Complicated Care

by Denise M. Hartman

  She pulled out the Dragon phone and dialed Diane as they got nearer to land. Blanche chewed her lip as she listened to it ring.

  “So what’ve you got?” Diane said without any niceties.

  “In what regard?” Blanche decided to play it cool even though boiling was what she felt.

  “Where’s the roommate?”

  “Dead.”

  “What?!” Diane covered the phone but screamed at someone in the room with her. Blanche felt sorry for whoever it was. She came back on the line clearly, “She was healthy. I checked. What happened?”

  “Who knows? Edna thinks she was killed by someone.”

  “What do you think?” Diane said with a shrewd tone.

  Blanche realized that the Dragon didn’t give her mother’s intuition much stock. It made her angrier than she was.

  “Figure out what happened to Lolita yourself if you have investigators. Royale Cove Care Center isn’t talking. I’m there for the living.”

  Diane switched tracks. “You better have something on Shirley for me or...”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “What’d you think? That’s why I picked her. If she knitted mittens, I wouldn’t be interested.”

  “I don’t think she’s going to talk without getting her wheels greased.” Blanche looked out at the approach to the intercoastal wishing she could absorb some of the beauty she saw. Pink and orange sky, palm tree fingers grasping darkly at the fading blue sky. But she knew what looked so tranquil and rich through glass, held all kinds of dangers and challenges. Alligators, drug runners, I-95, hurricanes lurking off the coast to flood and destroy.

  “I’m paying you to get the story out of her. Wait, did you tell her?” The accusatory tone made Blanche’s heart skip a beat.

  “Why would I tell her? Look, there’s a lot more going on out there you should be interested in. I’m not sure what kind of story you’re looking for but there are some opportunities for, uh, someone looking to expose secrets.”

  Blanche could almost hear Diane’s expensive eye makeup crinkle as she imagined her narrowing her eyes to hone in on another prey.

  “What do you mean out there? Where are you? What are we talking about?”

  “It’s the whole place. Royale Cove. The care center needs to be called something else. Royally screwed or something.” Blanche shook her head. What was wrong with the world? Despots, mob bosses, and an actress bullied to sleep with the help. Diane the Dragon had to be put to some sort of usefulness. “Shirley wants off the island in a bad way, so you could use that to your advantage.”

  “Why would anyone want out of the most expensive, exclusive assisted living center in all of Florida?” It wasn’t concerned interest. She might be rolling her eyes.

  All Blanche’s anger at her own inadequacy and failures surged. “Like your mother? Maybe they want to be in their own homes. Maybe they want to preserve the last shreds of their dignity. Maybe they don’t want to eat lunch when they are told to. Maybe they don’t want to...” Blanche stopped realizing she was about to start using words that her daughter did not approve of the children’s grandmother using.

  Diane said sourly, “The family’s are just trying to help.” But her tone said mind your own business. She continued, “I’m not paying you to feel sorry for people. I need information not sentiment.”

  “Keep your money. I don’t want to go back there.” But Blanche knew she had to help Janice somehow and Edna had to be brought back to the condo or the mainland at least.

  “Where are you? You’re suppose to be out there!”

  “You promised to get your mom out if there was something wrong.”

  “What’s wrong?” Diane’s sarcasm communicated something that was neither care nor concern.

  “Fraud. Remember you told me to look at the bill?”

  “It doesn’t sell. Numbers don’t sell. I need a story. My investigator hasn’t turned up any open court cases on RCCC.”

  “I’m talking about your mother! Sell what? You haven’t been forthcoming about that.” Blanche let her self-righteous indignation with her circumstances and discoveries focus on the Dragon. “They are overcharging you for Edna’s care.”

  “Then hurry up. I need you on that island talking to Veda.”

  “Shirley needs money and I’ve gotta go somewhere.”

  Diane’s tone turned conciliatory. “You’re making progress, just a few more days.”

  Blanche watched through the portal as Greg’s vessel began to maneuver into the Boca dock. “I have to do something.” Or had she done too much already, she wondered.

  The talons came out in Diane’s tone. “Get back out there or else.”

  Blanche snorted despite her discomfort with the threatening tone. “Or else what? Or you’ll put me in the Dementia Unit?”

  “What’re you talking about? Are you losing it?”

  “Yeah, I’m losing it. I saw the administration out there railroad a woman into the dementia wing today and threaten some others including your mother. Ask Edna if you want to know what I’m talking about. Oh, by the way, sometimes they drug your mother and some other coherent residents when it serves their purposes. For a price the story can be yours.” The sudden shift in conversation seemed to throw Diane. In the odd pause, Blanche said, “Talk to you in a week. Decide if you’re going to pay Shirley for her story or I’m not going back.”

  Blanche hung up the phone. Her hand shook. She didn’t like confrontations like this. This whole day left her feeling weak and incompetent.

  Blanche knew the truth — she had to go back to elder hell. She had people to help. She only hoped she’d get there in time.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Blanche flung her pocketbook onto her floral sofa, home sweet condo. She hit her messages button on her phone and went to the mirror to see how bad the makeup and hair had become. Her make up conditions indicated the world was coming to an end which matched how she felt. Greg hadn’t told her if he was going back to the island or going on the lam when he put out the gangplank for her at the Boca dock.

  Before she could get her lipstick fixed, a tap at the door came that she was sure would be Al. She called to him to come in but he couldn’t hear her. She sighed at herself in the mirror and walked toward the door.

  The reporter from the Sun Sentinel had left two messages. The second one said he’d found some information he really wanted to share with her. That sounded promising and intriguing. She liked the idea of a reporter sharing info with her. Nice turn about. Lord knew she could use some hope now.

  Al shuffled in with surprising speed on his two canes. He must be feeling feisty.

  “What’s the scoop? Hold nothing back!”

  “You’ve missed me.”

  “Bahh, I want to hear about you cooped up in a nursing home.” He grinned.

  A shiver went up Blanche’s spine. “That’s not funny.” She told him the whole escapade of the last day and the dire outcome.

  “Good grief, woman! I only talked to you yesterday. How’d it get so fouled up so fast?”

  Blanche plopped down on her aging sofa. “I’m afraid someone will get killed while I’m gone, but I can’t cancel on the kids.”

  She normally liked to travel, but this child compelled double trip for Tommy’s subpoena and babysitting for Michelle’s kids did not seemed like fun, especially not while knowing she’d triggered Janice’s incarceration in the dementia wing and who knows what else.

  “So they really are the killing type?” Al shifted in the straight back lavender chair across from her.

  “You met Antonio. I didn’t think so. Maybe he’s all hot air.”

  “He didn’t seem hard core.”

  “I’m not sure he is, but he knows people who are real killers. The nephew we bumped into in Sunny Isles is just a pawn or a front in a real Cuban syndicate. I’m not really sure what Antonio is and what sort of influence he might have with the family. They
put him out to pasture, I guess. Maybe that’s a positive?”

  A flat handed slapping at the door indicated another visitor.

  “Grand Central,” Al said.

  Lois burst in before they could react. She huffed and puffed in her breathy way about the lawsuit. Blanche calmed her down.

  “Sit down. I’ll pour you a drink and you can tell the story slowly.”

  Lois’s scalp glowed pink through her bottle black dyed hair. It reminded Blanche of the sad state of her own hair-do.

  Blanche poured a big shot of gin into a fresh box of orange juice. Maybe Lois would get sleepy and go home sooner.

  In fits and starts, they got the full story out of Lois. Al did the summation, “So in reality Sal is mad about getting kicked off the condo board and getting accused of what did he do? The swindler.”

  “His lawyer got him out of the embezzlement charge and the condo board didn’t want to push the other issues,” Lois confirmed.

  Al continued, “Now he’s organizing all the people he was giving breaks to under the table. Using the hurricane leak as an excuse. Like the condo is really a dangerous place to live, people falling through holes in the floor and trapped in stairwells.”

  Lois took a big gulp of juice nodding her head.

  “Has Sal given any sort of ultimatum of how this could be brought to an end without escalating?” Blanche knew that Sal, the sly devil from New Jersey, liked to control things, he’d already mentioned carpet to her. Likely he just wanted something, maybe back on the board taking the reigns on the checkbook and contractor choices. He wanted power. He wasn’t trying to help the condo.

  Lois squinted at the ceiling and panted. “He said something about I think he called it essential repairs might calm everyone that way he could reassure people if he oversaw it or something.”

  Al and Blanche shot each other knowing looks. “I see and did he mention a company to do the work?”

  She shuffled her ballet flats. “Yeah, I don’t remember exactly.”

  Al stumped one of his canes on the floor. “His son-in-law I bet or his brother. They’re all in construction.”

  While Lois seemed to zone out clenching and unclenching the hem of her shiny green tank top, Al’s blue eyes looked over at Blanche. “What could we do?”

  Blanche studied her polished nails. “So he has to have promised something to the people he’s got up in arms. Do you suppose he only had the one weird pool scheme going in the background here?”

  She thought of Frank and his daughter Francis. While she didn’t want to get tangled up with a powerful mob family, you had to make do at times. A more permanent solution might lie in that direction.

  “We’ve got to bring Sal’s slyness to light for everyone not just the board, plus simultaneously appease the disgruntled residents. Yikes,” Al said.

  “You know any accountant types?” Blanche asked Al thinking she needed to get on with packing for her impending trip.

  “Sure, my daughter knows some. You know?”

  “What if you bring in someone official and Lois takes the person around saying it’s prep for an audit of some sort?”

  Al danced his ever present fishing hat on his head. “I like it. Put the wind up him that we’re going to find more scams on the books. Hey, what if we also find some real estate inspector to go around and do an ‘assessment inspection’? He could find some crucial problem between Sal’s apartment and someone else’s that legally Sal would need to pay for.” He made air quotation marks around “crucial problem” with his fingers.

  “You sneaky fox. In the meantime, we could get some bids to repaint the basement hurricane damage and order the annual hall carpet. That might help the rest of the residents to feel we’re listening.” Maybe Blanche and Al wouldn’t need the mob.

  Lois perked up, “We could call INS.”

  Al’s eyebrows disappeared up into his hat line.

  Blanche asked carefully, “Why would we call immigration?”

  “A lot of the people Sal has got worked up seem like maybe they’re illegal or their condo isn’t in their name, so it makes you wonder.”

  “We don’t want to get any peaceful and rent paying residents in trouble,” Blanche said.

  Lois hiccuped. “No, I like my idea. Enough trouble with all these jungle....

  “Hang on. No name calling. They are our neighbors and most are paying their share.“

  Lois said, “I don’t care. I’m going to do it.” She polished off the rest of her juice and said, “You call Alice about the carpet. I’ll make some official letters about audits, inspections and citizenship.”

  “You’re not thinking clear, you know?” Al said to her back as she marched unsteadily to the door.

  She slammed the door with a hiccup.

  Al and Blanche looked at each other.

  Blanche shook her beehive hair-do. “Everything I touch seems to be going out of control this week. Maybe I put too much booze in the orange juice.”

  “Not your fault Lois is crazy, you know?” But Al looked worried.

  Blanche looked at the closed door. “We can hope she stays her normally unorganized self or the printer won’t work. I hope you can put a rush job on your audit and inspector jobs while I’m gone.”

  Al pushed himself up, “Leave it to me. I’ll make sure Alice sees any letters that Lois tries to send.”

  Condo woes. Blanche hated it when the world wasn’t right. She hated worse when she complicated the problems.

  Chapter Fifty

  Once Blanche shooed Al out the door of her condo, she decided to take care of her phone calls first, then settle down to her computer to find her flight information from her son Tommy. She fell into secretary mode but on a day filled with disasters not efficiency.

  She dialed John Mateo from the Sun Sentinel on the cell number he’d left and waited for him to come on the line.

  “Hi Ms. Binkley, how’s Royale Cove been treating you?”

  Blanche almost broke into a sweat again thinking about her rapid departure after the office invasion and Carlos’s menacing threats. Had that only been hours ago?

  “Just peachy, Mr. Sun Sentinel Reporter. I got your articles on El Tigre. Very interesting character.”

  “Did you see anyone out there that might be him?”

  “My visit to paradise turned out to be full of old men, so it’s a bit hard to say.” She didn’t want to admit she was only inside the care center as far as he knew she was gallivanting with millionaires at the country club. “Maybe we played pinochle together. Do you have anything more specific? A photo?”

  “I’m not comfortable sending out my details yet. I need corroboration.”

  “I’m not sure what you expect me to do, I can’t confirm what I don’t know.” Blanche said.

  “Have you encountered any immigrants particularly Cubans on the island?”

  “Sure I have. Lots.” The evil Carlos flashed through Blanche’s mind. She could picture him as a killer. He was a nasty piece of work. Was he Cuban though?

  John said, “But anyone rich? I believe he’d be rich and possibly have a nice place out on the island.”

  Blanche thought about Bruce the Bald and him squeezing funds out of everyone who came through the center one way or another. Killer? He didn’t fit the bill. More of a money changer-manipulator than a mass murderer and too sickly pale to be Cuban.

  “You’re sure about the nationality?” Blanche asked. She’d like to get Bruce in trouble for something.

  “Some gangs have a mix when it comes to enforcers, but I’m feeling pretty solid on this lead. Can you send me photos of the guys you’ve got in mind?”

  Did she have anyone in mind? “Why don’t you send me something more? A photo, a hint, something? I’m hunting a needle in a haystack. I’m going to be off the island for the next week though. Remember how I thought I’d need some information too?”

  He hesitated. “I’ve checked some things for you alrea
dy.”

  “Yes, but could you find out about a Señor Rafael Angel from Cuba?”

  She heard a small gasp and some scrambling around like he was getting paper. “Do you mean Rafael Angel Castellano? How would you have come across that name?”

  “Sounds right. I couldn’t remember his last name. Glad you knew. So how would you know him off the top of your head? Is he El Tigre?”

  “No, no. He’s a sadistic enforcer from the Castro regime who disappeared off the radar recently. Everyone in crime and immigration is waiting for him to turn up in Miami. The 8th street gente are nervous about him. What’s your interest?”

  “Let’s say I might have a lead on,” Blanche searched for a euphemism, “what he is up to.”

  Get a new face, smoke cigars in a beach house, treat people badly that kind of thing. She hoped he’d stick to the cigars and give up the Cuban people abuse he seemed to be known for, but she knew human nature didn’t change with the image in the mirror. Mean young women could turn into docile looking old ladies who’d rather shoot you as look at you.

  “I’m listening,” He said.

  Blanche bit her lips “It’s complicated.”

  “These things usually are.” John was good at non-commitment Blanche noticed.

  “A guy I know out there,” Blanche rolled her eyes at herself, now she had a guy. “He thinks some Cuban despot is checking in for a quiet facelift.”

  “And you think it’s Rafael Angel. You’ve got proof?”

  Always with the proof. That’s what she’d expected. She thought about the blurry things on the phone. She wondered what she had in the Dragon phone and how to send it.

  “It’s in the works.” She tapped her nails against the headset. “What if I give you what I have on this Rafael guy and what I find out from my,” she paused, “sources when I get back next week. In exchange, you help me with something.”

  “Besides all the Medicare codes I gave you already?” He gave a dry chuckle. “And if I’m your assistant you’ll give me Rafael Angel? What have you got in mind?”