Suspicion of Betrayal (23 page)

In the formal dining room the chandelier shone on polished wood. She wandered through the open double doors to the living room, pausing as if heads were turning upon her entrance.
Hello, everyone. Bienvenidos.
She smiled, presenting her cheek for an imaginary kiss.

A gold clock ticked on the mantel among the dozens of framed snapshots of grandchildren, nieces, and nephews. To the left of the fireplace, a wood-paneled door led to a small parlor. She turned the brass knob and went in, then pulled aside the fringed curtain to see out. The sun fell across a leather-topped side table, sparkling on a tiny crystal bird. Gail picked it up. Every corner of this house was filled with such treasures. No dust on any of them, no fingerprints around the light switches, no dead bugs under the furniture. A house like this required a maid, a cook, a gardener . . .

An odd sense that she was being observed made her glance toward the door. She involuntarily jumped, and the crystal bird slipped from her hand and dropped to the oriental rug. A split second later she recognized the gray suit and heavy glasses. Hector Mesa. It occurred to her that he had been waiting to see if she would slide the crystal into the pocket of her skirt. He watched Gail pick it up and set it back on the table, unbroken.

"I was looking for Anthony," she said, wishing too late that she had not made such an idiotic statement.

"He's in the study." Mesa's hands were loosely clasped in front. "He said that Karen has to be at her father's house soon, so he asked me to drive her there. You can go along if you want. I'll bring you back."

"I wouldn't dream of inconveniencing you. I'll borrow Anthony's car and take her myself."

Mesa hesitated, then said, "He's concerned for your safety."

Gail realized that Anthony had told Mesa everything. She automatically scanned his suit coat, finding no bulges but certain just the same that his .22-caliber Beretta was hidden on him somewhere. Karen had shown no distrust of this man. Indeed, she had found him geekily funny, but Gail did not like him. That he now stood at the door of this out-of-the-way room meant that he had followed her here, watching her slow progress through the house, making no sign of his presence.

She said, "That's very considerate of Anthony, but I'm sure we'll be all right. I'll speak to him. Has the lawyer left?"

"Yes, but Anthony is busy with some paperwork," Mesa said.

"Then I'll knock first."

With a slight nod, Hector Mesa stood aside to let her pass. His thinning white hair swept straight back over his skull and made frizzy little ringlets at his collar. He firmly closed the door.

Gail glanced back at him. "Tell me, Hector. What do you think about Anthony marrying an Anglo?"

"I have no opinion,
señora."
She could not discern a reaction. His glasses hid his eyes, and he followed several paces behind her across the living room.

Over her shoulder Gail said, "You probably do, but you're right not to tell me."

"Nationality isn't so important," he said quietly. "His former wife was Cuban. Very beautiful, but greedy and ambitious. She married him for what he could give her, and when he found out the truth, he divorced her."

Barely holding on to her temper, Gail stopped and turned around. Mesa came no closer. "I'll make you a deal. You don't like me, and I don't like you. So let's keep out of each other's way. All right?"

She thought she saw his shoulders stiffen. Then he smiled, a slight lifting of the corners of his mouth. "Con
su permiso
. . ."He pivoted and vanished into the hall. She watched to make sure he was heading away from the study.

Ernesto Pedrosa's office was not a large room but completely masculine, with its old leather furniture, brass lamps, and dark wood wainscoting. A glass case held rare editions of poetry by José Martí. The desk was turned to the southwest, facing Havana, and a faded and torn Cuban flag hung from the wall behind it. Anthony sat with his forehead in his palm, writing. The lamplight gleamed on the waves in his brown hair and the heavy gold in his emerald ring. Cigar smoke curled from an ashtray.

Gail slid silently into the room, and his concentration was so complete that he did not notice her until she was almost on him. He leaned back to see who was there, and Gail fell into his lap. The big chair lurched on its wheels, then thudded back down.

"Ay, cuidado. "
Anthony laughed and held onto her.

"Smoking. Shame on you. Is that a Cuban cigar?"

"Don't tell the old man." He swiveled the chair to reach the ashtray, then took a last pull on the cigar and tapped the embers till it went out. He exhaled to the side, then smiled at the woman sitting in his lap. "Well. Look who dropped out of the sky."

Her legs hung over the broad arm of the chair. "Are you about finished?"

"It's going to take at least another hour. Did Hector find you?"

"Yes, he did, and no, I don't want him taking Karen to her father's. Let me borrow your car."

"If you can wait, I'll take you."

"Nothing's going to happen to us. Your car has tinted, shatterproof windows, for God's sake."

"You don't feel safer with Hector?"

"Frankly, no."

Anthony grinned. "Think of him as the family rottweiler. He won't bite you."

"I'm not family—not yet." Gail said, "Hector believes I'm after your money."

That brought a laugh. "No, he doesn't. I have to fight you to take it."

She played with the collar of his knit shirt, a deep burgundy one that brought out the warmth of his skin. "What is it with Hector? You said he used to shine shoes as a kid, and your grandfather brought him to Miami with the family. That isn't enough to turn anybody into a rottweiler."

"It was enough for Hector. In Cuba, both his parents were dead, and the aunt who took care of him was a whore. We were all he had. He promised my grandfather he would be of service someday." Anthony spoke softly. "There's a story, which you shouldn't repeat. My Uncle Tomás died at Playa Girón, as you know. He was among those captured. Because of his rank, they interrogated him, but all he would say was,
Viva Cuba libre, abajo Fidel.
One of the soldiers cut out his tongue and beat him to death in front of the others. The rest were eventually released, and when my grandfather found out what had happened, he wished the same fate on whoever had killed his only son. Twenty years later that same guard came over in the Mariel boatlift. And a few weeks after that . . . Hector brought my grandfather a small box."

A chill went down Gail's spine. "Was it a surprise package? Or did your grandfather ask him to do it?"

Anthony shook his head. "I don't know. And maybe it doesn't matter. That was a long time ago."

"Would you have done it for him?"

"No. Come on, what do you think I am?"

She swung her legs off the arm of the chair and sat on his thigh. The desk was covered with papers, stacks of documents, lists of figures. "What are you working on?"

"We're making an offer on a building in Fort Lauderdale. I'm going over the leases."

"We? Meaning you and . . . who?"

"Not me. Grandfather. His management company." From behind, Anthony put his chin on her shoulder. "Yes, Gail. I'm going to be helping him out for a little longer. His health is better. He's going to be around for a while, but ... I don't know, he's not the same. He seems to have lost interest."

"Now that he has you, why not? Are you going to put a cot in the corner or sleep in your old room?"

"Gail." Anthony made a noise with his tongue. "How can I say no to him?"

"Be careful, will you? Too much of this, and there goes your law practice." She looked at him. "Anthony, does the rest of the family want you here? I get conflicting signals, especially from Elena."

"They do, they don't." He laughed softly. "They know that at the moment, at least, I'm in Ernesto's good graces. They want to know whose side I'm on, and I don't necessarily enlighten them. Xiomara and Bernardo want to divide up the businesses into separate companies. Elena and Jose want a family directorship. Humberto, Alex, Graciela, the others all have their opinions. Nobody talks about it openly."

"Whose side are you on?" Gail asked. "Be honest, Anthony. What do you want?"

He looked at her for a long time, perhaps not trusting how she would respond to his answer.

She said, "Tell me. I want you to be happy. Not to be another Ernesto Pedrosa, or to do things in the way he has done them, but if you honestly feel this is where you need to be—"

"And you'd be with me?"

Her heart picked up speed, pushed by a rush of emotion. "Here?"

"Not now, but ... I don't know. Someday. Perhaps."

She nodded slowly. "As long as you don't change who you are."

Releasing a held breath, Anthony rocked back far enough to look at the ceiling. "Of course it goes through my mind. Of course. But if I took over, it would be on my terms, not theirs. My grandfather has stayed too much with tradition. Too Cuban, if I can put it that way. Not part of the larger community. But why should they listen to me? I'm the outsider. They've been working for my grandfather for years, and here I am, coming at the last moment to take it away from them. I don't care if they love me or hate me, but I will have their respect, and I will not be anybody's puppet. You called me that, at the hospital."

"I shouldn't have."

"No one's puppet. Not for my grandfather, or a family directorate, or a committee, or the banks." He brought his gaze down to sweep across the room, over the old books, the yellowed photographs on the wall, the map of Havana, the memorabilia of decades of exile. He said, "There is too much of my father in me. They forget that."

"Luis, the revolutionary hero."

He smiled, then just as quickly narrowed his eyes. The normally slight Spanish accent became comically thick. "Luis Quintana Rodriguez, the son of a Santería priestess who offered blood sacrifices to Chango and Eleggua." Anthony beat a slow, complicated rhythm on Gail's back. "I used to wake in the night and hear drums and chanting." His voice at her ear dropped to a whisper. "My grandmother Fulgencia, she used to twist the head off a chicken with her bare hands and drink the blood."

Gail made a face.

"I used to scare my cousins with stories like that."

"You must have been a terror."

"Let's just say we didn't get along."

"Elena said you and she were close."

"She said that?" Anthony laughed. "No, when my grandfather brought me out of Cuba, the oldest male grandchild—and maybe a substitute for my dead uncle Tomás, who can say?—my cousins hated me. Even Nena had her doubts."

"Digna didn't hate you. I would never believe that."

"No? I was the stain on the family honor. The physical reminder of what her youngest daughter did—not only to get pregnant at age sixteen, but worse, by the illegitimate son of a cane cutter. They could count six generations back to Spain, never a drop of black blood till my father. He was only one quarter, but Nena beat my mother when she found out she was pregnant. I never told you. You think Nena is so refined, such a lady. When I came to Miami, I wouldn't behave, I wanted to go home, let me go back to Cuba, I hate it here. She used to scream at me, your father is a communist, and you are just as bad. My cousins would call me names. Hey,
negrito.
Who is your father? My skin was as white as theirs, but if I hit them, they would tell our grandfather, and he would come after me with his belt. The funny thing is, my sister Alicia has the same blood as me, but she was never treated that way. You know why? Because she has the Pedrosa eyes—blue."

Gail looked at him wonderingly. "You still resent it, don't you? Almost thirty years, you're still angry." "Not at all."

"Oh, you want to rub their noses in it. Yes. To take over from Ernesto Pedrosa,
you,
the son of Luis Quintana Rodriguez, married to a blond American lawyer, coming in here to sit at this desk, maybe fire half of them for incompetence and make the others work as hard as you do. Scary."

Smiling, he stared down at the papers, ruffling the edges between thumb and forefinger. "Maybe it's not worth it. I don't know."

Gail shifted on his lap to put her arms around him. "I love you."

He focused on her face.
"Y yo te quiero más.
I would do anything for you, Gail. Sometimes I don't know where I belong. But there you are."

"Here I am." She smiled and kissed him, each corner of his mouth, then in the center, where his lips were warm and moist. She murmured, "I want to be good for you. So good."

"We're going to be good together," he said. "Wait and see."

"Anthony, I feel funny about letting you buy me those earrings." When he started to protest, she said, "All right, the dress. But the earrings. I shouldn't—"

"No, no." He nibbled her earlobe. "I like aquamarines. They would be beautiful with your eyes. I'll buy them. But you have to be good."

"Oh, is that how it is?" She struggled to get up, but he held her more tightly. She elbowed him.

"Ow, my head!"

"You deserve it." Laughing, she put her forehead against his. "I'm sorry for being such a pain about our house. My office has been on my mind. If you want to remodel, fine with me, but
after
the wedding. Maybe even a pool, but of course this means the yard will be a mud pit for months."

"Oh, my God! At last she is being reasonable."

She put her arms around his neck. "Spoil me. Go ahead."

"Should I?" He whispered against her lips, "Show me how good you are." She opened her mouth to him, and his kiss was long and slow and deep, tasting of smoky tobacco and below that, a complicated mix of rich coffee, bourbon, and Anthony himself. He moved under her, and she felt the hardness against her thighs. His hands slid down her back, over her hips. His tongue went deeper. She heard her own low moan. Then gradually realized where they were.

"Anthony." She pushed on his chest. "The door is open."

With a heavy exhalation that turned to a laugh, he said, "You should get up. I need to finish here."

"Do you have to do it now?"