by Alex Segura
“How’s business?” Harras said, cutting through the silence between them. The DJ had taken a break, allowing the revelers to migrate toward the bar and reload their glasses.
Pete scanned the crowd. He caught a glimpse of Kathy, near a makeshift stage. She was smiling, her face pink and gleaming from dancing and drinking. Behind her was a banner—CONGRATULATIONS MARCO AND KATHY!—written in blocky, neon letters.
“Bookstore is fine,” Pete said, not looking at Harras. “Quiet.”
“Nice change of pace, eh?” Harras said. “Enjoying retirement?”
Pete shrugged. He looked at his watch.
“Bored already? Can’t remember the last time I saw you. You’re not hiding out again, are you?”
You’re not isolating and drinking again, are you?
You’re not avoiding your friends, are you?
That’s what Harras meant, whether he knew it or not. Pete was an alcoholic. Always would be. But at the moment, for today, he was sober. Had been for a few years now. It had not been an easy road, and it was the kind of thing that required constant upkeep—meetings, prayer, and conversations with other alcoholics—just to make it through the day. But the upside was impossible to quantify. It meant Pete had a chance to live a life. That was something he hadn’t even fully realized until recently, as he felt his life slipping away.
“I’ve been busy,” Pete said, meeting his friend’s stare. Pete knew what he looked like—weary, sad, worn out.
You’ve lost weight.
Are you doing okay?
You should come out more.
What was it like?
Did you see a light?
He knew he’d touched death. That his life had ended, for a moment. Yet now, a year later—Pete could not recall a time he’d ever felt more alive. But it was coated with a sadness he’d had trouble even beginning to shake. There was a sense of dread and finality that he couldn’t figure out or remove. He shook his head with a slight jerk, as if to shrug off the feeling and touch the real world, the real things in front of him now. Like Harras. Like this party, and the reason he was here.
“I’m working a lot.... Trying to keep the bookstore going takes up most of my time. But I’m glad to see you. You’re right—it’s been too long.”
Harras started to respond, but Pete felt himself being pushed forward, an arm wrapping around his shoulder.
“Well, look who decided to show their face?”
Kathy.
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Pete said, leaning into her, welcoming the embrace. She was glowing—her smile natural and warm, her flowing sundress almost radiant with its own light. Kathy’s movements seemed sludgy but content—she was working a good buzz, no doubt, Pete thought.
She pulled back, leaning toward the restaurant’s jammed dance floor, her hand tugging at Pete.
“Well, come on then,” she said, her voice rising to be heard over the DJ’s latest song—Taylor Swift’s “Gorgeous.” “You owe me at least one dance before you disappear without saying goodbye.”
He looked at Harras, who responded with a noncommittal smirk. Pete let Kathy drag him into the crowd, bodies moving and sliding over each other, the temperature jumping up at least five degrees. The restaurant seemed to sway with each rhythmic change of the song, as Swift’s ode to a perfect, unattainable lover hit its chorus crescendo. They reached the center of the dance floor and Kathy leaned into him, her breath tinged with the smell of red wine and something minty, her cheek warm against his.
“Where have you been, Pete?”
“I’m here,” he said, his body close to hers, their posture stiff but electric, one hand on her lower back, his other hand gripping hers.
“You’re late.” The words poured out, like a pout, but Pete knew it was frustration. She wanted him to be happy about this. If he could be happy about one thing, it should be this.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But I’m here. I know it was important for you.”
He knew the words were wrong when he finished the sentence, even if the sentiment was genuine. She pulled back, her face in front of his, her eyes clear and probing.
“It should be important for you to be here, period,” she said, her tone sharp, but not fully combative, perhaps lulled a bit by the drink and celebratory evening.
Still, a warning to tread carefully. Kathy was his partner when it came to his now-paused investigative work, when she wasn’t working full-time for a local culture site, The New Tropic. She was also his closest friend. But both of those relationships lived under a cloud of something else—a spark between them that was more than friendship and certainly more than professional. A spark that had brought them together in ways he was still trying to untangle. If you’d asked Pete almost a year ago what was most important to him, as he boarded a plane to New York to gather his belongings and return to Miami, he wouldn’t have hesitated. Kathy. She was it. His last, best hope at something. But after looking into a void he could have never imagined, he’d come out of the whole ordeal broken and wary. By the time he’d recovered and scraped some kind of life together, Kathy had moved on.
Moved on wasn’t exactly true. She’d been clear with Pete, even before he boarded that fateful flight, that their prospects were dim. She valued his friendship over any kind of romance—a road she’d been down already and found wanting. From the moment they’d wheeled him into Spring Valley General, she’d been there. Waiting for him to wake up. Holding his hand through physical therapy, cheering him on. Pete vowed this would be the last time. He was done with danger. Done with drug gangs and explosions and murder. Kathy took him at his word. Helped him get situated with the bookstore and applauded his other efforts, too. They’d become closer than ever, Pete thought. But at the same time, she’d met Marco Lopez, a Miami real estate developer she’d interviewed for a piece on the burgeoning market as a freelance assignment for The New Tropic. Marco ended the interview with the offer of dinner. Kathy passed, but he persisted. Six months later, they were celebrating their engagement and Pete was just a guest who showed up late. Story of his life.
“You’re right,” Pete said, as they moved to the music, her cheek on his. “I’m happy for you. This is great.”
“That’s better,” she said. “Even if you don’t really mean it.”
She draped her arms over his shoulders as the song shifted from T-Swift to “Just One of the Guys” by Jenny Lewis. The song’s dreamy guitar intro wove around them as Lewis sang about friends getting on and girls staying young.
“Talk to me, Pete,” she said. “I never see you. You look good, if slightly under your fighting weight. But definitely better. How are you?”
The music seemed to grow louder, enveloping him in a cloud of noise, adding a buffer between him and Kathy, even though she was close enough to kiss now. He could feel her breath on his face.
“I’m fine,” Pete said, the words coming out in a stammer, unrehearsed. He wasn’t fine, really. He wanted to scream. He’d debated whether to come here at all, whether he was really up for the torture of seeing Kathy celebrate being engaged to another man. But he’d shown up. Wasn’t that something his AA friend Jack often said? Most of life is about showing up.
So, here he was. Being a good friend, feeling his insides churn, and hoping for a quick, painless exit.
“May I have this dance?”
They both turned to see a slightly younger man, tan, his black hair finely gelled, in a sharp gray suit. His smile was wide, but stopped short of his eyes. Marco Lopez had seemed puzzled by Pete since they met. Not because Pete was particularly mysterious. Marco seemed mostly curious about Pete’s dynamic with his soon-to-be wife. He wanted to figure out what kept Pete and Kathy together—why they remained close after so much loss and violence. At least that was Pete’s take. He might just not like Pete, which would put him in pretty esteemed company. Still, Pete understood the etiquette, and even if he wasn’t fully on Team Marco, he was Kathy’s friend, and he’d respect the process.
&
nbsp; “Of course,” Pete said, stepping back and motioning for Marco to join his fiancée. “It’s your night.”
“Pete,” Kathy said, as Marco led her deeper into the crowd of dancers, her face resting on Marco’s shoulder. “Don’t you leave before we get to talk, okay? I will kill you myself.”
PETE TAPPED THE unlock button on the car key and heard the familiar beep as he approached his black Toyota Camry. He waited for the footsteps behind him to stop before he turned around to see Robert Harras.
“Leaving so soon?”
“I’m not much of a party guy,” Pete said. “Not anymore.”
Harras reached into his jacket and pulled out a can of Amstel Light, which he’d presumably swiped from the party. He popped it open and took a swig.
“If this bothers you, I can—”
Pete waved him off. “It’s fine.”
“Been hearing some weird rumbling.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, stuff simmering for a while,” Harras said, looking out into the sludgy-hot Miami night. “You really upset the apple cart with Los Enfermos and that cult.”
“We did that together,” Pete said. “You were part of it.”
“Don’t get all defensive yet. I’m not finished,” Harras said.
Los Enfermos, a Castro-fueled drug gang, had been presumed dead a few years back. But the remnants of the gun-happy gangsters had gone after Pete and Kathy a year ago, while the duo investigated the Miami cult known as La Iglesia de la Luz. Strange bedfellows and all that. It had seemingly ended with the gang’s leader, Lionel Oliva, dead, his head splayed on the road that connected Miami to Key West.
“Are Los Enfermos back?”
“No, not exactly,” Harras said. “But my contacts at the Bureau think people are trying to pick up those pieces—namely, the cocaine trade. Los Enfermos still exist, in some way, but they’re not big enough to make much noise. Yet. In the meantime, it’s looking like other people are stepping in and trying to make a go of running drugs through Miami.”
“New boss, same as the old boss,” Pete said. “What can I do to help?”
“Not sure yet. My info is spotty. I’m the definition of ‘out of the loop’ these days,” Harras said. “What else are you working on? Gimme something interesting to talk about, at least. I’ve been leaning against a wall, slowly going deaf in there. My deepest conversation was with the waiter, who is somehow a Seattle Mariners fan in Miami.”
Pete cracked a smile. Harras and Kathy were right. He hadn’t seen them much over the last few months. Once he’d healed enough to be released from the hospital, Kathy fell into her relationship with Marco, checking in with Pete by phone or email every week or so. Harras wasn’t much for phone chats, texts, or email, so Pete heard from him even less. After the events of the last year—the death of Jackie Cruz, the battles with the cult, and Pete’s near-death encounter—he couldn’t blame them for wanting to take a break.
“It’s been quiet. Calm, for once,” Pete said. “Can’t complain.”
The store was The Book Bin, a used bookstore on Bird Road that was now under Pete’s watch. Its previous owner, Dave Mendoza, had signed control over before disappearing a little less than a year ago, in the wake of the revelations that he and his family were part of the deadly cult that had tried to eliminate Pete and Kathy.
Pete found the work soothing, in stark contrast to the high-octane chaos of his previous exploits as a PI. It was easy to lose himself in the minutiae of the job—ordering and organizing books, dealing with his regular cast of customers, and managing his sole part-time employee, Isabel Levitz, a retired librarian who couldn’t retire her passion for books. She was quirky but well read, and had saved Pete’s ass many a time when a customer came in asking for books Pete had never heard of. It also made the hours sitting at the front desk a little less solitary. Financially, the store made just enough to stay open and to float Pete his rent and expenses, meaning he could turn down any occasional investigative jobs that cropped up. Fernandez Investigations lived on in name only, intentionally stuck in neutral. The days of car explosions and dead friends were over. Pete Fernandez, semi-retired never-was.
The bookstore and the life he’d built around it kept him afloat, but it was the AA meetings he tried to attend—and the fellowship surrounding the recovery program—that kept him alive.
Alive.
The concept still seemed foreign to him, especially after the months of recovery, pain, and stretching to reach a modicum of normal. He’d found himself basking in the banality of things: a cup of coffee in the morning. Driving to work. A quiet meal.
“Nice to see you out of that hospital gown.”
“Tell me about it. But, hell, I was happy to be around to wear it.”
“I can imagine,” Harras said. “You cut it pretty close.”
“Too close.”
“They ever get a line on Salerno? Or what his deal was?”
“Chopp’s partner, Sternbergh, the guy who was waiting in the car—”
“The guy that rushed in when he heard the shots?”
“Yeah, saved my life,” Pete said. “He said they lost Salerno after that. Heard a few things, a sighting in Baltimore, but nothing else. Guy’s in the wind.”
Harras’s stare became distant as he mulled the info over. After a moment, he shifted gears.
“Heard anything from Dave?”
Pete shook his head. Pete hadn’t seen Dave since he put a bullet in the head of Gary Sallis, the up-to-that-point secret leader of a dormant, murderous Miami cult. Shamed and blacklisted, Dave went into hiding, speaking only through his attorney as he battled charges and tried to stay out of prison for his part in the murder of Miami teen Patty Morales a decade before.
“My contacts on the force tell me he’s not doing so hot,” Harras said. “They’ve been keeping tabs on him.”
“What do you mean?”
“Dave was on their radar long before the stuff with La Iglesia. Once the church scandal hit, it got a lot of people in my line of work interested. They say he’s living on the street these days, drinking and using, spending whatever money he and his family have left,” Harras said, taking another pull from the beer. “The Iglesia stuff last year sent him reeling. We put a bright light on his deepest, darkest secret and then he ran. You’d know better than me, but it feels like he’s self-destructing.”
The idea that Dave, one of his closest friends, one of the few people who stuck by Pete when he was at the lowest bottom of his own alcoholism, was now in the throes of addiction hit Pete hard. The guilt stabbed and turned inside Pete’s stomach. How had he let it go on this long? he wondered. He should have sought Dave out sooner. Tried to help him. If anyone knew what it was like to want to dive headlong into the darkness of drink and drugs, it was Pete.
“Got a bead on him?”
“Actually, I do.” Harras dug into his back pocket and handed Pete a slip of paper. “Just the basics—last seen, KAs, the usual. Keep me posted.”
“You got it,” Pete said as he turned toward his car.
Before he could finish the pivot, Harras cleared his throat. Pete wheeled back around.
“Hey, gotta ask—how’re you feeling?” Harras said, motioning toward the restaurant. Pete could hear the droning beats of New Order’s “Regret”—clearly a Kathy choice—coming from the space. “About all this?”
“Fine,” Pete said, not hesitating. “I think it’s good. I’m glad they’re happy.”
“But are you happy?”
“I’m happy for Kathy.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
Pete ran a hand over his face.
“She deserves to be with someone like Marco,” he said. “She wouldn’t be happy with me. Not me six months ago or me today. Plus, she turned me down. So, this is just the way it goes. I can’t blame her.”
“That’s pretty mature of you,” Harras said. “Hell, I’m surprised I even got invited.”
“Yeah, I wondered how you
finagled that.”
They shared a quick, staccato laugh. They both turned their heads at the sound of the restaurant’s front door swinging open.
“How charming, two boys sitting outside and whining about girls,” Kathy said with a smirk. “I mean, I’m assuming that’s what’s happening. I’m usually right.”
“We’re just catching up,” Harras said as Kathy joined them. She motioned for Harras’s beer and took a swig before handing it back.
“Is that all?” she said. “Quite the after-party you guys have going out here. I’m not even going to get into the fact that it looks like you’re fucking leaving, Pete Fernandez.”
“Harras was telling me what he’d heard about Dave,” Pete said. “I’m going to try and track him down.”
“Like, right now? Well, good luck with that,” Kathy said. “I’ve tried. He doesn’t want to be found. He’s strung out.”
“We’ll see about that.”
PETE HEARD THE car pulling into the strip mall parking lot as he yanked his keys out of his pocket. He reached for the front door of The Book Bin and waited a moment. It was close to one in the morning and, aside from Pete’s own car, the lot had been empty. A black Oldsmobile flashed its lights at Pete, beckoning him. Pete ignored it and slid the key into the lock. Pete heard the car door open and slam shut in quick succession. He pulled the key back and turned around. A wiry man with sparse brown hair was making his way toward Pete.
“Can I help you?” Pete asked.
“Pete Fernandez?”
“That’s me.”
“I’m Edward Rosen. I’m an art dealer and attorney, but I also ... represent important people. One in particular,” the man said, close now, extending his nicely manicured hand. “And my client would like to discuss something with you.”
“That’s nice,” Pete said. “But seeing as how it’s one in the morning and I’m exhausted, I’m going to have to—what’s the right term? Put a pin in this one for a bit.”
“I apologize for disturbing you,” Rosen said. “But it’s of great urgency that my client speak to you. He guarantees that the meeting will be mutually beneficial. He would consider your speedy response a personal favor.”
