The Meter Maid Murders Read online

  THE

  METER

  MAID

  MURDERS

  A Jake Bricker Comic Novel

  by

  Andrew Delaplaine

  Gramercy Park Press

  2010

  The Meter Maid Murders

  Copyright © 2010 by Gramercy Park Press

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form whatsoever without written consent of the publisher, except for brief passages quoted in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to events, localities, or actual persons, is entirely coincidental, except in the case of certain business names used and personages whose permission has been obtained.

  ISBN- 978-0-917154-2-1

  Published as a paperback original by Gramercy Park Press

  Publisher Email: [email protected]

  Publisher Website: www.gramercy-park-press.com

  Author’s Email: [email protected]

  Author’s website: www.adelaplaine.com

  Other books by Andrew Delaplaine

  ADULT

  Midnight Mass (2010)

  A Mary Freeman Thriller

  The Meter Maid Murders (2010)

  A Jake Bricker Comic Thriller

  Run, Runner, Run! (2011)

  Delaplaine’s Guide to South Beach (2011)

  Sobepedia (2011)

  The Real Story of South Beach

  JUVENILE

  The Trap Door (2010)

  Writing as Sir Nicholas Throckmorton

  SANTOPIA: Book One – Santa & The Lost Princess

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  1 – Bricker on the Case! – 5

  2 – How It All Started – 10

  3 – The Secret Video – 17

  4 – Sizing Up the Victims – 22

  5 – Bricker Meets Alice – 26

  6 – Sammy Succubus Takes Off! – 31

  7 – Copycat Killings Spread – 43

  8 – Murder in the Alley – 48

  9 – Louie Lewis of the FBI – 54

  10 – Solid Tin – 62

  11 – Mayor’s Germane’s Secret Meeting – 67

  12 – The Letter & the End of Pretty Rios – 71

  13 – The National Guard Arrives – 78

  14 – Calendar Girls – 85

  15 – Pep Talk at PMS HQ – 97

  16 – Coins Galore – 101

  17 – Bricker’s Busy Day – 110

  18 – Missy and Wimpy Commiserate – 116

  19 – Bricker Loses Another Round – 122

  20 – Woeful Wimpy – 130

  21 – Weiner Takes the Fall – 135

  22 – Louie Lewis Takes Credit – 140

  23 – Bricker the Celebrity – 153

  24 – Billy-Boy Freaks Out – 156

  25 – Bricker on the Hot Seat – 162

  26 – Bricker Corners Slimy – 165

  27 – End of the Line – 170

  Epilogue – 174

  THE METER MAID MURDERS

  Preface

  The faint at heart should beware, for this is a shocking story, a story of madness... and of murder.

  It all started with an $18 parking ticket for an expired meter.

  And escalated from there into the realm of most heinous serial killings in the history of America.

  This story happened on South Beach, a place notorious for its reckless disregard for life and love, but a very high regard for the pursuit of happiness.

  Behind the glitz, the glamour, the beach, the dance clubs, the sparkling ocean, the drugs, sex and rock ‘n roll, a story unfolded that challenges us all to think about those small intrusions into our lives, small slights that have a way of growing into an all-devouring cancer... it’s what might happen if we fail to maintain a balanced sensibility and exercise a maniacally ruthless control over one of our most elemental emotions and basic urges.

  The urge to ... get even.

  But, while this story happened on South Beach, it could happen anywhere ... even in your town.

  1 – Bricker on the Case!

  “Hey, Pussy! Wannanother one?”

  Jake Bricker had just slugged down his third Ezra Brooks 12-year, single-barrel bourbon, neat (except for two ice cubes) at Mac’s Club Deuce on Fourteenth Street. All the bitchy dyke barmaids called him a pussy—because of the ice cubes.

  “Sure, Boobs, why not?” Bricker replied, looking up from under the brim of his Trilby, which he always wore indoors or out, except when his mother was in the room, in which case he self-consciously removed it before she said anything to him.

  Bricker was supposed to be out interviewing witnesses of next-door neighbors in a home robbery case, but that only took a half hour so he used the down time to swing by the Deuce for a couple of quick ones.

  Boobs McCoy unceremoniously deposited his drink atop the beer coaster with the Deuce logo on it (a white 2 of Clubs on a black background) and dangled her hand containing the two ice cubes daintily above the glass.

  “Just drop ‘em, Boobs.”

  “Sure,” she said, dropping the cubes. “Pussy.”

  He called out as she walked away:

  “I know you’re secretly in love with me, Boobs!”

  “Yeah, Brick. You wish,” she called out over her shoulder.

  His cell phone rang.

  “Bricker,” he said.

  “Where you at, Brick?” demanded Rwanda Tutsi-Hutu.

  “I’m out workin’, Rwanda, unlike your beautiful self,” Bricker shot back, not intimidated by Chief Ramirez’s big-assed black lesbian secretary.

  “Workin’, my ass!” snapped Rwanda.

  “I can’t hear you with all that hip hop music in the background, Rwanda.”

  “I only play it when da chief’s not here.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Chief called in, told me ta find yer sweet ass and git it in here fer a meetin’ in a half hour.”

  Bricker perked up, straightened his shoulders. The chief never called him. In briefings when Bricker raised his hand, Chief Ramirez never called on him, always the next guy. He knew Ramirez didn’t have a high regard for his professional abilities, to the point that when he volunteered for certain duties, Ramirez never gave him the nod. Not that he volunteered that often. Some days Bricker thought the chief’d forgotten he even worked on the force.

  “A meeting? With the chief?”

  “Fuck if I know, Brick. Jus’ git yer white ass in ‘ere.”

  “I’m coming, I’m coming. I’ll be there.”

  “Where you at, Brick?”

  “I’m walking to my car right now. Just interviewed some witnesses. I’ll do the rest later.”

  “Half hour,” Rwanda threatened, slamming down her phone, shutting off the lousiest Crap Rap music in the background. There was Rap. And then there was Crap Rap, the kind Rwanda preferred.

  Boobs McCoy sauntered over, her massive rack stretching her white nylon top to the limit, holding out her cell to Bricker.

  “It’s for you, Brick.”

  “Yeah,” Bricker said, taking the phone.

  “I knew you’s at the Deuce, you asshole!” Rwanda screamed in his ear, the Crap Rap pounding away in the background.

  “Bitch,” Brick said quietly.

  “Don’ you be flirtin’ wid my girl, you hear?”

  “She’s all yours, Rwanda,” Bricker smiled. “I’ll be there in twenty.”

  “Why’re you always on her side, Boobs?” he asked, handing the phone across the bar. “I’m the one tipping you.”

  “She’s my woman. I don’t cross my woman,” a surly Boobs said with a raised eyebrow and puckered out pillow-soft lips, as if some great philosophical Truism h
ad just passed magically between them.

  “Whatever,” mumbled Bricker as Boobs moved to the other end of the bar to fetch a Coors Light for one of the broken down losers who wandered into the Deuce right after they woke up. Here, every hour was Happy Hour. Happy Hour at the Deuce began at 10 A.M. and went all the way to 7 P.M. As one habitué, Persian Jimmy, put it once: “If you can’t get drunk in nine hours, you just ain’t tryin’!”

  Bricker threw back his fresh Ezra Brooks.

  “Hey, Boobs, lemme have a lemon twist, willya?”

  Boobs, looking put out, sauntered over with an overstated sashay and put a lemon wedge in front of him.

  “A twist, not a wedge,” he said.

  She twiddled her fingers on both hands in front of him like so many butterflies.

  “Don’t wanna mess up my manicure, Brick. You’re a man, do it yourself.”

  He peeled the pulp from the skin and popped the twist into his mouth, chewing it to remove any trace of liquor from his breath. He swallowed the lemon peel with a gulp.

  “I love you, Boobs,” he said with a smirk, dropping a few bills on the bar and heading out with a nod to a couple of regulars just coming in out of the South Beach glare.

  It was only three blocks down Washington to Eleventh Street and the police station, so Brick was there in a few minutes. As he drove down in his unmarked Crown Victoria cruiser, he thought about Boobs McCoy and Rwanda Tutsi-Hutu. If opposites attract, this pair was meant to be. Boobs McCoy was an Irish redhead who’d ruined her hair by dyeing it blonde (you could still see the roots), with an Irish temper as big as her Irish tits. Her tits gave way to a slender waist and a perfectly round bubble butt. Her “woman,” Rwanda Tutsi-Hutu, was as black as coal, had huge pouty lips, and, well, huge pouty everything. She had a huge round head, big fat cheeks so puffed up her eyes sank deep into her skull, giving them a beady look: small, round, shiny, curious, predatory even. Her arms, while short, were hugely round with fat. Her waist? There wasn’t one. There was, however, a huge booty ass that was a triumph over the best ones that could be seen among the black workers at the post office at Thirteenth Street. Woo-wee! When Rwanda walked, the cheeks of her ass moved up and down like two grizzly bears fighting under a rug. You could balance a case of beer on the ledge of her ass.

  Why Chief Ramirez had decided to make a big black bull dyke bitch his secretary was beyond anyone’s comprehension. Well, beyond Bricker’s anyway.

  But Rwanda had a soft spot for Jake Bricker. Deep down, he knew, especially when she called him “asshole,” a frequent enough occurrence.

  Bricker took the stairs to the chief’s second floor office (good for the legs), and his heart fluttered with anticipation. Maybe Chief Ramirez was finally going to put him to work on the meter maid murders currently the talk of the town (and the nation, for that matter). It was kind of embarrassing to be the only detective on the force not working the case.

  Bricker pulled a toothpick out of his pocket and stuck it in his mouth (he thought it made him look cool and nonchalant) as he forced his way past the national news media stationed outside the chief’s office.

  The chief was really on the hot seat, Bricker worried. Ramirez had the mayor and the commissioners yelling and screaming at him, giving him all kinds of shit, and the media ... well, anyone can imagine what a relentless pack of hounds the media were over this. A serial killer going around South Beach popping off meter maids? Duh! You’re supposed to have a paradise on the Billion Dollar Sandbar and some slasher is making hamburger meat out of your meter maids. Well, that’s some kind of news.

  Certainly, national.

  Worldwide, even.

  He sidled into the chief’s suite and presented himself before the formidable Rwanda, who gave him the once-over with her pebbly eyes, a little snarl creeping up from her lip, revealing the whitest veneers the city’s generous dental plan could pay for.

  She held out her hand.

  “And what’s that for?”

  “Dat’s for fi’ dolla, asshole,” she said with a superior smile.

  Bricker leaned down and put his palms on Rwanda’s desk.

  “And why, my little Snookums, would I ever give you five dollars?”

  “To make amends fer da measly two-dolla tip you lef’ my girl, Boob McCoy.”

  Rwanda always left the “s” off Boobs’s name.

  “I always give her a dollar a drink.”

  “You had three drink.... An’ she overpoured.”

  “That bitch Boobs McCoy has never overpoured.”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out some cash.

  “Here’s a dollar for the third drink. My mistake.”

  “Gimme fi’.”

  “Why five?”

  “Penalty.”

  Bricker was holding a five when Chief Rafael Ramirez thundered into the suite with a couple of aides and the city comptroller Freddie Flumenbaum traipsing behind him like lapdogs.

  “Ah! Bricker! Bueno!!”

  When Bricker turned to look over his shoulder, Rwanda snatched the five-dollar note out of his hand.

  “Why, you little...”

  “In my office, Bricker.... Now!” Chief Ramirez said as he marched past into his office beyond.

  Bricker held his fist up to Rwanda and winked.

  “I’ll get you later, you...”

  “Bricker!”

  “Coming, Chief, coming!”

  Inside the chief’s office, one of the aides closed the door behind them. Freddie Flumenbaum took one of the two chairs in front of the chief’s desk. The aides stood against the wall.

  Bricker went to sit in the other chair.

  “Did I said you could sit down, Bricker?”

  “No, Chief. Sorry.”

  “Bricker, I’ve got a very important case to give you,” the chief said as he lowered his huge flabby frame into a large black swivel chair from Office Depot that strained to contain him. He was one of those guys that went fat around the age of thirty and never lost the weight. The middle section just grew and grew till it looked like it was going to bust right open. But on top of this typical middle-aged spread, the Cuban chief had a crewcut that made him look about fifty years behind the times. When the chief spoke Spanish, Bricker couldn’t quite get the visual image of the chief to match up with the sound. It was like Mayberry in Cuba.

  “Isn’t he working the meter maid murders?” asked Flumenbaum politely.

  “No!” Ramirez snapped quickly. “I’ve got every detective on the payroll working it, as well as fifty guys from Metro.”

  “Ah,” nodded Flumenbaum.

  “I’d really like to get a crack at the meter maid case, Chief.”

  “When hell freezes over, Bricker. The reason I called you in”—he reached out and an aide slipped a file into his hands—“is because the mayor wants to recover the proclamation awarding a key to the city he gave that rapper Ice Pick Pukin’ who ended up using it to stab somebody in a club later that night.”

  “I read about that in the paper,” Bricker offered.

  “In the paper?” Ramirez asked, looking at Bricker with undisguised contempt. He glanced at Flumenbaum. “Great way for a cop to find out stuff, huh?”

  With a skeptical glance at Bricker, Flumenbaum shrugged.

  “Those keys do have a very sharp point,” Bricker offered.

  “Yeah, almost like an ice pick,” said Ramirez.

  “Isn’t the key to the city part of evidence?” asked Flumenbaum.

  “Si, Freddie, we got the key, but we don’t got the proclamation. The mayor wants it and nobody knows what happened to it. I know, it doesn’t make any sense, but, whatever...”

  Ramirez handed Bricker the file.

  “Where do I start, Chief?”

  Ramirez exhaled heavily.

  “You’re the detective, Detective. Just go do it.”

  “Right, Chief.”

  Bricker made for the door. An aide opened it, and as he went out, he heard Flumenbaum say something:<
br />
  “Why not let Bricker work the meter maid murders? He’s as likely to stumble onto something as all the rest of your guys who haven’t found shit.”

  “Hey, why the fuck not?” Ramirez said without a beat. “Bricker! Get your ass back in here!”

  Bricker almost swallowed his toothpick.

  “Yes, Chief!”

  “Bricker, I’m puttin’ you on the meter maid murders, God help us all.”

  “Me? Uh, why me?”

  “’Cause you’re the last man left on the force not working the case, that’s why.”

  To Bricker, this didn’t really sound like a compliment.

  2 – How It All Started

  Minutes later, after picking up the (by now mammoth) case file down the hall, Bricker was in his car in the parking garage behind the station house calling his best friend, Billy Willoughby.

  “Hey, Billy-Boy.”

  “Don’t call me Billy.”

  “Meet me down at Clarke’s for lunch... I got some news, fella.”

  “Jake, it’s three o’clock—everybody in this time zone had lunch two hours ago.”

  “Well, meet me there anyway. I gotta tell ya what’s going on with the meter maid murders.”

  “What do you mean, what’s going on with the meter maid murders? I already know what’s going on with the meter maid murders, you asshole”—there was that word again—“because I cover the meter maid murders every day.”

  Well, Bricker hadn’t thought of it that way. Of course Billy Willoughby covered the meter maid murders. He was the top investigative reporter for the Miami affiliate of the XYZ Network, Channel 69, WHY-TV.

  And after four meter maid murders in a row, there was no question a serial killer was loose on South Beach with one overzealous mission buried deep in the sick, twisted furrows of his mind: to wipe out all the meter maids on South Beach, one after the other. And each murder was proving to be more grisly than the last.