by Don Donovan
"Awright, so you're BFFs. We want to know about Chicho. He ever do anything with Yayo?" Yayo Dávila and his brother Camilito were feared all over Little Havana and Hialeah as top crew chiefs and enforcers for Maxie Méndez.
"No, never. Yayo's got all his slots filled. Chicho was too small-time for anything like that."
Silvana allowed herself an inside chuckle. This fucking mook calling someone "too small-time", as though cloaking himself in the highest echelons of major-league crime.
She said, "Well, what was Chicho into, then?"
"Oh, man, he was goin' around stealin' radios out of cars and shit. Mickey Mouse shit, you know what I'm sayin'? He did that kinda thing for a while till he ran into these dudes from Key West. A crew. You know, street guys."
"What about them?" she asked. "The Key West guys."
"These dudes were down, lemme tell you," Flaco said. "They pulled jobs all around this area. Up in Lauderdale, too. They took Chicho in 'cause they needed somebody who knew the territory up here. Knew his way around, you know what I'm sayin'? Somebody who … well, you know … like … their man in Miami."
His dark eyes grabbed Silvana's and told their own tale. The tempo of his voice picked up and his tone rose by about half an octave. Excitement flew off him like the sweat from his head, and he was contagious with it. Silvana bought into it, started nodding, and was surprised to see how anxious she was to hear the rest of it. She was slowly according Flaco a little bit of respect.
"What Chicho told me was, everything they did was golden. Never got caught. Man, I mean their jobs were tight! Like a fucking gearbox, you know what I'm sayin'? Where everything meshes perfect?" He clasped his fingers together to emphasize the perfection of meshing.
"You know anything about any recent jobs he might've done with these guys?"
"Yo, I saw him last week, you know what I'm sayin'? Like around Tuesday or Wednesday. He said he had a big one comin' up. Real big. Didn't tell me any more about it, though."
"A big one?" Silvana questioned. "With the Key West crew?"
"Yeah. Or, well — I guess it was. I mean, he didn't come right out and be like, 'I'm gonna do this big job with my Key West boys,' you know what I'm sayin'? I'm just guessin' it was them. Far as I know, he never worked with nobody else in that league."
"You ever meet any of these guys? Any of the Key West guys, I mean?"
"Well, there was one. About two, three weeks ago. I ran into Chicho outside of La Luz. This bar over on Northwest 12th Avenue. He was with this dude I never seen before. Real stocky, tough-lookin' motherfucker. Mustache. Mean-ass look on his face, you know what I'm sayin'? Tells me the dude's from Key West."
A chill took hold at the base of Silvana's spine. She could feel the info she needed taking shape somewhere beyond the horizon, juuuust out of sight.
"What'd you talk about?"
"Nothin' much. Jus' 'what up' and that kind of shit. Then they go in the bar and take a booth. Gettin' down with each other over a coupla beers."
"This guy have a name?" Silvana asked.
"Yeah. Logan, it was."
Silvana's heart picked up its pace and she took a couple of quick breaths through her mouth. A name.
"And what about Chicho? You got any idea who put him down?"
"None whatsoever. I didn't even hear about it till Saturday night. Far as I can tell, nobody knows who done him."
"Maxie? Could he have done it?"
"Shit, he could have. But why would he? Chicho was like the goose layin' the golden egg, you know what I'm sayin'? He's losin' all kindsa money to Maxie and payin' him off every week. Why would Maxie want to put the fuckin' brakes on that?"
Silvana's thoughts exactly. "I don't know," she said. "Maybe Chicho said something to him. An insult, maybe. Guys have been smoked for a lot less."
"Yeah, I know. But it woulda had to been pretty bad to make Maxie take him out. Shit, the dude just came up with two hundred K that me and Yolexis collected for him Friday night. Came right up with it."
"You know Andrés Borraga? The guy who got dusted with Chicho? The guy with the shotgun?"
"I seen him around before, you know what I'm sayin', but I can't place him. I didn't know his name."
"You see him Friday night when you went to the house on Tenth Avenue?"
"Yeah, he was there."
"He didn't recognize you? Didn't say 'Hi, Flaco'? Chicho didn't introduce you? Come on! Help me out here."
"I'm tellin' you, no. I seen him when I went in, sittin' in the chair watchin' the TV. He was like, 'Yo, dog', nodded at me, and went back to the TV."
"But he knew you."
"Yeah, he knew me. And I knew him. Just no names is all, you know what I'm sayin'?"
Vargas spoke. "What else you know about the Key West guy? Logan, I mean."
"Thass it, man. Just his name and he from the Keys. And him and Chicho were down. Thass it." Flaco shrugged.
"How about the girl? Yanet Santiago. You know her from anywhere?"
Flaco shook his head. "Not really. I seen her once with another dude at a party a couple of weeks ago, snortin' a little blow. I'm telling you, that bitch had an ass on her! She was smokin', you know what I'm sayin'?"
Silvana believed him. Vargas gave her a short nod. She believed she'd gotten everything she was going to get out of Flaco. For today, anyway.
"Okay." She reached into her pocket and came out with a card. "Here's my phone number, Flaco. Put it into your cell right now. I want you to call me if you hear anything, anything at all about this whole fucking mess. Who did Chicho, anything more on this guy Logan, anything about Andrés Borraga. Or Yanet Santiago. Anything. You feel me?"
"Yes, ma'am. I do."
"Because if you help me, then I help you. That's how it works. It's a two-way street, understand me? I can make things very easy for you around here. But I find out you know something and are holding out on me, you will live to regret it."
She head-signaled Vargas, who sucker punched Flaco in the gut again, sending him to the pavement with a lot of hurt.
10
Mambo
Monday, June 27, 2011
1:10 PM
MAMBO'S BAR AND GRILL buzzed with activity. Cuban food simmered back in the kitchen, its thick, zesty aroma blanketing the entire place and leaking out into the surrounding back streets of Old Town. Mambo the Third finished off his ropa vieja at the bar, downing the final forkful of yellow rice, watching anxious gamblers surround the pool table, some of them clutching fistfuls of cash. They hollered bets at each other while the players circled the table one at a time like vultures, each seeking the perfect shot. The bar was full, attention turned to flat-screen TVs, all three of them showing the Marlins game. A lively merengue tune played through the house sound system, whose speakers pointed away from the televised baseball.
Mambo noticed Logan enter and take a seat in a dark corner booth. Actually, all the booths were dark, deliberately so. Everyone in the place was one type of outlaw or another, and they didn't require a lot of bright lights on them while they planned their jobs in those booths. That was Mambo's in a nutshell. Buried in a quiet neighborhood for over fifty years, no sign out front, liquor license grandfathered in, great food, a real grifters' gathering ground. Civilians not welcome.
Logan signaled to the waiter for a beer as he took a seat. Mambo took one last swig from his iced tea and came over to his booth. His cousin Big Felo went with him.
"Logan! ¿Cómo estás? You're looking good."
"Could've been a lot worse," he said. "But I'm still here."
Logan stood and the two exchanged a hug. Big Felo greeted him with a silent nod and an iron handshake, the hallmark of the bodyguard.
Mambo took a seat. He waved Big Felo away and said, "I heard about that pendejo Chicho and what he did to you guys, man. I also heard he got what was coming to him."
Mambo the Third was the same age as Logan, and with the same sturdy build. Bristling, short black hair framed a handsome Cuban face.
They'd known each other since grade school, and while they weren't exactly best friends, they'd always gotten along pretty well. The Original Mambo had taken over this place more than fifty years ago, named it after himself — never put a sign outside — and ran it the whole time till he damn near got himself killed in a gunfight in here one night, a year or so ago. That's when the Third took over. He was no wimp, but because of what happened to his grandfather, Felo was never too far away, and always strapped.
Logan looked into young Mambo's dark brown eyes. Deepset, a clear family trait, they could look right through you. Right now, they smiled with approval that Chicho had received justice.
"It wasn't pretty," Logan said.
"It never is, man."
The waiter brought them each a beer, frosty longnecks. Logan took a soft pull at his and set it down. His hand went inside his shirt and came out with a long, thick envelope.
"A little something for you," he said, and pushed it across the old wooden table.
Mambo continued smiling and peeked inside the envelope. "Looks like a pretty decent score." All according to ancient Key West custom. You plan your job in Mambo's, you cut him in for a taste. He stuffed the envelope into his pants pocket.
"It was," he said. "But I have bad news. Well, I mean, good news for me, bad for you."
Mambo's smile vanished. "What, man? What is it?"
"It's over. For me, anyway."
"Over? What are you talking about?"
"I mean it's over. I'm done. Thirteen years in the life. Finito."
"Man, you mean you're just … getting out? Just like that." Mambo couldn't hide his surprise.
Logan gave a single nod, never taking his eyes off Mambo's. "Just like that."
"How come?"
"This one, it took it all out of me. We really stepped out of our league with that bank, and I had a lot of difficulty up in Miami the other night. I don't want to do it again. I don't even want to think about doing it again."
"Out of your league? How was it out of your league?"
Logan took another swig of his beer. "I mean, it was for more money than we'd ever gotten. We'd never robbed a bank before. And that's a federal beef. Not only that, it was a lot more dangerous, and a lot rougher." He didn't want to go into the whole deal with the girl. He couldn't handle talking about it again.
Mambo reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a Cohiba. He took his time unwrapping it and sniffed its entire length twice. He snipped the tip with his gold guillotine cutter and lovingly examined the cigar one more time. Finally, he retrieved his lighter and expertly twirled the cigar under the flame with care, drawing deep, repeated puffs until the lighted tip was self-sustaining.
The sweet smoke of the Cohiba did its job. His posture loosened and he said, without smiling, "You remember back when we were in high school? I think it was during our junior year. When they found those three dead guys from Miami in the mangroves up on Stock Island?"
Logan thought back to that time. The memory was not pleasant. Mutilated corpses, sickeningly arranged.
"I do remember that. Weren't they … weren't they the guys who … who gang-raped one of your cousins?"
He nodded. "Little Danielita," he said, puffing again on his cigar. "Fourteen years old. She was the pride of my grandfather's eye. He loved her so much. And what those savages did to her still sends chills over my whole body."
His reference to his grandfather in connection with this old incident pinned Logan's eyes to his own. Mambo saw Logan's face go pale at the mention of this event. It had worked its way into Key West legend, in the criminal community anyway, where it was always known to reside out on the misty fringes of local outlaw history, but never directly spoken about.
Mambo guardedly looked around, making sure no one was within earshot, and dialed his voice downward. "He did it. He delivered more pain to those motherless fucking cocksuckers than they ever thought possible before he sent them to the fires of hell, where they burn today and where they will burn for all fucking eternity."
Mambo drank from his longneck and leaned forward, showing Logan he wasn't through.
"Everybody knew my grandfather did it, even though there was no evidence. They never pressed charges. They never even looked into it, because they all knew it had to be done. After what those animals did to little Danielita."
Logan said, "Yeah, well, you're right, man. Us Conchs, we take care of our own in cases like that. Nobody thinks twice about it."
Mambo shifted in his seat to lean even farther across the table and said, "He didn't like doing it, you know? And there were three of them to one of him. But he came home that night and washed all the blood off himself and went to bed. Next night, he was right back here, running this place."
"We can all learn a little something from him," Logan said.
Another puff, this one accompanied by a smile of satisfaction. "But you see what I'm saying, right? Just because you put your life on the line to get justice, that's no reason to get down on the whole thing. No reason to run away. It was a risk, and you, you had to take it. You had to do what was right."
Logan fidgeted around his side of the booth. It looked like he wanted to say something, something really powerful after Mambo got all emotional dredging up the memory of little Danielita.
Instead, he said, "I know. But it's more than that, it really is. The whole thing's been wearing on me for some time now. And this one was … well, really tough. Maybe it's because I'm not a kid anymore, I don't know."
Mambo's nod and his eyes showed a glimmer of understanding. "You're a good man, Logan. But if you really think you have to get out, then do it. I wish you wouldn't, but you've got to follow your heart."
"Glad you see it that way."
Mambo smiled. "No other way to see it," he said, taking another light puff on his cigar. "You're still young. You've got a lot of life in front of you. What are you going to do?"
"I've, uh, got a line on investing in a landscaping business." He didn't mention Don Roy Doyle, who was in the back room at that very moment conducting Mambo's bolita activities.
After a hearty pull from his beer, Mambo said, "Landscaping? You mean, like trimming trees?"
"Well, there's more to it than that, you know, but right now it looks like a pretty good opportunity for me."
Mambo nodded in great understanding as he reached across the booth and put his hand on Logan's forearm. Gave him a couple of easy pats. "I know you're gonna do good, man. You put your mind to it, you're gonna do all right."
Logan started to rise from the booth. "I've gotta be going now. I got some … some errands to run." Mambo still had him by the forearm, gently pulling him back down.
"Uh, there's just one last favor I'd like to ask. If you have time, that is."
The tiniest twitch flicked across Logan's face. A twitch of uncertainty. "Well, sure, Mambo. Sure. What is it?"
"I need you to pay a visit to this guy, this guy who owes me money."
"Debt collection?"
"Right. Nothing to it. Piece of cake."
"Of course, sure. Who's the guy?" Logan reached for his empty beer bottle and peeled back a shred of the label with his thumbnail. Mambo's eyes never left his.
"Trey Whitney." He took a major league puff on his cigar, letting the smoke trail slowly out of his mouth in a thin strip, drifting toward the side of the booth and out toward the pool table.
Logan's hand froze just before he could drink from the beer bottle. "Trey Wh —? Winston's son?"
"That's right. And he owes me eighty-one large."
"That's a … a lot of money. But that shouldn't be any problem for him, right? He's a Whitney. They've got millions."
"Claro. He's a Whitney. And that's exactly the problem." Mambo started gesturing with his hands. "He doesn't think he should pay. He lost most of it on the NBA Playoffs, and he's been trying to recoup it with big baseball bets, but he's been losing his ass."
"Jeez, Mambo, I don't know. Can't someone in your f
amily do something? Call Winston Whitney or something?"
"Win won't help. Trey's his favorite son, and he thinks the guy can do no wrong, you know? I go to him with this and he'll brush me off. Ask me to work it out or give him more time. Fuck that."
"I — I didn't know your family and the Whitneys ever, uh —"
"Did business together?" Logan nodded. Mambo called up his most reassuring voice. "Not very often," he said. "We generally stay out of each other's way, but every so often, something like this comes up, you know, like Trey placing bets with me, aaaand … "
Only now did Mambo remove his hand from Logan's forearm. Logan said, "Well, don't you have guys, you know, guys who can collect these debts for you? Like — like your cousin?" He gestured toward the big man leaning against the bar, whose gaze was on the two of them at all times.
Mambo chuckled. "Felo? Hmph. He couldn't collect water from the ocean. He'll kill you if you put your hands on me in a threatening way, but he doesn't have the subtlety for this kind of thing." He set the cigar down in the big metal ashtray on the tabletop. The smoke floated away from them. "There's ten points in it for you."
Mambo figured Logan couldn't refuse. Even though he'd made a good score the other night and had just announced his retirement, eighty-one hundred was still a sweet piece of change for very little work, and Mambo was seldom so generous in these situations. But Trey had to pay. He couldn't let him slide any longer. It was worth the points to clear this one from the books.
However, it was obvious from Logan's demeanor that he didn't like the idea of jumping into a potential shitstorm. Problem was, though, Mambo knew Logan couldn't say no to him. They went back too far. Besides, it was just a debt collection.
"Okay," said Logan. "Where can I find him?"
11
Logan
Monday, June 27, 2011
2:05 PM