STAYING ALIVE (Book Three of The Miami Crime Trilogy)

by Don Donovan

  "What about the sales? Does he actually ship the product?"

  Alicia nodded. "He ships the product to CAA's Miami address, which is a warehouse you control. When it arrives, CAA sells it to another shell company on consignment, XYZ Auto Parts Company, for example. Meanwhile, Mr Stoudt has receipts for all his CAA sales, so he's clean."

  "How long does this go on?" Jimmy said.

  "Not long. You 'sell' about a hundred thousand dollars worth of auto parts every week. Right now, it's only CAA, but in a week or so —" The flight attendant chirped about beverage service beginning now that the exalted cruising altitude had been achieved at last. She ran down the types of beverages and the prices. Oh, and cash only, please.

  Alicia dropped her chin to her chest. She wanted to jump out of the plane and walk to Jacksonville. Once again, Jimmy took her hand in his. Another deep breath or two and she continued. "In a week or so, I'll have another six or seven similar companies set up, each one making big buys."

  "What happens when the million is gone?"

  "It's never really 'gone'," she said. "It winds up in Stoudt's bank account. Minus your commission, it will come to about seven hundred eighty thousand. When it's all in there, you then take six hundred eighty thousand and buy back the parts from the XYZ Auto Parts Company to replenish Stoudt's inventory. One of your associates can be the 'salesman' for this company, and you pay him a commission, which you later take back for yourself, although you might want to throw him a little something. You leave a hundred grand in Mr Stoudt's Jacksonville account. For his trouble. That's what brings him on board, the big payday just a little ways down the road."

  Jimmy frowned. "So out of my original one point two million, over two hundred grand is lost?"

  Alicia remained patient. She'd heard all this before. "It's not lost," she said. "It's part of the cost of converting the money into legitimate funds, something you can use. Remember, like I said, when that cash was just sitting in a leather case, it had no value at all. You couldn't do anything with it. You were risking jail just carrying it around. It cost you two hundred grand of worthless cash to acquire nine hundred grand in legitimate money."

  He got it. "Ver-ry nice, Alicia. Very nice."

  "Then as soon as Stoudt buys back the parts, restocking his inventory, we dissolve the companies. If the government ever gets suspicious and starts tracking you on this, which would be a minimum of two or three years from now — I repeat, if they get around to it — those companies will be long gone. We'll be several generations down the road."

  "This is really … really …"

  "Symmetrical," Alicia said. "It's all beautiful symmetry."

  42

  Silvana

  Miami, Florida

  Tuesday, September 4, 2012

  2:35 PM

  SANTOS BARKED INTO THE OTHER END of the phone line.

  "Machado, get up here right away."

  "Yes, sir." Silvana hung up. She heard the fuss in his voice and hustled up to the next floor.

  Now that he made captain, Santos swam in luxury. Big office, plush carpeting, private bathroom. It was only one floor up, but it might as well have been the penthouse suite of the Loews Hotel in Miami Beach. He sat behind a large desk of polished wood, photos on the wall behind him. One of himself in full dress on his swearing-in day, another of the chief, still another of the mayor — not that he was a big fan of either one, but you know, politics are politics.

  "Machado, close the door and take a seat." She did. "Where are we on Anton Kovalenko? The ballet people are going crazy demanding information."

  "Unfortunately, sir, we don't have any hard evidence. I personally believe Laura Lee Sánchez was behind it, but I have nothing to go on."

  "Who's Laura Lee Sánchez?"

  "She was a famous ballerina who danced with Kovalenko. One night a few years ago, during a complicated move, he dropped her onstage and she broke her back. Ended her career and put her in a wheelchair for life. She claims he did it deliberately."

  "Well … that's some motive right there."

  "Agreed, sir. We pressed her on it and there are some holes around the edges of her story, but I can't shake her. Right now, though, I think she's our best bet."

  "All right," Santos said. "Do what you can. Get to the bottom of it ASAP."

  "Yes, sir."

  "What about his brother Vitali? Any connection?"

  "None that we can see. And of course, Vitali was killed over in Miami Beach, so they've got the ball on that one."

  "Yes, and those cocksuckers wouldn't help us out if we paid them. We can forget about getting any information on Vitali from them."

  "That's the way I see it, sir."

  "What else do you have? How about this …" — he consulted a sheet of paper on his desk — "… this Kathy Kruger? The college student."

  Silvana said, "We haven't gotten around to her yet, sir, what with the Kovalenko and the Nuñez killings. But we plan to do a —"

  "Nuñez? Who the fuck is Nuñez?"

  "A drug dealer. Shot to death in the Dobbs Hotel about three weeks ago."

  "Drug dealer? Dobbs Hotel? What are you doing wasting time with that bullshit? We've got real murders that need closing. Kathy Kruger, for one."

  "With all due respect, sir," Silvana said, "while the Kruger case is important, this one needs closing, too. The victim, Raúl Nuñez, was high up in Maxie Méndez's organization, a KA of Jimmy Quintana. Too high up to be selling retail. He had no visible reason to be at that dump that night or any other night. Plus, we think there might be a Russian perp."

  Santos put his elbows on his desk and clasped his hands. "Russian? Very interesting. Why do you think that, Machado?"

  "We got a tip about someone blabbing at a party one night. They said a Russian smoked Nuñez. I have reason to believe it's true."

  "If a Russian killed one of Méndez's guys," Santos said, "we can expect Méndez to retaliate."

  "Yes, sir. In fact, we think he has."

  "You do? How so?"

  Silvana consulted her notes and said, "This past Saturday night, another top-level Russian enforcer — one Gregor Babich, DOB 6/29/77 — was shot to death in Allapattah. From what we understand, he was sent down here from the Russian headquarters up in Brighton Beach, New York. He came down with Vitali Kovalenko and one other guy."

  "Who was the other guy?"

  "Damien Kushnir, DOB 6/7/80." Silvana said, again from the notes. "Turns out he, too, was shot dead. Last week, in Las Vegas. Kovalenko, Kushnir, Babich — all three killed within a short period of time. It's quite possible Méndez ordered all three killings."

  Santos gave off a slow nod. "Quite possible indeed."

  Silvana said, "With all three of those Russians dead, I'm now pretty certain that closes the Nuñez case. I believe one of them did it, but it doesn't really matter which one. With your permission, I'd like to close that case."

  "You know you don't need my permission," Santos said. "But go ahead and close it. Sounds like the shooter is roasting in hell right now."

  "Sir, one more thing. I believe those three Russians came down here to muscle in on — and maybe take over — Maxie Méndez's drug action."

  "Well, if that's the case," Santos said, "you think we're looking at a real bloodbath?"

  "Yes, sir. And soon. Méndez isn't going to just hand it over to them. And those Russians do not fuck around."

  "Agreed," Santos said. "Find out whatever you can about this. See if any new Russians are in the area, if there's any unusual activity in the Méndez crew, anything at all. Got it?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Keep me updated. The last thing this city or this department needs is a return to the Cocaine Cowboys era with blood running in the streets."

  43

  Silvana

  Miami, Florida

  Tuesday, September 4, 2012

  3:20 PM

  BACK IN HER OFFICE, SILVANA HAD AN IDEA. She summoned Vargas and Acevedo. They showed up moments later.
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  "What's up, Silvi?" Vargas asked.

  She pointed to the chairs and had them sit. A deep breath, then, "Bobby, do you remember when we went to Key West to visit that lowlife down there about the Little Havana triple homicide?"

  "Ha! You bet I remember. I wanted to deck that smartmouthed motherfucker right there."

  "But you remember what the deal was with him, right? His connection to the whole thing."

  "Right. Chicho Segura, who lived in the house in Little Havana, had robbed a bank that day with a crew from Key West, headed up by this guy — Lonigan, or Lanigan, or something."

  "Logan," Silvana said.

  "Yeah, Logan. That's it. So we found out that a couple of Maxie Méndez's boys paid Chicho a visit about a half an hour before the killing. They picked up a shitload of cash — like two hundred K or something — that Chicho owed Maxie. Now it's pretty clear Chicho grabbed the entire bank haul for himself to pay off Maxie. Our boy Logan shows up to take back what's his, but he's a half an hour late. Chicho and his friends pull on him, he takes them all down, and goes back to Key West emptyhanded."

  Silvana turned to Acevedo. "You getting all this, Ray?" He nodded. "Good. Now, let me run this one by you. Laura Lee Sánchez lives right next door to the house formerly occupied by the late Chicho Segura. She admits to hearing the shots, but does not admit to seeing anything out of her window. Not only that, she's the only one on the street who doesn't call 911. Suppose … just suppose … she saw Logan and somehow tracked him down — maybe she caught a plate number, maybe she had some kind of contact with him before he went in, I don't know. But say she found him later on and one way or another convinced him to waste Anton Kovalenko."

  Acevedo shook his head. "Sounds pretty far-fetched, Lieutenant."

  Vargas agreed. "That's really stretching it, Silvi. We've got no reason to suspect any connection at all between her and Logan, other than the fact she lives next door to the house. Plus, we don't even have any real evidence on Logan for those killings."

  "Right," Silvana said. "There's no connection! And that's exactly why she thought this whole thing was foolproof. Did you see the way she acted when we asked her why she didn't call 911? We caught her way off guard. She almost shit herself!"

  Vargas said, "It's still a long way from any real connection to Logan. It's pure theory."

  "All solutions start with theories," she said.

  "So what do we do?" Acevedo said. "Take a trip to Key West?"

  Silvana said, "No, not yet. Logan won't give up anything. He's too … too poised for that. Even if we surprised him, he's not going to hand himself over to us. It'll be a waste of time."

  Vargas leaned forward. "How about we put a tail on Laura Lee Sánchez?"

  "Can't do it," she said. "Same reason as the last time you asked me. We don't have anything on her. We couldn't get a round-the-clock tail approved."

  "So what's left?" Vargas asked.

  Silvana thought about it. A minute or more went by, then she said, "Let's try something different. Let's check Logan's phone records. Get his land line and his cell phone records. See if there were any calls going either way between him and Miami. We know Laura Lee's phone records are clean, but maybe she used someone else's phone for this, maybe a burner, I don't know. But get me those records."

  ≈ ≈ ≈

  At around three the next afternoon, Silvana was about to make a phone call when Vargas and Acevedo rushed into her office, brimming with excitement. Vargas held a manila folder in his hands and he slapped it on her desk. She opened it and saw sheets of phone records.

  "Bingo, Silvi!" Vargas said. "You're a fucking genius!" He pointed to a particular call in the middle of a long list of call data. "Check it out. Logan gets a phone call on his land line from a Miami cell number on the afternoon of August fourteenth. The number was not registered. A burner phone for sure."

  Silvana smiled. "Yeah! Now you're talkin', Bobby!"

  "But wait," he said. "There's more! On August sixteenth, a mere two days later, Vitali Kovalenko is shot and killed in Anton's Miami Beach condo. The very next day, around noon, Logan gets another call from Miami — from a different unregistered cell phone. Then, as if by magic, Anton Kovalenko is killed four days later. On the twenty-first. And I might add, we checked his phone records back three years, and the only other calls he received from burners were in June of 2011, just before the time of the bank robbery that preceded the Little Havana triple homicide."

  Silvana's eyes widened. "So … so … he gets a call and Vitali is killed. He gets another call and Anton goes down. So … what you're saying is …"

  Acevedo finished the sentence for her. "

  "We like him for both killings. We're saying Logan clipped Vitali by mistake, thinking it was Anton. That's the only explanation. They did look a lot alike. Then the Sánchez woman calls him up the next day, rips him a new asshole for getting the wrong guy, and he goes up and finishes the job four days later."

  "Fuck me," Silvana whispered, still with wide eyes and a jaw that wanted to drop. "This is it." She closed the manila folder. "I want you guys to get down to Key West right away."

  Vargas' shoulders sagged. "Today? Silvi, it's three-thirty."

  "Right away, Bobby. It's likely he'll be home. If you go down tomorrow, you may have to wait around for him, maybe all day. Get him tonight, while this lead is still hot in your hands. Then report back here first thing in the morning. Let me know what happened."

  Vargas and Acevedo looked at each other, not pleased with having to make the drive to Key West at this late afternoon hour.

  "What are you waiting for?" Silvana said. "Get moving."

  44

  Jimmy

  Hialeah, Florida

  Tuesday, September 4, 2012

  10:30 PM

  THE MUSIC WAS TOO LOUD, but Jimmy didn't mind. He knew it served a purpose. Like the bright lights on the stage. You can't let the energy drop by having music that people can talk over in a normal tone of voice. Just like you can't have a poorly-lit stage where the suckers can't see every detail of the girls' bodies while they're prancing around. I mean, that is what a strip joint is for, right? And Honey Buns was no different. One of the better ones, in fact.

  For one thing, it had a classy entrance. The kind where you walk into a little entryway, like a foyer. Out here, you could speak in a normal voice as the scantily-clad girl at the podium took your money and asked if you had reservations. If you did, another girl appeared and guided you to your table where strippers descended on you from all directions, looking to part you from your money. But in a nice way, of course.

  If you had no reservations, she just waved you through and you could sit at the bar or at a stool alongside the rim of the stage where you could ogle the girls from the proper distance. A distance where you could easily stuff your cash into their G-strings.

  The girls here were better looking, too. Better looking than most of the ones who worked the lower-grade bust-out joints. Those girls were basically whores looking to work indoors, giving their blow jobs and whatever back in the sordid little dark rooms for twenty bucks, selling grade D champagne for whatever they could get for it, and then giving all their money to their worthless out-of-work boyfriends when they got home.

  Honey Buns girls, however, were a cut above. They were screened carefully by the general manager, references checked, addresses confirmed. Veins checked for recent popping. And they had to have the look.

  The look was something indescribable, but you knew it when you saw it. They didn't look like sluts, but like the girl next door, although maybe with a shade too much makeup. Then when they took you into the VIP room, they showed you just how slutty the girl next door could be.

  Jimmy was a little tired, having just returned from his trip to Jacksonville with Alicia. It went down exactly as Alicia said it would. Stoudt's business was floundering, about to sink, and Jimmy and Alicia offered him a way out, a way that would net him one hundred K for his cooperation. No on
e would move in on his store, take over his business, or cause him any grief whatsoever.

  At first, he resisted. He sensed the illegal undertones of the proposition, and even when Alicia explained in great detail that he would not be engaging in any kind of illegal activity, he still wasn't buying it. Two strangers drop into your store out of nowhere with this blue-sky deal and expect you to go along with it? No way. Jimmy understood his reluctance, but when it was pointed out to Stoudt his store might meet with a tragic accident, he came on board. The first sale was set to go down in one week. Alicia had some other business to attend to in Panamá and then she would set up the other shell companies for the Stoudt scheme. Meanwhile, Jimmy's money would remain in the Caribbean-American Automotive account at Tropical Bank of Florida.

  He made his way through the club up to the private room reserved for Maxie Méndez and his friends. Juano guarded the door and stood aside to let Jimmy enter.

  The room was carpeted and acoustically soundproofed to allow normal speaking. Salsa music played at low volume through speakers in the ceiling. An enormous crescent-shaped red sofa sat in one corner, big enough to accommodate a dozen people. Maxie's huge bulk occupied the center, an eye-popping stripper on each side of him fondling him here and there. Floyd Dunbar and Marco Sierra were also seated and each had a stripper of his own. Open bottles of champagne and top shelf whiskey sat on the large circular coffee table in front of them. The odor of marijuana filled the air-conditioned air. The good times were rolling.

  "Jimmy!" shouted Maxie. "Come in, come in! Here. Sit down. Sit down right here." He indicated a spot between the red-haired stripper on his right and Dunbar. Everyone moved over to make room.

  "Hi, Jimmy," the redhead said, eyeing him up and down while still fondling Maxie. "I haven't seen you in a while."

  "I've been busy, baby," he replied. "You know. Business."

  Maxie said, "And speaking of business … girls, we got business to discuss. Go powder your noses and wait till we send for you."