Tanzi's Game (Vince Tanzi Book 3)

by C I Dennis

  I got a nurse to lead me to the room where Gustavo Arguelles lay in a bed, surrounded by blinking lights and readouts. Tubes and probes were attached everywhere, and the lower half of his face was swaddled in bandages with only a small slit for his mouth. His eyes opened when he heard me approach.

  “Roberto is fine,” I said. “He’s staying with Barbara, and I have a deputy friend looking after him.”

  Gustavo’s eyes showed his appreciation. He tried to lift an arm and grimaced in pain.

  “Don’t move,” I said. “We’ll do the blink thing, same as the guy who just left. Once for yes, two for no, OK?”

  He blinked once.

  “Was it the Iturbe guys? They look like football players? Black van?”

  One blink. Yes.

  “But you didn’t want to tell the cops.”

  Two blinks. No.

  “So I shouldn’t either,” I said. “For whatever reason.”

  Gustavo blinked once again. Yes.

  “I haven’t heard from Lilian. Did you find out anything?”

  One blink.

  OK, great. How was he going to tell me what he’d found out? Gustavo tried to move his arm again, and I pulled the cover away to expose his hand. He extended his middle and index fingers, and looked back at me.

  “V?” I asked him. “Somebody whose name begins with a V?”

  Two blinks this time.

  “Two? The number two?”

  One blink. Yes.

  “OK,” I said. “Number two. Something about the number two?”

  He blinked once again. Goddamn. I’m no good at this kind of thing. I didn’t even know what to ask him to help me figure it out. I was wishing Roberto was here—he’d be all over this, but I was glad that he didn’t have to see his father looking like he’d been run over by a cement truck.

  The nurse returned to the room. “You have to let him sleep. Please.”

  “Understood,” I said. I moved closer to the bed and took my friend’s hand. “I’m back in business, Gustavo. I’ll find Lilian. You just get better, OK?”

  He managed one more blink, and then his eyes closed as the pain drugs carried him away.

  *

  The Coral Gables Police and Fire building on Salzedo Street was a brick-and-glass behemoth built to replace the classy old Mediterranean-Revival police station a couple blocks away that was now a museum. The heart of Coral Gables is a little like the old business district of Vero Beach, but fancier: beautiful stucco and limestone buildings that had been the center of commercial activity in the ‘30s and ‘40s, then declined as the strips and malls had arrived in the ‘60s, and had been rediscovered in the ‘80s and ‘90s, as smaller merchants and businesses found affordable spaces in the fabulous old buildings.

  I was escorted to the C.I.D. office and given a file by a no-nonsense sergeant in uniform. “You can use one of the interrogation rooms over here,” she said. “Don’t take anything, and don’t make copies.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I flicked on a light and sat at a metal desk facing a mirror that was actually a one-way window leading to where the spectators sat while somebody was getting grilled. I had been on both sides of those mirrors many times, and today I would be on my best behavior. It was something of a breach of protocol for Heffernan to allow me a look at the file, but it sounded like he’d been stonewalled so far, and there had to be a ton of pressure from his superiors to find the killer—daytime shootouts in front of country clubs didn’t do much for a city that depended on tourists and conventioneers.

  Heffernan and his people had filled a green Pentaflex hanger with an inch-thick sheaf of ballistics analyses, field measurements, coroner’s reports, neighborhood interviews, and some of Heffernan’s own jottings as he tried to connect the dots. I was particularly interested in Pimentel’s family: who the lieutenant had spoken with, what they’d been asked, and what they’d said. I learned surprisingly little from the notes, but I took out my phone and entered the contact information for Lilian’s two brothers and her sister. Raimundo Pimentel’s wife was deceased, and I didn’t see any notes about girlfriends, or even friends. Heffernan had talked to some of the administrative people at Pimentel’s downtown office, which was also where Javier Pimentel worked; he ran the real estate business with the old man. The younger brother was listed as an attorney, and I wrote down both his business and home addresses.

  I returned the file to the sergeant and made my way out to the street. Javier Pimentel’s office was on Ponce De Leon Boulevard at the other end of the block that I was on, so I walked without calling ahead. It was still early in the morning; I took the chance that he would be at work. The building was prominently situated on a small park and looked glitzy enough to suit a real estate mogul like Raimundo Pimentel. The lobby directory listed Pimentel Holdings, LLC as the sole tenant on the top floor, and as soon as I stepped off the elevator I was greeted by a sweeping view to the north that encompassed the whole Coral Gables skyline and beyond to Miami.

  Impressive. I couldn’t imagine Lilian Arguelles fitting into this kind of wealth. Maybe she hadn’t. Maybe that was why she had kept her distance.

  A stunning young woman with long black hair rose from her polished-aluminum desk. She was the only person in the reception area, which was the size of a squash court. “Can I help you?” she asked, advancing toward me with a smile. Her navy blue dress was snugly cinched around her tiny waist and revealed a slender, hourglass figure: Business Barbie, Latina Edition.

  “Is Javier Pimentel in? I’m a friend of his sister.”

  “Susanna?”

  “No, Lilian,” I said. “I just came from the hospital. Her husband is there, and he’s in bad shape. I’d like to speak with Mr. Pimentel.”

  “And you are?”

  “Vince Tanzi.” I decided against digging out one of my cards; they were way too dog-eared for an outfit like this, where the business cards on the receptionist’s desk appeared to be hammered from platinum. She disappeared behind a door while I waited. One side of the reception area held architectural models of groups of buildings, complete with trees made from lichen and parking areas with tiny little Ferraris and Range Rovers.

  These must be the high-end malls that Heffernan had described. There was a place like that on the other side of the interstate in Vero, with stores like Ann Taylor and Polo, but shopping is about as fun for me as being waterboarded by the CIA. Barbara had dragged me there a few times, and I had sat obediently in the car with the windows cracked open, like an overheated Labrador retriever. Stay, Vince, stay. As painful as it is for me, shopping is like fresh oxygen for my wife. She has made it clear that if she were to punch out unexpectedly she would like her ashes to be scattered in the T.J.Maxx parking lot.

  Javier Pimentel rounded the corner with his hand extended. He was about five-five, slim, and he had a perfectly smooth, circular face, framed by close-cropped dark hair that was thinning in front. I guessed that he was older than Lilian, although I hadn’t bothered to check the stats in the police file.

  “Vince,” he said. “Welcome. I know all about you.”

  I shook his hand, making a cluster of gold bracelets jingle on his arm. He wore a braided gold chain around his neck, and a hoop earring in each lobe. He reeked of no-doubt-expensive aftershave, and I backed up a step to get away from the smell. “How?” I asked. “I thought you and Lilian didn’t talk.”

  “Roberto tells me things. I believe in family. I call the boy sometimes, on his cell. He’s a good kid.”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “He mentions you a lot,” Pimentel said. Unlike his receptionist, he was casually dressed in a patterned golf shirt and light-green slacks. His shoes were buff-colored alligator, and I guessed that they were the real item. Latinos don’t skimp on footwear; in fact, you are pretty much judged by your shoes anywhere south of the Tropic of Cancer.

  “You heard about Gustavo?”

  “Yes. This way, we’ll talk in my office.” He led me beyond the aluminum door t
o another space that dwarfed the reception area and held only a few pieces of furniture: a white leather couch, a modern walnut slab desk, and a few chairs. One wall had a gas fireplace, and two of the walls were open to the view, which extended all the way to the Atlantic.

  “You people must be claustrophobic,” I said.

  “We’re in the business. It’s important to make an impression.”

  “It’s been made.”

  He took a seat behind the desk and motioned me to a chair. “I’m going over to see him at lunchtime. How bad is he?”

  “Bad. He may be asleep.”

  “I can’t believe any of this,” Pimentel said. “He and I used to fish together when we were kids.”

  “You have any idea where the Iturbe brothers are right now?”

  “Who?”

  “They worked for you,” I said. “Muscle. Rent collectors.”

  Javier Pimentel eyed me cautiously. I obviously wasn’t interested in small talk and had gotten right to it, and the partitions were being raised. “I remember them. They went to jail, and my father fired them.”

  “They’re out now,” I said.

  “They don’t work for us.”

  “Who would hire them to beat up Gustavo?”

  “No idea. Like I said, all of this is unbelievable. My father, my sister, and now Gustavo.”

  “Any idea where Lilian is?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Did you see Gustavo recently?”

  “The day before yesterday. He said that Lili was having an affair, but he didn’t believe it.”

  “Do you?”

  “You don’t always know about those things. People are unpredictable when it comes to their love life.”

  He was right. My first wife had carried on with one of my best friends, and I would never have believed it, but it had happened. “Where was he staying while he was here?” I asked him.

  “At my other sister’s. Susanna’s. She’s out on Key Biscayne. You want the address?”

  “I have it. Is your brother in his office today?”

  “He’s away. On vacation.”

  “Where?”

  “He didn’t say,” Javier Pimentel said, and I saw the tiniest bit of fear creep into his expression. “Roberto thinks that you are, like, Superman,” he continued, changing the subject. “I wish I could see him.”

  “Maybe sometime. Here’s my card. Anything at all, call me.”

  “Of course,” he said as he rose and escorted me out. “Just unbelievable, all of this.”

  Yes, I thought, as I waited for the elevator. Unbelievable was exactly the right word.

  *

  The next stop on my bullshit tour of Coral Gables was Segundo Pimentel’s law office. It was the opposite of his older brother’s digs: a squat, one-story concrete building with a faded red awning that gave shade to the front windows along Alcazar Avenue, ten blocks north of Javier’s place. I already knew that the lawyer wouldn’t be there, but that was OK—at least I wasn’t going to be lied to. I had believed pretty much nothing that I’d been told by Javier Pimentel, and I had put him at the top of the list of people who were neck-deep in whatever was going on.

  I thought that I would at least question the younger brother’s associates, assuming that there were any. Somebody had to know where he had gone on his ill-timed “vacation”. Most people would cut their vacation short if their father had been gunned down in front of a country club. The fact that Segundo hadn’t done so had earned him a place on my list right up there with Javier, even though I hadn’t met him yet.

  The interior of the office wasn’t intended to impress anyone. It smelled like damp carpet, and the potted plants that were scattered around were frayed and neglected. No one was at the reception desk, so I had to lean my head into a side room where I saw someone at a desk behind a mostly-closed door. “Anybody home?” I asked a thirty-something blonde dressed in a floral print top and wrinkled khaki pants. Must be a casual day, I thought. The girl was as pretty as Javier’s receptionist, but she was dressed from the Old Navy rack, not from Armani like her Business Barbie counterpart.

  “Oh, sorry,” she said. “I didn’t hear you come in. We’re closed, actually. I forgot to lock the door.”

  “Closed?”

  “Mr. Pimentel is away. I’m just doing some catch-up.” Her desk was covered in papers, and files were strewn all over the floor.

  “Can you tell me where he went? I need to reach him. Something of an emergency.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m a friend of his sister’s,” I said. “Lilian Arguelles. Her husband Gustavo is here, in South Miami hospital. He was attacked last night.”

  “Oh, no.” She looked shocked, and she wasn’t faking it, which made a nice change. “I don’t have any way of reaching Segundo. I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t know where he went?”

  “Not really,” she said.

  Damn. The honesty streak hadn’t lasted long, and I was back in Bullshitville.

  “Ms.—”

  “Heffernan. Chloe, actually.” She stood and brushed a lock of strawberry blonde hair from her forehead. She was almost as tall as me and had a fresh, freckled complexion.

  “Chloe,” I said. “This is very important. Not to be dramatic, but people’s lives are in danger. Lilian has been missing for days, and her husband got very badly beaten when he went to find her. You know about Raimundo Pimentel’s murder.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why would his son be on vacation?”

  “Who are you? Are you with the police?”

  “Vince Tanzi,” I said. “I used to be a private investigator. I’m a friend of Lilian and Gustavo, like I told you.”

  “I—really can’t help, Mr. Tanzi. I’m so sorry.”

  “Here’s my card,” I said. “I know that you can help. Just take some time and think about it, OK? Then call me. I don’t want anyone else to be hurt.”

  “I don’t want to be involved.”

  “I think that you already are. Are you related to Talbot Heffernan by any chance?”

  A slight flush rose in her cheeks behind the freckles.

  “I’m his wife,” she said.

  *

  So, Lieutenant Tal Heffernan’s wife worked for one of the Pimentel brothers? And, she was holding out on me. The crazy part was that if she was stonewalling me, then she was doing the same to her husband, because he must have already asked her if she knew where her boss was. I would have to figure out how to work that little quandary into my next conversation with the lieutenant.

  Susanna Pimentel had answered her cell when I’d called and had saved me the trip out to Key Biscayne. She was at South Miami Hospital at Gustavo’s bedside, and her voice had cracked with emotion. I’d met her once years ago at Roberto’s when Glory and I had been invited over for a drink during the holidays. I remembered that she was a professor somewhere, and was quieter than Lilian, who could go on about any subject at all, and always knew what she was talking about. Roberto had inherited the family brains, but he was more like his soft-spoken aunt than his mother.

  Gustavo was asleep when I entered the hospital room, and a nurse was adding something to his IV drip. “He won’t be awake,” she said. “We’re keeping him asleep for a while, maybe a couple of days.”

  “Pentobarbital?” I asked.

  “You’re a doctor?”

  “I had a brain injury. They kept me in an induced coma for a while. Did he have brain damage?”

  “Just a bad concussion, they think,” the nurse said. “The lung is better though. The jaw is going to take some months to heal. It was broken in half a dozen places.”

  Susanna Pimentel entered the room with two cups of coffee in her hands. She passed one to me.

  “Vince,” she said. “I’m so glad you’re here. Where’s Roberto?”

  “With my wife. Barbara. You haven’t met her.”

  “I haven’t seen you in a long time. I’m so sorry—about everyt
hing. Glory. Lots of water over the dam. But you have a baby now, right?”

  “Yes. Roberto is crazy about him.”

  “So Roberto is safe.” She put her coffee down on a side table and took one of the visitor’s chairs, while I sat down in the other. She was bigger than Lilian, with wide hips and strong shoulders, but the family resemblance was still there.

  “Yes, he’s OK,” I said. “Of course he’s worried sick, though.”

  “So am I. Who did this?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Gustavo was at my house most of yesterday. He was frantic about Lilian. He’d talked to my brothers, and he made a lot of calls, but I don’t think he found out anything.”

  I made a mental note to get a hold of Gustavo’s phone and see exactly who he had called, if the police hadn’t already. “He was awake when I saw him this morning,” I said. “I think that it was two guys named Iturbe. Gang members.”

  “Pepe and Lalo. My father’s henchmen. I thought they were in jail.”

  “They were, until a week ago. Your brother Javier said they don’t work for the family anymore.”

  “My brother is full of shit,” Susanna Pimentel said, her face darkening. “Don’t believe anything he says.”

  “I already came to that conclusion. You don’t get along?”

  “I stay away from him. And from my father. He was a crook, and he abused my mother, and she’s dead because of him. Needless to say I’m not going to the funeral.”

  “Do you talk to Segundo? Do you know where he is? His secretary won’t say, and Javier says he doesn’t know.”

  “Chloe? She’s a paralegal,” Susanna said. “And I can assure you, she knows.”

  “It felt like she did.”

  “No, I don’t know where he is, Vince. I’m sorry.”

  “Where did he get that name? I’ve never heard it.”

  “Segundo? It’s very Spanish,” she said. “It means “Second”. He was the second son. Not too creative, I know.”

  “How long are you going to be here?”

  “I canceled all my classes. I’m just going to stay put, even if he’s asleep.”