The Death Box (33 page)

“
I told you to talk to me, Xavie
,” the perp said, a thin wire of anger in his voice.

Leala found her voice. “
I’m sorry … my throat is so dry. If I had
…”

The anger seemed to turn to contrition.
“Of course. I’m sorry Xavie, you’ve had nothing to drink for hours. I have some Pellegrino water. Is that all right?”

“Si.”

The captor offering an apology? It suggested the guy wasn’t in full master–slave mindset. There was something almost childlike in his response, a small clue to his mental make-up.

Footsteps moving away. A door closing. And then, Leala, to us:
“He has gone for the moment. I am in a pink room in a big white house. There is one man wearing a robe. I think his mind is broken. There is a chain from mi neck to the above. My hands are loose but I cannot move far. I am very scared. When he looks at me he sees something not here.”

I pulled the putty from the mic. “Get his name,” I whispered. “We need his name to know where you are.”

“I am not sure if he any more knows who he … He comes. Please help me.”

We heard the door. The perp’s voice.

“
What were you saying?
” Suspicion.

“I was praying, Señor
…
Señor
…” Hanging the word out, hoping he’d supply his name.

A laugh instead. “
Please, Xaviera. Remember how you and your
amigas
used to make fun of the church and the priests?
”

“I do not remember, señor. I am not Xaviera.”

A slap and a yip of pain. I felt my fists clench.

“Do not lie to me, Xavie. Your days of lying are over and I will not stand for it. I grew up. Would you like to see where I grew the most?”

“What’s with his voice?” Gershwin asked. “It’s deeper.”

“The fantasy’s taking over.” Something else I had learned about madness from my brother. “He’s shifting to an inner vision.”

“Do you want to open my robe, Xaviera? I have a surprise for you.”

A pause.
“Not until I hear you speak your name.”

“What?”

“Can you not speak? Can you not say your name?”

“Don’t you dare make demands of me.”

“Then slap me again,”
Leala said.
“Maybe like your daddy taught you to do. Did he have a name? Does no one in your family have names?”

“Uh-oh,” I said. “Easy, Leala.”

“Me llamo es Leala Rosales,” she said. “
I am proud of my name
.
Does yours disgust you? Are you shamed by your name? Does it bring vomit to your lips?
”

The sound of a slap.
“SHUT THE FUCK UP, XAVIERA!”

“Jesus,” I whispered. “He’s going off.”

“
My name came from mi madre y papa!
”
Leala said.
“Did you have no one to name you?”

“I SAID SHUT UP!”

Another slap. I pictured Leala half-hanging by a chain from the ceiling as a robed monster battered her face.

“When it was asked what name to put on the certificate,”
Leala continued,
“did your mama say, ‘That thing is so insignificant … it deserves no name. Is that what she said?’”

Three slaps. It was like hearing a whip crack. Then …

“You know who I am, you stinking little tramp … MINARD CHALK! MY NAME IS MINARD SIMPSON CHALK!”

“On it,” Gershwin said, relaying the information to Key West cops hunched over keyboards and waiting. A long and frightening pause before Gershwin looked up. “They’ve got an address. They can be there in five minutes. It’s ten from here.”

“Tell them to roll. I gotta stay and listen.”

Gershwin relayed the decision. Twenty seconds later the pair of cruisers hit the lights but not sirens, blasting away as back-up.

A minute passed. I heard slow footfalls punctuated by pauses. I pictured the guy circling Leala and letting his imagination run wild, the savoring phase. Our on-board computer buzzed with incoming info. Gershwin read the screen. “The fucker’s in the national sex-offender database: Minard S. Chalk, thirty-four years of age, four arrests for voyeurism, San Clemente and Seattle, most recently in Minneapolis …”

“A peeper,” I said, staring at Gershwin in disbelief. “That’s all?”

“Two arrests for exhibitionism, Minneapolis and Seattle. Both times he flashed teenaged girls with a fake dick.”

I was taken aback, expecting more violence in his past. Peepers, creepers and waggers were almost never violent; many were timid, painfully shy, inept. This guy had jumped from the box, maybe let his fantasies bloom to a dark garden of needs. What did the pseudo penis mean? Impotence? Insecurity?

The footsteps stopped and I held my breath and listened.

“
Look what I have for you, Xavie
,” the voice crooned.
“Go ahead … untie my robe. OPEN THE GODDAMN ROBE, XAVIE! There … that’s the way …”

A gasp from Leala. She started screaming.

“HELP ME! HELP ME!”

The pleas were to us. Gershwin looked at me, helpless.

“Lay back on the bed, Xavie. That’s an order!”

Leala screamed again.
“STOP. NO! HELP ME!”

There was one chance left, a long shot. I tore the putty from the phone and brought it to my lips. “MINARD CHALK,” I said, a voice in total command. “This is Carson Ryder of the Florida Center for Law Enforcement. WE—”

51

“—SEE YOU! Step back from the girl.”

The words echo between the hard walls. Chalk looks frantically from side to side. “WHAT IS GOING ON?” Chalk yells, frantically searching for the voice. “WHO ARE YOU?”

“CHALK,”
the voice repeats, stentorian.
“Your house is surrounded. If you touch the girl, you will be dead within seconds. DO YOU WANT TO DIE?”

As if stuck in a nightmare, Chalk looks behind him, expecting to see laughing teenaged girls pour from the closet, but sees only a pink concrete wall.

“Leala!”
the voice commands.
“Hand Mr Chalk the telephone. Are you able to do that?”

“
Si
. Yes.”

Leala reaches into her panties and removes the phone. She holds it out in a trembling palm.

“Take the phone, Mr Chalk,”
the voice says. It’s angry.

Chalk stares, his mouth drooping open. Leala sees a man with the face of a confused child. The terrible thing on his belt waggles back and forth.

“Take the FUCKING PHONE, CHALK!”

Minnie Chalk’s hand is shaking. He takes the phone and brings it to his red mouth. “Yes?” It’s a whisper.

“Go outside and stand in the street. That’s an order. If you take one step toward the girl, you will die.”

Chalk carefully puts down the phone, takes a step backwards and walks away like a boy scolded by his mommy. He ascends the stairs without a backward glance.

Tears trickle down Leala’s cheeks, then become a flood.

When a weeping Leala told us her captor had gone, I jammed the Rover in gear and sped toward the scene. Minutes later we arrived at a huge Victorian mansion surrounded by towering palms, the yard flowing with bougainvillea. Six units and two ambulances claimed the street. I saw a prisoner in the rear of a cruiser, head bowed.

“That him?” I asked the nearest uniform. “Chalk?”

A nod. “The guy was just standing at the curb in a bathrobe with his mouth open. I don’t know what he’s seeing, but it’s not us. I think his wires are fried.”

“The girl?”

“Being attended by the medics. Physically, I think she’s fine. You know her?”

“We met once,” I said. Gershwin and I started to the ambulance. “Uh, Detectives?” the cop asked.

We turned. The guy held up an evidence bag. “We found this in the bushes.”

Gershwin and I looked at the object for a two-count, all it took. We resumed our walk to the ambulance. Leala was inside, a medic holding ice to a swelling eye and cheek. She looked up and saw us.

She leapt from the ambulance and we held one another, Leala, me and Gershwin. No one spoke a word, since we’d been talking all night.

52

We got to my place at six a.m. on Sunday, Gershwin heading back to Miami. The department was handling all the prisoners accumulated in the trio of busts: Redi-flow, the Quonset hut and the Paraíso. Roy told us to take the day and sleep and come in at ten on Monday for a recap and a day of relentless paperwork.

We both arrived a few minutes early, Bobby Erickson pointing to the main conference room. “They’re all in there. I dunno what’s going on, but everyone’s acting weird.”

He padded away in the fluffy slips and Gershwin and I went to the room. The whole crew was in attendance at the table, Roy leaning against the wall. It reminded me of my first dismal day, Roy grinning, everyone else staring.

Roy was fanning himself with a padded mailing package. We sat and he pushed from the wall with his ass, holding the package high. “This was delivered to the SunState Bank after hours on Saturday, didn’t show up until this morning. And inside …”

He reached inside, pulled out an envelope.
IMPORTANT!
it blared in red marker.
PLEASE RUSH TO FLORIDA POLICE INVESTIGATORS.

“The bank folks didn’t know what to do, so it came to us at eight this morning. Inside, we found this …” Roy did a drum roll with his tongue and produced a small silver rectangle. “Look what I have,” he said, the Jack O’Lantern face ablaze with delight.

“Seems to be a computer,” I said.

“Not just any computer, Carson. A computer belonging to Amili Zelaya, the dead woman in the Paraíso and the operation’s accountant, as it seems. We’ve been reading snatches of information. It seems the late Ms Zelaya was a detail fanatic.”

“Is Kazankis named?” I said, holding my breath.

Degan spoke. “Named every time he receives a payment. He’s cooked.”

I stared at Degan, unsure how to respond, joy at knowing Kazankis was nailed, or amazement at hearing Degan speak more than four words at a sitting. And not a single grunt between them.

Tatum’s turn. “It also appears, Detective Ryder, that Kazankis used a familiar business model for slavery: rental.”

“What?”

“The trafficked humans, women mainly, weren’t sold, but rented or leased like construction equipment, so much for a week or a month.”

Roy spun the computer my way. “Here’s a typical rental contract, bud. Eight women, all named, rented to the Taste of Heaven Massage Parlor for fifteen hundred dollars per woman per month. There are dozens of contracts with massage parlors, strip joints, whorehouses and pimps. Not to mention a few private homes and back-alley sweatshops.”

“Contracts placing slaves as far away as Atlanta.” Tatum again. “Naming the rentees and the renters.”

I was having trouble keeping it all straight. “Wait … you’re saying we know where every slave is at this moment?”

Roy mimed swinging a lasso. “I already started round-up time. We’ll get these people back. I put Degan in charge of coordinating everything. Ceel’s taking some of Tatum’s casework next week so he can jump in as well. He’s gonna partner with Lonnie.”

Roy’s grin had spread beyond his face, like it was a separate entity. He pointed both hands at me in a magician’s
ta-da!
moment. “Look at my boy, people. Didn’t I tell you he was amazing?”

Everyone on the crew turned to Gershwin and me. They
applauded.

“Truth time, McDermott,” Tatum said. “’Fess up, you white devil.”

“We’ve been rooting for you, buddy,” Roy said. “Every teensy step of the way. We love you to pieces, cupcake.”

I stared, forcing my mouth to shape words. “What about the money, the salary increases?”

“Everybody got bumps last year.”

“Wait … I didn’t waylay anyone’s raises?”

Roy did sheepish. “What happened was, well, a sort of initiation …”

“Initiation, shit,” Tatum said. “It’s a fucking hazing, Ryder. They made me think I’d fallen into Klan central. Plus that bullshit about keeping everyone from a raise.”

Valdez grinned and popped the gum. “I thought it was ’cuz I was female.”

“Sorta,” Tatum said.

“Fuck you, Tatum. And, of course, that I’d pulled cash from wallets.”

“You want to punch McDermott, Ryder?” Canseco said. “We’ll all be glad to hold him.”

I don’t think I could have lifted an arm. It had all been a stunt, a Roy McDermott artificial drama. But seeing the admiration in the eyes of my colleagues and knowing I’d run the same ridiculous gantlet these folks had run … I actually felt good.

“We even kept an eye on you, Ryder,” Degan said. “Just to make sure you stayed safe in the big city. A now-and-then tail.”

“I was sure I saw Canseco. You and Valdez, too, I think.” I hadn’t been losing my mind.

“I even did you a favor,” Tatum said. “Sent you a gift. Actually I sent it to Delmara.”

I thought a few seconds. “Blaine Mullard?”

“He’s my snitch. He heard Delmara was looking for a knife man, but came to me after he got busted. I sent him to Vince, instead.”

I shook my head. Not synchronicity but an invisible helping hand. Though if you looked at it just right …

Degan reached to the floor and produced a bag, sliding it down the table into Gershwin’s lap. “Open it up, you fucking hotdog.”

Gershwin pulled out a shiny new Glock. “It ain’t a real gun, a wheel gun,” Degan said. “But it’s prettier than that beater piece you’re carrying.”

“Here you go, kid,” Roy said, flipping Gershwin a badge wallet. Zigs studied the ID with a grin.

“Not ‘Provisional’?”

“I’ve had my eye on you, Zigzag. Why I suggested to Señor Grocery-store magnate that he send you my way. A lot quicker than going through channels.”

More laughter. Degan went to the coffee cart to find a cup to torment.

“Are you ever planning on growing up, Roy?” I asked.

“When it works for me. So far it hasn’t.” He walked to the front of the room, pivoted on his heels like a dancer, spun back to face us, clapping the hands. “So how about we go pull some folks out of hellholes? There are warrants to be obtained, local departments to be contacted. Time for you kiddies to earn your exorbitant incomes.”