Complicated Care

by Denise M. Hartman

  Tonio wilted back into his seat muttering in Spanish. Blanche knew he wanted to have some sort of corroboration of his story of the Señor fellow upstairs to get his brother involved. She worried that he might really mean it about killing the guy. Was it a figure of speech? She didn’t want despots to get away free of course, but nor she didn’t want to aid and abet in a murder.

  “But Unit 2 is public knowledge. You all know about it. High class pampering facelifts. A lot of places do it in this part of Florida.” Blanche probed the information.

  “I’ve been telling you...” Antonio sounded genuinely angry.

  Shirley put a hand on his arm. “Let me, honey. I’ve actually, uh, been a patient there in the legitimate sense mostly.”

  All heads around the dormant Scrabble board swiveled in her direction.

  “Well, in addition to being secluded out here on the island and including a place away from the paparazzi to recover, all that is fine and good, yeah? But they will, uh, accommodate certain requests. Unconventional or even illegal or, ill advised.” She finished with a bitter note in her tone.

  “Okay, illegal I didn’t know. Like stuff you can get in Europe?” Blanche asked.

  “Even more. Anything for a very steep price but with guaranteed privacy. What if you don’t want to fix a sag but you want a whole new face? They’ll do it. A whole new you. The real beauty of the thing is that each patient on Unit 2 is guaranteed not to see anyone else. They don’t even see each other. It’s all about schedules and staff attention. Beautiful suites, it’s impressive. The hall is quiet except for the occasional body guards, but not a glimpse of anyone you know or could recognize.”

  They sat in silence for a second. Edna reached out and put F-R-A-U on a D tile on the board, and said, “I don’t care why they do it. I don’t like being drugged and I don’t want Mr. Carlos sneaking up on me.”

  “Royale Cove in the form of Bruce the Bald would get in bed with his own mother if there was money in it. I don’t want Rafael getting away with mass murder. It’s an injustice of my people,” Antonio said.

  “Who’s that?” Shirley wanted to know.

  “He’s why we were drugged two days ago. I’m sure of it. He’s going to get a face change done upstairs,” he raised his gray eyebrows high, “and fade away into some enormous house with expensive cars without the world even noticing evil has come out of Cuba to play.” He stroked his pencil mustache but his cheeks throbbed red.

  Frank refilled everyone’s plastic cups with a bit of water and brought out his flask.

  “I never played a film where the bad guys got away. It’s just not right,” Shirley-Veda said.

  “So you were in films?” Frank toasted her with his cup.

  Veda-Shirley fluffed her blond locks sighed and said, “For all the good it did me.”

  “Oh I know, Veda Vespucci!” Frank said.

  She didn’t acknowledge him.

  Frank sipped and set his cup down and spun it around on the table with with one hand. “You’re not happy in the most luxurious retirement home in Florida?” He said with a touch of sarcasm.

  “Who said I was here by choice?” Shirley asked.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  “Me neither. My daughter stuck me out here against my will. She’s using me,” Edna said giving Blanche an arch look.

  “My kids,” Frank said. “Then they send a monkey last week trying to get me to do some work for them here on the island after putting me out to pasture. Francis should come in person.” He cracked a knuckle.

  Shirley said, “You mean, none of you are here by choice?”

  Antonio shrugged, “My brother and my nephew brought me here. Keep me out of the way.”

  “Lord have mercy,” Blanche said, “It’s like an expensive family prison.”

  “Maybe I will take care of this cabra upstairs myself and show them. I’ll get myself sent to real prison to get off this place. El Tigre no esta muerto. I know how prison works. I’ll get one of those old age diseases where they release you early. I’ll show my family.” For a second he held a serious face, then Edna chuckled and they all laughed.

  Frank reached out and put O-G on the D on the board.

  “So what kind of money would we be talking about for Señor Rafael upstairs to change his face? But he still doesn’t have papers, I don’t see how it helps.” Blanche said.

  “I bet Carlos does new identity papers or knows someone who does.” Shirley-Veda said with a movie star flourish. “A semi-legit visit upstairs will set you back $30,000-$35,000 what with the Royale Cove special treatment. So a clandestine, shall we say illegal one, has got to blow that out of the water. Six digits, I bet.”

  Frank whistled. Antonio muttered in Spanish.

  “If Royale Cove is getting under-the-table money from despots and defrauding Medicare at $20,000 a day and who knows what else...” Blanche stared off into space. “This is major league fraud and embezzlement. We’re talking millions.”

  “I’d sell Bruce and Carlos out to the nearest tabloid for less than a million. Just enough money to get out of here. I’d do it in a heartbeat.” Her mouth grew vicious, then she brightened. “Hey — your Dragon person, would she buy this story instead of picking on me?”

  Edna made a funny sound and muttered, “Good luck.”

  Blanche thought it was worth a try. Perhaps they could beat Diane at her own game and use the situation to some advantage.

  “We’d have to finesse it and feed her some of your real story too and see if she bites.” This was getting way more convoluted than taking some pictures of a celeb and getting Edna off the island. “We gotta figure out what part of your story is interesting to feed her.”

  “I’d like to hear your story,” Frank said pouring a bit of whiskey into Shirley’s cup.

  “I’d like to rescue you from Carlos,” Tonio said. Shirley patted his hand. “I could kill him.”

  “Then who would bring the booze?” Frank said.

  “What about you, Veda Vespucci is so interesting to get me shut up in here?” Edna wanted to know.

  “What?” Shirley-Veda asked.

  “The Dragon’s related to me.”

  Shirley made oh lips, then said, “It’s complicated. Don’t use my stage name.”

  “While you are quite lovely, cariña, why you more than any other celebrity?”

  Everyone played along nicely in the effort for information, Blanche thought. She’d somehow assembled a good team.

  Shirley pressed her shiny pink lips together in a pucker. Blanche noticed that she and Edna seemed most anxious about what would come next. Blanche and Edna had, how’d her grandson put it? Hair in the game?

  “Incidents in my childhood, uh, led to a rather abrupt departure from the south. Eventually we ended up in L.A. My mother changed our name and immediately put me into child auditions and started trying out for any random parts she could do as well as waiting tables.”

  Blanche was disappointed so far, except for that bit about an abrupt departure and a name change. She’d have to find out about that.

  “I got a few commercials as a kid and just kept going to the auditions my mom set up. In my teens, she married,” She shuddered with disgust. “Then I got a few good breaks so I could get out and finally had a reasonable career.”

  “Say weren’t you married to that director guy?” Frank shook the last of his flask into Shirley’s cup.

  “Floyd. He was my third husband.” She sighed with a slight smile. “He went through money faster than drunks and junkies on Sunset Boulevard, but he couldn’t keep track of it to save his life. He got fired for enormous mismanagement of funds on a film and took off for Mexico with a señorita from craft service.”

  “My last husband I married Lapostolle for his money. Oh, Billy was rich. Those were good days. He wasn’t in the Hollywood business, so it was just quiet luxury living on the intercoastal down here. I missed the limelight and we’d go to big events in Hollywood in his private jet so I could g
et some press time.” She hitched her skirt up again that had slid down. “He couldn’t find his butt with both hands but he was nice to look at and rich. I only had an allotment when he died the rest went to various kids and businesses. I thought it would last forever, but I was never great with money either.” She must have stared off into space, but you couldn’t tell with the big round dark glasses.

  Blanche saw pretty large holes in the story that needed to be probed, but it was a start. But what would make the Dragon so interested? She wondered how people like Veda could go through huge loads of money like that. She could hear Harry, the cheapskate, grumbling about people wasting money in her head.

  “If this phone rings,” Blanche pulled it out and placed it along side the Scrabble board on the table, “why don’t you start telling the story of one of the husbands? That should get things rolling.”

  “I can tell about the first one. He was murdered.”

  They all stared but then Frank said, “Head’s up full alert.”

  Blanche had told him to watch out for any administrators who would know she didn’t belong.

  Blanche jumped up and ducked into a hiding place she’d sussed out earlier. She crouched behind one of two large Tuscan style vases taller than herself between two windows. She fluffed the curtains around her hide-y hole feeling a need to go pee. It always happened when you hid.

  Bruce’s over-friendly voice boomed through the little living room area of the Atrezzo lounge.

  “This is a nice little scene. What a domestic activity. Did everyone take up playing Scrabble?” The friendly tone sounded like criticism to Blanche. She also heard scrutiny in it. She peeked as best as she dared. Veda-Shirley sat ramrod straight in her seat again.

  “Carlos said you had a game going. Mr. Sabatini, you’re far from your wing. I’m glad you are mixing with some of the other residents. I’m sorry I’m going to have to take Shirley off your hands. Maybe you can resume your game another time.”

  He towered his bald self over their game holding onto Shirley’s stiff arm. He stood there until Antonio stood and bumped into him muttering in Spanish and stalked off. Edna started putting the game away.

  Blanche dared to peek again. It looked like some sort of stand off between Frank and Bruce. Two men in black shirts both with substantial presence.

  Frank leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs adjusting the permanent crease in his jeans. Clearly, he wasn’t going to take the suggestion to move along.

  Shirley pulled her arm away.

  Frank gave a slim smile.

  Bruce sniffed the air. Blanche knew between the illicit indoor cigarettes they’d smoked earlier and the whiskey it wasn’t smelling like the inside of a health clinic.

  “I hope your next health report comes back good, Frank. We wouldn’t want to limit your activities and diet any more than absolutely necessary, would we? We want freedom filled final years, don’t we?” Bruce’s practiced air of congeniality gave orders instead of suggestions.

  “Yeah, I’d hate to report to my family on the planning commission my new restrictions. They might not be able to concentrate to pass big new projects. Say, doesn’t Royale Cove have an expansion plan?”

  Bruce’s pale unnatural skin flushed pink in the cheeks. “I think you misunderstood me, Mr. Sabatini. We want you to have peace filled days here, no...accidents, no loss of mental capacities.”

  Frank stood slowly and poked Bruce in the chest, “If that was a threat Mr. Johnson, you are messing with the wrong family. We have our quiet ways of making people,” he hesitated and used Bruce’s overly shiny tone, “uncomfortable as well.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  After Bruce disappeared down the hall with Shirley-Veda in tow, Blanche booked it out of the care center and back to her Florida mansion bunk-up at Greg’s house. She didn’t want to mess around and get caught. She didn’t know what the consequences would be but getting Edna out had to be her priority. That wouldn’t happen if Blanche got her saggy behind banned from the premises. Or worse.

  Greg paced the dock next to his enormous boat talking on his phone. Blanche figured it gave her a chance to run and check her email on his computer before Greg objected or watched over her shoulder again.

  She took her crumpled Medicare report papers and Tonio and Edna’s bills with her so she’d look busy. Greg would surely be suspicious if he caught her poking in his office with his increasing paranoia.

  Blanche scanned the documents strewn across the glass desktop before seating herself. Seemed to be construction related things. Except for some ocean current maps and a print out of an island map. Was Greg planning a trip? The searches she had seen on his machine indicated alternate worrying about not meeting the Coast Guard and or avoiding the mob. So which side of the law was he on? Was it an escape map? No time to contemplate it though. She had her own crooks to catch.

  She quickly opened her email account marveling at how clever it was that somehow it could be found no matter what computer you were on. The mysteries of the internet universe! She was glad Harry wasn’t alive to see her engaging with computers. He had thrown such a fit when she took early retirement to avoid the new computer system coming to her office. It was a big change and she feared being thought incompetent and senior staff at the same time. It hadn’t seemed worth the energy or the fear to join yet another technological revolution. Too hard too late in life, she’d told her husband. Harry would see her current engagement with modern computers as a betrayal and lost income from 18 years ago, God rest his tightwad soul.

  The lure of the internet finally broke down her resistance to modern computers recently. She was intimidated but the wonder of answers at your finger tips was too good to resist. The executive secretary with all the answers deep in her retired soul liked the efficiency of the steering wheel to the information superhighway.

  Random weird things came to her email. That mystery she had not solved yet. She was not interested in physical enhancements be they female or male. How on earth did these random things appear with her name on them?

  She scanned through a bunch of junk. Bingo, as Al would say. John Mateo at the Sun Sentinel sent her links to old stories about a suspected El Tigre fellow. Blanche glanced out the window to make sure Greg stayed on the dock.

  No photos of El Tigre and no one had any evidence on who El Tigre was according to what she read. The reporter must have an idea though or he wouldn’t be wanting her to poke around the island, hmm. Or maybe the police have an idea? She should call Sharon at the Boca Raton police department to see what the official word was on this El Tigre character.

  She scanned the articles. El Tigre apparently had been known for doing assassinations on behalf of a Cuban syndicate, including a suspected masterminding of a particularly grizzly episode a few years back where nearly an entire latin gang died. Not such a huge loss for law enforcement but by chance a bystander Nun and a couple kids were killed in the episode. An outcry came from the Miami Cuban community, but the police never found him. According to John Mateo anything linked to El Tigre disappeared from the news and from street lore after that.

  Blanche contemplated this. Antonio was a Funosa. Antonio sent messages to the elegant Mr. Alvaro Funosa, art collector, whose father appeared to be the Funosa syndicate boss César. She wondered if El Tigre was the guy up on Unit 2, but Antonio was mad about something the despot had done in Cuba, not in the USA. She wondered if El Tigre could have had a face change on the island.

  Just for grins, she searched the name of Antonio Funosa. Old newspaper photos popped up: always Antonio with a very fancily dressed and beautiful lady on his arm. Always a different one. Then she found a link that was an article about Antonio spending time in a U.S. prison in the 1970s for purchasing and possessing illegal parts to make a bomb he allegedly was going to smuggle into Cuba. Whoa. So the prison comments from Antonio were more than idle old man ego-chat. Clearly he wanted the Unit 2 Señor killed by his brother César’s network.

  She
popped John an email vaguely describing the situation on the second floor of the Royale Cove Care Center. Did he know of anyone who had come here previously for secret facelifts or such, El Tigre?

  Could El Tigre be on the second floor at this very moment?

  John had said there were no active court cases filed against Royale Cove, so she reminded him to check complaints against Royale Cove Care Center in the national or state reporting agencies. Government bureaucratic complaints told a different story than bringing a court case.

  Greg started yelling out on the dock. He was far enough away she couldn’t clearly understand the words. Something like, ”I have kids for pity’s sake!” Blanche glanced out the window and saw him hang up his phone and give a banshee yell at the palm trees.

  What was with everyone on this island and the screaming? Blanche definitely did not like being where people’s lives triggered a need to yell. She knew people had to let off steam from time to time, but it was not an reasonable way to live. Maybe it had to do with island life.

  Greg stalked toward the house. Blanche jumped up and grabbed her papers. She leaned over to close out her search page and knocked Greg’s papers off the desk. She quickly picked them up feeling her heart rate going faster knowing each second Greg drew nearer.

  She held a construction bid in her hand. Out of years of secretarial habit, she glanced at a signature at the bottom. Francine Sabatini.

  Chapter Forty

  Blanche stepped down the hall toward her room as she heard Greg’s footsteps approaching. She wasn’t going to make it. She pulled out the cell phone Diane the Dragon had given her so she looked like she was searching for a cell signal.

  She pushed at the buttons trying to remember how it was set up. She added phone numbers before she left home just in case she needed to get in touch with anyone, but where were they now? Or a dial pad for that matter? It’s a phone, right?