Murder in the Magic City

by G. P. Sorrells

  “Does he have your approval?”

  “After seeing this, I don’t know how I could say no to bringing him in.”

  -#-

  Micah stood in his kitchen, staring at the contents of his refrigerator. He had a taste for eggs over medium and toast, but a severe lack of desire to cook, which created quite the predicament. For a moment, he considered running down to a spot in Little Havana to pick up some breakfast, but stopped when his phone rang, causing his attention to drift away from his rumbling stomach.

  “What’s up, Jimmy?”

  “Excellent work last night,” replied the distorted voice. “In the future, don’t use names on here.”

  “Got it, thanks.”

  “Meet me at the spot at sunset,” the voice said, pausing for effect. “And dress nice.”

  As if on cue, the phone clicked, and it left Micah wondering if he had anything “nice” to wear in his wardrobe. A quick glance at his closet was all he needed to remind himself that his collection didn’t exactly fit the expectations.

  -#-

  They say money is the root of all evil, but perhaps it just gets a bad rap because those in control would rather dictate where the green paper goes than give everyone a chance to get their word in on the matter. It’s hard to deny that money can help fix many problems, from the mundane to the severe. Find yourself on the street after eighteen to twenty-two years of living under your parents’ roof with nothing but the clothes on your back? Search for a job which leads to money which, through careful research and positive credit checks, leads you to an apartment. Your significant other complains that you never show them you care about your relationship? Easy, twenty bucks can buy a half-decent bouquet of roses to wipe away any concerns of infidelity. Someone rubs you the wrong way? More expensive a problem to fix, but a few sizeable bills could lead to them learning a rather painful lesson.

  For Micah, money simply allowed him to put on something classier than a polo shirt and chino shorts. It’s amazing what delivering a couple of rounds to the head of someone you had no angst toward can be worth. If the brown envelope he found lying on the floor underneath the mail slot after he woke up was any sign, the going rate for a prime-time reporter with a terrible judgement, and an even worse haircut, was apparently fifty thousand dollars. That sort of money can create a wealth of opportunities when bills aren’t a primary concern.

  Shortly after consuming the meal most people are too busy to worry about, Micah made his way to a nearby strip mall. A quick survey of the mall directory pointed him toward a family owned tailor who typically dealt with the needs of pubescent teenagers looking for the threads that offered them the greatest chance of scoring at their prom. However, according to the poster in their window, they also carried suits for the working man on a budget.

  Although neither customer profile fit him all that well, the latter seemed appropriate when Micah considered the fact that he wasn’t sure when his next payday would be. The money could have to last him longer than he would prefer. With that in mind, he picked out a decent black single-breasted suit with a red silk shirt and a black tie. He wasn’t too concerned with fashion and the woman fitting him seemed to like the way he looked in it enough to undress him with her eyes, so it couldn’t have been all that bad. He parted ways with five Franklins and stopped in a few more stores. The suit, he reasoned, could be chalked up to a business expense. Despite his desire to make the money last, he figured he could spoil himself at least a little.

  -#-

  La Cantina Sucia was booming with business as Micah approached it. Most people in the city wanted nothing more than to stuff their faces after a long day of work, which made him nothing more than a member of the herd. The little man waited at the front door, dressed in what Micah thought had to be the smallest three-piece suit known to man. He wanted to chuckle, picturing how the munchkins in Oz may have looked, dressed like their cohort, but the current situation was far too disconcerting to allow it.

  “This way,” the little man said, a hint of annoyance in his voice. Micah briefly wondered if his thoughts had manifested themselves as a stupid grin on his face. He chided himself for it, but followed all the same. Opening from the alley beside the restaurant was a clearing with signs about future construction. In the middle sat a limousine with jet black tinted windows and a low, rumbling engine. The little man approached the rear door and opened it, standing still with his hand on the side.

  Micah stared out at him, not sure he wanted to follow through with it after all. He had thought they set the meeting to take place inside the restaurant, not the backseat of a limo outside. It didn’t help that he had watched enough mobster movies in his lifetime to know what usually happens in this sort of situation. Eventually he reasoned that all hope was not last because the little man hadn’t patted him down. If he was going to get whacked, he was going to make damn sure he took someone with him.

  The little man made a motion with his hands that was intended to inform Micah that he needed to hurry and get inside. Almost immediately after Micah complied, the door closed. He had little time to take stock in the reality that he was alone before he felt the limousine lurch forward and weave through the tail end of rush hour traffic, backtracking at random intervals to throw off any potential tails. This continued for fifteen minutes until the vehicle stopped outside of a random warehouse at the Port of Miami.

  Micah sat still, unsure of his next step. It was clear the driver wouldn’t be offering any help. When the limousine came to a stop, he didn’t put it in park. There was nothing to gain from staying inside, Micah reasoned. He could lose quite a lot by exiting, but he had never been one to shy away from the unknown before, and he didn’t intend to start now. He stepped out of the backseat and felt the vehicle speed away before he had the chance to close the door.

  Asshole.

  He stared at the dilapidated warehouse in front of him. The haggard sign nearby offered little to go by outside of the letter F, but it was easy to tell this place hadn’t been in use for its intended purpose in quite some time. Out of nothing more than an unpleasant feeling of paranoia at the thought of the unknown, Micah stretched his hand toward his back, lifted his coat, and checked that his pistol still sat, secure, in its new holster. Although the gun couldn’t fire itself, he found it comforting to know it was at his disposal should the need arise.

  “It’s now or never,” he muttered to himself.

  -#-

  The interior of the warehouse was now a room rarely used for anything, aside from an occasional meeting of people who didn’t deem it necessary to take up space in an office building. Typically, the type to prefer avoiding the watchful eyes of the law. A large circular table with ten chairs surrounding it sat in the center. The warehouse had once been home to a potato chip company. Poor distribution standards and questionable business practices had forced them out of the market sooner than they had expected.

  Medina wasted no time scooping up the property the moment it hit the market. He bought it through a shell company with no ties to him personally so as not to arouse suspicion. For all anyone knew, the premises belonged to a German company with global aspirations and the need for an American shipping hub. Aside from the table, there wasn’t much in the way of creature comforts in the expansive room. A large French door refrigerator rested at attention on a wall opposite the table. Its sole purpose was to house beer and tequila. They had installed a metal detector next to the door, but the room was empty otherwise. Micah beeped as he entered, and a nearby guard grabbed his arm somewhat forcefully.

  “It’s ok, Alberto,” Medina said in a calm voice from the center of the room. “He’s with us. There’s no need for concern.”

  The guard released his grip of Micah’s arm and received a glare from the stranger that nearly made him wet himself. Micah walked over to the table, faced Medina and Castillo, and stood in place. He didn’t know what the expectation was for his presence, but he wasn’t about to make the
first move.

  “Sit.”

  Micah was hesitant. A handshake often preceded the act of sitting down in a meeting of the minds. Unbeknownst to him, this was a tactic Medina employed to unnerve the people he met with. It wasn’t much, and didn’t even have the desired effect on everyone, but it promised an awkward start to almost any meeting.

  “Micah, over the past few days, you have pulled off some jobs for us in a way that is unparalleled. I’m pleased with your work, as is the rest of the organization,” he said. “At least those who are aware of it. We could use a man of your caliber within our ranks. It’s with that knowledge that I would like to extend to you a place at our table.” Medina fished a piece of paper from his pocket and outstretched his hand toward Micah. “Take this.”

  Micah grabbed the small square piece of paper and stared at it. He half expected to see numbers scrawled across, a hint at the job that awaited him, but blank parchment was all that met his eyes. Medina leaned forward and ignited a corner of the paper with his lighter. It burned slowly.

  “This burning slip of paper represents the life you once knew. As it becomes ash, your loyalty becomes ours. Should you ever forsake us, you will meet the same fate. Of that you can be certain.”

  The paper burned out and Micah stared at the ashes, perplexed by the experience. The scene that unfolded before him was certainly not a scenario he had envisioned when he first stepped into the limousine.

  “Jimmy here will be your godfather, so to speak,” Medina said, placing a hand on his lieutenant’s shoulder. “Anything you want to know about how we do things around here, you ask him. Likewise, any jobs we need done, he will be the one to relay the message. When that happens, you don’t question the task. You just act.”

  “Gimme your finger,” Castillo said, motioning for Micah’s hand. He reluctantly obeyed and watched as Castillo took his right index finger and made a slight cut with a pocketknife. “Now you’re one of us.”

  “A toast,” Medina announced, pouring a shot of Patron into three separate tumblers. “Good health to our friends, and death to our enemies.”

  Micah had never been happier to douse his throat with fire.

  Chapter 18

  On the night that Ross Sheridan watched his world crumble before his very eyes, he had a picture of what the future held. The details were tough to make out in the moment, like an old sepia photograph that handled with regularity over the years. Clear as day, he could see himself with Emma. Her cute smile as she held onto that little brown teddy bear she loved so much. Their house was mostly intact in his mind’s eye, but some details were still fuzzy. Almost as if all the grand plans he had ever had to turn it into something truly magnificent, a modern-day castle, would one day take place. There was also another figure close by, in the picture next to them. The details were hazy, but it was a woman he didn’t know too well. Perhaps someone to help him along in the wonderful world of parenthood.

  Then his life ended along with Emma’s and it all ceased to matter. The dreams he once held, not likely to be realized. Goals set never to be achieved. None of it mattered any longer. All he felt in the moment was a haunting sense of bloodlust. A burning desire to right the heinous wrong, knowing full well that nothing could come close to making it anything resembling just.

  Jimmy Castillo.

  His was not a name that rang any sort of bell or set off any alarms inside Sheridan’s mind. At least not initially. Once the rage subsided a tad, the venom no longer seething with every breath he took, Sheridan found himself able to take a step back and look at the state of his new normal with more clarity and objectivity. Although his end goal may still be the same, allowing his emotions to cloud his judgement would prevent him from ever being able to follow through with the sole act his existence depended on.

  With his head on straight and a laser focused goal in mind, Sheridan got to work figuring out just who the hell Jimmy Castillo was. The discovery process would normally take just a matter of hours to complete with a few targeted searches. However, with the way his house looked when he left it, Sheridan wouldn’t be able to make use of anything he owned. Almost immediately after leaving the neighborhood, he removed the sim card from his phone. He couldn’t afford to lose access to the data stored on it, namely the photos and videos of Emma, but he also didn’t want to leave a literal trail of breadcrumbs marking his every move. Using the plastic in his wallet was similarly out of the question, so he had used the services of a 24-hour ATM to access all the funds from his checking and savings accounts. With that nuisance out of the way, he had tossed his wallet down a storm drain and headed out of town.

  I’ll probably be in the ground myself by the time anyone finds that worthless hunk of leather.

  Chapter 19

  Jimmy Castillo loved to look out at the clear, turquoise waters of Biscayne Bay, stretching toward a horizon that seemed to go on infinitely. He often wondered how terrible it must be to grow up in a place where the smell of the sea air is foreign. Where the sound of waves rolling in and crashing on the shore is only possible through a custom-made speaker. The thought of a life without the sea frightened him. He grew up in the water. He had escaped hell in the water. He had made his fortunes because of what sometimes came on the water. And so, it held a fond place in his heart, and likely always would.

  “How’s it… uh, going there, Jimmy?”

  And just like that, a beached whale ruined the view. “How’s it going, Anton?”

  If it were up to Castillo, he would just ignore the man. It’s not that they weren’t kindred spirits. Quite the opposite. They both enjoyed the same beer, had a similar taste in women, and were both close to Carlos Medina. The problem was, in Castillo’s eyes, that Anton was different enough in the wrong ways. He didn’t like to get his hands dirty. Didn’t want to take care of his own problems. If it weren’t for his ability to cook the books, he likely wouldn’t be around in the capacity that he was. But it was because of that proficiency he had made himself untouchable.

  Though they may have existed on the same rung of the proverbial ladder within Medina’s organization, Castillo couldn’t help but feel a bit overshadowed by the admiration his boss showed Anton for providing some legitimacy to their business. A bit of an edge did no one wrong, but Castillo was always careful to play his cards close to the chest whenever his counterpart was around.

  “Shitty,” Anton said. He sat down on the bench next to Castillo, causing the platform to creak as he adjusted. “The son of a bitch down at the funeral parlor fucked things up with my mom.”

  “What are you talking about?” Though they weren’t exactly friends, Castillo didn’t take kindly to the mishandling of a deceased loved one. Not even an enemy deserved the torment that went along with those added headaches.

  “She was supposed to get fixed up real nice before they put her in the casket, you know. Her hair done up just right, makeup on point. Was gonna have her look like a red carpet was ready to roll out just for her.” Anton was trying to fight back tears and failing spectacularly. “But somehow, that dumb fuck Marco had her cremated!”

  “What the actual fuck?”

  “I specifically told that dirty commie that I wanted her buried in the most expensive casket they had, was ready to shell out for all the bullshit add-ons, but he still fucked it up.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Anton,” Castillo said. And he meant every word. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “Yea, take care of him.” A hint of reluctance welled up inside Castillo at the sound of those four words, and his bench mate seemed to pick up on it. “Look, I would love to do something about it myself, trust me. It’s just, I don’t know the first thing about it other than punching the guy or sitting on him.”

  Both men laughed. “It’s okay, my friend,” Castillo said. He stretched out and patted Anton on the back. “I’ve got just the person to right this wrong.”

  Chapter 20

  Micah walked down
a busy street, past a large church with a steeple that seemed to do its best impression of the Tower of Babel, and over toward a rather plain building with the words ‘Our Dearly Departed Funeral Parlor’ plastered across both front windows. Though the sight of such a building could discomfort some, it never bothered Micah all that much. Perhaps it had something to do with his chosen profession, but the notion of death was inescapable.

  Try as he might, he knew that one day it would be his turn to close his eyes for the last time. It wasn’t a thought he entertained often. But sometimes he’d catch himself thinking about what lie in wait for him after he took his last breath. Were Heaven and Hell real? Did everyone worry for nothing? He always came to the same conclusion: it didn’t matter. In the grand scheme of things, he was but a puff of gas in the cosmos, barely recognizable relative to the time the universe had existed. Besides, he wasn’t sure he could form any sort of opinion necessary to continue on if it turned out that something existed beyond life as he knew it.

  Without hesitating, Micah opened the door and stepped inside. The air inside was stale. It felt quite a lot like the state of being it represented. A quick survey of the waiting room produced a stack of business cards placed next to a brochure stand. Micah picked up one card and looked it over.

  Our Dearly Departed Funeral Parlor

  Serving you in your most trying time.

  136 Sw 22nd Street

  Hialeah, Florida

  Marco Fedorov, Owner

  They set the text over a safe, floral design and the whole thing screamed of something put together quick and cheap. Curiously, the phone number had been printed on the back of the card. Micah shrugged his shoulders at the oddity and tapped a bell resting nearby on the counter. He immediately picked up a brochure and perused it, his aim to avoid suspicion. He could hear voices in the distance, but the subject of their conversation was indiscernible. The door opened a moment later, and a plump, older gentleman stepped out. The man said something to whoever he had been conversing with in the back room before letting the door rest in its frame. He approached the counter unhurriedly, a noticeable limp impeding his progress.