Powder Burn

by Carl Hiaasen

  Victor was a hideous figure, over three hundred pounds and bald as a balloon. He loved truffles, scallops and young boys, usually in that order, but that was largely a matter between Victor and the dark Cuban youths who came and went in his kitchen.

  That Victor was not better known in Miami was a matter of unspoken conspiracy among the Cuban professionals who frequented La Cumparsita. Victor was, they recognized intuitively, one restaurant critic away from chic Anglo hordes who slummed in the barrio in their fractured Spanish the way another generation of fashionable whites once cruised Harlem.

  Either you knew about La Cumparsita or you didn’t. His customers preferred it that way, and so did Victor. There was a menu, but it was only in Spanish, and only first-timers ever consulted it. All others trusted in Victor. He practiced personal service, and some said that merely the sight of him waddling over in a maroon velvet tuxedo to tout that night’s specialties was worth the startling prices he charged for them.

  It was a small restaurant, but Victor had resisted the temptation to expand. The self-impressed diners made him money enough, and his kitchen rewarded him with everything else he needed.

  Victor was in fact a Shanghai-born White Russian who traveled on a Panamanian passport of doubtful provenance. But it had served him well in all corners of the earth, and everywhere he had gone he had massively sampled the cuisine and carefully studied the ambience in which it was served.

  La Cumparsita, whose stake he had acquired in a brief liaison with an Austrian woman of more money than sense, was a blending of all Victor had learned.

  He had chosen a quiet side street for his dream, in the barrio to be sure, but one tree-lined step removed from the bustle of Southwest Eighth Street. He had screened the parking lot from the restaurant with a thick hedge of southern pine breached by the single flagstone path. La Cumparsita itself Victor had divided into two distinct beings, each with its own atmosphere.

  Running along most of the left side of the building and reached by a door toward the rear was a discreet bar. It was dark enough for lovers and friendly enough to soothe hungry customers waiting for tables inside.

  The main dining room, twelve carefully arranged tables, was Victor’s masterpiece. It combined the atmosphere of a rich man’s club with the air of bounty and quality. From France had come the idea of wicker baskets with colorful assortments of fruits and vegetables. They faced diners as they came through the carved oak door marked only by a small sign in engraved bronze.

  To the left stood a large freezer with eye-level glass panels, a copy of one Victor had once seen in Buenos Aires. Thick sides of beef, racks of lamb and hanging ducks awaited a master’s touch. The freezer’s complement to the right of the entrance was a lobster pool and a salt-water tank where Victor’s Catch of the Day whiled away their last few minutes. Order snapper, or pompano, or yellow tail, and a smiling chef in a tall hat—or Victor himself if you were an important customer—would gracefully scoop it from the tank with a net. Victor thought of the fish tank as his Hong Kong standby. Keeping the fish alive was tricky and tedious, and the tank cost him the earth, but it was worth its weight in gold.

  The restaurant décor was elegant and subtle: pewterware, goblets, English crystal and damask tablecloths. Candles at each table in silver holders. The chairs were cushioned wicker, as plush as the service, as ample as the portions.

  Victor had a genius for plants, and he moved them around to shed privacy or fantasy as whim and circumstance demanded. That night he had built a screen of potted palms in the far corner of the room, obscuring the last table there from all but the most determined gaze. That would be Señor Bermúdez’s table.

  Victor treasured his patronage; it was like an imprimature among the Cuban elite. Sometimes Bermúdez came with his family and was expansive, table-hopping, ordering champagne for his friend there, brandy for that happy couple there.

  Other times, like tonight, he demanded privacy. A large table, but set for two, he had said; his guest would be a distinguished foreign visitor whose good will meant millions for Miami. Bermúdez had politely listened to Victor’s suggestions and then ordered what he always ordered: Maine lobster cocktail, hearts of palm salad, blanquette de veau, a Lafite Bordeaux 1970, mineral water. For dessert he would eat Danish bleu with English biscuits and a ripe pear. Then he would drink Courvoisier and espresso until midnight.

  Victor cast his eye down the list of reservations. Bermúdez would be the undisputed VIP that night. The rest were regulars with two exceptions, a rough-sounding man named Gómez, who had asked for a table for four, and a Señora Lara, who had sounded delightful and said she had been recommended by a Mexican diplomat who came regularly once a month with his mistress. She’d booked a table for two and asked for a window. On a routine Thursday night such as this, it would be no problem. Victor smiled benignly at a sad-eyed grouper in the sparkling tank and lumbered into the kitchen to check on his newest dishwasher. He was newly arrived from Cuba and a trifle skittish, poor dear.

  JOSÉ BERMÚDEZ wondered moodily whether there was any such thing as a perfect rose. He had ordered a dozen, to be sure of getting one he liked, and still he was not satisfied. On close examination they all were flawed in some tiny way. He would change florists. Choosing the least offensive among them, Bermúdez meticulously affixed it to his lapel. The splash of yellow winked cheerfully from the gray sharkskin. Bermúdez smiled at the hall mirror, which obligingly confirmed his eminence. He was ready then, ready for the elegant dinner that would climax all the work, all the planning, all the years of posturing in a country that was not his own.

  Market forces. How the gringos loved to talk about their precious market forces. At business school, at the bank, that was all they ever talked about. Idiotas. They would drown, mewling like doomed kittens, clutching helplessly at the straw of private enterprise and the market system. How stupid they were. Even after what the Arabs had done to them, even after the smelly Semites in their absurd burnooses had milked them dry, the gringos did not understand. Competition was as obsolete as democracy. The twenty-first century would be the age of the cartel, the unforgettable era of the new monopolists, when men who were strong and farsighted and, yes, ruthless would control the globe. And José Bermúdez would be one of them. Beginning tonight, at dinner with the jaded Colombian patriarch.

  The old man was essential for now. He was powerful, smart and dangerous. He would make an instructive partner until, a year or two from now, Bermúdez was strong enough to devour him. Then, like a line of tumbling dominoes, the pace would quicken. His five-year plan was to monopolize a steady flow of cocaine into the United States from a seat in the United States Senate he would purchase with cocaine money. In the five years after that…well, anything was possible—wasn’t it?—in the land of free enterprise. The mirror returned Bermúdez’s broadest smile.

  The Colombian could have no cause for complaint tonight. Bermúdez’s promised destruction of the cocaine competition in Miami had been as smooth as the skin of the old man’s flower girls and as violent as their sexual urges. Enough had died to chase the others away. And the old man had kept his bargain. If there was any cocaine left in Miami, it was old stock. All that remained now was to set the new price and solidify the new lines of supply.

  Like the old man, Bermúdez himself would be far removed from the commercial side of the business. He had recruited a small group of young Cubans, all of them college-trained, all of them hungry, to handle that; a modern management team that would obey utterly a shadowy voice called Ignacio. All that remained for Bermúdez himself would be the occasional policy decision and short trips to diplomatic banks in Panama and the Bahamas.

  Bermúdez paused for a moment in the circular graveled drive to run his fingers lovingly over the gold JLB demurely inset on the driver’s door of the chocolate Seville. He loved the car and the sense of power it gave him.

  He savored the drive downtown to pick up the old man. On the way it occurred to him that the monogram might be
a bit much, a trifle nouveau riche. He decided to have the initials painted out. After tonight it would not be long before self-advertisement would be superfluous for José Luis Bermúdez.

  THE MAN WITH the cauliflower ear drank deeply from the bottle of dark rum.

  “I will not wear it,” he announced. “I have not worn one since my mother’s funeral.”

  “It’s a fancy place, hermano; you have to,” the Peasant insisted.

  “I don’t care how fancy it is.”

  “We have to look good for the Colombians. We have to baby-sit them while Ignacio talks with their boss. He wants us there.”

  “Al diablo con los colombianos.”

  “They are our friends now, and Ignacio said we had to look good. He said it twice,” the Peasant cajoled, smoothing his own shiny brown suit. “Vamos.”

  “Mierda. Show me how to tie the fucking thing.”

  “CHRIS, THAT’S TOO much make-up. I already look like a strumpet.”

  “That’s right. A little more around the eyes. And take off the panty hose.”

  “What’s wrong with my panty hose?”

  “You can see where the stocking ends at the top through the slit in the skirt. It destroys the effect.”

  “Whoremonger!”

  “WHERE THE FUCK is Pincus?”

  “He ain’t here, Captain; called in sick,” the intercom squeaked.

  Sick my ass, Octavio Nelson thought foully. The devious little twerp was up to something, and it was auditioning for the DEA.

  “How many men does that leave us?”

  “Nine, if you’re comin’.”

  “I’m coming.”

  Oh, I wouldn’t miss the T. Christopher Meadows Surprise Party for anything in the world, Nelson thought savagely. Especially since I think he’s right.

  It had been three days since the meeting with Meadows, and Nelson had worked almost nonstop. He had shown two of the architect’s sketches to cops and snitches and a few brave witnesses. Nelson sensed that another day or two of legwork would enable him to attach names to the faces. After that it was only a question of finding the dirtbags and rousting them.

  The sketch of José Bermúdez was Nelson’s personal treasure. He had shown it to no one. At first he had disbelieved that Bermúdez could be the street boss “Ignacio,” the doper’s ingenious el Jefe. Nelson had known Bermúdez casually for nearly all of the time they had both been in the United States. He had even admired him—one exile who had adapted spectacularly.

  Meadows was mistaken, Nelson had concluded in the dark emptiness of the police car that night at Southland. He had fingered the wrong man. Yet in three days Nelson had discovered enough about Bermúdez to change his mind.

  He had learned from a domino player that Bermúdez kept a small private office at the back of a cigar factory near his bank. It was supposed to be a front for the banker’s anti-Castro activities, but it would serve nicely, Nelson mused, as a nerve center for other, less patriotic enterprises.

  Then Nelson had learned casually through other friends in the barrio that Bermúdez had business interests in Colombia. And he had realized, almost as an afterthought, that Bermúdez’s bank office was only a staircase away from the offices of a dead cocaine lawyer named Redbirt.

  But it was Nelson’s wife, Angela, who had scoured the week-old newspapers stacked in the laundry room to resurrect a lengthy article in the Miami Journal about the Senate Banking Committee and an investigation of the flow of illicit drug cash into South Florida’s banks. Half the bankers in Miami had been on hand in the nation’s capital to defend their assets and cover their asses.

  José Bermúdez had been there, too, explaining as best he could how ninety-five million dollars in cash had enriched his bank in a single twelve-month period.

  Meadows’s sketch tied it all together. The more Nelson thought about it, the better it fitted. What better disguise than prominence? If Meadows made good his promise tonight, even if he simply put Bermúdez in the same place with the two goons, Nelson would know for sure.

  Nelson wished to God he knew what the crazy architect was planning. With his quixotic taste for law and order, whatever it was could not be violent. Or would Meadows surprise him once more? Nelson wondered fleetingly whether he could successfully cover for Meadows if the architect calmly walked up to José Bermúdez and shot him through the head.

  Nelson reached across his office desk and punched the intercom. “It’s almost eight. Round up the posse and let’s move.”

  “We’re ready, Captain, but Reilly had a question.”

  “What is it?”

  “Those people inside that you told us to watch out for? Who they with?”

  Good question, Reilly, Nelson muttered inaudibly. “Let’s just say they’re with a friendly force.”

  DR. HARRY APPEL was fourteen blocks and eight glorious minutes out of the morgue when the beeper on his belt went off. For just once on a Saturday night, he had hoped to slip away early, but now his plans dissolved. He congratulated himself for not having made any serious arrangements for the evening. In his line of work it was hard enough getting dates.

  Appel negotiated a daring U-turn at the toll plaza on the Airport Expressway, and he was back in the office ten minutes later. Dr. Frank Cline greeted him in the lounge as Appel unfolded a starched, clean lab coat.

  “Harry, I’m sorry to call you back, but this one’s got me stumped.”

  “Just one? Thank God. I thought we’d had another quadruple. I may get out of here at a decent hour yet.”

  Appel picked through his locker for a bag of prized pipe tobacco. Cline was only two years out of his residency, but Appel valued his work. Good pathologists were hard to come by.

  “They found this guy at the airport,” Cline told him as the men rode downstairs to the morgue. “At first they thought he was hit by a cab, but he wasn’t.”

  “No traumatic injuries?”

  “Nope.” Cline held the door for his boss, followed him through and pointed to the autopsy table. Sitting nearby in a straight-backed chair was Detective Wilbur Pincus. Appel gave a friendly wave.

  “Christ, Wil, what brings you out? This a VIP?”

  Pincus said nothing. His face was ashen.

  In a low voice Cline said, “Pincus was there when the guy collapsed. He’s not real eager to talk about it. Seems he was tailing the deceased off an airplane.”

  Appel gave the body a once-over. He picked up Cline’s chart and read from the notes. “Roberto Justo Nelson,” he said aloud. “This shows an address on Hibiscus Island.”

  “Right,” Pincus murmured.

  “Frank, the toxicology isn’t done yet?”

  “I sent it down an hour ago. The lab is very busy.”

  “Call them back, and tell them to push it. I don’t want to keep Pincus any longer than necessary.” Appel noticed that the young detective was keeping a liberal distance between himself and the corpse. Cline left the morgue to use the phone.

  Appel turned to Pincus. “This guy an informant?”

  “No,” Pincus said. “It’s Octavio Nelson’s brother.”

  “Shit,” Appel said heavily, mouthing an unlighted pipe. “Why were you tailing him?”

  “He was dealing coke.”

  “Is Nelson involved?”

  “I think so,” Pincus said gravely. “There were some peculiar circumstances…”

  Appel lifted Roberto’s bluish arms and peered at the veins. “Where is Nelson?”

  “On a stakeout.”

  “Have you called him?”

  “No,” Pincus said, growing pale. “Not yet.”

  Appel sighed and struggled into a pair of latex surgical gloves. Cline came back and reported that the lab technicians were moving ahead on the blood testing with renewed haste.

  Appel began probing Roberto’s organs. Pincus turned his chair away; the wooden legs squealed like chalk on the bare tile, breaking the silence.

  “Wil, was this a convulsion?”

  �
�Yes. A seizure. There was some salivation, thrashing around. Then his heart stopped, and I tried CPR until the ambulance got there. It was too late by then.”

  “Was he arriving on an international flight?” asked Appel, holding up a yard-long length of intestines.

  “Right. Colombia.”

  Appel said, “Frank, look at this.” The two men huddled over the purplish soup inside Roberto Nelson’s splayed abdomen. Pincus stared at the chilly walls and rehearsed the speech to his partner. He had plenty of ammunition—the phonied towing report, the ride to the Avianca terminal. Octavio would have much to explain. Unfortunately there was nothing to connect him directly with Roberto’s unsavory commerce, nothing but the blood between them. To Pincus, that was plenty. To the headhunters at internal review, it might be zero. And it might be Pincus who would be forced to explain his extracurricular spying. So be it, he thought determinedly, if that was how Octavio Nelson wanted it to go. There was always one last weapon: Aristidio Cruz. It was never too late for a naïve young detective to atone for his past sins. Pincus’s honesty, however belated, might even be regarded as an act of courage.

  “OK, I think we’ve got ’em all,” Harry Appel announced finally.

  “I can’t believe it,” Frank Cline said.

  “They were easy to miss, unless you were looking.”

  Appel carried a stainless steel surgical tray from the autopsy table to Pincus’s somber seat across the morgue. “Here,” the pathologist said, “are your culprits.”

  Pincus swallowed hard and forced himself to study the contents of the tray: a number of gaily colored sacs, moist with blood and rank with body fluids, swollen and elastic.

  “Rubbers,” Harry Appel said triumphantly. “Seventeen rubbers.” He used a sharp surgical tool to poke one until it split open. He spun the tool in his hand and used the cupped end to scoop a pinch of damp ivory paste and hold it up to glisten under the morgue’s piercing lights. “Don’t suppose you wanna take any bets on what this is?” Appel said.