by Don Donovan
WHO'LL STOP
THE RAIN
by
DON DONOVAN
BOOK ONE OF
THE MIAMI CRIME TRILOGY
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is unintended and entirely coincidental. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any means not yet known, without permission in writing from Don Donovan.
Published by Don Donovan
Edited by Laurie Skemp, http://www.bookeditingpro.com
Copyright 2016 by Don Donovan
ISBN 13: 9781530056729
ISBN 10: 1530056721
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
THE MONEY/MIAMI, FLORIDA/JUNE 25, 2011
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
THE SQUEEZE/HIALEAH, FLORIDA/JUNE 29, 2011
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
THE SHOWDOWN/KEY WEST, FLORIDA/JULY 19, 2011
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Preview of Renegades
About The Author
For all the guys in "H" Dorm
Monroe County Detention Center
Key West, Florida
THE MONEY
MIAMI, FLORIDA
JUNE 25, 2011
1
Logan
Saturday, June 25, 2011
3:45 AM
NIGHT IN LITTLE HAVANA. Hot, and sticky. The kind of night that keeps people awake and makes them do crazy things, and it egged me on toward what I had to do. I motored slowly along Northwest Tenth Avenue, past some low-rent fourplexes mingled with small, quiet, one-story houses, checking the addresses. A few of the houses, including the one I wanted, hinted of lights behind closed front drapes. I checked the number of the coral stucco house and parked, pointing my car toward West Flagler, the fastest way to I-95.
Not quite ready to get out of the car, I adjusted the holster in my rear waistband and checked my gun. Even though it was matte black, it seemed to gleam under the glow streaming through the windshield from the yellow streetlamp. Smith & Wesson M&P. Compact, great balance, short recoil. Real stopping power. One of the best .45 semi-autos out there. The final solution to a lot of problems.
I slid a round into the chamber and shoved the piece back into the oiled rig under my black guayabera. It fit nicely against my thick build. I stood about five-ten, but the line from my big shoulders to my waist was straight up and down and it was all hard, no give. The guayabera was a loose fit, so there was no bulge.
I sat back in the seat and felt the holstered gun jamming into my lower back. At that moment, my thoughts raced ahead.
If this shit doesn't go down well, I could die tonight, in just a few minutes. I'm not doing this for any noble reason, only for money. Money we risked our goddamn lives to get.
It was a stupid fucking shot to begin with, that bank. I don't know why I let myself get talked into it. I never liked those kinds of odds, those jobs. I like to come home after work, not wind up on a coroner's slab with him mumbling shit about exit wounds and lividity.
But somehow, we made it out of there unharmed. Damned lucky, we were. But here I am, risking my life a second time for the same damned money.
Somewhere there's probably a name for guys who do this, a name I wouldn't care for.
Out of the car into the damp night. If a breeze was coming off the ocean, it didn't make it this far inland. I'd only taken a couple of steps through the barren yard up to the house, and already sweat formed at my hairline and under my arms. I dried my palms on my pants and lifted the back of my guayabera over my rear waistband, exposing the weapon for easy access. A slender Latino answered my rap on the door. The guy had stringy black hair and wild surprise in his eyes, as though he'd just opened his door to Fidel Castro.
"Hello, Chicho," I said.
Neither of us moved. Chicho's black hair drooped in thin shocks over a sweaty forehead. His flowered tropical shirt hung unbuttoned, revealing a stained wife-beater underneath. Quick movement in his eyes from surprise to fear, pupils heavily dilated. The stink of weed was all over him.
I asked, "Aren't you going to invite me in?"
Chicho backed warily into the undersized living room, allowing me inside. A voluptuous young Cuban girl with blazing eyes sat cross-legged on the cheap couch. I put her at about half my own age, which would make her sweet sixteen. Her clothing, what there was of it, showed way too much skin. No air conditioning in here, just a sour mix of body odor and marijuana smoke. A music video in Spanish blasted out of the TV.
"Nice place you've got here," I said, raising my voice to be heard over the music. "Real stylish." A few drops of sweat made their way onto my face. I wanted to dab at them, but didn't.
"What are you doin' here, Logan? How you find this place?" Chicho grabbed an open beer bottle from the coffee table and pulled nervously from it.
"You know what I'm doing here. Hand it over." My voice steady, the girl uncrossing her legs.
"Han' what over, man? Wha' you talkin' abou'?"
I checked my watch. "It's closing in on four o'clock. If you're a good boy and give me two hundred and twenty-five grand, I can be back in Key West for breakfast. It'll be a nice drive, too. Sun coming up behind me, no traffic down the Keys at this hour. Come on, Chicho. Put the two hundred and twenty-five large in my hand and make me happy."
Chicho forced a smile, hoping I would buy it. Then a few jittery hand gestures while he searched for the right thing to say. Already, this was not going well.
"Oh man, you know I don' have your money. I din take it. Musta been one of the other guys."
My voice never shifted from its even cadence, showing Chicho I wasn't buying the bullshit. Keeping it forceful, carefully carrying it above the volume of the TV, but not shouting. "All I want is my two and a quarter. I'm even letting you keep your share. I'm being the good guy here."
"No, no, no, man. It was not me. It was one of the other guys."
"One of the other guys."
"Yeah, man. You know, like Shimmy.
Or Zaz. One of them. They musta took it."
I said, "Only problem is, they didn't take it. You did. Drove off with it in your car while the rest of us, we all had to pile into the other car and get the hell out of there before the law showed up."
"Man, I din mean to do that. Hey, I thought you were right behin' me, gettin' in my car."
"I'm sure."
His posture relaxed a little. He looked like his confidence was returning. "Well, I don' have the money. I was gonna contac' you to get my share. I was gonna call you in the morning. I thought you had it."
The corner of my eye snagged a glimpse of the girl fidgeting on the couch, her hand surreptitiously sliding down between the cushions.
Another Chicho smile, this one even less sincere than the first. "Now that I think about it, man, I saw Zaz take it. Yeah, Zaz, man. I saw him pick it up an' —"
That sound. Like a little bump. Chicho didn't make it. And it didn't come from the TV or the girl. Chicho jerked his head around. It came from … from … no!
A muscular guy in a bright yellow T-shirt burst out of the door to the bedroom, pointing a shotgun into the living room. I dove to the floor by the side of the couch, and the big gun went off, shaking the walls of the small room. The girl screamed. The TV blared on, but I barely heard it over my pounding eardrums.
I drew my weapon. Shotgun Man got off another round, this one blowing apart the arm of the sofa — inches from my head — pieces of couch stuffing flying around my face and fluttering down on me like snowfall in the woods. Chicho ran toward the TV. I returned fire from the floor, catching Shotgun Man jacking the slide of his big cannon. My .45 spit rounds into the center of the yellow T-shirt, blowing apart his insides and flinging him backward through the bedroom door.
The girl pulled her hand up from between the couch cushions, revealing a small pistol.
Oh, shit. Don't do it, honey! Don't! D —
She raised the gun, pointing it at me while I was still on the floor. But I put one in her head and one in her chest before she could squeeze the trigger. I saw her head come apart, spitting out brains in all directions.
Jesus, did I just do that? She was …
Chicho now held a revolver he retrieved from the vicinity of the TV. Finally began firing, but he was wild and I emptied my magazine into him.
Dumb fuck wasn't so stoned, he would've had me.
Silence. A quick deep breath. I shoved a fresh mag into my gun and moved slowly around the bodies and the blood toward the bedroom. Holding my weapon with both hands, arms extended, I eased in. No one else in sight. Quick check of the closet, under the bed, the bathroom, behind the shower curtain. Everyone dead and accounted for.
What I wanted sat on the bed in plain sight, the open gym bag turned sideways with cash spilling out of it. First glance told me it wasn't all there. No time for a second glance. I stuffed the dough down inside the bag and zipped it up, then hustled it back out to my car. Phones around the neighborhood were no doubt lighting up the 911 line by now. A quick spark to the engine on my vanilla rental, and up the dark street. Headlights off till I got up to West Flagler. My fucking ears wouldn't stop ringing.
I made the turn onto Flagler toward I-95, flicked on the lights, and slowed down. My breathing returned to a semblance of normal. I noticed the traffic, a little heavier than I would've thought for that hour of the night. Buses traveled in both directions, picking up people — all Cubans, it looked like — probably going to early morning jobs. Supermarket delivery trucks lumbered around in their daily predawn activity. A couple of pimpmobiles zoomed past in opposite directions, checking their traps.
I reached for the fresh bottle of water I always kept in the cup holder and opened it. A big drink soothed my drying throat. You never know when you're going to need water in this climate, so I made sure there was always a bottle handy. I usually went through about eight bottles a day to keep myself hydrated, replenishing it from the two or three cases I kept in my back seat. Even in this rental, I made sure I had enough water for this one-off trip to Miami.
Once I blended into the West Flagler streetscape, my mind went into review mode. I had to admit, I didn't like anything about this incident. I worried my hearing might not fully return. Oh, sure, I got the money — what there was of it — and sure, Chicho and his pals got what was coming to them. It was, after all, self-defense.
They weren't the first people I'd killed, nor did I really give a shit about them, but for the first time, I recoiled from all of it, all the mayhem. And of course, my hearing. Not only that, but a tiny bit of me — a little of my insides — began to rot. Especially because of the girl. The girl whose mother will wake up in a few hours and wonder where her baby is, not knowing she's lying in her own blood with two of my bullet holes in her and the back of her young head blasted apart, spilling her brains all over the place.
And when the mother gets the phone call …
But this deal about my insides rotting away, it's like a sliver under your fingernail, you know? One day, there it is. You don't think about it. You let it go and before you know it, it becomes infected, and it keeps getting worse and worse. Like my insides are going to die a little at a time until there'll be nothing left. I'll be as dead as those three on the floor back there. I don't want that.
Glancing up through the windshield, I saw the moon shining through a clearing black sky. I flipped off the AC and opened all the windows. Fresh air pouring in told me the temperature had fallen a couple of degrees, and the ocean breeze finally got there, whisking away much of the high humidity.
But it couldn't blow away the choking tightness in my gut. My tongue rolled around in my mouth, trying hard to cleanse it of something, I wasn't sure what. It didn't work. I scraped it against the roof of my mouth, as if trying to dislodge something that had been glued there. More rolling, more scraping, more cleansing … nothing doing. Mile after dark, lonely mile, I couldn't get rid of it. Couldn't hack it up, couldn't spit it out. Pain had me in its steady grip. My hand clutched at my neck as I rolled through the eighteen-mile stretch of mangrove-lined highway leading into the Keys. Radio music couldn't move my mind off it. Swigs of water couldn't wash it out.
Eventually, it felt like a big piece of rotting, unchewed food had lodged itself between my throat and my stomach. I damn near puked.
2
Logan
Saturday, June 25, 2011
7:15 AM
JUST AS I HAD PREDICTED to Chicho, there was no traffic to speak of on the drive down the Keys. Cool, cloudless skies above. Dark, almost still water on either side of the bridges, decent radio stations all the way. Normally, conditions like these would go a long way toward settling me down after a tough job up in Florida. A few bottles of water, a little good music, cruising at a steady speed — it's what I always need. By the time I get back home, I'm usually all tuned up.
But not tonight.
Every time I looked into the rear view mirror to see the mainland fading behind me, I saw that girl's fiery eyes fill with fear as my first round entered her chest. The very moment she realized she would live no more.
Why the fuck did she have to pull on me? But would I have left her alive if she hadn't? Left her to spill to the cops?
I've made this drive a million times. An hour to get to the Keys, another two hours to Key West, give or take. The farther away from the mainland you get, the more relaxing the drive becomes. Key Largo, Layton, the majesty of the Craig Key Bridge, Marathon … all the stress and the bullshit of Miami is back there somewhere in the distant blackness, pulsating like annoying rap beats blasting out of passing cars.
In some spots in the Keys, you can see the Atlantic on one side of the road and the Gulf of Mexico on the other. Tonight, off every southbound bridge, moonbeams danced in gleaming ripples across calm, black oceans. Ordinarily, this kind of thing goes a long way toward soothing me, shooing away anxieties and stress from a job, helping me to breathe just a little easier.
But not tonight.
≈ ≈ ≈
I made the turn into a gray-dawn Key West, pulling up to my Margaret Street apartment a few minutes after that. I parked and stepped out of the car into dampness. The cool breezes of the night had vanished and early morning humidity had come calling. I moved my sleeve lightly over my forehead and eyelids. Sweat in my eyes has always bothered me, what with salt and burning sensations, and this morning was no exception. I usually wear a headband on jobs and other important trips like this one, but I was so eager to get to Miami and recover our money, I had forgotten it when I left home last night.
Quietly, I made my way up the steps and slowly keyed open the door to our apartment.
Once inside, I tiptoed into the heavily draped living room, feeling my way around the furniture, careful not to wake Dorothy. I reached for my cell phone and punched in a number. My voice dropped to a murmur.
"Zaz. It's me … I know, I know, it's way too early, but you better drag your ass out of bed and get over here. I've got something you'll want to see … yeah, right now. And pick up Shimmy on the way."
I swiped my finger across the phone, ending the call. The money lay in neat stacks on the coffee table. Around one hundred thousand dollars, I estimated, in banded packets of fives, tens, twenties, fifties, and hundreds, less than a third of the actual take. I wondered where the rest of it went. One thing was for sure. I'd never see it again.
