Kill City USA

by Warren Roberts

  ‘Forget ethnic violence in Ireland. They’ve turned into the biggest bunch of hoods in Western Europe. Cigarette smuggling, protection rackets, prostitution, DVD and software piracy, bank heists, drugs, identity-theft fraud, money laundering, counterfeiting, kidnapping, you name it, they got it. Extracurricular earners to supplement their pensions. Even a little management consultancy for groups like FARC in Columbia. A niche where Ernst & Young fears to tread. It’s the genetically modified IRA now.’

  Our meal arrived.

  ‘How are things at Dooley and Gloria’s? You comfortable there?’

  ‘Sure. Great people. They’ve made me very welcome.’

  Jay handled her chopsticks with more style than Suzie Wong. And like Suzie, she didn’t look the sort of girl who thought fucking and cooking were two cities in China. I pictured her in a cheongsam, slit to the upper thighs, as we drifted lazily on a sampan.

  ‘How come a Cuban has a name like Dooley?’ ‘An Irish grandfather sailor who jumped ship in Havana for Dooley’s hot Cubana grandma.’

  ‘Irish grandfather. Like Che Guevara, huh. Maybe they’re related.’

  ‘His grand mother was Irish,’ I said. ‘And he was born in Argentina.’

  ‘You’re almost cute when you’re being a smartass,’ she said.

  ‘Almost?’

  I pushed Sayers’ package towards her.

  She eventually picked it up and pulled out thirty or so pages of photocopied documents which she flicked through for a while without showing interest. She handed them to me.

  I looked at them briefly. Photocopies of bank transfers to accounts in Grand Cayman, Beirut, Bermuda and Panama, shipping bills of lading, invoices, copies of letters, e-mails and faxes, photos and news clippings.

  She sighed. ‘Sayers reckons this lot will prove Nils was in it up to his neck. And that he had transfers of monies to accounts controlled by him that were never reported to the taxman.’

  ‘I bet it implicates Sayers as well. If so, he wouldn’t be fool enough to use it.’

  ‘I think he’s too smart for that. But who knows?’

  I said, ‘Have a good look through it all. At your leisure. See what you find. Then we’ll go through the documents together.’

  ‘Nils was very smart. I can’t believe he would have left lots of incriminating evidence around. Particularly for Charlie Sayers to get hold of.’

  ‘These could be forgeries. That would be Sayers’ speed. Or stuff that’s innocuous but he thinks will make you panic.’

  ‘Perhaps. It’s the money transfers that I worry about. I don’t want the revenue people reopening his affairs and getting money back from his grieving widow. That’s his hold on me. I just want all this to go away.’

  ‘Sayers is not going to give up,’ I said. ‘He’s a bully and an upper-class chauvinist. You’re a woman. So he thinks he has the upper hand.’

  ‘Maybe I should just sell to him.’

  ‘For market price, sure. Why not?’ I said.

  ‘He doesn’t have that sort of money.’

  ‘Well let’s see what else he’s up to here. My bet is he’s on someone else’s dime. I’ll have someone keep an eye on them and we’ll see what they’re up to.’

  ‘Sounds a lot of trouble.’

  ‘Needs to be done.’

  ‘I agree. But Milo, I’m shit-scared after what happened in your office. Thank God you’re with me. Or I’m here with you. You know what I mean.’

  She leant across the table and squeezed my hand, letting hers linger a while longer than it should have.

  I retrieved my fingers to pour tea. ‘You know any of Sayers’ contacts here?’

  ‘There was an Irish pub he took us to once. Some corny name like O’Malley’s. Owned by a cousin of Irish. I hated it. Everyone got drunk and sang anti-English songs so Nils and I left. I remember it was on Flagler because I had to return the next day to pick up a jacket I’d left there. I’d been in a hurry to leave. I was surprised no one had stolen it.’

  ‘I’ll have the place checked out.’

  The maitre arrived with a small plate with two fortune cookies on it.

  ‘What does yours say?’ said Jay.

  ‘Help me. I’m being held prisoner in the fortune cookie factory,’ I said.

  She smiled. ‘No. Seriously. What does it say?’

  ‘Trust in God but lock your car.’

  ‘OK. I give up.’

  I said, ‘What about yours?’

  ‘As you slide down the banister of life, may the splinters point in the wrong direction.’

  ‘Touché.’

  I extricated my hand she was holding again, to motion for the check.

  Outside the centre we picked up a cab and I dropped Jay off at Dooley’s, where she was going to spend the afternoon with Gloria at their pool. We agreed to meet for dinner that evening to try stone crabs somewhere.

  I returned to the car park to pick up the bike. I’d paid the young attendant twenty-five bucks to polish it. I put my new radio in the pannier and gunned the motor.

  I turned onto Collins and headed back toward the office. I wanted to put a tail on our English visitors after having Tonique go discreetly to The Delano to point them out. Or tell them to look for someone at the pool bar in pinstripes, reading Jeffrey Archer.

  As I hung a left into the car park next to our office, I caught a glimpse of a red car in my side mirror turning around the corner toward our building. It was the BMW I’d seen earlier in the day. It must have been waiting nearby as it hadn’t followed me back from the car park.

  I rode the bike in a tight arc and pointed it toward the car park entrance with the motor running. There was no sign of the Beemer. Perhaps I was a little paranoid or maybe the three precious flavours were reacting with each other. I didn’t cut the motor but sat and waited a short while, my legs astride the bike. It didn’t take long. Two men in fly fisherman’s vests walked into the car park.

  The latex gloves they wore weren’t to help them cast for trout. My first thought was of my automatic in the office doing no good at all, so I twisted the throttle and kicked down into first.

  They both drew pistols and crouched, taking aim at me, having read the Gary Cooper manual. I pointed the bike to the nearest of the two and dropped the clutch as I wound up the throttle, and bent as low as I could.

  I saw a bluey-gold muzzle flash as I hit the nearest one of them and I felt the impact as his body doubled around my front wheel, and I sailed in slow motion into space, thinking about the newly polished bike and my radio in its pannier bag.

  I heard the sonic boom of the gun, as this was turning into one of those really fucked-up kinda days.

  11

  It was over-white and far too bright and clinical, and there was the sanitary smell of antiseptic in the air. A young angel was looking at me from above with bright blue eyes and I told her she had lips like Mae West. She asked me who Mae was and would I like her to get her for me from the waiting room. I said yes please and I heard Dooley say if I’m asking for Mae West I must be fine, so I went back to sleep.

  In what seemed like five minutes but was five hours, I was talking to Detective Luis Mendoza of the South Beach PD. Dooley was in the room as well. I was in the South Shore Hospital and Medical Center, with an IV drip in my left hand. A bullet had hit my shoulder, but luckily missed the bone, and I’d been concussed from the impact of my fall from the bike. Luckily for me I’d been thrown into a hydrangea hedge at the front of the car park, so my helmetless head had not been put to the test.

  There had been two shooters and a driver. The one I hit with the bike was in intensive care and had been ID’d as a member of a Yardie gang. The bike had sideswiped the other.

  Jonah had been in the office waiting for me, and had heard the commotion and rushed out. The other shooter had limp-hopped into the waiting BMW, which had burned rubber down the road. A calling card had been found at the scene, a battered Glock 17.

  Detective Mendoza pointed his well-ch
ewed pencil at me. ‘You got any enemies in this town?’ His tone suggested I was the type of guy who probably did.

  He was a burly cop whose upper body was held precariously in place by his low-slung leather belt.

  I said, ‘A few. But none that springs readily to mind.’

  ‘Husbands, wives? People you’ve upset in divorce work? Or someone you’ve had put away?’

  ‘I don’t do divorce work anymore. But mine’s not the sort of business I do to win friends – though I do like to influence people. I’ll give it some thought.’

  A nod. ‘Do that. Let me know if you think of anything at all. Foreigners being shot at in the streets of this town is bad publicity. Even PIs. Keeps the tourists away.’

  ‘So tell the papers I’m American. Then they won’t care.’

  ‘Good idea.’

  ‘What you know about the guy I hit with the bike?’

  ‘One of the Shower Yardies.’

  ‘What’s shower got to do with it. They’re well-washed gang-bangers?’

  ‘Shower as in shower of bullets. They were big here in the eighties when this town was Murdertown USA. You hire them cheap for their initiation hits. It’s a twofer. They get initiated and paid for doing the dirty deed – two for the price of one. Cost efficient capitalism at work. God Bless America.’

  I said, ‘What’s his condition?’

  Dooley said, ‘Nothing minor, I hope.’

  ‘Mr Milo here hit him fair and square. He took the force of the collision full on, and then his head and body hit the ground pretty hard. He’s in bad shape.’

  ‘You keeping a good eye on him?’ Dooley said.

  ‘We got the alleged perp under armed guard but we won’t get nothing from him when he comes to. These guys don’t talk. It’s nothing to do with some Jamaican version of Omerta. Just cold-blooded fear. Them and their families would be wiped out if they opened their traps.’

  I knew the Yardies from liberating the drug induced Sally from them in Devon. Their gangs had been raised in the violent shitstem of Jamaican politics and had then gifted their vicious ways to the world. America’s mean streets were comparatively benign to them after the horrors of Kingston ghetto life and they quickly introduced their form of brutality to them to make it feel more like Home Sweet Home. They soon became an essential boon to the Panamanian and Colombian crack dealers in helping them set up in the US street market.

  Then they defined for themselves the hip-hop culture into the bargain, thereby gifting to the world gangsta rap for those sick of Bob Marley and reggae.

  ‘We’ll have someone keep an eye on you here tonight. As soon as you’re out, gimme a call and I’ll have you come in and make a statement.’ The detective got up to leave. ‘When you’re ready we’ll have you in to ID the perp in a line-up.’

  I’d lost a bit of blood. The hospital wanted to keep me overnight for observation of my concussion, after double checking my medical insurance was in order. I was a little groggy but didn’t feel like going anyplace else right away so I agreed. Besides, I needed time to tell the angel all about Mae West.

  Dooley flipped a quarter. ‘So. The Brits or the Eyeties.’

  ‘Well. They’re both candidates. Moresco’s a prime one. But I’m not sure it’s his style,’ I said. ‘He’s the type’d do such things himself so he could get off on letting you know it was him.’

  ‘It’s put the frighteners on Tomas. Hasn’t even asked how his beloved bike is. What about Jay’s English guys?’

  ‘They’ve just arrived. Take time to set shit like this up.’

  ‘Could have arranged it from London. The Yardies come cheap and her friends seem the bargain basement type.’

  ‘Perhaps. They wouldn’t have the balls to do it themselves.’

  ‘It’d scare Jay into doing what they want.’

  ‘Yeah. It’s maybe the dumb fuck sort of thing they would do.’ But I wasn’t convinced.

  ‘Anyone else you can think of?’

  ‘I’ll sleep on it.’

  The door of my private room opened. It was Jonah and Jay with a large bunch of flowers nesting a fifth of Johnny Walker Black Label. It was good to see all three.

  Jay kissed me on the cheek. She was shaking. ‘The lengths you’ll go to get out of taking me to dinner tonight, Milo.’

  I said, ‘Don’t worry. It’s not your friends did this.’

  ‘You sure?’

  I lied, ‘Sure I’m sure. Got lots of other shit going down in my life.’

  She nodded, unconvinced. This was new territory.

  Dooley said, ‘We’re putting a tail on the Brits. On our dime, so don’t you worry. You also move out of the guest quarters today into our house. Give you more peace of mind.’

  Jay nodded again, her smile less forced this time. ‘Just when I was going to try to quit smoking, you do this to me.’

  A doc returned and told everyone I needed rest and they could come and see me in the morning. I told him I was leaving tomorrow and he said he’d see about that. The PD agreed to keep a guard there for the evening, and Jonah told me he’d keep watch on the PD.

  Then angel came back and my visitors left. I dozed until the hospital dinner arrived. Thanks but no thanks until Angel found me some fresh fruit and juice, so I dined on the consommé of the Highlands – Black Label scotch, plus a side of papaya.

  The cops came for more details in the morning. I had nothing more I wanted to tell but agreed to go into the station to give a statement later in the day. The hospital coffee tasted like recycled grounds which it probably was so Jonah went out to get himself, the cop and me something properly caffeinated and drinkable.

  I was stiff and sore and angry. Thankfully they’d been amateurs. Plus I was almost insulted they’d only bothered to use a battered old piece. The captured Yardie was still in intensive care taking up hospital space and time until he was well enough to be taking up time and space in the joint.

  The incident had briefly made the morning newspaper without mention of my name. It was just another gangland shooting to the violence-weary readers. This was after all the US state that had liberalised its gun laws just to even up the armed balance between the goodies and the baddies. You could spell your name or do a passable X here, you were licensed to kill.

  The hospital reluctantly agreed I could leave as long as I signed a form stating I was discharging myself against their better wishes, and I would have no claims relating to the heretofore, etc, etc. I felt safer on the streets with Jonah in close proximity than lying in a hospital bed, angel or no angel, so I signed.

  Cza had agreed to meet me at 2. She was out of Miami but gave directions for us to meet at a coffee shop in Fort Lauderdale.

  Jonah drove us northwards past fast food joints, more fast food joints and still more fast food joints until we saw the outline of high rise condominiums spreading across the skyline like a malignant tumour, a monument to man’s stupidity against the forces of nature and good taste.

  No one seemed to be following us. We’d taken a couple of detours just in case. My left shoulder was bandaged, and I was bruised and sore. And we were loaded for bear.

  Cza was waiting for us. I introduced Jonah and he took a seat at the counter to keep an eye on us and the door. She gave me a brief peck on my lips. So I pecked her back.

  ‘You OK?’ she said.

  I nodded. ‘Fine. As I said, I’m indestructible. And they weren’t pros.’

  I summarised what had happened since we’d met last, which seemed like a long time but was only a few days. Time flies when you’re being shot at. I also told her about Jay and her friends from London.

  ‘So who do you think it was?’ She was grinning in anticipation. Whatever turns you on.

  ‘It’s the sort of thing that Moresco would do himself. Not use hired help. The Brits? I’m not so sure.’

  ‘This guy Irish sounds like he must have some form somewhere. I’ll look him and his pal up for you.’

  She wrote down their details. ‘
D told me about Moresco’s thong.’ She laughed.

  ‘It seemed the thing to do at the time.’

  I had told her about Jonah and Co on the Bayliner, fudging the bit about them being rent-a-Feds.

  She was adrenalised. This stuff did turn her on. ‘What about Paul Quaranto? What’d you make of him?’

  ‘No fool. Tough bastard. But I don’t see how he keeps rein on Ernie the Hammer.’

  She waved to someone leaving the restaurant. ‘You get anywhere on Tomas’ problem?’

  I said, ‘We’re now off the side road and on the freeway. Just nudging the speed limit.’

  Jonah was in deep discussion with a cute red-haired waitress I’d noticed earlier who walked the way only professionally trained dancers can. It carried into her day job. She had a long lean body with great posture, and no knicker line under her tight white shorts. They were probably discussing the finer points of pas-de-deux or Swan Lake or the choreography of Bob Fosse. She was enjoying the conversation.

  ‘Your friend Jonah makes an impression. He seems the sort of person who’s probably as good as he looks,’ said Cza. As an afterthought she added, ‘At whatever it is he’s good at.’

  ‘He is that.’

  We ordered coffee and orange juice.

  ‘I told you about this shipping scam we tried to link Quaranto to back in the eighties,’ said Cza.

  I nodded. ‘Two mil of the mob’s money?’

  ‘That’s the one. Well, the dog’s ass sure must have smelled fruity the first time round, ‘cos they’re back sniffin’. We get this call Friday from South Fed in Coral Gables. Shipping documents had just been presented against a letter of credit opened by a Chinese importer. For shipment of containers of premium bourbon by a small Florida exporter, at a bargain price.’

  I said, ‘That’s illegal?’

  ‘Not at all. What alerted the bank was some discrepancy on the shipping documents that suggested fraud.’

  Our drinks arrived and the waitress returned to her station which was also where Jonah was.

  ‘So the bank’s security people called us. We’d told them some time ago about these shipping scams and one of their eagle-eyed clerks remembered and picked up on the documents. The shipper’s a fairly new client and this is their third shipment but it’s a lot bigger than their previous ones.’