"For example: Just as I sat down, Commissioner Valdez jumped out of his chair and said, 'What are you really doing here, and who are you working for?' Jeffrey, I swear I am not making that up. I smiled at him and said, 'Well, Mr. Valdez, I'm the attorney for the Miami Opera, and I came here to speak to Mr. Estrada on behalf of my client.' And he said, 'No, you have an agenda—to embarrass the Cubans in the city administration.' And I said, 'You don't need me for that, Mr. Valdez.' I heard José de la Paz laugh, but Valdez starts screaming, 'You people do not own the theater. It is not yours. It belongs to the city of Miami, and we can decide if you can put on one of your shows.' I sat there smiling—it doesn't do any good to argue—and thinking to myself, 'Damn, I wish I had my tape recorder, nobody's going to believe this.'
"Finally AI Estrada calmed him down. So I said, 'Mr. Estrada, I wish to state the Miami Opera's position on the security requirement that your office is demanding. We believe that it's not only unnecessary, it's illegal. It's unconstitutional. It appears, in fact, to be political harassment motivated by some people in your administration who don't like the fact that someone in the cast of Don Giovanni performed in Cuba.'
"Of course Estrada had to say, 'Ms. Connor, I am insulted that you accuse the city of harassment. If an event is a threat to public safety, we can prohibit it from taking place.' So we go around and around about how much of a threat there is. I told him that since Seth Greer's murder, the verbal attacks on the radio have stopped, and there have been only a handful of threatening phone calls. Then the president of the municipalities objected to my saying that because it tends to blame the exiles, when everybody knows that provocateurs are to blame. He said, 'A Castro agent pulled the trigger to make us look bad.' I had to bite my lips not to say, 'You gave him the rifle.'
"Unfortunately, most of the people in the meeting were too committed to their positions to give an inch. I hoped the assistant city attorney would help out, but he said he had to discuss it with his boss. I knew it was hopeless at that point. I stood up and said, 'Mr. Estrada, thank you for your time. I hope we can resolve this, but if not, my only course of action is to file a lawsuit in federal court. Miami is already under scrutiny because of bribes and kickbacks in the previous administration. If you try to censor the opera, you're going to have the international press on your head, and nobody will be happier than the guy in Havana. Why don't you take the weekend to think about it and call me by five p.m. on Monday. Otherwise, on Tuesday morning I'll be holding a press conference on the steps of the federal courthouse.'
"You know, Jeffrey, I think Estrada might go our way. He just can't come out and say so right now. It's politics. He was appointed to his job by the city commission, and I've heard that he wants to run for mayor next year. Anyway, he walked me to the elevator, arid as soon as we were out of earshot of Valdez and the others, he became a normal, rational human being. He wanted to know what Don Giovanni was about. I said it's the Don Juan story, the great lover no woman could resist. Estrada said it sounded pretty hot, maybe he'd take his wife to see it. I offered to get him tickets, but he said no, he couldn't accept gifts."
Glancing at her watch, Gail swiveled her chair toward the telephone and stood up. "I have to run. I promised Tom Nolan I'd drop by his place for lunch and explain what's going on."
She heard Jeffrey Hopkins wishing her good luck—and telling her to keep her windows rolled up and her doors locked.
Thomas Nolan rented a guest cottage on the grounds of a mansion on the bay side of Miami Beach. The place was secluded and quiet, with a grand piano and a view through wide French doors of landscaped lawn, shady trees, and sparkling water. The weather had warmed up to the high seventies, and the sky was perfectly blue.
Nolan had already made sandwiches, which he took outdoors on a tray with a soda for Gail and a pot of hot tea for himself. They sat in painted white metal lawn chairs facing the bay, a small table between them. Water splashed over the age-blackened rocks of a small fountain in the center of the patio, and from a banyan tree drooped an enormous staghorn fern. Two plastic flamingos posed stiff-legged in the flower bed, a joke made of a cliché.
Seth Greer's funeral would be held this afternoon, Gail remembered, then pushed the thought from her mind.
Sunlight poured onto the patio through an opening in the trees. It played on Tom Nolan's hair, which had been washed so recently as to still be damp at the crown. The rest of it was unbound, a pale blond mass of unruly curls that the wind would occasionally tease across his face. He kicked his heavy sandals aside and stretched out his long legs. His T-shirt said EDINBURGH FESTIVAL 1995.
He dropped an ice cube into his teacup, then poured. When he saw Gail watching, he said, "I have to be careful with my throat. Once I burned the roof of my mouth on hot cheese pizza and missed a dress rehearsal."
"Are all singers so sensitive?"
"No. We're picky, though. Superstitious. Sopranos and tenors are the worst, of course." He measured a precise teaspoon of sugar. "I know one singer who ate at McDonald's before a successful audition for the Met, and now he has to have his Big Mac before every performance. Some people say don't eat nuts or chocolate, but that's an old wives' tale. If I shout too loudly, that could keep me from singing the next day."
Nolan sipped his tea. "Some singers can smoke and drink and party and nothing happens, but I'm not that lucky. I work at staying in shape. I've studied acting and dance. The body has to look good on stage. I know Italian, German, and French. My manager wants me to try out for Boris Gudonov in San Francisco, so I'll have to learn to pronounce Russian. And then there are the new roles to add to the repertoire as well as keeping current on the old ones. I'm on the road about nine months out of the year." He laughed in his odd way, a soft rumble deep in his chest. "There you have it. The life of an opera singer."
"Do you have a girlfriend or . . . whatever?"
"Or whatever?" He smiled. "No, I don't have a girlfriend. It's hard to maintain personal relationships traveling so much."
"Your old piano teacher is in Miami," Gail remembered.
"Miss Wells. She travels a lot these days," he said. "I see her when I can. We're very close."
"Oh, yes. The lady who said you had no talent for classical piano. Sing, Tom, sing." Gail watched the water in the fountain splashing down the rocks into the basin that surrounded it. Goldfish darted underneath the lily pads. "You don't have any family left in Miami?"
"My parents were both from somewhere else. My father died when I was eleven, and my mother eventually decided to move back to Virginia, where she had grown up."
Gail took another quarter of a ham sandwich. "No brothers or sisters?"
"I was an only child." Apparently reluctant to talk about his personal life, Tom Nolan said, "Tell me about your meeting yesterday with the city. What's going to happen?"
She gave him the conclusion, not the details. If they forced the opera to pay for heavy security, a lawsuit would be filed in federal court.
"Can they shut us down?"
"Of course not. We'll either pay for the extra security or the court will say we don't have to. Don't worry." She smiled across the little table at him. "When they say they'll revoke our permit, that's only if we don't meet their demands. There is no way, Tom, that we will not produce this opera."
He settled back, holding his cup in both hands on his chest. "You know what's funny? My manager called me yesterday. Opera companies are asking him when I'm available. Usually he's out there chasing down jobs. The news media are interested, too. They're calling me for interviews."
"Don't do that till we hear from the city," Gail said. "Things are a little quieter since Seth Greer's death. I'd like to keep it that way."
Nolan asked, "Are you going to the funeral?"
"Yes, are you?"
"If I'd known him I would, but we're on a tight schedule, with opening night only ten days away."
The show must go on, Gail thought. Seth Greer's wide smile came into her mind, then a quick imag
e of a gravesite, rows of chairs, a coffin heaped with flowers. How much Valium would Rebecca Dixon require to get through it? Assuming she went. What would Anthony be thinking under his impenetrable facade?
Tom Nolan took another sandwich and bit the corner off. "I heard on the news this morning that the police don't think the exiles shot him. How can they be sure?"
"What they know, or what they assume, is that it wasn't done as a political statement. A lone crazy acting on his own isn't likely, either: How would he have recognized Seth when he arrived? They assume it's someone Seth knew, and that this person was following him or knew where he was going." Gail recounted her conversation with Detective Delgado two days ago, explaining why the police were ruling out an organized group of militants.
"I see. Well, that's a relief. I've been so tense it was showing in my performance. Everyone in the cast and crew has been tense. I guess we can stop worrying." Nolan looked at Gail for confirmation. The sunlight cut across the sharp planes of his face.
She took a few seconds to answer. "I think you're probably all right."
"But?"
"This is a remote possibility—a provocateur who wasn't clear on the rules of how to lay blame on the exiles. Cuba has people here."
"You're kidding. To commit murder?"
"Usually nothing that extreme. That's why I think you're probably all right."
"Unless somebody puts a bomb under my bed. The police don't have any suspects?"
"Not so far," Gail said. "All they've got is a handful of brass cartridge casings."
"You must've been scared," Nolan said. "He could have hit you, too."
"He had a laser sight and good aim. If he'd wanted me dead, I wouldn't be here now." She took another bite of sandwich. "How's Felix Castillo working out? Did you call him?"
"Yes, the next day. I think this is more of a bother than it's worth. Before I left for rehearsal yesterday he checked out my car, followed me to the opera, and we went through the same drill on the way back. I refuse to let him drive me. He wanted to go through my house before I came inside. I told him to forget it." Tom Nolan flexed his fingers. "What happened to his hand?"
"Someone went after him with a machete," Gail said. "Luckily, Felix had a gun."
Through a grimace, Nolan said, "He showed me two of them. One under his coat and one on his ankle. He's a scary dude." A gust of wind blew the napkin off his lap. As he leaned over to pick it up, his hair swung forward, covering his profile, leaving only the triangle of his nose. There was an odd bump on the bridge. A memory stirred at the back of Gail's mind. A skinny boy in a plain blue short-sleeved shirt, walking alone across campus at Ransom-Everglades, blond hair hanging in his face.
Tom Nolan sat back in his chair, finished off his sandwich, and balled the napkin in one large, bony hand.
"Can I ask you something?"
He picked up his tea. "Sure."
"You're going to be singing at a dinner party at Lloyd Dixon's place. Would you happen to know who his guests are?" She smiled at him. "I'm just curious."
"No, I don't."
"I was just wondering if there were any local businessmen on the guest list."
The blue eyes settled on her. Several long seconds passed. "You seem awfully interested in Lloyd Dixon.
You were watching him through the window at the rehearsal hall. Don't deny it."
Gail replied with a slight shrug and said that he needn't talk about Lloyd Dixon if he preferred not to.
"I don't mind." He lifted the top off a sandwich and went over to the fountain, throwing crumbs to the goldfish. "Here's my opinion about this meeting. Lloyd wants to expand his business into Cuba when it opens up to Americans. That's what I think because some of his guests heard me in Havana two years ago—according to Lloyd."
"You didn't tell me that the last time we talked."
He aimed a little ball of bread and flicked his long, graceful fingers. The bread bobbed on the surface before vanishing with a tiny smacking noise into the mouth of a fish. "I didn't want to talk about Havana."
Gail dusted her hands over the napkin on her lap. "You invited Lloyd Dixon and his wife to hear you sing in Germany because you wanted to be hired for the lead in Don Giovanni. Then you went to Cuba. I happen to know that Dixon goes to Cuba occasionally—a fact that you shouldn't spread around. Did he suggest the trip to you?"
After a moment Nolan released a small sigh and turned around. "This is what happened. Lloyd and Rebecca Dixon came to the opening night of Lucia di Lammermoor, and I invited them to the party afterward. I don't remember how, but it came up that some of the other cast members—not Americans—were going to the music festival in Cuba, and their bass was ill. Lloyd said I ought to do it. He said I wouldn't get into trouble as long as I came in through a third country. How wrong he was. Lloyd's apologetic about it. He even wanted to pay me for singing for his dinner guests, but of course I said no."
Gail looked at Nolan, then said, "You didn't by any chance see Lloyd Dixon in Cuba, did you?" The thin lips curled into a smile. "Yes. I did."
"Was he there for the investment conference?"
"What's that?"
"At the Hotel Las Americas. Some Cuban VIPs spoke there, which is the reason we're in this mess."
Nolan finger-combed his hair off his forehead. "I don't think he was there for that reason, but I can't say for sure. When my friends and I got to the hotel, things were running late, so we went outside to the pool bar to have a drink. Somebody tapped me on the shoulder, and I turned around and there was Lloyd Dixon. He was dressed like a tourist, not a businessman. He said he had come down to do some fishing. I didn't ask about the investment conference. It didn't enter my mind."
"Where was he staying? At the Las Americas?"
"He didn't say."
"Did you see him with anyone else?"
"No. He said his wife was in Miami. We spoke for a few minutes, then he left."
"What did you talk about?"
Nolan let out a small breath and walked back across the patio. "Oh, what was it? Had we been sightseeing? Had we seen Ernest Hemingway's house? Did we like Cuban music? Things like that."
"Was that the only conversation you had with him?"
"Yes, there by the pool. I didn't see him again till I got here to Miami two years later." Nolan looked down at Gail in her chair.
Gail shaded her eyes. "Rebecca Dixon said she didn't know you had performed in Cuba. She was horrified. So I thought."
"She knew he'd suggested that I go," Nolan corrected. "He may not have told her that he saw me there."
Gail added silently, Or else Lloyd Dixon had taken off on another of his adventure trips without telling Rebecca where he was going.
The wind shifted the branches of the tree, and light flickered on Thomas Nolan's hair, turning it into a froth of pale gold. In the shadow cast across his face, his eyes danced with amusement. "Now I have a question for you. How did you become engaged to a Latino?"
"He asked me and I said yes."
"Dark, handsome, and irresistible? Were you overcome?" Nolan's laugh rumbled in his throat. He spread his arms with a flourish. "I have to play Don Giovanni. I guess I'd like to know if it's true what they say."
Gail smiled back. "Absolutely."
"Would he shoot me if he knew I invited you here for lunch?"
"No, don't be silly. This is business."
"So he'd shoot me if it weren't business."
She laughed. "We'd both be goners."
His eyes stayed with her a second before he stuck his hands in his pockets and gazed out toward the bay, where a sailboat was just passing out of view, hidden by trees at the edge of the property. "Just teasing. I was thinking the other day, it's funny how life brings you around to places you never thought you'd be in. I never thought I'd be back in Miami, but here I am talking to Gail Connor. I didn't remember you at first, but I do now. In high school you were one of those cheerleader types who never noticed anybody but the jocks."
Momentarily confused, Gail said, "I was never a cheerleader."
He seemed not to hear her. "You were going with that kid—what was his name? Ronnie Bertram. His family made yachts. He had sun-bleached hair and a new Trans Am. Played tennis—naturally."
"We went together for a month," Gail said.
In profile, his face half-hidden by his hair, Tom Nolan smiled. "And you don't remember me at all."
"I'm sorry, I don't."
"Don't apologize." He shrugged. "I was not a memorable guy."
But of course Gail did remember—not perfectly, but in hazy shadows cast by events far past recollection. Tommy Nolan, walking alone across campus, head down, hair over his eyes, as if his loneliness were an affliction that could be hidden from the other students.
Against his protestations that she not bother, Gail helped him carry the remains of their lunch back inside the cottage. In the living room, the piano lid was up, and his music littered the worn oriental rug. Compact discs of operas were stacked by the stereo. There was only one pillow askew on the sofa, only his sweater on the rack by the door. For all his acclaim and the money he had to be making, and the career that was taking off, he seemed so alone.
Then Gail considered that this view of Thomas Nolan could be skewed by her memory, which might be faulty. She could be wrong about him, just as Thomas Nolan had been wrong about her. A cheerleader type? Each of them looking at the other from his or her own peculiar, imperfect teenage perspective. And yet...
And yet.
She could not dismiss the sense of unbearable loss. Something had happened to make him drop out of school halfway through the spring semester of 1979, but like a remnant of a dream, the memory whirled beyond reach.
Just before noon on Tuesday, the day after Seth Greer's murder, Irene Connor had received on her answering machine at home a message from Glasgow, Scotland. She had jotted down the number and brought it along when she came to Gail's house to check on her injured hand and, more important, her emotional state after having seen a man shot to death an arm's length away. Gail had left the piece of paper folded in her purse.
Suspicion of Deceit Page 18
