Miami Noir

by Les Standiford

  “I’m going fishing with Manuel Cruz.”

  “What? I thought you were going to sue him.”

  “Which is what makes it business. Cruz wants to make an offer before we file suit. I suggested we go fishing, keep it relaxed. He loved the idea and invited me on his boat.”

  So far, Steve hadn’t told an outright fib and it was almost 8 a.m. Not quite a personal best, but still, he was proud of himself.

  For the last five years, Manuel Cruz worked as controller of Toraño Chevrolet in Hialeah, where he managed to steal three million dollars before anyone noticed. Teresa Toraño, a Cuban exiliada in her seventies, was nearly bankrupt, and Steve was determined to get her money back, but it wouldn’t be easy. All the computer records had been erased, leaving no electronic trail. Cruz had no visible assets other than his sportfishing boat. The guy didn’t even own a house. And the juiciest piece of evidence—Cruz fled Cuba years ago after embezzling money from a government food program—wasn’t even admissible.

  “Just you and Cruz, alone at sea,” she said. “Sounds dangerous.”

  “I’m not afraid of him.”

  “It’s not you I’m worried about.”

  Victoria punched the record button on her pocket Dictaphone. “Memo to the Toraño file. Make certain our malpractice premiums are paid.”

  “You and your damned Dictaphone,” Steve complained. “Drives me nuts.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. It’s so…”

  “Organized?”

  “Anal.”

  Victoria pulled her Mini Cooper into the Matheson Hammock Marina, swerving to avoid a land crab clip-clopping across the asphalt. The sun was already baking the pavement, the air sponge-thick with humidity. Just above a stand of sea lavender trees, a pair of turkey buzzards flew surveillance.

  Victoria sneaked a look at Steve as he hauled the cooler out of the car’s tiny trunk. Dark, unruly hair, a slight, sly grin as if he were one joke ahead of the rest of the world. The deep brown eyes, usually filled with mischief, were hidden behind dark Ray-Bans.

  Damnit, why won’t he level with me?

  Why did he always take the serpentine path instead of the expressway? Why did he always treat laws and rules, cases and precedents, as mere suggestions?

  Because he has more fun making it up as he goes along.

  Steve drove her crazy with his courtroom antics and his high-wire ethics. If he believed in a client, there was nothing he wouldn’t do to win. Which was exactly what frightened her now.

  Just what would Steve do for Teresa Toraño?

  They headed toward the dock, the morning sun beating down so ferociously Victoria felt her blouse sticking to her shoulder blades. The only sounds were the groans of boats in their moorings and the caws of gulls overhead. The air smelled of the marshy hammock, salt and iodine and fermenting seaweed. The fronds of thatch palms hung limp in the still air.

  “Gimme a kiss. I gotta go,” Steve said, as they stepped onto the concrete dock. In front of them were expensive toys, gleaming white in the morning sun. Rows of powerful sportfishermen, large as houses. Dozens of sleek sailing craft, ketches and sloops and schooners.

  “Sure, Mr. Romance.” She kissed him lightly on the lips. Something seemed off-kilter, but what? And what was that pressing against her through his shorts? Hadn’t last night been enough? Twice before SportsCenter, once after Letterman

  She sneaked a hand into his pocket and came out with a pair of handcuffs. “What’s this, the latest in fishing tackle?”

  “Ah. Well. Er…” Gasping like a beached grouper. “You know that store, Only Sexy Things?” He grabbed the handcuffs and slipped them back into his pocket. “Thought I’d spice up the bedroom.”

  “Stick to cinnamon incense. Last chance, loverboy. What’s going on?”

  “You’re fucking late, hombre!” Manuel Cruz yelled from the fly bridge of a power boat tied up at the dock. He was a muscular man in his late thirties, wearing canvas shorts and a white shirt with epaulets. A Marlins cap was pulled low over his eyes, and his sunglasses hung on a chain.

  The boat was a sportfisherman in the sixty-foot range, all polished teak and gleaming chrome. A fly bridge, a glass-enclosed salon, and a pair of fighting chairs in the cockpit for serious deepsea fishing. The name on the stern read: Wet Dream

  Men, Victoria thought. Men were so one-dimensional.

  Buenos días, Ms. Lord.”

  She gave him a nod and a tight smile.

  “Let’s go, Solomon,” Cruz urged. “Fish are hungry.”

  Steve hoisted the cooler onto the deck. “Toss the lines for us, hon?”

  She leveled a gaze at him. “Sure, hon.”

  Victoria untied the bow line from its cleat and threw it up on the boat. She moved quickly to the stern, untied the line, propped a hand on a piling crusted with bird dung, and leapt aboard.

  “Vic! Whadaya think you’re you doing?”

  “Going fishing.”

  “Get back on the dock.”

  She smiled and pointed toward the growing body of water that separated them from land.

  “You’re not dressed for fishing,” Steve told her.

  “I’m dressed for your bail hearing.” She kicked off her velvet-toed pumps and peeled off her panty hose, distracting Steve with her muscular calves, honed on the tennis courts of La Gorce Country Club. “Now, what’s with the handcuffs?”

  Steve lowered his voice so she could barely hear him above the roaring diesels. “You remember Solomon’s Law number one?”

  Oh, that. Steve’s personal code for rule breaking.

  “How could I forget? If the law doesn’t work…work the law

  “In the matter of Manuel Cruz, the law isn’t working.”

  “What’s that?” Cruz asked, eying the cooler on the deck.

  “Brought beer and bait,” Steve said.

  “What for? I got a case of La Tropical and a hundred pounds of shiners and wiggles.”

  All three of them stood on the fly bridge. Twin diesels throbbing, the Wet Dream cruised down Hawk Channel inside the barrier reefs. The water was green felt, smooth as a billiard table, the boat riding on a plane at thirty knots.

  Cruz ran a hand over the polished-teak steering wheel. “I come to this country with nothing but the clothes on my back and look at me now.”

  “Very impressive,” Steve said, thinking it would be even more impressive if Cruz hadn’t stolen the money to buy the damn boat.

  Cruz winked at Victoria, his smile more of a leer. “You two want to fool around, I got clean sheets in the master stateroom.”

  “Sounds lovely,” Victoria cooed. “Want to fool around, Steve?” Her smile was as sweet as fresh-squeezed guarapo, but Steve caught the sarcastic tone.

  “Maybe after we catch something,” he said pointedly.

  “Heads and A/C work, faucets don’t,” Cruz said. “Watertank’s fouled.”

  Steve studied the man, standing legs spread at the wheel, a macho pose. A green tattoo of a scorpion crawled up one ankle. On the other ankle, in a leather sheaf, was a foot-long Marine combat knife. It looked like the weapon Sylvester Stallone used in those Rambo movies. Out here, it could be used to cut lines or clean fish.

  Or gut a lawyer planning to do him harm.

  They had just passed Sombrero Light when Cruz said, “So here’s my offer, hombre. The Toraño bitch gives me a release with a promise never to sue. And vice versa. I won’t sue her ass.”

  “I don’t like the way you talk about my client,” Steve said.

  “Tough shit. I don’t like Fidel Castro, but what am I gonna do about it?”

  “Your offer stinks like week-old snapper.”

  “You sue me, what do you get? A piece of paper you can wipe your ass with. I got nothing in my own name, including the boat.”

  Steve looked right and left to get his bearings. Off to port, in the direction of the reef, he spotted the fins of two sharks heading toward strands of yellow sargasso weed, home t
o countless fish. Red coral just below the surface cast a rusty glow on the shallow water. To the starboard was the archipelago of the Florida Keys. From here, the island chain was strung out like an emerald necklace.

  “Let Vic take the wheel a minute,” Steve said. “I want you to see something.”

  Cruz allowed as how even a woman lawyer could keep a boat on 180 degrees, due south, and followed Steve down the ladder to the cockpit. Just off the stern, the props dug at the water like a plow digging at a field. Steve opened the cooler, reached underneath the ice, and pulled out a two-foot-long greenish-blue fish, frozen solid. A horse-eyed jack.

  “Great bait, huh?” Steve held the fish by its tail and let it swing free. It had a fine heft, like a small sledgehammer.

  “Already told you, I got shiners and wiggles.”

  “Then I better use this for something else.” Steve swung the frozen fish at Cruz’s head. The man stutter-stepped sideways and the blow glanced off his shoulder and sideswiped an ear. Steve swung again and Cruz ducked, the fish flying free and shattering the glass door of the salon. Cruz reached for his knife in the ankle sheath and Steve barreled into him, knocking them both to the deck.

  On the fly bridge, Victoria screamed, “Stop! Both of you!”

  The two men rolled over each other, scraping elbows and knees on the planked deck. Cruz was heavier, and his breath smelled of tobacco. Steve was wiry and quicker, but ended up underneath when they skidded to a stop. Cruz grabbed Steve’s T-shirt at the neck and slammed his head into the deck. Once, twice, three times. Thwomp, thwomp, thwomp.

  Steve balled a fist and landed a short right that caught Cruz squarely on the Adam’s apple. The man gagged, clutched his throat, and fell backward. Steve squirmed out from under, but Cruz tripped him. Steve tumbled into the gunwale, smacking his head, sparks flashing behind his eyes. He had the sensation of being dragged across a hard floor. On his back, he opened his eyes and saw something glistening in the sun.

  The knife blade!

  Cruz was on his knees, knife in hand. “Pendejo! I oughta make chum out of you.”

  “No!” Victoria’s voice, closer than it should have been.

  Steve heard the clunk, saw Cruz topple over, felt him bounce off his own chest. Straddling both of them was Victoria, a three-foot steel tarpon gaff in her right hand.

  “Omigod,” she said. “I didn’t kill him, did I?”

  “Not unless a dead man grunts and farts at the same time,” Steve said, listening to sounds coming from both ends of the semiconscious man.

  He shoved Cruz off and stood up, wrapping his arms around Victoria, who was trembling. “You were terrific, Vic. We work great together.”

  “Really? What did you do?”

  “Come on. Help me get him up the ladder.” Steve pulled the handcuffs from his pocket. “I want him on the bridge.”

  “What now? What insanity now?”

  “Relax, Vic. In a few hours, Cruz will be dying to give back Teresa’s money.”

  Steve had played fast and loose with the rules before, Victoria thought, but nothing like this.

  This is scary. And in the eyes of the law, she was dirty too.

  This could mean trading the couture outfits and Italian footwear for orange jumpsuits and shower shoes.

  With one wrist handcuffed to the rail at the rear of the bridge, Cruz had been berating Steve for the past twenty minutes.

  “Know what, Solomon? She hits harder than you do.”

  “Mr. Cruz,” Victoria said, “if you begin to feel dizzy or nauseous, let me know. Head trauma can be very dangerous.”

  “What about my head?” Steve demanded.

  “It’s impervious to trauma. Or reason.”

  The Wet Dream was planing across the tops of small whitecaps when Steve said: “Take the wheel, Vic. Keep it on two-zero-two.”

  “Please,” she said, irritated.

  “What?”

  “‘Keep it on two-zero-two, please.’”

  “A captain doesn’t say ‘please.’”

  “Maybe not Captain Bligh.” Victoria slid behind the wheel, thinking perhaps she’d hit the wrong man with the gaff. She still didn’t know where they were headed, and Steve’s behavior was becoming increasingly bizarre. He had the beginning of a lump on his head, and blood trickled from his skinned elbows and knees.

  “Kidnapping,” Cruz said. “Assault. Boat theft. You two are gonna be busy little shysters.”

  “Shut up,” Steve said. “Under the law of the sea, I’m master of this craft.”

  “What law? You stole my fucking boat.”

  Once past Key West, they entered the Florida Straits, the water growing deeper, the color turning from light green to aquamarine to cobalt blue. No reefs here, and a five-foot chop slapped at the hull of the boat. The wavecaps sparkled, as if studded with diamonds in the late-afternoon sun.

  “Gonna tell you a story, Cruz,” Steve said, “and when I’m done, you’re gonna cry and beg forgiveness and give back all the money you stole.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Story starts forty-some years ago in Havana. A beautiful lady named Teresa Toraño lost her husband who was brave enough to oppose Fidel Castro.”

  “Tough shit,” Cruz said. “Happened to a lot of people.”

  “Teresa came to Miami with nothing. Worked minimum wage, mopped floors in a car dealership, ended up owning Toraño Chevrolet.”

  “My papi always told me hard work pays off,” Cruz said, smirking. “Too bad he never got out of the cane fields.”

  “A few years ago, she hires a new controller. A fellow exiliado. This guy’s got a fancy computer system that will revolutionize their books. It also lets him steal three million bucks before anybody knows what hit them. Now the banks have pulled Teresa’s line of credit, and she could go under.”

  “I’m not crying, Solomon.”

  “Not done yet. See, this lady is damn important to me. If it hadn’t been for Teresa giving me work my first year out of school, I’d have gone broke.”

  Lo único que logró fue posponer lo inevitable,” Cruz said. “She only postponed the inevitable.”

  Victoria knew there was more to it than just a financial relationship. Teresa had virtually adopted Steve and his nephew Bobby, and the Solomon boys loved her in return. After Victoria entered the picture, she was added to the extended Toraño family. Each year at Christmas, they all gathered at Teresa’s estate in Coral Gables for her homemade crema de vie, an anise drink so rich it made eggnog seem like diet soda. All of which meant that Steve would do anything for Teresa. One of Steve’s self-proclaimed laws expressed the principle: “I won’t break the law, breach legal ethics, or risk jail time…unless it’s for someone I love.”

  Now that Victoria thought about it, the question wasn’t: Just what would Steve do for Teresa Toraño? It was: What wouldn’t he do?

  “That sleazy accountant,” Steve said. “In Cuba, he kept the books for the student worker program, the students who cut sugar cane. Ran the whole food services division. But he had a nasty habit of cutting the pineapple juice with water and selling the meat off the back of trucks. The kids went hungry and he got fat. When the authorities found out, he stole a boat and got the hell out of the worker’s paradise.”

  “Old news, hombre.”

  “Vic, still on two-zero-two?” Steve asked.

  “I know how to read a compass,” she said sharply.

  “Where you taking me?” Cruz demanded.

  “Jeez, how’d you ever get from Havana to Key West?” Steve said.

  “Everybody in Havana knows the heading to the States. You want Key West, you keep it at twenty-two degrees.”

  “A bit east of due north. So what’s two-zero-two?” said Steve.

  “A little west of due south.”

  “Keep going, Cruz. I think you’re catching the drift, no pun intended.”

  Steve waited a moment for the bulb to pop on. When it didn’t, he continued, “202 minus 22 is 180. What happen
s when you make a 180-degree turn, philosophically or geographically speaking?”

  “Fuck!” Cruz jerked the handcuff so hard the rail shuddered. “We’re going to Havana!”

  “Bingo. We’re repatriating you.”

  “You crazy? Cuban patrol boats will sink us. You remember that tugboat, Trece de Marzo? Forty people dead.”

  “The Marzo was trying to leave the island. We’re coming in, and we’re bringing a fugitive to justice. They should give us a reward, or at least a bottle of Club Havana rum.”

  “They’ll kill me.”

  “Not without a trial. A speedy trial. Of course, if you tell us where you’ve stashed Teresa’s money, we’ll turn this tub around.”

  “Damnit, Steve,” Victoria said. “We have to talk.” Steve put the boat on auto—202 degrees—and took Victoria down to the salon.

  “We could be jailed,” she said. “Or killed. Right now, the best case scenario would be disbarment.”

  “That’s why I didn’t want you along.”

  Steve walked to the galley sink and turned on the faucet, intending to rinse the dried blood from a scraped elbow. The plumbing rattled and thumped, but nothing came out. He opened the ice maker. Empty too.

  “Cruz is a lousy host,” Steve said.

  “Are you listening to me? Let’s go back to Miami. I’ll see if we can talk Cruz out of filing charges.”

  They both heard the sound, but it took a second to identify it. A scream from the bridge. “Sol-o-mon!”

  Followed a second later by machine-gun fire.

  Steve and Victoria ran back up the ladder to the bridge. Cruz was tugging against the rail, his wrist bleeding where the handcuff sawed into his skin. Three hundred yards off their starboard, a Cuban patrol boat fired a short burst from a machine gun mounted on its bow. Dead ahead, the silhouette of the Cuban island rose from the sea, misty in the late-afternoon light.

  “Warning shots,” Steve said. “Everybody relax.”

  Steve eased back on the throttles, tooted the horn, and waved both arms at the approaching boat. “C’mon Cruz. It’s now or never. When they pull alongside, I’m handing you over.”

  “Do what you got to do, asshole.”

  “Steve, turn the boat around,” Victoria ordered. “Now!”