It would have to be unraveled.
She wondered if Tonio’s life and death letter had to do with his life or someone else’s. He seemed so charming it was hard to imagine he’d have nefarious connections. Royale Cove seemed like a peaceful care center too. Too much peace for Blanche’s taste until she started finding intrigues in every corner. Rest in peace was more like it.
Blanche pulled up a map online and studied a route that avoided I-95 all the way to the Sunny Isles neighborhood. She was relieved to see it was not all the way into Miami. She’d grown up a farm girl and then lived in various Missouri suburbs. Miami was a beast she had not considered taming with a car. She had all she needed near Boca Raton.
She chewed off what was left of her lipstick.
The name on the envelope was illegible but that had never stopped Blanche as a secretary. To her experienced eye, it seemed reasonable that the scratchings on this envelope were possibly the same last name as Tonio’s.
She hit a story that showed a handsome middle-aged man with black hair slicked back and a remarkably similar mustache to Tonio’s. The young man in question, Alvaro Funosa was photographed at a Miami art gallery. He was too young to be the brother that Tonio mentioned she would think.
The handsome Alvaro appeared in the society links a good deal. He seemed to be a charitable, art loving fellow. Blanche gasped. Another article mentioned Alvaro’s father: César an alleged syndicate leader but legal owner of casinos in cities across Florida.
Uh, oh. The mob connection might be real. Al always said her imagination carried her away. Blanche didn’t want to paint Tonio with the family brush but...
Was that cause to open the envelope? Though by opening it, she wouldn’t want to get the attention of any organized crime outfits to come her way. They might frown on mail tampering by old ladies.
So was Antonio in the family business? Would it matter anymore at his age? Would he send a letter to save someone or end them? Maybe he was trying to reform the family. Her secretary x-ray vision said the writing on the envelope looked more likely to be addressed to Alvaro who didn’t seem to have any dirty headlines. Antonio wasn’t reaching out to César.
Diane hadn’t called to set up Blanche going out there again and today held nothing essential.
She called Al.
“You want to go get some Cuban food?”
“It’s 10 a.m. A bit early, but what the heck, you know?”
“We’re going to Sunny Isles, so we probably won’t get there till lunch time anyway.”
“Especially the way you drive, avoiding the arteries.”
“Watch it. I’ll un-invite you.”
He snorted and said, “See you outside in 15.”
Chapter Twenty-One
After awhile Blanche cut the car over to A1A. It wasn’t crowded since summer wasn’t tourist season in steamy Florida, not this part anyway. She liked to catch glimpses of the ocean between condos and buildings. She didn’t site see much after 13 years in Florida and it was good to remind herself of the beauty.
Al snored quietly in the seat next to her. She supposed it wasn’t that important to have him along, but when she ventured into unknown territory it comforted her. He had a cell phone too which she’d begun to discover you never knew when you might need one.
The condos grew taller and the beach sparkled. Sunny Isles grew up around her as she drove the intracoastal on one side and the ocean on the other with all land between crowded with condos, hotels and marinas.
She parked at Haulover Park and Al tried to act like he hadn’t been asleep.
“Whoa, $5 for parking ain’t cheap, huh?” He adjusted his hat and canes and got out as she dug in her purse for the obligatory fee.
“Cheaper than having to get the car out of hock from the tow truck company, I guess.”
In truth, she didn’t know if there was Cuban food in the area at all, it was just that she had Cubans on her mind when she called Al. They walked the beach front ducking into tourist schtick shops for heat relief and admiring the bling in the other shaded windows. The summer intensity choked the air with heat and humidity.
Al brought out a hanky and mopped at his rosy face. “What are we looking for anyway?”
“Who says we’re looking for anything?”
He grinned and said, “I do. You wouldn’t come here for nothing.”
Blanche grinned back. “You got me. I thought we’d deliver Tonio’s life or death envelope in person.”
“Yikers! Do we know if the guy even wants company?”
“Well, not all the way to the door maybe. I just wanted to see what kind of people they might be.”
Blanche consulted her notes as they strolled and stopped to squint up at a high rise condo. It was all white with glass balconies that sparkled in the bright sun.
Al gave a light whistle. “That’s some major money there, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, you’re not kidding. Looking out over the water here. Money out the wazoo.”
They shuffled ahead to the door and pushed into the glassy chilled interior. A door man let them in and now hovered behind them. The air conditioning brought immediate relief. The glass on the three ocean view sides gave breath taking blue views. Maybe there was more to this rich life style than she realized.
Quite a few sun burned bodies baked on the beach for a weekday, Blanche thought.
She was distracted from the view by a man behind a desk in what must be a very expensive linen suit. He smiled. “How may I help you two today?”
Guess that blew the snooping around the building plan that Blanche had harbored. No unsupervised guests around here either.
She noticed a huge man in a dark suit hunched in a corner watching all their moves. In that dark color in summer, he couldn’t possibly be a local. He was watching them through squinted eyes but the employee at the counter seemed friendly enough.
“Uhhh...” Al was never good at stories spur of the moment.
“Do you have a model unit?” Blanche asked.
The linen suit grinned even bigger. “We certainly do. I’d love to show you around if you can wait just one moment.” He got busy on a walkie talkie and gave the doorman some kind of sign.
While these fellows organized themselves, Blanche walked over to the wall of mailboxes which discreetly only had numbers with no names. Darn them. The number on her envelope was clear enough though. Antonio’s chicken scratch had made the effort on the actual address. She dropped the letter quietly into the numbered slot. So much for investigating but Antonio hadn’t given her much to see.
Linen suit man took them up the elevator to a penthouse unit. They must be trained not to look down on the visitors off the street in case they had money that was hard to see in their choice of clothes and manners, unlike Benita the snarky tour guide at Royale Cove.
He opened the door on an all glass and white apartment with a flourish and they walked in stunned to silence. Blanche remembered to close her mouth. Furniture and carpet in white blended together with pops of electric blue Florida sky and ocean giving all the accent color the condo needed.
He showed them the multi-million dollar three bedroom digs with Blanche and Al shuffling along behind in awed silence.
“That is one heck of a view,” Al finally said. “I think I can see Europe.”
Linen suit man had a practiced laugh. “Mr and Mrs....?”
Blanche said, “Davison.” Al coughed.
“Would you fill out the interest form so we can follow up on our showing and let you know of offers in our five condominiums here in Sunny Isles.”
Blanche wrote in Tommy’s address up north with the bogus Mr. and Mrs. Davison name so they seemed like prospective buyers. Tommy would salivate over this place for sure. His champagne taste always caused him problems. She wondered where he’d gotten that. She and Harry never were always budget conscious.
“Where did you hear about us?” He took the form with a flourish and turned it over to make notes on
the back.
“My son is an acquaintance of the Funosas and had said it was a nice area. Does César live here as well?”
“Oh, our Mr. Funosa is a long time resident, but no his father is not a resident yet. He seems content elsewhere for the time being.”
In the elevator on the way back to the lobby, Blanche said, “I couldn’t help but noticing that odd man in the lobby...?”
Mr. Linen suit made a face. “We have some part-time residents that insist on having their own security in the lobby.”
“Dear me, is it dangerous in this area?” Blanche asked with her most innocent tone.
The practiced laugh came again. “No, no, no. They are foreigners.” Then he whispered, “Russian.”
So Blanche thought no special security for Mr. Alvaro Funosa, but a secure enough building that no one would march up to his door either.
When they exited the elevator, a handsome middle-aged Latino man with a thin mustache, coral trousers and a crisp white shirt had the door man cornered. It was Alvaro Funosa from the art galleries pictures on the internet.
“Tell me who has been here?” He demanded.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Señor Funosa.”
“The post office, they don’t bring the letters without the postage.” He shook the envelope Blanche had deposited in a mail slot at the door man.
Blanche casually shook hands with the Linen Suit salesman who bid them a quick goodbye and headed over to the ruckus. Blanche feared he’d try to introduce them.
Alvaro said, “A short old man? Was he here? Or one of my father’s people? I’ve told you not to let them in.”
“No, I swear. No one.” The doorman responded.
Blanche and Al slipped into the heat wave of the street and looked at each other. Al raised an eyebrow. “Let’s get out of here before we’re busted, Mrs. Davison.”
“I knew you’d give me a hard time about that.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Veda came for a facelift. But now she could never leave. They warned her it was the last one possible. She’d actually paid extra for the privilege of disfigurement in Unit 2. She contemplated herself in the mirror.
It had been a year but the tightness had not abated and the strained look it gave her would be a field day to the press and those magazine TV shows if she stepped off the island. She’d certainly never work as an actress or have a life in the public eye again.
How had they gotten her eyebrows so wrong? She picked up her reading glasses and leaned into the mirror. The brows were obviously not even. She knew she could sue. She should sue. At least once a week, she worked herself up to the point of calling her lawyer.
During the coma, though, her retainer had lapsed. She’d used her last IRA for the surgery counting on a few jobs when she got back to build up some new funds. Social security could feed her, but it didn’t pay the taxes on her million dollar estate.
That too was gone. It had all been so horrible. She’d woken up a month after a botched surgery. Her estate had been liquidated by the lawyer to pay fees for Royale Cove and him. The evil beast. He should have sued them when she didn’t wake up on time.
She pulled down on her left cheek for the millionth time trying to see if a little tuck would even her face back out. It might just do the trick, but she’d need money.
She let go of her face with a big sigh. The lawyer’s final act before kissing her goodbye had been to bully Royale Cove into giving her permanent residency if she wouldn’t sue or go to the press with her story. It could never come out in the press. She’d die of humiliation.
She picked up a lipstick and applied the glossy pink that was a good accent to the shiny blond of her hair and put on her dark glasses to hide the uneven eyes.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“¡Tio, no me escuches!”
Antonio closed his eyes. Listening to his nephew be stupid strained his patience. His hand sweat on the phone. He glanced around to see if anyone was near.
“No, you aren’t listening to me. This is muy importante,” Tonio said.
“I am not my father. I am not going to enter into this. You are creating drama.”
Antonio had sneaked out of the Royale Cove center and walked to the country club telephones to have this conversation in privacy, but it wasn’t going as planned.
“But you are in the family business, Alvaro. All that art is cleaning the money that comes in on the beaches and in the marinas. Don’t you keep track of the marina?”
Antonio heard his nephew sigh. “Not me, mi mayordomo.”
“Butler, Dios mio...don’t play innocent with me.”
“I’m not involved.”
“I just want you to talk to your father. Tell him whatI said in the letter. It will change his mind,” Antonio said.
“César has decided to do something different. You know that.”
“That’s why I’m in this God forsaken island prison for ancianos. He wanted to change things and had to get rid of me.”
“But there were mistakes...”
“I’m not done yet.” Antonio gritted his teeth.
“He said he couldn’t afford anymore problems.” Alvaro put special emphasis on the word problems.
Antonio gritted his teeth. “He just wants to concentrate on the money and not on the reason this all started.” He couldn’t believe his nephew would dig into old wounds in Antonio’s soul like that.
“Times have changed, Tio. He is modernizing. Surely you can see that.”
“I see him abandoning his people. That was the whole point!” Tonio muttered Spanish curse words to himself.
“Dios, I can’t believe you have me defending him. Look, I’ve separated myself from that life and I cannot get involved.”
“But there is a killer. He shouldn’t be allowed to live. A killer and torturer of our own people...”
“Your people. My people are Miami.”
“Don’t say that. Don’t ever forget what you came from!”
“I come from Miami. Now I have money and I’m in Sunny Isles. I’m an art collector,” Alvaro insisted.
“Keep telling yourself that.” The quiet hung for a moment, then Antonio said, “Just tell your father the name.”
“I’m not getting involved with him. Tell him yourself.”
“He wants proof. He won’t take my calls.”
“Last time you were wrong. Tio, I love you but you’re slipping. He wants you to have a quiet old age.”
“Like he wants you to overlook the marina in your fancy penthouse?”
The silence signaled a stand off. Antonio sensed himself losing.
“Will you at least get me one of those throw away mobile phones with César’s private number? I can send him photos for proof. Then you can stay out of it.”
“My father will kill me if I give you his private number.”
“Don’t tell him.” The pause on the phone got longer. “Just get me the phone.”
Alvaro swore and Antonio listened to the wheels turning in his nephew’s head. Despite the rifts in the family, he knew that the 42-year-old boy had been raised with family loyalty.
“I can’t get up there right now, but I’ll try to figure something out.”
Antonio thought fast. “I have a friend coming in to visit me soon. Send the phone to Blanche Binkley.”
“Fine.” They exchanged the information
Then Alvaro said, “Tio, I give you some advice. Stay out of it. My father doesn’t want you involved. He is going a different direction. Let it go. Relax and enjoy yourself.”
He laughed. “Enjoy my confinement? Is that what you are doing?” Antonio meant it sarcastically.
“I’m trying. I’m trying to stay alive and out of jail and out of my father’s way.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Blanche finished doing her stretches and practicing her self defense moves in her lavender robe then settled into her floral sofa with her computer. She had to decode some bit of Medicar
e billing nonsense before she went to the Island again. John Mateo from the Sun Sentinel sent her a set of charts. She sipped black coffee and went back and forth between the codes on Edna’s bill, searches on the internet and the chart. It was unwieldy, and Blanche doubted her own accuracy with this method. It seemed you needed a rocket scientist for these bills.
She wondered why she had not heard from Diane. The Dragon didn’t seem the type to bide her time. Blanche found one code that seemed to indicate a leg brace charge. She knew for sure that Edna had not worn a leg brace the other day. Blanche considered that sometimes a doctor recommends something and you don’t do it. That would be an innocent explanation and also a legitimate billing if a leg brace crouched in Edna’s closet. Blanche stewed a moment. Then she imagined how much a bill for an imaginary leg brace would add up to if 100 people, say, had one on their bill. The quantities associated with the care codes concealed yet another mystery. Blanche cursed the government.
Her phone rang and she reached over to answer.
“Meet me at that bakery. It’s important.”
Good morning Diane, Blanche thought. “As it happens my calendar is free.” The sarcasm was lost on the woman. “You mean Georgina’s?”
“Thirty minutes.” Diane hung up in Blanche’s ear.
Blanche dressed in tennis shoes white elastic waist shorts and a dark purple sleeveless blouse with a hummingbird motif. She added lipstick and still had enough time to walk down to the bakery. She wondered what had Diane all lathered up after the hiatus.
Blanche needed to play hard to get or Diane would run her around Robin Hood’s barn and Blanche wouldn’t know for what or why. Blanche admitted to herself she wanted to know about the secrets out on Royale Cove. She wasn’t interested in checking in as a customer, mind you. They didn’t even let people leave the grounds unescorted. That would be too much.
Blanche stood in front of the bakery case contemplating the French delicacies. She’d had breakfast, but she didn’t come here often on her retiree budget. You only live once, she thought, contemplating a chocolate filled croissant.
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