MIAMI VICE

who said………………………………. she was blonde.,…………………

     Harper had read once that one of the biggest signs someone is lying to you is that they won’t look you in the eye - she’s trained herself, since then. Makes eye contact with people she needs to convince to trust her.

      ❝Morning.❞ She smiles at the Lieutenant and gives him a mock salute with two fingers. The grin sours slightly, however, at Howard’s name.

     Harper always takes blackmail. It’s a safety precaution - in case they happened to sniff out so much as a hair of hers left behind, she had something to wave over their heads to keep them quiet.

     The politician hadn’t said a peep. Hadn’t even reported the robbery to the authorities - which made sense, considering they’d have to sweep his home.

     She just… couldn’t bring herself to sit on this quietly.

     ❝Yeah. About him.❞ The paper bag tucked away in her coat pocket weighs heavily. ❝Look - I don’t know how to say this, so I’ll just spit it out: he’s dealing in illegally smuggled artifacts. Buying and selling. Selling for much more than he’s getting, I’ll add. If I had to guess, it’s where he’s getting his campaign money from.❞

Her words sank to the floor. Howard, Valedictorian of his class, running for mayor, and finally neck-to-neck with Delgado, was smuggling illegal goods, buying and distributing. She never said what.

Everywhere, the reminder that you were being watched. A camera stared from a high corner of the room, a red light winking every now and then, their reflection gleaming from its screen. A two-way mirror was perched over the cold slab of a table, a man behind it. Maybe two. And in the room itself, waiting and never blinking, Martin Castillo. Most people sweat in here. Not Harper. 

Could be a political agenda or a personal vendetta. Yes, considered it. It could also be the truth. 

Castillo glanced at her. Then the floor. “Show me.”

Teeth slowly ghost across the rounding of her lower-lip as she waits for judgement to be passed down upon her head. It was too easy for Tubbs to get emotionally attached to others. For having a rough exterior, she had an overly ripe interior- mushy as mashed potatoes. 

Her boss’s words draw her eyes to him. “No one,” the answer is shaky, uncertain. Tubbs hadn’t told Crockett, nor the other women. How exactly do you tell people you consider your family that you are pregnant with a child  that will share DNA with individuals involved with illicit activities? That your future child will be heir to a criminal empire and still belong to a cop? A cop who was there when his grandfather was killed. “I don’t know how to tell them. And I don’t want Sonny to baby me,” she explains. With a huff, she parks her rear on the bench in his office. 

“What do you suggest I do?” She inquires. This was her first pregnancy. There were so many things running through her mind and yet, it felt empty. “Angelo won’t even take any of my messages…” Then after a brief pause she adds, “I’m not sure I want him involved in my son’s life after our last fight…” 

“I might need to find a safer apartment…” it leaves her lips as the after-thought it was- soft, hesitant, but smooth.

Tubbs’ voice came out uncertain. She should be. Calderone was dead, buried under less dirt than the cocaine he peddled out, but a part of him was still alive, and it was in the girl who stuck a gun up to him and filled him with lead.

Angelo’s child. Out of all the people she could have found herself waking up to. What would people say? You should’ve known better. You’re a professional, knew Angelo wasn’t just a stranger, should’ve focused on the job, not primordial feelings, but now look. Instead of fumbling between the sheets, giddy and bright-eyed and cheeks flushed, you’re now fumbling with uncertainty and a lifetime side effect, a child. Someone would’ve shouted it. But there’d be no point. 

It wouldn’t change anything.

Tubbs’ steps echoed in the enclosed space of his office. She took a seat, faded in the dark. “I don’t know how to tell them."

“You will.” Even if she didn’t know how, she’d say it. She had to.

That morning he’d gotten the note. Lieutenant, girl just checked in. Said she had something on, uh, Jack Howard. Might wanna take a look. Down the halls he recalled in the back of his mind she would be shelved in room five, a comic author with dark hair and darker eyes, no known criminal record. People jumped in surprise when he soundlessly walked past them. He could still taste coffee in his mouth. Bitter and black, slightly burnt. 

The door shut behind him with a soft click.

"I’m Lieutenant Castillo.” The room was too gray. He came to a stop at the center of the floor. “You said you had something. On a Jack Howard.”

           SHE  FIRST  APPEARS  AS  A  SLEEK  PAIR  OF  LEGS  dipping  out  of  the  mouth  of  the  passenger  side  of  a  car  with  a  pair  of  black,  snakeskin  givenchy  heels  that  scream  ‘nightcrawler’.    the  rest  of  her  is  accentuated  with  FASHION  that  emphasizes  her  freshly-bathed  skin  -  a  gold  lame  wrap  dress  with  square,  padded  shoulders  &  a  clam-shaped  clutch  purse.    

her  pretty  little  heels  go  click,  click  across  the  asphalt  amidst  the  sweltering  late  july  evening  in  a  beachfront  restaurant  facing  the  MARINA  of  a  quaint  boardwalk.    she  smells  the  saltwater  &  the  jasper  rocks  &  food.    the  ride  there  had  been  quiet,  numbing,  yet  comforting  ;  a  dark  dominion  in  a  space  of  the  for  her  to  compartmentalize  their  itinerary  &  a  dry  run  in  the  narrows  of  her  imagination.

their  mark  appears  like  some  nefarious  wind  blew  him  in  with  a  dainty  little  monster  made  of  silicone  &  plastic  is  attached  flush  at  his  elbow,  draped  in  jewelry  &  thighs  poking  from  her  low-cut  dress.    she’s  eye  candy  -  an  extension  of  the  perks  being  a  drug  lord  provides.    tanned  skin  &  platinum  BLONDE  by  the  bottle  is  stone-faced,  disaffected  like  the  years  of  being  ran  through  by  politicians  &  men  of  power  has  taught  her  ;  she’s  a  regular.    &  she’s  taken  fifty  or  sixty  photographs  of  this  woman  &  pinned  it  on  their  board.

siobhan’s  dissection  of  lorenzo’s  guest  is  cut  short  by  castillo’s  voice.    upon  her  briefing  a  week  prior,  she  is  able  to  piece  together  essential  data:    he  is  a  surly  man  in  his  late  thirties  who  had  not  too  long  ago  INHERITED  the  seat  from  his  father,  the  late,  great  ‘flores’  whose  extracurricular  activities  are  not  limited  to  money  laundering,  drug  &  sex  trafficking  with  a  philanthropic  front.    they’ll  be  cutting  the  head  off  of  the  snake.

   ❛ the  mayoral  fundraising  event.    he  likes  to  hide  in  plain  sight, ❜    her  voice  comes,  a  soft  &  feminine  intonation.

a  quiet  breath  &  she’s  in  character.  they  wait  for  him  to  enter  the  ritzy  restaurant  &  head  in  afterward  &  greet  the  maitre’d  to  be  accommodated.

   ❛ bonsoir.  nous  avons  une  réservation.  bella  luciano  et  martin  melendez, ❜    she  speaks  in  clear  french  as  if  she's  native  to  the  country.  polite,  charming  smiles  reach  her  rouge  red  lips.    light  conversation  gets  them  their  coat  checked  &  entry  past  the  foyer.    foolproof.

The headwaiter stood straight behind the counter. He checked the list and offered a smile.

“Of course, Ms. Luciano, Mr. Melendez, we have you right here with a Lorenzo... Dias. If you’d just come this way.” His coat tails waved as he turned and shoved open the doors.

It was already in full swing. 

Far in the distance, a smooth jazz band crooned. Balloons filled the high, carved ceiling like clouds and women’s dresses, shimmering, lit up under the glow of chandeliers. There was the sound of clinking champagne glasses. Girls, powdered up, laughed. And for all of its worth, not even the restaurant with its gold-framed pillars could rid the smell of the beach that lingered here, but he could still inhale the hot lobster and the scampi, the cloud of perfume.

”The law isn’t the only party that wants Alvarez’s head.” Melody let the words rise, hang in the air between them– heavy, about to burst. There was more to it than what had gotten past the barrier of her lips, revealed itself plain and simple in the contents of the folder.

Pots and pans crashed in the kitchen. Melody’s fingers furled on the table. She felt the half moons of her fingernails incise into her palm, and sat back, slowly, against the red booth. Albeit, she did not sever eye contact with Castillo. This was not the time to lose confidence. This was not the time to shrink back into herself. What she was doing was preparing herself.

Was lying still lying when you didn’t say a thing at all?

She felt her reasons for secrecy were just. They were always just.

“The Valdez family wants him just as badly as we do. Alvarez on the streets is a threat to their empire.” She works to keep her tone steady. No inflections. No modulations from which Castillo might sense hesitancy, uncertainty. Her voice is resolution. 100% pure. Stuff will kill ya.

“Emiliano, the son. He knows Bridgette.” I have an in. 

She was right. It wasn’t just the police who wanted Álvarez. Other drug lords and sellers wanted to put him down and dump his fat, swollen body in the Everglades, but Castillo? He wanted more than Álvarez. He wanted every drug lord and criminal that ever sloshed out of Miami’s gutters gone in a six-by-eight cell, no parole. 

Keep tabs: this is how she found out. She went under as Bridgette and slipped into the Valdez family, coiling herself around Emiliano’s son. She got him to spill or lingered around long enough to catch rumors of the hand-off. She caught herself between two crime families.

Disobeying. Doing the job for them.

Now she’s in too deep. Now she needs help.

Beyond the glass, a swarm of insects circled the storefront’s lights. Melody stared at him from across the booth. Something called out to him, a thought, a premonition, and he heard a soft pitter-patter against the window, slow at first, then more. Rain.

He knows Bridgette.

@goldenedtriangle  Continued from X

The clicking of typewriters provides a soundtrack for the things falling into place in Tubbs’s life. For a moment, she listens to the chaos stirring both outside of her boss’s office and internally via her thundering heart-beat. Her fingers delve into her suit-jacket’s sleeves, one at each of her sides. Her front teeth ghost across the edge of her lip as she prepares to spill a heavy secret to him.

She closes her eyes and for a split moment, Tubbs is back in the  Bahamas. The sun beats down on her face till she can practically still feel the heat even inside with the air-conditioning running. In the fluttering of her lashes as they pry back open, the tropical vacation land disappears, transforming back into the spotless office of her boss.

Tubbs slowly crosses the room and glowers out the window for a brief moment. “I…” she starts, her voice nearly swallowed by the noise of the rest of the precinct. The detective clears her throat and glances back around the room. There is no place to run and nowhere to hide. The truth would eventually have to come out. It might as well be now.  “Remember when Sonny and I chased Calderone to the Bahamas?” She internally kicks herself for having lead with such a lame line. 

Arms fold slowly across her chest. “I accidentally slept with a suspect.” No! She corrects herself “a school teacher. To her, he had been more than a suspect. He had swept her off her feet. I didn’t know who he was until I woke up in his bed the next morning… he was Calderone’s son.” Her eyes turn away in shame. Swallowing thickly she continued. “I think.. I might be …” She allows a deep exhale to fill in her silence. “I might be pregnant.” The last word is hard to get past her lips for it could and would eventually change everything.

Turning towards Castillo with an expression of determination, “I’m going to work for as long as I can. I need to work.” She felt violated by Calderone’s family. If only Angelo Calderone didn’t walk away. He was the one to abandon her once he found out the truth about his father. Now, she would be walking this road all alone. “It’s not a mistake I plan on making again,” she mumbles under her breath. 

Nothing.

The clacking of typewriters slowly dissolved. The shaky grumble of the air conditioners, gone. All that was left was a ringing in the ears, the high-pitched buzz that came with silence, and his eyes, dark and sunken and never blinking. Castillo watched. He watched like a lidless creature in a forgotten corner of her room as she drifted into slumber, unaware.

Accidentally slept with a suspect. Accidentally. She was supposed to go to the Bahamas with Crockett, take down Calderone, then come back; instead, she accidentally caught someone’s eye and accidentally woke up in a tangle of sheets and legs and Calderone was found half-submerged in a swimming pool not long after, a soon-to-be-grandfather, posthumously.

Remember May Ying? Yes. Wasn’t supposed to blow cover for her, either. Wasn’t supposed to marry her. A lot of things no one was supposed to do.

Castillo should, indeed, vex and haunt you. You can slip into his home in the ungodly hour of 3am and he’d be sitting in a chair half-shrouded in a pitch black shadow, silent and watching like he was expecting you. He once slew a team of assassins in a bloody sword fight. He went up to a drug dealer’s face and said “One day, I’ll bury you, too” and probably feels more at home in a jungle with a ka-bar between the teeth than he does in a home with four walls and flood insurance.

Before she slipped inside he was already watching. He did not move. He did not blink. The sunset’s dying light did nothing to clear the shadows over his face and like a crucifix jutting from the ground, Castillo stood, silent and solemn.

Whatever she had to say, say it.

Even with shift ending and people rustling past doors, muttering their goodbyes, the precinct was dead quiet. A chair creaked lowly by the wall. A notification blipped on someone’s phone. The television down in break room, on volume two, mumbled, and everyone who spoke, their voices were lower somehow. You could see it in their eyes that their minds were on something else. On one of their own. 

Dead on the scene.

Castillo walked down the hallway and flipped a page in his stapled packet when he sensed Swarek nearby. He stopped by, but didn’t turn. “Multiple stab wounds suggest homicide. Boys died from the smoke---before the fire,” he said. Murder, then. The kids--the sons--collateral damage, perished in their beds. He penned something in and it made a scratching sound. “Wife called. Victim had a history of late payments. Starting six months ago, he never missed.”

He cut the engine. From the restaurant, a hum of laughs and chatter vibrated through the nighttime air, and past windows he saw chandeliers glinting like a thousand little candles, blotting out stars. Castillo looked down to his watch. 9:58 PM. Soon, a black Ferrari would roll up and the Colombian with a pretty, young thing draped around his arm would step out coated in cigar smoke and silk, Clive Christian No. 1.

Another minute ticked down. Castillo smoothed his lapel.

“Lorenzo Dias, highly placed. Highly priced,” he said. 42 a kilo. South Beach had their eye on him but botched it and blew the case. That was two years ago. “He’ll look for a reason to pull. Don’t let him.” Just then, a pair of headlights shined over the rear view and a valet sprinted down the cobbled parking lot. Castillo opened the door. 

WHAT DOES YOUR MUSE SMELL LIKE? He doesn’t have a strong scent, but he does have one. Because he burns incense, if you manage to get close enough to him, you might be able to pick up that smoky, woody smell and the fragrance oils typically infused into them. If you get even closer, you might find he has a subtle smell of the beach, too--living by one has made it so that its air has bled into his home and everything in it, clothes included. But like I said, it’s very subtle.

He doesn’t wear any fragrances. 

HOW OFTEN DOES YOUR MUSE BATHE/SHOWER? ANY HABITS? Every day. Given that he lives by the beach, as I mentioned before, that tropical smell seeps into his clothes and hair. Plus, he’s an extremely neat and orderly man. He’s always clean whenever possible. 

META: MAY YING

I didn’t think much of it at first, May Ying and Castillo, but the more I do, the more I realize just how important it must have been to him. Not only did he fall for her--and I am under the impression that Castillo doesn’t have romantic feelings very often at all--but he started a relationship with her and eventually married. Thing is, he was also an undercover DEA agent when he was in Southeast Asia, so she must’ve known his real identity which means he blew his cover for her. Castillo, that somber-faced, tightly-controlled man who is all about “by the book” and the job, let her in on his biggest secret that could’ve compromised the entire thing.

The suspect sat bug-eyed and–expectant? Castillo’s face stayed rigid.

“See what you can find--names, faces. The works.”

They agreed, and as he closed the door to the interrogation room, his hands shoved in his pockets, he made out a low laugh, a whimper, then Sonny’s voice coming from past the walls.