ONE
“Would either of you care for champagne?”
The question was asked of the two casually dressed businessmen seated together in first class. The flight attendant, an attractive woman in her mid-forties smiled down at the man in the aisle seat waiting for a reply. His companion, the younger of the two, ignored her while glumly staring out of the window.
“Sure,” the older man answered her. He lightly poked his partner with an elbow who turned and looked at the woman.
“Champagne?” she politely asked again.
“Um, yeah, why not? Wait, make it half orange juice, please. It’s a little early.”
They were barely twenty minutes out of George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston on a four-hour flight to Panama City, Panama. Both men had reclined their chairs taking advantage of the ample legroom available in first-class. The younger man was again staring out the window while the attendant went for their drinks.
“I hate this shit,” the younger one whispered loud enough for his companion to hear.
“I know, you’ve told me at least a dozen times. Relax, life’s too short to worry about every little thing.”
The younger man turned his head to his right to speak to his companion and said, “Life’s too short is exactly it. I’ve been up and on the go since three A.M. to fly to a meeting with a sociopath who would think nothing of slitting my throat just to watch the blood drain out.”
His traveling companion, Victor Espinosa, heartily laughed at the nervous man, Walter Pascal. At that moment the attendant brought their drinks and departed.
“Relax, Wally. Trust me, if Javier had anything like that in mind, he’d send some guys to Minnesota. He wouldn’t bother having us fly to Panama. Besides, he has nothing to be upset about.”
“I know,” Walter said relaxing a bit. “He just makes me nervous. He’s the scariest guy on the damn planet.”
“He is that,” Victor agreed. “But he’s been damn good for business. At least we’re not shoehorned into a sardine seat in back,” Victor continued referring to the seats in coach.
A short while later the flight attendant reappeared and asked about refills. Walter handed her his glass and told her to wake him when they served the meal. Victor accepted a refill.
“Don’t drink too much,” Walter said as he turned his head, closed the window blind and relaxed to get some sleep.
A little more than three and a half hours later they felt the bump and heard the whine of the landing gear being extended. The aircraft was on its final approach into Tocumen International Airport and was right on schedule.
“Why is it these flights are always on time when you’re in no hurry to get there?” Walter asked.
Victor laughed then said, “Relax. We’ll be home by midnight. This is no big deal.”
“Oh, I know. I’m just being…”
“A total pussy,” Victor said.
As promised, a limousine was waiting for them as they exited the airport. Even though it was late May in Minnesota and a warm spring and they were dressed in light, casual clothes, the Panamanian heat and humidity hit them like a blast furnace when they stepped through the sliding glass doors.
“I wasn’t ready for that,” Victor said as they walked toward their ride.
There was a driver at the wheel and a serious looking Latino standing by the doors. A third man, who the Minnesotans both knew, exited the car as they approached. He looked at the two men, flashed a bright, warm smile and held out his right hand to greet them.
“Carlos, my friend,” Victor said. “Thanks for picking us up.”
As the two of them shook hands, Victor reminded the vicious cartel member who Walter was.
Carlos Rodriguez was one of the top lieutenants in the Del Sur — The Southern Cartel. It was one of the smallest of the major Mexican drug gangs but also one of the most successful. Most of their business came from acting as a go-between, almost a wholesaler, for the larger cartels in the northern area of Mexico.
The leader was a man named Javier Ruiz-Torres. Fifty-two-years-old, he was known as El Callado— The Quiet One. In meetings, he rarely spoke and when he did, it was normally to his top aide, Pablo ‘Paul’ Quinones.
Quinones was what the Italians called his consigliere, or in Spanish, consejero. Born into an upper-class family, Quinones was educated at Stanford and the Sorbonne in Paris. He spoke several languages fluently and was drawn to the wild side of business rising rapidly alongside El Callado.
It was these two men that the Minnesotans were being chauffeured to meet.
“Good to see you too, Victor. Come,” Carlos said as he held the door for them. “He’s anxious to see you. No luggage?” he asked.
“No, we have to return tonight,” Victor answered as he and Walter slid across the tan leather seats.
The ride from the airport to the hotel normally took ninety minutes. With the two motorcycle cops guiding them through traffic, they were entering the Marriott Villa in less than an hour.
The limo pulled up to the walkway in front of the villa, stopped and the thug in the passenger seat jumped out to open the door. Again the heat hit the two Americans in the face and Carlos led them to the villa’s front door. As he did, both guests walked a bit slowly looking over the grounds. There was a beautiful pool with a view of the Pacific Ocean and to their left was the fifteenth fairway of a championship caliber golf course.
“Nice digs,” Walter said.
“Sure is,” Victor agreed as he finished counting the guards that he could see. An even dozen not counting Carlos.
In the foyer, another serious-looking Latino man wearing a holster with a small, fully-automatic machine pistol in it, awaited them. He quickly, but politely and thoroughly, frisked them both for weapons. Satisfied, the guard led them into the living room while Carlos stayed at the door.
They entered the living room where the two men they were meeting were waiting for them. Seated alone on a plush, off white suede couch was the old man himself, Javier Ruiz Torres — El Callado.
To look at him you would never guess he was the ruthless head of a drug cartel. An attractive man with a well-tanned look, he could easily pass for a banker or any legitimate businessman, except for the way he was dressed. He wore expensive, soft-leather, brown loafers, tan slacks and a silk shirt. The only jewelry he wore was a simple gold wedding ring and a modest gold chain with a crucifix around his neck.
“Welcome to Panama,” the second man said as he shook hands with each of them. This was Paul Quinones, the man with whom they would actually converse. “Please, have a seat,” he pleasantly gestured toward two of several matching chairs in the room.
Quinones took one of the same chairs next to his boss—no one sat on the couch with El Callado— and asked, “Something to drink? It’s a warm day today, even for Panama.”
“That Evian looks good,” Victor said referring to the bottle on the glass-topped table between them.
Quinones made a gesture toward a doorway, said something in Spanish and a minute later a young Latina girl set a tray with four bottles, glasses and ice on the table. Quinones dismissed her, then filled the glasses with ice and water for all of them.
“You’re undoubtedly wondering why you’re here,” Quinones began the discussion by saying. “First of all, let me assure you we are quite satisfied with your services.”
This statement caused Walter Pascal to almost faint with relief. He had been doing his best not to stare at the sociopath on the couch. He was also struggling with his breathing in an attempt to appear calm.
“In fact, we’re interested in increasing our deposits each month,” Quinones said.
The three of them, with El Callado listening to his counselor’s translations, discussed rates of return, investment strategies and finally fees.
“Since we are doubling our investment with your firm, a twenty-five percent reduction in your fees is acceptable to us,” Quinones told them. Noting that Quinones did not put that state
ment in the form of a suggestion, let alone a request, Victor Espinosa quickly agreed.
The three of them toasted the new arrangement, smiles all around even from Quinones’ boss. Then Ruiz Torres gestured to Quinones who leaned over so his boss could whisper in his ear.
“Get rid of them. I hate talking to bankers. They bore me,” he said.
“Si, jefe,” Quinones replied. He looked at his two guests and said, “Senior Torres asked me to express his gratitude to you for coming today. Unless you have anything else…?” he asked with an inquisitive look.
“No, I don’t think so,” Espinosa answered.
“Good,” Quinones said as he stood. “Carlos will have you back in plenty of time to make your flight.”
The limo taking their guests back to the airport had barely pulled away from the curb when El Callado and his counselor were conferring.
“He is here?” Torres asked as Quinones held the lighter for his boss to light his eighty dollar Cohiba.
“Yes, Javier,” Quinones answered him using his first name as he was allowed to do in private.
“I want that taken care of today.”
“Yes, Javier. It will be,” Quinones said retaking the chair he had used. “What did you think of the gringos?”
Torres blew a cloud of sweet cigar smoke than said, “They are bankers. What do I care?” he shrugged. “You are satisfied they do a good job with our money?”
“Sí, Javier. It comes out clean with a fourteen percent return.”
“Good. When Carlos returns…”
“He is here. He didn’t go to the airport.”
“Good. Have him take care of the problem.”
The six-seat Beechcraft was an hour out of Panama City when the pilot dropped to a thousand feet. Besides the pilot, there were three men in the plane. Carlos, who was in charge of the mission, a young man name Juan and the object of their attention, Rafael Ortiz.
The small plane began to bank slightly to the right while Rafael stared out the back seat passenger window.
He had been told they were searching for a place for a new landing strip.
“It is all jungle,” Rafael said to Carlos who was in the copilot’s seat. “There’s no good place for a landing strip.”
Carlos turned around, nodded at Juan who jammed a hypodermic needle into Rafael’s neck and emptied the syringe.
Rafael yelped, grabbed his neck and turned to Juan who stared back impassively. Within seconds Rafael was completely immobile although still very conscious. Juan unbuckled his seatbelt, opened the plane’s door and began to push Rafael out.
Rafael tried to speak, tried to beg or scream but nothing came out. All he could do was stare at the younger man with his eyes wide open while trying to understand why this was happening.
Juan managed to get the man positioned in the doorway. Juan looked at those terrified eyes, muttered the word “traitor”, then spit in Rafael’s face and pushed him out.
Crashing through the trees broke Rafael’s neck and mercifully killed him before he hit the jungle floor. Within a few days the indigenous wildlife would leave only strips of clothing and bones. In a matter of three or four weeks the jungle growth would reclaim the place where he landed and even if you walked within a foot of him, you would not have found Rafael’s remains.
The unfortunate part of the poor man’s demise was that he was not the traitor. That man was still very much alive and well.
About the same time Rafael was making his free fall into the Panamanian jungle, a meeting was taking place in downtown Minneapolis. It was being held on the twentieth floor of the LaSalle Plaza, a thirty story glass and chrome beauty on the south edge of downtown. Suite 2010 held the office of CAR Securities Management, LLC. The three hundred square foot corner office, with windows overlooking downtown and the western suburbs, was where the meeting was being held. There were two men present. The forty-two-year-old founder and CEO, Corbin Andrew Reed, whose initials, CAR, formed the acronym for CAR investments and the firm’s CIO, Chief Investment Officer, Jordan Kemp.
Corbin Reed and Jordan Kemp gave meaning to the phrase “opposites attract”. The two of them had met in college at the University of Minnesota twenty plus years ago and hit it off right away.
Corbin was six feet two and sported a slender waist and full head of hair. Never married, his numerous relationships with women rarely lasted longer than a weekend. Jordan was barely five-feet-six-inches and was almost as round as he was tall. He was also still married to the only girl he ever dated and she had initiated that. The two men complimented each other perfectly. Corbin could sell ice to Eskimos and Jordan was a statistical genius. Despite being a small firm with barely twenty employees, including themselves, they had made each other into millionaires many times over.
For a man running a company making the millions this one did, you would never know it by the decorations of his office. Other than the office’s size and plush carpeting, it was hardly the lavish office of a rich CEO.
“Did you hear from our guys?” Kemp asked Reed after taking a seat in front of his desk.
“Yeah, I did,” Reed replied.
“And they made it out of there without getting their throats cut?”
“Yeah and with an assurance that all is well and we’re going to see more money coming in.”
“How much?” Kemp asked.
“Another ten mil each month,” Reed said. “We’ll put that to good use.”
“Where are you with the Corwin guy? What’s his name?”
“David. He’s on the verge of practically begging me,” Reed said.
Kemp looked out the window facing north of the fifty-story Corwin building and said, “How cool would it be to get our hands on that money?”
“Patience. Besides, it’s his aunt we need to snare. David is small potatoes compared to what she controls.”
While they waited in the passenger loading area Walter said, “So that’s it. We get out of bed at three in the morning, fly to Panama, damn near melt from the heat for a fifteen-minute meeting?”
“They’re increasing their deposits by ten million a month. For that kind of money, yeah, we go to a fifteen-minute meeting in Panama. By the way, I forgot to mention, the old man speaks English as good as you.”
“I don’t understand something. Ten million per month is nothing to these guys. What do they want?” Walter asked.
“They’re checking us out. We are getting him the best return for his money,” Victor said. “They have a lot of others to do this kind of business with, not just us. We’re being tested.”
TWO
In a continuing effort, albeit a losing one, to get some exercise, Marc Kadella took the stairs two at a time up to the second floor. The stairway had a steep angle and ran straight up. When he reached the top he stopped for a moment to check his breathing, mildly pleased to find it had not increased.
“Making progress,” he quietly sad. He then poked himself in the midsection and said, “Could do better.”
Marc was a lawyer in private practice and as a sole-practitioner rented space in a suite of offices shared by other lawyers. His landlord, Connie Mickelson, a crusty, older woman working on her sixth marriage, did mostly family law and personal injury work. There was also Barry Cline, a man about Marc’s age, who was becoming modestly successful at criminal and business litigation. The fourth and final lawyer was Chris Grafton, a small business, corporate lawyer with a thriving practice who was a few years older than Marc and Barry.
Marc was sandy-haired, blue-eyed of Scandinavian and Welsh ancestry. He was a little over six-feet tall, in his mid-forties and the recently divorced father of two mostly grown children; his son Eric, age nineteen and a daughter, Jessica, age eighteen.
He was returning from court where he had made a deal for his client, a low-level drug dealer, to receive probation. The client was the son of a business client of Chris Grafton. Marc tried to steer clear of drug cases. He did not want to become known as a drug lawyer
. With the pervasiveness of drug involvement in practically all criminal behavior, his attempts to stay away from it were becoming more and more difficult.
Marc’s client, a sometime, sort of, college student, was busted for the fourth time holding enough cocaine and pot to prosecute for possession with intent to sell. And for the fourth time he was given probation, rehab and a stern lecture. Marc always marveled at how quickly drug dealers got turned loose with a promise to be good and not do it again. Despite what liberal politicians believe, it was becoming harder and harder to get these people sent to prison.
Marc entered the suite of offices and heard Sandy Compton, one of the secretaries, say into the phone, “Let me check. I’ll see if he’s available,” and she put the caller on hold.
“You available?” Sandy asked looking at Marc.
“Who is it?”
“Mary Cunningham. Before you say anything,” Sandy quickly continued cutting off the protest she knew was coming, “She’s called three times. She says it’s important.”
“It’s always important with her,” Marc said heading toward his office.
While Marc was on the phone listening to the woman, one of his divorce clients, Chris Grafton appeared in his doorway. Chris listened while Marc repeatedly said, “Uh huh, I see, you’re right, I don’t blame you.”
Finally, Marc ended the call by saying, “Don’t worry, Mary. We’ll get it all straightened out in the end.”
Marc hung up and Chris asked, “What was that all about?”
“I don’t have any idea. I didn’t listen to a word she said. A woman scorned. She cheats on him, multiple times, he finally gets fed up and wants a divorce and she’s mad at him. She should be thankful he doesn’t own a gun. I don’t know how he put up with her as long as he did.”
“Why do you do divorce work?”
“It pays the bills. Plus, it reminds me how glamorous the practice of law is. What’s up?”
“How did this morning go?”
Marc Kadella Legal Mysteries Vol 1-6 (Marc Kadella Series) Page 222