Stuff to Die For

by Don Bruns

  “Sure.”

  “Assuming this meeting breaks up at a decent hour, do you want to go out and—”

  “And what? Mess around? I’m not up to it Skip.”

  “Em, we need to talk some more. I’ve had some time to get used to this.”

  “Get used to this? Oh, good. I’m glad you’re used to it, Skip because I’m not used to it. How do you ever get used to it?”

  “Well, I mean I’m not used to it but—”

  “Skip, I don’t feel like talking to you or anyone about this. I’ll see you at Jackie’s tonight.” She hung up the phone.

  Obviously she was going through some emotional thing that I didn’t understand, and I was being shut out, which bothered me. Besides, she was sick every day and that couldn’t be too pleasant. I don’t know why God had women take all the crap that goes with childbearing, but I’m glad He did. I don’t think men would be strong enough to handle it.

  James came home dragging ass. “Long day, bro.” He threw himself down on the stained sofa and closed his eyes.

  “It’s going to be longer, James. I have a feeling that this meeting with Jackie Fuentes isn’t going to be pleasant.”

  “What do you suppose she wants?”

  I walked to the refrigerator and grabbed two beers, handing one to him. “Obviously it’s something to do with her husband. And probably the mail. And I feel certain the Cubans will come into the conversation.”

  “And let’s not forget Vic. Our classmate will probably figure predominantly in this meeting.” Swallowing about half his beer, James belched. “Shit, we gotta leave here in ten minutes if we’re going to make the powwow. I’ll splash some water on my face and we’ll get out of here.

  “We’ll take my car?”

  “Good idea. I think the truck needs oil, and every once in a while there’s some sort of rattling sound.”

  “Our future.”

  “Yeah. Once we get this behind us, we’ll just be a little more selective in what we haul.” He went into the bathroom and came out a minute later, looking as ragged as he had when he went in.

  The drive took longer than I expected due to a tractor trailer accident on I-95, but when I finally got through the gatehouse and pulled into Jackie’s drive, Emily was just getting out of her T-Bird.

  “Do you know how good you look?” She wore khaki cargo pants and a halter top that showed a lot of skin.

  “As a matter of fact, I do,” she frowned. “God knows enough guys tell me on a daily basis. It gets a little old.” She nodded to James. “Asshole.”

  “Em.”

  She walked ahead of us, past a Lexus SUV and a BMW 325i, to the back door of the house. She rang the bell and Jackie Fuentes answered, wearing a pair of faded jeans and an orange blouse, her hair pulled back and tied with a matching piece of orange cloth. The housemaid look did nothing to detract from her beauty.

  Jackie escorted us down the hall that James and I had walked back and forth about forty times, and into a small library, complete with built-in bookshelves, a stone fireplace, and what looked like a custom-designed desk. It occurred to me that for two guys who made next to nothing and were up to their eyeballs in debt, we were seeing a lot of how the other half lived.

  “I needed to talk to all three of you together.” We sat in leather chairs, sipping brandy from small glasses. No shit. Brandy. She poured the drinks from this fancy glass decanter, and even though I’d never tasted it before, I think I sipped it like a pro. James, on the other hand, downed his in two gulps and kept eyeing the decanter. Emily drank Evian. One of the reasons she might be upset with me was that she couldn’t drink liquor for the next nine months. There was probably more to it than that.

  “This was going to be a simple job. I wanted you to haul my husband’s possessions out of this house and deposit them in a storage unit. In retrospect, I probably should have hired a professional moving company.” She paused and leveled her gaze at James. “Hell, there’s no probably. I should have hired someone who could drive a truck. Obviously you can’t do that.”

  My roommate cringed.

  “You couldn’t back up a truck, and you have gotten us all into more trouble than even I can imagine.” She took another sip, poured herself another glassful, and ignored James’s pleading look.

  Em spoke up. “What brought all this on, Jackie? We told you what happened. The guys are just starting out and—”

  “First of all, I guess I mentioned to you,” she pointed to Em, “that I thought Rick might be mixed up with a terrorist organization.”

  “You said something to that effect.”

  “Well, I’ll stick by that story. Only now we know what kind of terrorist organization.”

  “Cubans,” James said.

  “Cubans who don’t care how they get what they want. They dismember people, kill people, blow up buildings, and threaten those of us who just want to be left alone.”

  It didn’t make sense. “Why are they threatening you?”

  “Because my husband—soon to be my ex-husband—heard that I was going to call the authorities.”

  “Huh?”

  “I had mentioned to another friend that I suspected Rick was involved in some terrorist organization. This was after my husband and I pretty much abandoned any hope of reconciling our differences. I told this person that I was considering calling the CIA.”

  “Wow.”

  “I‘ve been getting phone calls in the last couple of days threatening me. Telling me that if I report any suspicions to the authorities not only will Vic be killed, but I’ll be on a hit list as well.”

  Em sat her bottled water down on the side table by her chair and stood up, tugging her top to make sure it didn’t slip. “That’s some serious shit, Jackie. But we had nothing to do with any of it. If anything, we’ve been threatened as well, and we never suggested reporting what we know.”

  A bell rang somewhere in the house and Jackie stood up, holding up a hand as if to quiet us. She walked out of the room and we looked at each other, not knowing exactly what to say. Inside of thirty seconds she reappeared, a man in his thirties trailing her.

  “This is William Krueger, CIA.”

  He nodded. Krueger looked official enough. He had a buzz cut, open-collar blue shirt, and a tan sport coat and slacks. His shoes were layered with a coating of shiny wax, and when he grabbed my hand I winced, certain that he’d broken a finger.

  “Mr. Krueger is with the CIA in Miami. He contacted me about a week ago, and—”

  I broke in. “You never contacted the CIA yourself? After your threat?”

  “As I was saying, Skip, he contacted me. Right, William?”

  “Yeah.” Slow. Something about the delivery of the one word.

  “He told me that there was some concern about my husband’s business.” She nodded to Krueger.

  “Yeah. I told her we were investigating some of the dollars he was raising and some of the people he was hanging out with. She shared quite a bit with me.”

  “So you think Rick Fuentes is involved in this attempt to unseat Castro?”

  “No. Not anymore. We feel that with the kidnapping of his son, he’s only going through the motions to protect his kid.”

  “So what do you suggest we do?”

  “Drop everything. Don’t involve yourself anymore.”

  “Last night—”

  “We know. You visited a warehouse down by the water. Forget whatever you saw.”

  James stammered, “B-But we think we may have seen Vic, Rick’s son. And we saw—Skip saw guns.”

  Krueger nodded. “Drop it. Don’t tell anyone what you’ve seen and don’t try to see anymore. We’ll take it from here. Mrs. Fuentes here has her life on the line, and so do you. Don’t push it any further, got it?”

  James shook his head up and down vigorously.

  “Do you have identification?” I wasn’t comfortable with the guy.

  “I’m not getting through to you, am I?” He reached into his back pocket
and pulled out a wallet. He flashed a badge and stared at me, slipping the wallet back into his rear pocket. “This is serious stuff, kid. Don’t fuck with me.”

  “How do you know where we were last night?”

  “We know. That’s what we do, we get information. We’re the Central Intelligence Agency. Intelligence. Understand?” He stood up and walked toward the door, turning to us for a final word. Or two. “Pretend you never heard of Rick Fuentes. Pretend you don’t know his son Vic. If you continue to involve yourselves, you’re not only putting Vic in danger, you’re putting yourselves in danger.”

  “Mr. Krueger,” James finally got some backbone, “Vic is already in danger. If it wasn’t him we saw last night, there’s a good chance he’s dead.”

  “Then forget about Vic.” Krueger smiled a disingenuous smile. “Worry about yourselves, because you’re in danger right now. You could walk out the door of this house and never even make it to your cars. Understand?” He turned the corner and we could hear him walking down the hallway. We understood. To some of us, it didn’t make any difference, but all four of us understood.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  “YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT, so shut the fuck up. If you can’t afford an attorney we’ll find the dumbest son of a bitch on earth to represent you.” James flicked his ashes on the cement and drained his second beer. I could have told him it was from Lethal Weapon 4, but I wasn’t in the mood.

  “It’s not funny, James. The CIA is involved and apparently we could get in even deeper than we are.”

  “Deeper?” James was close to shouting. “Christ, Skip, they were already trying to kill us. How much deeper can we get?”

  “Yeah. And are we running for our lives?”

  “We should be scared shitless.”

  “And we’re not.”

  “We’re invincible, amigo. We think about death but we don’t seriously believe it’s going to happen to us.”

  “Is that it?”

  “I don’t know. I’d like to know what happened to Vic.” He popped number three, and handed me my second.

  “Me, too. I’m tired of getting the runaround from everybody.” Especially from Em, although I didn’t want to admit that to James.

  “Speaking of runarounds, was Emily giving you the runaround tonight?”

  “What?”

  “I noticed she wouldn’t talk to you when you spoke, and she pretty much ignored you the rest of the time.”

  “Yeah. She thinks I’m immature, have no future, and I’ve got a jerk for a roommate. I’m not husband material. Apparently not father material either.”

  “Jesus. I wasn’t serious last night when I said that.”

  He was. “She was. I think she wants to distance herself.”

  “From you?”

  “Seems to be the plan.”

  “Sorry, pard.”

  “So do we call Fuentes? Forget about what the CIA guy said?”

  James stared into the darkness, waving his cigarette, making a bright orange arc in the air. We were both quiet for a moment.

  “We’ve got another party involved here.” He sipped his beer.

  “Emily? Jackie?”

  “No.”

  “Who?”

  He smiled. “Angel.”

  “And your point is?”

  “He’s had pretty good instincts so far, Skip. I say we tell him about our meeting and see what he thinks.”

  “I agree.” Angel had probably saved my life twice. Once when he stopped the Cubans at the storage unit, and just last night when he shot out the floodlight at the warehouse. It wasn’t a bad idea to see what his opinion was.

  “How about I swing by Gas and Grocery tomorrow on my way to work, and I’ll see if he’s around. I’ll take a break about three. Any chance you can swing by Esther’s?

  “I’ll do it. I may not have to worry about a job.”

  “Oh, come on, pard. I have a feeling your sales are going to soar.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  I PULLED INTO WORK about half an hour late, thinking about Em and thinking about what Krueger had said last night. You might not even make it to your cars tonight. Something like that. I thought about all the movies and stories I’d read where somebody puts a bomb in your car, and the minute you turn the key, BOOM! I thought especially of that movie, Casino , starring Joe Pesci where De Niro’s car blows up. I would have checked the engine on my Prism, but I had no idea what to look for. Then I thought about a fatherless kid. And maybe she was right. I was pretty much useless, nothing more than the sperm donor to fertilize the egg.

  But when I walked into the office I got a nice surprise. Maybe the job was getting better or I was getting better at the job because another client bought a system. Not only did this guy and his wife buy one, but he wanted a system for his office. I think he was an accountant or something. Sammy was ecstatic.

  “Contract was on the fax machine this morning, Skipper. Two more sales. I think someone took our little conversation to heart.”

  I cringed. I kept my mouth shut, but I cringed. I didn’t take him seriously, much less to heart. The guy was a flaming asshole and whatever had happened must be pure, dumb luck.

  I called Em from the office phone. It saves minutes. She answered like it was a business call, very formal. Then when she heard my voice she got even more cold and distant.

  “Em. What do you think?”

  “About what?”

  I knew the kid issue wasn’t her favorite subject at the moment. “About last night.”

  “What about last night?”

  I was getting slightly irritated by the attitude. “Were you there? I thought I saw you. I know you didn’t talk to me, but I would swear you were there. Jesus, Em. About the CIA guy and Jackie.”

  “What’s there to talk about? If you keep meddling in this thing, Vic is going to be in even more trouble, Jackie could be in trouble, and you and James could be in trouble. You heard him. I thought he was very clear.” Her smug voice came through the receiver loud and clear.

  “Listen, I don’t know what I did to piss you off, but I wish you’d lose the attitude.” I started to build up a head of steam. “It seems to me that we’ve got a couple of things on our plate that need to be dealt with, and your shitty attitude isn’t going to help us get through them.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “Maybe I should look at that other option.”

  “What other—” and it hit me. “Really?”

  “I don’t need a kid in my life right now, Skip.”

  “I can’t ever imagine a time when I will.” I should have kept my mouth shut. “I don’t mean that. I mean, I’m like you. It’s going to take a while to adjust. I think it’s a wonderful thing and if you decide to have this baby, I’ll be the best father that—” It suddenly occurred to me. “Em. I’ve had three sales in the past two days. Three. I’m not sure this is a dead end job.” I was sure. More than ever. This job was totally dead end, but to be stuck with this loser image in the mind of the woman I love—well, you know.

  “Congratulations.”

  That was it.

  “Well, I could buy a playpen with the commission.”

  “I told you, I’m considering other options.”

  “Would you tell me before you do anything? After all, I did have something to do with this.”

  “Yeah.” She sighed. “I remember what you had to do with this.” There was a long silent pause. “I’m busy, Skip.” She hung up. Just like that.

  My first two morning calls weren’t home, and my third took almost two hours. They asked me dozens of questions, and gave me an extensive tour of their four-room house. After an hour and a half I found out neither one of them had a job and they were about to be evicted. Then they had the nerve to ask if they had won the hot tub. I told them yes. They were the grand-prize winners. I gave them Sammy’s cell phone number, told them he’d arrange delivery, and I drove down to Chili’s for lunch. Sammy was going to be so pissed.

&
nbsp; The cute little waitress, Nancy, who had come on to James, waited on me.

  “You’re James’s roomate.”

  “Yep.”

  “He hasn’t called.”

  “He’s been a little busy.”

  “The second job?”

  “It’s become more than that.” I ordered a boneless rib sandwich and a beer.

  She brought the draft to the table and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “What kind of a car do you drive?”

  “Car?”

  “A Cadillac?”

  “Hardly. A Geo Prism. Ugly green. Why?”

  “James told me that the next time we went out he was going to pick me up in a brand new Cadillac. I figured he could hardly afford one, working at Cap’n Crab.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  ESTHER’S PARKING LOT was half full at three, with James’s truck right out front and a fire engine parked on the side. Five uniformed firefighters crowded into one booth in the front, and they were discussing a morning rescue as I walked by.

  “Hey, pard.” James nodded to me as I approached his booth. “Angel’s on his way.”

  “I had lunch at Chili’s. Nancy says hi.”

  “Oh, yeah. Nancy. I should probably call her.”

  “She says you promised to pick her up in a new Cadillac?”

  He tilted his head. “I probably had too much to drink.”

  “That would be so unlike you.”

  “Someday, Skip. Once we get this Fuentes thing settled.” He sipped a Coke and pushed around a spoonful of potato salad on his plate. “You having anything?”

  “Nah. I’ll wait and see what sumptuous dinner plans we come up with tonight.”

  “I’ll have it someday, Skip. A Cadillac. They got that new convertible out. What? You don’t believe me?”

  “For you or for your dad?”

  “Angel’s here.” He pointed toward the door.

  Angel sat down and I noticed his Jeep outside the window.

  “I filled our Bahamian friend in on the meeting last night. He says he wants in on the project. Right, Angel?”