Blood of My Brother (20 page)

The lounge was not busy, and he was served his scotch on the rocks quickly. He took his first, short sip, and was putting his glass down when he saw Agent Markey standing at the arched entrance to the bar. Markey spotted him, walked over, and sat down across from him at the small
drinks table he had taken along one side of the room.

“Cassio.”

“Agent Markey.”

“I’ll get to the point.”

“You want a drink first? I’m buying.”

“No.”

Jay said nothing. Markey, in his regulation dark suit, seemed more intense than he had at their last meeting, if that was possible.

“I spoke to Melissa Powers,” said Markey. “She said her mother wrote you some letters. There were no letters in your file.”

“I forgot all about them. They’re in a safe-deposit box. Cheryl can get them tomorrow morning. You can have someone pick them up at my office.”

“You must have thought they were important.”

“I did.”

“Why?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I’m investigating the murder of your friend,” Markey replied, “but there’s more to it than that.”

“There was a lot of babble,” Jay said, “but she basically accused Bryce of being in bed with drug kingpins and corrupt officials in Mexico. They lived there for five years.”

“Did you keep anything else back?”

“I didn’t keep the letters back.”

“All of the financial records were intact?”

“Of course.”

“How many letters are there?”

“Around fifty.”

“You’re lucky I don’t charge you with obstructing justice.”

“You scared the hell out of my secretary, but you don’t scare me.”

“If you’re down here to investigate the Del Colliano killing and I find out about it, then I
will
have you arrested. You and your friend Dunn. I see he’s registered here, too.”

“He’s on vacation.”

“It must be a long one. Al Garland told me he got a letter of resignation from Dunn yesterday.”

“You spoke with Melissa Powers knowing she was represented by counsel.”

“What?”

“Did you read her her rights? She’s a target, isn’t she?”

“Are you telling me how to do my job?”

“You’ve heard of the exclusionary rule, I’m sure.”

Jay was surprised to see Markey bridling at this remark. What kind of nerve had he touched? He was trying to think of something to say that would touch it again, but before he could come up with anything, Frank Dunn appeared at the table.

“Gentlemen,” Dunn said.

“You must be Mr. Dunn,” said Markey.

“I am,” said Dunn.

“Chris Markey, FBI.”

There was no handshake.

Dunn motioned to the waiter as he sat down.

“I was just leaving,” said Markey.

“Have a drink,” said Dunn, his eyes twinkling.

Markey shook his head, then said to Dunn, “I spoke to Al Garland today. He wants your badge and ID.”

“I’ll make sure I stop by the post office tomorrow.”

“I hope for your sake you haven’t been using them down here.”

“Are you sure you won’t have a drink?” said Dunn. “You look like you could use it.”

“Make that call,” Markey said to Jay, and he left.

Angelo was seated at his regular banquette in the corner, a club soda with a wedge of lemon in front of him. Maria kissed him hello and sat down to his left.

“You’re early,” she said. “And not smiling.”

“No.”

“Talk to me.”

“It turns out the woman we’re looking for knew Alvie Diaz.”

“Alvie’s dead,” she said. Alvaro Diaz had died in his sleep in September, Maria recalled.

“I know, but they’ll come looking for her. The FBI just got his name last week.”

“You mean the Donna Kelly woman.”

“Right.”

In bed last night Maria had asked Angelo about his business with Frank Dunn and Jay Cassio. Sometimes he would tell her what he was doing in a case, and sometimes not. He told her about the killing of Dan Del Colliano, the alleged murder-suicide of Kate and Bryce Powers, and the promise of help he had made to Dunn back in September. He told her not to worry, but of course she did. Showing a picture around of a person who had been tortured and executed by
a drug cartel was a dangerous thing to do. Word could pass from mouth to mouth, and Angelo, an ordinary citizen, would not be hard to find, or to kill.

“What does she look like?” Maria asked. “Tell me again.”

“Mid-twenties, long black hair, well developed, as we used to say in Brooklyn.”

“Cuban?”

“We don’t know, possibly. Probably Hispanic of some kind.”

Maria looked around the restaurant. The place was quiet, the tables in the dining room pristinely set after the lunch cleanup. She didn’t expect to see anybody and did not. Turning back to Angelo, she said, “Alvie brought me Isabel.”

“I know.”

They looked at each other.

A few days before he died, Alvaro Diaz, who lived only a block away, had appeared at the restaurant with a pale, thin young woman, who he introduced as Isabel Sanchez. She was a friend, he said, who needed a job and a place to stay. Requests of this kind were routine to Maria, whose work as a volunteer at the Cuban Cultural Center on Eighth Street often brought her face-to-face with immigrants, legal and illegal, desperate for help. Isabel had a strange look in her eyes, and a bad haircut, but Maria had seen much worse. She might have been sick, or pregnant, or running from a husband, or trying to get clean of drugs or alcohol. She wasn’t even Cuban. It didn’t matter. Alvaro Diaz was a sweet man, and one of Sam Perna’s best friends. Sam gave the girl a job as a waitress, and let her live in the small apartment above the restaurant. A week later, he cried like a child and closed El Pulpo for the three days it took to wake and bury Alvie.

“It could be her,” Angelo said.

“Alvie wouldn’t dump someone bad on us.”

“Not knowingly.”

“Tell me again what this woman did,” said Maria.

“She had a half million dollars in cash in an airport locker in Jersey. She claimed she worked for Powers, that he gave her the money. She hired Del Colliano to bring it to Florida for her. He does. Two days later he’s dead. The girl’s gone, the money’s gone.”

“When was this?”

“September.”

“How do you know this?”

“Frank and Jay went to Royal Palm today, where Alvie worked. Two Mexicans were there a couple of days ago asking about their sister—Isabel Perez—who lived there but who was missing. They wanted to know who her friends were. Alvie was mentioned. The next day the office was broken into, probably to get Alvie’s address.”

“I’ll go talk to her,” said Maria. “She’s upstairs right now.”

“What time does she start work?”

“Five.”

“Wait until she comes in, and then sit with her someplace where I can see you.”

“No. I’m going up there now.”

“Maria.”

“Yes, senor?”

“Take my gun.”

“No.”

“Well, listen to me, then.”

Maria had gotten to her feet, and now sat down again.

“Go ahead,” she said.

“The FBI knows about the Alvie connection, too. They’re probably working Little Havana right now. These
two Mexicans sound like trouble. Then there’s Cassio. She might have had a hand in killing his friend. I’m supposed to be helping him. She’s running out of options. She’ll want to run. Tonight, probably. I don’t blame her. Before she goes anyplace, she has to talk to me.”

“You can’t turn her in,
Angel
.”

“I won’t if you don’t want me to.”

“I don’t.”

“I’ll wait right here.”

Maria could pronounce Angelo’s name as well as any native-born American, but occasionally she shortened it by a syllable, and said it the Spanish way, giving the
g
a rough
h
sound, usually in moments of passion, or tenderness, or, as on this occasion, to underscore a point. Her father, a journalist, had been executed by one of Castro’s firing squads after
la revolución
, for questioning the kind of government the so-called rebel hero intended to establish. Then her older brother had been tortured and killed in the bargain. Maria had escaped Cuba soon afterward, but she knew what it was to be hunted, and to hear death in every knock on your door. Isabel Sanchez, or
Perez
, or
Kelly—
whatever her name was—was deeply scarred, but she was no killer. She was the hunted, not the hunter.

Maria went upstairs, and Angelo sipped his club soda and watched as Sam dried and racked glasses at the bar and the two busboys began stocking the waitress stations in the dining room. Tonight he was not soothed, as he usually was, by the routine predinner activities of the restaurant. If Maria did not return in fifteen minutes, he would go up and get her. Isabel had been a model waitress, quiet, hardworking, uncomplaining. And though good-looking and unattached,
she had gracefully but firmly spurned all attempts by the male customers and staff to engage her in the presexual dance. But if, as he suspected, she was the mysterious Donna Kelly, the Latin beauty who had somehow managed to come into possession of five hundred thousand dollars via her relationship with a New Jersey real estate magnate, the siren who had lured Dan Del Colliano to his death, then there was another side to her altogether, and Maria might be in danger. I’ll help her, Angelo said to himself, looking at his watch. But the sooner she’s out of here, the better.

When he looked up, Angelo saw Victor Ponce, the owner of a nightclub called El Caribe, located around the corner on Eighth Street, enter the bar and head toward his table.

“
Buenas noches
, Victor,” said Angelo when Victor arrived at the table.

“
Buenas noches
, Angelo,” said Victor. “Can we talk?”

“Of course. What would you like to drink?”

“Nothing,
gracias
, I have to get back.”

“What can I do for you, Victor?”

Victor, a hawk-faced, sharp-eyed Cuban in his late fifties, took the chair across from Angelo. He wore a tropical print shirt that hung loosely over a large belly, his fingers flashing with the silver rings he affected, his gray hair swept back into the pompadour he had been wearing ever since Angelo first met him and probably since he was a teenager in Havana.

“There have been two men in the neighborhood,” Victor replied, “in the last few days, claiming to be looking for their sister, a beautiful young woman who is missing. Have they been in here?”

“Not that I know of.”

“These men were in my place last night. They showed their sister’s picture to Manuel and Miguel.”

“And?”

“It is Isabel, your new waitress.”

Manuel and Miguel were Victor’s bouncer and bartender, respectively. Both of them had hit on Isabel when she first started working at El Pulpo.

“Did they send them here?”

“No.”

“What did these men look like?”

“I didn’t see them, but Manuel thinks they are Mexican, both young—in their twenties—black hair, black clothes. He thinks they’re twins.”

“Manuel was suspicious.”

“Yes. He sees many punks. These were the worst kind.”

“Where else have they been?”

“I stopped by Ascension’s on the way over here. They had lunch in her place today.”

“Did she recognize Isabel?”

“No, but someone will.”

“Thank you, Victor. I’ll talk to Isabel.”

“One more thing. If they stop by your place again, try to keep them there, and call me,
immediatamente, sí
? But be careful.”

“Of course.
Buenas noches
, Angelo.”

“
Buenas noches
, Victor.”

“It’s her,” said Maria.

Angelo shook his head, then said, “Will she talk to me?”

“No. She doesn’t want to implicate you, or Sam or me.”

“She already has.”

“She’s aware of that. ‘Any further,’ I should have said.”

“What did she say?”

Maria paused to look around. The bar was empty. It was five thirty. The earliest dinner patrons usually arrived around six.

“Not a lot. She knows she’s in great danger and wants to run, but she has no car, no passport, and no money.”

Angelo took this in, then said, “What about Del Colliano ?”

“The same people that killed him are looking for her, to kill her.”

“The law?”

“They’ll crucify her. It seems she’s done a lot of bad things.”

“Did she kill Del Colliano, Maria?”

“No. She’s very hard, Angelo, cruel even, but I don’t think she’s killed.”