Longboat Blues

by H. Terrell Griffin

  Jimmy took the swivel chair, and I took the other. Jensen hoisted himself onto a two drawer metal filing cabinet in the corner. “What can I do for you, Mr. Royal?” he asked.

  “Have you ever heard of a man named Hale Rundel or of Rundel Enterprises?” I asked.

  “Nope. Can’t say I have. Is he supposed to be based in this area?”

  “I’m not sure. I assumed that he might be flying out of one of the airports in Dade or Broward, but I don’t know that for sure.”

  “I think I’d know of him if he had been around here for any length of time. You get to know most of the airplane people sooner or later. What kind of outfit is Rundel Enterprises?”

  “A charter outfit. Leases jets out to corporations.”

  “Never heard of it. You never know though. These little fly by night outfits are always changing their names. Lots of them are into shady deals running drugs.”

  “What about Sam or Maria Cox?” I asked.

  “Sure, I know Sam. Used to hang out down at the Opa Locka airport. He was mostly a mech, but he had a license and did some flying. He worked out a deal with one of the marine supply stores in Miami, where he would fly boat parts and groceries to the islands to deliver to boaters who couldn’t get what they needed down there. I think he made a pretty good little living out of it. I haven’t seen him in five or six years though.”

  “Is Maria his wife or sister?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. I never heard of him with any woman named Maria.”

  “Do you have any idea what he’s doing now?”

  “No, but I could call around and maybe find out.”

  “Don’t tell anyone why you’re looking for him. If we find him, I’d like to surprise him a little bit. How long will it take you?”

  “I’m not sure, but I’ll get right on it and call you as soon as I know anything. Where can I reach you?”

  I gave him my cell phone number. Jimmy dropped me back at the Marriott and said he’d get in touch later in the day to see about dinner.

  A small tingle of anticipation had been rooting around in the back of my mind all morning at the thought of seeing Anne again. I arrived back at the hotel shortly before noon to find her sitting in the lobby. She stood as I approached and stuck out her hand.

  She was wearing a beige linen dress, beige pumps and a small diamond pendant hanging from a gold chain around her neck. “Hello, Matt,” she said as we shook hands. “I called your room and didn’t get an answer. I was about to think I had been stood up.”

  “Not a chance,” I said. “I’ve been doing a little legwork this morning. I’ll tell you about it over lunch.”

  The restaurant at the hotel was not a simple coffee shop, but it did not quite make it to the level of a top eatery either. The view, however, was hard to beat. We had a table next to the high windows that overlooked the intracoastal waterway. We could watch boats of just about every description ply their way north and south. It was early yet for the annual southerly migration of yachts from the north, but Ft. Lauderdale boasts a wealth of boats at any time of the year.

  We ordered iced tea from the cocktail waitress and perused the menus. I ordered a hamburger and Anne asked for the chef’s salad. While we waited for our food I told her about my morning and Paul Jensen’s offer to help.

  “You’ve been busy. What’s your plan if Mr. Jensen can find Cox?” she asked.

  “I don’t know yet. I’ll come up with something.”

  “We’ll come up with something. You’re not going to leave me out of this. I told my boss this morning that I was going to take the next few days off. I don’t think it’ll cause any problems with the firm, but I really don’t care if it does. I want a piece of Rundel.”

  I guess I had already made up my mind on some unconscious level to work with Anne, but it seemed at the time to be a split second decision. “Okay. But you work with me. Don’t go off on any tangents of your own. I need to know everything that’s going on, so I don’t shoot myself in the foot. It’s like a trial. One guy has to be in charge, and everybody else reports to him. Deal?”

  “Deal,” she said. “But you keep me informed, too. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  As we were leaving the restaurant, my cell phone rang. It was Jensen.

  “Sam Cox is still living in Miami. Old buddy of mine at Opa Locka says he hit it rich and is living in one of those expensive condos on Brickell Avenue. Sam says he inherited some money, but everybody else thinks he’s in the drug business. He doesn’t work out of Opa Locka anymore.”

  “I appreciate your help, Paul. You didn’t alert anybody down there that we’re looking for him, did you?”

  “Nope. I called this buddy of mine who runs a flying school at the airport and just chewed the fat. Told him I had been thinking about some of the old crowd and wondered what happened to them. I asked him about several people, including Sam Cox.”

  “Good thinking, Paul. I appreciate it.”

  “Oh, by the way, Maria is Sam’s wife. Got married about a year ago, just before he struck it rich. Cuban girl.”

  “Thanks Paul. I hope I can return the favor.”

  I called the Miami information operator and was told that she had a listing for a Samuel H. Cox at a Brickell Avenue address. I jotted down the number.

  “Well?” asked Anne.

  I related Jensen’s end of the conversation. “I think we ought to go on down to Miami and see what we can come up with. I think the Coxes will be our key to Rundel. We just need to come up with an approach.”

  Anne went to her apartment to get some clothes, and I went back to my room and called Jimmy Greene. I told him that Paul Jensen had come through and that Anne and I were heading for Miami. He said to call him if we needed anything.

  I drove over to Anne’s apartment complex to pick her up. I thought it better to be driving the Explorer than her little Nissan with the sun roof. She had given me directions and was waiting in front when I arrived. I put her one bag in the back seat, and we swung out toward I-95 South.

  Chapter 20

  If they ever give I-95 through Broward and Dade counties a name, it should be called Avenue of the Idiots. Otherwise sane Americans seem to go over the edge when they get behind the wheel of an automobile. My favorite moron is the slot jumper. He is the one who weaves in and out of traffic, going from lane to lane trying to get into any open slot he sees. It’s as if he thinks that the act of putting on his turn signal gives him the absolute right to move into the adjoining lane. The slot jumper always uses his turn signal, and always seems to be driving one of those little square foreign jobs that looks as if it were made of tin.

  The road south had plenty of slot jumpers and other assorted maniacs. I put the Explorer in the right lane and drove a steady sixty miles per hour. It was another scorcher of a day, but dark clouds were moving in from the east. With any luck we’d get some rain to cool down the afternoon. The SUV’s air conditioner was going full blast, and I wondered briefly how we had survived Florida in the days before everything had become air cooled. I remembered a lot of sweaty nights and car trips with the windows all down trying to catch the air.

  “Have you got a preference for a hotel in Miami?” I asked.

  “I’ve got a key to my friend Mandy’s apartment. She’s in Europe for the Summer. I thought if you didn’t mind we could stay there.”

  “I don’t mind if Mandy doesn’t.”

  “She won’t. She asked me to stay there when I’m in town. Gives the place a lived in look.”

  “You won’t feel compromised?”

  “There are two bedrooms, thank you. Have you decided how we approach the Coxes?” she asked.

  “It has to be natural,” I said. “We can’t just go up to him and ask if he knows where Rundel is.”

  “And how do we do that?”

  “I don’t know yet. Let’s stop by that Brickell Avenue address and see what it looks like. If we can find out more about what Cox is doing these days, maybe we
can come up with something.”

  The apartment building was one of those glass towers designed by an architect with no imagination and a small budget. It was twenty stories tall, and it was apparent that the top floors commanded an expansive and expensive view of upper Biscayne Bay. I found a parking space on a cross street about three blocks from Cox’s place, and Anne and I strolled up the street gawking as if we were tourists. There was a revolving door at the front of the building opening into a large lobby that was two stories high. It contained several large Oriental rugs of varied hues situated tastefully on a marble floor. Large indoor plants were placed around the area, growing out of ornate containers. There were four sofas and half a dozen wingback chairs arranged in seating groups that encouraged conversation. In front of the elevator bank sat a security guard at a desk that contained television monitors and other electronic gadgetry that apparently controlled the elevators. He wore the uniform of a local security firm that closely resembled that worn by Miami cops. I guessed that was a conscious decision of the part of someone. He was about forty years old, and he wore captain’s bars on his collar points. He was not a big man, but he had long arms and large hands that I thought would give him an advantage in a fight that would surprise most who took him on. He had dark hair with specks of gray, and when he opened his mouth I knew he had spent his formative years in Brooklyn.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “I hope so Captain,” I said. “You’re the fourth building along here we’ve stopped in. We’re looking for an old friend named Jonathan Cox who is supposed to live in one of these big buildings in this area. I had the address, but I forgot to bring it down with me.” An old Florida accent, the kind spoken by those of us who grew up in the state before the Northerners took it over, is essentially Southern. I learned a long time ago that most New Yorkers, even those from Brooklyn, think all Southerners are a little slow, and are therefore often willing to tell us things they wouldn’t normally tell a stranger.

  “I’m afraid not, sir.”

  “Are you sure? The is the last building it could possibly be. Would you mind checking the directory just to be certain? I promised his sister we’d look him up while we’re in town.”

  “I know everybody in the building, sir. There ain’t no Jonathan Cox lives here.”

  “Well, I swear. The security officer next door said he thought surely there was a Mr. Cox in this building. Guess he was wrong.”

  “Oh, he’s thinking about Mr. Samuel Cox who lives here. But I never heard of a Jonathan Cox.”

  “Does he live in 16-B? That’s Jonathan’s apartment number. I remember that.”

  “No, sir. Our Mr. Cox lives in the penthouse.”

  “Well, sorry to bother you. I really appreciate your help, Captain.”

  “No problem,” he said.

  We walked back into the afternoon heat and headed for the car. “We didn’t accomplish much there, did we?” Anne asked.

  “Sure we did,” I said. “We’ve established that Cox lives there and that he’s done well enough to have acquired the penthouse. Even if he’s only renting, it costs a bundle. A lot more that he ever made ferrying groceries to boaters in the islands.”

  “What now, Sherlock?” she grinned.

  “We have to get close enough to him to give him an opportunity to try to sell us an airplane. If he thinks we have a lot of money, not too much sense, and a little larceny in our hearts he may try to scam us. Where ever Rundel is, you can bet Cox can get hold of him. And I don’t think they would’ve stopped running a lucrative scam after just one score. There are probably other people out there that have been taken, and I imagine Rundel and Cox are always looking for more suckers. Let’s move into Mandy’s apartment and find a good restaurant. We can talk about it over dinner.”

  Joachin Jiminez, known as J.J., had come to Miami with his mother and father in 1959, in the first exodus from Cuba. He had been the pampered sixteen year old son of a prosperous lawyer who was on Castro’s earliest hit list. Because Oscar Jimenez was not licensed to practice law in the United States, he had gone into the restaurant business. As was the custom of those early Cuban refugees, the entire family worked at the restaurant, which was housed in a store front on Miami’s Eighth Avenue. Oscar’s passion however, was not food, but freedom for Cuba. He became an active member of the anti-Castro exile community, and when he heard that the American Central Intelligence Agency was recruiting an invasion force, he signed on. His son J.J., then eighteen, joined as well. After training in the jungles of Nicaragua, father and son landed with Brigade 2506 on Playa Giron in Cuba, known to Americans as the Bay of Pigs. The force ran into heavy resistance from Cuban troops, and was abandoned by President Kennedy and the Americans. Oscar was among the twenty percent of the Brigade who were killed. J.J. saw his father fall during the retreat to the beach. With most of the remaining men, J.J. disappeared into the swamps. He was caught by Cuban soldiers three days later, and spent the better part of two years in prison. He was among those survivors ransomed by the American government for fifty-three million dollars in 1963.

  J.J.’s mother, Carmen, had kept the restaurant open during his imprisonment. When he came back to Miami, J.J. took over, and he built it into one of the finest Cuban restaurants in the city. In the late 1960’s he bought an old house near the University of Miami campus in Coral Gables and moved the restaurant there. Over the years J.J. and his food became legends. His mother, now in her eighties, still presided over the dining room, and J.J.’s wife and teenage son helped out.

  J.J. never lost his contempt for the Kennedys, and he loathed the Democratic Party. He became a tireless worker for the Republican Party. I had gotten to know him well in my days in politics, and I ate at his restaurant every chance I got. Anne had enjoyed the place while a law student at the University, and she was quick to accept my suggestion that we eat there.

  Carmen Jimenez greeted us at the door with a whoop and a big hug for me. “Matthew Royal, where have you been? And who is this beautiful young lady? And why didn’t you call me if you wanted to get married?” she gushed in her slightly accented way.

  “Carmen Jimenez,” I said, “Meet Anne Dubose, a colleague, not a date.”

  “Why, you’re just too pretty to be a lawyer, and probably too nice to be with this guy anyway.”

  “Why, thank you Mrs. Jimenez. He was the best I could do on short notice. I’m surprised that a lady of such obvious refinement as yourself even admits to knowing this scoundrel,” Anne said.

  “I think we’re going to be friends,” laughed Carmen. “Come on. Let me get you two seated and tell J.J. you’re here. He was talking about you just the other day.”

  The restaurant is spread out among several rooms of the old house and some additions that had been added over the years. Carmen led us to a table isolated from the room by several tall plants. She left menus and told us she would send J.J. right over.

  In moments, a waiter approached our table. He was a young man with a shock of black hair and a noticeable Spanish accent. I knew that J.J. always hired recent refugees from Cuba, trying to give them a good start in their new country. He took our drink orders and departed. By the time he returned with a Miller Lite for me and a glass of Chablis for Anne, I saw J.J. working his way across the room, stopping to talk briefly to each guest. He hadn’t changed much in the five years since I had seen him. He was maybe a little heavier, and perhaps a little grayer, but he still carried himself like a soldier and grinned like the happy man he usually was.

  “Good Lord,” he said, as he grabbed me in a bear hug. “How long has it been, old friend? Five years? I knew you had dropped out of politics, but I had begun to think you had dropped off the world as well. Introduce me to your friend.” His words fell from his mouth slightly askew, sibilant with the vestigious memory of his mother tongue.

  “Anne Dubose, this is J.J. Jimenez, the legend.”

  “It’s nice to finally meet you, J.J. I used to eat here occasionally when
I was a student.”

  “Glad to have you with us, and very nice to meet you.”

  “Pull up a chair, J.J., and let me buy you a drink,” I said.

  J.J. sat. “I hear about you now and then from some of the people from the old days. They tell me you’re doing great.”

  “I’m sure they also told you about the bad times. I seemed to have survived them. Anne knows about my sordid past.”

  “I’m glad to hear you’re alright. We miss you at the political meetings. What brings you to Miami?”

  I gave him the shortened version of our stories, but left nothing of substance out. I told him we were trying to get a line on Hale Rundel and that Cox seemed to be our best bet.

  “I know them both. Cox married Maria Domingo. He father Jorge was part of the Brigade. After we were released from prison he started a business mowing lawns.” Jorge was part of the Cuban renaissance of Miami. He had owned one old pick-up truck and a Snapping Turtle mower, and had two teenage sons who worked their butts off. He built his business into the largest landscaping business in Dade County. He had one daughter, and she seemed to go out of her way to cause him anguish. When she was seventeen, she dropped out of school and married a young man who was working for a company that supplied a pilot and plane for the daily traffic watch on one of the local radio stations. He was the pilot. One day he left Opa Locka in a Piper heading for the Bahamas and was never heard from again. There were a lot of rumors flying around about him being in some kind of a drug deal that went wrong.

  “I guess no one will ever know whether he was murdered or just crashed at sea. At any rate Maria got a job as a secretary at one of those flying services out at the Opa Locka airport and moved in with one of the mechanics. She refused to try to patch things up with her father, and the family kind of wrote her off. Jorge died about two years ago of a heart attack. He completely cut her out of the will. About a year ago she came in here with her new husband, Sam Cox. She’s about twenty-five now, and absolutely beautiful. Cox is old enough to be her father, but they seem happy enough. We see them about once a week. They come in, have dinner and a drink or two, chat a little with Mother or me, and leave. He drives a Mercedes, one of the big ones, and based on the tips he leaves, he either has a lot of money or wants to give the impression that he has. He has never indicated what he does for a living, but I’ve heard rumors that he supplies muscle for some bad people.”