Hot Schemes

by Sherryl Woods

  “Are you so sure?”

  “Sure? No, of course I can’t swear to it. We’d have to ask them. But from everything I’ve seen about life in Cuba or in any other place that has suffered war or oppression of one sort or another, there is no such thing as a childhood or adolescence as we know it. You’ve seen the pictures of children from places like Bosnia or Ireland or the Middle East, children whose eyes tell you they are wise beyond their years. Based on that, I say Tony and Ricardo may still be in their teens, but they are men, not children.”

  “Perhaps they just wanted to live someplace where they could get a Big Mac and a milk shake.”

  “I guess we’ll have to ask them directly when we see them again to see which of us is right.” Pedro joined them then. He gave Molly a wan, dispirited smile as he sat down with his tiny cup of café Cubano and poured in a healthy dollop of sugar.

  “Qué pasa, Tío?” Michael asked.

  “I should be home with the family,” Pedro complained. “But no one else can handle the register at this hour, and we could not remain closed forever.”

  “Elena and Mother are with Pilar. That’s all she really needs right now.”

  “No, she needs Miguel. As I do. He is like my own brother after all these years.”

  “Did he come in here often?” Molly asked.

  “I tried to persuade him to work for me, but he said his English was not good enough. Still, he would stop almost every afternoon for an hour or so. Even today, I keep glancing toward the door expecting him to appear.”

  “Was he usually alone?”

  Pedro nodded. “He came alone, but always there were two or three friends at the counter. He would join them.”

  Michael nodded approvingly at Molly as he picked up on where she was headed with the questions. “Are any of those friends here now?” he asked, his gaze on the row of men seated at the Formica-topped counter at the front of the restaurant.

  There were one or two men dressed in business suits, but most wore the more traditional guayabera shirts from the simplest style to those with tiny rows of fancy tucks. The men seemed to range in age from their sixties upward. One wrinkled old man appeared to be at least eighty, but he spoke with youthful passion and vehemence about whatever topic they were discussing.

  Pedro scanned the row. “There is the political satirist Juan Cabrera on the end and next to him is Herman Gómez-Ortega. Juan and Miguel have known each other since the first year of school in Cuba. The Cabrera family lived only a little distance from Miguel’s family. They both fought against Castro, but in different ways, Miguel with a gun, Juan with his words. The differences didn’t matter in the end. Both were jailed.”

  “And Gómez-Ortega?”

  “I know less about him.” Pedro’s gaze narrowed when he looked at the stoop-shouldered man bent over his cup of coffee.

  Molly could see that the man’s broad, weathered hands appeared unsteady as he lifted the cup to his mouth. “You don’t like him, though, do you?” she asked.

  “You are very perceptive,” he said bitterly. “Herman has these crazy ideas. Perhaps it is because he spent too long in Castro’s prisons. He has been here only since the Mariel boat lift in 1980. I suspect Castro was glad to get rid of him. He was a dissident, but he was also a troublemaker, a violent man.”

  “Did Miguel know him in Cuba, or did they meet here?” Michael asked.

  “Perhaps it was in prison. I cannot say for sure.”

  “Could you suggest they join us?” Michael asked.

  Pedro looked startled. “You wish to question them?”

  Michael shrugged. “They are Miguel’s friends. Perhaps he has taken them into his confidence or, if as you say Herman is a little loco, perhaps he knows of some crazy scheme to invade the island.”

  Pedro stood. “I will get them.”

  “Don’t tell them I wish to question them. Say only that Miguel’s nephew is here and would like to meet friends of his uncle.”

  Pedro nodded slowly. “Comprendo.”

  A few moments later the two men joined them. Herman walked with a limp, but his handshake was strong and his eyes were alert and cautious. Molly wondered at once if he was quite as crazy as Pedro thought. He struck her as shrewd. Juan Cabrera was the one with the faraway look in his eyes. Perhaps, though, he was merely dreaming of his next political article or satirical short story.

  “I understand you both know my uncle well,” Michael said.

  “Miguel Garcia is a strong man, a man of conscience,” Herman said, settling into a chair with another cup of the strong Cuban coffee. “You should be proud of him.”

  “I am,” Michael agreed. “Right now, though, I have to admit that I’m worried about him. When was the last time you spoke with him?”

  “We had coffee here as usual on Saturday,” Juan said.

  “And what was his mood?”

  “He talked of the fish he would catch in the morning. He said he would bring some by for my family, as always,” Juan said.

  Michael looked skeptical, but rather than cross-examining the old man as he might a witness to a crime, he merely turned his attention to Herman.

  “And you? When did you last see him?”

  “I was here on Saturday as well. It is something of a habit with us. We are three old men with little to occupy our time except talk and memories.”

  It sounded awfully disingenuous to Molly.

  “And he spoke to you only of fishing?” Michael asked.

  “As I recall,” Herman said vaguely.

  Michael attempted a casual disinterest, but Molly could see the tension in the set of his jaw. “Do either of you know Orestes León Paredes?” he asked.

  “Everyone knows of Paredes,” Herman said quickly. “Why do you ask?”

  “Do you think it is possible that he would have information about my uncle’s disappearance?”

  “He is a powerful man,” Juan said thoughtfully. “It is true he would have many contacts.”

  Herman’s gaze had narrowed. “What is it you are really asking, amigo?”

  Michael regarded him evenly. “I suppose I’m asking exactly how involved Miguel was in Paredes’s organization. As his friends, you would know that, sí?”

  Herman stood up. “This is not something I care to discuss with a stranger.”

  Juan objected at once. “Michael is not a stranger. He is the nephew of our friend.”

  Herman shrugged. “He is also a policeman. Is that not what Miguel told us? I have no use for the police, not in my country and not in this one. Adiós.” He left the restaurant without glancing either to the right or the left.

  “Too many cruel years in prison,” Juan explained when he had gone. “I am sorry for his rudeness.”

  “It’s okay,” Molly said distractedly, her gaze fixed on Michael’s expression. She recognized that look.

  “Let’s go, amiga” he said. He was polite enough to his uncle and to Juan Cabrera, but it was clear his attention was focused on the man who had just left them.

  “Are we following Herman?” Molly asked as they got into the car.

  Michael nodded, his gaze scanning the parking lot and the nearby curbside. “There,” he said finally, and made a quick turn across traffic that had Molly clinging to the door and praying that the cars aimed straight at the passenger side had time enough to stop. She closed her eyes. Tires squealed and horns blew.

  “You can open your eyes now,” Michael said dryly.

  “Don’t you suppose that the ruckus you caused making that turn might have gotten Herman’s attention?” she said, glancing ahead and hoping for a glimpse of the car they were tailing. She guessed it had to be the late-model white midsize Chevrolet.

  Michael dismissed her concern. “My bet is he’s too busy trying to get to Paredes to tell him about our chat. Where are those articles Ryan gave you?”

  “In the backseat.”

  “Can you get to them?”

  “As long as you don’t arrest me for not wea
ring a seat belt.”

  “I’ll close my eyes,” he promised.

  “Given the way you drive with them open, it probably wouldn’t make that much difference,” she observed. She snatched the papers from the back and snapped her seat belt into place. “Okay, what am I looking for?”

  “Some mention of Herman in the articles about the organization.”

  Molly started skimming the printouts. Before she’d made it through the first two articles, Michael slammed on the brakes and muttered an expletive under his breath. For once it wasn’t in Spanish, so she knew exactly how exasperated he was.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t get it.”

  She glanced out the window and spotted Herman at a pay phone in front of a convenience store. “So he’s calling Paredes, rather than going to see him.”

  Michael shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it looks to me like he’s holding a long distance calling card in his hand.”

  “What does that mean? Do you think he’s an infiltrator working for the government?”

  “Your imagination is working overtime, amiga. Besides, a government operative would have memorized the number.”

  “Maybe he’s just making a business call that has absolutely nothing to do with this.”

  “Maybe,” he agreed, but he sounded doubtful.

  “I could go into the store and try to catch some of his conversation.” She already had her hand on the door.

  “Forget it. It would tip him that we’re following him.”

  “The man looked straight through me the whole time we were sitting there. I doubt he’d even recognize me.”

  “Don’t kid yourself. He could probably give you a detailed description of every single person seated near us in that restaurant. I watched him. He missed nothing.”

  Molly recalled her own first impression of his alertness. Even though he appeared to have ignored her, Michael was probably right about his generally sharp observance of both her and his surroundings. “So what do we do now?”

  “When he gets off that phone and into his car, you go over and take down the number. Then call the operator and say you were disconnected on a long distance call and ask if she can reconnect.”

  “He made the call. Won’t she think it’s odd that I can’t tell her what number I made that call to?”

  “Bluff. Do the best you can. At the very least, we’ll have this number and perhaps the long distance carrier he used. Perhaps later we can trace the call, if it becomes necessary.”

  “How will we know the carrier?”

  “Because I counted the numbers he dialed. He didn’t need an extra access number to reach his carrier, so whatever company the phone is linked to is his carrier. It probably says on the information card on the front of the phone.”

  Molly kept her awe at his observation skills to herself. “Can I assume that while I’m on the phone, you won’t be waiting here patiently?”

  “That’s right. I’ll be following him. If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, take a cab back to Pedro’s and I’ll pick you up there.” He glanced toward the pay phone. “Okay, this is it. Be careful. Don’t let him see you.”

  “Would you like me to lie down on the sidewalk until he’s passed by?”

  Apparently he missed her sarcasm, because he nodded without taking his eyes off his quarry. “Good idea.”

  Molly climbed out of the car and hunkered down, inching her way to the van parked two spaces up. Standing behind that, she was sufficiently out of view from the street, but could see the exit from the convenience store lot. She watched as Herman pulled out of the lot and headed west, just as Michael had anticipated. Michael waited until there were several cars in between, then pulled away from the curb and into traffic a few cars behind him.

  When they were out of sight, Molly strolled across the street to the pay phone. Unfortunately, all that caution had left the phone unattended. Someone else had taken advantage of the opportunity to grab it. Molly paced impatiently behind the woman, who seemed in no hurry to conclude her astonishingly graphic tête-à-tête. Must have been a lover, Molly decided. Women almost never sneaked out to a pay phone to make calls like that to their husbands, not after the first year of marriage anyway. When the woman finally did hang up, she didn’t even spare Molly a glance. Apparently she wasn’t the least bit concerned about having the details of her love life overheard.

  Molly jotted down the number on the phone, saw that it was an AT&T hookup, then punched the “0” to get the operator. “Hi, I don’t know if this is possible, but I’m at a pay phone and I placed a call to someone a few minutes ago. I’ve managed to lose the piece of paper the number was written on. It’s probably in my purse, but I sure can’t find it. Isn’t it amazing how things can get swallowed up in a woman’s handbag? Anyway, we were cut off in the middle of our conversation and I have no idea how to reach him.”

  She took a hint from the conversation she’d just overheard and threw herself on the operator’s mercy. “It’s really important. It’s this guy. I’m really crazy about him, but I’m beginning to think he’s married. I think he had me call him at a pay phone. Can you check for me or maybe get him back on the line? If it was a pay phone or something, I’ll know he’s cheating on a wife or girlfriend.”

  She was rather proud of the barrage of words. She waited to see if they’d been effective.

  “Hon, I sympathize, but I can’t do that.”

  “You mean because it’s illegal?”

  “You’d have to have a real emergency and even then I don’t have the equipment to do it. Somebody’d have to authorize the check on the outgoing calls from your pay phone.”

  Molly sighed dramatically. “Oh, well, it was worth a shot.” She was ready to hang up, but the operator wasn’t through.

  “Next time you talk to this guy, hon, you tell him you want to know how to reach him and if he won’t tell you, you dump him. Don’t waste your time, okay?”

  Molly decided the operator had read too many pop psychology books or maybe she’d just seen too many weird episodes of Geraldo and hated to think of anyone getting caught up in some bizarre romantic triangle. “Thanks, I’ll do that,” Molly promised.

  Just as she hung up, she spotted Michael’s car turning into the lot.

  “What did you get?” he asked.

  “Advice,” she said with disgust. “How about you?”

  “Lost. He drove into Coral Gables and the next thing I knew, he’d taken a couple of fast turns and disappeared. The way those streets twist around in there, I was lucky to get back out again. I don’t know where the hell I was. I wish they’d put their street signs up on poles where you can read them like any other civilized place.”

  “They think they’re more civilized right where they are, discreetly placed at curb height.” She couldn’t resist taking a poke at his tailing skills. “So the bottom line is you lost Herman, huh?”

  He shrugged. “Probably doesn’t matter, since he clearly wasn’t heading to see Paredes after all.”

  “You’ll never know that for sure, unless we drive out there and check. Could be Herman just knows his way around the Gables.”

  Michael looked doubtful, but he turned the car west. It was a good thing he did, too. They arrived in front of Paredes’s house along with three squad cars and an ambulance.

  “What’s going on?” Michael demanded of the first cop he saw.

  “Somebody tried to murder the guy who lives here, blasted the hell out of the house with some kind of automatic weapon.”

  “Is he okay?”

  “The lucky son of a bitch wasn’t even home. From what the neighbors say, he moved out yesterday.”

  CHAPTER

  FIFTEEN

  With police everywhere, the neighbors—mostly women with small children—began slowly emerging from their houses. While Michael continued to talk to the investigating officers, Molly wandered over to a cluster o
f housewives, all dressed in shorts and tank tops regardless of their size. On one or two, the choice was unfortunate.

  Several of the young women were clutching babies in their arms. She observed them for several minutes, trying to pick out the one who was most talkative. The unofficial spokesperson appeared to be in her late twenties, slightly older than the others. Her two children were toddlers, one of whom was clinging to Mommy’s leg and whining. The women appeared oblivious to the noise.

  Molly nodded at several of the women, hoping she appeared to be a new neighbor, rather than someone there on official business. Actually, given her lack of official status, she supposed it wasn’t exactly a stretch to be considered just another nosy passerby. “What happened? I saw all the police and walked over.”

  As she’d expected, it was the oldest of the women who replied. “I was in the back with the kids and all of a sudden I heard these shots. I looked around, didn’t see anyone, so I dragged the kids inside. That’s when I finally peeked out the window and saw this car sitting in front of the house over there. Some guy was just blasting away. Scared the hell out of me. I dialed nine-one-one and kept the kids on the floor in the back of the house.”

  “Has anything like this ever happened around here before?” Molly asked.

  “Good God, no. I’d have made my husband move, if it had,” she said.

  Several other heads nodded in agreement.

  “I’m Molly DeWitt, by the way. I don’t know a soul around here yet. Who lives there?” she asked.

  The women were either cautious enough or distracted enough not to bother offering their own names. Molly’s chatty source, however, didn’t hesitate over her reply. Like a lot of people who’ve just gone through a crisis, she was anxious to share the experience. Fortunately she didn’t seem suspicious at all of Molly’s interest.

  “The people only moved in a few months ago,” she told Molly. “They stayed to themselves. I hardly ever saw the wife. We went by once to ask her if she wanted to take her kids to the park with us, but she refused. We didn’t try again. She was a real pretty woman, way too young for him. I got the feeling that husband of hers kept her on a pretty tight leash. And those dogs of his …” She shuddered. “I used to wonder what would happen if they ever got loose. We all told our kids to stay as far away from there as possible.”