by Chris Niles
William laughed. “Or rebuilding an engine. I guess we all find our creative zones in different places. I’m just happy that hers pays so well. We set this deal up to fund a new literacy program at the library for minority kids. Everything goes straight into the non-profit. We even got the lawyers to give a cut of their fee to it.”
Kate whistled. “Getting lawyers to give up their fees? Your negotiation skills are on point, Mister Jenkins!”
They all laughed as William pulled the wagon down the dock and Muffin leapt over the rail to the deck of the Knot.
“Hey, you guys up for a field trip this afternoon? I’m taking Eddie over to the Stock Island Sheriff’s Office Animal Farm.”
“The… what?” Michelle spun, her head cocked.
“The jail zoo. There’s a little farm with rescued and relinquished animals under the Stock Island jail. It’s run by the inmates, and they open it to the public a couple times a month. They’ve got an ostrich and alpacas, and even…” Kate looked around to make sure Eddie wasn’t coming their way, then lowered her voice to a whisper. “A sloth. We wanted to surprise him.”
“Still haven’t found Slothie?”
“Nope. Chuck tore the place apart yesterday, then I did another deep search when Tony and I got back.”
“If you didn’t find it, it’s not here to be found.”
“That’s the thing, though. It has to be here.”
“Kate, I’ve never known anyone who can find things like you. You have a sixth sense. You’re like that compass in the Pirates movies… your nose just points to whatever it is you need to find. I don’t know how you do it, but it’s what you do.”
“I don’t know, either, but that sixth sense is failing me right now. It has to be here, but it’s just not. Anyway, I got the name of a snitch who’s in lockup right now, so I’m hoping our little field trip this afternoon can serve two purposes. You’re welcome to come along.”
Michelle smiled and shook her head. “I think we’ll pass today, but thanks. Take a lot of pictures.”
Kate handed the last bag of groceries over the rail to her friend, then trotted up to Chuck’s to tell Eddie she had a surprise.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“I’m gonna have to go to the dentist — I think I lost a filling back there.” Kate jostled Chuck’s bad shoulder then climbed out and opened the back door to help Eddie out of the car seat Chuck had installed in the back of his ancient Jeep Wagoneer. Kate took Eddie’s hand, then pointed. A massive windowless white concrete edifice shaded more than half the parking lot. Thin bands of aquamarine stretched around each floor like rubber bands wrapped around a giant block of salt.
The hulking structure sat high above the pavement on thick round columns, its belly shaded from the tropical sun. Kate led Eddie past two rows of parking toward a tall sign that read, “Animal Farm This Way.”
Eddie sniffed the air, then grimaced. “What’s that smell, Miss Kate? It smells like fish poop.”
Chuck laughed. “You’re not too far off, bud. The water is just over those bushes, and it’s low tide, so you’re smelling the salt water from over there, plus the dump is that big hill over there… you can just barely see it over that palm tree.” Chuck pointed to the northeast, then squatted at the edge of the shade cast by the jail building. “And here… No matter how clean you keep a farm, it’s still gonna smell just a little like animals.”
They took Eddie’s hand and led him past a deputy then through a gate in the tall chain link fence. Kate pointed at a duck wandering just inside the gate to distract Eddie from the coiled razor-wire at the top of the fence.
They followed a paved brick path, and Eddie ran from enclosure to enclosure, grinning. He stopped at a low fence surrounding an area filled with patchy grass. “Look!”
A tall, awkward bird stood on spindly legs, its long neck stretching above a bulbous body covered with scraggly feathers. Chuck slid up beside him. “This says his name is Jack. Jack, the ostrich. And over there, that shorter one? He’s Kramer the Emu. Do you know the difference between an ostrich and an emu, Eddie?”
Eddie shook his head. As Chuck searched the sign, a man in a bright orange jumpsuit leaned against the fence and pointed. “Ostriches are bigger than emus.” He clicked his tongue and the emu lazily strolled toward them, its head cocked to the side. “Emus are friendlier and kind of curious.”
Kate stepped back from the fence, and the bird wandered toward them as the inmate continued. “See when he lifts his foot up, Kramer has three toes. Over there, Jack only has two.”
“Like sloths! Some kinds of sloths have two toes, and some have three toes.”
Kate shot a look at Chuck.
“But sloths are slow. And ostriches can run faster than any other bird on Earth.”
As if on cue, Jack the Ostrich ran to the other end of the long pen, his neck bobbing. Eddie jumped, startled, then turned his attention to the next pen.
Kate stopped the inmate. “Hey, I don’t know if this is … do you know Julian King? He’s in—”
The man smirked. “Everyone knows Jules. And Jules knows everyone, if you know what—”
“Watch it.” She ticked her eyes down the fence at Eddie.
“That boy’s lips are looser than a whore in Babylon, but he gets shit done.”
Kate sighed. “Look, is he here or not?”
“It’s your lucky day, lady.” The inmate pointed across the crowd growing around a tall wire enclosure at another man in orange. “He’s over by Baby and Mo. Guess that talking gets him the prime spot. That, or else it’s his in with everyone at the sheriff’s department.”
“He’s friendly with the cops? How’d—”
“Loose lips, lady. He knows everything that happens in the bottom half of this county, and he’ll tell anyone anything, especially when it saves his ass.”
“Then why is he in here?”
“Can’t get lucky all the time, I guess. Although it depends what you consider lucky. Three meals and air conditioning can sometimes start to look pretty good ’round here when summer rolls around. Anyway, that’s your guy.”
Kate followed the path past a few more enclosures until she reached the tall cage that dominated the center of the little zoo. A short, skinny man with close-cropped hair, long limbs, and beady eyes darted from group to group, answering questions and sharing facts about the animals.
She glanced over at a lower enclosure dominated by a series of branches and ramps and shelves. Amber eyes set in a gray and black head stared at her from a dark hole. She jumped when the lemur leapt out and scurried up a branch, staring at the inmate as if he was looking in a mirror.
She turned back and spotted a big white cockatoo clinging to a thick limb near the wire cage, face to face with a tall man in a long-sleeved white tee-shirt and sun visor. The man’s sandy hair and dark tan screamed local, but a short, sunburned woman hovered beside them with a camera, documenting every second of the man’s interaction with the bird.
Kate shook her head, then slid up to the man in orange. “What’s…”
“Tourists. You tink dey never seen a animal before. But it keeps the place open, and it’s the best jail gig in the state.”
“Speaking of gigs, a mutual friend suggested you might be able to help me.”
He cocked an eyebrow up. Just as Kate opened her mouth, he spun and began rattling off a string of facts about cockatoos in the wild, and how Baby had come to the Animal Farm. Kate glanced down the path and spotted a uniformed guard strolling toward them.
When the corrections officer had passed, Jules relaxed and leaned in toward Kate again. “Now, you had a favor to ask?”
“Favor might be a strong word. I just need information.”
“Information ain’t cheap.”
“Clearly it wasn’t dear enough to keep you out of here.” She raised her eyebrows at him.
“A guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do ‘round here.”
“Jules, can I be honest with you? It s
ounds like your reputation is getting out there. It’s gonna bite you one of these days.”
He waved at the orange jumpsuit. “One of these days?”
“Maybe you should clean up. Get a regular job?”
“Nahhhh,” he drawled. “My cousin, he legit. He work three jobs. His old lady, she work two. Still can’t pay no rent better’n a leaky ’partment on Summerland. Even with the risk, this beats that.”
Kate shrugged. “So my question is purely hypothetical. I assume you know everyone who’s moving product in and out of here, right?”
He nodded, then pulled her across to the lemur cage and pointed around the enclosure. “For the most part, yeah.”
“What happens if a shipment gets lost?”
“You mean cops get it?”
“No, I mean, just, lost.”
Jules’ face darkened. “Everybody knows cops gonna get some of it. But straight loss? No. That don’t happen. Losing is skimming. You don’t lose what you carry. You lose it, you die.”
“Anybody lost anything lately?”
Jules crossed himself. “Just one I heard of.”
Kate blanched. But just as she opened her mouth, Eddie sprinted around the corner and grabbed her hand.
“Miss Kate! Miss Kate! LOOK!” He pointed high up in the enclosure across the path, where, dangling from a limb in the corner, hung a dark brown sloth.
“Wow, Eddie. Is that …”
Jules dropped back into zookeeper role. He squatted beside Eddie and pointed up at the sloth. “You know he’s a sloth. But do you know what kind?”
Eddie puffed up his chest. “He’s a two-toed sloth. See the two toes? He’s like that ostrich, only better because he’s a sloth!”
“That’s right. Do you know how many kinds of sloths there are?”
“Well, there’s two different kinds of two-toed sloths like him. Then there are four different kinds of three-toed sloths. They’re smaller and nicer and they’re awake more.”
The inmate laughed. “I can’t imagine a sloth much nicer than Mo. Why don’t you get up close and get a better look at him?”
Eddie ran across the path and pushed through the little crowd to stand by three other kids in front of the enclosure.
“Cute kid.”
“Yeah, he is. But he’s not mine. He’s actually the reason I’m here. His mom. She’s …missing.”
“Ohhhhh.”
“Yeah. Since Thursday.”
“And you think…”
Kate’s shoulders ticked up.
Jules shook his head, and started to reach for her shoulder, then glanced around and dropped his hand. “Nah, I ain’t heard of no missing dope for a few weeks. Guy up in Jax got caught skimming back in June. Found what was left of him in the ’Glades a month ago. Ain’t nobody takin’ nothin’ from nobody for a while. Your girl? Something else gotta be goin’ on there.”
“Something else?”
“I don’t know nothing specific, right? Just, girls sometimes meet boys, ya know. Or girls sometimes… who am I to say? You sure she was movin’?”
Kate shrugged.
“Maybe she delivered then took a little vacation.”
“That’s just what the cops said.”
Jules shrugged. “Simplest answer sometimes is the right one.”
Kate pointed to Eddie. “And leave him? No way.”
“The heart is an unpredictable thing.”
“I don’t think she made the delivery. She seemed like she was laying low.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. If something was missing, I’d know about it. And nothing is missing.”
The man turned and took a step down the path.
“Hang on a second.”
He stopped without turning.
“Do you know who hides their product in stuffed animals? Stuffed sloths?”
He glanced over his shoulder, barely caught her eye, then shook his head and scurried into the shade of the correction center.
Kate crossed over to the sloth enclosure and joined Chuck at the edge of the crowd. A blonde woman in a sheriff’s department uniform approached the group. “Who knows what sloths like to eat?”
Tiny hands shot up and bounced at the front of the group. The woman pointed at one of the kids, who shouted, “Bugs!”
The woman grinned. “Well, sometimes, some kinds of sloths eat bugs, but mostly, they eat leaves. And they love fruit when they can find it. But Mo here? His favorite food is corn on the cob!”
She pulled an ear of corn out of a bucket, and eased into the enclosure. The sloth lazily reached down and wrapped one toe around the cob, gripping it and pulling it up to where he dangled a few feet above the crowd and began to munch. Kernels of corn dropped to the ground and got stuck between the coarse hairs of his face while the kids and adults alike watched, captivated, as the animal slowly devoured the corn.
“Who’d have thought you’d get a whole afternoon of entertainment just watching a sloth eat corn on the cob?” Chuck’s voice was filled with wonder. “Get anything?”
Kate shrugged. “Not really. Says no one’s missing anything significant. But when I asked about stuffed sloths, he got a little squirrelly and bolted back inside.”
“Hmm.”
“Yeah. So I guess we’ll just have to see what I can drum up with the Russians tomorrow.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Gloria Rojas leaned against a rail damp from salt spray and pressed her thumb and fingers against her temples. The screams rising from the companionway behind her contained no useful information. Her package was still missing. But process was process. It wouldn’t do to have her subordinates thinking there was no penalty for failures like his.
She stormed down the steps, taking up a position in front of the figure dangling from the ceiling.
“Where is it, Carlos?”
“Same as I told him. I don’t know.” The man was covered in sweat and dried blood, and his phrases came out in gasps. “I’m telling the truth. The first two couriers were on time. I dropped the product on schedule.”
Gloria nodded. This much was true. Two packages had arrived. But the third one, the flight attendant’s package, was still missing. Along with the flight attendant.
Yesterday’s lead had been a dead-end. The security cameras at the gas station were broken, and the manager couldn’t even tell them what kind of car the woman was driving.
Back to the beginning. Again.
She circled the man, careful to sidestep the widening puddles of blood oozing across the deck beneath his toes.
“You went to the airport.”
“I did, Patrona. I arrived early. The flight, it was on time.” He coughed, then tried to spit a wad of blood and phlegm, but in his weakness, it fell from his lip and slid down his naked chest, mingling with his perspiration.
“So you proceeded to the meeting point?”
The man nodded weakly.
“And then what happened?”
His chin fell to his chest. “Nothing.”
Rage sprang from her gut, and before even she realized her arm was moving, she slapped him across the cheek. His head snapped to his right, then flopped back into place.
She glared down at her open palm, now covered in his filth.
“Tell me. Now. Or this will be much worse for you.”
His shoulders twitched and his eyes rolled up to meet hers. “I tell the truth, Patrona. I was there. She was not.” He wheezed a new breath and continued. “I waited, and then I went to her apartment. She wasn’t there either. When she didn’t come back, I searched it and found nothing. She’s gone, and she took the package with her.”
Gloria lifted a weathered board from a pile of broken pallets near the corner and pushed the end of it against the man’s belly until his body became a pendulum, swinging back and forth, his toes scraping against the deck with each pass.
On the fourth swing, the man vomited on himself.
He finally lifted his head, choking the words out. �
��Patrona, could it be the Irishman?”
Gloria fumed. The man knew that name was not to be spoken. The Irishman had been disrupting her father’s operations for years. Intercepting their packages. Ambushing their couriers. Humiliating the family.
The memory flashed past her as clear as if it was last night. The thick red velvet curtains. Smooth booth and the scent of their supple leather. A trio playing subdued jazz in the corner.
Only the upper echelon of Bogota society could get a table here. Gloria sat in her father’s reserved booth in the corner and watched as the Irishman and his wife followed the maître d’ to their table, his hand resting gently on the small of her back as if reminding the room she was his possession.
Around his wife’s neck hung a heavy platinum chain, encrusted with sparkling jewels. And in the center of her chest, she boasted the largest, clearest emerald ever produced by the mountains that surrounded their city.
An ostentatious display of wealth, offensive even to the new money of younger cartels that continually popped up, fought, and died in face of the established organizations.
Gloria had leaned to her second-in-command, sitting beside her in the half-moon-shaped booth. “That’s a lovely necklace she is wearing. I think it is time he learned a lesson, don’t you?”
The man had agreed. It would have been be the end of his career if he hadn’t.
When the woman finally excused herself to the ladies’ room, Gloria’s man followed. Ten minutes later, he returned, just as the Irishman called a waitress over and whispered, pointing toward a hallway at the back of the dark restaurant.
Her lieutenant flicked his eyes down to the soft leather bench between them, and Gloria spotted a sparkle of platinum and gemstones at the edge of his pocket before he stuffed the item deep inside then ladled another spoonful of Ajiaco santafereño into his mouth.
Message delivered.
But instead of heeding her warning, the Irishman had escalated his war. Rumor spread around Bogota that with his wife on life support, he had nothing left to lose.
The attacks on the Rojas safehouses grew more frequent, more daring. And no matter how much security Ernesto Rojas established, the Irishman broke through it.
