

  Rick gripped the railing, stared over the side, and wondered if six floors were far enough to fall.

  CHAPTER 18

  On Sunday morning Elaine McHale sat cross-legged on the floor of her living room, going through stacks of personal papers, filling garbage bags with trash. Last night she had noticed how much junk had accumulated in her bedroom closet. She had pulled unworn clothes off hangers and out of dresser drawers, thrown out faded sheets and threadbare towels, then attacked the guest room closet and the bookshelves in the living room. She had worked until two o’clock in the morning and was awake at dawn. Now the living room was strewn with papers, and six black plastic bags were stacked behind the privacy fence on the front porch.

  Sometimes she and Vince Hooper would read the Sunday paper and have breakfast together, but he would usually call the night before to tell her he was coming. He hadn’t called, and to her surprise, she hadn’t minded so much. She had scrubbed her face, but her hair was still uncombed. She had on an old Miami police T-shirt, running shorts, and the red socks she had worn to bed. The radio was tuned to a classical music station. The solitude was delicious.

  One of her two cats lay in a patch of sunshine, toes splayed, yawning so widely his tongue lolled out. Elaine patted his tummy, then reached for another cardboard box. Inside were folders of notes from law school. Christmas cards in a rubber band that broke when she touched it. A glass doorknob from her grandmother’s house. A flamingo swizzle stick. Labels from bottles of wine. Old bank statements for Henry and Elaine McHale. Then undated photographs with people whose names she couldn’t remember. All these she tossed away. She found an announcement of Mack�
��s graduation from the police academy and set that aside to send to his parents in Ohio. They already had his citations for bravery, posthumously given.

  The Mozart violin concerto on the radio ended, followed by an ad for Cadillac. She aimed the remote and turned down the volume, then took another sip of tea. Mango-strawberry, which she hadn’t tried before.

  The next box contained loose photographs that she had never found time to put into an album. She flipped through the photos. Nothing she wanted, but she couldn’t just throw them out. Could she? The Siamese cat was playing in the trash bag. She pulled the cat out and tossed in the photographs by the handful.

  A cool breeze came in through the open door to the tiny backyard, and the sunlight shifted into patterns of leaves. A wind chime tinkled softly. The people in the apartment next door were having breakfast on their patio. Elaine stood up to dump an entire box of old bank statements and tax returns and receipts into the bag. Some fluttered to the floor. She scraped them together, hurled them in, then jerked the top of the bag into a knot.

  Leaning back against the weight, she carried the bag outside and dumped it with the others. She turned to go inside. Then someone called her name.

  Dan Galindo was coming up the walkway to her porch, veering around an elephant-ear plant that had grown past the flower bed. “This is lucky. I wasn’t sure I remembered which apartment was yours.”

  “Dan? What are you doing here?”

  He held up a bag from the deli around the corner. “Surprise.”

  “Bagels?”

  “Six assorted, still warm, plus three flavors of cream cheese. I got your message the other night, and said, gee, it’s been months since I’ve seen that woman. Let me go say hello.” He came onto the porch. “Hey, sexy red socks you’ve got on.”

  “You should have called.” Elaine quickly finger-combed her hair. “Three flavors of cream cheese? How cruel.”

  “That’s for turning me down for lunch.” He held out his arms. “Don’t I get a hug?” Before she could speak, her nose was pressing into his collarbone through a striped crew neck sweater. He kissed her cheek, then looked at the bags on the porch. “You’re not moving out, are you?”