by Tod Goldberg
Pottery Barn and revenge seemed like strange bed-fellows, even to Fiona. It was the next day, and we were sitting poolside at the Ace Hotel, waiting for Sam. He’d asked us to meet him at the hotel, which was odd, but he said it would all make sense once he arrived. I had a suspicion that it would only make sense to Sam, but there we sat, Fiona in a bikini that contained roughly the same amount of fabric that goes into a cotton ball, and me wearing an Armani suit, because I assumed we’d be sitting inside. And because I look good in it.
“For a brute,” Fiona said, “he did have a lovely set of chenille throw pillows. How can you want to hurt people when you can put your head down on chenille throw pillows?”
“It’s a great mystery,” I said. I had Junior’s BlackBerry in my hand and was busy going through all of his e-mail and phone contacts. Fiona was busy absorbing UV rays.
“Would you mind getting my back?” Fiona asked. She flipped over and undid her bikini top.
I’d spent the better part of the last hour putting suntan lotion on different parts of Fiona’s body, enough so that I was pretty sure she could walk on the sun without getting a burn, but then Fiona was always partial to putting on a show for the tourists, and there was a new batch of young men sitting across the pool, ogling her. The Ace was one of those hotels designed to look like it had been built in the 1970s, except that all of the things that were deemed dreadful in the seventies were now covered in glitter and made to look exceptional. Even the drinks had names from the seventies, like the DY-NO-MITE! Mudslide and the Jim Jones, which was basically a Long Island Iced Tea. Most of the pool denizens were born in the 1980s, so the significance (or insignificance) of it all was likely lost on them. But Fiona’s near-naked form certainly wasn’t.
I squeezed out a dollop of coconut-scented tanning oil into one hand and rubbed it into Fi’s back while still perusing the BlackBerry with my free hand. It’s not the kind of multitasking they teach at spy school, but I was able to make do.
“Here’s something interesting,” I said. “Last night, Junior received an e-mail from someone with an Honrado Incorporated e-mail address.”
“Aren’t all of the people working there ex- or current criminals?” She reached around to the small of her back. “Did you get this spot, Michael? I don’t want an uneven tan.”
“You’re all covered.” I opened up the e-mail. It was blank but contained an attachment, which I opened. It was the visitor sign-in sheet that Sam and I had signed as Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin. “This isn’t good,” I said, and handed the BlackBerry to Fiona. “It’s the daily sign-in of people coming to see Father Eduardo.”
“It seems that the Man from U.N.C.L. E has been compromised,” she said.
“And the mayor,” I said.
“The problem with employing criminals,” Fiona said, handing the BlackBerry back to me, “is that they tend not to be very trustworthy.”
The e-mail was from the blanket info@honradoinc. com, which was probably accessed by several people, but it was unlikely that more than one person had immediate access to the sign-in sheet. The receptionist was the only one. I’d have to check with Eduardo on that, but even the process of snooping for that info might tip off the wrong people. Better to take care of that on the down-low.
I scrolled through the rest of the e-mails, but they went back only two days and didn’t provide much in the way of apparent action items. But if you really want to know about a person, read his nonpersonal e-mails, like the e-mails from Amazon. com noting the upcoming delivery of items, which, in Junior’s case, provided even more insight than I could have imagined.
“Would you like to guess what books Junior has headed his way?” I asked.
“I’d like to think he’s got some of those Chicken Soup books. Did they make a Chicken Soup for the Violent Criminal’s Soul yet?”
“Not yet,” I said. “But he does have The Art of War and The Revolutionary’s Cookbook on a three-day delivery.”
“What is it with men and The Art of War?”
“Have you ever read it?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t need to. Do you want to know what the art of war is, Michael? Kill the other person. It’s really very simple. No reading or extra training required.”
It wasn’t really The Art of War that concerned me. The Revolutionary’s Cookbook wasn’t dangerous as a book, but it was a favorite of garage-based terrorists for years. Most of them didn’t know what to do with it, really, but someone like Junior, who was brighter than I’d given him credit for, just may. At the very least, he had the muscle and the means to acquire the goods required for large-scale explosions that didn’t require weapons-grade explosives. Worse, though, was that if he didn’t know precisely what he was doing, there was a good chance he’d blow up his own neighborhood by accident.
“How did you learn to blow things up, Fi?”
Fi started to turn over-well, she actually gave a half turn, to the delight of the tourists, which I suspect was her plan all along-and then remembered her undone top, which she retied before sitting up so she could see me. “I love it when you ask me personal questions,” she said. “I think my brother taught me. Or maybe some kids down the way, but probably my brother. It was so much fun growing up back then. You could play outside all day and no one complained if you accidentally incinerated an empty shack or three.”
“What did you use?”
“Whatever we could find. Bleach seemed to work well when mixed with other things. Pools of hairspray proved quite flammable, too.”
“What could you have done with a book like The Revolutionary’s Cookbook?”
Fiona thought for a moment. “Personally? I think I could have brought England to its knees, but then I was always a very active child.”
Anyone with an Internet connection can figure out how to build an atomic bomb, or at least procure the steps needed to put it all together, but not everybody has access to enriched plutonium. And anyone with an Internet connection can order The Revolutionary’s Cookbook, but that doesn’t make him capable of actually creating a device that can do anything more than maim himself, but the mere idea that Junior was pondering this was cause for some concern, particularly since he was apparently receiving the list of visitors Father Eduardo was seeing each day.
I couldn’t imagine a reason why he’d want those names unless he planned to shake them down, send them materials related to his blackmail scheme or to stick a pipe bomb in their mailboxes. None of the options were particularly appealing.
“You know what I wonder?” I said. “Just how much Junior really wants to run through Honrado, and how much he might just want to be respected like Father Eduardo. If he really wanted to bring him down, why not just kill him already? There must be easier businesses to run his money through.”
“You said he hasn’t read The Art of War yet,” Fiona said.
She had a point, but it still didn’t quite make sense to me. But, then, revenge isn’t always about the quick fix. Sometimes it’s about torture. Junior had spent twenty-five years in prison. That’s a long time to spend pondering someone else’s suffering.
And if anyone knew about suffering, it was Sam… or at least that’s what his general countenance suggested when he walked up to where we were sitting, tore off his shirt and essentially beached himself facedown on the chaise longue we’d held for him. He had a manila envelope stuffed into his back pocket, which made him look like a delivery man who’d been murdered.
“Always so graceful,” Fiona said.
“Sweetheart,” Sam said, not bothering to turn over, “I’m doing battle with some demons today. Unless you have a pocket exorcism kit with you, I’d appreciate a bit more tenderness from you.”
“Can I get you a drink?” Fiona said.
Sam lifted his head and turned it to face Fiona. “Now, that’s my girl,” he said. “How about a Jim Jones?”
Fiona slapped Sam’s flank. It sounded wet. “You’re fine,” she said.
“I cou
ld do without the kidney slaps,” he said.
“This is a great hotel,” I said.
“Isn’t it?” Sam said.
“There a reason we’re here?”
“Blue skies and pretty girls aren’t enough for you, Mikey?”
“No,” I said, though it wasn’t a bad place to scroll through someone else’s BlackBerry. I told Sam what we’d learned.
“You think Junior is working with THRUSH on this to finally get Solo and Kuryakin in their crosshairs?”
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“You think it was the girl with the handsome scar who sent in the list?”
“It could be anyone,” I said, because the truth was that I didn’t want it to be her. “Can you turn over? I feel weird speaking to the hair on your back.”
“Your true colors always shine through, Mikey,” Sam said. “Here’s what I learned while you two were out here enjoying the free vitamin D from the sun, the reason for which shall be made clear as soon as I can move my torso.” He rolled himself-which took some effort-until he was mostly flat on his back, and then pulled the envelope out of his back pocket and handed it to me.
“Are you having some kind of problem?” Fiona asked.
“I think I injured myself last night,” Sam said.
I opened up the envelope and pulled out several pages of telephone records. “Quick turnaround,” I said.
“Have I ever mentioned my friend Yvonne before?”
“Last night, actually,” I said. “And in more detail than I was comfortable with.”
“I did?”
“You did.”
Sam shook his head like he was trying to dislodge his brain from a fork. “Well, anyway, she works for the phone company. She’s a good source in times of trouble, and a good friend in times when you just want to be alone, but don’t really want to be alone.”
“More information than I’m comfortable with, too,” Fiona said.
“No one wearing that much oil and that little clothing can have an opinion on what constitutes too much information,” Sam said.
Junior’s phone was registered to someone named Julia Pistell. “Any idea who this Pistell woman is?” I asked.
“According to Yvonne, there’s exactly one person in the United States named Julia Pistell with another phone record,” Sam said. “And she’s a college student in Vermont.”
“So she’s not a Cuban gangster?”
“Doesn’t appear so,” Sam said. “I’m going to guess she’s been the victim of identity theft, particularly since I ran her credit and she’s now the proud owner of ten credit cards, all in good standing, mind you, so that’s good for her.”
There was one number that appeared at least twice a day for a week; some days, it appeared close to a dozen times. There was another number that appeared five times in one day and then not once after that. Sam had circled the most frequent number in red pen, the other number in blue. It was far more organization on Sam’s part than I was used to. “Who’s this in red?” I asked.
“You’re looking at him.”
“He called you?” Fiona said.
“No,” Sam said. He waved his arms about. “This him. The Ace Hotel.”
“This isn’t a him. It’s an it,” Fiona said.
“Sister, I’m not real strong on the pronouns right now,” Sam said. “You’re lucky I’m not speaking in tongues anymore.”
“Why is he calling this hotel?” I said.
“He’s got a villa here, or his friend Julia does,” Sam said. “It’s been rented for a month.”
“I want to say, Michael, that I am liking this man more now than I did yesterday,” Fiona said. “He does have good taste in kitsch resorts.”
Renting a villa at the Ace Hotel for a month would cost upwards of ten thousand dollars, but that’s not what had me wondering what his motive was.
“Who is in it?” I said.
“No one answered when I called,” Sam said.
“You get a room number?” I asked.
“I managed to make sweet eyes at the girl behind the counter,” Sam said, “and when that didn’t work, I gave a bartender a hundred bucks and told him to meet us out here when he had the information, and that you’d compensate him then, as well.”
Sam was always happy to spend someone else’s money. “What about this other number?” I said.
“Ah, yes,” Sam said, “the plot thickens. Seems your friend Barry took a few calls from Junior, as well.”
Barry is a friend to a lot of people in Miami, particularly people with money to launder. If you want the best man in the business, he’s the man to go to. But I had a hard time believing Barry was working directly with an organization like the Latin Emperors. He tended to prefer to work with sole proprietors. Less chance of getting snitched out by someone… or getting shot. Barry could get you what you needed, but he wasn’t the kind of guy to consort too much with the more violent members of his profession, mainly because he wasn’t exactly handy around a gun, or a fist, for that matter.
“How do you know this is Barry’s number?” I said.
“Hours of intensive sleuthing,” Sam said, “and then I called it and he answered.”
“What did he say?” I said.
“First, that he was happy to hear my voice. Second, that he was curious regarding Fiona’s current romantic status. And third, that he was scared to death of Junior Gonzalez,” Sam said.
“That’s wonderful,” I said.
“I told him you’d call him, see if you could ease his beating heart a little bit.”
A common misconception about people on society’s fringe is that they have some indelible sum of street smarts that Joe Public does not. The truth is that you usually end up on society’s fringe because you lack a certain facility with the idea of cause and effect. Having street smarts really just means you don’t know how to exist in the real world where people are ruled by the idea that what they do will engender consequences.
That was Barry, in a nutshell.
“I’ll add that to my to-do list, right after saving Father Eduardo’s life,” I said. “What was he doing for Junior?”
“That’s what he wants to talk to you about,” Sam said. “He said it was just a consulting gig.”
“A consulting gig?”
“Ecomony’s tight, Mikey. Everyone’s taking on new job duties these days.”
“It’s true,” Fiona said. “I’m pondering a move into corporate sales and service. Like Blackwater, but with better outfits.”
Luckily, a hotel employee approached us before the conversation could continue between Sam and Fiona. He wasn’t young or hip enough to be one of the bar-tenders (all of whom wore tight black T-shirts and black pants trimmed in white, which made them look like lost, if fashionable, mimes), especially not with his gray hair, salt-and-pepper mustache and rather nervous demeanor. As he walked, he kept looking over his shoulder, as if he thought a tsunami was approaching, and even when he faced forward, his eyes continued to dart. His name tag said PABLO.
“Are you the people with the money?” Pablo asked.
“This your guy?” I asked Sam.
“No,” Sam said. “Where’s Louie?”
“On break,” Pablo said. “He sent me.”
“Why are you so nervous?” I asked.
“I need the money first,” Pablo said.
I pulled out my wallet and examined the contents. I only had about sixty dollars. That wasn’t much of a payoff, but I hadn’t hit the cash stash prior to our visit to the hotel. I handed Pablo the money, anyway, and waited while he counted the ones, fives and the lone twenty.
“This is only fifty-seven dollars,” he said. “My life is not worth only fifty-seven bucks.”
“That’s all I have,” I said.
“I’ll take your watch,” Pablo said.
“No, you won’t,” I said.
Pablo looked from me to Sam to Fiona. He lingered on Fiona for a moment too long.
; “The leering you are doing would cost you fifty dollars at any reputable peep show,” Fiona said. “And if you stare a moment longer, it’s going to cost you your kneecaps.”
Pablo whipped his head back in my direction, which caused beads of sweat to fly from his scalp. It was nice outside, but not nice enough to make this man a sweaty mess.
“Your sunglasses,” he said to me. “Your sunglasses, and we’re even.”
When you’re a spy, you sometimes make sacrifices for the greater good. I could buy another pair of sunglasses, so I handed Pablo mine. He put them on immediately. They weren’t quite his look, but he seemed content. “Follow me,” he said. That he didn’t also say “if you want to live” was a great relief.
8
Work for the government long enough and what you realize is that there’s no such thing as absolute privacy. Every moment you spend holding your cell phone is a moment that can be tracked. Every Web site you visit on the Internet can be tracked. Every search you enter into Google can be tracked, so if you spend a lot of free time searching for ways to blow up airplanes, be aware that there’s someone who is now looking for reasons why you might want to blow up an airplane. Everything you do behind the privacy of your front door is really just a sham: If the government wants to know what you’re doing, they might need a warrant to kick down the door, but they rarely need anything more than a couple of keystrokes to get a great idea of what you’re plotting.
If you want even a modicum of privacy, stay in a hotel. The government can’t as easily bug a business as they can a person. And when you’re in a hotel, there are plenty of people willing to do your bidding, so that you may feel even more secure. Plus, the sheer amount of people who might stay in a room, in addition to the number of people who have access to a room, and the amount of government-mandated cleaning that goes on, makes a hotel a forensics nightmare for investigators. Too much opportunity for pollution equals reasonable doubt.
