The King of Swords

by Nick Stone

  Behind him the window slid open.

  ‘We’re ready,’ Solomon said.

  Sam drained his tumbler of neat Barbancourt rum and walked back into the suite. The lights had all been turned off except for a reading lamp by an armchair. A thick pile of black and white Miami PD headshots was waiting for him on the chair.

  Sam sat down and went through them.

  Ten minutes later he recognized the man who’d come into his store.

  ‘That’s him,’ Sam said, holding up the picture.

  Solomon’s hand reached out from behind him and took it. He turned the picture over.

  ‘Max Mingus. Detective Sergeant. Badge Number 8934054472. Date of Birth 8 March 1950,’ he read out. And then, after a short pause, and with a hint of laughter. ‘Miami Task Force.

  ‘You can go,’ Solomon said to Sam, as he began punching telephone keys.

  Before rejoining his guests at the function, Sam went to the restroom to wash his hands and face and get back into schmoozing mode.

  He barely registered the two men who came in while he was by the sink, a split second’s glance telling him they were nobody he had to bother with.

  ‘Mr Ismael?’ the big black man asked him in a tone that sounded official, that sounded like how a cop would speak.

  ‘Yes?’ He looked up from the sink, in time to see the other man coming up behind him.

  He felt a heavy blow on the back of his neck.

  55

  They drove Sam Ismael to the MTF condo in Coral Springs, two hours out of Miami.

  They dragged him inside and cuffed his right arm to a metal chair welded to the floor of a windowless room with whitewashed walls, a single lightbulb and a table, also bolted down.

  Ismael was still groggy from the blow Max had dealt to his neck with a lead-shot-filled beavertail sap. Joe threw a bucket of cold water over him and he came to with a gasp and a start, blinking rapidly, panicked yellowy-brown eyes darting from Joe to the ceiling, to the table, to the door and then to Max, where they stopped and settled.

  ‘Where am I?’ he asked Max.

  ‘Well, it ain’t the Fontainebleau.’

  ‘Where am I?’ Ismael banged the table with his free hand.

  ‘I don’t believe I correctly identified myself, the last time we met–in your store, remember?’ Max looked at him and saw that he did. ‘I am Detective Sergeant Mingus of the Miami Task Force. That over there’–motioning his head to Joe, stood against the wall with his hands in his pockets and a plastic carrier bag at his feet–‘is Detective Liston. And you, Sam Ismael, are officially fucked.

  ‘Now, let me clarify just what ‘officially fucked’ means. It means fuck your lawyer, fuck your civil rights, fuck your human rights, fuck the rights we didn’t read you and, most of all, fuck you. And it also means that your life, as you knew it, is officially fucken’ over. Do you understand?’

  ‘What do you want?’

  Max held up a Polaroid photograph of the severed head and placed it in the middle of the table.

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘How should I know?’

  ‘You should know.’ Max lined up half a dozen pictures of the girl’s body, laid out in loose order on the floor, with inch-wide gaps between the amputated parts. ‘That’s the basement of your store. And that’s what we found in your freezers.’

  Ismael looked at the photographs. He went pale.

  ‘I don’t know anything about this,’ he said.

  ‘No?’ Max dropped three clear bags of surgical instruments one by one on the table, where they each landed with a bang. ‘These have your prints all over them. And forensics will also find blood, tissue and hair samples that match the victim’s. Do the math. Prints, plus tissue, plus hair, plus blood equals you.’

  ‘But I didn’t do it!’ Sam shouted. ‘And you haven’t even got my prints on those.’ Ismael pointed at the instruments. ‘We sterilize them after use.’

  ‘Your prints are on there, trust me.’ Max smiled. ‘Every digit.’

  ‘Then you put them there when I was out cold!’ Sam yelled. ‘This is an outrage!’

  Max ignored him.

  ‘OK, let’s just say, for the sake of argument, you are innocent. You’re still gonna be charged, and you’re still gonna have to stand trial. Now, the press will have themselves a field day. Think about it. All that shit you’ve got in your store, all those body parts, religious icons, candles, masks–’

  ‘Don’t forget the chickens,’ Joe prompted.

  ‘And the chickens too. Can you imagine the headlines? “Prominent Miami Businessman in Human Sacrifice Deep-Freeze Voodoo Death Riddle.” This’ll be our very own Black Dahlia.

  ‘So it doesn’t matter if you’re innocent, you’ll look guilty. And that’s all that counts. Appearance is everything in this country: if you look the part, you get the part.’

  ‘I didn’t do it,’ Ismael repeated, but quietly, looking at the photographs, horrified.

  ‘Who’s this “we”?’ Max asked. ‘As in we sterilize our tools after use? You got an accomplice? Or are you thinkin’ of pleading temporary insanity?’

  Ismael shook his head.

  ‘Charge me or release me. But if you charge me I’ll beat it. And then I’ll sue. False arrest. Loss of earnings. Loss of reputation. Psychological damage.’

  Max looked him in the eye.

  ‘You forgot police brutality.’

  Ismael couldn’t stare Max down.

  ‘What’s Florida famous for–apart from gators, sunshine, Disney, girls in bikinis and a skyhigh body count?’ Max asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Ismael looked puzzled.

  ‘It’s not a trick question,’ Max said. ‘Think.’

  Ismael did. Sweat had massed on his forehead and was trickling down his temples and large parrot-beak nose.

  ‘Oranges?’ he offered.

  ‘Exactly,’ Max said. ‘Oranges. They’re very good for you. Great source of vitamin C. Which I’m sure you know. You eat oranges?’

  ‘Sometimes.’ Ismael shrugged.

  ‘I love oranges,’ Max said. ‘In fact we’ve got some right here.’ Joe handed him the carrier bag. Max took out the contents, one by one–eight large, ripe Florida oranges. He placed one over each photograph and held on to the last.

  ‘What the doctors don’t tell you about oranges is that they can also be very fucken’ bad for you. There’s eight of them there. If I put them back in the bag’–he replaced the fruit in the bag one by one and did it very slowly–‘I have myself a lethal weapon. You’ve heard about the phone-book trick cops use in interrogation? Hit you in the torso, maximum pain, no external bruising? Real convenient. Same principle with oranges, except there’s a twist.’ Max knotted the bag. ‘A phone book just hurts you inside. If I hit you–hard–with a bag of Florida’s finest, your insides will be a medically irreparable mess. Kidneys, liver, spleen, stomach, bladder all haemorrhaging. It’ll take you days to die. Long, drawn out, painful days. You’ll piss, shit and puke blood. Very nasty. Wouldn’t wish it on anyone–except the twisted fuck who sawed that girl apart.’

  Max got off the table and motioned Joe over.

  Joe undid Ismael’s cuffs, grabbed him by the shoulders and lifted him to his feet like he was made of string. He held him steady.

  Max walked up to him.

  ‘Please! ’ Ismael screamed.

  Max swung the bag and–deliberately–narrowly missed Ismael’s torso’s.

  ‘Shit!’ Max said. ‘Old age.’

  He measured Ismael. Stared hard at his stomach like he was taking aim, took a step back, arm extended, all set to swing–

  ‘Let me see the photo again! ’

  ‘Sit him back down,’ Max told Joe, who shoved Ismael towards the table.

  Ismael picked up the head shot and studied it closely. His eyes widened and shock spread over his face.

  ‘You know her?’ Max asked.

  ‘That’s–that’s Risquée. I–I–I didn’t recognize her…immedi
ately,’ he stammered. ‘She’s a–a–a girl. Look, I didn’t do this. I swear.’

  ‘Who did?’ Max asked again.

  Ismael took a deep breath and stared at Max with the eyes of a man who has just heard the ground starting to give way beneath his feet and the roof caving in above him.

  ‘Carmine,’ he said very quietly, the name coming out of him reluctantly. ‘It was most likely Carmine. He’s been working in the store.’

  ‘Carmine, as in Carmine Desamours?’ Max prompted.

  ‘That’s right.’ Ismael sighed.

  ‘Eva Desamours’ son?’

  Ismael nodded.

  ‘I thought he was a pimp. What’s he doin’ in your store?’ Max asked.

  ‘He–he changed jobs.’

  ‘What? He get promoted?’ Joe laughed.

  ‘No. The opposite.’

  ‘And this Risquée–was she one of his girls?’ Max tapped the head pic. ‘Yeah. He owed her money.’

  ‘He owed her money. What kind of pimp is that?’ Max laughed.

  ‘Carmine isn’t any more a pimp than I am,’ Sam said bitterly. ‘And he isn’t a killer. It was probably an accident and he panicked.’

  ‘No accident about a dismembered corpse,’ Max said, putting the bag of oranges down and looking at Joe. They’d talked tactics in the car, on the way over. All was going to plan. Bamboozle Ismael, push him to give them a name, then really push him for what they wanted to know. Joe nodded slightly to Max: Ismael had cracked, now he was ready to break.

  But he beat them to it. The panic and fear suddenly left his face. He sat back and smiled at Max.

  ‘Something funny?’ Max asked.

  ‘What were you doing in my store?’

  Max didn’t miss a beat. He’d been ready for this.

  ‘I wanted to see what Solomon Boukman’s money launderer looked like. And I was very interested–we’–he motioned to Joe–‘were very interested in the person who supplied some of the ingredients found in the stomachs of Preval Lacour and Jean Assad. Calabar beans and a very expensive tarot card–the King of Swords from the de Villeneuve deck–both of which came from your store.’

  The smile didn’t leave Ismael’s face.

  ‘I suppose you’re going to offer me a deal. Witness protection and a new identity if I tell you everything? Life or death? Something like that?’

  ‘Something like that,’ Max said.

  Ismael’s smile turned into a smirk.

  ‘You think your witness protection’s going to protect me from Solomon Boukman?’ Ismael said to Max. ‘He can reach through any wall and close anyone’s eyes. Doesn’t matter where or who they are. And he’ll kill my whole family too–even if they’re completely ignorant of my affairs–because that’s what he does.’

  ‘You’re assuming we won’t get him first,’ Max said.

  ‘You’re assuming you will. You know he has a–how should I say?–guardian angel?’ Ismael pointed upwards with his free hand.

  ‘Who?’ Max asked. ‘Lucifer?’

  ‘Before you knocked me out in the bathroom, you know where I was? I was with Solomon on the top floor of the Fontainebleau. Suite 467. He won’t be there now. You know what I was doing? I was looking at another set of photographs. Headshots. From the Miami police personnel files, trying to identify the plainclothes cop who’d walked into my store. And I did: Detective Sergeant Max Mingus. He knows who you are. That makes us both dead men talking.’

  Max went numb inside. He looked at Joe and saw surprise and a lot of worry on his partner’s face.

  Then he looked at Ismael–his smirk, his thin, sweaty face, his small eyes, his huge curved nose–and he was lost for words. An icy cloud settled on the middle of his back and its chill travelled the length of his spine and then went into his bones. He saw Sandra. He thought of losing her. And he shuddered.

  ‘Where d’he get his information?’ Joe asked.

  ‘I don’t know. And if it’s none of my business, I don’t want to know. I launder Solomon’s money and front his construction schemes. That’s it,’ Ismael said. ‘But I did overhear him talk about a contact once–a while ago–with Eva. No names mentioned, but she referred to him as the Emperor. As in the tarot card. So I knew this was someone important, someone big, someone whose name they didn’t want to broadcast.’

  ‘The Emperor’s in the Major Arcana. The dominant cards, the deciders in the deck,’ Max said, taking his cigarettes out of his pockets and lighting one. The Emperor didn’t signify a person, but a desire to control one’s circumstances or surroundings, have dominion over them, influence fate.

  ‘That’s right. This isn’t just anybody. Like every major drug player in Miami, Solomon’s got plenty of cops on his payroll, but the Emperor’s in a different league. Either he’s an equal partner or he’s Solomon’s boss. And he’s very powerful. He’s the one who wipes Solomon’s prints off everything.’

  ‘Tell me about that conversation you overheard. What was said exactly?’ Max asked.

  ‘It was something to do with an FBI operation Solomon had heard about. Eva said “Talk to the Emperor, he’ll make it go away,”’ Ismael replied.

  ‘Did it?’

  ‘Of course. Everything’s always gone away. Solomon operates like an invisible man in the kingdom of the blind. You know he got arrested for murder in 1969? He hacked somebody up with a machete. The police photographed and fingerprinted him. So he had a record. But he never went to trial because the evidence vanished, along with three eyewitnesses. And when Solomon started making serious moves, every record relating to him vanished too–immigration, social security, police files.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Joe asked.

  ‘Carmine said they had a ceremonial burning of the files–his and everyone else in his gang. They ceased to exist. They went off radar. Permanently.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Early seventies.’

  ‘And the Emperor was helping him then?’

  ‘I assume so,’ Ismael said. ‘So what this means is, your offer of protection is nominal at best. If you charge me for Risquée, I’m dead in days. If we cut a deal, I’m dead in a week, maybe two, if I’m lucky. And…my family in Haiti? They die the day I do. That’s how Solomon does things,’ Ismael said, matter-of-factly, like a jaded doctor delivering bad news to his millionth terminally ill patient.

  ‘Then what’ve you got to lose by tellin’ me about the man who’s gonna kill you? We can stop him.’ Max took a long pull on his Marlboro. ‘We’re not ordinary police. The city set up our unit because it couldn’t trust the PD. Too many leaks, too many people on the cocaine payroll. We operate independently. No one outside MTF knows about this place, or any of our places. And we’ve got ’em all over Florida. You will be safe with us.’

  ‘And what about my family?’

  ‘We can’t guarantee their safety from here,’ Max said. ‘But we can get them moved to the US Embassy in Haiti. They’ll be under military guard.’

  Ismael sat back in his chair and looked at the ceiling, thinking.

  ‘You have no idea who you’re dealing with. If this was the Colombians or the Cubans, I’d say “Where do I sign and how loud do you want me to sing?” But this isn’t them. Do you know how Solomon’s bringing his coke in here now? He used to work with a group of Haitian army officers. Now he deals with just the one person in Haiti. Ernest Bennett, Baby Doc Duvalier’s father-in-law. He’s the new news. He owns Air Haiti. He’s flying coke into Miami every day by the ton.

  ‘Now, consider this: the Duvalier dictatorship is funded and supported by the US government, and always has been. They’re Cold War allies. Cuba’s next to Haiti,’ Ismael explained. ‘The CIA knows exactly what’s going on with Bennett and they really don’t care. You know why? Because they’re making money out of this. And lots of it. It’s helping fund the Latin-American front in the war on communism.’

  ‘So, you mean, Boukman’s workin’ for the CIA?’ Max smirked. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Bul
lshit! Listen to yourself: a Haitian drug dealer, selling coke on American streets for the CIA?! That’s fucken’ ridiculous!’ ‘Solomon isn’t working for them directly. But I think the man who’s protecting him is.’

  ‘Right,’ Max said sarcastically. ‘I’ve heard all this kind of shit before. Commie conspiracy theories. We’re the richest country in the world. The CIA doesn’t need money.’

  ‘Not for their legal operations–the state-approved, above board stuff, no, they don’t. But there’s things your government can’t be seen doing. Black ops. Counter-revolutionary work. Funding right-wing paramilitaries to massacre villages and blow up school buses in Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador.

  ‘Do you know where I send all the money Solomon brings me? The BCCI bank in Panama City. I didn’t set up those accounts. They were there before I got involved with him. You need a reference to open one. You know who Solomon had? General Manuel Noriega. A seriously big cheese. And Noriega has been working for the CIA since the 1950s,’ Ismael explained.

  Max didn’t say anything.

  ‘How did he know Noriega?’

  ‘I doubt they’ve ever met. The Emperor set that account up for him. I know you don’t believe me, but look at the facts: Solomon makes anywhere between five to ten million dollars a month profit from his coke enterprise. Then he’s also involved in prostitution, gambling, loansharking, protection, car theft. That nets him another million a month. Plus he’s killed hundreds of people–or had them killed. He performs human sacrifices. All of that and he’s never been so much as questioned by the police, never been put under surveillance, never turned up on any wanted list. The Feds and the DEA know who the cocaine cowboys are. They know everything about them. But they know nothing about Solomon. Why?’

  ‘I’ve seen his name in police files,’ Max said.

  ‘Have you seen any accurate physical descriptions? A photograph?’

  ‘No two descriptions are ever the same.’