Cliff Roberts Thriller Box Set Page 11

  “As I left, I also took the liberty to try one of his famous Cuban cigars, and just one puff told me I wasn’t ever going to be a cigar smoker, so I tossed it on the floor and left.

  “The next day, there was a big news story about a big fire in Key Biscayne where two people had died. The building was a total loss and careless smoking was blamed for it all.” Bill’s grin grew even wider as he said the last few words.

  “That was lucky,” I chimed in and got a look of disdain from Bill for it.

  “Ain’t no luck involved, Jake, my friend. It was all planned. Life is a well-planned race. I know a quote you’ll just love because it’s from Vince Lombardi, the football coach, and I know you love your football. Anyway, he said, ‘The dictionary is the only place success comes before hard work. Hard work is the price we must pay for success. I think you can accomplish anything, if you’re willing to pay the price!’ Is that great stuff or what?”

  Bill didn’t wait for me to reply. He just switched subjects and kept right on talking. “So now, I’m down to one last asshole left to whack. I drive out to the Young Turk’s in Bal Harbour and find his place is lit up like the Fourth of July. There were at least six guys wandering around the place, which told me I’d have to plan this out if I was going to succeed.

  “I lay low for a week or two and followed the Young Turk, trying to learn anything that I could use against him. But after two weeks, I hadn’t found anything useful. Now that he was the head of the Miami Family, the man had increased his bodyguard detail to two dozen men. He didn’t go anywhere without them. He’d stopped going to clubs. He brought in his own chef so he didn’t have to go out to eat. The only thing he did away from the house was ride around on his big ass yacht. It was parked on the Intercoastal a couple of miles from the estate.

  “So, that was where I concentrated my attention next, but even at the anchorage, he had a dozen muscle heads hanging around 24/7. He even had a guy who would swim around the boat twice a day, just checking the damn thing out.”

  Bill stopped talking and finished his drink then looked around for several minutes before I asked, “And what happened?”

  “Nothing happened. I’m still working it out. I can’t get close enough to take him out,” Bill confessed, in what I believed was a rare moment of real candor.

  “So the Turk will be the one that got away, huh?” I asked stupidly.

  “Hell, no!” Bill shouted loudly enough that the people at the tables around us all turned and looked at us. Surprisingly, Bill smirked back at them, his face turning beet red, then he became quiet and subdued. “Jake, that son of a bitch is going to die, sure as I’m sitting here. That son of a bitch is dead even if I have to blow up half of Miami to get him. I’m going to cut that mother up and feed him to the sharks after I make the son of a bitch watch me rape his wife and feed her and his kids to the sharks. He killed my parents!” Bill whispered in a voice that was filled with hatred, venom and guile. The last few words had sounded as if he had strained himself in the effort not to scream them out at the top of his lungs.

  “I think I get the picture,” I then said, wishing instantly that I’d just kept my big mouth shut.

  “No, Jake, I don’t think you do. But you will. You can bet your ass you will!” Bill stated in a very threatening manner.

  “Hold on, I’m not with the Turd. I’m with you, remember?” I groveled like a stupid rube. Well, I was one, so what else could I do?

  “I’m glad you said that,” Bill stated flatly as he looked off into the distance. I don’t know when the guy creeped me out the most. Was it when he was looking at me, fixing his intense gaze upon me, like he was looking right into my soul? Or when he was looking off in the distance, letting his imagination run wild? I’d be willing to bet he would give Charles Manson nightmares.

  “I need some leg work done. You’ll be going down to the marina and poking around, asking stupid questions about big boats. Things like how much fuel do they hold; do they have their own desalination plants; how do they store the water they take with them; what does something like that cost. Stupid questions. Tell them you’re a writer, and you’re writing a book about taking a long sea voyage,” Bill informed me.

  “Why do you want to know that stuff?” I asked. I thought it was a legitimate question since he was making me go find it out.

  “Don’t worry about that now. Just get the information,” Bill stated curtly. “You done eating?” he asked but didn’t bother to listen to my answer. He just got up and started to walk away.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I did my best to hobble along behind him, and when we stepped through the door, he pointed at the car, which was still parked in front of the restaurant. He told me to get in. The car was the same big Mercedes he’d picked me up in, deep blue with a tan interior. It smelled of money. As we climbed in, Bill stopped and pointed at two women. They were maybe thirty years old, and like moths to a flame they stopped, confirmed he was pointing at them, by first looking around and then pointing back at him. When they did, Bill broke into a big smile, and they began walking toward him.

  Bill met them halfway to the car and spoke with them for just a moment. Then he handed them what looked like a business card and walked back to the car. He got in and started the car, but just sat there grinning as he watched them slowly walk away.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “A little something for later. Now, was I going to show you my house?” Bill said almost cheerfully as he pulled a U-turn in front of some guy in a Porsche, missing him by only a foot or two. When the guy started screaming, Bill just smiled and showed him his gun, and the guy shut right up.

  “What are you doing? Are you nuts?” I, of course, panicked.

  “Relax, Jake. The laws do not apply to us anymore. We are rich in America, and we’re going to be richer soon. Besides, even if he was quick enough to get the license plate, it was stolen months ago; and the car, well, it belongs to the sleaze ass attorney Ventinalli, so the cops can’t trace anything back to me,” Bill stated with confidence. At that point, being as paranoid as I was, I looked out the back window of the car in case the cops were already after us. But it wasn’t the cops.

  “Does that above-the-law shit apply to the guy in the Porsche racing up behind us?” I asked as casually as I could, since the guy racing up the road behind us was flashing his headlamps and honking his horn.

  “Well, the poor little rich ass has some balls. Let’s have some fun, shall we?” Bill jammed the gas pedal to the floor and the car leaped forward. We went from fifty in a twenty-five, to a hundred in a twenty-five, within twelve to fifteen seconds. How did I know it was that quick? Because my life flashed before my eyes, and it wasn’t all that exciting when I’d lived it. Fifteen seconds was the most of a replay I’d get of it, including the sex scenes.

  “Yee ha!” Bill yelled out the window as we dodged cars driven by the foolish, law-abiding citizens.

  “He’s still gaining on us!” I yelled out, my panic rising as Bill weaved around another snail in the roadway.

  “It’s going to get real exciting in a minute. We can open it up and fly through Bal Harbour. The road opens up to two lanes going both ways with a median island down the middle. Then we cross the Little Cut Bridge, which if you’re not familiar with it, jogs to the right at the bottom of the bridge after you cross it going north. It’s one of those big ass arched spans. It pitches upward at the center to allow sail boats with forty-foot masts to slide underneath. If you’re going too fast, you’ll fly over the turn in the road and end up driving into the underbrush. That is, of course, if someone isn’t parked there to go fishing in the cut.” Bill grinned as he continued flying through traffic like he was skiing a giant slalom race. I was gripping the arm rest so tightly, my fingers had turned white.

  “He’s still hanging in there!” I mentioned, trying to act casually, though inside I was still panicking. Bill, however, was clearly enjoying this. Shit, we were driving at least a hundred
miles an hour in traffic with some pissed off asshole chasing us, and I was stuck in the passenger seat trying not to wet my pants.

  Suddenly, our back window shattered and a small hole appeared in the windshield between Bill and me. “Mother!” Bill screamed and jammed on the brakes. The car grabbed at the pavement but only managed to bounce along the roadway as the car’s brakes tried to arrest our momentum. The tires were squealing loudly in protest and melting away hundreds of miles of tread wear as we came to the proverbial screeching halt. Even before the car had come to a complete stop, Bill was jumping out and pulling his gun, screaming insults at the guy in the Porsche, who was in a panic mode of his own now.

  The Porsche driver had managed to close to within a hundred and fifty feet when Bill jammed on the brakes and stopped. The Porsche wasn’t able to react fast enough even though the driver saw the Mercedes start to stop. So he locked up his brakes and spun the wheel to the left to try to slide past. It didn’t work. He was skidding right at me and the Mercedes at eighty miles an hour, when suddenly his left front tire blew out, and the Porsche’s chrome tire rim gouged into the pavement, flipping the car.

  It was like a scene in the movies where the hero is standing in the street and the bad guys are charging down on him, guns blazing, bombs exploding. The hero doesn’t even duck when he blows the front end off the car at the last second, ten yards in front of him, and the car flips over the top of him, landing upside down behind him, where it explodes.

  It was just like that, except Bill didn’t fire a shot and there weren’t any bombs going off; and well, Bill ducked real low and the car didn’t explode when it hit the ground behind him. It did hit hard and then bounced back right side up in the median. Bill quickly turned around, walked right up to the car, and fired six shots into it before trotting back to our car, jumping in and peeling rubber as he gunned it and sped away.

  The other drivers who stopped and had gotten out of their cars were just standing around, gawking at the smashed up Porsche. They had seen the whole show of Bill walking up to the Porsche and firing of six shots into the car. Most of the other motorists smartly cowered behind their cars, hoping they wouldn’t get shot by the mad man with the gun, but a few just stared at Bill as he calmly trotted back to the Mercedes and hopped in.

  As we sped away from the scene, Bill looked at me and gave me a strange look. He said nothing; but it was almost as if he expected me to ask some dumbass question. I was too terrified to even think of a question to ask. Shit, this crazy ass jerk just killed at least two people in front of how many dozens of people?

  Bill suddenly jammed on the brakes again and spun the car around the median and headed back south along Collins Avenue. It wasn’t ten seconds before we rolled right through the traffic wreckage and the murder scene again, though this time at barely five miles an hour due to gawkers.

  Strangely, no one even looked our way. They were all looking at the Porsche. Some of the gawkers had even gotten up close to the car and were bending down to look into it. Others were taking pictures of the gore found inside. Several people were puking on the street a few feet away. It was like being at a carnival except it wasn’t all that entertaining. In just the time it took us to turn around and drive back, less than a minute, a dozen cars had stopped. Several were playing the same radio station now, so the music was consistent and there were people laughing and carrying on as if this was some sort of party. It was like a truth or dare party had sprung up as the kids were all vying for a look in the car, while others acted out what the crash was like. Then I saw something that made my heart sink.

  Some punk ass kid started acting like he was Bill standing in the middle of the road with his gun out, while his girlfriend was shooting a video of him. His gun wasn’t quite as big as Bill’s gun, but it was still a gun, and a small but vocal crowd was cheering him on. He started acting out the tragic accident and shooting. He acted like he took a shot at the oncoming car and blew out the left front tire, then he struck a pose and acted like he didn’t move a muscle as the car was flipping over him, other than to turn his head to watch the car fly by. Then the kid strutted over to the car, leaned over, and acted like he was firing his gun into the car, killing the occupants. When he stood up, the crowd cheered loudly and the kid took a bow. It was sickening to see the perversity on display. Bill must have seen it too because he yelled something out the window at the kid that made no sense to me at all.

  “You got it wrong, kid. He was taller than you and Hispanic. Plus he had a big tattoo on his gun hand. A big MS13,” Bill called out as he gave the car a little more gas and pulled away from the circus.

  “Why did you say anything? They all looked at you.” I couldn’t control my stupid question, and it made Bill smile.

  “Damn, you are consistent. You just can’t see the simple answer to anything can you?” Bill grinned as though he found my question funny. “Okay, since I said we’d be friends and I would show you the ropes, I’ll try to explain how things work in a traffic altercation. First and foremost, it is best to have it at night. People have difficulty seeing the color of a car clearly at night. This car is deep blue. But there will be ten people that will swear on a stack of Bibles that the car involved tonight is black. Then another ten will say it was deep green and still others will insist it was blue. I yelled out the window that the guy was taller and Hispanic with a tattoo because now half the people polled by the police will say the guy was Hispanic. Some will say they didn’t see him clearly, some will say the guy looked right at me and he was black, light-skinned but black. All I did by yelling out the window was muddy the waters, so it is highly unlikely that anyone will ever be found to answer for the crime that was committed tonight in Bal Harbour.

  “Tomorrow night, we’ll take the car back over to the dead attorney’s house and leave it in his driveway. The car will be found in a few days, and it’ll be just another twist for the boys working the organized crime detail that makes no sense.”

  “Won’t the Feds be watching the house?” I asked.

  Bill rolled his eyes. “Why would they watch a dead man’s house? He’s been missing for almost five years. They tore the place apart as soon as he was reported missing. The car has been in my garage since then, so it’s not like they have any reason to watch the place. However, it does increase the number of bodies that are watching the new top crime lord. After all, the old Don didn’t die by no accidental fire. The autopsy told them that, and the old boy’s attorney disappeared only to have his car resurface five years later as a suspected vehicle in a murder in Bal Harbour, not a block from the new big man’s house. That will make their job tougher.” Bill fell silent as he turned onto Alton Road and then soon turned right onto Lagorce Drive. The neighborhood was dark—no street lamps—only coach lamps on the entry gates to the huge houses set back from the road and hidden behind landscaping and walls.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  We continued through the neighborhood, crossing over a small bridge and taking a sweeping left hand turn onto Lagorce Circle. Bill remained silent while we drove about a quarter mile and then turned into a driveway. Slowly, the gate slid to the side, allowing us access to the estate behind the walls. Bill followed a winding drive through extremely lush and thick jungle landscaping until we were directly in front of this huge house.

  I was stunned as I looked at the huge palace of a home before me. I expected he would be living in a big, nice house, but this was ridiculous. The front doors were smoked glass and had to be twenty feet tall. The handles were a bright golden finish.

  The outdoor lighting was spectacular. It reminded me of a movie set. Somehow, without actually being directed at the doors, the lights managed to highlight them. The effect was brilliant. On each side of the doorway were two very large windows. They had to be thirty feet tall, and inside you could see several huge plants. What kind of plants they were, I had no idea, but they were centered on the windows. It gave the effect that the jungle was both inside and out.

&n
bsp; As I started to get out of the car, a butler suddenly appeared and opened my door for me, while another guy opened Bill’s door. Bill tossed the butler his keys and told him to bring up the Escalade and to park this one in the garage on the end. The butler on my side quickly hustled to the door and opened it by pushing a button on the wall next to it.

  “Jacks, has our company arrived yet?” Bill asked as he walked past the man without really looking at him.

  “Yes, sir. They are out in the hot tub,” Jacks replied.

  “That’s great! There is nothing like a little hot water to relax you after a stress-filled night. Say, you hungry yet? Want a beer or mixed drink?” Bill was talking fast as he began pulling at his shirt.

  “Yeah, I’ll have a big Jack and Coke.” Maybe a good, stiff drink might just keep me from having a heart attack.

  “Jacks, make it four twenty-ouncers, and bring them out to the hot tub, will ya?” Bill ordered as he continued walking briskly straight through the house.

  “Damn, Bill, slow down. I’m tryin’ to look around,” I called out as I waddled several yards behind him. He stopped when he reached a set of large wooden doors that were painted white and stood twenty feet tall. The walls, in what I thought was the entry hall, had huge oil paintings hanging everywhere. Some were modern art. Some looked to be, what they called on television, the Old Masters. I’d never seen old masters up close before, but they sure did look like the stuff that you would see on that show called The Traveling Road Show. That’s a program from England, I think, that travels around that country looking for antiques in attics and cellars. To the right of the big, wooden doors was an opening into a huge room with some furniture clustered at the other end and a large screen TV hanging on the wall next to it. Another hallway led somewhere off the far end of the room, but Bill didn’t offer to take me there or even tell me what was back there. On the opposite side of the entry hall were several doors, none as big as the two Bill was standing next to, but they were carved quite impressively.