Cash Landing (24 page)

P
inky heard his nephew crying in the next room as he entered the building.

They were holding Jeffrey in low-rent warehouse space that Pinky had renovated for business purposes. Super Bowl XLIV was coming to Miami in February, along with plenty of men who were willing to pay for sex. Pinky had lined up half a dozen Guatemalan illegals for a full week. The young women didn't know it yet, but they would be staying well beyond the Super Bowl. Until then, the build-out was the perfect place to hold Jeffrey. There were two simple but comfortable bedrooms in front, each like a mini-suite. The building had no windows, so Jeffrey couldn't possibly figure out where he was; and it was in an isolated commercial area, so no passersby would hear the screams.

“Stop, please!”

Jeffrey's desperate pleas came right through the bedroom door. Pinky walked past the kitchenette and down the short hallway. He grabbed a rubber mask from the hook on the wall—he was George W. Bush—and went inside.

The bed and nightstand were pushed up against the wall. Jeffrey lay in the center of the room, staring up at his captor. He was hogtied, his wrists and ankles cuffed and chained behind him. It wasn't the first time Pinky had seen a man in that predicament, but Jeffrey was the first to bear such a bizarre resemblance to an actual hog.

“Welcome, Mr. President,” said Pedro.

Pinky struggled not to laugh, and it wasn't just the absurdity of Pedro's Barack Obama mask. Jeffrey's arms, legs, and torso were wrapped tightly with silver-gray tape. He resembled an overweight mummy, only darker, the living precursor to
Fifty Shades of Grey.

“Ahhhhhhhrgh!”

Forty-nine.

Pedro tossed the hairy strip of duct tape aside. The mummy had lost a foot-long swatch from his manly chest.

“You sure you're not lying to me, Jeffrey?” asked Pedro.

“I swear on my mother's grave. I got no money left!”

Pinky said nothing, knowing that Jeffrey would recognize his voice. He gave Pedro the “cut” sign and an unmistakable gesture to follow him out of the room.

“Not now, bro,” said Pedro. “Fat boy is just two minutes away from begging me to set him on fire.”

Pinky remained at the door, standing in the shadows. Even with the rubber mask over his head, he feared that Jeffrey might recognize him. He signaled again, more forcefully, demanding that Pedro come with him.

Pedro cursed under his breath and kicked Jeffrey in the kidneys, which made his victim groan. “I'm not done with you, fatty,” he said.

He left Jeffrey on the floor and stepped out of the room with Pinky. He closed the door, and both men removed their rubber masks. Pedro's face was slick with sweat; torture was hard work.

“What the hell are you doing in there?” asked Pinky.

“Making sure he has no money left.”

“I told you he doesn't have any.”

“Marco told me the same thing,” said Pedro.

It was Pedro who had chopped Marco's pickup, seen the TV reports about “a black Ford F-150” used in the heist, and then turned his blowtorch on Marco. Marco gave up Pinky's name,
and so the Pedro/Pinky alliance was formed. Pinky promised him half of Marco's share, and so much more, if they teamed up, turned against the others, and reached the magic number: the five-million-dollar asking price for Night Moves.

“Marco wasn't lying. You tortured him for nothing.”

“Not for nothing. For my peace of mind, bro. When I was done with Marco, I knew he was telling the truth.”

“Just like I'm telling you the truth now! Jeffrey blew through his money!”

“No offense, bro. But I like to hear it straight from the horse's mouth before I decide if you're telling me the truth.”

“Shut your mouth.”

“Hey, Marco tells me you have his share of the money. How do I know that? You tell me Jeffrey's money is gone. How do I know that?”

“Don't you call me a fucking liar,” said Pinky.

Pedro shook his Obama mask in Pinky's face. “Nobody calling nobody a liar. Simple White House policy: trust but verify. People soaked in 151 rum don't lie to a man holding a pack of matches. I'm just saying.”

Pinky pushed the mask away. “You
can't
burn Jeffrey.”

“Why not?”

“Because he's my
nephew.
”

“He's a piece-of-shit worthless human being.”

“Yeah, he is. But his mother is my little sister. We are
not
going to burn her son alive.”

“Then what are we going to do with him?”

Pinky drew a breath as he looked away, thinking. “Keep him alive till Ruban pays,” he said finally. “Then put a quick bullet in Jeffrey's head. Ruban you can burn.”

Pedro returned to Jeffrey in the “guest room.” Pinky went to the vault.

The vault was a wall safe in the closet. Only Pinky knew the combination. It was barely big enough to hold all the cash. Even after expenses, Pinky's original take from the heist, plus Octavio's and Marco's shares, had put him over the four-million-dollar mark, but a million of that was now Pedro's. He still had work to do if he was going to buy Night Moves from Jorge Calderón. It was his dream: own the annex and the club. What more could a man want?

He dialed the combination and opened the safe. Wedged between the stacks of bills were a 9-millimeter pistol and several ammunition clips. He removed the gun, loaded it. He had to push the metal door firmly against the bills to close the safe. Space was tight. He'd probably need to find another place to keep the gun once the ransom was paid in the form of another stack of vacuum-sealed bills. If it was paid.

Ruban will pay.

Ruban deserved to pay. He was the one who'd dropped the sixth bag, two million dollars, and left it on the warehouse floor.

Pinky tucked the pistol into his belt, grabbed his George W. Bush mask, and started down the hallway to the guest room. He stopped outside the closed bedroom door. He could hear Jeffrey crying and sobbing, and Pedro telling him over and over again to shut up.

“I'm not even hurting you, you fat fucking crybaby!”

Pinky hesitated again before entering. Pedro was right. Jeffrey was a loser, a drug addict, and a pathetic excuse for a human being. Pinky couldn't stand him. Never could. Not even when Jeffrey was a kid, especially not when he was a kid. The little shit was always in the way, always in places he shouldn't be. Probably foraging for food. One day he'd wandered into his sister's bedroom and found something he never should have found. Uncle Pinky had thought the door was locked, but in walked Jeffrey. Pinky had eight-year-old Savannah
on the bed. Her shorts and panties were down around her ankles. Jeffrey had frozen in his tracks, his eyes like saucers. Then he'd turned and run. Pinky had sweated it out for days. Thankfully, not a word from anyone. Then, somehow, for the first and only time in his life, ten-year-old Jeffrey had found his spine: “Don't you even touch my sister again, or I will tell. I swear, I'll tell everyone.”

It was the last time Pinky ever set foot in his sister's house. The secret remained a secret. Savannah seemed to have obliterated it from her memory. Every now and then, however, Pinky caught a piercing glance from Jeffrey that told him his nephew would never forget.

Payback's a bitch.

Pinky pulled on his mask, opened the door, and entered the room. He dimmed the light with the wall switch to make it even more difficult for Jeffrey to determine who was behind the rubber mask. Then he went to Jeffrey and put the gun to his head. Pedro knew the drill and did all the talking.

“My Republican friend here doesn't have very good aim,” he told Jeffrey. “He might shoot you in the knee the first time. Hit you in the balls the second time. But eventually he'll get a bullet in your head. Unless you do exactly as I say. You understand?”

Jeffrey nodded. The gun remained pressed to his skull, moving slowly and in sync with his nod.

“Good. Here's the drill, fatso. I'm going to call your sister at her house. I'm not going to say anything. I'll put you on the line. You are going to tell her that you've been kidnapped and that your brother-in-law refuses to pay. You with me so far?”

“Yeah,” said Jeffrey, his voice trembling.

“Then you're going to tell Savannah that she needs to fix it. Ruban has to pay. Your life depends on it.”

“Uh-huh. I got it.”

“Perfect,” said Pedro. “Last and most important: right before
you hang up, you are going to scream like you are in terrible pain.”

Jeffrey shuddered before their eyes. “Okay, I can do that. I can scream. But we can pretend. You don't have to hurt me for real.”

Pedro smiled through the hole in his mask. “Come on now, Jeffrey. Where's the fun in that?”

R
uban got home from the restaurant after midnight. The house was dark, and Savannah was in bed. Friday was her “sleep like a rock night,” the evening shift at the dry cleaners followed by more drudgery on Saturday morning. He left the bedroom light off, tiptoed past her, and went straight to the shower. He needed one in the worst way, having absorbed an assortment of food odors from Café Ruban and God only knew what else from his visit to the Gold Rush. He swore he could still smell the musk from Buffalo Bill.

Inner pervert.

A cloud of steam filled the room. It was like a Turkish bath when he pulled back the curtain and stepped into the tub. The warmth felt good all over, but he focused on the crown of his head, a glorious scalp massage that sent hot water cascading down his neck, across his shoulders, and down his spine. It was hypnotizing, and he forced his eyes open every few minutes so as not to drift away. When he'd first met Savannah, he was the master of the two-minute rinse, saving all the hot water for her. The collapse of their financial world had changed all that. The shower became his escape, a place of solace for twenty minutes, thirty minutes, sometimes as long as an hour, while Savannah pleaded on the telephone with the customer service representatives in India, guys named “John Smith” or “Bob Jones” who tried to squeeze one last nickel out of them before the bank took the house.

A sudden noise startled him, and even before he fully realized that it was the sound of the bathroom door opening, the shower curtain peeled back like a scene out of
Psycho
.

“Ruban!”

“Shit!
” he shouted back, clutching his chest. “Damn it, Savannah! You scared the hell out of me.”

“Get out of the shower!” She was wearing a nightgown and clutching her cell phone.

He hopped out and grabbed a towel, the water still running. “
What?
”

“They just called,” she said, her voice quaking.

“They—who?”

“Jeffrey! And his kidnapper!”

Ruban wrapped the towel around his waist and turned off the shower. “They called you on your cell?”

“No. Our home phone. I grabbed my cell and recorded it.” She fumbled with the app. The on-screen image was a useless video of the earpiece on their landline, but the point was obviously the accompanying audio recording. “Listen,” she said as she hit
PLAY
.

“Savannah?”

It was Jeffrey—a weak and frightened whimper. Savannah's recorded voice followed.

“Jeffrey? Is that you?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Are you okay?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Jeffrey, where are you?”

The recording continued, but there was only silence. Ruban shrugged, as if to ask whether that was all of it.

“There's more,” she told him.

Ruban moved closer, as if that might help. The next voice in the recording wasn't Jeffrey's. It was the same voice Ruban had heard in the call at the car dealer.

“He's alive
,” the man said. “
For now.
”

“Don't hurt my brother. Please don't hurt him.”

“It's in your hands.”

“What do you want?”

“Money. Half a mil.”

“I don't have that kind of money.”

“Your husband does, but he told Jeffrey he won't pay.”

“What?”

“You heard me. The money means more to Ruban than your brother's life.”

“You're lying.”

“Ask Ruban. Then tell him to get his priorities straight. I'll call him again this weekend. Your hubby better be singing a different tune.”

“Don't hang up! I want to talk to Jeffrey.”

“Sure. He wants to talk to you, too. Jeffrey, say something to your sister.”

More silence followed, and it was hard to know if Jeffrey was refusing, afraid, or simply unable to talk. Ruban could see Savannah's cell shaking in her hand—a little at first, then almost uncontrollably, until her grip tightened and her eyes closed in anticipation of what they were about to hear.

It was a scream unlike any Ruban had ever heard before, a cry of pain so shrill that Ruban couldn't fathom what had caused it. Savannah gasped, and tears rolled down her cheeks. The scream lasted only a few seconds, but it seemed much longer.

The recorded voice of the kidnapper returned.

“If you still think we're playing, you'll see we're not. A piece of your brother is on its way to you, special delivery. Pay the ransom, or that's the way he's coming home: bit by bit.”

The recording ended. Savannah turned off the phone and let her arm fall to her side, emotionally drained.

“Did Jeffrey call you tonight, like the man said?”

Ruban hesitated, but he chose not to lie. “Yeah.”

“Did you tell him we wouldn't pay?”

“I—” he started to say, then stopped, choosing his words carefully. “It wasn't like the call you got. I swear, Savannah. I thought Jeffrey was hard up for cash and scamming us.”

Her glare tightened. “Did you tell him we wouldn't pay?”

“Listen to me, Savannah. I thought Jeffrey and one of the bartenders at the Gold Rush were playing me. I didn't think the kidnapping was real.”

“Didn't think it was
real
?” She shoved him with the phone in her hand. “How does that not sound
real
to you?”

“I told you: it wasn't like that. Jeffrey sounded all coked up when he called me, the way he gets when he's been partying for days. It came across like a plan to get his hands on more money from the heist. We can't touch that money, remember? I told him no.”

Savannah considered it, and some of the anger seemed to subside. But she appeared no less stressed. “I think it's time to call the police.”

“We can't do that. Savannah, I have millions of dollars hidden away. You think the cops are going to believe I wasn't part of the heist? I'll go to prison for life.”

The pain in her expression intensified. “Then we're going to have to pay the ransom.”

Ruban didn't respond.

“We have to pay what they ask,” she said. “Right? What choice do we have?”

He took her hand and tried to lead her to the bedroom. “Let's talk about this.”

She shook free and stood firm, the showdown playing out in front of the bathroom mirror. “Talk about
what
, Ruban?”

“Let's just ask ourselves the question: What if we pay?”

“That's not the right question. What if we
don't
pay? They're going to chop my brother into pieces. You heard him:
bit by bit.
”

“Do you think they're going to turn Jeffrey loose if we come up with half a million?”

“We have to try.”

Ruban drew a breath, hoping not to come across as heartless. “Savannah, like I said, I didn't believe Jeffrey before. Now I do. You should know this: he told me that his kidnapper is the same guy who killed Marco Aroyo.”

She froze, speechless. Ruban spelled it out for her. “This guy is not going to let him go, no matter how much we pay.”

“It's Jeffrey's only chance.”

“We're throwing away money.”

“Who cares about the money?”

“I do.”

“What?”

“Savannah, don't you see? This money can change our lives.”

“It's not our money!”

He paused, still not ready to tell her that he was the brains behind the heist. But he was almost there. “It could be ours,” he said.

“Are you out of your mind? Do you hear yourself talking? This is stolen money. The only way it can change our lives is if we get caught hiding it and we both go to jail.”

“We're not going to get caught.”

“How can you say that?”

He laid his hands on her shoulders, looking her straight in the eye, making sure she understood. “There were four guys involved,” he said, leaving himself out of it. “Marco Aroyo is dead. Octavio Alvarez is dead. Your uncle is missing and too smart to get caught if he's still alive. Jeffrey is . . .”

“As good as dead? Is that what you're saying?”

Ruban didn't answer.

Savannah looked at him, incredulous. “You want Jeffrey to die, don't you?”

“That's not true.”

“I can see it in your eyes. You want Jeffrey out of the way. You want to keep that money.”

“Savannah, I'm just saying—”

“Get away from me!” she said as she turned and hurried out the door.

Ruban followed her into the bedroom. “Savannah, listen to me.”

She grabbed a suitcase from the closet, threw it on the bed, and started emptying dresser drawers.

“What are you doing?” asked Ruban.

She stuffed a sweater and whatever else she could grab into the suitcase. “What does it look like I'm doing?”

“We can't just run away from this.”

“We
aren't going anywhere.”

“What, then?” he asked, scoffing. “You're leaving me?”

“Do you expect me to sleep in the same bed with a man who would rather see my brother dead than alive?”

“That's not what I said.”

“It's what you
meant
!”

“Savannah, please—”

“Don't touch me!” she said, backing away.

Ruban watched in disbelief as she pulled off her nightgown and dressed in record time.

“This won't solve anything,” he said.

“I can't stay here.” She grabbed the suitcase and hurried out of the bedroom.

Ruban followed her down the hallway to the foyer. “Savannah, don't do this.”

She continued toward the front door. Ruban rushed ahead and grabbed the knob before she could leave.

“Look at me,” he said, stopping her. He was between her and the door, but she wouldn't make eye contact. “I'm asking you not to do this.”

She didn't answer, still wouldn't look at him.

“We have to stick together,” he said, and he could see the anger rise in her immediately.

“Like what?” she asked in a harsh tone. “Like a family? Do you even know what a family is, Ruban?”

“Yes, I do. I want us to have—”

“Don't even say it! You don't know anything about family. That was my
brother
I just heard screaming on the phone! My own brother!”

“Savannah, I'm sorry, okay?”

“No, it's not ‘okay.' You've lied to me, you've deceived me, and now you've shown me a side of you that I can't . . . I can't . . .”

She stopped, and Ruban braced himself for what she might say:
Can't live with anymore?

“I just can't understand,” she said, stopping short of the bomb.

They stood in silence for a moment, Ruban looking at Savannah, her gaze fixed on the front door.

“You need to get out of the way, Ruban.”

“Where are you going?”

“My mother's house.”

He searched for something to say, anything that might change her mind.

“Ruban, please, get out of my way.”

He stepped aside slowly. Savannah unlocked the deadbolt and pulled the door open. Ruban didn't stop her. He watched from the doorway as his wife walked down the steps, into the night, and, maybe, out of their marriage.