Dangerous Ends

by Alex Segura

  “Smart,” Harras said. He seemed less grumpy now that he was in the shade, which was maybe two degrees cooler than the ninety-plus action happening in the sun. “Trying to avoid getting shot again? Good luck with that.”

  “I’m stubborn, if anything,” Pete said.

  “Can we get on with this, seriously?” Harras said. So much for being less grumpy.

  “What’s going on with Varela?” Pete asked.

  “Nothing since we last spoke,” Harras said. “He disappeared. It’s a huge embarrassment. The paper-pushers are bouncing off the walls. Couldn’t think of a better organization to be feeling it than Miami-Dade Corrections. The whole department’s going through a massive external review. I’m sure jobs will be chopped and new paper-pushers will be brought in. But aside from that, nothing. No credible reports or sightings, and they’ve had his daughter and buddy Posada under surveillance since he broke loose, in case he tries to reach out. Nothing. I’ve been trying to keep a low profile too. I can’t just assume the people who went after you didn’t notice I was working the case as well.”

  “What do you think?” Kathy said.

  “About what?”

  “His escape, what it means, your horoscope, anything?” Kathy said. Harras and Kathy weren’t super-simpatico, but Pete figured that was because they were a lot alike—no-bullshit alphas who wanted all the answers. Ten minutes ago.

  “I think he’s long gone,” Harras said. “And he’d been planning it for a long time, stringing everyone along into building this campaign to prove his innocence, including his daughter, Posada, us. It was all cloud cover while he figured out how to escape, and I’m still trying to nail down just how extensive his network got to be while he was in prison.”

  “Network?” Pete asked. “Like Los Enfermos?”

  “Yes,” Harras said. “That’s a built-in network of people. This kind of an escape doesn’t just happen with a spoon and a hole in the prison laundry room. Varela has people under his thumb who helped him get out and are now helping him stay hidden.”

  “You think Maya is involved?” Pete asked. He hadn’t told Maya he was back. He wasn’t sure where they stood—if anywhere.

  “I doubt it,” Harras said. “She’s smart, but she doesn’t strike me as the type of person able to orchestrate this kind of thing, or to take part in it. She’s been quiet—even with the press hounding her. But she did come in and talk to the police, which was a show of good faith.”

  “We’re going to pick up the case again,” Pete said.

  “What case is that?” Harras said, a humorless laugh escaping his mouth.

  “Varela. Whether he did kill his wife or not,” Kathy said. “That’s what we were hired to figure out.”

  “You two are incredible, you know that?” Harras said. “There is no Varela ‘case’ anymore. He’s gone. He broke out of prison. If that’s not proof of guilt, I don’t know what is. Also, do you think his daughter still wants you two on retainer after that disappearing act you pulled? You’re lucky she didn’t sue you to get whatever she paid back.”

  “That may be, but someone tried to kill me, and whoever wanted that to happen figured out we were in Titusville,” Pete said. “And I think that’s connected to Carmen Varela.”

  “If you asked me to list the people who want you dead, I’d run out of paper,” Harras said, standing up. “Anything else you want to clue me in on, aside from your T-ville escapades, which I’m already tired of hearing about?”

  “We want your help,” Kathy said, looking up at Harras from her seat. “We need to pool our resources and figure this out.”

  “You say that like I have all this other work coming in,” Harras said. “I’m retired, remember? I’ll help, but we have to set up some ground rules. The kind you ignored when this was more official. Understand?”

  “Not really,” Pete said.

  “Don’t play stupid,” Harras said. “No more flying solo. No more surprise interviews. No more detours. We all talk, we’re all on the same page. That’s how it has to run. Let me know when you find anything and I’ll do the same. That’d make my life a bit easier, grading on a steep curve. I can at least try to run interference for you.”

  “You got it,” Pete said.

  “Also, you both need to be careful,” Harras said. “This isn’t just a pretend threat out there. There are people—bad people—out to get you. I’d think twice before you leave the house. This isn’t funny ha-ha wearing a wig and sunglasses shit either. They’re pros. And they want to get paid.”

  Harras motioned for Pete to get up.

  “Follow me to my car, I’ve got something for you,” Harras said.

  “A present?” Pete said. Kathy waved limply as they walked away.

  “Depends.”

  Harras opened the backseat of his car and pulled out a box of files. His back blocked Pete from seeing what was in it. He turned around with a single file in hand and passed it to Pete. It was heavy and held together by a few rubber bands.

  “What is this?” Pete asked.

  “Don’t open it yet,” Harras said. “Do you have somewhere we can sit for a while?”

  “Sure,” Pete said, heading back to the house. He waved at Kathy as they opened the front door. “I’ll be out in a bit.”

  “Whatever,” she said.

  Pete made a quick right and another right into a small office. There was a desk adjacent to the far wall with two chairs nearby. Pete placed the file folder on top of the desk and sat down. There was a small TV on a rickety-looking stand. The Dolphins game was on, muted. It was the first quarter of the early afternoon game. They were losing to the Bills.

  “Okay, are you going to tell me any more about this before I crack it open?” Pete asked.

  “That was your father’s,” Harras said.

  “Okay,” Pete said again. “Are you going to give me breadcrumbs or just spill?”

  “It’s a case file, sort of. Open it up,” Harras said, closing the office door before he took the free chair.

  Pete took off the rubber bands that held the file together and opened the folder. He felt a rush of emotion as he flipped through the first batch of handwritten notebook pages. His father’s penmanship was clear and blocky, unlike Pete’s sloppy cursive. The notes were meticulous and concise, a series of journal-like entries chronicling a murder investigation that seemed familiar to Pete, like a name he couldn’t put a face to. Years ago, while tracking the mob killer known as the Silent Death, Pete had discovered his father’s case files, tucked away in the back of Pete’s own car. He thought that was all he’d ever have, in terms of his father’s work. This was an unexpected addition.

  “How’d you get this?” Pete asked. “I thought I had all his files, before his house was destroyed—but I’ve never seen this.”

  “It’s not an official file, so it probably wasn’t with the ones you had, I guess,” Harras said. “It’s not a case your father was assigned to, but something he was doing on his own time. Whatever little of that he had, with you running him ragged.”

  Pete smiled a bit. He’d been a tough kid to handle.

  “Why would he be working on a murder case off the books, though?” Pete said. He flipped through a few more pages in the file and found his answer. Written in large letters above another sheet of notes were the words Who killed Diego Fernandez?

  “Do you remember your grandfather?” Harras said.

  “Not really, he died when I was a kid,” Pete said. “My dad had just made detective. They said it was a heart attack.”

  “Sorry to break it to you,” Harras said, reaching for the file and flipping to a later page, “but your granddad died from multiple gunshot wounds. It happened on your father’s front lawn, what would eventually become your front lawn before it went boom-boom a while back.”

  Pete felt himself going back farther than he’d allowed himself to remember in a long time. The memories were cloudy. A scream from outside the house. Rushing to the front window and seeing
his father hunched over a body. The smell of burnt rubber and smoke. Being pulled away. Days later, his father in a dark suit. He’d been a few years old, so the memories felt like dream fragments—vague, undefined. But as he cobbled them together in his mind, it began to make sense.

  “He was killed in the middle of the week, on a hot summer day that was probably a lot like this one,” Harras said. “The only reason I even found it was because I spent a lot of time researching gangland murders—like the one you almost became—while you two were off hiding, and this popped up. Looks like your father left it with his partner, Carlos Broche, when he retired. He knew he couldn’t chase it off the books. After Broche died, his wife turned it in to the PD. Then I found it.”

  Harras waited a beat, his eyes on Pete.

  “Your grandfather’s death wasn’t just a robbery or accidental homicide,” Harras said.

  Pete clutched the case file tighter.

  “He was assassinated,” Harras said. “And your father spent whatever time he had trying to find the man who killed him.”

  They spent the rest of the afternoon going over the file, pages stacked and spread out on the small desk, a few other piles of paper around the room. The total file wasn’t large, but it was a lot of information to digest. For Pete, it was also something that ran counter to the story he’d believed for years, at least when it came to his grandfather.

  His grandfather hadn’t spent a lot of time with Pete as a kid. The older man had moved into their house for the final year or two of his life, which overlapped with the first few years of Pete’s own. The file had explained why he moved in. Diego, the owner of a fledgling talk-radio station, had been attacked while leaving his office. It had been written off as a mugging at the time, though nothing was stolen. His father’s notes told another story: that Diego Fernandez had been attacked by an agent for Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, an act of vengeance meant to punish Diego for his “betrayal” of the regime. Castro was no stranger to political hits or violence against old enemies, Pete knew, but the method of this attack jumped out at him.

  “Seems like my grandfather wasn’t very popular,” Pete said.

  “Not with Castro, no,” Harras said. “Or his agents in Miami.”

  “He was stabbed,” Pete said.

  “No, he was shot,” Harras said.

  “Yes, when he died,” Pete said. “But before that—according to the file—he’d been stabbed. Outside his office.”

  “Where’d he work?” Harras asked, not turning from the stack of papers he was looking at, his back to Pete.

  “A radio station,” Pete said. “He owned one of those anti-Castro talk-radio setups, like WQBA. It was late and he was leaving.”

  “Gimme the details.”

  “Huge knife wound to his stomach, he barely survived,” Pete said. Deep knife wound. Click, click. “Los Enfermos—they were a political gang, no?”

  “Yeah, to a point,” Harras said, turning to look at Pete. “Pro-Castro. This fits.”

  “The stabbing fits too,” Pete said. “Maybe they tried to off him their usual way.”

  “Then waited for the right time to finish the job,” Harras said.

  “There isn’t a lot on the actual gunman,” Pete said. “It’s hard to really even confirm that the guy who stabbed him at work was the same guy who killed him. But I think it’s a safe bet.”

  “Yeah, the people in the neighborhood said the guy doing the shooting was pretty young,” Harras said, “from what I remember reading. But that’s it. The car he drove—lots of people said it was a beige Oldsmobile, but that doesn’t narrow it down. Everything else, from the guy driving to the direction it sped off toward, didn’t really materialize. The evidence points to someone working for Castro’s government, though, trying to take down one of the more vocal and successful exiles in Miami. It was a win for him, even if he couldn’t take credit.”

  “How fucked am I?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “With Los Enfermos,” Pete said. “I need to get out of their sights. What do I need to do?”

  “Well, they’ve tried to kill you twice—that we know of,” Harras said. “They’ve tracked you down to the armpit of the state and back. I’m not sure this is something that can be resolved peacefully.”

  Pete ran a hand through his hair. He was tired. Normally, he’d have a target—a husband who needed to be followed, a killer’s patterns that needed to be analyzed—this was an entire gang of killers with the shared goal of wanting Pete dead. Were they really taking orders from Maya’s father?

  “These guys don’t quit,” Harras said. “They’re blood brothers and they run the streets here. They do what their boss says, they kill who they’re told to kill, and they skim and steal and threaten when they need, just to keep things rolling. It’s been this way for a long time. You’re just the latest target.”

  MAYA PULLED out her cell phone as she walked out of the Posada & Associates offices. She tapped it a few times and brought it to her ear as she made her way toward the parking lot on the building’s east side. It took her a moment to register that Pete was blocking her path. She muttered something into her phone before dropping it into her large purse. Her attire was no-nonsense—dark blue pantsuit, her hair tied back, not a lot of makeup.

  “Pete,” she said.

  “Hey,” Pete said. He hadn’t thought this visit through, he realized. His mind was all over the place following his meeting with Harras and the revelation that his own grandfather might have been a victim of Los Enfermos. The news had served as a stark reminder of the bloody past that still haunted Cuba-U.S. relations. Los Enfermos, in addition to being a cabal of bloodthirsty gangbangers, were also an elite hit squad, serving Castro and his lieutenants. While it did seem like the last vestiges of the Cold War were melting away, the murderous orders from Cuba’s now-retired dictator were more recent than people would like to think.

  Pete was sporting dark sunglasses and a cap pulled low, his best attempt at going incognito on short notice. He hated the idea of not being able to walk the streets of his hometown freely, but with a bounty on his head he also had a strong desire to avoid another run-in with Los Enfermos. He wasn’t sure he’d survive.

  “You’re back,” she said. “I tried to call you.”

  “I know,” Pete said. “I’m sorry. We had to go.”

  “Is that what you do?” Maya said. “Pick up and leave in the middle of the night?”

  “No,” Pete said. “But I had to in this case.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re alive,” she said, tilting her head, as if trying to ensure it was Pete. “But—look, whatever. I know we didn’t have anything real, or whatever the hip term for it is, but you should have called. Even if personally you didn’t feel like you needed to, you guys were working for me. What the fuck? Did Harras know where you went?”

  “He knew we were fine,” Pete said.

  “Great, great,” she said. “Guess he couldn’t be bothered to give me that heads-up either? Were we not paying you enough?”

  “I’m sorry,” Pete said. “I came by to let you know we’re back. We’re okay and we want to keep working on this. We just had to go away for a while. I didn’t feel safe here. Hell, I still don’t—so please keep it under your hat that we’re even back. But we want to finish the job we started.”

  “Is this a joke?” Maya said. “Pete, my dad is gone. He broke out of jail. It’s pretty clear whatever hope we had of proving him innocent disappeared into the night with him. There’s no point in investigating anything anymore.”

  “Stuff is still going on,” Pete said. He was looking around them. “Can we talk somewhere more private?”

  Maya looked at her watch. It was close to three in the afternoon. She started walking toward the parking lot. Pete followed.

  “I get that you were injured and scared for your life,” Maya said. “I was scared too, Pete. You were shot in my house. For all I know, they were gunning for me too. Thank God, seriously,
that you were there. It’s insane. So, on some level, I understand why you had to run. But what makes you think I’d even want to hire you and Kathy after all this? There’s no work to be done and, mitigating circumstances aside, I can’t trust that you’ll stick around to finish the job. I don’t hire a lot of private investigators, so I may not know how this works, but I don’t think that’s it.”

  “It’s not how it works,” Pete said. “Let me explain.”

  Maya reached her car. She opened the driver side door and shook her head before looking back at Pete. “Get in.”

  “SO THIS Rick Blanco is somehow connected to my dad?”

  Maya’s eyebrows crashed together. She seemed confused. Pete was not doing a great job of explaining, well, anything. They were sitting in a booth at Swensen’s—an ice cream and burger place on South Dixie Highway. They’d driven for a while, mostly in silence, until Maya blurted out a desire for ice cream, fries, and a good burger. Swensen’s delivered that with gusto.

  “I’m not sure yet,” Pete said, grabbing a fry from Maya’s plate. Pete’s was empty. “But the guys who killed him—killed Rick—one of them tried to kill me. Nestor Guzman. He’s dead. But his buddy, Gus, is part of Los Enfermos.”

  “It’s almost like those guys don’t like you much, huh?” Maya said.

  They laughed. Pete felt some relief. They’d gotten through Maya’s understandable anger over Pete and Kathy’s disappearance and settled back into something resembling a friendship. Or so he hoped. Maya took a sip from her strawberry shake.

  “So are you and Kathy on complete lockdown?” Maya asked.

  “Yeah, basically,” Pete said. “I shouldn’t even be here. We’ve got a house in South Miami Heights—my friend Dave let us crash there until all of this gets sorted.”

  “I can’t imagine what that must be like,” she said. “Not being able to even walk outside. Have you learned anything else about these guys since you snuck away?”