“So I majored in anthropology and then one of my professors started talking to me as if I could actually go to grad school, so I did that. Went to Harvard and got my Ph.D. in anthropology and linguistics. I did my fieldwork with the Mayans along the Mexican-Guatemalan border and learned several Mayan dialects along the way. Then I got a faculty job at Harvard, but a couple years later I came back down here for this job.”
“Why’d you leave the ivory tower?” I asked.
“Trust me, chica, this job is so much more rewarding,” she said. “I feel like I’m really helping my people, not just writing about them in the Journal of Obscure Arcana or whatever.”
We drove on in silence for a while as I let her words sink in. We were entering farm country. Fields of green crops spread out around us. Massive sprinklers sprayed a fine mist over the land.
Something Lupe had said stuck in my brain.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “You said you speak several Mayan dialects. Are you telling me these people don’t speak Spanish?”
She laughed. “Yeah, that’s a common misconception. They come from Latin America, they have Spanish names, they must speak Spanish, right? Wrong. Like I said earlier, these are indigenous people. They might know some Spanish if they went to school—of course, it’s the official language, the ‘legacy’ of the conquistadores—but for the most part, they speak one of the native dialects.”
“So when the police interviewed Gladys’s friends through a Spanish interpreter, they might as well have been speaking Swahili?”
“That’s about right. I tried to explain this to the cops and offered to interpret, but they just brushed me off. Inspector Clueless tracks the Pink Panther. Stick with me, kid. We’ll get Gladys’s friends to tell us what they didn’t tell the cops. It may take a while, but they’ll tell us.”
We had reached our destination, the tomato fields that were being harvested that day by a group of about twenty laborers, men and women. They were making their way up and down the rows of vines, picking off the still-green tomatoes from top to bottom and tossing them into baskets strapped to their backs as the hot Florida sun beat down on them. Man, what a way to make a living.
We got out of the truck and approached the workers.
“I see Miguel, Gladys’s boyfriend,” Lupe said, “but I don’t see her friend Eulalia.” She went over and began talking to one of the men. He shook his head and pushed past her as he continued his work. Lupe turned to some of the women. At that point the men glared at Lupe and the women, who cast fearful glances at us. Lupe motioned for us to head back to the truck.
“You need to understand something,” she told me. “This is a very patriarchal culture. The men won’t speak to us because it’s beneath them, and the women are afraid of the men. You know, this is something we’re working on at the Rescue Mission—trying to empower the women a little and trying to get the men to be less domineering—but it’s an uphill battle, for sure. Not to mention they’re all pretty wary of outsiders anyway, being mostly illegal and all. Even though they do know me, they still don’t totally trust me. But, I do think we’ll be able to get some information from Gladys’s friends if we’re persistent. Let’s head over to the housing. Eulalia may be there.”
We drove a mile or so until we reached a series of crumbling, tin-roofed wood shacks. We went into the first one. It was empty, except for rows of bunk beds. As we entered, a wall of heat hit me. Now, I don’t have air-conditioning in my cabin, but at least I’ve got windows and there’s a little breeze out there in the Glades. I didn’t see any bath facilities, either. At least I’ve got a water supply and a septic tank with its own biodegradable treatment system. What did these people use—an outhouse?
“They live in here?” I asked.
Lupe nodded. “Company housing. Not exactly the Boca Raton Resort & Club, is it? Well, let’s see if we can find Eulalia.”
We proceeded through the row of shacks. All were empty of people until we reached the fifth one. There, we found two women, one lying on a bunk bed and the other sitting at the prone woman’s side holding a wet cloth to her forehead.
“Eulalia,” Lupe said.
The woman sitting looked up—I figured that was Eulalia—and Lupe asked her some questions. Eulalia glanced around nervously as Lupe spoke to her. The woman in the bed moaned. Her eyes were watery and unfocused, clear signs of fever.
There was a shuffling at the rear of the shack and a Mayan man came into view. He spoke to Eulalia. She cringed and turned away.
Lupe turned to me. “This is Eulalia. Her friend is obviously sick. She says they don’t know what’s wrong and she wants us to leave. She says it’s happened before and her friend will be all right.” Lupe sighed. “This is obviously not a good time to talk to Eulalia about Gladys. I’ll come back here tomorrow to check on her and her friend. Let’s go.”
Just then, the door of the shack banged open, and a burly white man in overalls entered. He was tall, dark, and seriously scary-looking. Beefy arms hung at his sides, culminating in a pair of massive hands that looked as if they could easily squeeze the life out of anyone who got in his way.
“It’s Jake, the crew boss,” Lupe whispered.
He curled back his upper lip, revealing a gold tooth that gleamed menacingly in the dim light of the shack.
“Now Ms. Domingo,” he drawled with exaggerated politeness, “you know this is company property and you can’t be coming around here without permission. So allow me to escort you off the premises.”
“Take it easy, Jake,” Lupe said. “We were just leaving.”
He took a step forward and grabbed her by the hair. He pulled her head back, causing her to stumble and cry out in pain.
“What are you up to, you little wetback?” he growled. “And who’s your little friend?” His eyes looked me up and down, settling on my boobs.
Well, this just wouldn’t do. Nope, not at all. I reached into my boot and pulled my Magnum. I aimed it between his beady eyes and told him, “As Dirty Harry said, ‘Ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky?’”
He held my gaze for a beat. Then he released Lupe and stepped aside to let us pass. I walked past him, my chin up and shoulders back. But I was shaking in my boots.
We climbed into Lupe’s truck. She gave me a sideways glance and then we both burst out in nervous laughter.
Yee-oww! Move over, Dirty Harry—there’s a new girl in town.
Chapter 4
WE PEELED AWAY from the tomato fields, dust flying behind us. After we stopped laughing, I asked Lupe, “So, seriously, what’s the deal with this crew boss?”
“It’s like this,” Lupe explained. “What you have here is modern-day slavery, indentured servitude. These people get lured to the U.S. with promises of jobs. Like I said earlier, a coyote takes them across the border. Somebody else trucks them to Florida, and they’re put up in the company shacks. Then they’re told they owe thousands of dollars for their smuggling, transportation, and housing. They’re put to work in the fields making a few bucks a day. You do the math—there’s no way they’ll ever be able to pay off the debt. Where the crew boss comes in, is intimidation. We’ve had people beaten, pistol-whipped, threatened with having their tongues cut out if they say anything to outsiders.”
My inner vigilante was pounding on my chest wall, demanding to be let out. “This is outrageous!” I exclaimed. “Slavery was outlawed in the nineteenth century! How can the government let this happen?”
Lupe smiled. “You know how it is, chica.” she said. “Big Business pulls the strings. You think these tomato fields are little family farms? No way. You’ve heard of Big Tobacco? This is Big Tomato. Corporate America and its political campaign contributions. The human trafficking and debt bondage are done by contractors so the companies can wash their hands clean. And don’t forget the buyers—do you know who one of the majo
r purchasers of these tomatoes is? Taco-to-Go. Did you know they have a policy that they won’t buy food from suppliers that mistreat animals, but they don’t have any policy about mistreated humans? They’ve refused to even speak with the laborers about fair wages. So we’re urging a public boycott of Taco-to-Go—our ‘Toss the Taco’ campaign. Say, have you had lunch?”
Oh, shit. How many poor Mayans had I just enslaved with that burrito and taco? If knocking off my husband didn’t send me straight to hell, this would do it for sure.
“Uh, yeah, I ate,” I mumbled.
I was spared further elaboration by our arrival back at the Rescue Mission. “I’ll tell you what,” Lupe said. “Why don’t you come here tomorrow night? That’s when we have the women’s handicrafts group. Eulalia is usually there. She may be more willing to talk to you without the men around.”
I agreed. We said our goodbyes, and I donned my leathers and helmet and mounted my bike. I was a little beat from the day’s battles. After all, I’d warded off Coco, the contessa, and the crew boss, all in a day’s work. Yep, I was ready to hit the Hennessy. Unfortunately, I still had one more battle to face that day—grocery shopping at Publix.
If you think I exaggerate, you haven’t shopped in South Florida. The war zone begins in the parking lot. Between the phone-jabbering soccer moms in their SUVs—Stupid User Vehicles—and the geriatric set in their Jags and jitneys, you can consider yourself damn lucky if you manage to park without engaging in hand-to-hand combat. And if you think it’s tough in a four-wheeled vehicle, imagine yourself on a two-wheeler. Granted, when riding a bike you have to assume that the entire driving populace is blind and act accordingly, but are they deaf, too? You can hear a Hog coming from a mile away. But not around here, apparently.
The situation is no different inside the store, only the weaponry. Now armed with their shopping carts, the combatants charge down the aisles, ramming anything in their way.
I was among the victors that day, ending up in express checkout with only a twisted ankle resulting from a failed escape maneuver in the ethnic foods aisle, where I snagged some matzo ball soup in place of the salsa that my conscience compelled me to scratch off my list. I have to admit, this hassle of grocery shopping, and having to actually prepare my own food, made me long for my former life. As a Boca Babe, the only thing I’d ever made for dinner was reservations or delivery calls.
As I waited there in the endless (did I say express?) lane, my eye glanced upon a women’s magazine cover promising me a “Better Butt By Summer!” Yeah, right. It had taken me years to develop buns of steel. And even so, I still had some cellulite hanging on for dear life.
I finally reached the cashier. In keeping with the battle theme, she was in full war paint. Her foundation would have served well in a housing development, her eyelashes could have swept the floor, and the contrast between her lip liner and lipstick gave new meaning to the term chiaroscuro. Even Tammy Faye Bakker would have run for cover.
Just as I decided that she must be a drag queen and was searching for beard stubble underneath that spackle, she flashed me an angelic smile and said, “You have beautiful eyes.” And here I had been having these uncharitable thoughts about her/him. Yep, I was hell-bound, no two ways about it.
But, then again, I am cursed with a double dose of guilt. With a Catholic mother and a succession of Jewish fathers, how could it be otherwise?
My birth father, Harold Horowitz, traveling salesman extraordinaire, died when I was still a baby, as a result of a freak equine-bovine encounter. That is to say, his ’67 Mustang hit a Texas longhorn up near Frostproof, Florida. That’s right. Dad was a Jewish Willie Loman.
My mother, Stella Celeste Kucharski Horowitz Fleischer Steinblum Fishbein Rosenberg, is a Botox Babe. Where did you think I got it from? Babeness is a hereditary disease. As you may have surmised, Mom is a repeat matrimonial offender. She finally found wedded bliss, in addition to economic ecstasy, with husband no. 5, Mortimer Rosenberg. (Or was it Rosenbaum? Rosenblum? Rosencrantz? Shit, I can never remember.) Mort got his start in the family funeral business up in New York, and his fortune grew when he expanded the enterprise on the heels of the Great Jewish Exodus—no, not the one from Egypt to the Promised Land—the one from New York to Florida. He really hit the big time with his Value-Added Mortuary Package (VAMP, also known as casket-in-a-basket)—casket, flowers, rabbi rental, all for $1,999.99. Mort’s Mortuaries now line the Florida coast from Miami to Daytona Beach.
Mort himself went to rest in the big funeral parlor in the sky a couple years ago, and Mom hasn’t remarried. Yet. Right now she was on a two-week cruise of the Greater and Lesser Antilles, sponsored by the International Spy Museum of Washington, D.C. Ostensibly, this was one of those life-long learning deals for seniors where they were to attend a lecture series by prominent experts on Cold War espionage. But I wondered about her true motives for going. The male-to-female ratio for her age group was bound to be tipped in her favor on a cruise like this, as opposed to what it was in Boca. So I was seriously hoping that this wasn’t in fact a ploy by Mom to meet Mr. Right Version 6.0 on board and elope. That’s all I needed in my life—some Secret Agent 007 type with an untraceable past to marry Mom’s money. Not that I wanted her money for myself, you understand. It’s just that, how would it look for the owner of ScamBusters’ own mother to be scammed?
I hurried out of the grocery store. I was just backing my bike out of the parking space when suddenly there was a screech of metal up ahead as a Caddy backed into an Olds waiting to take its place. This set off a succession of car horns.
It was then that it struck me that I really didn’t have to worry about going to hell, because I was already there.
I finally reached home. As I pulled up to my cabin, I felt another pang of longing for the past. As a Boca Babe, my idea of a perfect house had been 10,000 square feet with no kitchen. Now here I was in lodgings the size of a matchbox. But at least there were no boxing matches going on in here.
My mind wandered back to those days. The worst thing about the beatings was that they had been so unpredictable. It may seem weird, but at least if you know when you’re going to get the shit beat out of you, you can be prepared—emotionally, anyway—and relax in the meantime. But it doesn’t work that way in real life. So I was constantly on alert, hypervigilant. I couldn’t let my guard down for a second. Always trying to be on good behavior to prevent another attack. But the definition of “good behavior” kept changing. Something that pleased Bruce one day would piss him off the next. Like the way I interacted with his clients at social events. One week it was, “Harriet, I’m so proud of you. They all loved you. You’re smart and funny and beautiful. I wouldn’t be where I am without you.” The next week it was, “What the hell were you doing, trying to upstage me in front of my clients? You’d better remember who brings in the bucks here. You think I married you for your brains? If I wanted your opinion, I’d give it to you.”
Then the hitting would start. One time, he shoved me and I went down, hitting my skull on the edge of the dining room table. A platter of hot seafood étouffée came down on me, scalding my arm.
“Clean it up!” he yelled, kicking me as I tried to rise.
So that’s how it went, week in, week out. It took me years to figure out I was trying to control something I couldn’t.
I forced my mind back to the present. What a day. I needed to unwind, to chill, to restore my Zen-like state. Of course, there was only one way to do that: motorcycle maintenance. I had taken some basic classes back when I first got my bike. As a former Boca Babe, I couldn’t tell a shifting fork from a salad fork, a cylinder block from a cinder block. But I did have a desire to learn, plus a major drive to depend on no one but myself.
I pulled the Hog off the airboat and onto the porch. I muscled it up onto its center stand and then unscrewed the oil filler cap. The oil level was just about a quart down, so I
topped it off. I changed the transmission fluid and adjusted the drive belt. By then, I was on my way to getting as tranquil as I ever get.
I sat down with my Hennessy. Lana was splayed out on a nearby rock, soaking up the last rays of the day. I reflected on what I’d learned about the Mayan slaves—the injustice, the exploitation, the greed.
“It’s a cruel world,” I said to Lana. Her only response was to snap at a turtle that swam by.
Chapter 5
THE FOLLOWING morning I decided to contact Tricia Weinstein, the woman who had employed Gladys as a housekeeper. According to the police report, she was an estate attorney with a prominent law firm in town. I was able to reach her at work, though not without some wrangling with her receptionist. After I explained the reason for my call and asked to meet with her, she stated that she was extremely busy but could see me for a short time that afternoon at two.
I spent the morning at my office, tracking down a client’s missing funds to an account in the Turks and Caicos. At two I walked into the law offices of Weinstein, Weinberg & Weintraub in downtown Boca. Gold-and-black lettering on the entrance door proclaimed, “Visit us on the web at www.www.com.” Puh-leeze.
The receptionist was a Boca Babe wannabe. Here’s how you tell the Boca Babe aspirants from the arrivals: It’s not a matter of artificial versus authentic, it’s the quality of the artifice. The wannabes’ bleached blond hair has dark roots and split ends, their artificial nails are press-on rather than silk wrap, and their make-up is sparkly rather than subtle. But the fake boobs are the same.
She did the head-to-toe body scan. I had on my usual all-black, all-stretch attire and sported my usual hair, makeup, and nail job—that is to say, none. She eyed me disdainfully.
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