Beyond Suspicion

30

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At four P.M., the main lobby of the Government Center was abuzz with rush hour. Jack headed against the stream of homebound workers. Theo was right along with him. Jack knew better than to face an attacker without a big ugly at his side.

Jack had gone straight to Rosa’s office after making the phone call from the café. Immediately, it was decision time. Sam Drayton had confirmed that Viatical Solutions, Inc., was controlled by some element of organized crime. Why not tell the cops that his attacker had dropped a cell phone filled with Russian messages?

Why not? That was a question Jack the Client had been asking himself. Jack the Lawyer knew better. So did Rosa. The feds were going after him through the IRS, and that might only be the beginning. The state attorney had him on the short list of suspects for the murder of Jessie Merrill. In that posture, you didn’t simply hand over anything to the police. You negotiated. And to negotiate properly, Jack had to know what he was selling. That was especially important here. From the moment he’d made the phone call, Jack had a strong feeling that his attacker wasn’t what she appeared to be.

Not even close.

In less than twenty minutes they’d summoned a Russian linguist to translate the recorded messages. In thirty, they had a good criminal mind translating the literal English translations into something the lawyers could understand. Theo was perhaps the more indispensable of the two. Three of the messages dealt with, literally, “taking the ponies for a boat ride,” which, Theo figured, was probably code for shipping stolen cars out of the port of Miami. The other six sounded as if the caller had a plumbing problem. A sink needed to be unclogged. Jack didn’t need Theo to tell him that a sink was the repository in a money-laundering operation.

Theo checked his watch and asked, “You think she’ll show?”

“A musor always shows.”

“A what?”

“Didn’t you listen to anything that Russian translator said?”

“Only the part that was in English.”

As the name implied, Government Center was the nerve center of Miami-Dade County. Offices in the thirty-story tower housed various local departments and officials, including the mayor and county commissioners. The bustling lobby area served not only the office tower but also the largest and most crowded stop along the Metrorail. It was a three-story, atrium-style complex with a glass roof that allowed for natural lighting. Flags of all fifty states hung from the exposed metal rafters overhead. Long escalators carried workers and shoppers to a two-story mall called Metrofare Shops and Cafés. At the base of the north escalators was a large planter in the shape of a half-moon, where bushy green plants flourished. Between two large palms was a simple bouquet of white daisies and carnations in a glass vase. Above the vase was a bronze plaque that read: “Dedicated to the Memory of Armando Alejandre Jr., 19501996, Metro-Dade employee, volunteer of Brothers to the Rescue. His airplane was downed by the Cuban Air Force during a routine humanitarian flight over the straits of Florida.”

Seated on the ledge of the planter in front of the plaque was a young woman wearing dark sunglasses, even though it wasn’t very sunny inside the building. She was alone.

“That must be her,” said Jack.

Theo gave him a thin smile. “Let’s go.”

As they rode down the escalator, Jack’s eyes fixed on the woman. He’d never gotten a good look at his attacker, but from the beating he’d taken, he’d built her up to be at least eight feet tall, three hundred and fifty pounds. She was more like five-six, with slender-but-muscular arms, and the nicest set of legs that had ever kicked the daylights out of him. With her long, dark hair and olive skin, she looked more Latina than Russian. It surprised him how attractive she was.

“You got beat up by that?” said Theo as they glided into the lobby.

“Just shut up.”

“I mean, some guys in my bar would pay money to get her to-”

“I said shut up.”

They wended their way through the crowd and approached from the side. She caught sight of them about ten feet away and rose to meet them, though she skipped right over the hello.

“Who’s your friend?” she asked.

“You get my name when we get yours,” said Theo.

A group of pedestrians passed by on their way to the train. She asked, “Is this a good place to talk?”

“Perfect,” said Jack. “Nobody stands still long enough to hear what we’re saying. And like I said on the phone, plenty of security guards around if you decide to get stupid.”

She paused, as if to get comfortable with the setting. Then she looked at Jack and said, “That was a gutsy phone call you made.”

“Not really.”

“Threatening me after I’d already warned you not to mess around with us? I assure you, that was risky.”

“I just listened to my instincts.”

“Exactly what did your instinct tell you?”

“Maybe I’ll let my friend tell you.” He looked at Theo and said, “Here’s a hypothetical for you. One, a woman attacks me in the dark and threatens me.”

“Check,” said Theo.

“Two, the feds haul me downtown and tell me they have it on good authority from their confidential informant that the order to rough me up came straight from a mysterious organized-crime figure.”

“Double check.”

“Three, this same woman has nine messages saved on her voice mail, all in Russian. But she speaks English without a hint of a Russian accent.”

“Double check and a half.”

“I call her and tell her I want to meet. And she just shows up, apparently not the least bit concerned that fifteen police officers might pounce on her the minute she arrives. Now, you tell me: Who do you think this woman is?”

He looked at Jack, then straight at her. “Either she’s really stupid.”

“Or?”

“Or she’s the fucking snitch.”

“Or as they’re known in the Russian mob, musor. Rats. The lowest form of life on earth.”

“You’re a genius, Jacko.”

“I know.”

“But if we take this one step further, what she’s really afraid of is not that we’re going to take her cell phone to the police. She’s afraid that someone might find out she’s a snitch.”

“You think?”

“Absolutely. But maybe we should ask her.” Theo took a half step closer, gave her his most intimidating look. “What do you say there, gorgeous? Think maybe you wouldn’t be so pretty anymore if the wrong person were to find out that you are a musor?”

She glared right back at him. It impressed Jack that she didn’t seem to back down from Theo the way most people did. Careful, Theo, or she’ll kung-fu your ass, too.

“Aren’t you smug?” she said. “Think you got it all figured out, don’t you?”

“Not all of it. Just enough to get you to tell us the rest.”

“I can’t talk to you.”

Theo said, “What a shame. Looks like I’ll have to float your name on the street as a snitch.”

“And then I’ll watch Jack’s abuela wishing to God she’d never left Cuba.”

“Takes real guts to threaten an old woman. Who’s next on your list, the Teletubbies?”

“Enough with the threats,” said Jack. “Let’s just talk.”

“I can’t tell you anything.”

“That won’t do,” said Jack. “You may think we’re just a pain in the ass, but refusing to talk to us won’t make us go away. No matter what you do, my only option is to keep on plugging away at this viatical company to figure out who threatened Jessie Merrill and why she ended up dead.”

“That’s very dangerous.”

“My alternative is to stand aside and get tagged with a murder I didn’t commit.”

“That’s a bitch. But there’s very little I can tell you.”

“See, we’re already making progress. We’ve gone from ‘I can’t talk to you’ to ‘there’s very little I can tell you.’”

Jack detected a faint smile. She glanced at his swollen jaw and said, “Sorry about the bump.”

“No problem.”

“Didn’t really want to do it.”

“I know. Sam Drayton said the order came from high up.”

She didn’t deny it.

Jack said, “Who gave you the order?”

“You know I can’t tell you that.”

“Who controls the money behind Viatical Solutions, Inc.?”

“You’re going to have to figure that out for yourself.”

“Is it the same people who threatened Jessie Merrill?”

“If you’re trying to pin a murder on the viatical investors, I couldn’t help you if I wanted to.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re looking in the wrong place.”

“Stop with the threats.”

“It’s not a threat,” she said. “Listen carefully. I’m giving you something here. If you think Jessie Merrill was murdered, you’re not going to find her killer by looking where you’re looking.”

“Where should we be looking?”

She answered in the same matter-of-fact tone. “Somewhere else.”

Theo groaned. “Come on. Like you don’t know anything?”

“I know plenty. I just don’t trust you to deny you heard it from me when someone hangs you upside down and shoves a cattle prod all the way up your ass.”

Theo blinked twice, as if the uncomfortable image was taking form in his brain.

Jack gave her an assessing look. “How do you know we’re looking in the wrong place?”

“Because I’ve been working this gig long enough to know the people I’m dealing with. I know what one of their hits looks like.”

“Come off it,” said Theo. “Not every hit is the same.”

“Trust me. If Jessie Merrill had been murdered over her viatical scam, you wouldn’t have found her body in the Swytecks’ bathtub. You wouldn’t have found her body at all. At least not in one piece.”

Jack and Theo exchanged glances, as if neither was sure how to argue with that.

She said, “You two have no idea what you’re stepping into.”

“It’s money laundering. I know that much from your phone messages and from talking with Sam Drayton.”

“Big-time money laundering. Hundreds of millions of dollars. I tell you this only so you can see that Jessie Merrill and her one and a half million is a speck on the horizon. Now go away, boys. Before you get hurt.”

“We can take care of ourselves,” said Theo.

She extended her hand and said, “Phone, please.”

Jack said, “I kept all the messages on tape.”

“And you probably hired someone to dust for fingerprints, too. But I don’t care.”

“Of course you don’t,” said Theo. “Why should a snitch care about fingerprints?”

“I still want it back.”

Jack removed her phone from his pocket and handed it over. She gave him his, then turned and walked away, no thank-you or good-bye. Jack watched as she moved with the crowd toward the escalators that led to the Metrorail gates.

“What do you think?”

“Two possibilities,” said Theo. “Either she’s protecting someone. Or someone has her scared shitless.”

“Or both.”

“You want me to tail her?”

“Nah, thanks. Got someone a little less conspicuous covering that already.”

Jack caught one last glimpse of her as she reached the top of the escalator. Then, from afar, he gave his friend Mike Campbell a mock salute as he put aside his newspaper, rose from the bench, and followed her to the train.