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Friday, February 12

   Stitch Tanner sat behind the wheel of a hot '83 Coupe DeVille watching the reporter's house, wondering how he was going to make murder look like an accident. Stitch wasn't used to being so subtle in his work. Multiple gunshot wounds were more his style, partly because he had lousy aim and partly because multiple shots were just more fun.
    He loved the feel of a gun in his hand, loved the power of life and death that kicked his palm as he squeezed the trigger. There was so much action for so little effort. And he knew through experience that you didn't have to be a great marksman to snuff out a life. Sink enough lead into anyone and he's bound to stop moving.
    Unfortunately, this hit wouldn't be so simple. How could he make it look like an accident? A fall in the shower? Drug overdose? Electrocution? Stitch struck a wooden match, lit another Kool. Maybe fire, he thought. The top half of Tally's house was wooden and would go up all right. But the bottom part was coral rock, which you couldn't burn with a blow torch.
    Even if the house was all wood, fire would be too chancy. What if Tally ran out? Then Stitch would have to plug him a couple or ten times with his new fifty-caliber Desert Eagle. While that might be more fun, it would hardly look like an accident.
    Stitch flicked the cigarette butt out the window and immediately felt like lighting up again. He was uneasy about working in the daytime. Normally, he liked to do his thing at night, when people were already scared and tended to shut their eyes to nightmares like him. In daylight, people were bolder and their sight was sharper. But the boss had
sounded serious about taking care of the reporter as soon as possible.
    Stitch idly scratched the scar on his cheek that earned him his nickname. It ran from the corner of his left eye almost to the jawbone. Just about everyone called him Stitch now. Since his Mama died, the only ones who still called him Otis were the police.
    The cell phone sitting on the seat chirped. Only one other person knew the number. Stitch picked it up.
    "Nothing yet," he said.
    "Got to be today, Stitch." Even over the cellular, the voice on the other end had a hypnotic resonance, deep and rich as a lion's roar. "And don't forget, it's got to look like an accident."
    "No problem," Stitch said. "I'll take care..."
    "Just call me when it's done."
    The line went dead. Stitch set the cellular down and scratched his scar, a sign that he was thinking. But it wasn't helping much. He'd never been too good at planning things. Better to just wait, he decided. Something would turn up. 

                                            *          *          *

    Dan Tally's first inkling of consciousness was an ache in the back of his neck. He opened his eyes and saw the ceiling fan spinning round and round. He was lying on his living room sofa, his head propped against the armrest at an angle which would better suit an invertebrate. From the direction of the TV set, he heard birds chirping and a narrator whispering about the mating habits of the yellow-eyed babbler. Ever-so-slowly, he sat up, the knot of muscles in his neck tightening as they resisted movement. He fought off the spasm by ignoring it.
    The birds were singing up a storm, pre-nuptial serenades according to the announcer. Tally checked the bandage on his left hand. It was ripe for changing. He stood up and headed for the bathroom. As usual, his bad knee needed a couple of steps to start functioning properly. But other than that, he felt pretty good considering all he'd been through in the past couple of days. He splashed some water on his face with one hand,
then redressed the wound on the other just as the emergency room nurse had demonstrated.
    Back in the living room, the yellow-eyed babblers on the TV had a nest full of baby babblers. Each chick seemed to be about ninety percent mouth as their diligent parents doled out a din-din of regurgitated nightcrawlers. The idea of thrown-up worms didn't do much for Tally's appetite, but since he hadn't eaten much lately, the mere act of watching other creatures dine sent some mild hunger pangs through his gut.
    Tally flicked off the TV and cracked the verticals. It was getting around to dusk, the best time of day anywhere, but especially in the tropics. He glanced at the clock. Almost five. Maybe he'd take a spin on his bike before dinner. His knee really needed some exercise. His head, too. But nothing too strenuous, he thought, just a nice quiet sunset ride through Coconut Grove. 

                                        *          *          *
    

Stitch Tanner had been patiently watching the little house down the block for hours, smoking Kools while listening to reggae and rap on the university station. When a white girl came on to DJ, he switched to K-Soul. Barry White got him thinking about his woman Martha, how she'd ridden him last night, her big sweaty breasts slapping together, fingers digging into his chest, breathless voice telling him how good it felt.
     The shadows were getting real long now. Stitch glanced at the clock in the dash. Five-oh-two. Soon it would be dark. That was good. More accidents happen after dark. He pulled off one of his leather driving gloves to open a fresh pack of smokes and lit up. 
    A car pulled around the corner. Stitch slid down in his seat until it passed, then sat up. There was some movement over by the reporter's house. It was Tally. He was on a bicycle, wearing a green t-shirt and dark blue cap. He rode out of his driveway and turned Tanner's way. Stitch slipped down in his seat again until the reporter passed, then sat up and watched him pedal away in the rear-view mirror. Stitch tossed the cigarette he'd just lit out the window, pulled on his glove and cranked up the Caddy. Damned thing had a hole in the muffler and made too much noise. But he liked big cars, especially for a job like this. He smiled as he made a U-turn. Stitch remembered hearing somewhere that bicycling was the single most dangerous mode of transportation in the world. He couldn't have planned it any better. Tally was just another accident waiting to happen. 

                                        *          *          *     

    Tally's injured hand throbbed a bit, but nothing he couldn't handle on an evening like this. The weather was perfect, scattered clouds and untropically cool, thanks to the remnants of a recent cold front. The air invigorated him, and he had to fight off urges to pedal faster. Normally when he cycled, he pushed himself to maintain a speed that kept him gasping for air, trying to keep his thirty-three-year-old body fit. It had been working pretty well. He was only five pounds over his collegiate playing weight, and his muscles hadn't lost much tone. Despite a rebuilt knee, his legs were particularly strong, rarely tiring even though his old Raleigh ten-speed was stuck in high gear.
    But today, he wasn't looking to push his cardiovascular limit. He was just on an easy cruise through the back streets of Coconut Grove, a scenic slice of southern suburbia where the houses seemed to be half-devoured by the foliage. In the distance, he could hear the sounds of rush hour on Dixie Highway, but these streets were quiet. They'd been
blocked off to keep cars from using them for shortcuts. There was no traffic to contend with, no gas fumes to suck up, no noise except for birds, an occasional barking dog and the rhythmic squeak of the Raleigh's rusty crank axle. 

                                        *          *          * 

    Stitch Tanner lost Tally when the reporter rode around a walled garden which blocked off a side street. Stitch tried to get through down the road, but all of the side streets were blocked off. He cursed the rich folk logic of having streets for people instead of cars. It took a couple of minutes for him to find a way in off Tigertail Road. By then Tally was nowhere in sight. Stitch drove around, hoping to "bump into" him somewhere. There were hardly any people around: a guy washing a black sports car in a driveway, a lady in a maid's uniform walking a curly-haired little dog, a couple of boys kicking a soccer ball around a lawn. This was a perfect spot to make the hit. Too bad the target was missing in action.

                                          *          *          *

    After weaving his way through the shaded lanes of the Grove backstreets, Tally headed towards the Rickenbacker Causeway. This was his normal route, through swanky neighborhoods, around the Vizcaya castle drive, past the Homeless Hotel and out to the Causeway approach. He passed the big plastic shark on the Seaquarium sign, then rode through the toll booth with a wave at the attendant. Out of habit, he kept to the emergency shoulder of the six-lane causeway instead of the bike path, which could get congested with tourists on rentals, young parents with toddlers in bike seats and a wide array of in-line skaters, most of whom used up a lot of pathway and couldn't stop.
    An older woman on a snazzy hybrid approached him with a smile. She wore biking gloves and helmet. Most everyone was wearing helmets these days. Tally knew that it made sense, at least statistically. But he just couldn't see himself wearing one. Besides, it was vulnerability that made going fast a thrill. 
    Biscayne Bay was flat, glassy enough to reflect a dazzling sunset sky. Tally felt surprisingly strong and picked up his pace. He'd originally planned to just go as far as the old drawbridge, which was now a popular spot for fishermen and the gulls, pelicans and egrets they attracted. But he felt good enough to push himself a little, go over the newer William Powell Bridge. Rising nearly a hundred feet in the air, it was the biggest hill
around and could be a bitch when the wind was coming from the northeast. Today, the only wind was the one created by his movement against the still air.
    Tally pedaled harder, hitting the bridge's incline with a little momentum. It faded quickly, totally gone by the time he passed a sign that said: Bikers dismount and walk across bridge. He dropped his head, pulled up on the handlebars for resistance and started counting his pedals. Seventy-five would take him to the top, then he'd coast down the other side, building up enough speed to bring tears to his eyes and make his heart pound with the thrill of being just one slip away from needing a helmet.

                                        *          *          * 

    Stitch combed the back streets of the Grove for at least ten minutes before coming to a light at a main drag.  Bayshore Drive. Left or right. He figured to head back towards Tally's house and just wait to whack him when he came home. But then he saw three guys on bikes going in the opposite direction. They were wearing tight black shorts and white helmets and moving faster than most of the cars. The light changed. On a hunch, Stitch made a left and followed the bikers. About a half-mile ahead, they turned onto the causeway that led towards Key Biscayne. A couple of other riders coming up Brickell Avenue turned the same way. This seemed to be a popular route for cyclists. Stitch made a right, paid the dollar toll and drove on.
    The traffic heading out to the Key was heavy, but once Stitch passed the three cyclists he'd followed, he didn't see any bikers ahead. He figured he must have guessed wrong. Tally couldn't have come this far. He drove up and over the big bridge, then pulled into the first crossover to turn around.
    A guy on a bike zipped past the front of his car. Green t-shirt, blue hat. It was Tally, booking a flight down the middle of the center lane. Stitch looked to his right. Police had stopped traffic a few hundred yards away to let an oversized truck trailing a pre-fab house cross the highway.
    He smiled. This was much better than anything he could have planned. Tally reached the bridge and veered over to its narrow shoulder. There was no sidewalk, just a low white retaining wall. No room for a guy on a bike to maneuver. Stitch pulled onto the empty road. The reporter was just a couple hundred yards ahead, moving more slowly now as he pedaled up the steepest part of the bridge. Stitch wondered what Tally would
think if he knew that this was destined to be his last minute on earth. 

                                        *          *          * 

    Tally was gasping for air, his leg muscles aching. He stood up on the pedals to get better leverage and ease the burn in his thighs. He was just twenty yards from the top of the bridge. Ten more hard pedals, then he'd have a nice breather coasting down the far side. From there, he'd take it easy. His hand was really throbbing now and a tiny spot of blood had seeped through the fresh gauze bandage.
    As Tally reached the crest of the bridge, the last amber embers of sunlight reflected off the top floors of Miami's tallest glass towers. It was a picture-perfect evening. Soon, he'd be home free. His thoughts turned to dinner. He was ready to make up for lost time. Maybe he'd grill some Jamaican jerk beef, or just head over to the Mako Lounge, have a bowl of creamy clam chowder and full rack of ribs, the meat so tender it fell away from the bones...
    His dining plans were interrupted by a noise that sounded like a motorcycle accelerating behind him. He glanced back and saw a big car straddling the solid white line marking the emergency shoulder, the right fender all but scraping the bridge's retaining wall. There was no time to think. Just react. He jumped up off the pedals as the car plowed into the back wheel of his bike. The corner of the roof smacked him in the butt.
Then he was airborne, flying over the wall and tumbling through empty space towards the mirrory surface of the bay, a hundred feet below.
    He felt his cap fly off. Flashing images of sea, sky and the underside of the bridge were whirling around him. His arms and legs instinctively flailed away, trying to find
enough resistance in the air to control his twisting, somersaulting body. But the air was too thin to grasp, and gravity seemed to be pulling him in several directions at once.
    Oddly enough, he didn't think much about trying to gain his equilibrium, or even wonder who'd tried to run him down. His lone thought was that he wasn't supposed to get his wound wet, especially in Biscayne Bay, which he knew to be regularly contaminated by spills from Greater Miami's far-too-porous sewage system. Of course, there wasn't much he could do about it at this point, and in actuality, rampant bacteria shouldn't have
been his primary concern.
    He was falling in the direction of the bridge's west-side fender, one of four that marked the channel under the span. His eyes must have caught glimpses of the fender's railroad ties and concrete block, but the potential harm they represented didn't register in his brain. He knew only that the world seemed to be both dropping away and rising to meet him. Utterly disoriented, he closed his eyes and curled into a tight fetal ball. Every
muscle in his body contracted as he accelerated towards impact.
    For what it's worth, Tally didn't actually hit the bridge fender, but rather a narrow maintenance dock which ran from the fender to a metal ladder on one of the bridge supports. He felt the dock slap his back, knocking out the little bit of wind that was left in his lungs after being starved of air while pedaling up the bridge and experiencing an
emergency shutdown during flight.
    The velocity of his mass was far too much for the dock's weathered wooden slats. He crashed through them, then seemed to be falling in slow motion through a different element. It was cold and wet and claustrophobic. Saltwater stung his eyes. He still couldn't get his bearings. His arms and legs reached out and found enough resistance in the water to right his body with gravity. Unfortunately, its pull was still downward.
    The dead weight of his soaked clothes and sneakers  dragged him down into a chilling darkness. He kicked his legs. A searing pain shot through his left side, paralyzing him. Something inside his body was broken. He didn't know what, but it felt as though he was being stabbed repeatedly in the hip with a red-hot knife.
    His arms reached over his head. His cupped hands pulled against the water, fighting to break free of gravity's now-gentle tug. Pain shot through his body again, convulsing his limbs. He couldn't swim, couldn't move, couldn't breathe. Something bit him under the arm. His chest ached. The roar of the ocean filled his ears. Pings of light swirled around his head. His lungs demanded an immediate fill-up. He couldn't fight it
anymore. His mouth opened. His lungs got their wish. The ache in his chest eased, replaced by a heaviness which dragged him down, down into the depths of darkness. 

                                        *          *          *

    The Coupe de Ville was overheating, steam already wafting out from under the hood. Stitch cursed. He'd been planning to dump it in a canal way out west. Now he had to improvise. He turned into the Vizcaya Metrorail station and parked at the far end of the lot. The engine was pinging hot. So too was the car. And it would be getting hotter by
the minute if anyone had gotten a good look at him ramming Tally.
    Quickly, he belted his gun, pocketed his smokes, grabbed the cell phone and left the Caddy behind. Actually, he thought, this might even work out better than dumping the car out west. Instead of stealing another one for the ride home, he could just take the Metrorail. As he walked to the station entrance, he pulled off his leather driving gloves
and stuck them in his jacket pocket. The Metrorail guard was giving directions to a couple of white-legged tourists and didn't even seem to notice him. Stitch quickly popped some quarters into the turnstile and was through. Once up on the northbound train platform, he walked to a deserted end before pulling out the cell phone and making a call.
    "It's done," he said.
    "You're sure?"
    "Yeah. He had a bike accident."
    "Fatal, I presume."
    Stitch felt himself smiling, near bursting with pride. "I'll say. I hit him so hard he flew right off of that big bridge out to the Key. No doubt about it. Tally's a dead man."

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