Part 9 (1/2)

”If you get the paper,” I said, ”then you know the redhead and his girl were killed too.”

”Of course. And Rogers wasn't his name. All I know is that Marino owes me seventy-five thousand dollars. If you and your people want to do any business here for any kind of product, they have to clear that matter up first.” He frowned. ”I can't understand why it hasn't been cleared up. I know the mathematics as well as they do. What costs you people seventy-five thousand, you wholesale for two hundred thousand. The wholesaler sells it to the distributor for four hundred thousand. The distributor sells it to the area dealers and they sell it to the street dealers and they sell it to the consumers after adulteration for a million dollars.”

”Maybe,” Browder said, ”we've been pinching down on supply to hold the price.”

”Why would you come to me to make a buy knowing I was cheated?”

”I didn't know you'd been cheated.”

”I'm not a fool! You don't have any independent importers anymore.”

”Maybe Marino was the very last.”

”And so I am out of luck? Is that it?”

”That could be it, Mr. Brujo.”

”There will be no sales until I am reimbursed.”

”I'm in no position to decide that. I'm not high enough up the ladder. But I will go back and report. I have the feeling enough product is coming in from other directions. But it's good policy to keep all the channels open.”

”Martin, you can drive these men back, please.” As we stood up, Browder said, ”What was it they worked out to cut down the risk of taking it in by boat, sir?”

”Didn't you look into that, Martin?” Brujo asked.

”Yes, sir. The product would go into one of those aluminum Haliburton cases with a good watertight seal, with enough lead to make negative buoyancy. The case had two eyes welded onto the two corners on one end, and there was a wire cable, thin, fastened to the eyes, making a Y like a ski towline. They had about fifty feet of cable and the other end was fastened to a large eye bolt screwed into the keel amids.h.i.+ps. They kept the case on the transom. Oh, the case had two little fins welded or brazed onto the sides so that if they had to tow the case at cruising speed it would come up near the surface but wouldn't broach. The fins were adjustable so they could take some practice runs with the case full to see how it behaved. If there was any chance of being boarded and searched, they would just shove the case overboard. If they traveled, it stayed below the surface. If they stopped, it hung straight down toward the bottom. After the danger was over, they could get up to speed, pick up the cable with a boat hook and bring the case back aboard. Unless someone sent a diver over to look at the hull, they were safe, and even then he might not see the cable.”

”Thanks for your time,” I said to El Brujo. After we had climbed into the red truck I asked Browder what brujo meant. Martin answered for him. ”Wizard or magician. More like magician.”

”I wonder if he contributes to the alumni fund,” I said.

”Probably,” said Martin. ”He uses his education. He has commercial ventures in Cancun, Merida, Valladolid, Chetumal and Villahermosa. He's got a radio-telephone back in there somewhere. He's a very serious man. It wasn't smart to cheat him.” As we rode, I looked sidelong at Martin. There were flecks of gray in that beard. Deep wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. The hippie look was a perfect disguise for the environment in which he worked. He lacked the dazed vapid manner of the strung-out homeless ones, but I guessed that he could a.s.sume the role whenever it seemed useful.

I wondered how Martin felt about the business he was in. But I knew Browder wouldn't like it if I asked him. And I probably wouldn't understand the answer.

Browder held it all in until we were back inside the little blue Renault and heading north. Then he hit the top of the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. ”Wowee!” yelled Browder. ”Hey ho!” yelled Browder. ”Gottum!” yelled Browder.

”Got who?”

”Whoever falls out of the tree when we shake it. Like this, McGee. Mr. Ruffino Marino, who lives in a million-dollar condo at Sailfish Lagoon, is a respected investment adviser. He fought his way up through one of the families. He invests mob money in restaurants and hotels and dry cleaning and car washes and liquor stores. And he probably has a little sitdown dinner once in a while with old friends and they make policy about who to be friends with and what to buy next. Ruffi Junior has always been a wild-a.s.s kid. Not exactly a kid any longer, but his habits haven't changed. Stock cars, speedboats, airplanes, actresses. So it was the kid had the deal with Brujo, and that is crazy because the last thing the old man would want for his sons and daughters would be anything illegal. He bought respectability and he wants to keep it. Nothing should mar the Marino name, so it is dead-a.s.s certain he didn't know about this until it had been going on for a while.”

”How would Ruffi Junior dispose of the product?”

”Use the Marino name to get to a wholesaler, and then sell it to him for a little bit under the going price to keep the man's mouth shut. A personal deal. There could be other ways. I'm just brainstorming it. The thing to know is that the old man would blow a gasket if he knew any of his kids, especially the oldest son, was dealing.”

”Why would he deal?”

”I heard a rumor he wanted to be a movie star like Stallone. He financed a movie using a tax shelter plan and it was a bomb, a dead loss. He could make a million a year buying from Brujo. Maybe he wants to make another movie.”

”What about the dead people?”

”I can make up a scenario for you. Ruffi Junior is contacted by Howard Cannon by phone once he is back safe in the Keys with the product. So they arrange a pickup by Ruffi, by fast runabout or float plane, back there where you found the boat. I think Ruffi Junior would come alone. He doesn't want to be very public about what he's doing. So he goes down and boards the boat to pick up the product and give the redhead his cut.

”The redhead is proud of how cute he was. He'd probably bought that funny money for fifteen cents on the dollar. Eleven thousand two hundred fifty for seventy-five. But he probably bought a round hundred. He wants to buy into the action. He still has the seventy-five in good money Ruffi gave him. So he tells Ruffi what he did and shows him the rest of the funny money.

”Okay. So Ruffi is known for having a temper. He beat up on a girl once a couple of years ago. It was in the papers. But he got off. There he is looking in horror at that dumb t.u.r.d redhead telling him how smart he is. Ruffi knows it is a stolen boat. He knows that he can never make the redhead understand what an idiot he's been. Then maybe the redhead tells him he has the seventy-five thousand hidden, just in case Ruffi doesn't want to deal him in. I think that's in character. Do you?”

”Please watch the road, Browder. This is a very narrow road. Those oil trucks are doing eighty-five.”

”Would you say that would be in character?”

”Yes. I noticed some broken mangrove. He probably hid the money ash.o.r.e. Sealed it in a plastic bag and tied it to a mangrove knee. The way the boat was moored, you could jump into the shallows and wade into the mangroves.”

”Okay, so he faked the redhead out of position, cold-c.o.c.ked him, then turned and busted the skull on the blonde girl, knocking her back onto the bunk. Then he tied up the redhead the way you found him, and then he went in and had his fun and games with the little lady from Peru until he heard the redhead start bellowing. He knew the blonde girl was dead. He cut the throat of the little brunette. Why shouldn't he? He thought they were just three pieces of garbage, a half step ahead of the law. The redhead had closed off Ruffi's source, and Ruffi didn't think he should be walking around talking about how cute he had been.

”So he came out and sat down beside the redhead and put a clothespin on his nose and then clamped a hand over his mouth. When the redhead began to pa.s.s out, Ruffi would let him breathe again, and each time he would ask where the redhead had hidden the product and hidden the money. He let the redhead know both the women were dead. When he had answers he liked, he went looking, and when he found the goods and knew the answers had been on target, he went back and took those fifties and made a roll that would just fit into the redhead's mouth, pried his jaws open, jammed the bills in and hammered them home. Then he probably sat and watched the redhead asphyxiate. It would have taken a while because he could probably suck in a little, bit of air around the wad of money. And while he was on the way to dying, Ruffi was probably telling him what a horse's a.s.s he had been. Then he picked up his goods and his money and got into his boat or airplane and left the area in a hurry. From Ruffi's point of view, a reasonable solution. Brujo had no good way to contact him and probably wouldn't try. Ruffi took his goods to market before the murder story broke, and there was no way to connect him to it anyway.”

”Write me into your scenario, friend. Where do I fit? Where did Billy Ingraham fit?”

”Young Ruffi is not dumb. When he found out he had killed the niece of a very heavy dealer in Lima, he knew it would be as if somebody had killed one of his sisters. The pressure would never quit. Sooner or later, unless they had a story they could buy, they would backtrack all the way to Ruffino Marino Junior. You know what I think? I think he went to his old man and confessed. The old man has more brains than Ruffi. And he couldn't throw his kid to the dogs, or even admit his kid had been dealing. So the alternate theory was that Billy Ingraham had told you to get his boat back and punish whoever had taken it. And you got to it four days before you notified the Coast Guard. They sold that story to the people in Lima, named names. They promised to take you out. At first it was going to be quick and dirty. But then somebody, maybe the senior Marino, decided that might cause too much investigation. When you escaped the bomb, they decided on accidental. After all, if the right newspaper clippings were mailed to Peru, it would end right there no matter how you and Ingraham died. Honor would be served, and all that s.h.i.+t. But the Ingraham accident was messed up, and by a freak of chance, Jornalero knew the new Mrs. Ingraham. The world can be a small place. You and Millis Ingraham convinced Jornalero you were not guilty and Ingraham wasn't guilty. But when Jornalero tried to get the thing stopped right there, they wouldn't listen. They told him they were going to do it their way. Reason? Pressure from Ruffino Marino Senior. To hide the partic.i.p.ation of his dear boy. To stifle any further investigation. Mail your ears to Peru, and everybody can breathe deep and slow.”

”Look out!”

”Jesus Christ, McGee! I saw him. I wasn't going to run into him.”

A pair of toucans flew over the road twenty feet high and a hundred feet ahead of us. They fly with their bills hanging down. They make little irregular swoops as they fly. They do not look as if they really enjoyed getting around that way. Their breast is of the interior colors of their favorite diet, papaya.

”So what makes you so happy Browder?”

”The Old-timers against the New Boys. It is going to be tough to split them up because they are both antsy about the Canadians moving into the Miami area. Canadian mobs. But this whole thing about the girl from Peru offended the New Boys. Latin heritage and all. So when they find out she was raped and killed by the son of one of the Old-timers, and the Old-timers have been trying to throw you to the Peruvians to get the pressure off and save their kinfolk, it isn't going to sit too well. Shake the tree and things fall down.”

And so we went skimming up the rough and narrow highway to Cancun, pa.s.sing the trucks and buses at a hundred and twenty kilometers an hour, the hot wind whipping at us. Browder hummed happily over the sounds of wind and engine and from time to time he would laugh.

”If they found out you're in drug enforcement, what would happen?”

”It would depend on how much they think I know. Maybe only a good thumping by persons unknown. Or maybe I would drive into a ca.n.a.l.”

”Rough way to live, isn't it?”

”I came looking for it. We've got a fifteen-year-old daughter-no, she's, sixteen now-she OD'd on some kind of a crazy mix of speed and horse two years ago. The high school was full of it. She pa.s.sed out and in the hospital she stopped breathing, but they got her going again, except she's a vegetable. She used to be a pretty girl. Our marriage wasn't solid enough to handle that. So I'm undercover and my ex-wife teaches in night school so she can spend more time with Nan. What I want to do, one way or another, is nail some of the sanctimonious b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who control the drug trade without ever getting their hands dirty. When you make any kind of a case against one of them and by some miracle get a conviction, the appeal procedures take five to seven years, and if guilty is still the verdict, they spend ten months in a federal country club. The ones we haul in are the people who bring the product in and handle it and peddle it. They get the long sentences and they can be replaced overnight. What I want to see is a nice drug war. Like six or eight years ago. Car bombs, fire bombs, bodies in the trunks of Cadillacs. Important bodies.”

”What's going to happen with me, Browder?”

”As soon as I can spread the word, they will be off your case.”

”How soon will that be?”