by Tom Lowe
I said, “The last puzzle piece has to be found. I need to get on the road to find it.”
“Where’re you going?” Lauren asked.
“Xanadu.”
* * *
As I appraoched my jeep, Manny Lopez was standing near it. “You found bodies?”
“Yes. Too many.”
“I never think this would happen when I come to this country.”
He held out his hand. I saw the keys from the Escalade in his dirty fingers. He said, “I took these so Ortega could not go. You take them.”
I smiled and folded his hand over the keys. “You keep them. I have a feeling he won’t need the car.”
“I do not know how to drive.”
“I’ll teach you.”
He smiled, nodded, and put the keys in his pocket.
I cranked the Jeep and started down the dirt road. I looked in my rearview mirror and saw Manny petting the dog I’d freed from the leash. Both the dog and Manny seemed to be grinning.
SIXTY-EIGHT
The Club Xanadu was posh in a tacky kind of way. It was a cavernous club with plenty of seating in dark recessed areas away from the stage. A small chain hung across a flight of steps leading to a second floor. The sign in the middle of the chain read: VIP Only. On the stage, one dancer played to an audience of a dozen or so men. Her boredom was the only thing she was hiding.
Half a dozen women worked the room offering conversation and lap dances for hire. Ron Hamilton and I sat at a table away from the stage. His tie was lose, hair grayer than I remembered, dark circles under his eyes. He said, “This definitely isn’t your run-of-the-mill strip joint. The women all have the same type bodies and looks. Hand-picked from somewhere.”
“I always appreciated your powers of observation. Can you see what I see?”
“What’s that?”
“Lot’s of small cameras all over the room. If Santana is here today, he’s seen us.”
“We don’t look any different from the rest of the guys in here.”
“Maybe. But I’m thinking that if he’s the same perp from four years ago, he might recognize me. Remember the media frenzy? I hated to see my face in the papers.”
“Sean, you’ve changed. Job does that to us.”
A cocktail waitress approached our table. She said, “Hi, gentlemen. What can I get you?”
“Corona,” I said.
“Same thing,” Ron said.
She flashed a real smile and took an order from another table before going to the bar. The first dancer left the stage, slipped into a low cut dress and began working the room. She walked over to our table. Dark hair, black eyes, and smile that seemed as manufactured as her breasts. She said, “How about a dance?”
“Maybe later,” I said. I’d like to get to know you first.”
“Lot of guys just want somebody to talk to. My name’s Alicia?”
I said, “Sean and Ron.”
“Hi, Sean and Ron. Buy me a drink? ”
“Just don’t order champagne,” Ron said.
“Gottcha.”
The cocktail waitress brought our beers, and Alicia ordered a glass of white wine. She said, “I haven’t seen you fellas in here before. First time?”
Ron said, “Yeah, kinda hard to get out much anymore.”
“I understand. The wife factor, huh?”
“Something like that,” I said.
The cocktail waitress brought the glass of wine, set it in front of Alicia and said, “Gentlemen, you want to run a tab?”
I handed her a twenty. “Keep the change.”
Alicia sipped from her glass. “I know all about the wife factor. This club is like a big ol’ group therapy place for men. Women got Oprah. Men got nobody.”
“Alicia,” I said, “Where’s Santana?”
She looked like she couldn’t swallow the sip of wine. She inhaled through flared nostrils. “I don’t know. I don’t see him.”
I saw her glance up at one of the hidden cameras. She positioned the wine glass in front of her lips. “Ya’ll cops? I haven’t done nothing.”
Ron said, “We didn’t say you did. All we want is a little information about—”
I cut Ron off, lifted my beer glass to my mouth said, “He reads lips, doesn’t he?”
She smiled and nodded with her eyes. “You got it, big guy.”
“He’s watching us now, isn’t he?”
“Maybe.”
“Alicia, what do you want to do when you move on from this profession?’
“I want to be an actress. Always wanted to since I was a little girl. First time I saw Sarah Michelle Gellar in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I knew I wanted to act.”
“Okay,” I said, pulling out a one hundred bill, folding it quickly, but giving her enough time to see the denomination. “This is you chance to act. I’ll take that lap dance, but what I really want is for you to whisper in my ear. Act like you’re telling me all the fantasies you think I want to hear, but you’re really responding to my questions. Okay?”
“I can do that.”
She stood and slipped off her dress. She wore nothing but a G-string. As the music started, she sat in my lap, and whispered in my ear. “What do you want to know?”
I could see the flash of glitter body makeup, smell her perfume, and feel the heat of her body against me. “Tell me everything you know about the person I mentioned.”
In a soft whisper she said, “He’s weird. Sort of a Michael Jackson weird, I guess. Real choosy about the girls he sleeps with. I’ve never done him. I wouldn’t. One of the girls, she’s doesn’t work here any more, told me about him.”
“What was her name?”
“She goes by the name Tabitha, but her real name is Robin Eastman. Anyway, she told me he showers before and after sex, and he shaves his body. Everywhere, even his friggin balls. No hair anywhere.”
“Where’s Robin?”
“She left a while back. Nobody’s seen or heard from her since.”
“Did she quit?”
“Don’t know. She would have told us bye if she quit. He probably had one of his managers fire her. Makes my skin crawl, the way he looks at you.”
“What color are his eyes?”
“Greenish, but I try not to look at his eyes.”
“Does he keep an office here?”
“I heard there’s an office above the VIP area, but I can’t say for sure it’s his.”
“How would you know if he’s here?”
“I’ve only seen him twice in the nine months I’ve worked here. There is a private entrance on the other side of the building.”
The music end. I handed her the money and closed her hand around it. “Good luck in your acting.”
“Thanks,” she said, zipping the dress up.
SIXTY-NINE
Ron and I lifted the chain from one of the stanchions on the steps and walked up a flight of stairs to the VIP area. It was darker than the main part of the club. There was a second bar with overstuffed chairs and a small stage on a Plexiglas floor. An NBA game was on one the four large plasma screens. Two men sat at the bar, nursed drinks, and seemed to be reading some kind of contract.
I said, “Let’s see what the private office looks like.”
At the door marked Private, Ron turned the handle. “Locked.”
A man large enough to be a pro linebacker came up behind us. He was dressed in a tuxedo white shirt, bowtie, and dark pants. “That’s private.” His hair was regulation boot camp, face angular, blue eyes hard. “I’m the manager. Nobody goes in there.”
Ron reached in his pocket and pulled out his badge and search warrant. “This tells me we do have a right to go in there. You have a problem with it, go discuss it with circuit court Judge Healy. Now open the door before we kick it down.”
The manager’s face was flush. “I’ll have to get the keys.”
“Where are they?” I asked.
“Downstairs.”
Ron said, “You wouldn’t tip off Sant
ana while you’re down there, would you?”
“Who?” He turned and left.
It took me less than thirty seconds to pick the simple lock and open the door. “Sean, I see you haven’t lost your touch.”
We followed a hall covered with red carpet to another door. There was only one office, and now we stood in front of Miguel Santana’s door. My heart was pounding. Palms sweaty. I tried it. Locked. Pulling out my Glock, I whispered, “It’s show time…” I kicked hard, the heel on my shoe connecting to the left of the lock. The door popped open like a Jack-in-the-box.
We entered the office. Pistols extended.
There was a soft whirr from an ornate paddle fan in the plush office. The desk was clean. I noticed a speck of white on the ridge of a leather coach. I bent down and lifted a sliver of fingernail and said, “Let’s see if we can match this.” I dropped the fingernail into a Ziploc and slowly opened the door leading to an adjacent bathroom. It was spotless, the shower dry. I knelt down and looked at the white tile floor. In the sand-colored grout, I saw what looked like a tiny crack. I pressed the crack with the tip of my finger and the crack disappeared. On the end of my finger was an eyelash, root intact.
“Gottcha…” I said.
“What’d you find?”
“An eyelash.”
As I put the eyelash in a Ziploc, Ron looked in the open toilet. “What do we have here?” He pulled a pencil out of his coat pocket and used the tip of the eraser to lift something floating in the toilet water. “Maybe the reason Santana lost an eyelash is because he took out disposable contacts and flushed them, but this one didn’t go all the way down.” He held it in the light and uttered a slow whistle. “The stripper said he had green eyes. This contact is blue.”
“He really has eyes more on the yellowish gold side, like a cat. If you cover yellow eyes with a blue contact, what do you get?
“Green.”
I heard a noise at the door. Ron and I both spun around at the same instant, guns extended. The GI Joe manager, stood at the door. He raised his hands up. “Don’t shoot! You two crazy or what?”
I smiled lowered my Glock, and walked over to him. “I guess we did get off on the wrong foot earlier.”
“No shit. I see cops in here all the time. You guys are some of the worst womanizers.” He grinned and glanced toward Ron. It was all the time I needed. I wedged the Glock under his chin and shoved him over to the couch. “Listen very carefully, pal. You work for the world’s worse womanizer. Want to know why?”
“Huh?”
“What makes Miguel Santana, the worst womanizer is because he destroys the woman. First he destroys her dignity by beating and raping her. Then he begins with the mind and tries to end with the soul. He asphyxiates her. Want to know how she feels?” I pushed the barrel into his lips and continued, “Of course, Santana pinches the nostrils so hard she can’t breathe as he continues raping her while she’s dying beneath him. Ron, hand me the portable phone on the desk.”
I stood and kept the gun aimed at the bouncer’s round head. “You’re calling Santana. Which line on this phone is private?”
“Line six,” he coughed, the words thick.
“What’s Santana’s cell?”
“I don’t know.”
“Want to know what it’s like when the air passages from the nose are closed? Worst than drowning. What’s the number? I won’t ask you again.”
“He’s got a dozen.”
“The one you know he’ll answer.” I tossed him phone. “Dial it. When Santana answers, tell him it’s urgent and you need him here. There’s been an emergency at the club. One of the girls has been shot in the parking lot. You got it?”
He nodded and started dialing. I said, “As you dial, speak the number you’re dialing. Ron will write it down.”
“And put it on speakerphone,” Ron said.
There was one ring. “Yes,” the voice was above a whisper.
“Mr. Santana, this is Rob at the club. There’s been an emergency down here.”
“We employ managers like you to handle emergencies. What emergency?”
“A shooting, sir. Crazy ex-boyfriend shot one of the girls. We need you here.”
“That’s very odd, Rob. Because I’m watching the club online. Everything appears very normal, inside and outside. And why am I on speaker phone? I will assume it is because of the two detectives I saw in there earlier. I recognized one. Hello, Sean O’Brien. It’s been a few years. I’d heard you retired.”
The bouncer’s eyes went wide. I grabbed the phone and said, “Santana, you recognized me and I recognize your signature murders. So much so that I made a promise to one of the girls you killed. I told her I’d hunt you down.”
Santana chuckled. “Detective, if I ever should resort to violence and have to kill someone, perhaps it would be you.”
Then he was gone.
SEVENTY
After Ron had gone home for the night, I agreed to meet Special Agent Lauren Miles for a late bite and a drink. She had picked the place, Reflections on the Bay. It was more trendy and pricey for my tastes, but I was hungry and the government was buying. Earlier I’d filled her in on the events at Club Xanadu and my conversation with Santana. I had given her Santana’s cell number, and she was working with the phone company for GPS coordinates or cell tower pings.
Lauren said, “No chip and no usage. Looks like it was a throw-away phone. Nice move using the bouncer to get Santana on the phone.”
“Did you find anything else on him?”
“We don’t know the depth of his ownership in Club Xanadu, but it’s owned, or partly owned by a holding company called ShowBiz Productions. They own a half dozen clubs in Florida, one in Atlanta and one in Dallas. Looks like ShowBiz is tied to Exotic Escorts, the online escort service I mentioned. It, of course, is a front for prostitution. All the women go by aliases.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. What’d you find on the sale of human organs?”
“We believe Santana heads an international export company Orion BioLife, LLC. It offers human organs for sale online. Website says they’re in the business of connecting human ‘donor’ organs with those ‘in need.’ Except there is a price. The prices aren’t listed. The buyer bids on whatever he or she needs, such as a heart or kidney. If the bid is ‘acceptable,’ the organ is shipped, counter-to-counter, usually overseas. A Japanese CEO could have a new kidney in forty-eight hours.”
“The whole concept of ‘donor’ gets blurred when these organs are auctioned to the highest bidder,” I said.
“Exactly, but Orion BioLife says the costs are to cover administrative, logistics, and travel arrangements. They say the organs are received from family of the deceased. The dead person was allegedly someone who wanted his or her organs sold after death to help defray funeral costs and help the surviving members of the family. It’s illegal, but so is prostitution. Both are selling body parts.”
“BioLife is probably charging a half million in shipping and handling charges.”
“Something like that,” Lauren said.
“Can you find a location, assuming they have a brick and mortar address?”
“Online you have little to go on. You try to follow cyber tracks to someplace that will ultimately unveil the identity of the criminal or criminals. Although, there’s a demand and the Internet makes it easier to connect, it’s harder to track.”
I sat back in the chair and watched a palm frond sway in the warm Miami night air. I could smell the ocean. In a dark corner of the restaurant, I saw the manager, a middle-aged man, rest his arm on the shoulders of a college-aged waitress. He rubbed her back, his gold wedding band winking in the dark of the alcove.
Lauren said, “What are you thinking about?”
“You don’t want to hear. I’m thinking about how too many people with wealth and power abuse those without it.”
Lauren traced her index finger across the lip of her wine glass. “I guess I’ll think twice before I ever ask you wh
at you’re thinking,” she said with a smile. “Thanks for agreeing to meet me tonight.”
My cell rang. “Ought to grab this. Probably Ron, or maybe Dan.” I could see there was no caller ID in the display. “This is O’Brien.”
“I know who it is.”
I immediately recognized the voice. It was calm, total control, a subtle undertone mocking. I said, “Santana…how’d you get my number?”
“Where you left it, in a convenience store, right there for the world to see. Convenient for me. Inconvenient for you. It was pleasant chatting with you earlier today, Detective O’Brien. Oh, I know you’re not with the Miami Police anymore, but you’re still a detective. It’s in your blood. Sort of like what I do is in my blood. We’re blood brothers, O’Brien. I can’t change it anymore than you can change what you do. Took you years to find me, but you finally got there. I’m glad it was you.”
“And I’ll get to you, Santana.” Lauren’s eyes were popping.
“You can call me Miguel. You failed to find me because I didn’t want to be found. But I didn’t go away completely, Detective O’Brien. I realigned my operations farther inland from Miami. Nobody seems to notice when a few stray sheep are missing. Then you stumble along, years later, and start causing roadblocks. If you didn’t cost me money, I would actually enjoy the irony. After I read about your early retirement, I wondered if it was because of me, or am I indulging in self-gratification? And now, here we are again.”
“I’ll find you.”
“I’ll find you first, because I already know where you are. This is the last time we’ll chat, Detective. Cat and mouse games bore me. I can’t make money doing it. I can’t screw it. I can’t consume it, I can’t sell it, so what’s the use? The next time we speak it will be your final words on earth. Have you ever wondered what you’d say?”
“Listen to these words: I’ll be there when they inject you.”
Santana laughed. “O’Brien, the woman you’re sitting next to, the one sitting up so perfectly straight, love her posture, she might be next. Very erotic and so stimulating when they fight hard. After I’m done with her, I’ll sell her piece by piece. Maybe I’ll keep the edible parts for myself.” He laughed and disconnected.