Cash Landing

by James Grippando

  Pinky stepped quietly out of the room and returned to the kitchenette. Pedro was seated at the table, cutting a few actual lines of the purer stuff on his virtual mirror.

  “You’re ruining your iPad screen,” said Pinky.

  Pedro snorted another line, then smiled wistfully at the instant virtual replacement, as if wishing it were as real as the one that had just disappeared up his nose. “I’ll be sure to mention that to the customer-service folks for the never-ending coke app.”

  Pinky dismissed it with a roll of his eyes. “Let me see your cell.”

  “What for?”

  “Just give it to me.”

  Pedro handed it over. Pinky pivoted and threw it at the wall with the force of a major-league fastball, shattering it to pieces.

  “What the hell did you do that for?”

  Pinky gripped his own phone, went into another big-league windup, and nailed the wall again in almost the same spot. More pieces fell to the floor.

  Pedro looked at him with disbelief. “And you’re telling me to lay off the drugs?”

  Pinky crossed the room and stomped the remains into tinier bits. “Haven’t you ever watched any kidnapping movies? It’s time for us to get new phones.”

  “These are burn phones,” said Pedro. “Nobody can trace them back to us.”

  “That kind of thinking will land you in Florida State Prison.”

  “What are you, a tech expert now?”

  “I checked it out on the Web. Prepaids still have an air card, and they still interact with cell towers. Just because the number can’t be traced back to an account holder doesn’t mean that a Kingfish, a Stingray, or some other gizmo can’t follow the signal back to the guy who’s physically holding the phone.”

  Pedro laid his iPad aside. The real coke was gone, and the virtual mirror went black. “What makes you think someone’s trying to track our cell phones?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past Ruban. These gadgets are super expensive, but Ruban’s got plenty of cash on hand.”

  “I don’t think it’s Ruban you’re worried about,” said Pedro, rising. “You’re worried about your niece, aren’t you?”

  “I’m pretty sure Savannah doesn’t have a Stingray.”

  “Don’t get cute with me,” said Pedro, stepping closer. “You’re afraid Savannah went to the cops. That’s why you did a Nolan Ryan on our cell phones.”

  “I’m just being careful.”

  Pedro’s eyes narrowed, and Pinky gave it right back to him, the two men locked in a stare-down. “If the girl feels safe enough to call the cops, we need to change that,” said Pedro.

  “No. No one lays a hand on Savannah.”

  “I don’t see a choice.”

  “I said no.”

  “Look, I don’t care what kind of warm and fuzzy favorite-uncle feelings you have for—”

  Pinky grabbed him by the collar, his voice hissing. “Don’t even say it, Pedro.”

  “Say what?”

  “That I got a thing for my niece.”

  Pedro winced at the suggestion. “Relax, bro. I wasn’t talkin’ sexual. I was just saying she’s your niece, and obviously you got different feelings toward her than toward Jeffrey. That’s all.”

  Pinky slowly released his grasp. Maybe he’d misread Pedro’s meaning. Regardless, Pinky’s overreaction had exposed something, and the fact that it was out there made both men uncomfortable. The stare-down continued a moment longer, and then Pinky blinked. “Let’s get new burn phones.”

  “Sure,” said Pedro. “Jeffrey coming?”

  “Wake his ass up and put him in the trunk.”

  Pinky grabbed the keys and pulled the car around to the back of the warehouse. Pedro brought Jeffrey out blindfolded so that he couldn’t get a look at the driver. They taped his mouth shut, bound his wrists and ankles with nylon rope, and stuffed him into the trunk. Pinky pulled away slowly. Pedro rode shotgun, busy with another line of real coke on his virtual mirror.

  “No blowing coke in the car,” said Pinky.

  “But it’s the never-ending coke app.”

  Pinky reached over and bumped the iPad from the underside, knocking the powder onto Pedro’s shirt. “Now it’s a never-ending shame, bro.”

  The Mall of the Americas was less than two miles from the warehouse, just on the other side of the expressway, and the electronics store was, conveniently, open late. Pinky parked outside the main entrance and went inside. Pedro stayed in the car to make sure Jeffrey kept quiet in the trunk. Five minutes later Pinky returned with three no-contract cell phones, each with its own untraceable phone number and fully activated.

  “Why three?” asked Pedro.

  “One for you, one for me, and one for Ruban.”

  “Ruban?”

  “Think about it: if the cops are tracking our phones on a Stingray, they’re probably tracking Ruban’s, too. Doesn’t do much good for us to be talking on new burn phones if he’s still talking on his old phone, does it?”

  “I guess not. But if we’re gonna call and tell him where to pick up his new phone, we might as well call and tell him where to deliver the money, right?”

  “Dumb shit. We don’t call him on his old phone to tell him anything. We have the new phone delivered to him, and then we call him.”

  “Sounds good in theory. But who’s the delivery man?”

  “Someone Ruban will listen to,” he said, and then he turned on a bad Jamaican accent. “Someone I can count on, mon.”

  Chapter 59

  It was Saturday night, and Café Ruban was hopping.

  Ruban’s instructions from Jeffrey’s kidnapper were to follow his normal routine all the way up until the exchange. Ruban did so, bopping back and forth from the noisy kitchen to the crowded bar, checking on the night’s reservations, and gracing his customers at their tables with his personal attention to make sure all were being cared for properly. Nothing about that night felt “normal,” however—especially when Octavio’s pretty fiancée showed up with a pissed-off expression on her face.

  “You and I need to talk,” Jasmine said. “In private.”

  The last time they’d spoken was on a jogging course, where Jasmine had threatened to pass along Ruban’s name to the FBI if he didn’t come up with Octavio’s missing share of the heist. He’d explained how Octavio’s backpack was stolen in the hit-and-run, and in a desperate case of wishful thinking he’d clung to the notion that she might cut him some slack, at least for a time. It appeared that his “time” was up.

  “Let’s take this in my office,” he said.

  She followed him from the bar, past the restrooms, to the office behind the kitchen. Ruban closed the door, which cut the decibel level of the crowded restaurant by half, at best. Jasmine didn’t give him a chance to ask what this was about.

  “You lied to me,” she said.

  “Can’t say I know what you’re talking about. But I do know that I’ve been nothing but truthful with you.”

  “Spare me, please. You kept Octavio’s money.”

  “I told you: the backpack was stolen.”

  “I happen to know that the backpack was empty when you gave it to him.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Who told you that?”

  “Pinky.”

  Ruban froze. The Pinky connection had always troubled him about Jasmine. Apart from the actual heist, the three principal coconspirators—Ruban, Pinky, and Octavio—had been in the same place at the same time on only one occasion: a prep session the summer before at Night Moves, where Pinky had introduced Jasmine to Octavio.

  “There was a million dollars in vacuum-sealed plastic inside that backpack,” said Ruban. “That’s why Pinky ran him down and stole it.”

  “Oh, so now you tell me it was Pinky who ran him over? Funny you never mentioned that the last time we talked.”

  “I wasn’t sure it was him before. Now I am. How would Pinky even be able to tell you the backpack was empty unless he was the one who ran Octavio down and stole it? Have
you thought of that?”

  Jasmine didn’t react one way or the other, and Ruban couldn’t tell whether she’d thought through Pinky’s role or not. Maybe it didn’t matter to her.

  “What about Marco Aroyo?” she asked.

  Marco was a name he hadn’t even bothered to share with Octavio, his role was so limited. “How do you even know about Marco?”

  “Pinky told me that you made him disappear and kept his money.”

  “I gave Marco’s share to Pinky! Pinky still has it!”

  “That’s not what Pinky says.”

  “Why would you believe a scumbag like Pinky over me?”

  “Because you’re the scumbag who hired Ramsey to kidnap your own brother-in-law.”

  “Did Pinky tell you that, too?”

  “No,” she said, her glare tightening. “Ramsey did.”

  Ruban suddenly felt cornered. The first kidnapping was a truth that tipped the credibility scales against him, and he had to explain it. “Okay, that part is true. But I was just trying to scare Jeffrey into cleaning up his act. It was never the plan to get any money out of him. I didn’t screw over Octavio and give him an empty backpack, and I sure as hell didn’t kill Marco.”

  “I don’t believe you, but that’s beside the point. I’m still going to give you this chance to make things right. Be at the Sunset Motel on Flagler at two a.m.”

  “For what?”

  She laid a phone on Ruban’s desk. “This is a prepaid cell. Never been used, no call history, no trace. Bring it with you. All the instructions you’ll need to make the exchange will come over this phone. It’ll be by text only. No more discussions.”

  “Whoa, wait a minute. You said I was a scumbag for hiring Ramsey to scare Jeffrey, but now you’re the one running the exchange?”

  “Just be at the Sunset Motel at two.”

  “Who will I see when I get there? The moron who called me at home and negotiated against himself? Or the real half-brain behind this operation?”

  “You’ll find out.”

  Ruban shook his head, still amazed that she could overlook Pinky’s sins. “Pinky killed Marco. He killed Octavio. He’s probably going to kill Jeffrey. And now you’re working for him?”

  “Wrong. I’m working for me.”

  “You’re taking an unbelievable risk for a cut of a fifty-thousand-dollar ransom.”

  “Dream on, fifty thousand. Here’s the new deal: bring Octavio’s million dollars and Marco’s. Then you get Jeffrey back.”

  “You’ve missed a few weekly episodes here, sweetheart. I honestly don’t care if I get Jeffrey back.”

  “No. But your wife does.”

  “Leave Savannah out of this.”

  “Too late. She’s in. All in.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You should ask Pinky that question when you see him. And then do what you gotta do, Ruban. For Octavio.”

  Ruban suddenly understood. “So that’s your angle? You climb in bed with Pinky long enough to get your hands on Marco’s share on top of Octavio’s, and then you stand aside as I give Pinky what he deserves for taking down Octavio like roadkill?”

  “It sounds so manipulative when you say it.”

  Ruban swallowed his anger, thinking about the assault rifle in his car, along with four magazines of thirty-two rounds apiece. “You’re a clever one,” he said, wondering if he had enough ammunition.

  “Yes, I am. Don’t be late.”

  She opened the door, and he watched her leave.

  Too clever for your own good.

  Andie watched on the video screen as Jasmine emerged from Café Ruban. An FBI surveillance van was parked across the street from the restaurant, and the two agents inside were streaming the images back to Andie in her car, which was parked a little farther down the street. Littleford was seated in the passenger seat, also watching the screen.

  “That’s definitely her,” Andie said. “That’s Octavio Alvarez’s fiancée.”

  The surveillance agent’s response came by radio. “You want us to tail her?”

  “Not in the van,” said Andie. “I’d rather call for another team.”

  “No time. She’s heading for her car. We’re going to lose her.”

  Jasmine’s arrival at the restaurant had taken Andie by surprise. They weren’t equipped to tail both her and Betancourt.

  “Take the van and follow her until we can get another vehicle,” Littleford told the surveillance agents. “We’ll rendezvous later.”

  “Roger.”

  Littleford disconnected.

  “What if Betancourt leaves the restaurant before we rendezvous with the communications van?” asked Andie.

  “Then it’s you and me in our bucar,” said Littleford using the dated term for an FBI vehicle. “No Kingfish, no Stingray. We’ll tail him the old-fashioned way.”

  Andie didn’t see much choice. “All right,” she said. “Old-fashioned is good.”

  Jasmine climbed into the car and closed the driver’s-side door. Ramsey looked over from the passenger seat. The dome light blinked off, and the two of them were alone in the darkness.

  “How did it go?” he asked.

  “Perfect. I made it absolutely clear to him that Pinky is involved.”

  Inserting Pinky’s name into the kidnapping had been directly contrary to Pinky’s instructions to Ramsey, but Jasmine and Ramsey had their own agenda.

  “Did he take the cell phone?”

  “Yup. And I told him text only, no more phone conversations.”

  Ramsey opened the glove box and reached for the burn phone, the one Pinky had given him for delivery to Ruban. Two grand just to deliver a cell phone to Ruban had seemed like a good deal to Ramsey, but Jasmine had bigger ideas. It had been her brainstorm to drive by an electronics store, purchase another prepaid cell phone for Ruban, and keep the one from Pinky. Pinky had no way of knowing that the instructions he would text to Ruban would actually go to Ramsey, and that Ramsey would be texting a different set of instructions to Ruban—instructions that would make the “exchange” go down in a way that served his and Jasmine’s purposes.

  “Sistren, tell me. You think Ruban will be showin’ up with two million dollars?” he asked.

  “I really do. If for no other reason, he’ll want to show Pinky what he’s not getting before he kills him.”

  Ramsey drew a deep breath, reeling in his anticipation. “Whadda you goin’ to do with your mil?”

  “I don’t know yet. What are you going to do with yours?”

  Ramsey leaned across the console and gave her a quick kiss on the lips. “You a clever one, Bambi.”

  She smiled. “Funny. That’s what Ruban told me.”

  Chapter 60

  Ruban left the restaurant around one and stopped by the house. It wasn’t exactly on his way to the Sunset Motel, but he had plenty of time to get there by two, and he was hoping that Savannah would be home. He had no reason to think she would be, and of course she wasn’t. Still at her mother’s, he presumed. He used his real phone, not the prepaid, to type out a text message—sorry . . . i love u . . . please come home—but he didn’t send it. No one down to his last out in the World Series of love had ever fired off a game-winning text message at 1:30 a.m.

  Don’t be pathetic.

  He hit “cancel,” opened the sliding glass door in the kitchen, and stepped outside. It was a clear, crisp night, and he walked to the far edge of the patio, beyond the fluorescent glow from the kitchen. A brick paver wobbled beneath his foot, and he stopped. There was money below him; there was money weighing on his shoulders.

  Two million dollars, the equivalent of Octavio’s and Marco’s share. Handing over that much to Jasmine would all but wipe him out. Ruban’s entire take had been just two and a half, and he’d been chipping away at that on everything from Edith Baird’s first fifty grand to the nonrefundable deposit on the house that Savannah didn’t want. Pinky was angling to be the big winner—his share plus Marco’s and Octavio’s. P
inky and Jasmine, his new cohort. Co-whore.

  It was time to change that.

  He went back inside to his gun cabinet and selected two pistols, one for his belt and one for backup, in case the other jammed. The Uzi-style assault rifle made a more powerful statement, but he could conceal it only with the stock folded, so he couldn’t count on using it in a pinch. He grabbed two extra ammunition clips, locked up the cabinet, and went to the bedroom closet. The balance of the money he’d set aside for Edith Baird was still in the backpack. He removed all but two vacuum-sealed packs of twenty-five thousand dollars each. It wasn’t his intention to pay a ransom, but he needed to be able to bluff his way through the “exchange.” The final touch was a windbreaker to hide the handgun on his belt. He locked up the house, went to his car, and retrieved the Uzi-style rifle from the trunk. With the stock folded, it fit just fine in the backpack. He laid it on the floor on the passenger side, started the engine, and drove.

  Flagler is one of Miami’s oldest and busiest streets, and the Sunset Motel was at its western end, midway between Miami’s Little Havana and the Florida Everglades. Most of the old motels in this once-vibrant area were in decline and slated for demolition, and Ruban surmised that the last tourists to pull up and spend the night at the Sunset were probably on their way to Miami Beach in a 1966 Ford station wagon. The two-story building was typical of that bygone era. Rooms faced the parking lot and opened directly to the outdoors. Noisy climate-control units protruded from below the front windows. The neon letters on the roadside marquee were partially burned out, leaving the “Vacancy” sign to proclaim “Vaca,” which Ruban read in his native tongue: Cow. Add that to the pigs that flocked to this place in search of prostitutes, and the Sunset Motel was a veritable barnyard.

  Ruban found a parking space near the marquee and left the motor running. He was a few minutes early. The burn phone from Jasmine was on the console. One approach would have been to wait for the text message and play their game. Ruban had another strategy. He grabbed the burn phone and the backpack, got out of the car, and walked across the parking lot to the manager’s office. The glass door was locked, a reasonable precaution in this neighborhood, but Ruban could see the manager seated behind the reception counter. She laid her cigarette in the ashtray, and with the press of a button her gravelly voice crackled over the speaker.