Confession
January 24th, 1998, Miami, Florida.
Ricardo had met a lot of dumb motherfuckers in his day. It was part of the job. He’d seen a guy open fire on his TV, he’d seen people talk to cats, and one time, he’d been called in to help down a guy who stapled his nuts to a tree trying to put up a birdfeeder. But this guy right here, he took the cake. The dumbest motherfucker of them all.
He had his feet up on the table in the interrogation room, leaning back in his chair with his hands folded behind his head and smiling at the one-way mirror. That was pretty funny, Ricardo thought, because nobody was behind it. A lit cigarette was stuck between the guy’s lips, trailing a little gray smoke up to the ceiling. He’d been demanding it for 45 minutes. Detective Bouchon slammed his fist on the stainless steel table, his face red as a beet, and jabbed a finger right where the cigarette was lodged. Ricardo thought the big guy might grab it right out of his mouth.
“Okay, you got your cigarette. Now let’s talk. What happened that night?”
Remy Milton smiled and took the cigarette between his fingers. He had some auburn hair and a couple freckles on his face, like god tried to make a ginger and gave up at the last second. “Which night?” His grin stretched out across half of his skinny frame, pulling at his wiry neck and birdlike chest.
“The night you stole the sailboat. Or did you forget about that when you crashed it?” Bouchon was about to snap.
“Oh, that. What do you want to know?”
The big detective walked around the side of him, mustache trembling, and leaned in right up to his face. “I want you to tell me everything that happened when you tried to lift that sailboat. What we want to know is our business.” Remy took a long pull and blew out a ring.
“You think you scare me, man? You ain’t nothing but a purple tiger.”
Bouchon blinked. “A what?” Ricardo scratched his neck and spoke. “You mean a paper tiger?”
“Yeah, whatever, man. The point is, I’m not scared of you. Either of you.”
Bouchon got close enough to lick the guy’s earwax. “Tell us what happened.”
“Okay.”
January 17th, 1998, Miami, Florida.
“Anybody who knows anything around here will tell you I’m the best fuckin’ getaway driver in this town. That’s a fact. You know it, I know it, the fish probably know it. I’m the best. But I can’t keep doing the same old thing over and over again, you know? I gotta mix it up. Boosting Ferraris and Lambos and all is nice, but Remy Milton needs a challenge. So I started putting this whole thing together, this plan. I thought, what’s something I haven’t stolen before? A sailboat. Now that, that’s a score.
I knew this would have to be a three man job. I needed a guy to get into the docks where the boat was, so a lockman. That was Tony The Greek. Then I’d need a guy who could disarm the security systems. That was Cairo. I got in contact with them, organized the whole thing, and we decided on the day we were gonna do it. Everything would go off smooth - my plan was perfect. If only those assholes didn’t fuck it up. So we sneak up the mansion, and -”
Ricardo picked the pen up from the notepad he was writing on. “Please, for the record, state what mansion you were attempting to invade and whom it belonged to.”
“We all know, don’t we?”
“The record.”
“Whatever. We were going after Murray Jablonsky, the mobster. 3315 Collins Avenue.So we show up there around midnight, and Cairo stays in the van to hack into the cameras and disable them. Me and Tony sneak around the side of the house, down this dark gangway with two guards at the side. I was moving all quiet, but Tony, Tony stumbles and the guys notice us. Well, the one guard pulls a gun on me, so I reach up and pop his elbow with a judo twist, make sure he drops the gun. Then Tony, will you believe this asshole, caps the other guard, even though I would’ve had him. So now the whole thing is a loud job. He gets the lock on the door open and we come into that little dock area Jablonsky has, see it there in front of us, The Safari II. Well, now it’s a hot job, so we run across and get in. I radio Cairo to split, tell him to meet us somewhere else.
We get on the boat and I start working my magic. I tell Tony to go belowdeck and just, you know, let the master work. Winds are high and baby, I’m flowing. I’m sailing her this way and that when Tony comes up, says I’m steering her too fast. Well, okay, too fast for you, buddy, not too fast for me. We got cops on our tail! He started trying to grab me, so I kicked him down the stairs, but when I did I lost the fucking rigging and the boat pitched, and then we were spinning out of control. I fought to get her back under control, but I couldn't. So we hit the coast. I got out, ran, and that tall lady with the headband on tackled me and now you assholes got me here, asking me some stupid shit about something we all already know.”
January 24th, 1998, Miami, Florida.
Bouchon and Ricardo looked at each other, expressionless. “Okay.” Ricardo said. “We have your statement. Thank you.” Both of them filed out of the room, the door clanging shut behind them. They stepped into the chamber parallel with the interrogation room, the one behind the one-way mirror. Milton was sneering at it, laser focused onto a point about six feet from where they were standing.
“What the hell was that?” Bouchon grated.
“He’s, uh, I don’t know. Let’s go talk to Tony.”
They filed out into the hallway, long and gray and nondescript. Little slats of yellow light came in through partially opaque window panes fixed into the doors, offices and file rooms and every other boring fixture a police station needs to function. Usually, interrogations were as boring as work got, going back and forth with some smug crook. It wasn’t the middle ages anymore. If you wanted to get information out of a guy, you had to either trick him or bore him to death. The room Tony was in was a short walk, just two doors down. Bouchon opened the door for Ricardo and nodded, and that familiar wave of interrogation room AC hit Ricardo again. Let’s see if this guy’s story is any better, he thought.
Tony the Greek’s real name wasn’t Tony, and he wasn’t Greek. His name was Anton Kovacevic, and he was Croatian. It said so right on the slim file Ricardo had in his right hand. The guy was also short, balding, and had a face so ugly Ricardo wondered if the sailboat crashed right onto his head. With a huge brow, beady eyes, and a flat nose, he kind of looked like a caveman. He was certainly acting like one. As the pair entered the interrogation room, he was rocking back and forth in his chair, muttering to himself in Croatian, scratching at his temple. He turned his head as the pair pulled up chairs across from him, taking their seats. He was handcuffed, unlike Milton, and a vein bulged in his forehead. “You talked to the asshole?” He had a bit of an accent.
“We did.” Ricardo said. Anton made a ‘don’t shoot’ gesture with his hands, rattling the handcuffs. “Okay. That’s okay. I know you have to do your job. So, you’re coming in here to take my statement, right?”
Ricardo clicked the pen in his hand, holding it up to the notepad in front of him. “That’s right.”
“Are we on record now? I can start?”
“Yes.”
“I think that Remy Milton is a piece of shit, and I hate him. I hate him so much. I think he is a stupid, stupid, fucking asshole, and I think that you should give him the death penalty. I think you should give him the electric chair. I would rather be sodomized by the devil, o boze, than spend another second with that man.”
Ricardo looked up. “I’ve got that down. Now we’re gonna ask you some questions.”
“Just one actually.” Bouchon said, folding his arms. “What happened that night?”
Anton cleared his throat and inhaled.
January 17th, 1998, Miami Florida
“I came to America 20 years ago and tried to make a career as a locksmith. I was a criminal in Croatia and wanted to go straight. No luck. Not enough money. So I started breaking locks for people, cracking safes, that kind of thing. On the 11th, I got a call from a connection, a man I worked with on a previous job, Adel El Masry. Cairo. He had devised a plan to steal a sailboat, and all he needed to do was get onto it. How a man from a city in the desert learned how to pilot a sailboat I’ll never know, but he told me I had to crack a gate and that would be all. I agreed to this, and in exchange he would pay me 70,000 dollars. Good money. He also hired the rat fuck son of a bitch bastard, because he needed a second person to steer the boat and Martin, apparently, knew how. He hears my name and starts calling me Tony the Greek, because for some reason he thinks Kovacevic is a Greek name. I do not think he has ever met a Greek person. I also think he cannot read. Anyway.So we go down the gangway to the side of the house,”
Bouchon coughed. “What was the house address and who did it belong to?”
“3315 Collins Avenue. It belonged to Murray Jablonsky.
Anyway, I start working on the lock by the gate. The piece of shit, though, he makes too much noise, so one of the butlers comes around the side of the house to check what is happening. Adel shot him and put him in the bushes. I was not happy about that. I have done things that have resulted in death, but never so directly. I have never killed a man and I don’t want to. I haven’t been sleeping well. So, we go into the dock behind the house and run to the boat. I was supposed to go back to the van, but with the shooting I thought it would be better to go on the boat with them and dismount at the spot we picked. So the three of us climb onto the boat, and we sail off. It goes well until it turns out that son of a bitch, that king of devils, that wiry little kurac, cannot even sail a boat. In fact, he has never even been on a sailboat before. I don’t know anything about boats, I have to say. I had never been on one either. But it did not take a genius to know that he was not someone who should be steering a boat. Adel was yelling at him. Little Bastard was just yanking and pulling and pushing every which way, no reason to it at all. So I grab him, try to stop him, and while we are wrestling the fucking boat pitches to the left and we crash into the beach.
I hurt my leg, so I sat there, waiting to be arrested. I had a nice view of that woman tackling him. You should get her on one of your American Football teams. The way she put her shoulder into his chest, very nice. I think that memory is the only thing keeping me from jumping into the ocean. Anyway, Adel ran off to the right down the beach and that was the last I saw of him.”
January 24th, 1998, Miami, Florida.
Ricardo lifted the pen up off of the paper and nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Kovacevic.” The two detectives scooted their chairs back and stood up. “Do you have any questions for us?” Ricardo asked, putting his pen in his breast pocket. “Yes. What is going to happen to fuck man?”
“In all likelihood, you and fuck man are both going to prison for a very long time.” Anton nodded and folded his arms. “That is fair, I suppose. Can you put me in a cell with him?”
“I don’t think so.”
He deflated with a sigh, all the anger seeming to go out of him. He was suddenly no longer an angry lockman but an aging man who wouldn’t see the outside of a prison cell for a very, very long time.Ricardo and Bouchon left the room. Bouchon turned right to go into the next room, where El Masry was being held, but Ricardo motioned for him to stop. “I’m gonna go smoke one. Be back in five.”
“Alright.”
The metal rungs of the staircase clanged under his feet, getting higher and higher in pitch as he ascended. When he opened the door onto the roof, the sun was setting behind him, casting an orange glow on Biscayne Bay. Pink light danced on the water, wrapping around a few ships bobbing along lazily. Some of them were sailboats. How about that? Ricardo took out the pack of cigarettes and popped it open, looking far out to the horizon. There was a little hole in the middle from where he’d loaned one to Milton. He sat down on the edge and lit up. That was the worst part about living in Florida, he thought. The sun didn’t set over the water. Back in California, he used to watch the sun drop below the edge of the ocean, watch clear blue turn into fiery orange to soft pink to pitch black, dotted with stars. It was still pretty, of course. But it wasn’t the same. Nothing was the same anymore. Not this week.
He finished his cigarette, threw the butt off the edge of the roof, and went back inside. Bouchon was standing outside of another room, waiting for him. “You ready?” Ricardo nodded and opened the door. At first glance, Adel “Cairo” El-Masry was about as unassuming as they got. He was skinny, average height, and had thinning, grayish hair on top of his head. He wore square-framed reading glasses that made his eyes look huge and bulbous. His brown skin, gray sweatshirt, and faded jeans reminded Ricardo of the wallpaper in a mid-level hotel. Nothing too bright, nothing too loud. He looked like the sort of guy you’d want to do your taxes.
“How are you, Mr. Bouchon? And you, Mr. Queretaro?”
“We’ve been better.” Bouchon growled. “We’re here to collect your statement.” They pulled chairs out across from him and took their seats. Cairo lifted his hands up in a sheepish motion. He was handcuffed to the table. “Would you like me to start?”
They both nodded.
January 17th, 1998, Miami Florida
“Nautor’s Swan 55 is currently on the market for about 750 thousand dollars. A big-ticket item. I knew that the businessman, Murray Jablonsky, had one. One day, when I was walking along the beach, I saw it drifting around, and was transfixed. I’ve always had a love for sailing. Not many people know this, but there is a rich boating community in Egypt. The Nile is 4.6 miles wide at it’s widest point, and before I immigrated here I grew up sailing. I have always wanted one of these boats for myself, and so, unable to help myself, I watched it sail back to the beachfront property.”
“3315 Collins Avenue.” Bouchon said.
“That’s right. So I called up a cheap lockman and another criminal sailor. The lockman only needed to crack a gate lock - simple enough. I considered learning how to do it myself, but then I thought of what John C. Maxwell said. “If you want to do a few small things right, do them yourself. If you want to do great things and make a big impact, learn to delegate.” So Kovacevic was brought into the fold. Milton, on the other hand, was a mess, but he was the only man available. The Suhaili II was a two-man craft, and there are very few criminals used to high-pressure escapes who also know how to sail. As I’m sure you already know, it turns out there are none. Or at least, none that I knew. We made our way to the property on the night of January 17th.
While we were making our way around the side of the house, Milton made a loud sound. Hit his ankle on a steel pole. One of the house-staff came around the side of the house and started threatening to phone the police, so Kovacevic shot him. Then he cracked the lock and we made our way into the back of the house. It was a magnificent backyard, so magnificent it can scarcely even be called one. A porch the size of a small house, a sprawling lawn with winding paths and trees, and a private dock, of course. I could make out the bobbing shape of the sailboat in the darkness as we made our way towards it. The Suhaili II. Named after the first boat to ever circumnavigate the globe, the Suhaili, piloted by Robin Knox-Johnston. Well, anyway. We got aboard the boat and I immediately realized something was wrong. Wind was pinning us to the dock, so I told Milton to use the spring line to pivot her bow out. He responded by unfurling the headsail. Oh, dear, I thought.
I tried to convince him to let me steer the boat by myself, figuring that one plus zero is better than one minus one, but he wouldn’t budge. Kovacevic tried to wrestle him away from the controls, and they steered us into the coast. I ran along the side of the beach, went home, and was arrested at 1:00 in the afternoon the next day. On the dot, if I recall.”
January 24th, 1998, Miami, Florida.
Ricardo stopped writing and looked at Bouchon. The big detective thumbed his nose and stood up. “You want to take off your glasses? He rumbled. “Why?” Cairo asked.
“Just take them off.” Cairo took his glasses off, folded them, and put them on the table next to him. Bouchon reached across the table, grabbed him by the hair, and slammed his nose into the edge of the table, leaving a red stain on it. Cairo grunted, but didn’t cry out. A few tears filled his eyes, and he plugged the bridge of his nose to stop the blood. Ricardo grabbed Bouchon’s shoulder. “Easy.”
“Cut the bullshit, Cairo.” Bouchon’s face was red again. “We know you were working for Jablonsky. We know you know where the case is. Tell us what really happened.”
“Give me a tissue.”
Ricardo handed him one. Cairo ripped two pieces off and wadded them up, then stuck them into his nose. There was a little indent high up on the bridge. Broken. He had a glint in his eye, like a kid who just got a shiny new bike. He cleared his throat.
January 17th, 1998, Miami Florida
“I was a sailor in Egypt, that much is true. You know, everyone calls me Cairo, but I am actually from Asyut. I went to university there. But after that, I was also a soldier. Unit 777, special forces. I defected in 1987 and left to come to America, where I began to work as muscle under Murray Jablonsky, who is, as I’m sure you know, the proverbial ‘head honcho’ in South Beach. Racketeering, gambling, extortion, cocaine, the works.”
Bouchon snorted. “You, muscle?”
Cairo smiled, his dark eyes glittering. “There are two kinds of muscle, detective. Anywho, there is not much to say from then until now. I killed a few people, injured a few more. I worked as personal security at Murray Jablonsky’s house, and after a few years of that I discovered something peculiar - he kept a briefcase filled with jewels on the boat. Why, I was never quite sure. I think he fancied himself some sort of modern pirate. Murray is a stupid, arrogant man. I considered walking aboard and taking the briefcase, just leaving into the night and never being seen again, but that wouldn’t have worked. Nobody was ever alone on the ship. He was very paranoid, Murray, although evidently not paranoid enough. So came the plan to steal the briefcase. Only the trouble was, I could not get through the fence myself, I needed help. A lockman. And now I had a different problem. How do you steal something without letting anyone know it’s been stolen? Not your employer who may hunt for it, not your accomplices who may blab or demand a cut, not anyone.”
“You steal the entire boat.” Ricardo said.
“Exactly. You steal the entire boat, crash it, and then make off with the prize. Earlier in the day, while me, Murray, and another guard were aboard, I covertly sabotaged the rigging so that the sails would veer to the left. And then, eight hours later, Milton became the one who crashed the boat. When it hit the beach, I already had the briefcase in my hand. I split to the right to the little spot I’d dug up for myself and that would’ve been it, except for a stroke of bad luck.”
“Ira.” Bouchon said.
“Was that her name?” Cairo said, cocking his head. Ricardo clicked the pen in and out, three times each, in quick succession.
“Well, her.” The prisoner continued. “Her. She went and flattened Milton, or so I’ve been told, and then found me as I was in the middle of burying the briefcase. So I shot her. It was very unfortunate. Then I finished hiding the briefcase, went home, and was arrested. 1 PM on the dot, if I’m not mistaken.”
Cairo grinned at them like he’d just told the funniest joke in the world.
“So where’s the briefcase?” Bouchon seethed. Cairo wagged his finger, and Bouchon pounded the table. “You think you’re ever going to see those jewels? We’ve got a full confession out of you. Best thing you can do now is make things easy on yourself.”
Ricardo clicked his pen, got up, and walked from the room. Bouchon followed behind and clapped him on the shoulder. “How about that? No briefcase, but we got a full confession. I’ll take that any day of the week.” Ricardo shook his head and turned around.
“What’s wrong?”
“No confession, Bouchon.”
“What?”
“You broke his nose, man. You broke his fucking nose. Everything he said is inadmissible. You just bought him a ticket home.”
Ricardo walked down the hallway, making for the door, never wanting to come back. Outside, the last vestiges of twilight were coming through the buildings and the trees, and the cicadas were singing to him. Go home, Ricardo, they sang. Go home.
February 14th, 1998
“You have to be careful, always.” Adel told his daughter, smiling down at the chess board. “You may think you are ahead, but”, he moved the bishop far across the board, knocking down her queen, and she groaned. “You can never be too sure.” Sara moved out of check and he slid his rook across the board. Checkmate. She looked down in disbelief, mouth open. He kissed the top of her head. “Come on, it’s late. Let’s get you to bed.” He picked her up and carried her through the house, smiling as he laid her down. “Sleep well.” He flicked the lightswitch off and went into the kitchen, where his wife was sitting at the table, having a glass of wine. Adel smiled at her. Dina was so beautiful, her eyes so dark and full, the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. He wished he could tell her that soon, they’d be rich. They could get that home in the Hamptons she’d always dreamed of. Just a little bit longer. “Happy Valentines, Qalbi.”
“Happy Valentines, Adel.” He was about to kiss her when the doorbell rang. His heart dropped. “Who could that be? It’s 10 o’clock.” She mused. “I’ll get it.” Adel said quickly. He moved across the house, tiptoeing like a cat, silent. He walked into the bedroom and grabbed his pistol, then approached the door, leaning in and peeking through the peephole. The big, white light overhead illuminated the porch in entirety, turning the rest of the world into a collection of nondescript shadows down a short flight of concrete steps. The porch was empty, except for a pair of moths flitting around the light. Slowly, gently, he switched the gun into his right hand and pulled the door open with a creak. Pranksters, maybe? He stepped a foot down onto the porch and-
Click.
Ricardo Queretaro stood to the left of the door, a big, silver revolver in his hand. He leaned forward and the cold, heavy barrel pressed into the side of Adel’s head, tilting his neck to the side.
“My daughter’s inside. Please.”
“Let’s go for a drive.”
Ricardo led Adel across the street to a light blue Honda Civic, then forced him into the driver’s seat and handed him the keys. “Drive out to South Dade.” He said, and Adel flinched. A prayer started to come into his mind, from his days in the Mosque as a young boy. Hasbiyallahu la ilaha illa Huwa, ‘alayhi tawakkaltu, wa Huwa Rabbul-‘Arshil-‘Azim, he repeated in his head as he drove, over and over. “Allah is sufficient for me; there is no deity except Him. In Him I have placed my trust, and He is the Lord of the Mighty Throne.” It was the first prayer he’d sent out in more than twenty years. Now seemed like as good a time as any to become a religious man. His mouth was dry. “Are you going to kill me?” He asked, keeping his head locked forward on the road. The headlights cut through the darkness, but only barely, revealing empty highway and empty highway, running along forever.
“I haven’t decided yet.” Ricardo said. The smell of alcohol was on his breath. As an hour went by, the black shapes in the darkness shrank, apartment buildings turning into townhouses turning into farms turning into just nothing. Adel, Ricardo, and the swamp. “Pull over here.” Ricardo told him, and he did.
“Get out.”
The smell of wet nature was all around, mud and grass. Cicadas made their endless chatter among the dark forest. Ricardo shoved him off the road into the tall grass, wind swishing through it and making a sound like a thousand beanbags caught in a cyclone. The prayer played over and over in his head. A grim thought crept into Adel’s mind as they drew farther and farther from the road. If there is a creator out there, and there is a heaven, I’m not going to be admitted, am I? He stopped praying. The road was gone now. Two men and a gun, and some grass.
“Turn around.”
Adel turned around and saw hate in the detective’s eyes, hate pure and hot as fire. His jaw was clenched, and his hand was shaking, the barrel pointed right at his broken nose.
“We were going to get married.” Ricardo seethed, a couple tears coming out of the corners of his mouth. “The wedding was in three months.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you? How many people have you killed? Now you’re sorry, though. Now that you’re at gunpoint in the middle of nowhere, you’re sorry.”
“I have a wife and a daughter. Please.”
“I should shoot your wife. You deserve worse than dying right here. But I’m not that kind of man. I could never shoot somebody who’d never done anything wrong.”
“An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind, detective.”
“Que descaro!” Ricardo shouted, and pressed the gun up to Adel’s forehead. Years of training buried in Cairo’s head came back like the prayer and he caught the revolver in his right hand, pushing it to the side and moving his head the other way out of the line of fire. The gun went off next to his ear, a bright flash shining out into the night. All the noise coming into his left ear was immediately silenced, but he held on to the gun. He brought his other hand up, put it on the the detective’s wrist, and crossed his hands over one another, wrenching it from his grasp. Adel ducked under a punch and smashed the butt of the gun over the detective’s head, sending him to the floor with a grunt. He trained the gun on Ricardo’s head.
It was silent again. No sound but the wind and the cicadas, and the sharp ringing in his left ear. Ricardo looked up at him, tears streaming down, face shaking with fury. “What, do you want me to beg?”
“No.” Adel shot him in the head, stepped over him, and walked back to the car.
February 15th, 1998
It was three in the morning when he got back. Adel left the car far, far away from his house, got out, and walked. He had to knock; his keys were in the house. Dina’s face was streaked from crying, but a smile lit up her face. “Where have you been?” Her voice was muddy in his left ear. Adel smiled and kissed her. “I’m very sorry. A friend brought me out for a drink, and we got carried away.” Dina smiled sadly. She knew he was lying. Often, Adel wondered if she thought he was cheating on her. He would never. Would she prefer that, or the truth? He kissed her again and walked silently into his daughter’s room, bent down and kissed her on the cheek. Her eyes fluttered open. “I had a nightmare, dad.” He sat down on the edge of her bed and smoothed his hair with her thumb. “What was it about?”
“I had a dream you were a scary monster who chased people around. You turned into a black dog and your eyes were on fire and you were so fast.” She paused for a second and pulled the covers over her eyes. “I was really scared.” Adel patted her on the head and got up.
“Go back to sleep, Sara.”
