America Rising (6 page)

Two of his listeners hoisted him on their shoulders. A third handed him a microphone. Others fiddled with the sound equipment. A banshee howl of feedback cut like a dagger through the humid air. Thousands of pairs of eyes riveted to its source. The young man looked nervous, even scared. He raised the microphone to his mouth and in a faltering voice said, “We’re here today. . .”

He stopped and shook his head, a faint smile on his lips, an amused rebuke to his own ineptitude. He straightened his shoulders, swept his arm across the throng and boomed in a voice that was suddenly deep and confident and magisterial, “Is this a beautiful sight or what?”

Thousands of conversations halted. Thousands more eyes riveted on him. Sirens still wailed.

“I came here today just as you did,” the young man began. “To speak with a voice greater than the power of one, to speak with a voice greater than the power of money and influence, to speak with a voice greater than those who use their public microphone to advance their own narrow self-interest.

“Perhaps like you too, I wasn’t sure what to say.” Murmurs of agreement swirled, eddied, crested. The young man nodded in acknowledgement. “I didn’t have any great words, the gift of oratory that can set men’s and women’s souls on fire. But then I thought, what we came here to seek doesn’t demand great words, great oratory. What we came here seeking is simple. Justice. Equality. Representation. Fairness. Compassion. And I thought, all I really need to say is one simple word.

“Enough.”

The murmurs grew louder.

“Enough.

“To those who hold themselves as princes, gathering riches upon riches while outside their gated mansions people struggle to survive, to feed their families, to make a better life, we say enough! To those who hold themselves as uncrowned kings, who believe it is their place to rule and ours to bow our heads, who believe the law is their servant and they are its masters, who believe our freedoms are mere trifles to be granted or withheld as they see fit, we say
enough!”

He was soaring now, carrying the crowd along with him.

“And to those who have sold our hopes and dreams, our futures, our birthright as Americans, for thirty pieces of corporate silver, we say no more. We say your time is over. We say stand with us or dare to stand against us. We say
enough! ENOUGH!!”

The crowd exploded.

“ENOUGH! ENOUGH! ENOUGH!”

The young man paused and cocked his head as if he couldn’t hear their answer.

“But maybe it’s not enough,” he said. “Maybe we can do more.”

He turned and pointed to the short span rising over the Intracoastal. “You see that bridge over there? Just across that bridge are the people we should be talking to. They’re at a hotel, a beautiful hotel, a hotel where people like you and me cut the grass and clean the rooms and wait the tables.

“They’re the people who sold you a loan you couldn’t afford or understand, then took your house. They’re the people who ruined their companies and paid themselves million-dollar bonuses. They’re the people who ruined our economy and paid themselves million-dollar bonuses. They’re the people who threw millions out of work and paid themselves million-dollar bonuses. They’re the people who took billions of dollars of your money and paid themselves yet more million-dollar bonuses.

“So maybe we should go talk to those people in their nice hotel, maybe we should tell them that we’ve had enough of their million-dollar bailouts, their million-dollar bonuses, their million-dollar arrogance. We should tell them that we are not serfs, we are not pawns for them to push around on their own private chessboard. We are Americans. And this is our country too. We should tell them that their millions cannot buy us, their millions cannot buy our government, cannot buy our country.
Because America is no longer up for sale!
I say right now we should walk across that bridge and tell them. What do you say?”

The sound that rose from thousands of throats was a huge, angry, inarticulate cry that could have rattled the clouds drifting overhead. A phalanx of bodies surged along the Intracoastal towards the bridge, moving inexorably like the tide. The young man was carried along in their wake but pushed forward, surrounded by a group of men and women who helped him cleave through the crowd and position himself at its head. Sirens wailed louder, almost drowned out by a rhythmic chanting:

“Enough, enough, enough!”

The authorities made their stand at Flagler Bridge. Every available man and woman, every piece of equipment from local police, sheriff’s office, Highway Patrol was massed at the foot of the bridge, an immovable object intended to halt an unstoppable force.

No one knows who fired the first shot. The multitude of law enforcement agencies present denied all responsibility, and there was no evidence of weapons fired from the demonstrators’ side. For a time, suspicion centered on several bands of beefy, black-uniformed men originally thought to be SWAT teams but the matter received little play in the press and soon faded away. A special commission appointed to investigate took a few days’ worth of testimony, then retired with a bureaucratic shrug of its shoulders.

Whoever was responsible, what is known is that twenty-two people died that day, seven by gunshot, thirteen trampled to death in the frenzy to escape that followed, and two by drowning when they were forced off the Flagler Bridge and into the water below. One of those seven gunshot victims was the young man whose speech had set wings to the crowd, his head exploded like a ripe melon from a high-velocity bullet fired from somewhere behind police lines. He carried no ID, and his fingerprints and dental records matched none in the system. Days later he was given a perfunctory burial to which no one came.

That evening it rained hard, a cold, driving rain that lasted until dawn and left the air clean and palm fronds glistening. But it didn’t wash away the red-brown stains that lay like stigmata on the pavement.

S
ometimes, when you pull on a thread, an entire tapestry can unravel. Armando Gutierrez was that thread, but before I could start pulling, I needed to know more about him. What kind of person was he, really? Was he loved, respected, feared, despised? Was he a good son, mate, neighbor? What were his likes, dislikes? What pushed his buttons? He was my chance to unravel a tapestry of intimidation, violence, even murder that made a mockery of our small-d “democratic” ideals.

Armando Gutierrez’s condo was in an area of South Beach known as “SoFi”—South of Fifth Street. It was an area that came later to the upscaling of South Beach than the streets to its north—Ocean Drive with its lineup of gaudy Art Deco hotels, Lincoln Road with its array of shops and restaurants on a broad pedestrian mall, Collins Drive with its massive four-star hotels and Washington Avenue’s tony boutiques and eclectic mix of eateries. I didn’t have the patter or brass balls to bluff my way past the guards at the front door, but there was no reason I couldn’t get in through the back. Or the side.

On my way into South Beach I stopped at a supermarket and bought a bag of groceries—lots of cans and jars and packages, the kind of crappy, processed fare that’s a staple of bachelor life. Before leaving home I’d printed a handful of phony business cards on my computer, tied my graying hair in a neat ponytail and shed my typical Keys’ uniform of shorts, flips and frayed tropical shirt for my one remaining good suit, which still sort of, almost, fit. No socks, though. After all, this
is
South Florida. When I got to the Gutierrez condo I parked at one of the side entrances and waited for its residents—among them, hopefully, a sympathetic woman—to come strolling back from an early dinner or late day at the office or quick trip to a local market.

After half an hour of drumming my fingers and running my Miata’s wheezing air-conditioner I saw what I was looking for—a pair of good-looking young women, still in business dress, chatting animatedly and heading for home. One was already reaching into her purse for her key card. As they approached the entrance I got out of the car, awkwardly holding my heavy bag of groceries, and quick-footed it to the door, then faked a stumble and dropped the bag to the pavement, scattering my goodies in their path.

“Oh, shit!” I muttered, kneeling down and cramming everything back in the bag. I looked up at the women, a harmless, embarrassed loser. “I am such a doofus,” I said, rising to my feet, the crumpled bag held tightly to my chest. “Would you mind getting the door?”

They both smiled sweetly at the clumsy, aging, hippie doofus, then the blonde swiped her card and the brunette held the door open. They smiled again at my chivalrous, “Thank you, ladies,” and walked down the hall, chuckling, I was sure, at my pathetic lack of coolness.

But I was in.

I already had Armando Gutierrez’s apartment number from the county real estate records so I ditched my groceries in an empty elevator and rode another to the twenty-first floor. My plan was to brace his neighbors with a modestly believable cover story and find out anything they knew about the man in apartment 2144, maybe get a lead on a girlfriend or frequent visitor who I might pump for more information.

No one was home at 2142. At 2146 a large man with a military buzz cut and body builder’s physique straining a wife-beater t-shirt opened the door.

“I’m Christopher Travers with Secure Tech Industries,” I said, holding out my fake business card. “We’re considering Armando Gutierrez, your next-door neighbor, for an important position with our firm, and I’d like to ask you a few—”

Slam!

I must have been in the Keys too long; I’d forgotten about the hospitality of big city residents.

I didn’t have much better luck at 2141 or 2143. At 2145 a gnome-like woman with dyed-blond hair wearing a flowing designer caftan answered. She looked to be in her mid-seventies but remarkably well-preserved, with quick, bird-like movements and ice-blue eyes that raked over me like lasers.

I did my Christopher Travers thing.

“. . . and I’d like to ask you a few questions about—”

“Hah! You can’t bullshit me, Christopher Travers or whoever the hell you are. Come in and have a drink. And don’t think I’m a helpless old woman. I’ve got a .38 Police Special and I know how to use it.”

I stood in the doorway, still recovering from her verbal onslaught, not sure whether to laugh, run or go in.

“Scotch or vodka? That’s all I’ve got.” She’d already turned her back to me and was filling a glass from a bottle of vodka on a table in the living room. “Well, what are you waiting for, Christopher Travers? You’re not one of those teetotaling health nuts, are you?”

Not me.

“Scotch, please. Just a couple of cubes.”

I shut the door behind me and she stuck out a bony hand, giving mine a good, firm squeeze.

“I’m Marilyn Kravitz. Moved to this humid hellhole thirteen years ago from the Bronx. Never wanted to leave New York but Melvin, he wanted to retire to Florida. He’s gone now, may he rest in peace. Never made much money but enough to buy this place. Now it’s worth half what we paid for it and I can’t afford to leave. So who are you, anyway? And don’t give me that Christopher Travers crap.”

“No crap, Ms. Kravitz,” I said. “My name’s Josh Henson. I’m a reporter for Public Interest. It’s a group of investigative journalists all over the country. I’m working a story that involves Armando Gutierrez and I was hoping you could give me some information about him. Anything you know would be a help.”

Marilyn Kravitz considered that, then handed me a glass filled to the rim with Johnny Walker Black.

“Drink.”

I drank.

“That’s good. I don’t trust a man who doesn’t drink. And I’m not Mizz Kravitz anything. I’m Marilyn. You’re Josh. You are Josh, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am.”

“That’s a good name. Sit.”

I sat.

“So you want to know about the Shitheel. What’s he done?”

The Shitheel. This was going to be good.

“He works for a so-called security company here in Miami with ties to right-wing organizations. Basically, he’s a thug. He goes around the country beating people up, staging ‘accidents’—mostly political stuff. Except now he’s graduated to murder. He’s in jail in San Francisco; he and some buddies beat a friend of mine to death. I’m trying to find out about the people he works for, who they work for. What the hell is going on here.”

Marilyn took a big gulp of her vodka. “I’m sorry about your friend.” She sat quietly for a moment. “The Shitheel—that’s what everyone in the building calls him—is a real nogoodnik. The kind who bumps you with his shoulder in the hall if you don’t get out of his way. He’s not here very much but when he is he hangs out with a bunch of other schnooks just like him. Every night it’s a party—that horrid rap music, drinking, drugs. I think they smoke marijuana. It goes on until five, six in the morning. No one can get any sleep but they’re all afraid to complain. I’m not, though. I’ve got a .38 Police Special—”

“And I’m sure you know how to use it.”

“Damn straight. He’s got a girlfriend too. She lives in the building, two floors down. Nice girl. Pretty. Gaby. Gaby Lopez, I think. He beats her.”