AGAINST THE WIND (Book Two of The Miami Crime Trilogy) (14 page)

Silvana

Hialeah,
Florida

Monday,
August 3, 1998

7:35
AM

T
IA TERESA'S BRUISES
HAD HEALED
somewhat
over the weekend, bruises she received Friday afternoon following a
particularly brutal session with Señor Lara back in the box factory storeroom.
In addition to her usual black eye, she came home with a slash on her lip and a
cut over her eyebrow.

After
helping her wash away the blood and dress her wounds, Silvana led her limping
figure to the bedroom. As Silvana lay her on the bed, Teresa sobbed in shame as
she sometimes did when Silvana would see her like this, and this time a tear
even squeezed its way out onto Silvana's cheek as she remembered the maulings
— including the fatal beating — her own mother suffered at the
savage hands of her father.

Following
an early Monday morning rain, the temperature along East Eleventh Avenue shot
up, maybe into the nineties, Silvana figured. The air, dense with subtropical
humidity, made it difficult to catch a clean, full breath. The sun threatened
to fry everything within range as it loomed large and menacing, smothering the
east side of Hialeah in a blanket of damp heat —
covering all the world
, Silvana thought. A few Cubans, men and
women, trudged with their heads down to their meager jobs in the warehouses and
small, dirty factories. Mosquitoes flew in great numbers, proclaiming
unchallenged rule over the forgotten neighborhood.

Outside
her jeans she wore a long T-shirt, which wrapped loose around her thick,
hardened body, and she started sweating the moment she left the house. Along
the tracks that ran parallel to the street, a train came chugging slowly by,
wheezing and clacking along the old tracks. It was a long train — but
Silvana thought they were all long and took forever to pass — carrying
whatever it was trains carried to wherever trains went. It seemed to her every
train on earth rumbled past her house at all hours of the day and night, providing
an annoying, unwelcome soundtrack to her life.

The
train was still rolling past her when she arrived at a row of squat, connected
buildings a couple of blocks from her house. The row was fronted by a long
unpaved parking area, and divided into several businesses, each one with its
own set of concrete steps leading to a platform and an entrance. Squarely in
the middle of the row, overhanging the platform and the door, was a sign which
read, "Hialeah Box Co.". Silvana stood in the shade of a sprawling poinciana
tree across the narrow street, facing the building, her back to the tracks and
the crawling train. Sweat had now stained great portions of her T-shirt.

There
were no cars parked in front. But almost immediately, a slate-gray car pulled
up and parked in the dirt. From across the street, Silvana saw the Cadillac
emblem on its trunk and readied herself. The car breathed a sigh of welcome
relief when the fat man worked his way out of it. As he shut the door, she
called out to him.

"Señor
Lara!"

He
turned. Fat motherfucker, thick mustache.
That's
him
.

She
started walking toward him. "Señor Lara, I wanted to speak with y
—" At that moment, she turned her ankle slightly — just as she
had practiced — not enough to injure herself, but enough to send her to
the pavement. She hoped it looked real.

Lara
quickly crossed the street. "
Deja
que te ayude, señorita
." He came to her side to offer assistance as
she struggled to get up. He took her arm and gently helped her up. "Are
you all right? Can you stand up?"

"Yes,
yes," she said. "I think so." Then she said, "If I could
just lean against this tree for a moment."

He
helped her the few feet to the poinciana, to a spot shielded from view by
neighboring brush. She caught a fleeting glimpse of the surroundings. No one on
the street right now. Not close by, anyway. Two blocks down, a few people
walked slowly in the opposite direction.

He
said quietly, "You say you want to speak with me?" Pretending to be
composing herself, she nodded. He smiled and his voice became sly, oily.
"Are you looking for work? I think we could use someone like you." He
put his hand on her hard bicep, the one that bore the Cuban flag tattoo, and
gave it a light squeeze. His hand began to roam from the bicep. "Yes, I
think we can find a spot for you,
seguro
.
You have the right kind of body for —"

He
never saw it coming, he may have only heard the whssshhht as she yanked the
knife from its sheath under her long T-shirt. The blade entered his massive
stomach, deep and hard. She twisted it with all her strength and he hacked.
Finally, with one mighty effort, she raised it upward, slicing everything in
its path, until it found his heart. Another hard jab and he collapsed to the
ground, blood flowing onto the base of the poinciana tree. A rattle or two and
he was gone.

She
wiped the blade on his shirt and sheathed it. Still no one in sight. She stayed
along the shaded side of the street, walking through the underbrush. By the
time she arrived at her home two blocks down, the train had passed.

≈ ≈ ≈

Silvana used the remainder of that day for reflection. She embarked
on the long walk over to Eighth Avenue and down to El Malecón for breakfast.
Her life, while not brimming with promise, had nevertheless been one of
accomplishment, a source of pride, exceedingly rare in that part of Hialeah.
The raw determination she needed when she made the trip from Mariel to Florida
on a raft at the age of eleven. Her conquering an alien language and the
accompanying culture, so unlike her own. Doing what it took to get through
these foreign schools, all the while being immersed in surroundings of crime
and drugs.
Las Brujas.
Angel Canelas.
The fat pig Lara. Yes, she'd done quite a bit in her eighteen years. She'd
closed the book on quite a few things. She'd done what was necessary.

Necessary
.

But
what now? What about her future? She was gripped by the need to meet necessity
with action. It permeated her nature. How could she incorporate this need into
the rest of her life?

She'd
never actually considered it. When other teenagers she knew should have been
mulling over the question, "What do you want to do when you grow
up?", most of them never considered it.
 
They had very little grasp of the
future, of growing up, which they saw as hazy concepts at best. The majority of
the other young people in her circle, including almost all of
Las Brujas
, were doomed, she thought,
doomed to short, violent lives and death under dark, nasty conditions.

On
the other hand, Silvana had felt like she had been grown up all along, the
present and the future melding into one another, belonging to one another,
nearly indistinguishable.

Now,
however, as she arrived at El Malecón, she realized they were separate
entities. The present was like a tiny dot moving inexorably from the past into
the future. You made your future, she believed, by what you do in the present.
And you better do it right because the future will be in your face before you
know what hit you, and it is very, very unforgiving. Eventually all of the
future becomes the present momentarily and then slips forever into the past.
But what of the future that still lay before her? What can she make of it? How
can she shape her life to welcome it?

She
sensed at that moment she would have to leave Hialeah.

The
tiny table she chose faced the window. As the café's air conditioning rolled
over her, she relaxed, the tenseness of that morning's murder flowing out of
her body. Outside, all traces of the morning rain had vanished, burned off by
the sun, which had now moved higher into the sky, blazing brutal yellow down
upon the street. Her thoughts turned to Miami. Big, big Miami. The capital of
Latin America. The center of everything. The reason for everything. Almost as
if Miami were the wellspring of all life itself. Just a couple of short miles
over there to the east, but it might as well have been across the country, such
was the gulf between Miami and Hialeah. She felt it might be necessary to be
there in order to properly greet her future.

And
then she saw it.

It
pulled up and parked outside El Malecón. The white car with the blue and gold
trim.

And
the big word on the side.
Police
.

Alicia

North
Miami, Florida

Sunday,
April 8, 2012

6:30
PM

F
ROM THE BACK SEAT OF
HER BENTLEY,
Alicia
punched up the number
in a
hurry. She knew it by heart because this was about the twentieth time she'd
tried to call since yesterday when she got the word. There was never an answer
nor a reply to the numerous angry voicemails. She was about at the end of her —

"Hello,"
came the voice on the other end.

"Desi,
what did I tell you?"

"Alicia,
I — I —"

"Shut
the fuck up!" Alicia hadn't been this angry in years. "What did I
tell you about not pulling any shit during the deal? What the
fuck
did I tell you?"

"Y-you
told me not to do anything while your guys were there. B-but Alicia, I didn't
have —"

"Shut
the fuck up! Meet me there right now."

"Th-there?
Where?"

"The
fucking place where you were last night! Only in front of the building, not
behind it. Get your ass over there now!"

Alicia
swiped the call off. "Berto!" she said. "State Road 7!
¡Al noroeste Calle Cientoveintisiete!
¡Ahorita!
"

The
big car was rolling south on 95. Berto made a fast lane change and exited at
Northwest Eighth Street. He U-turned at the feeder intersection and got back on
the Interstate heading north. A little while later, they were getting off at
125th Street, and moments after that, onto State Road 7 and in to the parking
lot in front of the lumber yard at 127th. Desi was waiting in a remote section
of the large lot.

Alicia
leaped out of the car and rushed up to Desi, the click of her stilettos on the
pavement resembling great pounding thuds. She got right in his face.

"I
told you not to shoot this fucking place up!" she said. "And what do
you do? You go and shoot the fucking place up. What the
hell
is the matter with you?"

Desi
said, "Alicia, I'm r-really sorry. I didn't m-mean to fuck it up."

"No,
you didn't
mean
to fuck it up, but
you
fucked it up
! You know how much
bullshit you have caused?"

"I
swear to God, Alicia, I had a clear shot at him. I was in a perfect spot."
He tried to describe the cinderblock piles. "I was right there, and I-I
didn't want to follow him back to Niggertown or wherever the fuck he lives. I
didn't think I could take him clean if I did that. But there, behind those
cinderblocks, I had a clear shot!"

"Yeah,"
said Alicia. "A clear shot. So what do you do? You hit his fucking
girlfriend. Hmph! Clear shot, my ass."

"Alicia,
I swear to God, I had him right in my scope. She jumped on him at the last
second, right when I fired. I would've had him otherwise."

"Hey!
I don't want to hear any more of your bullshit! I ought to have you wasted for
this. That fucking nigger knows someone crossed him, and now he's out for
blood. You know what that means?"

"Shit,
I'm s-sorry."

Alicia
went on, overlooking Desi's apology. "That means he'll probably think my
clients were behind it, and once word gets out, they'll
 
have to send someone up to North
Miami."

"Send
someone …"

She
still couldn't calm down. "Yes! Send someone up there and find him in the
middle of all those fucking Jamaicans up there and put him down. And it's not
gonna be pretty. There will probably be casualties. And then the Jamaicans will
have to send somebody down here to even the score. And so on back and forth.
You know how much shit you've stirred up? Do you?"

"I'm
tellin' you, I
had
him in my scope.
It was a freak accident that she got in the way."

"Fuck
you and your freak accidents! Now somebody's gotta clean up after you. After I
told you about him, and him being out on the street. I didn't have to tell you,
you know. I could've let you go on without ever letting on about it."

"I
know,
hermana
. I appreciate you
telling me about him, more than you know. I've been waiting for, like, fifteen
years to get justice. I know I let you down, and I feel real bad about it. I
mean,
real
bad."

"Not
half as bad as you're gonna feel if he ever finds out it was you who shot at
him," Alicia said.

"Let
me get him, Alicia. Let me make it up to you."

Her
eyebrow raised. "Let you —? Are you fucking kidding me? You couldn't
get him when you had him clean in your sights at forty fucking yards."

"I'll
get him. I swear to you, I'll get him. Or die trying. You have my word. I want
to make it right for you."

Alicia
didn't answer right away. She thought about it. First, she knew she had to
settle down. You can't make any sensible decisions when you're hot, when your
blood pressure is on the rise, she always told herself. And her doctor had told
her just last week to cut down on the excitement in her life, to get her blood
pressure down to manageable levels. Otherwise, she might collapse to the floor
one day, without warning. Never see Nick again, or her little Francesca, the
light of her life.
 
Their sweet faces
came to her in the parking lot of the lumber yard as she stood next to her
luxury automobile.

Her
ability to remain calm in times of crisis was one of her very strongest suits,
and she remembered it now. Even though she had temporarily lost it with Desi
over the phone and she was falling off the edge right here, she never would
have acted on that anger. Never would have let it control her to the point
where she made stupid decisions.

This
trait served her well during her days selling coke on the streets
.
Many times her suppliers were overcome
with anger over some slight or some other wrongdoing by a rival dealer, but
Alicia's cool presence and steady hand always prevailed, sidestepping many
violent confrontations and quite likely, a few deaths as well.

A
couple of deep breaths, leaving Desi hanging on the other end, and then she
considered everything.

The problem was not that he missed
Bebop, but that he disobeyed me and shot up the scene of the deal
.
I believe him when he says the woman moved into his sights at the last second.
That kind of thing can happen when there are other people around your target.
Also, he knows he did wrong. Not only that, we go back a long way. A very long
way. We were together when his father was killed. There's no way I won't
forgive him. So how about I give him a second shot at Bebop?

More
thinking, more silence between them. The cars cruising by on State Road 7
provided the only soundtrack, constant and droning in the distance. Two or
three customers exited the adjacent hardware store with their purchases and
loaded them into pickup trucks.
He's so
intent on making it up to me, he wouldn't dare fuck it up. Like he says, he'll
get Bebop or die trying.

"Alicia?"
Desi said. "What do you say? Will you let me go after him? Please?"

"Okay,"
she said. She caught Desi's slight exhale. "Go over there and get that
hijo de puta
, and don't come back until
you do."

"Where
is he? Where can I find him?"

"You
can find him hanging out at the Sunsplash Club. He's not there every night, but
I hear he likes to go there. It's right here in North Miami on West Dixie
Highway and Northeast 132nd Street. I wouldn't go in there if I were you. You'd
be the only non-Jamaican in the place."

"Sunsplash
Club. Okay. Thanks,
hermana
.
Muchisimas gracias por todo
."

"And
Desi …"

"Yeah?"

"I
shouldn't have to tell you this, but I'm gonna tell you anyway. Don't fuck it
up."

"No
way," Desi said. "This time, the nigger goes down."

"I'm
telling you for real,
hermano
. Don't
fuck it up. You understand me?"

Desi
swallowed. "I understand you, Alicia. No fuckups."

She
opened the back door to her Bentley. As she started to get in, she said,
"And Desi …"

"Yeah?"

"Good
luck. Be extra careful. I mean that." She disappeared inside her big car
and Berto swung it out of the parking lot.