by Danny Lopez
I put on Chet Baker’s My Funny Valentine. It had been my first jazz album ever. It had been expensive at the time. An original first pressing. Great sound. The texture of the man’s voice, of his trumpet, came out like a dose of heroin. It got me hooked.
I refilled my glass and brought Holly another beer. She moved back a little on the couch, stretched her legs, laid them over my lap, her skirt hiked up almost mid-thigh. I caressed her shins. Massaged her feet. Ran my hands up her thighs. She sighed and placed the beer can on the coffee table. Then she reached for my arm and pulled me toward her, opening her legs, making room for my body. Soon my lips were over hers, pressing against the bright red I loved so much.
* * *
The following morning, I made coffee and put on the Beatles’ White Album. Holly looked fantastic. I loved seeing her hair ruffled up, messed up over her head. Her sleepy face, eyelids half-closed, and a little cranky at having had to wake up and face another day.
“You have a nice life,” she said and served herself a cup of coffee. We went outside on the front porch and sat on the rockers. Across the yard the sun hit my neighbor’s oak tree, thick clumps of Spanish moss dripping from its branches like festive decorations. The birds, mocking birds and cardinals and woodpeckers and scrub jays, all over the neighborhood were causing a racket only they could comprehend.
“If you really knew my life,” I said, “you wouldn’t say that.”
“Come on.” She smirked. She looked stunning in my button-up oxford. “You have no real responsibility. And you know how to enjoy your environment. I’ve always loved your house. It fits you so well.”
“An old creaky house for a cranky old guy.”
She sipped her coffee. Then, without looking at me, she said, “So tell me about Mexico.”
The first thing that came to mind was Flor. It flooded me with guilt. Then I thought of the beating, the cigar in my ear. Maya. Boseman. “It was okay.”
“Yeah? Was it work?”
“Kind of.”
“Was it that thing, looking for the girl? Maya …”
“Yeah.”
“Did you find her?”
I chuckled and drank my coffee. “You could say that.”
“What happened?”
I leaned forward and showed her my ear. “I was asked to leave the country.”
“She did that?”
I shook my head and set my cup down. “Someone else did.”
She said nothing more, but looked ahead, her hands around the cup despite the warm morning. And I thought of how beautiful she looked, how I had wanted my life to be this moment—me and her together on the porch of this little old house forever.
But I could tell it wasn’t for her. This was not her dream. It wasn’t even her reality. For the first time in all my years of wishing Holly and I would get back together—make a serious go at it—I saw she would not be happy like this. Not here. Maybe she liked how it looked from the outside, from the visitor’s point of view. But not from the inside. It was different living it day in and day out.
I don’t know if it was this realization, or if it was something else, but I jumped right into it. “Did you know your ex-boyfriend wrote the last will and testament for Nick Zavala?”
“No, I didn’t,” she said flatly. “We never talked about work.”
How could two lawyers be in a relationship, live together for three years, and not talk shop? I didn’t believe her. “I saw him yesterday,” I said. “I asked him about his nonprofit, BRAVO.”
“I’m surprised he gave you the time,” she said.
I laughed. Then I stood and took her cup and went inside. I turned the record over and got us a refill. When I came back, she was standing in the yard looking up at the young oak at the end of the yard. “There’s a woodpecker up there. I can see him.”
“I know. I hear him every morning.”
“That’s amazing,” she said and came back to the porch and took the cup from me.
“You think del Pino knows Mike Boseman?”
She turned away. “Mike who?”
“Boseman. The guy who was going to bring Hollywood to Sarasota.”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Did you ask him?”
“I did. But he said he couldn’t remember.”
“Maybe he doesn’t.” She turned back and gave me a look, her eyes tired but awake. “I’m going to have to get going, Dex.”
“Sure.” I was surprised at how sad I sounded. “I saw a photograph of del Pino and Boseman at a fund-raiser at the Ritz.”
“Oh yeah?”
I followed her inside. She set her cup on the kitchen counter and went into the bedroom, picking up her clothes, one piece at a time: panties, bra, dress, open-toe pumps. She stopped by the bathroom and looked back at me. “I have to get ready.”
I backed away. I paced in the kitchen. In the living room. I went outside and came back in. I changed the record. I put on Lester Young, Live at Birdland. It wasn’t a collector’s album, just a good album. Good morning music.
When Holly came out of the bathroom, she looked as good as always, just like she was when I found her sitting in the rocker on the porch last night. It killed me to see her, to be with her, to feel such an intense attraction.
“Do you remember that night at the Ritz?” I said.
“The fund-raiser?”
I nodded.
“I go to one of those events just about every month, Dex. They all blend in after a while.”
I walked her to her VW and opened the door. She touched my cheek with her hand, held it there like a token, a kiss between friends, love that isn’t real love, tenderness without commitment.
“Am I going to see you later?” I asked.
“Sure. Call me.”
“I had a great time, Holly. I know you did, too.” I don’t know why I was saying it, why I was pushing for something I knew was doomed if it was even possible. “We should spend more time like this.”
“Sure. That would be nice.” But I could hear an empty echo ringing in the hollowness of her words.
“Can you do me a favor?” I said. “Is there any way you can find out from Joaquin who’s inheriting Zavala’s estate?”
“Didn’t you just tell me you found Maya?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Look, Dexter. First of all, it’s a private matter. Joaquin is bound not to divulge unless his client releases him. Second, I am not really on good terms with him anymore. I don’t want to talk to him unless I have to.”
I took a step back. “I was just asking.”
“Why are you going on with this?”
“It’s who I am, I guess.”
She waved a thin, red-nailed index finger at me. “That’s the thing. You don’t know when to let go. That’s what makes you miserable. That’s why we can’t be together. You can’t just let things lie.”
“I’m naturally curious. I can’t help it.”
“Well, you should try.” She got in the car and closed the door. She backed out and then opened the passenger window and leaned over, her dark butterfly-shaped glasses hiding her big green eyes. “Please try and grow up, Dex. Take responsibility for your own path in life.”
Then she drove off.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I HAD TO push the Zavala case aside for a while. The editor of Sarasota City Magazine had been hounding me about the fixes to my copy. She said they were getting ready to go to print and needed this wrapped up yesterday. The changes I had sent her helped, but they didn’t go far enough.
I sat at the computer and began to rework the article. More adjectives, more adverbs, and more details about the marble floor in the bathroom, what kind of marble, what kind of fixtures. Was it a Whirlpool tub? Did they have his and hers closets?
It was amazing to see the kind of shit people cared about. A faucet was a faucet. The only bad faucet was the one that leaked. But I couldn’t say that, so I closed my eyes and tried to remember the fucking opulent and over-the-top fixt
ures in the master bathroom. Gold. They were tacky gold-plated faucets. But now I had to spin that into pretty talk for the readers of the seven-dollar magazine that was like a long real estate ad.
I wrote: The master bathroom was a jewel in itself. The silk smooth Greek marble invited the soul to indulge in the finest Italian handmade, gold-plated faucets that reflected every sparkle from the vanity lights and made you wonder if you were in the presence of the gods. Beauty is too small a word for what the designers have accomplished with this unique and opulent space. This house was designed with the most luxurious details for the ultimate pampering of its owners.
There. Good enough to make me puke. I was on a roll. But then I was interrupted by Maya. It just crashed against my brain like a dream you forgot you had. A déjà vu—Holly. When we talked this morning, she asked me if I had found Maya. How did she know her name? I thought back to all our conversations. I was pretty damn sure I’d never mentioned Maya. Someone else could have mentioned her name. But who?
I made a mental list: Nick Zavala, the hippies, Boseman, Petrillo, Frey, Brian Farinas. No one else knew unless del Pino knew something I didn’t know. He could have told Holly. Maybe that was it. So the motherfucker did talk about his clients, and he must have mentioned Zavala’s will to Holly. And maybe that business was who gets the inheritance: Maya.
I had to confront Holly. There had to be a connection. She was a good lawyer. She helped poor people. I must have missed something. Maybe it slipped my lips, which was possible. I could have said something when I was still swimming in the haze of my post-layoff binge. Or del Pino. Del-fucking-Pino. It had to be him.
I needed to think about that. But for now I had to push it aside. Focus on my home and real estate stories for the magazine. I put on Coltrane’s Live at the Village Vanguard. Cranked it loud, and typed away like a secretary in love.
When I finished, I e-mailed the story to the editor and drove out to Bird Key where del Pino lived. Where Holly lived—until recently.
There were no cars in front of the house. I sat in my car, windows open, salty breeze passing through, filling my lungs, energizing me and clearing my mind of clutter. Del Pino. That motherfucker was deep in it. Something had always been fishy with that guy and his Justice for All slogan. He had managed Zavala’s will. And maybe his nonprofit was something he’d done to clear his conscience for it. Crap. But how would he know about Zavala abusing young girls? He would have gone to the cops. He couldn’t be that fucked up.
Or maybe he was.
Sonofabitch. All this time I had been focusing on Boseman when it was probably del Pino.
I wasn’t sitting there more than twenty minutes when I realized this was ridiculous. It was Thursday afternoon. Del Pino was at work. He wouldn’t be back until evening.
I drove out to Zavala’s house. There was no activity. Nothing. I parked at the end of the block and looked back at the house through my rearview mirror. I don’t know what I could get out of that place if I could even get in. Still, I waited. Maybe deep down I was thinking of Tiffany. If I was, I didn’t know it then. I just sat in my car looking back at that sleek white house with the small rectangular windows and the neat wooden door.
Fuck. How some people lived. How the lucky, the corrupt, the sick, the cheaters, and the liars made their way in this world baffled me. How did good, honest people ever make money? And I mean above and beyond that upper-middle-class place people refer to as the American dream.
To hell with it.
I drove away. What was the point of staying there? I took Bay Shore, drove along the waterfront looking at all the houses, the mansions on the water all the way to the Ringling Museum. Was everyone who lived there a cheat, a criminal?
I made my way back through the North Trail, thinking about Tiffany. She had never been the answer to the mystery. She was just a poor girl who for some reason ran away from home and was picked up by Zavala. I couldn’t imagine that old fuck having sex with her, with Maya, with kids. How many had there been, and where were they now?
And was it just sex, or was it more? His house was a museum of sexual artifacts. My imagination ran wild with images of what might have gone on behind those walls. I thought of Zoe. My hands clenched the steering wheel, my knuckles white with anger. It wasn’t the children’s fault—not Tiffany, not Maya. Would they ever learn to love without condition, without suspicion? The scars of abuse live forever. You don’t recover from shit like that.
Maya might disappear forever, but she would never recover. What she suffered was not right. It wasn’t fair to be young and exist only to please the whims of a man who manipulates, abuses, and tortures. I kept thinking of what Zavala had said about his sex shops. How it was the normal people in the suburbs who were his best customers. I passed the fancy houses along the wealthy Sapphire Shores neighborhood and wondered what kind of abuse might be happening behind the façade of the American dream.
Soon I found myself stuck on the south bridge to Siesta Key. It had opened for a huge sailboat. I sat in the traffic watching yet another rich motherfucker enjoying his wealth. Who needed a boat that size?
I drove down to Point of Rocks and parked under the sea grape tree. There was no activity in or outside the house. It was just as I had seen it the day before and before that.
Then a tow truck drove past real slow. It passed the house and kept going. It turned up ahead and came back and pulled up in front of the house. The driver got out, checked some papers, and walked to the front door and knocked.
He was a big guy. Bald. Had a smirk on his face like he knew more than the rest of us. And he probably did.
I watched him pace back and forth. He tried peeking into one of the shuttered windows. Then he scratched the back of his thick neck. He came back, checked the garage door, and looked around.
I got out of my car and crossed the street. “Can I help you?” I said.
He looked me up and down. “I’m looking for a Michael—” He glanced at the clipboard in his hand—“Boseman. Michael Boseman.”
I nodded at the large house behind him. “That’s his place.”
“He around?”
I shrugged. “Haven’t seen him in weeks.”
He looked back at the house, at me, and scratched the side of his neck. “Who’re you?”
I smiled. “I might ask you the same question.”
He frowned. Looked pissed. Then he grinned. “You’re not him, are you?”
I shook my head. “But I’m looking for him.”
He laughed and rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. “You don’t know where he’s keeping his Jag, do you?”
“The car?”
He nodded and held up the clipboard for me to see. “I got a repossession request from Sunfare Financing.”
“No shit.”
He smiled the way an accomplice might smile during a heist. I nodded in the direction of the house. “You check the garage?”
He looked back at the house and nodded. “I’ll be back.”
I can’t say it didn’t make me feel good to know Boseman was getting his eighty-five-thousand-dollar car repossessed. But it also set off an alarm: Boseman was broke. It hadn’t occurred to me because of the house on the beach, the Jag. But the veil was torn off. If they were here for the car, maybe the house was next. Maybe it explained the empty house. The house, the car, it was just for appearances.
I sped home, thinking of what Petrillo had said about motive: money and love. Money. And. Love.
I went into my computer and tried to find information on Boseman’s house. There was nothing under the County Appraiser’s website—at least not under Boseman’s name. But when I checked with Zillow I got a hit. The address was marked with a blue dot. Boseman’s house was in pre-foreclosure.
I called Petrillo. “I have the motive. Boseman’s broke.”
“So what?”
“So, he was after Zavala’s money.”
“No one stole anything, Dexter. Nothing was missing from the
house. Unless he’s set up to inherit Zavala’s millions, money doesn’t figure into the equation.”
My theory crumbled before my eyes. “Unless he was in on it with Maya. She’s getting two million from the insurance. If those two are in it together, which is very likely …”
“It’s a possibility,” he said.
“And Joaquin del Pino is the executor of the official will.”
“So I heard. We’re getting warm.”
“Yeah, but we still don’t know who’s inheriting the loot. Maybe you could have a word with him.”
“Frey’s on his way to meet him now.”
I hung up and paced all over the house. My adrenaline was pumping. I needed a drink, something hard and cool. But I wanted to stay sober. I could see it all coming together. I hated to think that Maya was involved, but it made sense. It actually made me feel good that she had gotten some kind of revenge for what Zavala had done to her. But there was a small problem: If she and Boseman were in this together, who hired the goons that attacked me that night in Mexico?
* * *
About seven thirty that night I got a text from Petrillo: meet at O’Leary’s in half an hour.
O’Leary’s was the little Tiki bar and restaurant on the bay at the end of downtown. It was one of the best and only real tropical spots in Sarasota. The only drag was the food sucked. But the location made up for it.
It took me ten minutes to get there. I ordered a Red Stripe from the bar and sat on one of the tables looking out at the dark of the bay. The city lights gave off a red glow over the moored sailboats tilting from side to side with the tide, their rigging like tiny distant bells. The smell of salt and shitty fried food and coconut suntan lotion was all over the place. In the outdoor dining area, a man played guitar and sang a Bob Marley tune.
“Dexter.” Petrillo came walking quickly. He placed his hand on my shoulder and sighed. “No dice.”
Every ounce of energy escaped my veins. Petrillo ambled over to the bar, got himself a Corona, and came back to the table. “Del Pino says Zavala willed everything he owned to a number of charities for abused children and victims of sexual trafficking.”
