Pineapple Grenade (36 page)

One of them looked toward the house. “But they said on television—”

Montoya held up a hand. “Forget what they say. It was a message.”

“From who?”

“No confirmations yet, but I have a pretty good idea. There’s a new player in Miami. Close to Guzman. Word of our plot has obviously leaked out.”

A travel attaché held up a photo from consulate surveillance. Someone being thrown out the door and to the ground.

“What do we do?” asked the general on his left.

“Move up the schedule. The summit ball is tonight.”

“What about this new player?”

“If we’re lucky, one stone, two birds.”

“Pull!”

Boom
.

Escobar looked over his shoulder and snapped his fingers. An aide promptly appeared and placed a solid-gold telephone on the table.

A general raised his hand. “But the summit ball . . . I mean, won’t that attract a lot of attention?”

“That’s why we create a diversion.” Escobar finished dialing and raised the receiver. “This is Escobar, give me the head of internal security . . . Carlos, I need a favor. Yes, television . . . five minutes will work . . .”

From the other end of the table: “General, who would you like us to use?”

Escobar hung up the phone. “Who’s available?”

“We already have our top asset in place.”

“Hate to burn that one in case we have to abort,” said Escobar.

“There’s the backup we always keep in Miami.”

“Let me see the files . . .”

“Pull!”

Boom
.

Soon the table was covered with classified reports on rice paper. Discussion, advice, debate . . . then a voice from the house: “Sir, it’s coming on TV.”

They left the scattered documents and went inside. On the largest flat-screen plasma, a Costa Gordan broadcast from the capital:
“Breaking news at this hour as a surprise rebel offensive has raised the national threat level . . .”
The camera swung to a large vinyl banner of a chili pepper with a fresh, dark red square at the top.

“Pull!”

Boom
.

An explosion of falcon feathers.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Downtown Miami

The Performing Arts Center.

Stretch limos stretched around the block.

Back doors opened. Couples emerged in tuxedos and evening gowns. Heavy on diamonds and elective surgery. The limos pulled away and more rolled up.

VIPs entered the historic Olympia Theater and passed through the metal detectors cloaked in decorative cloth. Guards at three security checkpoints examined credentials and matched invitations against the guest list. Police snipers perched on adjoining rooftops.

The Diplomats’ Ball.

A man in a white tux approached the first checkpoint. Nobody looking at him. Because of the Latin bombshell on his arm.

“These credentials . . .” said the first guard, glancing back and forth at his lists. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to step aside.” He got on the radio.

A limo longer than the others pulled up. Camera flashes. Passengers emerged and arrived at the checkpoint. Security men snapped to attention. “Good evening, President Guzman.” No need for his papers.

Guzman looked to the side. “Is there a problem?”

“Sir,” said a security agent with a clipboard. “They’re on the list, but he doesn’t have the correct color badge.”

“It’s okay.” Guzman threw a smile off to the side. “I’ll vouch. They’re with me.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. President.”

Guzman put an arm around Serge’s shoulders and looked over the gleaming tux. “You clean up pretty well.”

White-gloved waiters circulated with sterling trays of hors d’oeuvres, caviar, and crystal champagne flutes. Someone tinkled a grand piano. A hundred overlapping conversations under eighteenth-century oil paintings in gold frames.

“Glad you could come,” Guzman told Serge.

“You kidding? I’d have made it if I had to crash this thing.”

Guzman laughed. “Not much chance of that with all this security.”

“That’s what they said about Obama’s state dinner when that hot blond chick and Dom DeLuise slipped through to meet the president, knocking Balloon Boy clear off the front pages. Did you hear about Balloon Boy down where you live? I want to be Balloon Boy. I’ve made some rough sketches.”

Guzman laughed heartily again. “That’s why I’m glad you came. You’re a real person I can have a normal conversation with. I’m required to attend these parties, but I hate them. The more wealthy and powerful the guests, the more vapid the chitchat. Plus, everyone’s so guarded, worried about slipping and saying the wrong thing because everyone else in the room is a potential enemy for career and social standing.”

“Except if the party goes late and everyone gets plowed,” said Serge. “Then it’s completely surreal. When the working class gets hammered, they throw beer bottles at the banjo player and break their necks on mechanical bulls. But if the A-list goes in the bag, you see things you can’t make up, like walking in an unlocked bathroom, and someone on the museum board is jerking off in a cummerbund.”

“Might want to keep your voice down,” said Guzman. “But go on. I’m enjoying this.”

“I made this one shindig in Ocala. That’s Florida’s horse country. Limos arriving at a giant mansion on a hill surrounded by pastures and stables, and in the beginning it’s all very sophisticated bullshit with everyone in formal wear. Except the woman of the house greeting her guests at the door in riding boots. And the riding helmet. And holding the riding crop. And I’m like, we get it. You want attention. Isn’t it enough that everyone knows you’re ridiculously rich with stables full of racehorses? No. She has to dress like she’d just finished a fucking steeplechase. And she’s one of these types with a fake Martha’s Vineyard accent who has to introduce herself to everyone with
three
names. ‘I’m Meredith Astor Farthington, of the Providence Farthingtons.’ And I roll my eyes, and go, ‘I’m Serge Alexander-the-Great Storms, by way of Hobbit-Town.’ Then I look over her equestrian outfit and say, ‘I guess nobody else got the memo that this was a costume party. What were you last time, a pirate?’ ”

Guzman covered his mouth to suppress mirth.

“And here’s something I learned about the rich: They’re so touchy,” Serge continued. “After my little joke at the door, the woman’s face turns all red, and that riding hat was about to start spinning on her head like a teacup. I decide to disappear in the crowd. Fast-forward three hours: blue-blood, wall-hugging drunk time. Remember me saying these people get surreal? Most people don’t realize how tall a horse actually is. I’m a little over six feet myself, and I’m looking eye level across a sea of bald and gray skulls packed like sardines in a humongous living room. And suddenly this big horse neck and head sticks out of the mob! That Missy dame I met at the door must have been worried we’d forget she had horses, so she brought in Mr. Ed and just let him roam, all these aristocrats slidin’ in horseshit. I’m hanging back and digging it with the bartenders. This can’t possibly get any better! Guess what? It got better! The woman still doesn’t have enough attention. She has to
ride
the horse. Indoors. Through a crowd. Now, it’s her house. You think she’d know where all the chandeliers are.
Bam!
Right in the nose! She flips off the back of the thing into the fireplace. So they’re throwing drinks trying to put her out, and the horse rears up and busts the bathroom door clean off the hinges, and it gallops over a table of food before diving through the bay windows into the swimming pool, and these other people run over and lift the bathroom door off this unconscious guy with no pants and a cummerbund. Man, that dude had it right when he said, ‘The rich are different from you and me, and in more ways than having more money.’ ”

Guzman caught his breath from laughing. “Who said that?”

“The guy at the interstate ramp who washed my windshield.”

“Let’s go to the bar. I’m thirsty.”

Working through the crowd, snatches of dialogue:
“Can’t say enough about that dress . . . Oh, he’s more than just our gardener . . . spending the summer in Aspen . . . Here’s the number of my stylist . . . Remington’s been accepted at Andover . . . More than a gardener? I’ll say: banging her rear door in the greenhouse . . .”

They reached the bar. “God,” said Guzman. “Did you hear all that drivel on the way over?”

“I can see why you dread these gigs.” Serge requested ice water in a martini glass. “Not a single interesting conversation in the house.”

In the back of the room: “They really are going to assassinate him?”

“Shut up!” said Malcolm Glide. “Jesus, people are around!”

“But the generals have lost their minds. I just got word Montoya went on the warpath after his idiot nephew shot himself, and they held a secret meeting at his house in the mountains.”

Glide grabbed a glass of champagne off a passing tray. “It’s their internal business.”

“Not if it happens here. That could ruin everything.”

“And it could ruin everything if you don’t stop yapping and someone overhears.”

“I also heard they moved up the schedule,” said Victor Evangelista. “Which means it could be here. Tonight. At
this
ball. And our people lost track of Serge. That’s no coincidence, going off the radar just before a sanction.”

“Serge?”

“Our intel thinks he’s who they’re going to use. They placed him close to Guzman with the foiled carjacking that they no doubt used as a setup.”

“You worry too much.”

“You should, too,” said Evangelista. “If the generals pull something stupid, it could expose the shipments, everything, even the you-know-what—”

“Shut up! Fuck!”

“But we’ll go to prison for life.”

“Look, if it makes you feel better, I’ll place some calls tomorrow and smooth this out,” said Glide. “Meanwhile, relax and enjoy the party. There’s no way Serge could get in here with all this security.”

“You really think so?”

“Definitely,” said Glide. “Now calm down before you give yourself a heart attack.”

“You’re probably right.” Evangelista took a deep breath and removed his hand from his beating chest. “Serge is probably a million miles away.”

A spoon began hitting a glass.

“Excuse me! Excuse me, everyone! May I have your attention? I’d like to propose a toast . . .”

Glide mumbled to his left. “Who is that? I don’t recognize the voice. And I know everybody here.”

“I can’t see him. Too many people in the way.”

“I’m going to stand on this stool.”

At the opposite end of the room, a man in a white tux stood on another stool in front of a baby grand piano.

Glide grabbed his head. “It’s Serge!”

“He’s doing a toast? Holy God, we’re going to jail . . .”

Serge raised a cup of coffee and looked down at hundreds of people. “When I said ‘toast,’ I meant plural. I’ve got a few. Okay a ton. There’s so much to say that I typed it up on shelf paper, like Kerouac writing
On the Road
.” He set the cup down, then grabbed the edge of a paper spool and let it unroll to the floor. “First, a big toast to all you fine people for putting the
Latin
in Latin America. To be completely honest, Americans are terrible with geography. You’re just a vague group of interchangeable countries on the map where all the men are required to grow mustaches. But we’re neighbors and have to start mending fences somewhere.” Serge craned his neck. “Is Guatemala here?”

A hand in the middle went up.

“Sorry about the CIA coup in ’54,” said Serge. “Ouch! And it was launched right out of here in Florida, instigated by the United Fruit Company. And over bananas, literally. It would be funny, except it really happened. Okay, it’s still funny. Condolences . . . Chile?”