Cash Landing (5 page)

M
arco Aroyo was blinded by the light. His head throbbed with pain. A stream of blood and sweat stung his eyes, one of which was almost completely swollen shut. His wrists and ankles burned from the taut metal chains that shackled him to the wall.

The man asking the questions was a silhouette, his enormous frame hidden in the shadows behind the white-hot spotlight.

“One last time,” the man said, his voice hissing. “Where is the money?”

Running. Aroyo wasn't good at it, but that was all he'd been doing since the heist. Running and hiding, afraid to go home or to work. Afraid to contact Pinky or Ruban about his share of the money, afraid even to make a phone call that might divulge his whereabouts. Aroyo was running for his life.

“I don't have it. I swear, I don't!”

It had been Aroyo's responsibility to get rid of the pickup truck. No one had told him how dangerous that job would be. When they'd loaded the pickup into the delivery truck and he'd pulled away from the tile warehouse, Aroyo had thought that his million-dollar cut would be the easiest money he ever earned. Before the pickup was even backed into the chop shop for disassembly, however, the breaking news was flashing on every television screen in Miami: “Black Ford F-150 pickup truck involved in multimillion-dollar heist at Miami International Airport.”
Locked up in a chop shop and surrounded by sharp tools is no place to be when a garage full of goons suddenly puts two-plus-two together and realizes that the guy with the black pickup has a treasure map in his head.

“You are a
liar
!” the man shouted, as he kicked Aroyo in the groin again. “Where's the money?”

Aroyo doubled over in pain, the chains rattling as he dropped to his knees and fell to the floor. He could barely breathe, let alone speak.

“It's . . . the truth,” he somehow managed to say.

The man kicked him harder, this time in the kidney. It was as if someone had switched off the light. Aroyo struggled to remain conscious. The man stepped closer and grabbed Aroyo by the hair, forcing him to look up.

“This is not going to end well for you, Marco.”

“Please, I'm begging.”

“Tell me now, and it ends quickly. Keep up this game, and we do it my way.”

Aroyo looked up, barely able to see. “Nothing to tell,” he said, breathless.

He slammed Aroyo's head to the floor. “Now you've done it,” he said. “Now I have to get my tools.”

Aroyo closed his eyes, his face still pressed against the floor. He felt the vibration of firm footfalls as the man stepped away. He heard the sudden hiss of a propane tank, and the roar of focused flame suddenly pierced the darkness. It floated toward him like a blue comet, landing not quite near enough to burn the skin. Slowly, steadily, the heat intensified, singeing the hair on his bare chest. It was painless, so far, but he could smell it burning.

“Okay, okay! I'll tell you!”

“Too late,” the man said, as he turned up the flame. “You chose
my way
.”

Aroyo would have told him anything, wanted to tell him everything. But the scream he heard next was his own.

Ruban and Savannah were still dancing at two a.m. The club was packed, and a dozen friends from the birthday celebration were partying with them.

Media Noche was
the
nightclub in midtown, and every Saturday night it pulsated with live Latin music. Ruban was nearing his limit on the Cuba libres, and Savannah wasn't far behind with her vodka and cranberry. They told the bartenders, cocktail waitresses, their friends on the dance floor, and everyone else they ran into that they were celebrating. All wished Savannah a happy birthday, but for Ruban it was a double celebration. Bragging about the restaurant again made him feel like the old Ruban, and he told a few of his closest friends that he was even thinking about buying it back. The Rolex on Savannah's wrist was enough to convince them that it wasn't just a pipe dream.

At first, Savannah had seemed embarrassed by the compliments on her gift. She'd even told a few that it wasn't real. Sometime after midnight, however, Ruban caught her smiling and letting a girlfriend try it on.

“Come with me, beautiful,” he said as he took her hand and led her onto the dance floor. It was a slow ballad, and he wrapped Savannah in his arms.

“I love my party,” she whispered into his ear.

“Do you love your present?” he asked.

“I love
you
.” She ran her nails along the back of his neck. “Hey, wanna get down and dirty?”

“Really?”

“Grab a shovel. Let's dig up some money.”

He stopped dancing, surprised, and took a step back.

“Just kidding,” she said, smiling as she pulled him close again.

He held her tight, and they swayed to the music. All was good. Savannah was beautiful. They were in love the way they used to be. It might take some time, but she would come around to loving the money.

Ruban could feel it.

W
e may have our first break,” Andie said into her phone.

She gave Littleford the quick rundown. Tom Cat had stepped up patrol along the Miami River since the heist, figuring that the crooks might make the pickup truck disappear by putting it on a freighter along with the usual haul of stolen vehicles. They had a hit.

“We found the pickup?” asked Littleford.

“A stolen delivery truck,” said Andie. “Watts searched the cab and thinks the pickup might be, or might have been, in the box. Just to be safe, I told him to get a warrant.”

“Good. Where's the truck?”

“Seabird Terminal B, just down the street from the Miami River Rapids Mini Park.”

“I'll meet you there.”

It had been a week of dead ends for the FBI. They had footprints and tire tracks from the warehouse, but not a single fingerprint, and no DNA to work with. The eyewitness descriptions of the thieves were sketchy and conflicting. FBI tech agents were able to enhance the security camera video, but only up to a point. Not even techies could see through ski masks. At bottom, they were looking for two men of average height and weight. About the only thing the witnesses agreed upon was that they spoke Spanish with an American accent. Even less helpful were the hundreds of calls that had flooded the tip line. A six-figure reward
was serious motivation, and it didn't have to be a case of Hatfields versus McCoys for folks to report a “suspicious neighbor” down the street. Law enforcement wheels had been spinning all week, no traction at all. Until Sunday morning.

The shipping area near Miami River Rapids Mini Park is upriver, closer to the airport and well away from the upscale riverfront development in downtown Miami. Many old, sketchy cargo terminals had been shut down by Homeland Security after 9/11, but commerce continued to flow, some of it as polluted as the river itself. Huge cranes worked around the clock, hoisting mountains of metal containers onto Caribbean-bound freighters. Some carried electronics and other dry goods. Others carried vehicles with the VINs scratched off. Trucks and four-wheel-drive vehicles were particularly in demand, as any Miamian who
used to
own a Range Rover would attest. Andie wondered about a certain black pickup.

Andie parked her car along the chain-link fence. Coils of razor wire stretched across the top like a man-eating Slinky. If that weren't enough to protect the three-story stack of containers on the other side of the fence, the Dobermans might make thieves think twice. Littleford pulled up right beside her. Together they walked toward a white box truck that had been pulled aside and separated from the cargo that was being loaded onto a freighter bound for Jamaica. Lieutenant Watts from MDPD was waiting for them.

“Do you have your search warrant yet?” asked Andie.

“Any minute,” said Watts. “We got the VIN through the windshield and ran a vehicle check. Belongs to an appliance store in West Kendall. It was reported stolen the Monday morning after the MIA heist, when the driver showed up for work and saw that it was gone. My guess is that it was stolen the Saturday night before the heist.”

“So were a lot of other vehicles. What makes you think this one might have a pickup truck inside it?”

Watts showed them a sealed evidence bag with a piece of paper inside. “We found a handwritten note tucked under the visor on the driver's side.”

“You searched the cab without a warrant?”

“It's a stolen vehicle. We can take an inventory.”

He was technically correct, but when there was time to get a warrant, Andie didn't like to take chances. “What's on the note?”

“Time entries. The first one is 1:55 p.m.”

“That was the scheduled arrival time for flight 462,” said Andie.

“Notice that it's crossed out,” said Watts. “Someone wrote in 2:08. That's the actual arrival time. Then you have two more time entries below those. Three forty-five is crossed out and somebody wrote in 3:58. Thirteen minutes later.”

“Which is exactly how many minutes late the flight was,” said Andie.

“You got it. My theory is that this second entry—3:45 changed to 3:58—was an estimated time for some kind of rendezvous involving this truck. This box is plenty big to hold an F-150.”

Andie's gaze turned toward the truck. The suspension was even between front and rear, no sign of any load in the box. “That pickup probably weighs six thousand pounds. It's not inside there now, that's for sure.”

Littleford had made the same observation. “They could have brought the pickup here in the delivery truck and shipped it on another freighter. One that's long gone.”

“Exactly,” said Watts. “And if I'm right about this, they would have made some modifications to the box to keep the truck from rolling out the back door.”

Another car pulled up, and a young assistant state attorney got out.

“Here's our warrant,” said Watts.

The prosecutor had a pissed-off expression on her face, clearly not very happy about coming out on a Sunday. “You know, you don't need a warrant to inventory a stolen vehicle,” she said.

Andie immediately pegged her as one of those prosecutors who would talk out of the other side of her mouth and blame the cop just as soon as a key piece of evidence was excluded at trial for failure to get a warrant. “Belt and suspenders,” said Andie. “That's me.”

They walked toward the back of the truck where one of the MDPD officers was standing. Watts told him to open it. The rollup door wasn't locked, and one good shove was enough. The box was empty.

Andie shone her flashlight inside, which crisscrossed with the more powerful beam from the officer's heavy-duty flashlight. The chains and timbers used to secure the truck were readily visible, as were tire tracks on the bed of the truck.

“I'll be damned,” said Littleford.

“We'll want to get a comparison to the tracks at the airport warehouse,” said Andie.

Watts was about to climb inside, but Littleford stopped him. “Keep it clean for forensics,” he said.

Andie aimed her flashlight toward the forward end of the box, where four lengths of steel chain lay in separate piles. “Could that be dried blood on that chain?”

“Hard to tell,” said Littleford.

Andie's flashlight picked up a string of brown dots across the metal bed of the box. “Definitely could be blood,” she said as her beam came to rest on something in the far corner.

“What's that?” asked Littleford.

“Candy bar, maybe. We could get lucky and find saliva.”

She wanted to climb inside and look, but she knew better than to contaminate the crime scene, especially if blood was involved. The MDPD officer brought binoculars from his squad car. Andie focused on the object in the corner. The zoom was powerful enough for her to see ants at work.

“It's not a candy bar,” she said as she lowered the binoculars. “That's a human finger.”

Littleford borrowed the binoculars. “Whipped him bloody with chains and cut off his finger. If he's alive, he's in bad shape. If he's dead, he didn't die a pleasant death.”

“Check that out,” said Watts, pointing toward another section of the floor.

Andie aimed her flashlight at the black smudges. “Looks like burn marks,” said Andie.

“I'm leaning toward unpleasant death,” said Watts.

“Most unpleasant,” said Andie.

“I'll put MDPD homicide on alert.”

He started toward his squad car. Andie and Littleford stayed behind the open delivery truck.

“What do you think?” asked Andie.

“I predicted it in the warehouse when I saw that bag on the floor. I think it's the guy who dropped two million dollars on his way to the truck.”

“Forensics will be interesting. I can stay and wait for them. No need for you to hang around all Sunday afternoon.”

“Thanks. Call me when you know anything.” He started toward his car, then stopped. “Hey, Henning.”

“Yeah?”

“How do you like the bank robbery unit so far?”

Andie was still learning his sense of humor, and she was not yet sure that he could handle hers. She resisted the urge to fire back a smartass response.

“I'll get back to you on that, Chief.”

R
uban woke up feeling lousy, and it wasn't just the rum-soaked night at Club Media Noche. Savannah held him to his promise. Her joke on the dance floor about getting “down and dirty” and digging up some money had been just that—a joke. It must have been the alcohol. She'd put the Rolex back in the box before going to bed, and first thing in the morning she gave Ruban the order: “Take it back. Today.”

What Savannah wants, Savannah gets.

He drove to South Miami and talked to Sully, who actually seemed glad to see him. He invited Ruban inside and directed him to a seat on the couch, apparently smelling another sale.

“Did you decide to buy the watch after all?” he asked.

Ruban removed the box from his coat pocket and laid it on the table. “No. I ended up buying one that you sold to Jeffrey. My wife didn't like it, so we have to return it.”

Sully smiled with amusement. “This isn't Nordstrom. I don't do returns.”

“I know this is a hassle, so keep a thousand for your trouble, give me twenty-four, and we'll call it even.”

“Are you not hearing me? I don't do returns.”

“I'm giving you a thousand dollars for nothing. Jeffrey paid you twenty-five grand.”

“All sales are final.”

Ruban checked his anger, but his glare made the point. “You're being unreasonable. That's not smart.”

Sully blinked, and the point seemed to have been made. He reached for the Rolex box and opened it. “I can't take this back. It's been worn.”

“One time. How can you even tell?”

Sully sniffed the band. “I can smell the perfume on it.”

“So wipe it off.”

“You let your wife wear the watch, and then I'm supposed to take it back? Fuck no.”

“All right, I'll take twenty grand.”

“Take a hike.”

“You're starting to piss me off,” said Ruban.

Their eyes locked, but Ruban didn't flinch, and he could feel Sully backing down.

“Fine,” said Sully. “Twenty. I'll get the cash.”

He went to the closet. It wasn't the best deal Ruban had ever negotiated, but he'd told Savannah so many lies lately that he was having trouble keeping them straight. It was important to tell her the truth about
something
, and his return of the Rolex was a good place to start.

“Get out,” said Sully. He was pointing a gun at Ruban from across the room. He hadn't gone to the closet to retrieve cash.

“Whoa. Relax, pal.”

“Don't tell me to relax. Your brother-in-law is cool. You're not. Take the watch, and don't let me see your face around here again.”

“You're gonna shoot me over this? Really?”

“Only if you make me.”

Ruban studied him. Sully didn't look at all comfortable holding that pistol. Ruban wondered if he'd ever fired the thing.

“What you got there?” asked Ruban. “Taurus nine-mil?”

“What's it to you?”

Ruban rose from the couch. “Yeah, looks like a Taurus.”

“Take the watch and walk straight to the door,” said Sully.

Ruban left the watch on the table and started slowly away from the couch. “I used to own a Taurus,” he said.

“Walk toward the door.” He pointed in that direction with the gun—only for a second, but it was long enough for Ruban to get a side view of the pistol.

“Taurus makes a nice sidearm,” said Ruban. He was walking slowly, straight at Sully.

“Toward
the door
,” said Sully.

Ruban kept coming, his gaze locked on Sully like a laser. “I'm going to give you one last chance to take twenty thousand on the return.”

The gun was beginning to shake, and Sully was starting to look like a man who wished he hadn't injected it into the discussion. “No deal,” said Sully.

Ruban took two more steps, not much farther to go.

“Stop right there!” said Sully.

Ruban took another step, then the last.

“Stop, or—”

Ruban grabbed the barrel of the gun and pointed it toward the floor. Sully froze.

“First of all,” Ruban said in a firm, even tone, “I knew you don't have the balls to shoot me. Second, I know the Taurus. I saw the white dot on the frame when you pointed toward the door. A red dot means it's ready to fire. You left the safety on, dumbass.”

Sully swallowed the lump in his throat. In one quick motion, Ruban snatched the gun away, removed the safety, and shoved the barrel up under Sully's chin.

“I'll take my twenty-five grand now,” he said, speaking right into his face.

Sully raised his arms slowly. “No problem.”

In another quick motion, Ruban pressed the slide against
Sully's ear and racked it, taking a nick out of Sully's earlobe as the first round entered the chamber.

“Ow!” Sully was bleeding.

Ruban pressed the gun to the back of Sully's head. “Shut up and lead the way.”

Sully did as he was told. A safe was built into the wall in the back of the closet, and Sully's hand shook as he dialed the combination and opened it. He reached inside and removed a vacuum-sealed pack. Ruban recognized it as one of the packs he'd given to Jeffrey on the night of the heist, and he knew it contained precisely twenty-five thousand. He stuffed the pack under his shirt. Then he shoved Sully into the closet and closed the door.

“You stay in there till Tuesday,” he said loud enough for Sully to hear. “You got that?”

“Uh-huh.”

Ruban left through the front door, tossed Sully's pistol into the shrubbery on his way out, and stashed the money in the trunk of his car before driving away. He was halfway home when he realized that he'd walked out with at least two thousand dollars more than he'd expected to get from Sully on the return, which would buy a nice birthday present for Savannah. But no more dealing with scumbags who did business out of a closet. It was time to shop like real people, people with class, people with money. He hopped onto the expressway and headed to downtown Miami.

The Seybold Building is a ten-story retail center filled with nothing but jewelry stores and dealers. People came from all over the world to shop there, and Ruban had heard many a customer at Café Ruban gushing about their new bauble from Seybold. He breezed past the first few shops in the arcade, which sold mostly antique rings and other vintage jewelry. Midway down the mall he found a shop that sold “contemporary designs,” more Savannah's style. He spotted a pair of earrings for two grand. Sold. He went inside and told the clerk.

“Would you like those gift-wrapped?”

“Yeah, I would.”

Ruban browsed the glass display cabinets while the clerk wrapped the earrings. He wandered toward the selection of fine watches, where a Rolex caught his eye. It looked identical to the watch he had just “returned” to Sully.

“Are you interested in a watch as well?” the sales associate asked.

“Maybe. How much is that ladies' Rolex?”

The clerk unlocked the cabinet and laid the watch on a velvet pad. “This is a nice one. Twelve-karat gold with diamond and ruby bezel. It goes for twenty-five hundred dollars.”

Ruban did a double take. “You mean twenty-five
thousand
, right?”

He chuckled. “No. You can have
ten
of them for twenty-five thousand. Honestly, it's a discontinued style. Twenty-five hundred is what we're asking. I might be able to go a little lower, if you pay cash.”

Ruban was too angry to speak.

“Sir?”

“Sorry,” said Ruban. “Just the earrings today.”

He took the shopping bag, the clerk thanked him, and Ruban left the store. He tried to focus on how happy the earrings would make Savannah, but he couldn't let go of the fact that Sully had charged his stupid brother-in-law ten times the full retail price on four ladies' watches. His markup on the men's watches was probably just as outrageous.

No wonder he'd pulled a gun.

Ruban's cell rang. He took the call while walking back to his car. It was Savannah's uncle—Pinky.

“We got a problem with Marco.”

Ruban stopped on the sidewalk. “What now?”

“I was just watching the noontime news. The cops found the delivery truck by the river.”

“Damn it, Pinky! Marco's only job was to supply the pickup and then ditch it. You hired him. You said he could handle it.”

“Don't put this on me. It was
your
idea to put the pickup inside the delivery truck and put everything on the freighter. Marco was just in charge of execution.”

“How hard is that to execute?” Ruban said, his voice rising. “Now it's all fucked up!”

“Relax, all right?” said Pinky. “They didn't say anything on the news about finding the pickup. That's gone. Maybe there wasn't room on that freighter for the delivery truck. But if the TV news got it right, there's a bigger problem. They found bloody chains inside the delivery truck. And somebody's finger.”

Ruban froze. “Shit. Is it Marco?”

“They didn't say.”

“Did you ever get hold of him after we talked Thursday?”

“No.”

“So you still got his money?”

“Yeah. Still got it.”

Ruban started toward his car again, as if walking might help him think. “Where is it?”

There was silence on the line. Then Pinky laughed and said, “Where it'll be safe. We settled this the night of the split. You hide your money, I hide mine.”

“This isn't yours. It's Marco's. I'll hold it.”

“What, you don't trust me, bro?”

Ruban unlocked his car, and before he could answer, a homeless man approached from behind.

“Hey, my man. Don't I know you?” He was holding a sign that said “Dog Bless You,” which was either his attempt at humor or “Exhibit A” in his trial for public intoxication.

Ruban waved him off, climbed behind the wheel, and locked the door. “Pinky, if Marco's toast, we need to split up his money.”

“We don't even know he's dead yet.”

“Don't be stupid. Can't you see what happened here? Marco shot his mouth off to the wrong person. They beat him with chains and cut off his finger to find out where he hid his money,
and they didn't believe him when he said he didn't get paid yet. He's dead.”

“Probably.”

Another thought came to Ruban's mind, one more important than money. “Do you think Marco gave us up?”

“How the fuck do I know, bro?”

“He was your friend.”

“He's a two-bit car thief I met in prison. Look, all I can tell you is I'm outta here. No way am I going to work tomorrow like everything's normal. I'm cracking open my vacuum-sealed packs and getting the hell out of Miami.”

“Pinky, don't. We have to hold it together here.”

“Bullshit. Your brother-in-law is stuffing coke up his nose and dropping money at strip clubs like there's holes in his pockets. He's wearing a target on his chest. Either you get him to tone it down, or I might take some target practice myself.”

“That's not cool. Jeffrey is your nephew.”

“He's a fuckup. This is the big leagues. There's a chance Marco didn't give us up. But if somebody even twists Jeffrey's fat finger, there's
no chance
he won't give us up. You gotta take control of the situation. If you don't, I will.”

“Don't threaten me.”

“No threat. Here's the deal. Get fatso under control, and we split Marco's share. Otherwise, I keep it. That's all I have to say.”

Pinky hung up. Ruban tossed the cell onto the passenger seat. Week one had been a dream. Week two was shaping up to be a nightmare. Pinky's question had hit the nail on the head:
“What, you don't trust me, bro?”

Ruban didn't trust anybody.
Gotta take control.

He started the engine and nearly ran over the homeless guy as he backed out of the parking spot. The driver's-side window squeaked as he lowered it.

“Dog bless you,” he said as he drove away.