by Paul Carr
“I heard he stole a few million dollars and got caught.”
Sam studied Candi’s face. She pursed her lips, glanced at the doorway and blinked her eyes. She took her time, trying to be cool, but Sam could see the blood rising in her face.
“Maybe you should just hit the road if you believe that.”
Sam took a sip of the coffee and kept his eyes on Candi. He held the cup in front of his lips and had another sip.
Sam shrugged. “I never met your dad.”
“Well, it didn't happen like that.” She took a sip of her coffee.
“Okay, then tell me,” Sam said.
“These guys are after me. That’s the only thing that’s important.”
“Yeah, but I need to know why, and I assume it has something to do with the money.”
“Well, I know what happened to it. That’s why they want me dead.”
Sam sat back in his chair and sipped his coffee. She looked at him, took a deep breath and sighed.
“Okay. Philly called me about three months ago and told me something funny was going on. La Salle had bought the business and Philly stayed on for a while to help him get on his feet. Philly said La Salle started moving a lot of money into dummy corporations. Most of the money belonged to clients.”
“Clients?”
“Yeah, they handled...investments.”
“What kind of investments?”
Candi raised an eyebrow.
“High risk.”
Candi took a sip of coffee and then jerked her head as a car with loud pipes passed outside. She took another deep breath and set the coffee down.
“Philly said La Salle had tampered with the books. He made the entries look like Philly stole the money. That’s when he started worrying about taking a fall. About a week later he went on the lam.”
Candi’s eyes became shiny and looked as if they might tear up.
“Did he take any money with him when he left?” Sam said.
“He took what belonged to him, about two million. He called me and told me all about it. Then, the next thing I know, they’re fishing him out of the Miami River.”
She took off the glasses, laid them on the table and turned away, tears running down her cheeks. Sam handed her a napkin and she dabbed her face with it. After a few seconds, she rubbed the corner of her eye with her knuckle and gave Sam a pained smile. She looked like a little girl who had just fallen and scraped her knee on the sidewalk.
“He tell you what he did with his money?”
“Yes, he said he put it in a bank in the Caymans. He gave me the account number and PIN, said if anything happened to him that he had my name on the account. I checked it out on the Internet and found it there, a little over two million. But I checked it again after he died and the balance was zero. The account transaction log showed that I took it out.”
Candi looked at the door and her eyes widened. He glanced outside and saw the end of a black limousine sliding silently by the doorway, the windows so dark that he couldn’t see inside.
“What did you do?” Sam said.
“What?” Candi seemed distracted.
“About the money.”
“Oh. I didn’t do anything at first. Then, after the funeral, I got steamed just thinking about it and called La Salle.” Candi shook her head and sighed.
“Did you talk to him?”
She looked as if she might be thinking about something far away, and several seconds passed before she answered.
“Yes. He asked if we could meet and talk. He said he regretted what had happened and he wanted to do what he could to make things right. He said he didn’t know anything about the money. I knew he was lying, but I set up a meeting with him anyway. Then, right after that they started trying to kill me.”
“You didn’t know La Salle before that?”
Candi blinked her eyes a couple of times and shook her head.
Sam nodded, wondering why she would lie about that. Her relationship with Tommy Shoes also confused him. Tommy could have more in mind than met the eye. He wanted La Salle out of the way, and might have a master plan for him to die at the hands of an outsider like Sam Mackenzie. If so, did Candi Moran work with him in this setup, or did he just use her situation as a convenient catalyst to solve his own problem?
Sam glanced back at Candi and saw her studying his face.
“Did Philly have any other problems before this started?”
“No. He seemed to think everything was going great until the money started getting siphoned off.”
Sam leaned back and stared at her. His hand rested on the gun inside his jacket. “So, what do you want to happen now?”
She replied quickly, as if she had thought about it a lot, or rehearsed it for Tommy Shoes.
“I want the person who killed Philly, but I also want the money they stole from him.”
“Sounds like La Salle is the one responsible,” Sam said, “whether he pulled the trigger or not.”
“No kidding. I know he did it. But he has men protecting him and isn’t exactly the easiest target.”
Sam nodded and frowned. “So, you want me to kill him tonight, or find the money first?”
A slow smile spread across Candi’s face. “All right, we’ll decide who can be the biggest wise ass later. Are you going to help me or not?”
“I’ll give it a try and see what develops,” Sam said. “Do you know where La Salle lives?”
“Sure, in a house on Miami Beach. Philly lived there before La Salle moved in.”
Sam gave her a questioning look.
“I checked the deed records at the courthouse and it shows that La Salle bought it from Philly. That’s a lie, but I don’t have any way to prove it.”
She gave Sam the address and he wrote it on a napkin and put it in his pocket.
“What’s your fee?”
Sam shrugged. “We’ll talk about it later.” If he could get the money back for her, he’d just take some for himself. If that didn’t happen, a fee probably wouldn’t matter much anyway.
Candi watched his face and looked as if she might know his thoughts. She finally nodded and drained her coffee.
“One other thing,” she said.
“What?”
Candi smiled. “I want to go with you.”
Sam felt a flutter inside his chest. A bad sign. No, it wouldn’t work to have her along. He could think of all kinds of reasons, but mainly it would be way too dangerous for both of them. Sam only wanted to find a place to sleep for the night.
Candi glanced at the doorway and said, “Stay here.”
The limousine Sam saw earlier had stopped outside the coffee shop, its back window halfway down. Candi stood, walked out the door to the car and talked through the opening in the tinted glass. Sam caught a glimpse of shiny black hair that rose about three inches above a forehead. Tommy Shoes. Candi stopped talking and looked to her left over the roof of the car, as if she saw something, and then dismissed it.
Sam felt a tingle at the nape of his neck, which he had come to know as an alert from somewhere down on the plasma level. Within a couple of seconds he'd run halfway to the door with his gun in his hand.
“Down!” he yelled.
Candi turned and gazed at him, confusion on her face. The tinted glass went up before Sam reached the car. He grabbed her and pulled her to the sidewalk as a half-dozen holes punched through the plate glass door of the coffee shop. Sam dragged Candi through the doorway, the limo shielding them a couple of feet above the walk. The old woman hunkered behind the counter, eyes wide, and the waitress lay on the floor with a red spot the size of a quarter on her temple. More rounds burst through the plate glass and slammed into the back wall of the shop.
“Get out of here!” Sam yelled as he and Candi sprang to their feet.
Tires screeched outside, the limo tearing away from the curb. The old woman ran through double doors that led to the kitchen and Sam and Candi followed. A split second later an explosion ripped the doors fro
m their hinges and deposited them atop Sam, Candi and the woman.
Sam’s ears rang from the blast. A couple of minutes passed before he pushed up from under the rubble and slid the doors aside. Candi looked stunned, but otherwise seemed unharmed. She and the old woman struggled to their feet and peered into the coffee shop. Sam glanced past the hunks of glass, torn metal and smoke to see the destroyed limo, its rear two-thirds blown away. Smoking parts of it now lay scattered inside the coffee shop.
Sam pulled Candi toward a door in the rear of the kitchen and they stepped into an alley. He thought about Tommy Shoes, and how he might have drummed up a thimbleful of sadness for the man's death, but that had been used up on the waitress, far too young and innocent to die. Tommy's death only simplified the equation by one tiny variable.
Chapter 6
SAM AND Candi rambled through alleys for three blocks before venturing toward the main drag to reach Sam’s car. They stopped at the corner and Sam peered around the edge of an old limestone building. He saw only the burning frame of the Cadillac limo. The attackers probably had gone. A siren blared in the distance on its way to the scene.
Sam stuffed the gun in his waistband and pulled his shirt over it. “How did you get to the coffee shop?”
“Tommy dropped me off.” Her voice trembled. “Do you think he’s dead?”
Sam looked at her face in the glow of a street lamp on the corner of the street. Tears welled in her eyes. She shook, as if chilled from the night air, and the tears broke loose and ran down her cheeks. She had seen the same thing he had seen, but didn't want to face the truth. He wished he knew how to make it better.
“Maybe he got out before the blast.”
She nodded and rubbed the moisture from her face.
He thought about his jacket, which still lay in the coffee shop, probably buried under a few pounds of glass. Too bad, he really liked that old jacket.
He took Candi’s hand and nodded toward the sidewalk. They hurried another block to the car, got in, and drove away, turning right to avoid the coffee shop disaster. Two police cars sped up the avenue from the opposite direction, sirens wailing and lights flashing, and made a quick U-turn in front of the smoldering heap of metal. More sirens whined in the distance as Sam’s car disappeared down the side street.
The clock on the dash displayed 10:50. He'd arrived at the coffee shop around ten. It seemed like hours ago.
“We need to find a place to stay tonight,” Sam said.
“We can go to my hotel.”
Sam glanced at Candi in the glow of the dash lights. “They probably saw Tommy pick you up.”
“Oh, yeah, right.” Candi lay her hands in her lap and looked out the window.
“We have to ditch this car, too. They know it by now.”
Sam drove toward Miami International and spotted a taxi waiting by a hotel. He pulled into the hotel lot and parked where his car couldn’t be seen from the street. They got out and Sam retrieved some things from the trunk that he couldn't afford to lose if the car got hauled away, primarily burglar tools, fake passports and IDs, and a noise suppressor for the 9mm. He put the items, along with a flashlight and a pair of field glasses, into a bag, and they walked over to the taxi.
The driver had his eyes closed and his head against the headrest. Sam opened the back door and he and Candi got inside. The driver, a young black man with dreadlocks, jerked awake when Sam slammed the door.
“We need to go to Avis,” Sam said.
The man nodded, rubbed sleep from his eyes, and started the engine.
It took only a few minutes to reach Avis, and Sam had the driver drop them out front. He used a driver’s permit from his bag that he knew would be difficult to track, and rented a black Chevrolet Impala. It looked as if it would blend in as well as any of Avis’ cars, and it had decent engine power. There were few customers that late at night, and Sam and Candi were on their way in ten minutes.
Sam drove to South Beach and left the car at the front door of the Palma Hotel. Only three vacant rooms remained, each on a different floor. The clerk, a tall young man about as wide as a pencil, showed Sam the choices.
“You sure you don't have anything closer together?”
The clerk shook his head and smiled, as if wondering why they needed two rooms. “Sorry, we got lots of vacationers. These rooms have two queen beds, if that helps.”
Sam sighed and turned to Candi. “You mind sharing a room?"
Candi raised an eyebrow and pressed her lips together. “Looks like we don't have much choice. I don't want to be on a different floor.”
Sam tried to read something into her look, but then let it go and told himself that they were here only because of the threat on her life; this wasn't a date.
They went to the room and Sam dropped his bag onto one of the beds. A smell of stale cigarette smoke lingered in the air, surprising for a three-star hotel.
Candi glanced around the room and smiled. “Not bad. I’m going to take a hot shower.” She unbuttoned the top button of her blouse and flipped on the bathroom light.
His pulse quickened at her smile. Don't read too much into this.
“Okay, I’ll be back in a few minutes. I need to move the car.”
He went downstairs to the rented Chevy and parked in the lot, keeping his eye out in case anyone might be following. A young couple ambled down the street. They seemed interested only in each other.
Returning to the lobby, Sam wished he had something to drink, but the bar had closed. He walked to the counter and looked at the kid who had rented them the room, probably a college student with a chronic need for cash.
Sam slid a folded fifty across the counter and asked if the kid might know where he could get some gin and tonic. The kid leaned against the counter with his hands spread wide and stared at the bill. He glanced at Sam and then to either side. Seeing the lobby empty, he scooped up the fifty and walked around the counter past Sam toward the bar. Gone less than five minutes, he returned carrying a paper bag with two bottles, the hint of a smile on his face when he handed the bag to Sam.
Back in the room Sam found Candi in a short hotel robe, standing next to one of the beds, pulling back the spread. Her legs were tanned and beautiful. The pony tail gone, her damp hair hung loosely around her face. Her skin glowed from the heat of the shower. The bathroom door stood open. Shower steam and the smell of expensive soap floated on the air, making Sam’s head feel light as a helium balloon.
He set the bottle on the table and glanced at Candi. “How about a drink?”
She looked at the bottle and smiled. “Okay.”
Sam picked up the plastic bucket and started for the door. “I need to get some ice.”
When he returned, Candi had glasses on the table and the bottles open. He filled the glasses with shaved ice and made the drinks. Handing her one, they sat down opposite each other, the little round table separating them by only a couple of feet. Sam hoisted his glass in a toast.
“Here’s to being alive.”
The image of the dead waitress flashed into his head and he felt a twinge of guilt. Candi must have read his mind; she gave him a smile and held up her own glass.
“Alive in Miami Beach.”
Candi drank half of her drink, then set the glass on the table. She looked at Sam and swept her hair from across her eye with her fingers.
Sam managed a slow smile and took a drink of the gin and tonic. She had natural beauty, even with wet hair and no makeup, but it made him feel like an amateur flutist, charming a cobra from a basket.
“So,” Candi said, “Tommy didn’t say much about you. How did he know you, anyway?”
Sam told her the story about his friend who owed Tommy the money, and about how they had come to an understanding.
“Yeah, that sounds like Tommy, actually a pretty nice guy. You know, all those years he hung around, he never made a pass at me. There were a few guys who did, and they didn’t stay around long if he found out about it. I’m going to miss
him. I really am.”
Candi looked as if she might be in another place, but then took another gulp from the glass and drained it. Mixing herself another drink, she looked at him and raised an eyebrow. He tossed his drink back and set the glass down for her to fill it up.
Tommy Shoes had done some bad things in his life, but Candi didn’t seem to know about that. She probably liked the funny shoes, the slick hair and the cool dialogue.
“You been in Miami a long time?” Sam said.
“Yep. All my life, except when I went off to college.”
“Where did you go to college?”
“Berkeley. I majored in accounting.”
Sam smiled. “Accounting?”
Candi tilted her head and narrowed her eyes.
“Yeah, my dad worked as an accountant. What’s wrong with that?”
“Were you planning to follow in his footsteps?”
“Is that supposed to be some kind of wisecrack?”
Sam shook his head, realizing he treaded in dangerous territory.
“No...I just can’t quite picture you poring over ledgers and stuff like that.”
“Yeah, well, I’m actually pretty good at accounting. The only problem is, I hate it.”
Sam gave her a questioning look.
“Philly always said everybody needs something solid to fall back on.”
Sam nodded. Pretty funny, advice like that coming from a guy who probably had worked unsavory angles most of his life.
“So,” Candi said, “what are we going to do?”
“Too early to say. Lots of things to consider.”
“But you do have a plan, though, right?”
“Oh, yeah, of course,” Sam lied.
Candi gave him a “Don’t kid me” look and drank the remainder of her second drink.
