by Don Bruns
Sammy was in his office and motioned me in.
“Skipper,” he smiled a toothy smile, “you’ve had a couple of really good sales these last six months.”
He nodded his head up and down as he always did.
“And, Skipper, we admire your work ethic. You’re here almost every morning”—there were a couple of Tuesdays that I’d missed and last Thursday—“but as you know, we have to put you on commission first of the month. Based on your sales to date, you’ll make—” he paused and figured on a paper—“maybe a couple of hundred dollars a month.”
He looked at me and gave me that ugly, nasty, phony toothy smile. “Hard to live on that, eh, Skipper?”
I wanted to shove those teeth down his throat. I’d been threatened, thought I’d lost my best friend, almost caught in the fire, and offered a sizeable sum of money all in the last thirty-six hours. For this little asshole to tell me my job was on the line, well, I was almost ready to—
“I don’t want to sound negative, Skipper. No, not negative. However, if we don’t see some improvement here—”
“What?”
It took him aback.
“What the fuck are you going to do? Fire me? Jesus, Sammy. Do you really believe this is the best job in the world? Maybe you can’t get beyond this, but as far as I’m concerned, Carol City and this security business can go to hell.”
“Wait a minute, Skip. I’m not suggesting you quit.”
Sammy glared at me. He was ten years older than I was, dressed beyond my means, and as far as I was concerned, he was stuck in his job and his ego.
“Why? Because you’d have to hire someone else, string them on for six months, and have them quit too?”
“You’ve got till the end of the month. Do me a favor and make something happen, okay?”
I hoped the company hadn’t spent a lot of money to teach Sammy how to motivate. I had five appointments lined up for the day. People signed up for appointments at convenience marts, gas stations, and Esther’s. They didn’t really sign up for an appointment or because they wanted a security system. They signed up because we told them they’d be entered in a drawing. This month I think it was a hot tub. Sammy would get a cheap plastic hot tub and put a drawing of it on a pad of slips.
When people signed up, they got a phone call. A lot of the poor suckers figured they’d better let a salesman call on them if they wanted to up the chance of winning, so we got appointments. When they realized what we were selling, they’d go into the kitchen to discuss it with their spouse and sometimes never come back. Seriously. I had one couple who went to the kitchen, snuck outside, started up the family car, and left. I was alone in the house with a schnauzer and a glass of ice water they’d poured for me. If they weren’t concerned about me being in the house alone, they certainly didn’t need a security system.
My first call was on Mrs. Mosely, a white-haired lady in her late sixties who lived by herself in a rundown row house, and while I was there she had three neighbors stop in to make sure she was all right. Talk about security. Before I left she asked if she was going to win the hot tub. I told her no.
My cell phone rang while I was driving to the second appointment.
“Skip, I had visitors.”
“The two Cubans?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re sure?”
“The guy with the mouth? The last time I saw a mouth like that it had a hook in it.”
I paused. “Caddy Shack, Rodney Dangerfield.” I saw most of those movies with him. “Did these guys threaten you?”
“They ordered food. No conversation. I know it was them, and I can’t figure out if they came in to intimidate me or they really don’t know who I am.”
I thought about it. It could have been a coincidence. “James, Sammy’s got a computer in his office. When you get off work, let’s get online and see if we can scare up some information on Rick Fuentes. I’d like to get a whole lot more information on exactly what it is he does.”
“Good thought, Amigo. I’ve got a better one. We still have a truckload of merchandise.”
He was right. His truck was loaded with the belongings and mail of Rick Fuentes.
“I say we unload it, then see if we want to check things out on the Net. Maybe we’ll find out what this guy is up to.”
If you’re knee deep in something, I guess the best thing to do is see what it is you’re knee deep in.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
GAS AND GROCERY was about three minutes from our pink stucco apartment. I had no idea where Angel lived, but there were very few times I stopped by for a six-pack or cold cuts that Angel wasn’t there. This time I was not disappointed. For all I knew he might have slept in the back room. Actually, that would have been impossible. The squat cement block building wasn’t big enough to have a back room.
“Angel!” He was speaking with a customer in the gravel sixcar parking lot in front. He turned and nodded, his shaved head glistening in the afternoon sun. The man he was talking to ducked his head and quickly walked away, headed up the street.
“Hey, man.” Angel gave me a vacant stare.
Angel was black. Coal black. His sleeveless pullover showed off his bicep tattoos, a marijuana plant on his massive left arm and what probably was the Ethiopian flag on his right arm. I assumed it was the flag because I’d seen pictures of Bob Marley posing with the national flag. Angel’s colors were faded, but the same colors nonetheless.
“Sup?”
“James and I are unloading a truckload of stuff into a storage unit in about an hour. If you’re free—” Angel seemed to be free his entire life, “we’d like you to give us a hand. It’s worth fifty bucks.”
“I thought you didn’t want any money comin’ out of the kitty.”
“There was a little more money than we anticipated.”
“I’m there.”
“I’ll pick you up in about fifteen minutes.
Angel nodded. “Should I bring something for the journey?”
I didn’t know what he had in mind, but the last thing we needed was an illegal substance. Somebody was already running our plates and checking out James and Em. We didn’t need to encourage them.
“No. Thanks anyway. We’ll be by with the truck. Pick you up here?”
He nodded again.
Fifty bucks would save us maybe an hour. I guess the thought of $1,500 for the load and the $5,000 we hoped to be paid by Fuentes was making me feel like I could spare a little of that to shorten the job time.
I drove the green Prism back to the apartment and waited for James. He rolled in ten minutes later, and ten minutes later Angel, James, and I were squeezed into the cab of our one-ton moneymaker, rolling down I-95 to the storage units.
Billboards whizzed by, advertising everything from retirement communities to radio stations.
PALM ESTATES STARTING AT $189,000
Z92! CLASSIC HITS FROM
THE ’70S, ’80S AND ’90S
Then there would be a couple of miles of gleaming white shopping malls, factories, and clustered housing developments with small pale houses and orange-tile roofs.
We passed my favorite billboard.
MR. BIDET
FOR A CLEAN, HEALTHY TUSHY
Em has one. I mean, she has a bidet. But I assume her tushy is healthy and clean too.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
JAMES WHEELED INTO THE LOT, stopping at the locked gate. I took out the private key that only about 150 other people had, jumped out, and opened the padlock. We pulled in and drove down the dusty gravel drive.
“Which one was it?”
“The one with the crunched side, remember? You ran into it.”
He found it and parked in front.
“Man, would be much easier to unload if you backed it into the opening.” Angel studied the position from inside the truck.
James and I both gave him a frown and he backed down.
We got out and opened the back.
“Let’s
keep the mail separate.” I took a box of letters to the side and James and Angel followed.
We started hauling boxes and items to the back of the unit and two hours later we’d reached the front.
James surveyed the rear of the truck, empty now except for Rick Fuentes’s mail. “If we’d get rid of that false wall and the storage space, we could haul a lot more.”
“Let’s get this finished and we’ll consider it.” I pulled the unit door shut.
“Guy had a lot of stuff.” Angel wiped his brow.
“Stuff.” James smiled.
“We’ve still got his mail.” I leaned against the building, catching my breath. Too many beers and fast-food joints.
James drew a deep breath. “Hey, bro, we had reason to open the man’s mail the last time.”
“You think? We had a package that was leaking blood.”
“Then I say we have more reason than ever to open it now.”
“Okay. But only if it looks like it’s pertinent to the situation.”
“What’s the situation?” Angel was in the dark.
“Long story, Angel. Why don’t you take a breather in the cab and Skip and I will sort this stuff out. Okay?”
He gave us a frown, studying the situation for a moment. Then he nodded. “No problem.” I think he relished the idea. Maybe catch a little nap before his night of whatever. Angel got into the truck and rolled the window down and watched us.
We divided the packages and mail and started wading through the envelopes and boxes while we sat cross-legged on the ground. A good ten minutes went by and James finally looked at me and said, “I don’t know how we’d know what to look for. There’s nothing here that looks like it would give us any information.”
“Hell, we’re fishing, James.”
“Have no idea what we’re going to catch.”
I pulled out the manila envelope at that exact moment. It looked just like the envelope with the finger. The return address was Cubana Coffee Inc., Jacksonville, Florida.
“James. Here’s some mail from a company that has Cuba in its name.” I handed him the envelope. He stared at it for a second, then handed it back.
“Another guy’s mail, I don’t know—”
“The guy who planted condoms in the dean of students’s desk drawer? The guy who stole Professor Owen’s Boston Whaler and took a joy ride down South Beach? When did you get religion?”
“All right. Open it.”
“Me?”
“You.”
“This could screw up our $5,000. You know that.”
“Yeah.”
“At the same time it could save our lives.”
“Skip, it’s probably nothing. Now quit talking and open it up!”
“The problem is getting him to shut up.”
He smiled. “Mike Myers, Shreck.”
I carefully tore open the envelope. I kept thinking I could repair the damage later on and no one would know. Obviously that wasn’t going to happen. Once you’ve crossed a line—and we’d definitely crossed it when we opened the bloody envelope—then it’s a whole lot easier to keep, excuse the pun, pushing the envelope.
“Open the damned thing, will you?”
I pulled out a sheaf of papers and scanned the opening letter.
To whom it may concern:
We represent a group of investors who are funding a company called Café Cubana Inc. Said company will consist of a series of franchised and company-owned coffeehouses initially located throughout the state of Florida. The operation will have a central warehouse where a special blend of Cuban coffee will be packaged and shipped to the individual locations. The operations will profit from retail sales of in-store sales of food and beverage, in-store sales of pre-packaged product, and mail order and Internet sales of product. Café Cubana Inc. will eventually move into the eastern corridor of the United States, targeting New England and the New York State market.
I read it back to James.
“Shit. There’s a brilliant idea. I wish we’d come up with it.”
“I think your hauling idea is about as involved as I care to be right now.”
He wrinkled his forehead. “Okay, wiseass, what are the rest of the papers?”
“Lists of investors.” I shuffled through about fifty sheets. “Man, there must be hundreds of thousands of dollars committed here.”
“What level?”
I flipped through the first five. “Twenty-five thousand, here’s one for one hundred thousand, another twenty-five—” I handed him half the stack.
“And this is what Ricardo Fuentes does for a living, right? Finds investors for companies and takes his cut off the top. Christ, Skip. If there’s a million dollars here and he gets just 10 percent he’s pocketed one hundred thou.”
Five minutes later we compared notes.
“Almost four million dollars pledged. And I get the impression there’s a lot more where this came from.”
“Holy shit. Rick Fuentes takes home four hundred thousand dollars in commission? Un-fucking believable.” James looked at the stack of papers. “Can you imagine fifty people investing four million in our hauling venture?”
“We could buy a lot of trucks.”
“Trucks and a warehouse and a staff and some advertising.” He was lost in his own little fantasy world.
“James, look at the names.”
He concentrated on the page I waved in front of him. “That can’t be the former governor.”
“Same name.”
“And this guy?” He pointed to a name on the list. “Christ, is this the same guy who heads up the amusement park and movie company?”
“At that level of money, I would guess it is.”
“Holy shit.” He ran his finger down the list. “And this is the big car dealer?”
I nodded. “This is a huge project, James.”
“Amigo, this is the mother lode of projects.” He continued to scan the list.
The blue Buick had glided silently in, unannounced. I heard the door slam shut and glanced up. Big mouth and his friend stood there with their arms folded, both dressed in black T-shirts that defined their big chests, biceps, and the bulges at their waist-lines.
“Mr. Lessor?”
James seemed to shrink back toward the wall of the building. Never quite the bravado I think he has.
“Mr. Moore.” The other guy gave me a sickening smile. “We took the time to find out about you two. It’s too bad your female friend isn’t here.”
“What?”
“What? We want the stack of papers you’ve been sorting through, the mail that belongs to Ricardo Fuentes, and then you’re coming with us.”
“I don’t think so.” What the hell was I going to do about it?
Big mouth reached into his waistband and pulled out a pistol. This was the second time I’d looked down the barrel of a gun, and I can tell you it is truly a frightening experience. Honest to God, it looks like you’re looking into a dark tunnel and there’s no end in sight. That’s the first thing I thought of. I decided then and there that I was getting out of the hauling business as soon as possible.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
JAMES FINALLY SPOKE. “We don’t know anything. We can’t possibly be any problem for you.”
The jittery man with the greasy hair grabbed my half of the papers and leafed through them.
“Café Cubana.” He glanced at his partner then back to us. “What do you know about Café Cubana?”
“Nothing. Nothing but what we’ve read. A coffee shop with Cuban coffee.”
“Jesus Christ. What do you have?” He shuffled the papers in front of his gun-toting sidekick. “These are the donors.” He looked back at me. “How the hell did you get these papers?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “It was part of the mail that Mr. Fuentes left at his other house. Honestly, we were told to store them in this storage unit.” I watched the gunman the entire time I answered. If he so much as twitched, I was prepared to throw myself o
n the ground.
“This,” he shook the stack of papers, “this was not supposed to be for your viewing. This was to be mailed somewhere else.” The guy was getting red in the face with beads of sweat dotting his cheeks.
James was frozen. His complexion was almost gray, and I could see fear in his eyes. For good reason.
“The official prospectus calls for Cuban baked goods, Cuban sandwiches, and, of course, the coffee.” The mouth held his gun in front of him with his right hand, pointing the barrel at me. “Maybe the two of you would like to invest in our little venture?”
James’s dad would have invested in Café Cubana if he’d had fifty bucks to his name, because it was right up his alley. A new business venture, a new chance to reinvent himself. But he never had the fifty bucks and he wasn’t around any more.
I tried not to concentrate on the barrel of the gun, which started looking more like a cavern than a tunnel.
“I think we’ve invested in one too many businesses already.” I watched James, who was now sitting on the ground and shaking his head.
The greaser, with papers in hand, leaned close and I could smell his foul cigar breath. “You were never to have seen these. This changes everything. Both of you, get up. Pick up all those papers, envelopes, and boxes and put them in the trunk of the Buick over there.” I hesitated, still not believing this scenario. Apparently I was moving too slowly.
“Now!” The gunman shouted. “I’ll shoot you, and your friend will have to clean that mess up too. Do you understand?”
James struggled to his feet, and I tried to fathom a way to knock the gun out of the man’s hand. It was only a dream. This was no time to be brave.
“You won’t shoot anybody. Because if you don’t lay down the gun, I’m going to blow the back of your head off. Do you understand?”
