Strip Tease Page 37

  “Darrell and I were married for a time. What else can I say?” Erin felt an inexplicable calm, heightened by the cool soft ride.

  Dilbeck asked Darrell Grant what happened to his arm. He said Erin’s motherfucking boyfriend broke it with a mother-fucking crowbar. Then: “Hey, driver, does the TV work?”

  In a wounded tone, Dilbeck whispered to Erin: “What boyfriend?”

  Erin iced him with a glare. Pathetic, she thought, both of them. She nonchalantly reached under her minidress to unfasten the G-string and the scalloped dance top. She stuffed them in the shoulder bag. Still holding the gun, she gymnastically attempted to put on a plain cotton bra and white panties. It was a crucial detail; Erin didn’t want to be found dressed as a stripper. As she changed underclothes, the congressman watched inquisitively.

  With an oily trace of a smile: “Why the white?”

  “For you, baby,” she said.

  Darrell Grant braced his sloshing head against the window. They were on the interstate, racing away from the downtown skyline. The snaky scroll of lines on the pavement, the stream of headlights made him woozy. “I’m seriously loaded,” he remarked.

  Erin said to the congressman: “My ex-husband has a drug problem, in case you were curious.”

  “I wish you’d put the gun away,” Dilbeck told her.

  “You’re not listening, are you?”

  Darrell Grant, sleepily: “I never saw you dance before. That was damn good.”

  “Aw, shucks,” Erin said.

  “Sorry about that business with the nickel.”

  “I’d almost forgotten,” she said, “your scathing wit.”

  Darrell Grant basked in the limousine’s spaciousness. “I could get used to this,” he said, stretching his legs. “Climate-controlled comfort. Yessir!”

  David Dilbeck, speaking as if Darrell couldn’t hear him: “That fracture looks bad, Erin. He should see a doctor.”

  “Rita’s the one who done up my arm,” Darrell said, hoisting it in pride. “My big sister.”

  “She cares about you,” Erin told him. “She’s the only one left.”

  “No, Angie cares for me. Angie loves her daddy.”

  “She finds you entertaining,” said Erin. “There’s a difference.

  “She loves me!”

  Erin dropped the subject. Maybe Darrell was right. She didn’t want to think about it now.

  The congressman said, “How much longer till we get there? I have to relieve myself.”

  Erin ignored him. Her ex-husband said, “I killed a guy tonight.”

  “Really?”

  “On the boat back there.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  “I’m trying to remember.”

  Erin assumed that he had hallucinated the incident. Darrell Grant said, “It didn’t feel the way I thought it would. Killing a guy.”

  “You fell for the hype,” Erin said, “as usual.” She wondered what to do with him. He was screwing up her plans for the congressman.

  “Im serious about Angie,” he said.

  “You kidding? You’re headed for prison, Darrell.”

  “Nope, Arizona. Wheelchair Capital of North America!”

  “Crazy bastard.”

  “And I’m taking our daughter.”

  “I’ll shoot you first,” Erin warned.

  David Dilbeck abruptly began sobbing and groping for the door handle. He settled down when Erin jammed the .32 into the hollow of his cheek.

  Darreil Grant said, “Since when do you carry a piece? Jesus, I hate guns.”

  “My prostate is acting up,” the congressman announced.

  “Quit whining,” Erin snapped. “Both of you.”

  Darrell scratched his shin with the head of the nine-iron. “At least tell us where the hell we’re headed. Hey, driver, you spea-kee American?”

  Pierre gave no reaction.

  “I’ll tell you where we’re going,” Erin said. “We’re going to see our congressman in action.”

  By early October, the sugar cane near Lake Okeechobee is green, bushy and ten feet tall. The bottomland is the flattest part of Florida; from a passing car, the fields seem to reach and define all horizons. Within a month, nearly two thousand Caribbean migrants arrive to start the cutting, and the mills run twenty-four hours a day. In early October, though, machines do much of the harvesting. An improbable crablike contraption called a cutter-windrower downs the cane and piles it in rows. More machines then retrieve the harvest for transportation to the company mills, where the sugar is made.

  Congressman David Lane Dilbeck didn’t give much thought to the science or mechanics of cane farming. It was enough that the Rojos were nice people, well-bred and so generous. The mountainous campaign donations were important, of course, but Dilbeck would have traded his congressional vote for just the occasional use of that gorgeous yacht. He also valued the social company of young Christopher, who shared his tastes in bawdy entertainment and never failed to pick up the tab. For David Dilbeck, the attention of wealthy, powerful people was a flattering fringe benefit of the job.

  The congressman saw no injustice in the price supports that had made multimillionaires of the Rojos. The grain, dairy and tobacco interests had soaked taxpayers for years by melodramatically invoking the plight of the “family farmer.” Why not sugar, too? Similarly, Dilbeck lost no sleep over the damage done to the agricultural economies of impoverished Caribbean nations, virtually shut out of the rigged U.S. sugar market. Nor did the congressman agonize over the far-reaching impact of cane growers flushing billions of gallons of waste into the Everglades. Dilbeck didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. In truth, he didn’t much care for the Everglades; it was torpid, swampy, crawling with bugs. Once, campaigning at a Miccosukee village, the congressman consented to an airboat ride because Erb Crandall saw it as a sensational photo opportunity. The airboat ran out of fuel on the Shark River, and Dilbeck spent two wretched hours picking blood-swollen mosquitoes out of his ears.

  “And I’ve seen prettier water,” he told Erin, “in a pig trough.”

  She was giving him a hard time about whoring for the Rojos. “Where do you think our drinking water comes from?” She pointed through the window of the limousine. “Out there, Davey. And your pals are pissing fertilizer into it.”

  Darrell Grant was bored silly. He repeatedly sought to engage Pierre in conversation, with no success. The highway narrowed to two unlit lanes that Darrell recognized as U.S. 27. Blackness engulfed the limousine; the only trace of the city was a fuzzy sulfurous glow, far to the east. Darrell couldn’t figure out where Erin was taking them, or why. The geezer in the cowboy getup remained a riddle. Was this a rich new boyfriend? The idea of Erin as a gold digger engaged him—like mother, like daughter? Anything was possible.

  Darrell struggled to hatch a plan, but the drugs interfered with his concentration. What he really wanted to do was sleep for about six months.

  It was half-past ten when they arrived in Belle Glade (“Her Soil Is Her Future,” proclaimed a welcome sign). Pierre turned off the main highway and drove slowly through an empty migrant camp. David Dilbeck was alarmed by what he saw. He told Pierre to step on the gas before desperadoes swarmed from the slum and trashed the limo. “It’s a leaser,” he explained to Erin.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve never been out here.”

  “What’s your point,” the congressman groused. The warm embrace of the Korbel had dissipated into a staggering migraine.

  Pierre got back on the highway and drove until the town gave way to more green cane fields. Erin asked him to pull over.

  “He doesn’t understand English,” Dilbeck said, impatiently.

  “Is that so?”

  Pierre steered off the pavement and stopped on the shoulder of the road. He left the engine running.

  “Out we go,” Erin said, brightly. “And, Davey, don’t forget our jungle toy.”

  Dilbeck peered into the night suspiciously.

  Before
harvest, sugar cane is burned to consume the leafy tops, which are useless, and to drive the animals from the fields. In the heart of the season, smoke roils off the stalks in prodigious columns that sometimes block out the sky. Tonight, though, was crystalline—washed with constellations that one never saw in the city. A waning yellow moon hung low.

  Pierre got out and opened the back door of the limo. The congressman emerged first, holding a slender brown package. He was followed by Darrell Grant, unsteadily; the protruding nine-iron dinged noisily off a rear fender panel. The last to emerge from the car was Erin, stepping gingerly in her heels. Pierre gave her a small flashlight to go with the pistol.

  Darreil Grant complained of a gassy stomach. “Let me stay here and crash.”

  “Sure. In the trunk.” Erin motioned with the gun. “Pierre, prepare Mr. Grant’s boudoir.”

  The Haitian driver obliged. He popped the trunk and moved the spare tire, making room.

  “The trunk?” Darrell Grant slapped the congressman on the back. “Didn’t I tell you she’s fucking murder on the ego?”

  David Dilbeck looked worried. “Erin, I’ve got a heart condition.”

  “Who doesn’t? Darrell, get in the damn trunk.” She shined the flashlight in his eyes.

  “You gonna shoot me?” He gave a dopey laugh. “Somehow I don’t think so.”

  Erin told him to lie down and take a nap.

  Darrell Grant, slouching against the fender of the limousine: “One thing I been dying to ask: How do you do it? I mean shakin’ your poon at strangers.” He jabbed the congressman contemptuously with the golf club. “Sick old fucks like him, I don’t see how you do it.”

  “The music takes over. That’s all.”

  “You mean it’s an act? I ain’t so sure about that.”

  “Men are easily dazzled.”

  An urgent moan from David Dilbeck: “I have to pee.”

  Erin waved the flashlight toward the cane rows. “So pee,” she said. Dilbeck waddled off, clawing at the buttons of his jeans.

  Darrell Grant snorted drunkenly. “I never thought of you as a stripper. It’s actually funny as hell.”

  Erin said, “You emptied the savings account. I had a lawyer to pay.”

  “Plus you figured out the hustle at these nudie joints, am I right? You mess their hair, play with their necktie, tell ’em how good they smell.”

  “Maybe that’s why they call it a tease.”

  “God, you’re a cold one.”

  The congressman could be heard irrigating the sugar cane. From over his shoulder, he called: “I truly do love her!”

  “Pity-ful,” Darrell said.

  Erin smiled. “I rest my case.”

  “Know what I think? I think you get off on it.”

  “Darrell, you’re just full of theories tonight.” Was this a sermon, she wondered, from a wheelchair thief? “Get in the trunk,” she told him, “you like the damn car so much.”

  He ignored her. “I ain’t givin’ up on Angie. Just so you know: I’ll track the both of you to hell and back.” He brushed past her and headed into the cane fields.

  “Darrell, stop.” She raised the .32 in one hand, the flashlight in the other.

  Her ex-husband turned. The beam of light caught him grinning. “You won’t kill me. Not the father of your only child!”

  Erin was considering it. She pictured him hacking up Angie’s dolls, and her gun arm stiffened. “You told the judge I was an unfit mother. Is that what you believe?”

  “It was lawyer talk, for Chrissakes. You always take shit so personally.” Beseechingly he spread his arms, the shaft of the nine-iron glinting. “Hell, you were a good mother. Same as I was a good daddy. It was lawyers talkin’, that’s all.”

  At that moment Erin knew she wouldn’t fire. She didn’t need to; the sorry bastard was already finished. Broke, strung out, maimed, running from the law—Darrell Grant was history. Killing him would be redundant.

  “Come back,” she told him. “I’ve got plans for you.”

  “You mean ‘plans’ as in jail? No thanks, cutie pie.” He gave a cocky wave and resumed his getaway.

  Erin remembered what Shad advised her about the gun: when in doubt, shoot at something, anything.

  She fired twice at the ground near Darrell Grant’s boots. The crack of the shots was absorbed by the thickets of high cane. She heard her ex-husband yell the word cunt. When she aimed the flashlight where he’d been standing, he was gone, crashing like a deer through the crops. She panned the beam in a slow circle until it landed on the congressman, nervously buttoning his fly. He waded from the tall grass and asked, “Are you all right?”

  The gun felt hot in Erin’s fist. She thought, Goddamn that Darrell. Maybe he’ll step on a rattler.

  She wheeled on David Dilbeck. “Take off your clothes,” she told him.

  “I knew it. You’re going to make me dance.”

  Erin said, “You wish.”

  After cane is cut and stacked, a machine scoops the stalks, thins the excess vegetation and dumps the load into a field wagon. When the wagons become full, a mechanical belt feeds the cane into long steel-mesh trailers attached to truck cabs. Each bin holds twenty tons and dumps from the side. The trailers are parked at intervals along the farm roads bordering the Okeechobee sugar fields.

  At first Darrell Grant thought he had come upon the fence of a medium-security prison, a nightmare of ironies. Weaving closer, pawing at the darkness as if it were fog, he saw that the mesh edifice actually was the side of a long truck rig. Using a jumbo tire as a foothold, Darrell began to climb.

  The cane trailer offered dual enticements: it looked like a safe place to hide from a homicidal ex-spouse and also a fine place to nap. It was important for Darrell to lie down soon, before he fell. The cancer pills had blown his circuit breakers; he accepted the likelihood that he’d guessed wrong on the dosages, seriously misjudged his tolerance. Oh well.

  After scaling the mesh, he flopped into the damp sheaths of smoky cane and burrowed like a worm; he felt clever, invisible and safe. Had he been sober, he might have anticipated the destination of the truck and the disposition of its contents.

  Once loaded at the fields, the trailers are driven to the mill and emptied on conveyors. The first stage of processing is the shredding of the cane, which is accomplished by many rows of gleaming, turbine-driven knives. The fiber then is mashed beneath five hundred tons of pressure. In this way the essential liquids are removed. Evaporators convert the purified cane juice into a syrup, which is heated carefully until it forms a mixture of sweet molasses and crystals. Separation is achieved using a high-speed centrifuge.

  Usually it takes half a ton of cane to produce a hundred pounds of raw sugar. However, both weight and purity can be markedly affected by the introduction of foreign substances, such as human body parts.

  Darrell Grant had medicated himself too heavily and concealed himself too well. He was deep in a junkie nod at dawn, when the cane trailer in which he’d hidden began rolling toward the sugar mill. Darrell did not awaken, at least not in a meaningful way. No cries, shrieks or moans halted the sugar-milling process; rather, it was the nine-iron strapped to Darrell Grant’s arm that jammed the turbine-driven blades and brought the boys from Quality Control scurrying toward the shredders.

  The mill shut down for three hours while local police collected and bagged the remains. The Palm Beach Sheriff later issued a press release saying that a vagrant had died in a freak milling accident at Rojo Farms. Authorities appealed to the public for help in identifying the victim, who was described as a white male, early 30s, with blond hair. No composite sketch of the man was provided, as the shredder left precious little for the police artist to work from. The press release said that the victim wore jeans and boots, and was possibly a golf enthusiast. The Sweetheart Sugar Corporation was reported to be cooperating fully in the case.

  At the mill, a memo went up assuring employees that the unfortunate mishap had not compromised the superb
quality of the company’s product. In private, however, workers anxiously wondered exactly how much of the dead vagrant had ended up in the day’s tonnage. The consensus was that one drop of blood, one lousy pubic hair, one microscopic sliver of a wart was too much.

  Distasteful rumors spread wildly, and many workers stopped putting sugar in their coffee and tea. Rojo Farms, like most cane processors, maintained a long-standing rule against the use of artificial sweeteners by employees on company property. Violation was regarded as an act of disloyalty—the agribusiness equivalent of a Chrysler salesman buying himself a Toyota. However, within days after Darrell Grant’s gruesome death, a clandestine network of body carriers began smuggling packets of Sweet ’n Low into the Rojo company cafeteria. An internal investigation failed to identify the culprits or shut down the pipeline. To avoid the publicity of a labor confrontation, mill management quietly dropped the matter and rescinded its sugar-only policy. The Rojos themselves were never told.

  32

  Shad punched the dashboard, hard.

  “Enough!” said Al García. “Christ, have a smoke.”

  “Some fucking heroes we are.” García was doing ninety-four on the interstate. Shad’s slick dome whimsically reflected the blue strobe of the dashboard light. The highway wind howled through the shotgun-shattered window. Shad spit scornfully into the night.

  “Easy,” García said. “Hey, I gave up on being a hero a long time ago. Sometimes the best you can do is set things in motion.” The detective puffed expansively on a fresh cigar. “That’s why I put my card in the dead lawyer’s bank box. I had a hunch it would motivate Mr. Moldowsky toward foolish behavior.” Shad said, “This ain’t a game. You said yourself.”

  “Still, there’s plays to be made. We made ours.”

  “And look what happened. Erin gets snatched.”

  “Don’t underestimate the lady.” The detective lowered the window and tapped out an inch of dead ash. “You notice anything odd about the writing on that mirror? Besides it was lipstick?”