Bum Rap

by Paul Levine

  And then it occurred to me that it wasn’t necessarily a defensive posture.

  I took off at a gallop toward them just as he pulled his firearm.

  “Hey! Hey!” I shouted.

  If any of them heard me, they didn’t react. As I reached into my holster—

  Three rapid gunshots.

  Both women fell to the sand.

  Oh God!

  The driver settled back into his seat and calmly took off, headed north along the beach, then angling toward Ocean Drive. I raced toward the spot where the women fell.

  Elena was on her back in the shallow water.

  Victoria was facedown in the sand.

  “Victoria!” I cried out.

  No movement. No sound.

  “Victoria!”

  I was ten yards away. She rose to one knee, turned toward me. Even in the dark, I could see the panic, her features frozen.

  “Where are you hit?”

  She ignored me and crawled toward Elena. Rolled her over gently. Blood flowed from Elena’s chest. Two wounds there. One in the middle of her sternum. Another just inches to the right. And a third entry wound, directly between her eyes, which were open and rolled back.

  Two to the chest, and one to the head.

  Police are taught that. But so are hit men.

  I fell to my knees, wrapped my arms around Victoria, who was trembling.

  “I just dived to the sand and lay there thinking I’d be dead in a second. But he never fired at me.” Sobbing now. “My God. My God. Poor Elena.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m a shitty bodyguard.”

  “No. You were right. Jesus, Jake. I got her killed!”

  “My fault,” I said. “I should have been with you.”

  Damn it! I’d tried to protect them both and had failed miserably. Truth was, we both got Elena killed.

  In the dawn of a Miami Beach morning, a few joggers and power walkers went by, scarcely paying attention to the crime scene. The Miami Beach cops—the real ones—took their sweet time interrogating us.

  Separately.

  Starting with Victoria.

  By the time they got to me, the sun was already peeking over the horizon where the ocean met a blue-gray sky. We stood under a portable tent the cops had thoughtfully erected near the pink-and-yellow lifeguard stand. Crime scene tape was stretched from the coral rock wall to the water’s edge, where it was attached to a metal pole jammed into the wet sand. The tide was coming in, playing havoc with the crime scene.

  Photos had been taken, the sand combed for spent cartridges whose positions were marked with little flags. An assistant medical examiner had come and left with the body. A full autopsy would be performed at the morgue located, crazily enough, on Bob Hope Road.

  Detective George Barrios and a younger female cop from homicide questioned me. She introduced herself as Detective Linda Vazquez, and she looked about fifteen years old. I assumed Barrios was training her. Then again, cops frequently question you in pairs. One might pick up on something the other misses. Or one can ask questions sweetly while the other hits you in the nuts with the phone book, though these days there aren’t a lot of phone books around, what with the Internet and all.

  Both George Barrios and Linda Vazquez were wearing blue nylon Windbreakers with “CMB Police” on the back. In about an hour, the sun would make them regret it. Barrios looked tired. Maybe thirty years of being rousted from bed was getting to him.

  “Can we keep this short?” I asked. “I’m worried about Victoria.”

  “She’s fine,” Barrios said. “And if she needs a hug, we’ve got very handsome paramedics on the case.” He gave me a sly look. “But it’s commendable that you’re protective of her.”

  “Is that a question, George?”

  “No, but this is. Are you screwing her?”

  “What’s that have to do with anything? And the answer is no.”

  “Then help me get this straight. You knew Ms. Lord was coming to the beach in the middle of the night to meet this Bar girl.”

  “Elena Turcina. Let’s give her the courtesy of a name.”

  “And you told Ms. Lord not to come.”

  “I thought it might be dangerous.”

  “That the only reason?”

  “Why? Victoria give you another one?”

  “She refused. Cited attorney–client privilege.”

  “Maybe I should follow her cue. She knows more law than I do.”

  “You know what I think, Lassiter?”

  “You’re counting the days to retirement and multiplying by twenty-four to figure the hours.”

  “The other night, at Club Anastasia, you nearly got yourself killed trying to wheedle information from this B-girl . . . Elena what’s-her-name.”

  “Turcina. So?”

  “She’s your link to Nadia Delova, who you thought was gonna sail into the courtroom and win your case. But sometime between Anastasia and last night, you find out Delova isn’t going to help you. Or worse, she could kill your case. You won’t go to the meet. And you tell your cocounsel not to go.”

  “So? Or did I say that already?”

  “What happened in the last forty-eight hours to change your mind?”

  “Which case you working on, George? Gorev’s murder or this one?”

  “Jeez, Lassiter, you think I’m off base thinking the murders are related?”

  Rather than answer, I just sulked a moment. Barrios had the basics right, but just where was he going with them?

  “So, let’s sum it up,” Barrios said. “You told your girlfriend not to come over here.”

  “My cocounsel.”

  “Whatever you say. And you told her you weren’t coming.”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “But you came, anyway. Carrying.”

  I’d given the first cops on the scene my Beretta and my license to carry it. They’d probably hold it for six months before returning it, if they ever did.

  “Your weapon hasn’t been fired,” Detective Linda Vazquez said. I’d almost forgotten she was there.

  “Right. I started running toward the three of them just as the phony cop pulled his gun.”

  “Why didn’t you fire?” Vazquez asked.

  “On the run? At fifty yards? Into a crowd of three?” I turned to Barrios. “George, you take your rookie to the range yet?”

  Vazquez didn’t back off. “Once the perpetrator remounted the ATV and drove off, why not shoot at him them?”

  “All I cared about was getting to Victoria and Elena. And the ATV was angling toward Ocean Drive. If I’d fired, I’d probably have shot some drunken tourists from Iowa.”

  Vazquez looked puzzled, as if something I said didn’t add up. “You claim you were here to protect the women.”

  “I don’t get it, Detective. Are you criticizing me for not shooting up South Beach? You want me to go all Wyatt Earp like your pals on Memorial Day a few years ago?”

  “Got nothing to do with this,” Barrios fired back.

  Barrios didn’t want to go there. Collins Avenue, Urban Beach Week 2011. Not the finest hour for Miami Beach’s finest. Cops signaled a motorist to pull over on Collins Avenue. When he didn’t, a dozen Hialeah and Beach officers fired 116 shots at him. Yeah, killed him, several times over. Also wounded three pedestrians.

  “It just seems strange,” Detective Vazquez said. “You appointed yourself the bodyguard for your lady friend—”

  “Cocounsel.”

  “You show up with a gun, but you’re at such a distance, there’s not really much you could do.”

  “I was there in case Alex Gorev and his bouncers showed up. I would have recognized them two blocks away. I could have cut them off. A cop on an ATV didn’t seem threatening.”

  “When the guy was approaching the women, did it occur to you that he might not be a cop?” Vazquez said.

  “Why would it? He was in uniform on what looked like a police vehicle.”

  The two detectives exchanged looks
. They seemed to be deciding who would speak next. Overhead, half a dozen white terns squawked, then landed in the wet sand, pecking away, searching for breakfast. I could have used some coffee myself.

  “You don’t see what this looks like to us, do you, Lassiter?” Barrios asked.

  “I’m not that good at cop-think. Maybe draw me some stick figures.”

  “Gonna give you a clue. For whatever reason, you decided that the other B-girl, Nadia Delova, was not gonna help your case. You didn’t want to be put in touch with her. So you told your very attractive cocounsel to drop it. But she wouldn’t. Don’t ask me why. I don’t know yet. I will say she has a sterling reputation in town for ethics, which is more than I can say for either you or Solomon.”

  “Okay, assume everything you say is true,” I said. “So what?”

  “Think about it, Lassiter. C’mon. Shake off those concussions and use your noggin.”

  I thought about it, just as I was ordered, and, of course, there it was. Where it had been all the time. Because George Barrios, like every cop, sees evil wherever he looks.

  “Aw, George, you’re not serious. You think I knew someone was gonna bump off Elena?”

  “Or worse.” Barrios exhaled a long breath and looked at me with tired, disappointed eyes. “You knew where she was gonna be and at what time. You could have set up the whole deal. You weren’t here to protect the two women. You were here to protect the assassin. Because you’re thinking once Nadia Delova learns her friend had been gunned down, she’ll dig deeper into whatever hole she’s in.”

  “What bullshit.”

  “Just a theory. A possibility. One of many.”

  “Am I free to go now?”

  “You don’t see me getting out the cuffs, do you?”

  “Is this the part where you say, ‘But if I were you, Jake, I wouldn’t be leaving town just now’?”

  “Hell, no, Jake. I’ve been wishing for years that you’d leave town.”

  -34-

  Grief and Hunger

  The cops let us go around 10:30 a.m. Half an hour later, Victoria and I sat across from each other in the café at Books & Books on Lincoln Road. I figured we wouldn’t run into any Russian mobsters or Miami Beach cops among the bookshelves in the art history section.

  I drank my coffee and Victoria sipped her herbal tea. Both in silence.

  At first, we didn’t exchange words or share our grief. Instead, we were lost in our own mournful thoughts. Doubtless, Victoria blamed herself for Elena’s death. I knew I blamed myself.

  Finally, Victoria said, “I should have listened to you.”

  “And I should have gone with you. Been right there alongside you.”

  “Then what? You wouldn’t have pulled your gun when you saw a cop coming. Or what seemed to be a cop. He probably would have shot you first.”

  Victoria had already told both Barrios and me that she could give virtually no physical description of the gunman. His face was hidden by the darkness and the visor. As far as she could tell, he was slightly taller than average with a weightlifter’s body. No noticeable accent in the few words he spoke, except that his enunciation was so precise as to perhaps cover up an accent.

  We were quiet again. Replaying what could have been, what should have been, what never would be. Both crushed under the burden of self-imposed guilt.

  After a while, we realized that despite our grief, we were hungry. We’d missed breakfast again so went directly for lunch.

  I ordered the grilled calamari with the mango coleslaw and Victoria had the veggie burger. Waiting for the food, Victoria said, “Right before the phony cop pulled up, Elena said Nadia would talk to me. She was going to call her.”

  “That was then. Now Nadia will be spooked, and who can blame her? That’s the one thing that Barrios was right about. Someone was sending a message to Nadia.”

  “Elena also said Nadia might contact Benny the Jeweler.”

  “Bad idea.”

  “I told her.”

  The food arrived, and I started chomping on the calamari. A few more moments of silence as we ate, both lost in our own thoughts.

  I’ve made many mistakes in my life. Most I’ve put behind me. What else can we do? But this awful murderous night would linger. This would plague me.

  Victoria slid something across the table at me, breaking my concentration.

  “What do you suppose this is?” she asked.

  “A cell phone in a pink case with little bunny rabbits and shiny sequins.”

  “Do you think it’s a cell phone I’d carry?”

  “How would I know?”

  “C’mon, Jake. You’ve picked juries. You can read people.”

  “It’s not you. You’d have a Prada cell phone if they made them. So what?”

  “I told the cops it was mine, and they bought it.”

  It took me a moment. These days, it takes longer, especially after sleepless nights. “You grabbed Elena’s cell phone!”

  “When I saw she was dead, I slipped it into my jeans. I’d left mine at home.”

  “Cops search you?”

  “I was the person closest to a dead body. I’d say they had the right to look for weapons.”

  “They open the phone?”

  “First, they asked if it was mine. I said it was.”

  “Lying to the cops. I’ve been a good influence.”

  “It was hard to do, believe me.”

  “I’m proud of you. All this time, I thought you were this uptight and upright chick.”

  “Chick?” She furrowed her forehead. “I had to lie, Jake. Otherwise I couldn’t have refused what the cops asked next.”

  “Permission to look at the phone.”

  “I declined. Cited Riley versus California.”

  “That’s my girl! Cocounsel, I mean. Jeez, that case came down just in time! Unanimous. All nine justices. Cops need a warrant to search your cell phone.”

  “Surprising outcome, don’t you think?”

  “Not at all. The justices don’t have bags of cocaine in the trunks of their cars, so the drug seizure cases usually go the government’s way. But every justice has a cell phone.”

  “That is so simplistic.”

  “Think so? I’ll bet Justice Scalia e-mails Justice Thomas the hottest porn sites on the Internet.”

  I picked up the pink phone, punched the little round button, and the icons came to life. The wallpaper photo was Elena and Nadia in thong bikinis. They were smiling broadly and wearing oversize sunglasses with their undersize swimwear. The smiles were open and seemingly real. They looked so damn happy, and now the photo was indescribably sad.

  I put the phone down and said, “Have you looked at the contacts?”

  “Those and the recent calls.”

  “So you have Nadia’s number.”

  She nodded. Almost afraid to say it aloud.

  “That’s a very tough phone call you’re about to make,” I said.

  “Nadia deserves to know. And needs to know for her own protection.”

  “Do her this favor. Tell her the feds think she knows all about Benny the Jeweler’s diamond-smuggling operation. Benny probably thinks it, too. That’s why he hired that jerkoff Manuel Dominguez to find her. If Alex Gorev wasn’t behind Elena’s killing, Benny was. Make sure she realizes Benny is not her friend, no matter how many diamonds he gave her.”

  “I will. And no matter what you say, I’m still going to ask her what happened in Nicolai Gorev’s office.”

  “Good luck with that. But if she does talk, be prepared for the worst.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Emotionally. If it’s not what you want to hear. If it’s damaging to Steve. Just steel yourself, okay?”

  “I’m a big girl, Jake.”

  Maybe so, I thought, but right now she looked emotionally fragile, and I was worried about her.

  “What are you going to do?” Victoria asked.

  The truth would be: try to come up with some razzle-dazzle t
o keep your boyfriend out of prison. But that would be followed by her asking how. And I didn’t have an answer just yet. But there was one thing I could do.

  “Find Benny the Jeweler.”

  “How?”

  “Same as always. Walk into a china shop and start breaking things.”

  -35-

  Women and Love

  Victoria walked several blocks east on Lincoln Road, crossed Collins Avenue, and made her way to the boardwalk that ran parallel to the ocean. She found a quiet alcove with a bench in the shade. Pulling out Elena’s cell phone, she knew how hard the next several minutes would be.

  A mixture of dark emotions. Grief and guilt and sorrow. But another powerful emotion, too. Her love for Steve. That’s what took her to the darkened beach, and that’s what propelled her now. There was such a thin thread of hope that he could stay out of prison. Nadia held that thread, but with her own life at risk, how could she be persuaded to help?

  “Elena!” Nadia said when she answered the phone.

  Victoria took a breath but did not speak.

  “Elena?”

  Victoria tried. She’d rehearsed it, but no words came.

  “Elena, is that you?”

  “Nadia. Ms. Delova, this is Victoria Lord. I’m—”

  “I know who you are. Where is Elena?”

  The beginning of fear.

  “I am so sorry. Last night . . . on the beach . . . a man pretending to be a policeman . . .”

  The sound of Nadia’s breath catching, then great racking sobs.

  “Nadia . . .”

  When the sobbing subsided, Nadia said, “Were you there?”

  “Yes. We were talking. About you. About how to help you.”

  “A policeman, you said.”

  “A fake policeman.”

  “In Riga, the Gorev brothers would hire policemen to do their dirty work. When they ran out of real policemen, they just started dressing up thugs in uniforms. Cheaper, too.”

  “So you think Alex Gorev is behind the murder?”

  “Who else?”

  Victoria took a breath before answering. On the boardwalk, two teen girls in bikinis pedaled by on rental bicycles, laughing in the innocent way of fifteen-year-olds. They left the scent of coconut oil in their wake.