My quick summary of the other incidents involving Santeria and Palo Mayombe left her appalled. She looked ready to go back inside to kick some ass.
“I read something about that in the paper, but there were no details. It’s called ebó? Animal sacrifices?” She shuddered. “I’ll check with the Rescue League. Maybe they’ve had issues with Santeria before.”
“Good idea.”
“Let me help you home.”
“Thanks, but I’ve got to return some overdue books.” I nodded toward my backpack. She looked at me as if she thought I was delirious.
A knot the size of a ping-pong ball had ballooned on my hairline. Way to go, dumb ass. If the blackmailers hadn’t already sent my ledger to Booth, they would now.
63
BLUE GUAYABARA BOY’S NAME was Emilio, and he worked for Posada. But Posada…genuflected?
I sat in the shade next to a laundromat a half-block up the street, hoping for Emilio to emerge from El Aljibe. I waited twenty minutes, he never appeared.
My old red bike carried me past hundred-year-old houses and down streets whose names were lost on my tunnel-visioned eyes. I coasted past the cemetery and tried to spot the gumbo limbo tree above the small arch belonging to Reverend J. Van Duzer.
What had Jo Jo and Rodney seen? Why had they been murdered? The lump on the back of my head throbbed. Maybe Karen would turn something up through her connections.
I entered the library anxious to lighten my load. Walter smiled upon seeing me. “Well, if it isn’t Bomb Reilly, Key West’s newest national celebrity.”
I cringed. “Do you have anything on Palo Mayombe?”
“Pollo, isn’t that chicken?”
“P-A-L-O. It’s like Santeria, but worse.”
“Worse? That’s hard to believe.” He turned to the computer and after a moment looked up. “Nothing on Palo. Isn’t it ironic that Willy launched a mission opposed by Santeria, his daughter stowed away only to disappear, and Santeria might be to blame? Maybe that’s why Manny’s so torqued.”
“Gutierrez? Why do you say that?”
“He introduced Shaniqua to the occult in the first place.”
It felt as if another hammer came down on my head.
“How do you know that?”
“That’s what she told me. He had the books out before she did, and she was curious what had him so interested.”
“Manny Gutierrez is into Santeria?”
“I don’t know about that, he just borrowed the books. But I could tell Shaniqua was fascinated by it, so who knows? These books have made the rounds, though, that’s for sure.” He glanced quickly around the room and leaned onto the counter. “An FBI agent came in to review our records on a series of subjects, including Santeria.”
“Records?”
“As in who checked out what books. He ran his finger down the list, stopped, and read your name out loud.”
Great! “What did he say?”
“He wasn’t smiling.”
I stumbled out of the library, bumped into a woman, and knocked her books to the ground. First Emilio, now Gutierrez and Booth. I pedaled hard into town.
Answers, I needed answers!
Blue Heaven was quiet. The Gargoyles were absent, and there was no sign of Lenny. Next stop the Church of the Redeemer. As I approached, I saw that the front door was ajar and tried to peer inside as I rode past.
A white truck suddenly swerved at me. I reflexively veered away, hit the curb, flew over the handlebars, and landed palms first on the concrete sidewalk where my bike crashed down on top of me. The truck screeched to a stop.
What now? Santero goons? Emilio? Or maybe Booth to haul me in?
Willy leaned through the window. “Sorry about that, Buck. You all right?”
Oh jeez. I peeled pebbles from the jellied abrasions on my palms. “Yeah, great.”
He jumped out and lifted the bike off me. “I was coming looking for you, and I guess when I saw you, well….”
The bike’s front wheel was bent beyond repair, the angle of the curb pressed into its aluminum frame. My palms burned, sans a layer of skin.
“I was on my way to see you, too,” I said.
“Hop in.” Willy lifted the bike into the back of his truck.
“How well do you know Mingie Posada?”
“Not very well, he attends a different church,” he said.
“Could he be into Santeria?”
Willy cut me a quick glance. “He’s a deacon in the Catholic church.”
“You know a guy who works for him named Emilio?” I handed the picture over. Willy held it atop the steering wheel as he drove.
“There’s Posada,” he said.
“Emilio’s the guy next to him, in the blue shirt.”
“Don’t think I’ve ever seen him, why?”
I rubbed the skull lump and shuffled photos until I found the one of Scar. I handed it over. “This is Jackson Rolle.”
“That’s a Bahamian name,” Willy said. “Remember the actress, Esther Rolle? She was Bahamian.”
“That fits.” I dug into my backpack and retrieved the customs form. “The Carnival was registered in the Bahamas, but this doesn’t say which island. Did you ever talk to Rolle?”
“Only Perez, the captain. Bahamas? Does the FBI know this?”
“I don’t think so, at least not all of it. Booth’s still investigating, though, case closed or not.”
We turned onto Duval. The lunchtime revelers were in full swing. Girls of all sizes roamed the road, with bikini tops and shorts the predominant fashion. Crowds from Sloppy Joe’s and Hog’s Breath poured into the street. Heavy metal music throbbed from one, hip hop from the other.
“From what the president said last night, we’re running out of time.” Willy swallowed a couple times. “I wanted to keep your seeing Shaniqua quiet because I was afraid, maybe she was involved.”
We pulled over in front of Fast Buck Freddy’s.
“When Booth played me that phone recording, I knew she could be alive.”
“Considering her fascination with Santeria and the call she made to Treasure Salvors from the boat, you need to prepare yourself that she might be involved with whatever the hell’s going on,” I said.
“Treasure Salvors? Where she works? What’s that got to do with anything?”
“The stuff stolen from my plane included some old treasure maps. She saw them and called her boss from the Carnival.”
He rubbed his eyes with both hands. “Treasure? Those people were her friends, Rodney adored her, she wouldn’t have done anything to harm them. Over treasure? Or Santeria?” He hesitated, then said, “I thought she was just curious. But she’s been friends with Enrique her whole life.”
“I met him yesterday. He was a cool character. Too cool to tell if he knew anything but he claims they’ve got nothing to do with the boat, or the murders.” I decided against mentioning Palo Mayombe, just yet.
“Maybe it’s time we tell CGIS about your seeing Shaniqua.” Willy said.
“Not yet. In the Fed’s zeal to condemn Cuba, she’ll be guilty until proven innocent.”
Willy slapped the steering wheel. “What the hell do we do, then?”
“Give me another twenty-four hours, and if I don’t make any progress, I’ll go to CGIS.”
He turned onto Petronia and stopped in front of Blue Heaven. “Remember I said I was looking for you?”
My oozing palms throbbed.
“Lenny’s got something important to tell you.”
I looked toward the restaurant. “Like what?”
“Let’s go.”
The Gargoyles were back on duty. “Looky who’s coming!”
“Enough of that,” Willy said.
The old guy’s mouth clamped shut like a mousetrap, but he winked as I passed.
Lenny was stacking glasses behind the bar. “About time,” he said.
“What’s up?”
“Your fruitcake friend out at the airport? He was in here lookin
g for you. Said the shit was going down with your plane, man.”
The welt on my head throbbed. “Not another bomb?”
“Worse.” Lenny lifted the phone onto the bar. “You better call him. Now.”
64
“BOOTH GOT A COURT order,” Ray said.
“For what?”
“To impound your plane, what else?”
I slumped onto a barstool.
“An FBI pilot’ll be here in the morning to take Betty to Miami.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“Her. She wanted to make sure the fuel was topped off.”
“I’ll bet that made that prick, Booth’s day.”
“You got an attorney that can block a court order?”
“Oh sure, I keep three on retainer.” Blue Heaven suddenly began to spin around me. “What time are you leaving?”
“Five o’clock sharp, why?”
“Can you stick around until I call you back? I’ve got to think—”
“One other thing. Betty’s ex showed up in his Falcon a couple hours ago.”
“Buffett?”
“He’s doing a Party for Peace concert at Margaritaville tonight. He walked around the perimeter of yellow tape the cops left around her. He was pretty freaked.”
“Join the club.”
I hung up. Lenny was pulling fiercely at his sparse chin hairs. Willy held his hands up wanting to know what was wrong.
“Booth’s taking my plane.”
“What the hell for?” Lenny asked.
“Evidence, but that’s just an excuse. He’s got it in for me. It’s a long story.” Or, maybe he got the ledger from the blackmailers.
“Just like that? He can—”
“If he takes your plane, how we going to find my daughter?”
Lenny slapped a palm against the bar. “I say we kick Booth’s ass!”
Willy grabbed my bicep. “If that boat makes a move, you’ve got to find it. No matter what, I want Shaniqua back in the U.S.”
Our eyes held for a long second, and then I headed for the door. The Gargoyles lit into me about Saturday’s fight with Bruiser Lewis, but I breezed past them. Outside, my bike still lay crumpled in the bed of Willy’s truck, so I ran.
Stay
Off
the
Ropes
65
INSIDE MY APARTMENT THE first thing I saw was the message light blinking by the phone. The number five was illuminated in the LED. Would Booth have called to gloat? I was surprised to hear Harry Greenbaum’s wheezy voice leave his office, cell, and home phone numbers.
Karen had left the second message. “I heard about the bomb on your plane. I’m worried about you. I need to talk to you about something.” The details of my latest fiasco for her yarn, no doubt.
The third call was someone who’d phoned earlier about a charter, an income- producing opportunity I needed to—
The next voice startled me. “Get your butt over here, now.” Enrique Jiminez.
Must be about the figurine.
The machine beeped again. “Reilly, you there? Pick up….” The voice was familiar, but—“I just got to the airport and saw Lady wrapped up like a burn victim, only in yellow police-line tape. What the hell’s going on? Meet me at Margaritaville. Come by and ask for Sunshine.” The line went dead.
“Not this time, Bubba.”
I stared out the window, as a sense of loneliness started to grab me around the throat. I had no place to turn for help. Finally, I silently spoke to my father, seeking help, direction, wisdom, the answer to the damn word puzzles and to the riddle of why I was being attacked from all quarters. Even the brief attempt to reinvigorate my love life had been thwarted by a hostile art peddler. The media’s paranoia promotion was dialed up to high with speculation that the hemisphere would soon be at war. Based on the president’s speech, it was clear he was that he was toying with the idea.
And I was caught in the middle.
I had wracked my brain, going back to when I first found Jo Jo, but nothing added up. The pressure had intensified, not diminished, so I must be Helen Kellering my way toward some sort of epiphany.
Tired of getting my ass kicked against the ropes, it was time to start swinging. All I could think of was Betty exiled to an indefinite fate in a federal hangar in Miami. If Booth’s taking my plane, odds are he’ll be coming for me too.
Of the four messages, only one warranted a return call.
“Yes?”
“It’s Buck.”
“I’m late for a board meeting, so we must be quick. A fellow named T. Edward Booth purchased twenty-five thousand dollars’ worth of e-Antiquity stock a year before the decline.”
“Right at the peak.”
“He sold it for twenty-five hundred just before you filed chapter seven.”
“Mazaltov, chump. How about Jackson Rolle?”
“We found three Jackson Rolles in the U.S. One’s a dentist in Manhattan, one’s a mechanic in San Diego, and the other’s a third grader in Petoskey, Michigan.”
Rats. “Probably an assumed name—”
“There was a case of a Cuban immigrant arrested for spying in Miami who died in jail awaiting his trial after boasting about being Castro’s financial distributor to cells in South Florida.”
“Some sort of spymaster?” I said.
“They never found out. Only that he was planted in the Cuban émigré community to keep his ears open for any plans against Fidel.”
“No doubt replaced on the next raft out of Havana.” I shivered, and felt as if a spider had run up my back. If the Cuban government believed the media hype, and if there were Cuban moles in the U.S., would they be readying their plans for retribution?
“Without more information there’s no way to triangulate in on Rolle, or the bloody boat, and I’m sorry, dear boy, but I must run.”
“Wait, Harry? Any idea what MUDDHOUSE might mean?”
“As in adobe?”
“Tried that.”
“You’ve lost me now. I have no idea, and I really must go.”
I paced the apartment like a caged hyena, only I wasn’t laughing. The customs form said the Carnival was Bahamian, and Rolle’s a Bahamian name, but there are eight hundred islands in the Bahamas.
I dialed another number from memory.
“Who is it?”
“Buck Reilly.”
“Shit, cuz, I thought I’d hear from you sooner or later. You in jail?”
“If the court wants to impound a vehicle, do they have to give you notice?”
“If they’ve got your ass locked up or if they say you bought it with funny money they don’t.”
“How about as evidence in an investigation?”
“Your plane, eh?”
I grunted.
“Shit, boy, it had a bomb on it, right? They damn sure could take it.”
“Crap.” My palms were oozing. A mixture of sweat and bodily fluid from the scrapes.
“That it?”
I hesitated. “If they told me to stay on the island, and, well, if I heard they were coming to impound my plane, and—”
“You’re kidding me, right?”
“Okay, stupid question. Next time I call you, it will be to get my ass out of jail.”
“That’s what I do,” Currito said.
I sat staring at a blank wall. Harry’s results were a disappointment. My fingers rubbed the lump on the back of my head. The swelling was down but the spot was still tender. How was the Carnival tied to Blue Guayabara Boy? If I could catch him, the truth would come out, that’s for damn sure.
66
NASSAU AND FREEPORT WERE the two most populated Bahamian cities, and the two most likely places the boat came from. Another name popped into my head, and the realization that I had forgotten to call him launched me off the couch. I jammed both hands into my pockets and threw everything on the table. Where was it? Here.
I punched the buttons and desperately tried to conjure up a convincing story.
A woman answered. “Ensign Frank Nardi, please,” I said.
A clipped answer was followed by silence. No Muzak for the U.S. Coast Guard. How did they find somebody on a giant ship like the Mohawk?
“Nardi.”
“This is Buck Reilly, I stopped by—”
“You were supposed to call back at fourteen hundred hours, yesterday.”
“I got stuck in a meeting with the FBI. About the Carnival.”
“This the same Buck Reilly from Douglas Community Center?”
“Douglas—”
“Basketball on Tuesdays? You weren’t there this week, but after seeing the news, you’ve got a good excuse.”
An image of a tall guy with short dark hair and a tattoo on his bicep came to mind.
“Franko?”
“That’s right.” He laughed.
“You never said you were Coast Guard.”
“We’re not supposed to talk about it. If what they said on CNN’s true, you can understand that.”
“I, ah, don’t talk about my…listen, damn, I still can’t believe—anyway, I wanted to brief you on Cuba. I’d come over, but I’m kind of pressed for time.”
“This is a secure line.”
“Mine too.” I imagined the La Concha operator listening in. “The Carnival’s still afloat. I saw it tied up at a government warehouse in Havana harbor. Number one Obrapia.” I held my breath.
“That explains why Lieutenant Killelea from CGIS is on his way here to brief us. We’ve been scrambled out on patrol.”
Killelea was the guy with Booth at the airport. He’ll freak when Nardi tells him I called. I bit the nail on my thumb.
“Customs tells us that the Carnival was from the Bahamas—”
“Right, registered to San Alejandro.”
San what? “Is that near Nassau?”
He paused. “The ownership entity, San Alejandro, LLC, registered in…Don’t you have this briefing? It came from intelligence.”
I froze.
“Reilly, you there?”
“Ah, yeah, I’m getting an urgent e-mail. I have to run, Franko, but, where did you say San Alejandro was registered?”
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