Tanzi's Heat (Vince Tanzi Book 1)

by C I Dennis

  *

  Sonny came to the door with shaving cream covering part of his scalp. The pit bulls were inside, sound asleep on a velour-covered couch.

  “You’re just in time, man. Do the back, OK? I always cut the shit out of myself.” He held out a disposable razor.

  “You trust me not to lop off an ear?”

  “Dark side of the moon, man. I can’t see back there.”

  We went into his kitchen, and I finished shaving his head. “You’re going through that shit way too fast,” he said. “You a junkie already.”

  “I had to flush it,” I said. “The cops were coming.”

  “Yeah, I saw you on TV. They used your old mug shot. You’re a badass motherfucker—I shouldn’t even be talking to you.”

  “I didn’t shoot the guy,” I said.

  “I heard all about it from my sister,” he said. “That’s fucked up.”

  He toweled off his head and handed me another packet. “Don’t flush these,” he said. “If it gets in the water supply, we all going to be walking around like zombies.”

  *

  I stopped at my house to pick up supplies for Lake Wales. The doors were still taped, but the garage was not, and everything I needed was there. Lock picking is an art that involves patience and finesse, but there are times when stronger methods are the only way. I anticipated a serious challenge at the juice plant, judging from the hardware I’d seen on the door of the blacked-out room. I packed a ten-pound sledge, a stud finder, a hacksaw, a rechargeable reciprocating saw, and a small chainsaw with a fourteen-inch bar. These were not my finesse tools, but they worked when other things didn’t.

  The rain thinned out by the time I passed the interstate highway and by Twenty Mile Bend it stopped, although I could see large swaths of the storm on all sides of me. I had taken two of the OxyContins, but that didn’t take away the sting of Barbara’s words. She was right, of course; I had no business getting all sanctimonious about the purity of my marriage. I knew that Glory had loved me, and I knew I loved her. Any woman could have fallen prey to Frank Velutto’s movie-star looks and his hot pursuit. She’d tried to get away from him, but it was a death trap. Frank was thought of as something of a skirt-chaser. Although I’d never actually known of an affair he’d had, people just assume that the more handsome ones among us are out there scoring. He was probably not accustomed to being turned down by anybody, and when Glory had shut him off, he went crazy. Sex just might be the most destructive drug of them all.

  My phone rang, and the caller ID said “Velutto.” For a moment I panicked, but I realized it couldn’t be. Frank was in the morgue with a tag on his toe. I’d watched them load his corpse into the ambulance. I answered.

  “Who is this?”

  “Vince, it’s Carole. I heard about what happened.”

  “I’m sorry, Carole.”

  “Don’t be,” she said. “They told me he shot himself, it wasn’t you. Although you would have had every right.”

  “You knew?”

  “Yes, and I am calling to say I am so sorry, Vinny. So goddamn sorry.”

  “Glory told you?”

  “No, I found the emails. I confronted him, and he lied and lied until I finally beat it out of him. It was after Glory died, and I just...assumed that you’d killed her, like everybody else did. I assumed you’d found her emails, and that was what made you do it. Bobby Bove told me the whole story. I was so wrong, Vinny. I feel terrible.”

  “Thanks Carole...I appreciate that. I’m kind of confused right now though...”

  “I’m sorry, I just had to get it off my chest.”

  “No problem. I’ll call you when things settle down, and we can talk,” I said, and we hung up. The sound of Frank Velutto’s gun going off in my bathroom was beginning to echo through Florida.

  *

  The storm had closed in again and large droplets began to drum on the torn cloth top of my car as I entered the road behind the self-storage units. The metal gate was open, and I drove right through. If anyone was in there, they’d see me on the closed circuit TV, but as I pulled into the parking area it was clear that I was the only person on the property. I got my duffel from the trunk and jogged to the building, entering by the same door I had on the day before. The rain had now stopped, but it was so overcast outside that I had to switch on the interior lights to see my work. I surveyed the locks, and knew I would be there for a while if I tried to pick them. The cylinder in the doorknob was probably fifty years old and wouldn’t be a problem, but above it was a brand-new Samsung Digital Deadbolt that required an RFID card. You could also key in the code by guessing, but that could take a year, and you’d still have to be lucky. I went back out to the BMW for my more persuasive tools.

  The first thing I tried was the blacked-out window. I smashed out a section with the sledge only to find it was backed by a steel plate that was bolted from the inside and felt solid. I might have been able to hammer it out, but I didn’t have the strength in my damaged condition.

  I switched on the stud finder and located a section of the wall that was free from any plumbing or electrical conduit. The wall studs were set sixteen inches apart, so it would be a slight squeeze, but I decided I would be able to get through, even with my cracked ribs. I started the reciprocating saw, and it tore through the sheetrock on the exterior, but the inside wall was lined with thick plywood, and it was slow going. I broke a blade and had to replace it, but eventually I had a hole that was big enough to climb through, and I hadn’t sawn through any pipes or electrocuted myself, which was a minor victory. I pushed myself through the opening, head first, and ended up on the cool, concrete floor of the closed-off room, in total darkness except for the blue flicker of three small TV monitors. The cat-pee odor that permeated the rest of the building was especially intense here. I got out my penlight, found a wall switch, and the room was suddenly bathed in fluorescent light.

  It was a lab. Not the crude, homemade kind I’d seen in motel rooms and garages when I was a cop; this one was state-of-the-art, and the art was the manufacture of methamphetamine. Storage bins and chemical vats lined the walls, and at the far end of the room there was a boiler for the distillation. I counted six fire extinguishers; a prudent precaution—many of the chemicals used to make meth were highly flammable, and the more primitive labs had a nasty habit of blowing up. At a hundred bucks a gram, a meth lab of this size and sophistication could bring in millions. Millions that could be laundered through a cash business—like vending machines—and then sent offshore to a discreet bank to be custodied under the name of some dummy corporation—like Empex Import/Export LLC. So C.J. Butler the citrus broker was also a meth broker, and he was obviously a very big one. My three AM paranoid delusion from the week before had turned out to be real.

  At the other end of the lab was a gray metal desk with a computer and the video surveillance screens. This was apparently C.J.’s real office, not the one on East Stuart Avenue where I’d first seen him. I booted up the computer, but there was no way to log on, and I didn’t want to call Roberto; I’d imposed on him enough. I noticed an external hard drive attached to the computer by a USB cord, and I unplugged it and slipped it into my pocket. The TV screens immediately began to beep, and for a moment I thought I’d tripped an alarm, but when I looked at the screens, I saw movement. A truck was passing through the front gate and was coming up the drive. It was a small, white panel truck; a Ford Transit. I shut the lights off and hurried back through my entrance hole. I quickly gathered my tools and tossed them in my duffel. I made it outside and flung the duffel into the passenger seat, then started the car and drove off into the grove in the same direction that Philip had, on the previous day. I parked behind a stand of fruit trees and got out of the car to see who was coming.

  The panel truck parked across the lot from the building, and two men got out. They walked toward the building carrying brown paper shopping bags in their arms. I had a suspicion that they weren’t delivering groceries.

&nb
sp; Fifteen minutes later they were gone. I didn’t dare go back inside—all my instincts were telling me that the Vereda Fruit Processing Co. was about to be history. I was more than a hundred yards away, but when the building finally blew, the force of the explosion knocked me over and fragments of metal and concrete whizzed by my head. When the dust cleared, there was nothing remaining except for the loading dock platform and the twisted metal stilts of the tower; everything else was scattered around the yard in pieces. A few timbers smoldered where the lab had been. The building had been obliterated, and no forensic team on the planet would be able to tell whether it had been a meth lab or a day care center. I brushed the dust off of my shirt and patted my hip pocket—I still had the portable hard drive. I hoped that whatever was on it would be enough to put C.J. Butler away for a long time.

  *

  The gates were still open on the way out, and I hit the accelerator when I got onto the pavement of Highway 60. I wanted to put a fast couple of miles between me and the grove before somebody reported that a bomb had gone off and the police arrived—I’d had enough press coverage for one morning.

  I stopped in the Wal-Mart parking lot and dialed Doc Edwards, the cop in Tampa who had visited me in the hospital and had given me his card. It was time to call in the cavalry.

  “Edwards,” he said, gruffly. Another one who watched too much CSI.

  “Tanzi,” I said.

  “The P.I. from the hospital?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What do you have?”

  “Who covers Lake Wales for the DEA?”

  “That would be the guys here,” he said. “They have a pretty busy office in Tampa.”

  “Somebody just blew up a meth lab.” I gave him the location, and told him it was owned by Empex Import/Export LLC which was connected to D.B. Johannsen and probably his wife. I also told him they wouldn’t find much of the building left, but I had a portable hard drive that might be helpful.

  “How did you come by that?”

  “Craigslist,” I said.

  “I trust you got your computer back.”

  “I did.”

  “I’d like to get that hard drive.”

  “I’ll leave it at the Lake Wales P.D. I have to get back to Vero.”

  “The hurricane is hitting there right about now,” he said.

  “I know. That’s why I have to go back,” I said, and hung up.

  *

  By the time I passed under the interstate there were cops everywhere, attempting to keep people off the road and away from the storm’s fury. I had the local news on in the BMW, and the hurricane was in the process of making a direct hit on Wabasso, a little community along the river a few miles north of Vero. The wind was tearing everything apart, and I had to drive around downed trees and power lines to get to the Spring Hill Suites. I parked the car and opened the door into the wind, and then almost couldn’t close it, it was blowing so hard. I was knocked over twice in the parking lot on my way into the hotel. The automatic entry didn’t open, and I realized the power was out. I pushed open a side entrance and finally got inside, out of the pounding rain.

  “We’re full,” a clerk said.

  “I’m already checked in,” I said. “Do you have a generator?”

  “We’re starting it right now. There’s only enough for the overhead lights, the outlets won’t work.”

  “How about the water?”

  “We’ll have it as long as the mains are running,” he said. That was good, because I was headed directly for the shower; I was dirty, chilled and soaked to the bone.

  The ceiling lights were working again by the time I got to my room. Barbara was gone. I hoped I hadn’t sent her out into the storm with my stupid remarks. I took out my phone to call her, but there was no service, and I realized the local cell towers were probably storm casualties. I picked up the hotel phone, which worked, and I dialed, but her phone didn’t answer, and it dawned on me that if my cell didn’t work, hers wouldn’t either. I stripped off my clothes and entered the bath.

  Taking a hot shower in the middle of a Category Two hurricane was as decadent a pleasure as I’d ever enjoyed. The whole area around me was under a fierce meteorological attack, and meanwhile I was soaping my thighs and fogging up the mirror, oblivious to the destruction, in my marble-clad stall. I stopped short of croaking out the Barry White medley that I usually sang in the shower. People out there were getting their whole lives trashed. If there was a God, She would be adding this incident to my permanent file.

  The bathroom door opened, and I could see Barbara through the cloud of steam. She was dressed in a snug-fitting workout suit. I heaved a sigh of relief.

  “Where were you?” she yelled over the din of the shower.

  “Out getting dirty,” I yelled back.

  “I’ll bring you a robe,” she said. I turned off the shower and toweled off. Barbara came back in and handed me a terry cloth bathrobe. She watched while I put it on.

  “You owed me a peep show,” she said. She was smiling. I guessed I was being forgiven.

  “Barbara, I’m sorry for what I said.”

  “About what?”

  “About being faithful. It was hypocritical.”

  “That’s not what pissed me off,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Don’t ever walk into the bathroom when I’m on the john,” she said. “That’s a deal killer, OK?”

  “Jeez, sorry.”

  “I mean it. Don’t ever do that again.” I nodded. Stephen Hawking was right—men might someday untangle the mysteries of the universe, but they will never understand women.

  Barbara went back into the bedroom, and I followed a few minutes after when I had dried off and combed my hair. She was sitting on a modern-looking green sofa that was in the workspace section of the suite. I sat down next to her.

  “I went to Lake Wales,” I said. “I almost couldn’t get back into Vero, it was blowing and raining so hard.”

  “I’ve been watching it from the weight room. It’s a huge storm. I wonder if my house will still be there.”

  “We can go out later,” I said. “Barbara, I found out what that juice plant really is. It’s a meth lab. A drug factory. They were making methamphetamine there.”

  “Oh god,” she said. “Did C.J. know about it?”

  “He owns the property. I think it’s where most of his money came from. I also think Le was involved; I saw one of their delivery vans there this morning.”

  “Are you going to tell the cops?”

  “I already did,” I said. “Someone blew the place up, while I was there. The DEA people will investigate it, and it’s going to be bad for C.J.”

  She looked away from me, then rose from the couch and looked out the window at the raging storm. “I don’t care anymore,” she said. “I don’t care what happens to C.J.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “What do we do now?” she said.

  “We can’t go anywhere,” I said. “It’s crazy out there.”

  “So we’re stuck here together,” she said. “OK.”

  “There are two beds,” I said. “We don’t—”

  “I know,” she said. “I’m not—”

  “Not that—” I began.

  “Vince,” she said, “I really like you. But it’s not going to work.”

  “Don’t tell me I’m getting fired again.”

  “No, that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m just...damaged goods, OK? You’re telling me my husband is a drug dealer, and I’ve been washing his underwear for twenty years.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I asked you to find these things out. But you and I have to...”

  “You don’t have to say anything, Barbara,” I said. “I understand. I’m not exactly on solid ground myself.”

  “I’m exhausted,” she said.

  “Me too,” I said. “You take the bed by the window.”

  She got under her covers and was silent within min
utes, while I lay awake listening to the wind. She was right, neither of us had any business being intimate, it was a bad idea. I kept trying to convince myself of that, but I felt like I’d just broken another rib, the one right below my heart.

  *

  I woke up at seven PM, according to my phone. I’d had a four hour nap. The storm had passed and it was now quiet outside, with weak sunlight peering in through the corners of the blinds. Barbara appeared to still be sleeping, but she turned under the covers and faced me from the other bed.

  “You snore,” she said.

  “That was the hurricane.”

  “You snore louder than the hurricane,” she said. She slipped out of the covers and walked into the john. I was careful not to follow. I got up and dressed in dry clothes. I was sitting in an armchair wiping the moisture out of my holster when she reappeared, dressed only in her bra and panties. If she was really trying to end our relationship, she was doing a lousy job of it. She found her bag and removed a makeup kit, then went back into the bathroom, while I sat with my confusion.

  I tried my cell phone and found out that I was getting reception. The first thing I checked was my email, and I had a few dozen of them from reporters and curious acquaintances. No doubt I would be getting some more calls like Carole Velutto’s where the people who had shunned me would now want me back into their lives. Personally, I didn’t give a damn. If I was going to start being invited to parties again, I would decline; I seldom went to any of them even when Glory was alive. The only two people I cared about at the present moment were my young friend Roberto, and the woman who shared my room, but not my bed.

  I checked in with Roberto while I waited for Barbara to dress. He was fine; he said there were a lot of trees down in the neighborhood, and the power was off. He said he’d biked past my house, and it looked OK. I told him about Frank Velutto, as gently as I could. I didn’t want him to feel guilty about the fact that he had emailed him from Glory’s account and now he was dead. I lied a little and said that Frank’s suicide had nothing to do with it, and that it would come out that it was Frank who had shot Glory and Roberto had helped me find that out, and that I would always be grateful to him for that knowledge. I added that I thought the worst was over with the case he’d been helping me on, and that C.J. Butler was going to be out of commission soon. We agreed to get together when I got back to the house and we’d catch up then.