Act of Betrayal

by Edna Buchanan

  “All of them, Ron,” I said lightly. “I guess the police beat teaches you how to deal with people.” I took that shot because he and Gretchen are among those in the newsroom who look down on my job. They are so wrong; it has everything any writer could want. People stories, true grit, and heroes.

  Before he left for a television taping, the two of them huddled across the newsroom, heads together.

  I tried calling my mother, but her phone rang unanswered. Her machine didn’t even pick up. Where was she? A faint rumble, a vibration underfoot, signaled that the presses were rolling with the next edition. In an uncertain world, the newspaper is a constant, something to hang on to.

  Before tackling the tedious job of transcribing the tapes, I called Mrs. Goldstein and asked her to take Bitsy out. Seth answered, eager to know if there had been any murders and asking when he could come to the office again. He promised to give Bitsy a good workout. “Remember, she has short legs,” I warned. Then I checked my calls and found an urgent message from Lottie.

  “You wont believe this!” she wailed.

  “What?” I asked wearily.

  “My flowers…”

  “I know, I know. The most beautiful flowers on God’s green earth. Lottie, I’ve got—”

  “Listen!” she demanded. “I was adding some water and an aspirin today, you know, to give ’em a little boost and make ’em last longer. Guess what I found?”

  “A snake?” Shoppers in several local garden departments had been bitten by poisonous snakes curled up in the potted plants, but I’d never heard of one in a florist’s arrangement.

  “Worse! I’d rather be snake-bit. It was a card. Guess what it says?”

  “Lottie, I can’t stand this. Just tell me. I’m hungry and frustrated. My life is passing before my eyes. I’m in no mood to play guessing games.”

  “Let me read it: ‘With Deepest Sympathy for your loss. Good-bye Uncle Harry, we’ll miss you.’ Signed, ‘Tom, Adrienne, and the kids’”

  “Who the hell are they?” My right eyelid twitched and I felt the early drumroll of a headache.

  “The bereaved! The poor souls who paid for the flowers that shyster stole from some funeral home. They looked a little peaked when he gave ’em to me.”

  “Oh? I thought you said they were the most beautiful flowers on God’s green earth. I could have sworn you said that. Maybe they fell off an ambulance he was chasing.”

  “Wait a minute,” she said. “His office! That’s right. His damn office backs up on Evergreen Cemetery. I’m so mad I could bite myself!”

  I wanted to say I couldn’t believe Stosh would do such a thing, but I didn’t. In fact, I could picture him climbing the fence.

  Lottie shot art of Reyes the following day, and I met her afterward for a late lunch in the News cafeteria.

  An apron-clad chef looked bored behind a steam table of peculiar-looking tacos topped by wilted lettuce. He wore a giant sombrero. I blinked when I saw him, then realized it must be Mexican Day. The cafeteria operators had resorted to themes to lure back employees who persist in leaving the building to eat somewhere, anywhere, else. They never try the most effective theme, good food. I once discovered carrots in the spaghetti sauce on Italian Day. Even Lottie, who loves Tex-Mex and laces everything liberally with Tabasco, eyed the taco special with suspicion. “Wanna go halvsies on a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich?” she murmured.

  “I’m gonna stick to the soup.” I halfheartedly tossed some saltines onto my tray. “What’s the word from the Polish Prince?”

  “That sidewinder.” She sneered. “It was the back end of bad luck the day I set eyes on him. Don’t git me started.”

  “Sorry. How’d things go with Reyes?”

  She looked pleased. “Made a great portrait of him on his yacht, the Libertad. Beautiful boat, but he’s mad as hell at the city. Sewer pipe must have backed up and the smell behind his place is rank.” Her eyes danced as she settled in the chair opposite me. “Reyes came on to you, didn’t he?”

  “Hell, no,” I said.

  “Well, that man is definitely hot to trot.” She batted her eyes coquettishly as she sipped her tea. “All he did was ask questions about you. He wanted to know everything.”

  “Did he mention my mother?”

  “Your mother?” Her freckled face screwed into a puzzled scowl.

  I nodded. “He knew her and my father, years ago. The man practically drools at the mention of her name.”

  “Didn’t know he was a friend of the family.”

  “Join the club. It was a surprise to me.” I told her everything.

  “Think he and your mama were sweeties years ago, a little hanky-panky? He had to be gorgeous then. He ain’t bad now.” She leaned back in her chair, eyes wide. “Lordy, Britt, that rich and powerful hombre might be your daddy.”

  “Oh, swell, thank you very much. My mother thanks you, too.”

  “Better than a sharp stick in the eye,” she said, chewing. “What’s to hate about having a real live politically connected millionaire in the family? You could be Cuba’s first daughter or, if he has his way, the crown princess. Who would mind being a tadpole in that gene pool? You notice that strong jaw? Won’t find no narrow-eyed, inbred young ‘uns there.” She bit into the second half of her sandwich.

  “Be serious.” I sighed, pushing away my soup bowl. “I’d give anything to read my father’s diary. I’ve always felt we were connected.”

  “What’s your mama say?”

  “Can’t even find her. I’ve been trying to reach her since last night.”

  “That’s sure a turnabout,” she said. “Who knows what happened all those years ago? What if it wasn’t Tony Montero?” Once Lottie locks onto a subject she’s as dogged as a pit bull with his teeth in a bone. “Your real daddy could be some furniture salesman from Atlanta—or the next presidente of Cuba.”

  “Come on, Lottie, you make my family history sound like some soap opera or one of those doorstop novels. I’ve just always wanted to know what happened to my father, what happened back then, and why my mother is so uptight.”

  “Ain’t no future in the past,” she said, blotting mustard off her lower lip with a paper napkin.

  “Ignoring it is like running from your own shadow. I help solve other people’s mysteries all the time but I’ve neglected my own, and it’s important to me.”

  She nodded. “Gotcha. Photographers’ kids have no baby pictures. Shoemakers’ kids got no shoes. But hell all Friday, Britt, tons of folks have no clue who their daddies were and do just fine. At least most of ’em.” She paused and looked pensive, probably recalling a recent high-profile case, a man, adopted at birth, who searched for his biological parents, tracked them to Miami, and beat them to death with a pipe wrench.

  “It’s hard to explain,” I said. “Mine left a big void in my life, yet he’s always there. As though he’s trying to tell me something. Like we are one, always together.”

  “That ‘ud give me the bijeebees.”

  “It’s now or never,” I said. “Time is running out. The world he lived in is disappearing fast. So are the people who knew him. They’re not getting any younger.”

  “None of us are. But I’m with you, Britt, if there’s any way I can help.”

  I smiled. I’ve always wanted a sister like Lottie.

  I called the White House and was told by the political director that Juan Carlos Reyes was considered a loyal party member and fund-raiser and a valuable spokesman for the Cuban-American community. The President had met him during his first campaign swing through Florida. Now Reyes was a member of the Committee to Re-elect the President.

  I also talked to the assistant secretary of state for Inter-American affairs, the former chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, three Cuban-American congressmen from South Florida, and a spokesman for the Cuban-American Foundation. Despite pointed questions and prodding, the worst anybody would say on the record was that
he seemed to have an ego problem. Don’t all politicians?

  I searched property, corporate, and court records. Reyes’s holdings were vast, from a former upstate training camp for would-be freedom fighters, to shopping malls, a downtown arcade, office buildings, apartment houses, and supermarkets. All his business partners seemed legit, without criminal records. He seemed to sue mote than he was sued, but the lawsuits he was involved in were no more than those generated by the average tycoon.

  A rough draft of my story ran long, 120 inches, and I wasn’t comfortable that Ron and Gretchen insisted on seeing it before I had time to tighten and polish. I had still had no feedback from them when Fred Douglas stopped by my desk.

  “Good job, Britt. Your piece on Reyes will be the centerpiece of the section. Needs some trimming, but I’ve never seen Reyes so quotable. Seemed almost human. Lots of things in there I didn’t know about him.” He looked at me speculatively. “We should do this more often. Swap reporters around on different beats from time to time, bring in somebody with new eyes.”

  Oh no. “Once I wrap this up,” I said quickly, before he got any ideas, “I have to get back out on the beat and finish my story on those missing teenagers.”

  He nodded absently, forgetting his former reservations.

  Soon after, Ron Sadler sidled up to my desk like a crab. “Nice piece.” He hesitated. “Reyes never talked for publication before about his plans to seek Cuban membership in the free trade agreement or his Bay of Pigs experiences. How’d you worm that stuff out of him?”

  Lowering his voice, he gave me a smarmy grin. “What’d you do, sleep with the guy?”

  I resisted taking a swat at him, didn’t want makeup on my knuckles. “Ron, do you sleep with every woman you interview?”

  “That’s entirely different,” he said self-righteously. “I’m a married man, with a family. You know, you’re ambitious and unattached. These macho Latinos always go for younger women.”

  “Get away from my desk! Talking to you gives me whiplash.” Heads turned as my voice rose. He glanced around, embarrassed, aware we were being watched. “Don’t get pissed. You know me, Britt. I was just kidding.”

  “You heard me! Beat it, before I slap you silly.”

  He slunk off and went to confer with Gretchen.

  Later I told Lottie what he had said.

  “I’ll be go-to-helled,” she said, “he sounds like a good ol’ boy from twenty years ago. What’s happened to him?”

  “I dunno, Lottie. He used to be a nice guy.”

  “TV sure has changed that fellow. I never trust a man whose manicure is better than mine.”

  I took my transcripts and a printout home, to avoid further aggravation. No way. A stranger’s car occupied my parking space. I unlocked my mailbox hoping for a letter from Kendall McDonald and found somebody else’s mail instead. Mostly junk. Where was mine? Was some pervert pawing through my new Victoria’s Secret catalog? Was my love letter from Kendall McDonald being held up to a light or steamed open by some voyeur? At least my darling pets would be glad to see me. I stepped inside and called warmly to them.

  Bitsy had ripped Billy Boots’s favorite catnip toy to shreds all over my freshly cleaned carpet. Billy Boots, obviously stressed as a result, had upchucked a fur ball and what looked like the remains of my spider plant. The sluggish room air conditioner seemed to be blowing hot air instead of cool and my bedroom was a furnace. Too late to disturb the Goldsteins. No repairs could be done at this hour.

  I played my messages. No word from my mother or McDonald. I fed the animals and foraged in the freezer until I gave up and simply stood in front of it with the door open. The only cool place in the apartment. I would have remained indefinitely except for Bitsy, who brought me her leash and skittered around my feet, eager to go out.

  The night air was a muggy slap. The depression had developed into a tropical storm somewhere between Africa and the Caribbean but nothing stirred here, not even a wisp of a breeze. Miami’s late August is superheated, supercharged, an atmosphere in which people have been known to commit murder for the seat closest to the floor fan.

  New York and Chicago have winter windchill factors but we have a summer discomfort index. Computed by the combined heat/humidity peaks, it currently hovered at 111.

  The little red ribbon in Bitsy s topknot hung in tatters, probably from the skirmish in which the catnip mouse was decapitated. What was there between my mother and Reyes? I wondered. And where the hell was she?

  When we got back, I tried her home and office numbers again unsuccessfully. My appetite gone, I skipped dinner. Instead I filled a glass with ice and a lime twist, poured in some tonic water and a turn-bier of gin. I sipped it slowly, savoring the sweet, crisp taste on my tongue as I worked on the Reyes story under the ceiling fan in my bedroom. I cut about nine inches, but my heart wasn’t in it.

  I finished the drink, put the story aside, and slipped into a cotton nightgown. Hoping for a nonexistent breeze, I opened the windows wide, checked my gun, and slipped it beneath the pillow beside me, in the event that anything unexpected came through my windows in the night.

  I dreamed I was aboard a sightseeing boat cruising Biscayne Bay after dark, music and laughter skipping across the water. Suddenly gunfire broke out and passengers hit the deck. The shooting stopped as abruptly as it had started. No one was hurt and the music and laughter resumed. Another Miami night. I strolled down a narrow ship’s corridor when a boy tumbled out of the shadows and sprawled in my path. “It’s me,” he said. “I’m shot.

  “No,” he protested, as I reached for him, “you’ll get blood on your dress.” I gathered him up in my arms and began to run toward the voices for help. As we emerged on deck, the man with the noose was silhouetted in the moonlight. Surely he could save this bloody child, but ignorant people blocked my way, smiling and staring. My burden was staggering. I felt the blood. No matter how I tried, there was no way to push past or move around them in time. His face was in shadow. Was it the man with the noose—or was it Juan Carlos Reyes? I sat up in bed, wondering for a moment where I was. Laughter wafted through the open window from people passing. I twisted and turned on sweaty sheets until dawn.

  9

  No intruder crept through my window in the night. A Coconut Grove homeowner, the outraged victim of three prior break-ins, was not so lucky. When a thief climbed through his window at 3:30 A.M., he killed the man with an ax.

  A second burglar escaped, with the irate ax-wielder, a thirty-five-year-old electronics engineer, hot on his heels. He shattered the driver’s side window before the getaway car careened off. “He got some pretty good swipes in there,” a detective said admiringly, when I arrived at the scene.

  “I’d had it,” the mild-mannered engineer told me wearily. I knew the feeling. His hair was straight and dark brown, his nose well formed, his eyes clear, with a hollow look at the moment. “I’m not a violent man,” he said quietly. “But they’d wiped me out three times. They must have backed up a truck last time.” He surveyed the carnage in his living room. “This wouldn’t be such a mess if I’d only had a pistol. I need to buy a gun,” he announced.

  “Or a burglar alarm system,” I suggested. “I’ve got a gun, but it’s never been handy when I really needed it.”

  We stood in his bloody living room, this husky stranger and I, talking like old friends. He was right about one thing. Nothing would ever get that carpet clean again, and the walls and ceding probably would have to be repainted. Even a guitar standing in the corner had been spattered.

  “I’m Hal.” He extended his hand.

  “Britt,” I said. His skin was warm, the fingers smooth and gentle. Hard to believe the damage they had wrought. Our eyes connected. Weird. It always is. Some women frequent singles bars or place personal ads; I seem to meet men at murder scenes. Tour, boat captain Curt Norske and I met over the corpse of a long-missing person, still strapped behind the wheel when his rusted car was found in th
e bay. For that matter, I first connected with McDonald in a sleazy bar with blood on the floor as he tracked a shooter through a middle-of-the-night spree. No wonder my love life is a disaster. I should know better.

  A proximity to sudden death feeds a basic, primal urge in the human animal for a life-affirming act, like sex. One of Mother Nature’s little safeguards to ensure survival of the species. Sex after death is great—so long as the death isn’t yours.

  “I’m sorry we had to meet under these circumstances,” Hal was saying earnestly.

  “I’m sure your living room doesn’t always look like this,” I said comfortingly.

  Still barefoot, he wore blue-jean cutoffs and an open shirt, still unbuttoned. His eyes were brown; so was the curly hair visible on his chest. The pecs weren’t bad. Hal was in excellent shape, as the hapless burglar had learned.

  He rubbed his neck as though it was sore. “The cops aren’t saying much. Am I in trouble?”

  “Did you ever see the guy before?”

  “Never. Not until he came at me in the dark”

  Instinctively I believed him. “Sounds justifiable to me, but you never know. At any rate, there’ll probably be an inquest. I’d bring a lawyer.” The voice of my own bitter experience.

  “A lawyer! Jesus. I was minding my own business, asleep in my own bed.” He must have seen something in my expression. “Alone,” he added. “Then this guy breaks in and I have to hire a lawyer.”

  Poor Hal, I thought, driving back downtown. The burglar’s family will probably sue the hell out of him for loss of the dead man’s future income as a thief.

  I was eager to pursue the missing boys—and talk to my mother. We usually spoke every day. This was out of character for her. Could it be because of Reyes? Could she possibly have my father’s diary? If Reyes had it, I hoped he’d come up with it before the special section ran on Sunday. My story was fair, not a puff piece or a hatchet job, but he already felt burned, right or wrong, by the press, and was gun-shy.