Hometown Favorite: A Novel (35 page)

Rosella raised her hands in front of the glass as if she were
about to direct a vehicle into a parking space. She looked into
Dewayne's bloated face, and with her right hand, she removed
the diamond ring, followed by the wedding band from the ring
finger on her left hand. She shook them in her hand as if they
were cheap dice as she kicked her seat against the wall behind
her. Rosella inhaled a deep breath and hurled the tangible symbols of her vows against the glass.

Dewayne reacted as if the glass would not protect him, and
he jerked back, releasing the phone in his hand. The phone
crashed onto the table, and then slid off, the receiver swinging
from side to side like the victim of a hanging. He had enough
slack in his chains to allow him to lay his forehead on the
table in the booth, unable to bear any more of his wife's severe
denunciation.

Rosella did not wait for the officer. She yanked the chair out
of her path and ran toward the exit, leaving Dewayne howling
her name with the deepest cries of animal torment.

The officer who escorted Dewayne from his cell returned to
the booth and the man slumped over in his chair. He pulled
him back so he could unlock the chain that had connected him
to the booth, and then helped him rise to his feet. Dewayne's
body started to tremble during the long walk back to his cell,
and the guard requested assistance to help him hold up this
broken colossus. Once the cell was unlocked and the shackles
unwrapped from Dewayne's body, the lack of weight seemed
to release the tremors. The guard tried to help him to his bed,
but Dewayne went into full-blown convulsions and fell to the
floor, his body writhing in his soul's hemorrhaging sorrow.

Salvador Alverez stepped out of his beachside bungalow in
Quepos, Costa Rica, just ten miles north of Dominical, and
stretched his limbs. His eyes squinted from the glare off the
crystal blue sea of the late afternoon sun. The only thing he
wore was his new Rolex, the one indulgence he had allowed
himself just before he left the United States. The markup on
stolen goods was always 100 percent profit, but the deal a
member of his gang offered was too good to ignore. The five
hundred he had given for the watch was in and of itself a steal
since its value would be in the mid four figures. Salvador was
anxious to begin his new life, and this was the first evidence
of transformation.

He leaned back inside the front door and told his female
companion still lying in bed, it was time for her to go; he had
business to take care of. She had five minutes. Then he sat down
in the lounge chair and stretched his legs over the railing of
his front porch.

Everything had fallen into place for Salvador. There had
been no glitches in his plan. The most important lesson he had
learned in life was to be patient. Patience was a virtue, and by
practicing it, he had seen that patience was profitable. By being
patient, he had gained knowledge. By being patient, he had become a wealthy man. By being patient, he had transformed
himself into a man of power, someone with whom the world
would soon reckon.

In the brief time since his arrival, he had been establishing
himself as a citizen in this new land, exchanging currency,
creating accounts in local banks, making inquiries about property with some local Realtors, and letting it be known that the
music business in America had been good to him. He had not
been flamboyant, throwing around cash like trinkets tossed
by a Mardi Gras king. That was not his style, and besides,
the serious money had not yet arrived that would inaugurate
his kingdom, a kingdom that would have no end. The money
would arrive soon, and he would be patient, but these initial
steps were laying the foundation of his credibility among the
locals, a valuable commodity in his conversion process.

Salvador had had several conversion experiences in his
short life, but this new one would be his final revision. It took
a person several tries to get life right, and he was pleased he
had found a version that would fit for a long time. He had
not come to this new world solely to spend the fresh wealth
he had acquired. His vision for the future was far too grand
than to become sluggish with self-indulgences, something his
prosperity could provide him for years to come. He was much
too ambitious. He had come for the investment opportunities,
seeking ways to expand his kingdom, ways that would bring
the world to him, ways that would demand respect from equals
and inspire fear from those beneath him. And ways that would
relieve him of the memories of his years on the street, his time
in jail, his brief con as a model Christian, his foray into the
darkness of murder.

Tyler Rogan, born again as Salvador Alverez, had vision, he
had connections, he had venture capital to back his inspirations, and he had a plan he had begun to conceive as he rode in the
car from Houston to Los Angeles while his associates slept.
Tyler was always making plans, a skill he developed whiling
away the long hours of incarceration.

His companions for the long drive had been his business
associates in Houston, the crew Sabrina had happened upon
the day she informed Tyler he was the father of their child.
When Tyler had walked out of detention in LA after serving
his time for beating Bruce with the baseball bat, he had no
commitment to rehabilitation, no interest in anything other
than a return to the old life, and his time behind bars had been
a real motivation to move up the ranks among the members
of his gang.

Imprisonment had been time well spent. Tyler had taken
a couple of online business classes and had learned to build
websites; he was not about to waste the hard-earned taxpayer
investment into his rehabilitation by watching hours of television and pumping iron in the yard each day.

Two things helped him gain independence and veneration
when he returned to civilian life: jail time enhanced his status
with the gang's rank and file, which, in turn, had developed a
deeper level of trust for him within the leadership, and he had
come back with a solid plan to expand the power, influence,
and assets of the gang. They needed a legitimate business to
shield their profits, the first chapter out of any organized crime
handbook, and so they purchased the recording studio. He
would then use his skill as a website designer to attract prospective recording artists. With this legitimacy as cover, Tyler
would be the liaison for the drugs sold on any street corner in
any city in America.

Tyler was the most qualified and willing person within the
gang to take the business to the next level, and when his plan received the unanimous approval from the leaders, Tyler told
them that Houston would be a great location to test out their
expansion program. He would need capital, product, and associates to support his street cred, and he promised that within
two months he would turn a profit for them. Tyler had been a
man of his word. In one month's time, he was sending revenue
back home, garnering further respect and goodwill; but this
success did not satisfy Tyler. He had not chosen to relocate in
Houston by default or by pulling the name out of a hat. When
he watched the Stars play on the television in the detention
center's recreation hall, heard Dewayne's interviews about his
family, saw the number of commercials the man was cranking
out, and listened to the speculations of his rumored wealth
among the sports commentators, Tyler knew where to find
the golden egg. Therefore, the second phase of a master plan
began to fall into place.

After Tyler's Houston associates had picked him up at a
gas station less than a mile from the Jobe house, Tyler formulated the third phase of a master plan on the ride back
to Los Angeles. While others slept through the night, he
imagined a new life in Costa Rica where he had scouted out
the possibilities of expanding the business while he was there
on the church mission trip. "Go to the source and secure
the supply;" he had told the leadership, and because of his
sales pitch and the impressive work he had accomplished in
Houston in such a short time, the leadership offered to fund
the new venture without Tyler even requesting it. The cash
he had stolen from the Jobe home was a bonus, and he would
not be in a hurry to transfer a portion of the Jobe millions
from the security of a Bahamian bank to one in Costa Rica.
The LA leadership never queried Tyler about the Houston
murders, several of them offering support to Tyler's alibi when interrogated by the detective, and they regarded this
aggression as an asset.

With such a versatile combination of entrepreneurial risk
and ruthlessness, Tyler could one day transform this street
gang into an international cartel, something the leadership
had never dreamed of happening.

It was a win-win for all parties, so with a new identity, new
venture capital for a new mission, a new Rolex sold to him
at a discount by a gang member, Salvador Alverez arrived in
the new world ready to begin his new life. When the woman
appeared on the front porch and began to kiss his neck, trying to lure him back inside the bungalow, Tyler produced an
envelope with twice the amount of pesos she had asked for,
including extra for cab fare. He sent her on her way with the
promise she would return and bring a couple of her friends,
and then he showered and dressed and drove his motorcycle
into the jungle for his first rendezvous with a potential supplier, a meeting that had not taken long to establish since the
international language of money, spoken all over the world
and even recognized in the Costa Rican jungle, had secured
the appointment.

Detective Hathaway had his feet propped on his desk while
nursing his favorite bourbon and staring at a list of numbers
on the sheet faxed to him early in the day. He was not drinking
on the job, though he was no Puritan. His shift was over, but
he had some paperwork, and there was no reason to go home
to an empty condo and drink alone.

The detectives on the next shift provided some white noise
while he sipped his drink and studied the numbers. There
really was not much to study. It was not like trying to break some mysterious code. It was the SWIFT code ABA routing
numbers of an offshore account the geeks in the lab were able
to retrieve from the Jobe computer, all of which had been set
up the day of the murders. Were it not for an old buddy at the
Treasury Department in Houston, he would not have known
the code was a Bahamian account, and for the price of a couple
of bottles of Johnnie Walker, he would be told if and when
there was any movement and to what location. Friendship and
payola were beautiful things, Hathaway thought as he dreamed
of all those millions floating in cyberspace just waiting for
arithmetic summons.