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The old-style, two-toned VW bus sat abandoned by the side of the canal south of Eleventh St, just where it curved hard to the left through a residential area that in ten years time would be considered "revitalized". At the edge of the curve, a tiny Cuban restaurant served shredded flank steak over black beans and rice swimming in a spicy pork fat sauce. Gina tried to eat there a couple times a week; she had even brought Sonny there once or twice. While he'd made a good show of digging into the food, he never suggested it on his own.
Gina had a lot of regrets about her relationship with Sonny, back when it was more relationship than friendship, and for a while she thought maybe Sonny had broken her heart. Trudy pointed out that if she had to think about it he probably hadn't. The two of them wound up agreeing that maybe he was kind of a weasel about romance, but Gina knew that going in, so why was she complaining?
Then Switek, over lunch one day, pronounced in his dogmatic way that Gina was definitely not the right girl for Sonny, and went on to begin enumerating the many ways in which he'd known this right from the start. Fortunately, before he could get past reasons one and two (Sonny's notorious blond fetish and Gina's lack of a drug habit or arrest record), Zito stuffed a shank of cumin-roasted mutton in his partner's mouth, thus saving Switek from having to wear an entire bowl of adjiaco courtesy Gina's still (only slightly) broken heart.
And that was that.
Right up until the bus exploded.
Homicide had called Vice when the smoking debris turned out to be pleasantly toxic to passersby (and two rookies who really should have known better), and now Gina poked through what remained of the old vehicle, dimly registering the arrival of the surveillance van while focusing on breathing through her oh-so-attractive commercial-grade respirator.
"Wow." Gina turned to face Switek and was surprised to note sadness on his face, rather than shock.
"I know. These old buses are getting harder and harder to find," Zito commented. "Everyone wants those new whatchamacallit vans, but for my money, I'd stick with the air-cooled engines every time."
Gina stared. That was possibly the longest sentence she'd ever heard out of Zito.
"I didn't know you were a Deadhead," Trudy teased.
"I'm not," Zito answered, "but these buses are something else. They're an integral part of the American cultural fabric." He used a stick to gingerly dislodge a fan blade where it stuck in the mud at an angle. "Did you know Warhol was working on a film about a '65 Samba right before he died? Another horror film, contrasting the image of the wholesome freedom presented by the camper bus lifestyle with the inherent dangers of using hitchhiking to see the country in the post-Vietnam era."
At this point Gina had stopped sifting entirely and just stood there staring, mouth open. Finally she looked over at Switek. "Samba?"
"Don't mind him, he just gets a little worked up about cars. It'll pass."
Gina turned back to Zito and pulled the respirator down to rest on her collarbone.
"Samba?"
Zito smiled cheerfully and went back to retrieving smoldering engine parts.
"What do we think went on here?" Trudy asked.
"I'm really going to miss The Roach, you know?" Zito addressed Switek.
"No way. It's his bus? Man, I warned him. I warned him!"
Trudy and Gina looked at each other, then Trudy started laughing. "It's way too late for them to put masks on," she said.
"Yeah," Gina countered, "about ten years too late by the sound of it."
"No no, it's nothing like that," said Zito. "Look here--" he pointed with the stick. "Eyelash windows. Very rare. Only produced on one model, the quote-unquote 'Mango', made exclusively in 1959. The windows tilted horizontally rather than opening vertically. Cute gimmick, but one that tended to produce decapitations in front-end collisions."
Trudy pulled a face.
"Hard to find, unless of course you're in South Florida, where old buses go to die." Zito waggled his eyebrows theatrically, and Gina saw Switek roll his eyes in response. "But very few philistines would take an original, mint-quality Mango and change the color from the original orange to this neon pink here."
"The Roach." Switek nodded sagely.
"The Roach?" Gina asked.
"Danny 'The Roach' Montoya: small-time dealer, big-time snitch. One of the best." Zito nodded. "But a little too given to sampling his wares. Probably had one last toke right before bed, then curled up for the night with a flame still burning."
Switek whistled and approximated a stoned-snitch faceplant with his hands.
"Well, I don't see a body anywhere," Trudy chimed in from over near the canal.
"Hey man! Hey! Hey!"
Gina reached for her gun at the sound of running feet and anger, and wound up drawing a bead on a skinny Cuban kid maybe eighteen years old. "Miami Vice! Freeze!"
For once someone did as they were told, and the kid raised his hands high above his head, spreading the fingers wide and in the process, dropping a grease-stained bag.
"Damn, woman! Don't shoot! I'm the victim here! At least my van is! Don't shoot!"
"Bus," Zito corrected authoritatively.
"Zito! Switek! What'd you guys do to my ride?" The kid forgot all about Gina, the gun and the bag and bounded over to the two surveillance guys.
Switek folded his arms and glared. "We? Did nothing, Roach. But looks like you definitely did something here."
"What? What? You crazy, man? Do you see any weed around here?" The Roach had apparently forgotten he was surrounded by Miami's finest.
"This is a crime against classic autos," Switek told him. Gina, Trudy and Roach all simultaneously cocked their heads at him in disbelief. "Yes sir, a crime against eyelashes."
Gina couldn't help herself; she cracked up as she was putting her gun away.
"Lucky for you, my partners and I, we're feeling generous this afternoon. What are those, anyway?" Switek indicated the grease-stained bag on the ground.
"Plantain chips."
"With the uh, lemon-lime powder?" Switek said.
Gina kept laughing. "Not quite, Switie. Try limon chile powder."
"Yeah whatever. Tasty little things, aren't they?" Switek took one arm and Zito the other, and between them, they manhandled Roach over to the Bug Van. Gina and Trudy watched them go.
"D'you think they're even going to write him up?" Gina asked her partner.
Trudy looked at her. "What do you think? Besides, it's not like we can prove anything illegal went on here. Even if it does smell like a Doobie Brothers concert out here."
"Doobie Brothers, huh?"
"Yeah. Relationships come and go, but a good snitch?"
Gina rolled her eyes. "I guess. Hey, did you eat yet?"