Free Who'll Stop The Rain: (Book One Of The Miami Crime Trilogy) by Don Donovan

large,
and that night Chicho pays off two hundred large to Maxie. You don't really think that was his legitimate end of
the take, do you? You don't think they'd give that piece of shit a two-thirds
share?"
    Vargas
caught on. "So Chicho might've hijacked the entire haul! And … and …"
    "And
the boys from Key West came up here to get it. Only they got here forty-five
minutes too late."

 
    ≈ ≈ ≈
     
    Silvana pulled into a loading zone directly in front of the shabby
pool hall and they got out. She looked the place over. It was a rattrap from
top to bottom. The windows were covered with grime, a grayish kind of grime,
the kind that takes decades to form. The kind that won't come off no matter how
much Windex or elbow grease you put to it. From the sidewalk, she couldn't see
the inside too clearly, but she made out shadowy human forms, some circling
tables or hunched over them, others standing with their cues upright in front
of them.
    As
she opened the door, the scene in The
Color Of Money drifted into her memory, the one she saw on TV a few years
back where Paul Newman and Tom Cruise were going into a similar type of
low-grade joint to hustle up a game. Cruise asked Newman how he rated the place
on a scale of one to ten. "Ten," Newman replied without hesitation.
Silvana figured he would likely give this place a similar rating.
    First
thing she noticed, the AC was working — well, "working" might
be an overstatement, since it was warm and everyone looked like they were
sweating. But even though the unit made loud, dubious noises through the vents,
it still represented about an eight to ten-degree drop in temperature, and it
was inside, away from the brutality of the avenging sun. Relief? You take it
where you can get it.
    The
no-smoking tidal wave hadn't yet hit this place. Almost everyone in the joint —
and she counted about a dozen — had cigarettes going and the smoky fog
saturated the whole room. There was even the annoying hint of a cigar
somewhere, though she couldn't tell just where yet. The whole joint was a
monument to smoke and dust. The only thing missing was mud.
    One
thing was certain: she and Vargas attracted a lot of attention just by walking
in the door. It was pretty plain by the way they were dressed they weren't
looking to hustle up a game of nine-ball.
    Silvana
looked hard around the dimly-lit room. Five tables and a bar with a TV. Two
tables occupied, money sitting on the rail of each. Various other losers stood
around for no good reason. Nobody at the bar, the bartender working the TV
remote. Through the smoke, Silvana saw what she wanted in the rear of the room,
leaning against a cue rack, playing with his cellphone, oblivious to everything.
    "Skinny"
was hardly the word to describe Flaco. He looked like he'd have to try hard to
coax the scale up to a hundred and ten pounds. His ultra-dark skin and Latino
facial features told of Cuban-black parentage. He stood a few inches taller than
either cop, and his shaved head made him look like he was about twelve years
old. To Silvana's practiced eye, however, he looked more like early twenties.
Twenty-two, twenty-three, somewhere around there. Even so, she had a hard time
imagining this punk as any kind of serious "backup", as Yolexis put
it, in a situation involving guns and money. What this kid needed was a few
good fucking meals.
    "Flaco,"
she said. The kid looked up from his phone. Silvana noticed some kind of video
game setup on the screen.
    "Who
the fuck are you?" Flaco asked through a sneer. Silvana figured him to
have practiced long hours in front of a mirror for just such an occasion. You
know, getting all the lip-curling just right and the tone of voice squarely in
the fuck-you range.
    Silvana
grabbed his arm and dragged him into the corner. "Police officers,
asshole. And we want to talk to you. Let's go outside."
    "Hey,
fuck you! I ain't goin' outside wit' you! Lemme see your badges!"
    Vargas
slammed the heel of his shoe down on Flaco's