by Les Goodrich
“How much did we end up with?”
“Thirteen-eight.”
“Oh that’s just fabulous. Not only are the cops after us and we have to ditch our cars, but we gave away millions of dollars for less than twenty grand. Genius.”
“Maybe we could call Sonzo,” Dolph said, realizing that those were words he had never wanted to have to say seriously.
“And do what? Ask him for a loan?”
Maybe he could give us a job so we could get some cash to get outta here. He’s the only person I know of who could help us. We have to get outta here and I don’t mean outta town for the weekend.
“I hate to call him so soon. He just bailed us out of a huge mess and he doesn’t even really know us. Or he doesn’t know us at all.”
“Stone, I’m no happier about it than you are. We don’t have much of a choice. We’re out of options. If we fuck around too long we’re gonna be sorry.”
“I’m already sorry. I just don’t want any real trouble.”
“I hate to be the one to break it to you but we are already in real trouble.”
“Alright. I’ll call him. Shit.”
Colin stood and found the slip of paper the old man had given him. He spoke but whispered as if someone might hear or as if whatever volume of the very words he spoke might bring an equal volume of some new damnation down on their heads.
“Let’s blow this creepy place anyway. We can take my car.”
Dolph dropped a twenty on the bar, stepped to leave, stopped, exchanged the twenty for a ten, then walked out the door.
“Say goodbye to your truck Stephenson,” Colin laughed as Dolph opened his door to get his sunglasses and the envelope of cash. He looked around inside his truck for anything else he might want to keep. He grabbed his hunter-green Ande Fishing Line baseball cap from the backseat floorboard, put it on backwards and got into the passenger seat of the BMW as Colin put the electric convertible top down.
“Get ready to say goodbye to your beamer Smartass,” he said extinguishing Colin’s grin.
They pulled onto A1A and drove south.
“There’s a pay phone right there,” Dolph pointed but Colin kept driving.
“I’ve stopped at my last payphone for a while,” Colin said reaching down by his seat and tossing a hand-held cellular phone into Dolph’s lap. Dolph looked it over then asked, “You didn’t keep this from one of the boats did you?”
“No. Even better. I swiped it from my dad’s briefcase on my way out,” Colin said with a wicked smile. “Anyone in Alaska you’d like to call?”
“Dude, can they trace this thing?”
“Not sure.”
“Your dad will cut this thing off in a hot minute as soon as he sees it’s gone.”
“Not before I call Sonzo,” Colin assured and took the phone back.
The boys could not have blended in any better as they drove along. The two of them driving down A1A in Fort Lauderdale in a convertible BMW, top down, the driver talking on a cel phone, were the South Florida equivalent of a hunter in full-body camo with a tree branch stuck in his headband. They just blended. Colin dialed Hector Sonzo’s number.
“Hola, Hector Sonzo speaking.”
Mr Sonzo’s Colombian accent was much more intact than his Amercanized sons.
“Hola Senior Sonzo. I’m sorry to call upon you so soon but Baggy gave me your number and assured me it would be okay to call you if I needed to.”
“This is the friend of my son?”
“Yes sir. This is Colin.”
“Colin Stone.”
“Yes Colin Stone.”
“I trust everything went well this morning. When you met my men.”
“Yes sir. My friend and I can’t thank you enough. That is why it’s so hard for me to call but I am forced to ask for your help again.”
“This friend of yours is Randolph Stephenson the Third.”
“Yes Dolph,” Colin answered and Dolph looked to him but Colin looked to the road and kept talking.
Dolph and I want no handouts. But we need money and we have to go into hiding. It is important that you know that we have run out of options and this is something we must do because you are the only person who can help us. I just can’t explain it all right now.
Colin, there is no explanation needed. I too have found myself in positions that require the assistance of a friend. My son would never have called me in the first place if he had seen no reason to help you. I trust his judgment. Now, I do have a job for you and your friend. It would be no handout and it would help you and me which is the best kind of help. Would you agree?
“I would agree.”
You need not worry about the money. This job will pay you what you need. In the mean time you and Dolph can stay at my son’s apartment in Miami. The address is two thousand-one Bayview Drive, Number four. Ricardo says it’s a townhouse but I call it an apartment.
Colin repeated the address to Dolph who wrote it down and knew the street.
“Now Colin, there is no key. There is a keypad of numerals on the door. To open the door you enter six, seven, eight, nine, zero. Okay?”
“Six, seven, eight, nine, zero. Yes,” Colin repeated and watched Dolph jot the numbers down.
You boys go there now and park directly under Ricardo’s apartment. It has a single car garage underneath there. From inside the apartment you can open the garage and put the car closed inside then no one can see it. I will contact you there later today.
“Thank you Mr. Sonzo,” Colin said sincerely and hung up.
“Guess what,” Colin taunted. “I don’t have to ditch my car yet.”
“What did he say?”
He has a job for us and those are the directions to Richie’s apartment. Townhouse. In Miami with a private garage to stash my car in. We hide out there until we do the job.
“What kind of job?”
“I don’t know. He’s gonna call us there later to fill us in.”
“Oh terrific. We probably have to smuggle coke from Colombia up into Texas riding donkeys.”
“No I don’t think it’s drugs.”
“Why not?”
“He seemed like a genuine guy.”
“A genuine gangster.”
“No I swear. I don’t think he’d put us into that kind of position.”
Dolph put his face in his hands.
“Jesus Christ Colin. What exactly do you think Hector Sonzo does for a living?”
“Well what the fuck was I supposed to do Stephenson. Tell him thanks for the thirteen grand, now can we have a couple hundred grand more so we can dance outta town forever.”
“Okay. You’re right. It’s just the stress man. We’ll do what we have to do. Sorry but all of this is too much for me. I’m bugging out.”
Dolph rubbed his face and eyes like he had just pulled his head from a barrel of sour milk. He felt exhausted. Displaced. Vapid.
“I’m so fucking beat.”
He tried to make sense of it all but gave up when everything began to run together. He studied the directions to the apartment. What was it that had looked so familiar to him? The street. He had recognized the street.
“Colin. This street, Bayview Drive, It’s on the water. My dad has property there.”
“So, where doesn’t he?”
“So maybe we should take my boat down there, the ski boat.”
And risk going back to your house? Besides once they realized your little boat was gone they could block the river off with just a Barge and one cop boat. There’s a lot of road between here and Miami and we’re halfway there anyway.
“Yeah you’re right. Just a thought.”
An hour of US1 and a few side streets later, Colin pulled up to the single car garage below Number Four in the Bayview buildings. Dolph jumped out to run up the stairs to the landing above the garage. He keyed his way in and thirty seconds later the garage door opened. Colin took an inside stairway up to a door that opened on to the same foyer as the landing door Dolph
had used.
Both of them inside and Dolph cranked the air down and thought about the Key West hotel room as he did. They stood in the main room and looked over the intracoastal through sliding glass doors that opened onto a wraparound balcony.
The townhouse was spotless and the boys looked at each other and they both thought that, obviously, Richie had spent little time there. The décor was straight out of El Mafia De Miami: white carpet, white leather furniture, white walls, white formica bar, white everything. It looked, they thought and said aloud a few times, less like a college kid’s hometown apartment and more like a place for Mr. Sonzo to bag a senorita or two every now and then.
They made themselves at home as much as possible. Dolph turned on the big screen television and Colin opened the gauzy white curtains to look across the boats docked below. Colin found the phone and called Richie to let him know that he and Dolph were hold up in his place. He told Richie the whole story about the electronics, Captain Murphy, and his and Dolph’s fathers. Richie said they could use his boat, a twenty-one foot open center console outboard, if they needed it. Colin was in mid-sentence saying how much he and Dolph appreciated everything when Dolph interrupted him.
“You better hang up and come see this.”
Colin went into the living room and stood dumbfounded as they watched a report on the local television news.
The owners of the four boats had offered forty thousand dollars (ten thousand each) for any information leading to the arrest of those responsible. The Anchorman added that authorities were shocked by the audacity of these master maritime thieves. The report was short and wedged between a triple homicide and a beach-front hotel bomb threat/evacuation but it was about them and it was unsettling.
“Master maritime thieves,” Colin smiled.
“Master fuckups,” Dolph corrected and turned the television off.
The phone rang and snatched them out of their unnerved state. Colin answered to hear Mr. Sonzo tell him that he would send someone over that afternoon with details for their job. He told Colin not to worry and he spoke with a knowing assurance, not with hope, but with certainty.
“Son, the coppers know who you are, but they don’t know where you are.”
Colin thanked him again and could not help but think that Mr. Sonzo had seen one too many old gangster flicks. He told Dolph about Sonzo sending someone over later and the two reclined on their own sofa for some much needed rest. They slept dreamless like worn out children on the white Italian leather.
Chapter 16
A clamor and pounding at the front door discourteously roused Colin and Dolph and neither knew, at first, where they were. Colin, upon waking to the pure white room, thought he may have died until reality set in and he realized that either he was still alive or he had been sent to the wrong place. Dolph looked at his watch. Six p.m.. They had been asleep for over four hours. The rude knock repeated and Colin went to answer it. He looked through the peephole and muttered, “Oh fabulous.”
He opened the door and Carl pushed his way inside with the briefcase he was holding clearing the way nearly as effectively as his loud macho cologne.
“I didn’t interrupt you two homos doing your thing did I? I’m a romantic myself so I can emphasize.”
Colin ignored him and Dolph wondered if he had meant to say sympathize or just mispronounced empathize. They watched as Carl sat at the white freeform Formica dinning table and pulled a few crumpled papers from his pants pocket.
“Here’s the deal girls,” he smoothed the papers and the two boys sat down at the same table but as far away as possible. They watched as Carl continued.
“You two assholes go to this address in the city at ten tonight.” He handed them one of the papers looking at it as he slid it across the table. “It’s an office building near here. It’ll be closed.” He looked up at them and said, “Not open.”
“Yes, closed. We get it,” Colin confirmed.
“Real easy to find if you lovebirds don’t get distracted. Go right through the front door. It will be unlocked.”
“You mean, not locked?” Colin chided and Carl just starred at him for a beat then went on.
“Go into the lobby. There’ll be one guy there. If there is more than one guy, leave.” He looked over his notes to see what came next. “You give the one guy this case. He will give you a box.”
“What’s in the box?” Colin asked.
“Your fucking head if you don’t do this exactly as I say.”
“We just spoke to Mr. Sonzo and he said you were gonna tell us everything. Now if you don’t want to tell us that’s fine. I’ll call Sonzo and ask him right now.”
Okay Dick. Chill the fuck out but are you sure you want to know? The box has two plates in it to press ten yards. One plate is the fronts. The other the backs. Normally no one person would deliver both at once but this must be some special case and God knows who the fuck you guys are but I can tell you if you try any bullshit you’ll both be dead as disco.
“Alright,” Colin said and he was indeed sorry he had asked. Carl went on.
“After you make the switch bring the box to me at eleven sharp under the bridge where Coral Avenue crosses the river on the ocean side. The east.”
Colin nodded a smirking thank you and said with his eyes that they knew which side the ocean was on but Carl was nonplussed and just hoisted himself up.
“Why don’t you just make the switch yourself and save all this running around?” Dolph asked and Colin looked at Dolph and then at Carl with a yeah expression and a question mark made with the quick lift of his eyebrows.
“Because this is your job that’s why. I already have a job.”
“And what’s your job?” Dolph asked.
“Talking to assholes like you I guess,” Carl stabbed and headed for the door. He left a wake of his cheap cologne in the room as he crossed it and turned at the opened door for a final warning.
“If you two motherfuckers disappear with that briefcase, I swear to God you will get to see my unpleasant side.” He slammed the door and was gone.
“What a lovely person,” Dolph said with the kind of disgusted smile a seven year old makes when he is told to clean his room and to do it with a smile.
“Inside and out,” Colin added.
***
At nine thirty that night the boys pulled Colin’s beamer out of the townhouse garage, followed Carl’s wrinkled directions and threaded along into downtown Miami. They cruised slowly reading address numbers up to the location on the paper. Colin turned into the treed lot below the four story office building that kneeled under a row of larger bank-owned high-rises with their names glowing from lighted signs at the building tops two hundred feet above. Dolph looked up at the banks and wondered how much of their money was flown in under the radar. Or flown out. Whichever. Colin parked under an oak tree that made a cloak of streetlamp shade in a spot just one space out from the building’s entrance sidewalk. Dolph grabbed the briefcase and, at three minutes to ten, they went in on faith and held breath.
The one guy was sitting in an oversized lobby chair. The room was dark but for the spot where the man sat. A floor lamp with green glass shade aimed spotlight-wise at his chair made a dramatic show and cast harsh shadows into the corners of the office lobby. The man wore a double-breasted olive suit and cream shirt buttoned up to the neck but no tie. His longer golden hair was pushed back with sunglasses like a preppy lady’s would be with a headband. His skin was chestnut tanned. His hands, clasped atop his crossed knees, glistened with rings. He looked like he had gone directly from Los Angeles to Miami in one step. He had money and he recognized it on Colin and Dolph as they entered the light.
“Finally,” he said. “That dear gentle boss of yours has sent someone civilized for me to do business with.”
The boys assumed Sonzo had previously sent Carl but said nothing.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen. Won’t you sit and tell me how things have been. Is it warm outside?”
T
his rhetoric was completely out of place and caught Colin speechless. Dolph was also confused but assertive.
“We don’t have time to sit. Where are the plates?”
I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean. Do you mean dinner plates? Or do you mean salad plates? Or perhaps you speak of those tiny bread and butter plates shipped to you by mistake. Those were for another retailer. So dainty don’t you think? But we know your order was lost and found and reshipped and some items were mixed in but all is well now. Is it warm outside?
Colin and Dolph stood there in the otherwise vacant lobby in the dim cast light with the handsome man trying to not look at each other like strangers in an elevator. Normally Colin would have blown up in the guy’s face but he had been put way out of his element and he was mentally tired. Dolph was fine but logic was clearly not the commerce here so he just tried again.
“We were sent to do a job and we’re kind of in a rush.”
“Of course you are,” the man stood and walked around behind the chair. He put his hands on the chair back and leaned over it into the light.
Of course you are in a hurry. Busy busy busy. Always the busy ones you two. But how can you know this is not your last job or your last day so why rush through it? Always the busy ones. You two. I guess you have a great deal of paperwork in that briefcase of yours. Little green leaves neatly stacked and counted. Enough to buy this building perhaps. Can you imagine that? That two busy men could carry a building in a briefcase?
The man ducked down to the floor behind the chair. The boys looked at each other and they both thought this was it. They were dead and they both also thought that it was unbelievable that they had actually walked into this situation without guns and Dolph thought that is how it starts and that to arm oneself is to declare yourself part of a world that demands guns because to need it and not have it is worse than to have it and not need it. Like an umbrella or raincoat at a football game he thought. The man stood with a plain cardboard box which he sat on the seat of the club chair. Here is your corrected shipment. Your dinner plates.
