“Why go through the trouble of killing a guy and stealing a car without also taking his wallet? You take everything of value when the opportunity presents itself,” Osteen said, shaking his head in disbelief. “That’s street thug 101. Was there any money inside? Cards?”
“A few hundred dollars cash, a black card, and a few store cards. It was untouched. Resting in the back-right pocket of Jennings’s pants.” Vivian realized how odd it seemed, but she had hoped it was nothing more than the theory she posited. She was having the type of week that could benefit from an open-and-shut case.
“Something tells me this may not be as cut and dry as it looks. Let’s get the goods to the lab and see what the techs think. In the meantime, I’m going to grab some coffee.”
Chapter 4
Miami is a simple city to lose yourself in; both accidentally and deliberately. A relative maze of neighborhoods scrawled out along the tapestry of the coastline merely invites it. After a while, buildings in the inner city of any major metropolitan area look the same. Many of those same structures that seem to exist as the strange by-product of a copy/paste experiment gone wrong exist within areas that are less than savory to most. People in these areas simply don’t ask questions. Sometimes the less you know, the better off you are. They’re always aware of strangers, but limit their concern to watchful glares from porches and barred windows.
Those same glares greeted Micah as he drove through Little Havana in his eight-cylinder Mustang, in search of a specific canary yellow colored building. The thing that made the building in question noticeably different from all the others of a similar hue was that no one ever seemed to go in or out of it. Nearby residents sometimes joked that the doors had otherwise been lost to time and weren’t likely to go down except with a battering ram.
Even with its apparent lack of inhabitants, the building never changed. Its walls hadn’t received a fresh coat of paint since the day they went up; the dull tone to what had once been a more vibrant yellow was evidence of that. Micah had only been to the building once before, and it showed when he passed it at ten over the speed limit, forcing him to punch the brake and maneuver around with a haphazard three-point-turn to avoid getting stuck in the traffic leading away from his destination. He parked in a grassy lot across the street and walked nonchalantly to the side of the building.
A steel door with a nondescript switchboard next to it halted any forward progress. In fact, the only thing truly odd about the door was its lack of a handle. It would take a vigilant eye to appear as what it was rather than just another part of the wall. Micah checked his surroundings and pressed a button to signal his arrival. The sound of multiple locks followed disengaging followed soon after. Micah waited a moment for the door to swing open and stepped inside.
-#-
The interior bore a striking resemblance to the outer walls of the building. Aside from a dingy chandelier, the only thing in the primary room was a poker table placed oddly in the center. Sitting behind that table, glued to a laptop with the sound of sweaty flesh smacking together emanating from it, was a man named Victor Perez. He was the type of person who enjoyed a good, home cooked meal, chased by a few bottles of Bucanero; and it showed. He muted the sound of the video as Micah sat down in a chair across the table from him.
“How’s things, compadre?” Perez posed the question in a manner that betrayed just how much his mind had become one with the drink in his hand.
“Bueno. I took care of that thing for Castillo.”
“That is good news, amigo.”
“Good enough to get me a sit down with the man?”
“Perhaps,” Perez answered abruptly. He took a swig of the amber beer and straightened himself up a bit, attempting to appear somewhat official. “Give me a couple hours to check around with my people. No promises, but I’ll let you know what I find out.”
A helpless smile formed on Micah’s face. Although it was no guarantee, even a distant glimmer of hope was better than the all-encompassing emptiness of nothing. “Gracias, Victor. I owe you one.”
-#-
Micah drove down the street aimlessly, racking his brain for every iota of information it could recall from the previous night’s events to ensure himself that he hadn’t slipped up and left incriminating evidence of his involvement at the scene. He stopped at a light and let his eyes drift up toward a gigantic billboard with two topless women, pink stars hiding their most coveted assets, beckoning him to join them at the hottest club in South Beach.
What the hell? I earned it.
Loud electronic dance music filled the early evening air as Micah approached the club. He looked up toward the roof as he neared the entrance and saw a large, cheesy neon montage of a cartoon cherry in a never-ending explosion. The words ‘Cherry Popper’ lay underneath in predictable red. At least it’s not Comic Sans, Micah chuckled to himself. He opened the fur-lined door and stepped inside to the potent smell of sweat, booze, and desperation.
The owners had set the club up like many of its kind: a primary stage which ran parallel to the bar with a few smaller stages situated strategically nearby. Each section had plush leather chairs that rarely went further than a foot or two from the stage unless a dancer came down to give the patron the dance of his or her life. Micah made his way over to the bar which housed the sole empty seat in
