Moses’ cell rang. He didn’t recognize the displayed number of the incoming call, but he answered it anyway. It turned out to be the right decision.
The caller was Jefferson—the correctional officer at TGK.
“Holloway dropped the ball,” said Jefferson.“Knight’s alive and well.”
Moses took the news without any display of emotion, trying not to tip off anything to Levon.“Anything else?”
“Yeah,” said Jefferson. “I hear the prosecutor is dropping the charges against Knight for helping Reems escape. He’ll be on the street today, tomorrow at the latest.”
“Got it,” said Moses.
Jefferson hung up.The entire conversation had lasted only thirty seconds. Moses felt his anger rising, but he said nothing as he tucked the phone away in his pocket.
Levon said,“Something wrong?”
Moses thought for a moment, then looked at Levon and said,
“I’m gonna need some cash.”
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James Grippando
“How much?”
“Enough to set me up in Miami for a few days.”
“Miami? You going back already?”
“Yeah.”
“What for?”
“It’s like they say,” said Moses, his expression turning deadly serious. “You want something done right, you do it your fucking self.”
Jack spent the night at his
abuela
’s house.
It surprised people that a guy named Jack Swyteck had an
abuela
. Most shocked of all were folks who met him in a bar or at a cocktail party and, tongue loosened, spoke to him gringo-to-gringo about the damn Hispanics taking over south Florida. Jack’s mother was born in Cuba. She was a teenager when Castro came to power and her parents spirited her away to Miami under the Pedro Pan program, a humanitarian effort that allowed thousands of Cuban children to escape the dictatorship and live in freedom.The vast majority of families were ultimately reunited in the States, but Jack’s
abuela
couldn’t get out of Cuba until Jack was in his thirties, long after his mother had died giving birth to him. Abuela made it her mission to Cubanize her grandson.
The results had been mixed. On their most recent trip to an espresso bar, Jack wanted a
café mocha
instead of a
café cubano
, which was embarrassing enough to Abuela, but then he drove the dagger straight through her heart by ordering a
café moco
—which in
espa-
ñol
meant “coffee booger.”
“Buenos días
,” said Jack, as he entered her kitchen.
Abuela was standing at the counter spreading
queso crema
on sliced strips of fresh Cuban bread. The strips were for dunking in
café con leche
, and from the first time Jack had tried it, bagels and cream cheese just didn’t cut it anymore.
Jack gave her a kiss and smiled as she called him
mi vida
—literally, “my life”—a term she used only with Jack, and which pretty much summed up the depth of her feelings. He took a seat at the 226
James Grippando
table. Abuela placed his breakfast in front of him and started to wipe down the counter.
“Sit with me,” said Jack.“I can clean up.”
The way she looked at him, it was as if Jack had said, “I can have a sex change.” Abuela was definitely old school.
Jack dunked his first strip of
pan y queso
, trying not to think too vividly about Theo and Trina waking inside his house on Key Biscayne.Theo had been released from jail late yesterday afternoon.
Anyone who thought make-up sex was great had obviously never experienced just-got-out-of-jail sex. There was nothing better, according to Theo, even if the term of incarceration was only a few days. Who was Jack to argue? Theo’s problem, however, was Uncle Cy in the next room.
“Dude, I need your place tonight,”Theo had begged him.
“Find a hotel.”
Jack might as well have said, “Buy Trump Tower.” For Theo, it was the kind of response that didn’t compute between friends. Like an idiot, Jack had handed over the keys and planned to spend the night at his grandmother’s.
Abuela had been awake since 5:00 a.m., the radio tuned to a Spanish-language talk show. Jack understood Spanish much better than he spoke it, so he listened. An old woman carried on about
pochos
, a pejorative name for second-generation Mexicans who knew only as much about their heritage as the
George Lopez Show
could teach them and raised children who didn’t speak a word of Spanish.
Abuela switched off the radio, and Jack prepared himself for the Cuban version of a well-meaning lecture. But she surprised him.
“You do not mention Rene once since you are here,” she said.
Her English was roughly on the level of Jack’s Spanish, so she often stuck to the present tense.
“I didn’t?” he said.
“No. How is she?”
LAST CALL
227
“I don’t know. I haven’t talked to her in a while.”
“Oh? When last?”
“Actually . . . when she was here in Miami.”
Abuela looked horrified.“You no call her?”
“We said good-bye in the airport. She said she would call me as soon as her plane landed in Africa. She didn’t.”
“Ay, mi vida
,” she said, shaking her head with disapproval.
“Don’t worry, your grandson’s not that small a person. I allowed for the possibility that something happened, so I called her.
Left a message on her cell. Sent her an e-mail, too.”
“She no respond?”
Jack dunked another strip of bread.“No.That’s just the way Rene is.”
Abuela came to the table and sat across from him. “Why you put up with that?”
“That’s an excellent question.”
“What about that FBI girl?”
“What about her?”
“Why you no call her?”
“Don’t tell me. Has Theo turned you into an Andie fan, too?”
“A fan? No.
Pero
, if she is
Cubana
. . .”
He smiled and kissed her hand. The doorbell rang. Jack and Abuela exchanged glances, as if to ask, Are you expecting someone? Neither one was.
“I’ll get it,” said Jack. He walked down the hall to the front door and checked the peephole. A big eyeball was staring back at him. He knew it could be only one person, so he opened the door.
“Hey, thanks for last night,” said Theo, obviously in a great mood.
“I’m not the one you should be thanking,” said Jack.
“You got that right.You would not believe—”
“Please, spare me the details.”
“No, you don’t understand,” said Theo.“Some women reach for 228
James Grippando
your joystick like it was a doorknob in the bathroom of a rundown filling station, but Trina, she grabs hold of you and—”
“Okay, okay,” said Jack, wincing. He stepped out onto the porch and closed the door.“This is my
grandmother’s
house.”
“Sorry, man. I just thought you’d be happy for me.”
“I am happy.”
“You don’t sound like it.”
“I couldn’t be happier.Truly.”
“What’d you and Abuela do last night?”
Jack was reluctant to say.“Dominoes.”
Theo laughed way too hard. Had they been anywhere but Abuela’s, Jack would have flipped him the bird.
“Why are you here?” said Jack.
“I need another favor.”
“No, you can’t have my place again tonight.”
“I wouldn’t even think of asking. At least not till you wash the bedsheets.”
You mean burn them.
“What do you want now?”
“Hey, I almost forgot,” said Theo. Jack sensed a little misdirec-tion coming before Theo hit him up for the real favor.Theo started to unbutton his dress shirt.
“What are you doing?” said Jack.
“Check this out,” he said, as he pulled open the shirt to reveal what he was wearing underneath it.“You like?”
“It’s a T-shirt,” said Jack.
“Not just a T-shirt.The idea came to me when I was sitting in jail. I asked Trina to have some samples silk-screened.This is your new marketing angle, a way to build up your criminal defense practice. It’s like the advertising campaign for the milk industry—
‘Got milk?’”
Jack took a closer look. “Got caught?” he said, reading aloud, and then he read the smaller print:“Call Jack Swyteck.”
“Good, huh?” said Theo.
LAST CALL
229
Jack just rolled his eyes.“Theo, really—what do you want?”
He buttoned his shirt.“I need you to give me a lift.”
“Don’t you have a car?”
“Trina dropped me off.Anyway, I need you to come with me.”
“Where we going now?”
“My favorite place,” said Theo.“Back to TGK.”
“For what?”
“Just put on your lawyer face. Come on, hotshot. I’ll fill you in on the way.”
A TGK correctional officer led them to a private visitation room. Coincidentally, it was the very same cubicle in which Theo, as inmate, and Jack, as lawyer, had met just a few days earlier.This time, however, Jack and Theo sat side-by-side on what Theo called the suit’s side of the small conference table, the lawyer and his “investigator.”Together, they waited.
Finally, the fortified door opened. A guard entered first. The inmate followed immediately behind him.
It was Theo’s old cell mate, Charger.
“Twenty minutes,” the guard said, as he left the room.
The empty bunk had been Charger’s first clue, and at breakfast he’d heard about Theo’s release. The whole cafeteria was buzzing with talk of the attack in the infirmary last night. Charger went to the telephone, dialed Theo’s home number, and told Uncle Cy that he had to speak to Theo—in person and in private. Bringing an attorney along was the only way to ensure privacy, so Theo rounded up Jack just as soon as Cy called and delivered the message.
Charger sat in the wooden chair on the other side of the table, facing Theo and Jack. Theo was about to make the introductions, but Charger didn’t seem to care who Jack was. He looked only at Theo.
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James Grippando
“I lied to you,” said Charger.
“About what?” said Theo.
He looked at Jack.“You got any gum?”
“Actually, I do.” Jack offered a stick, and Charger took the whole pack. He tucked a piece into his mouth and chewed. Interesting, but watching him gently work the gum around in his mouth was the first time Theo had so clearly noticed Charger’s effeminate side. He definitely worked on his manliness among the general prison population, not one of the obvious prison bitches who enhanced his lips with powdered Kool-Aid from the kitchen as if it were a tube of Hooker Red No. 105.
“What’d you lie about?” said Theo.
“’Bout Isaac.”
“I’m listening.”
Charger crossed one leg over the other, again like a woman.
“Me and him, I mean.That was a lie.”
Theo had little doubt as to Charger’s meaning, but somehow it just wasn’t registering.“What was a lie?”
Charger looked at Jack, then back at Theo.“Your friend’s cute,”
said Charger.
Theo jumped up, reached across the table, and grabbed him by the inmate number on his jumpsuit. “You little shit, what are you saying?”
Jack pulled him back into his chair.“Easy,Theo. Go easy.”
Charger caught his breath and brushed out the wrinkles that Theo had inflicted on his jumpsuit.
Charger lowered his eyes, his hands resting in his lap. “I lied when I said Isaac and me weren’t lovers.”
“Let’s get outta here,”Theo said to Jack.
“Wait,” said Jack. He leaned forward, elbows on the table, the way he might during the deposition of a witness who was flip-flopping on his story.“Why did you lie about that before?”
Charger leaned forward as well, and suddenly Jack’s attempt at LAST CALL
231
intimidation looked more like two people on a date staring into each other’s eyes. “Because that was the way Isaac wanted it,” said Charger.
Jack sat back in his chair.“He preferred to keep it a secret?”
“Uh-huh. So that was the way we played it.”
Theo said, “I got two things to say about that. Number one, I don’t believe you. Number two, if this is all you got me out of bed with my girlfriend to listen to, I’m gonna jump over this table and snap you in half.”
“Well, then, I’m one lucky boy. Because that’s not all I have to tell you. And I can make you believe everything.”
“How?”
“Isaac and me shared secrets.”
“What kind of secrets?”
“The best kind,” said Charger.“Dangerous ones.”
“How do you mean ‘dangerous’?”
“See, Isaac was a very smart man. Outside our cell, he had to treat me bad. He knew what would happen if he was good to me in front of the other inmates.”
Theo said,“Yeah, they’d kick his ass.”
“No,” he said with a light chuckle.“Nobody kicked Isaac’s ass.
His concern was for me. He didn’t want the bad guys to have any reason to think I knew any of his secrets. Especially, you know, if something happened to Isaac.”
Theo and Jack exchanged glances. The same realization had hit them simultaneously: Charger was the safety valve—the person outside the extortion scheme who knew all the secrets and could tell all if the blackmailer turned up dead.
Jack said, “Was there something specific that Isaac wanted you to tell Theo if something happened to him after the escape?”
Charger nodded.
Theo said,“Why didn’t you tell me when I was in the cell with you?”
232
James Grippando
“I didn’t think you’d be leaving so soon. And to be honest, I was kind of hoping we’d get to like each other first.”
“That ain’t gonna happen,” said Theo.
“I know. But give me a little credit. I’m sticking my neck out, and there’s no Isaac, no Theo, no one at all on the inside to protect me.”
“I’m sure we’ll read all about it in the next edition of
Profiles in
Courage
,” said Theo.“So let’s hear it.”
Charger smiled like a smart-ass, as if he was just now getting to the fun part.“Reality Bitches dot com,” he said.“It’s a website.”
Theo said,“That’s all you got? A website address?”
“Yup.”
Again, Jack and Theo exchanged glances, both men reconsidering Charger’s role as safety valve.