9 mm would have.
By 5:00 P.M., I was back in the parking lot of the West Boca Medical Complex, waiting to see if Andres Carmen would come out. This time I was off to the side in the minor shade of a recently planted dogwood. I still don’t know why they plant those skinny-trunk trees in the grass separators of parking lots. Aesthetics? Had to be; I’ve yet to see a Florida parking lot with big canopied trees providing acres of shade for customers.
At about 5:05 P.M., the end-of-the-day troop of employees began. Out the front doors came a bustling group that included several women dressed in those plain-cut pink scrubs that had made the transition from hospital surgery theaters and patient floors to the medical spin-off industries and learning campuses. Some of the men were similarly outfitted in blue. But I was looking for a slightly built young man with dark hair and a bit of a chin beard who’d be wearing a green version of this medical getup, the description Luz Carmen had given me of her brother.
At 5:10 P.M., I recognized Luz. She exited the building with that same careful look she had two days ago, her head on a swivel, scanning the parking lot, searching for someone who might be searching for her. But this time, she was obviously with another woman, about her size, both of them dressed similarly in knee-length summer dresses and conservative short heels. They walked to a dark red Toyota Camry, and Luz got into the passenger side. I was relieved to see that she’d taken my advice and was getting a ride home with a co-worker. Maybe she was even staying with the other woman over the weekend, a suggestion Billy had made to her after I’d described the encounter in the park. If she noticed my pickup truck under the meager shade tree, she didn’t show it. The friend pulled out, and they exited from the opposite side of the lot.
At 5:15 P.M., I spotted Andres Carmen, walking with purpose out of the building, carrying a cardboard box a few books might fit into. He marched directly to a dusty white Toyota Corolla four rows back from the front and didn’t look around to check the perimeter, as his sister had, nor did he make any “have a good weekend” small talk with co-workers, nor offer waves of good-bye to anyone. His face was stoic and calm as he unlocked the driver-side door and set the box over into the passenger seat before climbing in.
I started up my truck and then slipped into the exit lane behind him. My pickup is not the perfect vehicle for a tail. The color can draw attention and since the cab sits up, it’s easier to spot in a rearview mirror. But I didn’t detect any sense of watchfulness or concern on Andres’s part. If his sister had told him of the drive-by shooting on Wednesday, he wasn’t showing any wariness. I kept a few cars back and as we wended our way out onto State Road 7 and headed south, I noticed that the only thing unusual about the young man’s driving was that he stayed meticulously on the speed limit. And for a South Floridian, he had an unusual habit of using his turn signals, a nearly unknown form of etiquette in this part of the country.
After a half hour of trailing him, the only other hint that the kid might be acting unduly careful was his use of the secondary highway even though he was now well south into Broward County. I-95 would have been a lot quicker, even though it often clogs up at rush hour. Still, on this particular north-south corridor, you had to stop at every major intersection for traffic lights and folks turning into the endless shopping plazas, car dealerships, and fast-food restaurants.
If you were getting paid for your time on the road-which I was, as Billy’s investigator-it was no big deal. But if you had someplace to go, it engendered the kind of drudgery or frustration that inevitably leads to road rage incidents, screaming matches through lowered windows, and the horn blowing that every city from New York to San Diego puts up with on any given day.
As a result, I was pleased to see that Andres wasn’t pulling any of that constant lane-changing or light-to- light turbo jumping that might gain you a car length in the grand scheme of things. I’d only had to endure three “dudes” with their woofers blasting through opened windows trying to impress with their bass music thumping. By the time Andres finally pulled into a light industrial park in the city of Plantation, I was getting bored.
It seemed obvious that the boy was turning in a box full of patient identifications and maybe order records to someone up the line in the scheme his sister had outlined. And I was here only to document for Billy so he could connect enough dots to get the feds to pay attention. Still, when Andres hit his signal and made another left turn into a covey of low-built offices and warehouses, the traffic flow cut down considerably; I had to drop back to avoid being obvious.
I let the kid get a couple of blocks ahead. When he pulled up into a parking spot in front of one of the businesses, I did the same and watched from a distance. Andres got out of his Toyota Corolla with the cardboard box under his arm and again, without a glance to either side, walked into the building through a double glass door. I did a quick surveillance with a small pair of binoculars. The signage on the doors read BIOMECHANICS INC., with no names, proprietorship, or hours of operation. I jotted down the spelling and the address to turn over to Billy.
The cars already parked in front of the place were a Mercedes SL with a Florida plate and a Cadillac Escalade bearing a plate holder from a Dade County dealership I recognized. Again I noted the numbers for Billy to track on the computer. Although some of the buildings in the block had garage-style doors for equipment loading, there was no such entrance for BioMechanics, and no trucks in the vicinity bearing their name or logo. If they were dealing with equipment, medical or otherwise, it wasn’t being handled on this side of the building.
Then I did a quick assessment. I was parked in front of a place called Baseball City, USA, a warehouse with a glass-fronted entrance that advertised hours and days for indoor hitting practice, pitching machines, and on-site coaching for all ages. While I sat there, three boys about twelve or thirteen came out wearing cleats and hats and balancing aluminum bats on their skinny shoulders. A parent unlocked the side doors of a family-style van and the boys scrambled in, laughing and probably trading jibes over which of them had been whacking the baseballs harder, and who’d been whiffing for the past hour. While I was smiling at the thought of my own boyhood trips to a batting cage in South Philadelphia, my eye caught a glimpse of shiny green metal, just for a second, passing between buildings another block away. The color was too distinctive to be coincidental-the drive-by Monte Carlo.
I began a reassessment of the street: narrow, flanked by buildings. There were only other parked cars to duck behind for cover if bullets started flying; could be innocent children in the line of fire. I was about to hit my ignition: Before I’d let a drive-by occur, I’d park in front of Andres’s car, confront him inside the BioMechanics office, and blow my own surveillance. If the kid was indeed selling stolen patient info to some graft joint inside and my actions spoiled Billy’s case, so be it.
My fingers were on the key when the door that Andres had walked through opened, and a man stepped out, took a few steps into the street, and flipped open a cell phone. My fingers loosened on the key while I studied him. There was something familiar about him, though not the clothes. This guy’s conservative slacks, open, white Oxford shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows and bright against his dark skin, added up to a black man’s Obama look. It was his carriage that betrayed him: He had that neighborhood slouch in his shoulders and hips, and that way of looking up and down the street without raising his head, not like he was looking for something expected, but for anything unexpected. All this gave me pause.
Back in the day when I was a Philadelphia beat cop, we used to fill out FI cards-field investigation notes on index cards-for anybody we considered suspect or worth keeping track of. We’d watch some guy hanging on a particular drug corner, or catch someone driving with their headlights off in a suspect area, and stop him, not for a violation, just a chat. We’d note his name, physical description, and take a Polaroid photo. “That’s it, sir. Have a good day and if you don’t belong here, don’t come back.” I’d had a whole box of FI cards, but I also had a good recollection for faces. It was old cop habit, one I couldn’t kick. As I watched the guy down the street talk into his cell phone, I went through the FI box of street attributes in my head.
I didn’t know this guy from Philly; it wasn’t that far back. He wasn’t a client of Billy’s, but someone peripheral to a case I worked for my lawyer friend and colleague. This was a man used to checking out the streets, who was comfortable with it-a man who guarded his work.
A dealer-yes, a drug dealer from northwest Fort Lauderdale, one who’d actually helped me track down an animalistic killer who was targeting elderly women. The face flooded out of the past, followed by the name: The Brown Man. But what the hell was the Brown Man doing dressed like a casual businessman, hanging out at the location of a possible Medicare fraud office?
From my left, a Honda Odyssey rolled up in front of Baseball City and started disgorging half a dozen little leaguers. I hit the key to my ignition and pulled out to put my truck between them and the Brown Man. As I searched every possible corner for a flash of green, I could feel all the muscles in my neck and shoulders tighten with anxiety.
When I turned back to the Brown Man, I saw Andres come out of the BioMechanics door, now empty-handed. The two men appeared to exchange a few words, and then split, Andres into his car, the drug dealer into the office.
