So he dislocated the other shoulder on Señor. A howl came out and Antonio looked into the despot’s one dark eye that would open. “¿Como estas?”
He forced the straw deeper into the other eyeball thinking about the brain behind it. He flinched at a screech let out by Shirley in the hall.
But he watched as Carlos drug Shirley to the door way with a hand around her middle. She squirmed so fiercely Antonio could see Carlos didn’t have a firm grasp on the feisty Veda Vespucci aka Shirley. Nor did he have a weapon.
Two nurses stood behind the mad scene but seemed confused about who they needed to inject with the needles they held.
Antonio spoke in Spanish, “Let her go and I won’t finish Señor. Maybe you can work for him and make more money for saving his life.”
Senor muttered, “Sí,Sí,Sí.”
Antonio ripped the sheet off Señor with one hand and started wrapping it around his hand.
In Shirley’s kicking and sliding around, she’d managed to grasp a cane near the door and took a swing at Carlos shin. He swore and almost dropped her.
Antonio said, “I’ll go with you if you let her go.” He leaned on Señor’s dislocated shoulder, so that he howled.
Carlos said in his most soothing Spanish it seemed to Antonio, “Señor, the helicopter is coming for you. Hold on a few minutes.”
Antonio took a swing of his own with his wrapped fist and broke the window near the bed. “Oh, dear look at the big pieces of glass. I hope they don’t end up in Señor.”
He saw Shirley pull back for another swing.
Carlos said to the nurses, “Sedate this one.” He dropped Shirley to the floor.
Shirley seemed not to move as the nurses went toward her. Carlos swooped toward the bed. Antonio side stepped. He’d left the straw protruding from Señor’s eye and lots of swearing in Spanish behind him.
Carlos said something choice to Antonio in Spanish and added in English, “You can’t leave him that way.”
Carlos walked further into the room speaking soothingly to the despot in the bed. Antonio did a doble paso around and into the hall. He made eye contact with Shirley blowing her a kiss. She squirmed under the nurses and managed to slide the phone across the carpet.
He grabbed it. One nurse started to turn away from the seemingly quiet Shirley to come after him with a needle, but Shirley winked at Antonio and started flailing.
Chapter Eighty-Eight
Al jumped when his phone rang. He’d fallen asleep in front of the computer after he’d filed the complaints as Blanche had outlined. His reporting had awarded him a screen that said “request received” so he had a measure of peace that he’d actually done the thing. No actual paper copies. Nothing printed out challenged a guy’s sense of accomplishment these days.
He scrambled to answer the phone and adjusted his fishing hat at the same time so he could see.
Antonio muttered a bunch of things, but Al heard only bits of it.
“You gotta speak up Old Man, you know? I’m hard of hearing.”
“Call in reinforcements. Things aren’t going well. Tell them he’s going to escape in a helicopter.”
Then Antonio hung up or got cut off.
Blanche had primed Al to call the county police department if the plan fell apart. They hadn’t talked about how much to tell the police, no time for details. He decided against saying fire since a ritzy place like Royale Cove probably kept some volunteer provision to save mansion paradise.
He dialed 911 and decided on a home invasion. “Someone is in my house. Help me.” He poked around in the papers Blanche had left them and gave the address of the house across from the Royale Cove Care Center. “I’m trapped,” he whispered. They instructed him to hold the line and he hung up.
He fidgeted a moment then decided to call dispatch too. When they came on the line from the county, he said, “I have a medical emergency on Royal Cove Island.”
He thought fast as they asked for details. “My companion isn’t breathing right, and she’s passed out.” He couldn’t pretend a wife that didn’t exist. It just wouldn’t honor the memory of Jocey his dear departed wife.
“If I get her over to the helicopter pad at Royal Cove Care Center, can you send someone? Hurry. I’m not sure she’s not breathing.”
Muttering, typing and other questions followed but he made his voice increasingly higher and panicked. “Please hurry!”
“Sir, our estimated arrival is 15 minutes, can you be there?”
“Yes, yes, that may be too late. Hurry!”
He hung up again and mopped his brow with his hat. He had started to believe his own story for a minute and got his heart rate up. He must have done a bang up job.
He stood on his canes and started marching toward the kitchen entrance. Antonio hadn’t mentioned where Blanche was or what was happening only that things weren’t going well.
Al couldn’t sit in the house and wait to see what happened. He paused near a telephone and considered another call to the county police, but he didn’t want to make them think it was a prank.
Where was Blanche? Why didn’t she make the call herself? This did not bode well at all. The more he thought the more agitated he became. He stepped out the back door and a light rain began to fall. His right cane slipped on the top step.
He wanted to swear at his incapacity. How could he help? He looked through the nighttime landscape lighting and saw the garage. “Just because they say I shouldn’t doesn’t mean I can’t.”
Chapter Eighty-Nine
Frank brought the card Edna had found to the Dementia Unit. Things were not going well if Blanche lost her card. He had no idea where she was. The alarm he’d heard earlier had been shut down by security.
He’d sent Edna to look on the smoking patio and then meet him at the golf carts. This was a chance to get Janice out of dementia jail while no one was looking.
Frank imagined the security guards still watched the monitors closely after the alarms. But since he’d heard shots fired just before Edna found him, he hoped they were all busy elsewhere but with no success laying their hands on...whom? Blanche? Tonio? Shirley? None of them were threatening enough for a gun though.
He preferred to be in on operations where he knew all the inside scoop. Working blind was not copacetic. He’d gotten over to the crazy side with no one noticing or raising an alarm he could hear anyway. No nurses had seen him. Edna had told him where to find Janice.
He peeked in her room and heard, “Where’s Arty?” and knew he had the right place. He scooted down the hall a ways to see if Blanche was around but he soon heard activity at the aid station and decided to get Janice out while he had a chance.
He didn’t want to risk his good luck so far. He picked up Janice and unceremoniously dumped her in her wheelchair.
“Here goes nothing,” he said.
“Now or never,” Janice said.
Frank thought if the cameras were being watched someone would be here by now. He made it through to the office vestibule.
He concentrated on maneuvering Janice’s chair, and he hadn’t heard the glass door open. He recognized the handler fellow in the purple suit immediately.
Janice said, “Where’s Arty?”
Frank wiggled the control wand on the chair awkwardly to get in front of the Latino man who was panting and pushing to get past him and Janice in the chair.
No need to let the bad guy get where he wanted to go any faster. Maybe one of Frank’s musketeers could escape if he could buy them time.
Janice reached out an arm and pulled at the purple suit coat. Neither of them said anything as he yelled in Spanish and shoved past them.
Chapter Ninety
Blanche lay breathing in the soil. The darkness pressed down on her like a weight. Yes, it was dark, but light was nearby. Off a little way now her eyes had adjust to see a sliver of the courtyard lights leaking into the side yard.
She lifted her head and looked between the dark silhouette
of shrubs. The secret entrance was the quickest way back inside. Logically, she knew her pursuer had gone on to other things but to walk back in the door she’d flung herself out of so recently didn’t seem like a good idea.
She made herself breathe slowly and consider the options. She loosened her death grip on the trash bag with the evidence and flexed her fingers.
Listen. She told herself. It was all night noises. Bugs and a bit of a breeze moving high up in the trees that she couldn’t feel here beneath the shrubs.
She felt something slither near her ankle and let out an involuntary grunt. That was it. Bad guys or no, she would not cower until she got eaten by a boa constrictor or something else deadly.
Ignoring her banging heart, she embraced the darkness, grabbed her trash bag and tiptoed out onto the lawn of RCCC.
She pressed her back to the building. That was a better feeling than crawly, slithering things. Concrete. Reality.
Had her compatriots escaped the clutches of Carlos?
They’d not planned well enough. No one had an escape plan.
She needed to go back and help them, but Carlos knew her disguise. Knew she was here.
She mustered her courage and felt in the plant for the screw driver that would pop the door open. It was missing. She felt around again. She reached for her keycard maybe that would work, but discovered she’d lost it in the escape. Dang it.
She began to scootch her way along the wall toward the courtyard, she realized she could hardly just go up to the courtyard doors to let herself inside. All the light and glass on three sides would make her a sitting duck if anyone looked for her or peeked out a window.
When she reached the pergola, she tiptoed inside and snuck a look around into the courtyard. No one out. Gloriously bright security lights blasted the area to make sure no old age inmates escaped.
Maybe she could dash across and clear the other side toward the employee entrance. Just then she heard the distant whop-whop of a helicopter.
Chapter Ninety-One
The young latino berated himself as he ran back into the building. Sweat poured down his sides under his suit. He’d lost track of the most important thing. A cleaning lady who runs away when you demand she hold the door and turn over the trash, a bald white administrator escaping in a golf cart from the punishment he deserved. These were extra things.
The main thing was Señor and he had missed it. His vengeance had led him astray. God forgive him if anything had happened to his uncle Señor Rafael. The great man had warned his nephew many times about not letting his temper take him from the main task. He’d done it again.
When he saw papers on the printer, he knew someone was spying on Señor. He thought the staff was selling secrets. They’d left Cuba to get away from that deceit. But if he were them he would sell it.
Bruce, the calvo, had acted funny. He should have known the white man wasn’t right. Why would a man who controlled his people not force his staff to do what was asked by Señor? Bruce showed vulnerability and it clearly weakened him.
Being his uncle’s staff security he knew was the main thing but his anger and impulse drew him away without stopping to think. He swore at himself and ran ahead faster.
He ran through the halls and realized he didn’t have the beefy security guard with his stupid security card to get in after hours entrance. He needed to run all the way through the facility to the offices.
He cursed in Spanish as he sprinted through the halls. It was late and empty of obstacles.
The office door, por suerte, was propped open and an old man wheeled a woman slumped in a wheel chair. The old man didn’t look up to acknowledge him at all. He maneuvered the wheel chair so ineptly that the handler thought he would have to shove it over to get past.
He cursed them to eternity and back in Spanish and the man acted like he couldn’t hear him and even bumped into him with the chair.
“iIdiota!” he screamed and shoved past tipping the chair sideways so the man had to grab it to keep the woman from falling.
When he reached the Dementia Unit door, it was locked and he kicked it. To his relief it sprang open. Someone was coming out.
He stared into the face of a slight old Cuban man. The white coat did not fool him. He pulled his pistol and pointed it at the man’s slim mustache.
“Who are you?” He demanded in Spanish, “What have you done?”
Chapter Ninety-Two
Antonio looked down the gun and swallowed. He didn’t have lots of time because soon Carlos would realize he’d walked off and start looking for him. Once he was outnumbered and outgunned it was over.
Tonio tried to smile. “I’m sure you are mistaken,” he said in English.
He glimpsed Frank in the glass door with Janice’s chair as a prop to keep it open. Frank started creeping up behind the purple suit man with the gun.
The Handler moved closer to Antonio. “Who are you?” he said in Spanish.
Janice’s craggy voice chirped, “Where’s Arty?” from the glass door.
“Soy El Tigre.” Tonio felt deep satisfaction watching the young man’s groomed eyebrows shoot up his forehead.
“You are real then? Saludos, Tigre.”
Antonio knew Frank was ready to spring but didn’t move his eyes away from the young man’s face.
The purple suited man swung around on Frank behind him. He said, “Clear off old man or I’ll shoot you and the lady. Now!”
Antonio saw Frank’s hesitation. “They have Shirley. They gave her a sedative.”
Frank didn’t look away, but took another step toward the young latino. “Janice, I’ll meet you down by the golf carts.”
Antonio saw his opening and jumped on the young man knocking the gun from his hand.
Antonio saw Frank dive for the gun as he fell to the floor on top of the young man.
Over the commotion, the beat of a helicopter began to be audible.
Antonio felt the feebleness of his old age. He wasn’t weak but compared to the young man, he was not enough. He had adrenaline on his side though. He fought with all his might.
Frank delivered a solid kick to Antonio’s opponent and knocked him off the little Cuban man.
Antonio wheezed. “Carlos is coming. Go find Shirley.”
Antonio gave his own satisfying kick to Señor’s assistant to follow the one Frank had delivered. “Get the ladies out.”
Antonio saw Frank slide the employee card through the slot and slip onto the Dementia Unit with satisfaction that Shirley would be rescued. Then a carefully delivered kick from the handler sent him to the floor.
Chapter Ninety-Three
Frank knew the entire layout must reflect the floors below. He knew they’d been doing their raid on the Unit 2 side so he assumed that was where he’d find Shirley. He’d have to take his chances past the aid station this time going all the way through the dementia area.
The sound of the helicopter beat against the roof. He knew he had to hurry or the young buck or Carlos would have Antonio for sure.
He quietly clicked the door that must go into Unit 2 listening for an alarm. Didn’t matter he had to risk it. He slipped into the first dark doorway and watched the hall, listening.
Carlos pushed the head of a gurney with a man shouting in Spanish in it. He spoke in soothing tones.
The nurses helped him move toward the elevators at the other end of the hall. This must be Antonio’s Señor person making his escape to the helicopter. Frank was torn for a moment.
He didn’t have a beef with the Señor fellow. But he did believe the terrible stories Antonio told about him. He wouldn’t mind to take a swing at Carlos for what he’d done to Shirley. It would slow them down on their way to the helicopter. They were moving away from him and it would take time.
Frank’s new religion kept him on task in the end. Find the lady and rescue Antonio if necessary. Help those who needed help. Justice for Señor wasn’t his to administer tonight.
Chapter Ninety-Four
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Antonio knew the moment he was lost. He felt a muscle spasm erupt in his leg which slowed his reflexes. He suddenly had a plan. Sometimes wily old guys could win out over youth and strength.
Señor’s young man had lost his gun down the back of Frank’s pants but he pulled a knife. Antonio made an effort to run away that he calculated would give the maldito chico a chance to grab him.
The young man twisted on Antonio and held him in a locked grasp.
As the helicopter grew louder, Antonio tried persuasion through his clenched teeth. “Señor Rafael is beyond helping, but you can escape on the helicopter if you hurry.”
The young man shoved Tonio forward. Antonio reached around and got a handful of the slick mane of black hair in his grasp and pulled until the young man put the knife to his throat.
“You’ll get there faster if you have a hostage to clear the way. No one knows who I am. Just a helpless resident of the center.”
Antonio took satisfaction as he let the boy drag and coerce him toward the elevator in the hallway and away from Señor and Carlos.
He could count on Blanche to reveal the wickedness of the Cuban despot if only Antonio could keep the evil purple suit away from the ladies and thinking Señor was beyond rescue.
As they stepped from the elevator, Antonio made a limited effort to twist away, but the cramp in his leg acted up.
The knife landed squarely in the flesh on his right hip and he felt the air leave his lungs from pain. His pride would keep him from crying out like the coward Señor Rafael had.
Chapter Ninety-Five
Complicated Care Page 29
