Miami Burn (Titus Book 1)

by John D. Patten

  Nothing I didn’t already know. Sanford Preston sent to prison for securities fraud. Lorena Preston in a structured program at West Palm Behavioral Research Institute. Jake is only briefly mentioned.

  I ran a search for Allie Hayes. I found her Facebook page. Her picture was the same one that had stuck in my mind, the one with the glowing eyes. I right-clicked and downloaded it. Last post on both Facebook and Instagram was three months ago. I was in a cell at the time, counting the hours until my release. Not much else to learn there besides a handful of pictures. College friends. High school friends. I took screenshots of them, too.

  I found Allie on Snapchat, but have no idea how to use Snapchat. I’m not up on the newer social media platforms, nor do I want to be.

  I ran a search for Rexford J. Hayes. Typical politician. Silver hair, big gut, dishonest smile. Links to FoxNews and CNN interviews full of the usual empty promises and blather. Ran for Senate six years ago and lost. Up and running anew, attacking the woman who beat him last time with a variety of accusations.

  I had a flashback to when I was a cop arresting a guy in a ripped green tank top with a hairy belly. He had been tying up and raping his own daughter for six months. He begged me to shoot him instead of bringing him in. Somebody told me he died in prison—badly.

  Take away the tank top and put that guy in a suit and he would look somewhat like Rexford J. Hayes.

  I slammed the laptop shut, tossed the remaining half of stale whatever-it-is sandwich into the garbage can, and finished my bourbon. I poured another and sipped it.

  The world took on a nice glow. The old dripping air conditioner became an artsy photograph. The dancing palm frond silhouettes became the backdrop to an old noir movie.

  That reminded me of something. I booted up the Chromebook again and did a search for Tom Langston, the failed private investigator Pam Hayes hired before. I found a death notice from two years ago. I dug deeper and discovered a news article. Found dead in his car in the parking lot of a Coral Gables strip mall. One bullet to the head. Clean and neat.

  Hm.

  What did you uncover, Tom? Was it related to Allie Hayes or was it a completely different case you were working on?

  I set Allie’s picture as my home screen. I stared into her glowing eyes for a good long minute.

  I shut the computer down again and sipped some more bourbon.

  If Paulie could get me into Sinz, I could look around for Allie. Sure, at thirty-six I’m way too old for those places, but I’m off for a couple of days so why not, right?

  Shit, wait. I have no nightclub clothes. Just a handful of Army-Navy store basics. I didn’t pack before driving here and I didn’t plan on staying.

  Hm, I could call Pam Hayes and tell her I’ll do it, ask for a retainer, and buy some high-end nightclub clothes so I can search for Allie.

  Then what? Show Allie’s picture around and ask? I can’t really think of much else to do. Just watch and look and hope I’ll run into Allie or Jake, talk to them, and that’s that.

  The bourbon hit me full force. I finished it, dove onto the airbed, and closed my eyes.

  I was half-asleep when I heard a voice.

  “You’re wrong this time,” said Ariel.

  I jumped up, my eyes open. Nothing in the room but me and the steamy air.

  I could have sworn I heard her voice. But it must be the booze. Or my imagination.

  “Wrong about what, Ariel?” I said out loud, but there was no reply.

  I closed my eyes and went to sleep.

  SIX

  A BLACK MERCEDES PULLED OVER TO THE ENTRANCE to Lincoln Road Mall on Alton Road at precisely 11:00 a.m.

  Out stepped Chester in a black suit and cap. He sneered at me again. I smiled the most charming and pleasant smile I could muster.

  “You might want to go somewhere private before you open that,” he said as he handed me a thick manila envelope. Then, he turned back to the car.

  I barely had a chance to say good morning before the door slammed shut and the car was back out in Alton Road traffic. Chester really likes me.

  Earlier that morning, I had looked up Pam Hayes’ cell phone number on an information site and called her, accepting the job. She was effusive in her thankfulness and said she had to attend a charity golf tournament and wouldn’t be able to meet me, but she’d send Chester with my retainer.

  Seeing as I’m not a licensed private investigator, I had no idea how much to ask for. So I factored in the Mercedes with color-matched chauffeur, the Gables Estates address in Coral Gables, and the rich politician husband. I said an amount I thought was high. She agreed without flinching. I probably should have aimed higher. Story of my life.

  My second phone call was to someone I’ve been reluctant to talk to since our last encounter, but I figured she might be able to help me. She agreed to meet me at Starbucks at the Lincoln Road Mall, which is why I’m here.

  And to buy a suit.

  At Starbucks, I bought a large coffee and sat outside at a table under a green umbrella. I opened the manila envelope and looked inside. My heart skipped a beat. The last time I saw that much cash in one place was on a drug bust in a low-rise tenement when I was a cop.

  Damn, Pam Hayes kept her word. There was double the amount I asked for inside.

  Holy shit.

  I closed the envelope gingerly and looked around. Nobody seemed to notice my sudden fortune. I stuck it in my back pocket. Cash like that is trouble.

  While I waited, I tried to forget about the cash and will my hangover away by watching the swarthy outdoor sales guy with thick black hair in a loose white linen shirt from the overpriced beauty boutique across the way as he preyed on passers-by. He had great instincts. He could pick a wealthy tourist out of the crowd with ease.

  “Where are you from?” would begin his pitch to the unsuspecting sap who would take the bait by answering. Then, he would say, “Oh, I have something for you!” and disappear into the shop for some sort of expensive-looking sample. If the tourist was still there when he came out with the dinky “free gift”, he was halfway to a sale.

  And then I saw her.

  There are beautiful women everywhere in South Beach. Probably more than in the rest of the world combined.

  But Detective Sergeant Sofia De Jesus-Montero of the Miami-Dade Police Department has the unique ability to make the universe dissolve around her. I felt a click in my solar plexus as she neared me. Same click I felt my first night in Miami when she pulled me over for a broken taillight—and then talked me out of murdering a man.

  Sofia was in an all-black pantsuit today. Come to think of it, she’s always in an all-black pantsuit. I wondered if she had a closet full of them. Her thick black hair was piled up on top her head. Dark sunglasses. Zero makeup, not that she would ever need any. Thick lips, skin the color of burnt amber. I could just make out the bulge of the gun on her well-rounded hip.

  “You know your black pantsuit screams cop, don’t you?” I said as she sat down. My voice echoed in my head, stinging my hangover. I sipped some more coffee. It tasted like jet fuel, only stronger.

  “What do you want, Titus?” she said.

  “I mean, why not just wear a uniform? It’d be more subtle.”

  “You look like shit.”

  “Ouch. Nice to see you too, Detective Sergeant.”

  She stood up. “Well, if that’s all—”

  This wasn’t going at all like the movie I had played in my mind.

  “Sit,” I said. “Please. Coffee?” She shook her head and sat again. “Okay, thanks for meeting me.”

  “I was in the area when you called,” she said. “I have to get back. Make it quick.”

  “All right,” I said, trying not to admire the way the fabric of her pants bunched above her thighs. “I have a favor to ask.”

  “You owe me, not the other way around.”

  “Fine. Then, I’ll owe you two.” I flipped my phone around to a picture of Jake Preston. “Know him?”

 
She removed her sunglasses. I fell into the sea of her big brown eyes for a few heartbeats and then swam back out. She studied the photo of the good-looking blond twenty-two year old. No expression.

  “No,” she said. “Are we done?”

  “Name’s Jake Preston,” I said. “From a wealthy family, but he’s hit hard times. Dad went to prison for securities fraud, mother is in a mental hospital. Only child.”

  “Sanford Preston. It was all over the news a couple years ago. Ponzi scheme similar to Bernie Madoff. Mother went insane rather than get a job.”

  “Bitch to go from billionaire to homeless.”

  “What’s Jake Preston to you?”

  I glanced over at the sales guy. He was pitching a woman in a large yellow hat carrying a Zara bag.

  “I’m, uh, helping a woman find her missing daughter,” I said. “She seems to believe the daughter is with this Jake kid.”

  Sofia’s eyes narrowed and her jaw tightened.

  “You’d better not be doing any kind of amateur detective work,” she said. “Leave that to us.”

  “Because Miami-Dade has the time and the budget to find every missing kid?” I said.

  “Because that is our job, not yours. You’re not even licensed.”

  “Nor approved. Nor stamped. I have no certifications, no authorization. But as I recall, you found me to be quite efficient not too long ago when I helped you get back to plainclothes. By the way, what were you on uniform probation for anyway?”

  Her stare veered somewhere between Cruella deVille and Satan. Most men probably piss their pants when she does that, but I held my own.

  She studied the picture of Jake Preston again.

  “Got one of the girl?” she said.

  I turned the phone back and showed her the montage of blonde hair, big eyes, and colorful tight dresses.

  “Seen her?” I said.

  “Nope,” she said. “Big city. What’s she into?”

  “SoBe club scene, apparently.”

  “Looks about right. Bet she’s popular.”

  “Safe assumption.”

  “How about a private investigator named Tom Langston?” I said. “Ring a bell?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Pam Hayes hired him to find Allie the last time she ran away when she was in high school.”

  “So?”

  “Tom Langston turned up dead two years ago. Smells like a pro job. One bullet to the head in a Coral Gables parking lot.”

  “Private investigators turn up dead sometimes.”

  “I read that in The Total Idiot’s Guide to Becoming a Private Investigator for Fun and Profit.”

  I caught a whiff of Sofia’s perfume and momentarily got lost in a thread of black hair that tumbled around away from her head.

  “Titus,” she said, “I don’t know what to tell you. I’m OCS, not missing rich girls unit.”

  “OCS?” I said.

  “Organized Crime Section.”

  I laughed. “Do you ever bust through a door and shout ‘Freeze, Miami Vice!?”

  She stood up and put her sunglasses back on. “Goodbye, Titus.”

  “Oh, come on,” I said. “I was joking. I know you have no white suits with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows.”

  She frowned at me. “You know, asshole, I did you a favor the night you drove into town by preventing you from committing a felony. I don’t know why. I should have just fucking busted you. That doesn’t make us friends. My official advice: drop this.”

  “I love it when you use the word ‘fucking’, officer.”

  “Next time, I will arrest you,” she said. “That’s a promise.”

  “Can’t wait,” I said. “See you then.”

  I caught myself looking at her rear as she strode away, but forced myself to look away. My eyes landed on the sales guy. A man he was trying to stop flipped him off.

  I moved to get up, but Sofia had walked back, her eyes invisible behind the big black frames. She sat back down and so did I.

  “I shouldn’t tell you this,” she said, “because you’re a dickhead and you’re going to screw it up anyway and it’s going to come back and bite me, but you might want to talk to the Reverend.”

  “Who, pray tell, is the Reverend?” I said.

  “He’s a, uh, self-styled savior of lost young souls. He runs the Apostolic Rescue Mission Church.”

  I chuckled. “A preacher? In South Beach?”

  “He’s—more than a preacher.”

  “Okay. Do you think he might know where Allie is? I can’t picture her at church on Sunday.”

  “He might be able to help. That’s all I’m going to say. Just talk to him.”

  “Maybe I’ll talk to him.”

  She stood up again.

  “You, uh, may not want to use my name,” she said. “The Reverend and I, uh, have had some conflicts of interest from time to time.”

  “Sounds like a reasonable fellow,” I said. “Where is this church?” She told me. I scratched my chin. “Walked by there a few times. Never seen a church.”

  “Look harder.”

  She walked away. This time, I stared at her rear until she and it were out of view.

  SEVEN

  I TRIED THE BIG DEPARTMENT STORE FIRST. THE GUY working Men’s Suits today was named Bernie and looked maybe a hundred and fifty. While I’m sure Bernie is a fantastic guy, I feared the last time he went to a club, Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra were the headliners.

  So, I drifted over to a place across the way that resembled a glass spaceship about to blast off. The skinny salesperson over here was a blue-haired boy in a three-sizes-too-small suit that rode halfway up his leg. His name was David (pronounced Da-veed) and was maybe a little too excited to help me.

  “I want to look cooler than Don Johnson,” I said.

  “Who’s that?” he said.

  “Never mind.”

  While he showed me the latest styles, a girl in a black cocktail dress arrived to offer me champagne, which I declined. Nice to live on the other side, if only briefly.

  David tried selling me a purple suit that looked like there were little lights embedded in the fabric, but I went with a more traditional navy blue linen, a black silk shirt, and black Oxfords. I thought he was going to have a stroke when I opened the manila envelope to pay in cash.

  The tailoring was going to take a couple of hours, so I figured I’d grab a bite to eat and then visit Sofia’s mysterious “Reverend.” Should be interesting, if only to see why she thinks he’s worth talking to.

  I walked past my bank and thought maybe I should put the money in my account, but an alarm bell in my head told me not to. Not sure why.

  As I walked down Washington Ave, I came to the Art Deco Supermarket, which I can never pass without going in to buy a hot Dominican meal. Today I selected pork ribs, rice, and maduros for five dollars. Can’t beat it.

  I know only bits of Spanish, but I got enough of the conversation between the cashier and the sixteen-ish girl ahead of me in line to understand that the girl was short a few dollars. She told the cashier to take the chicken off her order, but I stepped in with a five-dollar bill.

  “No, no,” said the girl, and then something in Spanish too fast for me to follow. She was clearly embarrassed, almost in tears.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I just had a huge payday. Really.”

  “No,” she said, “I no take your money. It’s my stupid fault.”

  “Hey! Take it. It’s all good. I’m serious. I made some extra this week.”

  She flashed a beautiful but shy smile at me and said, “Thank you. Give your phone number to me. I make sure you get paid back.”

  “No, it’s a gift. I insist.”

  She touched my arm. “You are good man. Thank you. Dios te bendiga. I mean, God bless you.”

  Ah Titus, you superhero you. Captain Cash to the rescue. Slayer of financial dragons, savior of young girls everywhere. Got to admit, it felt good. I haven’t been able to do anything e
ven close to that in a long time, and it was only five bucks. Take that, Pam Hayes.

  I paid for my own meal, walked to my apartment, and ate it. Right on cue, my upstairs neighbors started up Act One again. Time of day be damned, Titus must be annoyed at all hours. But the meal was so delicious I was able to ignore them. The final stabs of my hangover dissolved.

  I thought about skipping Sofia’s advice and was about to walk back up to the suit store, but as always, my curiosity got the better of me. I walked the short distance to the address she gave me.

  EIGHT

  IF THERE’S ONE TYPE OF BUILDING THAT LOOKS OUT OF place in South Beach, it’s a church. If there’s one actual building that looks more out of place than any other building, it’s the Apostolic Rescue Mission Church.

  God must be on its side, that’s for sure. Meaning it’s made of wood, a rare building material down here due to frequent hurricanes. Looks like it’s survived maybe one or ten, some older panels replaced with newer-looking ones.

  Peeling white paint, a high pointy roof with fancy Gothic bargeboard, and rotting front steps led up to a big oak door. A relatively new sign in block letters read:

  YOU’LL NEVER FIND ANOTHER LOVE LIKE THE LORD

  ALL WELCOME SUN 10:00 AM

  THE REV LUTHER WIL I AMS

  A voice in my head told me to forget about this side trip and I was nearly about to walk away when I heard a loud crashing sound to the right of the building, followed by several obscenities.

  Out of curiosity, I crossed the tiny yard and over to the side to see a large bald black man in white coveralls and a black boy about seventeen years old in an oversize t-shirt and basketball shorts. The boy had a tall red afro. I recognized him.

  “I’m sorry,” said the boy to the man. “I didn’t mean to do it.”

  “It’s all right, son,” said the large man, his back to me. “It’s just one gallon of paint. It can be replaced.”

  “I told you I’m no good at this. I suck. This is bullshit.”

  “Stop cursing on God’s property and listen to me. We all God’s children. We all make mistakes. Now, keep on painting the shutters with the green and tomorrow I get a fresh can of white. Remember what Jesus said, ‘Go and sin no more.’ That means we all make mistakes, but mistakes can be forgiven.”