Complicated Care

by Denise M. Hartman

  He smiled with fatherly pride. “The very one.”

  Another bad word came to Blanche’s mind, but she said, “So why is she after Greg Sforato?”

  Before she could get an answer, Frank said, “Head’s up full alert.” He crushed his cigarette into the pot at his elbow.

  Blanche searched desperately for a hiding place. She hadn’t scoped out a plan this time. She crouched down behind a big planter and hoped she’d be able to get up again if this lasted long. Her 76-year-old knees weren’t cement friendly. She’d need Al’s canes.

  She didn’t dare peek out, but she heard Bruce and Carlos over-friendly overloud to the elderly voices.

  “Long time no see,” Bruce said.

  Shirley snorted but said in a flirty voice, “Oh honey, did you come out to have a little cocktail with us?”

  Carlos said, “No, not today, love. Ms. Morgan here is getting a new room and I need to take her in to her aid to get packed.”

  In the silence, a bird squawked and no one said anything. The metallic clink of the chair brakes going off sounded harsh and final somehow.

  “We will take good care of you, Ms. Morgan,” Bruce said. Blanche imagined him looking significantly with a fake smile at the rest.

  Janice swore under her breath.

  “Let’s hope no one else needs to be uprooted from their comfortable suites.” Bruce delivered his message subtly.

  “Now, let go of the settee, Ms. Morgan, that’s not helping. You want to get a good room in the new wing, right?” Carlo’s syrupy talk held a threat.

  Bruce said, “Come see me when you’re done, Carlos.” Blanche heard footsteps and glimpsed the back of the tall bald man striding towards the glass entry doors into the elegant Tuscan style prison.

  Then Carlos followed with the wheelchair and Janice squirming around trying to look back.

  “They’re railroading me!”

  Her voice started to fade as the pair drew toward the building.

  “This is awful. I feel sick,” Edna said.

  Janice voice was losing strength. “Help me! Blanche, you gotta rescue me!!! I don’t belong over there, I still know who I am. Help me!”

  Blanche peeked out. The group of would be detectives looked sober.

  “Bruce is the lowest of the low, bullying the residents with the Dementia Unit,” Shirley said. “If you belong there, well that’s okay, but not as a threat.”

  In the distance they heard, “Where’s Arty?” followed by a thump of the glass door closing.

  Frank squinted over the planter and held out a hand to help Blanche up. “You better get. They might notice that file on the computer or put something together. Besides, you’re going to miss the boat.”

  Seems like she’d missed the boat on this whole island excursion. But she looked at her watch and knew she needed to move it.

  “Don’t do anything to Greg before I get back,” she blurted.

  Frank looked sour. “What do you know about it?”

  Antonio said, “I don’t know about anyone called Greg, but Señor is going to meet his día del muerto before you set foot on the island again. I swear it.” He made a cut throat gesture with his finger.

  “Just everybody promise to wait till I get back next Friday!” The faces didn’t look like they agreed with her at all but she had to run. She looked at Edna who raised her eyebrows in a shrug.

  Shirley said, “These you-know-whats around Royale Cove need to learn a lesson.” Her dark glasses turned back toward the door where Janice had disappeared.

  Edna nodded her curled gray head in agreement.

  Tonio leaned forward and held out his tan hand to Frank. “I’ll help you and you help me, acuerdo?”

  They shook hands as Blanche turned to go.

  Veda-Shirley said, “I’ll help too as long as I can avoid Carlos.”

  “Please don’t kill anyone.” Blanche begged.

  Frank ran a hand across his thick gray slicked back hair. “We will just do a little persuading. People usually see things my way.” He looked at his chunky expensive watch significantly.

  Blanche thought they’d all have been better off if she hadn’t come. She turned to go. Edna held out a wrinkly hand, and Blanche squeezed it before running to find her suitcase hidden behind the gardener’s shed.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Blanche yanked at her suitcase in the shrubs with frustration and turned her sweaty self toward the secret path to the road. She still fumed over the threesome’s not so idle threats. She granted some of the people working out here were asking for a comeuppance but Blanche felt sure she’d only made things worse.

  She’d stepped onto the dark jungle path toward the road, when an arm grabbed her in the darkness. An involuntary squawk came out of her.

  Carlos had her arm. “Hello, there.” His dark eyes caught the green light inside the jungle choked path.

  Blanche pulled her arm away with dignity but her heart beat tapped a double beat. “Who are you?” she asked even though she knew.

  “I could ask you the same question,” he said leaning down toward her face. His curly hair was held back in a ponytail today.

  A momentary stand off ensued. Blanche thought despite her fear it was in her best interest not to seem to blink at the threat. She hoped her pulse wouldn’t give her away.

  “I have to go. I thought you were helping Janice.”

  “I’m just transportation. You can’t go. Residents can’t just leave.” Carlos voice held a dark humor. He knew she wasn’t a resident.

  Another silent beat passed. He broke it, “Maybe you could give me some...reason to look the other way while you sneak in and out of here.”

  Was he looking for a flat out bribe? Blanche scrutinized the handsome latin features made harsh by his meanness.

  “I wouldn’t let a resident do this, but you seem to think you’ve slipped in unnoticed.”

  “I was visiting a friend.”

  “But you didn’t follow procedures, did you?” He circled Blanche and her suitcase. “Maybe you have stolen something from our precious residents.” He poked her battered purple carry on with a plastic shoed toe. “I should inspect your bag.”

  Blanche wondered if he’d spent too much time in a nursing home and somehow got off on old lady undies, but she knew he was after some sort of personal benefit if what Veda-Shirley said was true.

  “Let’s see. I could march you into Bruce’s office and he could call the sheriff’s office to pick you up for trespassing. Unless for some reason Mr. Johnson needs to keep them off the island right now. Hmmm, what other options would he have?”

  He circled her again. She felt sweat running down her back gluing her shirt to her skin.

  “You could keep Janice company until the State could be reached for assistance with a confused lady who had wandered onto our grounds. She keeps babbling something about bills and friends. Or...”

  “What do you want?” Blanche asked her voice not as strong as she’d have liked. She could not get stuck in a closed unit with Janice. God help them all.

  “I want $100 if you’re going to walk away from here right now and each time I see you here another $100. If I see you on the office monitors, I want $500.”

  It was less than she expected him to ask for and yet more than she had. It was just a bribe, she kept repeating to herself to calm her nerves.

  “I, I don’t think I have that much.” She hated herself for the stumble in her voice.

  “Are you coming back?” He paused right in front of her blocking her path.

  “It’s that...I’m going to see, I mean I will next...”

  He held out his hand. Her shaky fingers withdrew her purple eel skin wallet. As she unzipped it, he snatched it away. He shook the money into his hand. $40 and change. He raised his dark eyebrows.

  She cleared her throat. “There’s another $20 in the inside slot.”

  He took that then bent down and quickly unzipped her suitcase and gave it a quick expert perusal.
Blanche felt her face flush even further in the Florida afternoon heat. When he was done, he stood and tossed her wallet at her chest. She thankfully caught it and didn’t have the humiliation of leaning to pick it up.

  He acted like he was going to push past her and go back to the Royale Cove Care Center, but then leaned into her ear. “You owe me, old woman. If you don’t come back out here with $500, your friend Mrs. Edna,” he said it in a mocking tone, “will pay in ways you can only imagine in your nightmares. She won’t remember how to play Scrabble.”

  “You wouldn’t. It’s not her fault...” Blanche thought mean thoughts toward the Dragon. None of them would be in this predicament if Diane the Dragon didn’t want to take advantage of poor dead Lolita and Veda-Shirley’s story. “I don’t have $500. You said $100 per visit.”

  “I’m sure you’ll figure something out. You have to make up for this week to start. Poor Edna won’t know what happened. You have one week.”

  Coincidentally the amount of time she would be gone.

  “If I see you around here without my money, there will be grave consequences for you especially. Old people, you know they wander off from home sometimes and are never seen again or turn up mentally,” he paused and looked her up and down,” or physically damaged. But if you aren’t understanding me, let me explain...”

  She took a step backward. “No, I understand perfectly. No money, no visit.”

  “No money, no departure. No money, friends suffer. Not just poor Edna. I can make it hard for all your friends.”

  She looked at his face. He grinned in a malevolent way that shook Blanche to her core. Carlos got off on this stuff.

  “Don’t doubt me. Don’t fail me.”

  She clutched her wallet in one hand, dragged her suitcase with the other and took off toward the dock and the boat in a sheer panic.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  At first, Blanche fled running on blind instinct away from evil. Away from Carlos. She saw the boat dock in the distance through one of those tree tunnels that were frequent on Royale Cove and her run that had already slowed to a trot came to an abrupt halt. The boat was off shore and away in the lush waters.

  She leaned at the waist and gulped air. She should quit smoking. Now what would she do? She had to get home and get to a plane tomorrow morning to get her beloved and problematic offspring Tommy out of trouble. Then fly again the next day and pretend her life was peachy keen with her daughter and then come back and do....what? See if Frank or Tonio had killed anyone? Pay Carlos $500 in appeasement money while her old Lincoln still needed tires and a new window, thank you Hurricane Matthew?

  She needed a list. She needed a plan and a miracle. But first she needed off this creepy island. She needed a boat. The image of Greg yelling out on his dock flashed into her mind. She stood straight, put her empty wallet away, and pulled her suitcase back where she’d come from and in the direction of Greg’s colonial Spanish mansion. Maybe she could get there before Frank and Carlos hatched a scheme for the paranoid Greg.

  When she drew near Royale Cove Care Center, she slunk through the undergrowth until too many crawly bug sensations drove her back to the road. It was curving out of sight of the center anyway. No glimpse of the sly bribing Carlos. Thank God.

  She straightened her clothes and patted her humidity wilted up-do before sounding the bell at Greg’s. She’d turned in her keys this morning and she didn’t want to look like she was running from bad guys even if it was true.

  The monitor crackled and she heard Greg demand who dared to sound his door.

  “Uhm, it’s Blanche. I need to come in. I missed the boat.” Boy had she.

  He growled or the monitor erupted in feedback she wasn’t sure which but a buzzer sounded and she pushed open the metal ornamental gate. Greg held the front door open with one hand on the hip of his considerably creased chino shorts in maroon with a shirt that matched in it’s depth of wrinkles if not in color.

  “I don’t know if Ester fixed your room, but you can have it again.” He sounded irritated and gave a very tight smile.

  “I need to get back to the mainland tonight and that was the last boat.”

  “Sounds like a personal problem.”

  “I appreciate your sympathy. I was hoping for something a bit more tangible,” Blanche said.

  He didn’t say anything and Blanche saw he wasn’t going to make it easy for her.

  “I thought you could run me over to the Boca Club marina where I left my car.”

  He shoved his hands in his pockets and pressed his lips tightly together. “I have my own things to take care of. It’s not convenient.” He surprised her whipping his head up to meet her eye with his intense blue gaze. “Have you been talking to the Dragon? Is that what this is about? Getting Greg to jump through hoops for some reason that serves Diane the Dragon’s devious purposes?”

  “No, I swear. My son needs me...something is wrong and I am flying out tomorrow.”

  “I can call you a water taxi.” He turned and walked into the depths of the house toward the over decorated and under used kitchen.

  Blanche thought quickly. “You seem very stressed out here. Seems like it would be good for you to step away from your work for a few days and get away from the island.”

  He stopped and placed both palms on the granite counter top before turning a furious gaze on her. “I’m feeling maneuvered. You may be in Diane’s clutches and I appreciate that you might have been kind to Edna my former mother-in-law, the grandmother of my girls, but I’m three times divorced and I avoid vague female whims and conniving.”

  Blanche was conniving at the moment she knew. Hoping to save him from a whipping or worse from Frank or Antonio. Or both.

  How could she get Greg to get to a safe house till she got back? He smelled a rat and he was right.

  “I don’t have a dog in whatever fight you’re in at the moment, lady. I’ll pay for the taxi if it’s a money thing. I’m sure Diane is putting the screws to you, but I am stressed and I don’t want to leave my house or answer the door.”

  “It’s a good idea not to answer the door,” Blanche said.

  In a short space of time, Greg was the second man to say to her, “What do you know about it?”

  “I could tell you a story that is mostly conjecture about dirty construction bids and planning commissioners in the Sabitini family. But let’s say I’ve come into some information that you may be safer away from here for the next week. Or at the very least, don’t answer the door.”

  “What the...how do you....oh my...I am a dead man. She knows, doesn’t she?” He leaned his head toward his chest like maybe he was dizzy.

  Blanche seized an opportunity. “I won’t tell Diane about this if you take me to the mainland. You’ve got to help me and I’ll help you.”

  Greg traded leaning against the counter in agony for running his fingers through disheveled blond hair beginning to run to gray. “You can’t do anything.” He agonized.

  “Let’s say I’ve met a man at the care center by the name of Sabatini.”

  Again Greg’s head whipped in Blanche’s direction, but his mouth just hung open.

  “Let’s also say, he has been uh, encouraged to come explain some things to you. This is why I think a few days away might be, uh, useful. When I get back...”

  Greg made a strangled sound.

  “Sorry, I will have to come back, but next Friday, I can try to find a way to negotiate with Mr. Sabatini about your...situation. I swear I won’t tell the Dragon, but I need this favor.” And $500 bucks of bribe money, she thought.

  He went to a cabinet that had key rings inside. He was muttering and mostly Blanche understood the word dead.

  “C’mon then,” he gestured to the backdoor.

  “Don’t you want to get some of your things?” Blanche gestured vaguely to the upstairs.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do yet, but I’ll take you.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Greg ordere
d her to go below deck on what to Blanche’s mind was a small yacht. Too bad circumstances were distressing or she could enjoy this voyage.

  She stowed her suitcase. The sweat of this crazy day was going to ruin her up-do and she needed to travel tomorrow to Tommy’s. She’d have to pack extra hair pins to sustain some vague shape. It never paid to go to any beauty operater but to her girl Sammy for hair-dos.

  Too bad there was no time because it seemed like Sammy’s touch on her hair always helped Blanche’s mind to put the pieces together and calm her when she needed solutions.

  She took a deep breath. Breathe, she ordered herself. Surely there was some way to improve the situation? She paced the little air conditioned cabin of the boat feeling like a caged tiger. The bump of the waves began and the darkness of the water slap-slapped at the boat.

  Blanche prayed Antonio didn’t hatch any crazy schemes while she was gone and kill Señor Rafael or get sent to the dementia unit. That was a horrible blackmail and punishment. Despite the sweat on her, she shivered at the thought. Janice Morgan now lived Blanche’s worst nightmare being locked in a dementia ward but still being all there. Well, in Janice’s case 95% there. Blanche put her hands over her face. It was all her fault. She should never have brought Janice or anyone else into it. She should have got the billing information and got out with Edna in tow.

  She hoped Greg would get away from the island for a few days so Frank wouldn’t try to work him over this week or worse. If that happened, it would be her fault too. Not exactly her fault but she’d failed to fix it. Who knew so much violence would coexist at a fancy island care facility?

  Blanche bit her lip and realized she’d not refreshed her lipstick for hours, a clear indicator of stress.

  Blanche hated to amp Greg up further and she hoped she hadn’t sent him off into the Caribbean unprepared for such a journey. Greg didn’t have the easy self assuredness that Frank embodied and used without a thought. Would he actually hurt Greg or just threaten him? She really didn’t want to know the answer to that. Avoidance altogether would be better.