Cash Landing

by James Grippando

  “No, it’s not. If we ever have to explain this to the police, they won’t care what we spent it on. All they’ll know is that we hid the money, and a million dollars is missing.”

  Her expression tightened. It was her nervous look, which meant he was getting through to her.

  “Okay. Then what do we do?” she asked.

  “The way Jeffrey has been burning through money, he clearly has some serious cash stashed away somewhere. We find it, and we use it to pay the ransom.”

  “How is that better?”

  “At least we can honestly say that we never touched any of the money that was under our control.”

  “I guess that makes sense. But how do we even know where to look?”

  “If you were Jeffrey, where would you stash your money?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Savannah, come on. Your brother is a thirty-two-year-old cokehead who lives with his mother. Apart from the bedroom he’s had since middle school, the only world he knows is the Gold Rush. We can only hope that he didn’t stash his money at the strip club. Really, where do you think it is?”

  She sat up and turned, her left shoulder leaning into the seat back. “No, absolutely not. If we start tearing my mother’s house apart looking for Jeffrey’s money, I’m going to have to tell her that Jeffrey got kidnapped, and she’s going to have a heart attack. Literally, she will run for her rosary and drop dead on the floor.”

  “She is not going to die.”

  “We cannot drag my mother into this. She knows nothing about the heist.”

  “Would you rather she hear about it from the kidnappers?”

  “There’s no reason for them to call her.”

  “You’re right. They won’t call. When Jeffrey cracks under pressure and tells them where his money is, they’ll just smash down her front door and put a gun to her head. Is that what you want?”

  “God, no!”

  “We need to find that money, hide it someplace else, and send your mother on a monthlong vacation to Fiji.”

  She leaned back and considered it. “All right,” she said, breathing out a heavy sigh. “But let me be the one to break it to her.”

  “Now you’re making sense,” he said as he backed out of the parking space.

  She shook her head, staring out the window. “None of this makes any sense,” she said under her breath.

  “Ay, Dios mío!”

  Ruban rolled his eyes as he walked into the kitchen to refresh the cold compress. His mother-in-law had not taken the news well. For ten minutes she’d been moaning, wailing, and calling for divine intervention. Savannah was beside her on the couch, trying in vain to console her.

  “Mi niño, mi niño precioso!”

  Right. The “precious boy” whose idea of “laying low” was to spend ten times retail on discontinued Rolexes and give them to strippers. Idiot.

  “Ruban, hurry!” Savannah called from the living room.

  He went to the freezer, wrapped fresh ice in the washcloth, and returned to the critical care unit—er, living room. His mother-in-law was on her back with her feet up on the couch and her head in Savannah’s lap. Savannah took the compress and placed it on her mother’s forehead.

  Beatriz Beauchamp was filled with more melodrama than the human body could possibly contain. Anything from the death of her husband to her parakeet’s loss of appetite was enough to land her on the couch, praying to Saint Lazarus. Savannah had inherited her beautiful face, but nothing more. The rest of her—the carrying on, the five-foot frame, the extra poundage—she’d passed on to her son.

  Ruban sat in the armchair facing them. “We need a plan to help Jeffrey,” he said.

  “Sí, sí. El plan de Dios.”

  “No, not God’s plan. We need a plan.”

  Savannah shot him an angry look. “Not now, Ruban.”

  “This can’t wait,” he said, and then he spoke directly to his mother-in-law. “Savannah and I have decided to pay the ransom.”

  “Why no call the police?”

  Good question, but he was ready for it. “The kidnappers said they will kill him if we call the police.”

  “Ay, no!”

  “Totally agree. Ay, yai, yai; yada, yada, yada. But we need to come up with some money.”

  Savannah patted her mother’s forehead with the cloth.

  “How much?” asked Beatriz.

  “A lot,” said Ruban. “We think Jeffrey might have some cash around the house.”

  “Sí, sí. He won it in the lottery. Pick Six.”

  “The lottery, huh? What a lucky boy,” said Ruban. “Do you know where he keeps it?”

  “Sí. I found it when I cleaned his room. Under his mattress.”

  Under the mattress. The thought of Jeffrey as his coconspirator was suddenly enough to make Ruban want to shoot himself. “I’ll be right back.”

  Ruban went down the hall. The door was closed but unlocked. He went inside, not sure what disaster to expect, but the room was neat and tidy—just the way a doting Cuban mother would keep it. No coke mirrors on the dresser. No pornography on the walls. Not so much as a hint of dust on the windowsill or nightstand. The bed was made with military precision. Ruban went straight to it and flipped the mattress. Benjamin Franklin was staring back at him through the vacuum-sealed packs. Ruban had marked each pack with a dollar value on the night of the divvy. Ruban did the quick math on Jeffrey’s stash, gathered it up, and went back to the living room.

  “Four hundred thousand,” he said as he laid the packs on the coffee table. “Your brother burned through a million-plus in one week.”

  “That’s not possible,” said Savannah.

  “Add it up.”

  She didn’t bother. “Maybe he stashed more somewhere else.”

  “What about it, Beatriz?” asked Ruban. “Any more excellent hiding places besides the mattress?”

  “Maybe ask El Padrino,” she said. “I think Jeffrey gave some for him to hold.”

  “Who’s El Padrino?” asked Ruban.

  “His godfather,” said Savannah.

  “I know what el padrino means. Who is he?”

  “Carlos Vazquez,” said Savannah.

  “Where does he live?”

  “No sé,” said Beatriz. “Jeffrey is the only one in the family who stays in touch with him. The rest of us . . . no.”

  “Should I even ask why?”

  “He became a priest,” said Beatriz.

  “You cut him off because he became a priest?”

  Savannah squeezed the excess water from the washcloth into the bucket at her feet, careful not to drop what remained of the ice cubes. “A Santería priest.”

  Ruban had seen Santería in Cuba, and it was still practiced in certain parts of the Afro-Cuban immigrant community in Miami. A Hialeah group had successfully defended the right to conduct animal sacrifices, all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. To Ruban, the killing of chickens, doves, and turtles to provide spirits the nourishment needed to possess priests during rituals was more voodoo than religion.

  “Jeffrey gave his money to a Santería priest?” he asked, incredulous.

  “For safekeeping,” said Beatriz.

  Ruban stared at the vacuum-sealed packs on the table. Four hundred thousand dollars. If they added it to the half million of Jeffrey’s money that was buried in the yard, they were close to the ransom demand. But paying the full amount made about as much sense to Ruban as giving it to a Santería priest.

  “Brilliant,” said Ruban. “Just brilliant.”

  Chapter 15

  Savannah wanted lunch, but with $400,000 in the trunk of the car, Ruban refused to stop. He dropped her at the dry cleaners and drove straight home. Jeffrey’s stash fit inside the leftover PVC pipe. He sealed it up, gave the liquid cement a minute to dry, and buried it in a foot of sand beneath the patio tiles in the backyard.

  Under the mattress? He gathered up his tools and shook the sand from his shoes. You gotta be kidding me, Jeffrey.


  Ruban put away the tools in the garage and went to the locked cabinet in the TV room. His gun collection was short one Makarov semi-automatic revolver, the Soviet Union’s standard military and police sidearm for forty years, which Pinky had brandished at the airport warehouse, and which now lay at the bottom of the Miami River, never to be seen again. Ruban had other Russian weapons, but if he was going to “lay low,” it was best never to leave the house again with anything Russian made: it seemed likely that at least one of those security guards had managed a good enough look at Pinky’s Makarov to peg its origins. Plenty of non-Russian choices remained. He grabbed a Glock and one clip of standard 9-millimeter ammunition and another clip of military-issue tracer ammo. It was overkill, but he was suddenly feeling the need to be prepared for anything.

  It was time to visit El Padrino.

  Finding an address for Carlos Vazquez proved much easier than expected. Facebook apparently had no problem with Santería priests, at least not the ones who had 18,000 “likes” and posted no photographs of animal sacrifice. Vazquez had no physical church. Services were held at his personal residence in Hialeah, and the Facebook comments and photos pointed Ruban to the exact house. It was less than fifteen minutes away.

  Ruban left the crappy old car in his driveway and instead pulled the dusty tarp off of his motorcycle in the garage. The Kawasaki Ninja ZX-14R was a precision machine that, in the eyes of most drivers, was nothing but a blur shooting by on the expressway. Long rides to nowhere had been a therapy of sorts. Until the accident.

  He hadn’t ridden since.

  The ignition fired, but the engine didn’t respond. Disuse and neglect beneath a dusty tarp had taken a toll. He tried again, and this time it answered with a roar. He rolled out of the garage and onto the street with a measure of caution, like a cowboy back on the horse that had thrown him. He observed the speed limit on the shady neighborhood streets, but as he approached the expressway, he felt the tug of the past, the need for speed. Halfway up the entrance ramp, he gunned it.

  Traffic was always heavy on the Palmetto Expressway, but he threaded his way between cars and around trucks as if they were mere cones on a test track, cutting the fifteen-minute ride in half. The power was addictive, and part of him wanted to keep going. But he forced himself to focus. He took the second Hialeah exit, worked the side streets east toward his destination, and parked in front of the ranch-style house. His heart was pounding as he climbed off the Kawasaki.

  The Vazquez residence was like thousands of other sixties-vintage houses in Hialeah—a concrete shoebox with four cars parked in the front yard for the three families who shared 1,800 square feet of living space: three bedrooms, and two baths. Ruban removed his helmet and started up the sidewalk. His escorts to the front door were a couple of chickens, clucking and blissfully unaware of their starring role in an upcoming Santería ritual.

  Ruban rang the bell. An old man opened the door just far enough for the chain to catch. Ruban wasn’t sure how to address a Santería priest. “Father Carlos Vazquez?”

  “Babalawo Vazquez,” he replied.

  “I’m Jeffrey Beauchamp’s brother-in-law.”

  The door slammed in his face. Ruban knocked again but got no answer. He walked toward the driveway and stopped. Parked alongside the house was a brand-new Cadillac Eldorado. The temporary tag was still in the window. Ruban felt his anger rising. He went back to the front door and pounded hard enough to conjure up a host of Santería spirits. Finally, Vazquez answered.

  “Did you take Jeffrey’s money?” It was a demand, not a question.

  “No, señor. It was a gift to the church.”

  “Yeah, I see the church needed a new Cadillac.”

  “I pray every day for Jeffrey.”

  “He needs his money back. He’s in trouble.”

  “Money doesn’t solve trouble. Money makes trouble.”

  “Then you’ll be very happy to give it back.”

  He chuckled and wagged his finger as he spoke. “Not to-day, señor.”

  Ruban leaned into the door before Vazquez could shut it, and he wedged his knee into the crack to make sure it stayed open. “Jeffrey needs his money.”

  The two men locked eyes through the opening, the taut chain between them. The old man made a strange guttural sound that welled up from his belly and shook in his throat. Slowly, it grew louder, but it had a rhythm to it, like some kind of chant.

  “Go-o-o-o,” he said.

  “I’m not leaving until I get Jeffrey’s money.”

  “G-o-o-o. Or feel the wrath of the Orisha.”

  “I’m not—oww!” Ruban shouted, pulling his leg from between the door and frame.

  “Orisha very angry now.”

  “Bull-shit, Orisha. You just jabbed me with a fucking pen!”

  “Go-o-o-o-o. Or I call the police. I’m dialing,” Vazquez said as he showed Ruban his cell phone. Then the door slammed. Ruban pounded on it.

  “Open the damn door!”

  “Police are coming!” Vazquez shouted from inside the house.

  Lay low. It was getting harder and harder to follow his own rule, but hanging around for the police to arrive would have made him even stupider than Jeffrey. He gave the door one good kick, letting Vazquez know that this wasn’t over. Then he went to his motorcycle, put on his helmet, and rode away.

  Vazquez was a piece of shit, but he wasn’t the problem. Jeffrey was the problem, and the four hundred thousand dollars that Ruban had found under his mattress was well short of the solution. Ruban needed answers that didn’t involve a Santería priest who had the police on speed dial.

  He stopped for gas before getting back on the expressway. Half a tank would do it. He stepped away from the pumps to make a phone call before getting back on the bike. The last time he’d spoken to Savannah’s uncle, Pinky had said he was getting out of town. Ruban took a shot and dialed his number. Pinky answered, and Ruban got right to the point.

  “Jeffrey’s been kidnapped.”

  “I know.”

  “You know?”

  “Yeah. He called me at four o’clock this morning to ask for money. He begged me to help him out. I told him, ‘I’m your uncle, not your bank. Call your sister.’”

  “Pinky, the kidnappers want a ransom. This is serious.”

  “Not my problem. Jeffrey got into this trouble. He can get out. If you and Savannah want to help him, be my guests.”

  “I need Marco’s share to pay the ransom.”

  Pinky laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” asked Ruban.

  “Now I get it. You think I’m stupid? This has scam written all over it.”

  “Scam? Pinky, you’re making no sense.”

  “Jeffrey gets kidnapped, and the first person he calls to pay a million-dollar ransom is his Uncle Pinky? Give me a break. He ain’t kidnapped. This is you trying to scam me out of Marco’s cut.”

  “That’s not true. He called you first because he knew I’d kill him for getting into this mess.”

  “Bullshit, Ruban. A million dollars was exactly Marco’s share. Like that’s a coincidence. I’m outta here. You got that? I’m keeping Marco’s money, and I’m gone. Fuck all of you.”

  He hung up before Ruban could say another word.

  Ruban should have headed south, but he wasn’t going home. He rode north toward I-75, a toll road that cut across the Everglades. He’d taken it all the way to Tampa before, one of many long rides on his motorcycle. This time, he wasn’t going nearly that far.

  The day had started out badly and was only getting worse. Vazquez was scum. Pinky was no better. Ramsey was an idiot. Jeffrey was a problem with no solution. A million-dollar ransom would be a Band-Aid, at best. Times like these were all about self-preservation.

  Midday traffic on I-75 was nothing compared to south Florida’s busiest thruways. Ruban was sharing five lanes with just a handful of cars, and he was feeling the tug of the past again, the need for speed. Not because he wanted to go back. He wanted to put i
t behind him—for good. The accident that had landed his motorcycle under a tarp in the garage had left him, and his Kawasaki, without a scratch. Savannah was another story.

  Ruban had buried the needle on his Kawasaki many times, but always while riding alone. Savannah was okay riding with him around town, but never on the expressway. He bought her a bodysuit of leather and Kevlar, protective boots and gloves, and a state-of-the-art helmet, but still she refused to hop on the seat behind him and flirt with death on the virtually deserted I-75 after midnight. Until it was time to leave their house. The night the bank came.

  “Ruban, they’re taking the car!”

  The house was empty, and they’d been ordered out by midnight. The front door was wide open, and Savannah was watching the men in the driveway. The repo team moved quickly.

  Ruban went to the gym bag on the floor. In it was his pistol collection, and he would go down shooting before turning that over to the bank. He zipped it open and grabbed a Glock. “They’re not taking another fucking thing.”

  “Stop!” she shouted.

  “They can’t have it!”

  “It’s a stupid car!”

  Ruban gripped his pistol. He’d been pushed too far, but there was a reasoning part of him that understood she was right.

  “It’s not worth going to jail over this,” she said.

  No. She was definitely right. If he was going to risk jail, it would be for something big—big enough to make the bank regret the day they’d messed with Ruban Betancourt.

  He stood in the doorway and watched the repo men back their car out the driveway, then the orange taillights disappearing into the night.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  The car was gone, but they still had wheels. Ruban had already lost ownership of his restaurant, and Savannah had offered up her jewelry before letting him cash out his beloved motorcycle in their losing battle to stay afloat. The Kawasaki was next door in the garage. Their neighbors had been foreclosed on the month before, the thirteenth in the neighborhood, and the house was empty.

  They waited in the garage until one a.m. to make sure the repo men were out of the neighborhood, no one watching. Savannah’s girlfriend in Broward had said they could stay with her for a few nights. Ruban strapped their bags to the motorcycle. Helmets on, they were off.