•
At four P.M., the main lobby of the Government Center was abuzz with rush hour. Jack headed against the stream of homebound workers. Theo was right along with him. Jack knew better than to face an attacker without a big ugly at his side.
Jack had gone straight to Rosa’s office after making the phone call from the café. Immediately, it was decision time. Sam Drayton had confirmed that Viatical Solutions, Inc., was controlled by some element of organized crime. Why not tell the cops that his attacker had dropped a cell phone filled with Russian messages?
Why not?
That was a question Jack the Client had been asking himself. Jack the Lawyer knew better. So did Rosa. The feds were going after him through the IRS, and that might only be the beginning. The state attorney had him on the short list of suspects for the murder of Jessie Merrill. In that posture, you didn’t simply hand over anything to the police. You negotiated. And to negotiate properly, Jack had to know what he was selling. That was especially important here. From the moment he’d made the phone call, Jack had a strong feeling that his attacker wasn’t what she appeared to be.
Not even close.
In less than twenty minutes they’d summoned a Russian linguist to translate the recorded messages. In thirty, they had a good criminal mind translating the literal English translations into something the lawyers could understand. Theo was perhaps the more indispensable of the two. Three of the messages dealt with, literally, “taking the ponies for a boat ride,” which, Theo figured, was probably code for shipping stolen cars out of the port of Miami. The other six sounded as if the caller had a plumbing problem. A sink needed to be unclogged. Jack didn’t need Theo to tell him that a sink was the repository in a money-laundering operation.
Theo checked his watch and asked, “You think she’ll show?”
“A
musor
always shows.”
“A what?”
“Didn’t you listen to anything that Russian translator said?”
“Only the part that was in English.”
As the name implied, Government Center was the nerve center of Miami-Dade County. Offices in the thirty-story tower housed various local departments and officials, including the mayor and county commissioners. The bustling lobby area served not only the office tower but also the largest and most crowded stop along the Metrorail. It was a three-story, atrium-style complex with a glass roof that allowed for natural lighting. Flags of all fifty states hung from the exposed metal rafters overhead. Long escalators carried workers and shoppers to a two-story mall called Metrofare Shops and Cafés. At the base of the north escalators was a large planter in the shape of a half-moon, where bushy green plants flourished. Between two large palms was a simple bouquet of white daisies and carnations in a glass vase. Above the vase was a bronze plaque that read: “Dedicated to the Memory of Armando Alejandre Jr., 19501996, Metro-Dade employee, volunteer of Brothers to the Rescue. His airplane was downed by the Cuban Air Force during a routine humanitarian flight over the straits of Florida.”
Seated on the ledge of the planter in front of the plaque was a young woman wearing dark sunglasses, even though it wasn’t very sunny inside the building. She was alone.
“That must be her,” said Jack.
Theo gave him a thin smile. “Let’s go.”
As they rode down the escalator, Jack’s eyes fixed on the woman. He’d never gotten a good look at his attacker, but from the beating he’d taken, he’d built her up to be at least eight feet tall, three hundred and fifty pounds. She was more like five-six, with slender-but-muscular arms, and the nicest set of legs that had ever kicked the daylights out of him. With her long, dark hair and olive skin, she looked more Latina than Russian. It surprised him how attractive she was.
“You got beat up by
that
?” said Theo as they glided into the lobby.
“Just shut up.”
“I mean, some guys in my bar would pay money to get her to-”
“I said shut up.”
They wended their way through the crowd and approached from the side. She caught sight of them about ten feet away and rose to meet them, though she skipped right over the hello.
“Who’s your friend?” she asked.
“You get my name when we get yours,” said Theo.
A group of pedestrians passed by on their way to the train. She asked, “Is this a good place to talk?”
“Perfect,” said Jack. “Nobody stands still long enough to hear what we’re saying. And like I said on the phone, plenty of security guards around if you decide to get stupid.”
She paused, as if to get comfortable with the setting. Then she looked at Jack and said, “That was a gutsy phone call you made.”
“Not really.”
“Threatening me after I’d already warned you not to mess around with us? I assure you,
that
was risky.”
“I just listened to my instincts.”
“Exactly what did your instinct tell you?”
“Maybe I’ll let my friend tell you.” He looked at Theo and said, “Here’s a hypothetical for you. One, a woman attacks me in the dark and threatens me.”
“Check,” said Theo.
“Two, the feds haul me downtown and tell me they have it on good authority from their confidential informant that the order to rough me up came straight from a mysterious organized-crime figure.”
“Double check.”
“Three, this same woman has nine messages saved on her voice mail, all in Russian. But she speaks English without a hint of a Russian accent.”
“Double check and a half.”
“I call her and tell her I want to meet. And she just shows up, apparently not the least bit concerned that fifteen police officers might pounce on her the minute she arrives. Now, you tell me: Who do you think this woman is?”
He looked at Jack, then straight at her. “Either she’s really stupid.”
“Or?”
“Or
she’s
the fucking snitch.”
“Or as they’re known in the Russian mob,
musor
. Rats. The lowest form of life on earth.”
“You’re a genius, Jacko.”
“I know.”
“But if we take this one step further, what she’s really afraid of is not that we’re going to take her cell phone to the police. She’s afraid that someone might find out she’s a snitch.”
“You think?”
“Absolutely. But maybe we should ask
her.
” Theo took a half step closer, gave her his most intimidating look. “What do you say there, gorgeous? Think maybe you wouldn’t be so pretty anymore if the wrong person were to find out that you are a
musor
?”
She glared right back at him. It impressed Jack that she didn’t seem to back down from Theo the way most people did.
Careful, Theo, or she’ll kung-fu your ass, too.
“Aren’t you smug?” she said. “Think you got it all figured out, don’t you?”
“Not all of it. Just enough to get you to tell us the rest.”
“I can’t talk to you.”
Theo said, “What a shame. Looks like I’ll have to float your name on the street as a snitch.”
“And then I’ll watch Jack’s
abuela
wishing to God she’d never left Cuba.”
“Takes real guts to threaten an old woman. Who’s next on your list, the Teletubbies?”
“Enough with the threats,” said Jack. “Let’s just talk.”
“I can’t tell you anything.”
“That won’t do,” said Jack. “You may think we’re just a pain in the ass, but refusing to talk to us won’t make us go away. No matter what you do, my only option is to keep on plugging away at this viatical company to figure out who threatened Jessie Merrill and why she ended up dead.”
“That’s very dangerous.”
“My alternative is to stand aside and get tagged with a murder I didn’t commit.”
“That’s a bitch. But there’s very little I can tell you.”
“See, we’re already making progress. We’ve gone from ‘I can’t talk to you’ to ‘there’s very little I can tell you.’”
Jack detected a faint smile. She glanced at his swollen jaw and said, “Sorry about the bump.”
“No problem.”
“Didn’t really want to do it.”
“I know. Sam Drayton said the order came from high up.”
She didn’t deny it.
Jack said, “Who gave you the order?”
“You know I can’t tell you that.”
“Who controls the money behind Viatical Solutions, Inc.?”
“You’re going to have to figure that out for yourself.”
“Is it the same people who threatened Jessie Merrill?”
“If you’re trying to pin a murder on the viatical investors, I couldn’t help you if I wanted to.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re looking in the wrong place.”
“Stop with the threats.”
“It’s not a threat,” she said. “Listen carefully. I’m giving you something here. If you think Jessie Merrill was murdered, you’re not going to find her killer by looking where you’re looking.”
“Where should we be looking?”
She answered in the same matter-of-fact tone. “Somewhere else.”
Theo groaned. “Come on. Like you don’t know anything?”
“I know plenty. I just don’t trust you to deny you heard it from me when someone hangs you upside down and shoves a cattle prod all the way up your ass.”
Theo blinked twice, as if the uncomfortable image was taking form in his brain.
Jack gave her an assessing look. “How do you know we’re looking in the wrong place?”
“Because I’ve been working this gig long enough to know the people I’m dealing with. I know what one of their hits looks like.”
“Come off it,” said Theo. “Not every hit is the same.”
“Trust me. If Jessie Merrill had been murdered over her viatical scam, you wouldn’t have found her body in the Swytecks’ bathtub. You wouldn’t have found her body at all. At least not in one piece.”
Jack and Theo exchanged glances, as if neither was sure how to argue with that.
She said, “You two have no idea what you’re stepping into.”
“It’s money laundering. I know that much from your phone messages and from talking with Sam Drayton.”
“Big-time money laundering. Hundreds of millions of dollars. I tell you this only so you can see that Jessie Merrill and her one and a half million is a speck on the horizon. Now go away, boys. Before you get hurt.”
“We can take care of ourselves,” said Theo.
She extended her hand and said, “Phone, please.”
Jack said, “I kept all the messages on tape.”
“And you probably hired someone to dust for fingerprints, too. But I don’t care.”
“Of course you don’t,” said Theo. “Why should a snitch care about fingerprints?”
“I still want it back.”
Jack removed her phone from his pocket and handed it over. She gave him his, then turned and walked away, no thank-you or good-bye. Jack watched as she moved with the crowd toward the escalators that led to the Metrorail gates.
“What do you think?”
“Two possibilities,” said Theo. “Either she’s protecting someone. Or someone has her scared shitless.”
“Or both.”
“You want me to tail her?”
“Nah, thanks. Got someone a little less conspicuous covering that already.”
Jack caught one last glimpse of her as she reached the top of the escalator. Then, from afar, he gave his friend Mike Campbell a mock salute as he put aside his newspaper, rose from the bench, and followed her to the train.
•
Jack skipped dinner. He had a rental house to check out and could only hold his breath.
Abuela
had found it for him.
Jack had planned on staying in a hotel until Cindy took him back, but
Abuela
seemed to think she’d be more inclined to patch things up if he had a place for them to be alone together, away from Cindy’s mother. She probably had a point.
The house was in Coconut Grove on Seminole Street, a pleasant surprise. It was small but plenty big for two, built in the forties, with all the charming architectural details that builders in South Florida had seemed to forget after 1960. The lot was huge for such a small house, but there was no grass. The lawn was covered with colorful bromeliads, thousands of green, purple, and striped varieties, all enjoying the shade of twisty old oak trees. An amazing yard with nothing to mow. To heck with the rental. Jack was barely inside and was already thinking of buying.
“You like?” asked
Abuela.
Jack checked out the pine floors and vaulted ceiling with pecky-cypress beams. “It’s fabulous.”
“I knew you would like.”
A man emerged from the kitchen,
Abuela
’s latest beau. Jack had met him before, the self-proclaimed best dancer in Little Havana. At age eighty-two he still seemed to glide through the living room as he came to greet Jack, smiling widely.
“Jack, how you been?”
He pronounced “been” like “bean,” but he insisted on speaking English to Jack, as did most of
Abuela
’s friends, all of whom considered him thoroughly American, at best an honorary Cuban. Jack knew him only as
El Rodeo
, pronounced like “Rodeo Drive” in Beverly Hills, except when Jack was around and everyone referred to him as “The Rodeo,” as if Jack were a native Texan and his middle name was Bubba.
“Is beautiful, no?”
“I love it. How much is it?”
El Rodeo
pulled out a pen and scribbled a phone number on the inside of a gum wrapper. “You call.”
“Whose number is this?”
He continued in broken English, and Jack was able to discern that the house was owned by
El Rodeo
’s nephew, who had just relocated to Los Angeles. Jack tried asking for details in Spanish, but again
El Rodeo
insisted that English would be easier. They were doing fine until he started telling Jack more about his nephew, a guy whose name apparently was Chip, which struck Jack as odd for a Latino.
“Chip?”
“
Sí
, chip.”
“He’s cheap,” said
Abuela.
“Ah, cheap.”
“
Sí, sí.
Chip.”
A nice enough guy, this El Rodeo, but if his English is better than my Spanish, I truly am a disgrace to my mother’s memory.
Jack tucked the phone number into his wallet. “I’ll call him tonight.”
“Call now,” said
Abuela
.
“I need to think about it. With everything Cindy and I have been through, I wonder if she’ll be afraid to move back in with me unless it’s a condo with twenty-four-hour security.”
“Don’t have fears control life. You and Cindy want children. House is better, no?”
He wasn’t thinking that far ahead, but her optimism warmed him. “I should at least see the rest of the house.”
“Okay.”
Abuela
took
El Rodeo
’s arm and led him out the door. “We give you time to look around more on your own. You decide quick.”
Jack hadn’t intended to kick them out, but they were out the French doors before he could protest. He drifted toward the kitchen.
The window was open, and he could hear his
abuela
and
El Rodeo
outside on the patio talking about the busloads of tourists that cruised through Little Havana, where
El Rodeo
and his friends played dominoes in the park. It bothered
El Rodeo
to be treated as a spectacle, an ethnic oddity that these tourists only thought they understood. Not even Jack had understood until
Abuela
had moved to Miami. The evening newscasts had a way of conveying the impression that the only thing fueling the Cuban-American passion was hatred-hatred for Castro, hatred for any politician who wasn’t staunchly opposed to Castro, hatred of yet another Hollywood star who thought it was cool to shake hands and smoke cigars with the despot who’d murdered their parents, siblings, aunts, and uncles. That emotion was real, to be sure. But there were neighborhoods filled with people like
El Rodeo,
a man who’d quietly tended bar in Miami for the past four decades, a photograph of the restaurant he’d once owned hanging on the wall behind him, the keys from his old house in Havana resting in a jar atop the cash register. He just refused to give up on something he loved, refused to admit he’d never get it back.
Tonight, as Jack wandered through a house that might be his, without a wife for the foreseeable future, he could relate more than ever.
“Hello, Jack.”
He turned, startled by the sound of her voice. “Cindy? How’d you-”
“Same way you got here.
Abuela
invited me.”
“She has a way.”
“She definitely does. We had a nice talk in my studio. She got me to thinking.” Her voice quaked, not with anger but emotion. “Maybe I overreacted.”
“You believe me, then? That the tape of me and Jessie is B.C.? Before Cindy?”
She gave him a little smile, seeming to appreciate the humor. “Now that I’ve had time to think about it, yes, I believe you.”
“We’re going to prove it, if we have to.”
“I’m sure you will.”
“We hired an audio expert. It could still be tough, since we’re working from a copy.”
“The police won’t give you the original?”
“From what Clara Pierce tells me, there is no original. It was destroyed, which tells me that Jessie went the extra mile to make it look as if she and I were having a recent affair. I think she was getting ready to blackmail me into staying quiet about her viatical scam.”
“You don’t have to convince me. Once I sobered up, I realized that the tape couldn’t have been what it appeared to be. If you two were having an affair, I would have known it. I’m not that blind.”
He went to her and held her tightly.
“I’m sorry I doubted you,” she said.
“I understand. I mean, the way her body was found in our bathtub-”
“Let’s not recount the details, okay? Let’s just… be happy. Happy we have each other. That’s all I want, is to be happy.”
“Me, too,” he said, still holding her tight.
A squeal of delight emerged from the patio. They turned and saw
Abuela
standing at the French door and peering in through the glass, blowing them kisses.
Jack smiled and mouthed the word
“Gracias.”
“Let’s go,” Cindy said softly. “It’s time to start packing.”
“I’m right behind you.”
In less than five minutes Jack was in his convertible following Cindy back to Pinecrest. It would take at least a couple of days to arrange for a mover to bring their furniture to the new house, so they would have a few more nights with his mother-in-law. The plan was for Cindy to arrive ten minutes ahead of Jack and break the news that Jack was moving back in until the rental was ready. Apparently, her mother was less convinced of Jack’s fidelity than Cindy was. Jack waited in his car in the driveway until Cindy came out to give him the all-clear.
His car phone rang, startling him. After the cellular swap, the car phone was his only wireless number. He answered. It was Mike Campbell.
“How’d you make out?” asked Jack.
“Well, there was a time in my life when it would have bothered me to follow a woman around for almost two hours and not even be noticed, but I guess in this context, that’s a success.”
“Nice work. Where’d she lead you?”
“Some pretty bad neighborhoods. She likes to mingle with the homeless. Especially if they’re junkies.”
“Damn. Sounds to me like she knew she was being followed. Took you on a wild goose chase.”
“Except that she didn’t seem to be wandering around aimlessly. She stopped at two places, and both times it looked to me as though it was her intended destination. As if she had some kind of business there.”
“You mean drug business?”
“No. Blood business.”
“Blood?”
“Yeah. She visited a couple of mobile blood units. You know, those big RV-looking things where people come in, let a nurse stick them in the arm, and walk out with cash.”
“What the hell’s that all about?”
“I didn’t want to give myself away by asking any questions. I was hoping it would mean something to you.”
“No,” said Jack. “Not yet.”
“The first truck was parked just off Martin Luther King Boulevard and Seventy-ninth Street. The other one was about a mile west. Both had gift of life painted on the side with a phone number underneath. You want it?”
“Yeah,” he said, then wrote it down as Mike rattled off the numbers.
“I got a name for you, too. I asked one of donors who came out of the bloodmobile after she left. Said he thinks her name’s Katrina. Didn’t get a last name.”
“That’s a good start.”
“You want me to follow up?”
“No, thanks. You go back to practicing law.”
“Aw, this is so much more fun.”
“Sorry. I’ll take it from here.”
“Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”
“Thanks.”
Jack noticed Cindy standing on the front porch. She was smiling and waving him inside.
“And Jack?” said Mike.
“Yeah?”
“Be careful with this woman, all right? Anyone who beats up my friend by night and deals with blood by day kind of worries me.”
Me too,
thought Jack. He thanked him once more and said good night.