Authors: Ian Vasquez
They hit the second-to-last flight of stairs and Bernard said, “You smiling but I don’t find this funny no way. This woman ain’t nothing petite.”
Okay, Bernard was irritated, Freddy thought, knock it off and look serious.
Luckily, there was no one walking along the first-floor hallway, no one in the lobby. They sat her up, slouching to one side, in a wraparound leatherette chair. A woman dozing, waiting on a friend. Freddy positioned her sunglasses on her head and slipped her sandals on her feet and that was that. He was rid of her. On a one-to-ten scale, she was a seven, this one, with round bubble tits that maybe could bump her up to a seven and a half, an ass on the flat side, but you can’t get everything in life, let’s be realistic. He’d always remember those puffy nipples and the brown freckles that dotted her arms and legs and just below her belly button and above that fine red-tinged bush. You go, Fred.
T
HROUGH THE HEAT WAVES at the rest stop on 1-75, Patrick saw the black Mercedes coming. He stood by his Porsche, hands in his pockets, dressed just casually enough. Loose jeans, black T-shirt untucked, low-cut hiking boots. No telling what to expect out there in the sticks.
The Mercedes rolled up and swung into the space next to his, Patrick lifting his chin in greeting at the two men inside. He heard the doors unlock. He opened the door behind the driver and climbed in.
The men turned around in their seats. Freddy Robinson, who had hardly aged, and the shaved-head driver, Rocha’s bodyguard from the barbershop meeting. Freddy did the introductions. Patrick said, “Gentlemen,” and buckled up, dispensing with handshakes.
Freddy gave him a grin. “Mr. Patrick fucking Varela, the son of Belize that has risen to conquer the Miami political scene. It’s good to see you after all this time, brother.”
Patrick inhaled the air-conditioning deeply and exhaled the bullshit. “Let me tell you something, Freddy. This is no pleasure trip for me or you. Am I right? I’d suggest we be businesslike about the day’s unpleasantries, and if we’re lucky, we won’t even need to see each other again. What do you think?”
Freddy’s grin faded. He looked away for a second. “How you
gonna say that to me now when we’re like family? I always regarded you like a brother, you know that?” He studied Patrick, frowning. Then he chuckled. “Man. I’m fucking with you.” He shook his head and turned around to the front. “Uncouth moth-erfuckas like me enjoy that kinda shit. Of course we’ll keep this
business
like. I’m all about
business
like. Now, if you want, later on, you can be businesslike and be the one pull the trigger. How about that?
Patrick said, “Bernard? Whenever you’re ready.”
Bernard turned to the wheel, dropped the car in reverse.
Patrick said to him, “Mr. Rocha spoke to you?”
“That’s right.”
“So you understand I’ll be directing you?”
“He said you the man with the directions.”
“Excellent. Then let’s get back out on 1-75 and head north to Exit 240. Any questions?”
Bernard looked at Freddy, then at Patrick in the rearview. “None at all.”
“Then,” and Patrick sat back, “let’s go and get this over with.”
Bernard headed north. Freddy adjusted his seat belt and pushed in a CD, horns-heavy jazz.
Two tracks down, he swiveled his head around and said to Patrick, “What kind of music you like? Smooth jazz? Old-school R&B? I know you ain’t no hip-hopper. So like what? Barry Manilow?”
Smirking, eyes agleam with playfulness the way they used to be when he was sixteen. Patrick broke off the eye contact, checked his watch, and gazed out the window at the dense vegetation
behind the fence of the Big Cypress Preserve, bright green in the heat. “Play whatever you want.”
“I’d put on the radio. National Public Radio.” He knitted his eyebrows and said in an anchorman baritone,
“ All Things Considered.”
He pointed at Patrick. “Want some of that? We could listen to the burning issues of the day. Engage in some deep intellectual conversation. Right here, me, you and my man Big B.”
After a moment, Patrick said, “You know, that’s a great idea. Why don’t you put that on?” Looking straight at Freddy.
Freddy let a few seconds pass. “Guess what?” He turned to the front. “Just remembered this radio can’t catch that kinda station,” and he cranked the jazz higher, the confusing blare of saxophones filling the car.
IT WAS a long, boring drive. Patrick eventually dozed off and woke up near the Port Charlotte exit, looked around, and dozed off again. He opened his eyes to see the St. Petersburg exit up ahead. He felt alert and calmer than he expected. Freddy snapped off the music and started paying closer attention.
They exited at Sun City Center and headed east, slowly, only about four miles to go. A retirement community. Senior citizens driving along frontage roads on golf carts. Golf carts everywhere, and old people in hats. Strip malls on both sides with Walgreens and CVS, Pizza Hut, Wendy’s, McDonald’s. A little city with one major road smack in the middle of nowhere. They continued on State Road 674, past a Wal-Mart Supercenter, into Wimauma.
“South of the border is what this is,” Freddy said, looking around.
Mexican men in straw hats ambled along the roadside. Storefronts everywhere in Spanish. MARTA’S TACQUERIA. LA TIENDA DEL PRIMOS. A little ways farther and an old wooden building, EL PEQUENO MEXICANO FOOD RESTAURANT. That one gave Freddy a chuckle. Old pickup trucks and cars crept along in front of them, veering off without indicating into dusty parking lots. Migrant workers sat in the bed of a truck drinking Cokes outside a
supermercado.
“When we pass back, remind me to stop for some tortillas, B,” Freddy said. “Uh-oh, look who’s coming up the road. Slow down, B.”
Bernard eased off the pedal as the state trooper rolled by, and Freddy gave him a stiff-palmed Queen Elizabeth wave.
Patrick said, “Did you have to do that?”
“Just being a good citizen, Commissioner.”
A couple of miles outside Wimauma, they wheeled right and headed south. On both sides of the road, men worked vast strawberry fields in the sun, running up with full buckets and dumping berries into the bed of a truck, running back between rows of green plants, past other men stooped over and picking furiously.
Then more fields, private dirt driveways, a long stretch of wood- and-wire fence, a dilapidated trailer park, and there it was. Leo’s farm. The Mercedes pulled up facing the gate. Bernard lowered the windows and the three of them sat there quietly, listening.
“Well, well,” Freddy said, “welcome to the Honeycomb hideout. The backwoods. The boonies. The redneck-infested swamps.”
Patrick said, “Let’s go inside, then.”
Freddy turned to the backseat. “I guess you want me to get out and open the gate?”
Before Patrick could summon a retort, Freddy was out of the car. Patrick watched the absurdly overdressed Freddy saunter through knee-high weeds to unlatch the gate. Patrick said in a low voice, “Bernard?”
“Uh-huh?”
“Mr. Rocha spoke to you and you understand completely everything that needs to be done this afternoon. Do I assume correctly?”
Bernard nodded. “Yes, sir. I’ve got things covered.”
Freddy opened the gate wide and stood to the side, hands on hips. “Smell that green freshness in the air. That’s a country smell, boy. Country living ain’t for me but you can’t beat that smell.”
Talking too loudly for Patrick’s comfort, considering that the farmhouse was no more than fifty fucking feet from the end of the dirt driveway. Inside the house, they probably had already heard the car, and now with Freddy’s yapping, the slim chance of surprising them was gone. Patrick turned to Bernard. “Let’s do this thing quick.”
Bernard stomped the gas, tires kicking up dirt, and the car raced up the driveway and braked hard at the back bumper of a blue Camry. Bernard hauled himself out the door, Patrick sprang out of his, and Freddy circled to the back of the house, a small pistol in hand, looking for a back door that might provide an escape.
But there wouldn’t be any; Leo and the old man would not
escape the consequences of their irresponsible behavior. Patrick was pretty sure of that now.
LEO HAD heard the car approaching. He’d gotten up from the sofa and walked over to the window, thinking finally Herman’s nephew was here. Then he saw Freddy at the gate.
It took Leo’s brain a second to process what he was seeing. Absorb the truth that it was really Freddy out there in his necktie and shirtsleeves, opening the gate for the black Mercedes.
He backed away from the window. Turned and raced toward the master bedroom, shouting, “Herman, Herman,” slapping the walls with his good hand to rouse the old man. Herman wasn’t in the bedroom or the bathroom. This was all happening too fast. Leo ran back down the corridor. He shouldn’t have fallen asleep just now.
He found Herman trying to jam himself behind a trunk in the storage room closet. Herman said,
“Están aquí,”
and Leo hooked him by an arm and tugged him out. The window was a no-go, a jumble of chairs and a huge armoire blocking the passage. They ran down the corridor to the master bedroom. Leo said, “Look. We’re going through that window. Don’t be scared.” He led Herman to it, holding his hand like a child’s. “We’re going to climb that back fence and run through that field in the back, you understand me?”
Leo reached out to reassure Herman as they edged toward the window, and Herman clutched Leo’s upper arm, bony fingers squeezing. Right then, Leo felt an overwhelming kinship with the old man. Saw fear in Herman’s eyes, his face pale.
Leo opened the window locks, slid the bottom panel up.
The old man was trembling. Leo squared up to him and held his arms down by his sides. “Don’t be scared. I’ll help lower you out of the window. You grip my forearm here, right here, real tight. I’ll lower you down to the grass. It’s about a foot drop after that. Don’t move from there until I climb out. C’mon, now.” He turned Herman to the open window. The weedy yard, sagging wire fence, the overgrown f eld stretching into the distance.
Herman poked his head out to see for himself and pulled back inside, shaking his head.
Leo patted his shoulder. “You can do this, you’ve got to. We don’t have time.”
Herman gestured absently at the window and he sort of sighed, giving up.
Leo pushed his head out.
Freddy was standing in the yard, smiling, aiming a pistol at the window. “Good afternoon, my good buddy.” He launched into off-key singing.
“It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day in your neighborhood, would you be mine, could you be mine. Won’t you be my neighbor, and invite me inside your cozy cottage, before I cap your ass good.”
Leo pulled his head back inside and slammed the window panel down. Freddy was wearing a grin, all distorted through the windowpane now as he shouted something inaudible.
Looking through the glass at Freddy, Leo stepped backward, turned on his heels, and stalked out of the room, down the corridor and into the kitchen. He could hear Herman shuffling behind him.
He rummaged through the kitchen drawers until he found just the thing in a clutter of dinner knives: a small black-handled
paring knife. Edge dull as a church sermon, but it would have to do. A backup to the Swiss Army in his back pocket. He lifted his pants leg and slipped the knife deep into his right sock, tucked it behind his ankle bone.
He heard footsteps on the side porch, glimpsed a big shadow cover the window, then Bernard bringing his hands to the sides of his face and peering in.
Somebody knocked on the door, and how Leo knew this he couln’t say, but he knew it was Patrick. He could
feel
his brother there.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said to Herman, who was standing in the kitchen, looking lost. “We’ll get through this, we’ll get through this.” Preparing his heart for any kind of violence. Clenching his fist for it.
L
EO UNLOCKED THE DOOR and stood next to Herman. Patrick walked in, all calm and serious. His eyes passed over the two of them and then took in the room. He came closer, fixed Leo with a withering stare, and shook his head. Bernard entered.
Seconds later Freddy barged in, whistling, no gun in his hands now. “Love what you’ve done with the place, Lee. Don’t think I like your manners, though. You couldn’t have invited us in on your own? Got to wait for a man to ask? And what,” looking around the room, “no drinks for the guests? Where’s your hospitality?”
Patrick threw him a look. “Freddy? Shut the door, then be quiet for a couple minutes.” He stepped over to Herman.
Herman’s hand was trembling. He licked his lips, eyed Patrick.
“No he hablado con nadie, Señor Varela.”
Patrick shrugged. “I don’t expect you to say otherwise. But if it’s indeed true you haven’t talked, we need to make sure it remains that way.”
“Que tu quieres decir con eso?”
Freddy’s eyes were boring into Patrick’s back when he said, “Could you speak some fucking English, please?”
Leo saw Patrick close his eyes a second, trying to be patient
with this guy he still clearly detested. Leo said, “You’re not touching this man, Patrick. I won’t let you hurt this man.”
Patrick raised a finger. “Shut up. Shut the hell up. You think you’re in any position to tell me what you’re going to do?”
“You’re getting carried away with this. I know why you want this man, I know, all right? But if he promises you right now he won’t talk, he means it. No need to hurt him.”
“What do you think, that you’re the good guy? The protector of the downtrodden and the oppressed, some bullshit like that? You’re naïve, Leo. Step aside.”
Leo pointed at him. “I came to you telling you about Freddy with your best interest at heart. Now look at this. You and him together …” and Leo stepped forward, lowered his voice. “Patrick, I’m asking you to reconsider this.”
“You came to me with
your
best interest at heart, buddy. You’re trying to make out you’re the good guy here? Do I really have to remind you about the kind of man you are?”