Cash Landing

by James Grippando

  “How much can you pay, Jeffy? Whisper it in my ear.”

  She nuzzled against him, letting a wisp of hair brush his face. The smell pushed him over the edge. It was Bambi’s trick to finger herself and then wear her own scent on her neck the way other women wore perfume.

  “Four hundred thousand,” he whispered. “That’s all of it.”

  She kissed him on the forehead. “That’s my boy. So smart. So, so smart. You’ll be back where you belong in no time. Now, tell me where all that money is.”

  He struggled. No way did he want to drag his mother into this. “I can’t tell you.”

  “Jeffy, you can tell me anything.”

  “No.”

  “Please, Je—”

  “I said no.”

  It had startled both of them. Jeffrey had never said no to her, much less with an edge. She pulled away from him and shot an icy glare. “You disappoint me.”

  “I just can’t tell you that.”

  “Fine. Be that way.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She rose and stood over him, looking down as if he were a pile of something she’d just stepped in. “It’s too late to apologize, Jeff,” she said, emphasizing that he was no longer “Jeffy.”

  “No, I really am sor—”

  “Save it. You had your chance. You don’t have to tell me where it is. You can tell them.”

  A shiver went down his spine. He wanted to fix things, but his mind was a blank, and he couldn’t find words. He watched in silence as she walked away, and the door slammed on her way out.

  Chapter 18

  Ruban picked up Savannah from work at seven. He didn’t take the usual route home, but Savannah was either too tired or too distracted to notice until they were on the turnpike.

  “Where we going?” she asked.

  “It’s a surprise,” he said.

  “I’ve had enough surprises for one day, thank you.”

  “This is a good thing. You’ll like it.”

  She looked out the passenger window. A sea of Miami suburbia twinkled beneath the purple-black night. “Whatever.”

  Definitely tired.

  The speed ripples in the road sent a vibration through the car. They were approaching the prepaid toll lanes. Ruban steered with one hand while holding the transponder against the windshield so that the electronic eye could read it. Ruban was one of the last remaining drivers in Miami who still owned one of those clunky old transponders that attached to the window with suction cups, and the cups were shot.

  “I know I told you not to spend any money,” she said. “But I really think we can afford a new gizmo.”

  “Not if we have to keep digging your brother out of trouble.”

  “You shouldn’t have helped him hide the money. We should have just gone to the police and begged for mercy.”

  “We can’t go back now.”

  She breathed in and out, looking out the window again. “I’m just so worried about him.”

  Ruban reached across the console and squeezed her hand. “Everything is going to work out. Ramsey will get him back. He promised me he would.”

  “You talk like this Ramsey is Spider-Man or something. What if these are the same guys who cut off that man’s finger in the delivery truck?”

  “These aren’t the same guys. These are small-time punks.”

  “How do you know?”

  He glanced over. She was a bundle of nerves. He had to put her at ease, and this time, nothing short of the truth would do it. “The guys who kidnapped your brother are friends of Ramsey.”

  “You told me he wasn’t in on it.”

  “He’s not.” He hesitated, not sure how it was going to sound, but he said it anyway. “I hired Ramsey to scare Jeffrey.”

  “Excuse me?” she said. It was that accusatory tone, not at all a question.

  “Jeffrey was out of control. He wouldn’t listen to anyone. I asked Ramsey to put a scare into him so that he’d stop flashing money.”

  “So he’s not really kidnapped?”

  “Well, he is, actually. It backfired. Ramsey asked his friends to meet up with Jeffrey in the parking lot outside the Gold Rush to scare him. But your brother is such a marshmallow that he started offering them money before they even laid a hand on him—before they even asked for a dime. So they grabbed him, and now they want some serious money. It’s just a mess. But it’s not the same guys who kidnapped Marco. It can’t be.”

  “Ruban, what on earth were you thinking?”

  “It’ll be fixed.”

  “Yeah, and we have to fix it. Jeffrey got kidnapped because your plan backfired.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve got another plan.”

  Another sigh from Savannah. She wasn’t happy. “This changes everything. I mean, yes, Jeffrey stole some money. A lot of money. But he didn’t hurt anybody. Now he could be killed, and it’s our fault.”

  Ruban changed lanes and steered toward the turnpike exit. He fumbled again for the clunky transponder as they passed the electronic tollbooth.

  “Where are we going?” she asked. The perfect change of subject.

  “Close your eyes.”

  “Ruban, I am not in the mood for surprises.”

  “I’m trying to help you. If you want to feel better, play along for two minutes.”

  “Oh, all right,” she said, groaning.

  They were passing Miami-Dade County’s other airport, Kendall-Tamiami Executive, a smaller general-aviation facility that served mostly light single-engine propeller planes. It was right across the street from several residential communities. Ruban made sure Savannah kept her eyes closed as he steered onto Country Walk. He drove past several one- and two-story houses, then stopped at the end of the cul-de-sac.

  “Okay,” he said. “You can open your eyes.”

  It was dark, but there were enough streetlamps and porch lights for Savannah to recognize the neighborhood. It looked pretty much the way it had before the banks had foreclosed and taken over eight of the ten houses on the street.

  “It’s our old house,” she said.

  “Wrong. It’s our new house.”

  “What?”

  “I bought it back.”

  Her mouth fell open, and it took her a moment to form words. “Why would you do that?”

  “I want you to be happy.”

  “This doesn’t make me happy.”

  “You cried when we lost this house.”

  “I’m over it.”

  “Come on,” he said. “Get out for one second and check out the curb appeal.”

  “Curb appeal? Who have you been hanging out with, those sharks on that real estate reality show?”

  “Just take a look. You’ll fall in love again.”

  “Ruban, no! You just bought a house? With stolen money?”

  “No, it’s not what you think.”

  “Do not lie to me. Where else would you come up with the money for a house?”

  “It’s not a done deal, okay? But I just want you to see how easy this could be.”

  “How easy what could be?”

  “All this money.”

  “Stop!”

  “No, listen to me. This goes on every day in south Florida. The only person who knows I’m involved is my real estate agent. We put down a nonrefundable cash deposit, no names involved. We don’t close for another hundred and twenty days, after it’s safe for us to start spending money. Until then, the seller doesn’t even know who the buyer is.”

  “This is insane. Ruban, it’s not our money.”

  “Fuck the banks, Savannah. They ruined us!”

  “You need to get control of yourself right now. We agreed not to touch any of the money that you buried—not to get me a birthday present, not even to pay Jeffrey’s ransom. And now you want to buy a house?”

  “Not a house. Our home.”

  “No, it’s not ours. We can’t go back to where we were.”

  “Yes. Yes, we can.”

  “No. This ginormous
house was when we were talking about four kids, two dogs, and—”

  “We can have all that.”

  “No, we can’t. Ruban, you can’t buy back what’s lost.”

  His cell rang. He checked the number. It was from the Gold Rush. “This could be Ramsey,” he told Savannah. He took the call. It was.

  “Mon, you got to come up with the money. Fast!” He was talking very quickly, almost breathless.

  “Slow down,” said Ruban. “Start at the beginning. What’s the deal?”

  “The deal is they gonna kill your brother-in-law if you don’t pay up.”

  “I told you I’m not paying a million dollars.”

  “They don’t want a million no more. They want four hundred thousand.”

  Ruban froze. It was the exact amount he’d found under Jeffrey’s mattress. “They’re bluffing,” he said.

  “No, no. They ain’t bluffing. They know Jeffrey got four hundred thousand, and they know it’s in your mother-in-law’s house. They gonna break into the house and take it, mon, if you don’t give it to dem.”

  Ruban’s head was starting to spin. He covered the phone, looked at Savannah and said, “Jeffrey talked. He told them the money is in your mother’s house.”

  “Oh, no!” she said.

  He spoke into the phone. “I’ll give them fifty thousand.”

  Savannah grabbed him, her eyes wide with anger and fright. Ruban waved her off, but Ramsey was equally shocked.

  “You crazy, mon. Fifty thousand?”

  “Just see if they’ll take it.”

  “They ain’t gonna negotiate, mon. Lemme send you the video.”

  “What video?”

  “You’ll see what I’m talking about. You check your text message in one minute and you call me back at this number.” Ramsey hung up.

  Ruban waited with his cell in hand.

  “What did he say?” asked Savannah.

  “Hold on.” His phone chimed with an incoming text. There was no written message. Just a video. He tapped to open it, and Jeffrey’s face filled the screen. Ruban caught his breath.

  “What is it?” asked Savannah.

  The video streamed without audio for several seconds, starting with an overview of Jeffrey’s swollen and bruised face. It looked as if someone had used him as a punching bag. Then it zoomed in, a close-up of complete terror. One more zoom, this time to his mouth, which was forced open with a tool of some sort. Needle-nose pliers. The audio kicked in, and Jeffrey’s scream cut through the silence in their dark car.

  “Oh, my God!” Savannah shouted as she covered her ears.

  Ruban shut it off and tried to tuck his phone away. Savannah grabbed his hand and began prying it from his fingers.

  “What is it?”

  “Leave it!” he said. “You don’t want to see.”

  Tears filled her eyes, but she kept tugging at his hand, trying to get his phone. “What did they do to Jeffrey?”

  “Savannah, just calm down.”

  “I can’t calm down! Did they kill him?”

  “No, he’s not dead.”

  “What did they do?”

  Ruban squeezed the phone in his fist even more tightly, no answer for her. Savannah slugged him in the shoulder.

  “Tell me what they did to my brother!”

  There was no way to sugarcoat it. “They took his gold caps,” he said, then added the worst of it. “And some teeth with ’em.”

  She screamed almost as loud as Jeffrey had, then buried her face in her hands, crying. Ruban reached over and laid his hand on the small of her back, but there was no time to console her. His phone rang. It was Ramsay.

  “You see dat, Ruban? You see?”

  “Yes. I saw.”

  “You got to pay up. You got to give ’em what they ask for.”

  He glanced at Savannah, who was glaring right back at him. “Okay,” he said. He was speaking into the phone, but it was for Savannah’s benefit as well. “We’ll pay them what they asked for.”

  Ramsey was so relieved that the line crackled with his sigh. “Very smart, mon. You give ’em what they ask for, this ends better for everyone.”

  “You call them right now and tell them the exchange is tonight,” said Ruban. “I’ll meet you at the Gold Rush in one hour.”

  Ramsey agreed and hung up. Ruban looked at his wife. “It’s taken care of,” he said in his most reassuring tone.

  “Pay the ransom,” she said, her voice shaking.

  “I will.”

  “Pay the ransom,” she said, her fear turning to anger. “And put this stupid house out of your head. This is going too far. Listen to me, Ruban, or I swear I will leave you.”

  Their eyes met for a few seconds, but it seemed much longer. Never, not in all they had been through, had Savannah threatened to leave him.

  He looked past her, toward the five-bedroom house and the front yard that was just the right size for a pair of soccer goals. Then he turned the key and started the car.

  “All right,” he said. “It’s done.”

  Chapter 19

  Ruban drove home faster than he should have. Any run-in with the law was to be avoided, even a speeding ticket, but he got away with it this time. He parked in the driveway and tried not to draw comparisons between the dream house in Kendall and the shitty shoebox of a rental that he and Savannah had called home since the foreclosure. He grabbed a shovel from the garage, walked around to the patio behind the house, and started digging. Savannah checked on him as he was putting the pavers back into place. The sealed eight-inch PVC pipe lay beside the shovel.

  “You buried Jeffrey’s money at our own house?” she asked.

  Ruban didn’t answer. He was nowhere near ready to confess that he was the one calling the shots when they’d divvied up the stolen money, that the cash under Jeffrey’s mattress was only part of Jeffrey’s take, and that Ruban had held back a half million bucks to keep Jeffrey under his thumb. He just gathered up the PVC pipe and carried it to the garage. The only way to remove the cap from the end of the pipe was to cut it off. Nearly a dozen vacuum-sealed packs of cash spilled out of the tube when he finished sawing. Savannah brought a gym bag from the closet, and he stuffed the money into it. Then he went inside the house and unlocked his gun cabinet.

  “Do you really need that?” asked Savannah.

  He chose the MRI “Baby” Desert Eagle and two clips of 9-mil parabellum ammunition, ten rounds apiece. His collection included handguns with even more firepower, but he loved the grip on the Baby, and the Israelis knew how to make a reliable combat weapon. He tucked it into his belt. “No way am I going unarmed.”

  She didn’t press it. He kissed her good-bye, told her to make sure to lock the door, and went to his car. She waved from the front window, as if to say “good luck.” He waved back, as if to say he’d need it, and drove away. He was on the Dolphin Expressway, halfway to the strip club, when Ramsey called on his cell.

  “No need to come to the Gold Rush,” said Ramsey. “Meet me at Dadeland Mall. In the parking lot on the west end. The one closest to the expressway. My friends say we do the exchange there.”

  “I thought you said they weren’t your friends.”

  “Friends of friends, mon. That’s all.”

  Ruban harbored enough doubts to be glad he’d packed the Baby Eagle. “Okay. I’ll meet you there.” Ruban exited the Dolphin, got on the Palmetto, and drove south.

  Dadeland Mall was one of the busiest shopping centers in Florida. A lot of locals avoided it, but everyone knew where it was, and South American tourists visited by the busload as part of organized vacation packages. Parking was never easy, but on a Monday night, an hour before closing, the western lot near the Saks Fifth Avenue anchor was a good choice for the exchange. It wouldn’t be overly crowded, so business of any description could be done without witnesses, but there would be just enough innocent bystanders to prevent Ruban from pulling a gun. Ruban entered the parking lot from Kendall Drive and drove slowly past Saks. He w
asn’t sure where to go, exactly. A text message from Ramsey filled in the blank: “Park at the end of row eleven.”

  The lot was about half full, with most vehicles parked closer to the building. He drove past them to the end of row 11 and stopped. He turned off the engine. Dadeland was in a safe suburban area, most people having no memory of the mall’s bloody cocaine-cowboy shootout of July 1979 that had reinforced Miami’s brand as the most violent city in America. Still, Ruban wanted to be able to hear the footfalls of anyone who might approach, so he lowered the windows, which also eliminated the glare on the glass, giving him a clear view of the lighted parking lot. He took the gun from his belt and laid it between his legs on the seat, where he could grab it quickly. Then he waited.

  A minute later, he heard a knuckle-rap on the passenger-side panel. It was Ramsey’s way of letting him know it was him, unnecessary as it was: there weren’t many men with dreadlocks in the lot outside Saks. Ramsey opened the door and slid into the passenger seat.

  “You got the money, mon?”

  Ruban handed him the gym bag. Ramsey opened it and peered inside at the vacuum-sealed plastic packs. “You bring me money or you bring me bacon, mon?”

  “There’s exactly four hundred thousand. The five packs of hundreds make two-fifty. Six packs of fifties are one-fifty. Count it, if you want.”

  “I trust you, mon.” Ramsey dialed on his cell and reported to the kidnappers. “He brought it. It’s all here.”

  Ramsey kept the phone to his ear, listening, but Ruban couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation. Then he hung up and put his cell away.

  “Where’s Jeffrey?” asked Ruban.

  “He’s comin’ right now,” Ramsey said, pointing.

  Ruban peered through the windshield toward the dark access road that ran along the other side of the chain-link fence. The road wasn’t lit up like the parking lot, but even at a distance of fifty yards, there was no mistaking the three-hundred-pound bowling ball staggering toward the entrance gate. Someone was at his side, and it appeared to be a woman.

  “Who’s with him?” asked Ruban.

  “She’s one of the strippers from Gold Rush.”

  “Is she in on this?”

  “No, mon. Not her. Not me, neither. We just tryin’ to help Jeffrey through dis revoltin’ situation.”