by Nick Stone
Green, he thought. A green suit, matching green eyes.
He looked at the bean again.
And it came back to him: the pimp he’d beaten up outside Al & Shirley’s diner on 5th Street, the stuff he’d confiscated and put in his Mustang.
‘Shit! ’
He found the silver cigar tube at the back of the glove compartment. He opened it and shook out the contents into his hand. Five calabar beans.
38
When Joe took off Pip Frino’s blindfold and he saw he wasn’t in a police station like he expected to be, but in a room with boarded windows, faded, damp-stained yellow wallpaper and ripped flowery lino on the floor, he looked worried.
‘What is this place? Where am I?’
‘Purgatory,’ Max said, ‘limboland.’
Max and Joe were sitting opposite him at a wooden table with a one kilo bag of 93 per cent pure Medellín cartel cocaine in between them.
‘What am I doin’ here?’ Frino spoke in a rough, growly voice and a heavy Australian accent which gave it gravitas. He was short and thickset, with medium-length lank blond hair and a full beard. The whiteness of his teeth was accentuated by the golden tan of someone who worked outdoors.
They were in an MTF safehouse in Opa Locka. It was early Tuesday morning. Dawn was breaking outside; the birdsong just about filtering through the walls. Frino and his whole crew had been arrested on the Miami River, close to Biscayne Bay, right in the middle of a drop-off in a joint operation between MTF and the Coastguard. The Coastguard got to keep 75 per cent of the drugs, the boats, the crew and all the credit in exchange for handing Frino over to MTF. It had been a smooth operation. No shots fired; a simple swarm and seize.
Max and Joe had gone to Frino’s harbour-front penthouse, where they’d found a loaded silver Beretta 92 in a bedside cabinet and a safe with $200,000 cash and Swiss, Italian, German, British, Australian and New Zealand passports under various names.
Max was looking through the passports without saying a word. Joe sat back in his chair with his arms crossed, angrily eyeballing Frino.
‘These yours?’ Max held up a few of the passports.
‘Yes.’
‘That’s five to ten years right there. You got a licence for the gun?’ Max asked. ‘No.’
‘Another five to ten. And this morning’s bust puts you away for life everlasting. You’re thirty-eight. You ever been to jail?’
Frino shook his head.
‘You’ll go to a maximum security facility. That’s hell on earth. Everyone’ll try and kill you or fuck you or both. Guy like you won’t get old in there,’ Max said. Frino eyeballed him back. No emotion. ‘You got anything to say?’
‘Lawyer,’ Frino answered.
‘You’re not under arrest,’ Max said, ‘we haven’t charged you.’
‘Otherwise I’d be in a police station instead of this crab shack,’ Frino said.
‘You catch on quick,’ Joe said. ‘Pip a girl’s name?’
‘Who are you people?’
‘Who we are is of no importance to you right now. What we can do to you is,’ Max said.
‘Lawyer! ’ Frino shouted.
‘You’re not under arrest,’ Max repeated.
‘Then this is kidnapping.’
‘Call it what you want, I don’t give a shit,’ Max said. ‘You run drugs in go-fast boats out of the Bahamas into here. Who for?’
‘I freelance. I get green for running white. Whoever’s payin’.’
‘Who was payin’ this time?’
‘What’s this about?’ Frino asked.
‘We’ll come to that,’ Max said. ‘Answer my question.’
‘Is this about cuttin’ some kind of deal?’
‘Answer my man’s question,’ Joe said.
‘It was a guy called Benito Casares. Colombian. He’s a middle-man for a cartel. One of many. I never met the main guys; you never do.’
‘Who’s the main guy and what’s the cartel?’
‘Medellín cartel. That’s Medellín in Colombia. Main guy–well, there’s two, one in Colombia, one in the Bahamas. Pablo Escobar in Colombia, Carlos Lehder in the Bahamas. Norman’s Cay. Virtually fuckin’ runs the place. But I guess you know that already?’
Max just about stopped himself from looking at Joe.
‘So you never met Lehder?’
‘No.’
‘Where d’you meet Casares?’
‘Here. In Miami. Where we always meet.’
‘How was that set up?’
‘There’s a carwash in Little Havana. I’d go there, tell the guys I want to talk to their boss and leave a number. Casares’d call and fix up a meet. I’d turn up.’
‘How many times you worked for him?’ Max asked.
‘Seven in the last two years.’
‘So he trusts you?’
‘I guess.’
‘OK,’ Max said. ‘Here’s the deal. And, so as you know from the off, it’s non-negotiable. Our way or jail.’
‘I figured that. What do I get out of it?’
‘You don’t go to jail and you leave the country. And don’t come back. Ever,’ Max said.
‘What do I have to do?’
‘I’m gonna tell you something that happened and you’re gonna repeat it into a tape recorder downtown with your lawyer present. That will become a statement. You will then have to repeat the statement in court,’ Max said. ‘You try to fuck us at any stage between now and for ever, and you will reap almighty hell. You understand?’
‘In every language,’ Frino said and smiled sardonically, showing a set of gleaming white teeth, perfect in every way but for two overlong, vampiric incisors.
‘Do we have a deal?’
‘What do you want me to say?’
Max told him: Frino was paid by Benito Casares to transport the Moyez shooter from Norman’s Cay, and that once they got to Miami, he handed him over to Octavio Grossfeld.
‘So I implicate myself in that courtroom shooting?’ Frino smiled. ‘What kind of fuckin’ cops are you?’
Neither Max nor Joe said anything to that. They couldn’t. They had no replies, no comebacks, just a deep sense of shame. Frino seemed to pick up on this and sat back in his chair with his arms crossed and his legs splayed, smug and haughty, enjoying himself.
‘You guys work on the Kennedy assassination too?’ Frino asked.
‘Will you do it?’ Max responded.
‘Sure. Anything to help you boys out, seein’ as we’re virtually on the same team.’
Jed Powers was sitting in the kitchen with Valdeon, Harris and Brennan, drinking take-out coffee.
‘Well?’ he asked Max when he came in.
‘When he gives his statement he’ll say that he ferried in the Moyez shooter from Norman’s Cay,’ Max said. ‘But there’s a little more: his real life middle-man happens to work for Carlos Lehder. All Frino has to do is make a call and he’ll deliver the guy to us.’
Jed Powers stood up and clapped. The other three followed suit.
‘Great police work!’ Powers shouted and spun his fist in the air.
Max wanted to be sick.
39
Twenty-nine straight hours later, Max and Joe were sitting on the couch in the Overtown garage, drinking weak coffee and staring at the thick pale green rectangle that was Trish Estevez’s list. They hadn’t slept at all. They were both drained. The last thing either wanted to do was more work.
Plans had been changed in mid-air. First they’d taken Frino to MTF to walk him through his statement, but once there they’d had word from Eldon that their captive needed to spill more names before any deal could be made. Eldon wanted everyone Frino had ever worked for–especially in Miami. Frino refused to give anything up until he’d talked to his lawyer and ratified the original deal he’d been offered. Max and Joe tried persuasion and then threats, but Frino knew he had the upper hand, so he just sat back with his arms crossed and smirking fangs fully bared.
They talked to Eldon. Burns spen
t fifteen minutes alone in an interrogation room with Frino. When he came out Frino had given up his every employer.
He was formally charged with multiple counts of drug trafficking and possession with intent to go global and given his phone call. At around midday his lawyer, Ida Basil, walked in and demanded to see the dope they’d allegedly caught her client with. Joe stalled her while Max made calls to the coastguard asking for the 300 kilos of coke they had logged into evidence and claimed as their bust to be brought to MTF. Two hours later the coke came in under armed escort.
The following deal was done: Frino would make a statement implicating Casares and Carlos Lehder in the Moyez shooting and testify against them in court. He would also help MTF capture Casares. In return he’d be granted full immunity and get deported as soon as he’d given evidence.
Just after 6 p.m., Frino, wearing a wire, walked into Lázaro’s Carwash on North West 3rd Street and told them he needed to speak to the boss. He gave them the number of his harbourside pad. He drove back there and waited for the call with Max, Joe, Powers and Valdeon. Casares called him an hour later, screaming about how his load hadn’t turned up in Chicago and asking where the fuck it was? Frino calmly told him there’d been complications mid-sea transit, that they’d almost got busted and had had to divert the load to a safehouse in North Miami. Frino said he suspected a leak in the organization and needed to meet Casares in person to tell him about it. Casares said he’d meet him at the house the next day, Tuesday 11 February at 11 a.m.
He was punctual. MTF was waiting for him. They arrested him, his three bodyguards and driver.
Casares was taken to a basement in Jackson Avenue, Coconut Grove, where Eldon was waiting. He said he’d take it from here and sent them home for the rest of the day.
‘You know,’ Joe tapped his foot on the list, ‘we could both make our lives easier by just forgettin’ all about this shit and goin’ on home.’
‘True,’ Max nodded, sparking up his Zippo to light a cigarette, ‘but then we wouldn’t be police at all.’
‘True.’ Joe nodded and yawned.
‘This shit pisses me off. Here we are, doin’ real police work on the sly and fake police work out in the open. This is not what I signed up for.’
‘I hear that.’
‘I’m fucken’ sick of this shit, Joe. It ain’t right, you know?’
‘So whatchu sayin’, man?’
‘I’m sayin’ I’ve had enough.’
‘You wanna quit?’
‘Right now, yeah.’ Max sipped his coffee and pulled deep on his Marlboro, holding the smoke in his lungs for a few seconds and then exhaling slowly. ‘We could put a stop to Eldon’s way of doin’ things, you and me.’
‘How?’ Joe sat up.
‘Crack this case–the real case–and go public with it. Expose this Moyez bullshit for the sham it is.’
‘You wanna take Eldon down?’ Joe asked.
‘It ain’t only ’bout him. It’s about the way he does things. Would you back me?’
‘Hell, yeah!’ Joe’s big voice filled the confined space and echoed back at them metallically, like a gunshot.
‘The only thing that’d stop me–that will stop me, I guess–is that if he goes down, we go down. And I wouldn’t wanna be an ex-cop in prison. Would you?’
‘We could cut a deal,’ Joe suggested.
‘You could, maybe; you got nothin’ to hide,’ Max said bitterly. ‘The only deal they’d give me is life without. That’s if we lived long enough to make any fucken’ deal. Eldon’s got his hooks in everyone everywhere.’
‘Maybe we could go to the press?’
‘We’d still go down. Hell, we’d go down harder if we went that route. Police hate bein’ the last to know when it concerns their own. You know that.’
Joe didn’t say anything, just stared straight ahead of him at the list then at nothing. False dawn. He was still on his own on this. Max wouldn’t go along with him. He was right. He had too much to lose. His sense of self-preservation outweighed his principles.
Max extinguished his cigarette in his coffee. The whole time he’d been thinking of Sandra, and the life they could have together, and what she’d said about sharing and openness. He didn’t want to lie to her about what it was he did. He thought about requesting a transfer, maybe to Miami Beach PD, if there was an opening.
‘Let’s make a start on that list,’ Max said finally.
They split the list evenly. Joe had the beginning to middle of the alphabet, Max the remainder.
The list was broken down into name, felony details and a capital letter, either C–conviction, W–wanted, A–accomplice, A/S–accomplice suspect and S/I–informant placing suspect at a crime scene. This was followed by a basic physical description and last-known location.
They worked through them in near silence, starring things of importance. Max chain smoked. When it got too much for Joe he opened up the garage to let the tobacco fog out.
Max was finding no trace of a master criminal in his section. All the names so far were mostly petty criminals–home invaders, muggers, cheque forgers, non-fatal stick-up kids, car thieves–plus a few manslaughters and one-off murderers.
When he reached the first name at ‘O’, he did a double-take and burst out laughing.
‘Solomon O’Boogie,’ he read out.
‘What’s he in for?’ Joe looked up.
‘S/I. Murder in a club on Washington. Informant named him as a major-league drug supplier.’
‘Yeah?’
‘White male, six foot, grey hair.’
‘Solomon O’Boogie, huh?’ Joe said, then flipped back a couple of pages. ‘I got a Solomon Boogie here. Named as an A/S for the shooting of a drug dealer in Little Havana. This one’s described as Hispanic, nineteen to twenty-five–female.’
‘Female?’ Max frowned. ‘What’s the date?’
‘2.13.77.’
‘Yeah?’ Max showed Joe. ‘I got the same date.’
Remembering how Charles de Villeneuve was said to have had the power to change his appearance, Max looked across at the picture of the King of Swords.
‘Joe, why d’you keep turnin’ it around?’
‘Shit was creepin’ me out,’ he said.
‘Pussy!’ Max chuckled. ‘You sleep with the light on too?’
They carried on looking through their lists.
Solomon O’Boogie had four more A/S and S/I entries, two for drug-related murders, one for drug trafficking, one for prostitution, all in the same year, 1977. Every listing gave a different appearance, age and gender. O’Boogie was an old white man, a young white man of ‘Jewish appearance’, an old black woman with a ginger afro wig and an Asian male, approximately five feet tall, mid-thirties.
‘Now this is some seriously strange shit here.’ Joe turned over the pages rapidly. ‘There must be over a hundred listings for this one guy–Solomon Bookman.’
Boukman–the Haitian witchdoctor slave who’d inspired the de Villeneuve cards.
‘What did you just say?’ Max looked up.
‘Bookman.’
‘Let me see.’
Max looked down the list.
‘Bookman, Solomon,’ he read. He turned the pages. Joe was right. The list went on and on.
Then he came to the right spelling. Boukman, Solomon. And read on.
The list detailed A/S and S/I reports on murders (most of them drug-related–dealers, gangleaders, suppliers, all shot or stabbed), drugs, prostitution, extortion, all taking place between 1974 and 1980. Bookman/Boukman’s appearance changed every time. Male, female, old, young, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American. Spoke with a Spanish, French, Russian, German accent. Had long and short hair, an afro, cornrows, plaits, dreadlocks, was bald. Had blue eyes, brown eyes, black eyes, green eyes, grey eyes.
‘That’s our guy,’ Max said. ‘Solomon Boukman.’
‘Which one?’ Joe asked.
‘All of ’em and none of ’em,’ Max said. ‘My guess is no one kno
ws what he really looks like because they’ve never seen him. He uses decoys.’
‘Then maybe Boukman ain’t even his real name. Why go through all that trouble to hide your appearance when you’re using your real name?’
‘Maybe. Or maybe he wants people to know his name. Cause his name ain’t gonna turn up anywhere. Nowhere official. No record, no driving licence, no IRS, no utility bills. Man as myth.’
Joe took a deep breath.
‘It’s just you and me on this, right? If this guy’s that organized we don’t stand a chance.’
‘Way it always was.’
‘We’re talkin’ someone with serious juice here, Max. Connected like the city grid, friends in high places.’
‘We’ll take it as far as we can on our own, Joe. Then we’ll look at our options.’
40
Back home Max called up the Department of the Interior for a list of Florida-based calabar-bean importers. He identified himself by name, badge number and date of birth and explained what a calabar bean was. He was told to hold.
He held for fifteen minutes. Then he was put through to the plants division.
The list was short enough to read out over the phone. There were three importers–Mount Sinai Medical Center, Miami University School of Medicine and Haiti Mystique–proprietor Sam Ismael.
Next, Max called Drake Henderson. They fixed a meet in the coffee shop in Burdine’s department store on Flagler.
Max shaved, showered, swallowed some bennies with coffee and headed out.
‘I need the lowdown on three people–two I got names for, one I haven’t,’ Max said after he’d ordered coffee. They were sitting back to back. Drake had come in after Max, wearing golfing clothes–brown check pants and matching cap, black and white Oxford wingtips, a pale yellow polo neck and a pink pullover tied around his neck. Beside him was a bag of golf clubs. He was eating bright yellow scrambled eggs on rye with a slice of ham and a glass of orange juice.