Exploit (The Abscond Series (Book 1 of 2))

by Les Goodrich

  “Yeah I think Sonzo is still at school. Not sure but I’ll start there.”

  “Wait a second,” Dolph said adding what he had heard together. “Did you say Sonzo?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Richie Sonzo. Ricardo Sonzo?”

  “That’s him. Why?”

  “And his dad’s name is Hector.”

  “Yes.”

  “Hector Sonzo? Hector fucking Sonzo?” That’s your plan? Give old Hector a ring so we can end up at the bottom of Biscayne Bay?”

  “Listen I’m tight with the kid. Besides do you have a better idea? I mean really? Anything else?”

  Dolph took a long few seconds before saying, “Do it.”

  They stopped at the first pay phone they saw on the front brick wall of a convenience store. The sun was barely peeking out over the buildings. Colin took a pen from the truck and dialed Richie after using his calling card number to get through. Dolph stood by nervously watching for cops.

  A world away inside apartment two-thirty-two of the Gatorview Apartments Richie Sonzo, brutalized by a hangover and frazzled from sleep deprivation, fell out of bed in his white boxer shorts. He armed himself with a nine iron and stumbled through the apartment kicking over pizza boxes and swinging at bags of beer cans on a mission to kill the portable phone. Richie was small compared to most of his friends but he was afraid of no one even when he should have been. He was as tough as a prizefighter but was usually the nicest guy in the world unless someone said something about his family or asked him if he was Cuban. He found the phone shivering with each ring on a stack of newspapers. He addressed it like Palmer at Pebble Beach, kept his head down and followed through. The phone flew across the room and landed on the couch. It rang again.

  “Shit,” he dropped the golf club and answered the phone. His Colombian accent was just a trace but it was enough to make his voice interesting particularly around Gainesville. People tended to listen when he spoke.

  “Hello.”

  “Richie, it’s Colin. What the hell took you so long?”

  “Colin you know what time it is?” Richie asked loudly then immediately dropped to a whisper and rubbed his forehead. “The time. Do you know? I do. It’s six fucking o’clock in the morning. What’s the matter with you?”

  Listen Richie, this is important. I’m in big shit. I mean it. Me and my buddy are stuck in Miami with a truck full of hot as hell boat electronics. Your dad was the only person I could think of who might be able to help us. I’ve got to unload this shit now. Just give me your dad’s number and you can go back to sleep and I will owe you big time.

  “Slow down Colin. Slow down.”

  Richie rubbed his eyes and looked around for a pen and something to write on and he continued to speak quietly.

  Colin this is some drastic shit to wake a motherfucker up with. Okay, why don’t you just tell me what kind of stuff you have and I’ll ask you what the fuck you’re doing with it later.

  “Shit,” Colin said looking at Dolph. “We left the list with Murphy.” He thought about what they had and turned his attention back to the phone.

  “Listen, basically we have four sport fishing boat’s worth of electronics, minus the antennas and wiring. There’s a ton. All top of the line too.”

  “Okay,” Richie was waking up and he began to think.

  Why don’t you let me call my dad. You call me back in twenty minutes and from a different phone than you just used then I’ll tell you where to go, what to do and everything. Okay?

  “Okay thanks Richie. I’ll owe you.”

  “Just promise me you’ll never call me this early again.”

  Colin hung up. “He’s gonna call his dad for us. We’re calling him back in twenty minutes but from another phone so lets find one.”

  “Richie Sonzo,” Dolph said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Can we trust him?”

  “We can. I saved him from his smart mouth a few times out. He’s a smartass and he’s got that whole Colombian temper thing going on, but I swear we can trust him.”

  “Can we trust his dad?” Dolph asked and thought about how important that was.

  “Well, he’s no stock broker or real estate developer. He’s an honest crook. Of course we can trust him. To a degree.”

  They got in the truck and drove around trying to be both cautious and casual. They looked for an out of the way phone booth or payphone of some sort. They found a good one outside the entrance to a shopping mall. They parked among the cars of a few punctual mall employees and walked up to the phone, hidden from the parking lot view behind a healthy planting of Areca palms. It felt safe.

  Colin dialed Richie and Dolph watched the truck through the wispy green fronds. Richie answered.

  “Hello.”

  “Richie, it’s Colin.”

  “Hold on. I’m getting some coffee.”

  Colin, his hand over the mouthpiece, turned to Dolph.

  “We’re dying out here and this Colombian is making coffee.”

  “Colin?”

  “Richie I can’t be fucking around here.”

  “Chill out man. My dad said he’ll take the shit.”

  “Oh thank God.”

  Colin gave Dolph a much needed nod.

  “Now listen to me Stone. Pop said he’ll pay you ten percent of retail for all of it. Are you guys in Miami now?”

  “Yeah. South of town.”

  All right. Listen. Pop has a warehouse in Hialeah out by the airport. Take 27 past the airport turn-off. Go four miles and take a right on Industrial Avenue. It’s a grey and green building on the left. The sign says Tropical Supply.

  Colin wrote notes on the inside of the phone book cover as Richie went on.

  Don’t stop in front. Drive around back. A couple of Pop’s guys’ll be there to pay you and take the stuff. Just unload the shit like it belongs to them already. Don’t worry about what it is or how much cash is there. My dad has a good idea of what would be there and he is giving you at least what he said or more so just take it. Just unload the shit, take the money and leave. I’m serious Colin don’t fuck around. Just do the shit and haul ass. Pop knows you’re my friends and he’s glad to help. Shouldn’t be anything to worry about. Just be cool.

  “Richie I can’t thank you enough. You saved my life man.”

  “Just stay cool and do it. Call me when you can.”

  “Thanks Richie.”

  “Seeya Stone, you fuckup.”

  “Seeya man.”

  Colin ripped the cover from the phone book and handed it to Dolph.

  “Here’s our directions outta here.”

  They got back into the truck and Dolph drove, moving the seat up first, out of the mall parking lot. He followed the directions through the awakening town. They made their way toward Hialeah and past the airport. The sun was fully up and the temperature was already into the high eighties. They turned right on Industrial Avenue and drove along looking up at several light industrial warehouses until they saw the grey green Tropical Supply Annex. There were no cars in front and the weeds sprouting through the asphalt lot gave the location an unused look.

  They pulled into the lot and drove slowly around the end of the large aluminum sided structure. Dolph craned his neck to see around the corner.

  “There’s no one here,” he said.

  But as they rounded the corner an opened delivery door came into view. There was a white van pulled front-first into the bay and three people, two men and a teenage boy, stood behind it. Dolph swung around and backed up to the door. The boys got out and walked into the warehouse. The three guys had stepped to the side of the van and Dolph and Colin walked up to them awkwardly, looking at them, not really knowing what to say.

  The three men were as mismatched a group as had ever been assembled.

  The largest was a middle-aged delinquent who looked like the typical, overweight, sweaty mouth-breathing bad guy. He wore a cheap, tight, tan short sleeve dress shirt and a ridiculous looking short brimm
ed straw hat that no self-respecting gangster had been caught dead in since the fifties. His eyes were squinty black slits and his big head sat directly on his wide shoulders like a bowling ball on a saddle.

  The other man was older, more sophisticated and gentlemanly, and looked like one of those guys who might have retired from the textile industry. He was the tallest and also the thinnest. He wore a grey pin-stripped suit, pressed white shirt and black tie and looked perfectly comfortable in the nearing ninety-degree heat like he had worn a suit every day of his life. His face seemed a bit more studied and complex than the average retiree, however, and Dolph could read in it an intricate tale—cold and calculated but fair. This was a tough guy from the old days who played by the rules of his kind and never regretted it.

  The third was a young Latino, not much younger than Dolph or Colin, and was presumably the helper. Dolph looked at the three again in order and thought: muscle, brains and a hired hand. The hired hand stood in his green sleeveless Miami Hurricanes tee shirt and jeans with the right knee torn. With both hands in both jean pockets he looked at the ground and waited for someone to tell him what to do.

  The muscle spoke first.

  “Mr. Sonzo sent us to meet you,” his voice harsh and deep. “I’m Carl, this is Baggy,” and waved his left hand up toward the taller older man and he ignored the kid. “Let’s get this show on the road. Open the back.”

  Dolph opened the back of his truck for the second time that day.

  Carl turned to the kid and raised his hands up and open in silence and the kid jumped and began to unload the bags.

  “Thank you Tony,” Carl said adding, “stupid ass.”

  Tony scrambled to open each bag and unload the stuff into the back of the van. Baggy made notes on a clipboard notepad as the gear went by. Colin and Dolph helped the kid and Carl huffed back and forth cussing the kid every so often.

  Damn you Tony I’m gonna go take a piss and when I come back you better have this shit finished or I swear I’m gonna mail your head to your stupid mother in Cuba or wherever the fuck you’re from.

  Carl walked outside to the corner of the building to relieve himself. Colin and Dolph continued to help Tony who doubled his effort.

  “Do not worry about him,” Baggy spoke for the first time in a calm grandfatherly voice.

  He likes to think of himself as a wiseguy but I have seen his kind come and go a hundred times. And I will see a hundred more come and go after him if he tries any bullshit and I promise you that no one will remember his name or even wonder what his name was.

  Then the older man just smiled and went back to his notes. Normally neither Dolph nor Colin would have paid the slightest attention to the threats or promises of a man his age, but the emotionless tone of Baggy’s voice sent chills over them both with much more immediacy than any of Carl’s foul rants. They knew who was in charge and the old man had their attention and their respect.

  They finished loading the last few items and Baggy took his list to the front of the van. He sat in the passenger seat and opened a briefcase on his lap. He shuffled some papers and punched on a calculator. Dolph was closing the truck when Carl came back in through the bay door.

  “Well fuck me. Looks like a little bitch finally did some work around here.”

  Tony climbed into the back of the van, nodded to Colin and Dolph in turn, then closed the doors from the inside.

  Carl still gave the boys a nauseous feeling as he came close despite the old man’s reassurance. He stood in front of them scratching or adjusting his crotch or both and he smelled of a bath in seriously cheap musky cologne.

  “Did Baggy pay you yet?”

  “No,” Colin said trying not to inhale. “He’s in the van.”

  “C’mon Bags, pay these two pricks so we can get the fuck outta here.”

  The old man ignored him and went on calculating. When he finished he took a bank bag from the file section of the opened briefcase lid, unzipped it and began counting and neatly stacking hundred dollar bills licking his thumb a few times and handling the bills with indifference like a man accustomed to handling large amounts of cash. Once finished he sealed the stacked bills in a letter sized envelope and recorded the amount in a small ledger. He closed and latched the briefcase, stepped from the van and walked back to Colin and Dolph.

  “Start the van,” he told Carl who grunted and lumbered off to do so.

  Baggy walked, leading the boys, to the front of their vehicle. He formally introduced himself as Charles Bagley, found out who was Colin and who was Dolph then shook their hands. He gave Dolph the envelope and Colin a small slip of paper from his inside coat pocket.

  Call Mr. Sonzo personally at this number if you should discover in the future that there is some other way that he may help you. Mr. Sonzo wishes you well and asked me to tell you that friends of his son are family.

  He turned and walked back to the van. The boys stood for a second then jumped into the truck.

  They drove, still in a state of shock, back to Fort Lauderdale. Neither of them knew exactly what to do. Dolph dropped Colin off at his house more out of habit than reason. They went home partly out of necessity and partly out of disbelief. They agreed to meet at a bar on A1A in an hour for no other reason beyond a subconscious hope that everything may be miraculously back to normal by then. Everything would turn out fine. It always did.

  Chapter 15

  Colin walked up the steps to the front door of his house and went inside. His father was sitting in one of the black leather chairs in the living room starring through the towering glass wall at the ocean. His head tilted slightly when he heard Colin come in but he did not look away. Colin crossed the open room and sat in a chair next to him. With only a small glass table between the two chairs Colin felt strange; it was the closest he had sat to his father for as long as he could remember. Mr. Stone remained fixated on some point out at sea or maybe the horizon when he finally spoke.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever sat in this chair before. What a view.”

  Colin said nothing. He had never felt his father’s presence the way he felt it at that moment and he tried to recall something of his life. He thought of the pictures of his first birthday. His mother’s big hairdo and his father in orange paisley golf pants. He tried to comprehend what had happened to those times and how he and this man had come to be sitting next to each other in this strange house twenty years later with nothing to say.

  “I’m so disappointed with you son.”

  Colin stood and said, “Fuck you Dad,” and walked toward his room.

  Mr. Stone raised his voice slightly, “When you leave, don’t come back,” and Colin kept walking.

  ***

  Dolph parked at the foot of the motor court steps and went in through his front door. He looked across the gilded living room, through the French doors, into the courtyard. His father was sitting outside alone. Dolph crossed the living room to the courtyard doors. Caina greeted him halfway but sensed his mood and went back the way he had came. Dolph walked over to the table where his father was but before he could sit Mr. Stephenson stood and looked his son in the eye.

  “I’m afraid you should leave, for now at least. I can’t get you out of this and the police are involved.”

  “The police?” Dolph had hoped for a different conversation.

  “Yes. After you and your friend beat up Captain Murphy he called here senseless demanding more money. I told him to fuck off.”

  Dolph was startled by his father’s nonchalant attitude. Also he had never heard his father say fuck before so he just listened with his mouth ajar.

  “Yes. I just made Murphy more angry and I think he was the one who called the police.”

  “You think?”

  “Look Dolph. All I really know is that the police were here asking questions this morning. They seem to think you are in Miami. You and Colin are the prime suspects in the robbery of four boats last night. I also know you did it. I never would have believed it and I stil
l can’t but I know it’s true so you have let me down. And yourself.”

  “Look Dad, I’m sorry but none of this shit would have happened if you and Mr. Stone hadn’t set it all up.”

  “No. You made the wrong decision. Took the wrong actions.”

  “No dad. You did.”

  Dolph turned to leave. Mr. Stephenson yelled across the yard just as Dolph was reaching for the door.

  “Dolph you know I can’t help you now. You’re on your own.”

  Dolph stopped with the door opened and turned to look back at his father.

  “Never been anything else,” he said and went inside.

  Dolph drove to the Lobster Trap Lounge on Lauderdale’s famous strip. He recognized Colin’s navy BMW convertible and parked next to it. He crossed the sunny sidewalk and his eyes took a second to adjust as he stepped into the darkened bar. The Trap was small and dingy with grasscloth walls and those red glass candles with white plastic netting around them—the ones found only in restaurants or bars of a certain age. Colin was at the bar with an iceless glass of dark rum in his hand. Dolph joined him, ordered a beer, then quietly spoke.

  “The cops know it was us. Murphy told them.”

  “Terrific,” Colin said, “and my dad just disinherited me in about two seconds. Wiped me out.”

  “Join the club. So did mine.”

  “Well what the fuck do we do now?”

  Just then a customer from the other end of the bar walked up and asked them if they might be interested in a good deal. His vague petition and frail confidence was met with Colin’s voice but neither Colin nor Dolph looked at the guy.

  “If you don’t leave us alone and go back to your seat, I promise this will be one of those times in your life that you look back upon and regret.”

  Colin did look up to the guy then but all he saw was his back as he returned to his place at the bar and, in fact, slid his beer down to sit at the farthest end corner and look up at the golf match on television. Dolph answered Colin’s question from before the interruption.

  “I don’t know but we have to get a different car with some of the money we do have. I doubt we can sell either of ours without getting caught.”