Free Powder Burn by Carl Hiaasen Page B

opened a thumb-sized plastic vial and tapped a small pile of white powder onto the flat side of his American Express card. He used a table knife to cut the powder into four perfect lines. The others watched silently as Mono rolled a crisp new hundred-dollar bill into a makeshift straw. He sniffed three of the lines in quick succession, then offered the fourth to Ramón.
    On his way out of the restaurant Mono stopped to hug Oscar, the owner. “Thank you for your hospitality. You are a good friend.”
    “You are welcome, Señor Sosa. Anytime.”
    Of course, it was always Señor Sosa. Oscar wouldn’t dare address him by Mono, a street name. The monkey.
    Señor Sosa had once done him a great favor. Just a small debt, but how foolish. A drunken night when Oscar had agreed to join some friends for the cockfights in Key Largo. Money had flown like the rooster feathers, and when it was over, the restaurant owner had been dismayed to find himself three thousand dollars down. Of course, he could not pay.
    Señor Sosa could, on the spot, from a roll of bills so large it filled his hand like an egg. He’d never mentioned the money again. All he’d ever asked of Oscar was to keep El Hogar open late whenever Señor Sosa and his friends wished to talk business. He was asking more and more these days.
    “Oscar, you are having no more gambling problems, I hope?”
    “Oh, no. I have given up. I don’t even play la bolita anymore. Not even for one peso.”
    “That is good,” Mono said avuncularly. “If only you could talk some sense to these baboons. They dropped a fortune at the dog track today.”
    Southwest Eighth Street, Calle Ocho, glowed a hazy orange beneath the sodium crime lights. The streets were deserted, save for an occasional speeding taxi on its way back to the boulevard. Mono stood for a moment outside El Hogar. His heart raced slightly. He did not feel like driving home; he felt wide awake.
    His three companions slid into the gold Continental. Domingo Sosa did not follow. Instead, he walked briskly across Eighth Street and climbed into a gun-blue BMW parked in a space marked Handicapped Only.
    “Adios, Mono,” shouted one of the men in the Lincoln as it raced away. Drunken idiots, fumed Sosa, mashing the accelerator three times to warm the engine. Then he slipped the BMW into first and drove off in the opposite direction.
    Octavio Nelson and Wilbur Pincus scrunched low in the front seat of the old blue Dodge. They stayed that way until the Continental passed them. Cramped together almost flush under the dashboard, Nelson could smell some kind of mint on his partner’s breath.
    “Let’s go,” Pincus whispered eagerly.
    “Be still.”
    Nelson waited until the Lincoln’s engine was but a hum in the distance. When he sat up, he noticed bleakly that the BMW had vanished, too.
    “Shit,” said Nelson, gunning the engine. The Dodge protested with a stall. “Oh, shit.” He turned the key again and drove off as fast as he dared, hoping to catch a glimpse of Mono’s taillights and afraid to look over at his partner.

Chapter 7
    THEY MIGHT have gone to Rio. Meadows later wished with all his heart that they had. It would have changed almost everything.
    From the dog track, Meadows and Terry had driven to a small condominium Terry owned on Key Biscayne, an island twenty minutes south of the city. Along the way Meadows had recounted, as rationally as he could, what had happened in Coconut Grove and what he had seen at the track.
    “I should have called the cops right then. They’d have caught the killer.”
    “Probably not, querido,” soothed Terry. “If he recognized you, then he and his friends probably left as quickly as we did. Besides, it is better not to take chances with people like that.”
    “I suppose so,” said Meadows, unconvinced.
    “Dios, how I wish I had been here. You have been through hell, mi amor. Look, suppose we go away someplace for a couple of weeks? I will make your wounded leg better and