by Mike Dennis
≈≈≈
Back in my room, we had a couple of beers to celebrate.
I looked through the files. Most of them concerned Adams Securities and its ownership by WA Financial Group. There was a copy of the agreement between Adams and Sully for the four hundred large, just like Ryder had said. But mostly, it just looked like a lot of legalese bullshit.
Until I came across one document that stood out.
It appeared to be the purchase of a building on Duval Street--the building which housed Sullivan's Irish Pub. The buyer was none other than WA Properties, a subsidiary of WA Financial Group, and the broker of record was listed as Adams Realty, Inc, a division of Adams Securities.
The deal was dated May 4, 1989, one day after Sully gave Adams our dough. A copy of Sully's lease with the previous owner was attached.
Then there was one file marked "WA-Caribbean Holdings". I opened it and read it with great interest.
WA-Caribbean Holdings was the name of a company, owned by none other than Whitney-Adams Enterprises. From what I could make out, WA-Caribbean Holdings itself owned a bunch of smaller companies.
One was called Trans-Caribbean Airways, a small airline which, according to the documents, appeared to have the inside track on the Key West-to-Havana route when the big day came.
Another was Cuba-Caribe, Inc., which a memo said would be licensed "at some future date" by the Cuban government to build a hotel/casino in downtown Havana, plus one on the beach at Varadero. The officers of Cuba-Caribe, Inc. all had Russian names, except for the company president, one Wilson J Whitney, Junior. The one and only BK himself.
I got out Ryder's phone number and called him right away.
"Good morning!" I said with all the perkiness I could muster. "This's Doyle. Did you sleep well?"
He tried to speak. I think he said something like, "What time is it?"
"It's quarter of five! Rise and shine! The new day is here. Come on, the FBI never sleeps, right?"
After a few seconds, he became conscious, cursed me a little, then finally spoke clearly.
"All right, what is it? And this better be good."
"Put on your best regulation Hawaiian shirt and meet me at the Waffle House in a half an hour. I've got something you'll want to see."
TWENTY-EIGHT
THIS time I waited for him.
I had the files in a Sears bag next to me on the seat. It took him nearly an hour to get there from the time of the phone call, but what the hell. He works for the government.
You have to expect that.
He quickly poured himself a cup of coffee. The aroma alone seemed to soothe him. Then, he lit a cigarette with his blowtorch, blew on his coffee to cool it down, and planted that cellular telephone perfectly in the center of the table. This guy was all ritual.
Finally, he got down to business.
"Let's have it," he said.
I showed him the files, all but the one on WA-Caribbean Holdings. He examined them pretty closely. Whitney's contract to buy the building, along with Sully's accompanying lease, stopped him in his tracks, as it had me. He read it carefully.
"Here it is," he said, pointing to a date on the lease document. "Sullivan's lease was for ten years, and it was set to expire on July 1, 1991. Just a few weeks from now. And he had the option of renewing it for another ten."
"So what? Isn't that pretty routine?"
"Wait. In addition, according to the sale document, the lease agreement with Sullivan was binding on Whitney when he bought the building because Sullivan had already been occupying the premises for around eight years or so. Now, if you read this clause here —" He pointed to the middle of a long paragraph containing mostly impenetrable lingo. "It says if Sullivan wanted to renew the lease, which he hadn't done yet, he had to exercise his option no later than ninety days before the expiration date."
He spoke as if that one fact wrapped the whole thing up.
"April first," I said. "So what."
"Sullivan was killed during the early morning hours of April first."
I ran it over in my mind so it would all fall into place.
We pull the job out in Vegas, I go down for it and do a three-year bit. Sully keeps the money and, as he told me that night when I shook him down, he'd washed it through the club.
Washing four hundred dimes through a bar takes time. It can't all show up in just one or two nights. So he's patient, doing it very carefully, spreading it out over a year.
So when it's all nice and clean, he turns it over to Adams Securities. That would be in May of eighty-nine. They probably came to him, since Whitney most likely knew Sully had a lot of cash on his hands.
The very next day, Whitney buys the building that Sully's bar is in. But Sully doesn't know that Whitney and Adams are one and the same.
Anyway, Adams takes the money and invests it, just like Sully had said. For a couple of years, they show him a little income from it — standard procedure for a long con. So of course, he thinks everything's aces.
But then, without warning, things change.
The money suddenly disappears behind Whitney's smoke and mirrors, and Sully freaks out. Now we're coming up on April 1, the drop-dead date for Sully to renew his lease. The bar's doing great, he's making a pile of dough, he's even thinking about expanding into Cuba, just like he told me that night in his office. No reason to think he wouldn't renew for another ten years.
Then, I happen to come back to town.
Of course, there was no way he could give me my share of the take, much less tell me he'd been stung for the whole load. He knew I'd think he was holding out on me.
And he was right. I would've.
So I push him around a little, and a few nights later he's lying in the street with his throat cut — the very night before he's scheduled to renew his lease.
Word gets out that I threatened him, and presto!
The perfect frame.
I chewed on all of this for a minute. Then I took it around the block for Ryder, who was crushing out his cigarette.
"It fits," he said. "But wait. There's more."
"Go."
"While I'm on the phone to the office in Tallahassee, it occurs to me that they're the people who also issue liquor licenses. I inquire about the Sullivan's Irish Pub building, and guess what?"
"What?"
"On April third, a mere two days after Sullivan was killed, they receive an application for a liquor license to be used at that address. The application stated the owner of the building, WA Properties, was leasing it out to a company called Keys Good Times, Inc., for the purpose of converting it into a strip joint."
"A strip joint?"
"Right. The kind of place where you can launder money in great quantities and no one knows the difference. What's more, the officers of Keys Good Times, Inc., the actual applicants for the liquor license, were two gentlemen with Russian names. I ran them through our files. They're clean, but you can be sure they're fronts for the Russian mob."
"So Whitney must've promised the building to the Russians for their strip joint, figuring they could wash money a lot quicker than they could through a regular bar. Is that right?"
Ryder said yes, that's right.
I kept going. It fell into place for me literally as I spoke.
"Whitney probably warned Sully, maybe through BK, to let the lease expire. Sully wasn't the type of guy you could push around, so he probably told BK to shove it. Whitney couldn't afford to alienate the Russians, since they had their hearts set on his building, so Sully had to go."
"You're catching on. However, there's no real evidence that Whitney's done anything illegal."
He pulled out another cigarette, then tamped it, filter end down, on the tabletop.
I said, "But listen to this. The night I braced Sully for the money, he mentioned a deal he had working with BK. He said he was going to open up a place in Cuba after Castro is gone. He must've somehow gotten wind of Whitney's Russian connection and their Cuban ambiti
ons, and tried to bite off a little piece for himself."
I pulled out the WA-Caribbean Holdings file.
"And check this out. A paper trail leading from Whitney to the Russians, then straight to Cuba."
Ryder pored over the documents through widening eyes. He got what he wanted.
I looked at my watch. Ten till seven. Outside, up in the black sky, the first traces of dawn were slowly seeping in from the east. I needed to sleep.
"You want copies of these files?" I asked him.
"Naturally."
"Make what you need," I told him. "But get them back to me by this afternoon."
I left the Waffle House and drove back to my room. Doc was still asleep on the couch. I tried to be quiet as I got out of my clothes, then crawled into bed.
Sleep hit me right away.
TWENTY-NINE
I got the files back from Ryder later that day. That night, Doc returned them to Whitney's cabinet with no trouble. He even made sure they were in alphabetical order when he put them back.
Ever since Doc got into town, I could tell he knew this was no ordinary job. He knew better than to come right out and ask if I was in a jam, but he hinted around at it.
So the following morning, I sat him down over coffee and told him what I wanted to do.
"So you see, Doc, things could get messy."
"Shi-it, messy don't bother me, man. Besides, from what you just told me, you might need me in there. Count me in."
"Sorry, man. You're not the violent type. If any shit goes down, I don't want you getting hurt."
"Hurt, shit! You don't hafta worry 'bout me. I can take care of myself. And I'll be watchin' your back while I'm at it."
I had half a mind to take him to the airport right then.
Except that he was right when he said I might need him.
"Okay, but bring the satchel. And you stay out of the way until I need you. If I need you at all. Agreed?"
He flashed his big, toothy smile.
≈≈≈
I knew I'd need a driver, too. So early that evening, Doc and I went to Mambo's.
There were only about six or seven guys in there, and the baseball game on the TV had the attention of most of them. The jukebox, normally pumping with hot-blooded Cuban rhythms, sat silent. The irresistible aroma of Cuban food sprawled out over the whole joint.
Shimmy circled the pool table, chalking his cue, in search of the ideal shot. I steered Doc to my booth, then went right to the pay phone.
She answered on the second ring.
"Rita. It's Don Roy."
"Why, hello, sweetheart. Got something for a lonely girl?"
She sounded like she really meant it. I have to admit, I'd been thinking about her a little since our last meeting. Not that I'd ever act on it — I'm not that idiotic, and besides, I've got Norma.
But I did think about it.
"Actually, you can do something for me. Can I come over? Preferably when BK's not around."
As soon as I said that, I realized what it sounded like.
She took the cue. "Well, lover, you know you can come over anytime when he's not here. I'm having workmen in and around the house all day tomorrow … we're doing some remodeling. But his father's coming back from the Bahamas tomorrow night and he and some other guys are picking the old buzzard up at the airport at eight-thirty."
"Some other guys?"
I didn't like that end of it.
"Yeah. He didn't say who, but he said after he picked them up, they were dropping the old man's girlfriend off at her place so she could feed her dog or something. After that, they're going out to Key Haven to discuss business." She began to coo rather than speak. "He prob'ly won't be back till ten-thirty or eleven."
Someone fed the jukebox and a lively merengue tune jumped out of it. Punchy trumpets and percussion got through to the baseball crowd at the bar. They started drumming their fingers, swaying on the barstools. I looked over at Doc. Even he felt the feverish rhythms, bobbing his head up and down.
"Rita, it's not what you're thinking. I just need to talk to you is all."
"Sometimes talking's a turn-on, too, you know."
She made me smile, but I had to get past it.
"I'm gonna need a big favor from you. And I can't ask you over the phone. I'd rather ask you in person. At your house."
Her voice turned pouty. "Okay, be that way. Eight o'clock. You know where we live?"
"That big house on William Street, right?"
"Right. See you tomorrow."
I tapped Shimmy on the shoulder, beckoning him over to my booth. As soon as we sat down, I ordered beers all around.
"Hey, Don Roy," he said. "What's up?"
"Shimmy, this's Doctor Chicago. I think I told you about him. Class A crib man from Vegas."
"Pleasure," Shimmy said, shaking Doc's hand.
The waiter brought the beers. We each took that first frosty sip from the new brown bottle.
I turned back to Shimmy.
"You still remember how to drive?"
He chuckled under his breath.
"What've you got?"
"It's local. We go tomorrow night. It pays a dime. You just drive us to the location and back. You wait in the car. It's just a house, so there shouldn't be any rough stuff, but if there is, I'll make it two dimes. Bring your piece, just in case. And tight rubber gloves for all of us."
He threw a glance at Doc.
"Crib man?" He looked back at me. "We doing a B and E?"
"Not really. There's a safe where we're going. Doc comes into the picture just in case we need him to open it."
That seemed to meet with his approval.
"What time you want me?"
"Be ready to go at seven-thirty."
≈≈≈
Doc and I showed up at Mambo's at seven-fifteen the next evening. We hadn't eaten since lunch. Doc was decked in his black throwaways. Shimmy was already there, waiting for us.
We all sat down in my booth, then ordered coffee. A little small talk here and there, and pretty soon it was seven-thirty.
"Where're you parked?" I asked Shimmy.
"Around the corner."
We all got up and left.
Shimmy's car was a tan '77 Buick Electra 225, or deuce-and-a-quarter, as he called it.
It looked exactly like your basic clunky old piece of shit from the seventies, but he'd dropped a 455-cubic-inch Buick engine under the hood, so that after a couple of minor modifications, he was getting almost four hundred horsepower. It could do a hundred and fifty with no problem, outrunning even the cops.
I rode shotgun, Doc slid into the back.
"William Street," I said. "The Whitney house."
Shimmy raised his eyebrows and whistled through his teeth.
"Man, BK lives there now. What's the shot?"
"Just drive. I'll explain when we get there."
The house was less than a mile from Mambo's. We got there at around twenty-five to eight. I had Shimmy circle the block, then park in a metered spot with the engine off.
The house, a big white Victorian thing, loomed about half a block in front of us on the other side of the street. A white picket fence ran down the front of the property along the sidewalk. Four big coconut palms, just inside the fence, stretched up toward the high, thin clouds that drifted in from the south. Industrial-strength floodlights positioned at the base of the palms pointed at the house, lighting up everything in sight.
From where we sat, we had a good view. I spotted BK's Dodge in the driveway.
I turned to face the two of them.
"Okay, we're gonna wait here a little while. Pretty soon, someone, maybe the Russians, are gonna pick BK up. Then they're going to the airport to meet the old man, who's coming back from the Bahamas. Not long after that, I'm going in. Rita's there and she'll let me in. I want what's in their safe. If I can't get into it for some reason, I'm gonna — Shimmy, where's your flashlight?"
He reached under the driver's seat and put a
mag light in my hand.
"I'm gonna go to the window and shine this flashlight at the car. I'll blink it twice. If you see that, Doc, that's your cue. Come on in, and bring the satchel."
Doc nodded. Then I said to Shimmy, "You stay here the whole time. As soon as I get inside the house, start the engine and keep it running. This'll probably go off without a hitch, but keep your eyes peeled anyway. If BK and the Russians come back for some reason while we're still in there, get your heater out and come running. Doc's not holding, so I may need all the firepower help I can get."
He reached behind him, pulling a large automatic from his rear waistband. I made it to be a nine millimeter.
He jacked it, then said firmly, "I'll be there, bubba."
THIRTY
AROUND five till eight, the dark blue Land Rover cruised by, drawing up in front of the house.
As best I could make out, it held three men. I couldn't tell if one of them was Yuri Vasiliev, but the one riding shotgun was older, maybe in his fifties or sixties.
Right behind was Whitney's silver Mercedes. From the long hair of the two occupants, I made them to be Milton and Bradley.
The Mercedes honked twice. Within twenty seconds, BK ambled out of the house carrying a briefcase. Rita closed the door behind him. He ducked into the Mercedes. I caught her briefly scanning the street to see if I'd arrived.
The cars drove away in the general direction of the airport, then I said, "We'll give them a few minutes to make sure they don't come back for anything."
Five minutes went by. I glanced at Doc and Shimmy before getting out of the car. Their faces told me they were ready.
In less than a minute, I stood at the door of the house. I was uneasy under all that light; shit, it was like daylight up there.