by Tod Goldberg
“Thirty? Thirty-five? Why?”
“Helping out neighborhood guys, that’s something you do when you’re not sure you want to be a cop long term. But get into your thirties? That’s your career. Why jeopardize that for some kid on the streets?”
“Maybe he’s cultivating confidential informants?”
Sam was going to guess that Ross watched a lot of Law amp; Order. Who ever called a snitch a confidential informant? “He’s not working major crimes, is he?” Sam said.
“No,” Ross said, “more like stolen bicycles and petty robbery. Pick up a hooker every now and then. That would be my guess. I see him on the street, he’s just rollin’ most of the time. You know, I’m trying to get into the police academy. Did I tell you that before?”
“No,” Sam said.
“I just want to be a cop that no one has any issues with, right? Like, just a good person.”
Interesting.
“Any rumors about him being gang affiliated?” Sam said.
“Everyone who grew up in Little Havana is gang affiliated in one way or another,” he said. “But he’s with the good guys now.”
“If that’s true,” Sam said, “why didn’t you have some moral objection giving me his information?” Sam hated to play hardball with Ross, but he felt like the meter maid wasn’t giving the full story. That was the downside of dealing with sources: Sometimes they just don’t want to give up what they know.
Ross drummed his fingers on the table. “Sweet Home Alabama” started on the jukebox and for a couple minutes Ross seemed to get lost in the music, but Sam was pretty sure he was trying to figure out how to say something he didn’t want to say. “You know what’s crazy?” Ross said. “Neil Young and the guys in Skynyrd? They were actually good friends. So everyone hears this song and thinks the guys in Skynyrd hate him for all that ‘Southern Man, don’t need him ’round’ shit, but it’s not true.”
“Really?” Sam said, thinking, Okay, now what?
“Yeah,” Ross said. “It was just hype. Something to sell records.”
“I guess sometimes that’s the case,” Sam said. “Things aren’t what they appear.”
Ross drummed his fingers again and then stopped and looked around the bar one more time. “The thing is,” Ross said, “people in Miami, you know, everyone has a past. So I had a friend of mine in the juvenile division just run a search on Pedro Prieto, you know, see if anything popped, because I’m thinking if you wanted his information for something, it must be some bad news. And, you know, you helped with that problem and I can’t repay you enough. You know, that was some Donnie Brasco stuff you did.”
Every meter maid wanted to be a cop, Sam knew, and every cop kind of wanted to be either a hitman or a mafia don, so when Sam paid off the shark, he went back and told Ross he went all the way to the top of Miami’s biggest crime family and informed him that Ross was a protected guy and to lay off. It was the kind of stupid story someone would believe only when they didn’t want to possibly imagine the path of least resistance-in this case, paying off the debt-but it also served their relationship well. Big Bad Sam knew mob bosses! In this case, though, that reputation meant Ross ended up sticking his own neck out. It was more admirable than Sam could have imagined.
“He’s been involved in some shady things,” Sam said. “Let’s just say he’s part of the problem in the United States today.” Ross’ eyes got wide for a moment, and Sam could almost hear Ross screaming Conspiracy! in his mind. “Let’s just say, he’s no friend to the hardworking, lunch-pail Americans I think we both look up to.”
Ross nodded in agreement, though Sam suspected Ross ate most of his lunches at Chick-fil-A.
“Well,” Ross said, “listen to this. When he was thirteen, he got picked up for running drugs for the Latin Emperors. Just minor stuff. A little weed. Misdemeanor stuff. He went to college, passed all his exams, and Miami PD, you know, they want guys who know the law of the land. But knowing how serious this might be, in light of your involvement, I poked back on some fix-it tickets and a few parking jobs in the last couple months and found a lot of crooked guys there, Sam.”
That was a good piece of information… but also so juicy Sam had to make sure Ross understood it wasn’t something he could pass onto anyone else, no matter how many times they made him listen to “Magic Carpet Ride” as torture.
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Sam said. “Most of these guys, Ross, they just want to feel respected and tough. It’s not enough that they are the law of the land, my friend, they want people to need them, too. It’s a sign of narcissism. But you know what? It’s human. I’m sure it’s all a big misunderstanding.” He paused and let that sink into Ross’ mind. He pondered, adding, “These are not the droids you’re looking for” into the conversation, just to give it a little context, but felt like Ross might not grasp the allusion. “Anyway,” Sam continued, “this helps with what I’m looking into. Just a hit-and-run case. One of those things that sticks in my craw, you understand, makes me distrust my fellow man.”
Ross looked relieved. “That’s good,” he said. “Because, you know, we have a code of silence and, well, I feel weird breaking it. But a hit-and-run, that’s low down.”
“Meter maids have a code of silence?” Sam said.
“Law enforcement in general,” he said. “You got a badge. You keep your mouth closed.”
“That’s good to know,” Sam said, but didn’t bother to inform him that not only had he talked, but so had his guy in juvie, too. Maybe it was a code of occasional silence. He pocketed the piece of paper and stood up to leave. It was getting late in the afternoon, and that meant more cops, more women with teased hair and more Steppenwolf on the hi-fi, as it were.
“You don’t wanna stick around? See if maybe we can get a few of these ladies to dance?”
“Next time,” Sam said.
“And, Sam, just hypothetically,” Ross said. “If I happened to run into trouble with someone in the gambling trade again, would you be amenable to my calling you for some advice?”
“Here’s my advice,” Sam said. “Stop betting on sports.”
“It was strictly hypothetical,” Ross said.
“Good luck on the academy,” Sam said, and then walked outside, certain he’d be hearing from him as soon as football season started again. He made a mental note to put aside a few hundred dollars just in case, of course, he needed to help his friend.
Though, the more Sam thought about it, the more he thought that maybe the best way to help Ross would be to give him an in on some actual police work. If things worked out, maybe he’d be able to do just that.
Normally, Sam preferred to do his own legwork so that he could get a definitive answer to his questions. Depending on people like Ross always ended with more ancillary work than he really wanted to handle because of the nature of the source. He trusted Ross. Was sure Ross had given him nothing but the straight dope, but even still, old Sam liked to depend on his eyes for things.
So after he left the bar, Sam drove down to one of his favorite spots in Little Havana-a restaurant called Ozzie’s that sold the absolute best plantains north of Cuba-and enjoyed a leisurely meal outside, to see what the police presence was like. There were a few squad cars that came through periodically, which wasn’t unusual for the area, but none of them were Prieto’s. Ozzie’s was considered a neutral spot, on account of the food and the fact that Ozzie himself was still behind the counter, eighty years old and known to be one of the sweetest men alive. Well, sweet provided you didn’t make him pull his sawed-off shotgun from beneath the counter. His restaurant was given the ultimate respect: There wasn’t a single tag on the outside walls, nothing even on the sidewalk.
If something jumped off at Ozzie’s, it was usually some tourist making a complaint about his pork chop or some such thing. Ozzie didn’t care much for people complaining about his food, and that included the grave offense of asking for salt. But gangs? No. They liked his food, too, and Sam could even remember
an occasion when he’d dined at the counter between a Crip and a Blood who had both decided to make the drive in for some lunch, and found themselves separated only by an ex-Navy SEAL. Sweet, really.
If Peter Prieto was what he appeared to be, he’d be the first responder to any Latin Emperor situation here on hallowed ground. So, after his meal, Sam walked back to his car and made a call to 911. “There’s about fifteen Latin Emperors getting ready to storm Ozzie’s in Little Havana. Yeah. I’m sure. I just saw them out front with guns and everything. Heard one of them say it was time Ozzie got his for giving his mama congestive heart failure. My name? Aldrich Rosenberg.”
Sam closed his phone, pulled out the SIM card and replaced it with another, and then sat back, swallowed a Tums-thanks to Ozzie’s spice predilection-and waited for the sirens to begin wailing.
Four minutes later, a cruiser came screeching down the block but with no siren. Sam sat up and took notice. The car came to a halt in front of Ozzie’s, and Sam made note of the car number and plate, and then when Peter Prieto hopped out, he wasn’t all that surprised. Tall and lean, Prieto moved like a cat when he stepped from the car, all coiled energy and spring-he was looking for something, anything, but also seemed nervous. He didn’t pull out his gun and he didn’t even bother to go inside Ozzie’s. He just swept the area quickly, checked the ground a couple of times and, presumably, upon seeing nothing amiss, immediately got back into his car and pulled away from the curb.
Sam followed him around the block and watched as the cop parked his car beside a FedEx truck idling beside a CVS pharmacy, but with an easy view of Ozzie’s. Sam parked in the same lot and pretended to be very busy with the machinations of his phone, but really was just watching to see what Prieto was seeing.
It wasn’t until three more cop cars pulled up, sirens blaring, that Prieto finally backed up his cruiser and drove away. Sam had a pretty good idea what was going to happen next, so he kept his vigil in the parking lot. Sure enough, a few seconds later, Prieto’s cruiser came screeching around the corner, siren blaring.
You sneaky bastard, Sam thought. He opened his phone and called Michael. “Mikey,” he said, “we have ourselves a company cop.”
17
When you’re a spy, it’s bad business to put your faith in anything you can’t control. Everyone and everything becomes suspect.
Whom do you trust?
Yourself and maybe your gun, but even your gun can run out of bullets or jam.
When you’re a spy, a day might come when your government disowns you, your partners turn out to be your enemies and the world you once knew to be true ends up being a terrible, terrible lie.
Your only opportunity for survival then is what exists between your ears. That means tamping down impulsive behavior in favor of well-planned counteraction. Can’t shoot your gun? Then use it as a blunt-force weapon. Or trade it for money or shelter or food, because if there is one thing that is true, it’s that there’s always a market for a gun. And there’s no more lethal weapon than a man who is willing to wait for someone else to make a mistake.
This was wisdom I was well acquainted with and, as I explained to Father Eduardo Santiago, a strategy that would work well for us. All he had to do was wait, and Junior would trip up and we’d be ready to pounce. In the meantime, we’d put into place all of the nets that would ensnare his fall.
It took three days of waiting. Three days of watching Junior’s every movement in his office. Three days of listening to his every phone call. Three days of reading his e-mails.
And three days of me actually going into an office every day, which was far more taxing than I could have ever imagined. Each morning, I picked up Eduardo from my mother’s and drove him to his office, where he conducted his business as usual. This meant keeping all of his appointments, which typically started at eight A.M. (which automatically excluded Sam from duty).
Father Eduardo taped his part for the community news program on Thursday morning, spent Thursday afternoon having lunch with two city councilmen who wanted his opinion on a new land deal that would give jobs to inner-city kids and on Thursday night, it was a charity dinner where he served as the MC. And then there was the actual managing of the day-to-day business of Honrado and the business of being a priest: the cafe, the auto shop, the job placement services, the people who need not just a word with you, but a lifetime with you.
And then it was Friday.
For three days, Father Eduardo conducted this business with me standing very near to him.
“He is writing a story on me for a magazine in Nevada,” he told the news program people and the charity organizers who noticed my presence.
“He is here to oversee the architectural development of our new buildings,” he told the Honrado employees who noticed me in his office day and night.
“He is here to protect me,” he told himself and, when Leticia called Fiona, it’s what I told her to repeat. It was Saturday morning and Father Eduardo was at my loft, along with Sam and Fiona, while we piled through all our surveillance of Junior. Barry was busy upstairs snoring through the important discovery process, which was fine. There was plenty of incriminating evidence, none of which Barry needed to see or hear, since a lot of it mentioned how they were going to kill him as soon as they had the opportunity. My mother had been kind enough to offer him a few of her horse tranquilizers to help him calm his jitters, and now he was on hour number eleven of sleep. We’d wake him when we needed him, which would be soon, as we had to make our moves today.
Saturday was to be a big day: Barry and Sam would train Junior’s men on how to operate the printing press and utilize the money plate. Sam had no actual facility with this skill set, but sort of wanted to learn, and also happened to be pretty good about shooting people who needed to be shot… even if he’d sworn to Father Eduardo that he’d only shoot them with a paintball gun. And that meant today would also be the day I had Junior’s men pull the job I wanted done at Harding Pharmaceutical, so that by Sunday, if everything worked according to plan, Father Eduardo might just have his day of worship.
But then Leticia called.
She’d been missing since Sam and I showed up to Honrado three days earlier, which meant she likely saw her boyfriend Killa and Junior arriving in one condition and leaving in a slightly different version, and knew that this might be her only opportunity to steal away with her son. But she could only go so far-a fact Fiona had predicted too well, so that when Leticia phoned her, she wasn’t all that surprised.
After she answered the call, Fi put her hand over the phone and whispered, “It’s Leticia.”
“She’ll want to talk to you,” I said to Father Eduardo. “You ready for that?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Let her know Father Eduardo wants to speak to her,” I said to Fiona. “And make sure she knows he’s not angry with her.”
Fi spoke with Leticia for just a few moments and explained to her what had probably grown to be obvious: it wasn’t an accident that they’d met up that afternoon earlier in the week, and that it was all part of a larger plan to disrupt a conspiracy she’d been unwittingly pressed into, one best explained by Father Eduardo. Fiona handed him the phone and he spoke with the girl as calmly as possible.
“They are here to protect me,” he said to Leticia. “They are here to protect you and your son. Whatever you might have heard that is the contrary is rumor and innuendo. They will protect my brother, too, if it comes to it.”
Father Eduardo looked at me when he said that. It wasn’t something I was entirely certain was possible, not because it was physically impossible, but because it might be morally and ethically impossible. I’d already hobbled him, which would likely preclude him from taking part in anything involving standing for a few weeks, effectively keeping off the production line for the money and out of the heist, too. The rest? That would have to be up to him.
But, in that particular moment, there wasn’t a lot of space for nuanced thought. I just nodded
my assent.
“Pardon me,” Father Eduardo said to us, “but I need some privacy to continue this conversation. I’m going to continue this call outside.”
We waited for Father Eduardo to step outside before we continued our previous conversation-which was just how we were going to position Junior to fail.
“You think he’ll be able to keep it together?” Sam asked.
“Right now? Yes,” I said. “If we keep him out of the lines of fire, he’ll be fine. But when we turn this information over to the authorities, and they call Father Eduardo as a witness? Well, that will be up to him. But my feeling is that he’s led a dual life before. A little white lie here and there to the police will be fine.”
The bugging of Junior’s office, just over the course of three days, had provided all the information needed to get Junior put back in prison and people like Peter Prieto into prison for the first time. There were phone calls, all recorded, between Junior and Peter. There were e-mails between Junior and “clients” in other countries ensuring delivery of product as soon as production was resecured. There was video of all of this, too.
And Sam had gone back to the Ace after our first meeting with Junior and managed to pick up the two missing fingers, too. Physical evidence is always a bonus.
“What’s our move?” Fiona asked.
“Our first one is to get Junior’s people positioned,” I said. I put my cell phone on speaker and called Junior at his office. Just like every other office drone, he answered on the third ring.
“What do you want?” he said.
“Is that how you greet a business partner?”
“We are not partners,” he said. “You wouldn’t happen to know where Killa’s son is, would you?”
“Why would you ask me that?”
“Because he and his mother disappeared on the same day you showed up,” he said.
