CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

I headed home. On the way, I stopped at a Cuban Chinese restaurant I like and picked up a combination plate of ropa vieja and egg noodles. At home, I cracked a cold Negra Modelo to accompany my meal and ate on my back porch. The night was a bit nippy, and it felt good.

Just as I was finishing, I heard my front doorbell ring. I cut through my apartment and went downstairs to the first-floor landing. I looked through the peephole and again saw Snow White. She was wearing an extremely short skirt and a halter top, both bright red. Even though it was near dusk, she wore wrap-around shades, maybe so her own clothes wouldn’t blind her. I opened the door.

“Yes? What is it you want?”

She removed the shades and smiled enticingly. “I’m here to give you some directions, that our mutual friend wants you to follow.”

I frowned. “The last time I took your directions I almost got turned into confetti by a SWAT team.”

She cackled. Among her Colombian cocaine crowd, exposing an individual to a near-death experience was a perfectly acceptable practical joke.

“Have you spoken to the police any more about what our friend has proposed?”

“You mean his being shipped back to Colombia to complete his sentence?”

“That’s right.”

I lied to her just as I had lied to Ratón. “Yes, I did. The lieutenant I spoke with isn’t sure what his superiors will agree to. He’s waiting to hear what they have to say.”

She squinted at me. It was clear she didn’t buy it even a bit. “Our friend was afraid you would say something like that. He said, ‘We will just have to show them this is a serious situation’.”

I didn’t like that at all. “What is it he means by ‘show them’?”

“He says you should go see the sunrise in Key Biscayne tomorrow morning. He says it will be particularly pretty tomorrow.”

I squinted at her. “Is that right? Ratón suddenly wants to make sure I see beautiful sunrises and that I smell the flowers. What, he’s feeling romantic?”

She laughed. “That’s right. He says if you go to the same spot where Catalina Cordero was kidnapped, tomorrow just before dawn, you will see what he means.”

She took a step down. “I have to get going now, Mr. Cuesta.”

I had developed a distinct curiosity about her. Then again, who wouldn’t want to know more about the albino girlfriend of one of the world’s worst gang leaders?

“How did you meet Ratón, Ms. White?”

She smiled coquettishly, as if she were schoolgirl. “It was in the little village where I lived in Colombia, on the edge of the Amazon jungle. I was obviously the only person of my appearance for many miles around, and I looked like no one else there. I was day, and they were night. Ratón passed through on the way to one of his ranches and suddenly he saw me. He stopped his caravan of rich cars, told me I looked like the purest of cocaine and said my effect on him was even greater than the drug.”

Her pink eyes fluttered at the memory of the narco-flattery. “Of course, he was very famous and I knew who he was. He wanted me to go with him right then, but I made him go speak with my father. They made an arrangement that afternoon.”

Snow White’s father probably didn’t have a lot of negotiating room with Ratón. If he had said no, he would have been used for fertilizer on the next cocaine crop. But for Snow White, it was obviously a memory that still tripped in her mind a kind of romantic transport.

Moments later, she became serious.

“The authorities really should do what he’s asking, Cuesta. I have known him for many years. He once said to me, ‘Blanca, the people I’ve killed are my most trusted allies. They keep my secrets, and they keep others from betraying me’. The dead are his attorneys and body guards, even though their eyes are closed and dead.”

I pictured zombies with briefcases and guns. I really didn’t want to join their ranks. But I didn’t have a chance to inform Snow White of that. Again, she ducked into her chauffeured SUV and was gone.

I went to bed at a decent hour that night. Of course, for me, given my nightclub work, anything before dawn is decent.

When the alarm sounded a bit after five the next morning, I got my feet on the floor, pulled on the first clothes I could find, tucked a handgun into my back holster and made for my car.

Snow White was a pale memory, but I remembered what she had relayed to me. I had no idea why Ratón cared to have me on the Key at that ungodly hour. If he had simply wanted to ambush me, Ms. White could have managed that right at my door, although it might have been hard to hide a weapon in that skimpy, skin-tight outfit of hers.

Except for one early-morning jogger, the causeway to the Key was abandoned. I crossed it and reached the intersection where Catalina had been captured. Some of the construction equipment was in evidence, but at that hour, none of the workers. I turned into the parking lot of the coffee joint right there on the corner. I was hoping it would be open, but even the caffeine crew was not up yet. I pointed my car in the direction of the sea, rolled down my window in order to enjoy the breeze off the bay and waited for whatever Ratón wanted me to see.

About two minutes later, another car turned into the parking lot and pulled right up to the door of the coffee bar. I was sure whoever it was had to do with me, but I was wrong. The man who clambered out of the car was, in fact, the first-shift coffee jockey, and I watched him open the door and disappear inside. A few minutes later, the sidewalk window opened.

I got out of my car and became his first customer of the day. At that hour, I required some rocket fuel, so I ordered a double cortadito. I waited while he cranked up the espresso machine and brewed it. The air was even nippier than it had been the night before, but the cool breeze off the bay felt fine.

The counterman handed me my coffee just as the sky started to lighten in the east. As I said, a cortadito is designed to give you a considerable jolt. I was sitting in my car when I took the first sip. Moments later, I got one of the largest jolts of my life. An explosion, large enough to rock my car, suddenly sounded over my right shoulder. I spilled my coffee, and when I turned I saw the strip mall on the opposite side of the street flying into the sky. A moment later, as the pieces started to fall—some of the smaller ones on and around my car—the whole scene went up in flames.

I heard the counterman’s scream come from behind me. I leapt out of the car to see if he was hurt. He wasn’t, but he had already run out into the parking lot and was staring, aghast at the destruction across the street.

“Call 911!” I yelled at him, and I went sprinting across the road.

At that hour, there was very little chance any victims were in those stores, but I had to make sure. It was the mall containing the tanning salon, gourmet food shop, travel agency, liposuction emporium, etc., and they were all engulfed in flames. The bank on the corner was not yet involved, but the fire was heading that way.

I got close enough to the burning tanning salon that I almost got a tan just from the heat of the inferno. From the gourmet shop, I got shifting whiffs of exotic foods being cooked right in their exploding tins. The travel agency looked like it was doing business in a war zone—maybe Baghdad or Bosnia. The flames leapt far into the sky, vanquishing the last of night. I understood now what Ratón had meant when he sent me the message saying I would see a very impressive sunrise.

Moments later, I heard the first sirens and in the matter of a minute that corner was crawling with Key Biscayne firemen and cops.

I simply crossed the street and watched them fight the fire. Soon, more fire trucks and police patrol cars arrived from the City of Miami across the causeway, and more water was poured on the conflagration.

Residents streamed out of the side streets and had to be kept at a distance by yellow crime scene tape. Patrol cars blocked off that main drag, keeping traffic at bay. I and my car were inside the tape, and nobody bothered us.

That’s when I noticed Chief Charlie Saban at the edge of the parking lot staring at the charred mall. I crossed the street to him.

“What’s it look like, Charlie?”

He grimaced at me. “How did you get in here?”

I shrugged. “I still have my contacts. What are we looking at?”

“Bomb with a timer. Probably placed in the middle of the night. Nobody saw the delivery boy.”

Where we stood, the stench of the damage was stronger. It wrinkled my nose.

“You thinking the same thing I’m thinking?” Saban asked.

“That the kidnapping and this firecracker are connected? I was thinking the same thing. Nobody gets this angry about an uneven tan or a sub par can of caviar.”

He shook his head. “Normally we spend most of our time ticketing speeders. A felony is rare around here, let alone this kind of stuff.”

I nodded in commiseration. Saban, during his years in patrol at Miami Police, had experienced it all: homicides, bank robberies, riots, you name it. When he’d bailed out for Key Biscayne, he’d expected an escape from major mayhem. Now he found himself tracking would-be terrorists who seemed intent on invading paradise. I caught a tone in his voice, as if somehow he had failed the good people of Key Biscayne.

I decided he should know it wasn’t him. It was the Colombian calamity coming home to roost.

I told him about the possible Ratón Ramírez connection to the kidnapping, and that froze him. “And if he’s connected to the kidnapping, he almost certainly did this,” he said.

“I assume.”

Saban shook his head. It was as if I had told him the Huns had declared war on the Key. I let him know that Grand had gotten the same information and was working it from his end.

Charlie didn’t have a chance to ask me anything else because one of his men called him away.

I was still standing there when my cell phone sounded. The screen told me the number of the caller was “unavailable.” I seemed to be the only one who was always “available.” I answered and found a man on the other end. The voice was muffled as if maybe a handkerchief was being held against the mouthpiece.

“Is this Mr. Willie Cuesta?”

“Yes, it is.”

“If you want to see where that bomb was made, go to the motel on the Miami end of the causeway. Room two one two.”

“Two twelve?”

No confirmation was forthcoming. The line simply went dead.

I folded my phone and looked around for Saban, but he was somewhere inside the bombed-out shops.

I decided I would go and see, but this time I wouldn’t risk being riddled by a SWAT team. I called Grand, who it turned out had just heard from a police dispatcher about the explosion on the Key. He didn’t need to be told it was connected to his case. I let him know what the mysterious caller had conveyed to me.

“Did he say the people who put together the bomb are still on the premises?”

“No. He didn’t say one way or the other.”

“I better call for back up. We’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

I was parked out front of the motel when Grand pulled in, followed by two patrol cruisers. Room 212 was a second-floor corner room in the rear. The four uniformed cops kept an eye on it while Grand and I went to the office and talked to the manager, a guy with red hair, a checked shirt and polyester pants. When we arrived, he was drinking a Slurpee that was bright blue, a color that I personally don’t think human beings should ever ingest.

Grand flashed his identification and inquired who was staying in 212. The manager turned to his computer.

“The room is rented to one Juan Aguilar.”

“Anybody else along with him?”

“No, he’s all alone. At least that’s what he told me when he checked in.”

“How about a vehicle?”

“No vehicle.”

“How long has he been here?”

“He came in yesterday.”

“You checked his I.D.?”

He grimaced. “Well, not exactly. He told me he had lost his wallet, including his credit card. He gave me a cash deposit for the room.”

Grand swiveled the computer monitor and gazed at the name on the screen.

“How much did he give you?”

“A thousand.”

Grand glanced at me knowingly and back at the clerk. “Have you seen him today?”

“No, not really.”

“Not really or not at all?”

“Not at all.”

“Let me have the pass key, please.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“No you won’t.”

Grand left two of the patrol guys below and took the other two with us up to the second floor. The curtains were closed on Room 212, so Grand and I stood to one side of the door and the other two guys took the other side. We all had our handguns at the ready.

One of the other guys knocked. We waited, but no one answered. So Grand used the key card and then nudged the door open with his foot.

Just like the house the kidnappers had used in Little Havana, no one was home. In this case, the bed hadn’t even been used. The desk, on the other hand, had apparently been used to assemble the bomb.

Short pieces of wire, copper shavings, twine and even a pair of wire cutters sat on top of the desk.

The main artifact of interest was a plastic wrapper clearly printed with the letters PBX, which stand for “plastic bonded explosive.” In other words, they had employed C-4, the most popular, easy-to-handle explosive in the terrorist arsenal. It was stuff that went boom without a lot of provocation and probably had done so that morning in Key Biscayne.

The cardboard sales tag belonging to a duffel bag lay on the floor. The bomber or bombers had probably placed the explosive device in the bag and then maybe shoved it in a trash barrel. Some fast food wrappers also lay on the floor. The main bomb maker had apparently eaten a Whopper while he wired a whopper.

Grand got his guys to bag it all for fingerprints. They also checked the closets and bathroom but came up empty.

They did find the Salvadoran room maid, who swore she had never seen the man in 212; he always had a “Do Not Disturb” dangler hanging form his doorknob. Probably busy snipping wires and cramming C-4 into a duffel bag.

We went back to the manager and had him check the phone log: nothing. Grand asked him for a description.

“He was a Latin guy, average height and weight, about thirty-five. Dark hair, kind of dark complexion.”

Grand and I rolled our eyes at each other. The description fit several hundred thousand men in South Florida, including the guy who had sent the flowers and the ransom request to Doña Carmen. Maybe it was the same guy.

Grand held out his hand. “You better give me the thousand. Believe me, that’s not the kind of money you want.”

Grand collected it and gave the manager a receipt. As we left, we heard him drain the last of his blue Slurpee.

Grand stopped next to the cars. “So your boy Ratón was right once again.”

The caller hadn’t identified himself, but we both knew it had to be one of Ratón’s men.

“Don’t call him ‘my boy’, Grand. I’m involved in all this under protest.”

“You can protest all you want, but if I need you to go back out there to talk to him, I’ll expect you to go for the good of the county and the department.”

I gave him my best smile. “Anything for the dear department, Grand. What are you going to do?”

He threw up his hands. “What can I do? Arrest him? He’s already in goddam prison for the rest of his goddam life. All we can do is make sure he’s shut off from any contact with anybody outside that bloody prison.”

“That’s already in the works.”

I told him about Bill Escalona sticking Ratón in solitary.

“Good. If anybody deserves to be locked up with him, it’s him.”

Grand had just walked off when my cell phone sounded. It was Alice.

“Have you turned on your television and heard about the bomb on Key Biscayne?” she asked.

“Been there, done that. I was standing right in front of the place when it went off.”

“How’d that happen?”

So I told her about the advanced notice by Snow White the night before and then I filled her in on finding the bomb factory.

She let out a whistle. “Holy moly!”

“Indeed.”

She paused, but only briefly. “My God, Ratón wasn’t kidding. He’s declared war on Miami.”

“So it seems.”

“Colombian cartel bosses have always been fond of excess—all kinds of excess, including world-class blood letting.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“But in the past, they did almost all their killing and other mayhem at home in Colombia,” Alice said. “Now, given the reservation he has for life at the federal prison, I guess Ratón has figured he has little to lose.”

“You can’t really argue with him.”

“But the henchmen actually committing these crimes are the ones running the real risk, not Ratón himself. Remember . . . if they get caught here, they face the possibility of the death penalty for the kidnapping. Why would they do that?”

“Loyalty to Ratón?”

Alice laughed out loud. “Loyalty is seriously lacking in Colombian drug cartels. ‘The king is dead. Long live the king’ is the way they work.”

“So why would they be doing this?”

“I don’t know, Willie. They must have motives you don’t know anything about yet. That means you need to be extra careful. These guys aren’t just gangsters—they’re monsters.”

“I’ll try to be inconspicuous.”

“You’re never inconspicuous.”

“Because I’m too good-looking?”

She didn’t respond to that, so I went on to more important matters.

“I’ve read that there was a labor organizer named Cordero who was killed about three years ago in the Medellín area,” I said. “I know it’s a common name, but Catalina’s last name is Cordero. She’s from that province too and I wonder if there’s a connection between them.”

“I know some folks down there who do human rights work. I can call them.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

“Meanwhile, don’t answer calls from people who are placing bombs around town.”

“I’ll do my best, baby.”