by Don Donovan
Silvana said, "Now, Maxie, we both offer you our deep sympathy for your loss, and we know you want to get the guy who did this, but we can't give you information about an ongoing investig ¾"
"Fuck it!" He slammed a fist onto his desk. The impact rattled everything on it. "I pay you a grand a week! I've been paying you almost a year. Plus I gave you fifty large at the beginning. I figure you owe me this one." Tears stained his face and shirt. Even the bodyguard was getting dewy-eyed.
"We're not on the case," Vargas said. "We can't give you much."
Maxie stiffened. "You can find out what you need. Ask around. I want whoever did this. No arrest. No trial. No lawyers. Somebody's going to pay for what happened to my little girl. Her mother is going crazy right now. She may never recover."
Silvana took a deep breath. "We'll find out what we can," she said. "I can't promise it'll be much, but I'll give you whatever I can get. You have my word."
"Do you know anything right now?" he asked.
Silvana shook her head. "Like I said, we're not on the case. We only know three people were killed over there in that little apartment building off the causeway. We know one of them was the Jamaican drug dealer, who probably got what was coming to him. We don't know any motive, we know of no witnesses, we don't know any more than that. I swear to you, we did not know your daughter was one of the victims until just now."
"Get me something by tomorrow. Something. Anything."
"We'll do what we can," Silvana said. She walked up to his desk and leaned over it, speaking softly and directly. "Like I told you, you have our word on that."
Maxie reached into a desk drawer. "Thank you, Machado. You too, Vargas. Your word is good enough for me. Now, I want you to have this." He handed them a banded packet of money, looked like all hundreds, maybe ten grand worth. "This is to show you my commitment. I hope you will give me your best effort. You find this cocksucker for me, there will be a lot more of this for you."
Silvana took the money, but for a fleeting second she thought about the long trail of corpses Maxie had left in his own wake. Every single one of those now-deceased people had mothers and fathers or sons and daughters or wives or husbands who were crushed when they got the bad news. Now Maxie was getting a taste of how they felt, but Silvana didn't think it would stick, certainly not turn him into some kind of anti-crime zealot.
Maxie reached out his hand for a shake. Both cops took it. His eyes, now dry and determined, told them everything else they needed to know.
40
Silvana
Friday, April 13, 2012
Hialeah, Florida
1:30 PM
HIALEAH PARK RACETRACK LURKS BEHIND an impressive entrance off East Fourth Street. Yawning gates between carved stone pillars encourage visitors to make their way down an entryway lined with royal palms and poincianas.
On their way over there, Silvana googled it on her cell phone and found out the original track opened up in 1925, kicking off a storied history. Magnificent in scope, frequented by movie stars and world leaders, Hialeah Park was like no other, she learned. Known for featuring the best horses, stunning architecture, and an overall splendor not found in most racetracks, Hialeah Park stood at or near the top of the list for decades. The place was closed for most of the 2000s, but they reopened in 2009 amid lots of talk about building a casino adjacent to the track. Silvana could see the beginnings of construction over in a distant corner of the property.
As Vargas guided their car down the entryway, Silvana noticed a great effort had been made to restore the grounds and the buildings to their former glory. The pink logo was everywhere, and gorgeous magenta bougainvillea crawled its way up the height of the grandstand.
They parked in a No Parking zone outside the entrance to the clubhouse and quickly located the Win Place Or Show Gift Shop. Inside, there was little space and no customers. A middle-aged gringa stood at a spinning book stand, arranging books. Silvana caught a glimpse of them and saw they were all about horses and racing. No cop novels.
The woman was stout and wore a tired look. The slight slant of her eyes spoke of a distant Asian past and were by far her most attractive feature. Plain, straight hair spread flat across her head. Her nose bunched up against her big face, which bore the lines of a life of hard work. A name badge pinned to her dated dress said "Edna". Silvana and Vargas showed their badges.
Silvana said, "Miami police officers, ma'am. I'm Sergeant Machado, this is Detective Vargas. We'd like to speak with you for a moment, if we may."
"Police? Why, what's the trouble?"
"No trouble, ma'am," said Vargas. "Are you the store manager?"
"Yes. Yes, I am. What's this about?"
"We'd just like to ask you a couple of questions about one of your employees," Silvana said. "Ana Maxina Méndez."
"Oh, my lord," she said. "That was so terrible! Everybody around the track is just shocked. Do you know who did it?"
"No, ma'am," Silvana said. "But we're trying to find out. Maybe you can help us."
"Well, I'll certainly try. What can I do for you?"
"How long did she work here?" She pulled out her notebook and started jotting things down.
Edna said, "She's been here about six months now. I hired her back in the fall. Right after she turned twenty-one."
"What was her schedule?" Vargas said. "How many days a week did she work?"
"Oh, she only worked Mondays and Tuesdays," Edna said. "Just two days."
Silvana stopped writing. "Two days a week? That's it?"
"That's it. But that's all she wanted to work, you see. I offered her a full-time shift, but she didn't want it. Said she had other things going. I had to hire another part-time girl for the other days."
"She had other things going?"
"Yes. She never did mention what they were, but they must have paid pretty well, because she was always very well-dressed when she came to work, you know what I mean?"
Silvana said, "Well-dressed? You mean, like expensive clothing? That kind of thing?"
"Oh, yes. Expensive," Edna said. "Nothing fancy, you understand. I mean, her clothing was always appropriate for the shop, but it was always very nice. You could tell by the feel and the look that it was high quality clothing."
Vargas said, "Just so we understand, ma'am, she didn't make that kind of money here?"
"Heavens, no," Edna said. "I paid her just above minimum wage. But … there was one thing, you know …"
"What's that, ma'am?" said Silvana.
"She had all these nice clothes, but she still somehow managed to look cheap. It wasn't the clothes, like I said. It was her hair and makeup, you know? That can make the difference. She just didn't know how to make it work for her."
"What are you trying to say, ma'am?"
"Only that she was very pretty — uh, naturally, I mean — but that she messed it all up with that cheap platinum blonde coloring which was totally wrong for her. And then on top of that, she wore too much mascara, too much rouge, way too much fragrance … she looked like … like some … oh, I don't know what. It just didn't fit with the rest of her."
Silvana looked at this woman and wondered how she could have ever developed that kind of insight, given her own lack of inspired makeup and looks. "Did anyone come around to visit her? Any regular customers? Boyfriends? Anything like that?"
"No. Nobody like that. But she did like to go out at night. She'd tell me of some big show she went to — I think people like Madonna — or she'd talk about some trip she took on her days off, like to the Bahamas. Or Las Vegas, I remember. She went there once, I believe."
"Anything else you can think of, ma'am?" Vargas said.
"Mmm, no. Not right offhand."
Silvana handed her a card. "Well, if you can think of something we ought to know, please give me a call."
"Oh, I will, Sergeant. You can be sure I will."
"Thank you." They turned to leave, but Silvana turned back and said, "Oh, and ma'am."
; "Yes?"
"There will probably be other police officers coming around asking you questions about Miss Méndez. We'd appreciate it if you didn't mention that we were here first, okay?"
A puzzled look descended over Edna's face. "Why, is everything all right? You are going to try to find who did this, aren't you?"
"Oh, yes, ma'am," said Silvana. "We certainly are. We're going to work day and night on this. But please don't mention our little visit to any other police officers, okay? We're all trying to find her killer, but we just don't want to get in each other's way. I'm sure you understand."
"Well … I guess it's okay."
"Thank you, ma'am. And thank you for your time. You were a big help today."
They walked out as Edna was saying, "Big help? But I didn't do anything."
41
Silvana
Hialeah, Florida
Friday, April 13, 2012
1:55 PM
BACK IN THE CAR, Silvana and Vargas locked eyes anxiously. They both wanted to speak, but she got it out first. "I smell whores."
"Right down to the heavy perfume," Vargas said.
"Drive."
"Where to?"
"Brownsville," she said. "Meanwhile, I'll get Vice on the phone."
Vargas fired up the engine and headed out of the racetrack complex, out of Hialeah altogether. Silvana punched in the number of Detective Sergeant Tommy Kelly.
"Tommy, Silvana Machado."
"Yo, Silvana. What's up, darlin'?" His soft drawl floated through the phone line.
"Listen, we got a murder vic here, Ana Maxina Méndez, Hispanic female, DOB 9/15/90. Do you have a jacket on her? Any prostie beefs?"
"Méndez? Doesn't sound familiar. Let me look. Hold on."
Silvana leaned away from the phone and said to Vargas, "Head toward 26th Avenue."
Kelly came back on the phone. "No prostie, Silvana. But we picked her up for marijuana possession back in November of '07. That was dropped, though."
"Dropped? What happened?"
"Well, let's see … looks like the evidence was inadmissible. No probable cause for the search. That's not unusu ¾ whoa! What's this?"
"What? What?" Silvana leaned forward in the passenger seat.
"Her lawyer got the case thrown out. Her lawyer, who just happened to be Reese Kilgore. Fuck me! He was getting five hundred an hour back then! I wonder what he was doing defending a seventeen-year-old girl on a two-bit marijuana charge."
"I think I know," Silvana said. "She was Maxie Méndez's daughter."
"Maxie M — holy shit!" Kelly said. "No fucking wonder. He probably spread a little dough around and got it dropped. I'm surprised we even still have this record of it."
"So am I. But I've got one more question for you, Tommy. What was the name of that escort service that provided Evalena Diaz for Bob Harvey and his brother Phil? I remember you told me, but I forgot the complete name. Magic City something, wasn't it?"
"Yeah. Magic City Suites. They're one of the higher end services."
"Do you have an address on them? And the name of someone in charge? A contact?"
"Sure, let me get that for you. Hang on again."
While she was holding, she filled in Vargas on the Reese Kilgore connection and he expressed the appropriate surprise at the understanding of one of Miami's most prominent attorneys coming to the rescue of Maxie Méndez's daughter.
Vargas said, "I wonder what else he does for Maxie."
Silvana said, "And I wonder who knows about it, if any of his high-priced country club friends know he's down and dirty with scumbag racketeers in Hialeah."
Kelly popped back on the line.
"Okay, darlin', here you go. We did a reverse phone search and came up with 1418 Brickell Bay Drive, apartment 312. That's a pretty nice area. Lot of high rises right on the water. Figures, though. Like I told you, Magic City Suites deals in the pricier whores."
"1418 Brickell Bay Drive, unit 312," she said, looking at Vargas, signaling him to commit it to his ironclad memory. "And what about a contact?"
"Right. We've got someone listed at that address who's also registered as the owner of the service. One Sofía Ramos."
Silvana let out a soft grunt, but she felt like she'd been sucker-punched right in the gut. Like all the air just got sucked out of her lungs, out of the whole fucking car. Vargas glanced at her to make sure she was all right.
Kelly said, "Silvana? Darlin', are you there?"
"Y-yeah, Tommy."
"You okay?"
"Yeah," she said. "I'm okay. Thanks for the information."
"Sure you're okay?"
"I'm fine. No problem."
"All right, then," Kelly said. "Have a great day." She swiped the call off, eyes still blankly fixed on the glove compartment.
"Silvi," Vargas said. "What is it? What's wrong?"
"Uh, n-nothing. Nothing's wrong."
"Come on, don't bullshit me," he said. "What's the matter?"
"Kelly just told me the owner of this escort service that Evalena Diaz worked for is a girl I used to know when I was a kid. A teenager."
"No shit? Were you good friends with her?"
"Not really, but I used to see her all the time. She was about a year or two older than me. We … we were in high school together but she quit pretty early, while I graduated."
Memories flooded back. Memories of a girl so fetching, so incomprehensibly beautiful that Silvana would have done anything — anything to be with her, just to be able to touch her, to inhale her natural scent, which must have been intoxicating. Even then, at twelve and thirteen years old, when Silvana had never had sex with anyone, she first felt the exciting stirrings within her, stirrings that would eventually ignite and set her loins ablaze. Fires that would burn for other women later on, but never so bright and never so hot as they did for Sofía.
They motored along Hialeah Drive. As they crossed into Miami, they left behind the Cuban atmosphere. Here the street became simply Florida Route 944, knifing through a strip of low, flat-roofed industrial buildings whose businesses included tires, auto glass, and body work. Brownsville lay ahead.
Florida 944 quickly became all-black Northwest 54th Street, and a look of despair drew down over the neighborhood. Vacant buildings which once housed retail and office space now sat as hollow shells, covered in graffiti. One look down the cross streets showed one of Miami's worst crime-ridden areas. The two cops drove slowly down 54th.
"Who we lookin' for?" asked Vargas.
"G-Man," said Silvana. "Keep an eye out for his car."
They plotted out a section between 22nd and 27th Avenues and 54th and 62nd Streets, and began cruising every one of the streets in between.
"There it is," she said some time later, pointing to a black Dodge Charger making the turn onto 26th Avenue from 62nd. Vargas put the Kojak light on the roof of their car and gave the siren a little goosing. The Charger pulled over in front of a trash-strewn empty lot. The cops saw two people in the car, a man driving and a woman passenger. Vargas took the driver's side, Silvana the passenger's.
The driver's window glided downward. G-Man said, "What the fuck? Dis ain't Friday."
"Step out of the car, please." Vargas was at his politest, while Silvana ordered the woman riding shotgun to do the same.
"What the fuck is this?" G-Man cried.
Vargas grabbed him by his fake silk collar and pulled his skinny ass straight through the open window. G-Man howled in protest when Vargas dropped him on the street like a sack of potatoes, and meanwhile, the woman, seeing this same kind of treatment might be awaiting her, quickly got out of the car.
Silvana looked her over. Tight, low-cut gold top showing lots of her plentiful cleavage, electric blue fake satin hotpants, low-grade hoochie-mama stilettos. Way, way too much makeup, especially around her eyes, and a wig that didn't do her any favors. Silvana said to her, "Let's see some ID." The woman reached into her cheap blingy clutch purse and pulled out a driver's license. Silvana read fro
m it: "Laquita Hawkins, Miami address, DOB 1/4/88. Is all this information accurate?"
Laquita Hawkins stood in the slouch required of all ghetto youth when confronted by any kind of authority, especially cops. You can't let on that they're getting to you. You gotta show 'em you don't give a shit. Let's get this over with, motherfucker.
"It's acc'rate," she said.
"What do you do for a living, Laquita?" As if it weren't obvious.
"I ain't workin' nowhere right now."
"Really? You're not out working the streets for our friend the G-Man here? Could've fooled me."
Laquita jutted her tits out and threw her head back as though she were Beyoncé in front of legions of adoring paparazzi. She segued her voice into buttery levels. "I ain't workin' no streets."
"Come stand behind the car. And don't move." Silvana dragged her to a point between the two cars and cuffed her. After a loud protest about the cuffs, Silvana slapped her to shut her up.
"Hey!" said G-Man. "Easy. That my bottom woman!"
Silvana stepped up to G-Man, now on his feet fidgeting, visibly concerned for Laquita. "Tell her to cut the crap or she's gonna be your shit-beat-out-of-her woman."
"Whatchu motherfuckers want, Macha —" Silvana punched him squarely in the face. His guard was down and it caught him flush. Blood streamed from his nose before he said "Owww! What the fuck!" and jerked backward.
"We'll ask the questions," she said. She got right into his space, her face about two inches from his and grabbing his slimy-feeling collar, and said softly, "And it's Sergeant Machado to you, faggot, not 'motherfucker'. We're not here to bust you, that is, unless … you want to get busted. For example, by not cooperating."
He threw her a nod, his hands trembling. "Y-yeah, I get it … Sergeant Machado."
She backed away from him. "That's good, G-Man. That's a very good start." Her voice turned authoritative. "Now, are you ready to cooperate?"
"Whatchu want?"
A hard slap to his face. "I said, are you ready to cooperate?"
