‘Yeah. I was lucky. Someone sent some amateurs after me.’
‘Any ideas who?’
‘A few.’
‘You watch those Yardie fuckers. They give violence a bad name. Shoot you no problem, man. Pow. Don’t mean no goddamned thing to them eight balls.’
The waitress brought the detective another bowl of fries. He’d sent out gimme grub waves on some special food frequency.
‘This is good. Why don’t you have some?’
What the hell. We ordered the same.
‘What you got for us?’ I said.
‘Got a guy with our Special Investigation Division working here with the DEA. He calls us early this morning. Seems some drug mules had been spotted on the overnight flight from Rio. Not eating or drinking on the plane. Plus they fitted other profiles. The DEA arranged for them to be let through customs. They followed them here from Miami International.’
I said, ‘Let me guess.’
‘Well almost. They were taken to Little Havana by cab, then picked up at some bus stop by a van. They were followed to the north part of Coral Gables. A flat above a liquor store. We were alerted and kept watch. Three mules are still there. One left in the back of another van at about 8 am. The driver drove round in circles for quite a while, using his cellphone. Guess where he ended up at 9.30?’ I smiled. ‘You got it. The crema-fucking-tory. We don’t think he was welcome there. Our tail went to the home on a pretext. He could hear arguing, then the van left. He thinks it was without the mule.’
‘So what you going to do?’
‘We could probably get a warrant to go in there. But the DEA are more interested in seeing where the other three mules and their drugs go.’
‘You have anyone there now?’
‘Only until I leave here. We need our guy for a big bust this evening. Something we been working on for a long time. That takes precedence.’
‘Can you keep him there for another couple of hours until I can arrange something?’
He thought a little then nodded. ‘Sure, seeing it’s a friend of Dooley’s. You ain’t heard nothing from me, though. You guys are there on your nickel doing whatever.’
‘Don’t worry.’
‘OK. Our man leaves there at 3.30. Here’s where you can get me on my beeper if you need me.’
Raised eyebrows. ‘Beeper?’
‘Yeah. I still get calls from 1986.’
We traded numbers.
‘You be careful there. That Viscione dame is trouble.’
He left as our meal arrived. I called Dooley and told him we needed a surveillance vehicle. He said he would get something organised and call me back. I called the Sweet Chariot Funeral Home. A young Latina answered.
My John Wayne voice. ‘Can you tell me what time the Lopez funeral is this afternoon. I don’t have my diary with me.’
A pause. Some papers getting rustled.
‘I’m sorry. We have two services scheduled for this afternoon. Neither of them is for Lopez. Do you have the right funeral home?’
‘I’m sure it was the Sweet Chariot Home. What time are your services today?’
‘A service at 3.30 and another at 5.30. But as I’ve told you, sir, neither is for Lopez.’
‘Are they cremations?’ I said.
‘Er – no sir.’
‘I’m sorry to trouble you then. Goodbye.’ I hung up.
Dooley called. He would have a van ready at three. I asked him to see if Dario could also be made available once he’d finished at Hialeah. I had a feeling we could use his technical savvy. Dooley was still waiting to hear from him.
At three precisely a white van pulled up outside. It advertised an alarm repair service with a telephone number I was sure would be answered by someone representing to be from that alarm company. It had darkened windows. Rafe was driving.
He said, ‘Getting to be a bit of a habit, you guys.’
We left our vehicle at the restaurant. Jonah and I sat in the back of the van as Rafe drove towards SW 8th Street. We drove slowly past the home. It had one entrance, and an exit about thirty yards east. Opposite the exit was a strip mall, with a bakery deli, a Circle K convenience outlet, a liquor store, a video rental, a locksmith and a dry cleaners. One store was vacant, a For Rent sign in its window. At one end of the strip was a concrete wall with graffiti. Neat graffiti. This was Coral Gables, after all.
Vehicles were arriving for the 3.30 service. There would be a lot of coming and going over the next couple of hours so it would be difficult to spot any unusual activity. We decided to be patient and wait.
Rafe had a couple of digital Nikons with zoom lenses. He went to the deli while we remained in the back of the van. We had a good view of the exit and a restricted view of the entrance.
Around 4 there was a knock on the front door of the van. It was Dario. I let him and his 1940s fedora in.
He looked pleased to be here. ‘Sorry I couldn’t call you. My cell’s out of action,’ he said, sitting in the front. ‘Been cut off. Some fucker’s probably cloned it.’
‘What happened at Hialeah?’ I said.
‘They came and went. It’s all on tape. They’ve got a score going down. There’s a voice activated tape hooked up in case they return in my absence.’
I said, ‘The deal’s where?’
‘Some flophouse motel. We’re going to find out where.’ ‘Good.’
I explained what we were doing here. ‘Got a feeling our mule’s still in there. You reckon you could get us in tonight?’
‘I’ll take a look-see.’
‘There’s another funeral at 5.30. Go be a mourner.’
He was in jeans and a T-shirt advertising Mexican beer. I told Dario to swap his tee for Rafe’s guayabera to be less conspicuous. He left to go to the funeral, putting a few small tools into the large pockets, together with an electronic meter with two butterfly clip wires.
We settled back to watch events. Surveillance can be long and tedious and fruitless as this would probably be. We had no way of keeping track of the many vehicles entering and leaving the property. Instead we were looking for something unusual, which again might be hard to distinguish in this place.
The 5.30 mourners were now arriving and the 3.30 caravan had departed. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary except the number of Mercs, Lincolns and Beemers in the corteges. Coral Gables was an expensive place to die.
‘What you thinking there, Milo?’ said Jonah.
‘These poor sods who load their guts with pellets of drugs. You don’t need to have too much grey matter to understand the risks. You make the boss man richer and you know he don’t give a fuck ‘bout you. He cares about your cargo and getting it through next morning before ten. Like they do in those UPS ads.’
‘Got to be some desperate soul. Get deluded that one day you be up there with The Man. This muling just be your apprenticeship.’
‘These Colombian drug baronistas – they just fill a need. Basic economics – supply and demand theory. For a hundred years or more. Cocaine was once the active ingredient in Coca Cola when it was promoted as a temperance beverage. Conan Doyle had Sherlock Holmes mainlining in The Sign Of Four, when he wasn’t solving some abstruse cryptogram. Getting his mental exaltation.’
Jonah raised his eyebrows. ‘Abstruse cryptogram? Mental exaltation?’
Unabashed I continued. ‘Morphine was given to teething kids in the USA at the turn of last century. You’d buy needles to mainline it in Sears, Roebuck catalogues. Cats danced to Cab Calloway’s Reefer Man in the thirties. The US Army was given amphetamines to keep them awake for days at a time in Vietnam. USAF pilots still take uppers. Valium and Prozac keep this country running, for Chrissake.’
I sat back and downed a half bottle of water, bullshit oration being thirsty work. The van’s interior was hot and made barely comfortable by a couple of small typists chairs with their wheel castors removed. My shirt was clinging to my body.
I’d promised to go out with Jay this evening. It would be an or
iginal excuse. Sorry, babe. Can’t see you this evening as something’s come up. Have to burgle a crematory. Looking for an eviscerated human drug mule. And have a nice day.
I’d call her later. The mob and burglaries I can handle. But pissed-off women have always been my Achilles heel.
It was 5.45. Rafe had told the deli owner he was waiting to do some work in the empty shop. He wasn’t believed but the owner didn’t seem to care. Thought he was a cop or a Fed which maybe wasn’t unusual. Besides, we were probably stopping him from being robbed. Fortunately he made good coffee, the sine qua non of a surveillance op.
A Southern Bell van and a FedEx delivery truck had visited the funeral home. Hardly accomplices in body disposal, although Jonah took their licence numbers. Trust nobody.
At 6.30 we watched Dario leave the funeral home by the entrance at the far end of the street. He walked away from the van to walk around the block and come back to us from our rear.
The cortege from the second funeral was now leaving with European luxury imports following the hearse. I guess you rented to join such occasions if your day car was a clapped-out Pinto, or else you bummed an upgrade lift.
Dario tapped on the window. He looked pleased with himself like someone who’s just negotiated worldwide royalties for all those wedges of lime pushed into Mexican bottled beer. Or who has worked out how to get into the building. ‘Saps have only got a simple alarm system. A basic swipe card and a four-digit combination. An electronic reader’ll get the possible combinations in about three minutes. Just got to figure how to beat the swipe system.’
‘You can do it?’
He looked hurt. ‘Trouble is my business. Need a bit of time to get the gear but we’ll do it this evening, Shamus.’
‘OK. At midnight. The witching hour seems appropriate.’
‘Fine with me,’ said Dario. ‘But you guys going to have to sort things out with the dame at mi casa some time.’
‘She probably wish you was in a topless joint rather than in a crematory,’ said Jonah.
I clicked my fingers. ‘That’s it. My new bar, The Topless Crematory. Coffins as tables, drink out of urns, heat pizzas in furnaces, hearses as limos. Bach on the Hammond, undertakers on the door. Hades happy hours –’
Jonah interrupted. ‘This is South Florida, man. Probably one here already. Don’t forget this is where Halloween’s redundant.’
As we spoke we could see a black Lincoln Continental leaving the funeral home. Maria Viscione was driving, wearing long gloves in the Florida summer. She paid no attention to our van.
Dario said, ‘Got to go, Shamus. Get things ready for tonight.’
‘What about their video system?’ I said.
‘I can short it. There’s a fuse box near the rear entrance. Leave it to me.’
‘I don’t have my camera,’ I said.
‘I’ll bring one.’ Dario left with Rafe. They said they’d be back shortly before midnight.
Another car left the exit. It was Turner, probably skipping the cocktail hour to grab a skin-flick at some fleapit.
I called Dooley. ‘We have a bit of overtime tonight. With Dario and Rafe. I’ll see you in the morning.’
‘Got you. And I’ve got Dario’s tape.’
‘Dario gave me the gist. Can it wait till the morning?’
‘Sure. But you’d better call your lady. She’s expecting to see you tonight. I hear she’s been drinking health supplements all day to get fit. Some female Spanish Fly that Gloria put her on to. Must think you have an animal appetite. I don’t know what Gloria has been telling her about you. Or maybe she’s just into wishful thinking.’
‘Listen. Call her for me. Tell her I’m on some surveillance and can’t get through to her.’
‘You chicken shit, man. How’d you get the message to me to call her?’
‘Smoke signals or beating drums, Tonto.’
‘I’ll tell her you’re on an overnight Federal stakeout gig with Cza, some cosy boutique hotel in the Keys.’
Jonah was enjoying the half of the conversation he’d heard. He briefly raised his eyebrows which was as much expression as he ever made. When the man upstairs handed out the Joe Cool genes, Jonah got more than his share.
It was now dark outside. We’d ordered a couple of pastramis on rye with coleslaw. Rafe had left a vacuum flask of coffee plus a few large bottles of mineral water. And empties to pee in. All we needed was air-conditioning.
The Sweet Chariot Funeral Home and Crematory was now in total darkness.
‘Maybe they have a graveyard shift,’ said Jonah. ‘In the marble orchard.’
‘You know where that expression came from?’
‘Marble orchard? It’s a cemetery.’
Nah. I was referring to graveyard shift.’
‘I’m sure you gonna tell me.’
‘Sixteenth century England, towns were getting crowded and they were running out of places to bury people.’
‘A bit before my time, bro.’
‘People would dig up coffins and take the bones away, then re-use the graves. A lot of the coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside of the lids from people trying to get out. So they realised they’d been burying live people.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Yeah. So after that they tied a piece of string to the wrist of the supposed dead body and put a hole in the coffin lid. The string was attached to a bell above. Someone would then have to sit out all night in the cemetery to listen for the sound of the bell.’
‘Me, I’d just run like hell if that bell rang.’
‘Well, that’s how the expressions graveyard shift and saved by the bell came about.’
‘Sounds like a dead ringer to me.’
‘Maybe that too. You’re getting it, bro. And you know about how the word wake came about?’
‘I’m sure I’m ‘bout to.’
‘Same people. Same time. Used to knock back their booze out of lead cups. The combination of spirits and lead could knock ‘em out for a couple of days.’
‘Know that feeling well.’
‘They would lay out the apparently lifeless body on the kitchen table for a day or two. The family would gather around and eat and drink and see if they woke. Hence holding a wake.’
‘You got any other words of wisdom for me?’
‘Sure. You know that the Chinese use the same word for crisis and opportunity?’
‘Where you hear that?’
‘Lisa Simpson. So it’s gotta be true.’
‘This how you charm those ladies, Milo? Tell them this bullshit and they fall asleep with boredom, and you take them to bed. Your verbal Mickey Finn.’
‘And all along I’ve been thinking it’s that old Milo repartee at work.’
Jonah was bored. ‘Any CDs?’
I opened the glove box and found a couple of Spanish tapes. ‘Nah.’
We’d broken Surveillance Rule thirteen. Never go on a night job without Dylan, Clapton or Bob Seger. I pushed a few buttons and got a Tallahassee C&W station.
Jonah said, ‘Great. Now we can hear how the rig driving guy said sayonara to his girl at the abortion clinic so he could hit on her sister because he was sick of screwing her mother.’
I said, ‘Yeah. I think that song won a Grammy.’
We took turns, one keeping an eye on the entrance and exit while the other napped on a rubber mattress. I lay back and thought of my missed night with Jay while Jonah thought about, well, whatever he thought about.
At 11.45 there was a call from Dario.
‘All cool, baby. I’m at the rear entrance. It’s clear for you to come.’
We cautiously climbed out of the van into the deserted street and walked behind the buildings to our rear, and then around the block until we came to the funeral home entrance.
Dario and his self-satisfied look were waiting. The video camera above the door had been sprayed with black lacquer.
‘Give me another coupla minutes, max.’
He unscrewed
the cover from a numerical keypad on the wall and fixed three clips to its innards. He pressed a button on a scanner and LCD numerals whirred. A single digit was registered on a separate dial. Then two others.
‘Five-six-three, we just need a fourth.’
Jonah stood guard at the edge of the car park.
Dario read the LCD screen. ‘Two, a reverse box pattern, we’re in.’
He replaced the cover and keyed the four numbers. The door clicked open. He put a balaclava on his head.
‘Two minutes to fuse the mains and cut the video.’ He took a pull from a silver flask.
We waited.
Dario reappeared in forty-five seconds flat. ‘OK. Let’s get in – get out. Lead on, Marlowe.’
We were in the hallway near the exit to the retort room. I beamed a flashlight around. The room was cold, the furnaces hadn’t been in recent use. We went through the far door to the morgue. The embalming tables were empty. The video pods weren’t flashing. I slid out the first three refrigeration doors which yielded two body-bagged elderly white males, and a middle-aged Hispanic woman. The next four were empty.
I opened drawer number eight, a bottom drawer, and pulled out the tray and unzipped the bag.
The eyes of a Hispanic male in his twenties had not been closed. He had a goatee and a couple of long scars extending from both sides of his lower rib cage to his groin. He’d been roughly stitched with brown twine, like a boned lamb joint. I took several Polaroid shots from Dario’s B movie camera.
‘The other drawers are empty. You finished yet? This place freaks me out,’ said Dario.
In total agreement, I said, ‘Me too. Let’s get the hell out of here.’
15
Detective Jimmy Pino sat in the recliner in Dooley’s office. It was the first time I’d seen him unadjacent to a double helping of fries. He was compensating with a Danish.
‘How’d you get on? We saw you arriving at three as we pulled out.’
‘We stayed around a while. Nothing suspicious came or went. A couple of trade vans. Here are the descriptions and the licence numbers.’
He looked at them briefly. ‘That all?’
Dooley nodded to me. I gave Detective Pino the Polaroids.
Kill City USA Page 16