Genesis, Part XXIV

[Robbie C.]

“You’re sure he didn’t see you?”

Hector nodded, his longish black hair bobbing with the movement. “No, Victor. He didn’t see a damned thing. He was too busy makin’ his calls.”

“Good.” Victor shifted on his bar stool. Much as he hated Aces, he kept having his crew come back to the dump. It was their best option for meetings like this. Then he turned to Charlie. “Anything new at Rizzo’s?”

“Naw. They still got that skinny chucklehead with the stupid glasses running the music, but I’ll be damned if he don’t make them money.” Charlie sipped at his beer. “I’d say we can get an easy two to three g’s a week out of that place once we start digging in.”

Victor nodded. He’d been thinking the same thing, especially after he’d beaten the snot out of their head bouncer. Well…ambushed their head bouncer was more accurate but it didn’t make for as good a story. It didn’t sound the same when you said you waited for a guy to go off-shift and then smacked him upside the head with a baseball bat. Still, he was out of commission and that was what mattered. “They get a new head bouncer yet?”

“Naw. They are talking about what happened, though.” He paused. “Seen a couple new faces, though. One of ‘em’s that Sonny Burnett guy.”

“The boat guy? Didn’t he get busted with that Cash asshole?” Victor scratched his chin. “Maybe he’s lookin’ for some payback.”

“Could be. He’s been in a time or two, once alone and once with this sharp-dressed black guy they say is from New York. I guess he uses Burnett’s boat quite a bit for moving product.”

“You think they got some connection with Rizzo’s?”

Charlie shook his head. “Naw. Looked like they might know that idiot DJ, but that ain’t surprising. Guy’s been there for a bit, and he’s got a reputation as a fixer besides. I’d be surprised if someone like this Burnett didn’t know him.”

Victor nodded, working odds in his head. “Ok, we leave this Noogie moron alone. And I mean alone. He’s got too many connections, and it would take too damned long to figure out who they all are. But that doesn’t mean we still can’t put the squeeze on the place. We just do it from outside. Hit guys comin’ out of the place and then offer outside security.”

“It’s a neat trick. Don’t know how long it will last, but it gets us started anyhow.”

Victor’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean by that?”

Charlie shrugged. “Just that they can bring in some muscle and push us back from the door if they want. If they can afford that, at least. Hell, I don’t know. Place seems to be a dive, but then you dig a bit and start hitting all kinds of stuff.”

Victor started to speak, then clamped his jaw shut. He knew there was no point. At least not right now. He’d need to look things over again and come back with a different plan. Or at least an option or two. He knew once Charlie got something set in his mind it took some doing to get it out. And if he had doubts like that, Hector would start echoing them soon enough. No, it was time for the other project. “We’ll figure it out. But with that other thing, Hector saw our pal Gustavo making calls again.”

“Not only that…I heard some of what he said. Dipshit wasn’t watching an’ didn’t see me get close to the payphone.” Hector grinned like a kid who’d just won at hide-and-go-seek. “It sounded like he was talking about one of those buys from The Bat or whatever that moron calls himself.”

“How do you know?”

“He kept saying five. Even I know The Bat’s deals are usually small. Enough to keep Brickell jumping and maybe some left over for Liberty City.”

“Any chance he was talking to the boss?”

“No.” Victor’s voice was firm. “The bosses don’t talk to Gustavo. Not like that. They call him in and have a sit down. Just like Esteban does with us. And Julio said he saw him doin’ the same thing the night you were checking out Rizzo’s.”

“And he kept lookin’ around like he was afraid someone was watching him.” The grin appeared on Hector’s face again. “I was careful, though. He was always lookin’ out at the street and didn’t think someone inside would be the one tracking him.”

“So what do we do about it?”

“We do what all good plumbers do, Charlie. We plug the damned leak before the basement floods.” Victor grinned at his own comparison. He’d been thinking of and discarding lines ever since Hector came to him with the news over an hour before. “We’ll use Hector’s 9mm so nothing comes back on us. Hector even grabbed a car. Right, Hector?”

“Yeah. A crappy Buick Century. Gotta be thousands of ‘em on the roads. No one’s gonna notice a thing until it’s too late and we’re clear.”

 

Stan Switek was tired. Well, not so much tied as hung over, but it felt pretty much the same. While Sonny Crockett had been out working the gun runner case and its aftermath, he’d been left holding the fort as soon as the initial surveillance was over. They’d brought him in for the final bust, but still…

Rubbing his eyes, he turned the corner and walked into the squad room, vaguely aware of Gina at her desk. Trudy was still on leave after that whole houseboat thing, and Crockett and Tubbs were out somewhere doing glamorous cop things. Or hanging around Rizzo’s trying to get the scent of some muscle crew who supposedly worked for the Mendozas. It meant things were quieter than usual, and his head was thankful for that.

Dibble was manning a desk close to the doorway, and he looked up when Stan came in. “Got a message for you, big guy.” He waved one of the yellow slips in the air. “Some Mexican or whatever called in about an hour ago. Sounded like he was gonna wet himself and he left this for you.”

“Thanks.” Stan took the slip, but didn’t look at it until he was safely behind his desk. Right away he saw it was from Gustavo, and his lips turned down. He’d been his CI until the lieutenant took him away right before the whole thing with Sonny shooting that kid. Stan knew CIs got moved from time to time, especially when they weren’t producing, but it was hard to think of it as anything other than a slap in the face.

He read the scribbled lines once, then again. Then he sighed. There was no way around it. Getting to his feet, he headed for Castillo’s office. “Dibble gave me a message from Gustavo Mendoza, lieutenant,” he said after he knocked once on the open door. “The little screwball called about an hour ago and was babbling something about a deal with The Bat worth five. You talked to him last, so I figured I’d give it to you.”

Castillo looked up, and for a moment Stan saw the bottomless fatigue in the man’s eyes. Then the hoods slipped down. “Thank you, Switek. I’ll follow up. Did he say anything about calling again?”

“Not according to the message. My routine with him was to call him back at the number I wrote on the bottom of that slip if I hadn’t heard anything after two hours.” Stan shrugged. “Of course, the little bozo didn’t call that much.”

There was a nod. Then Castillo looked up again. “How have you been doing, Stanley?”

Stan winced. Only his father had called him ‘Stanley,’ and only before he whipped his ass for some transgression…real or imagined. “I’m fine, lieutenant. But I’m starting to think we should pull Gustavo out. He’s not built for this kind of thing. Even if he has to eat it for the car stereos. He’s never gonna give us the kind of intel Crockett wants.” Not expecting a reply, he turned and headed back to his desk. He still needed to inventory the gear from the Holiday bust, and then there was bound to be something else coming down the line requiring microphones and cameras. There always was.

 

“You see him?”

Victor waved his hand. “Yes, I see him,” he hissed, hoping Hector would keep his door closed until Gustavo was close enough for them to grab him with no real effort. They’d gone over it at least ten times, but once Hector got excited he forgot everything but the target. “Sit on your damned hands, Hector. Don’t give us away.”

“Sorry, boss.” There was shifting in the back seat, and when he checked the mirror Victor saw Hector was actually sitting on his hands.

In the driver’s seat Charlie snickered. “It’s a figure of speech, dumb ass. You don’t really gotta sit on your hands.”

“If it keeps him from bouncing around like that girl I had last night, let him sit on his damned hands.” Reaching down, Victor felt the cool metal of the door handle under his fingers. It was almost time. “Stay close, Charlie. We’ll take him as soon as he turns the corner.”

Night gripped the area around The Palm, and the streetlights were surrounded by swirling balls of insects. A typical late spring night in Miami, humid but still cool enough to leave windows open. Gustavo walked with a loose, almost bobbing gait, tapping his fingers on his thighs as he moved. Looks like the bitch is in a good mood. Musta just turned some more information over to his cop buddies. Victor turned and nodded to Hector. He had all the proof he needed. “Let’s do it.”

The turn took them away from the main drag and onto a side street heading deeper into South Beach. Gustavo still wasn’t paying any attention, lost in his own thoughts. Victor held up his hand, letting a couple wander by as they headed toward The Palm. As soon as they were clear he folded his fingers into a fist and opened his door.

The dome light came on, flooding the interior with pure white light. Either the flash or the click of the doors caught Gustavo’s attention, and he started to turn. But he was too late. Victor brought his fist up and around, catching him hard on the chin. Right behind him came Hector, more muscle than brain, wrapping his big arms around Gustavo’s upper body and tossing him into the back seat like a sack of coffee beans. Then the doors slammed and rubber burned as Charlie floored the Buik and got them out of there.

Victor paid no attention to Charlie. The wheelman knew where to go, and how to get there without drawing police attention. Instead he leaned over the seat, watching Hector lay another two good punches into Gustavo. “Easy, Hector. We don’t want to kill him yet.”

“You…you know who I am?” Gustavo’s voice was even more annoying coming through a mouthful of blood.

“Yeah. You’re the bitch bastard who’s been ratting us out to the cops.”

“I’m a Mendoza! They’ll…”

“And we work for them, asshole.” Victor turned away. “Stuff a rag or something in his mouth. I don’t to hear him talk until we get where we’re going.”

The air on the edge of the swamps was thick and dead, hanging over everything like a shroud. For Victor it felt right. He sent Charlie over to the car they’d driven out earlier. “Get the ride ready. We’ll want to get the fuck out once this is done.” Then he turned back to the Buick. “Get the bitch out and on his knees.”

Hector grinned and hauled Gustavo Mendoza out of the back seat, grabbing him by the hair and kicking hard at the back of his knees. “You heard the man.”

“Take that damned rag out.”

Gustavo was coughing blood, but Victor couldn’t tell if it was from his mouth or some internal injury. And he didn’t care. “What…what I do?”

“You’re a rat. That’s what the fuck you did. My boys saw you rat us out. Heard you squeaking on the phone to the cops.”

“I’m…I’m no rat. I…”

“Rats lie. It’s what they do.” Victor took three steps forward, the Browning Hi-Power light in his big hand. “You know what else rats do, asshole? They die.” The single shot crashed out, taking Gustavo in the back of the head. Flicking on the safety, Victor looked at the twitching body with a slight smile on his face. “Get that trash in the trunk and follow us. We’ll drop him by the Expressway so the trash collectors can find him.”

 

“Who did it?” Miguel’s face was without expression.

“We don’t know for sure, but I think I have an idea.” Esteban Mendoza tried hard to keep an ‘I told you so’ tone out of his voice. “I think it was that idiot Victor and his crew. He’s been making noise about how he thought your cousin was a rat. I told him to back off, and he said he would. Obviously he lied.”

“Find out. If it was him, I’ll deal with him personally.”

“You got it, boss.” Once he was outside, Esteban made the call. “Lupe? Pick up Charlie. He’s the only one on Victor’s crew who’s got more than two brain cells. Do it so they don’t notice, and hold him for me.”

 

Stan Switek was almost shaking as he stood in front of Castillo’s desk. “Patrol confirmed it all right, Lieutenant. The body is Gustavo Mendoza. They had to do it with prints, though. Someone shot him in the back of his head, so facial recognition wasn’t gonna work.” And I put him in that damned car. Goddamn Crockett anyhow.

“Are there any leads?”

“Not yet. But the ME thinks it was a 9mm..”

“Sounds like he got careless.” Sonny Crockett sent a trail of smoke toward the ceiling.

“Or maybe someone made him careless. That little bozo didn’t have the stones for that kind of work.”

“Easy, Stan it’s what we do.”

“Is it? Seems like you got a pretty high body count for what you do, Sonny.”

“Enough.” Castillo’s voice was final. “I put the pressure on Mendoza. He wasn’t producing. It wasn’t the right call. Now we move on. What other leads…”

Stan turned on his heel. His hands were shaking now, and he knew he was seconds away from an outburst that would get him sent to parking meter duty until the next century. “You two figure it out. I gotta go do the formal identification.” Without another word he was out the door and heading for the parking lot. He needed a drink. Or maybe six.

“Switek! Wait!”

He recognized the voice. “Not now, Gina. I don’t need to hear more excuses for them. Gustavo’s dead, and it’s because Lar and I roped him in as a CI. I gotta own that.”

“You didn’t kill him, Stan. Maybe the Mendozas did, but you didn’t.”

He stopped right before the double doors leading to fresh air and maybe a few double bourbons. “No, Gina. I DID kill him. I got him into this. Maybe that’s the difference between me and them. I can see that. It’s not just what we fucking do.” He felt his voice rising, and knew he had to get out of there. “If they ask, tell them I’ll be back tomorrow.” Then he slammed through the doors and was gone, leaving Gina in his wake. He never saw the tears forming in her eyes.

 

It was quiet in the boat house. Victor looked around, wondering who’d decided to stage a prank. “Hey! I’m here! What’s this all about?”

“Sit down.” There was no give in Esteban’s voice.

“Boss? What’s this about?” Still, Victor had enough sense to find the straight back chair and sit down.

“Gustavo Mendoza.”

“You been talking to Charlie, right? Little bitch can’t tell anything straight. Look, we caught him ratting us out to Metro-Dade. Heard him on the phone at The Palm more than once. So we…”

“So you. You decide.” Esteban stepped forward, and Victor felt the first worm of fear turning in his belly. The slap came out of nowhere, rocking his head back against his shoulders. “You fucking decide. Who says you get to decide anything?”

“I did it for the bosses! You know…”

A new voice came in now, and Victor’s fear tripled. “You decide this in my name?” Miguel Mendoza came into view, his narrow face looking like the pirate on the rum bottles. “And who the fuck are you to decide anything in my name?”

“Boss…jefe…I…”

“Shut up. You are only alive because I decided once to let you live. After that cock-up at Kilowatt. And this is how you repay me? By murdering my cousin? My blood?” Miguel’s voice get lower with each word, and Victor was shaking now. All his bravado was gone, running down his leg in a warm stream. “This is what you do?”

“Hector…”

“Hector is an idiot. A trained dog. And only an asshole blames his dog for doing what he trained it to do. At least Charlie had honor and confessed his mistakes.”

Victor saw Esteban was hanging back, arms crossed over his chest. “Esteban! Man! You know what Gustavo was up to! He never was any good. He…”

His head rocked back from another slap. “Gustavo had limitations, yes. But we knew them and worked with them. He would never rat on his own family. Only a cabron without honor would say such things.”

“Boss! I know we fucked up with Kilowatt. But those Dominicans, they were there because someone told them we were there. Maybe Gustavo.”

“And you know this how? Something you pulled out of your ass?” Miguel turned to Esteban. “Do you have anything to to say that might spare his life?”

Esteban shrugged. “You know how I feel about this one.”

 

Miguel nodded. “Yes. And you were right then. I should have listened.” He turned back to the quivering mess in the chair that had once been a man. Or at least an imitation of one. “You know what, Victor? You can still be of use to me. For one thing at least.” Reaching up with his thumb, he flicked off the safety on his grandfather’s Colt. “As an example.”

Victor started to scream, but the sound was lost in two quick gunshots. The heavy 230 grain bullets destroyed his head, sending the chair and the lifeless corpse crashing to the floor. The echoes of the shots dominated the room for a handful of seconds. Then Miguel sighed and pushed the safety back on. “Feed what’s left to the fucking gators. I don’t want a trace of his worthless body found. And make sure the boys know…if you disobey orders, you fucking disappear.”

Esteban nodded and motioned to the two men waiting near the door. “You heard the boss. Drag this piece of shit out and make the gators happy.” Once they were gone, he turned back to Miguel. “Boss, I…”

“You have nothing to apologize for, Esteban. I was the one who thought that idiot still had uses. The mistake was mine, and Gustavo paid for it. Never again.” It didn’t matter if Gustavo had been snitching or not…what mattered was the wrong person had made the call. It was that simple. “Come on. Let’s get back to the city. I’ll need to help Enrique tidy things up. And with Gustavo gone and Frankie still in custody we need a plan for The Palm.”

A few calls led him to Enrique, slumped partway across the bar in The Overton. “Miguel.” He barely looked up. “I didn’t expect this. Gustavo was an idiot, but he worked reasonably hard and most of the guys liked him.”

“The one who did this paid, my brother. You can let them know that.” When the bartender approached, he dug into his pocket and pulled out a fifty dollar bill. “Rum. And leave the bottle.”

“Did you…”

“I had nothing to do with what happened. It was the same idiot who thought what happened at Kilowatt was a good idea. He paid for it with his life.”

Enrique chuckled. “I thought I smelled death on you. I mean gunpowder.”

“It was my fault he was still walking around. You know me, Ricky. I take responsibility for my mistakes.”

“The family curse, eh?” Enrique raised his glass. “To noble foolishness!”

Miguel touched his glass to his brother’s. “Maybe we should call it a night? Get you home to Tiffy. And I know Holly still has ideas for the club she wants to talk about.”

“I heard you were looking at restaurants earlier.” There was a light tone to Enrique’s voice, and Miguel couldn’t tell if he was being mocked or not.

“Yes. The family’s a bit traditional in that Italian way. I had to promise the widow we wouldn’t turn the place into a bordello.” Miguel chuckled. “That’s even the word she used. I thought I was in one of those bad old Westerns papi used to watch.”

“It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?” Enrique started to slur his words, and Miguel knew he was drunker than he looked. “How quickly we’ve gone from running Cuban cigars to buying real estate and opening clubs.”

Miguel nodded. The adrenalin was starting to fade from his veins, and when he closed his eyes the image of Victor’s head exploding played like a movie across his eyelids. “It is hard, Ricky. Like when we were happy for the scraps that fell from Uncle Jesus’s table.”

“That old fuck. I heard back from some of my people. He is trying to climb into bed with Columbians again. Even his own guys don’t like it, but he don’t care. He just starts talking about all the money sitting out there. Old bastard don’t realize he makes more easy money hauling fat tourists around than he could getting into our business. And those tourists aren’t out to cut your balls off and steal your boat.”

Miguel nodded, smiling when he caught a glimpse of Pasqual out of the corner of his eye. He’s to Ricky what Esteban is to me. Good. “Very true. And it looks like Pasqual’s here. Maybe we should call it a night. After a final toast to Gustavo.”

“Don’t wanna drink to Gustavo. But I’ll drink to revenge for Gustavo.”

Nodding, Miguel raised his glass. “To vengeance.” The rum was smooth down his throat, and he slammed the empty glass on the bar.

Holly was still up when he walked into the entryway. “I was worried…”

“I’m sorry. I should have called. Something came up, and I had to run to the warehouse to check on some stock. One of the guys backed a forklift into a pallet of cognac.” He smiled, the lies rolling easy off his tongue. “It was a hell of a mess. At least insurance will cover the damage.”

“I saw the news tonight. They said something a Gustavo Mendoza being killed. Is he…”

“I’m not sure. He might have been a third cousin on my mother’s side. I heard the same thing on the radio, but my mother’s family was always scattered. Too many divorces and affairs.” He smiled again. That much was true. “If he was a relative, I didn’t know him.”

Nodding, she got up and took his hands. “You smell good.”

“Polo.” He chuckled again, thinking back to Enrique’s offhand comment. “I didn’t want to come home smelling like a wine cellar.” Or a shooting range. Another of grandfather’s tips…keep cologne in your car. “How did it go with the gallery?”

She smiled and started talking animatedly about her dealings with the bank. He nodded as he guided her toward the stairs, paying just enough attention to follow the conversation and reply when needed. He could feel himself coming down from the shooting, and soon he’d be ready for sleep. This one felt different because of Gustavo. He never should have put the kid in that situation. And then there was Jesus…

“Are you sure things are ok?”

“Of course. I’m sorry. It’s just been one of those days. I’ll be glad when we can close on those two properties and get the club moving.” He slid his arm around her waist. “Have you thought of a name?”

“Yes. Shock.” She looked up at him. “It’s simple, will look good in lights, and doesn’t tie us to any one thing or theme. It can be whatever we want it to be, and we can update as things change.”

“I like it.” In truth he didn’t care what she called it. So long as it had a name. And maybe it was time to put some money in other clubs, too. It wasn’t like they had a shortage of cash. And the situation at The Palm created an opening he didn’t want to let slip away. But that was for tomorrow. He felt Holly press against him, and knew there were better things to focus on tonight.

 

Sonny Crockett looked at the golden Black Jack in his glass and sighed. The air coming off the water was nice, and he wasn’t ready to go belowdecks yet. That and Rico was still nursing his own drink. “Switek took it kinda hard, didn’t he?” His partner’s voice was pitched low so the nosy old woman on the next boat over couldn’t hear.

“Yeah, I suppose he did. But what did he expect? Gustavo was small-time at best.” Sonny took a drink, feeling the bourbon trace a warm path down his throat. “Besides, odds are it wasn’t his own people who did it. According to Homicide it was a 9mm, not a .45. And I can’t think of a single hit involving the Mendozas that didn’t use a .45.”

Rico was looking out over the water. “Yeah. Maybe. You thinking payback for the hit outside Kilowatt?”

“Could be. I can see the Double Treys doing something like that. Or maybe some of Zorro’s guys. It’s not like the Haitians to let bygones be bygones, and as far as we know they never hit back for what happened in Liberty City.”

“Yeah. Too many players and not enough score cards. You still want to try to nail whoever’s making waves at Rizzo’s?”

Sonny nodded. “Yeah. I do. Word on the street is it’s someone connected to the Mendozas who’s got ambition. Or delusions. Not sure which word you’d use for someone who wants to strike out on their own from that bunch. But if we can get a bead on them, maybe it’ll take us right back to the brothers.”

“I gotta be honest, Sonny. It feels thin. Any chump dumb enough to try to lean on Rizzo’s isn’t gonna be smart enough to know it’s in their best interest to roll over on their bosses.”

“We gotta do something, Rico. Homicide’s getting nowhere on those bodies. Bodies going back years. And all you gotta do is look at the money. There’s no way Mendoza Distribution pulls in enough green to support what those two are doing, but we can’t find anything else.”

“Just rumors and smoke, partner.” Rico drained his glass and set it down on next to the cockpit rail. “I gotta admit it…these chumps are good.”

“Yeah. But they’re gonna slip up sometime. And when they do, I want to be there.” Sonny looked at his empty glass and considered another. Then he looked up at the stars, partly washed out by the city lights. “I think we’d better pack it in, partner. I want to go over the surveillance again before we head back to Rizzo’s. Maybe Trudy will be back tomorrow. Be good to have another set of eyes.”

“Yeah. Just don’t ask her about close encounters.”

Sonny chuckled. “I won’t. But you gotta promise to leave the peanut butter at home.” Even with the jokes, he had to wonder just what the hell had happened to her on that boat. And what Lou DeLong had to do with any of it. But that was a problem for another bottle of Jack. After they’d taken down the Mendozas.