Who'll Stop The Rain: (Book One Of The Miami Crime Trilogy) (19 page)

Logan

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

7:05 PM

I
T TOOK ME ALL NIGHT
, all the next day, and most of the
day after that before I recovered to the point where I could leave the house.
During that time, Dorothy made me take it easy while she dumped plenty of TLC
on me, cleansing my wounds, bringing me lots of hot soup, and generally stroking
me in every way imaginable. To tell you the truth, I loved the attention. Hell,
if getting the shit beat out of me wasn't so painful, I might want to do it
more often, just to get the TLC.

But
I needed to take care of business. The cuts near my mouth were healing nicely
and the bruise on my jaw was fading. People could still tell I'd been in a
scrape, but at least I looked a lot better than I did the other night. Time to
go out. I needed to get to Mambo's.

The
evening was pleasantly warm with lower-than-usual humidity, so I walked rather
than drove. When I got there, the beginnings of the evening crowd had not yet
formed. No one playing pool yet, the bar nearly empty. A couple of the booths
were occupied with guys I knew planning the details of their upcoming scores,
and I could smell the yellow rice and beans simmering in the kitchen. I went
into the back to talk with Don Roy Doyle.

Don
Roy was just over sixty and tough as a two-dollar steak. He'd overseen The
Original Mambo's gambling operations for twenty years or so, and when Mambo the
Third took over last year, he kept Don Roy on. But before he started working
here, he was a world-class confidence man.

Born
and raised here, he was long known as the King of the Swindle. His mind always
operated in that direction, toward extracting money from suckers. He wrote the
book on a lot of grifts that are commonplace today, and he made them pay off
big until he went down for a diamond con in Las Vegas back in the late
eighties. After a few years in prison, he came back, eventually married his
longtime girlfriend, and settled into the straight life.

I
found him in his tiny office, his brawny figure at a cheap desk, clear blue
eyes focused on two laptops yawning open in front of him. A wooden chair sat
empty against the near wall. From the look of things, he was adjusting the
lines for tomorrow's baseball games on one of the computers and doing bolita
accounting on the other. Two color photographs decorated the wall behind him:
one was of the 1997 Key West Conchs high school baseball team, on which Mambo
the Third was a star pitcher. The other was of Ronald Reagan.

"Well,
look what the cat dragged in," he said as he saw me enter. "Last I
heard, you were getting shot at in Miami." His voice was like a fine grade
of sandpaper, a little scratchiness to it, but not all that abrasive.

I
threw him a grin. "A move they came to regret." I took his hand in a
hearty shake and dropped myself into the wooden chair.

He
checked out the damage to my face. "They do all that to you, too?"

I
shook my head. "Just a little problem I had the other night. Nothing I
can't handle."

He
shifted away from the laptops and toward me. "What's on your mind?"

"Did
Mambo tell you I'm getting out? Looking to become an honest man?"

"He
did mention something about it." His voice was accommodating, level in
tone.

I
leaned a little toward him. "You once said you could put me together with
your cousin. Said he wanted to pump up his landscaping business. I got some
money handy and I'm ready to go. Does the offer still stand?"

"Ahhh-hhh,"
he said, and I knew there was a problem. "Ordinarily, it'd be a
no-brainer. But my cousin, genius that he is, got pinched last month for
twisting his landscaping business model into marijuana growing. He's out on
bail, but he can't take on anything new right now. All his money's going to
lawyers."

My
shoulders wanted to sag and I really had the urge to sigh at this big letdown.
But this wasn't the time or place for it. Don Roy would've done me the favor if
his dipshit cousin hadn't gotten busted, and now I didn't feel I could lean on
him any further. His cousin had the know-how and the client leads. I had money
and enthusiasm.

"Do
you think he'll beat the charge?" I asked.

He
ran a hand across his close-cropped hair. "If he does, it'll be on a
technicality, because he's totally fucking guilty. They caught him redhanded,
harvesting the shit in a vacant lot up on Rockland Key. He's probably looking
at a two-year bit, minimum."

Trying
not to sound sorry for myself, I said, "Well, I hope he beats it."

Don
Roy picked up on it. He reached to the small table behind him and produced a
bottle and two rocks glasses. Bushmill's Malt, ten-year-old single malt Irish
whiskey. Choice stuff. He splashed a couple of fingers worth into each glass and
handed me one. Then he said, "I get the feeling you were counting on
this."

"I
was, in a way. I wanted to make a clean break. I figured this would be my
bridge into the straight life and I wanted to hit the ground running." I
sipped at my drink. It was some smooth shit. Went down real well.

Don
Roy drank from his, draining it by half. "You got any income? Any action
at all?"

I
said, "Yeah. But it requires a once-a-week collection."

He
nodded, knowing it kept me with one foot in the life. "S'that this thing I
heard about with you and Trey Whitney? And some stripper?"

You
can't keep anything down low in this town. "Affirmative."

Don
Roy said, "Mambo's cut Trey loose from his marker, you know."

"I
know," I said. "He told me last week." I glanced up at the photo
of the Conchs baseball team. Mambo the Third was in the center of the seated
row, his trademark smile lighting up the whole shot.

Don
Roy polished off the rest of his drink and set his glass down. He didn't refill
it.

"What
about the stripper? You still gonna collect from her?"

I
raised my eyebrows a little and threw him a trace of a shrug. "A guy's
gotta earn."

"Is
Trey fucking her?"

"Far
as I know," I said.

"Listen
to me, Logan." His clicked his voice downward to confidential level.
"You know who the Whitneys are. Do I have to remind you that Win Whitney's
the Duke of fucking Duval? That his brother was mayor twenty years ago? His
father, Trey's grandfather, was mayor for decades before that. They've been
running things on this island forever."

"I
know, I know."

"I'm
not sure you do. Trey's a worthless punk, to be sure. But his father's the most
powerful guy in town. And those gorillas Trey's got working for him? Morgan and
Stanley? Those are two badass motherfuckers. You've gotta tread lightly."

My
hand ran across my healing facial cuts. "I've already done a little
treading with those two."

He
leaned back in his chair. "So that was it. Trey sicced them on you to get
you to lay off the stripper?"

I
nodded. "Like I said, nothing I can't handle."

"Don't
be too sure," he said. "Those are two guys you definitely don't want
to fuck with. I remember when they came down here from Marathon about five or
six years ago. They were barely old enough to drink, and they got busted for
murder almost right away. You remember that?"

I
thought for a moment, it came to me. "Didn't they smoke some guy … some
guy who tried to move in on Trey's businesses?"

"Right.
Guy from Lauderdale. Thought he could come down here and throw a lot of money
around. Tried to intimidate the Whitneys. Biiiiig fucking mistake."

My
memory shot into overdrive as details came into focus. "Brutal murder,
wasn't it?"

Don
Roy poured himself another shot of Bushmill's. He offered me one, but I
declined.

He
then said, "Beat the guy to death in his hotel room down at the Ocean Key
and gouged his eyes out. While he was still alive. They were convicted on a
lesser charge and wound up doing a short bit in Raiford before Trey's lawyers
got 'em off on appeal. Word was, the inmates up there were scared shitless of
them. And, as I'm sure you know, Raiford is the hardest of the hard-time joints
in the whole goddamned state. It's where they send the incorrigibles."

When Don Roy Doyle tells you
something like that, you'd better listen. This guy hasn't just been around the
block. He built the fucking block. Ignore him and you do so at your own risk.
Be careful around Morgan and Stanley, he says, and I pay attention.

I
downed the rest of my whiskey and stood up.

"Thanks
for the heads-up, man," I said.

We
shook hands and he said, "Just watch yourself. You're on the Whitneys'
radar now."

≈
≈ ≈

On my way out, I detoured to the bar for a cold one. I plopped onto
a stool and wondered what I was going to do. Don Roy's cousin getting busted
really threw me a curveball and left me twisting in the wind. It wasn't like I
had a lot of choices. I mean, I never had a job and I had no connections
whatsoever in the straight world. My mother may have been onto something when
she said it wouldn't be easy for me as a lifelong criminal trying to get
regular work. I weighed my chances.

The
bartender dropped my beer off in front of me. Right after I took the first
tasty swig, they sauntered in. I didn't know who they were, but I knew what
they were, and that was trouble. I also knew they weren't local. You walk into
Mambo's, either you're from here or with someone from here.

A
pair of them, Latinos, probably Cuban. One had a shaved head, accentuating his
protruding nose, his thin, short little beard running around his face from
sideburn to sideburn. He wore a blazing orange Hawaiian shirt, patterned with
pineapples and hibiscus. The second guy with slick, black hair and unforgiving
eyes, in a yellow guayabera. Their tattoos were regulation, but the teardrops
under their eyes, the symbol for killings they'd done, stood out above the
rest, as they were intended. Four tears each. Both somewhere around my age,
both swaggering around doing their best to look Miami dangerous. I caught a
bulge under the back of the Hawaiian shirt. I couldn't see the back of the
guayabera, but I figured it hid one as well.

Everyone
noticed them as they eased up to the bar a couple of spots down from me. They
might as well have carried ringing sirens with them, announcing their presence.
From my stool, I watched them talk softly to the bartender. He picked up the
phone and pressed one button, apparently ringing Mambo in his office.

Black
Hair caught me staring at them.

"Who
you lookin' at?" he said in heavily accented English.

My
gaze never left his. "I could ask you the same thing."

Right
away, Shaved Head jumped in, itching for action. "You got a fuckin'
problem, my man?"

"I'm
not the one with the problem. You two are." I took another pull at my
beer.

Shaved
Head's nostrils flared and his lips tightened around his teeth. He said
something about a puta and came around his partner toward me. I steeled myself
for the action.

The
bartender, a pretty tough guy himself, reached his big arm across the bar and
gestured at Shaved Head. He said, "
¡Basta,
muchachos! ¡Basta! ¡Cálmense!"
In his other hand he held a firm grip
on an upraised baseball bat. The two of them eyed the bartender, then the bat,
and reluctantly settled down. He then waved them toward Mambo's office in the
back.

Sidelong,
I glimpsed the street through the plate glass window. Twilight was drawing down
over the island. A Mercedes SL-63 loomed in the no-parking zone directly in
front. Red convertible. About a hundred and fifty grand worth of speed and
flash. Definitely not a Key West car. I looked around the joint at the sparse
crowd. I knew everyone in there and none of them could afford that ride.
Grabbing my longneck from the bar, I got up from my stool and headed back to
Don Roy's cubbyhole.

On
the way back I passed Mambo's office. The door was closed and I heard a lot of
rapid talk in Spanish on the other side of it. Don Roy's door was ajar. I
walked in, surprising him.

"Whoa,
Logan," he said. "You forget something?"

"Not
exactly. A couple of hotshot Cubans just came in and were shown back to Mambo's
office. They're in there now. Early thirties. Real Miami-looking. Pulled up in
a red Mercedes convertible."

A
chord of recognition vibrated in his wary eyes. "Red Mercedes? One of
those fancy-looking high-end jobs? SK something?"

"SL-63.
You know them?"

He
nodded once. "Sounds like the Dávila brothers. Yayo and Camilito. I think
they're some kind of third cousins to Mambo, or something."

"Cousins?
They from here?" I drank a long swallow from my beer and suppressed a
burp.

"No.
They're from up the road. But Mambo works with them every once in a while. Been
doing it for years. He's known them since they were all kids."