The King of Swords (max mingus) (39 page)

M
ax got to the beach two hours early. He found his spot, sat down and lit a cigarette. It was a clear night. The stars were twinkling like a spray of rhinestone pinheads and the dense heat was cut in two by a cool breeze coming in from the sea. The air tasted of pure salt and smelt of those rare days when he'd had nothing better to do but lie in the sand and let himself be lulled into an easy half-sleep by the sound of the waves lapping at the shore.

He stared out at the ocean. The crests of the bigger waves reminded him of dead gulls in an oil slick. To his left he could just about make out the outlines of the Collins Avenue hotels, haloed in neon, a light in every window, a life in every room. In the opposite direction he could see a large group of people sitting around a bonfire, singing and laughing as the flames formed an amber tepee. One of their number was playing guitar. They all sounded young and probably were. No one with any sense or good intentions came out here at night: he wished them away, yet he was glad for their company and their innocence.

He'd brought both his guns-hip and ankle-plus two extra clips, but he doubted he'd need them. Boukman didn't want him dead just yet. He wanted him to suffer.

Since that last phone conversation, his day had been one long, fraught, agonizing blur. He'd said nothing to anyone about Sandra's kidnapping. Not to Joe when he'd come back from Coral Springs, and not to Eldon when he'd called them both into his office for a good news/bad news update-the Ismael family had been moved to the US Embassy in Port-au-Prince, but there were 'logistical difficulties' with Sam's deal because both his lawyer and the DA wouldn't be free to start negotiations until tomorrow. At midday he and Joe had gone to the Overtown garage, removed all the boxes of paperwork and brought them back to MTF. Then they'd had a long meeting which everyone in the unit attended. Provisional plans had been drawn up for simultaneous arrests of all the SNBC members Ismael had named. Top of the list were Carmine and Eva Desamours. Max should have felt exhilaration and excitement, the thrill of the impending chase, satisfaction at the way things were coming together and how they'd turned out so far, but all he could think about was Sandra. Sandra and what she was going through, how he hadn't been able to protect her, and how, if she'd never met him, none of this would've happened.

The kids were singing 'California Girls'-except they'd substituted the title state for 'Florida'. No one seemed to know the words to the verses, so they stuck to the chorus. They'd start it, stop it, laugh, giggle, whoop, belch, talk and then start singing again.

Time passed slowly. People drifted around behind him, alone or in twos or threes, but he couldn't see much more than the vaguest smudges of them in the darkness. Max chain-smoked, checked his guns and homed in on the sound of the sea. None of it helped his nerves, which were shot. His pulse was up and his mouth was dry. He remembered how Sandra had come out here with him the morning after the night they'd first made love. They'd watched the sun come up from his spot. They hadn't said much. They hadn't needed to. He teared up.

At a quarter to midnight he stood up.

He listened out for incoming footsteps, scanning right to left, then back again.

Nothing.

He turned around and looked towards Ocean Drive and Lummus Park.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the campfire had disappeared.

Or so he thought, because, very quickly, he realized someone was standing in his line of sight, blocking the view. The person was coming towards him.

He saw the silhouette of a head and shoulders, then the person moved abruptly to the left and the flames were back in view. The kids were dancing around them in a circle, holding hands.

'Why are you investigating me?' the man addressed him from the darkness. Haitian accent, the tone calm and measured and quiet, a loud whisper. It wasn't the voice from the phone.

'Who are you?' Max tried to position himself in the direction the voice was coming from, but he couldn't get a specific bearing. It was all around him, and seemed close too, almost at his ear.

'You know who I am,' the man answered.

'Boukman?' Max chased the voice, his eyes straining for a face in the darkness, but finding none. 'Where's Sandra?'

'Why are you investigating me?' the man repeated. There was a hint of gravel in his whisper.

Max thought he saw the man standing directly in front of him, his back to the sea. He took a few steps forward.

Big mistake. What sounded like twenty guns were suddenly cocked all around him; the air crackled with hammers snapping back into firing position.

He stopped.

'Why are you investigating me?' the man repeated, no change in his tone, no impatience; someone with the upper hand and all the time in the world to play it.

'Because I'm a fucken' cop, genius!' Max snapped. 'Where's Sandra?'

No reply to that. Without moving his head or body, Max quickly glanced about him. Hints of metal and the very slightest outlines of the people holding it, figures in dark relief. He thought he could smell stale sweat, cigarettes and aftershave. He could smell candy too.

'Give me back what's mine and I'll give you your woman.'

This time the man spoke to Max's left. Max didn't turn to follow the sound.

The beach party was carrying on regardless, in splendid isolation. They were mangling 'God Only Knows'.

'You mean Ismael? He's in police custody. I can't bust him out of that.'

'He's not in custody,' the man said. 'He's in one of your safehouses. Look-'

'The Emperor tell you that?' Max interjected, trying to tilt things his way, lessen the odds.

It didn't work.

'Look in your mailbox,' the man continued in exactly the same smooth, emotionless way, 'you'll find a number there. If you have what I want, call no later than 7.00 p.m. tomorrow. No stalling, no delays or your woman dies.'

'Well, you hear this, Boukman-or whoever the fuck you are,' Max snarled, turning around. 'You hurt a hair on her head, you're a dead man. You, your whole fucken' crew and that cocksucker who's been protectin' you all these years-you're all fucken' dead!'

He waited for a reaction.

None came. His rage was swallowed in a vacuum, there was just the same controlled silence between them; beyond that, the noise of the world.

And then, one by one, anti-clockwise, he heard guns being de-cocked, then low murmurs in a language he didn't know drifting away from him, dispersing all over the beach in different directions, like a flock of songless birds.

He thought he heard a woman laugh.

Max stayed put and, in his head, counted very slowly to a hundred. When he finished he started again, in reverse.

At zero he took a few tentative steps forward, paused, listened, walked a little further, paused, listened-then ran like a motherfucker back to his apartment building.

'
You sure she's still alive?' Eldon asked Max as he handed him a tumbler of whisky.

'Yes, I'm sure of it. I can feel it. I can feel her.' Max took the glass and downed half its contents in one continuous motion.

'Amputees can "feel" lost limbs too, Max.' Eldon frowned.

Max gave him a sharp look. 'Well, in cold, practical terms, Eldon, it doesn't make any sense for Boukman to have already killed Sandra. He wants Ismael back.' Max swallowed the rest of the whisky and put the glass down. 'But either which way it's fucked. Say I turn up with Ismael, Boukman might kill the three of us on the spot, or maybe he'll pop Ismael and Sandra, and leave me alive so I can take the rap for springin' a suspect and watch Sandra die over and over again in my memory. And if I don't go through with it, he'll kill Sandra anyway. This motherfucker is not going to negotiate. It's either his way or no way.'

It was 4.15 in the morning. Max and Joe were sitting at the coffee table in the corner of Eldon's office, flanking their boss, who occupied the couch. It was a full house. Also there were Jed Powers; Emilio Anorga from the DEA-a stout, big-chested, thick-limbed man, whose bushy black horseshoe of a moustache with ends stopping at the edge of his chin had earned him the nickname YMCA, after the Village People; Daryl Loewen-a redheaded ex-Marine with near translucent eyelashes and skin so pale he always wore a hat outdoors to stave off sunburn; and Rico Casados from SWAT, who friends called Chief Firestorm partly because of all the shoot-outs he'd been involved in and because his mother was Seminole.

Max had called Joe first to tell him what had happened. They'd talked tactics for an hour, then Max had called Eldon, who'd told them to come over to his office. They'd assumed it would be just them, but Eldon had summone dawar council.

'You got any ideas?' Eldon looked from Max to Joe and back to Max. His wart was stop-sign red.

'Yeah.' Max finished his drink and lit a cigarette. Eldon slid his marble ashtray over the table to him. 'We've got the names and addresses of the main SNBC players. Boukman has an inner circle, people he trusts. He'll have at least some of those people at the meet, for back-up. We put them under surveillance. Tail them. They'll know where the meet's going down, and they'll be heading there well before me.

'Solomon's going to assume that if I turn up to the meet, I'll have back-up, that this'll be a police operation. So we put that idea out of his head completely. We plant a news story that Ismael's been busted out of custody. We get it out on the radio and TV, we get it out on all the police frequencies. Boukman'll be tuning in somewhere for sure.'

'Like that Capricorn One movie where they fake the landing on Mars?' Rico laughed incredulously.

'Something like that, yeah.' Max nodded. 'It'll have to look convincing if it's on TV.'

He looked at Eldon for signs of disapproval, saw none, carried on.

'Now, we've traced the number he left me to a callbox on 73rd Street in Liberty City. I figure Boukman's going to play phone tag with me before he tells me where to meet. When I call I'll be told to go to another phone somewhere else and wait for it to ring. He'll do that a few times. All the while I'm driving around, he'll have me followed to make sure I've got Ismael with me, and that I haven't brought back-up. I can wear a wire. You can have a chopper tail me.'

Eldon smiled.

'We're one step ahead of you 'cause we're sitting on the SNBC right now,' he said.

'How come?' Max looked at him quizzically.

'We talked to Ismael yesterday after Liston left.' Eldon flicked his eyes in Joe's direction. 'We cross-referenced the names he gave you in case he was holding out.'

'Was he?' Max asked.

'No, but he was very helpful with additional details-minor points.' Eldon smiled his lupine grin, all gleaming, sated teeth.

'How long's surveillance been up?'

'Since seven yesterday evening.'

'Seven? Did you tail anyone to the beach last night?'

'We sure did.'

'So you knew I'd met Boukman?'

'No. We couldn't get close enough without blowing our cover. Sixteen people went out there. Twelve were SNBC elite. One was Bonbon, two were these women he always has with him, and there was one other-a man. Must've been Boukman.'

'Did you get visual ID?'

'No. They took photographs, but they didn't get his face.'

'Shit.' Max felt disappointed. They'd almost had Boukman there and then. They could've taken him down. But what would have happened to Sandra?

'We'll run with your plan,' Eldon said. 'I'm going to start making some calls now. Emilio, what can you bring to the party?'

'Twenty or so troops,' Anorga said.

'Rico?'

'Three units,' Casados replied. 'What kind of numbers you anticipating?'

'No idea. He ain't gonna come to this light.'

'Weaponry?'

'Better shit than us. They're criminals,' Eldon said. 'What about you, Daryl?'

'There's one thing we're not considering here.' Loewen leant slightly across the table towards Eldon. 'Yes?'

'Ismael.'

'What about him?' Eldon frowned.

'You're not really taking him to Boukman?'

'That's the idea.'

'You can't do that.' Loewen shook his head.

'Why not?'

'You can't use him as a bargaining chip. He's too valuable.' Loewen had a nasal tone which gave everything he said the irritating, whiny undertone of a mosquito on a sleepless night. 'So what do you suggest?'

'Get a vehicle with tinted windows. Put a dummy in there.'

'A dummy?' Eldon looked at him like he was talking shit in a foreign language. His wart went crimson.

'You'll be putting a key witness in a massive criminal conspiracy in the line of fire.' 'So?'

'What about the deal you offered him?'

'What "deal", Daryl? I didn't offer him any "deal",' Eldon said. 'What about the DA, what about his lawyer? Weren't they supposed to be meeting today?'

'Yes, they were,' Eldon said, 'but things have changed. Ismael talked. On the record.'

'But what about the investigation?'

'This ain't an investigation any more, Daryl. This is war. They touched one of us, so we kill all of them. Miami justice at its simplest and most efficient. No one fucks with my crew and lives happily ever after,' Eldon said coldly. 'Consider this piece of shit, Daryl. Ismael is Boukman's money man. Just 'cause he uses a pen and a calculator instead of a gun doesn't make him any less of a scumbag. In fact, it makes him more of one. All you ever hear from these little ghetto fucks we roust is how they "'never had no chance, never had no choice". You know that litany-never had no schoolin', never had no dads, never had no mamas, never had no chance, never had no choice-what else were they supposed to do but hit the highway to crime? A lot of people with liberal stirrings buy into that crap. I don't-even if it is maybe a little bit true. But let's say it's completely true. What kind of excuse does Sam Ismael have? None what-so-fucken'-ever! He had schoolin', he had a daddy, he had a momma, he had a chance-and he blew it-he had a choice-and he chose wrong. So fuck him!'

'We're deliberately putting a suspect in harm's way,' Loewen insisted.

'It's a bit late in your fucken' day to turn into a paragon of virtue, Daryl!' Eldon roared and Loewen flinched. 'Ismael ain't even a suspect now. He's guilty. He's confessed. Signed and sealed. That piece of shit helped run a multi-million-dollar drug empire. The Lemon City programme he fronted? He knew people had been killed over that! Whole fucken' families-children, Daryl, children. And they took the fucken' babies. God knows what those voodoo fucks did to 'em! So give me a fucken' break with your pieties! Get your head straight and your code in order!'

Max saw Joe smirking at Eldon and shaking his head.

'Who are you protecting, Daryl? The innocent woman who's been kidnapped, or some asshole cocksucker criminal who's life ain't worth a second of hers? We're here to get her and Max out of this alive. That's all you should be thinking of right now. If you're gonna get an attack of ethics then fuck off, we don't need you!' Eldon yelled, his temper gauge deep burgundy.

Eldon and Daryl went eye to eye across the table. Both men's shoulders tensed. Daryl looked like he wanted any excuse to punch Eldon. Eldon looked like he was going to give him one. A heavy anticipatory silence fell around the room.

Eldon broke it.

'Are you with us, Daryl?'

Loewen didn't reply.

'Are-you-with-us? Daryl?' Eldon repeated, his bottom lip quivering. Max had never seen him quite so angry before.

'I can commit twenty-five men,' Daryl said weakly and sat back in his chair, pissed off but defeated.

'Thank you, Daryl,' Eldon said sarcastically, staring at him like he'd just tossed him off a plane at high altitude.

'Who's running the op?' Max asked, to refocus the room.

'I am.' Eldon turned to Max.

'You? When was the last time you handled tactical ops?'

'About 1881.' Eldon chuckled. 'Jed'll coordinate, but I'll be right next to him. You ain't going through this on your own.'

'That's absolutely right,' Joe said. 'I'm goin' with you, Max.'

'No.' Max shook his head. 'I already stand a good chance of losing one person I care about. I ain't pushing that to two.'

'You're not losing anyone,' Joe countered. 'I got you into this, I'm getting you out.'

'He's right,' Eldon said, without looking at Joe. 'No one goes to hell alone.'