Who'll Stop The Rain: (Book One Of The Miami Crime Trilogy) (24 page)

Nervously,
we waited for the tourists to pass by. Four of them, two guys and two girls,
all attempting to sing the chorus of Jimmy Buffett's
Why Don't We Get Drunk
. They stopped on the sidewalk, about ten
feet away from the front of the house and began arguing.

One
of the guys said, "I'm telling you, it goes like this:
They say you are a snuff queen
…"

A
girl broke in. "No, it's not 'snuff queen', it's 'stuff queen'."

The
first guy said to the second guy in an exasperated voice, "Kevin, you
gotta tell her. I'm an original fucking Parrothead. I know the words to all of
Jimmy's important songs."

I
wanted to wring their fucking necks. Them and their important songs.

Kevin
turned to the girl. "He's right, Heather. The man does know his
shit."

"I
don't care," she pouted. "I still say it's 'stuff queen'. I'm gonna
look it up on my cell phone." She reached into her large purse and fished
around inside.

My
heart pounded hard against my breastbone and the heat had once again made it
difficult to catch a breath. I glanced at Dorothy. She breathed through her
mouth, short, impatient breaths. Her eyes were wide, the whites prominent,
nearly bursting out of their sockets. Her quivering hand inched down toward the
knife on her hip. I was beginning to feel she was capable of anything. For the briefest
of moments, I thought she might go crazy.

"Oh,
shit," the first guy said. "Come on, Heather. Let's go. I don't want
to stand here all night while you look for your phone. Schooner Wharf awaits. I
need another margarita."

The
other two chimed in with agreement, persuading Debbie to abandon the search for
her phone and the correct lyrics. They resumed their slow pace up the street
toward Schooner Wharf, picking up where they left off in the song.

They
soon were well past us, and the traffic had cleared the stoplight. A couple of
more random cars drifted by and we waited till they passed. We started to move
out, but at that instant, someone stepped out the front door of the house. An
older guy. He walked down the two or three steps to the front walk and out onto
the street. We hunkered back down into the shrubbery that hugged the side of
the house. Dorothy shifted her weight a little and stepped on a stray twig,
making a slight crack in the quiet night. The guy stopped in front of the house
and looked back toward the side where we were crouched in the hot, close
blackness of the bushes. Neither Dorothy nor I breathed. We couldn't even
blink. Standing in silhouette in the hazy backlight of a streetlamp half a
block away, he seemed to be staring straight at us, trying to find the source
of that sound, searching for movement in the darkened reaches. My eyes slid
over to glimpse Dorothy. Her sweaty hand unsteadily wrapped the knife handle,
ready to unsheathe it. I caught a glance at my own hand resting on the grip of
my gun. After a few seconds, the guy turned and walked away, ambling down
toward Simonton Street.

We
exhaled simultaneously and moved out toward the sidewalk, peeling off our shoe
covers. We crossed the street at a steady clip, but not too fast. Once we stood
beside the car, deep in the shadow of a nearby tree, I took another look
around. All traffic gone, no pedestrians in sight. We slipped out of our pants.
All the clothes, as well as the gloves and the shoe covers, went into a black
lawn and leaf bag I had in the back seat. I tossed my gun, the silencer, and
the big knife into it as well before we got in the car. The lawn and leaf bag
went into the back of the SUV, under a blanket.

Fire
up the car, pull out of the spot, and drive slowly to US 1. Crank up the
fucking air. I couldn't remember the last time I let the heat and humidity
bother me this badly. Nor could I remember the last time my insides rolled
around like boiling surf on a stormy beach.

The
rain came back. All the way back. To make matters worse, a large portion of US
1 on the island was under construction, forcing traffic into a one-way,
incoming direction on North Roosevelt Boulevard, the wrong way for us. So we
had to use inconvenient, time-consuming back streets to get to the Cow Key
Channel Bridge, the turnstile out of Key West. I grew uneasy because it meant
more and more exposure for us, slowly motoring through narrow streets with stop
signs on every corner, all the while with evidence of bloody murder in the
back, waiting to be discovered.

"Fucking
construction," I said over the rhythmic thwapping of the windshield
wipers. "It's gonna take forever to get out of town. Any cop stops us for
any reason at all and it's over."

Dorothy
patted my arm. "It's not gonna take forever and no one's gonna stop
us," she said. "Just don't give 'em any reason to."

The
AC finally kicked in, cooling the SUV down to comfort level, but my breathing
was still on the heavy side and my heart thumped hard in my chest. I said,
"We didn't leave anything behind, right? We got the weapons, we didn't
leave any prints …"

"We
got everything. You rinsed out the sink, didn't you?"

"Yeah.
Except for the dirty dishes in it. All the blood's down the drain."

She
smiled, and exhaled along with it. "Then we got away with it. We're
clean."

"You
saved our asses back there, you know, jabbing that ape when he was going for my
piece. I mean, he was ready to do us both. But sweet Jesus, you
got
that motherfucker."

Her
hand remained on my arm and her voice turned calm. "It's a good thing we
were both there. That room was way too small for you to maneuver around in,
even with your gun. If you'd been by yourself, they'd've had you." She
took my arm and, with a little effort, leaned her large body across the center
console. Her lips met my ear with a soft kiss and she whispered, "I would
never let anything happen to you, my love. Never."

"It's
just that I don't like what —"

She
put an index finger to my lips, shushing me, then quietly said, "Neither
of us likes it. We don't have to like it. But we did have to do it. Don't ever
forget that. We
had
to do it."
Then in a whisper, she added, "Both of us."

She
softly kissed my ear and neck. It felt terrific, knowing what she would do for
me, what she had already done. But that was the problem. She had killed two
people. With a knife, no less. You kill someone with a knife, it's up close and
real personal. You can feel somebody else's flesh tearing under your own hand
as it guides the sharp blade through organs and arteries. You're so close, with
almost no space between you and the victim, where you can see in his eye right
then — that split second when he realizes what you've done. When he knows
his life is going to end. From what I hear, that's the same moment you realize
it.

And
believe me when I tell you, not everyone can do it.

For
the first time in the ten years we'd been together, I had to ask myself,
Who is she? Who is this woman I thought I
knew?

Through
all the uncertainty, though, I know she did it for me. The thought was
overwhelming, that she would do it. I turned my head a little and moved my eyes
over to look at her. So easy to look at. My heart finally slowed down, and so
did my breathing. We got to US 1 and I made the turn over the bridge, leading
us out of Key West.

I
said, "You're everything to me, honey. You always have been and you always
will be. All the way to the end."

"All
the way," she said, giving me an affirming squeeze and then sinking back
into her seat.

Traffic
remained light. The windshield wipers tapped out their relaxing tempo. We drove
up to Big Coppitt Key, about ten miles up the road, to a construction site a
couple of miles off the highway. Once there we tossed the twist-tied bag into a
yawning dumpster and headed back home through the pouring rain.

Silvana

Sunday, July 17, 2011

10:05 PM

V
ARGAS TOOK THE ENVELOPE
Silvana had placed on the table in
front of him. She sat across from him at this very table in Versailles as she
did every Sunday night. Late dinner, a beer or two, followed by the envelope. Vargas
peeked inside and riffled the bills, which were all facing the same direction.

"Pretty
good week," he said.

Silvana
sipped her beer. It was her second. "Damn right. And it's gonna stay that
way. Maybe even get better."

Without
taking the bills out, he made a preliminary count. "Looks like about
fifteen hundred."

"Fourteen,
to be exact. Five hundred from Maxie, five hundred from Desi Ramos for his new
drug territory over around Dolphin Mall and Sweetwater, and a hundred each from
those three nigger street dealers in Miami Lakes and that new one, the Cuban,
in Hialeah."

"Fantastic!"
he said. "And you think it'll get better?"

She
carefully folded her napkin and placed it in the very center of her empty
plate. The silverware went on top of the napkin at a diagonal angle. She fussed
over it a moment to get the diagonal just right, then said, "I'm telling
you, Bobby, the street dealers are where we can strike gold. You don't tax them
too much, just a couple of hundred a week, which they can easily afford to keep
us off their asses. The key is, there's a million of them. They're on every
fucking street corner."

Vargas
took the first sip of his second beer and chuckled. "And if one of them
gets taken out, another one moves in to take his place."

Silvana
smiled. "Exactly." She ordered another beer. Three was very unusual
for her, but she was feeling good, so why not? Like Vargas said, they'd had a
good week. "And not only that," she added, "if we can nail Yayo
Dávila down in Key West, Flaco's man takes over Yayo's crew and Flaco moves
into the number two slot. Lots of possibilities there."

"And
lots of money," Vargas said through a hearty grin.

"Ha!
Fuckin' right."

Silvana's
beer arrived and they touched bottles in a toast to better times ahead.

She
said, "We're the perfect team, Bobby."

"Ahhh,
you got that right."

She
allowed herself a smile. "I always wanted to work with someone like
you."

"You
did?"

"Damn
straight," she said. "It took a long time for us to find each other.
I remember back in, I think it was '04, I was still in uniform, in patrol. They
partnered me up with this guy Rhodes. You ever know him?"

"Rhodes
… mmm … no, I don't think so. I had just come on the force back then. I was
working patrol, too. Out of the 17th Street station. I didn't know anybody."

"Well,
this motherfucker was the last guy you'd wanna know, you know? He never had
what it took. He was about thirty at the time, been on the force a few years.
But he wasn't cut out for cop work."

"Why?
What'd he do?"

"Well,
we were working out of the 62nd Street station at the time, assigned to Liberty
City."

"Oh,
Jesus!" said Vargas.

"Right.
You know. It's like the last place you'd ever want to be. All niggers, all the
time. And all of them up to something. Fucking gangs, drugs, drive-bys,
robberies … there was no stopping it. Couldn't even slow it down."

"Hmph!
Still can't."

She
chuckled. "Yeah. Well anyway, this one night we were driving around and
you know the corner of 63rd Street and 12th Court?"

"Shit,
one of the worst!"

"You
got that right. Anyway, me and Rhodes, we're driving around, it's about three
AM, and what do we see but this drug deal going down right on the corner. Right
out in the fucking open! They weren't even trying to hide it. Shit, they even
saw us coming. One guy passed a good-sized bag to another guy for a huge wad of
cash. Looked like a key of coke." Silvana took a long pull on her beer.
Vargas did the same. She continued, "So I'm driving. I say, 'Let's bust
these fuckers' and Rhodes, he's like, 'What good's it gonna do? We're only
exposing ourselves to potential trouble.' And I'm like,
'We're
the fucking trouble!
They're
the motherfuckers who are exposing themselves!' Can you believe that pussy?
Didn't want to stop and make the pinch."

"So
what'd you do?"

"I
turned on the flashers and pulled up with the two of them in the headlights. We
got out and I started to make the collar when all of a sudden three more
niggers jump out of the weeds. I draw my weapon and one of them says something
like 'Waste that bitch' or something like that. I start firing. I get two of
the three who came up on us. The third one ran away. The two who were doing the
coke deal just stood there, frozen. I gave each of them one in the head, almost
point blank. It was all over in less than ten seconds."

"You
were okay? Not hurt?"

"No,
I was okay. But get this. I turn around and Rhodes is standing there like a
fucking statue, his mouth wide open and his piece still in his holster. The
fucker didn't even draw to help me out. I get four of the five niggers and that
fucking jackoff just stands there! I could've been killed if one of them had
gotten a shot off."

"Were
they armed?"

"Yeah.
Uh, well, three of the dead ones were. I pulled their pieces out and shot into
the air a couple of times to leave evidence their guns had been fired, then I
put them on the ground near the bodies so it looked like they drew down on us.
The fourth one, the guy buying the coke, I planted a throw-down next to him. I
didn't want any eyebrows raised about killing a poor, innocent unarmed civilian."

"Did
Rhodes back you up in the FDLE investigation?"

"Yeah,
he did. I don't think he really wanted to, like he wanted to say I just went
crazy and started shooting. I know that's what he thought, that I just lost it.
But I think he figured if he did that, if he turned on me, he might wind up
with one in his own head."

"If
he had ratted you out, he should have."

Silvana
said, "Don't worry. He would have."

They
both laughed and clicked their bottles together again.

≈ ≈ ≈

An hour or so later, Silvana arrived at her apartment. The place was
small, only about seven hundred square feet, but it contained everything she
needed. And more importantly, everything was in its place. God, how she hated
disorder. She constantly struggled against it, at the station, in her car …
even in her tidy apartment, things could get messy real fast if she didn't stay
on top of it. At work, some asshole is always coming around and throwing files
on her desk every which way. Or looking for something and fucking everything up
while they did it, forcing her to take the time to put everything back where it
belonged. Why the hell couldn't they understand?

The night had cooled down, unseasonably so for high summer. She
threw open the bedroom window and allowed a beautiful breeze to wash over her.
Her memory went back to Mariel, and the nice breezes that always freshened the
evenings of her youth. Following the hot days, cooler nighttime air always
wafted into her family's little apartment through open balcony doors. She
remembered stepping out onto their tiny second-story balcony, only two crowded
blocks from the ocean, looking down on people gathering and sitting on plastic
chairs they brought out of their apartments.

These nightly chats were a real tradition. Favorite topics included
any out-of-the-ordinary events, how the kids were doing in school, the latest
shortages, and of course, baseball. Politics, while deeply felt, was never
openly discussed in these little outdoor get-togethers. The block captains were
never far away, and any political statements would certainly be relayed to them
by at least one of the neighbors looking to kiss ass.

Now, a lifetime away, standing before an open bedroom window in
Little Havana, with no view to speak of, the same refreshing feeling tingled
her skin and made her smile. Made her feel good all the way through to her
soul.

After undressing and folding her clothes correctly, she sat on the
edge of the bed fingering her mother's crucifix which hung around her neck.
Silvana had worn it for nearly twenty years, feeling her mother's influence
seep through it into her heart. Often, when she was at a fork, searching for a
way to turn, she would hear her mother's warning in her head:
¡Ay, Silvanita! ¡No hagas eso!
Sometimes
the advice would be more precise, as it was the other day in Maxie Méndez's
office:
You can get money from this one.
He must pay for his crimes. Pero ten mucho cuidado, querida. El es muy
peligroso.
Other times, her mother would criticize her after the fact:
You know you shouldn't have let him go,
Silvanita. He was one of the evil ones.

Now, as she did every night, she caressed it and kissed it, saying,
Buenas noches, Mamacita.

She crawled into bed and picked up
The Overlook
from the nightstand. It was just getting good. Harry
Bosch was ready to kick some serious ass.