Nobody Rides For Free

by Neil S. Plakcy

  I leaned down to grab his arm. “So sorry,” I said. “Are you all right? Here, let me help you up.”

  I wasn’t trying to help him, though. I just wanted to keep him immobilized.

  A moment later, a guy in an FBI windbreaker came through the door, and I waved him over.

  “What’s going on?” Lyuba asked.

  “Just being a good citizen,” I said. I stepped back as the agent, who I didn’t recognize, approached.

  The music stopped and the dancers around us moved into a circle, leaving me, Lyuba, and Cruz in the center. The agent broke through, leaned down, and cuffed Cruz, then helped him to his feet.

  There were more agents at the front door, and I realized that Katya’s operation was much more sophisticated than I’d imagined. The lights came up, and an announcement was made on the PA system—first in Russian, then in English—instructing us to leave the premises in an orderly fashion.

  I saw an agent I recognized from the Miami office. I slipped away from Lyuba and showed him my badge. “Can I do anything to help?”

  “No, we’re good,” he said. “Thanks for your help.”

  I looked around for Lyuba but she had disappeared. As I waited in a line of people leaving the club, I texted Katya. “You OK? Need anything?”

  I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath until I got a text back. “All good. Thanks.”

  I hurried down Collins Avenue to where I’d left my car, grateful I’d managed to elude Lyuba, wherever she was. I drove south on Collins and then turned east on the 163rd Street causeway toward I-95. By the time I’d reached the highway I knew where I was going.

  About twenty minutes later I pulled up in front of Eclipse. My second bar of the night—but the one where I’d belonged all along.

  It was close to one o’clock in the morning, and the parking lot was hopping with guys going into the bar on their own and coming out in pairs. I took a moment to look at myself in the rearview mirror. I ran my fingers through my hair, licked my lips, and realized I was stalling so I got out.

  Lester was holding a tiny flashlight over the driver’s license of a guy in front of me when I walked up to the door. He didn’t see me until he’d handed the license back to the guy and looked up.

  “G-Man,” he said. “Still working your case?”

  “Off duty now,” I said. “How about you? When do you get off?”

  “Why are you asking?”

  My heart was thudding against my chest. “I know I shouldn’t have shut you out after I got shot,” I said. “But I was scared. Not just of getting hurt again. But because if being an agent could put me in danger, and by extension anyone else, how could I have friends, a boyfriend?”

  Lester didn’t say anything, just stood there with his arms crossed over his chest.

  “Will you give me another chance?” I asked. “I know that I hurt you, but I promise I didn’t do it intentionally.”

  “Intentional or not, how do I know you won’t do it again?”

  “Life is risky. You take a chance on anybody you date, right? A stranger can turn out to be an asshole as easily as the love of your life. Or anywhere in between.”

  “True.”

  “You already know I’m not an asshole. At least I think you do. And I know you’re a good guy. Even if you feel you can’t trust me, I know I can trust you, and I want to prove to you that I’m worth the risk.”

  He shifted his head to the side. “There’s guys behind you who want to get in,” he said. “My shift ends at two.”

  “I’ll be waiting,” I said.

  • • •

  A few minutes after two, Lester found me sitting at a table on the outdoor deck. It was quieter out there—if you counted the noise of traffic passing, the undercurrent of conversation, and the low buzz of music from the bar as quieter.

  I’d gulped down a vodka tonic and had a second half-finished in front of me. He turned the chair across from me around and straddled it.

  “I wanted to go see you when you were laid up,” he said. “But I was waiting for an invitation. I even cruised past your house once or twice but I felt too stalker-ish to go up and ring the bell.”

  “I was in bad shape,” I admitted. “I was on sick leave for a few days, and then they put me on this crap assignment going around to colleges, and I had way too much time to obsess over everything that happened. I was scared that I’d blown it with you and I didn’t know what to say.”

  “So what changed?”

  “A lot.” I told him about investigating the missing boys. “I realized how lucky I’ve been, but also how quickly things can change.” I hesitated. “And then tonight, I had this work thing, and it could have been dangerous, and I realized that I’ve been stupid and scared. If anything does happen to me I don’t want to regret anything. And I regret letting you go and I want to try again.”

  I felt that same fear as earlier that night, a gnawing at my intestines. But this fear had a more personal meaning. I was with Lester, where I wanted to be, and I wanted him to want me, too.

  If he said no? I’d try and be graceful. I’d wish him well and walk away. But I knew it would hurt like hell.

  “I can’t deny it,” Lester said. “There’s something about you that floats my boat, G-Man. You’ve got a rocking body, but lots of guys do. And you’re smart and tough. But sometimes I can see into you, and I see you’re as vulnerable as I am. And I think maybe you’re the right kind of guy for me.”

  I couldn’t help grinning like an idiot.

  He stood up. “Come on, let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

  I was happy to agree.

  • • •

  Sunday morning I woke to unfamiliar sunlight streaming through a big window. Lester lived in a new apartment complex on Sunrise Boulevard, on the edge of Wilton Manors, and his bedroom faced east.

  I groaned and put my hand over my eyes. “Make the light go away,” I said.

  “It’s ten-thirty,” Lester said. “That’s late. Don’t you get up early for work?”

  “Not on Sundays.” I sat up and let the covers fall to my waist. “Especially not if I’ve had a late Saturday night.”

  Lester was standing in front of the bed. The T-shirt that stretched taut over his massive chest advertised a new brand of premium vodka. It was tucked into bright orange nylon shorts. “We were back here by two-fifteen,” Lester said. “That’s not late.”

  “But we didn’t sleep for a long time after that,” I said.

  He gently kicked my foot. “Come on, I want to get to the gym. See what kind of shape you’re in.”

  “I thought you saw that last night,” I said, but I got up and used the bathroom.

  When I returned, Lester had laid out a pair of faded gym shorts from the University of Kentucky, where he’d gotten his undergraduate degree. “Those shorts ought to fit you,” Lester said. “And the T-shirt will be loose but you can manage.”

  I leaned down and picked up the jock strap that was on top of the shorts. “And this?”

  “Somebody left it behind one day,” he said. “Don’t worry, I washed it.”

  At least the jock strap was the right size. The shorts were baggy and so was the T-shirt. I’d worn a pair of Nikes to Krasotka the night before, anticipating an evening on my feet, so with Lester’s gear I was ready to go.

  • • •

  Lester got me into his gym on a guest pass, and we began with stretching exercises. I was a lot slimmer than he was and nowhere near as muscular, but I had flexibility on my side. When I worked out with Jonas, we spent more time talking than exercising, but Lester kept me focused—critiquing my form, occasionally gently repositioning me on a machine.

  We lifted weights and used the elliptical, then jogged around the indoor track for a couple of laps. “What’s on your schedule for today?” Lester asked, when we were ready to head back to his place.

  “Nothing urgent. How about you?”

  “My shift at Eclipse starts at four. You want to go
to the art show on Las Olas?”

  The idea of big, muscular Lester as an art aficionado surprised me, but I didn’t let on. “Sure. Sounds like fun.”

  We stopped at my house, where I took a quick shower and changed into a polo shirt and cargo shorts, then drove to Lester’s so he could clean up himself. While I waited for him to finish, I looked around his apartment.

  I’d been there before but I’d always been so focused on him that I hadn’t paid much attention. Now I noticed the little touches he had added to make the apartment his home. A short bookcase was stacked with books, mostly about anatomy and exercise, but interspersed with a couple of gay mystery and romance novels.

  A pair of hand-carved wooden candlesticks sat on the coffee table, and the two decorative pillows on the sofa looked like Indian silk. I was peering at a photo of a tropical beach when Lester joined me in the living room. “I love this photo. Did you take it?”

  “Nah. Bought it at an art fair. I’m hoping to find that guy again, maybe get another one today.”

  Lester continued to intrigue me. He’d majored in physical education in college, then taught high school gym and worked as an assistant football coach for a while until he’d followed the sun to Fort Lauderdale. I’d never thought of him as an art collector.

  We drove over to the fair, and had a great time on the shady street at the center of Fort Lauderdale, which had been closed to traffic so that artists and other exhibitors could set up tents and tables in the road. The street had a whole different vibe from the evening when I’d walked it with Shane—but maybe the vibe was different because the guy was.

  I fell in love with a painting of a palm-lined beach with gorgeous blue-green water. For fifty bucks I had my first piece of original artwork, and I felt like a real grown up.

  Lester found the photographer he liked and bought another picture. We slurped frozen lemonade and ate soft pretzels. I saw a couple of kids I recognized from Lazarus Place, accompanied by the handsome Dominican kid, Yunior, and I hailed him over.

  “Hey, sugar,” he said. I introduced the three of them to Lester, and told him that I’d met them at Lazarus Place.

  “You guys ever work out?” Lester asked Yunior.

  “Depends on what you mean by working out,” Yunior said, licking his lips lasciviously.

  Lester dropped to the ground and did five quick pushups, then hopped up and did five jumping jacks. The boys stared at him in awe.

  “That’s what I mean,” Lester said. “You guys gonna be out on your own, you need to be able to take care of yourselves.”

  “You want to be our coach?” Yunior said.

  “I can show you some moves,” Lester said.

  I offered to put Lester in touch with Shane, and the boys wandered off.

  “Who’s Shane?” Lester asked as we walked back to where he parked.

  “Social worker I met through my case. He runs the shelter.”

  As we drove back to his place, where I’d left my car, I told him what I could about the investigation. “It would be great if you help out at Lazarus Place. Those kids need good gay role models, as well as the physical training.”

  “I’d like to do that,” he said.

  When we pulled up in the parking lot for his building, we kissed goodbye and promised to talk during the week. “Be careful out there, G-Man,” he said. “Don’t want you to get screwed up again.”

  “I’ll do my best,” I said.

  On my way home my head was buzzing. I’d enjoyed my weekend with Lester, but I was still worried that the dangers in my job would pull us apart again. I wasn’t sure I was fully recovered from the trauma of getting shot, and I was afraid that I’d do something to push him away again.

  Instead, I tried to focus on work. I was full of curiosity about what had gone down on Saturday night at Krasotka, but I’d only discover what I was authorized to hear.

  Antonio Cruz had been at the poker game with a bunch of guys Katya had connections to in the Russian mafia. Cruz knew Eric Morozov, who was somehow entangled with the porn house. Was Cruz involved in my case, too? Would his arrest trigger some information?

  Katya knew what I was working on. Could she try and leverage him for something that would help me shut down the flakka distribution and the porn operation and rescue those boys who were being taken advantage of?

  28.

  Florida Southern

  I was at my desk in Miramar by eight-thirty Monday morning, ready to jump back into the case of the lost boys. In my master’s year at Penn State, one of my forensic accounting professors had a favorite refrain: follow the money. It was estimated that Americans spent over a million dollars a year on porn, and some of that had to be going to the videos Frank produced and the web chats Ozzy did.

  Was there a financial trail that would lead to rescuing Ozzy and Dimetrie from the porn house? Since I already knew that Verenich managed the accounts for Gay Guys LLC, I pulled out the records from Florida Southern Bank that Verenich’s secretary had provided to the United States Attorney.

  I thought about Katya’s case. Money laundering required the cooperation of a banking entity, and a small one like Florida Southern was a good option. It was based in Fort Lauderdale, and had grown in recent years by buying up other small banks. It currently had about two billion dollars in assets, and about a billion and a half in outstanding loans, making it the fourth largest locally based bank in the state.

  The Board of Directors was composed of area business leaders such as attorneys, accountants, and small business owners. One name jumped out: Antonio Cruz, owner, Exotic Imports Ltd.

  That could not be a coincidence. Did Cruz own the LLC behind the porn house? Was one of the accounts Verenich managed a cover for Cruz’s business? I went back to the list and tried to decipher each one.

  1814North1 LLC owned a property on Federal Highway, also known as U.S. 1, in Fort Lauderdale. SCLP2 was a limited partnership that owned a small shopping plaza called Sunset Center at the corner of Sunrise Boulevard and Sunset Strip.

  I resisted the urge to sing the song from Fiddler on the Roof.

  TXXXF owned a business called The XXX Factor, an erotic bookstore on Dixie Highway in Wilton Manors—down the road from Exotic Imports. Every Monday, a cash deposit was made at the First Southern branch in Fort Lauderdale. It varied from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars.

  It appeared that Verenich made monthly transfers from that account, to one for Florida Commercial Assets LLC, one of the real estate companies Verenich managed. I did some cross-referencing and discovered that FCA owned the building where The XXX Factor was located, as well as a number of small buildings in run-down neighborhoods around Fort Lauderdale.

  Verenich paid the utility bills for the property from the XXX Factor account, and wrote checks for a few hundred dollars to a variety of individuals, probably the staff. He also paid for what appeared to be inventory from a number of different video distribution companies as well as manufacturers of “novelty specialties,” which I assumed meant stuff like dildos and lube.

  Most of the checks had been signed by Verenich himself, but a number of them had been signed in a scribble. The first name began with F, the last name with C. Frank Cardone? Was the XXX Factor account being used to pay for the porn house?

  • • •

  Late in the afternoon, Katya came by my office. “Thanks for your help Saturday night,” she said. “Sorry to spring it on you at the last minute, but we didn’t know for sure the poker game was going to happen, or that there’d be enough money there to make busting it worthwhile.”

  “And there was?”

  She nodded. “I had to play for a quite a while before I could say for certain.”

  “That was Antonio Cruz, wasn’t it?” I asked. “The guy who owns Exotic Imports?”

  “Yeah. We were playing casino hold ‘em, which is a game against the house, and he was losing big. He threw a marker into the game and said that he’d skip his commission the next time Vadim Kurov b
ought a car, if Kurov would cover him. I was wearing a wire and was able to get enough evidence from the conversations between Kurov and Cruz to make a raid worthwhile.”

  “I understand. So does this mean you’re going back to New York?”

  “My cover is blown down here, so I won’t be able to be undercover anymore, at least not out of this office. For now I’m giving up the real estate business and working here in Miramar putting the case together against Kurov, Cruz, and some of their buddies.”

  “We’ll have to hang out sometime,” I said. “When there’s no danger of getting involved in another raid.”

  “I’ll take you up on that,” she said.

  “In the meantime, though, I need your help.” I explained what I’d discovered about Florida Southern Bank & Trust. “Has that bank come up in any of your investigations?”

  “A couple of times. But we’ve never had anything specific to pin on them.”

  “Look at these transactions with me,” I said. “This is as far as I’ve gotten with this X-rated bookstore.”

  “I assume you’ve been into a store like that once or twice,” Katya said. “You know there are two parts, the front room and the back room.”

  I nodded. “The front room is where the merchandise is sold, and the peep show machines are in the back.”

  “Exactly. The income from the front room goes to pay for the store’s operation—rent, utilities, staff, and stock.”

  “Yeah, I was able to track those transactions.” I showed her the checks written on the account and the electronic transfers.

  “The money from the back is in cash,” Katya said. “Quarters, dollar bills. It’s a good way to throw in extra cash from poker games and other illicit operations.”

  “There are regular cash deposits every Monday. Although the amounts vary a lot.”

  “Could be based on traffic. Or someone’s skimming cash from the deposit.”

  “There’s usually a transfer to an offshore bank within the next day or two,” I said. “That’s as far as I can trace the money.”