STAYING ALIVE (Book Three of The Miami Crime Trilogy)

by Don Donovan

  "Okay. Give her a call," Jimmy said. "The last thing we need is the Feds shining lights up our asses."

  "I'll call her tomorrow afternoon."

  "You know," he said, lowering his voice, "Renato complimented me the other day on my car. Said it 'must be nice' to drive around in such a badass ride."

  "So what?" Nora said.

  "So when a guy says that, he's not really complimenting you, you know? 'It must be nice'? That's not kindness. It's naked jealousy. He's telling you he wants a car just like it. Or maybe even that very car itself."

  "Wha — hmph! You don't think Renato would try anything." When he didn't reply right away, she said, "Do you?"

  "I've just gotta be careful is all. Sometimes these guys see all that we have and it's human nature for them to want it. Maybe they chew on it for a while, until they can't stand it anymore. Next thing you know, I turn up with two in my head."

  "Honey, you can't allow yourself that kind of paranoia. It can destroy you." She took his hand. "The thing you have to remember is this: you're number two man under Maxie Méndez now and you can be goddamn sure the Feds have him in their sights. There's probably a room in the FBI office here in Miami with a kind of corporate flow chart on the wall. Maxie's photo at the top and your photo right underneath, along with Flaco, Renato, and all the rest of them right under yours. You might already be in their crosshairs. You can't let yourself be pressured from the guys below you, too."

  Jimmy shivered a little at that thought. He knew he wasn't exactly invisible. He was definitely known to law enforcement, of that much he was certain. But to think of his photo on a wall at the FBI office. Feds gazing at it on a daily basis, their dicks getting hard at the thought of busting him. They were expending energy and money to build a case against him, to send his Cuban ass to prison for decades, to rip him from Nora's arms and deprive him of her boundless love.

  All so those jerkoffs could celebrate afterward with a big dinner on the taxpayers' dime at some restaurant and congratulate each other on what a great job they're doing protecting the citizens of the United States from the likes of Jimmy Quintana.

  3

  Logan

  Key West, Florida

  Tuesday, August 14, 2012

  2:10 PM

  I CURSED THE RAIN. It had been falling since late last night and all through the morning. It'll do that this time of year, but it makes it impossible for me to work. You can't do any landscaping in the pouring rain. Not here in Key West. You can't even think about it. This rain was coming down with no letup in sight. I cursed it again and went into the living room to watch a little TV.

  I surfed the channels. Just the usual shit, until I hit on a baseball game. Pittsburgh at St Louis, with the score tied 2-2 in the top of the fifth. I've always kind of liked the Pirates, so I stuck with it.

  My eyes drifted back and forth from the TV to the window, checking the status of the rain. I hoped tomorrow wouldn't be a repeat. I went to the fridge and grabbed a cold one. Pop the cap, back to the couch, check the rain. Still coming down, still 2-2 going into the bottom of the fifth.

  Roger never likes to work in the rain, not even a light drizzle. A few drops during a job sends him — and by extension, me — running back to his truck to wait it out. I never could figure out why he won't work even in a light rain. I asked him once. He told me it was his landscaping business, they were his clients, and he simply didn't think this type of work should be done in the rain. Today he called and told me rain was predicted for the whole day and I shouldn't bother coming in.

  And when I don't work, I don't get paid.

  The Cardinals put two men on with one out. I watched the next couple of batters. The first was retired on a popup, the second walked, loading the bases.

  The thought occurred to me, I could go back to crime. Heists and stuff. It's what I did for thirteen years, from the time I got out of high school until just last year. The hours were a lot shorter, the work was less strenuous, and the money was better by a long damn shot. I had a crew of two or three great guys I worked with. Real pros. We knew how to do it and we never got caught. Keep it relatively small — no multimillion dollar heists or any of that shit — small crew, and no violence. You don't want any murder raps hanging over your head. The idea was to stay under the radar.

  All that worked out fine until last year when … well, I'd rather not think about it. Let's just say I did something that I couldn't undo and it will haunt me the rest of my days. There's a mother up in Miami somewhere who lost her teenage daughter because of me.

  I glimpsed the TV. Ground ball to third, bobbled by the third baseman. Run scores. Now 3-2, Cardinals.

  So for the last nine months I've been straight. Working every day at an honest job. Bringing home a decent paycheck to Dorothy, who has a paycheck of her own from her job processing traffic tickets at the City Hall annex. She's worked there for years now and they like her, but they don't know anything about what I used to do. It took a while after I straightened out, but I think I finally made her proud of me. I hope so, anyway.

  Thing is, we've been together eleven years now and through it all, through all the crime and the close calls, and even through a few killings — which I really didn't want to do, they were mostly self-defense — she's stuck by me. She knew how I earned my money then and she knows how I earn it now, and she's been okay with all of it.

  She's not really what you would call beautiful. Her looks aren't exactly of movie magazine quality, you can't miss her overbite, and she's always complaining that she's way overweight. And she's about eight years older than I am, which would make her forty-one now. But you know, to me, she's perfect. She is beautiful. And I love her with everything that's in me.

  I checked my cell phone. The weather app said by three o'clock the chance of rain would drop to twenty percent. Not bad, I thought. To Roger, though, that means it will most likely continue raining all day. To me, it means an eighty percent chance it won't. I can wait till three o'clock. Meanwhile — oh, shit. The Cardinals batter hit one over the fence in center with two on. They led now, 6-2.

  My cell rang. Miami area code. I didn't recognize the number. A fast glance at the TV. A conference on the mound, looked like the Pirates were making a pitching change. I could squeeze the call in.

  I swiped it on. "Hello."

  "Logan?" A female voice. Soft, the kind you want next to you in a hotel bed, but hard enough that you didn't want it next to you in the morning.

  "Who is this?"

  "You don't know me, but we need to meet."

  "Who are you?"

  "My name is Laura Lee, but that doesn't matter. Like I said, you don't know me."

  "So what do you want?" I asked.

  "I told you. We need to meet."

  I said, "I don't do dating services. I'm about to hang up on this bullshit."

  "I wouldn't if I were you, Logan," she said. "Unless, that is, you wouldn't mind being picked up on a murder charge."

  I froze. "What the fuck do you want?" I spoke each word slowly.

  "Meet me at Lorelei's in Islamorada at five o'clock today. Laura Lee at Lorelei's? Think you can remember that?"

  A pause to catch my breath. A murder charge.

  Now, I'll admit, I've killed people before, but usually in self-defense, like I said. Not that it would hold up in court that way, but at the time, I was defending my life.

  "What murder charge?" I said.

  "Ooh, you mean I have several to pick from? Well, let's try the one in Little Havana last summer. How does that sound? Now if you're not at Lorelei's at five sharp, I call Miami 911 with a story they'll want to hear."

  Then she hung up.

  I sat there with my mouth open for I don't know how long. When I snapped out of it, I realized I was sweating.

  The so-called murder she mentioned was self-defense pure and simple. I had gone up to Little Havana to recover the score from a bank we had taken down earlier in the day. One of our crew — the only one not from
Key West — had made off with it in the confusion of the getaway and word had it he was holed up in a house on Tenth Avenue in the heart of Little Havana. There were three of them in that house, all with guns, and they were in no mood to give up the cash. One of them came at me with a shotgun, so I had to waste them, all three. For that matter, I was damned lucky to get out of there alive. None of those three were quite as lucky.

  One was that teenaged girl I mentioned earlier.

  Anyway, a couple of Miami cops led by this dyke bitch somehow figured out I was the shooter — I have no fucking idea how — but they had no real evidence and it turned out two badasses from Miami took the fall for it, after those cops shot them down in the street. Case closed. I got the landscaping job, and Dorothy and I are pretty happy.

  I looked at my watch. Two-thirty. If I left now, I'd be in Islamorada in two hours. If nothing else, the trip would be interesting.

  Besides, the Cardinals were now leading, 10-2. A laugher.

  4

  Laura Lee

  Miami, Florida

  Friday, December 18, 2009

  7:05 PM

  THEY HADN'T YET OPENED THE DOORS to the seating area of the Ziff Ballet Opera House. The curtain was scheduled to go up at eight o'clock, and a small, well-groomed crowd had already drifted into the lobby. Perfume and soft banter and glitter from their jewelry filled the air.

  Ballet enthusiasts from all over Florida were going to be in attendance tonight and every single one of the twenty-four hundred seats had been sold. Tonight's program featured The Nutcracker, an annual presentation of the Miami City Ballet and one of their biggest draws of the year. And for the first time ever, Laura Lee Sánchez's name sat at the top of the page.

  At twenty-four, Laura Lee had been part of the Miami City Ballet ensemble for eight years, during which time she burst upon an unsuspecting ballet world with explosive power. As a teenager, she showed moves and instincts rarely seen, even among the top ballerinas in the world, and she swiftly became the greatest star in MCB's brief, twenty-four year history.

  Tonight would be her first time performing in this storied ballet, one of the most famous of all time. This was the top rung on the ladder, the final step up in her unlikely ascent, and she wanted to make it count. Truth was, she wanted to make every performance count, to give her all each time out. Like all true artists, she left everything on the stage when she was done, regardless of the program or the size of the crowd. A show never ended without her being soaked in sweat. Nevertheless, she was unusually stoked for tonight's iconic show.

  Olga Montero, MCB's longtime artistic director, entered Laura Lee's dressing room. Her ballerina was in her underwear, being attended by hair and makeup people.

  "We're sold out tonight, sweetie," she said in her gravelly voice, made that way by thirty years of smoking and aggravation.

  "I know," Laura Lee said. "I can't wait. I've wanted to do The Nutcracker at this level since I started taking ballet nearly twenty years ago."

  "Well, you couldn't have picked a better night for it. They told me the online box office sold tickets to people from all over the country. Even the New York Times sent their dance critic down here, and you know, she's a tough old bird."

  The hairdresser pulled Laura Lee's chestnut curls back severely from her forehead and tied them into a bun. With a reassuring tone, Laura Lee said, "I'll soften her up. Anton and I have rehearsed till it's coming out our ears. That's all we've been doing since we got back from Australia." She smiled into the mirror.

  The MCB, riding high from the big tour of Australia. Smash hit. Laura Lee the star of the show in all six Oz cities. "Laura Lee Sánchez and the Miami City Ballet prove America's got culture after all," gushed the Melbourne Herald Sun. She was the darling of the down-unders and she loved every minute of it.

  And since they returned to Miami over two weeks ago, she and Anton Kovalenko had practiced together eight hours a day. They mostly concentrated on the Sugar Plum Fairy pas-de-deux, a scene in which Laura Lee runs toward Anton, leaps high, and he catches her, and in the same breathtaking motion, flings her high in the air where she spins two revolutions. He again catches her on the way down in a graceful pause where he holds her up with one arm by the waist, her body extended downward at a forty-five degree angle, and her leg wrapped around his back. They called it the "fish" move, for the way she looked like a beautiful fish when he caught her.

  Olga said, "That's what I hear, dearie. You two have been practically spending twenty-four hours a day with each other getting it down. Does he get the fish right? Does it look right?"

  "For a while, he did have a problem with his stance when he caught me. He stood at a slightly higher angle than maybe he should have. His feet weren't quite far enough apart. Didn't you notice it in rehearsals?"

  "Oh, I didn't think it was really worth mentioning," Olga said. "I knew you would fix it."

  "We did. Now he's got it down perfectly. You saw it in the dress rehearsal, right?"

  "It did look right," Olga said, not sounding certain at all. "But … maybe that's just me. I worry too much."

  "Don't tie yourself in knots over it, Olga. We've got it down."

  Laura Lee estimated they had rehearsed this sequence at least one thousand times. The timing of both dancers had to be second nature — pinpoint-perfect — because of the complexity and the danger of the moves involved. During these intense rehearsals, they developed a bond between them, a bond which tightened every time they pulled it off. A bond which melded the two of them into a third, single being. You had to be there for the other person, that was how it worked, because this scene required split-second timing of both of them. No miscues allowed.

  Those miscues, they were for amateurs, Laura Lee always said. Not that she was always perfect, but ballet was an exacting mistress, and for the Sugar Plum Fairy pas-de-deux, perfection was a foregone necessity.

  Anton was an outstanding dancer himself, chosen for this role because of his stamina and strength, along with his remarkable dancing skills. He came to Miami in the early nineties from his Ukrainian hometown of Odessa, where he had trained with one of the old Russian masters. The Miami City Ballet welcomed him and treated him as a potential star-in-the-making. Along with Laura Lee, he was a favorite of Olga Montero, who said one day he would surely take his place among the greatest male dancers who ever took the stage.

  ≈ ≈ ≈

  Around seven-twenty, Laura Lee changed into costume. Another few minutes on the bar for more stretching, and then it was curtain call. All the players gathered in the wings.

  From backstage, behind the closed curtain, she heard the muffled noise of the audience, which by now surely filled every seat in the massive theater. Laura Lee stood off to one side, alone, away from the others, as she always did at this point before a performance. With eyes closed, she took a few deep breaths and indulged in pleasant thoughts about the whimsical story of The Nutcracker. Exorcising all other trivia from her mind, she shook her shoulders, then her arms, down to the tips of her fingers for the final step in this intense centering ritual. She was ready.

  The players took their places on stage, the orchestra began its miniature overture, and before long, the curtain went up.

  5

  Laura Lee

  Little Havana, Miami, Florida

  Saturday, June 25, 2011

  3:35 AM

  IT WAS THE PAIN AGAIN. The sharp pain this time, the kind she knew too well, the kind that knifed through her back, not the dull throb she could sleep through. No, this was the real thing, the reason she was supposed to take her meds. The meds that would allow her some semblance of sleep.

  But tonight, as on most nights, Laura Lee had not taken her full dosage. She skimped by over half. Even with her co-pay, the damn things cost way too much. She didn't want to think about how much they drained away from her every month, as if she wasn't depressed enough already.

  Also, she didn't want to become addicted. They were, after all, narcotics,
and strong ones. Dilaudid — which was bad enough — and that damn Roxicodone, which at fifteen milligrams per pill is some pretty deadly shit. But that's why they prescribe those big pills for you. They cost a fucking fortune and when you take them on a regular basis, presto! Another junkie in the grips of Big Daddy Pharma.

  She was supposed to take one Dilaudid a day, four milligrams worth, and add a Roxicodone when the going got tough. And the going usually got very tough when she didn't take her Dilaudid, or cut the tablet in half, or even into quarters for a single milligram, when she wanted to save money. Like tonight. Like most nights.

  Now, the pain was driving her fucking crazy.

  She fumbled at her bedside for the Roxy and shook one out. It rolled around in her hand and she looked at it. For most people, a little pill rolling around in their hand would mean a vitamin or an aspirin maybe, or at worst, an antibiotic for a mild cold. But for Laura Lee, it was her ticket out of hell. For a while anyway, until that train turned around and chugged right back in.

  Popping it, she took a pull from the water glass that had found a permanent home on her nightstand. While it was taking effect, she struggled out of bed and into her wheelchair. Fuzzy rolled over.

  "What's wrong?" he said.

  "Nothing. I just need to take this. Go back to sleep, darling."

  He did, but she knew it would be quite a while before sleep came for her.

  She rolled into the small living room of her little one-story stucco house. Leaving the lights out, she selected a CD from her collection and inserted it into the player. The Bolshoi Orchestra's recording of Giselle, one of the most moving suites of music she had ever heard. Her memory went back to the MCB's European tour back in 2008. She danced Giselle on the very stage of the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. Without question, the greatest thrill of her brief career.