by Alex Segura
Silent City
Alex Segura
Praise for Silent City
”Murder, mayhem, Miami…and every character has their own great taste in music. Silent City knows that every city has its own dark and twisted personality. ?And so do its inhabitants. Take a chance and step inside.”
—BRAD MELTZER, No. 1 New York Times bestselling author of THE INNER CIRCLE, as well as the bestsellers THE TENTH JUSTICE, DEAD EVEN, THE FIRST COUNSEL, THE MILLIONAIRES, THE ZERO GAME, THE BOOK OF FATE and THE BOOK OF LIES
”In Silent City, Segura shines a light on a Miami not often seen, one in which neon and glitz are supplanted by the hardscrabble grit of folks just trying to get by. Silent City is a coiled snake, twist after twist bringing you ever closer to its final, stinging bite.”
—CHRIS F. HOLM, bestselling author of DEAD HARVEST, THE WRONG GOODBYE and THE BIG REAP
”Silent City is a noir page-turner I couldn’t put down, a race through the Miami tourists don’t see. I loved the book, and can’t wait for the next one.”
—SARA GRAN, bestselling author of CLAIRE DEWITT AND THE BOHEMIAN HIGHWAY and CLAIRE DEWITT AND THE CITY OF THE DEAD
”Miami glows hot in this debut—Alex Segura is a name to watch.”
—JEFF ABBOTT, New York Times bestselling author of DOWNFALL
”Silent City screams off the page! Someone lock Alex Segura in a room until he churns out more tales of Pete Fernandez’s Miami! As someone once wrote, ‘Please sir, I want more.’”
—KEVIN FLYNN, author of NOTES ON A KILLING, LEGALLY DEAD and OUR LITTLE SECRET
”Silent City is a top-notch thriller. The action is non-stop, the tension is relentless, and in Pete Fernandez, Alex Segura has created the most compelling, original, and complex multi-layered hero I’ve encountered in years.”
—ANDREW GRANT, bestselling author of EVEN, DIE TWICE and MORE HARM THAN GOOD
”Silent City is a page-turner right from the get-go, fast and furious and with plenty of bite.”
—ADAM CHRISTOPHER, bestselling author of EMPIRE STATE and THE BURNING DARK
Forthcoming by Alex Segura
Down The Darkest Street
Codorus Press | NYC
This book is a work of fiction, and is not intended maliciously. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, except in cases where public figures are being satirized. Any other resemblance to actual events, groups or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental or used as a fictional depiction or personality parody, which is permitted by precedent of the case Hustler Magazine v. Falwell (1988). Thanks, Larry and Jerry.
Copyright © 2013 by Alex Segura
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions of it in any form, save for quotations in criticism or in a review. For permissions, contact [email protected].
FIRST EDITION October 2013
ISBN: 978 0-9839783-6-7 Library of Congress Control Number: 2013947893
Cover by Jeroen ten Berge
Author photo by Robert Kidd
Designed by Wayne Lockwood
www.codoruspress.com
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’d like to thank the wonderful team at Codorus Press—especially Wayne Lockwood and Scott Pruden—for their friendship, guidance, faith and independent spirit.
I’d also like to thank the many “beta readers,” author friends and supporters that helped guide me toward the book you now have in your hands: Austin Trunick, Ryan Penagos, Elizabeth Keenan-Penagos, Christian Font, Andrea Vigil, Rebekah Monson, Jon Maynard, Jen Chang, Anne Rumberger, Justin Aclin, Shawn Hazelett, Adrienne Sterman, Phoebe Flowers, Jon and Ruth Jordan, John Cunningham, Zach Holwedell, Meg Wilhoite, Vanessa Lopez, Jesse Thompson, Hansel Castro, Chris Ward, Tamara Travis, Jann Robinson, James Robinson, Will Dennis, Rob Guzman, Diane Nelson, John Rood, Dan DiDio, Jim Lee, Geoff Johns, Bob Wayne, Courtney Simmons, Brandy Phillips, Pamela Mullin, Alex Nagorski, Gayley Avery, Rickey Purdin, Adam Tracey, Mike Marts, Sean T. Collins, Alejandro Arbona, Ian Sattler, Todd Casey, Mel Caylo, Dave Paggi, Jen Forbus, Kiel Phegley, Ivonne Ledesma, John Tisdell, Emma Trelles, Bob Harras, Jennifer Jordan, Brad Meltzer, Megan Abbott, Greg Rucka, Sara Gran, Karolina Waclawiak, Chris F. Holm, Blake Crouch, Andrew Rice, Paul Levitz, Mike Pellerito, Jon Goldwater, Debbie Monserrate, Harold Buchholz, Bronwen Hruska, David Hale Smith, Duane Swierczynski, Bryan Young, Jonathan Santlofer, Dan Conaway, John Schoenfelder, Brendan McGinley, Connie Ogle, Scott Snyder, Brian Azzarello, Michelle Bonanno, Sarah Grace McCandless, Ron Richards, Sierra Hahn, Matt Brady, Jonah Weiland, Heidi MacDonald, Jim McCann, Neil Kleid, Adam Christopher, Andrew Grant, Kevin Flynn and Jeff Abbott.
I’m also very grateful to the super-talented Jeroen ten Berge for his amazing cover, Robert Kidd for his friendship and an author photo that makes me look decent, Alex Kropinak and Eddie Jenkins for their video trailer wizardry and Jason Dean for his expert web design.
I’m forever indebted to my family for their endless encouragement and love: Maria Segura, Alex Segura Sr., Christina Segura, Raquel Gutierrez, Alina Bustamante, Noe Burgos, David Ezra Stein, Miriam Kessler, Sammy Stein, Isabel Stein (the book’s editor emeritus), Paul and Trudy Steinfeld, Anne Steinfeld, Bujan Rugova, Matt Steinfeld, Raul and Lisa Deju and Ben Steinfeld.
This book is dedicated to the memory of my grandfather Guillermo Fernandez and my uncle Francisco Rivela—the two greatest men I’ll ever know.
My biggest thanks go to Eva Stein Segura. You make everything great.
For Eva
”I kissed goodbye the howling beast on the borderline which separated you from me.”
BOB DYLAN, “IDIOT WIND”
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Epilogue
Quarters For The Meter, A Short Story
Prologue
The microwave beep—announcing that her popcorn was done—startled Kathy Bentley for a second. The noise was also enough to jolt her small gray cat, Nigel, from her lap and tip over the little bit of white wine still residing in her glass. Kathy sighed and plopped the glass on the table separating her couch from the television. She paused her well-worn DVD of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and sauntered into the kitchen, where Nigel sat waiting, eyes wide, wondering if whatever was coming out of the microwave could be for him.
“This is Mommy’s,” Kathy said as she carefully pulled the hot bag of instant popcorn from the microwave. “None for you.”
The cat gave out a cry as he saw that the food was, in fact, not for him. Kathy laughed. It was close to midnight and she had been home less than 20 minutes. After a 12-hour shift at The Miami Times, where she worked as one of the paper’s dwindling group of investigative re
porters, it took very little to amuse—or annoy—Kathy tonight.
Today had been cluttered with meetings geared toward redirecting the paper’s goals and, more importantly, increasing the paper’s profits. It wasn’t a surprise to anyone that print was dying. With news, opinion, classifieds and pretty much anything of interest available on the Web for free, why shell out any money for something that would get your hands covered in ink? The state of panic there was something Kathy would drown with a few glasses of Chardonnay. Kathy didn’t feel productive or fulfilled by her work. As she walked back to her spot on the couch, she glanced at the clock hanging over her too-expensive entertainment center. Javier Reyes, supposedly her boyfriend, hadn’t called in over a day. Not totally foreign behavior for him, as he tended to pout after they fought, but troubling nonetheless. Kathy shrugged to herself. She was certain that they’d be texting each other at some point during the wee hours, either to extend the argument—about money, unsurprisingly—or to make the evening more interesting. Javier frustrated her—he was cagey, cheap and she’d caught him in a few blatant lies. Most of the time, these things would be grounds for a break up with Kathy. But for some reason Javier lingered. She couldn’t deny there was something that kept pulling her back to him. Maybe the old saying was true—the less they seem to want you, the more you want them. Javier had definitely mastered the art of seeming disinterested. Whether they were fighting or fucking, it was always passionate—dramatic. Feelings that reminded her of being a teenager. Feelings she knew weren’t genuine, but whatever. She wanted them to be.
Kathy refilled her wine glass and gulped down a portion of it. Nigel curled up in his usual spot on Kathy’s lap.
She put the movie back on with a quick flick of the remote, but found her mind wandering. She was entering her sixth year at the Times and felt like little had changed. She was a crime reporter tasked with writing “enterprise” stories—the kind that require more than a few hours’ investigation—at a paper that had no budget or interest in them. The days when she could spend a month chasing a few sources and putting together a 10,000-word series spotlighting corruption in the Miami City Council were long gone, if they were ever there. She was still ostracized, considered an unqualified hire by the veterans on staff, many of whom believed she had snagged the job because her father, with whom she barely spoke, was a long-time columnist for the paper’s local news section. Because of the dwindling page count, the number of actual stories she was expected to produce each week had dwindled to where she would not be surprised if she were one of the staffers let go in the next round of layoffs.
But what then? Kathy had never considered a career outside of journalism, much less outside of the comfortable confines of a newsroom. She had little family—a brother in California she never spoke to, a mother and a father she would disown if she could. Javier, a former drug dealer with anger management issues, wasn’t exactly a beacon of hope. And the few friends she did have had drifted off the longer she stayed with him. She took a long sip from her glass and stroked Nigel. She wasn’t cut out for daily reporting, she thought. The one thing of value she’d been working on—a lengthy, detailed investigative piece dealing with Miami’s Cuban drug underworld—wasn’t going to be enough to secure her job. And anyway, it wasn’t ready, as usual. She still felt the piece needed at least a few more months’ work.
She felt she was getting somewhere with the story, though, especially when it came to “the Silent Death,” the nickname given to an unnamed enforcer for the Cubans. The killer, who’d left over a dozen bodies in less than a decade, had become something of an urban legend. Some doubted it was even one man. Kathy wasn’t so sure. But she wasn’t getting much help from the shitty Miami police or her bosses, which meant the story wasn’t developing as quickly as she’d like. Still, if she could nail who “the Silent Death” was—so named for his penchant for silencers and a clingy black mask, of all things, over the bottom half of his face—she’d definitely have a job, even if it was one she couldn’t stand. But she was getting ahead of herself. She needed to finish the story first, and all she had were a few clues and one theory that was based more on her reporter’s instinct than on actual, hard facts. As her editor friend Amy Matheson had reminded her numerous times, “If you want to solve one of the biggest mysteries this town has seen in years, you need more than a gut feeling.”
Nigel dug his claws into her thighs as he leaped off toward the kitchen. It was unlike him to just give up on a petting session. Kathy mumbled to herself and returned her attention to “Eternal Sunshine” when she heard a noise. She couldn’t pinpoint where it was coming from, but the grating sound put her on edge.
Her one-bedroom apartment, nestled in downtown Miami in the nebulous area between “Little Haiti” and what eventually would become Miami Shores, was not prime real estate. Still, it was close to work and equally close to the beach, two places the tan-and-blond Kathy frequented, only one by choice. She was cautious. She’d been burglarized before. She turned off the television and tried to listen. She was just getting paranoid.
Then it started again. Metal scraping on metal. This time it was clear it was coming from her door—her doorknob, to be specific. What a time for Javier not to be here, she thought. She tightened the robe she was wearing around her T-shirt and shorts and headed toward the door, hoping that the sound of someone inside would startle whoever was trying to get into her apartment. The scraping stopped in the seconds it took Kathy to get to her door. She had no way of seeing if there was someone out there.
“Hello?” she snapped. “Who’s there? If you don’t leave I’ll call the p—”
Before she could finish, the door flung open, pushing her back and onto the floor. As she struggled to stand, a man busted in. He was large, muscular, and bearded—a grizzled, Hispanic man with a collection of gold jewelry around his neck and a scar down the whole left side of his face. She got to her feet. The large man grabbed her shoulders and shoved her to the couch, knocking the wind out of her.
The burly man was holding a small pistol. The sight of the gun made Kathy’s heart jump. He looked around.
“Hey Kathy. How’s it goin’ tonight?”
“Wh-who are you? How did you get in here?” Kathy felt separated from her body, wondered how she could even get the words out. He was very close to her now. She could feel his hot breath on her face, cheap rum and Spanish food in her nostrils. His left hand wrapped around her neck. She tried leaning further into the couch, but he wouldn’t let up.
“No te preocupes. I got in through the front door, remember?”
Don’t worry, he’d said. Kathy could glean that much with her bad Spanish. She tried to look around, but his grip tightened, forcing her eyes to meet his. “Gotta get you a better lock. This one here was too easy for me to pick.”
Kathy’s eyes darted around, looking for something, anything that could get her out of this. What did he want? Her money? There wasn’t any. Her stuff? Possibly. Her body? Likely. The burly man seemed to read her thoughts in the inch of air between them.
He raised his other hand and wagged his index finger in her face. No. You’re not going anywhere. She began to shake. She felt warm tears collecting in her eyes and choked on desperate sobs.
“Don’t go doing anything stupid, ok? No one knows I’m here.” He was whispering now. Her neck, still being held in place by a firm grip, was starting to hurt. “I’ve just got a few things to ask you, is all. Simple enough, no?”
Kathy tried to speak. Nothing came out. She nodded.
“Now, where does a smart reporter like you keep her notes, eh?” He said “reporter” with a sneer, dragging out the last syllable, English clearly not his preferred language. She could barely breathe through the heat of his body.
This is it, Kathy thought. This is how I die. Someone must have tipped him off about her article, but why? She’d spoken to only a handful of people. And they’d all been trusted sources she’d built up over time. What had she done to lead the bu
rly man here?
“M-m-my notes aren’t here,” Kathy stammered. “My story’s done. I’ve already turned it in to my editor. Lots of people have read it.”
Kathy was interrupted by a slap. The sharp pain took an extra sting through the tears coating her face. The burly man was no longer whispering. His breath slammed against her as he yelled, “You had better be lying.” Kathy felt herself being lifted, his grip closing off her throat. “Because if you’re not, this is not going to end well for you.”
Kathy began to speak, but felt a knee slam into her midsection. She couldn’t breathe. She heard her ribs crack. His grip loosened as Kathy fell to the tiles, her knees crashing hard, followed by her body and then her head.
She ran her hands over her face and body, trying to will them to work, when she saw the man take aim and slam his boot across her face. She couldn’t make out what he was saying. Everything had gone dark. For a second or two, it felt like the ground was moving. Then the tile was scraping against her skin. Something was yanking at her hair, no, pulling. She wasn’t sure if she was still crying. She thought she heard Nigel.
Chapter One
The bright red numbers on the nightstand stood out in the darkness of Pete Fernandez’s bedroom. Some sunlight crept into the space between his hastily drawn blinds. 2:30 in the afternoon. Pete groaned and scanned the room with his bloodshot eyes. Clothes scattered on the floor. Mail at his feet on the bed, black messenger bag tossed near the door. He covered his eyes with his palm. The throbbing in his forehead was bad. Not as bad as earlier, at four in the morning, when he’d relived the bottle of red wine and peach schnapps shots he’d consumed over the course of a few hours in his bathroom.
