Don't Lose Her

by Jonathon King

  After a few aborted turns down tractor-rutted service roads and a stop at a corrugated steel warehouse shell, I finally came upon a walled and ornamented entryway that appeared residential—residential, considering its location, but palatial considering the six-foot-tall bronzed sculptures of rearing horses that flanked an iron gate. A family crest read ARENAS. Through the gate, I could see a long, palm-lined driveway and a terra-cotta-colored barrel-tiled roof in the distance.

  I was in search of Manuel Arenas, age forty-one, convicted sixteen years ago in federal court for unlawful distribution, possession with intent to distribute, and importation of cocaine. Diane had prosecuted the case against Manuel and his older brother, Eduardo. The eldest brother was ruled not guilty for lack of direct evidence. When Manuel was convicted, Diane had asked for the maximum penalty, fifteen to life.

  Billy had explained to me that the younger brother had refused to implicate his sibling and took the weight himself, testifying that he alone had used his family’s agricultural business in southern Dade County as a cloak for his own illegal activities. In court on the day his sentence was announced, Manuel Arenas, then twenty-three years old, had raised his hands with fingers pointed as if forming duel handguns, aimed at Diane’s face, and spit four times while jerking his wrist in mock-firing before bailiffs could wrestle him out of the room to his echoing cries of “You will die, bitch! You will die!”

  Billy’s depiction of Diane’s own recollection of the moment, and the fact that it still resonated with her years later, included the look of total rage on the young man’s face and the complete conviction that a deep wrong was being done to him—and that she was responsible. The undisputed fact that Arenas had imported tons of cocaine into the United States using a variety of means and through his own family’s legitimate business ties and operations seemed to roll off his back.

  In fact, he’d been recorded in phone taps bragging about how he used hollowed-out railroad ties into which he stuffed coke. He’d brought tons into the country as framing material for outside gardens. When the DEA got onto that scheme, he’d claimed that he himself had discovered how to blend the coke into a paste that could be molded into decorative flowerpots and imported into Florida, and then crushed and refiltered into high-grade cocaine. At trial, his only defense had been that it all was simply business.

  Now, I stood at the electronically locked gate of the Arenas family­ compound, waiting to ask if he’d carried out his long-ago threat to a federal prosecutor. With no badge, no authority, and no expectations, I pushed the intercom button on the gate.

  “May I help you?” a man’s voice asked.

  “My name is Max Freeman. I’m here to speak to Manuel Arenas.”

  “And what is your business with Mr. Arenas?”

  “I’d like to ask him about Judge Diane Manchester.”

  There was a pause, but not one that seemed inordinately long.

  “Please come in, Mr. Freeman,” the voice said. The gate, triggered from within, began to open.

  The entry drive was grand: sixty-foot palms, multicolored bougainvillea adorning either side, a covered porte-cochère under which I pulled the Fury. When I parked and stepped out onto the shaded tile drive, a man was already standing next to a set of double oak doors. They were massive and appeared to have been hand-carved.

  “Mr. Freeman,” the man said with a tick of Spanish accent as I approached. He extended his hand and I took it.

  “Eduardo Arenas,” he said in introduction, and waved his hand into the entryway of his home. “Please, sir.”

  I nodded and stepped through the doorway into the coolness of air-conditioning turned a bit too cold and the fragrance of fresh-cut flowers a bit too cloying. The interior was as grand as the outside: polished marble, glittering chandeliers, pale leather seating, a variety of artwork on textured walls, all awash with sunlight pouring through two-story glass windows that formed the back wall of an expansive great room. As I stepped down from the foyer into the room, a woman dressed in a maid’s uniform approached with a tray.

  “Coffee, Mr. Freeman?” Eduardo Arenas said. “Or something else?”

  “Uh, no. No, thank you,” I managed. I admit I was slightly put off by the welcoming tone and deference considering I had shown up unannounced. But I was not here to be clever or unassuming.

  “I would like to speak to your brother, Mr. Arenas,” I said. “Is he available?”

  Eduardo was a man small in stature, maybe five-eight and 140 pounds. He had dark, perfectly coifed hair, black eyes, and some age lines in his face, but fewer than one would expect for a man nearing sixty. He was dressed in dark linen slacks and an intricately patterned white guayabera shirt.

  “I have sent for Manuel, Mr. Freeman. He is out working in the groves,” Eduardo Arenas said, motioning me to sit as the maid placed the coffee service on a glass-topped table before leaving. “May I ask what your visit is in reference to?” The man’s English was perfect.

  “I assume you recognize the name of Judge Manchester,” I said. “Are you aware of the recent news of the judge?” Arenas sat and poured us both a small china cup of dark coffee.

  “Her maiden name is McIntyre. She was the prosecutor in my brother’s federal trial,” Arenas said matter-of-factly. “Many years ago … and yes, I keep up with the news, Mr. Freeman. The kidnapping of a judge in the United States is very big news.”

  Arenas sipped his coffee and sat silent, waiting for another question.

  “I work for Mr. Billy Manchester, the judge’s husband. And as you might guess, we are looking at all possibilities involving her disappearance. Mr. Manchester said that his wife was very afraid of your brother, Mr. Arenas,” I said, matching the man’s direct tone. “Even after many years.”

  Arenas put down his cup, looked down between his knees, folded his hands in front of him, and sighed.

  “Manuel was very young then, Mr. Freeman,” he said, still looking down. “He was young and foolish and caught up with himself and the times.”

  I said nothing. I’d heard too many stories begin the same way. I knew Arenas would go on and I let him.

  “Manny made his mistakes, no doubt. He was a young man too proud, too boisterous, and perhaps through the fault of his own family, too arrogant about the things he had and the things he thought he deserved.”

  Arenas finally looked up, his forehead and the corners of his dark eyes now holding the age lines that seemed absent only minutes before. His expression didn’t hold sadness as much as a look of a recognized guilt.

  “I was the older one, supposedly the more mature. I was the one who should have looked out for him, taught him lessons. I did not then, Mr. Freeman. I want to believe we have both learned a great deal over the years.”

  I held my silence.

  “During my brother’s incarceration, our family continued to build,” he said, raising his palms to indicate the opulence surrounding him. “We now have contracts with the state and supply most of the decorative palm trees for nearly every roadside off-ramp and rest area and government facility in South Florida. We are a serious and legitimate business, Mr. Freeman. We hold no grudges, nor do we harbor ill feelings for the dues we had to pay for past transgressions.

  “On our mother’s grave, my brother had nothing to do with whatever has befallen Judge Manchester.”

  The speech came off as heartfelt. Yet I’d heard such orations before, from political speeches to confessional soliloquies to parole board pleadings. I was about to ask a question when noise from an adjoining hall drew both our attentions. Manuel Arenas entered the room pulling a broad-brimmed hat from his head and held it in his hands as his brother stood.

  “Manuel, this is Mr. Freeman. Mr. Freeman, this is my brother, Manuel, the foreman of our family’s work crews, planters, and harvesters. He has been in the fields since five a.m., as he always is.”

  The younger Ar
enas was wider at the shoulders, thicker in the forearms, and grayer at the temples than his older brother. He was dressed in dusty jeans, workman’s boots, and a denim shirt sweat-soaked at the neck and under the arms. He wiped a strand of hair from his forehead with a sleeve and wiped his hand on his pants before taking my hand. I could feel the hardened calluses on his palms and fingers.

  He looked me in the eye when he said “Sir,” and then turned his gaze back to his brother.

  “Mr. Freeman is a friend of Mr. Billy Manchester, the husband of Diane McIntyre.”

  No recognition came to Manuel Arenas’s eyes. In fact, he looked quizzically at his brother, awaiting further information.

  “Ms. McIntyre was the prosecutor at your court trial and is now a federal judge,” Eduardo said.

  “OK,” the younger brother nodded but continued to look down.

  “The judge has gone missing, and Mr. Freeman is here to ask if you might know anything that might help them find her.”

  Again, Manuel looked perplexed by the explanation, looking first at his brother and then at me.

  “How?” he said in incomprehension.

  “How was she kidnapped?” I asked, a little too loud and in a tone that might be taken as questioning his statement or actions.

  “How may I help, sir?” he asked. “I don’t know this person. I only work in the fields. I work with my men and with the other foremen of other crews and the truck drivers making deliveries. Eduardo deals with all the business people, the lawyers and such.”

  “You don’t have any contact with the old drug runners?” I said as plainly and upfront as I could. Again, Manuel looked to his brother.

  “Do you know a Colombian named Escalante?” I said with a sharpness in my voice that I was hoping might jar him. But he did not lose his composure.

  “Those times are gone, Mr. Freeman—and so are those people,” he said quietly, looking me straight in the eye without a hint of brashness or anger or contempt. “That was another life for me.”

  He shifted his weight from boot to boot, trying to find something to do with his hands.

  “Eduardo,” he said to his brother. “May I get back to work, please? We’ve got that shipment to make to the farm in Ocala. It’s going to take until after dark to load.”

  The older brother looked to me, the question on his face.

  “Anything else, Mr. Freeman?”

  I shook my head. If these guys were bullshitting me, they were better actors than they’d been drug runners.

  Manuel bowed his head. “I wish I could be more helpful,” he said, and left the room. His brother waited until his sibling was gone before stepping toward the front door.

  “Manny works very hard, Mr. Freeman. His family takes care of him. He sacrificed a lot and we owe him that.”

  “You mean sacrificed a lot by taking the punishment alone?” I said. “Is that some kind of confession, Mr. Arenas?”

  The man looked directly into my face, unblinking.

  “My confessions are only to my God, Mr. Freeman. Is there anything else, sir?”

  “The authorities may be right behind me, Mr. Arenas,” I said, accepting my dismissal.

  “They will have my complete cooperation. If they want my phone records, my business contracts, access to my properties, they are theirs to have.

  “I repeat my brother’s words; I don’t really know Mrs. Manchester. I wish we could be more helpful. I hope the best for her.”

  Forty-five minutes later, I was northbound on the Florida Turnpike. All I’d done was run down false leads, no better than the guys working the reward tips. I was fuming in my own brand of anger when the chirp of a phone snapped me out of my funk. I had three phones and pulled out the one that connected me to CQ the basketball star.

  “Got something,” was all the young man on the other end said.

  “Face-to-face?” I said.

  “Only way.”

  “I’ll be there in ninety minutes.”

  Chapter 20

  Touch your belly! Really? Do I want to touch your belly? Jesus Christ! What kind of prisoner asks the guard if he wants to touch her fat pregnant belly?

  Do you remember when your wife was pregnant? Shit! The woman still thinks I’m a man, which is probably a good thing because she’s not supposed to know a damn thing about any of us. That was Geronimo’s big scheme and the way these assholes, including Danny, all thought we were going to get away with this deal. No sound, no voices, no touching, no removing the hood, so she can’t identify a single thing, who we are, what we look like, where she’s been. That was the line Danny used to try to convince Rae that everything would be cool.

  Rae knew it probably came directly from Geronimo, even though Danny was smart enough to come up with it himself. He was good at that kind of thing as much as she hated to admit it. He was good with the details, and that’s why he’d been so successful with the carjacking and the pot- and amphetamine-selling at the resort and the ski areas back home. He was smooth and he was quiet and he was careful. He never talked about what he did with anyone but her. “Loose lips sink ships,” he used to say, and before that, the only time she’d ever heard the line was from her rowdy girlfriends who used to laugh and say, “Loose lips suck dicks,” when they were hanging at the old Crossroads bar in a booth, acting all smart-assed and scoping out the guys.

  Danny had snorted at her version and had explained that the “sink ships” came from World War II and meant that sailors or soldiers who talked too much about missions took a chance of letting the Japs know what was up. Yeah, right—like they were sitting around in the bar shootin’ the shit and watching the game with a couple of Japs and happened­ to mention where they were sailing the next day to bomb Tokyo. Christ! Her version was much better. But Danny knew that kind of shit, history and stuff. It was another reason she’d fallen for him. Quiet and smart. It was maybe the only reason she thought this whole fucked-up kidnapping thing might work out so that they’d both walk away with a load of money and a way out of the life up north.

  You and your dreams, Rae. Don’t you know how those go by now?

  “Can you take me to the toilet again?” The whiner.

  Jesus! Rae thought. She should have known. As soon as you start being nice to them, they just want more. She’d gotten Danny to go out and buy the Boost shit because the woman needed it. Even Rae knew that you can’t keep somebody locked up in a room without food and water for days and not have something happen to them, especially a pregnant woman. So she gives her the stuff, and half an hour later she’s got to pee. And no way is Rae gonna let her piss in that bed and have that smell hovering in the room for however long they were going to be here.

  She got up and went over to help the woman up off the bed, wobbly, even with Rae holding a fist of her dress and keeping her from falling over. Stumbling. Can’t put one damn foot in front of the other. Rae guided her. Same thing as your mom, right, Rae? Jesus, who needs that memory?

  She’d been, what, seven, eight, nine years old? Staying home alone in the old single-wide they had on Skegemog Point. She’d be alone from the time the school bus dropped her off, doing homework on the couch with the TV on, eating cheese curls and drinking pop even though her mom might have left a tuna casserole in the fridge that day. She’d watch every kid’s show from three in the afternoon until she fell asleep with her orange fingertips in her mouth like a little baby. Then she’d wake up to the sound of the car pulling up, sometime deep into the night. She’d keep her eyes closed when her mom unlocked the door and came in, the glow of the TV the only light in the place.

  Rae would listen to see if the steps were quiet, and if the handbag was placed carefully on the counter. The fridge was being opened and closed. There was a rustle of clothing as her mom sat on the coffee table in front of the couch for a long minute, Rae knowing she was watching her sleep, looking at the side o
f her face, maybe even knowing Rae wasn’t really asleep. Then she’d bend over Rae, kiss her on the forehead, and gather her in her arms and take her back to her own bed. Those were the good nights, the infrequent nights.

  Mostly there were sounds of keys fumbling in the lock, a trip, and then a curse when her mom stumbled over a pair of Rae’s sneakers on the doormat. Then the bump of a hip against the counter and the fridge being opened and left standing open, its light competing with the TV for a long minute.

  That’s when Rae would open her eyes and get up on her own. “Mama, are you all right?”

  And this apparition, known by others as her mother, would singsong slur: “I’m just hunky-dory, Rae-Jay,” using her pet name for Rae. “An’ I brought a treat for my baby ’cause I know they’re your favorites.”

  Then she’d tap at the brown paper bag containing the half-drunk bottle of Allen’s coffee-flavored brandy known locally as “fat ass in a glass,” and a package of Double Stuf Oreos. And then it was Rae who would prop up her wobbling drunk mother, guide her through the narrow passageway to the back bedroom, and help her lie down without crashing into a bureau or nightstand or lampshade.

  It was Rae who went in the tiny bathroom, soaked a washcloth under the sink, folded it, and placed it over her mother’s forehead and eyes. It was she who would stare at her mother’s profile, the face that everyone called country beautiful. Even as a child Rae could see it, even through runny mascara and smeared makeup: the prettiness, the curse, the ultra-green eyes that drew men in, the rich dark hair that made them stare, the flawless skin that made them want to touch her. Her mother’s beauty was the exact opposite of Rae’s own distinctive strawberry blonde, freckle-cheeked look. And even a kid hears the whispers of the “bitchy broads” at Tom’s Pancake House: “Ain’t her daddy’s girl, is she?”