Lonesome Point (14 page)

Oscar said, “Did our mutual friend tell you how important Herman Massani is to us?”

Rocha swiveled his chair and faced Oscar squarely. “Our friend Carlos Parra is the product of a dysfunctional family. The man does dysfunctional things. People seem to think he’s different from the rest of them, all those sad brothers and relatives, but no … oh, no. Carlos has his own demons.”

He reached into a back pocket and pulled out his wallet. He slipped out and unfolded two checks and laid them on the table in front of Oscar. “I keep these on me as a reminder about friends. About trust. These canceled checks, these are Seacrest Developments checks. Can you read the signatures?”

Oscar leaned over, squinted at them. “Looks like Carlos Parra’s to me.”

“Carlos Parra. That’s right. Do you see whom they’re made out to?”

“Says … Atlantic Storage.”

“Atlantic Storage, yes. Problem is, that’s a dummy company. An old building in Little Havana. A legal address, that’s it. No real business. Twelve thousand dollars to a dummy company. You know who set up this company? Carlos Parra. You know
why? Because he was trying to scam me. He has a gambling problem, you see. Huge debts. So he writes up invoices for phony services, pays them off to this company, and pockets the money. And he thought for some bizarre reason that I wouldn’t find out.”

Rocha picked up the checks and stared at them. “What happened when I confronted him—well, you can imagine.” He tapped his temple. “You see how some men think? What drives people to such risks? Is it in their nature?” He shook his head, returned the checks to his wallet and jammed the wallet back into his pocket.

He didn’t say anything for a second. “Tell me,” looking straight at Patrick, “what do you think I should a done?” He waited. “Huh? Kill him?” He put a finger to his temple. “Bam, bam, two in the head? I’ll be honest, that’s what I felt like doing. But no, uh-uh, that would have been a waste. No benefit to anybody. I make a practice of recognizing opportunities. I am a businessman.”

He set his palms on the table. “I believed, because I know him, that Carlos wants to be considered an honorable man, so where his mistake was concerned, he wanted to do the honorable thing, which in my books was to make amends. You give a man an opportunity to save face, you and him have an understanding, like a bond. It’s a matter of respect. Carlos knows I could’ve turned him in, hurt him. But I didn’t and he’s grateful, and he rewarded me with information, a piece of this pie that’s in front of us. I’m saying to you, gentlemen, don’t talk to me about Carlos Parra because Carlos Parra is not here, but I am. I am running this here show. From now on if we play like I believe would
be the smart thing to do, you talk to me”—his thumb hit his chest—“not him. I am the man.”

Rocha looked from Oscar to Patrick and back. A long silence.

Oscar folded his arms and said, “You sound sure of yourself. That’s curious, since you don’t even have custody of Herman Massani. We know where he is. We have contacts at the hospital.”

A smile played across Rocha’s face. “Maybe I don’t really want him. Maybe I’d like to get him but it’s not necessary. You’re forgetting I’m privy to other information,” rotating his chair in Patrick’s direction, “that could be damaging.”

Patrick held the man’s gaze. “Don’t make empty threats, sir. You toss that grenade, we all get nothing.”

Rocha rotated his chair away, then back. He nodded. “We can work together, Mr. Varela. And everybody will get what they want.”

“Okay, you told me what you wanted, now I’d like something from you.” Patrick sat forward. “In the interest of teamwork.”

“My silence is not enough?” Rocha smiled.

Patrick didn’t say a word.

Rocha put a hand on his chest. “What else can I possibly give you?”

“A guarantee. We businessmen need to establish a level of trust. We seek guarantees.”

“You already have one. You’ll get Herman Massani.”

Patrick said, “Massani is not enough.”

Rocha arched an eyebrow. Then he gave a sly smile and set
tled back in his chair, folding his hands on his stomach. He said, “Tell me. How soon do you want Freddy Robinson?”

AFTER ROCHA left, Oscar said he kept a bottle of Grey Goose in the fridge here for special occasions. He brought out two shot glasses and poured one for himself, one for Patrick. They raised their glasses, clinked, and tossed back the cold vodka.

Patrick needed it. There was a tightness in his chest, a sense of dread blooming. He suddenly wanted to be at home with his wife and kids. Doing nothing special, just to be with them.

Oscar sat, poured himself another, and took a dainty sip. Crossed his legs and appraised Patrick. “Rivera did not come through, but now we’ll get both Massani and Freddy Robinson. See how things work out?”

“What about Rivera?”

“No need to worry about him talking. I couldn’t get through to him on the phone I gave him, but according to one of my sources at the hospital, he’s been transferred off the psych unit. To Ward D, where jail inmates go. He’ll relax there, the hospital will make a report, and then after they figure he’s stabilized, Rivera will be back on the street. Another patient-on-patient assault, but no charges. It’s not cost-effective to bring charges against mental patients.”

Patrick listened, hoping.

“Tell your brother, next time you speak to him, to follow Freddy Robinson’s instructions. Time has come to turn Massani over.”

Patrick nodded, his mind not fully present.

“Great. So Rocha has nothing to worry about. Now, you ever going to let me know what occurred, what this big secret is you’re hiding? Seems like even Rocha knows and I don’t.” Oscar put a hand over his heart. “I’m hurt.”

Patrick snorted, clamped his hands under his armpits, and looked at the floor. “What’s the difference? Even if I wanted to tell you everything, I couldn’t remember it exactly the way it happened anyway. It’s so long ago, from another era. Let’s forget it, Oscar.”

He watched Oscar pick up his shot glass and peer into it, wearing a delicate smile. He stared back as Oscar considered him. With a salesman’s silence, waiting for him to fill it.

Patrick smiled, playing cool. Problem was, he remembered it exactly the way it happened. How could he ever forget it?

S
OMETIMES IT FELT LIKE it happened last night: Fonso driving his old pickup truck, Patrick riding shotgun and shivering from adrenaline. The loaded Glock 17 was in the glove compartment but it might as well have been on his chest, he was having such a hard time drawing a full breath. Fonso gave him a sidelong glance. “Put on some music?”

“Yeah, that’ll work.”

Fonso turned up the volume, Kool & the Gang’s old “Celebration” bumping out of the speakers. Which didn’t fit the mood of the moment, but was comfortably distracting.

On Marine Parade they slowed to pass through the narrow channel made by cars and SUVs parked outside the Radisson Fort George Hotel. Loud band music from the St. John’s prom momentarily competing with the pickup’s speakers. Leo was up there, drinking, probably already drunk.

They crossed the swing bridge over the river and drove down Albert Street, the Saturday night crowds strolling along the sidewalk, shops closing down. They veered right on Dean Street and parked in front of a ramshackle clapboard behind a chicken-wire- and-wood fence. Fonso tapped the horn twice. A light flashed on in a corner room and a head appeared between the thin curtains. Two minutes later the room went dark and a figure eased out of a side door and came down a short stairway.

Fonso threw an arm onto the seat back and twisted around to watch through the rear glass, a young, slender guy closing the rickety gate and hopping over the open drain, approaching the truck now. “Aw, shit,” Fonso said, “since when this boy got a goatee?”

Patrick poked his head out the window to see better, pleased to have a problem to deal with, keep his mind busy.

Fonso said, “Naw, that’s got to go. He need to look pretty.”

Patrick watched the guy, no more than eighteen, walk up to his window. “Hello… . How are you … doing?” Halting textbook English that he probably learned at school in Guatemala.

He put a hand on the door handle, but Fonso stopped him. “Wait, Ramon. Look here”—he gestured at his own chin—“this got to go.”

Ramon touched his chin, returned to the house.

Five minutes later, he was smooth-faced and they were driving in silence with the radio off, Ramon squeezed in the middle, Patrick half turned to the window. They pulled up behind a car outside the Belleview Hotel on Southern Foreshore. It was a bastard time of night, too late for the happy-hour crowd to stick around, too early for the club partiers to step out. A perfect time for an illicit liaison.

Only five cars sat parked outside the Belleview, and one of them was the Rev’s Jag. Ramon went into the hotel bar while Patrick and Fonso walked across the street and down the seawall.

Soon, the Rev emerged with Ramon in tow. Patrick and Fonso moved farther down the seawall and watched the pair get into the Jag and roll south on the one-way street.

Fonso and Patrick followed them in the pickup, and when it
became clear that it was headed toward the Northern Highway, Fonso slowed down and let it pull away.

The adrenaline was surging through Patrick now and he could hear the blood in his head. The night was full of stars, a ghostly gibbous moon. For a while they were the only ones on the road. He stared into the darkness, the roadside trees an army of shadows, tires humming, sounding like it did just before he dozed off on road trips when he was a little boy. He felt his heart clutching that moment, anything to slow time, slow this truck from hurtling toward Lonesome Point and changing him for worse.

Fonso cut the lights when they came to the open gate, the truck bouncing over ruts and potholes and banking left away from the skeletons of half-finished homes, going now through the widest part of the clearing. They climbed the rise and Fonso turned the engine off on the other side, the truck coasting down to a stop.

They sat quietly, listening to their breathing. Clayey ground pale in the faint moonlight. Dark mangroves and black swampland in the distance to the left, on the right a weedy canal. Up ahead, about a hundred yards, the beach, and a single car parked there, the silver Jag.

L
EO LAY SOAKING IN THE TUB staring up at the shampoo bottles in the shower caddy, at the small peach wall tiles, mulling over his options. His right hand held a fat joint; his left hand rested on the tub rim, two fingers in white splints. He hit the joint deep one last time, reached over and stubbed it out in the bamboo ashtray on the toilet seat. He coughed, releasing a plume.

He heard the apartment door open and Tessa say, “Uh-oh … smells like something’s going on… .”

He dropped his head back and felt the high caress him, not giving a shit anymore. He heard Tessa shuffling around in the kitchen, putting groceries away. He shut his eyes and pictured her opening and closing the cabinets, big belly brushing the counter. Soon the apartment fell quiet.

When he opened his eyes, she was standing in the doorway, arms folded. Saying nothing, saying everything with her expression.

“Come in here with me,” he said.

She held his gaze. “Stoned much?”

“Babe …” He didn’t bother. He slid under, knees poking out, blew bubbles into the sudsy water, and surfaced, wiping his eyes. “You were gone a long time.”

She nodded, something clearly on her mind. “I went driving. Got a few things at Publix. Should you get that wet?” indicating the stitches on his chin.

“It’s all right.”

She shook her head. “What’s gonna happen, Lee?”

“Come here … come.” He held his arms out. She came away from the doorway and stood at the tub, shins pressing against the side. He lifted the front of her T-shirt out and up over her belly. “Yeah, this is what I like to see.” He smoothed his hands all around it, like fondling a lovely, hard balloon. “It’s so beautiful. Your skin’s so beautiful … your skin …”

Her eyes on his face, she said, “I went driving. Did a lot of thinking.”

He leaned forward, kissed her slightly protruding navel. “It’s been a long time,” he whispered. Rubbing her belly, feeling dreamy.

“You know I want to. It’s just gotten so uncomfortable… .”

With both hands holding her like a ball, he rested a cheek against her warm skin. “You’re getting me all wet,” she said, stooping slightly to accommodate him. He drew his head away and jiggled his eyebrows, and she slapped his arm. “Not that way. Sheeesh, you men, all the same.”

She pulled away from him, moved the ashtray from the toilet lid and sat down. “I’ve been thinking,” she said.

“You told me.” He leaned back, with one hand splashed water over his chest.

“Thanks for telling me everything.” She looked at him. “That
is
everything?”

“It’s everything I know.”

Tessa sighed. “I guess now I understand why you never talk about your parents.”

He kept quiet. What was there to say? The past was like a bruise on his brain.

Tessa said, “Your mother … are you sure … how can a mother …” She ended by simply shaking her head.

“Like I said, Patrick told me. My mother made the decision. My father went along.”

“And Freddy Robinson was the one who told you about the shooting?”

“Yeah. I call him the man who knows too much.”

“How’d you suspect in the first place?”

“How could I not? I lived in the house.”