Dooley said, ‘How big’s this pellet?’
He held out his thumb. ‘About that size. The drug’s compressed by a machine and then wrapped. A trained mule can carry a kilo of drugs in his system. We had this Nigerian woman recently. On a trip originating in Lagos. A DEA agent on her flight became suspicious that she wasn’t eating or drinking, which stops stimulating stomach acid, which can strip paint. And caffeine can damage latex pellet covers. So he alerted the crew to warn Miami customs. She would have been stopped anyway. Ticket paid for in cash, very agitated and oblivious to the fact that her brassy head ties and chunky gold jewellery were like a beacon saying ‘stop me because I’m Mrs Charlie Horse the Nigerian Queen of Bling’. Had everything but a neon pineapple flashing. She was stopped, searched, hauled off and urine tested and then taken to a holding cell. It’s nothing but a lock-up with a clear Perspex shitter with a strainer. Fuck. What a roster to draw. Piss off the captain and you’re on the night-shit-shift. Anyway, she collapsed and was rushed to ER and was drip fed a couple of gallons of laxative. Dead lucky it wasn’t cocaine in her guts. It’s more water soluble than heroin and absorbed more quickly into the body’s system.’
I said, ‘I get the picture. So the vic didn’t have enough fibre in his diet.’
‘Yeah. So someone got impatient. The autopsy will probably show traces of heroin in the bloodstream that may have caused constipation. If it was enough H he would have become comatose and that’s when the degenerates would have filleted him, before they suffered wastage. Stop him eroding their profits.’
‘This happen a lot?’ said Dooley.
‘We think so, but often we don’t see the results as the bodies get disposed of and we never find ‘em. A lot of the freelance mules just end up in ER, but the big importers keep their individual packaging under close watch until it delivers. Like a FedEx track and trace.’
‘So what do you know about Maria Viscione? I was out to see her the other day.’
‘Fucking weirdo. All sorts of rumours.’
‘Such as?’
‘The Feds are always nosing around. I hear she fronts for some ex-New York wiseguy – Paul Quaranto, who owns the place – they’re interested in him. Then there’s stories about her goombah Ernie Moresco and some voodoo shit.’
‘Santeria?’ said Jonah.
‘No. That’s kid stuff. This is the real McDeal. A couple of years ago there were two bodies found up at Lake Okeechobee. A man and a woman. In their twenties. There was some evidence of some sort of ritual. I can remember it for one thing though.’
‘What was that?’
‘The sort of thing you never forget. A piranha fish was shoved up the female vic’s twat. The autopsy showed that both the fish and the woman had been alive when said fish was inserted. And these fuckers ain’t small.’ He looked at us and chuckled. ‘The fish, I’m talking about.’ He started the last of his fries. ‘I got involved because the young woman had allegedly worked part time at the Sweet Chariot funeral home shortly before the incident. Her mother confirmed this but Madame Viscione denied ever having employed the girl. Said there were no records of her being there, and the mother could produce nothing. Said she was paid cash.’
I said, ‘She keeps piranhas in her office.’
‘I don’t know nuttin’ about that. But I’m sure she didn’t at the time. We would have cited her. It’s an offence in this state.’
Dooley laughed. ‘A life of hard-core crime and you finally get sent down for possession of an illegal fish.’
Jonah contributed. ‘The scales of justice.’
Jimmy acknowledged Jonah’s remark with a nod of his head, missing its irony.
His last mouthful disappeared. ‘I’ll find out what I can about her, and let you know.’
I said, ‘Anything you got that helps.’
Dooley picked up the tab. The Marlins had lost three zip and it was getting late so we decided to go.
‘I wonder if there’s medical or pension benefits with these muling jobs,’ Jonah said to me, before I went to bed.
And I now knew what bizarre meant in this town.
9
In the morning’s Miami Herald it was just another cadaver and rated one paragraph on page three without the surgical details. There was no mention on the TV news. This was after all the city that put the Miami into televised vice. A prominent Roman Catholic priest nailed in pink leathers in a male prostitution sting was considered a better story. That rated a half column on page one and a TV no comment from the Catholic Church.
I went to Tomas’ office at eleven after he called to say a guy had flown in from New York to give him the pitch about the stock deal. He told me these investment scams are designed opaquely, to have a shorter shelf life than milk. The critical decision is when to shut them down, cut and run then disappear. I told Tomas to listen to what the New Yorker had to say and say nothing incriminating himself. One of Dooley’s guys had set up equipment to keep a record of the meeting. Tomas told me to listen and say nothing. I nodded, meaning I understood what he had said, not that I agreed.
Tono Hendrych arrived at noon. His card announced him as the executive vice-president of J P Malcolm of Long Island. He was in his thirties, slim build, slicked black hair, gold buckled shoes and a city jock’s dark suit. It was a cultivated look that promised an expensive ride to the beholder. To the seasoned sceptic it said for trust me read fuck you as he sweet talked come-to-papa dollars from the pockets of people who thought they were getting a good deal until they got home and untied the pretty bows and opened the expensive wrapping to find out the heavy box was full of sand and then asked for a refund and were told sorry, no way, just read the fine print. Next in line please. And more hokey-cokey music, maestro. It’s time to shimmy again, my name’s next on your dance card.
The scam he pitched involved a company called MCP Inc, which had a herbal tablet called T-Bone, an alleged alternative medicine rival to Viagra. Made of natural ingredients, it could be sold as a dietary supplement and apparently did not need FDA approval, maybe the only true statement in his pitch.
He said, ‘It gives such a hard-on you almost faint from the rush of blood.’ His pitch did that to him maybe, not the pill.
His monologue was jargon impaired; friction costs, charge-backs, hickeys, alligator spreads, cats and dogs, cash cow, check debit, reloads, earners, closer, gimmes, seeding, pump, dump, short, distort, misreps, mooches, rebuttals, rip, tear, comebacks, score, scam dogs, mo-mo mamas, schmooze and schmucks. Translated into English, it said let’s ream, steam and dry clean those suckers then speed away in our Ferraris.
Tomas tried to sound interested. ‘So, what’s in this T-Bone? The magic ingredient?’
Cue Tono with a burst of irritated laughter. ‘Crushed dried fungus from the head of some rare rainbowed Chinese caterpillar. Fucked if I know. Who gives a shit?’ He looked at Tomas and at his watch. ‘Tomas. You’re in on three mil of this sweet shit to sell. With a five per rip. That’s one fifty large for you. For sweet FA.’
His systematic pitch continued in Technicolor occasionally pausing only to give us the full benefit of his smile, a minor dilation below his nose. When Tomas questioned him about a not-so-fine point of legality, he shrugged his shoulders, which were more padded than a lunatic’s cell, and his upraised hands outstretched. He had the impenetrable exterior and evasiveness of a cockroach being peed upon in a public urinal.
As a sales point he told Tomas to ‘never pitch the bitch’ as women were more discerning in their investment decisions and would ask sensible questions that even a dishonest broker would have difficulty with. It was male suckers only please.
Tomas tried to interrupt but Roach wasn’t listening. Instead he was offering Tomas a piece of another scam begging for a local partner. A boiler room was needed for telemarketers to make calls pretending to be making a survey. They would ask if the victim wanted an end to all these other unwanted phone calls they received. Whaddya know, your lucky day, Telebug, a new co
mputer program that will delete names from the marketing files of those other telemarketing companies and yes, for a one-off fee you will be able to enjoy your evenings, free of those unwanted calls. Once the sucker paid, Roach would sell the lists, ‘exclusively’ to other scamsters, but would also use them himself as well. And not deliver the non-existent Telebug.
‘Thanks but no thanks,’ said Tomas. ‘I’ll let you have that one all to yourself.’
Roach sat back and surveyed the scene and his fake diamond and gold watch again. ‘So where are we then, man. You in on this MCP sucker? I’m told you was before I got here. I just got to give you the details. And where to send the punter’s money.’
‘Where’s the prospectus? Has it been filed with the SEC?’ said Tomas.
He threw Tomas a folder from his over-initialled designer briefcase. It landed on the floor. ‘Here’s the draft. It will be. ‘Course it will. We gotta.’
Tomas picked it up and had a quick look through its papers. ‘Where’s MCP located?’
‘They’re in Michigan. Troy, north of Detroit.’
‘You have all the due diligence on them?’
Tono held out his upraised palms, as trustworthy as Alfredo the dandruffed pimp with the eye-patch sharing out the nightly take. ‘Of course. Trust me on this.’
One of Tomas’ assistants knocked and came into the office with documents for Tomas to sign. She was cute and wore a short black skirt and tight white blouse and smiled warmly to all of us. Tono Hendrych opened his legs wide apart, aiming his crotch at her. She left the office.
‘Great piece of ass there. She Cuban? You think she wanna go out with me tonight? Fuck me Cuban style. We don’t even need to go out. She can just come to my room,’ said Hendrych. ‘As room service. I’ll nibble at her nacho snatch, Noo York style.’
He looked at us as if expecting tacit approval.
Tomas lied matter-of-factly. ‘That’s my wife. She’s actually busy tonight.’
Tono Hendrych shrugged and shook his head. Win some, lose some.
I said, ‘I think we’ve got enough here to be going along with. We’ll be in touch.’
Tomas and I stood up and he took his cue to leave. My thirty minutes with him was the longest month of my life.
Tono Roach turned to me as I showed him the floor. ‘Tomas’ wife got a sister?’
It was just another simple scam. The victims would buy stock in a company with promises of rich rewards. The placebo product would never be marketed or sold. So the company would never produce a profit or even trade, and the stock would then be worthless. Having defiled the nest, Hendrych would migrate.
Tomas told me how many SEC and NASD rules he’d be violating by participating in the fraud. And how many gullibles there were out there who would buy into companies from people like Tono Hendrych. Without the greed of the victim, there was no deal. Quaranto was right. There were more scams than there were suckers to scam.
If someone like Tomas pushed the stock then it was another matter. His clients trusted him not to sell worthless paper to them. I asked him to string Quaranto along when he called about the stock deal. I didn’t tell Tomas about the body found in Coral Gables. A need to know basis is the expression, I think.
I caught a cab back to our office in South Beach thinking about the scam. And about getting Tomas some cucaracha killer for his office, in case Tono Roach returned.
So I’d try to find some aerosol napalm.
10
Drinking coffee in my office was Sayers and his poodle, Irish. Tonique had let them in as they’d professed to be clients of mine from London.
I showed no surprise. ‘This is getting to be a habit, you coming to my places of work.’
Sayers nodded in reply and took a bulky brown envelope from his briefcase. Despite the heat, he wore his London city suit and tie which made him look even more of a prick. He had a slim furled umbrella with a wooden handle. This saved him the trouble of wearing a Union Jack tiepin saying I’m British.
Irish was in his summerweight Armani kit, in black. He picked up a gun magazine from one of the coffee tables, the Guns And Ammo Family Shooting Fun Special Edition. Family Shooting Fun.
‘We’re here on some business for a while. A week or so. I believe Jay is also here and I’m sure that you know where. I’ve tried her place in Sanibel. So I want you to give her this.’
He handed me the large brown envelope. I didn’t take it but let him put it on my desk. He pushed it toward me with the benediction of a sneer. ‘Once she’s had a chance to read this, I’m sure she’ll want to talk to us. It’s in her best interest she gets it sooner rather than later.’ He talked at me rather than to me, an art form he’d honed.
I shrugged. ‘If she contacts me, I’ll let her know.’
‘Oh, I’m sure you’re in contact with her.’
Irish hadn’t taken his eyes off me since I’d entered the office, except for a couple of quick glances at the magazine. He was waiting for me to return his gaze so he could give me the stare that said I’ll get even with you, Milo. I was slightly tempted to look his way to give him the don’t even think about it message but he didn’t warrant the effort. It was hot, and I didn’t want to get bothered.
‘Otherwise do your private investigator thing and find her,’ was his contribution, after some fallow-mind rehearsal.
‘We’re at The Delano Hotel. It’s five star,’ Sayers said. ‘Do you know it? I expect to hear from you later.’
He wrote down something on a notepad and pushed it toward me. It was room numbers for him and Irish.
‘They let you both in there?’
We sat in silence. They finished their coffee and stood, ready to leave.
‘Nice set-up you’ve got here,’ Sayers said. ‘Business must be good for you.’
I said nothing, picked up the morning newspaper, turned to the comics section, and leant my chair back and put my feet on the desk.
‘You must hope you’re going to be around long enough to enjoy it,’ said Irish. They’d stopped using lines like that in B movies in 1955.
They saw themselves out. After I’d finished the funnies I called Jay and told her about the package. I agreed to meet her for lunch in an hour and a half at Bal Harbor, a mall with fancy stores where the staff genuflect if your plastic is gold. It ain’t, then they make the sign of the cross heavenward.
I figured that Sayers might have arranged to have me followed knowing I would meet with Jay. So I took Tomas’ bike north along Collins and then made a few lazy turns with my eye on the side mirrors. After ten minutes I spotted a shiny red five series BMW following my circuitous route. A conspicuous car, so they weren’t pros. I doubled back every couple of blocks and lost it a few tire burning and knee scraping U-turns later.
Satisfied there was now only friendly traffic behind me, I left the bike in a public car park and took a cab to the mall.
We’d arranged to meet in a Chinese restaurant, an over-neoned mock-Deco place where despite the decor I’d heard the food was OK. I ordered green tea while I started on the long Chinese march through the menu.
Jay appeared after about twenty minutes holding a shopping bag which she gave to me after a peck on my cheeks.
‘That’s for giving me my shooting lessons yesterday.’
It was a small shortwave radio. I’d told her how I missed knowing how Liverpool was doing in the Premiership as the local rag’s sports pages ran to US sports only.
‘Gracias,’ I said. ‘But bad trade. This is all I got.’ I handed her Sayers’ package which she put aside.
We ordered lettuce-wrapped crispy duck, won tons, sichuan king prawns, and three precious flavours chicken. And steamed rice and jasmine tea. Plus Singapore noodles.
‘I’m nervous Sayers is in Miami,’ said Jay.
‘He obviously has other reasons. He seemed fairly casual today,’ I said.
‘He and Nils used to come here occasionally. I came with them a couple of times, but I prefer Sanibel. And Sayer
s was here a lot alone.’
‘What were they doing? What was he doing?’
‘They had occasional business in Miami. Legitimate stuff. If you deal in Latin and Central America, then you deal here. As for Sayers’ solo trips, Nils was concerned he was involved in illegal arms trafficking and this was where he was doing his deals. Nils didn’t tell me much about it, but said Sayers was well connected here. That was one of the reasons Nils was about to dissolve their business dealings when he died.’
‘You’ve never told me about his death,’ I said, sick of the subject of Sayers already.
Jay gave me a forced smile. ‘I don’t really talk about it. It was colon cancer. Mercifully it was quite quick. He died six weeks after it had been diagnosed.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I’d been nagging him to have a colonoscopy for years. And that’s what you get for nagging. I’m still very pissed off with him.’ She sighed. ‘It was during the six weeks that he tried to get his affairs in order. To tidy up things. He told me then of his fears about Sayers and Irish. What he thought they were doing in Florida. He said Miami had become a Republican arms trading stronghold, splinter groups mainly, and he was sure Sayers had plans to extend his reach there. He saw the spread of terrorism as a money-maker. After 9/11 he said that they had to look at the business upside of terror.’
‘Well. This place certainly has liberal gun laws. And currency laundromats that wash your soiled readies whiter than Daz. The Irish Republicans have been here for years.’
‘I thought they were more moderate since the Good Friday peace accord,’ said Jay.
Kill City USA Page 11
