“Son of a bitch,” Gershwin said, staring at yards of gleaming black metal and chrome. “That’s yours?”
I looked to the guy who just handed me the keys, a label on his stained blue work shirt embroidered with the name Julio. He nodded. “All yours, Detective Ryder. Captain McDermott said you were senior status. That means the Tahoe.”
I climbed inside. After my pickup, the thing felt like I was in the pilot house of a destroyer. The instrumentation appeared to have been pulled from a Cessna. The new-vehicle smell made my head light. I jumped out.
“Got anything smaller, Julio?”
Julio stared at me like I’d asked a waiter to return a prime filet and bring a can of tuna instead. “But this is what all senior personnel drive, Detective.”
“Dude,” Gershwin said. “I mean Detective Ryder, this is hot wheels deluxe.”
“What else you got, Julio?”
“All the others are standard cruisers.”
I saw a line of cars and trucks across the lot. “What are those?”
“Seized contraband, vehicles taken from criminals. When someone gets caught the state can take away—”
“I know how it works, bud,” I said, not mentioning my house was in the same condition. “Anything available over there?”
“All are, I suppose. They get taken out for surveillance because they don’t look like police vehicles.”
We followed Gershwin to the line-up, a dozen cars and trucks, some looking new, most in obviously used condition. I was immediately drawn to a beige Land Rover Defender, fully outfitted with heavy black grille guard, full roof racking, and a high-sprung body with more right angles than curves.
“Tell me about the Rover, Julio.”
“That?” Gershwin wrinkled his nose. “It’s left over from an Indiana Jones movie.”
“You don’t want the Rover, Detective,” Julio argued. “It’s sprung like a tank.”
“And built like one, too,” I said, admiringly. “Where’d it come from?”
“A Lauderdale dope dealer who had it custom-outfitted in South Africa for a month-long safari, but cut the trek short after three days. When he had the monster shipped over here, he liked how it looked a lot better than how it rode, probably why it’s only got two thousand miles on it. I also don’t think he much liked a manual transmission after the novelty wore off.”
“The Tahoe,” Gershwin pleaded.
“How long would it take to outfit the Rover with a siren, flashers, and an on-board computer hookup, Julio?” I asked. “Given that y’all don’t look too busy around here.”
Gershwin moaned.
Thirty minutes later, feeling better than I had all day, I aimed the revamped Rover for Redi-flow. It was southwest of Miami, down toward Homestead. Once off the highway we wove through streets that turned from storefront businesses to small and brightly painted houses clustered on miniscule lots festooned with tropical foliage. The houses soon grew sparse, the land as much sand as dirt, errant terns pecking at prickly pears for insects. I smelled swampland nearby but never saw water.
Within minutes we banged past a lot holding smaller dozers and graders, cranes, trucks, and machinery of indecipherable usage, and a small abandoned building beneath a faded sign showing a crane and proclaiming OLYMPIA EQUIPMENT RENTAL – SINCE 1975.
Gershwin pointed. “Think they’d rent us a crane, sahib? You could shoot at lions from above.”
“The Rover is fine. And it’s Detective Ryder.”
We passed over rail tracks into a complex dominated by piles of gravel and sand, metal towers hovering in the air, one large silo emblazoned with a tall cross, below it the words REDI-FLOW CONCRETE, INC … A MIX FOR EVERY NEED. A half-dozen mixing trucks sat on the lot and two were pulled to one of the towers, workers standing beside them. In a far corner of the lot was a jumble of metal boxes and round tanks. I’d seen them at construction sites: portable mixing units conveyed on semis and set up where needed.
We pulled beside a squat building marked ‘Office’ as a helicopter blew by overhead, low enough to read the word EVERGLADES AIR TOURS on the fuselage.
Kazankis was in his early fifties, tall and square-built and in a blue uniform dusted with cement. He was ruggedly good looking, wavy silver hair pomaded and combed back from his high and sun-brown forehead. His voice was deep and resonant and had Kazankis stood with a Bible in his hand and started preaching about salvation it wouldn’t have been much of a shock.
I showed my new ID. “Why we’re here, Mr Kazankis, is we’re investigating a crime involving an amount of poured concrete that probably took a mixer.”
“You came to us because of who we hire?” he said quietly, meaning ex-cons. “I feel it’s my calling to help the fallen back to their feet.”
“I’m not questioning your calling, sir. I may wish to question some of your employees.”
“Our employees are no longer criminals. When first from prison, I employ them here. Some stay, others move to new careers. The record speaks for itself.”
“An exemplary record, indeed,” I said, credit due. “But you’ve had failures, Mr Kazankis. It goes with the territory.”
“True. I’ll be the first to admit cases of recidivism. Not, thankfully, very many. But given that the possibility exists … what may I do for you, Detective?”
“First, sir, what can you tell me about this sample?” I opened my briefcase and handed over a bone-free chunk of concrete. Kazankis flicked a thumbnail over its surface.
“Low aggregate. Mainly sand and cement with a dye, one of the umbers. Is this part of the crime you’re investigating?”
I nodded. “Have you ever had a loaded truck stolen?”
“A truckload is mixed, then goes directly to the site. A person might steal a truck at night, but it would be empty.”
“Maybe I’m looking for concrete diverted to another usage. This would have been around a year ago.”
Kazankis frowned. “I’m sorry, Detective, but I can’t recall details that far back.”
“Would it be possible to get a printout of all employees from that period?” I asked. “It would save us a trip to the Parole Board.”
“Certainly.” Mr Kazankis sat by a computer, made some taps on the keyboard, and a printer behind the desk began humming. Our next move would be cross-checking employee names against violent crimes. Records in hand, we turned to the door.
Gershwin halted. “One more question, Mr Kazankis. Do your employees ever take concrete home or anything like that? For use later?”
“Like for next-day delivery? It would harden in the truck.”
“I guess I mean their own projects. Like fixing a sidewalk or whatnot.”
Kazankis thought a moment, brow furrowed beneath the silvered blowback. “Sure, lots of times an employee will lay a patio or a driveway. We give them the materials at cost. It happens too often to keep track of.”
“I understand,” I said, again turning to go. “Guess we’ll have to keep digging into employees with records. Sorry if we …”
When I turned to nod farewell to Kazankis his head was canted and his eyes were turned inward, as if doing calculations in his head. He snapped his fingers.
“Paul Carosso, by gosh! Now I remember.”
“Pardon me?” I said.
“It was almost quitting time, Detective. Paul came in, said he’d been working on a new driveway. He’d hired a couple concrete workers for the following week and was gonna get the pour scheduled then. But Paul said if he could get the concrete, they could lay the drive that evening. I said sure, grab a load and return the truck in the morning. But make double-damn-sure that barrel gets washed out.”
“I thought you didn’t remember such things,” I said. “Was something different?”
“It was kind of unusual. Paul’s not a detail guy. He could do better at keeping his uniforms clean. He leaves candy and food wrappers in the cab. I have to get on him about washing the barrel completely clean. If the mix hardens you need to break it out, a real pain. When I got there in the morning I asked Burle Smith, the yard foreman, if Paul brought the truck back in decent condition, dreading the answer.”
“And your yard guy said?”
“Burle said Paul musta climbed into the drum with a toothbrush, it was that clean.”
I looked at Gershwin. Would it be this easy? Kazankis caught the glance. “Are you going to want to talk to Paul?” he asked, an edge of nervousness in his voice.
“Dunno yet,” I said. “And I’d appreciate if you didn’t mention this conversation to him.”
Kazankis promised to keep our confidence. Gershwin and I were angling for the door when he called us back. “Excuse me, gentlemen.”
“Yes, sir?”
He started to speak but couldn’t. He cleared his throat and tried again. “The color in the sample of concrete you showed me, the rusty brown. It’s not dye, is it?”
“No, sir.”
His eyes fell. “I pray no one here was involved.”
I nodded, not mentioning that I was hoping in the opposite direction. It would mean we had a solid lead.
Paul Carosso lived near Richmond Heights in a tired suburban community within listening distance of highway 821 and I figured after a couple months you grew immune to the twenty-four-hour rumble of diesel engines. Or most people would; me it would drive nuts after about a half hour. The driver’s house was a single-story crackerbox bungalow with mildew on the siding and a piece of soffit hanging from the eaves. A palmetto squatted in the front yard, flanked by a banana tree with white rot on the leaves. The scruffy patches of grass were unmowed. The small yard was cyclone-fenced with a sign on the gate saying PRIVATE PROPERTY – KEEP OUT. The drive was outside the fencing and led to a single-car garage.
The gate was unlocked so we went to the door and pressed the bell. No reply. Figuring the bell was in the same decrepit shape as the rest of the place, I knocked.
A curtain parted on the front picture window. “I don’t want nothing,” a voice yelled. “Peddle your shit somewheres else.”
“We’re not salesmen,” I said, holding up the shield. “We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
The door swung open. Carosso was older than his pic in the prison discharge file, but it was the same face: round and poorly shaved, heavy-lidded eyes under a receding hairline. He wore a sleeveless white tee with sweat stains under the arms and the kind of uniform pants you get for ten bucks a pair, as formless as pajama bottoms.
“Questions about what?”
“A load of concrete you brought home from Redi-flow last summer.”
“Concrete? I don’t know nothing about—”
“How ’bout you invite us in or step outside?” I said.
He rolled his eyes and stepped to the stoop, Gershwin and I backing up to give him space and to give our noses some distance between Carosso and his body odor.
“I don’t bring concrete home. I deliver it to other people.”
“Your boss remembers, Mr Carosso. You brought home a load of concrete to install a new driveway.” I studied the drive across the fence, a dozen feet away, cracked and studded with weeds, the same drive poured when the house was new, maybe forty years ago. “I don’t see any new driveway, Mr Carosso. I don’t see repairs.”
“The fuckin’ workers never showed,” he said. “It never got done.”
He looked down, thinking, and I stepped closer by a couple inches.
“So where did the mix go?”
“I drove it out by the glades and poured it into a drainage ditch. And no, I don’t remember where.”
“Try.”
When he looked west I moved another inch, brushing back my hair to cover the motion. He said, “It was over that way somewheres.”
Carosso was sweating heavily. He turned his head to cough and I stepped into the edge of his personal space. “Mr Kazankis says you’re not a detail guy, Mr Carosso. It’s hit-and-miss whether you’ll get the barrel clean.”
“What does that mean about anything?”
Gershwin sensed it was his turn. “Mr Kazankis checked that day. Says the barrel looked like you climbed inside and scrubbed it out with a toothbrush. What made that batch so different you needed to eliminate every trace?”
“I just fuckin’ hosed it out like always. Kazankis musta got the trucks mixed up.”
I shuffled another inch forward. “Mr Kazankis doesn’t strike me as a man who gets much wrong. Except maybe the occasional hire.”
Carosso’s face spun my way. He hadn’t seen me move, but his body felt my nearness and didn’t like it. “Whaddaya want with me? I drive a goddamn concrete truck for sixteen lousy bucks an hour. Look at the shithole I live in. Why you picking on me?” His last sentence was a peal of desperation, like a frightened child.
“I need to see that load,” I said, knowing he could feel my breath on his face. “It’s important.”
“I don’t know where it is. I don’t know nothing. Leave me alone!”
He backed inside and slammed the door. Gershwin gave me a raised eyebrow. “Jumpy as a cat on meth. El schmendriko knows something.”
“On that we agree,” I said. “Let’s go back to the office and chase some paper.”
We climbed into the Rover. “It’s an oven,” Gershwin complained. “We were out five minutes and you could bake cookies in here.”
“The insulation is a bit thin,” I said as we pulled away. “But sweating clears toxins from the body.”
Paul Carosso wiped his brow with his shoulder and pulled a fifth of Jim Beam from a kitchen cabinet, sucking down long, gurgling swigs. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and flipped open his cell phone. He dialed, missed the number in nervousness, dialed again.
“It’s me,” he said, breath tight and voice strained. “The fucking cops just left. Tell me again how this makes sense.”