AGAINST THE WIND (Book Two of The Miami Crime Trilogy) (24 page)

Desi Senior

Miami Beach, Florida

Sunday, December 31, 1989

11:25 AM

J
ULIO CESAR
DELGADO DROVE SLOWLY
through the busy streets of Miami Beach.
Tourist season was humming, and snowbirds had descended upon the area in great
droves, fearful of the approaching harsh winter in whatever part of the
Northeast they came from. Desi rode shotgun with his Miami
Herald
open to the local news section. The headline screamed at
him:

GRUESOME MURDER

MUTILATED
BODIES FOUND IN HIALEAH

He read the article with great interest.
Neighborhood kids had apparently been playing stickball in the street and on
the side of the property. One of them ventured around to the back chasing a
foul ball, when he let out a horrific scream. His pals ran to the back to see
what was wrong and they all screamed when they laid eyes on the bloodied,
headless corpses, a queen of spades emerging from the mouth of each severed
head.

Police were called, the neighborhood was
traumatized. Guns came out of drawers, curtains were drawn, doors were locked,
prayers were said aloud. Kids were kept inside. Street traffic vanished. Few
slept.

The victims
¾
there were three of them
¾
were Felipe Velasquez,
24, of Hialeah, his cousin Ernesto Velasquez, 23, also of Hialeah, and Conroy
Charles, 20, originally from Jamaica, now from North Miami. The Velasquez cousins
worked in a body shop in East Hialeah, and Charles worked with his younger brother,
also an immigrant, involved in what the paper called "entrepreneurial
activities." Hialeah Police vowed to "hunt down the perpetrators of
this heinous crime and bring them to face justice", according to the
chief. "The people of Hialeah will not stand for such brutality in our own
back yard," he said.

Desi chuckled. He read the article aloud to
Delgado. They had a good laugh.

Soon, Delgado swung the car easy-does-it into a
gated driveway. The hard-faced sentry at the gate peered into the car, saw
Delgado, and pressed a button in his guardhouse. The gate glided open
soundlessly.

The car moved slowly up a long, paved lane toward
a monstrous house, spread wide across the property, fronted by a circular
drive, with a large offshoot lot where you could park about fifteen cars. At
the end of the house was a garage so big that Desi couldn't guess how many cars
it held. The house itself was pillared across the first floor veranda, above
which stretched a second floor balcony running the entire length of the house.
The vast front lawn was spangled with coconut palms, their gentle fronds moving
slowly in the slight breeze drifting in from the ocean. Hibiscus of yellow and
orange strung itself out along the front of the house, on both sides of the circular
drive. About a half-dozen guards patrolled the front area with darting eyes,
each one bearing an automatic weapon. None of them looked lazy.

This was the home of Griselda Blanco. Before she
went to prison, that is. These days, its principal resident was Michael
Corleone Blanco, her son.

"Mike took over when his mother went to
Federal prison back in '85," Delgado said to Desi in his scratchy voice as
they rolled toward the house.

"So now he's
numero uno
?" Desi said. "Everyone answers to him?"

Delgado shook his head. "He may be living in
the big house, but
La Madrina
still
calls the shots. Problem is, she's been gone so long, even her influence is
wearing thin. The kid may hold the reins, but the horses are starting to get
away from him. And from Griselda."

According to Delgado, Michael was neither as
cunning nor as ruthless as his mother, and everyone around him knew it. He
lacked Griselda's organizational skills as well as her instinct. Instinct was
necessary if you were to be anywhere near the top. And that instinct had to
serve you well, it had to be right all the time. If you misheard a coded word,
or trusted the wrong person, or were unable to sniff out traitors, your tenure
was likely to be short.

Jockeying for position was the chief activity at the
upper levels of the organization, and many of Michael's "advisers"
had big things in mind. Chief among them, Delgado said, was getting approval
from Medellín to take him out, and Griselda, too, while they were at it.

"Can't they get the okay from Medellín?"
asked Desi, clearly fascinated by the byzantine doings of these moneyed elites
in the drug world.

"Just so you understand, Desi," Delgado
said, "when I say 'Medellín', I mean only one man. Pablo Escobar."

Desi, like all of America, was well-acquainted
with the image of Pablo Escobar. Widely feared, he stood no opposition, and the
vast majority of the cocaine business began and ended at his door. There might
be many godfathers, it was said, but there was only one God.

"Why won't he approve?" he asked Delgado.

"Griselda has made Pablo billions of
dollars," Delgado said as they approached the house. "Billions. He's
not going to throw her over so quickly. He knows there's no guarantee any of
these other guys are going to be better than Michael and probably none of them
will do anywhere near as well as his mother. Besides, he's got other issues to
deal with in Colombia."

"Like what?"

"Like the two big cartels are starting to
slip, lose their grip on power. The business is becoming more decentralized.
And the Colombian government is putting a lot of pressure on him." He
pulled up to the door where an attendant waited to park the car. "Here we
are. Let's say no more about it."

Desi nodded. He stepped out of the car at the door
of the huge mansion and drank in a long look. His head slowly swiveled on his
shoulders as he took in the incomprehensible scope of this great house. Obscene
amounts of money paid for all this, and for God knows what else. He was sure
Griselda had opulent homes such as this one in multiple cities. Cars,
airplanes, boats, expensive jewelry … nothing — absolutely nothing
— was out of reach for someone with this kind of money. All flowing from
the sale and distribution of cocaine.

And Desi wanted a piece of it.

Alicia

Miami, Florida

Saturday, April 14, 2012

6:10 PM

T
HINGS WERE
FINALLY SLOWING DOWN
at Computer Superstore of the Americas. Dozens
of computers and dozens more printers and other equipment had been picked up
and were rolling out of the retail/warehouse center on their way to the
airport, bound for the Free Zone in Panamá.

Now, a truck was arriving from the Hialeah Box
Company, pulling up at the superstore's wide, garage-type rear door and
dispensing a fresh supply of cardboard containers and other packing materials
that would cover CSA for the rest of the week's shipments. Alicia checked the
load in and a couple of her workers moved them into the packing area where
tomorrow's shipment of computers awaited.

Another large, heavy-gauge custom-made box was
among the Hialeah Box Company delivery. This would hold the next group of
cash-stuffed computers scheduled for delivery to Panamá. A recent coded text
had told her the first mule was arriving from Philadelphia Wednesday night.

She looked over the invoice, payable within thirty
days. The price of these boxes had gone up. Not by much, just a few cents
apiece, but when you figure in the thousands of packages CSA puts together
every month, that shit adds up. Fast.

The notion of changing suppliers entered her head.
These guys had been good to her, sure. They deliver right to the loading area,
and they're from Hialeah —
 
homeboys — so if there are any discrepancies in a delivery, or if
she needs extra boxes in a hurry, they're there for her. Still, she didn't like
paying more for her packing material.

This was weighing on her when she let her mind
drift to her two fabulous nights with Amy. Wednesday night in Panamá and then
last night in St Kitts. Normally, she does her business in St Kitts and then
flies home immediately, but Amy was so luscious, so yielding, she pulled her
into a St Kitts hotel for another night of punishing sex.

Amy had to go to New York on business today, but
Alicia told her there was one more stop on her learning tour, the final step in
the integration of the dirty cash into the clean, legitimate world. They were
to meet in England on Monday.

Her mind dwelled on the way Amy had taken to the
strap-on so lustily, pleading for it, and the screams she emitted, when she saw
three men standing in the entry of the yawning garage door. One of them was
very fat and the other two, flanking him, were very fit. They were all backlit
by the late afternoon sun blazing outside the door, so they appeared at first
only in silhouette. Once they got further inside the store, Alicia realized it
was Maxie Méndez and two of his apes. She walked up to greet them. Berto, her
bodyguard and driver, moved with her.

"Maxie," she said, "what a
surprise! What brings you to Miami?" She extended a hand for a shake and
Maxie took it.

He was grim-faced, Maxie was, and this unnerved
Alicia. The big man was normally a fixture on the flamboyant side, but
displayed more measured mannerisms now.
 
More importantly, she noticed the stern faces of the apes, all four eyes
beady, hard, aimed in her direction, like fiery black marbles ready to shoot
out of their sockets straight into her chest.

In a near-whisper, Maxie said, "Alicia, my
good friend." Their handshake continued.

Alicia mustered all the sincerity she could and
plastered it onto her face. "Listen, Maxie. I heard about what happened.
Such a tragedy! I cannot imagine what you must be going through. Please accept
my deepest sympathies."

Finally, Maxie stopped shaking hands. He said,
"Can we go somewhere and talk?"

"Of course. Back this way."

She escorted them to her office, a cozy,
glassed-in enclosure in the back of the warehouse. Two chairs sat in front of
his modest desk. A small couch ran along the back wall. She moved the chairs
over to face the couch. She beckoned Maxie to sit on the couch and the goons
took the chairs. Alicia sat next to Maxie. Berto remained standing at the side
of the couch nearest to her.

She offered them drinks or coffee, but they
declined. She said, "What's on your mind, Maxie? What can I do for
you?"

With effort, Maxie shifted on the couch to face
her. "You can tell me," he said, still in a near-whisper, "where
I can find Desi Ramos."

"Wha
¾
Desi? What do you want him for?"

"Do you know where he is?"

Alicia said, "Well, no, I don't. But why do
you want him, Maxie?"

"You do know him, don't you? I am told you
two are longtime
compañeros
. That the
two of you used to sell
yeyo
on the
streets. Back when you were much younger."

"
Sí.
Sí, yo lo sé
. I've known him since we were kids. And it is true, I was
briefly involved with him in the trade when I was a teenager. What's this all
about?"

Maxie said, "That dickless fucking faggot
killed my little girl. Shot her in the face."

"
What
?
Desi?" Alicia felt she had raised her voice to the proper level to convey
shock. "He couldn't have done such a thing!"

"I say he did." Maxie's face reddened.
"Where can I find him?" The apes moved forward in their chairs,
almost imperceptibly. Alicia's eyes flicked from them back to Maxie.

"Maxie, look. I can tell you Desi was never
the smartest kid on the block, and he never backed away from a fight. But he
does not have a violent nature. I have never known of him to commit violence of
any kind. Except, like I said, sometimes he is provoked into fist fights. I
cannot imagine him shooting anyone, least of all a defenseless girl."

"I ask you again, Alicia," Maxie said.
"Where can I find him?"

"I don't know where he is, but what makes you
so sure he did this terrible thing?"

"Never mind how I know. Now where is
he?"

She said, "I must ask you, Maxie, are you
positively certain about this?"

He gave a nod. "I am certain.
Absolutamente
."

Alicia let out a long exhale and shot her eyebrows
up and down briefly in acceptance of this improbable accusation. "Well, did
you check his house?" she asked, knowing that would be the first place
Maxie's men would look. Desi obviously had gone into hiding or else Maxie
wouldn't be here.

 
Maxie
nodded. "I've had somebody watching it for two days. He hasn't been
there."

She spread her palms in front of Maxie, facing
him. "I already told you. I don't know where he is. But you can be sure I
would tell you if I knew."

Maxie's face scrunched up, showing doubt.
"You would? You would give me your lifelong friend? Knowing what will happen
to him?"

"I have a little girl myself, Maxie. For me,
she's the reason every new day dawns. She is my life. If he committed this
terrible act, if he took your precious daughter from you, then yes, I would
give him to you. With the hope that you would do the same for me, if it were my
daughter."

That seemed to satisfy Maxie. With a head signal,
he rose and the apes followed. He reached for Alicia's hand and said, "If
you hear of anything, you will let me know?"

"You may be sure of it, Maxie," she
said, knowing the last thing she wanted was for Desi to fall into Maxie's eager
hands and then perhaps blab about how he received the information on Bebop's
whereabouts, which led to blasting him and, at the same time, Maxie's precious
daughter.