Sweet Mary

by Liz Balmaseda

  “Fine. Stay on the floor, then,” I said.

  Gus flapped his arms and tried his best to sit up. He grabbed a sofa cushion in a ham-fisted attempt to balance himself. But instead, he managed to yank the cushion to the floor with him. He grimaced and groaned as he rolled on his side, then he shot me a seething look.

  “Can’t you see my back is killing me?” he said. The wheezing in his chest sent his voice up half an octave.

  “I can see it, all right,” I said, going for a tone of concern. I took a seat on the nearby sofa and leaned over toward Fat Gus as if examining an X-ray image. In truth, I did know something about back pain, for Daddy had suffered quite a bit of it after his accident at the aluminum factory. “It’s a musculoligamentous injury of the lumbar spine. Painful, huh?”

  “Painful as all hell.”

  “Feels like you just wrestled a bear,” I said.

  “Damn straight,” he said. He glanced up at me with glassy eyes.

  “It happens a lot to athletes,” I said. I knew it also happened to car accident victims, overzealous weekend warriors, and fat people, but I wanted Gus to feel like the stud that he wasn’t. “Are you a jock?”

  “I throw the football around every once in a while,” he said. He seemed suddenly lifted at the thought. “You some kind of doctor?”

  “No,” I said. “Physical therapist.”

  “No shit.”

  “Yeah. That’s why I was trying to help you up earlier using this cord here,” I said. “It looks crazy, but it works. I use this on my patients when they fall. It takes the strain off your lower back and forces you to use your abdominals and quadriceps.”

  “For real?”

  “For real,” I said. I held up the phone cord. “Give it a try?”

  Gus obliged, thrusting his hands up toward me. I quickly grabbed them and tied them up with the phone cord. I pulled the cord tight so Gus couldn’t break loose. Then I got up and walked away from him.

  “You’re gonna help me up, right?” he said.

  I had to laugh as I stooped to pick up the cash from the floor. I stuffed it back into my purse. I have to confess something here—I was pumped up, having lassoed this enormous beast and rendered him powerless.

  “You’re a crazy bitch, you know?” he said, struggling to bust out of the cord.

  “Maybe.”

  I retrieved the handgun from my overnight bag and aimed it at Gus—right between his eyes—with perfectly steady hands. Just outside my line of vision I could see the glint of the tiny charm dangling from my thin gold bracelet. It was a delicate starfish, picked out by Max just months earlier, on Mother’s Day. I put the gun down and held it at my side.

  “Let’s give this another try, my friend. Where’s Jimmy Paz?” I said.

  Gus squirmed around but offered nothing. Still holding the gun at my side, I poked through my bag, searching for some ammo. I found it in a clear cellophane bag—leftover road food. Pork rinds. Fried, crispy, fluffy, melt-in-your-mouth buttery, decadent Mr. Piggy pork rinds.

  I munched on the junk food as Gus hemmed and twisted on the floor. Each time he’d try to get up, I’d aim the gun at him and he would collapse again. I repeated this stupid little routine over and over: munch on the pork rinds. Aim gun at oaf. Watch oaf tumble back. Half-amused, I took it as a kind of drill to sharpen my reflexes.

  Gus, of course, was not amused.

  “Man, I’m gonna faint from hunger,” he said at last.

  “Sorry to hear that. Your call,” I said, crunching on a pork rind.

  “I’m not gonna tell you anything. I’m not trying to mess up my gig,” he said.

  “Your gig. Your extremely high-paying gig. What is it that you do exactly, fetch water for Jimmy Paz?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do much more than that,” he said. “I get a nice fat check every two weeks for my services.”

  “Glad to hear it. Guess that means you can give me back my five hundred bucks.”

  “Not exactly,” he said, his eyes darting to the kitchen counter, where he had placed the bribe money I gave him earlier that night.

  I walked over to the kitchen and snatched the money from the counter.

  “Seriously, bro, I’m too hungry to think straight,” he said.

  I tucked the bills in my pocket and popped another pork rind into my mouth.

  “Who’s Jimmy working with these days?” I said.

  “Bunch of people. I can’t remember their names,” he said. “Can I have one of those?”

  “No.”

  “You want me to starve?”

  “I want you to give me some names,” I said.

  “Okay, okay. Just one. Give me just one and I’ll give you a name,” he said, eyeing the bag in my hand.

  I took a big, fat pork rind and held it out in front of him.

  “Promise?” I said.

  “Promise.”

  I dropped the pork rind into his mouth. Gus scarfed it down, making animal-like noises.

  “That was so damn good,” he said.

  And that’s about all it took.

  “There’s the Big Man,” he said, opening his mouth wide so I could toss him another rind. I did.

  “Who’s the Big Man?” I said.

  “I’ll think of his name in a minute,” he said. “And then there’s the Big Man’s son. He’s some rich junior. Spoiled rotten. I’ll think of the name,” he said.

  “Go on.”

  “And there’s this Colombian chick,” he said.

  “Tell me about her,” I said.

  “She’s the Big Man’s wife. Ex-wife, I mean. Bitch took him for a ride,” he said. “I heard she was hiding out at one of Jimmy’s places, up near Cocoa.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Who the hell remembers? Colombian chick—that’s all I remember,” he said.

  I put down the bag of pork rinds and shot Gus a hard look.

  “There’s something you need to know before you get too cocky here. Jimmy’s in trouble,” I said.

  “Jimmy?”

  “He’s in trouble. Why do you think we’re trying to reach him?” I said.

  Gus knotted his face as he turned over the thought. He seemed truly confounded. I was afraid I wasn’t going to get much more out of him, so I slipped the gun in my waistband and went off to do a little digging. I was determined to turn his apartment upside down if I had to. I started with the kitchen. I rifled through piles of old mail on the kitchen counter, looking for a bank statement, a receipt, a phone log, whatever. I jerked open all the drawers and searched through them. They were jammed with an assortment of garbage: matchbooks, old lotto tickets, stale candies, pocket hair combs, and a couple of plastic zip bags of weed. Tucked behind one of those bags I discovered a thick batch of check stubs. Intrigued, I pulled up a chair and began to flip through them. All of them were identical, all issued in the amount of $1,200, payable to Agostino Calabrese, all from the same corporation, a Guerra Group South LLC.

  I took the wad of stubs back to where Gus was sprawled on the living room floor.

  “Hey, Agostino. Who are these from?” I said. I waved one of the check stubs.

  Gus would not answer me.

  “Really,” I said. “I’ll find out for myself.”

  I took my laptop out of the case and within minutes I was sifting through lists of limited liability companies on the Florida Department of State Division of Corporations site. I got a hit on a Guerra Group, but when I checked the page I found it had been inactive for a couple of years. The registered agent listed was not an individual but a law firm in Melbourne. When I checked the firm’s website, it had been taken down.

  Undaunted, I dove into all the real estate sites I knew, checking for property bought or sold by this mysterious Guerra Group.

  “Guerra’s an interesting name,” I said, scanning the property listings on my screen. “You’d think he’d try a little harder. I mean, ‘war’?”

  “I know what ‘guerra’ means,” he said.


  “And the opposite of ‘guerra’—that’s interesting, too,” I said.

  “Is that a question?” said Gus.

  I clicked into another search and there it was: Guerra Group South, a limited liability company with links to a dozen properties scattered across Florida, in places like Miami, Orlando, Malabar, Naples, and Sandy Key. I checked the property records on each address. All but one of them had been sold by Guerra Group to various buyers. The remaining property sat on a street called Surrey Court in Malabar.

  “So what’s the opposite of war?” I said.

  “Peace, bro. Peace.”

  “Paz to you, too, my brother.”

  Jimmy Paz, the wordsmith, had purchased quite a collection of properties using his business LLC, which he had named Guerra, the opposite of Paz. I scanned the real estate agate on my screen for clues. I had found at least twelve of Jimmy Paz’s past and pres ent properties, including the one at 251 Surrey Court in Malabar. When I looked it up on the map, I found it was a tiny town about twenty-five miles south of Cocoa Beach.

  “So you think she’s still up around Cocoa?” I said.

  “Who?”

  “The Big Man’s ex-wife,” I said.

  “Don’t know,” he said. “Last I heard, Jimmy was on the outs with her.”

  Suddenly, a flash of recognition crossed Gus’s face.

  “I think I remember now,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Her name,” he said.

  “Spit it out.”

  “It’s Maria—Maria Porto-something.”

  “Portilla?”

  “How’d you know?”

  With the gun still tucked into the back of my waistband, I went over to Gus and loosened the cord around his hands.

  “Hey. I’m sorry I had to tie you up,” I said, feigning remorse. “Especially when you did something so heroic.”

  I handed him the bag of pork rinds as a peace offering.

  “What did I do?” he said. Once again, he tried to help himself up from the floor. Once again, he failed.

  “You may not realize this, but you saved Jimmy’s life,” I said. I outstretched my hands to him.

  Gus gripped my arms and steadied himself.

  “Okay, now. Push up from your quads,” I said. “Come on. You can do it.”

  I dug in my heels and gave him a good, sharp tug, and, astoundingly I managed to help Gus back onto his feet. He plopped himself onto the sofa as if he had just run a few miles.

  “Hey, Gus.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You know this has to be our secret, right?”

  He glanced up at me, still trying to catch his breath.

  “If you say a word about this to Jimmy or anyone else—ever—you’ll be dead,” I said. “Got it?”

  “One hundred percent,” he said. “You can count on me, Janet.”

  Gus had caught a bad case of Stockholm Syndrome. He got up from the sofa and smothered me in a bear hug and then waved good-bye from his leaky hallway.

  ELEVEN

  OVERSEAS HIGHWAY—DAY 30

  The sun rises over Big Pine Key as Mary’s car tears along an empty stretch of the Overseas Highway.

  I couldn’t get out of Key West fast enough. For all I knew, big dumb Gus could have called his boss the moment I left the apartment. After two days of chasing Jimmy Paz, I was now speeding away in the opposite direction. The truth is I no longer needed him, not when I had the Malabar lead, a lead I considered to be pretty solid. So I raced northbound as quickly as I could, hoping to remain under the radar as I headed to a new hunting ground.

  I drove fast, trying to shake from my mind the sequences of the past day and night, Captain Nick and Fat Gus, Darlene and the derelict at the bar, old Gertrude and her cats. Janet and Joe. But I couldn’t shake my rekindled feelings for Joe. I knew these feelings were dangerous—they could take over my life if I let them. They could send me on a passionate detour, away from what I had to do. They could distract me. Joe was that powerful in my life. This is why I had to leave him—without a car, without a ride, without a word. If I had allowed him to step foot in my car again, particularly after our night together, I’d be in trouble. The car would go where he wanted, stop where he wanted, wind up where he wanted. I knew myself that well; I had fallen that hard. Still, I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I wondered if he was still asleep. Was he dreaming? Had he woken up and read my note? Was he pissed? Did he miss me?

  The sun rose over the ocean, glinting off the waves and the fishing boats, and its light streamed through my car windows in pink, iridescent layers. I glanced over at the passenger seat—it was still angled back the way Joe had set it on the ride down. I rubbed the back of the tan leather seat, believing for some reason that it would still retain his body heat, and then I reached for my phone. I dialed Joe’s cell number.

  He answered the phone in a sleepy, gravelly voice.

  “Change your mind?” he said, sounding close enough to kiss.

  “How did you know?” I said, my voice turning lighter than I had expected.

  “I know you, honey,” Joe said. I could hear him stretch out in bed and I imagined him there, his straight brown hair swept across his eyes, a light, sexy stubble on his unshaven face, his torso warm and rippled. “Why don’t you just come back to bed?”

  “We need to let it be for now, Joe. I have a pretty good lead on this woman, and I need to go for it,” I said.

  “Just like that?” he said.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Where is she?” he said.

  “Malabar,” I said, expecting him to ask where Malabar was. But he didn’t.

  “Glad it worked out for you,” he said with a soft yawn.

  I fumbled a bit in awkward silence.

  “So, listen,” I said, “there’s a flight to Miami at noon. I reserved a spot under your name, just in case.”

  A gloomy silence swelled between us, and, in fact, I thought for a moment that he had hung up on me or that we had been cut off.

  “You there?” I said, asking a million questions with just one.

  “I’m here,” he said.

  “Good. Thought I had lost you,” I said.

  “Nah. You didn’t lose me,” he said. “But don’t worry about me—I know how to get home.”

  I could hear him sink back into bed, and it sounded as if he was moving farther away from me, slipping into a middle distance, a place I couldn’t reach.

  “I love you,” I said, stunned at myself for blurting out the words.

  “I love you more,” he said, coming right back. I could tell he was smiling.

  “I have to do this alone, you know. I need my mind to be clear,” I said. “Please say you get it.”

  Joe thought about it for a moment.

  “I get it,” he said. “But do me a favor. Call me if you get in over your head.”

  “I won’t be getting myself in over my head, don’t worry,” I said, although I didn’t believe it for one minute.

  “But promise me you’ll call if you do,” he said.

  “I will.”

  As I hung up, I heard my message signal buzz, so I pulled to the side of the road to check my e-mail. Gina, who had no idea where I was—and was going a little bonkers about it—had sent me a vintage-Gina message:

  Gurrr Morrrrneeeng, Dulce Maria. I’m about to hunt you down, yo, I’m serious. Where the hell are you at? Just making sure you’re not too depressed or passed out drunk on a yacht in the middle of the Bahamas somewhere—woops, sorry, that would be me I’m talking about. Anyways, tell me—did you finally go to Joe’s house that day? What did he know? What happened? Please tell me everything’s okay. You know I worry, woman…

  On another note, it looks like our favorite candidate is in deep-shit trouble. Some funny business going on with her campaign contributions. Anyhow, the Daily Press is all over her tranny ass. I guess that rag is good for something other than obits after all.

  Don’t forg
et to call me!

  XOXO,

  G.T.

  Three hours later I was back in Miami, pulling into the driveway of Gina’s swank condo building on Brickell Key. I tossed the keys to the valet attendant and used my pass to let myself in through the residents’ entrance.

  I took the elevator to the fourteenth floor, where I found Gina in her robe, sipping coffee on her wraparound terrace and staring groggily into the bay below.

  She turned around when she heard me open the sliding glass door. She looked seriously hungover.

  “Rough night?” I said.

  “Not even,” she said, bringing the warm ceramic cup to her forehead to soothe her headache. “So where did you go to clear your head?”

  “You first.”

  “Nothing to report here. Just a girls’ night—me and my bottle of Santa Margherita 2005 pinot grigio, blue-corn chips and salsa, and a Flavor of Love marathon on TV,” she said. “You?”

  “Long story. I’ll tell you in the car,” I said. “Get dressed. I need you to go someplace with me.”

  “What’s up?”

  I reached in my purse and pulled out the Glock.

  “I need to learn how to shoot this thing,” I said.

  Gina set her coffee cup down on a patio table. She picked up the gun and examined it coolly, as would a ballistics expert or a cop—or a felon.

  “Vamos,” she said.

  LITTLE RIVER GUNS AND PISTOL RANGE—DAY 30

  A warehouse-type gun shop with a shooting gallery in the rear.

  As I drove west from her condo, Gina pointed out the way to the pistol range. To be on the safe side, I decided to leave the Glock in the glove compartment and rent one inside instead.

  Gina and I leased our weapons at the front counter and she led me to the shooting range, zipping along the warehouse corridors as if she worked there. We reached our assigned stall and slipped on a couple of headphones. In utter silence, I watched Gina raise a .40-caliber Glock and aim it at a paper target. She squeezed the trigger and pumped a bullet into the bull’s-eye circle.

  “You try it,” she mouthed, stepping back to give me more space.

  I attempted to imitate her stance, not to mention her self-assured demeanor. Gina had learned to shoot a gun some years earlier, when she dated a Hialeah cop—nice guy, though a little paranoid. He had Gina convinced that one of his perps would hunt her down and kidnap her in retaliation for an arrest. So she signed up for Tae Kwon Do classes, bought a revolver, and learned to shoot. Good thing, too. She wound up using the gun not on some vengeful perp, but on her cop boyfriend, not to shoot him but to scare him away when he showed up drunk one night. She felt such a rush watching him scramble out of her apartment that she started going to the range every week. Now, as I stood there, missing the target by a mile, I wished I had gone with her.