legwork.
“What do you know about this guy?”
“He writes off a lot of minor tickets,” Ross said. “He’s what we call a neighborhood guy. Everyone he grew up with comes to his house when they have a fix-it ticket or a parking ticket. Just one of those things.”
Just one of those things. Of course, if you happened to be wanted for some larger crime and got a fix-it ticket, it would help to have someone there to write it off. “What’s his beat?”
“Little Havana, mostly. I don’t know much about him except for his daily logs I pulled. He does some traffic pickups over by the Orange Bowl, too. We don’t exactly hang out. Cops and Parking Enforcement aren’t on the same feed line, but I see him here and there and he’s come to me with a couple favors over the years. You’d be surprised how much a ticket for an illegally lowered car can be, seeing as they mount up. That’s one thing I’ve never understood. Lowering your car. Why do that?”
“To look cool,” Sam said.
“Really?”
Sam wanted to say, “No, they do it to look like assholes,” but decided against it. Let the poor man live in blissful ignorance. “This Prieto,” he said, “how old is he?”
“Thirty? Thirty-five? Why?”
“Helping out neighborhood guys, that’s something you do when you’re not sure you want to be a cop long term. But get into your thirties? That’s your career. Why jeopardize that for some kid on the streets?”
“Maybe he’s cultivating confidential informants?”
Sam was going to guess that Ross watched a lot of Law amp; Order. Who ever called a snitch a confidential informant? “He’s not working major crimes, is he?” Sam said.
“No,” Ross said, “more like stolen bicycles and petty robbery. Pick up a hooker every now and then. That would be my guess. I see him on the street, he’s just rollin’ most of the time. You know, I’m trying to get into the police academy. Did I tell you that before?”
“No,” Sam said.
“I just want to be a cop that no one has any issues with, right? Like, just a good person.”
Interesting.
“Any rumors about him being gang affiliated?” Sam said.
“Everyone who grew up in Little Havana is gang affiliated in one way or another,” he said. “But he’s with the good guys now.”
“If that’s true,” Sam said, “why didn’t you have some moral objection giving me his information?” Sam hated to play hardball with Ross, but he felt like the meter maid wasn’t giving the full story. That was the downside of dealing with sources: Sometimes they just don’t want to give up what they know.
Ross drummed his fingers on the table. “Sweet Home Alabama” started on the jukebox and for a couple minutes Ross seemed to get lost in the music, but Sam was pretty sure he was trying to figure out how to say something he didn’t want to say. “You know what’s crazy?” Ross said. “Neil Young and the guys in Skynyrd? They were actually good friends. So everyone hears this song and thinks the guys in Skynyrd hate him for all that ‘Southern Man, don’t need him ’round’ shit, but it’s not true.”
“Really?” Sam said, thinking, Okay, now what?
“Yeah,” Ross said. “It was just hype. Something to sell records.”
“I guess sometimes that’s the case,” Sam said. “Things aren’t what they appear.”
Ross drummed his fingers again and then stopped and looked around the bar one more time. “The thing is,” Ross said, “people in Miami, you know, everyone has a past. So I had a friend of mine in the juvenile division just run a search on Pedro Prieto, you know, see if anything popped, because I’m thinking if you wanted his information for something, it must be some bad news. And, you know, you helped with that problem and I can’t repay you enough. You know, that was some Donnie Brasco stuff you did.”
Every meter maid wanted to be a cop, Sam knew, and every cop kind of wanted to be either a hitman or a mafia don, so when Sam paid off the shark, he went back and told Ross he went all the way to the top of Miami’s biggest crime family and informed him that Ross was a protected guy and to lay off. It was the kind of stupid story someone would believe only when they didn’t want to possibly imagine the path of least resistance-in this case, paying off the debt-but it also served their relationship well. Big Bad Sam knew mob bosses! In this case, though, that reputation meant Ross ended up sticking his own neck out. It was more admirable than Sam could have imagined.
“He’s been involved in some shady things,” Sam said. “Let’s just say he’s part of the problem in the United States today.” Ross’ eyes got wide for a moment, and Sam could almost hear Ross screaming Conspiracy! in his mind. “Let’s just say, he’s no friend to the hardworking, lunch-pail Americans I think we both look up to.”
Ross nodded in agreement, though Sam suspected Ross ate most of his lunches at Chick-fil-A.
“Well,” Ross said, “listen to this. When he was thirteen, he got picked up for running drugs for the Latin Emperors. Just minor stuff. A little weed. Misdemeanor stuff. He went to college, passed all his exams, and Miami PD, you know, they want guys who know the law of the land. But knowing how serious this might be, in light of your involvement, I poked back on some fix-it tickets and a few parking jobs in the last couple months and found a lot of crooked guys there, Sam.”
That was a good piece of information… but also so juicy Sam had to make sure Ross understood it wasn’t something he could pass onto anyone else, no matter how many times they made him listen to “Magic Carpet Ride” as torture.
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Sam said. “Most of these guys, Ross, they just want to feel respected and tough. It’s not enough that they are the law of the land, my friend, they want people to need them, too. It’s a sign of narcissism. But you know what? It’s human. I’m sure it’s all a big misunderstanding.” He paused and let that sink into Ross’ mind. He pondered, adding, “These are not the droids you’re looking for” into the conversation, just to give it a little context, but felt like Ross might not grasp the allusion. “Anyway,” Sam continued, “this helps with what I’m looking into. Just a hit-and-run case. One of those things that sticks in my craw, you understand, makes me distrust my fellow man.”
Ross looked relieved. “That’s good,” he said. “Because, you know, we have a code of silence and, well, I feel weird breaking it. But a hit-and-run, that’s low down.”
“Meter maids have a code of silence?” Sam said.
“Law enforcement in general,” he said. “You got a badge. You keep your mouth closed.”
“That’s good to know,” Sam said, but didn’t bother to inform him that not only had he talked, but so had his guy in juvie, too. Maybe it was a code of occasional silence. He pocketed the piece of paper and stood up to leave. It was getting late in the afternoon, and that meant more cops, more women with teased hair and more Steppenwolf on the hi-fi, as it were.
“You don’t wanna stick around? See if maybe we can get a few of these ladies to dance?”
“Next time,” Sam said.
“And, Sam, just hypothetically,” Ross said. “If I happened to run into trouble with someone in the gambling trade again, would you be amenable to my calling you for some advice?”
“Here’s my advice,” Sam said. “Stop betting on sports.”
“It was strictly hypothetical,” Ross said.
“Good luck on the academy,” Sam said, and then walked outside, certain he’d be hearing from him as soon as football season started again. He made a mental note to put aside a few hundred dollars just in case, of course, he needed to help his friend.
Though, the more Sam thought about it, the more he thought that maybe the best way to help Ross would be to give him an in on some actual police work. If things worked out, maybe he’d be able to do just that.
Normally, Sam preferred to do his own legwork so that he could get a definitive answer to his questions. Depending on people like Ross always ended with more ancillary work than he really wanted to handle because of the nature of the source. He trusted Ross. Was sure Ross had given him nothing but the straight dope, but even still, old Sam liked to depend on his eyes for things.
So after he left the bar, Sam drove down to one of his favorite spots in Little Havana-a restaurant called Ozzie’s that sold the absolute best plantains north of Cuba-and enjoyed a leisurely meal outside, to see what the police presence was like. There were a few squad cars that came through periodically, which wasn’t unusual for the
