Miami Noir (31 page)
I asked an old man coming out of apartment four if a lady named Carmen Sánchez had lived here. In Spanish accented with Portuguese, he told me the police had just left. They had searched an apartment upstairs, the one right over his head,
el número diez
. Was it true she had killed two people with a machete? Was it true that she herself was dead? Thanks be to God. He’d thought something was funny with her, the way she never spoke to anybody, the things he’d heard through the ceiling.
Candomble, Palo Mayombe
, who knew what? He’d been afraid to complain. A woman like that. No, he’d never seen anyone come to her apartment.
I thanked him and took the stairs and walked to the middle door on the left side. It was open, leading to a small room with a vinyl tile floor, burglar bars at the windows, a single bed, and a kitchen area to one side. A big woman with her hair in pink rollers was cleaning out the refrigerator.
She saw me and asked if I was a reporter. She had already thrown reporters from four TV stations out of the building. I gave her my card and said I worked for the murdered doctor’s wife, and I had seen the dead bodies.
The woman closed the refrigerator and peeled off her rubber gloves. For the price of a few details about the murder scene, she agreed to talk to me.
She hadn’t seen any American men visiting Señora Sánchez. No men of any kind, or women. And no big yellow trucks had ever parked in the lot. She would have known. She kept her eyes open. Carmen Sánchez was crazy, no doubt about that. Just look. Look at all this.
She didn’t mean the ordinary clothes in the small closet, the shoes side by side on the floor, or the cans of beans and bag of rice in the kitchen cabinet. She meant the heavy purple curtains that made it dark as a cave in here if you closed them. She meant the things on that table over there in the corner. What kind of a crazy person would have such things in her house?
I’d seen the like in homes of Cuban believers in
Santería
but this made Nena’s simple collection look almost Puritan. Mrs. Sánchez’s altar had a three-foot-tall statue of St. Michael the protector, about to slash a demon with his sword. There were drums, conch shells, cowrie shells, beads, feathers, and carved gourds. There were candles in glass holders, dozens of them. Little bottles of perfumed oil. I saw a box of kitchen matches, four butane lighters, and a quart bottle of Ronrico rum. I lifted the lid of a wooden box and saw a pile of small charred bones.
“Did she burn these in the backyard?”
The landlady gave a shake of her head that bounced her pink rollers. No, that wasn’t allowed, burning bones. Such things were not permitted.
I thanked her for her time.
Before I went away to the police academy, my grandmother stopped crying long enough to make me promise to come over for a sacred fire circle. I’d seen her do one before, when my cousin joined the army, and he came back from Iraq in one piece. So I said okay. If it would make you happy, Nena, okay.
It’s best to do this under a full moon. You need a flat concrete surface, like a driveway. Or a back porch.
Mami was there, and my Aunt Josefa. I can’t say they believed, but they didn’t want to tempt fate, so they agreed to help. Nena made me kneel, then she used two entire cans of lighter fluid to make a circle around me. She clicked a lighter, and orange flames shot up in a whoosh of heat. I coughed on the smoke. Meanwhile, Aunt Josefa poured rum over the blade of a machete. I believe she got it from my Uncle Raul, who had been clearing weeds in their backyard.
Blue flames poured off the steel and dripped to join the orange circle. Nena took the machete and sliced through the flames.
“Olodumare, rey del universo, protégela. Protege a esta niña. Cuídela.”
She was praying to the gods for my protection in the line of duty, but I remember looking side to side and hoping none of the neighbors were seeing this insane little white-haired lady dancing around the fire.
The women passed the bottle around and filled their mouths. They pressed the trigger of a butane lighter and sprayed out the rum, which turned to a fiery blue mist. I was afraid my clothes would catch on fire, but miraculously all I felt was a cool rush of air. The orange flames sputtered and went out.
For years I thought Nena had invented this ritual, and that she and her friends used it as an excuse to get drunk. She had put her own touches on it, but she hadn’t made it up.
When I broke my back, Nena came every day to the hospital and reminded me I was alive. She said it was a sign: I should get out of police work and take a normal job like other women.
If Nena is looking on, I don’t know if she’s happy with what I do. It may not be a normal job, but it’s a job, and I’m pretty good at it.
For the second time that day, I went through the shoe shop and up the stairs to Rosario Cardona’s place. It was a few minutes past 6 o’clock, and her last client had just left. Heavy clouds were moving in, bringing an early twilight.
I knocked. Rosario Cardona frowned when she saw who was there. “I’m sorry, but I can’t see you now. If you could call tomorrow—”
“I only have one more question. I promise it won’t take long.”
I slid past her. The sound of New Age flutes and a harp came through hidden speakers.
Rosario pushed the door shut. “All right. What’s your question?” Her perfect little mouth was in a polite smile, but her body language said something else. Arms crossed, weight on one hip. The sharp heels of her boots cut into the rug.
“Has Rick Zaden been here lately?”
She waited for me to explain this. When I didn’t, she said patiently, “No. I told you, I haven’t seen Rick for a long time.”
“At his restaurant in the Grove.”
“Correct.”
“Then why—and I guess this makes two questions—why did the lady who owns the shop tell me she’d seen a yellow Hummer in the parking lot two days ago?”
Rosario Cardona shrugged, a slight lift of one shoulder. “There’s more than one yellow Hummer in Miami.”
“And last week, and sometimes at night—”
“It wasn’t Rick,” she said. “I don’t know whose car it was, but it wasn’t Rick’s. Excuse me, but I have work to do.” She went to the door and swung it open for me.
From my purse I took a small plastic bag and held it up to let her see the brown glass bottle inside it. “Do you remember this?”
“Yes. I just gave it to you.”
“No. You gave it to Carmen Sánchez. I found it in her apartment.”
There was the first flicker of dark anger in her eyes, like distant lightning. “Everyone sells that.”
“I called seven
botánicas
, and they never heard of Nature’s Meadow.”
“I don’t know what your little game is, but I want you to leave. Right now.”
I pivoted and crossed the room to the table in the far corner. The gypsy smiled blankly at me. Rosario’s boots thudded across the floor. “I’m calling the police.”
“Go for it.” I tipped a basket to see what was inside. “Bones. Mrs. Sánchez had these in her apartment too.”
“Get out.”
“How did you meet her? Did you bump into her by accident at Sedano’s Supermarket on Calle Ocho? At the Nicaraguan restaurant where she ate? No, not there. Someone might’ve remembered you. What did you say to her?
I see loss. I see grief. A young man who died.
Is that what you said? Rick knew she was nuts, but he couldn’t play her like you could. But you wouldn’t have used your own name. You couldn’t bring her here. Did you open a studio in Little Havana? Turns out, you didn’t have to worry. Kathy Zaden shot her.”
“I said get out!”
“I can’t decide if you’re sleeping with Rick Zaden or he’s paying you. It must be tough working over a discount shoe store.”
She leaped for the first thing in reach, a wrought-iron candleholder about waist high. The candle flew off the top, leaving a bare black iron spike that came straight for me. She was a small woman, and I wrenched it out of her hands, put a hip in her side, and threw her to the painted concrete floor.
She lay there wheezing, no wind in her lungs. I picked up the stuff that had fallen out of my purse, including the bottle of oil. Maybe her fingerprints were on it, maybe not.
When I looked back at the shoe shop in my rearview mirror, they were turning off the lights, closing up.
I dialed a direct line to Miami homicide and listened to the rings on the other end.
What would Rosario Cardona do next? Make her own phone call. And then she and Rick Zaden would run around trying to figure out what to do, and they would trip over themselves. Rick wasn’t that smart.
I didn’t have all the answers, but I had a few.
A man’s voice said, “Nance here.”
Nena used to tell me that a psychic couldn’t read her own cards, couldn’t see into her own future. That must be right, because Rosario Cardona didn’t have the least idea what was coming for her.
J
acques first saw the other three Haitians through the darkness as he stepped into the go-fast boat at the dock in Freeport, Bahamas. They were sitting huddled togther
on the deck, leaning back against the side. Paul had nodded to Jacques in greeting as soon as he saw him, and Jacques returned the nod. Though sitting, Paul looked short, had a well-groomed mustache, and was bald. His wife, Bahy, looked even shorter, had thickset stubby hair, and was overweight. Bahy’s head rested on Paul’s shoulder and she looked at Jacques with suspicion, and then pressed her face against Paul so hard that Jacques could see her neck straining. He thought the third passenger, Emania, was beautiful—stickthin legs, bulbous knees, high cheekbones, and night-black, shiny skin that glowed in the dim light from the wharves. The unblemished white of her eyes flickered when she blinked, and when Jacques looked for too long, she fixed them to the floor between her knees.
There were two Bahamians taking them; one was the driver and the other was to make sure the cargo didn’t try to take the boat. Jacques was told to sit low next to the other three, and not to talk or raise his head to look around. He sat then, listened to the lapping water and the few murmurs between the Bahamians. He leaned his head back against the fiberglass and noticed there were no visible stars or moon that night, or evident wind. The other three were looking back and forth at each other in distress and Jacques wanted to tell them not too worry, that it was a good night to cross.
There was intermittent laughter from the beginnings of a party a few piers down, where none of the Haitians could see, and the smugglers looked from their map. The second smuggler then told the four Haitians to go underneath through the hatch between the two front seats, and so the four crawled through the small opening. Inside there was one dim overhead light that flickered occasionally, a fiberglass counter to the side of the entrance (with a hole where a small sink had been removed), an empty fiberglass floor space that sloped up the sides, and a two-foot-high plywood platform (stained with the quilted pattern of a mattress) that occupied the front half of the cabin, contouring the long V-shaped bow to a point. It smelled strongly like mold, vomit, and gasoline, and Bahy made a whimper noise as they sat on the curved floor against the walls.
“It is not that bad,” Paul told her. He looked at Jacques, who sat next to Emania across from him. “I am Paul.”
Jacques introduced himself and they began talking in Kreyol. Jacques learned Bahy had a wealthy cousin in Weston who had sent them $6,000 in the Bahamas to pay the smugglers. Once they reached Florida, they were to use a pay phone to call him collect and let him know where to pick them up. They had never been to the United States before but were excited for their new lives. Paul was planning on becoming an immigration attorney (he was an attorney in Cap-Haitian) to help other Haitians that arrived, and Bahy wanted to finish high school and then study to be a nurse.
Before Jacques could talk to Emania, the second smuggler poked through the hatchway and said, “We are leaving now.” Then he closed the door. They heard the engine start, then rumble and spit as they pushed from the slip. The overhead light flickered, then shut off, and they drifted into the darkness where they hoped the United States was.
For the next three hours they bounced on the sloped floor as the boat smacked one wave after another at high speed. Jacques watched young Emania’s shadow as she carefully moved from her spot next to him to the top of the platform where she had enough room to kneel on all fours, hoping she could adjust her body to absorb the shocks more effectively. Bahy rubbed Emania’s leg as they bounced, and the plywood snapped against the platform with each rebound from her weight, making it sound like there were firecrackers exploding inside. Jacques knew she must be sick and waited for her to vomit.
After an hour, the second smuggler opened the hatch and flashed a light in, then directed it on her. “Is she cool?” he yelled over the sound of the motor.
“Yes,” Paul said back.
“She better not retch, mon.”
Paul stared at the silhouette of the man. The man stayed a few more moments, then backed out and closed the door.
Jacques began to fear that if she vomited they would try to throw her over, and tried to prepare himself for it. He created the scene in his mind while watching Emania: the driver grabbing her from under her arms while the other grabbed her legs, avoiding her kicks. Jacques dug for the courage then, so when they tried to take her he would not freeze in dismay, and would step forward to defend her. Emania never vomited though, or at least not that Jacques could tell.
* * *
They reached the coast of Florida in early-morning darkness. The four felt the driver slow the boat and their bodies began to relax some after hours of impacting the waves. Then they heard the sound of sand scraping the bottom and the boat jerked to a stop, sending their torsos forward in unison.
“We must be on the beach,” Paul said. The engine was shut off and the hatch opened. The second smuggler, talking above the cursing of the driver, told the four to come up top. Once there, Jacques saw they were not on the beach, but had run aground on a sandbar a hundred yards offshore.
“Get in the water,” the man said.
Paul’s eyes widened. Bahy put her trembling hand to her heart and shaped her mouth like she was going to make a noise, but nothing came.
“We are not on land yet,” Jacques said. “We paid for you to take us to the shore.”
“We need you to lighten the weight and help shove the boat off. We’re stuck.”
“We will not do it,” Paul said.
“Didn’t you hear me, we’re stuck! We’re all going to get caught!”
“You get out then too,” Paul said.
The driver turned around, shoved the second man out of his way, then rushed up to Paul and seized his arm. He put a pistol to Paul’s forehead, moving his wet face and fierce eyes closer, his gun hand shaking. “Get the fuck off the boat,” he said, tapping the barrel on Paul’s head six times, one for each word that had strained through his clenched teeth.
Paul stared to the man’s side, unable to make eye contact. Jacques looked on, pressing his lips together tight in anger. The man breathed hard through his nose, then stepped back from Paul and waved with the gun for all of them to go in the water. Jacques put his legs over the side and hopped in first, finding the sandbar was about two feet below the surface. He helped Emania into the waves carefully, then helped ease Bahy in while Paul held her by her arms from the boat and whispered encouragement. She was so scared she claimed she couldn’t use her legs.
“I cannot feel them, Paul. What’s holding me up?”
Paul hopped in and the two Haitian men were able to shove the boat afloat again. As it drifted, Jacques jumped to it and clung onto the side to keep it from moving too far, but the second man kicked his fingers off and pointed the pistol at him as the driver started the engine.
They were left alone waist deep in the darkness, listening to the motor grow quieter behind the sound of the crashing surf. They turned and could see the lights of the hotels along the beach across the expanse, and the sky beginning its first shade of dark blue, then hugged themselves and shook from the cold.
“My wife, she cannot swim,” Paul said to Jacques.
“You don’t know that,” Bahy said. “I’ve never tried.”
Paul kept his eyes on Jacques. Jacques met his glance, but didn’t know what Paul wanted him to do. He looked at the distant beach.
“We shouldn’t try now anyway. I see someone running,” Jacques said.
“What?” Bahy was panicked, and pulled Emania close. “They are running to get the police!”
“No, no. They are running for exercise,” Jacques said.
“What? Who runs for exercise? Paul, what kind of place are you taking me to?”
“Hush up.”
“Do not tell me to hush up.”
“We should go on after that runner, before too many people are on the beach,” Jacques said.
“She cannot swim,” Paul said. His eyes were wide now. He tried to keep his balance against the waves.
Jacques looked at Paul for a few moments. “After I go, please give me at least a half hour before you yell for help.”
“No!” Bahy said. “I am not going back to Haiti.”
“Hush up.” Jacques’s and Paul’s eyes stayed on each other. Then Paul looked at the water. “We will.”
Jacques nodded. Bahy held on to Paul’s arm, darting her eyes between them.
Emania swayed with the water a few feet behind. She pointed to the beach and said, “Look!”
Jacques distinguished a man driving an ATV and scanning the water a few feet offshore with a spotlight. They all dropped to their knees, so that the waves frequently covered their backs or knocked them over. Then they heard the sound of a helicopter, but didn’t see anything.
“Maybe they are looking for us,” Paul said.
Jacques stared at the ATV. He wanted to swim to the beach right then, to get it over with before the sun came. Everybody would see them on the sandbar during the day, the lifeguard, the helicopter, the beachgoers. But the ATV wouldn’t leave. The driver finally parked next to a small dark structure on stilts fifty yards down the shore. He would see Jacques cross the beach no problem now, and might have a radio in there. Jacques supposed he could swim, then crawl across the beach. Or even run—they can’t catch him with a radio. The water looked dark and wild. He was scared of it. He stayed on the sandbar. They all fought the waves in silence, each trying to figure out their circumstances.
Bahy began protesting again and Paul moved her slowly through the crashing waves to the other side of the sandbar to talk things out, which frustrated Jacques. He wasn’t sure he wanted to wait for them, but he couldn’t leave while they were away. It would be rude. He cursed once, then remembered Emania was close. She held her crossed arms against her stomach and Jacques knew she must still feel sick.
“Can you swim?” he asked her.
“I think so.”
“You’d better know. You might drown.”
She was offended. “I can make it. Can you?”
“Yes, but I can’t carry you.”
She was silent. Then she said, “You don’t have to carry me. You don’t have to do anything for me.” She glanced at the beach and rung out a portion of her T-shirt.
Jacques looked at the water. “Your mother can’t swim. Your parents might have to call for help.”
“She’s not my mother. They are friends of mine.”
Jacques didn’t respond. He was curious, but didn’t want to waste time
“I am going to swim no matter what they do,” she said, then looked at Jacques. “And if I can’t make it, you will carry me on your back like a boat.” She smiled. Then she seemed o shrug off her nausea and Jacques couldn’t get her to stop talking.
She told Jacques that she was the citizen of no country; her parents had emigrated from Haiti to Marsh Harbour, Bahamas before she was born, and then conceived her there. She was not a Haitian citizen, in fact had never been to Haiti, and was refused Bahamian citizenship because her parents were Haitians. She had lived her whole life with her mother and father in a one-room plywood shelter in a crowded ghetto west of Marsh Harbour called Pigeon Pea, until eight months earlier when her parents had died from cholera within a week of each other.
Emania told Jacques that over the seventeen years her father was in the Bahamas, he had worked as a gardener for a large vacation estate, and after nine years had saved enough money to get all three of them to the U.S., but was swindled by smugglers who left him with nothing. He found out later that the three men who cheated him were brothers who never even owned a boat, and who used the money to travel to Las Vegas in the U.S. Her father started over and began saving again, but became paranoid. He kept all their savings in their shelter and wouldn’t let his wife and Emania have any friends, scared if anyone found out about the money they would be killed for it. He kept the savings in a steel padlocked box buried three feet deep in the ground beneath the ant-infested carpet, and would dig it up and rebury it every Friday when he was paid. To save money on dinner, he often collected shellfish from the shallow reef on the vacation estate’s property for himself and Emania’s mother, though Emania refused to eat them. For her, he would buy ramen noodle packages at the convenience store on the way home from the estate and she would boil them and eat separately. It was those shellfish that gave her father cholera, and he died before he could again make enough for all three to be smuggled, refusing to pay even a dollar for simple medical treatments that would have saved him, and with his haggard last words told Emania and her mother not to pay for a funeral.
Afterward, there was enough money for Emania and her mother to hire smugglers, but her mother had become paranoid too without her husband and was afraid to approach a smuggler. She fell sick to cholera (spread either from the shellfish or her husband’s vomit) and died before she could arrange anything. The bodies were taken and disposed of by the Bahamian government, and Emania was cleared of having the disease. They wanted to burn her shelter, along with others nearby, but her neighbors had gathered into a mob that wouldn’t let the police near. The Bahamians compromised and posted a sign at the entrance to the settlement warning of cholera. No one else there ever caught it.
Then she was alone and had seven thousand dollars, but was too scared to let anyone know. She kept it buried like her father had, and for eight months would occasionally dig it up in the middle of the night and take only small amounts for ramen noodles and wedding-planning magazines. She spent her nights praying like she had with her mother. During the day, she looked in the magazines at cakes, dresses, flowers, and planned for her day; she was to be married within the rose bush—bordered vineyards of the Ledson Winery in Sonoma Valley on a cloudless day—the groom (as of now, a nameless man who better behave himself) arriving on horseback and situating himself under the arch. Then Emania would appear from the winery’s castle, striding elegantly to his side, escorted by no one. She had the dress narrowed down to six choices and was going to wait to try them on before a decision, but most likely it would be the Alvina Valenta style #AV3159, the pink one with the side slit and deep cowl back.
