“What do you want to do?” Keyes asked.
“Go to the cops,” Mulcahy said. “Right now.”
Keyes shook his head. “Skip said there’d be a bloodbath if his name got out.”
“Bloodbath—he used that word?” Mulcahy asked incredulously.
“Yep. ‘Massacre,’ too, if I’m not mistaken. We’ve got to think about this carefully, Cab. Think about what they’ve already done—the kidnappings, the bombings. Look what they did to Dr. Courtney and that detective, Keefe. I don’t think Wiley’s bullshitting when he talks bloodbath. They’ve got the credentials now.” Keyes didn’t mention his fear for Jenna or for Mulcahy himself.
“All right, suppose we tell the police but embargo all the press.”
“Be serious,” Keyes said. “Once the cops heard Wiley’s name they’d leak like the Haitian navy. And when the radio and TV folks get wind of it, the Sun will have no choice. You’ll have to go with the story. Out front, too.”
“We have to get him back from the Bahamas,” Mulcahy asserted. “I’m going to try the embassy.”
“It won’t work, Cab. Skip’s untouchable over there. I found out he entered the island on a fake passport, but nobody in Nassau seems to care. Apparently he’s bribed everyone but the prime minister.”
“So what the hell do we do?”
Keyes said, “I think we’ve got to play rough. You’ve got the one thing he cares about, that column.”
“Yeah,” Mulcahy said, “and every damn word goes through me.”
Keyes thought about that.
“I know a little something about the Bahamas government,” he said. “They’re hypersensitive about their national image.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“Suppose you rewrote Skip’s next column.”
“Suppose I let Bloodworth try it,” Mulcahy said.
“Oh boy.” In Wiley’s words, rewriting was a mortal sin punishable by castration. Spray-painting the Sistine Chapel he used to call it.
Keyes thought he noticed the old boy’s eyes twinkle.
“Suppose I gave it to Bloodworth and told him to punch up the lead. Make it more hard-hitting. Asked him to tinke’ with some of Skip’s more energetic passages.”
“Might turn into something the Bahamians wouldn’t like. Keyes mused. ”Might wear out Skip’s welcome real quick.’
“I can’t believe we’re talking about this.”
“Suppose it works,” Keyes said. “Let’s say he comes back to Miami. Then what?”
“Intercept him at the airport,” Mulcahy said. “Turn him in, take him out of circulation. Get him some professional help.”
“He could always plead insanity.”
“I’m considering it myself,” Mulcahy muttered. “After twenty-two years you’d think I could spot a psychopath in my own newsroom.”
“On the contrary,” said Keyes. “The longer you’re in the business, the harder it gets.”
Mulcahy was one of those rare editors who’d gone into newspapers for all the right reasons, with all the right instincts and all the right sensibilities. He was a wonderful fluke—fair but not weak, tough but not heartless, aggressive but circumspect. The Wiley situation was tearing him up.
Mulcahy toyed with a memo, shredding the edges. “I pulled his personnel file today, just for kicks. Jesus Christ, Brian, it’s full of wild stuff. Stuff I’d forgotten all about.”
The episodes had escalated in gravity:
December 13, 1978. Skip Wiley reprimanded for impersonating National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski in an effort to obtain box seats to an NFL playoff game.
April 17, 1980. Wiley reprimanded after filing an IRS return listing his occupation as “prophet, redeemer, and sage.”
July 23, 1982. Wiley suspended two days with pay after using obscene cunieform symbols to describe Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina.
March 7, 1984. Wiley suspended five days with pay after telling a radio-talk-show audience that Florida’s entire supply of drinking water had been poisoned by Bolivian drug dealers.
October 3, 1984. Wiley suspended three days without pay for allegedly assaulting a Jehovah’s Witness with a long-handled marlin gaff.
“I guess I wasn’t paying attention,” Mulcahy said, “on purpose.” He leaned forward and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Brian, do you really think he’s crazy? I mean, crazy crazy?”
“I’m not sure. Skip is no drooling yo-yo. If he were, we’d have nothing to worry about. You could let him write all he wants—who’d give a shit? Whatever he wrote wouldn’t make sense anyway—if he were crazy crazy.”
“Are you saying—”
“He makes some sense, yes,” Keyes said. “Wiley’s goddamn plan makes sense because it seems to be working. He’s got the entire Gold Coast terrified, your venerable newspaper included. I saw where the big Teamsters’ convention was moved to Atlantic City—”
Mulcahy nodded lugubriously.
“And The Battle of the Network Bimbos or whatever— switched from Key Biscayne to Phoenix, of all places.”
“Tucson,” Mulcahy corrected.
“You see my point.”
“It’ll wear off,” Mulcahy said. “Panic always does.”
“Not if the tourists keep disappearing.”
“He’s wiring us a new column tomorrow afternoon. I’ll give it to Ricky for a good butchering and we’ll publish it Sunday. See if that doesn’t bring the bastard back from his tropical vacation.”
Keyes said, “If it doesn’t, we’ll have to think of something else.” He made the something else sound ominous.
Mulcahy sighed. “I’d still hate to see him die.”
Keyes had saved the worst for last. “Skip’s planning something horrendous,” he told Mulcahy. “I don’t know the details, but it’s going to happen soon. He said they’re going to violate a sacred virgin, whatever that means.”
Mulcahy mulled the possibilities.
“The mayor’s wife?”
“Naw, not Skip’s type,” Keyes said.
“A nun, then—you think they’d snatch an actual nun?”
“I doubt it, Cab. Skip’s very big on symbolism. I think a nun is off the mark.”
“How about a celebrity? Hey, Liza Minnelli is playing the Eden Roc this month.”
“Skip can’t stand Liza Minnelli,” Keyes noted.
“There you go!”
“The most sacred virgin in all Miami—Liza Minnelli?”
“Well, shit,” Mulcahy said. “You got a better idea?”
Brian Keyes did have an idea, but it wasn’t one that Mulcahy especially wanted to hear. Keyes hoped that Cab might think of it on his own.
“If you were Skip and you wanted to get the world’s attention,” Keyes said, “you’d try something drastic, something beyond the realm of merely heinous.”
“Don’t try to cheer me up.”
“And if you were Wiley,” Keyes went on, “you’d want—no, you’d demand—maximum exposure.”
Mulcahy’s chin came off his chest. “Maximum exposure?”
“We’re talking television,” Keyes said. “Network television.” That’s what Skip had promised at Cable Beach.
“Oh no.” Mulcahy sounded like a man whose worst nightmare was coming true.
“Cab, what’s the most fantastic spectacle in Miami, the event watched every year by the entire country?”
“The Orange Bowl Parade, of course,.”
“And who’s the star of the parade?”
“Holy shit,” Mulcahy groaned. He thought: If Brian’s right, this is even worse than a nun.
“The Orange Bowl queen.”
“Right,” Keyes said, “and when is the Orange Bowl Parade?”
“The last night of December!” Mulcahy exclaimed.
“The very last night of December,” said Brian Keyes. “La Ultima Noche de Diciembre. ”
19
The conference table had been carved into the likeness of a Florida navel
orange. A big one. The table filled the Chamber of Commerce with its roundness and orangeness. And at the crown of the orange, where the stem had been hewn, sat the chairman of the Orange Bowl Committee.
“Have a seat, Mr. Keyes,” he said.
Brian Keyes slipped into a leather chair. He couldn’t take his eyes off the damn table. Once upon a time it must have been a beautiful slab of white walnut, before they’d varnished it into such a florid atrocity.
“You know most everyone here,” the chairman said.
Keyes scanned familiar faces: the Miami chief of police, the Dade County chief of police, two vice-mayors, a few ruddy Chamber of Commerce types (including the late Sparky Harper’s successor), Cab Mulcahy, looking dyspeptic, and, of course, Al García from the newly mobilized Fuego One Task Force. García was sitting at the giant orange’s navel.
The air was blue with cigarette smoke and sharp with the aroma of fresh coffee. Everyone had their own ashtray, their own glass of ice water, and their own packet of press clippings about the tourist murders. The mood of the group was funereal.
“Let’s start with Sergeant García,” the Orange Bowl chairman said, consulting a legal pad. “Did I pronounce that correctly?”
“Yes, sir.” The words hissed through clenched teeth. García had promised the chief he’d be polite. The Orange Bowl chairman was a doughy white-haired Florida cracker who was still getting used to the whole idea of Cubans.
“The name of the gang is Las Noches de Diciembre, or the Nights of December,” García began. “It’s an extremist organization but we’re not sure about its politics or its motives. We do know they use murder, kidnapping, torture, and bombing. So far they haven’t asked for ransom or anything else. All they seem to want is publicity. Their targets are mainly tourists, although we think they also whacked Mr. B. D. Harper.”
“Whacked?” said the chairman.
“Murdered,” Keyes explained.
“Yes, murdered,” Al García said, “with a capital M. These bozos mean business.”
“Bozos?” the chairman said tentatively, glancing around the table.
“The bad guys,” Keyes explained.
“Las Noches,” García said.
That was the extent of García’s formal presentation. He hated meetings like this; they reminded him of Sesame Street. García took off his tinted reading glasses and fished in his pockets for a cigarette.
The Orange Bowl man cleared his throat and said: “Sergeant, do we know exactly who these people are?”
“Some of them.”
García took his time with the Bic lighter.
“The gang has at least four members. A white male, mid-thirties, identity unknown.” García gave a sideways glance toward Keyes. “There’s a young Seminole Indian named Tigertail. The bomber, the one who did the Palmetto Country Club job-he’s an old acquaintance. A Cuban right-winger named Jesús Bernal.”
“How do you spell that?” the chairman asked, pen poised over the legal pad.
“J-e-s-ú-s,” García said impatiently.
“Oh. Just like our Jesus, only pronounced different.”
“Yeah,” Garcia said. “And the last name is B-e-r-n-a-l.”
“What does that mean?” the chairman asked. “In English.”
“It means ‘Jesús Bernal,,’” Garcia grumbled. “It’s his fucking name, that’s all.”
The Dade County police chief looked sick to his stomach.
García said, “The fourth suspect you all know. His name is Daniel Wilson, AKA Viceroy.”
“Oh no,” said the chairman. “One of the Dolphins.”
“Old number thirty-one,” one of the vice-mayors lamented.
Everyone at the orange table was a big football fan, and the mention of Viceroy Wilson’s name ignited a paroxysm of nostalgia.
“It’s hard to understand,” the chairman said sadly. “Our town was very good to that boy.”
Brian Keyes didn’t need the NAACP to tell him there were no black faces sitting at the orange table.
“Well,” Garcia said. “Mr. Wilson apparently has a beef against society. A serious beef. They all do.”
“Which one is El Fuego?” somebody asked.
“Don’t know,” Garcia replied.
“What does that mean, El Fuego?” the chairman asked.
“The Fire. The Flame. Take your pick.” Garcia was annoyed. He hadn’t come to teach Spanish 101.
“When can you arrest these men?” the chairman demanded.
“When I find ’em.” Garcia motioned toward Cab Mulcahy. “There’ll be a story in tomorrow’s newspaper that ID’s the three known suspects and asks for the public’s help in locating them. We sent over some mug shots this morning with Mr. Bloodworth.”
“We’re running the pictures,” Mulcahy said, “on the front page.”
“That’ll help,” Garcia said. “But somehow I don’t think these guys are going to sit still and let us find them. I think we’re going to have to wait till they appear. And they will appear. Mr. Keyes here is a private investigator, a pretty good one. As you know, he was abducted by Las Noches a couple of weeks ago and roughed up pretty good. Brian, tell ’em the good news.”
Keyes said, “We have reason to believe that they plan to kidnap the Orange Bowl queen.”
Everyone at the table sat back in their chairs like they’d been punched in the chest. There was plenty of nervous whispering.
“That’s the craziest stunt I ever heard,” said somebody in a bright blazer. Actually, several of the men wore identical bright blazers. The blazers were orange.
“We’re taking this threat very seriously,” interjected the Dade County police chief, always jittery among civic-leader types.
“We think it’s going to happen during the parade,” Brian Keyes said, touching off another round of white-establishment gasping.
“Good Lord!”
“They’re going to kidnap the Orange Bowl queen in the middle of the parade?”
“On national goddamn TV? In front of Jane fucking Pauley?”
“And Michael Landon?”
“’Fraid so,” Al García said.
Jane Pauley and Michael Landon were scheduled to host the King Orange Jamboree Parade from an elevated booth on Biscayne Boulevard. Jane Pauley and Michael Landon were big celebrities, but Garcia tapped his cigarette ashes all over the orange walnut to let everyone know he didn’t give a shit about that. Brian Keyes admired the way García had taken over the meeting from the guys in the blazers.
One of the vice-mayors turned to Keyes and said: “You’ve met these people. What do you think—would they listen to reason?”
“Doubtful,” said Keyes. “Very doubtful.” If necessary, he was prepared to tell them what happened to Ida Kimmelman, just so they’d give up the idea of trying to bargain with El Fuego.
“Mr. Keyes,” a vice-mayor said, “what is it they want?”
“They want us to leave,” Keyes said.
“All of us,” Garcia added, “from Palm Beach to Key West. ”
“I don’t understand,” the vice-mayor said.
“They want Florida back,” Keyes said, “the way it was. ”
“The way it was when?”
“When it wasn’t fucked up with so many people,” García said.
The table erupted in snorts and sniggering, and the men in the blazers seemed to shake their heads gravely in syncopation. “Why doesn’t this kind of shit ever happen to Disney World?” one of them said mournfully.
The Orange Bowl chairman decided he’d heard enough dire news from the private eye and the rude detective, so he turned to the police chiefs for encouragement.
“Gentlemen, surely you’re not just going to sit and wait for these outlaws to show up and disrupt the parade. They must be arrested as soon as possible, before New Year’s Eve. It’s bad enough that the press already knows about them. ”
“It’s pretty tough to keep the lid on mass murder,” remarked the Miami police chief. “God
knows we’ve tried.”
“We’re doing all we can to find these people,” added the Dade County police chief. “We’ve got every available detective working the case, but it’s tough. Especially around Christmas. Half the department’s on leave.”
The Orange Bowl chairman said grumpily, “I don’t want your excuses. I want to hear exactly what you’re doing to catch these killers!”
The police chiefs turned to Al García, who’d been waiting patiently for the ball to bounce back his way.
“Right now we’ve got six undercover guys in Little Havana looking for Jesus Bernal,” García said. “We’ve got eight more over in Liberty City searching for Viceroy Wilson. The Indian—well, he’s a problem. Looks like he just disappeared off the planet. Anyhow, we got plenty of reward money out on the street—just how much, I can’t say, but it’s more than my whole damn pension. We’ve doubled the patrols at every big South Florida tourist attraction—the Seaquarium, Ocean World, Six Flags, the racetracks, the beaches. There was a rumor that the Monkey Jungle might be next so we’ve got a sniper team waiting upwind. What’s more, we got choppers and airboats searching the Glades for El Fuego’s camp. We even hired our own Indian guide.”
A nearsighted Miccosukee, García noted silently, but he was better than nothing.
One of the vice-mayors suggested that warnings be posted in all the major tourist hotels.
“Are you out of your mind?” screeched Sparky Harper’s Chamber of Commerce successor. “Are you trying to cause panic?”
“No one would panic,” the vice-mayor said defensively, “if the warnings were worded properly.”
“Perhaps in small type,” the chairman suggested.
“And perhaps in Chinese,” said Al García.