“Yeah. Does she always get up at five in the morning?”
“She sounded frantic. I have the impression someone called her and she was shook up.”
“Em, are you going to her place tonight?”
“Sure.”
“Assuming this meeting breaks up at a decent hour, do you want to go out and-”
“And what? Mess around? I’m not up to it Skip.”
“Em, we need to talk some more. I’ve had some time to get used to this.”
“Get used to this? Oh, good. I’m glad you’re used to it, Skip because I’m not used to it. How do you ever get used to it?”
“Well, I mean I’m not used to it but-”
“Skip, I don’t feel like talking to you or anyone about this. I’ll see you at Jackie’s tonight.” She hung up the phone.
Obviously she was going through some emotional thing that I didn’t understand, and I was being shut out, which bothered me. Besides, she was sick every day and that couldn’t be too pleasant. I don’t know why God had women take all the crap that goes with childbearing, but I’m glad He did. I don’t think men would be strong enough to handle it.
James came home dragging ass. “Long day, bro.” He threw himself down on the stained sofa and closed his eyes.
“It’s going to be longer, James. I have a feeling that this meeting with Jackie Fuentes isn’t going to be pleasant.”
“What do you suppose she wants?”
I walked to the refrigerator and grabbed two beers, handing one to him. “Obviously it’s something to do with her husband. And probably the mail. And I feel certain the Cubans will come into the conversation.”
“And let’s not forget Vic. Our classmate will probably figure predominantly in this meeting.” Swallowing about half his beer, James belched. “Shit, we gotta leave here in ten minutes if we’re going to make the powwow. I’ll splash some water on my face and we’ll get out of here.
“We’ll take my car?”
“Good idea. I think the truck needs oil, and every once in a while there’s some sort of rattling sound.”
“Our future.”
“Yeah. Once we get this behind us, we’ll just be a little more selective in what we haul.” He went into the bathroom and came out a minute later, looking as ragged as he had when he went in.
The drive took longer than I expected due to a tractor trailer accident on I-95, but when I finally got through the gatehouse and pulled into Jackie’s drive, Emily was just getting out of her T-Bird.
“Do you know how good you look?” She wore khaki cargo pants and a halter top that showed a lot of skin.
“As a matter of fact, I do,” she frowned. “God knows enough guys tell me on a daily basis. It gets a little old.” She nodded to James. “Asshole.”
“Em.”
She walked ahead of us, past a Lexus SUV and a BMW 325i, to the back door of the house. She rang the bell and Jackie Fuentes answered, wearing a pair of faded jeans and an orange blouse, her hair pulled back and tied with a matching piece of orange cloth. The housemaid look did nothing to detract from her beauty.
Jackie escorted us down the hall that James and I had walked back and forth about forty times, and into a small library, complete with built-in bookshelves, a stone fireplace, and what looked like a custom-designed desk. It occurred to me that for two guys who made next to nothing and were up to their eyeballs in debt, we were seeing a lot of how the other half lived.
“I needed to talk to all three of you together.” We sat in leather chairs, sipping brandy from small glasses. No shit. Brandy. She poured the drinks from this fancy glass decanter, and even though I’d never tasted it before, I think I sipped it like a pro. James, on the other hand, downed his in two gulps and kept eyeing the decanter. Emily drank Evian. One of the reasons she might be upset with me was that she couldn’t drink liquor for the next nine months. There was probably more to it than that.
“This was going to be a simple job. I wanted you to haul my husband’s possessions out of this house and deposit them in a storage unit. In retrospect, I probably should have hired a professional moving company.” She paused and leveled her gaze at James. “Hell, there’s no probably. I should have hired someone who could drive a truck. Obviously you can’t do that.”
My roommate cringed.
“You couldn’t back up a truck, and you have gotten us all into more trouble than even I can imagine.” She took another sip, poured herself another glassful, and ignored James’s pleading look.
Em spoke up. “What brought all this on, Jackie? We told you what happened. The guys are just starting out and-”
“First of all, I guess I mentioned to you,” she pointed to Em, “that I thought Rick might be mixed up with a terrorist organization.”
“You said something to that effect.”
“Well, I’ll stick by that story. Only now we know what kind of terrorist organization.”
“Cubans,” James said.
“Cubans who don’t care how they get what they want. They dismember people, kill people, blow up buildings, and threaten those of us who just want to be left alone.”
It didn’t make sense. “Why are they threatening you?”
“Because my husband-soon to be my ex-husband-heard that I was going to call the authorities.”
“Huh?”
“I had mentioned to another friend that I suspected Rick was involved in some terrorist organization. This was after my husband and I pretty much abandoned any hope of reconciling our differences. I told this person that I was considering calling the CIA.”
“Wow.”
“I‘ve been getting phone calls in the last couple of days threatening me. Telling me that if I report any suspicions to the authorities not only will Vic be killed, but I’ll be on a hit list as well.”
Em sat her bottled water down on the side table by her chair and stood up, tugging her top to make sure it didn’t slip. “That’s some serious shit, Jackie. But we had nothing to do with any of it. If anything, we’ve been threatened as well, and we never suggested reporting what we know.”
A bell rang somewhere in the house and Jackie stood up, holding up a hand as if to quiet us. She walked out of the room and we looked at each other, not knowing exactly what to say. Inside of thirty seconds she reappeared, a man in his thirties trailing her.
“This is William Krueger, CIA.”
He nodded. Krueger looked official enough. He had a buzz cut, open-collar blue shirt, and a tan sport coat and slacks. His shoes were layered with a coating of shiny wax, and when he grabbed my hand I winced, certain that he’d broken a finger.
“Mr. Krueger is with the CIA in Miami. He contacted me about a week ago, and-”
I broke in. “You never contacted the CIA yourself? After your threat?”
“As I was saying, Skip, he contacted me. Right, William?”
“Yeah.” Slow. Something about the delivery of the one word.
“He told me that there was some concern about my husband’s business.” She nodded to Krueger.
“Yeah. I told her we were investigating some of the dollars he was raising and some of the people he was hanging out with. She shared quite a bit with me.”
“So you think Rick Fuentes is involved in this attempt to unseat Castro?”
“No. Not anymore. We feel that with the kidnapping of his son, he’s only going through the motions to protect his kid.”
“So what do you suggest we do?”
“Drop everything. Don’t involve yourself anymore.”
“Last night-”
“We know. You visited a warehouse down by the water. Forget whatever you saw.”
