before he could convince himself that he hadn’t really tried to crash the car.
“You’re not crazy,” she said. “It’s him doing it, and I don’t know why. You had this kind of thing before, yes? Dreams, seeing things that weren’t there, thoughts coming that weren’t really you?”
Paz hesitated, then nodded and said, “That first time, in the interview room…your face changed. I mean Isaw it.”
“Yes, that’s what’s strange,” said Emmylou, nodding. “Somebody said that the devil’s greatest trick was convincing everybody he don’t exist, and here he is popping up like a jackrabbit. She seen it, too”?looking back to where Lorna sat pale and twitching?”but she’ll never say.” Paz turned and searched Lorna’s face, but she wouldn’t meet his eye. He said, “So, Emmylou, we got any angels in there, any heavy hitters, or are we on our own?”
“Yes, everyone thinks it’s a battle between good and evil, but the fact is there neverwas a battle. That’s what omnipotencemeans. The devil is an employee.”
“So what’s going on, Emmylou?”
“I don’t have an idea in the world,” she replied blithely. “We’re being used to some purpose and afflicted for some purpose, but we can’t know what it is. It’s like where the crust of the earth is weak and volcanoes shoot out? For some divine reason the stuff of nature is being penetrated by spirit around the three of us and God knows where it will lead. The main thing we’re told is not to worry and have faith.”
“Uh-huh. And that means we’re going to be okay, right?” Paz was talking slowly and carefully, as to a child or someone with a lot of hostages and a big bomb.
“Oh, heavens, yes! All will be well and all manner of thing will be well.”
Paz started the car. “You’re sure about that? The three of us, we’re cool as far as, you know, this crazy stuff, demonic, whatever…”
“Us? Oh, I didn’t mean us as individuals. I meant the human race. The three of us aredoomed for all I know.” And she gave him one of those face-lighting smiles.
No body said much during the remainder of the ride. Twice Lorna asked him to pull off so she could be sick. Carsick, she said, although he had not noticed that as a problem the last time they had been this way. His cell phone sang several times, and twice he made calls. There were a number of arrangements to be made, and by the time he pulled into Cletis Barlow’s driveway all of these had been handled. That was something at least.
He turned Emmylou over to Edna Barlow, declined an offer of lunch, and got back on the road, driving west across the state and then north on 75. By late afternoon Paz and Lorna were at Tampa International. They turned in the car, checked into the airport Ramada. He paid for the room with a credit card belonging to Cesar Somoza, the chef at the restaurant. Meal in the room and several drinks beforehand. He heard her crying in the bathroom. When she came out, dressed in the hotel’s robe, he asked her what was wrong. She said, Nothing, just thinking about my mom. Really? No, she said, those were tears of sexual frustration. It’s been hours. And dropped the robe.
The next morning they were on the early US Airways flight from Tampa to Georgetown, Grand Cayman, arriving just past noon on the vacation and corruption paradise. A huge black man in a safari suit met them and drove them to a substantial peach-painted villa, with grounds protected by high walls topped with glass shards sparkling in the bright sun. Their driver took them through a cool and shuttered house to the rear patio. There, seated in a wicker chair under an umbrella, was a bulky man in his midsixties, with a face a scant shade lighter than Paz’s, a large fleshy nose shaped like an immature papaya, and curly pepper-and-salt hair combed straight back. The man stood. He was wearing a gleaming white guayabera shirt, fawn slacks, and woven leather sandals. He appeared to be a typical Cuban businessman, Paz thought, until you looked into his eyes. These were yellowish, bloodshot, pouched, and gave you a pretty good idea about what untypical kind of business he was in.
But Paz and Lorna were greeted cordially, seated, offered drinks and Cuban hors d’oeuvres. They admired the view. Ignacio Hoffmann kept his eyes on Paz; Lorna might not have existed.
“So, little Jimmy Paz. I remember you when you were busing tables at your mother’s place, not the new one, the old joint, the hole in the wall on Flagler. Your head, you could barely see your head above the table, you know?”
“Long time, Ignacio.”
“Yeah, and now you’re a cop.”
“Miami PD.”
“Yeah. You know your mother and I go back a long way. We floated in about the same time.”
“So I heard.”
“I owe her my life. Did you hear that?”
“That I didn’t hear.”
“No. And you won’t hear about it from me. Has to do with thebrujeria.” Here Hoffmann made an odd gesture with his hand and a toss of his head. “Anyway, that’s why I agreed to see you. Not that I don’t always want to see an old friend, except, you know, I’m trying to keep a low profile here.”
“Well, I appreciate that, Ignacio, and I’ll try not to take up too much of your time. I’m interested in Jack Wilson and Dodo Cortez and why they whacked a Sudanese guy named Jabir Akran al-Muwalid.”
“Hey, you get right to the point,” said Hoffmann with a big gold-flecked smile. “Okay, first of all, this was Jack Wilson’s deal, not mine. Totally. He came over here, what was it, maybe three months ago, and says he’s got a business opportunity. He wants me to lend him some of my boys. I’m retired, you know? But I still got people want to do me favors. What’s this for, I say, and why should I be interested? He says this is the feds, they want to do a black bag job, and if I go with it, I might get the heat off me a little, maybe even get this bullshit indictment they got on me lifted. So I’m interested, but I’m not going to make a move on the say-so of Jack Wilson. I mean, a nice guy, but he fixes boats. He’dlike to be a player, but basically he’s a mechanic. So I say, I’ll talk to somebody and if I like the deal, we could make something happen.”
“What did he want you to do?”
“Following. Looking in bags, drawers. Maybe distracting bodyguards in the process. He didn’t say nothing about no killing, though.”
“This was on al-Muwalid?”
“There were no names mentioned at the time. So I call my lawyer and he calls back and says he talked to the feds, and the word is I need to talk to a guy name of Floyd Mitchell, and whatever he needs I should give him, because he’s connected up to the top. This is terrorism bullshit, or something, he wasn’t all that clear on it, you know? Okay, so a couple days after that, Wilson calls and says a Mr. Mitchell and him will call on me. And they do.”
“What did Mitchell look like?”
Hoffmann shrugged. “A white-bread American. Chunky build. Blue eyes.” Hoffmann touched the top of his head. “That kind of short haircut, like the astronauts. But not a hard guy, you know what I’m saying? I’m a hard guy, and you’re a hard guy, but this guy was a papers guy, a phone call guy. Anyway, we sat down. He told me this Arab was going to be in Miami, and he was going to be raising money for terrorist activity over there in the Middle East and they wanted to watch him, maybe break into his room, go through his stuff. I say, what’s the matter you don’t have people who do that working for thefederales anymore, and he says yeah, but they don’t want to go for a warrant because they think there’s leaks somewhere, they don’t want to spook this guy, they want to see where the money goes and so on and so forth. Bullshit, I’m thinking, but I listen and after he’s done I say, well, no problem, Mr. Mitchell, but what’s in it for me, does Uncle Sam have a present for Ignacio? He says there’s money available, but I say I got plenty of money, what I need is some help with my legal problems and there he says, I’m not sure we have the pull to get that fixed. And then Jack jumps in and he says, ‘Come on, you’re saying Serpu can’t get an indictment dropped?’ And Mitchell gives him a look, I swear you could’ve fried a steak in it and Wilson goes all pale, and at this point I’m kind of amused by this pair ofpendejos and I say, well why don’t we call Mr. Serpu and find out, and Mitchell gets real calm and says, well, thanks for your time, we’ll get back to you. And that was it.”
“That wasit?”
“Yeah. I never heard from them again. But before they left, while the bigguapo was taking a leak, I said to Jack, listen what the fuck is the matter with you? You don’t want anything to do with thiscagada. But it turns out he didn’t take my good advice.”
“You’re saying he was freelancing with Dodo Cortez?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. They fucked with the bull and got the horns.”
