Chavez, a rookie with the Beach, spots a black Jag speeding down Washington Avenue toward the MacArthur. Doing maybe forty in a thirty. He follows him on to 395 and sees he’s also got a broken taillight. So he pulls him over. Only one guy in the car. So he asks for his license, registration, the whole drill.
‘Chavez says the guy is Mr Smooth, cool as a cucumber, no sweat, no tics, nothing. Guy gives him a Florida DL with the name Bantling. William Bantling. Lives on LaGorce Avenue on the beach. Chavez heads back to his car to write the mope a ticket when he smells this funky odor that he thinks is coming from the trunk. So heasks Bantling for consent to search the trunk. The guy says no.
‘There’s something wrong here, Chavez thinks. You know, why doesn’t the guy want me looking in his trunk? So he calls for backup and a K-9 unit. He takes him out of the car and holds him till the cavalry arrives. K-9 shows up twenty minutes later and alerts right away on the trunk – you know, scratching, barking, the whole nine yards. They’re thinking coke, right? Papa’s packing some nose candy in that trunk. They pop it open and… surprise, surprise! Our friend has a dead girl in there. And she’s been cracked wide open and is missing a heart.
‘Well, everyone freaks. And the radios start rolling. Before you know it, we’ve got every jurisdiction down here, and everyone’s sergeant. It’s a circus. They even flew in my chief on the copter to take a peek. You just missed him. He was at some fancy-shmancy fund-raiser for the governor or something. Soon as he heard about it, he claimed he just had to be here, so rather than drive the twenty minutes from the Biltmore Hotel, he had the boys fly him and the governor in. We had to clear both sides of the causeway just so the chopper could land and he could waddle his fat ass over for a sneak preview and then brownnose about it on the flight back to his steak and potatoes. Can you believe that shit?’ Manny shook his head in disgust and flicked his cigarette into the slow trickle of rubbernecking traffic in the left-hand lane. He hoped it would enter an open window of one of those bloodthirsty gawkers. Right on his lap and maybe burn his balls off.
Dominick nodded in the direction of the Crime Scene van. ‘Who are the suits?’
Manny smiled slyly. ‘Need I say? Why they’re our good, dependable friends from the FBI, here to take all the credit for solving a case they never even worked on.’ He rolled his eyes. It’s Stevens and Carmedy. They’re making nicey-nice with the Beach Boys so all their facts are straight in the news conference they will undoubtedly be giving tomorrow morning.’
‘How did they get word on this before me?’ Dominick looked around and shook his head. ‘Damn it, Manny, the whole fucking world is here.’
‘The Miami SAC from the FBI was at the same dinner. But as far as I know, the feds, always humble, drove themselves here. The rest of the boys, well, as you can see, they just want to be part of this special moment in history.’
Dominick shook his head. The Bureau’s Miami Special Agent in Charge was Mark Gracker. He and Dominick had had go-arounds long before the Cupid case, on an organized-crime murder that Gracker and his federal pals took over – conveniently after Dominick had solved it and identified the suspect. One minute Dominick had whispered the suspect’s name at a closed-door FDLE and FBI powwow and the next he was watching the news dumbfounded as Gracker slapped cuffs on the guy while simultaneously giving an interview to Julia Yarborough of Channel 6. Ten days later, the FBI named Gracker the Miami SAC.
The Bureau was always trying to wiggle their way into something so they could look like the heroes at the end. Good press had been hard to come by since Waco and Ruby Ridge. But now that Marilyn Siban’s body had been found on federal land, thereby throwing the case into federal jurisdiction, he didn’t think he
‘Chavez says the guy is Mr Smooth, cool as a cucumber, no sweat, no tics, nothing. Guy gives him a Florida DL with the name Bantling. William Bantling. Lives on LaGorce Avenue on the beach. Chavez heads back to his car to write the mope a ticket when he smells this funky odor that he thinks is coming from the trunk. So heasks Bantling for consent to search the trunk. The guy says no.
‘There’s something wrong here, Chavez thinks. You know, why doesn’t the guy want me looking in his trunk? So he calls for backup and a K-9 unit. He takes him out of the car and holds him till the cavalry arrives. K-9 shows up twenty minutes later and alerts right away on the trunk – you know, scratching, barking, the whole nine yards. They’re thinking coke, right? Papa’s packing some nose candy in that trunk. They pop it open and… surprise, surprise! Our friend has a dead girl in there. And she’s been cracked wide open and is missing a heart.
‘Well, everyone freaks. And the radios start rolling. Before you know it, we’ve got every jurisdiction down here, and everyone’s sergeant. It’s a circus. They even flew in my chief on the copter to take a peek. You just missed him. He was at some fancy-shmancy fund-raiser for the governor or something. Soon as he heard about it, he claimed he just had to be here, so rather than drive the twenty minutes from the Biltmore Hotel, he had the boys fly him and the governor in. We had to clear both sides of the causeway just so the chopper could land and he could waddle his fat ass over for a sneak preview and then brownnose about it on the flight back to his steak and potatoes. Can you believe that shit?’ Manny shook his head in disgust and flicked his cigarette into the slow trickle of rubbernecking traffic in the left-hand lane. He hoped it would enter an open window of one of those bloodthirsty gawkers. Right on his lap and maybe burn his balls off.
Dominick nodded in the direction of the Crime Scene van. ‘Who are the suits?’
Manny smiled slyly. ‘Need I say? Why they’re our good, dependable friends from the FBI, here to take all the credit for solving a case they never even worked on.’ He rolled his eyes. It’s Stevens and Carmedy. They’re making nicey-nice with the Beach Boys so all their facts are straight in the news conference they will undoubtedly be giving tomorrow morning.’
‘How did they get word on this before me?’ Dominick looked around and shook his head. ‘Damn it, Manny, the whole fucking world is here.’
‘The Miami SAC from the FBI was at the same dinner. But as far as I know, the feds, always humble, drove themselves here. The rest of the boys, well, as you can see, they just want to be part of this special moment in history.’
Dominick shook his head. The Bureau’s Miami Special Agent in Charge was Mark Gracker. He and Dominick had had go-arounds long before the Cupid case, on an organized-crime murder that Gracker and his federal pals took over – conveniently after Dominick had solved it and identified the suspect. One minute Dominick had whispered the suspect’s name at a closed-door FDLE and FBI powwow and the next he was watching the news dumbfounded as Gracker slapped cuffs on the guy while simultaneously giving an interview to Julia Yarborough of Channel 6. Ten days later, the FBI named Gracker the Miami SAC.
The Bureau was always trying to wiggle their way into something so they could look like the heroes at the end. Good press had been hard to come by since Waco and Ruby Ridge. But now that Marilyn Siban’s body had been found on federal land, thereby throwing the case into federal jurisdiction, he didn’t think he
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