by Alex Segura
“What the shit?” Maldonado said as he stumbled forward, his legs trying to avoid Pete.
“We have to talk, Juan Carlos,” Pete said.
It took Maldonado a second to fully register who was there. His expression evolved from frightened to enraged. Maybe he was expecting someone else—someone with more than a conversation on his mind.
“You again?” Maldonado said. “I thought I told you to leave me alone? You’re not a great listener, Fernandez.”
“Guess not,” Pete said, standing up, looming over Maldonado from the top porch step. “Are you going to invite me in or should we air your dirty laundry outside, so the entire block can hear?”
Maldonado looked around. The streets were quiet and it was late. He ran a hand across his face, as if he were trying to shake off the evening’s drinks. Finally, he motioned to the house with his chin.
“Inside,” he said. “Sure, let’s talk.”
Pete was far from the style police, but one could only describe Maldonado’s sense of interior decor as tropical and tacky. The walls were painted a loud orange and featured movie posters—mostly mediocre gangster films—and garish religious paintings, with the exception of a massive map of Cuba on the far side of the large living room. Maldonado motioned for Pete to take a seat on the black leather couch that was stationed across from a huge flat-screen TV set.
“Let’s make this quick,” Maldonado said. “I’m tired and I have work tomorrow.”
“Seems like you had a rough night,” Pete said, sitting on the edge of the couch.
“None of your business,” he said. “What do you want?”
“I want to know how much Los Enfermos paid you to turn on your own family,” Pete said. He watched Maldonado’s expression, which remained hard and unchanged except for a darting look.
“Who told you that?”
Pete ignored the question
“I guess I just find it weird that someone like you—a guy who ran an online grocery app that went belly-up six months after launch—can afford to live in a pretty nice house like this one,” Pete said. “And not be hounded by the collection agencies that forced you to file for bankruptcy. Maybe I missed the story where you announced a new venture that’s been successful?”
Maldonado remained silent.
“Not to mention the nice car you drive, the country club that you’re a member of,” Pete said. “I could go on.”
“So what?” Maldonado said. “I have money. Just because something failed doesn’t mean I can’t get back on my feet.”
“It’s funny,” Pete said. “Because it seems like your fortune started to improve right around the time you testified against your brother-in-law. Weird, right?”
“You got nothing on me,” Maldonado said, a sneer creeping onto his sweaty face. “Now get the fuck out of my house before I call the cops.”
“Maybe you should,” Pete said. “I’m sure they’d be interested in looking at some files I got from the office of Rick Blanco.”
Pete thought he saw Maldonado’s jaw drop for a second, but chalked it up to wishful thinking. Still, the man’s entire demeanor changed from blustery bravado to a more subdued sense of defeat, a ringside announcer gone quiet.
“Remember Rick Blanco, JC?” Pete said.
“No idea who you’re talking about,” Maldonado said, but it was clear he was lying, the words coming too fast, as if he’d prepped himself to say that when Rick’s name first came up.
“Really? That’s funny,” Pete said. “He sure knew you. Hell, he knew your bank account info. He knew enough about you to wire you a lot of money on the regular for a long time.”
Maldonado’s eyes widened. The information had started as a hunch for Pete, which required an awkward call to Emily, asking her to check her dead husband’s scattered records. But it was there, albeit camouflaged as investments toward Maldonado’s failed grocery business.
“Yeah, he was your money man,” Pete said. “And, well, he’s dead, as I’m sure you know. I don’t think that’s affected your Thug Chic lifestyle, but it will soon. Especially if the right people get to see some of these wire transfer forms.”
“So what?” Maldonado said. “You with the IRS now? You think I’m gonna go to jail for unreported income? Rick Blanco was just a patsy, moving piles of cash. There’s no proof of anything.”
Pete let out a slow, thoughtful sigh. He was enjoying this. Yanking Maldonado down from his high horse to wrestle in the dirt for a while. He just needed to deliver a final blow and crack the coconut open.
“There is proof, though, that’s what I’m trying to tell you, consorte,” Pete said, standing up and walking toward Maldonado. “I wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t. And it’s not just proof you took money, Juan Carlos. I mean, who wouldn’t, right? Free cash? It’s where the money came from that’ll get people excited. Shell accounts that can easily be tied to Los Enfermos, and a timeline that happens to dovetail really nicely with your game-changing testimony during the Varela trial. Coincidence? Sounds like big evidence to me. The kind of evidence that might lead to a new trial for Varela.”
“Varela’s gone,” Maldonado said.
“Sure is,” Pete said. “Still, I dunno, call me crazy, but I doubt your bosses want that kind of evidence out there in the press, Varela or no Varela.”
Maldonado closed his eyes, his breathing growing louder.
“What do you want?” he said, almost too softly for Pete to hear.
“Who is he?” Pete asked. “The man behind it all.”
“I’d be dead if I told you,” Maldonado said. “Even if I did know.”
Maldonado turned around and took a few steps toward the large Cuba painting. He placed his hands on his hips and cursed to himself.
“I didn’t know what was happening right away,” Maldonado said, his voice almost pleading, hopeful that Pete would understand. “But I was in trouble. This stupid business was failing. It was too late. The idea of ordering groceries online was old, I was just playing catch-up. I was bleeding cash. I had to go bankrupt and hope I could keep my house and car and start again. But I’m not young. Starting again with no idea what to do is not what I wanted. Then this guy comes to me and says he knows someone who wants to invest, who wants to help me get back on my feet. At first I thought he meant in the company, which would have been fine. But eventually I just start getting these envelopes of cash and I have, like, no fucking clue what to do with them. I kept pressing the guy for more info on the business proposition he promised, but it never came. ‘We’ll be in touch,’ he keeps telling me. So, in the meantime, I’m paying off my debts. I gave up on the business. Who needs it when the money is coming in, right? Then I’m buying new clothes. Then I’m buying a house. It was so surreal I just went with it. It was like a dream. But then the call came. The one I knew was coming sooner or later. They sent that guy, Rick, to meet me. He told me his bosses had a strong interest in Varela going down. That he was a bad man. That there was a lot of money in it for me, and, that, hey, we’d given you a lot of money already. I’d already made the deal by spending the money. They owned me.”
“What did you say?”
“I’m not total garbage, man,” Maldonado said. “I pushed back. Said I could pay it all back, that I wasn’t like that. I don’t do my family like that. But the truth was, I couldn’t pay any of it back. It was gone. I was living paycheck to paycheck, working a make-believe job. Then they stopped the money. Now I was really sunk. My house was about to get foreclosed on. The debts I paid were coming back. All of a sudden, my old business partners were looking to sue me. I was drowning. So I took the lifeline. I thought I was saved. That’s when they hit me with the big ask, though.”
“And that’s when you found out who was behind it?”
“It’s not who, but what,” Maldonado said, turning to Pete now, his eyes red, face stricken.
“Los Enfermos,” Pete said.
Maldonado nodded.
“How do you even look at y
ourself?” Pete said. He’d met terrible people over the years and often tried to turn the other cheek, to find the strain of good that still remained. He was having trouble doing that here, or even wanting to understand Maldonado’s reasons for destroying so many lives.
“I don’t,” Maldonado said. “I can’t.”
“You abandoned your entire family,” Pete said. “Varela, Maya, everyone.”
“Life is all about tough choices, man,” Maldonado said, more to himself than to Pete.
He walked to the door and opened it.
“Go ahead and post those documents,” he said. “I don’t care anymore. I don’t care if they kill me either. It’s not worth it.”
Pete left without saying anything else. The zingers he had ready to fire would do no more damage than Maldonado’s own self-loathing. Pete was fine with that.
He heard the door click shut behind him as he walked down the street toward his car. He dialed Jackie.
“I need another favor.”
IF SOMEONE had told Pete he would be dressed in black, sitting in Kathy’s car somewhere in Lauderhill at two in the morning, he probably would have doubted them. But that’s what was happening. Not surprisingly, Harras passed on joining this particular excursion.
The bright, flickering Storage Extreme sign loomed over the wide expanse of garage-like units. The place looked decrepit—half the storage areas were empty, doors open and welcoming vagrants and animals to set up shop. The parking lot they were sitting in was equally desolate. Pete wasn’t sure what, aside from the lack of care, was “extreme” about the place. He turned to Kathy.
“It’s number three fifteen,” she said, checking her iPhone.
“Is this what people refer to as a ‘career low’?”
“Oh, stop with the whining,” she said. “Do you think I want to be on the news for breaking into a cheap-ass Broward storage facility? But here we are. Living the dream.”
“Why do you hate Broward?”
“I don’t, I just needed something to be angry about,” she said, putting a black skullcap on. “Suit up, partner. Let’s break the law.”
PETE HAD gone back home after his confrontation with Maldonado. It was early enough that Kathy was still around and asleep. He’d barged into her room, woken her up, and recapped the conversation. Maldonado’s confession cemented—at least in Pete’s view—that Varela was not the one pulling the strings of Los Enfermos, even if it didn’t explain away why he’d broken out of jail or whether he was actually innocent of his wife’s murder. The fact that Maldonado had been bought off was enough information for a retrial on its own.
Kathy tried to be enthusiastic, but also put a cap on Pete’s jubilation—there was still work to be finished, and she’d done some research of her own while he’d been talking to Maldonado. She’d focused her energies on the storage slip they’d discovered in Whitelaw’s office, which happened to be in Arturo Pelegrin and Cain Samael’s names. It had sent her down a research rabbit hole that she’d just climbed out of an hour before Pete’s return. She was by far the better researcher, and it showed. She knew how to sift through data and come to conclusions. Pete knew his gut and what it told him. Kathy had keyed in on Arturo’s vague comments about his mother and had started to not only investigate her, but him. It seemed that someone had been funding not only Arturo’s academics, but the storage space. With the supposed murder weapon missing from Whitelaw’s house, the space seemed like a logical next step, Kathy concluded.
After some debate, they chose the most direct route: breaking into the space to see just what was being kept there.
Storage Extreme was dark. Aside from the main sign, lighting was minimal. Every few minutes Pete would hear a solitary car drive by. If “Cain Samael” was looking to keep whatever was in the storage space in a desolate, unremarkable place, he’d done a good job.
Pete could barely see what was in front of him. Kathy was a few steps ahead, flicking her tiny mini-flashlight on and off to guide them.
“Here,” Kathy said. “This is it.”
She flashed her light up above the space’s bay=like door and confirmed it—315.
“What now?” Pete said.
She unzipped her black backpack and pulled out a crowbar.
“Are you just going to whack it with that thing?” Pete said
“What would you like me to do? Knock?”
She turned and took a swipe at the lock—it gave. A few moments later, they were lifting up the door and entering the space.
“Success,” Pete said, pulling the door down behind them and turning on his phone light. The space was the size of a small bedroom, empty except for a small plastic bin in the far right corner. Kathy headed straight for it. If they found a machete inside the case, they’d make a beeline for the police and call Maya on the way. Though her father was still on the lam, knowing he would be exonerated for the murder of his wife might be just enough to entice him back, Pete thought.
Kathy knelt in front of the bin and yanked off the lid. Pete hovered over her, shining his phone light into the box. It was empty.
“Shit,” Pete said.
“What the fuck?” Kathy said, standing up. “This is bullshit.”
“Looking for something?”
The voice came from the other side of the space, near the entrance. Kathy and Pete wheeled around and pointed their respective lights toward the sound.
The man was about their age, Latino, with a shaved head, muscle shirt, tattoos on his arms and neck, and a well-kept goatee. He probably worked out a lot. He had a gun—pointed at Pete and Kathy.
“Who are you?” Pete said.
“Trabanco,” he said. “You killed my boy, Nestor.”
“Your boy was rolling up to me with a shotgun, if I remember correctly,” Pete said. He tried to inch his hand to his lower back, where his own gun was resting, but Trabanco noticed.
“Keep your hands where they are, both of you,” he said, stepping toward them. “You two are pretty fucking annoying, you know that? Making me sit here and wait for your dumb asses to show up,” Gus Trabanco said, frowning. “I could be out with my lady, up in the club, doing anything but this dumb ol’ shit. I mean, who parties in Lauderhill?”
He stepped closer to Kathy, pushing the barrel of the gun into her chin. “People are not happy with both of you right now,” he said.
Pete went through his options. He could try to tackle him and risk the gun going off and killing someone. He could wait and see how this would play and risk Trabanco killing them. Or he could try to talk his way out of it.
“Who’s pissed?” Pete said.
Trabanco turned to Pete, pulling the gun back. Kathy sighed in relief, rubbing her face. She locked eyes with Pete, her eyes saying, “Be careful with this psycho.”
“Who do you think, bro?” Trabanco said. “The boss. Mr. Cain. The man you guys have been sweating since day one. I’d say lay off, but there’s no point, you’re way past that. He wants you dead—so I’m here to make that happen.”
“Is this Cain guy real?” Pete said.
“What do you think, man?” Trabanco said. He was moving from amused to annoyed. Pete’s window was closing.
“How’d you get out?” Kathy said. “Weren’t you under wraps for killing Rick Blanco?”
“Lady’s smart,” Trabanco said, nodding. “Nah, I got a good attorney. Nestor, may he rest in peace, is taking the—what is it?—post-humorous fall for that one. Say hi to him for me, will you?” Trabanco started to raise the gun.
“You think your boss is going to let you live with what you know?” Pete asked.
Trabanco hesitated. His smirk faded.
“The fuck you talking about?” he said.
“You’ve taken orders, directly from him, to kill other people,” Pete said. “You basically have a get out of jail free card now. That’s gold if you decide to testify against him. You don’t think this guy knows that? Now you’re going to kill two more people for him. Do you think he’s g
oing to set you up with a nice retirement plan in Boca?”
“You’re talking mad shit, man,” Trabanco said. “Funny the things people say when they have a gun on ’em.”
“We’re not stupid,” Kathy said. “We know your crew is after us. Do you think we came here without telling the cops?”
Trabanco took a short step back, the gun still on Pete.
Then everything went to hell.
The voice seemed to be coming from above them—loud, grizzled, and angry. Trabanco jumped back at the first word, then wheeled around, pointing his gun at the ceiling.
“Attention, this is Fort Lauderdale PD—we have the area surrounded,” the voice said through the megaphone. “Come out with your hands up. Repeat—we have the area surrounded.”
“Fuck, fuck,” Trabanco said as he stepped around the small space, trying to figure out what to do next.
Pete didn’t hesitate. He lunged at Trabanco’s feet, taking him down hard. Trabanco’s hand hit the cement floor, sending the gun rattling out of his reach. Before he could get his bearings, Pete delivered two quick punches to his face, leaving Trabanco dazed and bloody. He pinned Trabanco to the floor and pulled out his own gun.
“Do not even think about moving,” Pete said. He could hear Kathy in the background, scooping up Trabanco’s errant weapon.
“You’re dead,” Trabanco said. “You’re both fucking dead. You have no idea who you’re fucking with.”
Pete swung the gun barrel across Trabanco’s face and heard a soft crunching sound. Trabanco groaned as a long gash opened up across his nose, blood pouring out of the fresh wound.
“Shut the fuck up,” Pete said. He was exhausted. Tired of running. Tired of dealing with two-bit thugs when he wanted to nail the top boss.
The storage facility’s rolling door inched up, a hand tugging it open. Harras walked in, alone, a megaphone in his hands.
“Funny the things you keep from your old job that come in handy after you retire,” he said, unable to keep the smile off his face.