named Swizzle. Should we go out and try and find him?”
“We don’t go out, not yet. First we ride on the coattails of others.”
My call went to Juarez, a detective with Miami Vice. He was dedicated and bright and a favorite of Vince Delmara.
“Swizzle?” Juarez said. “You’re probably talking about Shizzle, Shizzle Diamond. Real name’s T’Shawn Matthews. Collects runaways and confused girls from the streets and bus stations. He’s good at being what they need, uncle or daddy or friend, then takes a few weeks to feed ’em and fuck ’em and hook ’em on heroin.”
“I think there’s a rap song there.”
“I ain’t writing it. Matthews – I ain’t using that idiot pimp name – rides his herd hard and moves them around, sometimes as far north as Orlando. But mostly it’s Liberty City or the sadder parts of Flagami and so forth. He might run ’em over to the Beach, but he tends to venues with dark alleys and cheap motels, usually watching from a car or the window of a bar, sipping brandy while his sad little troupe services johns.”
“Any idea where I can find this particular bag of garbage?” I asked.
I heard a hand cover the phone, a question yelled out. After a minute the hand fell away. “Feinstein says he saw Matthews a couple days back at Black’s Lounge, lower Liberty, probably got his crew working there for a while.”
I thanked Juarez and pocketed the phone. “Drink up,” I told Belafonte. “We’re going hunting.”
We headed outside and I saw the Crown Vic. “Who gave you that junker? I can see the goddamn cop logo under the paint.”
“Motor pool. It’s all they had.”
“We’ll use my wheels,” I said. “Jump in.”
I drive a green Land Rover Defender with every possible option for safari use: racks, grille and headlamp shields, spare tire bolted to the roof, heavy-duty suspension. It had been confiscated from a dope dealer and though it rode a bit rough, it was, I figured, the only veldt-ready copmobile in the country and if a case ever took me to the top of Kilimanjaro, I was ready.
Night was deepening as we went to the corner where Shizzle Diamond had been spotted. It was not a neighborhood Miami would feature in a tourist ad, unless the tourists were looking for peep shows, strippers and the uglier side of street life, as demonstrated by the wino puking into the gutter as we passed.
“Get close to me,” I told Belafonte. “Whisper in my ear and play with my hair.”
“What?”
“We need to look like a guy who’s just picked up a woman. Or maybe a guy and a woman wanting a third hand at cards.”
“Cards?” She thought a moment. “Oh.”
Reluctantly, she scooted as close as the shifter allowed. Her hand patted my head like I was a Welsh Corgi. “Try for passion,” I said.
She moved her head closer and twirled a lock of my hair. “Is this how you behaved with your male partners?”
“When it was necessary.”
Which was true. Harry and I had several times gone hand-in-hand into gay bars or situations to hunt for a perp or gather information. In one memorable instance I had donned a dress and wig to play a cross-dresser, Harry dubbing me “the ugliest woman he’d never been with”.
Thus engaged in mock passion, Belafonte and I cruised toward one of the bars supposed to contain the pimp. There were two damsels of the dark on the street, but there were recessed doorways in the buildings and alleys and I figured there might be ladies back there, either waiting or working on a customer.
“There’s a bottle under your seat,” I told Belafonte. “Grab it.”
She reached down and found a half-full pint of bourbon. “You’re going to drink?”
“Pop the cap and bring it to your lips. You don’t need to open your mouth, but we need to look like we’re partying. Hurry. If we’re made they’ll slide back into the shadows. Or Matthews might pull them off the street.”
She screwed the cap off the bottle, appeared to take a hit. She passed the bottle over and I did the same and pulled to the curb beside a small alley. Across the street a woman of Latina extraction – girl, really – in gold lamé shorts, a top little more than a black bra and net hose studied us. I gave her a wink and took another pull from the bottle. She waved with three coy fingers.
“Now what?” Belafonte whispered.
“According to Juarez, these are some of Matthews’ girls, and that means he should be in one of these bars.”
“Why then are we here?”
I kept my eyes on the hooker as if appraising her, talking to Belafonte with as little lip-motion as possible. “I don’t want to brace him on his turf. I want him out here.”
“How’s that going to happen?”
“I’m gonna run a play on these folks,” I said.
“A play?”
I winked, time to show the kid how the pros did things. “Stay put, watch how it’s done. I’ll have Shizzle-boy out here in two minutes.”
I half climbed, half fell from the Rover, recovered and meandered toward the hooker. “Hey, babuh,” I slurred. “My fren’ and I are looking for a li’l spice.”
A smile below the street-wise eyes; in this area I figured alley stand-ups and front-seat oral was more the norm. “I can party with y’all,” she said. “Two hundred an hour.”
“Hunh-unh,” I said. “I just need you to tell us where we can find a pretty white lady. We’re not into spicks.”
“You ain’t into what?”
“But you ain’t too shabby for darker meat. Tell you what, I’ll give you ten for a hummer … as long as my lady can watch.”
The eyes turned to slits. “Get the fuck outta here, asshole.”
“Don’t be mean, chica,” I said. “What else you got goin’ on?”
“FUCK OFF!”
“I’ll make it fifteen. Where you from, little mama? Haiti? Honduras? Fifteen bucks is like, what, a year’s pay over there?”
“GET LOST!”
I was betting one of Matthews’ other products had run to his hidey-hole to report a problem. I backed the girl against an abandoned storefront.
“Twenny, chica … all right? But you gotta do my lady, too.”
She tried to slip by to my right, I was in front of her. Darting left did the same. I was a fast drunk. I saw her eyes look past my shoulder and go from scared to relief.
“Yo, muthafucka,” said a voice
