The Continuing Saga of:
”ICICLE BILL and Tommy Two-Head”

Chapter Seven: Murder in Miami

    ”What the hell you lookin’ at?” That sort of took Tom off guard. He shook his head and raised his eyebrows as if to say, ”Excuse me for living.” ”Go ahead, go ahead and ask.” Tom continued the dumb act, Bill wasn’t so sure it was an act. Finally, he relented, ”You seem like such a normal guy.” Bill answered defensively, ”I am a normal guy!” A silent moment as they both considered that.

    ”Chief, the first time I saw you, you were burying a body in the desert. There’s a gun, a big bag of dope, a hundred thousand dollars and a bunch of blood in your car. You call this normal?”

    After a sideways glance and a few deep sighs, the words began to come. For the next couple of hours as we drove into the darkness, I recounted some of the events that had lead to here. It began as many stories do, a young boy fleeing the cold Midwest winters in search of meaning and adventure.

    The allure of large surf and small bikinis drew me to the warmth of tropical and exotic Miami. I landed a job as an overnight copywriter at the Miami Herald, pounding out rehashed news stories from the wire services and covering the local crime beat. One of my duties was to call around to the area police and fire departments for news tidbits. One of my cop contacts was Andy Leopold from the Miami Beach Division. Both of us were young, ambitious and mostly in it for the girls and adventure. Sometimes Andy would show up at the end of my shift in a patrol car with a hooker or two in the back and we’d spend the day out on the ocean in a rented sailboat or snorting lines in cheap air-conditioned motel rooms. Life was good and free and easy and Andy was good company. To a naive Midwest kid, this is fun stuff.

    Andy had a quick sense of humor and was always on the make or take. He was looking to advance in the ranks to detective. I landed a gig at a local news station as a reporter. Andy would take me along on busts or get me in behind the scenes for the inside scoop. This was on the heels of Watergate and I was looking for my big story. I thought I might have found it when he told me about a tip he got on a huge shipment of cocaine coming into trendy Cocoanut Grove at midnight. Andy, me and his smarmy partner, Rico Rodriquez, were the only ones in on it. We figured to size up the situation, make the bust if possible, call for back-up if needed...or, if it’s just a small run, confiscate the dope and let em go.

    We showed up just before twelve and didn’t have to wait long. A twenty foot catamaran sailed into the secluded bay, riding low in the water. Three Cubans began unloading kilos into a van. A twenty foot cat is a big boat. They just kept pulling kilo after kilo out of the hollow pontoons. One-hundred, two-hundred, three-hundred! This is getting serious.

    We’re crouched in the bushes wondering how to proceed when it went strange. Out of the pitch darkness, an unmarked police car comes rolling up with the lights out. Three undercover detectives get out. I recognize two of the three from seeing them around crime scenes. I don’t know them by name, but the fact they’re Miami cops is no mystery. The fact that the smugglers don’t miss a beat and just keep on unloading however, is. Andy gives me the stay cool signal. We don’t know what’s what and it’s best to lay low and see how this is going to play out. That’s when strange becomes bizarre.

    The cops and smugglers are talking in Spanish when out of nowhere... THUNP! THUMP! THUMP! Down go the three Cubans from muffled flashes from the cops’ silenced guns! I’m in complete shock and Andy and Rico aren’t making any moves. The shields drag the bodies onto the catamaran and one of them sails off into the bay. Another hops in the van with the coke while the third drives off in the unmarked. It was over in ten minutes. We’re still hiding in the bushes, the only sound you can hear is the gentle lapping of low tide on the deserted shore. The moon was full and cast lonely shadows from the palms calmly swaying in a light breeze. It was the kind of night you could imagine walking along the beach with your best girl and falling in love. The kind of night you’d think only good things could happen. The kind of night that could stick in your mind for a long time because of the indescribable beauty all around. I sure would never forget it. The events of that fateful night would follow me to my grave. How long till that particular occurrence might be dependant on how my two associates reacted to the scene we’d just unwittingly stumbled upon.

    High tide and the unforgiving Miami sun would strip away any evidence on the beach. No doubt those Cubans are at the bottom of the bay and the boat probably ends up at police auction. Nobody knows a thing. Oh, wait, nobody but the three freaking musketeers here.

    Now I ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but even I can figure out who the odd man out is here...the only one without a gun, the only one who’s not a member of the fraternal order of the brotherhood of blue, the monkey frickin’ reporter. Regardless of heartfelt promises to forget what was seen here tonight, I felt safer sleeping at my neighbor girl, Elsa’s apartment. Turns out that was a good call. The very next night as we’re sitting in paranoid darkness, watching my apartment from across the courtyard, two shadows creep up to my pad. One to the front, one to the back. Within seconds they disappear inside and just as soon are back out and slip away. No surprise, I recognize one as one of the badges from the previous night, the other, Rico Rodriquez.

    It took me all of two minutes to formulate a plan. I cut through a side
path and exited the complex. Two blocks away Elsa picked me up and we drove forty miles north to Pompano Beach. With the clothes on my back and what I could borrow from Elsa I hopped a Greyhound going anywhere that wasn’t Florida. Two weeks later I’m in L.A., in the library researching on how to change your identity and disappear. It’s odd the things you can learn in the library. An infant death from twenty-two years earlier, newspaper notices of that tragic child’s birth listing the parents’ names...That dead innocent child would afford me a chance at life, for awhile anyway. The ghoulish nature of using another’s demise and the heartbreak that family must have felt put an eerie pall over the process of obtaining a brand new i.d. I maybe should have
felt relief and even some satisfaction upon being handed a clean, notarized birth certificate that would lead to a new, unblemished driver’s license... All I felt was dirty and wicked and depressed. Strange how events can lead to circumstances that impact your entire life. How choices, good or bad, transpire to affect one’s whole existence. ”Know what I mean Tom?” ”Tom?” He wasn’t listening anymore. He was digging in the glove box and looking at a map or something. Just as well, I’d been telling the story to clear it in my own mind most probably more than to relate it to anyone else. Even the most tragic details of one’s life are only truly monumentally significant to each of us who actually experienced them. Every person goes through their own version of similar events I suppose. For better or worse we drag the results of those experiences around with us the rest of our days. Except guys like Tom, he seems to leave things back there where they occurred. No deep, weighty brooding over-thinking of things, I wonder what that’s like.

    ”Chief, there’s one more thing I was wondering.” He was reading from some loose papers found in the jumble of scattered debris in the glove compartment. ”Why’s the car registered to an Elena Chang?” The name cut through me like a thousand Ginsu knives. A memory so well hidden that the sudden excavation into its remains tore a hole in my heart so deep that it momentarily exposed my soul. That was a memory most definitely better off left buried. A man’s conscience can be a heavy load. Sometimes so heavy he might try to leave it behind. But it always has a way of catching up to you. Always. ”You alright Chief?”

    At that time in my life I was of the mind that occasionally, a lie was just as good as the truth. I’d learn later that there’s a penalty to pay for the convenience...especially when you’re lying to yourself.

    Yeah Tom. I’m fine.”