Duby's Doctor (28 page)

He stood and circled the table to give Mandy
a kiss on the cheek.

“Is it really my birthday today?” he asked,
resuming his seat behind the ice cream mountain.

“Didn’t you know, dear?”

“I looked at the papers Captain
Crockett—”

“Boone,” she corrected.

“
Oui
, Captain Boone. I looked at the
papers he gave me, but I did not care about the day. I only wanted
to know the year. It said I was thirty-one this year.” He had only
looked that far because knowing his age was important to
Mitchell.

“You turned thirty-one years old today,”
Mandy said. “Happy birthday, dear.”

“
Merci, Maman. Merci beaucoup
. Here,
there’s an extra spoon.” He pushed the ice cream monolith closer to
her and handed her a spoon.

Mandy spooned up her first taste of the
dessert and looked at Jean with a “Hmmmm” of delight. “German
chocolate,” she said. “Your favorite.”

“It is?” he said. “I have very good taste,
don’t I.”

“Indeed you do. Oh, I almost forgot. I hope
you won’t be angry, dear.” She leaned down to the tote bag beside
her chair and pulled out a silvery metal box. “Francis sent you a
present. He said he had always planned to hand it down to you when
he retired, so....”

She trailed off. There was no need to say
that the retirement had not been voluntary, and there was no need
to remind themselves that Frank’s abuse of Duby (and others) had
devastated many lives and forced Frank’s resignation from the
DHS.

Quietly, Jean accepted the metal box, set it
on the table, and raised the lid. It contained Frank Stone’s
service revolver.

“I know this gun,” Jean murmured. “He brought
it to
Michel
’s house that night. The night he brought the
pictures.” He looked up and met her eyes. “When he told me about
Dubreau. About who I was.”

“You don’t have to use it, dear. Frank wanted
you to have it, because it’s the kind of thing he would have passed
down to ... a son, ... if we had one. Just put it away where it
can’t harm anyone. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

Jean nodded, closing the box securely.
“Dubreau would thank him,” he said. “Dubreau would understand the
importance of such a gift.”

He took a deep breath and let it out. He
looked at Mandy with half a smile. “Tell him ‘thank you’ from
Dubreau. You and I will know that I am not Dubreau, and I do not
deal in death the way he did.”

“Thank God,” she said.

“
Oui
,” he said. “Hurry up and eat! If
this thing melts, we will all be washed away in a chocolate
tsunami!”

Between bites of German chocolate ice cream,
Mandy said, “Speaking of ‘washed away,’ did you ever finish reading
The Pirate’s Flaming Heart
?”

“Oh, yes,” he said, grinning. “Nurse Erskine
gave me another book after that one. I’m learning a lot. Reading is
a good way to learn things.”

“I’ll bet!” Mandy said with a chuckle. “Dare
I ask the title of the one you’re reading now?”

“
Oui
, it’s called
A Pirate’s
Kiss
.”

“Ah!” said Mandy, her eyes twinkling with
mirth. “I believe I sense a theme developing here. Does Nurse
Erskine read only books about piracy?”

Jean winked at her. “I’m sorry to tell you,
Maman
, but these books are not really about pirates.”

Mandy laughed. “I thought not,” she said. “I
expect that’s why you find them so ... educational. And, please do
not tell me anything more specific about them.”

“I will not tell you exactly what I am
learning,
Maman
. But, I can tell you that this learning
will be very helpful to me when I begin phase two.”

“Phase two?”

“
Oui
. Doctor Goldberg calls it ‘phase
two.’ I call it ‘winning
Michel
.’”

She nodded, and they spent the next few
minutes enjoying one another’s company and quietly devouring a
melting mound of German chocolate ice cream.

Eventually, Mandy asked quietly, in French,
“Do you think you will ever forgive Francis?”

He remained silent so long that she thought
perhaps he had been daydreaming and had not heard the question.
Finally, he answered her in their native tongue, “Sister Elizabeth
says I have been forgiven by God, and so I must forgive others.
Even Frank Stone. I told her I do not remember most of the bad
things I did that God has forgiven me for doing. But I remember the
bad things Frank Stone did to
Michel
and me.”

“Maybe if you forgive Francis, you won’t have
to remember the bad things so much any more.”

He nodded. “Like the Sea of
Forgetfulness.”

“Is that from a pirate book?”

He smiled and wagged his head, no. “Sister
Elizabeth said that when God forgave me, he threw all my bad stuff
into the Sea of Forgetfulness, and He does not remember what I did,
anymore.”

Mandy smiled, too. “Then, perhaps there is
hope that one day you will forgive and forget Francis’
mistakes?”

“I don’t know,
Maman
. It still hurts
when I remember the things Frank Stone did. He could have gotten
Michel
killed, and me, too.”

“Yes, my love, I know. But, the more you
remember those wrongs, the more you will hurt. It is for
your
wellbeing that you must forgive, not for his. Let
Francis deal with the pain of his memories; he deserves to suffer
for what he did. You do not. Don’t let his evil fester and sicken
your heart. Forgive. And, then you can forget.”

“We’ll see,
Maman,”
he murmured, in
English now. “We’ll see.”

“Let me see your cellphone for a minute.”

“My cellphone?” he asked, even while he was
pulling it from it pocket and handing it over.

“Thank you,” she said, and she tapped a
number into his contacts list. When she was finished entering the
name to go with the number, she handed the phone back to Jean.
“There,” she said. “Now you have Francis’ number. When you feel
like it, you can talk to him.”

“I do not promise,
Maman
.”

“I know, I know. I just want you to have the
number ready if the day comes when you want to use it,
cher
.”

Mandy lifted her round posterior from her
chair just enough to lean forward and plant a kiss on Jean’s
cheek.

Over the coming days and weeks, Jean
sometimes looked at his contacts list and tapped Frank Stone’s
name. Then, he would look at the number, and sometimes even lift
his finger over the phone’s screen as if he were going to tap the
number and make the call.

Early one morning, after a restless night
spent thinking too much, instead of sleeping, Jean actually tapped
the number and listened to the ringing at the other end.

He listened to Frank Stone’s gruff voice
answer the phone.

And then, Jean hung up.

A moment later, his phone rang; Frank Stone
was trying to find out who had hung up on him.

Jean didn’t answer.

Later that day, Iturralde Iglesias stepped
back into Dubreau’s life.

Iturralde Iglesias had been biding his time
and fighting boredom for nearly three months. He had determined
that Carinne Averell now ran a legitimate corporation and that she
was far too well guarded to be an easy target for his revenge.

Very well. He was an adult; he could learn to
overlook a mere childish display of disrespect from Carinne. What
else was to be expected from the coddled daughter of a rich man.
She was a product of her upbringing. Iglesias could be magnanimous
and forgive her for laughing at him.

He never considered that the mental image he
had formed of Carinne ridiculing him had been constructed wholly in
his own mind. At any rate, revenge against the girl was off the
table, especially since she was completely out of his reach.

The ex-bodyguard was a different story. The
man who lived aboard the Do Bee 2 had once actually laid hands on
Iturralde Iglesias! The lout had blindsided Iglesias in an
unguarded moment and taken advantage of him in a shameful way,
leaving him soaking in Biscayne Bay in an expensive hand-tailored
suit, miles from home, in the middle of the night! In Mirador,
bigger men had died for smaller offenses, simply because Iturralde
Iglesias gave the order.

Yes, the bodyguard would die for his
disrespect. As soon as Iglesias could catch the man on dry land and
unawares, the man’s death was guaranteed. Iglesias would execute
the offender with his own hands – since he no longer had an army
taking his orders. Iglesias was no marksman, but he would be close
enough to his victim that his aim would not matter at all.

Before murdering the rude oaf, however,
Iglesias had a use for him. Many afternoons playing dominoes in the
parks of Little Havana, with Cuban ex-patriots, had provided
Iglesias with some information and many ideas.

Mirador had been on friendly terms with Cuba.
Iturralde Iglesias would not have to use a false name there, as he
did in the United States. And, Cuban authorities would not stop him
at the airport when he boarded a plane to sunny Spain and a happy
retirement.

Iturralde Iglesias needed to get to Cuba, and
he knew someone with a boat that could get him there.

At mid-morning on a weekday, only a small
number of people strolled Coconut Grove’s sidewalks. Sidewalk cafes
served eggs benedict, croissants,
pastelitos con guava y
queso
, and Cuban coffee to a modest clientele. Shops had not
been open long, and there were still parking spaces available in
the main shopping district around Commodore Plaza.

Iturralde Iglesias pulled his rental car into
a space directly in front of the Barnacle Gallery. This was his
second day of visiting area art galleries in search of Carinne
Averell’s ex-bodyguard. He didn’t have a name yet, but he knew the
man was some sort of artist. He cursed himself for wasting
yesterday on a wild goose chase, but until he searched the Internet
on his phone this morning, he had not realized there was a gallery
so close to the marina where the bodyguard lived.

As soon as he stepped out of the heat and
humidity into the gallery’s chilly climate-controlled showroom, he
knew he had hit paydirt. On the wall opposite the door hung a
portrait of the very man he sought. He smiled.

“Good morning! Welcome to the Barnacle
Gallery,” chirped a woman, coming out from behind an elegant desk
that served as an understated checkout counter. “Would you care for
coffee or tea?” She waved vaguely in the direction of a coffee
service placed discreetly in a corner.

“Good morning,” he answered, smiling toward
her. “Nothing for me, thanks. I’ve just come from breakfast.” He
turned his attention toward the portrait. “What can you tell me
about this painting?”

“That’s new, from one of our most popular
young artists. He signs his work ‘Jean Deaux.’ This is the first
time he has painted a self-portrait. I’m afraid it’s not for sale,
but we have several other works by the same artist.”

Iglesias’ smile narrowed a little. “Why is it
not for sale?”

“I believe the artist intends it as a gift
for a special patron. He was good enough to allow us to display it
until after his one-man show next month.”

The clerk kept up a steady patter about the
paintings on the walls as she escorted her aristocratic-looking
customer around the gallery. Iglesias asked careful questions
designed to distract her from his real goal: to find the artist
known as Jean Deaux.

When the moment seemed right, he asked
casually if the artist’s studio was nearby.

The clerk seemed amused. “Oh, yes, you could
say it’s very near.” She smiled as she barely lifted one finger to
point at the ceiling. Iglesias responded with a smile and a wink,
as though they were close friends sharing a delicious secret. “I
would love to introduce you but, of course, he cannot be disturbed
when he is working. The gallery owner is very strict about
that.”

“I understand completely,” said Iglesias,
then he glanced at the front of the shop to be sure no pedestrians
or motorists were in sight. He withdrew a pistol from beneath his
suit jacket and pointed it at the clerk, still smiling cordially.
“Now, if you will please lock the door, draw the drapes, and place
the ‘closed’ sign in the window.”

Minutes later, after quietly securing the
gallery and whacking the clerk unconscious with the butt of his
pistol, Iglesias almost whistled to himself as he climbed the
stairs to the artist’s studio. At the top of the steps, he knocked
once on the closed wooden door and then let himself in.

Jean looked up from his easel in mild
surprise. “
Bonjour
?”

“Hello,” Iglesias said, keeping his pistol
out of sight. “Remember me?”

“
Non
,
monsieur
. Please
forgive me if I should know you. I suffered an injury some time
ago, and most of my memories were lost.”

“No matter. I remember enough for both of
us.” Iglesias smiled a shark’s smile.

“Perhaps the lady downstairs did not tell
you,
monsieur
, but the public is not allowed on this floor
of the building....”

“Oh, yes. She did tell me that. But that does
not matter, either, because you have finished your work here.
You’re going to take me to your boat.”

“My boat?” Jean looked mystified. His eyes
glanced left and then right, as if he was searching the corners of
his mind for some clue to this strange turn of events.
“My
boat?”

“That’s right.”

“But ... why?”

Iglesias pointed his pistol at Jean. “Because
I do not want to have to drag your unconscious body to the trunk of
my car for the trip to the marina. It’s hot outside, and I don’t
care to ruin this suit with unnecessary perspiration.”