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“Uh-oh,” Judey said. “Are we having a lovers’ quarrel?”
“We’re not lovers,” I said to Judey.
Hooker steered me in the direction of the deli. “Not yet,” he said.
FOUR
The deli was on the second level on the street side, and leaned more toward Williams-Sonoma than 7-Eleven. An overhead blackboard advertised large chilled shrimp and fresh grilled vegetables. A couple small round tables with chairs had been stuck between polished chrome racks holding gourmet staples.
I cruised past the glass and stainless display cases filled with salads and pasta, hand-rolled cigars, fresh baked bread, soups, chips, the shrimp, fruits, and fancy tapenades. I considered the Häagen-Dazs, cheesecake, and snack packs of Oreos. And then I settled on a turkey roll-up and a bottle of water. Judey got the same, plus an oatmeal raisin cookie for himself and a spice cookie for Brian. Hooker got a roast beef with cheese and coleslaw on a sub roll, a bag of chips, a Pepsi, and three giant chocolate chip cookies.
We sat outside at one of the scrolled concrete and blue tile picnic tables and ate our lunch. When we were done we followed Hooker up and down the piers, looking for his boat.
There were a lot of piers and a lot of boats but none of the boats was Hooker’s. Hooker looked like he was thinking dark thoughts. Judey didn’t look like he was thinking any thoughts. And all I could think about was Brian’s spice cookie, and how I wished I had one. Finally, I gave up the fight, and I left the guys sitting in the sun while I ran back to the deli. I got a cookie and, on impulse, a newspaper, hoping there might be more information about the marina murder.
I joined Hooker and Judey and paged through the paper while I ate my cookie. Nothing new about the murder. I checked out the movie section and read the comics.
I was about to set the paper aside when a photo and headline caught my attention. The photo was of a pretty young woman with lots of wavy dark hair and dark eyes with long dark lashes. She was smiling at the camera, looking a little mysterious. The headline said she was missing. Maria Raffles, age twenty-seven, disappeared Monday evening. She’d been clubbing with her roommate but decided to leave early and went home alone. Foul play was feared. Her apartment had been broken into and violently searched. Maria had been born in Cuba but had managed to reach Florida four years ago. She was an accomplished diver and sailor. And she worked in a Miami cigar factory.
The article went on to explain the immigration service policy of allowing Cuban nationals to remain in this country if they touch U.S. soil, as opposed to being intercepted at sea.
I was holding the paper and my eyes were wide and my mouth was open.
“Let me guess,” Hooker said. “Ben and Jerry came out with a new flavor.”
I read the piece to Hooker and Judey.
“By God, Watson,” Hooker said. “I think you’ve found something.”
“Maybe not,” Judey said. “This is Miami. Probably a lot of women disappear after clubbing.”
“Don’t rain on my parade,” I told Judey. “I haven’t got anything else. I’m at a dead end in the how-to-find-Bill idea department.”
“Yes, but how would this woman relate to Salzar?”
“I don’t know. They’re both Cuban. There could be a connection.”
“Maybe you should go to the police,” Judey said. He followed up with a grimace. “I take that back. What was I thinking? This is Wild Bill we’re talking about.”
“In the past the police haven’t totally shared Bill’s relaxed attitude to the law,” I explained to Hooker.
“Bill’s a great guy,” Judey said, “but he has a history of getting his brains caught in his zipper.”
This had us both looking at Hooker, who we suspected suffered from the same dilemma.
“NASCAR Guy knows enough to wear button fly,” Hooker said.
Judey and I smiled. NASCAR Guy was being a good sport.
“I think we move on this,” Judey said. “The newspaper doesn’t give Maria’s address, so let’s start with the cigar factory. There aren’t that many of them. They’re all in Little Havana, around Seventeenth and Calle Ocho.”
Hooker took the Causeway Bridge out of Miami Beach into the city of Miami. He wound around some, crossed the Miami River, and found SW Eighth Street. We were now in a neighborhood where businesses advertised in both Spanish and English. Sopa de pescado, camerones, congelados. The street was wide and the buildings were low, with strip mall–style fronts. Stunted palm trees occasionally grew out of concrete sidewalks. The Porsche was common in South Beach. We were odd man out in Little Havana. This was the land of the family sedan. It was midafternoon and the air was hot and thick. It stuck on my face and caught in my hair. It was the McDonald’s milk shake of air. You had to work to suck it in.
Hooker swung the Porsche onto Seventeenth and pulled to the curb. “Here we are,” Hooker said. “Cigar factory number one.”
I’m from Baltimore. Factories are big and noisy. They’re in industrial parks. They’re filled with guys in hard hats. They make machine parts, ceramic pipes, conduit wire, molded sheet metal. This left me completely unprepared for the cigar factory.
The cigar factory was half a block long, the inner workings visible behind large
