Flashpoint

6

The whole scene irritated him. He’d been in worse, but this armpit section of Miami was right out of a horror movie. Deserted buildings, empty wine bottles rolling on the street in the sudden gusts of angry wind. Newspapers flying. Tough Tony Mitrango ducked his head and motioned to the man with him.

“That goddamned door is the one on the address. No lights. Where the hell is everyone?”

His partner, the one carrying the sleek suitcase filled with one hundred dollar bills, shrugged. “Hail, Tony, we’ve worked with these gents before. Good old boys from Colombia. No sweat, man. They ain’t about to fuck us. We got clout with them now.” Angelo Puchini snorted. He’d been on a dozen buys like this. Why should the family pay some middleman just to haul the goods from Miami to New York? The family did it and saved 30 percent.

Tony touched the door, turned the knob, and it opened. He thrust it inward and saw a dim light. He had his hand hovering over his belt where his old reliable Glock with seventeen rounds remained hidden.

He stepped halfway into the room and stopped.

“Ah, gentlemen. Good you have arrived.”

Tony squinted. He saw a shape across the room. The sound of English with a stiff Spanish accent reminded him these were foreigners, assholes from Colombia. But they had the goods.

“There are supposed to be two of you.” The same Spanish tilted words came sharply.

Puchini stepped into the room. The lights came up, and the two Mafia men saw two dark-complexioned men standing beside a small table. Both wore expensive suits, colored shirts with loud ties, and shirt-matching handkerchiefs in the jacket top pockets.

“Yeah, we’re here,” Puchini said. “Where the hell are the goods?”

“No rush, plenty of time. First we be sure you are who said would come. Then we see the money, and then we show you the goods and make the exchange. Good for business. Good partners, yes?”

Puchini wanted out of there. He wanted to make the exchange and get back to the car where he had two more soldiers. The Colombians said no more than two men on the exchange. The car was three blocks away, where two more Colombians waited with the Mafia car.

“Let’s get on with it,” Tony said.

“Yes. First we must go to another room. Please follow me, gentlemen.”

Tony realized that the second foreigner had not spoken. Probably knew no English. Damn fucking Spanish assholes.

“This way,” the Colombian said. He went first through a door into a normally lit room, then through that and up a stairway with no lights at all except at the top.

On the second floor, the four men stood in a bare room except for one table, a sturdy type, four feet wide and over six feet long.

The Colombian frowned. “You have firearms?”

“Damn right,” Tony said. “Don’t even get out of bed without my shooter.”

“Suggest we all lay weapons on the table,” the Colombian said. “Then no one tempted, all even-Steven.”

“Hell no,” Tony snapped.

“Easy, Tony,” Puchini said softly so the others couldn’t hear. “We put the pieces down and wait. Don’t blow this. These guys are touchy sometimes. We never have any trouble.”

Four automatic pistols soon lay on the table.

“What’s your name?” Puchini asked the talker.

“Yes, confirmation. I am Pablo Ernesto. Yes, two first names. What name do you use?”

“Puchini is enough. I have the cash. Where are the goods?”

Puchini lifted the briefcase to the table and laid it down.

Pablo and his friend lifted a suitcase from the shadows and placed it carefully on the table. He unstrapped it and lifted the lid.

Puchini couldn’t see inside.

“Come take a look, test it, one hundred percent.”

Puchini made a small move with his head for Tony to stay near the money, then walked slowly toward the suitcase. He watched the man beside the cocaine.

The second man shot Puchini in the heart before he made it halfway to the suitcase. The silent Colombian jolted his weapon toward Tony, but he dove under the table, clawing at his right ankle for his hideout. He shot three times at the men’s legs, had one hit above the knee on the first shooter before the man dove to the left and fired four times, drilling a line of lead slugs down Toni’s right arm and across both legs.

The Glock fell from the Mafioso’s hand, and he wailed in pain.

The two Colombians jabbered at one another a moment, then the one who spoke English bent and aimed his weapon at Tony.

“So, you do not want the goods. Fine with us. Your friend has made himself dead. We will take the money and slip away before anyone comes, no?”

“Bastards. Puchini said he trusted you shitheads. Why do you do this now? We have the money for the goods.”

“Stupid. You are stupid. We make some money selling, true, but we make ten times as much stealing your two million dollars. Easy to figure. With two million, we could quit the drug trade, but when we go back with the money and the goods and tell our boss how you tried to double-cross us, we get big bonus and promotion. The Cali people are most generous.”

They made Tony struggle out from under the table and put him on the table so they could treat his wounds. Instead, they tied him down to the table so he couldn’t move. It happened quickly and before Tony’s pain-dulled reactions could prevent it.

The two Colombians talked again in Spanish, then took a bottle of whiskey from the suitcase they had lifted to the table. They had glasses, cheese, crackers, a whole array of snacks. The man who hadn’t talked downed his whiskey neat, then took out a switchblade knife and five inches of cold, sharpened steel and waved it at Tony.

“Oh, now you’ve made Rodolfo angry. He can be muy malo, when he gets riled up. His knife, his cuchillo, it can make you cry like a small niño. You should not shoot him in leg.”

Rodolfo hovered over the helpless Tough Tony. The knife slashed, and moments later, the heavily muscled New Yorker was naked on the table, his cut-apart clothes in piles on the floor. The four gunshot wounds showed on Tony’s arm and one leg.

Rodolfo grinned at Tony and sliced down his arm. The cut wasn’t deep, but it brought a gout of blood. He sliced the other arm and then lifted his whiskey glass and drained it. The two Colombians watched Tony writhing on the table.

“Bastards. Fucking shithead motherfuckers. Gonna do you both good when I get off this table. Gonna cut off your gonads and make you chew them up and eat them.”

Pablo slapped Tony’s face one way, then the other, then spat in his face. “Now you are making even me angry. I’m the calm one. I won’t be able to hold back Rodolfo. He understands English; he just doesn’t speak it so well. You in trouble, badass.”

The knife came again and again. The slices were precise, so they would bleed but not seriously wound Tony. The two Colombians drank and laughed and sliced and drank again. When Tony passed out after a half hour of torture, they slapped him awake.

“You are missing all the fun, amigo,” Pablo said. “Stay with us. You are not nearly ready to meet the angels yet.” Rodolfo’s knife came down again, and Tony wailed in terror and agony. Never had he hurt so much, never been so frustrated and helpless.

Later there came a time when he wanted it to end. He could see part of his body. It was totally smeared with his own blood. Slices and cuts on every part of his body bled. No one cut was severe enough to kill him, but over another hour he would surely bleed to death.

His voice was raspy from screaming. At last he swallowed and watched Pablo. When the man looked at Tony, he whispered his request.

“Slit my throat. Do it now. I can’t stand anymore. Kill me quickly.”

Pablo held up his hands. “Cannot do that, mi amigo. This is Rodolfo’s party. I promised him two, but we have only one. It will be over soon.”

A half hour later, the two drug traffickers sat on the floor, leaning against the wall, singing in Spanish. They hardly looked at the turkey meat of a man who lay on the table. The floor around the edges of the table was red and slippery with blood. They tipped the bottle again and sang another song.

It was two hours later that the two Colombians roused themselves and stood. Pablo had checked the briefcase of money and found the two million dollars in crisp $100 bills. They kicked aside the box that they had brought the booze and food in.

Pablo Ernesto turned at the door and saluted the two dead Americans.

“Vaya con diablo!” he said and guffawed as he and Rodolfo staggered out the door and down another set of stairs to the street below, a block away from the entrance that the Americans had used. Three blocks away, the two Mafia men from New York waited in their rented car.