The Death Box

by J. A. Kerley

  Lights flicked off in nearby houses. Doors were locked and residents scurried to central rooms where bullets couldn’t reach. There had been gang wars and gunshots were familiar. The police were rarely called, for fear of retribution. Orzibel pushed at shrubs and bushes, checking for a crouching girl. Nothing.

  Morales nodded across the street, an old man brave enough to step to his porch. “Someone’s gonna call the cops, Orlando. They might get to her ahead of us.”

  The pair retreated into the vehicle. “She’s here, Chaku,” Orzibel said, staring out the window. “She found a garage, an empty house, a boat in a backyard.” They passed a corner holding a closed and shuttered grocery, three junkies jittering on the steps. The wretches were everywhere. Orzibel stared at the junkies as they passed, a fingertip tapping his lips as he thought.

  “I’m doing this all wrong, Chaku. Go to the local junkies. Tell them the right information buys a month’s worth of the finest scag.”

  Morales wheeled around the corner, checked his rearview. “The junkies hear many lies, Orlando. It would be best to have the drug in hand. And give a taste to a select few so they might tell others of the quality.”

  Orzibel grinned and pulled out his cell phone. “Brilliant thinking, my large friend. I will schedule a meeting with Pablo Gonsalves. Dangle pure H before the junkies and they will scour the streets like starving rats.”

  Leala sat shaking in the corner of the shed. One knee screamed in pain from a fall over fence to a brick patio. Her left palm hurt from a cut, left by the ragged top of a metal gate. Her hair was still soaking wet.

  “Come here NOW or I will kill your madre!”

  It had been so terribly close. One time Leala had been beneath a van as the huge man’s feet had slapped past. Had he slowed in his run he would have heard Leala’s ragged, gasping breaths. When he turned past a corner she had continued to run, jumping from shadow to shadow until she had reached the shed.

  “Come to me, bitch. Or I’ll SLICE OFF YOUR FACE!”

  She couldn’t hide much longer, the pool proved there were eyes everywhere, even behind darkened windows. Leala clutched herself tight, but even though the night was as steamy as a jungle, she continued to shake. In the morning she would call the woman from the poster again. Her only chance of escape was in trusting someone.

  It would have to be Victoree Johnson.

  “To what do I owe the honor of a visit from such a successful businessman?” Pablo Gonsalves said. “Sit, Orlando Orzibel, and tell me why I am so favored.”

  Gonsalves was dark-skinned, in his forties and hugely obese, his small bright eyes peering over cheeks like bags of pudding, his outsized lips wet and floating over a frog’s chin that became his chest. His black silk shirt opened to display a golden crucifix as large as a saucer nestling in a cleavage many women would have envied.

  Gonsalves hunkered at a back table on the balcony of the club in Miami Beach, the cavernous room almost empty, another hour before the trust-fund babies queued at the front door. Three cholos sat at the round table, gophers and bodyguards, large, but not as large as Chaku Morales, who stood a dozen feet away and watched as Orzibel neared the table. Gonsalves seemed high on something, Orzibel noted, the man’s eyes glassy and his words carefully controlled.

  Orzibel saw the tiny glass half-filled with a green liqueur, absinthe, the real deal. On the floor below a smattering of dancers gyrated to thudding techno-pop as lights flashed pink and orange and green. The DJ sat in a booth in a corner, a black man in a white and sequined suit with a Miami Dolphins ball cap slung sideways on his head. The music was loud, but the upstairs speakers were turned down, allowing normal conversation.

  “I need something, amigo,” Orzibel said, bowing a millimeter as he sat. There were protocols and though he, Orlando Orzibel, bowed to no man on his turf, this was the turf of Pablo Gonsalves and respect was to be shown. That’s why Orzibel allowed himself and Chaku to be patted down. It was not disrespect, only caution.

  “We are friends?” Gonsalves said. “I am not complaining, of course. But how comes this alliance when we have never spoken to this day?”

  “We have not spoken in words, Don Gonsalves, but in business. Our enterprise purchases various business supplies from Tiny Chingala on Bastion Street. Tiny is an employee of yours, no?”

  An enigmatic smile from Gonsalves. The fat fingers picked up the miniature glass and brought it to the outsize lips, sipping as delicately as a mosquito. He set the glass down and raised an eyebrow.

  “Tiny Chingala has many offerings, Señor Orzibel. Why do you not go to him?”

  Orzibel laced his fingers and leaned forward. “His heroin is diluted and necessarily so. It extends the product for a clientele of limited means.”

  “Purity is expensive. Go on.”

  “You have higher-quality products, Don Gonsalves. Items for those whose wealth is so vast prices cease to matter. I wish to purchase … let’s say ten grams of the best heroin, uncut.”

  Gonsalves regarded Orzibel for a three-count. “Para una dama?” he asked. For a lady?

  Orzibel did not understand the question. But perhaps the absinthe-soaked elefante was addled. He shook his head. “I seek information and wish to enlist eyes on the street. Junkies: The eyes that wander endlessly.”

  Wet laughter from Gonsalves. “The product you seek is something street users only touch in their dreams. When do you wish your goods?”

  “Time is of the essence, Don Gonsalves.”

  Gonsalves quoted a price and Orzibel nodded. The fat man gestured and one of the hulking minions disappeared as Gonsalves emptied the glass of absinthe. Orzibel resisted the urge to scowl; he never allowed himself to be affected by substances when working. Gonsalves was weak.

  The cholo was back a minute later. The fat man pocketed money, Orzibel drugs. “Gracias,” Orzibel said, standing from the table.

  “Momem-to,” Gonsalves slurred, a fat hand rising. “I know that you work with the beautiful Amili Zelaya. The rumors are that you two are … involved.” Gonsalves said it strangely, as if suggesting there was something curious at play.

  They weren’t, not physically, though not due to lack of trying. Still, Orzibel knew of the street-level rumors and did nothing to dissuade them. It made him look good. He flashed his brightest smile. “Amili and I are … even more than co-workers.”

  “So you know her every secret?” The fat man’s eyes seemed even more glazed, his lips more engorged.

  What is this fat, impaired fool getting at? Gossip?

  “Amili and I have one blood,” Orzibel lied, crossing index and middle fingers beside his face. “There are no secrets between us.”

  Gonsalves gestured a bodyguard near and whispered in his ear. The man was gone for scant moments. Orzibel saw something dropped from behind into Gonsalves’s hand. When it rose, there was a tiny parcel in his fingers. It was the size of an earring box and wrapped in the paper of one of West Palm’s most exclusive jewelers.

  “Señorita Zelaya is a very busy lady, I think, and you can save her this month’s trip, Don Orzibel. Please deliver this to your amiga. As you know, the pretty lady needs her dreams, too.”

  Orzibel’s hands closed around the package. He bowed just enough to satisfy protocol and backed away.

  33

  A rooster awakened Leala in the morning and for a moment she thought she was back in her village, safe, her mama cooking breakfast. But instead of the scent of wood smoke and tortillas she smelled the oily rags in the corner of her hideout and rain about to fall. She pushed the door open and saw dark and low clouds above, a lone gull wheeling in the air. The rooster, no further than a couple houses away, crowed again, followed by the sound of an engine cranking into life. A dog began barking. The neighborhood was waking up.

  How far to the telephone? Leala thought, her mind tracing the distance to the ice-cream store. Is it worth the attempt?

  Si. Something had to be done today.

  Leala rummaged in her purs
e for a rumpled bill and a few remaining coins. She combed her hair with her fingers, shook her dress until the worst wrinkles fell away, then tied on her scarf and crept between brush to the alley.

  The helado shop was ten minutes distant and Leala passed no one on the way, averting her face as sparse traffic passed. A bus passed her by, then slowed and stopped for two women who had been standing beside the street. The bus hissed away.

  The ice-cream store was closed. Leala thumbed coins into the phone until hearing a chime. Hoping it meant the call was accepted, Leala entered the number in her memory. As the phone rang, she practiced words in her head.

  “I have nowhere to go. I will do whatever you wish. Please help me.”

  A click, a pause …

  A voice: “This is Victoree. I am out of town until Monday. Please leave a message.”

  Leala stared at the phone as if it had betrayed her. Should she wait until Monday? What to do?

  Would she survive?

  She turned to see a man a dozen paces behind, skinny as a stick with filthy hair hanging like snakes from his head. He stared at Leala through bloodshot eyes.

  “Pardóneme,” Leala said, averting her face and slipping past the staring man. Even passing two meters away the man smelled bad and Leala wondered if the stench came from his arms, red and inflamed on the insides. He was a junkie, she knew, having seen them in her days in Tegucigalpa. He was sick with drugs and the need of them.

  She watched the man make his call and continue down the street. Leala had to be bold. There was one thing she might do. But she had to find out certain things first. She had to see a man, a detection hombre named Ryder.

  But first she had to find out where he was, where he worked.

  In the distance, above the trees and low housetops Leala could see the skyline of Miami, terrifying in its height and breadth. Just aiming eyes at the city stole her breath. But it wasn’t far, three kilometers if that. Certainly the man she needed to see worked in one of the tall buildings.

  She would go into the city. Just to see. That was all.

  Leala waited beside a garage until another bus appeared. She darted to the street holding her dwindling money in one hand and waving at the bus with the other.

  Leala sat behind the driver who, as if he’d seen it often before, pointed at the money in Leala’s hand to indicate correct payment. The driver was Hispanic, with a wide and open face and a cheery manner. The bus entered the city, passing from sunshine into the shadows of towering buildings. When the bus stopped at a light Leala leaned forward. “Excuse me, Señor. I seek the building that houses the policía. Do you know such a place?”

  Be nearby, her heart hoped.

  “Miami-Dade Policía, señorita?”

  Leala frowned, not expecting a choice. She tried to recall Johnson’s words: He is a special detective from the state of Florida …

  “Is there a Florida policía?” Leala asked. “Special ones that do the detection?”

  The light changed and the bus pulled forward. “You are probably talking about the Florida State Police, or maybe the FCLE, who are—”

  “That’s it!” Leala said, recalling the odd sequence of letters. “Is it in the city?”

  The driver nodded. “I have a regular, a gentleman who does maintenance there. He usually takes the bus after this one, which arrives at seven forty-five.”

  “Drop me where you drop the gentleman, por favor,” Leala said. “And point me in the way he goes.”

  At seven fifteen a.m., Ernesto “Chaku” Morales strode into the downtown Miami health club with his black gym bag over a granite shoulder, his small, tight eyes scanning the vast room. A white fan the size of a helicopter’s rotors spun overhead as men and women pumped free weights on the floor. Others used machines or ran the encircling track. Rap-beat dance tracks pounded from speakers in the ceiling.

  Chaku Morales didn’t visit the locker room. He simply stripped off his turquoise jumpsuit, revealing a brief scarlet bodysuit that embraced every cut, every ripple of muscle. His genitals stood out like a fist in a driving glove. Eyes drifted to the hulking entrant, some lingering in shaded curiosity, others turning away in fear or shame.

  Morales fell forward, catching himself on his fingertips and warming up with pushups before progressing to squats and crunches. After an effortless ten minutes he crossed the room to a weight bench in a far corner, loading the holder with a hundred pounds of barbell carried one-handed from the rack. He lay on the bench and began his warm-up reps, the ham-thick biceps engorging with the push, relaxing at the bottom.

  “Need a spot?” a voice said from behind.

  Chaku Morales nodded. He looked from side to side and saw that he and the voice were alone. Morales continued to pump, speaking as the weight came down, stopping as it lifted.

  “Have you had enough time to find out …” The weight went up, started down. “… what is going on?”

  “There’s a new guy sticking his nose into things. Some hotshot from Mobile.”

  “Hotshot?” Morales said.

  “Carson Ryder. The guy solves things, a specialist. A lot of people are in prison because of him and now he’s in Miami.”

  Morales pumped harder. The veins in his arms stood out like the burrows of miniature moles. “You have advice about what … can be done?” he grunted. “Can the hotshot be convinced to go blind to certain things?”

  “I know these types. He can’t be bought, a believer.”

  “Leverage?” Morales grunted.

  “No wife, kids, not even fucking anyone at present.”

  “Advice?”

  “I’ll keep an eye out. If he starts down a road dangerous to us all, you might have to take him off the board.”

  “But someone else takes his place, isn’t that” – Morales pushed the barbell above him like it was a broom – “what happens?”

  “A new nose will be sniffing the air, true. But this Ryder guy has a unique nose. You don’t want it near the business. You don’t want it near Miami. It’s a dangerous nose.”

  “I will pass this on. Gracias.”

  “Nice spotting for you, buddy.”

  Morales watched his spotter disappear into the locker room and emerge a minute later in khakis and blue polo shirt, neither man acknowledging the other as the spotter disappeared out the door. Morales followed ten minutes later. He knew Orlando Orzibel well enough to hear the man’s response before he told him the news and advice:

  “Why wait, Chaku? Let’s take Ryder off the board now, and be done with him.”

  34

  I hit the department a bit past nine and headed to the investigative section to finally introduce myself to the rest of the dicks, then grudgingly seek a place to live. But I arrived to find the place as empty as a politician’s promises and I realized it was Friday and everyone was on the streets trying to get far enough ahead to take a couple days off.

  Pushing dark thoughts to the back of my head, I took the stairs up a floor to my office, passing the small whiteboard giving the crew’s current whereabouts, Canseco in Jacksonville, Degan in Boca, Valdez listed as DO, Day Off. Tatum was in town, just not here. I pined for one of my so-called colleagues to pass me in the hall, say something like, Got a tough case with a perp in Fort Myers, looking like a psycho. Gotta couple minutes to kick it around, bud?

  All was silence save for the sound of a radio nearby, an announcer giving the forecast.

  “… rain giving way to clearing skies and the heat and humidity returning …”

  I headed to my corner office until stopped by hearing my name, and turned to see Bobby Erickson, a retired Florida State Police Sergeant who worked the phones. He proudly wore his dress blues daily, but had bad feet so Roy allowed him to wear slippers, big pillows of tan suede with fleece pushing up around his ankles. Erickson was short and round and looked perpetually concerned, lips pursed, eyes in a frown over half-glasses. He seemed to bear me no animosity and I figured I hadn’t waylaid any of his money.
/>   “Morning, Bobby,” I said. “Whatcha need?”

  “A woman came to the downstairs desk a half hour ago. She asked if there was a detection man named Señor Ryder in this building.”

  “Detection man?”

  “The desk folks have your name, of course. They phoned up here but I told them you hadn’t arrived yet, expected soon. When they went to tell that to the woman, she was gone.”

  “A half-hour ago?”

  “There’s more. Five minutes later this note was left at the desk. It was delivered by a clerk with the assessor’s office, asked to deliver it by a woman resembling the one at the desk.”

  I opened the folded note, my name on the outside.

  MET AT A POOL FOR SWIMING PLESE 10 TO-DAY it said in a flowing hand more precise than the spelling.

  “Met at a swimming pool at ten?” I scowled. “Met what?”

  Erickson eyeballed the note. “Maybe it’s meet. You’re supposed to meet her at the swimming pool.”

  “Where’s a swimming pool around here?”

  He shrugged and pushed the lips out further. “Got me.”

  I started away but he called again. “Almost forgot, Detective. She asked what you looked like.”

  Though I hadn’t seen surveillance at the entry, I figured it was there, just nicely tucked away. “There are cameras at the entry, right? How can I get a look?”

  “The surveillance center’s in the basement. But unless it’s an emergency it’s gonna take an hour to pull the stuff.”

  Erickson padded away on his tan cushions. I gazed out windows, wondering if there was a nearby hotel with a pool. My eyes wandered the plaza, wide walkways overhung with shade trees, people strolling or sitting the steps around the fountain, a center spray of water into a shallow circle pool of …

  Pool. Was that what my caller meant?

  I checked my watch, saw 9.56, and elevatored down to the wide promenade. The pavement was damp from rain but the sky was breaking through in the west, a bright blue shout through tattered cumulus. Gulls darted above the trees as pedestrians moved below. I crossed to the fountain – swimming pool? – and surveyed the surroundings: Business types bustling to work, joggers, a man pushing a food cart, a long-haired kid sitting a bench and tuning a guitar, a busload of school kids wrangled by a trio of teachers, probably visiting the center as part of a class in government.