The Pope of Palm Beach Read online

  “That’s messed up,” said Kenny. “But I don’t know if anyone can write a whole novel on turtle eggs.”

  “That’s just a for-instance,” said Darby.

  “Crazy stuff like that was happening all the time,” said Brady. “Like the guys who brought these parrots up from Panama that sell for more than two grand. Things got fucked up again. Naturally, they all flew away.”

  “Don’t forget the monkeys,” said Darby.

  “Monkeys?” said Kenny, getting out a pen and notebook.

  “These cute little gibbons,” said Brady. “They got loose, too, running through the welding shop and tearing up our break area. When people hear that you work at the port, they think, ‘Ooo, you must be worried about drug smugglers.’ I say, ‘No, monkeys that can open your lunch box.’”

  “See, here’s the thing about people breaking the law out here . . .” Darby watched a small Zodiac boat speed up the channel in growing darkness. “They think they’re so clever, and if they act cool and nonchalant, nobody will notice them. But the eyes that work on the docks see all.”

  A pen scribbled. “So it’s mainly exotic-animal smuggling?”

  Brady shook his head and pointed at the cargo containers on the deck of a Liberian-flagged freighter. “Dollars to doughnuts there’s more than a few stolen cars in there. They love the Mercedes in South America. Even more popular are spare parts from chopped vehicles that can’t be traced.”

  “Bicycles,” said Darby.

  “Oh, you wouldn’t believe what they pay in the islands for a ten-speed,” said Brady. “A used bicycle goes for twice the price of a new one in the States.”

  A small fish splashed next to the seawall, which meant a larger fish was behind it. Darby stretched weak legs under the table. “Changed much since I was here?”

  “Starting to,” said Brady. “And it’s bad.”

  “How?” asked Kenny.

  “There’s always been contraband around here.” Brady nodded across the water to the nearby shore of tony Palm Beach. A squadron of pelicans glided on the breeze. “Rum came in here like nobody’s business during Prohibition because all that old money wanted to get their drink on. And one of the biggest smugglers lived over there. Probably heard of him, Joseph Kennedy, the president’s dad. Of course he never got his hands dirty, and all the law around here was on the take.”

  “Then came the sixties,” said Darby. “We started seeing drugs, but it was mainly pot. Some stoned clowns trying to make a few bucks. Half the time they could barely steer the boat and did more damage hitting the pylons than what they made off weed.”

  “Right after Darby left, the worm turned,” said Brady. “It wasn’t obvious at first, but then it couldn’t be ignored. A much scarier breed of cat started showing up at the docks. Scars, prison tats—and not American prisons.”

  “Cocaine?” said Darby.

  “We don’t ask, but yeah,” said Brady. “It really got edgy when the police started showing up.”

  “To make arrests?” asked Kenny.

  “To get paid.” Brady watched the fin of a small hammerhead slice across the channel. “Then the DEA came around, which was more frightening because they were on the level. Nobody wanted to be seen at the port talking to the feds. We all played dumb, which made them think that maybe we were in on it, so they planted one of their undercover agents in the shop.”

  “If he was undercover,” said Kenny, “then how did you know he was DEA?”

  “Couldn’t weld and kept asking about cocaine. Call us suspicious,” said Brady. “Finally burned himself with the torches so many times that he was almost on permanent disability leave, and they pulled him off the assignment because what was the point if he was home in bed?”

  Kenny flipped a page in his notebook. “I had no idea. Right in my own backyard.”

  “Darby,” Brady said uneventfully. “Did you see that Zodiac boat?”

  Darby nodded. “Right out the corner of my eye. Been watching since it made the channel.”

  Kenny turned around. “What boat?”

  Brady and Darby in unison: “Don’t look!”

  “Why not? What’s going on?”

  “Nothing you want to witness,” said Brady. “Zodiac boats are fast, but more importantly, they ride as shallow as anything out there. And definitely draft higher than whatever the Coast Guard or Marine Patrol has.”

  Darby made a circular gesture with his right arm. “Probably met a sailboat offshore, then made the inlet.”

  Brady pretended to look in the direction of a cargo container marked Tropicala. “Notice how the cooler is about ten gallons too big for a Zodiac?”

  “Picked up on that,” said Darby. “And how he’s now straining too hard to lift it for anything legitimate to be inside.”

  “Mm-hmm,” said Brady.

  Kenny’s gaze ping-ponged between the two old friends. “Wow, I never would have noticed little things like that.”

  “The eyes of the dock see all.”

  The welders kept tabs with peripheral vision as the man carried the cooler and slid it into the bed of a nearby pickup truck. He grabbed a piece of paper from the vehicle, then got back in the Zodiac, undid a rope from a cleat and sped away from the marina.

  “I have no idea what just happened,” said Kenny. “If there’s something valuable like drugs in the cooler, why did he just leave it like that?”

  “Dead drop,” said Brady. “Apparently the arrangement involves the links in the chain not meeting face-to-face.”

  “But the stuff’s just sitting out in the open in the back of that truck where anyone can steal it, especially in Riviera Beach,” said Kenny. “Or it could be discovered by the authorities, who’ll arrest the pickup’s owner.”

  “A couple of things,” said Darby. “First, it’s unsecured, so any decent defense attorney can argue that whoever owns the pickup isn’t responsible for whatever someone might toss in the back when he isn’t around.”

  “You said a couple of things?”

  “Don’t turn around and look obvious like you did before,” said Darby. “But there’s a police car by the gate. Nothing will happen to that cooler.”

  Kenny jotted notes nonstop, head down, until he realized nobody at the table was talking. He raised his head and saw the men staring across the channel. “What are you looking at?”

  “Now you can watch the Zodiac boat,” said Brady.

  He did. The inflatable vessel quickly traversed the channel and made landfall on the sandy shore of Peanut Island. The man got out and walked toward a coconut palm that looked different from all the others, angling out crooked over the water. He reached the base of the tree and got down on his knees.

  “Why is he digging?” asked Kenny.

  “Payment,” said Darby. “Another dead drop. Got the location from the map in the back of the pickup when he delivered the load.”

  The man retrieved a small, waterproof nautical box from the sand and threw it in the Zodiac. He pushed the boat off and sped out of sight around the south end of the island toward the inlet.

  Moments later, another Zodiac came around the opposite end of the island and docked at the marina. A different man got out and walked over to the pickup. The truck started up, he drove off, and the police car followed.

  Darby turned with a sly grin toward the young writer. “Getting enough material?”

  Chapter 17

  The Present

  A moody espresso machine hissed a bitter liquid into a tiny cup that was promptly knocked back. The coffee aficionado wore a lime-green guayabera with two vertical rows of iguanas. He had a slight paunch, not unreasonable for his fifty years. But his toupee broke the cardinal rule of toupees by looking like one. Even across the street or looking down from a building: Yep, that’s a toupee. His skin was mocha, and his name was Salenca. Nobody ever brought up the hairpiece, and Salenca thought it was the perfect crime.

  It was the industrial side of western Miami between the airport and the Everg
lades. An area where office buildings looked like warehouses and vice versa. This particular building wore both hats. Rooms stored drugs, guns and stolen art. Others housed rows of employees on phones and computers. The drugs were being phased out. It was the new era of techno-crime, and ID theft was the future.

  Salenca had the only personal office, sitting up on steel beams near the ceiling at the end of the building and looking out over what used to be the shipping department of a T-shirt printing company.

  Months had passed since Salenca’s big promotion. Nobody ever figured out that he had framed his boss for framing him. All they knew was that Salenca possessed the Midas touch. The credit-card racket had money pouring in from thirty-seven countries and counting. And who would ever have guessed they’d need to hire a tech staff?

  Salenca asked for another meeting with the bosses.

  “What’s this new idea of yours?”

  “Garbage.”

  “Garbage?”

  Salenca nodded. “It’s the future.”

  The bosses glanced at each other. “I thought it was the past,” said boss one. “The families up in New York and Jersey were neck-deep in garbage, until we showed them how much more could be made from cocaine.”

  Boss two nodded. “That’s when they began switching from the waste business to drugs. And now you want us to go from drugs back to garbage?”

  “No,” said Salenca. “That’s old garbage. I’m talking batteries.”

  “Batteries?”

  “It used to be just car batteries,” said Salenca. “But technology has so radically evolved over the last two decades that it’s created a sea change. Everyone’s got a cell phone and a laptop, and they all have batteries that eventually need to be thrown away.”

  “So throw them away already.”

  “Not that simple.” Salenca popped the battery out of his own phone and held it up as a visual aid. “It’s about heavy metals. Cadmium, mercury, lead. You got your manganese, your lithium ion . . .”

  “We’ll take your word,” said boss three. “Skip to the money part.”

  “There are all kinds of new federal regulations requiring businesses to dispose of certain types of garbage in specific ways. Expensive ways,” said Salenca. “And not just batteries, but medical waste, construction materials like asbestos, the list goes on and on.”

  “How does that concern us?” asked boss one.

  “It’s often too costly for companies to get rid of the stuff themselves,” said the accountant. “So now all these new businesses have cropped up that specialize in regulated disposal. They’re hired by the other companies. That’s where we come in, underbidding the competition and making a fortune.”

  “Do we know how to dispose of this stuff?” asked boss three.

  “Not remotely. That’s why we’ll dump it at night. That’s our profit margin.”

  “What if these other companies don’t want to sign contracts with us?” asked boss one.

  “Our best sales pitch: muscle and arson.”

  “Forgive me,” said boss two, “but this sounds like a lot of work. Is it more profitable than drugs or ID theft?”

  “No, but the cost–benefit ratio is better.” Salenca could see their eyes glazing over. “Remember when I explained the disparity of prison sentences between cocaine and credit cards? The less harsh the penalties, the lower the chance that someone will flip on us for the prosecution? And the risk is even less for disposal violations. We incorporate a legitimate company, and if they hit us with EPA fines, we just bankrupt it. And if they go after corporate officers, they’re all overseas associates of ours in places without extradition. It’s about diversification. We’ll basically be getting paid a killing for creating a lot of confusing paperwork.”

  “Confusing is a good way to put it,” said boss one. “I don’t understand any of this, and I love it. What will you need?”

  “More guys and a bulldozer.”

  The bosses took a vote, consisting of nodding at each other. They set the accountant loose.

  Salenca sat in a posh chair on the nineteenth floor of a gleaming office building in downtown Miami.

  A vice president sat on the other side of a mahogany desk. He had a view of the causeways to the beaches. He closed a leather-bound prospectus. “I’m sorry, but we already have a company we’re very happy with.”

  “We cost less,” said Salenca.

  “It’s not worth the unknown,” said the VP. “They have a proven track record.”

  “So do we, but not in disposal.”

  “How do you mean?”

  Salenca turned east toward the floor-to-ceiling windows, looking down at a seaplane skimming across the bay before taking off to the Bahamas. “You like your view?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  Salenca pointed up at the two serious men standing behind him with clasped hands. No necks. Linebackers in shiny suits.

  The VP quickly opened the leather binder again. “Come to think of it, we have had some reliability issues lately with the current company . . .”

  And so it went, downtown tower after tower, collecting contracts. Salenca assembled his reinforced crew back at the warehouse the next morning at dawn. He distributed pages with their collection routes.

  “Don’t we need garbage trucks?”

  Salenca shook his head. “This kind of waste doesn’t take up as much room. Your pickups will do.”

  “Is any of this stuff dangerous?” asked another driver.

  Salenca handed him a page. “Just watch out for syringes in the biomedical containers.”

  They read down their assignments as Salenca stepped back. “Okay, everybody, look alive. The collection is child’s play. And you all know the rallying point, but you must arrive at the precise ten-minute intervals on your sheets. We don’t need a million pickups there at the same time attracting attention. And don’t go anywhere near the place before midnight . . .”

  The western sprawl of South Florida was like a military campaign: aggressive, coordinated and ruthless. All along Highway 27 and the Sawgrass Expressway, charging right up against the boundary of the Everglades.

  It was a fortified wall of sorts: tight rows of identical two-story stucco homes, all designed for maximum floor space on minimum lot size. Swimming pools, barbecue pits, Jacuzzis. On the other side of the wall, alligators.

  Each subdivision opened with tours of the model home. And before the first deed was inked, bulldozers were already plowing the next subdivision.

  One such bulldozer arrived at midnight on a flatbed truck. It was not sent by the developers.

  In all directions, empty land, cleared and packed flat with little orange ribbons flapping from surveyors’ stakes. In coming weeks, the acreage would be a compelling subject for time-lapse photography. All at once, an entire platted community would rise: plumbing, slabs, concrete blocks, roof trusses, plywood, shingles, paint, sod and cheerful nuclear families whose key to happiness was lack of imagination. But right now, there weren’t even streetlights.

  Workers backed the bulldozer off the flatbed.

  “Why’d you pick this particular lot?” asked the man behind the controls of the big Tonka truck.

  Salenca waved a clipboard. “They just poured the footer, so the foundation isn’t far off.”

  The bulldozer rolled onto the land as the first pickup truck arrived. Men quickly pulled the tarp off the bed and unloaded the contents. They carried it to the middle of the lot, where a kitchen with an island sink would soon stand. The bulldozer finished digging the hole, and they threw it all in.

  Salenca checked his watch. The departing pickup passed the incoming one on the dark street, and the process repeated. And repeated, every ten minutes until the last truck arrived. “Hold it,” said Salenca. “Don’t dump. I’ve got other plans for your load.”

  The next day before lunch, the driver of the last pickup arrived at the warehouse with hazardous cargo still under its tarp.

  “Follow us,” Salenca said ou
t the passenger side of a Mercedes.

  “Hope you don’t mind me asking,” said the driver, “but why are we taking the last load to the disposal company whose contracts we just stole?”

  “To create a paper trail that we disposed of some of it according to regulations,” said Salenca. “Then if any of what we’re doing turns up, we point the finger at them.”

  “Sounds like a lot of effort for just a paper trail,” said the driver. “Won’t they just deny it?”

  “They won’t be in a position to be believed.”

  “I get it. You’re planning something else.”

  “This is a two-birds-with-one-stone kind of thing . . .”

  Minutes later, another high-rise executive office.

  “I can’t believe you’re sitting there!”

  “Why?” asked Salenca.

  “You stole a bunch of our clients with underhanded tactics, and you have the balls to come into my office?” said the exec.

  “You don’t want our business?”

  “Get the hell out of here!”

  “You can always file a complaint,” said Salenca. He pointed up at the linebackers in suits. “And there’s the complaint department . . .”

  . . . A pickup truck backed into the receiving bay and unloaded.

  Salenca removed a document from his clipboard and handed it to the dispatcher. “Here’s a manifest of the contents.”

  That night:

  The pickup trucks arrived at the rallying point in staggered sequence. The bulldozer and freshly dug pit were waiting. Everything proceeded exactly as it had the night before.

  Salenca stepped into the headlights of the last incoming pickup and put up his hands. “Stop.”

  “You don’t want me to dump?” asked the driver.

  “Not here.” Salenca headed back to his Benz. “Follow us.”

  Shortly before dawn, they all arrived behind the legitimate disposal company that Salenca had visited the day before. He got out of the Benz and walked back to the pickup driver’s window. “Cut your headlights. See those Dumpsters behind the building? . . .”