by Miami Blues
“Explain about the bank business again,” Freddy said.
“It isn’t a bank, it’s a savings and loan, but it works just like a bank. I don’t know the exact difference except that the S and L pays a higher interest rate. Marty and me got a CD for ten thousand in both our names, and a NOW checking account. The interest from the CD goes into our checking account automatically at the end of each month. There’s more’n four thousand in it. So I’m going to draw it all out and start another CD and another NOW account in some other S and L. That way they won’t be able to get none of it because it’ll all be in my name.”
“That’s no good,” Freddy said, shaking his head. “They can still sue you, those Krishnas with their lawyers, and then they’ll tie up all the money until the judge decides who gets it. What you do, when you go down there, is take out all the money and bring it to me. I’ll take care of it.”
“That’s too much money to keep around in cash. In Miami, somebody’ll steal it from you.”
“I’ll rent a safe-deposit box, except for some walking around money. I don’t want you to worry about it. What you don’t have, they can’t take away from you.” He finished his coffee, handed her the cup. “Now that we’ve got our platonic marriage going, I’ll take care of you. Don’t you worry about interest or anything else. If you want something, anything—and I don’t mean just because you need something, I mean want something—tell me, and I’ll get it for you. Who’s that guy down there?” Freddy pointed to a man wearing a dark blue suit, complete with vest, getting into a new Buick Skylark in the parking lot.
“I don’t know his name. He lives down in two-fourteen, and he carried some groceries up here for me once. He’s a prephase real estate salesman, he told me. That’s why he has to wear a suit and tie all the time.”
“What’s a prephase salesman?”
“I don’t know, but that’s what he said he was. He seemed very nice and said he had a daughter about my age in junior high back in Ohio. I didn’t tell him how old I was or proposition him. I don’t think it’s a good idea to fuck people where you have to live.”
“You’d better get going to the S and L. So go ahead and get dressed.”
“I am dressed. You don’t have to get all dressed up out here in Kendall. All the women out here wear shorts and halters.”
“Except you. I don’t want my wife running around like some little kid. Put on a dress and shoes and stockings. Do something about your hair, too. It’s all tangled.”
“Aren’t you going with me?”
“No. I’m going to study the street map of Miami. We’ll go out when you come back.”
Freddy watched Susan drive out of the parking lot. He put on his shirt, but not his shoes, and took the fire stairs down to the second floor. He twisted the knob of the front door to 214 as far as it would go, and then forced the door open with his shoulder. It sprung open easily.
He found two $100 bills in the bible on the bedside table and a loaded .38 caliber pistol in its leather holster in the drawer of the same table. There was a locked drawer in the metal home desk in the living room, but he found the key in the middle pencil drawer. He opened the locked drawer and found a cowhide case containing fifty silver dollars, each mounted in a round numbered slot. This was a collection, and much more valuable, he knew, than the $50 face value. When he rented the safe-deposit box, it might be a good idea to keep the collection to use as getaway bread. He took two pairs of black silk socks from the dresser and put his stolen items into a brown paper grocery sack he got from a stack under the kitchen sink. He added a package of six frozen pork chops from the freezer compartment to the sack, then returned to his own apartment.
The clothes in the salesman’s closet, unhappily, had been at least two sizes too large for Freddy, but he was satisfied with his haul, especially with the pistol. He put the pork chops on the kitchen table so they would thaw for dinner. Then he shaved with a disposable lady’s shaver Susan had unwrapped for him, and took a long tub bath.
Soaking in the tub, Freddy examined the Miami city map, section by section, from Perrine to North Bay Village. The Greater Miami area was five times longer than it was wide, a long narrow urban strip hugging the coast and the bay, with no way to expand unless the buildings were built higher and higher. There was no way the city could expand any farther into the Everglades until they were drained, and the coastline was completely filled. If a man had to escape from the cops, he could only drive north or south. Only two roads crossed the Everglades to Naples, and both of these could be blocked. If a man drove south he would be caught, eventually, in Key West, and the cops could easily bottle up a man on the highways if he headed north, especially if he tried to take the Sunshine Parkway.
The only way to escape from anyone, in case he had to, would be to have three or four hidey-holes. One downtown, one in North Miami, and perhaps a place over in Miami Beach. There would be no other safe method to get away except by going to ground until whatever it was that he’d have done was more or less forgotten about. Then, when the search was over, he could drive or take a cab to the airport and get a ticket to anywhere he wanted to go.
Well, Freddy thought, I’ve already got me a nice little hidey-hole out here in Kendall.
Susan returned before noon with two bags of groceries and $4,280 in fifties and twenties. Freddy sat at the uncleared breakfast table and counted the money while Susan began to put away the groceries.
“It’s ten thousand dollars short,” he said.
“That’s because I took out another CD at the S and L in Miller Square. There’s plenty of money right there to spend or to lock away in a safe-deposit box, without losing interest on the other ten thousand every month. There was already a penalty of almost four hundred dollars I had to pay for cashing in the CD early. I had to pay the penalty, but it’s stupid not to have the interest coming in every month. I was getting one-thirty-two a month before, but the new S and L’s only paying ninety-two.” Susan picked up the package of frozen pork chops and frowned. “That’s funny, I don’t remember getting—”
Without rising, Freddy slapped Susan a sharp blow across the face. She fell down, dropping the pork chops, and the package slid across the linoleum floor. She began to cry and to rub her reddened cheek, which began to swell immediately.
“Part of being married,” Freddy explained, “is learning to do exactly what your platonic husband tells you to do. I’m not some daddy you can defy, and I’m not a dumb brother you can manipulate. Do you know what ‘manipulate’ means?”
Susan nodded through her tears. “Uh-huh. I saw a program on it once, on ‘Donahue.’”
“I’m not unreasonable. You’re probably right about the interest rate and all. I don’t know much about things like that. But the main thing here is that you didn’t do what I told you to do. And you weren’t really concerned about the interest rate, either. You kept the other ten thousand because you didn’t trust me. Don’t say anything. Not a word. I don’t want to hear any lies. What I’m going to do, I’m going to let you keep the other ten thousand in the S and L. I don’t need it right now, and you don’t need it, and I realize you’re insecure and need the money for your peace of mind. Now, put the pork chops back on the table and leave them there so they’ll thaw out. I’ll want them for dinner tonight, with whatever else you fix that’ll go good with the pork chops.”
“Will baked sweet potatoes be all right?”
“That’s your department. Now, aren’t you going to ask me where I got the pork chops?”
“I figure that’s none of my business.”
“That’s right. Now you’re learning.”
Freddy looked through Susan’s purse and took out the car keys. “I’m going down to the hotel to fix things up with Pablo for you. Then I’m going to get oriented around town. I should be back around six—that is, if I don’t get lost. But I’ve checked out the map, and I don’t think I will as long as I keep the avenues and the streets straight.”
“
I’m supposed to go to social science tonight. English on Monday and Wednesday, and social science on Tuesday and Thursday nights.”
“No, I don’t think so. I don’t want you in school right now. Call up and tell your science teacher there’s been a death in the family. Professor Turner already knows. I’ll decide whether I want you to go back at all.”
Freddy counted off a thousand dollars and pushed the rest of the money across the table. “Here.” He folded the bills in half and put the roll into his right front pocket. “Take the rest of the money and stash it in a safe place somewhere in the apartment.”
Freddy turned at the door. “One other thing. Call a locksmith and have him come out and put a deadbolt lock on the door. These push-button locks are engraved invitations for burglars.”
“I already checked on deadlocks, and they cost more than sixty dollars. Is that all right? To pay that much, I mean?”
Freddy pointed to the stack of money on the table. “What would you rather lose? Sixty dollars, or all of that?” He pushed in the button on the doorknob, and closed the door gently behind him as he left.
Susan, slightly dazed, opened the refrigerator, stared into its depths for a moment, closed the door, took a roll of toilet paper out of the grocery sack, looked at it, dropped it back inside, started toward the bathroom, changed her mind, and then ran swiftly to the South Miami telephone book and turned to the Yellow Pages.
10
Hoke Moseley and Bill Henderson sat close together on a pink silk loveseat in the living room of 11K, a townhouse in the Tahitian Village. Two-bedroom townhouses in the Tahitian Village started at $189,000, and the owners of this three-bedroom townhouse had also put out a good deal of money for the Latin Baroque furnishings. There were twisted, ornate bars on all of the downstairs windows. The interior color scheme was predominantly purple and rose. The wall-to-wall carpeting was richly purple, and the color was echoed without subtlety in the violet velvet draperies. The thick draperies hung in deep folds from two-headed iron spears in the living and dining rooms.
In the purple living room, two men, definitely Latins, with their hands and feet bound with copper wire, were face down on the floor. They had both been shot in the back of the head, and their faces were unrecognizable. A dark-haired young woman wearing a black-and-white maid’s uniform, complete with a white frilly cap, had been shot in the hallway that led to the kitchen. Her hands and feet were also bound with copper wire. A small boy, two, or possibly three years old, had been shot in the head, but the child did not have his hands and feet bound. He was in the sunken bathtub in the rose-tiled bathroom on the second floor.
There was considerable activity in the townhouse. The forensic crew was busy. Two technicians were dusting for fingerprints, and another man was taking flash photographs from various angles. The ME, Dr. Merle Evans, was sitting at the glass-topped wrought-iron table in the dining room and writing notes on his clipboard.
The lady of the house, who had been out shopping at the Kendall Lakes Mall, said that she had returned to find her husband, her brother, the boy, and her maid dead. A Colombian with only rudimentary English, she had become hysterical. When he arrived, Doc Evans had given her a shot and sent her in an ambulance to the American Hospital emergency room.
After a quick initial look at the scene, Hoke Moseley and Bill Henderson had knocked on the nearby doors in the Tahitian Village, dividing up the townhouses, asking questions, and now they were comparing notes.
“No one I talked to,” Henderson said, “heard or saw anything.”
“I didn’t do any better. These people here apparently kept to themselves, and I couldn’t find anyone who knew or talked to them. They spoke Spanish and nothing else. Sometimes, in the morning, the maid took the little boy to the pool, but the adults never used the pool. And that’s where the people of this complex get acquainted. A Colombian corporation, the manager told me, owns this townhouse, pays all the bills and the maintenance, and people just come and go. When they come, they’ve got a letter in Spanish authorizing their stay, and he hands over the keys. When they leave, one of them returns the keys. He’s never had any trouble with any of the tenants, he claims. They’re always nice, quiet tenants, or so he says.”
“Did he have their names?”
“No. The letter he showed me just said to admit the bearers for an extended stay. I don’t read Spanish, but he does, and that’s what the letter said.”
“He wouldn’t lie about something like that,” Henderson said, “but we can check it out, anyway. There had to be at least four shots, but no one heard even one. I can’t get over that.”
“Maybe it’s a good thing they didn’t hear the shots and come running out. Chances are, they’d be dead, too.”
“Somebody had to hear something. They just don’t want to get involved, that’s all.”
Doc Evans joined them. “They’ve been dead about two hours. That may not be exact, but from the body temperatures, I’m not far off.”
Hoke nodded. “That coincides with what the woman said. She was gone for about two hours, and they were all alive when she left. I hope you can find some evidence of heroin when you open ’em up, doc. There’s no dope in the apartment. Without some indication of dope, we can’t say positively that the killings are drug-related. We can say that we think they are, but that isn’t the same. If they’re dope-related, nobody gives a shit, but if this was a murder-robbery, all these folks living out here’ll get panicky.”
“It’s obviously a professional job,” Doc said. “Too bad about the kid, though. At his age, he couldn’t’ve identified anybody anyway.”
“Colombian drug families are like that, doc,” Henderson said. “They kill everyone in the family. They have to do it. If they hadn’t killed the boy, someday, as a man, he’d kill them. When can I talk to the woman at the hospital?”
“Any time. She’ll be a little dopey, but she can talk now. Why?”
“I’ve got a theory. I think she knew the killers. I also think they killed these people here, and then she drove them to the airport to catch a plane. Then she drove back here to report the bodies. As soon as she knew they were safely away, she called the department.”
“Jesus, Bill,” Hoke said, “you don’t seriously believe that a mother would help the killers of her own child get away, do you?”
“Well, how do we know it’s her child? Life is cheap for those fuckers in Colombia. They might’ve brought the kid along with that plan in mind all along. Anyway, that’s what I think, and I’ve got another reason besides. I’ll take Martinez along to use as an interpreter.”
“Why not? I’ll wait here. I asked Kossowski from Narcotics to get a warrant so we can search her Caddy. She went shopping, she said, but I didn’t see any packages in the car. If there’s nothing in the trunk, your theory might be better than I think it is right now. Anyway,” Hoke finished, “after we search the car, I’ll call you at American.”
“I’m going to lean on her.” Henderson got to his feet. “Maybe their passports are in the trunk, too. There’s not a scrap of ID in the house.”
“The killers probably took the passports. But go ahead. You’re bound to find out more than we know now.”
Kossowski, together with an assistant state attorney, arrived a few minutes later with a search warrant for the purple Cadillac. Kossowski and Hoke searched the car. The car was leased, not owned, and was very clean. There was nothing in the trunk except for a set of tools. There was a neatly folded map of Miami in the glove compartment and a well-chewed cigar butt in the ashtray. There were no pen or pencil markings on the map.
“This kind of search doesn’t mean much, Hoke,” Kossowski said. “When I get it downtown and take it apart, if there’s a single grain of horse I’ll find it.”
“Take it, then. I think Henderson’s on to something.”
Hoke called the American Hospital and had Henderson paged. He was in the emergency room.
“Bill,” Hoke said, “the car, on a perf
unctory search here, was clean. I told Kossowski to take it downtown for a vacuum job. There were no packages in the trunk. It might be a good idea for you to twist this woman’s arm.”
“I’ve been trying, but all I get is nunca, like it was the only word she knows.”
“Find out what her husband and brother were doing in Miami.”
“They were on vacation, she said.”
“That isn’t good enough.”
“Martinez told me we should threaten to take her out to Krome to the alien detention camp and turn her over to the INS. She has no papers, and as an illegal alien, a few days living with those Haitian women out there might get her to talking.”
“Don’t just threaten her. If she won’t say anything, take her out there and let the INS have her. Tell them she might harm herself, and they can slap her in solitary for a couple of days.”
“As soon as we can get her out of emergency and into a private room, I’ll be able to get tougher. There’s no problem getting her a room—she’s got nine hundred dollars in her purse. The hospital’ll be glad to give her a private room until her money runs out.”
“Whatever you decide, Bill, it’s okay by me. Evans is taking the bodies now, and the forensic crew’s almost finished. I’ll wait around and seal up the townhouse, and check with the morgue later. Then I’ll call you.”
Two hours later, Hoke stopped at a restaurant in Kendall Lakes. He had eaten his usual diet breakfast (one poached egg, one slice of dry toast, and coffee) but nothing since. It was almost four-thirty when he looked over the menu of Roseate Spoon Bill of Fare, a popular short-order restaurant in the rambling shopping center. When it came to eating, Hoke had a major problem. He had lost weight the year before, dropping from 205 to 185 pounds, and he wanted to keep it off, but at the same time he was always hungry. He could stick to his diet for two days at most, and then he went overboard on meat and mashed potatoes. With his new teeth, he could chew almost anything.