Max told him: Frino was paid by Benito Casares to transport the Moyez shooter from Norman's Cay, and that once they got to Miami, he handed him over to Octavio Grossfeld.
'So I implicate myself in that courtroom shooting?' Frino smiled. 'What kind of fuckin' cops are you?'
Neither Max nor Joe said anything to that. They couldn't.
They had no replies, no comebacks, just a deep sense of shame. Frino seemed to pick up on this and sat back in his chair with his arms crossed and his legs splayed, smug and haughty, enjoying himself.
You guys work on the Kennedy assassination too?' Frino asked.
Will you do it?' Max responded.
'Sure. Anything to help you boys out, seem' as we're virtually on the same team.'
Jed Powers was sitting in the kitchen with Valdeon, Harris and Brennan, drinking take-out coffee.
'Well?' he asked Max when he came in.
'When he gives his statement he'll say that he ferried in the Moyez shooter from Norman's Cay,' Max said. 'But there's a little more: his real life middle-man happens to work for Carlos Lehder. All Frino has to do is make a call and he'll deliver the guy to us.'
'Great police work!' Powers shouted and spun his fist in the air.
Max wanted to be sick.
I 39
Twenty-nine straight hours later, Max and Joe were sitting on the couch in the Overtown garage, drinking weak coffee and staring at the thick pale green rectangle that was Trish Estevez's list. They hadn't slept at all. They were both drained. The last thing either wanted to do was more work.
Plans had been changed in mid-air. First they'd taken Frino to MTF to walk him through his statement, but once there they'd had word from Eldon that their captive needed to spill more names before any deal could be made. Eldon wanted everyone Frino had ever worked for especially in Miami. Frino refused to give anything up until he'd talked to his lawyer and ratified the original deal he'd been offered.
Max and Joe tried persuasion and then threats, but Frino knew he had the upper hand, so he just sat back with his arms crossed and smirking fangs fully bared.
They talked to Eldon. Burns spent fifteen minutes alone in an interrogation room with Frino. When he came out Frino had given up his every employer.
He was formally charged with multiple counts of drug trafficking and possession with intent to go global and given his phone call. At around midday his lawyer, Ida Basil, walked in and demanded to see the dope they'd allegedly caught her client with. Joe stalled her while Max made calls to the coastguard asking for the 300 kilos of coke they had logged into evidence and claimed as their bust to be brought to MTF. Two hours later the coke came in under armed escort.
The following deal was done: Frino would make a statement implicating Casares and Carlos Lehder in the
Moyez shooting and testify against them in court. He would also help MTF capture Casares. In return he'd be granted full immunity and get deported as soon as he'd given evidence.
Just after 6 p.m., Frino, wearing a wire, walked into Lazaro's Carwash on North West 3rd Street and told them he needed to speak to the boss. He gave them the number of his harbourside pad. He drove back there and waited for the call with Max, Joe, Powers and Valdeon. Casares called him an hour later, screaming about how his load hadn't turned up in Chicago and asking where the fuck it was?
Frino calmly told him there'd been complications mid-sea transit, that they'd almost got busted and had had to divert the load to a safehouse in North Miami. Frino said he suspected a leak in the organization and needed to meet Casares in person to tell him about it. Casares said he'd meet him at the house the next day, Tuesday 11 February at 11 a.m.
He was punctual. MTF was waiting for him. They arrested him, his three bodyguards and driver.
Casares was taken to a basement in Jackson Avenue, Coconut Grove, where Eldon was waiting. He said he'd take it from here and sent them home for the rest of the day.
'You know,' Joe tapped his foot on the list, 'we could both make our lives easier by just forgettin' all about this shit and goin' on home.'
'True,' Max nodded, sparking up his Zippo to light a cigarette, 'but then we wouldn't be police at all.'
'True.'Joe nodded and yawned.
'This shit pisses me off. Here we are, doin' real police work on the sly and fake police work out in the open. This is not what I signed up for.'
'I hear that.'
'I'm fucken' sick of this shit, Joe. It ain't right, you know?'
'So whatchu sayin', man?'
328
I 'I'm sayin' I've had enough.'
'You wanna quit?'
'Right now, yeah.' Max sipped his coffee and pulled deep on his Marlboro, holding the smoke in his lungs for a few seconds and then exhaling slowly. We could put a stop to Eldon's way of doin' things, you and me.'
'How?' Joe sat up.
'Crack this case the real case and go public with it.
Expose this Moyez bullshit for the sham it is.'
'You wanna take Eldon down?' Joe asked.
'It ain't only 'bout him. It's about the way he does things.
Would you back me?'
'Hell, yeah!' Joe's big voice rilled the confined space and echoed back at them metallically, like a gunshot.
'The only thing that'd stop me - that mil stop me, I guess is that if he goes down, we go down. And I wouldn't wanna be an ex-cop in prison. Would you?'
cWe could cut a deal,' Joe suggested.
'You could, maybe; you got nothin' to hide,' Max said bitterly. 'The only deal they'd give me is life without. That's if we lived long enough to make any fucken' deal. Eldon's got his hooks in everyone everywhere.'
'Maybe we could go to the press?'
'We'd still go down. Hell, we'd go down harder if we went that route. Police hate being' the last to know when it concerns their own. You know that.'
Joe didn't say anything, just stared straight ahead of him at the list then at nothing. False dawn. He was still on his own on this. Max wouldn't go along with him. He was right.
He had too much to lose. His sense of self-preservation outweighed his principles.
Max extinguished his cigarette in his coffee. The whole time he'd been thinking of Sandra, and the life they could have together, and what she'd said about sharing and openness. He didn't want to lie to her about what it was he
did. He thought about requesting a transfer, maybe to Miami Beach PD, if there was an opening.
'Let's make a start on that list,' Max said finally.
They split the list evenly. Joe had the beginning to middle of the alphabet, Max the remainder.
The list was broken down into name, felony details and a capital letter, either C conviction, W wanted, A accomplice, AS accomplice suspect and SI informant placing suspect at a crime scene. This was followed by a basic physical description and last-known location.