He thumped his chest twice and yelled out for everyone to hear. “Do you fucking hear me? Pack up your things and take your family to another place, where prostitutes don’t serve as role models for young girls, where drugs aren’t sold like candy. Do it today, and your life will change. I promise you.”
Silence engulfed the open space, and he felt eyes on him from everywhere. The two men before him nodded slowly, then turned around and walked across the parking lot to another building.
Licking salty lips, Javier spotted his hat. It had been crushed in the fight. A black heel mark had defaced the perfect white rim. He threw it to the dirt and weeds, then leaned down and picked up the sack. Its contents still intact, he padded across the dusty yard toward the external staircase, a single dog barking in the distance. Perhaps another drug deal had just gone down.
As his shoe hit the first step, it felt like gravity had just grabbed him by the ankles, his legs as useless as wet noodles. Using his one free arm, he pulled himself upward one slow step at a time, each one sending a blunt message to his ailing body that he’d just sped up the dying process. He was drained physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Finally at the top of the staircase, he glanced to his right. Splashed across the horizon, just above the ridge of trees, colored clouds rippled against the fading blue backdrop. Purple and orange mixed in with gold, creating an iridescent glow. An amazing sunset. He took a mental snapshot, knowing this might be his last.
Javier shuffled a few more steps, entered his apartment, and walked straight to the sink. He doused his face with water then looked into the mirror. He’d aged at least another five years, just from this last confrontation. That’s how little he had left in his tank.
Thoughts of a woman entered his mind, his first wife, and he could feel a smile form at the edges of his mouth.
“You abuse your body day in and day out, and nothing happens. You’re still just as strong, just as good looking. It’s not fair, I tell you. It’s just not fair. Look at me. I go to water aerobics twice a week, and my hips look like a weapon of mass destruction,” she’d said to him many times.
“But I love those hips,” he would say. “These are the hips that brought my little treasures of life.” Then he’d smack her ass, and she’d unleash a thirty-second barrage of Spanish curse words.
He spoke to her like she was in the room with him now. “You will have the last laugh. Look at me now. I am a feeble, dying man.”
Minutes later, after showering and changing into another set of Cuban traditional garb, Javier sat on a wooden chair, his bare feet burrowing into thin carpet as he puffed on his Montecristo. Trumpets and drums grooved in the background, and his head swayed to the dulcet tunes of Buena Vista Social Club, a 1990s breakout album from remarkable Cuban musicians, including Ferrer, Gonzalez, Segundo. After being squelched by dictators for more than thirty-five years, the Timba recordings, which spawned a similar movie, reinvigorated an international love for Cuban music, even if the musicians couldn’t play on the island that had transformed music for centuries before. He could recall the buzz of the dance club scene in Little Havana, near Miami.
Amid Javier’s quest to reestablish the globe’s focus on what mattered most, it was nice to relive old times, at least the ones connected to positive memories. Donut-shaped smoke rose to the ceiling, the leathery tobacco taste lingering in his throat, and he thought about his father, the bravest man he’d ever known.
Not the strongest or biggest, Javier’s father stood tall among a country full of people who had cowered to the leftwing Bolsheviks, so-called revolutionaries who seized power following a seven-year war against President Batista. Pre-Castro, Cuba had its set of issues, but it also had a fire in its belly that made it a destination for people across the world.
Papa had made an honest living working the tobacco fields providing for his small family until the new revolutionary leaders starting seizing assets, both from foreign countries and from Cubans who even appeared to sympathize with the former rightwing government.
As his madre had told Javier years later, once his Papa had found his way to South Florida and practically sold his soul to the devil himself, he was fiercely loyal to his homeland and watched dear friends arrested for nothing more than expressing an opinion, like writing an editorial in the local newspaper. More and more dissidents were taken into custody, threatened, psychologically tortured, all in the name of the revolution.
As the story goes, Papa had learned that a lifelong friend who’d held a low-level position in the Batista government was one of many put to a public trial. Initially, this friend was found not guilty, but the self-declared leader of the revolution demanded a retrial for him and hundreds more just like him. Everyone knew the second trial was a farce, little more than a showcase for how business would be conducted in the new Cuba, the oppressive Cuba.
Papa’s friend was convicted of treason before a crowd of seventeen thousand people, what was deemed “revolutionary justice.” While many were sentenced to life imprisonment—the government for the people took from the people, leaving the families of those convicted with nothing. For a few, however, they never had the opportunity to experience life in prison. Considered examples to others for being so vocal about their disloyalty, they were put in a line and killed by a firing squad.
Papa watched his hooded friend crumple to the earth that day, and as his madre had later revealed to her youngest son, her husband and his father wept like a baby, for the death of his best friend and for the nation he’d once loved. It was at that moment that Papa had declared his allegiance to the counter-revolutionaries.
In late 1960, Papa began meeting with others who had the same beliefs, and through cloaked conversations, they began to organize across the land, from one farm to the next, then on to the next city, reaching nearly every farm and town across the wide island.
Despite harsh crackdowns from Castro’s military, Papa’s group secretly began to communicate with others outside of the country, people who’d been exiled or had fled out of fear for their safety, and their families’ safety. Some of their contacts lived in Guatemala, others in the United States.
Papa had said that the United States had always been friends with true Cubans, and shortly after Castro and his henchman took control, the US government publically accused Castro’s administration of suppressing civil liberties, removing freedom of speech. Everyone believed Cuba’s intent was to spread the revolution across the Western Hemisphere.
With fuel in short supply, once bustling farms became completely abandoned, and food was scarce. Papa and his cohorts banded together to attempt an overthrow of the Castro regime. They felt certain it would work since it was led and funded by the American CIA.
On April 17, 1961, a military force landed at the Bay of Pigs, while Papa and his lightly armed band of brothers attacked a government military institution. The man’s family holed up in their shabby home, and like many others who had loved ones involved in the attempted coup, they awaited word that the counter-revolutionaries had reclaimed the government.
But that moment never arrived. Within three days, the insurgence was smoldered, and anyone who was associated with it was quickly arrested and thrown in jail without a trial.
A single tear escaped Javier’s eye, as he relived the day when his mother recited the story of his brave Papa. The man stood for something. For freedom and liberty. For his family.
And soon Javier would stand just as tall.
14
A bright morning sun warmed my face, but I could still see my breath in the air. My shades molded against my face, providing an aerodynamic sensation for my run.
With my feet spread apart in the grassy area in the middle of my condo complex, I eased both arms down one leg until I felt a good amount of tension in my hamstring. Holding it for twenty seconds, I could feel my muscles start to warm up. I repeated the stretching routine with the opposite hamstring, then performed similar stretches on my calves and thighs.
An engine fired up, and I turned toward the pool area, spotting a man with a mask covering his face holding a long pole, angled at the end, and a hose hooked into the portable device. He flipped a switch and began to power spray the textured cement, water and fragments of debris blowing all over the fenced-in area, a bevy of tiny leaves and dirt finding its way to the empty cavern that usually held up to ten feet of pool water.
Checking my phone, I saw the time was just before eleven on Sunday morning. For some party animals who lived in my complex, I knew it was still too early to endure the water-scraping hiss, and they’d probably share their displeasure rather vocally. Not in the mood to break up more confrontations, I stored my phone inside a clear pocket, then wrapped the Velcro holder around my bicep. I placed the buds in my ears, but held off on starting my jogging jam session—I had a few things I need to think over first.
Rounding the corner off the grassy area, I nearly ran into Winston, one of the three handymen who worked the condo complex almost every day. I spun right, while holding out an arm. “Oops. Sorry to scare you, Winston. Check you later.”
As usual, Winston barely moved his head and continued moving at the same methodical pace, a snail shuffle, while dragging an empty trashcan behind him. On his best day, he appeared disinterested.
I dodged two cars exiting our lot when I caught a glance of a white Nissan Altima huddled among the many parked sports cars and sedans. Was that Henry’s car? I think I made an audible noise, thinking about Henry hunkered down in Cindy’s condo just a few doors down from my place. Henry was a good a guy—the best—but seeing him and Cindy interacting like a horny couple was unsettling, almost like watching two animal types attempting to breed. It was just creepy. And Alisa serving as a life coach or big sister to Cindy didn’t make it any easier to stomach.
Pushing that set of images to the back of my mind, I wove around light poles and hopped off the curb heading east on Bryan, a four-lane road with a fair amount of traffic, even on a Sunday morning. Within a hundred yards, I passed Liberty Street on my right, settling into a nice groove, and the five-mile course felt attainable.
Replaying the details Alisa had read off Underground.com, I tried to walk through the scenario in which Nancy Fitzwater had been murdered. The perp, who I assumed was a man because of the strength it took to tear into her neck with a metal wire, had put in a great deal of thought and preparation. And he exhibited patience, waiting until the library was clear of any other people. The murder showed characteristics of a professional hit, especially the methodical planning. Since most murders involved violent, emotional responses to a person experiencing drama, the few that were conducted without a heated, spontaneous reaction stood out. But there was something different about this murder—the two novels, Burn found under Nancy’s head and Cuba Libre propped open, standing next to her body.
The perp had to be sending a message or providing some type of symbolism. For starters, it told me he had killed before. Whether Albert Yates was on his resume, I still wasn’t certain.
Crossing to the other side of the road, two dogs barked on the other side of a gray wooden fence, and then raced parallel to me until I hit the corner and they ran out of space. It happened almost every time I took this route. I hooked a left onto Pavillion, a two-lane road with a heavier concentration of homes. I spotted a couple outside painting their bungalow a forest green color, then ran by a father and his son, maybe Jared’s age, throwing a baseball in the front yard.
I felt an empty pit in my stomach, knowing Jared could no longer share that experience with his dad. Being twelve years old with no father around sucked. I had first-hand experience, although mine had exited the scene by his own accord. I’d seen him a few times since I was a youngster, but not enough to make a damn bit of difference in my life. I had to look to my Uncle Charlie for male guidance and advice, and many times I had to figure it out on my own.
With that streak of independence built into my life, maybe that was why I’d been able to make this PI business work, putting the DPD in my rearview mirror rather quickly.
I turned right onto San Jacinto, jogged past four more homes, then went right on Marseille. I envisioned Nancy’s body on the library floor, thinking again about the positioning of the books. Could the Patterson novel signify that the man believed he’d been burned by Nancy or some group she was affiliated with? Was there symbolism in the fact her head rested on the book? Or was there any way that her body had simply landed on the book when it dropped to the floor?
More questions, but not many answers. Not yet anyway.
I turned left onto Basil, running under a huge canopy of evergreen trees and could feel a layer of sweat coating most of my body, especially my back. The run was doing its job, giving me a strong cardio workout and opening up the blood vessels in the portion of my brain that focused on deductive reasoning. Basil T-boned into Spenwick, and I hung a right, the vivid sun glaring in my face as I picked up the pace a bit.
The orange cover and red title from the digital cover of Cuba Libre stuck in my mind. I’d downloaded the book earlier this morning and read the first four chapters. Allowing my mind to drift, I visualized pieces from the Elmore Leonard novel: Havana, Cuba, in 1898. The destroyed remains of a ship, the USS Maine, in Havana Harbor. The vivid characters, Ben Tyler and Charlie Burke, along with the female lead, Amelia Brown, being sucked into the Spanish-American War, the fight for Cuban independence.
While there were elements of fact in the novel, it was still fiction. I wondered why the killer had selected that particular book to stand next to his victim. Was I overthinking it? Perhaps the killer had grabbed any random book, and he was communicating that the murder of Nancy Fitzwater had been as easy as…reading a book.
I was grateful to have the information we did, the website revealing all of the evidence from “sources,” but I could see it had only left me wanting more. Had the CSI unit found any trace evidence that could lead to DNA? I could feel my pulse tap a little faster, thinking about what would be revealed through the library’s video footage. Alisa had reached out to Underground.com last night. When I texted her earlier this morning, she’d yet to receive a response. As quickly as they appeared to move on sharing new evidence, I guessed their mute response was not an oversight. The reputation of Booker & Associates was still in its infancy, so I shouldn’t be surprised.
My head on a swivel as I approached the Bryan Street intersection, I timed my attempt in between a cement mixer and an SUV and galloped across without breaking stride, a lingering trail of exhaust catching my nose. Still moving at a decent clip, I jogged into Exall Park, my body instantly more relaxed without four-thousand-pound metal objects around me. I reached for a branch as I passed under the first tree, snapping off a new leaf and rubbing it between my fingers. It seemed the deluge from two nights earlier had infused a growth spurt on all the trees and grass. Inhaling, I smelled a hint of tree sap, fresh grass, and dirt.
A buzz at my arm. Glancing down, I felt it again, on my bicep. I was either receiving text messages or a phone call. I attempted to angle the plastic pocket to where I could see the cloudy screen without stopping, but it didn’t work. I ran a few more strides, then gave in to my concerns and curiosity.
“Hi, this is Booker,” I said with a heavy breath, now at a walking pace.
A phlegmy growl, and I realized it was a man clearing his throat. “Booker.”
Sounded familiar, but not in a pleasant-memory kind of way. “That’s the name. Who’s this?”
Another growl, this one twice as long, with a loud bark at the end. “It’s…it’s Vincent Sciafini.”
My pace automatically slowed, and I heard his garbled voice say, “Get me some water. Now!”
Seconds passed, then I heard a loud “Ahh.”
“Booker, you there?”
The same New York accent from when I sat in his limo a few weeks earlier just before he asked me to save his kidnapped daughter, and a few months before that when I sat in
his high-rise Chicago office and officially asked for a favor from the leader of a crime syndicate.
“Yep. I’m trying to get in my workout. What’s up?” My clear, stress-free mind had evaporated into the blue Dallas sky.
“Ha chew!”
“Damn,” is all I could say.
“Fuckin’ allergies.”
A loud bump, then I caught a disturbing sound, something resembling a subway rumbling through a tunnel into a station, its brakes screaming at the last second, and the rush of a dirty wind. Sciafini was blowing his schnoz.
“Fuckin’ allergies,” he said again, this time with a nasally New York intonation.
Glad as hell I wasn’t within shooting distance—of the germ variety—I knew he didn’t call to talk about the prospects of the Cubs this season.
“Can you talk, or do you need Beavis to relay your message?”
“I don’t have time to play games,” he said with an edge to his voice. “I need your help on something.”
I knew Sciafini wasn’t accustomed to asking versus telling, but distance had its advantages. I was connected to the piece of scum more than I wanted to admit to myself. He was in business with the Double Ds—David and Dax—essentially owning their restaurant, Marvel, as part of his REIT. David actually helped Sciafini with his investments, all because he owed the man almost a million bucks. When a dirty cop kidnapped and threatened David, Sciafini’s money-making machine, I convinced the crime boss to help me take down the drug-dealing cop, as long as he agreed to let David’s new food truck business fund the payback to my client and others like her.
BOOKER Box Set #1 (Books 1-3: A Private Investigator Thriller Series of Crime and Suspense) Page 58