Cash Landing

by James Grippando

  “You’re wrong, mon. This is no scam. Jeffrey’s in real trouble. He needs help, big time.”

  “Jeffrey needs help? Fine. Tell him to call his mother. And don’t call me again.”

  He disconnected, his cell screen went dark, and the bathroom got blacker. Ruban took a deep breath. There was a light rap on the bathroom door.

  “Ruban?” Savannah asked. “Is everything okay in there?”

  He pushed himself up from the floor, put his cell in the vanity drawer, and opened the door. “It’s fine,” he said in a calm voice.

  “Who were you talking to?”

  “No one.”

  Savannah scratched her head, more sleepy than confused. “I heard you talking to someone.”

  He kissed her on the forehead and started toward the bed. “It was nobody,” he said. “Nobody important.”

  Chapter 44

  Andie spent Friday morning at the Historical Museum of Southern Florida, getting bumped from one curator to the next. A series of seeming dead ends eventually linked together into a chain that led to an old Cuban exile named Valentín Cruz.

  “Happy to help,” said Cruz. He gave Andie his home address and agreed to meet there at lunchtime.

  Thursday’s interrogation of Edith Baird had yielded little of substance. Andie had left MDPD headquarters with little more than hints, generalities, and Edith’s promise to deliver a name for the tidy sum of $250,000. The best “freebie” was Edith’s remark that Octavio Alvarez and his accomplice had been boyhood friends in Cuba. Andie knew from the FBI dossier that Alvarez had come to the United States in the 1994 exodus, the third-largest wave of Cuban refugees in American history. It stood to reason that two childhood friends—men who had remained close enough to pull off a daring heist years later—might also have made that dangerous journey from Cuba together. Immigration records provided the names of all 38,000 refugees processed in the summer of 1994. To Andie’s surprise, however, it was virtually impossible to identify “raft mates,” unless the refugees were related. Valentín Cruz held the missing link—she hoped.

  The Cruz residence was in Cutler Ridge, a vintage 1970s suburb midway between Miami and the Florida Keys. His boxy, one-story house was a relic of a lost architectural era, neither its jalousie windows nor its flat roof meeting the hurricane building codes of the twenty-first century. Cruz greeted Andie with a smile and took her to his garage.

  “El Museo,” he called it. The Museum.

  Cruz was a wounded veteran of the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion who believed that God had spared his life on that bloody Cuban beach in April 1961 for a reason. He’d devoted his life in exile to the successful resettlement of Cuban refugees. His crowning accomplishment was in the summer of 1994, three years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the end of Eastern Bloc subsidies pushed Cuba to the breaking point and thousands fled in desperation. Cruz served as director of the Key West Transit House on Stock Island, a nongovernmental way station of sorts for the balseros who survived the ninety-mile journey from Cuba. The Transit House received refugees from the Coast Guard and funneled them to the Catholic charities in Miami, which conducted orientation and resettlement efforts for as many as three hundred new arrivals a day.

  “My plan was to turn the Stock Island house into a museum,” said Cruz, “but we couldn’t afford the rent. We tried moving to Coconut Grove, right next to City Hall, but that fizzled. Our last shot was an old firehouse in Little Havana that the city was willing to lease for one dollar a month, but the building was falling down and we couldn’t raise the money to fix it up. So all the things I collected and saved for El Museo del Hogar de Tránsito—the rafts, the photographs, the papers—it’s all here.”

  Andie was drawn toward the hunk of Styrofoam hanging from the ceiling. “Is that one of the rafts?”

  “Sí. It washed up around Marathon. I had to get rid of many, many like it. No room to store all of them. This one I keep. It landed on the beach upside down. There was no one on it. We hope the rafters were picked up at sea. But we will never know.”

  It was a chilling piece of history. Cruz was eager to share more of it—enough to fill the museum that was never built—but Andie’s needs were pressing and quite specific. “I want to know about the records you kept.”

  Cruz moved another raft out of the way and led her to the stacks of boxes at the back end of the garage. They covered the entire wall, each column three-deep and twelve boxes high. “This is everything,” he said.

  “I was hoping for a searchable CD or, at worst, a floppy disk. It’s all on paper?”

  “Yes. We worked the old-fashioned way. My hope was to scan these records into a computer, but that never happened.”

  “How is this organized?”

  “Chronologically, more or less. The peak was in August, but around May we could see the first signs of a coming flood. Dozens of Cubans occupied the Belgian ambassador’s residence and asked for asylum. Another group entered the German embassy. Things just kept escalating. By late June we were getting hundreds of letters from people in Miami telling us that their father, their aunt, their cousins—whoever—left Cuba on a raft a week ago, ten days ago. The family had no information. Did their loved ones make it to shore? Did the Coast Guard pick them up? Did they drown? Did the Gulf Stream carry them out to sea?”

  “So that’s what you have in these boxes? Those letters?”

  “That’s part of it. Like I said, we heard from so many worried families. We wanted to help, but imagine the task. Thousands of people left Cuba without documents, or they lost their papers at sea. So we started doing our own interviews and getting detailed information about the rafters who came through the Transit House.”

  “More than what the Coast Guard collected, you mean.”

  “Way more. The main concern of the government in those stage-one interviews was to verify that the refugees were actually from Cuba. You have to remember that rafts were also coming over from Haiti, which was a whole different process. Only Cubans got automatic asylum. Our job was to unite families.”

  “That’s what I’m asking. You collected more than name, date of birth, what town they were from in Cuba?”

  “We got all the information we could. The day they left Cuba, where they pushed out to sea, where they landed. Everything.”

  “What about the names of other refugees on the raft? Did you get that information?”

  “Of course. It was important to know who they traveled with, especially if any passengers were lost at sea. If the raft had a name, we wrote that down, too. La Esperanza. Tío B. Anything that could help link a rafter to family or friends.”

  Andie smelled pay dirt. “Let me be more specific. If the Coast Guard told me that a man named Octavio Alvarez landed in Key West on August twenty-third, could you tell me who else was on his raft?”

  “Sí, sí. He would have come through the Transit House. That’s where the Coast Guard sent the rafters who made it to Key West.”

  “Can you show me which box that information would be in?”

  “Well, this isn’t exactly the National Archives. Even with a specific date, I can only give you a general idea where to look.”

  Andie sized up the wall of boxes. It was no small task, but buried somewhere beneath tons of yellowed paper was the name of Octavio Alvarez’s accomplice—she could feel it.

  “Good enough,” she said. “Let the fun begin.”

  Chapter 45

  Not again. Jeffrey couldn’t shake the thought.

  It reminded him of that old Bill Murray flick, Groundhog Day, except there was nothing funny about getting kidnapped over and over. He recalled staggering out of the Gold Rush, crossing the dark parking lot, freezing up at the press of a gun into his lower spine. The first kidnapping had left him wary of strangers, and he would never have left the Gold Rush with Sylvia, but it turned out that Bambi hadn’t run off to join the convent after all. In fact, Bambi called to invite him and Sylvia to come party at her place. “Sylvia’s
one of my best friends,” Bambi had told him over the phone, a girl to be trusted. Some best friend. Sylvia sure had Bambi fooled.

  Gotta warn Bambi when I get out of this place.

  He tried to sit up, but he couldn’t lift his head off the mattress. His brain was a fog, but his recollection of those tense moments outside the club was clear enough. “Shut your mouth and keep your eyes forward,” the man had told him. Unlike the first time around, however, he detected no Jamaican accent, and they didn’t take Jeffrey’s car. The man walked Jeffrey to another vehicle, shoved him in the trunk, and off they went. From then on, the second kidnapping was nothing like the first. This time, there was no disabling blow to the back of his head. No waking up in a dark garage on a concrete floor. No shackles or abuse. He was blindfolded for the walk from the trunk of the car to the house or apartment, he wasn’t sure which. His room was windowless but air-conditioned, furnished with a comfortable bed, a chair, and a lamp atop the nightstand. It was like a small master suite. The closet was padlocked, but he was free to use the bathroom. There was a cooler filled with snacks and bottled water. And, biggest relief of all, Jeffrey still had all of his new gold caps.

  Those first kidnappers had beaten and tortured him from the start, kicking him in the face with steel-toed boots, yanking out his nails and gold caps with pliers, laughing at his misery. They’d demanded to know how much money he had and where it was hidden. This new guy was very different, and not just because it was one guy. Jeffrey wasn’t sure how long he’d been held captive, but it had been hours, and his kidnapper had yet to mention money. It was as if he knew that Jeffrey had blown through his cash, that he’d spent his last dollars on those bottles of Cristal for Sylvia—that the ransom would come from someone other than Jeffrey.

  He heard footsteps on the other side of the door, then the rattle of keys. The deadbolt turned, and Jeffrey stepped back as the door opened.

  “On the bed, face toward the wall,” the man said from the dark hallway.

  Jeffrey had the sinking feeling that the furlough was about to end. He lay on his side, his back to the door as the man entered the room.

  “How’d you sleep, big guy?”

  Jeffrey hesitated, puzzled by the cordial tone. “Fine,” he said.

  The main pulled up the chair. “You can look at me. Sit up.”

  Jeffrey rolled away from the wall, let his feet drop over the edge of the mattress, and sat facing his kidnapper. The man was wearing blue jeans, an “I ♥ New York” sweatshirt, and a rubber Halloween hood. Jeffrey was talking to Barack Obama.

  “I like you, Jeffrey.”

  Jeffrey wasn’t sure how to respond. “I like you, too.”

  “Michelle and I sincerely hope that we can get through this without having to fuck you up too badly.”

  “Michelle?”

  “That was a joke.”

  The mask. “Ah. I get it.”

  “Do you?”

  Jeffrey noted the change in tone, a bitter edge to it. “Do I what?”

  “Do you get it?”

  Again the tone confused him; the right answer wasn’t at all clear. “I think I do.”

  The man leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs. “You think you do. That concerns me, Jeffrey. When someone gets kidnapped outside a strip club, and then he goes right back to the same strip club, it makes me wonder: Does he ever really get it? Or is he just a hopeless fuckup?”

  “I’m not hopeless.”

  The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a pearl-handled knife with the blade still encased. He flicked it open, which made Jeffrey start. It wasn’t technically a knife. He was holding a straight razor.

  A lump came to Jeffrey’s throat. “Please don’t hurt me.”

  “Whoa, whoa,” the man said, almost chuckling. “Hurt you? You’re getting way ahead of the game.”

  “What’re you gonna do with that?”

  The man moved his chair closer and pushed the lamp to the edge of the nightstand, making room on the glass top. He pulled a palm-size packet of cocaine from his other pocket, neatly slit off the corner, and poured the contents onto the glass. “This is really good shit,” he said as he cut the white pile into five lines with the razor’s sharp edge. “Taste it.”

  Jeffrey collected a trace of powder on his fingertip and placed it on his tongue. The cool, numbing sensation almost sang to him. “That is good.”

  “You got a bill we can roll?” the man asked. “No, wait. I forgot. You pissed away all your dough, right?”

  It was his kidnapper’s first mention of money. Jeffrey didn’t answer.

  The man took a crisp hundred-dollar bill from his wallet, rolled it tightly, and handed it to Jeffrey. “Have at it, sport.”

  Jeffrey hesitated, still wondering what the man might do with that razor. His kidnapper seemed to sense the concern and put the blade away. Jeffrey leaned over the table and went at the coke like a vacuum cleaner, one line at a time, a series of glorious blasts to the pleasure center of his brain. Even the burn in his nostrils was oddly pleasant, and he savored the familiar bitter aftertaste in the back of his throat. He tilted back his head to catch the drip, then laid the rolled-up hundred-dollar bill aside and smiled at the buzz. “Wow,” was all he could say.

  “I told you it was good,” the man said.

  “You got any more?”

  “You want more?”

  “Once I get started, it’s hard for me to stop.”

  The man opened the nightstand drawer, removed a much larger bag of cocaine, and rested it on the glass. It was as big as his fist.

  “That’s a lot of coke,” said Jeffrey.

  “Yes, it is. It’s all for you.”

  Jeffrey glanced at the bulging bag, then back at the Obama mask. “I guess I’m going to be here a long time. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “No. You’re going to do all of it . . . now.”

  Jeffrey chuckled nervously, but he detected no sense of humor behind the mask.

  “Every last line,” the man said, “till there is no more.”

  “But . . . that’s enough coke to kill an elephant.”

  “You got that right, Dumbo.” He poured the coke from the bag, spilling a white mountain onto the tabletop.

  “Come on,” said Jeffrey. “Seriously?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “That’s too much.”

  “Too much of a good thing? A little late in the day to start humming that tune, don’t you think?”

  Jeffrey wiped his nose nervously, sniffing back the cocaine residue. “Please, man. Really. I don’t want to die.”

  The man flipped open the straight razor and cut the first line. “We’re all gonna die, Jeffrey. Let’s get this party started.”

  Chapter 46

  Andie found her man in Key West Transit House, box number 47.

  Valentín Cruz had given her a “general idea” of where to find the records relating to Octavio Alvarez, and his definition of “general” was among the broadest Andie had ever encountered. She’d sifted through scores of cardboard boxes, thousands of handwritten pages, and the flickering fluorescent light in the garage was a strain on her eyes. Having lived around migrant workers in Washington’s Yakima Valley, Andie spoke Spanish well enough, but reading it was a chore in the best of circumstances, and the hastily written notes of overworked Transit House volunteers presented a special challenge. Hours into the task, she had her reward. The yellowed documents on the concrete floor before her were original intake sheets for Octavio Alvarez and the man she’d been looking for: Karl Betancourt. Each had identified the other as a raft mate, along with a woman and her fifteen-year-old daughter. Both men had reported the name of their vessel:

  “Se Vende,” said Andie, reading aloud.

  Notes on Octavio’s intake sheet explained that the Havana man who’d cobbled the raft together deemed the journey too dangerous, so he put it up for sale. The buyers kept the “For Sale” sign and dubbed their raft the Se Vende.
Not exactly the Niña, Pinta, or Santa Maria, but heartwarming in its own way.

  Andie sealed the intake sheets in an evidence bag and drove from the would-be museum to the FBI field office. Background checks were next, followed by more digging and brainstorming. At day’s end, she walked into her unit chief’s office to make her pitch.

  “I think I’ve identified the second perp at the MIA warehouse,” she said.

  A mound of paperwork stretched from one end of Littleford’s desk to the other. He peered over the top of his reading glasses and simply asked, “Who?”

  “Karl Betancourt. He goes by Ruban. He manages a restaurant in Sunny Isles called Café Ruban.”

  “I’ve heard of it. Kind of a Russian-Cuban menu, right?”

  Andie seated herself in the armchair facing his desk. “Exactly. Hence the name Ruban, a play on ‘Russian-Cuban.’”

  “Are you saying there’s a Russian connection to this heist?”

  “I don’t know yet. But definitely a Ruban connection.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  She told him how Edith Baird had linked Alvarez to a boyhood friend in Cuba, and how she’d pieced things together through the Transit House records. As usual—Andie was getting accustomed to his style—Littleford’s initial reaction was skepticism.

  “Edith Baird sounds like a money grubber. Why should we believe her?”

  “First, because it makes sense. Alvarez and Betancourt grew up together, they risked their lives to come to this country together, they got rich together. Second, Edith Baird knows him well. Betancourt lived with Edith’s daughter, and he pleaded guilty to domestic violence. No jail time, but he’s a convicted felon.”

  “I’d be more impressed if the conviction was for armed robbery.”

  “There’s more,” said Andie. “Betancourt is married now. Get this: his wife is the niece of Craig Perez.”

  It took a second for Littleford to make a mental run through the limbs of the family tree. “Betancourt is related to Pinky?”

  “By marriage.”

  “Remind me again: What’s the status on Pinky?”