Becoming Rain
Page 105

It took only two hours and plenty of sobbing before Miller was ready to sign his life away in blood and tell us everything we wanted to know.
We guessed right.
Some months back, Vlad met Miller outside one of their shady money exchange spots, and Vlad began commenting on how reliable Rust’s “team” was. Miller thought it was odd—how civil Vlad was acting. His questions and suggestions were casual enough, asking if Miller worked with any of the guys. Maybe some of the guys at the garage were helping to chop? Did Rust ever pass on orders to Miller to handle through the fences?
Miller wasn’t involved in that side of things, and he told him as much.
About a week after that, Vlad showed up at Miller’s house one night. He stood in front of the family pictures that Miller’s wife, Marie, had hung all over the living room wall, studying each one of his daughters at length while sipping from the cup of tea Marie had so graciously handed to him. Telling Miller that he had a beautiful family. That he must be worried, having three teenage girls in this world. That it must be hard, managing with Lauren’s cerebral palsy.
That if Miller were to get more involved in “that side of things” with Rust’s business, he’d make it worth his while.
Miller had never talked to Vlad about his family or his daughter’s issues. He’d never invited him to come to his home. Vlad’s tactic here was unmistakable: a veiled threat. Miller didn’t trust this guy; he never understood why Rust got involved with him, seeing as he was so successful in his legitimate businesses. But Lauren had been in more pain lately; she needed more therapy, more injections.
Miller needed more money.
So he agreed.
It wasn’t hard to convince Rust, who had suggested several times that he should get more involved. But Miller had always drawn a line. It was one thing to stop and grab a bag of money every once in a while. Calling guys and telling them which car they needed to hire someone to steal, though . . . Miller only needed to give Lauren’s name for Rust to understand why he was now asking. Rust didn’t suspect a thing. He trusted Miller completely.
It was easy enough at first, Miller said. Just a phone call to a guy named Leon on an untraceable phone whenever Rust swung by and wordlessly handed him a one-page printout with a list of cars, which Miller would shred immediately after making the call. A week or two later, he’d meet Leon and a few guys out at Rust’s backwoods warehouse to exchange the cars for the money. Miller described how scared shitless he was every single time, expecting to end up with a bullet in his head.
Then it became a phone call to Leon when Vlad called to pass on an order. Miller didn’t understand why both guys were feeding orders to him—but he didn’t know how everything worked anyway. He figured the cars were going to the same place, the same pot of money was being divided, and he needed to keep his mouth shut about it.
Not long after, Rust had him working with another fence by the name of Kyle. Which meant Miller was sending orders to Kyle for both Rust and Vlad.
Then Vlad showed up at his house—again—with a bonus envelope of cash in exchange for bringing him along to the next meet with the fences.
Miller did, introducing him to both Kyle and Leon.
Vlad had a conversation with them that Miller didn’t hear, and then he saw Vlad hand them envelopes. No doubt with cash in them. The envelope of cash Vlad handed him for “cooperating” and the way Vlad ducked down to avoid the cameras on the way in kept Miller quiet.
Two weeks later, Vlad told Miller that he needed to find out who the other high-level fences were. Vlad knew there were others, because his father was sending Rust orders and the orders weren’t being passed through Miller. Miller had guessed as much anyway. He’d seen cars that he didn’t order at Rust’s storage.
So Miller asked Rust if he could do more.
But Rust said no. Someone else was handling those guys.
It wasn’t hard for Miller to figure out who that someone else was. Rust’s useless nephew, Luke, who would no doubt be owning the garage soon enough and firing Miller. Miller, who had to work his ass off just to fill a drug prescription for his kid, while Luke had just been handed a fucking Porsche.
Vlad was livid when he heard Luke was now involved.
The orders kept coming in for Miller to manage, only the ones from Rust were growing smaller while the ones directly from Vlad increased. At first Miller figured that Rust was passing his share on to Luke.
Miller began meeting Leon, Kyle, and a new guy who simple went by Smith—one of Vlad’s additions—at a new location: the commercial warehouse just off Highway 5 in North Portland where we caught Miller.
At that point, it was pretty obvious to Miller that Vlad was using what Rust built to run his own ring. Still, Miller said nothing because now he was an accomplice to Vlad. If Rust found out, his steady, legitimate job as manager at the garage would be gone.
That’s when the anxiety began to take its toll on him.
The day Vlad called him and asked if he had ever heard Rust talking about a guy named Aref Hamidi, Miller didn’t think much of mentioning what he overheard at the office—Rust asking Luke to set up a meeting at Corleone’s. That seemed to really piss off Vlad.
A week later, Vlad sent Miller an order for a ton of vehicles. All late models, all black, all SUVs.
All needed within the week, in shipping containers at an Astoria shipyard.
A few days after that, Rust ended up with a bullet in his head.
Miller doesn’t have the context we have. He hasn’t figured out that that last order was for Aref. That the deal Luke says was made with Aref that night in Corleone’s didn’t stick. That when Vlad found out about what Rust was doing, he must have gone straight to Aref and demanded the business. That the lead time Rust insisted on obviously wasn’t ideal for Aref, but instead of telling Rust that, he simply smiled and nodded and agreed.