Chapter 11: Crossing a line.
Tuesday evening I was at home stretched out on the sofa with my feet on the table reading and researching Florida statues and case histories when my cell buzzed. When Carlo calls my cell repeats a three second video I shot by the helm with my fingers on his side, my thumb stroking his big red marshmallowy tit, I hit 'speakerphone' and set it beside me.
"Hey man, what it is?
"You get my texts about Dad?"
"Yes, sorry to hear you guys had to go through that but it sounded like everything turned out okay, right?"
"Yeah, I wish you had been our lawyer that committed Dad instead of some guy I didn't know."
I kept my mouth shut when he said that because I don't know anything about committing people to locked mental institutions. And he seemed to not want his mom to ever meet his boy friend, so I thought his comment was contradictory and strange.
We had a few moments of quiet, then when it seemed like he wanted me to talk I said, "You know Carlo, I read up on `Lewy Body Dementia,' it looked similar to Alzheimer dementia. But Lewy Body often runs faster in men. It's possible he had dozens of undiagnosed concussions during his boxing career, the two combined may dramatically worsen the speed of his decline. If there's something you wanted to change like a Will, what happens to their house, their business, you might want to get it done soon. Consider things like bank accounts, insurance, car titles, land titles, he might not be able to sign those soon. He could progress a lot faster than you two are prepared for, then again he may not. There's a lot of his medical history that seems to be missing and those things could steer his demise."
"I appreciate your honesty Steve, one of the things I love about you," he said then cleared his throat.
"Yeah, well there's things I should tell you too."
"Uh oh. Don't tell me you got the HIV?"
"Nah, nothing like that, I don't have anything you can catch. We'll talk about it next time you're over." I should tell him more about my autism and what he should expect from people on the autism spectrum. I only mentioned it in passing soon after we first met.
"How did your meeting go?" I asked Carlo.
He described the second meeting with the lawyer, the doctor, his mom, and his father at the nursing home two days after they took both of them to the hospital for beating his mother. His dad cried, apologized and begged to go home, he would behave and never hit anyone again.
His mom described the attack in detail: his dad suddenly got all upset and wild eyed and ran at her and started punching, it happened really fast. One minute he was on the sofa watching Oprah and then suddenly turned into a maniac. As she said that he started to yell and denied that it ever happened, but she had bruises on her face and chest. Carlo wasn't home when it happened but her screams were heard next door and they came over and tackled him from behind then they called for an ambulance.
Then the lawyer asked him what day it was and his father glanced out the window and said it was July, 1951, he needed to be released to register at the draft board office. The lawyer told him to memorize a short saying and he'd have him repeat back it in a minute, "You can teach a dog to do fifteen different tricks."
Then they talked about the food at the nursing home, his room, and the rules. He spoke of how he was treated and how he thought one of the nurses had a thing for him. After a couple minutes the lawyer asked him to repeat back the short saying he had no idea what the man was talking about. He remembered his parents names and where he was born, but not what year they immigrated to Texas and became U.S. citizens. The worst part was when asked what his wife's name was he couldn't remember, even though she was seated beside him at the table.
After lunch he seemed like his old self again and remembered it was the fall of 2018, everyone's names, birthdays, their history in Mexico, just like normal. So the lawyer asked him sign the papers to remove him from the business, make his wife the sole proprietor, his POA, and executer of his estate. Carlo said his father looked humiliated and frustrated the entire time, he looked like he knew something was wrong with his brain but was too proud to admit it. As the hours went by he started to talk about training for a big a boxing career comeback and that signaled his return to dementia symptoms. Carlo said he told his mom (again) to hire someone to manage the business because he wanted to move away from Florida. He said his mom had tears in her eyes most of the day.
Carlo got sniffly on the phone and said his mom wept, 'who's going to take care of me?' He sat with her and held her hand and put her to bed once they got home from the nursing home and he mixed her a strong cocktail.
I invited him over any weekend, Carlo said they were working on hiring a new manager but it would take time to find the right person.
I told him about sailing to Darrow Point and back, but never fished or tried swimming. He chuckled at me because 130 miles out into the Gulf was 'nuthin.' He said I probably never got into water more than 200 feet deep, there's a big underwater flat plain on the west side of Florida. That's why they don't catch the large deep water fish on the west side.
I told him the boat was getting marine radar installed this week. He interrupted me and said his mom said his father's cousin lived on Cozumel, which was a large island off the east coast of Yucatan, Mexico. His name was Miguel Silva and he was a retired fisherman.
I told him we could sail there but it was over 400 miles each way and it was also my first planned stop on the way to Panama because it had excellent harbors and full service marinas.
We talked for another hour and I was getting tired so we said bye and agreed to talk again or maybe visit that weekend.
After we got off the phone I realized I forgot to ask who the lawyer he mentioned was working for. I suspected he represented the nursing home, not the patient.
Friday October 5th, 2018.
Next week Monday I'll go back to Miami for three days of interviews. We also had a critical meeting with the judge and the lawyer for the City of Miami. I needed to read a lot this weekend and be on my toes so I never went to see Susan, it's been two weekends since I last boarded her. The marina was supposed to call if anything obvious happened to her, like she sunk or caught fire.
Saturday night Carlo called, we talked for three hours. We even jerked off over the video phone, which was hot. He was home in his room with the door locked, I was in my apartment. He said the doctor put his mom on anti-anxiety meds but she was sleeping better and adjusting to being semi-alone. She'd been with his dad every day since forever, it was very strange after that many years of cooking, cleaning, sharing the TV remote, doing laundry, and getting around the city, then suddenly one day everything changed. Carlo said she was smiling more and work was nicer without having to baby sit his father all day, especially towards the end when he became easily triggered.
He said some days the nursing home called and said his father refused to wear clothes since all the women wanted to have sex with him, they had to restrain him in bed once in a while but he would get over it and apologize, his mom laughed and cried. Carlo said he hoped it went fast because it was breaking his heart and scaring him too, but he never asked if that was in his future too. Luckily, Carlo never tried boxing. He told me his father seemed to only get into trouble late in the afternoon or after supper. His mom said it was like he died but his body was still walking around possessed by some sex obsessed evil spirit. I told him late day dementia worsening was common, they called it Sundowners Syndrome.
"Oh, she said that?" I joked at his comment about evil spirits.
"Well, not exactly but that's the image the staff described, it's almost every day for him now."
"I'm sorry that you have to go through this stuff with someone you love so dearly."
"Thanks, that's the nicest thing anyone's said to me in a few days now."
Carlo asked me why they can't medicate him to calm him down during his outbursts. I told him that was legally considered a restraint and required him to be a particular way all the time, and restraint was very complicated legally, that's why you don't really see the use of straightjackets anywhere except the movies. They got pills (and shots) that accomplished the same thing, problem was if you needed a pill like that most confused and agitated patients would refuse to swallow it.
Carlo repeated what he was told over the phone that his dad got upset and walked the hallways trying to start fights with other patients so they had to escort him back to his room, then get him in bed and give him a low dose shot of Haldol in his butt. He said they told him about ten minutes after the shot he started to feel extremely tired and wanted to sleep so they tucked him into bed and he'd sleep the rest of the evening. Sometimes getting the Zyprea shot at 7pm meant it would be worn off and he'd be up at 2am wandering the halls and causing trouble worse than at 7pm.
Later on I asked him if he was abused sexually or physically during his childhood but Carlo refused to discuss it, so I let it drop. A few minutes later our call ended and I went to bed. My Sunday would be a day of laundry and reading, maybe a four mile run if the rain held off until after lunch. I reminded Carlo he was welcome to call me anytime he wanted all day Sunday.
Carlo went on again about how they dealt with his father, he was usually okay while the sun was up but turned into a zombie every day just before dinner. But the latest thing was sometimes he looked like he was in a trance and couldn't talk or hear. You could shout his name right into his face and he wouldn't even blink. He said that was super scary to see his father like that, and hoped his life didn't end that way too.
I flew home Thursday after spending three horrible days in Miami, it rained every day and the hotel felt like a prison, it was not safe for any of us to leave the grounds and when it was time to leave for the airport the limo picked us up by the hotel loading dock, one place we could get into a car without being an easy target for a sniper in a car or a nearby rooftop. The hotel was complaining and warned us if our work there was that dangerous then maybe we needed to go elsewhere. The problem for the hotel was Beckham and Rogers was spending a lot of money in their hotel, which wasn't in the best location for tourists to use.
My employer gradually got worried about our safety after they recorded several threats by phone, and some of them mentioned me by name but their actual response was grossly insufficient.
They paid to form a shell company and transferred ownership of my boat, car, and condo to the company so a state public records search would not link any of them to my name. I also got a new cell number that it was registered under the company name along with most of my utilities and taxes. It was funny when we did it the telemarketing calls nearly stopped, except the ones that called every possible number in sequence from 000-000-0001 to 999-999-9999. Days later I started to get business related texts to optimize my search results using their secret proven method. All those texts and voice mails just sounded pathetic and unprofessional, I'm sure most of them came from organized criminal operations overseas.
I visited Susan on Sunday morning, ate brunch at the bar, and talked to Tim. Susan was fine, musty smelling but fine. I wiped down the counters and table and sat on the front bunk thinking about all the semen we shared here. I checked the bilge but it was dry, then I stripped off the sheets, locked her up and drove back home. This entire Miami situation felt almost out of control and the responsibility fell mostly on my shoulders. I felt I should be compensated more for the danger and told the manager that in an email. I also suggested they should stop using hotels in Miami because that put us close to the very police department we were investigating, but my emails never got replies.
I did four loads of laundry Sunday and walked to Waffle House for supper. My work clothes arrived yesterday at the front lobby, like clockwork. In fact there were several people that had the same service but most of those were medical people.
Wednesday Carlo said he would like to see me that weekend, he could spend the night Saturday if I had time, I laughed and said I'd make time. From Thursday to Saturday morning my dick was constantly trying to get my attention. I spent hours naked at home, even my own reflection in the mirrors turned me on. In my cell I had about thirty minutes of video I shot of him shirtless, I watched those several times a day.
I considered what would be the best place to see Carlo and decided the apartment would be best due to the forecast. On Susan we'd be stuck inside with that 1200 foot walk to the nearest shelter. The sound proofing was better and food got delivered faster here too.
I texted him to come to the apartment, let me know if by Uber or his Impala. He could even take the bus here if he really wanted, he texted back 'By Uber.' I told him that I'd see him when he arrived, be hungry.
I asked if he'd ever seen the film 'Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,' we decided to watch it, I told him it had good sex and hunky guys and a great motorcycle. It was a story of revenge and redemption, love and murder. And I thought the girl (Lisbeth) was autistic which would give me the chance to bring it up with him again. I also wanted use the movie to teach him how to spot autistics in public.
Saturday 3pm.
Carlo arrived with fingernail taps on my apartment door, with a big smile I swung open the door and bowed as he walked past. First, we talked about food on the sofa, cells in hand researching where to order.
"I don't want pizza or ribs or anything from Denny's."
"Why's that?"
"There's a Denny's across the street from the nursing home and I've had almost everything on the menu. I'm over Denny's, so's my Mom."
"Okay, no Denny's. What else is nearby?"
"What about fried chicken and veggies?"
"That's fine. I had fried chicken at Denny's which was decent, but their veggies have no flavor, like they sit in hot water all day."
"Hot wings?"
"Nah, not a fan. I mean let's be honest, the wing is the worst part of the chicken, the only thing worse than the wing is the foot."
"Ummm...." I said as I scrolled the map around my neighborhood looking for something interesting, like a locally owned restaurant with delivery.
We both sat there looking at our screens, but I was using the tablet computer.
"What about steak and a veggie?"
"Huh! I haven't had a nice steak in..., since the last time you cooked for me. Sure, let's do that!"
"Okay, let me go back... Stuart's Fine Dining, it's about eight miles from here near the coast by the hotels. Wwwwwwhat size do you want? Eight, ten, or sixteen ounce prime rib?"
"Eight, add a veggie and a baked potato with butter and sour cream but no gravy!"
"Got it," then I mumbled, "still has some hostility over Denny's gravy, just butter. Eight ounce medium rare, baked, and cooked broccoli? Is that all?" I said touching the screen trying to get everything entered correctly and hand typed: 'no gravy on both orders.'
"No, please specify `cooked broccoli,' not warmed raw broccoli. Say, you got'ny wine here?"
"Sure do." I pointed to the door to the closet. He got up and walked in the closet and came out smiling. I usually had a stack (or two) of cases of wine in there. I ordered the sixteen ounce steak prime rib so I had leftovers.
Two orders, almost the same, except one of them was sixteen ounces, and no fucking gravy! I added that as a special note, and showed him the tablet screen. Carlo playfully punched my shoulder and laughed. The app said seventy five minutes to delivery and confirmed the address. Carlo mumbled 'they should include Au jus instead of gravy anyway.' I admonished him to not add conditions to the sale after the transaction. He replied by saying `Yes sir,' like he was just scolded.
After ordering we put away our electronics, he used the bathroom while I grabbed the binoculars and looked at the harbor (again) from the balcony railing. Carlo stepped outside beside me. There was a nice breeze but it was still muggy outside, but not as bad as at street level. While I looked around the harbor and the Coast Guard ships I reached back and pulled him closer, then I handed him the binocs to let him look around.
"Checking on the baby?" He asked with a chuckle because I was obviously looking at the Bayboro Harbor. "You really miss her don't you?" He asked softly but I didn't reply to either comment.
While he slowly twisted around to look over Saint Petersburg with the binocs I gently slipped my hand several inches down inside the back of his shorts so I could gently feel his baby soft ass cheek.
"Be careful with the binocs, its two hundred feet to people on the sidewalk."
There weren't any buildings south of us that were as tall but it was still technically possible for someone with a long camera lens or a telescope to spy on us but the actual odds were low. There's almost a hundred balconies on this side alone and this high up. It's weird that as many times as I walked around the neighborhood and looked at this high rise I never saw anyone on a balcony, yet condos with a balcony paid a premium for it. Some people used them like a storage shed, which was not allowed by the condo rules.
We kind of just chilled out waiting for the time to pass, I thought about blowing him but decided not to. He didn't seem interested in sex right then so we crashed on my bed with the patio door wide open and talked about his parents and the store for almost an hour. Carlo did most of the talking but he never flashed any skin at me. I think he needed someone to talk to most of all. I kind of got the impression he didn't have too many friends his age, like me. I wondered why that happened. He had a great outgoing personality and he's pretty good looking too. I was actually kind of surprised he didn't have multiple guys he could call for weekend action.
With five minutes left we went downstairs to meet the driver by standing on the driveway outside. When the car drove up then past us then stopped Carlo loudly whistled Pop Goes the Weasel to get his attention. He backed-up and climbed out with three large bags, I handed him a ten and we went straight to the elevator. Carlo said he recognized the driver as a tire store customer.
My coffee table top lifted up and over to transform into a dining table for two, so we sat on the front edge of the sofa, side by side. I grabbed the remote and turned on a nature show about the Australian Outback to glance at while we ate our steaks and cooked broccoli. It was a wonderful dinner, and so far it was a wonderful evening too. With the light coming in the patio door it was hard to see the projected image on the wall. During the meal Carlo still did most of the talking.
After dinner was finished I pulled the shade and started the movie, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I really liked the movie and told Carlo I'd watch any movie with Christopher Plummer, except maybe not The Sound of Music. He said he never saw either film but he liked Daniel Craig, especially as Agent 007.
I lowered the table top and cleaned up while the opening credits scrolled down the wall. We propped our legs on the table and drank beers during the film. He declined some microwave popcorn.
After the movie we washed each other in the shower and went to bed. He fucked me then we took turns wanking my dick, then slept like spoons the rest of the night. I snuggled behind him with my semen still smeared on my stomach. That evening I told Carlo that usually once a year I paid someone to buy me about 15 cases of wine of different types, then stacked them in the closet and that lasted me the rest of the year, usually. That was enough wine for a year if nobody visited and cost about $2,800 a year.
His only reply was, "If nobody visited?" I answered by saying, "Yep." He just said, "Huh."
Sunday morning.
Carlo said he needed to leave at 9am which gave us time to get a quick breakfast at a nearby (four blocks away) diner I never tried before. It's a small mom and pop restaurant that was only open for breakfast and lunch, trying to cater to the morning and lunch time downtown business crowd. The food was okay but their prices were high and menu was limited but the cook was good and so were the ingredients. Their signs said they were into farm to table, but most of that concept was bullshit if you looked into the actual logistics. Just wait until July and ask about their farm to table potatoes!
Carlo left from breakfast into an Uber at the curb and I walked home alone thinking about everything he said. While we were eating I brought up the subject of 'the trip,' and he listened but had no comment. So far I've only researched the segment of the trip from Tampa Bay to the west end of the canal. We discussed his relative on Cozumel, he said his mother wrote his uncle two letters since he said he wanted to quit the tire store. His uncle was a retired fisherman for the hotels on the island of Cozumel. He said his uncle was one of the few in rural Mexico that had an actual pension, and now he did minor boat repairs for cash but he didn't own a boat anymore and caught all his fish at the local market.
After Carlo left I drove down to the marina and looked at Susan with her new radar mounted really high up on the mast. It was a small round cylinder, like a stack of five dinner plates in size. It had a white plastic housing outside with two cables that went inside the hollow mast all the way down below the cabin floor, then across the boat to beneath the tiny captain's desk and up along the wall to where it terminated with a USB cable. The other cable ran below deck to join the DC power supply bus. There was a master power switch on the instrument panel at the little captain's desk. Any computer with Wifi could connect and watch the radar image, so I could use it at the pilot's wheel or inside the cabin. But to change settings the computer had to be connected via the USB cable.
I plugged the USB cable in and watched the radar appear on the list of Wifi connections, I double clicked on the icon and a window appeared then populated a color radar image, 360 degrees from my mast, out to about twenty miles, but all around me was a cloud of dots and lines, all the sailboat masts, streetlights, buildings, and trees. All the buildings around me pretty much blocked seeing anything at water level beyond the harbor. I might not even see a boat moving near me. The owner's manual said the radar had no moving parts, it had four wide horizontal aperture antennas that looked straight out and were adjustable via the control software. It created an image that looked frozen but was actually live if you watched one particular pixel long enough to see it flicker. It took one 360 degree scan per half second and updated the screen every two seconds.
If the radar sat in one spot long enough it would begin to pick out `ground clutter' reflections caused by nearby structures and remove them from the image.
The display showed a small area of rain across the bay, which was really cool. I went outside to visually compare my display to the actual sky. Okay, that was very cool, so I shut it down.
I saw in the manual where it said the radar was on the same frequency used by microwave ovens so near land it might see them inside nearby structures, but out at sea it was not a problem. It also said at certain times the sun and strong marine (military) radars might interfere with proper operation.
I drove home to read and chill out the rest of the day. I had laundry to do, my bed really needed clean sheets after two sweaty guys fucked on it last night. I took my tablet computer loaded with Florida Statues and Case Law database down to the laundry room and did more homework while the laundry machines did their work.
For dinner I ate the rest of my steak. Tomorrow was back to work and my normal routine, which I adhered to like glue unless someone pushed me hard. At home I ate the same breakfast day after day, week after week. When Carlo came over I usually had him pick the meals, otherwise he'd see I ate the same thing day after day.
I noticed after my last mini-lecture about autism he seemed to pay attention more closely than before. I think it started to register with him that I really had a weird structural thing inside my brain that caused me to behave oddly at times and in ways he might not notice unless we were together for an entire day or two.
On this visit he asked about my finger movements, I slowly and firmly slid my thumbs across the sides of my first fingers. I told him I was never aware of it, but it actually caused me to feel relaxed and less stressed because it was like a form of massage. Then I showed him how I did it, he looked at me and smiled and said he felt the vibration in his entire arm and it was sort of relaxing if you didn't think about doing it.
Tuesday, the Miami group rode to the Saint Pete airport and flew in a charter plane to Miami and took a limo to the hotel. In the past we always took a regional jet, but this time was very different which worried me that something was up. I came very close to refusing to get on the plane, because of all the times I saw in the news that people were killed with staged small airplane crashes, any James Bond fan knew that one.
This was a good example of one Autism super-power, changes in routines were usually a big deal to autistic people. It also helped protect us from unanticipated dangers, but sometimes made us difficult travelling companions.
At the hotel we did our usual work, this was the ninth time this group of people made the same trip to the same hotel to do the same thankless jobs, talking to (usually stinky) homeless and poor people.
We spent the rest of day #1 reviewing cases of the people we already pre-interviewed, we'd see those folks tomorrow and record their interviews. After those were done we reviewed the next group and interviewed them on the 2nd day and wrapped up paperwork and covered what still needed to be addressed with the entire group of possible claimants.
I had developed a spreadsheet for logging in each client and tracking what milestones they met as far as supplying us with information and evidence (medical bills, x-rays, witness lists, etc.)
The paralegals spent entire days on the phone with these folks collecting information and evidence. Some of the claimants ended up in hospitals after severe beatings if they refused to work. Their stories were very disgusting and made me angry.
That anger was something I wished I could share with a friend like Carlo, but I was sworn to secrecy and had to keep their stories in my head.
Spending two six hour sessions listening to inarticulate people describe their fear, anger, and frustration in the hands of the police made me afraid to be in Miami, a city with an out of control police force. I felt Miami could make a huge improvement if they removed about thirty dirty cops and sold the laundry to an independent company. They'd rather pay millions of taxpayer dollars to protect the status quo. And pay they most certainly will, some of them will end up in prison too. We had a list of twenty seven cops that needed to spend time in prison. Since we started the investigations one hung himself and another one recently took an overdose but survived. The judge presently on this case was descended from actual African slaves.
Wednesday evening we were almost done, I was very hungry so I did what I'd been told not to do, I jogged across the street to a small taco stand and went inside to place an order. When I stepped away from the counter to wait four Miami cops walked in and ordered at the counter. Their sudden appearance gave me chest pain.
One of the older cops, the one with white hair, he looked like the supervisor, he turned to face me and got a call in his earphone. He grabbed his microphone that was clipped near his shoulder and spoke to someone on the other end of the radio. I noticed he had a camera on his other shoulder. He glanced at me and spoke softly into the microphone and slowly stepped towards me with a smile on his face.
Eventually he spoke and said his sergeant saw my face on his monitor and recognized me from a wanted list, he asked for my ID, which I handed over without speaking. He looked at my Florida driver's license and asked if it was mine and was it legit. I just kept my mouth shut because those were just insulting entrapment questions. By then the other cops had gathered around and the girl behind the counter called my number. When I said my food was ready they told me to forget about that and put me in handcuffs and took me into custody, he said they needed to verify my identity at the police station. Since they hadn't violated my rights yet I cooperated but kept my mouth shut.
I was patted down on the sidewalk and placed in a police car and taken to the police station and put in an interrogation room, handcuffed to a heavy steel table. I sat in that cold bright room for almost two hours after they fingerprinted me and took my photo. The same cop that arrested me came back in the room and asked me what I was doing in Miami.
"I'm here for my employer interviewing people."
"Who is your employer?"
"Beckham and Rogers in Saint Pete."
"That name sounds familiar," was his reply. "Who are you here with?" He asked.
"Coworkers."
"What are their names?"
"They're not involved in this matter."
"What do you do?"
"I interview people."
"Are you a lawyer?"
"I interview people."
"Look, we know who you are and why you're here, there's more than a few people in Miami that don't like what you're up to. They don't like strangers coming to town and stirrin' up shit."
"I just interview people."
"You said that."
"Am I under arrest?"
"Not yet. It might take a few months to collect evidence of your crimes and determine the charges."
"What about my phone call?"
"Not until you're charged."
"What's the limit you can jail someone without charges or due process?"
"Under extreme circumstances there is no limit, we could hold you till Christmas if we wanted to and put your ass to work to pay for your meals."
"Huh." I looked around the room and saw a camera with a red light and raised my chin so it got a good face shot of me. I looked at the name on his badge, it said 'Sgt. T. Rivera'. I made a mental note of that and asked him what the T stood for but he laughed at me. He asked me more questions about what we were investigating and what our plans were, but I mostly refused to answer his questions. I could tell he was getting madder by the minute, he even made threatening statements and gestures towards me, all in full view of the camera. I was scared but also glad he was stupid enough to do it in front of a camera that was probably also recording sound.
When it came time to move me to a holding cell Officer T. Rivera un-cuffed me from the table and slammed me against the wall and turned me around and put the cuffs back on and growled that he hated my guts and all my Cuban buddies too and I needed to stay out of Miami or they'd kill me. He spun me around, sneered, and spit in my face, then through clenched teeth he said it again, "We're gonna kill you boy." He yanked my arm and walked me to a large holding cage down in the basement. Walking down the hallway I asked him what his date of birth was, and he asked why I wanted to know. I told him I'd need it when I called the IRS. But again he laughed at me. I thought to myself that he's rather stupid too.
The entire basement area stunk like rotted piss and body odor. The floors were sticky and scared the crap out of me, but I kept my mouth shut. He had someone unlock the cage door and shoved me inside. The heavy steel door clanged shut. I looked around for a spot on the bench to sit. At first everyone looked at me, a few of them laughed assuming I was a suit that got busted for drunk driving. Apparently that was the most common reason for someone in a business suit to end up in the drunk tank.
Inside the cage were about thirty homeless and drunk people sitting on long concrete benches, everyone was upset and two fights started. I was the only one wearing a suit. After the room quieted down I carefully stepped over passed-out drunks on the nasty cold floor, over to cordless payphone and placed a collect call to our office in Saint Pete and luckily caught one of the paralegals working late and told them I was being held in downtown Miami without charges. I had no idea how long I'd been here and no idea what was going on, or where I was.
I found out later she called Clark Rogers at home and told him what happened. Clark was golfing buddies with the governor of Florida, Rick Scott.
One hour later a huge cop with lots of keys unlocked the cage door and shouted my name, he walked me back upstairs and told me I was being released. He escorted me to a thick glass window beside the steel exit door. I signed for my stuff which had been put in a plastic bag and walked out the side door onto a dark side street with no idea where I was or even what direction it was to the hotel.
I walked several blocks in the humid dark night air with sweat dripping down my ribs before I got to a main street and hailed a taxi. My wallet had been emptied of cash and credit cards at the police station, and my cell was dead, not sure why. The cops stole my property, this was a big part of the reason we were building a legal case against them.
Finally, I got a ride back to the hotel and paid the taxi driver, then got to my room and put my cell on the charging pad. Back at the desk I opened my laptop and emailed a few people at work to explain what happened. By then my cell had enough of a charge to turn on. It looked like the data port was damaged, they must have downloaded everything from my cell without cause, but it was empty except a few restaurants I called and Carlo's number and photo. I already uninstalled the Grindr app from my cell. But it might reveal the location of my apartment and boat.
I got in contact with my coworkers in their rooms in the hotel, they were all freaked out that I disappeared and called the cops and work, which was why someone was in the office when I called.
I couldn't sleep that night so I went back online and searched for rides back to Saint Pete and found an overnight bus so I bought a ticket, grabbed my stuff and took a taxi to the bus station and quickly left Miami. As the bus motored west into the Everglades on US-41 it got darker and darker outside, for an hour I never saw a single electric light out the window. Eventually we got onto I-75 and headed for Saint Pete.
On the ride across the state I wrote my resignation letter. Then I found an article online about the police installing tracking software in prisoners cell phones so they could monitor everything around the phone from anywhere on the planet. I did a hard reset on my phone just in case. It was obvious they accessed the phone with a USB cable and damaged it in the process, and then they stole my cash and credit cards. Either way I could no longer trust this cell and needed to replace it immediately.
At 6am the bus crossed the Sunshine Skyway and an hour later I was in my own apartment. After showering I emailed a real estate agent I knew about selling my place on the 20th floor and started the process. Then I sent my resignation letter to the office manager at work. I was still fuming mad inside. I called the bank to freeze my cards and get a new one, and I switched the SIM card back to my old cell and tossed the one they damaged in a trash can on the sidewalk.
In one hour I packed the most important things I had in the apartment, mostly clothes, and personal items from the bathroom and drove to the marina and carried everything to the boat. I've always prided myself in living with very few possessions. About the only thing of great personal value to me in the apartment was the old family photo album I got from my mother before she moved to the nursing home.
At 9am I got a call from the manager at the office and we talked for twenty five minutes (when you're a lawyer you learned to time everything you did). He tried to guilt me into un-quitting, that the case would die if I walked out, but I told him everything I learned was in my notes, which they had. I told him I wanted to leave Florida as soon as possible, I didn't feel safe anywhere here now.
I reminded him every time I told them it was un-safe doing this work inside the Miami city limits but my requests were ignored.
I finally had to hang up on him because it seemed like he wasn't going to stop talking until I verbally revoked my resignation.
My next step was to run to Target to get two blocks of dry ice and some fresh food, I guess I'd be living with Susan for the foreseeable future. I got some Florida oranges and two cans of frozen orange juice concentrate. Not sure why I had a sudden craving for fruit. Back on the boat I got out the shotgun and made sure it was fully loaded, safety-off, I left it sit under a stadium blanket on the sofa.
I wanted a pistol but in a marina a bullet just sounded like a bad idea, holes in a boat often ended up with leaks and sinking ships, so... no, just birdshot instead of bullets. If you fired a pistol here it could pass through a few hulls and ricochet off several six hundred dollar vacuum cleaners before it stopped.
After my four mile run and a shower I texted Carlo, told him I'd had a really bad day. He texted me right back and said he'd had a very fucked-up day too, so he drove over about 7:10pm. It took him almost 30 minutes to get here and I could honestly say I really needed a sympathetic friend to hold really soon.
While I waited outside on the yacht club steps watching up the street for his car I formulated a plan to fuck-up Sergeant Rivera without touching him. My goal was to hit him hard and destroy his comfortable life forever, I'd do it on behalf of myself and all the poor folks he screwed over.
When I saw his car down the street I ran across and held my FOB at the sensor, the arm raised and Carlo drove in and parked.
We sat in his car in the back corner of the parking lot and talked about our crap, Carlo went first.
He fired an employee and it got very crazy so they called the cops. He said the young man got so angry he refused to leave and wanted to fight everyone, he ripped off his shirt and started dancing around like a boxer in the ring, and at first everyone had to look away because his show looked funny and they didn't want to upset him even more by laughing at him. But he wouldn't leave so Claudia called the cops.
"When the cops arrived it was two middle-aged women in uniform, I thought to myself this wasn't going to go well, they're gonna shoot `im." I told Carlo to keep telling his story, I wanted to hear the entire incident.
"They got him to focus on them and got him to explain about being fired, he felt it was just because he was Cuban and they hated Hispanics (of course they could see that all the employees were Hispanic). But they also focused on looking non-threatening to him and after a couple minutes of talking and him yelling back he lowered his voice and they got close enough to very quickly (and without a struggle) put handcuffs on him. They got him in their car (without a struggle) and drove him to the hospital ER for mental evaluation and probably drug testing." Carlo added that instead of threatening him they offered him a chance to see a doctor instead, he clearly needed help.
He paused for a few seconds then said his mother grabbed the customers in the lobby and brought them in the office and locked the door, but he stayed out in the service bay during the entire shit show. Carlo said he was the big asshole for firing him for being drunk at work.
I asked why they fired him and Carlo said for hostile attitude, and his breath smelled like booze when he came back from break, his speech was slurred and he staggered too. Carlo sounded visibly upset, I heard it in his voice. Carlo said he's never had anything like that happen around him since he got out of the Navy. He added the guy was very skinny, like a meth abuser, and had sores on his face and arms. When the guy first came back from lunch stinking of booze Carlo confronted him quietly but the guy got mad and shoved him into the wall, Carlo hit his head on the wall then marched into the office while his mom called the cops.
When he put his hand on his thigh I set my hand on top of his and squeezed it firmly, it appeared he was done telling his story.
I told him I broke quarantine rules to get some tacos across the street from the hotel and got arrested for being a civil rights lawyer without police permission, in another city.
Carlo looked at me and said, "You got arrested?!"
"Yep, fuckin pissed me off too. They messed with the wrong Indian, cuz I'll get even!" Carlo chuckled when I said that.
We sat there in the dark humid air, holding hands in his car. Carlo sniffled and lowered his head and stared at his lap. I moved my hand up behind his neck and squeezed it and gently pulled him over towards me. He flipped up the steering wheel and pushed his seat back then turned towards me and leaned over and grabbed my shoulders and planted his face by my neck and after a few minutes he started to whimper and whine. I lowered my face into the top of his head and smelled his hair and held him.
I think Carlo and I both needed to do something physical to get rid of our angry energy, but we ended up hugging for almost fifteen minutes then we both cried a little. I put my arms around him while he had his hands on my shoulders and we held each other. It seemed like our closeness amplified our sadness.
Then he reached down and hit the lever on the side of my seat, it fell against the back seat so I was almost lying on my back with my feet on the floor. He crawled over and got on top of me with his arms around my neck, I held him firmly. Then he whimpered more and barely cried a little more which made me very emotional and sad and I cried a little too. He stopped first and moved up to my face and kissed me.
That was the first time in my life I deep tongue kissed someone while crying. I cannot describe what that was like but it was extremely intimate. He had to steer my skull so our mouths aligned because it was very awkward, confusing, and intimate at the same time.
After more holding and sniffling we made out again and just snuggled, all sweaty and hot even with the windows down. At 9:45pm it started to rain again.
For a time Carlo was on top of me, our foreheads pressed together, our noses and lips colliding. Add tears and sniffling and it made for one super intimate time where we whispered to each other with our lips only an inch apart. We showed our vulnerabilities and affections for each other, that time in his car was recorded in my brain as one of the most intimate moments of my life. It took me back to childhood injuries when my parents drove me to the hospital and my mother tried to calm my screams.
Carlo carefully unbuttoned my shirt and pulled one side out of the way then licked and sucked hard on my left tit. I twisted my body to aim it towards him, I needed it to hurt. Rain blew in the window but neither of us cared. The sky flashed and thunder rumbled outside. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back and enjoyed the pain and the pleasure of breast feeding Carlo.
He let go and kissed my tit several times then slowly dragged his tongue across it a few more times. I opened my eyes and our faces were very close as we looked into each other's eyes. He smiled and kissed my mouth.
He softly said he needed to go home while our faces were inches apart, lit only by a distant street light shining through tree leaves. Carlo had a truly happy and relaxed look on his face, he was so handsome and sexy with his thick lips and full eyebrows, and those deep dark eyes pulled hard on my soul.
When it appeared we were done complaining about our crappy jobs the topic of conversation changed to our regular old pillow talk, except this time he was on top of me in the front passenger seat of his car, in the rain with the windows down!
At 10:22pm he rolled back on his seat while I struggled to sit up and get out of his car to my feet. With a bit of work I pulled myself upright then turned, opened the door and splashed my feet on the wet pavement, stood up and shut the car door. Carlo raised both seatbacks and started the engine. The radio and his lights came on and as the windows went up he slowly drove across the parking lot and out the gate.
I stood in the rain and lightning and watched while he splashed through the puddles towards the gate. I reached up inside my shirt and rubbed my sore left tit as the gate went up and he quickly turned left onto 3rd Street and disappeared into the traffic.
I slowly walked back to Susan looking like I'd just been molested. My shirt was badly crumpled, half un-buttoned, half un-tucked, hanging out in front, I had a bruise around my left tit, and my hair looked like Bozo the Clown just styled it.
When I walked under a streetlight I rubbed my chest then held out my hand to look for blood. The bad part then was the tit attention I got really made me horny, I needed to come badly. In the cabin I locked the doors, pulled the curtains shut, shed my clothes into the mesh hamper and crashed on the floor and jerked off really hard.
For special occasions I liked to lie on my back on the floor beside the sofa. I hooked my feet under the back cushions so my ass was almost two feet above my face but my weight was mostly on my shoulders (I learned this in high school). When I came like that a lot of it hit my face, when I came I held my mouth open and stuck my tongue out and caught most of it.
Using a finger I squeegeed the missing drops inside my mouth. To me I tasted like melted butter with added salt.
I poured an ice cold, nearly frozen Coors into a tall paper cup and wrote an email to my boss at the office and told him the name of the asshole cop that detained me (and roughed me up and threatened to kill me) without charges, Sgt. T. Rivera. I demanded he be fired after apologizing to my face. I was drunk and probably should not have sent that email. After I was done I noticed a drop of semen in the back of my hand so I licked it off too.
After five beers I staggered to the head, peed in the pump toilet, and staggered to the V bunk and was asleep in minutes. As I drifted off to sleep I heard the sound of rain outside hitting the deck above me and the window in the hatch which was only open a crack. The boat rocked on the water from the wind as the storm rumbled across Tampa Bay. I closed my eyes and pulled one of the large pillows to me and hugged it pretending it was Carlo, but it didn't smell like his hair.
The next day we had tropical storm warnings, a system of low pressure south-east of the Bahamas was projected to hit central Florida on the east coast and cross over to the Gulf. But the weather outside looked like it was here already.
I was on the phone for nearly one hour with my employer the next two days about conditions in Miami and what happened to me and the crew on our last trip. The manager said they were re-evaluating the location and process, they were considering moving to a suburb closer to the airport but they really needed me to stay on the case... 'Do it for all the plaintiffs.' Nobody mentioned money or specific security procedures so I kept listening but never agreed to return to work or rescind my resignation.
I'm sure they were already working on finding my replacement. Nobody had anything specific to say about what happened between me and the police or what was going to happen. As well connected as they were in state politics they could make life for Sgt T. Rivera extremely difficult if they wanted to. But maybe I had to do this one myself, legally. Believe me, I knew lots of ways to fuck-up someone's life without putting a hand on `em.
At 6pm on Friday Clark Rogers called me and said he sent me an early Christmas bonus, I thanked him and he said he was glad I was still on the case (which I hadn't said yet). After we hung up I put my phone on silent and used the computer to check my bank balance and saw an electronic deposit pending for $800,000.00 which was a fraction of what I'd make in bonuses for settling this case with the city, the police union, and some individual police officers. I knew this was just a tiny advance on what they projected to make, so it really wasn't a gift. But my account now showed a balance of around $7.6m. Much of that came from the last big case I won for them. It was obvious they didn't want to lose me as a partner, but I suspected my return bridge was already on fire.
The problem for me was the incident in Miami and the overall poor and inconsistent manner they conducted this case had crossed a few lines and violated my trust in them. Trust was a huge thing for me. And they were showing a nearly negligent level of care for our safety in Miami and I had warned them in writing multiple times. It seemed to me like there was no way I could ever work for them again, they can gamble with someone else's life.
That afternoon I called one of the other private investigators for the firm (not Tim) and gave him the name `Sergeant T. Rivera of the Miami Police Department.' He called me back thirty minutes later with the info I needed, his home address, birth date, social security number, driver's license number, where he banked, shopped, attended church, his wife's name and the names and ages of his children. I was still burning mad inside, that bastard needed a lesson in humility. He was probably already named in our suit, or would be before the end of 2018. We knew he was one of the owners of the laundry and manufacturing operation.
On Saturday afternoon I rented a full size SUV and drove back to Miami. It took an hour to locate their home and church, he lived in a nice upper middle class neighborhood (a bit expensive for someone earning a policeman's salary) and their Presbyterian church was 1.7 miles from home. I parked in their lot mentally preparing (for two hours) for what I was about to do.
I also read some of the case files and using my laptop in the car I submitted urgent action reports on him to the IRS which would result in the near immediate lockdown of all his bank accounts and other public assets (home, car, RV, boat, real estate, and investments). Those accounts were now evidence in a reported tax evasion and money laundering operation.
It took me a couple hours to complete all the forms by computer but as a sworn officer of the court I had the ability and duty to report him, it would have happened soon anyway. Their system took effect rapidly so the suspect could not remove any assets. Within 90 minutes his accounts should be locked, starting with checking and savings, credit cards, and any forms of plastic money. Those can be frozen even late at night and on a weekend with the new IRS reporting system, and I was just getting started.
That was the first time I set foot in a Catholic church since Communion. During the sermon part of the service I stood and spoke in my best courtroom voice, I pointed at Tyrone Rivera two pews ahead of me and told the congregation what he did to people. A look of surprise was on everyone's face (especially Tyrone), and since I never displayed a weapon nobody tried to stop me, although the minister tried to interrupt twice. I spoke clearly and slowly so everyone could understand me. As I spoke I kept my hands raised the entire time, like a minister leading prayer.
"Ladies and gentlemen, that man is a criminal. He is a dangerous criminal, he'll be in prison soon. He routinely violates the civil rights of innocent people. He's kidnapped innocent poor people and participated in the violent beatings of people jailed without charges. This man commits felony crimes every week at the police station. He is especially harsh on the poor and Cuban immigrants." Tyrone sat beside his wife hoping everyone in church would think I was crazy or talking about someone else. He sat there shrugging his shoulders and smiling as if it was a joke. I noticed his ears and cheeks had turned red. She turned to stare at him with a look of shock on her face. "I have no idea what this is." He loudly said to his wife while I was talking.
"This man will lose everything he owns next year as a defendant in the largest civil rights case in Florida history. Tens of millions of your tax dollars will be spent compensating his victims. This man should be the enemy of every law abiding person on Earth. This is Tyrone Rivera, a dangerous criminal and disgusting human. Look at his face, the next time you see him will be on TV when he's brought before a judge to face charges of crimes against humanity. When you look at him picture him wearing a Nazi uniform because that's what he is."
As I shuffled to the end of the pew I added, "And his poor wife and children have no idea the dangerous creature that lives in their house." I gestured to them seated beside Tyrone. With tears on her face his wife grabbed her children's hands and rushed them out of the church leaving him alone with his stupid grin all alone in the pew.
I stepped into the side aisle, raised my hand and pointed at his face (ten feet away), rotated my finger up and yelled, "Fuck you! You disgust me!" Then I lowered my voice, looked in his eyes and said, "I just thought everyone you know should get a chance to say good bye and know what kind of sicko pervert you really are. God save your soul." I spit on the floor by my feet and looked back at him then turned towards back of the church.
I quickly left the stunned silent congregation through the nearest door. Thank God for "EXIT" signs!
I stepped out the door and jogged to the SUV and saw people were already fleeing out the front door. My interruption to the service scared some people, like I was going to open fire or something, but I kept my empty hands clearly visible the entire time so everyone could see I was unarmed. A few people tried to take photos of the back end of the SUV to capture the license plate as I drove out of their parking lot, but Sergeant Rivera already knew exactly who I was. I'd bet he was totally shocked to see me seated behind him and his family in church the very next day. It's not that often that the bullies get punched in the face in public, and his beating was just getting started! His life was about to turn to shit and stay that way for at least another year.
By the time I was halfway across the Everglades my inner anger was gone. There were two speed-trap state cops I drove past on the highway, but they never came after me, which was a good sign.
At 4pm I was back on the V-bunk with a beer in one hand and the old Darrow Family photo album in the other, reggae music played on the stereo. On page three I saw some old newspaper photos of my great grandfather Clarence. He was buried almost five decades before I was born, he was the first lawyer in the family and sort of educated himself over a period of years.
Clarence was an Ohio farm boy, worked with his hands and like me he was a big dude, taller than me. He had a huge voice, maybe like mine, maybe bigger. I think Clarence would have ambushed Tyrone on the street and bloodied his face before humiliating him in church. I never touched the man but I probably just ruined his social life and turned his financial life into a dumpster fire with the phone calls I made on the way to Miami. All his bank accounts were now locked as evidence in a court case as of this morning. And I reported him to the IRS for money laundering and tax fraud, which he's very guilty of too, but we were not doing a criminal investigation, just civil.
Hurricane season was almost over, we've had two tropical storms so far, all in all a mild year. So much for the annual Cat-5 storms being the 'new normal!' You'd be surprised how damaging a tropical storm could be in areas built before the hurricane building codes. It surprised me the older neighborhoods along 13th Avenue were still standing with the storms Saint Pete got. Some of those places near the west end of the street were just shacks, some were 40+ year old mobile homes occupied by homeless meth addicts, all the windows broken out and surrounded by trash and old shopping carts. When I ran down 13th Avenue I never stopped in any spot long enough to be noticed by the locals. All I appeared to be was a pale blur on the sidewalk.
I found out that evening my brief speech at their church was reported in the local newspaper and Miami TV news since the sergeant was very well known. He refused to answer questions from the TV crews outside his house about the alleged laundry service staffed by slave labor at the point of a gun. Once the Cubans in Miami learned about that operation he might not be able to go out in public without a disguise and a body guard for a loooong time, if he lived that long. For the Cubans in Miami now they knew two places to check for missing relatives.
My best advice for Tyrone would be to avoid private aviation, hot tubs, fishing boats, and make sure there were no ropes or extension cords in his home, and be certain to tell everyone he knew daily that he had no desire to kill himself, because he was at risk for being suicided.
I saw in the news online that the media located the laundry service and their factory and tried to film inside both, but so did a group of angry local citizens. Just like in the 1931 movie Frankenstein the angry crowds at the doors forced the release of their prisoners and the closure of both enterprises. That night their factory mysteriously caught fire and burned to the ground.
Contact the author: borischenaz gmail
Please remember that the story about the Miami Police is fictional, none of it happened and all the characters are fictional.