Will and I went downstairs to meet him.
“Mornin’,” he nodded his greeting as we exited the building. Another man remained inside a waiting SUV parked about 50 feet behind Bushy’s ride.
“Morning,” Will and I returned his salutation.
The morning air already felt damp, and dark clouds hung on the western horizon.
Our meeting with the bearded man was brief and to the point.
“This here is your ride for the day,” he nodded at the car he’d driven.
“Okay,” I said.
Bushy handed me an envelope. “Here’s your starting point. He probably won’t be down before noon, but be there earlier than that just in case.”
I opened the envelope and pulled out a sheet of paper. There were two addresses written on it.
“Memorize them,” Bushy said.
“What?” I said.
“Memorize the addresses. The first is your starting point. The second is where you’ll drop off the information you collect throughout the day. I’m not leaving them with you just in case you get caught. And remember, if you are noticed or do get caught, you don’t know us because we definitely won’t know you. Got it?”
I nodded, staring at the addresses, reading them over and over again in my mind. I read them aloud to Will several times just to be on the safe side, and then I handed the paper and envelope back to Bushy.
“Any questions?” Bushy asked.
“Times, locations, and descriptions of people he meets with. That’s pretty much it, right?”
“Right,” Bushy nodded. “And any other details you notice or think might be important. Here,” he handed me two pairs of binoculars. “These might come in handy.”
“Thanks,” I nodded. “So we do this for a week and we get paid, right?”
“That’s the deal,” said Bushy, walking back to the SUV. “I’ll be back at the same time tomorrow mornin’ with a new vehicle for you. I’ll give you that one and take this one. We’ll do that every mornin’ so it’ll be less likely he’ll notice he’s being tailed.”
“Sounds good,” I said as Bushy got inside the SUV and its driver started the engine.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Bushy called out the passenger side window as he reached down to fish something from the glove compartment. “Here,” he said, beckoning me over so he could hand me a small vial of insulin. “Consider it a downpayment and a show of good faith.”
“Thanks,” I nodded, taking the vial, my spirits lifted.
“There’s plenty more where that came from if you do a good job,” he nodded. “Take care, and remember, don’t get caught,” he told us as the SUV pulled away.
“Will, I’m going to run this insulin upstairs, and then we can get going,” I told my brother, handing him the binoculars that Bushy had given us.
“Will do,” he agreed.
I returned five minutes later with two thermoses of instant coffee that the rest of the group upstairs had specially brewed for us.
We took a minute to consult our area map of Miami, locating the streets names that Bushy had provided us, and then we were on the road and headed downtown.
I had hopes that it would rain, and I eyed the distant clouds expectantly as we drove into town. Our water supplies were dangerously low and we had dozens of containers up on the roof just waiting to be filled. We’d had to weight most of them down with rocks to keep them in place and from tipping over or blowing away in what was proving often to be a quite strong ocean breeze.
I’d left the rest of the group – minus Claire of course, who was charged solely with managing her blood sugar levels – with continuing the search of the apartment building. However, after my encounter the other night, I had the adults carrying weapons with them at all times – even inside the building – just to be on the safe side. Everyone was to stay inside and remain observant. I made sure that Claire had her .22 handgun beside the bed. Emily had volunteered to help Claire watch Jason while the rest of the group conducted their searches. It seemed to me the best way to keep everyone occupied and busy but relatively safe and secure while Will and I were away.
Just about the only time any of our group ventured outside the building now was early in the morning. We’d discovered that the quietest time of day or night was between the hours of 2 and 4 a.m. Dad had taken to some early-morning fishing at around this time since he’d been having trouble sleeping. Emily would often go out with him to keep him company and help out where she could. Dad hadn’t been very successful in his first few tries, pretty much catching what in the old days would have been considered enough to feed the pelicans that waddled on the beach nearby. Still, the small fish were enough to feed a person or two or make a soup for the family.
On their trips out, dad and Emily would also take some soap and washrags along to bathe in the surf or to wash some clothes. We decided to start having several additional members of the group accompany them on their trips each morning to get cleaned up and to try their hand at fishing too.
As Will and I headed into town, I found it strange to drive a vehicle again and not have fuel consumption hovering in the back of my mind as a constant concern. Even then, I realized that purely from habit, I was still driving slowly, constantly checking our speed and lifting my foot from the accelerator to coast whenever possible.
It didn’t take us long to find our starting spot – a towering downtown condo building. We parked behind several other vehicles on the street near the end of the block.
As we sat sipping our coffee, it began to rain. It was more of a soft drizzle, but I’d take it.
“Hope some of this is headed out to the apartments,” I said to Will.
“Yeah,” he nodded. “That’d be nice.” He took a sip of coffee, “You know what this guy looks like?” he asked.
I shrugged, “Supposed to be kind of small in stature, greasy black hair, pale skin, wears lots of black, drinks lots of tequila, and rides in a black SUV.”
“And this guy runs Miami now?” Will asked, eyebrows raised.
“That’s the story,” I shrugged again. “I don’t really know, and I don’t really care. I just want to get this done, get paid, and get the hell out of here.”
“I hear that,” Will nodded in agreement. “The vial you got this morning from Bushy. Where’s that put Claire with her supply?”
“Each vial gives us about a month. So we’re up to about a month and a half now,” I said.
“Not bad,” Will said, taking another sip of his coffee.
“Not good either,” I reminded him.
Will nodded his silent agreement and took another drink. “Ahh,” he breathed. “Good to have coffee again…even though it tastes like crap.”
“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”
“Too long,” Will agreed.
We sat for the next two hours chatting, sipping more coffee from our thermoses, and munching on snacks of dried fish and stale crackers. Near lunchtime, we broke out some canned beans, more stale crackers, bananas, and an orange each. It wasn’t the most satisfying of meals, but we weren’t burning many calories just sitting in the car.
At 11:50 a.m., a black SUV passed us and parked in front of the condo building.
Will jotted the event down in a notepad we had for our recordkeeping.
At just a little past noon, the Jake character that Ava had requested us to tail for the week, emerged. He fit her description perfectly. He wore black jeans, black boots, a tight-fitting black t-shirt, and a driver opened the door for him to climb inside the back of the waiting black SUV.
“Must be a real happy camper to love black so much,” Will observed.
I started the car.
“You’ll have to be careful,” Will said. “Not much traffic to hide in these days.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll hang back,” I said.
“Just don’t lose him,” Will continued eating from his can of beans as Jake’s SUV pulled out and headed west.
We followed him
to a nice little condo on Northwest 6th Street. Halfway there, an empty liquor bottle came flying out the SUV’s passenger window, smashing on the road.
“Finished morning eye opener,” Will noted the time and event in his notepad.
“Boy, they’re going to love your notes,” I said with a laugh.
“Hey, we don’t know what they’re looking for and it could be important in some way,” Will defended himself. “I’m just trying to make sure we get paid, that’s all.”
“Keep at it,” I said, not wanting to deter his Sherlock sleuthing. He was right, we had no idea what seemingly minor detail about Jake’s daily routine could prove important to someone else.
The next couple days with Will were actually kind of fun. We enjoyed our roles playing amateur private-eyes. Even though we had no real idea of what we were doing or why, we noted anything and everything we thought might be important about Jake’s daily activities.
During our tailing of him, it quickly became evident though that Jake didn’t hold much interest in his governance of Miami. He seemed more interested in drinking and meeting up with the mistress he’d apparently taken and who resided in the condo that we’d follow him to each day right around the noon hour. He’d spend about two hours there. Several times, he’d come out the front door after his romp, still kissing or fondling the woman as he pulled his clothes on to leave.
From what we could see through the binoculars that Bushy had given us, the woman was attractive. From our best estimates, she looked to be in her early-20s, Caucasian, blonde, maybe 5’6 or 5’7, about 115 to 125 pounds, and shapely. Once when Jake was leaving, she accompanied him to his SUV, still stark naked, which certainly livened things up for us on what had otherwise been a pretty dull day. While her face was decent looking, I could certainly see why Jake liked this woman. Her fake boobs stood perkily at attention and she had a dancer’s trim physique.
He certainly made little effort to conceal his regular visits to her, but I guessed that a man in his position probably didn’t have to. After he left his lover’s nest, we found that he usually headed to one of the area markets around town. There, he’d pick up some food and some more alcohol, occasionally taking a meeting with one or more of the local merchants there.
From the market, he’d then head back downtown, stopping in at a large bank branch. The bank itself was located in the first floor of a massive office building that had once been occupied by one of the larger US banks before the flu. The outside signage from the previous bank had been covered up with a white sheet and a new sign overtop it now read, “First Bank of Miami.”
Jake tended not to spend long inside the bank. He was typically in and out in about 15 minutes, and we had no idea what he did inside, nor were we going to follow him inside to find out. We were already risking our asses, and we weren’t going to press our luck if we didn’t have to.
Then it was back to his condo building where the driver would drop Jake off out front and escort him inside the building before moving the vehicle to a nearby underground parking garage.
Each morning, true to his word, Bushy would arrive with a new vehicle filled with gas and exchange it for our old one. As the fourth day of our tracking dragged on though, we began to find our duty of following Jake rather monotonous and the excitement of playing private-eye starting to wear off. Will and I were running out of things to talk about and we were going stir crazy sitting inside the car all day.
Late afternoon – once Jake was done with his woman and we were left without the prospect of any live-action nudity – was when the boredom really started to set in. And while the rain that had settled over Miami for the past few days was a welcome addition in helping to bolster our water supply back at the apartment building, it forced us to keep the car windows up, which turned the interior into a hot, stinky mess by day’s end. The windows would fog up making it hard to see. Half the time the defoggers on the vehicles Bushy brought for us didn’t work well or at all, and we were forced to keep a roll of paper towels with us to constantly wipe the moisture our body heat created off the windows so that we could continue to observe Jake while at the same time follow him from a safe distance. Several times, I was forced to stick my head out the window and drive with it in the pouring rain just to ensure we didn’t lose him.
Each afternoon after Jake returned home from his outings, we’d take our notes, read over them, organize them, and make any additions we thought might be helpful. Then we’d drive them over to an upscale boutique hotel in the Little Havana neighborhood. There, we’d take our notes, concealed within a sealed envelope, inside the air-conditioned lobby where we’d dawdle just a bit in the frosty coolness before leaving them with the man at the front desk. We had no idea where or to whom they went next. We figured Ava or Bushy, but we really had no idea, nor did we care.
On Thursday evening – with just one day left to go in our week of work for Ava and Bushy – Will and I treated ourselves to a drink in the hotel’s adjoining bar. Each drink cost us two rounds of ammunition from the weapons that we were requested to check at the lounge’s entrance. Will had a double whiskey on the rocks, and I had a vodka martini with two olives. We both thought it a reasonable price to pay, and we savored our drinks, relishing not just the alcohol but the air-conditioned lounge as well. Not having tasted alcohol since we’d left Georgia, it was a great treat and one that left us feeling a bit tipsy.
On the way home, our booze buzzes got the better of us, and we decided that we shouldn’t be the only ones to enjoy a special treat. Therefore, we stopped off at the downtown market to pick up something special for the group’s dinner.
We took our time, enjoying the evening, and walking among the array of different vendor stands. We ogled the merchandise and debated what exactly we should get the group as their treat. Finally, as we neared the far end of the market, we found a stand selling fresh meat. We ended up picking up several nice cuts of beef. The cost was a little higher than we hoped, running us ten rounds of ammo. But knowing that a good payday was just around the corner, we bit the bullet – or ten bullets rather – and bought the cuts. We chose a nice piece of tilapia for Sharron, which ran us another two rounds of ammo since fish were far more plentiful in the Miami area than beef, and we negotiated into the deal four good-sized potatoes and two onions at no additional charge.
Pleased with ourselves, and excited to get home and show the others their special dinner, we headed for the car. About halfway back through the market though, we saw Myron standing in front of his stand.
“Let’s go say hi,” said Will jovially, still feeling good from his drink.
“Wait,” I said, grabbing his shoulder to stop him. “Look who else is there.”
Standing just a few feet away – a group of some not-so-nice looking characters circled around him – was Jake.
As though sensing our presence, Jake turned to see us standing there, our goodies in hand, staring at him.
“Hey!” he called over to us.
We both turned our heads slightly to look at the nearest vendor stand, pretending as though we were searching for something, hoping that Jake would turn his attention back to his hovering gang of thugs, but it didn’t work.
“Hey you!” he called again. “Get the fuck over here!”
The group of men he’d been talking to all looked to see who Jake was yelling at.
Will and I glanced at one another. We didn’t feel as though we had much of a choice in the matter, so we slowly walked over to see what Jake and his band of goons wanted with us.
CHAPTER 14
Jake was quickly getting bored. Frankly, he’d expected more from Miami. He’d had high hopes when they were fighting for control of the city. He had something to do, he had something to achieve, there was death and destruction to be wrought. But then it all ended, and it ended far too quickly in Jake’s opinion.
While he enjoyed the power he now held over the city, there was something missing. The challenge in his life was suddenly gone
, leaving a void that he was finding difficult to fill. Jake thought it would be nice to have the power he’d always dreamed of, but it was almost like hitting the lottery. Now there was nothing to do, nothing left to achieve. Sure, he checked up on things, held meetings with area traders, met with his minions, and oversaw the general operations of his organization, but that wasn’t him, that wasn’t what he liked to do. He liked to fight. It really didn’t matter against what. He just liked to fight. And without some sort of opponent there to pit himself against, the challenge of life was gone, leaving it largely meaningless.
This was why he’d decided to take a mistress. Ava was still his main girl, but he needed something else, something to challenge him. He wanted to see if he could keep a woman on the side without Ava finding out. It wasn’t much, but it was something to help keep him occupied. And he had to admit, it was one hell of a hobby. But even with another woman in the picture, he was still finding himself lost here in this foreign land.
Ava had made Miami sound like some sort of paradise, but Jake was finding it to be his own personal hell. It was hot all the time. There were buzzing, biting, and annoying swarms of bugs everywhere he went. He constantly had to lather himself with a grimy layer of bug repellant and sunscreen so that his pasty skin wouldn’t burn or be bitten all to hell by the rabid insect population, which to him seemed far more dangerous than the civilian population.
The resistance in Miami had folded like an overplayed poker hand. They’d hardly put up a fight in his opinion. It was as though they wanted to be ruled by someone, and that left a bad taste in Jake’s mouth. He couldn’t respect it. Back in Chicago, they would have fought tooth-and-nail to keep outsiders from coming in to rule their territory. He’d never be able to accomplish there what he’d done here in just a month. This left him feeling angry and frustrated because what he’d hoped would be his greatest accomplishment now tasted bitter-sweet. It was almost as though he hadn’t earned it.
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