Billy said, “It’s late. We’ll talk some more tomorrow. It’s a simple deal. Diamonds for the girl. It will make up for that disaster at the port.” The image disappeared and the line went dead.
Albert gave the clerk a hard look, then he patted his pants pockets. He reached in the right pocket and pulled out the wad of cash.
Just as Hanna opened the door, Albert turned and screamed, “Bang!”
The young man flinched and then burst into tears.
Chapter 79
I SAT BY Marie’s side at Jackson Memorial as a distressingly young ER doctor put nine stitches in her left cheek. She’d been right; most of the blood was not hers.
After Marie had been sewn up, she turned to me and asked, “How do I look?” Her sly smile broke the tension and I laughed.
“Beautiful.” I wasn’t kidding. But even with the scrapes and stitches, she was ready to get back to work. After the visit to Jackson Memorial, we searched the streets of Miami for the people who had fled from the ship. We managed to find six young women, two young men, and two older women. Most were wandering around the port area. Two were at a shelter.
Once back in the station, we began taking statements from the victims who spoke English. Their accounts of traveling over the Atlantic in the shipping container were harrowing.
About five days into the trip, they said, the older of the two men from India had fallen asleep and never woke up. The younger women, who spoke the same language and appeared to be friends, said they believed that the younger Indian man had had some sort of cardiac event when he discovered the other man was dead.
The two dead girls, they said, were from somewhere in Belgium. One of them had started getting sick a few days earlier, and the other girl, who never spoke to anyone and whose name they didn’t know, began throwing up as well. They had both died about a day ago.
It was heartbreaking. Marie, for all of her toughness, had a hard time dealing with it. She clearly felt like she had personally let them down.
I gave her a few minutes. She composed herself, but it wasn’t easy. Cops aren’t robots, and few civilians can comprehend what police officers see on a regular basis. It’s a miracle that there aren’t cops breaking down all the time.
I said, “It’s not your fault. It’s the traffickers and people like Rostoff. They don’t care about anything but money.”
“It’s just so sad,” Marie said. “Society has forgotten these people. I’ve seen it in Amsterdam. Young girls think they can make their fortune by coming here, but it’s all lies. I wish we could do something to hurt predators like the Rostoff brothers. The death penalty would be too good for them.”
I nodded and said, “We’ll do something. I can’t let Roman Rostoff sit up in that luxury office like he’s an earl.”
Marie took a moment to wipe her tears and blow her nose on a paper towel. Then she looked at me with bloodshot eyes and said, “Let’s get back to work.”
I don’t even know what time I got home that night. When I woke up in the morning, after only a few hours’ sleep, I was still exhausted. The smell of pancakes and bacon drew me out of bed. I felt like I was a character in a fairy tale wandering into a trap.
My sister, looking very professional in a dark, fitted dress, was in the hall, getting ready to head to the school where she worked as a speech pathologist. She tilted her head toward the kitchen and shrugged. That’s when I realized it was my mother cooking. This was phenomenal; she almost never cooked in the morning.
My sister and I sat down at the small dining-room table and before we could say anything, my mom plopped down two plates piled with eggs, pancakes, and bacon. She looked like a waitress at a Denny’s.
Why couldn’t it be like this every morning?
I asked a few of my normal questions, trying to figure out if she was in our current reality or a former one. She seemed fine. She called me Tommy and asked Lila some specific questions about her job.
Finally, I had to say, “Mom, what’s going on? What’s with all the food?”
She eased down into the chair next to me and took a sip of her coffee. “You think I’m not aware of what’s been happening, that I just live in my own little world and expect you guys to cater to my every need? It’s terrifying. Not because I’m losing my grip on reality, but because of everything I’m putting you through.”
Lila reached across the table and grasped my mother’s hand. They both had tears in their eyes. I almost did the same, but I wanted to hear what else my mom had to say.
She flicked a tear off her cheek and said, “You both do so much for me, I just wanted to do a little something for you.”
Lila stood up and hugged her. “We do it because we love you, Mom.”
“And I’m doing this because I love you. No one realizes how much a mother loves her children. She really will do anything for them. I’m just sorry you have to do so much for me now.”
I stood up and kissed her gently on the forehead. There was nothing else I could add to this conversation.
Chapter 80
BEFORE I PICKED Marie up at her hotel, I stopped by the Miami Police headquarters to put the word out about what had happened at the port. The oddly shaped five-story building on Second Avenue had seen its share of history. Over the years, Miami had witnessed all kinds of riots, shifting demographics, mass immigration from Cuba, and even a visit from the pope. Through it all, the police department—at least the building—never changed. And even the department’s critics always knew they could run to us when things in the neighborhood got out of control.
Most people had no idea how things really worked on the streets. I remember a crack dealer named Walter Slates from back when I worked patrol just west of the downtown. He’d shoot a bird at me every time I drove past in my cruiser. He made fun of my record with the University of Miami’s football team.
That’s why, when he approached my patrol car one day, I was suspicious. He said, “I need help.”
I took the bait and asked him what the problem was.
“The goddamn Colombians say they gonna kill me. Ain’t nothing like the Cubans. The Cubans’ll listen to you. The Cubans are reasonable. But these Colombians is crazy. I need protection.”
“So all of a sudden you don’t hate the police?”
“Never really hated the police. It’s just fun to screw with you. Even if I did hate the police, I don’t hate no more. Can you help me?”
We helped him. Walter Slates turned his life around. He now works for Florida Power and Light somewhere up near West Palm Beach. He made it a point to come by and thank me a few years ago.
I knew that by putting the word out at the station, I could count on tips from contacts on the street. The beat cops heard we hadn’t found all the people who’d been in the container, and it took them only about an hour to round up the rest. Now we had almost all of them. Except one. A blond Polish girl named Magda who spoke some English.
Finding that girl was our only goal this morning.
Instead of hello, the first thing Marie had said to me when I met her in the lobby of the downtown Marriott was “I just got off the phone with my best informant. Hanna and Albert Greete are in Miami, looking for a girl who fled from the boat. She has a backpack with a fortune in diamonds hidden in it.”
“Let me guess—it’s the one girl we haven’t found yet. Magda from Poland.”
“Exactly.”
“Does she know she has the diamonds?”
“I don’t think so. I heard they’re supposed to be sewn into the strap.”
We got busy checking shelters and streets near the port and downtown.
Around midmorning, I grabbed a doorknob that turned out to be covered with grease. Someone had smeared the knob with goo as a joke or as a way to put people off, but in any case, I now had bicycle grease all over my right palm.
Marie was speaking with a woman who ran a homeless shelter and I was looking for a paper towel to wipe my hand when I noticed someone coming in my direc
tion.
There are a lot of men wearing suits in Miami, but not many with goatees dyed blue. It was Billy the Blade, Rostoff’s muscle. I immediately realized he was doing the same thing Marie and I were. He didn’t know how many people we’d rescued from the ship and he was probably hoping to recover some of his investment right now.
I turned to face him, and after a few seconds, he looked up and noticed me. That’s one of the benefits of my size—I can be very obvious when I want to be.
I’d obviously caught the Russian by surprise. It took him a moment to put on his usual smile. Then he strutted toward me in his expensive cream-colored Brooks Brothers suit.
Billy kept his broad smile as he said, “Detective, did you already get kicked off your task force? You have to work the streets of Miami again?”
I gave a little chuckle and said, “I think you overestimate your boss’s influence.”
“I’m not sure it’s possible to overestimate Mr. Rostoff’s influence.”
“The better question is why you’re working the streets of Miami.”
“We’re not far from my office. I just thought I’d go for a walk and get some fresh air. By the way, how’s your lovely sister?”
He’d pushed the right buttons. I decided to keep my mouth shut.
Billy said, “We’re not that different, you know.”
I held up my left hand—the clean one—and said, “Hold it right there. We could not be more different. You’re a predator, plain and simple. You’re a dirtbag here just like you were in Russia. Leopards don’t change their spots.”
“Believe what you want, but the truth is that you’ll die poor while I live near the beach in Fort Lauderdale.”
“Maybe, but you’ll die a lot younger than me.”
“Is that a threat?”
“A fact. Go ahead and try to point out the old gangsters in Miami. There aren’t any. Even the Colombians don’t last much past fifty, and that’s if they’re lucky.”
Billy shook his head and said, “Drugs are a dangerous and dirty business.”
I leaned in a little closer. “Can I give you some friendly advice?”
“Sure, why not?”
I gently placed my right hand on his shoulder and said, “Your boss is going to go down. You don’t have to be on the ship when it sinks.”
Billy let out a laugh. “This isn’t Russia. There are many rules the police must follow here. I don’t think you can harass us for no reason.”
I just smiled as I removed my hand. I admired the perfect grease handprint on his otherwise pristine cream suit. “You have a nice day, Billy.”
“Same to you, Detective.” He turned and left.
I could see my handprint on the suit even from a block away. I knew we had to find the missing girl before the Russians did.
Chapter 81
MAGDA ANDRUSKIEWICZ OPENED her eyes with a start. It wasn’t until she glanced up and saw the blue sky past the rough metal roof that her body relaxed slightly. The long ride to the United States in the shipping container with the others had been horrifying. Especially when people started dying. Even the girl she’d worked so hard to comfort in Amsterdam had fallen sick and died the day before they’d arrived in Miami.
Magda wasn’t sure if she’d ever be able to sleep indoors again. She’d fled the chaos around the ship where people were shooting and kept running. She’d run and run until she’d realized just how big the city was.
She’d tried to get into a homeless shelter, but it was full for the night. It was warm in Miami, though, and a woman there had told her that she could sleep in the alley behind the shelter. Then the woman had given her two turkey sandwiches. Magda had eaten one immediately and saved the other for the next day.
Now, after a few hours of snatched sleep, Magda had no idea what to do. When she’d waited in Amsterdam, the woman named Hanna had arranged everything. Here, she knew no one. And after the way they had traveled, Magda no longer trusted Hanna.
She had found herself a little nook between some boxes and a dumpster. After the stench in the container, the scent from the dumpster was like a forest in springtime. A metal roof covered her hiding spot and would keep her dry if it rained.
Several others had come and gone during the night, mostly older men. No one bothered her, which was both a surprise and a relief.
Just before she’d fled the ship, Magda had grabbed the red backpack by instinct, and she was now using it as a pillow. It held a change of clothes and a light jacket.
She sat up and began eating her second turkey sandwich. An older black man wearing a red beret leaned against a wall a few meters from her. He seemed to be staring at her. It made her nervous.
The man must have realized he was upsetting her because he said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just that your sandwich looks good. I’m not allowed to go inside no more because they once caught me with alcohol. That’s one of the big rules here. No alcohol and no weapons. I wish I’d paid more attention.”
The man had a friendly quality to his round face. Magda liked his beret. Without thinking, she tore her sandwich in two and offered half to the man.
With a broad smile, he stepped over to her and took it, then held it up as if he were about to give a toast. The words PROPERTY OF THE AMERICAN AIRLINES ARENA were stenciled on his windbreaker.
The older man went to eat his sandwich, and she tucked herself farther into her nook. She was scared and tired. She prayed to the Blessed Virgin to keep her safe and help her find her brother. She was starting to doubt her own judgment. No way she should have traveled across the Atlantic in a nasty shipping container. She worried about the other people who’d been with her. Where had they all fled?
She finished her sandwich, then laid her head on the backpack, hoping to drift off to sleep for a while. She hummed a lullaby her mother used to sing to her and Joseph when they were little. It had been a long time since she’d felt safe and happy. She missed Joseph. They had been separated during the trip from Poland.
A few minutes later, she heard a new voice. It was louder than any of the others she had heard in the alley.
She peeked between the slats of a pallet next to her and saw a middle-aged homeless man with a white film over one eye speaking to a man in a fancy suit.
Chapter 82
MAGDA HAD A bad feeling about the man in the fancy clothes. When she looked more carefully at him, she saw that his goatee was dyed blue, and he had a grease smudge on the shoulder of his cream-colored suit. Just the way he scanned the alley made him seem like a predator. She thought he spoke with an accent, but her English wasn’t good enough for her to identify where he was from.
He was talking to a homeless man who had spent the night in the alley using an empty milk carton as a pillow.
The man was smoking a cigarette and sitting on a pallet that had TROPICAL SHIPPING burned into its side. He rocked back and forth slowly, like he was on a ship.
Magda smelled the smoke from his cigarette. It barely masked the man’s own body odor.
The man in the suit asked him, “Have you seen any young women around here? Not regulars. Some girls who would’ve shown up last night.”
“Heh, heh, we all want young women,” said the homeless man. He was balding, and the little hair he had on the sides of his head shot out in crazy patterns. He laughed. His foggy eye moved in unison with his good eye. The homeless man squinted. “Hey, I know you.”
“I don’t know how. I don’t volunteer in this shithole.”
“You work at the club over on Fourth Street.” The ash on the homeless man’s cigarette slowly grew. A seagull landed near him and pecked at a French fry on the ground.
The man in the suit said, “So what?”
The homeless man said, “You told me to get lost one night. You weren’t very nice about it.” His voice sounded scratchy, like an old record, but he got his point across: he was mad.
“Did you have the thirty-dollar cover charge?”
&n
bsp; “I didn’t try to get inside the club. I was just sitting on the sidewalk.”
The man in the suit nodded and said, “Oh, panhandling.”
“Working.”
“Bums scare the customers. We have a certain image.”
“You were nasty to me. Why should I help you now?”
The man in the suit reached into his pocket. “For the reward. You help me find some girls I lost last night and I give you a wad of cash.”
The homeless man shook his head. “Bullshit. I don’t trust you.” He looked around at several of the other men; they were ignoring the whole conversation. “I don’t think you’d ever pay. So now it’s you who has to leave. This is my alley and I don’t want you bothering me.” The man stood on unsteady legs from the stacked pallets. He was much smaller than the other man.
The man in the suit just stared. He cut his eyes around the filthy alley to see if anyone intended to help the cocky homeless man.
Then the homeless man barked, “Go.” He reached up with his left hand and shoved the man. The long ash from his cigarette broke off and floated down onto a crumpled McDonald’s coffee cup.
The man in the suit seemed astonished that someone would speak to him like that, but he recovered quickly.
Magda watched silently as he punched the man with the bad eye. Everyone in the alley looked away. But Magda saw it all. And she knew the man in the suit was searching for her.
The man stayed on his wobbly feet and glared at his attacker. That set the man in the suit off again. He shoved the man onto the stacked pallets, then leaned in and slapped the homeless man hard across the face. “Who the hell do you think you are?” he screamed as he punched the man over and over.
Magda stared, terrified. She looked over and saw the friendly black man in the red beret. She hoped he wouldn’t tell anyone she was there.
The man in the suit punched the poor homeless man six times in the face. Blood poured out of his nose and lips and, finally, one of his ears. It left a wild, dark pattern on the patched asphalt of the alley.
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