Bird Brained (21 page)

There was something I wasn’t quite getting here. “You want to explain this to me a little better? I thought it was only
our
government that had a problem with bringing in Cuban cigars.”

“What the hell were they teaching when you went to school, Porter?” Tommy asked. “How to set a dinner table and catch a wealthy man?”

“Yeah. That’s why I’m sitting here next to you,” I shot back. “Don’t get sand on my debutante gown.”

“All right,” Tommy said gruffly. “Ninety-nine percent of Cubans don’t approve of smuggling in Cuban cigars, because they feel it helps to financially support the Castro regime. The Cuban community here in the States has one focus and one focus only: to get the hell rid of Fidel Castro. Which is why no Cuban with a conscience is going to deal in cigars made in Havana.”

“Does that mean Alberto was a secret supporter of Castro?” I asked.

“Nah.” Tommy brushed off the thought. “It just means he was a greedy bastard. I figure he shipped ’em all up to cigar stores in New York.”

“Okay. Then let me ask you something about his illegal bird dealings.” I raised a finger, cutting off Tommy before he could protest. “I’m not asking about
your
role in it. What I want to know is, who else was involved?”

Tommy picked up a fistful of sand. “You really think Alberto would have told me something like that?”

“You’re a smart guy. I’m sure you picked things up along the way,” I countered.

Tommy released the sand. “I don’t know who they were, other than Cubans. What I
will
tell you is that I wasn’t the only one making trips. Dominguez liked to cover his bases. He had one pigeon that always flew. From Miami, to Mexico, to Cuba, and back.”

“Does the name Willy Weed sound familiar?” I asked.

“Like I said, names were never mentioned,” Tommy answered.

I popped one last question to confirm something that had made little sense until now. “What are green coins?”

Tommy’s head jerked up. “Where did you pick up that phrase?”

“It was in a letter I found at Alberto’s from a woman in Cuba. She promised to have ten green coins ready for him,” I replied. “What are coins, Tommy?”

He stared at me, as if questioning just how dumb I really was, and how much I already knew. “It was Alberto’s code word for parrots. Green stands for Cuban Amazons.”

“So blue coins would be hyacinth macaws.”

A sudden whoosh of wings caught me by surprise as a flock of snowy-white egrets lifted off from their roosts in nearby trees, their long, slender bodies silhouetted like ribbons against the sky.

Tommy nodded and followed the birds with his eyes as they winged out to sea. “I bet you didn’t know that there are more escaped parrots flying around here in south Florida, than there are flying free in the entire Amazon rain forest.” He stared again at me. “Did you know that, Porter?”

I didn’t answer, intrigued by the feverish look which had sneaked into his eyes.

Tommy cocked an ear. “You wanna know why I really stopped bringing in birds? I began to hear their calls in the wind. When I listened closer, I realized I was hearing their cries for help.” His eyes held me captive. “You know what they call the few that are left in the wild? They’re known as the living dead, because odds are that they’ll never survive.”

A shiver passed through me. Tommy reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a business card.

“This is a place for you to check out. The guy’s no longer involved in smuggling, but he knows the trade here in Florida better than anyone else.”

All I knew about Hialeah was that the racetrack was there. Also, that the track’s resident flock of pink flamingos had starred in the opening montage of
Miami Vice
, without ever earning a dime in royalties. It appeared I was about to learn more. Hialeah was where Wickee Wackee Bird World and its owner, Saul Greenberg, were located.

Wickie Wackee Bird World stood on a strip filled with rundown stores that had seen better days. The place was just as charming inside. Grimy windows kept out most of the sun, while ancient fluorescent lights provided a sick, yellowish glow. The man behind the counter fit in perfectly with the general motif. His pasty white complexion made Bonkers look tan, and the large glasses that covered his eyes gave him the visage of an owl. You’d have been hard pressed to guess this was a man who lived in the sun capital of the world.

What the store did have was plenty of birds, screeching louder than a roomful of senior citizens playing a high-stakes game of canasta. One bird barked like a dog, another was a dead ringer for a fire alarm, while a third scatted to jazz.

A quick look around revealed some yellow-crowned Amazons. Natives of Mexico, the birds are closed to the trade. But Saul’s collection got even better. Perched in a corner were rare black palm cockatoos, with a going price of $50,000 a pair. After seeing that, it came as no surprise to spot two hyacinths, along with a Cuban Amazon. The only strange thing was that Saul kept one hell of an inventory in such a crummy little store.

I walked over to the cage containing the hyacinths, their violet-blue plumage iridescent even in the dim light. The yellow feathers that circled their eyes looked like circus clown makeup, and a golden racing stripe ran along either side of their tongues. I brought a finger up toward the cage, tempted to pet them.

“You really don’t want to do that.”

I turned around, where Saul held up his hand for me to view. It was missing the tips of two fingers. “If you’re not careful, those huge hooked beaks of theirs will chop your finger right off.” He produced two Brazil nuts, and fed one to each of the birds. “I’ve learned to be careful.” He smiled.

One of the hyacinths flipped the Brazil nut in the air and caught it, smashing the hard shell as easily as a grape.

“They can crush two thousand pounds per square inch in those beaks,” Greenberg revealed with pride.

I gazed at the pair, remembering the tranquilized hyacinths I’d glimpsed at Alberto’s.

“How long have you had these birds?” I asked.

Greenberg blinked at me from behind his oversized lenses. “You’re a fed, aren’t you?”

I laughed and added a dash of bewilderment. “What makes you say that?”

“Let’s just say I used to dabble in the trade. I can smell an agent almost before I spot him.” He raised his chin and sniffed at the air like a well-trained hound dog. “I’d say you’re definitely Fish and Wildlife.”

I was going to have to try a different brand of soap. I stretched my hand out toward him. “My name is Rachel Porter.”

A flicker of a smile crossed his lips as he shook my hand. “I’d give you my name, but I’m sure you already know it. I’ll tell you straight off that I’m not involved in that side of the business anymore.”

“A change of heart?” I asked.

Saul stretched a finger out to an African grey parrot that sat on a branch. “No. I’ve just reached the age where I don’t want to take chances anymore.”

The bird stepped onto the human perch and Saul raised the bird up to his face, where he planted a kiss on its beak.

“You see this parrot? He’s got a better vocabulary than most people I know.” The bird kissed Saul’s nose in return. “Parrots are the chimps of the bird world in terms of intelligence.”

“It’s the feds! It’s the feds! Run for cover!” screeched the elegant red-tailed parrot.

“I told you he was smart,” Saul grinned.

“You might feel too old for smuggling these days; the question is whether you still deal in hot birds?”

“Absolutely not.” Saul crossed his heart and then crossed the bird’s chest with his fingertip. “I guarantee you that, on the life of Megabite here.”

Hmm. I hoped the bird would be around to see a ripe old age. “Then where did the palms, the yellow-napes, the hyacinths, and the Cuban come from?” I asked.

Megabite tackled the rim of Saul’s glasses. “They’re from my former days. And by the way—those particular birds aren’t for sale. Neither is this one here.”

I gave Saul a dubious look. “That’s a good way to run your business into the ground.”

Greenberg shrugged. “I’ve already made my money. This is more of a way to keep me out of the house. My wife tells me that the birds and I drive her crazy. I look at this shop as our sanctuary. But then, I bet you didn’t come here to buy a bird.”

It was apparent the guy knew his customers. “Actually, I’m looking into a bird-theft ring.”

Saul swayed back and forth on the balls of his feet. “I’ve heard about what’s going on. If you’re trying to track down those birds, you’re wasting your time.”

“Why is that?” I inquired. I thought about checking Saul’s birds for any telltale markings, but the man was too smart to take in parrots that were traceable.

“Let me explain how a ring like this works.” Greenberg took a seat behind his counter and offered me a stool. “You ever have a car stolen?”

I shook my head.

“That’s probably because you’ve had nothing but secondhand cars, and cheap ones at that,” he surmised.

I shot him a look. “What do you do for a sideline? Work as an FBI profiler?”

“Funny.” Greenberg pushed his glasses up with his index finger, and placed Megabite on a stationary perch. “A car-theft ring doesn’t steal just any car. They go out and hunt around till they find a white BMW sports model, or the latest Toyota Camry in hunter green. Particular cars are stolen to fill specific orders. It’s the same thing with these birds. They’re already sold before the theft has even taken place.”

It was nice to know there was an upside to driving around in a junk heap.

“That’s a great theory, but I’ve already got a case that disproves it,” I told him. “A few days ago, a bird dealer was knocked off and all two hundred and fifty of his birds were stolen. You can’t tell me that every one of those parrots was already sold.”

Saul raised his palms. “You’re right. What you’re describing is something different. That was a revenge burglary.”

Now I knew the guy was nuts. “You want to explain that one?”

“Look—you and I both know that the rings working this area have never murdered anyone, and that they always take the most valuable birds. The robbery you’re telling me about is something completely different. That theft was personal. The guy was whacked because he pissed somebody off.”

“He was bringing in lots of Cuban Amazons,” I revealed. “Have you heard about any pipeline dealing in a large number of those birds?”

Saul thought for a moment and then shook his head. “Nah. All I know of is the occasional small-time hustler bringing in a few parrots here and there. What was the dead guy’s name?”

I figured there was no harm in telling. “Alberto Dominguez.”

Saul rolled his eyes. “Oh, a Cuban guy. Yeah, they deal with their own.”

Tommy had sent me on a wild-goose chase. This guy was racking up nothing but zeros.

“What you gotta do is figure this thing out like a puzzle until all the pieces fit. That dead guy of yours could have been smuggling for his own personal gain. Or the murder could have been for something else, too.”

I had the feeling that Saul didn’t get much in the way of human company these days. “Like what?” I asked, working my way out from behind the counter.

“Well, the case involves smuggling Amazons out of Cuba, right? And the guy doing it, Alberto, was a Cuban. So, take a look around,” Saul suggested.

I had no idea what the man was talking about. I cleared the counter and edged toward the door.

“Ask yourself, what have you got here in Miami?” Saul answered his own question. “You’ve got a community of exiled Cubans who are stirring the pot, plotting their brains out to overthrow Castro. If I were you, I’d be checking out what else this Alberto was into. You might even be looking for a political angle to this thing. Speaking of which, have you seen this morning’s paper?”

Greenberg handed me a copy of the
Miami Herald
, which I hadn’t had the chance to read. Right on the front page was a story about a bomb attack on a hotel and well-known restaurant in the middle of Havana. The bombing had taken the life of an Italian tourist. The Cuban foreign minister laid the blame on a Miami-based Cuban exile group, referring to it as a CIA-backed, terrorist mafia. This was the third recent attack aimed at the country’s booming tourist industry. Any connection to Dominguez seemed totally farfetched. I rolled up the paper and stuck it under my arm as I headed out the door.

“By the way,” Saul called out. “My sense of smell isn’t really all that good. Tommy called and told me that you’d be coming.”

Little Havana is three and a half square miles of pure Cuban heart and soul located west of downtown and south of the Miami River. It got its name from the Cuban exiles who settled there in the late sixties and immediately set about recreating the Cuban capital. I headed there now. The news article had reminded me of Ramon’s story about his family’s flight from the island, and this seemed to be as good a time as any to visit his shop. Maybe I could pry something out of him without that sister of his around.

I navigated through the traffic fumes, where the beep of horns intermingled with the strains of Cuban Muzak, the sound pulsating out of shop doors. It was easy to take in the sights this way, patiently crawling along in a game of bumper cars as I searched for a parking space. I finally bit the dust and swerved into a pay garage, after losing a showdown over four precious yards of asphalt to a determined
mamacita
.

The staccato sounds of Spanish rat-a-tat-tatted like a machine gun around me. Even the street signs were in Spanish, making me the stranger in an exotic, strange land as I hit the pavement. Cafeterias tempted me with their aroma of roast pork sandwiches and white bean soup. But since I’d already had lunch with Tommy, I couldn’t come up with a decent excuse to bolt another one down.

I enviously eyed the women who glided past smartly shaded by brightly blooming umbrellas the colors of cool tropical drinks. They eyed me as well, wondering why a gringa would be dumb enough to walk unprotected beneath the blazing sun.

I continued on past a fenced-in park where a group of old men smoked cigars and sipped their coffee, intently concentrating on a mean game of dominoes. The
clack, clack, clack
of the black-and-white tiles transmuted into the sympathetic clucking of tongues, the consoling sound of men kibitzing about when Castro would die and they could finally go home.