ASCENSION: THE SYSTEMIC SERIES (17 page)

As we sat sipping our coffee, it began to rain.  It was more of a soft drizzle, but I’d take it.

“Hope some of this is headed out to the apartments,” I said to Will.

“Yeah,” he nodded.  “That’d be nice.” He took a sip of coffee, “You know what this guy looks like?” he asked.

I shrugged, “Supposed to be kind of small in stature, greasy black hair, pale skin, wears lots of black, drinks lots of tequila, and rides in a black SUV.”

“And this guy runs
Miami
now?” Will asked, eyebrows raised. 

“That’s the story,” I shrugged again.  “I don’t really know, and I don’t really care.  I just want to get this done, get paid, and get the hell out of here.”

“I hear that,” Will nodded in agreement.  “The vial you got this morning from Bushy.  Where’s that put Claire with her supply?”

“Each vial gives us about a month.  So we’re up to about a month and a half now,” I said.

“Not bad,” Will said, taking another sip of his coffee.

“Not good either,” I reminded him.

Will nodded his silent agreement and took another drink. “
Ahh
,” he breathed.  “Good to have coffee again…even though it tastes like crap.”

“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

“Too long,” Will agreed.

We sat for the next two hours chatting, sipping more coffee from our thermoses, and munching on snacks of dried fish and stale crackers.  Near lunchtime, we broke out some canned beans, more stale crackers, bananas, and an orange each.  It wasn’t the most satisfying of meals, but we weren’t burning many calories just sitting in the car.

At 11:50 a.m., a black SUV passed us and parked in front of the condo building.

Will jotted the event down in a notepad we had for our recordkeeping.

At just a little past noon, the Jake character that Ava had requested us to tail for the week, emerged.  He fit her description perfectly.  He wore black jeans, black boots, a tight-fitting black t-shirt, and a driver opened the door for him to climb inside the back of the waiting black SUV.

“Must be a real happy camper to love black so much,” Will observed.

I started the car.

“You’ll have to be careful,” Will said.  “Not much traffic to hide in these days.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll hang back,” I said.

“Just don’t lose him,” Will continued eating from his can of beans as Jake’s SUV pulled out and headed west.

We followed him to a nice little condo on Northwest 6
th
Street.  Halfway there, an empty liquor bottle came flying out the SUV’s passenger window, smashing on the road. 

“Finished morning eye opener,” Will noted the time and event in his notepad.

“Boy, they’re going to love your notes,” I said with a laugh.

“Hey, we don’t know what they’re looking for and it could be important in some way,” Will defended himself.  “I’m just trying to make sure we get paid, that’s all.”

“Keep at it,” I said, not wanting to deter his Sherlock sleuthing.  He was right, we had no idea what seemingly minor detail about Jake’s daily routine could prove important to someone else.

The next couple days with Will were actually kind of fun.  We enjoyed our roles playing amateur private-eyes.  Even though we had no real idea of what we were doing or why, we noted anything and everything we thought might be important about Jake’s daily activities.

During our tailing of him, it quickly became evident though that Jake didn’t hold much interest in his governance of Miami.  He seemed more interested in drinking and meeting up with the mistress he’d apparently taken and who resided in the condo that we’d follow him to each day right around the noon hour.  He’d spend about two hours there.  Several times, he’d come out the front door after his romp, still kissing or fondling the woman as he pulled his clothes on to leave. 

From what we could see through the binoculars that Bushy had given us, the woman was attractive.  From our best estimates, she looked to be in her early-20s, Caucasian, blonde, maybe 5’6 or 5’7, about 115 to 125 pounds, and shapely.  Once when Jake was leaving, she accompanied him to his SUV, still stark naked, which certainly livened things up for us on what had otherwise been a pretty dull day.  While her face was decent looking, I could certainly see why Jake liked this woman.  Her fake boobs stood perkily at attention and she had a dancer’s trim physique. 

He certainly made little effort to conceal his regular visits to her, but I guessed that a man in his position probably didn’t have to.  After he left his lover’s nest, we found that he usually headed to one of the area markets around town.  There, he’d pick up some food and some more alcohol, occasionally taking a meeting with one or more of the local merchants there.

From the market, he’d then head back downtown, stopping in at a large bank branch.  The bank itself was located in the first floor of a massive office building that had once been occupied by one of the larger US banks before the flu.  The outside signage from the previous bank had been covered up with a white sheet and a new sign overtop it now read, “First Bank of Miami.” 

Jake tended not to spend long inside the bank.  He was typically in and out in about 15 minutes, and we had no idea what he did inside, nor were we going to follow him inside to find out.  We were already risking our asses, and we weren’t going to press our luck if we didn’t have to. 

Then it was back to his condo building where the driver would drop Jake off out front and escort him inside the building before moving the vehicle to a nearby underground parking garage.               

Each morning, true to his word, Bushy would arrive with a new vehicle filled with gas and exchange it for our old one.  As the fourth day of our tracking dragged on though, we began to find our duty of following Jake rather monotonous and the excitement of playing private-eye starting to wear off.  Will and I were running out of things to talk about and we were going stir crazy sitting inside the car all day. 

Late afternoon – once Jake was done with his woman and we were left without the prospect of any live-action nudity – was when the boredom really started to set in.  And while the rain that had settled over Miami for the past few days was a welcome addition in helping to bolster our water supply back at the apartment building, it forced us to keep the car windows up, which turned the interior into a hot, stinky mess by day’s end.  The windows would fog up making it hard to see.  Half the time the defoggers on the vehicles Bushy brought for us didn’t work well or at all, and we were forced to keep a roll of paper towels with us to constantly wipe the moisture our body heat created off the windows so that we could continue to observe Jake while at the same time follow him from a safe distance.  Several times, I was forced to stick my head out the window and drive with it in the pouring rain just to ensure we didn’t lose him.

Each afternoon after Jake returned home from his outings, we’d take our notes, read over them, organize them, and make any additions we thought might be helpful.  Then we’d drive them over to an upscale boutique hotel in the Little Havana neighborhood.  There, we’d take our notes, concealed within a sealed envelope, inside the air-conditioned lobby where we’d dawdle just a bit in the frosty coolness before leaving them with the man at the front desk.  We had no idea where or to whom they went next.  We figured Ava or Bushy, but we really had no idea, nor did we care. 

On Thursday evening – with just one day left to go in our week of work for Ava and Bushy – Will and I treated ourselves to a drink in the hotel’s adjoining bar.  Each drink cost us two rounds of ammunition from the weapons that we were requested to check at the lounge’s entrance. Will had a double whiskey on the rocks, and I had a vodka martini with two olives. We both thought it a reasonable price to pay, and we savored our drinks, relishing not just the alcohol but the air-conditioned lounge as well.  Not having tasted alcohol since we’d left Georgia, it was a great treat and one that left us feeling a bit tipsy. 

On the way home, our booze buzzes got the better of us, and we decided that we shouldn’t be the only ones to enjoy a special treat.  Therefore, we stopped off at the downtown market to pick up something special for the group’s dinner.

We took our time, enjoying the evening, and walking among the array of different vendor stands.  We ogled the merchandise and debated what exactly we should get the group as their treat.  Finally, as we neared the far end of the market, we found a stand selling fresh meat.  We ended up picking up several nice cuts of beef.  The cost was a little higher than we hoped, running us ten rounds of ammo.  But knowing that a good payday was just around the corner, we bit the bullet – or ten bullets rather – and bought the cuts.  We chose a nice piece of tilapia for Sharron, which ran us another two rounds of ammo since fish were far more plentiful in the Miami area than beef, and we negotiated into the deal four good-sized potatoes and two onions at no additional charge.

Pleased with ourselves, and excited to get home and show the others their special dinner, we headed for the car.  About halfway back through the market though, we saw Myron standing in front of his stand.

“Let’s go say hi,” said Will jovially, still feeling good from his drink.

“Wait,” I said, grabbing his shoulder to stop him.  “Look who else is there.”

Standing just a few feet away – a group of some not-so-nice looking characters circled around him – was Jake.

As though sensing our presence, Jake turned to see us standing there, our goodies in hand, staring at him.

“Hey!” he called over to us. 

We both turned our heads slightly to look at the nearest vendor stand, pretending as though we were searching for something, hoping that Jake would turn his attention back to his hovering gang of thugs, but it didn’t work. 

“Hey you!” he called again.  “Get the fuck over here!”

The group of men he’d been talking to all looked to see who Jake was yelling at.

Will and I glanced at one another.  We didn’t feel as though we had much of a choice in the matter, so we slowly walked over to see what Jake and his band of goons wanted with us.

CHAPTER 14

Jake was quickly getting bored.  Frankly, he’d expected more from Miami.  He’d had high hopes when they were fighting for control of the city.  He had something to do, he had something to achieve, there was death and destruction to be wrought.  But then it all ended, and it ended far too quickly in Jake’s opinion. 

While he enjoyed the power he now held over the city, there was something missing.  The challenge in his life was suddenly gone, leaving a void that he was finding difficult to fill.  Jake thought it would be nice to have the power he’d always dreamed of, but it was almost like hitting the lottery.  Now there was nothing to do, nothing left to achieve.  Sure, he checked up on things, held meetings with area traders, met with his minions, and oversaw the general operations of his organization, but that wasn’t him, that wasn’t what he liked to do.  He liked to fight.  It really didn’t matter against what.  He just liked to fight.  And without some sort of opponent there to pit himself against, the challenge of life was gone, leaving it largely meaningless.

This was why he’d decided to take a mistress.  Ava was still his main girl, but he needed something else, something to challenge him.  He wanted to see if he could keep a woman on the side without Ava finding out.  It wasn’t much, but it was something to help keep him occupied.  And he had to admit, it was one hell of a hobby.  But even with another woman in the picture, he was still finding himself lost here in this foreign land. 

Ava had made Miami sound like some sort of paradise, but Jake was finding it to be his own personal hell.  It was hot all the time.  There were buzzing, biting, and annoying swarms of bugs everywhere he went.  He constantly had to lather himself with a grimy layer of bug repellant and sunscreen so that his pasty skin wouldn’t burn or be bitten all to hell by the rabid insect population, which to him seemed far more dangerous than the civilian population.

The resistance in Miami had folded like an overplayed poker hand.  They’d hardly put up a fight in his opinion.  It was as though they
wanted
to be ruled by someone, and that left a bad taste in Jake’s mouth.  He couldn’t respect it.  Back in Chicago, they would have fought tooth-and-nail to keep outsiders from coming in to rule their territory.  He’d never be able to accomplish there what he’d done here in just a month.  This left him feeling angry and frustrated because what he’d hoped would be his greatest accomplishment now tasted bitter-sweet.  It was almost as though he hadn’t earned it.

Even worse, Ava had been behind much, if not all of the takeover plans, and while others might not have known it, Jake did, and this left him feeling less than a man.  Not only this, but it worried him.  Ava was taking more and more control, and in doing so, she was away for much of the day, leaving Jake lonely and stewing over his less than satisfying life.  He’d been sorely disappointed to find that even his mistress and her fantastically awesome body just couldn’t give him what Ava could physically or emotionally; but for the time being, she was better than nothing.

And while he would stop in at their operation’s main bank branch downtown each afternoon for a general report on how their impact upon the local economy was being felt, and he met regularly with those controlling the area markets in the surrounding neighborhoods, Ava was far more in tune with the bigger picture of how Miami was controlled and the overall future plan for the organization and development of the area.