Who'll Stop The Rain: (Book One Of The Miami Crime Trilogy) (6 page)

8
 

Silvana

Monday, June 27, 2011

11:40 AM

 

T
HE SUN HUNG HAZY
AND HOT
over
the streets of Little Havana. Steam drifted upward from the baking pavement and
people moved as though they carried fifty-pound weights strapped to their
backs. Only the kids ran around not giving a shit, enjoying the early days of
their summer vacation from school.

To
make matters worse, the AC in Silvana Machado's Chevy Malibu was only cooling
at about half capacity, which was to say, virtually not at all. On top of that,
the car was black, absorbing every last ray of sun and every last degree of
radiating heat. Fucking motor pool guys told her they'd fixed it, told her it
was working just fine. She was goddamned if she was
ever
going to hit the streets again in this hunk of tin.

"Fuck,
man, I'm sweating like a fucking pig!" she said, unbuttoning her blouse's
top button, looking for whatever small relief she could find. The sun stuffed
her nostrils, packing unbearable heat up her nose and around her neck. She
removed her aviators and wiped sweat from her eyes with her sleeve.

"I'm
opening my window," Bobby Vargas said from the shotgun seat. "This AC
ain't gettin' it." He pressed the control in his door and the window slid
down. Hot air poured in.

Silvana
turned onto Calle Ocho. "I've had it with this fucking car," she
said. "I'm gonna get us another one when we get back."

"Why'd
they give us this one, anyway?" Vargas asked. "It didn't work
yesterday, either."

"Fucking
Venuti in the motor pool, he said they took care of it. Said the AC worked
perfect."

"That
fat fuck. Stick this AC up his blubbery wop ass, see how he likes it."

"He
actually looked me in the eye and told me it was fixed," Silvana said. "
Told
me it was fucking
fixed
! You believe that shit?"

She
maneuvered around and through traffic on Calle Ocho, sweating and cursing
Venuti and the AC unit all the while, finally turning onto Southwest 13th
Avenue. Just before Third Street, she pulled up and parked in front of a
driveway. They got out and approached a low-rent two-story apartment building,
looking to hold about twelve units. In front of the building, Silvana noted an
ancient Mustang from the eighties with faded orange paint, banged up in several
spots. Brimming trash cans from all the apartments lined the curb. An obese
woman sat on a plastic chair outside the door of one of the downstairs
apartments, facing the other way. About a block and a half up the street, a
couple of kids were playing. No one else in sight.

Silvana
and Vargas moved up the steps and down the second floor landing. They stopped
at the last door. Silvana hammered the door with the side of her thick fist,
the cop thud. Within seconds it opened. The rawboned young man in the doorway
held a beer in his hand and a lot of attitude on his face. He looked older than
his listed age of nineteen. About five-ten, which put him a couple of inches
taller than Silvana, and about the same height as Vargas. Right away, the kid
went into a full-body, tough-guy slouch.

"What
do you two want?" he asked, rolling his eyes. Silvana and Vargas shoved
their way past him into the apartment without bothering to show their badges.
His complaints trailed off behind them.

Silvana
gave him a swift once-over glance.
Look
at this fucking punk,
she thought.
All attitude and no balls. This is what the streets are producing these days. A
hotshot punk like this, he'd've been shut down before he turned sixteen back in
my old neighborhood.

When
they were inside, Silvana said, "Close the door, Yolexis."

Yolexis
did as he was told. All three remained standing. Silvana realized the air
conditioning in here was working. She liked it. A lot of sunlight poured in
through the window, so she left her aviators on.

"What
do you guys want?" Yolexis repeated. "I ain' done nothin'." He
swigged from his beer while his eyes darted uneasily between the two cops.
Silvana moved closer to him, within inches of his thin, young face. She smelled
the younger man's body odor making its way out of his dirty polo shirt.

"You
ain't done nothin'?" Silvana said, mocking his voice through a sneer. She
slapped the beer bottle out of his hand and sent it crashing against the wall.
Beer flowed across the floor and settled against a throw rug, pooling down its
edge. "Underage drinking," she said. "Gives us probable cause.
We look around, no telling what we might find around this shithole. Drugs?
Maybe a firearm or two? Probably enough to send you up. And not juvie,
either."

The
kid lost a little of the tough-guy shit, but only a little. "Awright,
awright. What do you want?"

"We
want to know what you and another guy were doing at Chicho Segura's house the
other night. Friday night, to be exact. Late Friday night."

"I
— I don't know what you're talkin' about."

Silvana
pushed him hard against the wall. A crucifix hanging just above him fell off
its hook from the impact, glanced off his head, and broke on the floor into
three pieces.

"We're
talking about why you were at Chicho Segura's house late Friday night right
before he and two other people got blown away." Her lips pulled back
against her teeth as she spoke, keeping her snarl even but threatening.

"Man,
I didn't have nothin' to do with that. You got nothin' on m —"

Vargas
moved in and landed a hard right to the kid's stomach. It scored. His legs gave
and he hit the floor. "What were you doin' there?" he said, not
controlling his voice as Silvana had done. "
Tell us
, motherfucker!" Spittle flew from his mouth down into
the kid's hair as he tried to stand, unable to breathe.

Silvana
pulled him up by his shirt. "Don't fuck with us, Yolexis. We know you were
there."

Yolexis
tried again for a breath but couldn't find one. A little sweat formed around
his hairline. After a few seconds, he managed to gasp, "Why you think
I
was there?"

Silvana
jerked off her shades and pulled her piece. Shoving the barrel into the kid's
mouth, she said, "A little bird told me, asshole. He said he saw two of
you leaving the house carrying a bag, some kind of bag or something, and
driving away. About quarter past three. This little bird even identified your
piece of shit orange car. Forty-five minutes later, Chicho and his friends went
out in a blizzard of bullets that echoed all over the neighborhood. Now … do
you fill in the blanks or do I blow the back of your fucking head off?"

The
kid's eyes widened. Sweat flowed into his eyes and down his brown cheeks, like
tears. Silvana's vicious eyes, aflame inside her tight, plain face, promised a
messy death. He gave a frantic nod. She yanked the nine out of his mouth.
"Let's have it," she said.

"I
— I was — I was pickin' up a package for a friend."

Vargas
landed another solid hit to the body. Down he went.

"Talk
straight to us, man!" Vargas said. "Not in fucking riddles. What was
in the package? Who's your friend?" He reached for the kid's shirt and
cocked his big fist again. Silvana stepped between them.

"Come
on, Lexi. Better give us details, plenty of details, or I let him go to work on
you."

This
time, it took a little longer for Yolexis to gain control of himself. Silvana
heard piss running to the floor. She looked down to see a widening stain on the
kid's pants. After a minute, Yolexis struggled to his feet.

"Maxie
Méndez," he said. "Th — that's who I was there for."

Silvana
tilted her head a little. "Maxie Méndez?
What
?"

"Y-yeah.
That's right."

"The
fuck is your connection to him?"

"I
run errands for him. Make pickups, deliveries … that kind of thing."

Vargas
said, "Who was with you?"

"My
homie. Flaco. I had him for backup."

Silvana
had to chuckle.
Backup. Hmph. As if
backup would ever do this motherfucker any good.

She
said, "And what were you two
tigres
delivering
to him Friday night?"

Yolexis
finally caught his full breath back. "Money," he said. "A
shitload of money."

 

≈ ≈ ≈

 

Silvana holstered her
weapon, then led Yolexis to the sofa and sat him down. Vargas took the seat on
the other side of him. Sitting between the two cops, Yolexis swiveled his head
several times, like he was not sure what to expect. His bravado and the sneer
and all the rest of it was long gone. Silvana draped an arm around his shoulder
and softened her own presence.

"Now, Lexi, you're
tellin' us that you and this other guy, this, uh … this …
cómo se llama
…"

"Flaco," the kid
said.

"Yeah. Flaco."
Silvana's voice was all velvet. "You're sayin' you and Flaco went to
Chicho Segura's house over on Northwest Tenth Avenue. You went there to pick up
money for Maxie Méndez? A 'shitload of money', I think was how you put
it?"

"That's right,"
Yolexis said, his head still swiveling from one cop to the other. "We
picked up a lot of money. In a gym bag."

"And you brought it to
Hialeah. To Maxie."

"Y-yeah. That's what
we did."

"Did you know Chicho?
Or Andrés Borraga? Or the girl?"

"I knew Chicho from
around. Not real good, though. The other guy, I never seen before. The bitch, I
think I seen her with Chicho a time or two."

"What was Maxie's
connection to this whole thing?"

A twitch attacked Yolexis's
mouth and he trembled. "I don't think I wanna talk to you guys anymore. I
want a lawyer." He started to get up from the couch.

Vargas pulled him back
down. Hard. "Sit down, shithead! You're not gettin' a lawyer."

Silvana patted Yolexis on
the shoulder. "What Bobby means is, you're not under arrest. We're not
here to bust you. Not for anything. So … no bust, no lawyer. Understand?"
Her voice was still firmly in patience mode. Yolexis gave a half-nod, still
nervous as shit. "Okay," Silvana said. "So tell us, what's
Maxie's connection to all this? Did he have those three lit up? Like maybe he
sent someone in after you left?"

"I still don't think I
should talk no more."

Silvana picked at a
nonexistent piece of lint on the kid's dirty shirt, then smoothed it out. It
still looked like shit. "Now, kid, we don't want to get rough with you
again. You
will
talk to us. Or I turn
you over to Bobby here. He's a lot less patient than I am. So make it easy on
yourself. Just spill it. Did Maxie have those three smoked?"

"No, no, no!"
cried Yolexis. "Maxie didn't do it! He just wanted his money. And he got
it."

"
His
money? What do you mean?"

"Chicho, he was into
Maxie for a lotta money. Sports bets, shy loans, all kinda shit. Maxie carried
him for a while, then he said Chicho's time was up. Said he's gonna put the
hurt on him if he don't pay up."

"How much was
it?" Vargas asked.

"With the vig, two
hundred K."

Silvana looked straight at
Vargas. They both exhaled in unison. Vargas's jaw dropped a little and he took
on the deer-in-the-headlights gaze. But he quickly snapped back to reality.
Silvana kept her arm around the kid's shoulder.

"Okay, Lexi," she
said in the softest tone she could muster. "What the fuck was that
dickhead Chicho doing with two hundred large? Where'd he come up with that kind
of dough? And why was Maxie carrying him for that much?"

"Look, Machado,"
Yolexis replied. "I don't think I —"

"
Sergeant
Machado," she corrected, wagging an index finger at
the kid and slapping him for good measure.

"Sergeant Machado. I
shouldn't be talkin' this much to you guys. I could get in a lotta trouble."
He swiveled his head again, back and forth from one cop to the other.

"You'll be in a lot of
trouble if you
don't
talk to us,
kid," Vargas told him. "A whole lot of trouble."

The two cops moved in
closer to Yolexis and he fidgeted at this invasion of his space. The sweat,
which had subsided after the initial beating ended, was now back. Silvana
noticed his face glistening in the light pouring in through the window. It
upped his body odor. She hated the disgusting smell, but pushed ahead. "Tell
us, Lexi. Why was Maxie carrying Chicho for that kind of money?"

"He — he —
I — I don't — come on, Sergeant. Please. Don't make me do
this."

Silvana remained calm. She
pointed at Vargas. "You see Bobby there, Lexi? He would love nothing
better than to knock every one of your teeth out of your mouth. Right
now
, I'm talking about. Every one of
them. And you know why? Do you? Do you know why?" Yolexis showed his
nerves when he shook his head. "Because he hates two-bit punks like you
who think they're hot shit after they steal some old lady's purse or knock over
a Seven-Eleven for eighty bucks."

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