Part 23 (2/2)

Elroy said, ”The track, that's action, man. That's what I really love.”

I looked at Elroy and didn't smile. A chain begins somewhere in the mountains of Colombia. It pa.s.ses through Alfonso Ramos and Marty Palomino and their ilk in Miami. Then through Elroy and maybe a few others under him; then to the addicts, the a.s.sorted hip city folk, the legions of kids. One of those chains had ended with my son dangling on the end of it. And somewhere in San Diego, I thought, there's a kid like Alan who'll soon buy his stash from this piece of human garbage sitting across the dinner table from me.

The waitress pa.s.sed by. ”Hey, sweetie pie, we have a little more gravy here?” Elroy turned back to me, grinning. ”We got an unforeseen problem, Counselor.”

”How do you mean?”

”Guys downtown at the state attorney's office, they don't want me to leave Miami. Worried something could happen.”

”Like what?”

”Palomino, Ramos, they're out on bail. Wouldn't they love to find me.” Elroy drew a finger across his throat.

I put down my knife and fork. ”I spoke to you in the middle of the week. You said no problem.”

”There's this guy Baxter, see? I told him, 'Look, I want to see my sister in Jax. A day or two, family stuff, gimme a break.' Guy says, 'Hey, Jerry Lee, we'll give you a break, we'll keep your a.s.s alive.' So I go, 'I thought it was part of the deal.' He says no, there's no deal for you to testify in Jax.”

I had never told Charlie Waldorf in Sarasota or Robert Diaz, the Miami state attorney, that I needed Elroy as a witness in Jacksonville. If there had been a timing problem, I would have spoken up, but Elroy wasn't due to testify in the Miami trial until August. What they didn't know wouldn't hurt them. And I definitely didn't want them to know how I'd lied to Elroy.

”See, they got these plainclothes guys watching me. You met one of them at the motel. Another one's here in Lacy's right now-I just spotted him.” Elroy's eyes flicked to the left.

I looked, and saw the man sitting by himself about five tables away: about forty, prematurely gray with a crew cut, wearing a pale-blue silk sport jacket. He was eating meat loaf and drinking a 7-Up.

”It ain't gonna work, Counselor,” Elroy said.

”It has to work,” I said flatly. ”That hearing is Monday morning. You don't show up, they'll execute this man.”

”Hey, I'm sorry, I really am. But they said I don't have to. Maybe you misled me.”

That was what I had feared. I had that same awful feeling in my chest that I'd had when those deputy sheriffs in Bradford County had said to me, ”You have the right to remain silent...”

”If you had some p.u.s.s.y waiting up in Jacksonville,” I said, ”you wouldn't give a flying f.u.c.k what Baxter or Diaz or anyone told you. Jesus could rise from the dead and beg you, 'Stay,' and you'd still go to Jacksonville.”

”Yeah, but that's different, ain't it?”

I gathered up all the cold hard anger that usually stayed trapped beneath the surface of my life as a lawyer, and I drummed my fingertips on the plastic surface of the table.

”Elroy, if you don't go up with me tomorrow, Marty Palomino gets your address and room number delivered by Federal Express to his home on Key Biscayne. I'll remind him, when he comes to visit you, to bring his machete. And his ruler.”

Elroy laughed nervously.

”Keep laughing, pal.” I glared at him.

”I'm your client,” Elroy said.

”And I'll be sorry to lose you. I'm making so much money out of you I could retire.”

I could put him under subpoena. I had thought of that before. But the Miami state attorney's office might interfere. And even if they didn't, there was no guarantee that Elroy would tell the truth on the witness stand. I would have no leverage.

The table vibrated as the heel of his foot thumped up and down. This cretin believed I'd do it.

”If I leave this town tomorrow without you,” I said, ”you're a dead man.”

”Hey, hey, hey ...” Elroy's eyes darted left, right, then up.

”Your fate's in your own hands. Not many men can say that.”

”Just take it easy, Counselor. Calm down.”

Everyone was telling me that lately, I realized. Maybe there was something to it. And maybe not. And even if there was, who gave a s.h.i.+t.

Elroy sighed. ”So I do it, what's in it for me?”

That was progress. A wh.o.r.e's a wh.o.r.e; now all we had to do was haggle price.

”I told you I'd pay all your expenses.”

”Big deal.” He thought about it for a few moments. ”Jax, they race in the summer at the Kennel Club, right? McDuff Avenue, off I-10.”

”Greyhounds?”

”The crazy doggies, yeah. You don't need me up there at night, do you?”

I had taken a thousand dollars in crumpled cash from Elroy as a down payment on his legal fee. ”When we get up there,” I said, ”I'll give you back the thousand. That way there's no fee on the drug case. So if you're asked on the witness stand if you were paid to testify, you can say no.”

Elroy grinned; he was a natural scammer. ”How're we gonna get rid of these guys at the motel?”

I considered that problem for a few minutes while I asked the waitress for the check. When I focused on him again, Elroy was still grinning. But now craft had blended with triumph.

”Got any ideas?” I said.

”You don't want to be involved in this operation, right?”

”I am involved.”

Elroy explained it to me. He would leave at noon for Hialeah Park. Two cops always tagged along and stayed by his side, but when he went up to the pari-mutuel windows or to take a leak, only one of them came along. The track was a crowded place. ”Leave it to me,” Elroy said. ”Just tell me where you want to meet.”

I suggested the main entrance to the track.

”You're not thinking, Counselor. They spot you out there, they put two and two together. The airport's only ten minutes away. Let me stay for five, six races. I can get out by three-thirty.”

Back at the motel, I called and booked two seats on USAir.

”Flight 133 takes off at four-thirty. Meet me at the check-in counter at a quarter to four sharp.”

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