Authors: Paul Carr
“There’s nothing here that belonged to her, but there wouldn’t be, because she didn’t have a bag.”
The room seemed undisturbed, the bed not slept-in, or re-made since Candi left.
“Who knew she was here?” J.T. said.
“No one but me, unless she told someone.”
Sam went to the phone by the bed and pressed the re-dial button. An internal number popped up on the display and the phone rang twice before a man answered.
“Concierge, how may I help you?”
“My wife called you from our room last night and asked for assistance,” Sam said. “I just got back from a trip and seem to have missed her. Do you have a record of the call?”
“Room 417?”
“That's right.”
“Umm, yes sir, we should have a record. Please hold.” He came back after a few seconds and said, “She called at 9:18 and asked if we would buy her some clothes from the hotel store and send them up.”
“Did you get the things for her?”
There was a pause on the line. “Why, yes, of course, is there a problem?”
“No, not at all.”
“You can preview the charges if you call up your room bill on the TV.”
“Oh, yeah, I'll do that, thanks.”
Sam hung up the phone and told J.T. what had happened. He turned on the TV and punched up his bill using the remote control. It indicated purchases of a dress and articles of underwear. The charges would cover three or four outfits in a downtown men's store.
“She didn't make any other calls, according to this,” Sam said. “Probably used her cell phone to call the guys who picked her up.”
Sam used the system for express checkout, then put a fifty in an envelope from the desk and sealed it. On the outside he wrote, “For the young man on the night counter,” and left it on the desk. Maybe the kid would get the money. He deserved it for the information he'd given Sam.
“Let’s get out of here. I paid cash for a week in advance, and the excess will more than pay for the clothes.”
They went back down the stairs and slipped out the door they had entered.
****
THE VAN sat four parking spots beyond the Chevy. Grimes and Amy, the former Veterinarian’s Assistant, had been waiting twenty minutes for the two men to exit the hotel.
“There he is,” Grimes said.
“Who?”
Grimes didn’t want to say much, knowing she wouldn’t appreciate the fine points of the assassination business. After leaving the vet’s office, they’d driven to a motel where he crashed and lost almost a day in a delirium of painkillers. She played the perfect nurse, so grateful for getting rescued from that pervert vet.
“His name is Mackenzie, and he owes me something. Start the van and follow their car, but don’t get too close.”
Amy did as he said, waiting for the Chevy to leave the parking lot before pulling out.
“I still think I should call the cops about what Dr. Fixx did to me.”
“We’ve been over that. Like I told you, he’ll make it sound like it was your fault.” If someone hadn’t found the body yet, they soon would and it would be in the news. He hoped that didn’t happen for a while; she was pretty nice to have around, even if she wouldn’t get into the sack with him.
“What are you going to do?”
Grimes grinned in the dash lights.
“Nothing much, just rough him up a little.”
He actually planned to kill him, but she didn’t need to know that right now. The phone chirped in Grimes’ pocket and he pulled it out and punched the talk button.
“Yeah.”
“What is your position?” La Salle.
“I’m leaving the Palma now, following Mackenzie’s car.”
“Excellent. Which way is he going? I’ll have a couple of my men head him off.”
“No way, Jose.”
“Pardon me?” La Salle’s voice had an edge in it that Grimes didn’t like.
“I can handle Mackenzie.”
“Negative. I want him alive. He still has my money, and if anything happens to him I’m going to hold you responsible. Do you understand?”
“Sorry, we’re breaking up,” Grimes said and terminated the call. Money, schmoney, who did he think he was? Mackenzie had caused Grimes to lose a leg and almost lose an ear. He touched the re-attached ear and shock waves rippled through his head.
Not good
, he would need to double the antibiotics. Mackenzie would have to die, no doubt about it. If he had the money with him, that would be fine, otherwise, La Salle would have to get his money on his own.
****
DRIVING AWAY from the Palma, Sam punched in the telephone number for Jack Craft’s boat and got no answer. Then he tried the cell number he had found in La Salle’s safe. Same result.
“Who’re you trying to call?” J.T. asked.
“Jack Craft.”
J.T. Grinned. “Good old Jack. What’s he up to these days?”
Sam brought him up to date on Jack’s involvement, at least what Sam knew of it.
“Sounds just like something he would do. You think he knows what happened to Candi Moran?”
“Maybe. I’ll try him again later.”
Sam drove onto the causeway and headed toward Little Havana where Hector lived.
He turned into the driveway of the old Spanish cabana. The house was dark. They got out and Sam knocked on the door. After a couple of minutes, a light came on inside and Sam knew Hector peered at them through the peep hole in the door.
Hector opened the door wearing a pair of dark pants and no shirt. He looked as if he had been sleeping, but not very well, his hair mussed.
“Sorry to wake you, Hector,” Sam said.
“No, no. Not a problem. I tried to call you today but you did not answer.”
Sam nodded, “Yeah, I’ve been away. What’s wrong?”
Hector stood back and asked them to come inside. They went through a small entry hall to a living room and sat down.
“Someone broke into my garage and took the Jag.” Hector grimaced and shook his head. “I don’t know what to do when I can’t reach you, and I am really sick about it.”
Sam shrugged. “Forget it. It didn't belong to me anyway.”
Candi probably had told La Salle how to find it. Or someone else had stolen it. Happened many times a day in Dade County.
Hector took a deep breath and let it out. “You mean you are not angry?”
“Not at all. I just need to talk with you.”
“Then, by all means, let me get you a drink.” He hurried out of the room, returned a couple of minutes later with three bottles of beer, and eyed Sam. “So, what is wrong?”
“Have you ever heard of a man named Danilov?”
Hector’s eyes widened for a split second. “I might have heard that name. Why do you ask?”
Sam told Hector about Candi Moran and La Salle. “This guy, Danilov, plays into the situation too. My information says he was stationed in Cuba at the Russian embassy, but after the Russians left, he showed up in South Florida. He and La Salle are working together.”
“But if this Candi Moran called Senor La Salle, why are you worried about her?”
Sam didn't know the answer to that question himself.
“I'm not certain she called him. She might have told someone else who sold her out.”
Hector looked at Sam and smiled for the first time since they had arrived. “Yes, that might have happened.” He frowned and looked as if deep in thought for a couple of moments. “I have heard of this man; he is a criminal, but I know nothing else about him. My papa might know more. As I told you, he worked in the cane fields as a young man, but he knows many people. His cafe friends know much about what goes on in the old country. Papa listens to the radio in bed until after midnight, sometimes two in the morning, so he will be awake. ”
Hector stood and ambled out of the room.
“You think his dad would know anything about this business?” J.T. said. “He must be pretty old, and probably has been here for years.”
“Worth a try, I suppose.”
When Hector returned, he handed a piece of notepaper to Sam. “He wouldn’t tell me anything, but he said if you talk to this man you will learn about Senor Danilov.”
The piece of paper contained the name, Ricardo Miro, and an address Sam didn't recognize.
“Do you know this place?” Sam asked.
“No, but the street is not far from here. Papa said he has a nice house.”
Sam nodded. “Okay. I’ll see what he has to say. Thanks, and please thank your father for me.”
Hector shook his head and waved his hand. “We are happy to help.”
Sam and J.T. finished their beer and left.
J.T. accessed a map program on his computer and found Miro’s address within minutes. It took them awhile longer to get there through the maze of streets and lanes.
The house sat deep in the lot, obscured by a thicket of palm and banana trees. Sam turned into the driveway and eased the car around the dense growth until the headlights splashed on a Spanish villa with wood beams protruding from the eaves. A nice house, as Hector’s father had said, but it looked as if it had been neglected for the last ten years. Paint peeled from the beams, windows and the front door. The grass had gone to seed long ago, and weeds sprouted through hundreds of cracks in the driveway. No lights glowed inside, and Sam wondered if the house might be abandoned.
“What do you think?” Sam said.
“Let’s go in. The old man must have thought this guy is important or he wouldn’t have put you on to him.”
Sam nodded and turned off the car. They got out and headed toward the front door. Prince Alfred went to the thicket of trees, his nose to the ground.
Sam shone his light on the entrance and knocked. He also pressed a cracked plastic doorbell switch that looked as if it hadn’t worked in a decade. No one came to the door. He knocked again and waited a couple of minutes, then retrieved his pick and inserted it into the lock. An airplane whined overhead from Miami International and then the noise disappeared, off to the Caribbean or other points south. Sam took a couple minutes to open the loose old door lock. For the time of night it seemed very hot, and Sam wiped perspiration from his forehead with his sleeve. He pulled the 9mm from his pocket and pushed the door open.
A wave of hot air and stench hit Sam in the face. His heart raced, the odor unmistakable.
J.T. shook his head and said, “We should get out of here.”
“Yeah, we should, but I want to take a quick look inside.”
They stepped into a foyer, and Sam shone the light into a large living room to the left. Threadbare furniture sat on a worn and dusty wood floor. It looked as if no one had been there in a long time. Sam peered down the hallway and saw an open door mid-way down and another closed at the end. They eased toward the open door. Boards squeaked underneath a stained carpet runner. They stopped at the door and Sam shone the light inside a bedroom, the bed unmade. A large roach, the kind locals called a palmetto bug, ran across a dingy pillow.
They went on to the closed door, listened for any sounds inside, and heard nothing. Sam twisted the doorknob. It snapped and the door sprang open an inch or so. J.T. gagged at the odor that escaped and turned away. Sam pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and put it over his nose and mouth. Light flashed from somewhere inside and Sam nudged the door all the way open with his foot. The light came from a muted large-screen television against the opposite wall, an old rerun of the Andy Griffith show playing. A reclining chair sat in front of the TV, and in it slumped a large man. Sam put the light on him. He had a grin on his face, as if having a good chuckle about the TV. The right side of his head had a dark spot on it. A mass of clotted blood covered the other side, and a spatter the size of a suitcase decorated the wall to the man's left.
“Must be our man,” J.T. said in a muffled voice. He had pulled the neck of his shirt up over his mouth and nose.
“Yeah, I’d say.”
Empty boxes and old shoes lay spilled on the floor from a closet to the right of the chair.
“Someone searched the place,” Sam said.
“I can’t stand it; I’ve got to get some air.” J.T. turned and hurried out of the room.
Sam shone the light inside the closet. A hat lay on the top shelf. Tangled wire hangers clung to the clothes rod like old bat skeletons. He went back to the bedroom they had passed. A similar closet contained the man’s clothes on hangers, most of which were new. The shelf above the hangers had been cleared. A string hung from a ceiling light fixture, so he pulled it and heard the snap of a switch, but nothing happened.
Bad bulb.
He glanced at the things on the floor: only shoes, men’s jewelry, and old photographs. Squatting on the floor, he shone the light on one of the snapshots, a family pose that looked at least forty years old. A boy in it might have been a teen-aged Ricardo Miro, though he bore no resemblance to the corpse watching TV in the next room.
Sam searched the top and bottom of the closet and found nothing out of the ordinary, except a light scattering of plaster dust on the edge of the closet shelf directly under the light fixture. He dragged a chair from the corner of the room, stood on it, and loosened thumbscrews on the four corners of the fixture. It came loose in his hands and he laid it on the shelf. The bulb and sockets had been removed, and only a square hole in the ceiling remained. He reached inside, touched what felt like a small metal box, and pulled it out. The top snapped open with the press of a button, and inside he found a stack of papers that looked like Miro’s financial records. He replaced the fixture, wiped down everything he remembered touching, and went out the front door with the metal box.
J.T. stood next to the car, looking toward the street, Prince Alfred next to him, growling from deep in his throat.
“What’s wrong?” Sam said.
“We’ve got company.”
Chapter 14
G
RIMES SAT in the passenger seat with the rifle tip extended out the window, the night scope trained on Mackenzie, cross hairs centered on his chest in fluorescent blue. This would be easy. He would hit him and then the other guy for good measure. Grimes remembered the other guy from somewhere, but he couldn’t quite place him.
“What are you doing?”
Grimes glanced at Amy behind the wheel, her eyes large, her voice urgent.