The Night Charter (24 page)

I
T HAD TAKEN
only two phone calls to get a return call from Hugo Echave. The first calls had been brief ones, the people on the other end guarded when they learned Ignacio was calling from the police. But eventually they had given him a number where Echave could be reached. Ignacio was forced to try three times before he finally got an answer. “Mr. Echave, my name is Detective Ignacio Montellano of the Miami Police Department. I have some questions concerning the death of Pablo Marquez.”

“I have nothing to say,” Echave told him.

“I thought you might say that, but I think you do.”

“I'm telling you I don't.”

“Then how about this: you answer my questions about Alpha 66.”

Echave went silent. At long last he said, “We should not talk on the phone.”

“Then where?”

“Come to my home this evening. Five o'clock.”

“Just tell me the address.”

Echave did and Ignacio wrote it down. After that it was simply a matter of waiting until the appointed hour.

Echave lived on Palm Island in Miami Beach. Driving through the neighborhood made Ignacio feel like the poorest man on earth. Great gates and walls cordoned off huge houses, and palm trees sprouted everywhere, making a lush jungle of greenery that spread out on every street.

He found Echave's home without trouble and stopped his car at the gate. A box with a button and a grille on it stood waiting by the drive. A camera watched from the wall. Ignacio pressed the button and waited.

“Who is it?” asked a man's voice from the grille.

“Miami Police Department. I have a meeting with Mr. Echave.”

“What is your name?”

“Ignacio Montellano.”

“Please wait.”

A minute passed in silence. All the air conditioning escaped from Ignacio's car, and now he sweated. He pressed the button again. “I have an appointment,” he said.

“Please wait,” the voice replied.

Another minute passed. Ignacio was poised to press the button again when the gates began to swing wide. There was no further instruction from the voice.

He went up the curving drive to a white house with ceramic tiles on its roof. It had large windows designed to be thrown open wide and catch the breeze, though there was no breeze today. A black Mercedes sedan was parked near the front door. It was identical to the one left in Liberty City, the one owned by Álvaro Sotelo's dealership. The Álvaro Sotelo who was a part of the upper ranks of Alpha 66.

An obvious bodyguard in a suit emerged from inside as Ignacio unfolded himself from his car and came up the steps. The bodyguard held the door for Ignacio. Inside it was wonderfully, blessedly cool, almost to the point of chill. The foyer was broad and long and tiled with a beautiful pattern that circled around a centerpiece table with a perfect bowl of fruit in its middle. Ignacio took off his hat.

“Wait here,” the bodyguard said and left Ignacio.

It was close to five minutes before the bodyguard returned. With him was Hugo Echave. The man was older than in his photograph, expensively dressed, his wide body tailored into an immaculate suit. “Detective Montellano,” Echave said. “Welcome to my home.”

They shook hands. “I'm here,” Ignacio said.

“Yes. Come into my study. We will talk there.”

The study was in the north wing of the house. Ignacio immediately saw that it was a shrine both to old Cuba and to a new life in America. Echave waved him into a leather chair before taking his own. The bodyguard stood by the door.

“Before we begin, could I have something brought for you?” Echave asked. “Lemonade? Tea? Coffee?”

“I wouldn't mind a lemonade.”

“Nicolao, fetch the detective some lemonade.”

“Yes, sir.”

The bodyguard left, leaving the door partly open. Ignacio glanced at the empty space that promised the man's return. “Is he part of Alpha 66?” he asked.

“Yes,” Echave said. “His grandfather was a good friend of my father's. They both came from Cuba after Batista was driven out.”

“Old times,” Ignacio said.

“For some. Not for us. You are Cuban?”

“No.”

“Then you wouldn't understand.”

“I'd like to,” Ignacio said.

“It's not something that can be taught,” Echave said. “You must be born to it.”

“Okay, then, let's forget about learning the history. It's not like there's a whole lot to catch up on anyway. Cuba's full of communists. You hate communists. Sometimes you have Cubans killed, and other times you play soldiers out in the swamps. Is that about the size of it?”

Echave frowned. “There's no need to be rude, Detective.”

“Sorry. My BS levels are way off the charts this week.”

“It's true that we hate the Castroites,” Echave said. “And it's true that people have died. I will not admit to the killing of anyone, not even a Cuban national. So if you've come to arrest me for committing the crime of murder, you will be disappointed.”

“Maybe you didn't commit murder, but some people under your employ did,” Ignacio said. “That shoot-out in Liberty City? And we have a couple of dead bodies we pulled out of a self-storage place that I bet I could trace back to you if I tried. Guys in suits getting shot aren't too common around Miami these days.”

“The men of Alpha 66 aren't my employees,” Echave said.

“What are they then?”

“They are my
brothers
.”

“Well, somebody's killing off your brothers by the barrel. Like Pablo Marquez. I'd like to know why. And don't give me a whole bunch of runaround, because I know more than you think I know.”

The bodyguard, Nicolao, returned with the lemonade. He put it on a coaster at Ignacio's right hand, on an antique table that could have cost thousands of dollars.

Echave sat with his hands folded across his belly until Ignacio finally took a drink from his glass. “Do you think Cuba is a great friend to the United States?”

“I don't know what to think. We're friends, we're not friends…it's not really my department. People seem real happy to get their hands on Cuban cigars.”

“So they are. As if that's all that matters. Business and tourism. While the communists squeeze Cuba more tightly than ever.”

“Like I said, I don't know anything about it. I'm all about clearing cases in Miami, not about what's going on two hundred miles away in another country.”

“What I tell you is not to be used against us,” he said when Ignacio was finished.

“I'll be the judge of that.”

“I could tell you nothing.”

“Then I'd start hauling your asses downtown to face charges of conspiracy to commit murder, just for starters. Like your friend Álvaro Sotelo, who supplies your vehicles. Yeah, that's right, we figured that one out.”

Echave looked pained. “We are acting as patriots.”

“American patriots or Cuban patriots?”

“Both. Cuba's interests are America's interests.”

“Tell me,” Ignacio said, and brought out his notebook.

I
T WAS ONLY
after a long while that Camaro decided it was safe enough to leave Lauren alone with Chapado. First she gagged the man with a clean washcloth, and then she admonished Lauren to run if there was any sign of trouble. She rode off to Homestead then and stopped in a discount clothing store, buying an outfit she thought might fit Chapado, plus clean socks and underwear. After that she swung through a McDonald's and bought food for all of them.

She came back to the same scene she had left. Chapado had not moved, and Lauren was watching TV. Camaro dropped the food on the bed and went to Chapado. She ungagged him, uncuffed him, and gave him the clothes. “Change into these. We'll throw the others out.”

“You are too kind to me.”

“Maybe. I'll close the door for a few minutes so you can use the toilet, too. Take a shower if you want. Just keep that dressing dry.”

With the door closed, Camaro went to the bed and sat next to Lauren. They ate and had some of the warm bottle of Coke Lauren had bought at the grocery. Chapado ran the shower for five minutes, and then she heard him dressing. He opened the door carefully, slowly when he was finished.

She gave him food. “Sit on the floor and eat,” she told him. “When you're done, I'm locking you up again.”

“I won't run.”

“I can't take that chance. Eat.”

He was eating when the call came from Ignacio. Camaro cursed quietly and then answered. “I don't have anything else to say,” she said.

“I do,” Ignacio replied. “What do you know about Sergio Chapado?”

Camaro froze. She closed the door. “Where did you hear about him?”

“Never mind that. I asked you a question.”

“If you're asking me, then you already know. Matt Clifford has him.”

“Does he? Or are you and he working some kind of scam together?”

“I'm not working with him,” Camaro said.

“Do you know where Matt has Chapado?”

“No.”

“You have to stop lying to me sometime, Camaro,” Ignacio said. “I'm way out on this one.
Way
out. You wouldn't believe how far. And now there's kidnapping involved? This is FBI shit. Pardon my language.”

Camaro sat on the edge of the tub. “What does the FBI know?” she asked.

“You're asking me to be truthful with you now?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, I'll trade. I tell you something, and you tell me something. How about it?”

“You first.”

“The FBI knows something's going down involving a bunch of Cubans that call themselves Alpha 66. They don't know exactly what yet, but they know people are getting killed, and they know it's big. Right now I'm the only one sitting on the whole story.”

“Which is what?”

“No. Now you tell me something.”

“I know where Matt and Chapado are going to be in two days,” Camaro said.

“Where?”

“If I tell you now, you're just going to send some cops to stake the place out, and it'll ruin everything. I'll call you on the night it's supposed to happen, and you can have them both if that's what you want.”

“And how exactly did you come by this information?”

“I'd rather not say.”

“I've said it before, but I'll say it again: you are playing with fire.”

“Hey,” Camaro said, “I know exactly what's at stake here. It's
my life
. Now I'm promising to give you Matt Clifford on a silver platter, and all you have to do in return is hold off for forty-eight hours.”

“I should tell you something,” Ignacio said.

“What?”

“Lauren Story is officially classified as a missing person. If a cop,
any cop,
catches you with her, you're going down for false imprisonment at the very least.”

“Would it help if I told you she's safe?”

“It would help if you turned her over to the authorities so we can take care of her. What if you go off and get yourself killed doing whatever it is that you're doing? What happens to her? What if Matt Clifford gets his hands on her? You know as well as I do that he's bad news for little girls.”

Camaro's voice dropped. “He's not going to touch her.”

“You can guarantee that?”

“He'd have to kill me first.”

“I'd like to believe that.”

“Two days, Detective. That's all I need, and you'll have it all.”

“You're gonna go to prison,” Ignacio said. “You know that, right?”

“Two days,” Camaro said, and she ended the call.

M
ATT DISCONNECTED THE
smoke detector in his room at the Econo Lodge when he got back from buying his crank. He had a glass pipe he carried with him most places, and he put on the television and cooked off the meth with the heat of his lighter so he could breathe the smoke.

Some tweakers snorted it. Some injected it. Matt did not like needles, and snorting the stuff made him feel like he was carrying around a bad cold. Maybe he didn't get the biggest high for his dollar, but it was good enough for his purposes. And maybe it was a little healthier than sticking his veins full of holes or destroying his sinuses one sniff at a time.

Colors became more vibrant, and he heard the TV more clearly than he ever did when he was straight. Within minutes he was too fidgety to sit any longer. He paced the room before finally abandoning it to drive the streets of Homestead until he found what he wanted.

The hooker wasn't the best-looking one he'd ever had in his car, but she would do. Matt pulled off into an alley behind an abandoned Blockbuster Video and had her blow him, but even after he'd popped his nut he was still hard. He offered her twice the rate to go back to the motel with him. She agreed.

He did her on top of the sheets with half their clothes on because he could not wait to be in her. The condom tore from the roughness, but he ignored her complaints about putting on another. When he was all finished, he thrust money in her face then kicked her out of the room entirely. She could walk back to where she came from.

The high spike of the drug was wearing down. At least in the aftermath of sex he was able to sit, though his head was still awhirl. He thought about Echave and Chapado, and most of all he thought about Camaro. She was hot, and she had a fine set of tits, and everything he'd done to that hooker he would do to Camaro, except it would take longer and she'd hate it more. Maybe she'd even like that she hated it. Some chicks were twisted like that.

Matt decided to count the money he'd taken from the Cubans. There was still plenty of it left and no one to share it with, so it didn't matter that the amount didn't divide neatly in two. He turned away from thoughts of Camaro and instead considered what he'd do when this was done, when he'd gotten Chapado back and made the deal with the Cubans and gotten the other hundred grand.

It was enough to start over somewhere new. He could buy a small parcel of land in Georgia or somewhere and build a house. With that money, he could get involved in raising animals for their meat or whatever. He'd once heard about a guy in Georgia who raised ostriches and had a steady income from selling ground ostrich and ostrich feathers and ostrich skin. Maybe he didn't know anything about ostriches, but it was something he could learn. How hard could it possibly be? An ostrich was basically just a big chicken, and chickens were easy.

With the television still blaring, he started to drift off, carried down the long, slow slope into a crash. The crank never lasted long enough. Then he was asleep, dreaming of ostriches.