by Sam Hawken
The site went on to list Parker’s convictions, up to and including his time for motor vehicle theft. It even provided the locations where he’d been incarcerated. His current address was listed, as were the registration of his beater of a pickup truck and his employment record, which was patchwork.
Camaro leaned back in her chair and looked at Parker’s driver’s license photo once again. He looked disheveled and half-awake. There was no photo for Lauren because she was a minor, so there was no telling what the little girl on the beach had grown into.
After a while she got up and paced the small office, pausing only to nudge the mouse when the computer went to a screen saver. She looked at Parker’s image from all angles before sitting down once more and reading through all the information the site provided, including every address where he’d lived for the past fifteen years. He never stayed in one place for long. He had been sued for back rent in civil court ten times.
“Goddamn it,” Camaro said out loud.
She closed the browser and left the house with the keys to her bike in her hand. Out on the road with the wind in her face she could think a little better, away from the stuffiness and the closed walls of the office. Maybe she would go out on the boat, though the day was already more than halfway gone.
Parker tagged along in the back of her mind, with the sad, sorry tale of his life drifting out behind him.
Chapter Thirteen
“BE SURE YOU eat all those green beans,” Parker told Lauren.
Lauren poked at the French-cut green beans on her plate, and her expression was doubtful. “Why are they so crunchy?”
“It’s because they’re fresh,” Parker said. “I didn’t get them out of a can this time.”
“I like them out of the can.”
“There’s too much salt in that. This is healthier. Eat. And don’t forget your meatloaf, either. I gave you the end-piece special.”
“Okay.”
They had spent the day trapped in the house, with nowhere to go and nothing to do. Parker considered the beach because he always enjoyed the beach, but Lauren had shut herself up with her journal and said she wasn’t interested in getting skin cancer. That had been enough conversation.
He escaped only once, to walk to the local convenience store and get the day’s paper. He spread the classifieds out on the table and pored over them with a ballpoint pen, looking for likely listings and circling them, no matter what they might be. Only when he was done with that did he turn to the rest of the paper and read the actual news. None of it pertained to people like him, and even sports news did not excite him the way it used to. He read only to have something to do and not because it held any real meaning.
Eventually, he told Lauren he would be back, and he went to the grocery store. He bought the little bit he could afford with cash and his allowance from SNAP. In a moment of something like responsibility, he chose the green beans Lauren would later complain about and got a cheap metal steamer to prepare them in. The ground beef for the meatloaf was going to expire that day, so the store had it marked down. It was good enough for him.
The smells of food lured Lauren out of her room at last, but there was little talking at the table. Parker knew she wanted to ask him about jobs, and he knew he didn’t want to talk about it. Tomorrow he would make all the calls, drive to all the places, fill out all the applications. Whatever it took. Today he wanted time.
“Did Uncle Matt call?” Lauren asked him.
“No,” Parker said.
“Good.”
There was nothing else to be said about it. Lauren finished the rest of her green beans with reluctance and cleared her plate of the meatloaf. She went to the kitchen and put her dishes in the sink, then went to the front room to watch television. Parker was alone at the table. He did not want to eat the last of his green beans, either, but he did it anyway.
He rinsed the dishes and dried them and put them away. His phone vibrated in his pocket and then rang. It was not Matt. He answered and Camaro spoke. He felt a sudden lightness at the sound of her voice, and he tried not to let it seep into his. “I wasn’t sure you’d call,” he said.
“I’m calling,” Camaro said.
“Did you give any thought to what I said?”
“I did.”
“And what do you say?”
“How much do you love your daughter?” Camaro asked him.
Parker walked to the kitchen door. From here he could just see the television, but not Lauren on the couch. “More than anything,” he said. “She’s my life.”
“Then what are you doing? Do you want to go back to prison?”
“I’m not going back,” Parker said. “Never.”
“You act like you get a choice,” Camaro said.
“Right now the choice is yours. Are you going to help me or aren’t you?” A long silence carried over the phone. Parker checked to see if they were still connected. “Hello?”
“I’m here.”
“I have to know,” Parker said.
“I’m going to do it,” Camaro said.
“Thank you, I just—”
“I’m not finished. I know you’re in a spot. I’ve been in a spot before, so I know what that’s like. But that’s not why I’m going to help you. I’m helping you out because of your daughter. That’s all. I’m not a part of your crew or whatever you have going on. I do this and then I’m out. I don’t want to know anything about what happens after that, and I don’t want to hear from you again.”
“You’re saving my life,” Parker said.
“You need new friends,” Camaro told him. “The ones you have are going to bring you down. If you love your daughter as much as you say you do, you’re not going to let that happen.”
“Never,” Parker said.
“I’m going to hang up now. You call me when you have a date and a time. If you make me wait too long, I’m out. You try to add anything new to the job, I’m out. I take you to Cuba and back, you give me ten thousand dollars. Understand?”
“Yes, I understand.”
“Good-bye, Parker.”
“Good-bye, Camaro,” Parker said, but she had hung up already.
Chapter Fourteen
IGNACIO SET UP on Matt Clifford’s address early in the morning, when the sun was only a blister over the Atlantic. Clifford lived in a three-story apartment building shaped like a U, open into the center, where an overgrown forest of tropical plants ruled. The apartment was in the back corner on the second floor but was still visible from the street.
Ignacio was technically off the clock, but morning was the best time for catching bad guys. They stayed up late and rose late, so a cop could always tell where a suspect was likely to be: sprawled out in bed sleeping off the night before.
He decided to wait until eight o’clock to knock on Clifford’s door and put on the radio to Mega 94.9 without cranking up the volume. A slow thread of traffic proceeded down the street, at first washing Ignacio with their headlights and then simply passing as the day brightened. Finally, the streetlights went out, and it was nearly time.
Matt Clifford’s door opened at ten minutes to eight, and Ignacio sat up in his seat.
The man was not Clifford, but Ignacio knew who he was. He recognized the short, broad figure and the rolling gait of the man, even though his features were indistinct. Ignacio took a legal pad from the seat next to him and scribbled down a notation: Sandro Soto—7:50am—leaving.
In his mind he brought up Soto’s sheet. It was long and detailed, covering a whole panoply of criminal activity, starting at Soto’s eighteenth birthday and extending into his thirties. There were more crimes in his juvenile years, but those were officially sealed when Soto became an adult. Ignacio was not supposed to be able to see them, but there were ways.
Soto went down the steps to the ground floor, and Ignacio lost him in the leaves and branches of the courtyard. When Soto reappeared, he was walking quickly, dressed in jeans and a salmon-colored wife-beater with a beach
scene printed on the back and front. He went to a car parked on the street, and the headlights flashed as he used the key fob to unlock the doors. Ignacio scribbled more on his pad: make and model and the license plate number.
He let Soto go. The man drove by within ten feet of him and saw nothing, his own radio cranked so loud that it boomed on the quiet morning street. Ignacio made a face at the racket and switched off his own radio.
A few minutes passed, and Matt Clifford did not emerge. Ignacio let his watch tick over to eight o’clock, and then he got out of the car with his legal pad tucked under his arm. He left his car unlocked. If someone stole it, the insurance was worth more than the vehicle.
The whole apartment building was still as Ignacio mounted the steps to the second floor. The air seemed pent up, a held breath, and it released only when Ignacio pounded on Clifford’s door with his fist. “Police!” Ignacio announced. “Police! Open the door!”
No one came right away, so Ignacio used his keys to rap on the apartment’s front window. The curtains were closed, and he could not see in. He went back to the door and pounded again, harder this time, until he heard the lock turn.
Clifford opened the door and squinted out at Ignacio. The sun angled directly into his face, and Ignacio saw his lids were red-rimmed and his skin was slightly pallid and blotchy. A hard night had passed into unforgiving morning. “What the hell, man?” he asked.
Ignacio smiled the largest smile he could muster. “Matt! It is you! You know, they told me you were back in town, but I didn’t believe them. But here you are, and here I am talking to you! I didn’t wake you up, did I?”
“Of course you woke me up, asshole,” Clifford said. “Go away.”
“Hey, now, let’s not call each other names,” Ignacio said.
“Okay. Just go away, then.”
Clifford moved to close the door, but Ignacio blocked it with his foot. He put his hand on the door’s face and pushed until it had opened wide enough to reveal Clifford’s shirtless body and his long, gangly legs bare beneath the tight swaddling of white cotton briefs. There were some new tattoos on his belly and chest. “I think you and I need to have a little talk,” Ignacio said. “So how about it?”
“Fine. Come in. Whatever.”
The man stepped aside, and Ignacio moved into the front room. Cheap furniture that likely came with the apartment was scattered around, old and plaid. The television was a new flat screen, and Clifford owned a game console. Ignacio swept his gaze around the room, picking up the plastic wrapper on the coffee table that might have held a little crystal, the discarded fast-food bags around the couch, and the wall clock that was stopped at three thirty. The air was stagnant and smelled of smoke. There was a bare pillow on one end of the couch and an indifferently folded sheet. “Really great place you have,” Ignacio said. “I like it.”
Clifford only mumbled and stumbled off to the bedroom. Ignacio circled the room, peering into the dining nook at the table scattered with gun and car magazines, a layer of newspaper, and a half-completed model of a Ford Fairlane. The kitchen was spotless, as if it were never used, though the trash can overflowed with beer bottles.
After a few minutes Clifford returned with clothes thrown over his body, though he was barefoot on the carpet. “This is harassment, man,” he said.
“It isn’t harassment yet,” Ignacio said. “Give it time.”
The man flopped down on the couch. He gathered up a pack of cigarettes from between the cushion and the back of the couch and lit a smoke with a lighter from his pocket. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” he said.
“I didn’t think so, either. You left town in a big hurry and didn’t leave a forwarding address,” Ignacio said. “Mind if I sit down?”
“Do what you want.”
“You know, we never did clear that case,” Ignacio said. “The pawnshop. It’s still open.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Yeah, it is. Because I have to start looking into it again now that my prime suspect’s decided to show his face in Miami. You do know you’re my prime suspect, right?”
Clifford nodded and took a drag. He exhaled through his nose. “I kind of figured.”
“There are still a whole lot of questions. In fact, here’s one: what are you doing for money? Because I did some checking, and you haven’t filed for income taxes in all the time you were out of town. Which means you never had a legit job. Of course, with what you took from that safe, you could live for four years easy, assuming you didn’t spend it all in one place.”
“I didn’t take anything from anybody’s safe. And I do construction for cash. It pays the bills.”
Ignacio snorted. “Construction? Matt, you weigh a buck fifty soaking wet. I don’t see you swinging a hammer for a living.”
“What can I say? I also got a little money from my great-uncle. He died and left me something.”
“Got any record of that?”
Clifford waved vaguely. “I’ll ask my secretary to check the files.”
Ignacio wrote on his pad. He felt Clifford watching. “So you’re going with the ‘I came into some money’ thing, huh?”
“It’s the truth. What are you writing?”
“Don’t worry about it. Hey, have you seen Sandro or Jackson lately? I’ve missed those guys. They kind of dropped off the earth, too.”
“Can’t say that I have.”
“See, now that’s too bad,” Ignacio said.
“What is?”
“I can take you lying to me, Matt, but not about stuff I can check. Like Sandro coming out of your place this morning. Sleeping on your couch. Maybe smoking a little crank with you.”
“I don’t smoke crystal anymore.”
“Good for you.” Ignacio poised his pen above the paper. “So let’s cut the bullshit and get real, okay? I’m going to ask you questions, and you’re going to give me answers. Maybe we can clear up some of what we missed out on four years ago.”
Clifford watched Ignacio through a trickle of smoke. “You can ask,” he said.
“Okay. Let’s start.”
Chapter Fifteen
CAMARO SPENT THREE days running charters in and out of the marina and tried to put Parker and his friend out of her mind. There were other things to do, and she refused to worry, and so the time passed and she was satisfied.
On the fourth day, Parker called to tell her that it was on. “Matt wants to have a meeting first. Everybody on the boat. You can meet us, and we can meet you.”
“Okay. When?”
“Tomorrow night. After dark.”
“When are we going out for the real thing?” Camaro asked.
“Friday night. Is that too soon?”
“It isn’t for me if it isn’t for you.”
“Good. I’ll see you, Camaro.”
She stayed on the boat all of the next day, taking her meals in the cabin. When the sun began to fall, she checked herself. In one boot she kept a karambit, but in the other she holstered a Glock 38. It was a compact pistol chambered in .45 GAP, and it held a single stack of eight rounds. With the leg of her pants down over it, the bulge could barely be seen. If she needed it, it was there.
Behind a panel just inside the cabin was a large first aid kit stocked for serious injury, but there was room enough for more. Here she placed a Mossberg 590 Cruiser, a 12-gauge shotgun with a pistol grip that could be laid diagonally in the space with the panel secured over it. She loaded it with five rounds of double-ought buckshot. Boxes of ammo for pistol and shotgun were located in a compartment below one of the galley seats.
It was not long after dark when she heard the Charger’s engine. She took up her spot on the flybridge and saw Parker with his truck beside the yellow-jacket Dodge. Two men got out of the Charger with Matt Clifford. One was built low to the ground, like a piece of earthmoving equipment, and the other was simply big. Matt moved with smooth confidence, chest out and shoulders back. He led the others with his body, trailing them in his wake in
eddies.
She waited until they were close before she spoke. “Come on aboard,” she said.
They stepped over the side and onto the back deck. Camaro surveyed them from where she was. The short one was Latino and dark, the big one a ruddy-faced strawberry blond. Parker was with them and apart from them, and she saw in his eyes a needful look she found she did not want to deny.
“You coming down from there?” Matt asked.
Camaro descended to the deck and stood before them. Of the men, only the Latino was eye level with her. Matt stood taller than her by six inches or more, and so did the other. Both tall men leaned in to make themselves larger. She did not step back. “Who are your friends?” she asked.
Matt pointed to the Latino. “Sandro. And this is Jackson.”
“You’re all coming along?”
“Yeah. Is that a problem?”
“The boat can handle ten,” Camaro said.
“Good.”
“Parker tells me that you’re carrying one man.”
“That’s right. One guy.”
“I won’t bring this boat into any port,” Camaro said. “That’s closer than I’ll go.”
“Don’t worry about it. The Cubans are going to bring this guy out to us. You won’t have to go closer than ten or twelve miles offshore.”
“Where?”
“You have charts?”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s see them.”
Camaro and Matt went into the cabin, and Camaro brought charts that marked the coastline of Cuba. She spread them on the galley counter and switched on the overhead lights to shine directly down upon them. Their heads cast shadows as Matt traced his fingers along the land. Camaro glanced away once and saw Parker watching from the outside. She gave him a black look, and he moved off.
“It’s here,” Matt said finally. “Right here.”
He showed her a spot about one hundred fifty miles east of Havana, off the place called the Baños de Elguea. There were many little islands off the coast there, but open seas beyond. Camaro marked the distance from shore to the waters beyond. Twelve miles kept her safely clear of the bay. “They can bring him out that far?” she asked.