AGAINST THE WIND (Book Two of The Miami Crime Trilogy) (19 page)

Alicia

Panama
City, Panamá

Wednesday,
April 11, 2012

3:05
PM

A
LICIA, AMY,
AND THE THREE SECURITY MEN
pulled the carry-on bags into the bank and were immediately
greeted by Felix Calderón.

"Did everything go all right in Colón?" he asked.

She nodded, and from somewhere out of her line of vision appeared her
contact man, a middle-aged, mustachioed vice president named Señor Del Valle,
who ushered them all straight into his office. The security team had left their
rifles in the SUV, but each packed a .45 semi-automatic pistol under their
open-necked shirts. Wary bank employees, all of whom knew the score, averted
their eyes from the suitcase-carrying group and tended to other business in
front of them.

"Señorita López," Señor Del Valle said with a smile that seemed
quite natural, "welcome back to Panamá."

Alicia introduced him to Amy and they exchanged a smile and a handshake.
He beckoned the women and Calderón to sit in the chairs facing his desk. He
took his seat in his big swivel chair opposite them. The security men remained
standing with the five carry-on bags in front of them.

He said, "I hope your trip was enjoyable and without incident."

"It was," Alicia replied. "Always good to be back in
Panamá. How is everything with you? Did you pass an enjoyable
Semana Santa
?"

Del Valle said he did.
Semana Santa
,
or Easter, was a major holiday in Panamá, with people exiting the city in
droves, swarming the country's beautiful beaches and other areas outlying the
capital. He went on to say a few words about his son's budding US baseball
career and how the boy hoped he would make the major leagues before too long.

Once these required niceties were out of the way, Señor Del Valle pointed
to a door to the rear of his office and said, "Shall we?"

She nodded and they all got up and headed for the door. Alicia took note
of Amy's two thousand dollar gray dress and the way it wrapped around her
compact little body. For a second there, blazing thoughts flew through her
mind, thoughts of sucking on Amy's big, heavy tits, thoughts of fucking her
with a strap-on until she cried out loud. More thoughts were knocking on the
door to her dirty mind, but she couldn't answer. The group was opening another
door, the one to the bank's count room.

They passed into a room with a large table and several expensive counting
machines spread around it. A young woman waited in attendance and he instructed
her to bring in more people to begin the count. The security team placed the
bags on the table. Alicia unzipped them. The money held everyone's eyes as it
seemed to glitter from within each case like long-buried pirate gold.

With everyone in place, Señor Del Valle gave the go-ahead to begin the
count.

≈ ≈ ≈

Following the mind-numbing procedure, which came out
correct to the last dollar, Señor Del Valle said, "Would you like to open
up new accounts for this money, Alicia?"

"Yes, two new accounts," she said, looking to Felix. He
produced three file folders, each containing paperwork on three separate
companies. Two of them, Central America Building and Construction Company and
Global Investments of Panamá were new, and they were destined to receive about
one-third of the total money, divided equally between them. As Alicia had told
Amy, the third, Panamá Building Supplies, SA, got the rest. Señor Del Valle
prepared the paperwork to open the accounts.

Alicia turned to Amy and moved her to the other side of the room while
Del Valle and Felix conferred on the details. She said, "This company,
Panamá Building Supplies, SA, had been previously opened by Colombians, cartel
people, on one of their previous visits here. It's mainly a funnel for the
newly-smuggled money."

Amy paid close attention. "Funnel? To where?"

"To other accounts," Alicia said. "I move this money
around from bank to bank until it settles into a permanent home right back here
in an account under the name of Panamá Global Development, SA. From there the
funds are used for construction projects, mostly in Panama City, mostly
high-end condos and office buildings, always through legitimate contractors.
PGD also has an account in a Miami bank. They occasionally invest in
development up there as well."

"All nice and legal," Amy said with a knowing grin. "All
the money nice and clean."

"You got it. And tomorrow I'll transfer the money from the other two
accounts to accounts in a bank in St Kitts under the names of two new
companies. These Panamanian accounts will be closed and the money will all be
in St Kitts."

Amy said, as though she were completing Alicia's sentence, "To
create a trail that cannot be followed."

"Right again."

"What happens in St Kitts?" Amy asked in a murmur, drawing
Alicia closer in order to hear her.

Alicia brushed her hand against Amy's arm and brushed it again, leaving
it there for two seconds, no more. "The money stays there till next week,
when I will arrange another wire transfer, this one to England. Then I fly to
England, where I have another company set up to receive the funds in a
corresponding bank account."

"You really do get around," Amy said, briefly rubbing her
breast against Alicia.

"Oh, I do,
preciosa
, I
do."

Amy's voice modulated sideways into coy level. "Why don't we … have
a drink and talk about your getting around when all this is done?" Her
hand swept the room.

Alicia was temporarily stunned by this advance. She thought she herself
would certainly be the one to make the first move. But this little Chinese girl
beat her to it. She loved it when mousy little things like Amy showed some
balls and stepped right up.

Tonight was going to be good.

Desi Junior

North Miami, Florida

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

11:25 PM

T
HE
SUNSPLASH CLUB
picked a questionable neighborhood in which to stake
a claim. A few little nearby strip centers told the story. A Jamaican minimart,
a pawn shop, a store that repaired cell phones
and
did tax returns, a place to sign up for food stamps, and other
odds and ends-type retail places serving the fringes of society. The club stood
alone, on the corner of State Road 7 and 132nd Street.

Its windowless exterior, thought Desi, would make
the place look like it was boarded up during the day, its low, concrete facade
painted black with green and gold trim. Only the graffiti, posing as art, broke
the blackness. It was ugly shit, the graffiti was, with a sloppy spray-paint
application, not looking like anything particular except the reflection of the
twisted mind that painted it on there. Not that the building was anything to
marvel at in the first place, but the tagging turned it into a repulsive blot
on an already desperate neighborhood.

Now, at night, only the faltering neon sign over
the entrance gave any tipoff at all of any activity inside. That, and the
crowds converging on the entrance. A large doorman in a tight black T-shirt
guarded the door, and as Desi drove past, he saw the guy checking IDs of a
couple of curvy black girls who showed lots of skin.

Heavy rain had fallen earlier in the evening
without bringing any breezes in from the ocean, so a thick blanket of humidity
covered the area. Desi cranked up his Escalade's AC another notch and found a
spot in the club's parking lot near the front door. Every time the door opened,
which was every twenty seconds or so, high-volume dancehall music blasted out.

The idea was not to take him in front of the
Sunsplash, or inside it. Rather, Desi's plan was to let him have his fun
inside, then follow him back home and blast him when he gets out of his car. He
would have the element of total surprise, so neither Bebop nor his driver would
have time to draw their weapons. Patience was the order of the day.
Be patient
, Desi thought,
and you'll have him right where you want
him. Wait. Wait.

He knew, though, that fucking up this time was not
an option. This had to go smoothly. Alicia was counting on it. Hell, she might
forget they were friends if Desi didn't pull this off. He'd been casing this
dump every night since Alicia tipped him to it. No matter what, he was going to
spend every fucking night here if he had to until that nigger showed up. Every
night for the next five years, if he had to.

He took a couple of deep breaths and felt under
the seat to make sure the nine millimeter was still there. Extra clips. Check.

A few minutes before midnight, a dark blue BMW
slowed to a stop in the "No Parking" zone directly in front of the
club. Out stepped a driver who moved to the passenger side of the car and
opened the back door. A full-figured blonde emerged from the back seat, her
considerable chest barely covered and wearing tighter-than-tight short shorts
along with impossibly high heels. Hooker chic.

She stood by until Bebop got out. Wearing a wide
smile, he was decked in his nightclub best. The driver closed the back door and
all three of them entered the club, Bebop tipping the doorman on his way in.
The big car remained in the forbidden parking spot, glistening with beaded
raindrops on its freshly-waxed surface.

Desi shut off his engine. He pulled his weapon
from under the seat and attached a silencer to its business end. After looking
at it for a moment as though he'd just created a work of art, he put it on the
floor by his feet and whipped out his iPod. He inserted the earbuds and
selected one of his playlists to see him through what promised to be a long wait.

Around one-thirty, he decided to walk across the
street to the minimart for a cup of coffee. As he passed the front door of the
Sunsplash Club, Bebop came barreling through it, cell phone in hand, squawking
into the phone in an urgent voice.

"You tellin' me it ain' dere, mahn?" He
was not pleased. "Awright, awright, I'm outside de club now. No yellin' …
"

Desi sidled up to the building and casually leaned
against it.
Just another street guy
propping up a building.
Bebop went on: "You tell dat muddahfuckah he
bettah have it tonight, you hear me, mahn? … Tonight! … You tell him I be right
dere."

The blonde and the driver trailed out of the club
after Bebop. This close, Desi could see the girl's blonde hair came from a
bottle, and her dark complexion revealed Hispanic heritage, probably Cuban. As
they piled into the BMW, Desi hustled back to his car and fired it up. He
followed them to I-95 and down the freeway several miles to Northwest 62nd
Street. They headed east into the dark interior of Little Haiti. Northwest
First Place off 59th Street.

Decrepit four-unit apartment structures lined this
section of First Place. Serious water remained from the evening's rain, forming
great pools along the street. Desi could see drainage was very poor in this
part of town, and, he figured, so were the people who lived here. It reminded
him of the drainage on the street outside the mattress store in East Hialeah during
his younger years.

The Beemer pulled up in front of one of the
apartment buildings. With few other cars on the street, Desi stayed back,
lights off, parking his red Escalade near the corner almost a block away. He clicked
a button and his window glided downward.

Patience,
Desi. Patience.

Bebop and the driver got out and there was a black
Chrysler 300 parked across the street. That driver exited his car and walked to
meet Bebop halfway. The two men stood in the center of the otherwise deserted
back street. Heated words flew back and forth, but Desi couldn't make them out.
Chrysler Man flailed his hands around and stood very close to Bebop, who
appeared to take it all in stride. When Bebop spoke, his voice was loud, but
clear and firm. It was all in patois, the Jamaican hybrid tongue spoken by many
of the island's natives. To Desi, however, it might as well have been ancient
Chinese. Even though they were down the block, and they spoke loudly enough to
be heard, everything they were saying was indecipherable. He couldn't even
distinguish actual words. It
 
sounded like one long moan, rising and falling in pitch along the way.

Chrysler Man now stomped around the middle of the
street, clearly frustrated, and yelled even louder. Bebop yelled back, and
anger flowed fast between the two. Chrysler Man reached under his shirt. Bebop
and his driver did the same, producing guns. They fired first, striking
Chrysler Man in the chest and in the head, tearing it open. He fell to the
street nearly headless, great chunks of his skull and brains landing on the
pavement around him.

Bebop and the driver quickly jumped back into the
car and sped away. Desi jammed his car into gear and followed, not turning on
his lights until they approached the entrance to I-95 north. They ramped up to
the freeway and sped to the Northwest 79th Street exit, where they headed west
toward the John F Kennedy Causeway.
Miami
Beach?
Desi thought, as they got closer to the causeway, the great bridge
between the mainland and the Art Deco playground of Miami Beach. At the last
possible moment before getting on the bridge, the BMW turned off onto a nearly
invisible little street, Northeast Bayshore Court, which ran along Biscayne Bay
for a few blocks.

Bebop's car turned into a modest four-story
apartment building a couple of blocks down, on the water side of Bayshore
Court. Nothing spectacular, but not bad. Desi closed the gap between the two
cars and entered the property, checking it all out.

This is it.
This is where this
hijo de puta
dies!
A few more deep breaths.
Stay cool, Desi.

As he pulled up to the small porte-cochère, Bebop
and the blonde stepped out of the BMW amid great door-opening ceremony from the
driver and the building's doorman, who awaited by the big glass front double
doors, ready to open one of them for his honored resident. The driver
re-entered the car and turned on to a ramp of the adjacent garage, where it
vanished, tires squealing as it ascended the ramp. Desi sped up to the front
door area. He leaped from his SUV, getting the attention of Bebop and the
blonde, who were in the process of being waved through by the fawning doorman.
Silenced semiauto in hand, Desi let loose two soft pops and the doorman went
down, bleeding from two holes in his chest.

The girl stayed close to Bebop. He held her to his
side, arm tightly around her shoulders. Desi waved his gun at her. "You!
Over there!" he said, pointing to one side. Cringing, she looked up at
Bebop for guidance. A slow nod advised her to move as she was told. She stepped
to her left about three feet away. Fear brought tears to her eyes.

"Pl-please," she sobbed.

Desi moved closer to Bebop. "Hands in the
air!" Bebop's hands shot up.

The girl's sobs grew louder. "Please! Don't!
I haven't done anything. I don't know wha —" Desi swung his nine
around and put one into the center of her heavily-painted face at short range,
blowing out the back of her head.

With that motion, Bebop instinctively ducked
inside the building, looking for a clear moment of respite where he could draw
his weapon. Before he had gotten ten feet away, Desi fired, striking him in the
back of the thigh, bringing him down. Bebop clutched at his thigh and howled in
pain. Desi walked up to his fallen figure, looked down at him and said,
"Look at me. I'm Desi fucking Ramos Junior, you fucking nigger faggot.
¡Me cago en el coño de tu madre!
"
He gave Bebop one pop in the groin, just to piss him off.
 
He watched him writhe in unimaginable
pain for a few seconds before putting four quiet ones in his head.