The Forgotten (12 page)

He looked in his rearview for the Chrysler but didn’t see it.

A group of barefoot kids in shorts and no shirts was running up and down the street, kicking a soccer ball with great skill. They all stopped playing and stared when Puller pulled up in front of the Sierra in his Corvette. When he got out, they stared even harder and drew closer.

He grabbed his bag from the passenger seat, shut and beeped the doors locked with his key fob, and strode up to the kids.

One of the boys looked up at him and asked in Spanish if that was his car.

Puller answered in Spanish that it was actually being rented by a friend of his named Uncle Sam.

The boy asked if Uncle Sam was rich.

“Not as rich as he used to be,” answered Puller as he walked toward the Sierra’s little front office.

Puller paid for two nights, got his room key and instructions on where and when breakfast was served. The woman behind the desk told him where he could park his car. She gave him a key card to access the garage.

“I can’t leave it on the street?” said Puller

She was a small Latina with straight dark hair. “You can, but it might not be there in the morning.”

“Right,” said Puller. “I’ll put it in the garage.”

When he got back to the car the gang of boys had surrounded it, touching it and whispering.

“You like cars?” Puller asked them.

They all nodded their heads.

“I’ll let you hear the engine.”

He got in and fired it up and revved the engine. They all jumped back at the sound, looked at each other and started laughing.

Puller drove to the garage area that was on a side street next to the Sierra. He put his key card in an electronic reader and the large metal door rose, revealing a large space beyond. He pulled through and the door automatically closed. He parked the car, exited via a side door of the garage, and walked back to the Sierra.

At the corner he saw one of the boys who had been admiring his
car. He had brown curly hair and looked about ten or eleven. Puller noted the skinny, undernourished frame. But he also saw that the boy’s muscles were hard and his features determined. His gaze was wary, but then Puller figured around here one had to be careful.

“You live around here?” asked Puller in English.

The boy nodded. “
Sí
.” He pointed to his left. “
Mi casa
.”

“What’s your name?”

“Diego.”

“Okay, Diego, I’m Puller.” They shook hands. “You know Paradise really well?”

Diego nodded. “Very good. I live here all the time.”

“You live with your mom and dad.”

He shook his head. “
Mi abuela
.”

So his grandmother was raising him, thought Puller.

“You want to earn some money?”

Diego nodded so vigorously that his soft brown curls bounced up and down. “
Sí. Me gusta el dinero
.”

Puller handed him a five-dollar bill and then took out his cell phone. He showed him the picture of the Chrysler.

“Keep an eye out for this car,” he said. “Don’t go near it, don’t talk to the people in it, don’t let them see you watching, but get the rest of the license plate for me if you can, and what the people inside look like.
Entiendes
?”

“
Sí
.”

Puller held out his hand for the boy to shake. He did so. Puller noticed the ring on the boy’s finger. It was silver with a lion’s head engraved on it.

“Nice ring.”

“
Mi padre
gave it to me.”

“I’ll be seeing you, Diego.”

“But how will I find you?” asked Diego.

“You won’t have to. I’ll find you.”

T
HE HOME WAS
one of the largest on the Emerald Coast, ten acres on prime waterfront on its own point with sweeping views of the Gulf across an infinite horizon. Its total cost was far more than a thousand middle-class folks collectively would earn in a year.

He pushed lawnmowers and hefted bags of yard debris and loaded them onto trucks parked in the service area behind the mansion. The landscape trucks were not allowed to come through the front entrance with its fine cobblestone drive. They were relegated to the asphalt in the rear.

There were two pools in the rear grounds, one an infinity pool and the other an Olympic-sized oval. The grandeur of the grounds was matched only by the beauty of the interior of the thirty-five-thousand-square-foot home with an additional twenty thousand square feet in various other buildings, including a pool house, guesthouse, gymnasium, theater, and security quarters.

He had seen one of the indoor maids venture outside to receive a package from a FedEx driver, who also was relegated to the service entrance. She was a Latina dressed in an old-fashioned maid’s uniform complete with white apron and black cap. Her body was slim but curvy. Her face was pretty. Her hair was dark and luxurious-looking.

At the end of the dock that ran straight out into the Gulf was a 250-foot yacht with a chopper resting on top of an aft helipad.

He labored hard, the sweat running down his back and into his eyes. While other workers stopped for water or shade breaks he continued to push on. Yet his tasks had a purpose. They allowed him to circumnavigate the grounds. In his mind he placed all of
the buildings onto a chessboard, moving pieces in accordance with various scenarios.

What he focused on most of all was the deployment of the security forces. There were six on duty during the day. All seemed professional, worked as a team, were well armed, observant, and loyal to their employer. In sum, there didn’t seem to be many weaknesses.

He assumed there were at least a fresh half dozen deployed at night and maybe more, since the darkness was a more apt time for an attack.

He drew near enough to the main gate coming in to see the alarm pad and surveillance camera mounted there. The gates were wrought iron and massive. They looked like the ones in front of the White House main entrance. The walls surrounding the front of the estate were stucco and over six feet high. The homeowner obviously wanted privacy.

He dropped to one knee and was performing some pruning tasks around a mound of bushes when he saw a Maserati convertible pull up to the gate. Inside were a man and a woman. They were both in their early thirties and had the well-nourished and pleased looks of folks for whom life had held no hardships.

They punched in the code and the gates swung open.

As they passed by him neither of them even looked at him. But he looked at them, memorizing every detail of their faces.

And now he also had the six-digit security code to the front gate, beacuse he’d seen the man input it. The only remaining problem was the surveillance camera.

He drew closer to the gate and worked on trimming back a bush. His gaze ran up the pole to which the camera was attached. The power line was enclosed in the metal pole, a standard practice, he knew. But once the pole was set in the ground the power lines had to go somewhere.

He stepped through the gate before it closed all the way and started to work on a patch of lawn running back from the camera post to the fenceline. As he got down on his hands and knees and clipped at weeds and picked up an errant leaf that had had the effrontery to land on the lush grass, he studied the slight hump in
the ground. This was where the trench had been dug for the electrical line running to the gate, which also powered the camera, voice box and security pad.

He eyed the rumpled contour of the lawn to where it disappeared under the fence. If one had not been looking for it, the evidence of the trench would have been almost invisible. But not to him.

He had to assume that the power line would be encased in a hardened pipe, but maybe not.

He rose and walked around the perimeter of the property. He could not go back through the gate without revealing that he now knew the code. He also wondered how often it was changed. They were in the middle of the month and also the middle of the week. If they changed the code at the end of seven or thirty days, which was probable, he still had time.

He reached the rear of the grounds and saw the vastness of the Gulf spread out before him. Seagulls swooped and dove. Boats either flew across the water or slowly puttered along. People were fishing, sailing, motorboating. That was during the day.

At night they were moving other kinds of product. The kind he had once been. But luckily he had escaped. Others had not been so fortunate.

He put his bag of lawn debris in one of the trucks and paused to drink from a cup of water he had filled from one of the large orange water coolers. He glanced at two other men who were working on a tree just inside the fenceline. They were Latinos. There was also one white man, two blacks, and then there was him. He was of indeterminate origin. Technically, he was Caucasian.

Technically.

He had never categorized himself that way. He belonged to an ethnic group, a strong one, judging by his features. There had not been many people looking to come to his country and breed with the ones already there. It was remote, it was harsh, outsiders were welcomed not with open arms, but only with suspicion. His people were proud, and they did not take kindly to insult or injury. Well, that was putting it mildly. They never turned the other cheek.

He crumpled up the paper cup and threw it into the garbage bin
on the back of the truck. He walked through the rear gate and made his way over near the infinity pool area.

The Maserati was parked nearby. Lounging next to the pool was the woman who’d been in the car. The man was not there. She had slipped off her sundress and high heels, which sat next to her as she lay back on the chaise. Her bathing suit was tiny, a strip of fabric up top, a thong below. As she rolled over on her stomach he could see nearly all of her revealed buttocks. They were mostly firm, but still soft enough in places to be intensely feminine. She undid the straps on her top and let them fall to the side. Her legs were long, smooth, and toned. Her light blonde hair, done up in a ponytail while in the car, now cascaded along her freckled shoulders.

She was a very beautiful woman. He could understand why the man in the Maserati had been smiling so smugly, as if she were his property.

His musings stopped when he realized he’d made a mistake.

He had watched the woman a few seconds too long. He heard footsteps behind him and felt the tug on his arm.

The voice said, “Move your ass. Now!”

He turned to see one of the security men there, earwig inserted, squiggly cord running down to the power pack hidden in his waistband behind his jacket. Though it was hot, they all wore jackets. And under the jackets were their guns.

“Now!” the man said again, staring up at him. “You’re not here to admire the view, lawn boy.”

He moved off at once. He could have killed the man with one strike to his neck, but there would have been no point. His plan would have been ruined. But his time would come.

He looked back once more at the woman to find her turned slightly to her side—not enough to reveal her breasts, but nearly so.

She seemed to be watching him. Behind the sunglasses he could not be sure. He wondered why someone like her would take notice of someone like him.

The answer to that question could not be good for him.

P
ULLER SAT ON THE BED
in his room and looked around. Nothing special. A floor, a door, a window, a bed, and a toilet. There was a double connecting door with the room next to his. He’d stayed in some better places and many far worse ones.

The walls were thin. He could hear the sounds coming from adjacent rooms, not clearly enough to recognize words, but certainly raised voices. On his way up to the room he’d passed several people, presumably residents here, who’d gazed at him suspiciously. He apparently was one of the few whites here. Maybe the only one.

By the glances and the whispers that had accompanied them, Puller assumed that some folks might vocalize their disapproval of his presence here in terms that would require him to take action. He didn’t want that to happen and would prefer if it didn’t. But he would be prepared if it did.