AGAINST THE WIND (Book Two of The Miami Crime Trilogy) (23 page)

"I don't know anyth —"

Vargas said, "Do you know a lawyer by the
name of Reese Kilgore?"

Her head lifted up from her chest. "Y-yes. I
know him."

"Is he your attorney?"

"I've, uh, used his services on
occasion."

"According to our records," Silvana
said, "he bailed you out from the Eden Roc bust. Arranged for the whole
thing to go away."

"I think I want a lawyer right now,"
Sofía said.

"We're not here to bust you," Vargas
said. "But where did you, a common whore, get the money to pay Reese
Kilgore? According to our files, he's been the attorney of record for every
Magic City Suites whore who's been busted since you opened for business three
years ago."

"I am
not
a common whore! And how much I pay my attorney, and where I get the money to
pay him, is my business," she said, summoning up lots of confidence in her
answer.

Silvana rose from the couch. Her voice grew
forceful. She'd had it with this bitch. "Bullshit! Kilgore gets seven
hundred an hour. He doesn't even answer the phone for less than ten grand. You
can't afford him."

"Who
says
I can't?"

"I say so," Silvana said. "Look
around this place. You think you're riding high because you're living on
Brickell Bay Drive? You're right on the edge,
puta
, looking down. Somebody who can afford Reese Kilgore as a
lawyer isn't going to be living in a one-bedroom in front of the fucking
elevator. You're on the third floor of a thirty-floor high-rise with a view of
the building next door." She walked around the room pointing at items.
"Look at this dinette set. Where'd this come from? K-Mart? Rooms To Go at
the very most!" She swatted a lamp off an end table. Sofía yelped when it
crashed onto the tile and shattered.. "Cheap shit there," Silvana
said. She upended the coffee table. A book on Tuscan architecture flew across
the room and the table broke the second it hit the floor. "Cheaper shit
there. Ha! Aside from this couch, everything in here is second-rate. You just
make it look nice with a decorator's touch, but you know you're not living
high. Even the artwork is cheesy."

Sofía became indignant. "How dare you come in
here and —"

"Those Magic City whores are raking in big
money, and you're only getting a tiny piece of it," Silvana said. She
rushed over to Sofía and shoved her back against the window, causing it to
shudder. Silvana grabbed a handful of her hair, jerking her lovely neck
backward. To think she actually had dreams once of kissing that neck, that smooth,
feathery neck. "Now, let's have it, you fucking bitch! Who do you kick up
to?"

"Nobody. I don't kick up to anybody."

Silvana pulled Sofía's hair all the way back. With
a quick jerk, she shoved Sofía into the window pane, shattering the glass.
Sofía's torso was backed out of the window, held only by Silvana's grip on her
hair and on the belt of her slacks.

Silvana snarled from deep in her gut. "One
more time. And then I let you go. It's only a drop of three floors. You might
survive. But then again …

Sofía cried out. "Let me go! Pull me
in!"

"Who runs this fucking operation?"
Silvana said.

Sofía wriggled and gasped, then finally said,
"Ma-Maxie Méndez."

Silvana's eyes widened and her jaw dropped.
"Maxie Méndez? Maxie fucking
Méndez
?"

"That's right," Sofía said through a
cough.

"Does he know he was pimping out his own
daughter?" She released Sofía's hair and pulled her back inside, away from
the window.

"No." Sofía tried to straighten herself
up, running a smoothing hand through her hair and rearranging the collar of her
blouse. "He didn't know. I didn't even know who she was at first. She just
told me she came from a good family. One of the other girls told me. After this
girl went on a threesome date with Ana, she told me Ana had spilled it to her
about her father. Not long after that, I let her go."

"Was that why?" Vargas asked.

"Well, sort of," Sofía said. "But
what I said before about her not having the right look for the service, that
was a big part of it, too."

Vargas said, "Do you have any idea who killed
her?"

"None at all."

At Silvana's head signal, the cops moved toward
the door. She turned to Sofía and said, "Let me tell you something. If we
hear about this little visit from anyone — Maxie, Reese Kilgore, anyone
— we will come back and get you and cut you up and throw your fucking
pieces into the Everglades.
¿Me entendés?
"

Sofía gave her a shaky nod.

As they walked out the door, Silvana said,
"You've come a long way from Rey's Pizza,
puta
."

Sofía slammed the door behind them.

Desi
Junior

Hollywood,
Florida

Friday,
April 13, 2012

6:15
PM

S
ILENT
CURSES FLOWED PAST DESI'S LIPS
as he noted the time. That fucking Machado was late again.
Not only does he have to pay that fucking dyke a grand a week, she makes him
wait around for the privilege.

As he sat alone at his table in Las Vegas Cuban Cuisine fondling a bottle
of beer, he searched his brain for a way out of this situation. His chin
dropped to his chest while he ran through his options. He couldn't go on paying
her forever.
Some
thing had to be
done! Maybe he could follow her home and waste her on her doorstep. Then she'd
be out of his hair permanently.

But … no, killing a cop is
out. There's no percentage in it. The full attention of the entire Miami PD
will go toward hunting down a cop killer
.
The first
thing they'd do would be to look at who was paying her off.

Maybe if he gave her —

"Boo!" she said, having sneaked up on him. Startled, his head
jerked up.

"Can't you ever be on time?" he asked.

"Being on time is your job," she said. "Try being late
once and see what happens."

She stuck her hand out. He pulled a folded envelope from the pocket of
his jeans and handed it to her. A glance inside told her it was all there.

"How long is this shit going to go on?" she said.

"What shit?"

"Meeting in this place."

"What's the matter with it?" he asked.

"I don't like it. It's too far off the beaten path."

"Tough shit," he said.

Silvana grabbed his ear and twisted it hard. She said, "You know, I
get nervous when punks like you start moving around from place to place. You
bring me to a joint like this in a neighborhood where nobody goes and I start
getting ideas."

"Ow-w-w-w. Ideas?"

"Yeah," Silvana said, shaking loose of his ear with a violent
spasm. "Like maybe you don't want anybody to see you. Like maybe you're on
the run."

He massaged his ear. "I'm thinking of relocating," he said,
sass all over his voice. "I'm lookin' at prime real estate over
here."

"Ha! The only prime real estate you're ever gonna call your own,
maricón
, is the six feet of earth they
throw over your cold, gray corpse."

"Yeah, well, if I ever get back to Dolphin Mall, I'll be sure to let
you know."

"You do that," she said. Then she added under her breath, but
loud enough for him to hear, "You'd
better
do that."

Silvana

Miami,
Florida

Friday,
April 13, 2012

9:00
PM

E
VERY TABLE
AT THE 305 POOL ROOM WAS FULL
when Silvana and Vargas arrived. Nine-ball games on each one
of them, money riding on every aspect of every game. On the tables where the
better players were, animated spectators exchanged money after every shot.
Hawkeyed hustlers circulated through the room, looking for easy opponents. A
few people sat at the small bar, waiting their turn to challenge a winner.
Smoke hung over everything.

The two cops eyeballed the room, finding their target in a corner,
clicking furiously on his cell phone. They moved toward him. He never saw them
until they were practically in his face.

"Yo, Sergeant Machado," Flaco said, looking at them nervously.
He was used to dealing with Silvana alone, and then only by telephone.
"What up?"

"We need to speak with you, Flaco. Outside." She motioned
toward the rear door. The only other time they'd accosted Flaco in the 305 was
the first time they'd met. It was also the only time he had laid eyes on
Vargas. Flaco was full of his bullshit attitude that day, so they jerked him
out back and roughed him up a little. He didn't like Vargas being here.

Today, though, was different. They all went outside peacefully.

Out in the alley, the cops stood close to Flaco. Close enough to get
across the intimidation vibe. Like his name denoted, he was skinny. Really,
really skinny. As though you could snap him in two. Despite that, however, he
could handle himself pretty well when the going got rough. He was fearless and
knew how to fight, which usually threw his opponents off their game. But he'd
felt the sting of Silvana's shots before. And Vargas's, too. Silvana hoped he
would stay cool.

His eyes shot nervously from one cop to the other. Silvana said, "We
need information from you, Flaco. Serious shit."

"Whatchu need?" he asked, lighting a cigarette.

"We want to know who smoked Bebop, the Jamaican drug dealer, in
front of his apartment house over the weekend. We need you to dig deep and find
out who did it."

"Ain't gonna be no diggin', Sergeant. I already know who done
it."

"You already know?"

"Yeah? Now whatchu gonna do for me?"

"Depends on what you want," she said. "You know the game.
You help us, we help you."

"Awright," he said. "There's a big deal goin' down Sunday
night up in Liberty City. A big fuckin' deal, you know what I'm sayin'? We need
to be sure the cops don't interfere."

"You give us the shooter, we protect your drug deal?" Vargas
said. "I could just beat it out of you right now, motherfucker."

Silvana gently elbowed Vargas to one side and stepped directly in front
of Flaco. "There's not going to be any rough stuff, Flaco. Just give me
the name and we'll hold up our end."

"For sure? You make sure there ain' no cops around."

"For sure." Silvana nodded a little insurance. "Now what's
the name?"

"Word is, it was a dude by the name of Desi Ramos."

Silvana took a small step backward as if being struck by a slight blow.
Fortunately, Flaco missed this sign of weakness since he was dragging on his
cigarette in celebration of revealing The Big Name.

"You sure it's him?" she asked.

"I am one hunnert percent sure, you know what I'm sayin'?" he
replied.

"How can you be so sure? How do you know?"

"Hey, Sergeant, I can't be tellin' you all my secrets. I got people
out there, they hear things, you know what I'm sayin'?"

Silvana's voice turned to ice. "Tell us how you know. We're not
going to do shit for you if we think you're just giving us some bullshit name
to get your deal protected."

Flaco settled down. "Awright, awright. I know it ain' that Jamaican
nigga you care 'bout, but Maxie Méndez's daughter, right?"

Silvana was stunned again, but she instantly composed herself. She knew
Flaco was somewhat high up in Maxie's organization, and as such would probably
know Maxie would turn to the cops on his payroll to find the killer of his
little girl.
His little whore girl
,
she thought.

"How do you know it was Desi Ramos?" she repeated in the
hardest voice she could muster.

Flaco went into the story of Ansel Taylor and how he tracked down the red
Escalade, and how Desi was the only player in South Florida with such a
vehicle.

"Them Jamaicans, man, they be lookin' for that dude. They some
righteous fuckin' gangstas, you know what I'm sayin'?"

Silvana believed his whole story. And she was astonished to learn Ansel
Taylor could get a DMV make quicker than she could.

She said, "Text me the details of your deal. Make sure to delete the
record of the text from your phone. We'll make sure you don't have
company."

Flaco flipped his cigarette against the side of the building, sending a
starburst of orange sparks into the night, and went back inside.

Silvana

Miami,
Florida

Friday,
April 13, 2012

9:25
PM

S
ILVANA AND
VARGAS SAT IN THEIR CAR
in the loading zone outside the 305 with the engine running
and the air conditioning going full blast.

"It fits, Bobby," Silvana said. "Bebop's driver spots the
red Escalade, runs a make on it, and narrows it down to Desi."

"But what reason would that lowlife motherfucker have to kill the
nigger?"

"Could be anything. Maybe one of them was trying to move in on the
other's territory. In the drug world, that's a capital crime all by itself.
Shit, I just made our pickup from him a few hours ago. If I'd known about this,
I maybe could've gotten something out of him."

"You think so?"

"I don't know. I might have. It adds up, though. I made our pickup
at a place over in Hollywood, instead of Dolphin Mall where I usually meet him.
I mentioned something about him being on the run, but I was half-joking. Now it
looks like that's what he's doing. Like he's afraid the Jamaicans will find
him.
If
he was really the one who did
this, that is."

"What do you mean, 'if'?" Vargas said. "You don't believe
Flaco?"

"Well, I'm just not a hundred percent sure about him being the
shooter. Flaco gave us some good data and like I said, it all fits, but I'm not
giving Desi up until I'm sure. And I mean absolutely fucking sure."

"Okay," Vargas said. "But think about this. If we, if we
give him up to Maxie, there goes a thousand dollars a week."

"Well, yes, but don't forget, you and I are only getting two hundred
and fifty each. Santos gets a full five hundred as his cut."

"Silvi, you know he's gonna be pissed if we cut off the head of the
golden goose! If he loses that five hundred, he'll … he hates to lose money
like that. Our careers, our careers might go right down the fucking
toilet!"

Vargas was momentarily startled by a tap on the driver's side window. He
turned to see a uniformed patrolman gesturing for him to roll the window down.
He pressed a button and the window lowered.

"You know you're parked in a loading zone?" the uniform said,
his voice full of authority and attitude. "License and registration,
please."

Vargas reached into his inside jacket pocket and produced his badge.
"Homicide division. We're here on a murder investigation."

"Oh, sorry, Detective," said the cop, losing all attitude
immediately. "My mistake."

"That's all right, Patrolman," Vargas said, and slid the window
back up.

Silvana grinned, and then got back to business. She put out her hands,
palms down, to soothe her partner, who had gotten more agitated by the cop. She
said, "Okay, listen. Our careers aren't going anywhere but up. Santos
loves us. You know that. He loves us because we get him results and make
him
look good to the captain. That's why
he lets us get away with all our shit." She put a calm hand on his
shoulder. "You remember, Maxie said he would take good care of us if we
gave him the name. We'll cut Santos in for a piece of it. That should keep him
happy."

"Well … "

She added, "And it's not even about the money, you know. We gave our
word to Maxie. We gave him our word."