Suspicion of Deceit

by Barbara Parker

  For a moment her tortoiseshell sunglasses pointed toward the broken door, then the news van. "What a mess." She looked back at Gail. "You've already talked to Jeffrey."

  "Yes, a little while ago."

  "Damn." Rebecca's perfectly lipsticked mouth tightened. "I told him to wait."

  "If you want to know what we discussed, I'll tell you."

  "He isn't happy with me," Rebecca said.

  Gail said, "We didn't talk about you."

  "I don't know what else I could've done." She put a hand on her forehead, mussing the neatly trimmed line of her brunette bangs. "We had a security guard."

  "Rebecca, take it easy. I have an appointment with the city manager tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, Jeffrey is going to make a generic statement to the media, the opera will look heroic, and you'll have standing room only for the rest of the season." Gail walked her toward the rear of her car, closer to the trees at the edge of the parking lot. It seemed more private.

  "He wants the investigation to stop, but we agreed to hire a bodyguard for Tom Nolan. What do you think?"

  "Oh, God. Whatever." Rebecca exhaled heavily, apparently willing to let somebody else put shoulder to wheel.

  "I'd like to use Felix Castillo. He's already familiar with what's going on here, and I trust him. But if you have any objections, please tell me. I'll find someone else." For a few seconds Gail stared into the little dots of sunlight on Rebecca's sunglasses.

  Rebecca laughed, a single peal more of disbelief than humor.

  "You won't have to talk to him," Gail said. "He can deal directly with me."

  "Oh, my God," she said softly, smiling a little. "This is unbelievable."

  "If you'd rather he didn't—"

  "Do what you want. I don't care." Rebecca shook her heavy hair back from her face. She studied the progress of repairs on the door. The glass had been set into the frame, and now it was being caulked. "For two cents I'd resign. This job was Lloyd's idea. People say he bought it for me, and they're right. Mrs. Lloyd Dixon, society princess, doyenne of the arts. Oh, God. Wait'll he gets a load of this. I could laugh. He was so sure nothing would happen. Oh, baby, come on." Rebecca's voice grew deep, a mock imitation of Lloyd Dixon's growl. "The exiles don't give a shit. It's an act they gotta put on, prove they got balls. It's all talk."

  Gail recalled standing in the rehearsal room talking to Lloyd Dixon. Dixon in his leather bomber jacket, so certain of everything. "Rebecca? Can I ask a dumb question? Do you know Octavio Reyes?" When Rebecca looked around at her, Gail added, "He's that pain-in-the-ass commentator on WRCL. Anthony's brother-in-law. You mentioned Reyes by name after Tom's recital, when you asked me for help, and it just occurred to me—How do you know him? Not from Anthony in college. Not that far back."

  "I don't know him. He's a customer of Lloyd's." Rebecca leaned against the mirror-finish rear fender of her Jaguar. "Dixon Air handles all of King Furniture's air shipments to Latin America. Lloyd said he'd speak to Reyes if he got to be a problem, but he was so sure nothing would happen."

  "They know each other."

  As if finally focusing on what Gail was saying, Rebecca said, "They don't know each other. It's a business acquaintance. Dixon Air has a lot of customers." Then she smiled. "Maybe one less when I tell Lloyd about the door."

  Gail kicked at some gravel with the toe of her shoe. "What do you mean? Lloyd will tell Octavio he won't ship his furniture unless he shuts up? It doesn't seem like much leverage to me. Dixon Air isn't the only freight airline in Miami."

  Rebecca raised her hands in a gesture of surrender, then went back to get her purse out of her car, a sleek Fendi bag with a dangling gold clasp. She slammed her door, took a few steps toward the building, then stood there with her hands clenched at her sides. "This is pointless." She aimed her security key at her car, which chirped at her. The locks popped up. She jerked the door open and threw her purse across the seat. The gold clasp clattered against the window on the other side. "You and Jeffrey deal with it. I am obviously superfluous."

  At a stoplight on Biscayne Boulevard, heading back to her office, Gail flipped open her phone and hit a speed dial button. "Miriam, it's me. Any messages?"

  Felix Castillo had called, and Gail should beep him when she had time to talk.

  "Oh, my God. The man must be psychic. No clue what he wanted? . . . Okay, we live in suspense. Do me a favor and call Thomas Nolan. Try his apartment and the School of the Arts, and leave a message if he's not in. Tell him I need to talk to him, and to give me a time when he's available. Did that noon appointment call to confirm?"

  Miriam assured her that he had. At noon a new client would come to the office. The man had shipped 5,000 ladies shirts and dresses from his factory in Hialeah to a chain department store based in Georgia. They had stiffed him for the payment. This was more Gail's kind of case than arranging bodyguards for opera singers.

  She turned the corner, heading for the ramp to the expressway. "Are you up for some research? ... See what you can find—articles, studies, books, whatever—on Cuban exiles in Miami. Also, get me information on terrorism going back, oh, to the mid-sixties. Try the Miami Herald archives as well as the library. If you need to buy any books, I'll reimburse you. . . . It was only one concrete block and lots of glass on the floor... . No, I'm not worried, I just want to know if I should be. Hang on a second."

  She maneuvered up the ramp, then said, "Let me have Seth Greer's number." Keeping one eye on the road, she jotted it down on a notepad she kept in the console between the seats. "Thanks, chica. See you in fifteen minutes." After the disconnect she steered with her wrist while punching the buttons with the other hand. "It is people like you," she said to herself, "who drive up insurance rates."

  She asked for Seth Greer and said who she was. As she waited, the expressway ended, dumping traffic onto South Dixie Highway.

  When he came on the line, Gail said, "Your prediction came true. The city is thinking of sticking us with about a hundred extra off-duty police for security during the run of the opera. . . . Yes, Seth, you told me so. Are you busy? ... What I'd like are some cases to show the city manager when I go yell at him tomorrow morning. ... I don't need to have legal research with me, but it would be nice to keep in my holster. You know. Show them we're willing to take this to federal court if they try to push us around."

  Profanity came over the line. Joyous profanity, the call to arms. Then Seth was asking to go with her to the meeting.

  "Well ... I'd better go alone this time. Thanks a million." Gail made a smooch into the phone. "You're terrific."

  And then Seth said he had to go. It was almost 10:55, time for Octavio Reyes's commentary, more gasoline on the flames. And by the way, the other Cuban stations were picking up on the issue. So tune in whichever she wanted, WQBA, WWFE, WRHC—

  Gail tossed the phone to the passenger seat and turned on the radio, finding AM 870. She kept an eye on the road, slowing when brake lights came on ahead of her.

  Octavio Reyes's recorded commentary had already started. She turned up the volume to drown out the road noise. Something about people suffering. Ni pan ni leche para darle comida a sus niños. Gail translated slowly. Neither bread nor milk to feed their children. Nolan had been there. He must have seen the hunger, la miseria, el terror, la destrucción, how thousands and thousands of our countrymen live on nuestra bella isla—our beautiful island.

  A horn blasted behind her. The light had turned green. Reyes was still talking. Nolan had performed for el regimen del tirano—the regime of the tyrant— and in singing for Ricardo Alarcón—

  "Who?" Gail asked aloud.

  —his art had been converted into a political act. Blah blah blah no different from artists who worked en el servicio de Hitler y Stalin. A hypocrisy for Thomas Nolan to perform here, en la capital del exilio—the capital of the exiles—hiding behind claims of artistic freedom.

  "Oh, bullshit."

  Then Reyes announced that he would like to invite any spokesman from the
opera to appear on his nightly interview program to explain—

  "Oh, yes. We'll be right there. You bet."

  He closed with a thank you for listening. "Soy Octavio Reyes, el rrrrrey del comentario, Rrrradio Cuba Libre."

  "You're full of mierda." Gail hit another button on the radio, flipping it to one of the English-language talk stations, hearing an airline commercial, and she wondered about leaving town until this was over.

  She had hoped—obviously in vain—that Octavio Reyes might have given it a rest, after Saturday night. But in shoving him into the wall of the Pedrosas' guest house, Anthony had not said, Stop the editorials about the opera, but Stop calling Gail names.

  After witnessing this display of temper, she had come back inside. Not to sit obediently on the sofa— she'd been far too wound up for that—but to pace in the front hall. When Anthony appeared—his eyes dilated to black pools and his cheeks blazing—they stared at each other. And he realized she had seen him. And she knew that he knew.

  In the car on the way to her house: "I'm not going to discuss it, Gail."

  On arrival as she got out and slammed the door: "And you can go play with yourself, because I'm going to sleep." His tires had screeched going out of her driveway. In the half an hour it usually took him to drive home, Gail stood under a blasting shower crying, then pulled herself together, drank a glass of warm milk with two aspirin, and called him. He wasn't there. Nor was he there an hour later. Or he wasn't answering the phone. She left a message: "I still love you and don't forget brunch at my mother's tomorrow morning. She expects us at ten-thirty."

  His good manners, if not his mood, had gotten him there. The circles under his eyes were worse than hers. The relatives had probably assumed other reasons for their yawns. With Karen waiting in her car, Gail had hugged him goodbye. For a minute he held her tightly. Said he was sorry. Not sorry for smacking Octavio around. But sorry anyway. His kiss said he meant it.

  Dodging and weaving through traffic, hurrying back to her office, Gail wished she could be in the Pedrosas' back garden again, her hands cupped at her mouth. Anthony! Make him promise to shut up about Thomas Nolan!

  After a while she heard someone yelling on the English station and stared at the speaker. The radio announcer was irate. "Hey, folks. Where are you? Can you repeat after me? I'm in the U.S.A. now. Yeah, that's right. The country that took you in, that fed and clothed you, and you have the gall to tell us that we can't go hear any opera singer we want to hear? Okay, I hate opera as much as the next guy. So what? Have you ever heard of the Bill of Rights? We have freedom of speech in this country. Surprise! If you can't grasp the concept, then go home, you ungrateful bunch of whiners. That's right. Go home! Take a raft right back to Uncle Fidel if you don't like it here! If you'd had the guts to fight instead of run away—"

  Gail turned it off.

  Noticing the sign for Twenty-seventh Avenue, Gail checked the rearview mirror and put on her right turn signal. At a break in traffic she whipped the car across two lanes, barely making the turn. Her right rear tire clipped the curb. She glanced around for a police car. "Sorry, sorry."

  There was just enough time for a detour by Felix Castillo's house.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  If Felix Castillo had an office—which she doubted— Gail didn't know where it was. She found the street Anthony had taken into Castillo's neighborhood, got lost for a few minutes, then saw a familiar chain-link fence. She paused at a stop sign. The old gray van was in the driveway.

  "Lucky me," she said, parking outside the gate.

  The house looked smaller in the daytime, an ordinary little stucco box with a ficus tree for shade and security bars over the windows. The gate across the driveway was the only way in. There was a lock on it. Pondering whether the mailman usually vaulted the fence, she heard a steady noise from around the corner of the house. Thwock thwock thwock thwock. A slight ringing, as of a bell, accompanied this. She walked along the sidewalk.

  Castillo was trimming a hedge of overgrown crotons with a machete. The metal flashed, and the branches with their multi-colored leaves slid to the ground, reduced from the height of a man to waist level. A gold chain gleamed on Castillo's dark, muscled chest. A cigarette jutted from between his teeth.

  He saw her, made no sign of recognition, but with a flick of his wrist imbedded the point of the machete in the dirt. The wooden handle shook, then went still. He picked up a faded plaid sport shirt from the grass and put it on as he walked toward the fence. His rubber thongs slapped at the soles of his feet. Gail had an image of toes rolling off if he even miscalculated where the machete would land.

  "I got your message," Gail said.

  Castillo buttoned his shirt up halfway. He wore brown polyester pants, and Gail wondered if his pistol was strapped to his ankle. He unlocked the gate, then flipped the cigarette butt into the street. "Come inside."

  As the front door closed, the lovebird cage on the other side of the white-tiled living room became a blur of fluttering gray wings. The birds chirped and twittered and gradually settled down.

  "I don't like to do business in my house," Castillo said. "The neighbors see people in and out, they wonder what's going on. The other night was social, you know?" He waved away Gail's apology. "You want some coffee?"

  She thought he might snap his fingers and his young girlfriend would appear to fetch it, but Castillo led Gail into the kitchen, a small room cluttered with evidence of his domestic life—a plastic dish drainer loaded with dishes rinsed and reused, limp dimestore curtains drawn back with matching loops of cloth, a rice cooker with starch clouding the glass lid. By the door, empty beer bottles were stacked in their cardboard carriers. And on the countertop between the door and the window—both secured with bars—was a long-barreled, chrome-plated revolver. Twenty years ago he had lent Anthony Quintana an AK-47 to carry in the forests of Nicaragua. Gail wondered what she would find if she went through his closets.

  She sat at the chrome-legged table while Castillo unscrewed the top off a burned and stained cafetera, ran some tap water into the bottom, and put in fresh grounds, patting them level with the spoon. During this, Gail told him about the vandalism at the opera, then about the message left on the answering machine. Did he have any ideas who might have done it?

  "Anybody. There's no way to tell." Castillo poked among the dishes in the drainer for two espresso cups.

  Not wanting to, Gail noticed the old wound. The blade must have gone in between the middle fingers and exited near the wrist, slicing off half his hand. She could not imagine how he could ever have touched a machete after that. She concentrated on finding a place on the table for her purse, moving aside a cellophane package of round white crackers. "On the way here I heard Octavio Reyes's commentary. I suppose you were outside trimming the bushes."

  "No, I heard it." Castillo sat down across the table, not getting comfortable yet because the little coffee pot was starting to tick on the burner. The hair left on Castillo's head was clipped short, and his gray mustache reached below the corners of his mouth. Heavy-lidded eyes gave him a sleepy look.

  "I heard from my friend in Havana. He can't tell if Thomas Nolan stayed at the Tropicoco on Varadero Beach. That's too long ago. His name was in the newspaper, though, in the schedule for the music festival. Three times. The National Theater in downtown Havana on Tuesday, November 12, then on Friday at the Hotel Las Americas, which is new, and I think built with money from Spain. The next Monday he was at the beach amphitheater. Nolan didn't tell you about those other two, did he? No? The one at the Las Americas, my friend is going to look at again. There was a business conference at the hotel that week, not part of the festival. The story was in the newspaper, and it said that some opera stars from Europe came to do the entertainment. Six of them. Nolan's name was on the list."

  "What about Jane Fyfield? Was she listed?"

  "Yes. Who's she? I know. The lady that sang in that opera."

  "Looks like you saved me the trouble of calling
her," Gail said. "The general director hates the idea of an investigation. He says it doesn't matter what Nolan did in Cuba."

  Castillo's heavy gray brows rose. "You don't want to hear anymore?"

  "Please. I have no intention of dropping it. We'll just have to be discreet."

  "Yeah." He gave a soft, husky laugh. "Tony said you were like that. Okay. The meeting at the Las Americas. That's the one that bothers me. The story in the newspaper said that Ricardo Alarcón gave a speech at the conference. That's a problem."

  Gail said, "Octavio Reyes mentioned that name in his commentary today."

  "That's correct. Reyes thinks Alarcón was in the audience when Tom Nolan sang. Maybe so, maybe he's guessing. Two years ago is not yesterday."

  "Who's Ricardo Alarcón?"

  Castillo's mustache lifted, showing crooked, smoke-tinted teeth. "Who? Ricardo Alarcón is the president of the Cuban National Assembly. He's very big. It's like singing for Fidel, almost."

  "Sorry, I don't know Cuban politics."

  The water in the coffeemaker bubbled, the last of it drawn upward through the grounds. Castillo got up and turned off the stove. The glass jalousies were cranked open. Across the small backyard, past clothesline and hedge, someone had a radio tuned to a comedy show in Spanish—a comedian whose diction was garbled past comprehension. Jokes and a laugh track.

  Gail said, "That's surprising. A business conference in Cuba. I thought the economy was shot to hell."

  "They're trying to fix it. Bring in people with money, make a partnership with the government." Castillo measured several teaspoons of sugar into a glass, then poured in a thin stream of espresso. "It's like the old days, when the Americans owned half the country, but now it's the Mexicans, Canadians, and Israelis—everybody but the Americans. Even the Russians, do you believe that? If a Cuban, a person off the street, wants to go to one of those hotels—forget it. They save them for the tourists. They give away vacations to these businesspeople, and hotel rooms and food, and usually they have Cuban jazz and salsa, but this time—maybe for something different, who knows?—they had opera singers."