by A. C. Fuller
“That you?” she asked.
“Damn right. It’s on YouTube.”
Unable to stop himself, he began rapping along with the track, gesturing and pointing at Cole like he was in a music video. She didn’t understand most of the words, but he had a decent flow. She raised a hand to stop him when he rhymed “Mi amor” with “Show the ho the door.”
“Excellent,” she lied. “Help me for the day and I’ll send links to some music writers I know.”
His eyes got wide, then narrowed slowly. “And let me take you out for a mojito? A tequila, I mean.”
She nodded. “I assume you’re a Miami resident?”
“Told you, I run the 305.”
“Right, right. And how do you feel about local entrepreneurship?”
7
A rusty bell clanged as Warren walked into the dingy bait and tackle shop. The man behind the counter looked nothing like the SG he remembered. His face was round and flabby, his chin connected to his thick chest by a triple chin. Warren wondered whether he’d gotten some bad information.
It had taken him all morning and into the early afternoon to track down his old CI. He’d been hung up on by two buddies in the NYPD, failed to find him through a public records search, and had finally resorted to texting Gabriela for help. As usual, she’d come through, tracking SG to a bait shop fifteen minutes from the hotel in Little Havana.
Warren walked to the back wall, where three old drink fridges hummed, fighting to keep cool. He shot a look at the counter. The man’s eyes were glued to his lap, where he fiddled with a plastic price tag gun.
Warren cleared his throat loudly. The man looked up, his eyes flashing a brilliant light green. SG’s eyes were unmistakable, but they hadn’t registered any recognition when landing on Warren, which gave him a moment to plan his approach.
He’d met SG through another informant, a weed dealer from Brooklyn who Warren had busted his first month on the job. In exchange for looking the other way, the dealer had connected Warren with a half dozen potential informants. The best of those had been SG, which stood for Sea Glass. Not only did he have bright green eyes, when they’d met he’d been an addict so they often had a glazed, glassy look to them. They contrasted so strikingly with his dark black skin they looked like they were trying to escape his face, which, at the time, had been scarred, hollow, and bony. Warren had known he was an addict right away, and used that to his advantage. He’d followed SG for a few hours, watched him buy a bag of heroin, thrown him up against a wall, then made him promise to keep an ear to the ground for him in exchange for letting it slide.
Some cops had some hesitation about using confidential informants who were themselves criminals. Warren never had. Though he’d taken an oath to enforce the law, he was a libertarian when it came to drugs. He enforced drug laws when violence was involved, but couldn’t bring himself to give a shit about a broken young man choosing to kill his body with substances. In retrospect, he wished he’d taken drugs more seriously. Maybe his laissez-faire approach to drugs had just been foreknowledge of his own coming issues.
Warren approached the counter. “Not where I expected to find you, SG.”
He looked up, studying Warren’s face. “What in the hell? Rob?”
“It’s me.”
SG waddled out from behind the counter like he was going to give Warren a hug, but instead walked past him to a small rack of Miami fishing guidebooks. Back to Warren, he began putting price tags on them. “Not where I thought I’d end up,” he growled.
“What do you call this part of Miami?”
“Overtown.”
The name rang a bell, but Warren couldn’t place it. “Tell me something about it.”
“People think Miami’s all beaches, or maybe cigar shops and pastelitos. This is the real Miami. Spot we’re in used to be called ‘Colored-Town.’ Designated section for folks who looked like you and me. A little gentrified now, but still poor as hell.” He set the price gun on the bookshelf and sat heavily on a stool, breathing hard. He squinted at Warren, studying him. “Don’t tell me you brought your in-shape NYPD ass to Miami for a history lesson.”
“You aren’t glad to see me?”
“You used me to bust my friends.”
“I could have arrested you.”
“Maybe you should have. Might have cleaned me up earlier. You never gave a shit about me.” His tone was bitter. Warren didn’t know why he’d expected anything different. The cop/CI relationship was a complicated one, and it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that SG’s memories weren’t as fond as his.
Warren smiled, trying to keep it light. “I thought Florida was supposed to mellow people out.”
“What can I say? I guess the drugs made me more fun to be around.” He patted his massive belly. “Skinnier, too.” He turned back to the books.
“Better sober than nice, I guess.” Warren paced the store, picking up a book on local wildlife, then putting it back without turning a page.
He was about to ask for help when SG spoke first. “Heard you had some trouble back home.”
Warren had hoped to use his place in the NYPD to get cooperation. That SG knew about his suspension made his task more difficult. “Reporter screwed me. Still hoping to get reinstated.”
“What? I was talking about Sarah. Marina.”
“I…” Warren faltered. The air left his chest. “What?”
“Heard she dropped you.”
SG hadn’t heard about his suspension, but he’d heard about the separation. As much as this pissed him off—the conversation with his old friend Bakari Smith still burned in his chest—it confirmed that SG was still the gossip he’d always been. “You were my best CI. I bet you still keep an ear to the ground.”
SG walked slowly back to his seat behind the counter and pulled off his hooded sweatshirt. His t-shirt read: I thought I was in a bad mood, but it’s been a couple years. I guess this is who I am now. He folded his meaty arms across his chest. “I don’t owe you.”
“You don’t, but I bet you want to help me.”
The bell clanged and a young white couple entered the store. Warren thought they looked lost and he backed away from the counter as they approached.
The woman asked, “You got pinfish today?”
Wordlessly, SG walked to the far end of the counter. Grabbing a net from a shelf, he dug into a fish tank that looked like an old brown bathtub and pulled out three fish, each about the size of a hand. In a surprisingly deft motion, he scooped up a plastic bucket and dropped the fish in it, then topped it off with water from the tank.
Pulling out his wallet, the man asked, “Where the amberjack biting these days?”
“Sugar Bear Reef is usually good this time of year. Fella told me last week he got a forty pound Jack at Belzona Two. Been there?”
The man smiled proudly. “Pulled a forty-five-pounder there last year.”
“He sure did,” the woman added. “And I pulled a thirty-pounder.” She stretched her arms out wide, exaggerating the fish’s size. “Guess they didn’t learn their lesson.”
Warren studied his old source as he rang up the bait. SG had always been a gossip. Someone who got off on knowing—and sharing—everything about everything. Then again, he’d always been high. Now that he was clean and sober, he’d changed. But Warren didn’t believe the gossip in him had died out completely.
The bell on the door clanged as the couple left.
“You’re allowed to have a tub of live bait behind the counter?”
“Technically not. It’s my private stash. Only people who know about it can buy.”
“Pinfish, they said? What’s it for?”
“Wreck fishing. Bottom fishing. Pinfish are the best for that. Tougher than most other small bait fish.”
“Sounds like you know your stuff.” Warren knew nothing about fishing, and didn’t especially care, but he wanted to keep SG talking. “What’s wreck fishing?”
“The larger fish, like Amberjack, sear
ch out the deeper reefs where they can find food. The deeper the water, the bigger the fish. Deep enough, they find shipwrecks. The shipwrecks offer the Jacks just what they need: cover to hide in while they dine on the smaller fish.”
“Seems like you still keep an ear to the ground. Least when it comes to fishing.”
“Does it now?”
“Sure does. My bet is that, even though you’re well out of the game, you still hear things from time to time.”
SG offered up a wry smile, a smile Warren recognized. His bright eyes flashed and twinkled.
Despite SG’s changed appearance, his old CI was alive and well.
8
Cole and Pipo waited in line in front of a small convention hall in Little Haiti.
Cole gestured at a small banner hung above the door, marked with the logo for the Bank of South Florida. “What have you heard about Ana Diaz?” she asked.
“She’s the shit, bro. Chica has so much cash they call her Money Bags.”
“You really comfortable calling one of the most powerful bankers in America ‘Chica’?”
“Settle down, lady. What are you, the friggin’ PC police?”
“So what do you know about her?”
“She’s the most successful Cuban-American business-lady in Miami.”
“Looking for stuff I can’t get from a Google search. Do you know much about how she got to where she is?”
Pipo shook his head, but it was clear he’d stopped listening. He nodded toward two beefy security guards in yellow shirts who were checking IDs. “Lemme do the talking when we get up there.”
As they inched closer, Cole grew nervous. The men were intimidating, like bouncers at a bar. The worst that could happen was they’d turn her away, but something in her was concerned. The level of security seemed unnecessary for a local event about minority entrepreneurship.
When they reached the front, Pipo put his arm around Cole’s waist. “Dale,” he whispered.
They stepped forward together. “Qué bolá asere.” Pipo spoke like the security guards were old buddies as he handed over his ID.
“I don’t speak Spanish,” the man said, inspecting the ID.
“Bro, you live in Miami. Qué bolá asere is like the national anthem around here.” He was talking fast, congenially. “Came down here to learn how to get my music studio off the ground.” He pulled the “305” chain out from his shirt and held it up, then raised a hand to fist-bump the guy. “I’m the next Pitbull, bro. 305, right?”
The man ignored him, wrote his name on the clipboard, and looked at Cole. “ID, please.”
“Bro, this is my aunt from New York. Brought her down because she’s gonna help fund my music studio. Why you think I’m here?”
The man glared at Pipo, unimpressed.
“Technically she ain’t from Miami but the 305 runs in her veins.”
“No,” the man said simply.
“We thought you could bring a guest.”
“Policy change. Miami residents only. Please step aside, ma’am.”
The guy was like a mountain. Huge and immovable, both physically and emotionally. She imagined Pipo could talk his way into many places in Miami, but this wasn’t one of them.
She pulled him out of the line. “If you can’t get me in, how about you help me find out where she lives. We’ll meet her when she gets home.”
For the next two hours, Pipo led her on a wild-goose chase through Miami, always promising the answer lay at the next stop. They toured Coconut Grove, West Miami, and returned to Little Havana to visit Pipo’s uncle. Finally, they wandered into the lobby of a hotel on South Beach where Pipo claimed he “knew a guy.”
Cole waited as Pipo searched the lobby, looking in vain for his friend. It was fairly typical for a mid-size hotel: a check-in area, some plants, a few chairs and a small table with newspapers laid out. The main difference between it and any other hotel were the colors—bright oranges and whites, with a floor of textured cork tiles in soft yellows, greens, and teals. He took her hand and pulled her outside to a circular bar at the pool.
To her surprise, Pipo did seem to know someone there. A tall, lanky black man sat on a stool, staring at his phone and sipping absentmindedly from a giant red drink that had an upside-down can of beer in it. Various fruits garnished the edges.
When she caught up to Pipo, he was saying, “Dude, bro, when are you gonna get my jams on the radio.”
“Mike makes those decisions.” The man’s demeanor was surly and standoffish. Cole figured Pipo had bugged him about getting his music on the radio.
“I was with you before your show got huge, man, now you’re gonna do me like this?”
The man looked up at Cole. “Ben. I work for a radio station upstairs.”
She shook his extended hand. “Jane Cole. There’s a radio station at the hotel?”
He nodded, then looked down at his phone. Clearly, he wasn’t interested in chatting.
“Quick thing, bro. Then we’ll be gone, I swear.”
Leaning over the glass, he took a long pull from the straw. “What?”
“You know where Ana Diaz lives?”
For Cole, fear was one of the easiest emotions to read, especially in non-criminals. Like most animals, humans try to take up less space when they’re afraid. At the mention of the name “Ana Diaz,” Ben’s shoulders tensed and pulled in toward his ears. His neck muscles tightened. But even if they hadn’t, his mouth and eyelids told the story. Mouth shut tight, his jaw popped. The patch of skin below his eyes grew taught.
Cole saw the reaction as if in slow motion.
After a few seconds, he shook his head, not saying a word.
But his body had said plenty.
“Dude,” Pipo said, “that’s caca and you know it. You guys did a live spot from her bank, and I know you were producing that segment.”
“Why you keeping track of what segments I produce?”
“Bro, I’m like the biggest fan of your show. I didn’t want to have to go here, but you owe me. You know what I’m talking about.”
Ben looked up and down the bar, which had started to fill with bikini-clad women, oiled-up men, and a few pasty-faced tourists. He leaned across the bar, grabbed a napkin and a pen, and scrawled an address. He handed it to Pipo. “Shred this when you get there, or eat it. I could get fired for giving you this.”
His words said he could get fired, but his face betrayed what he really thought. It was something worse than fired.
The address was less than a mile north on Ocean Drive. On the east side of the street, it was a huge beachfront estate surrounded by a stone wall about six feet high. Aluminum poles had been drilled into the stone every six feet, chain link strung between them and barbed wire angled toward the street.
Walking confidently, Pipo rang a bell outside an imposing entry gate.
“You really think they’re gonna let us in?” Cole asked.
“C’mon, mama. Pipo can talk his way into any house in Miami.”
She was about to make fun of him for speaking about himself in the third person when two men emerged from a large garage. The larger of the two, who was the size of Cole and Pipo combined, marched up to the gate. He wore a cream-colored linen suit with a bright white shirt. “What is it?”
“What up, bro?” Pipo extended a hand through the gate.
Ignoring the gesture, the man said, “You have exactly five seconds to tell me why you’re here.” Beside him and standing about a yard behind, the other man took off his sunglasses, folded his arms, and glared at them. He wore a similar suit in powder blue and his gleaming bald head matched the first man’s.
“Bro, my friend here needs to talk with Ana Diaz. It’s urgent.”
“She doesn’t live here.”
Cole tried to read him as he spoke, but sunglasses hid his eyes and his chiseled face didn’t quiver. If he was lying, she couldn’t tell.
“Bro, c’mon. She lives here.”
“Time’s up.” The man turned.
The other shot a cold look at Cole, then at Pipo. He put his sunglasses on and followed the other back into the garage.
Cole pulled her wallet out of her hip purse and held out two hundred dollars.
“No hurry, mama, you can pay me after we get drinks. Tequila, tequila.”
She shoved the money into his hands. “I’m gonna have to take a rain check.”
She needed to get back to Warren, and fast.
9
“I can’t tell you exactly why I’m here,” Warren said, “but let’s say someone is going to get killed.” SG shot him a look. “Someone big in Miami. Ring any bells?”
His old CI thought for a moment. “It might.”
“What can I do to jog your memory?”
“Well, everybody wants to kill the owner of the Marlins, you know, the baseball team.” He chuckled. “They’ve sucked for years.”
“And that’s probably true of half the sports franchises in the country.” He knew how angry he’d gotten at the owners of his favorite teams, but there had been a sports connection on Cole’s list. “You heard anything specific on that?”
“Nah.”
“Let’s try an experiment. Don’t think, just answer: who runs Miami?”
“Since the Trafficante family fell apart, things have spread out. They say Lady Chicharrón is running most of the coke now, but who knows?”
“Lady Chicharrón?”
“Money bags. Young woman. Cuban and Italian. Niece of someone from one of the New York families…maybe Vegas. I don’t know. Just a name you hear whispered.”
“Real name?”
He shrugged.
“But you’re saying, if someone big is about to get taken down, she’d know.”
“Or would have ordered it. Look, I don’t know, but from what I hear, no organized shit goes down in Miami without her blessing.”
“Thanks, SG. Any other ideas?”
“Shouldn’t even have told you that.”
