She heard the motor begin to go funny sounding and she ran up top.
“Which dock is it?” Al shouted.
She studied a minute. She hadn’t approached Greg’s fancy Spanish hacienda from the sea. She tried to think of the night they’d fled on his boat. She finally pointed and hoped she was right in her estimation.
For a moment she thought Al was just going to ram the dock and destroy it.
“Slow down, slow down!” She yelled.
He cut the engine to an idle and mopped at sweat pouring down his head under his fishing hat. Then he terrified her some more.
Finally, Al made a breathtakingly job of it, but Blanche conceded she’d asked a lot to grab him out of his apartment after how many years of not driving a car or a boat. But it may have been a miracle they’d not done damage to it.
As they tied up, she hoped the alarm codes on the house hadn’t changed. Greg would never have to know Al parked himself in the construction mogul’s mansion.
“Hot dog, this is quite the place!” Al said as Blanche managed the door and heard the alarm code. “Real uptown.”
Al did what for Blanche seemed like a man’s automatic response to a new place. He opened the fridge which Ester had cleaned out. She peeked over his shoulder and saw condiments, onions, and a couple beers.
“Help yourself.” She said and Al snorted. “Actually, I think the pantry is well stocked.” She indicated a walk in closet of food she’d seen but hadn’t felt nosy enough to explore.
She led Al to the office with high hopes.
“Ha, ha, we’re in luck.” She’d opened the computer in the office and got the internet going. No passwords needed. She navigated to a page.
“Okay, do you know how to use a mouse and click for the different pages?”
“Who made you the expert all of a sudden lately? If I don’t know, I’ll figure it out.” Al harrumphed and Blanche thought it was a good sign.
“Okay, these three pages here are ways to file cases against fraud, particularly the Medicare form.” She whipped out a piece of paper where she’d written pertinent details. “On each one fill out their forms and put this information.” She poked the paper with a still lavender painted nail. The paint was holding up better than her hair. “Put AnaRosa as the filer on the national one. I think there’s a reward and if she loses her job, she’s going to need something.”
“Good thinking.” Al awkwardly moved the mouse around the page and said, “Okay, piece a cake. Then what?”
“Keep the keys to the boat handy. We may have to scoot out of here quick like. Remember where the public dock is?”
“‘Course.”
“I gotta get over to the center and see where Antonio is to get him to talk to the reporter. See if Shirley wants to make a deal. See if I can smuggle Janice out of the crazy ward with this.” She waved AnaRosa’s employee card at him.
“I might could help if I go along,” Al said wistfully.
“I think you’ll be noticeable following me around with your canes. I’m trying to be a cleaning woman, incognito. Besides, you’re driving the getaway car, don’t wander off!”
They made sure they could connect to each other’s phones. Blanche crossed her fingers there’d be a signal in the moment it was needed.
Chapter Seventy
Blanche dug around in the little girl’s rooms and found a wig. It was cheap and shiny in a red-maroon color but it would have to do. She said the last rights over her hair-do and crammed it down.
The walk to the care center made her sweaty and damp again. It had been a long day since she’d left the airport in Missouri. It felt like midnight but was only late afternoon.
As she slipped through the dark foliage on the skinny path the rhododendron fronds grasped at her. She paused. Her friends at the Boca Police force would be comforting to have nearby about now. She’d have to make do with Antonio, Frank, Edna, and Al.
She wiggled her toes to reassure herself of the cash hidden in her shoe in case she encountered Carlos.
She slunk up to the pool and patio area then straightened and did her best to look like she belonged. She even paused to appear to care for a resident or two.
She found the employee entrance rather than the secret smoking patio entrance Frank showed her. She slid AnaRosa’s card through the system. The door made a popping sound and opened. She peeked in to see if anyone was near. A Haitian lady gulped down a soda by a trash can and a man, a gardener by the looks of him, sat mesmerized by a TV on one wall. A refrigerator hunched in one corner kicked on so loudly Blanche jumped.
She slipped down a corridor in the employee zone and found a cleaning cart. She pushed it out into the hall, her heart pounding. She prayed her luck would hold and she would not be spotted by Carlos.
This whole crazy place stunk of deception. She shoved the cart down the hall heading to Edna and Antonio’s wing before finding her way to the Dementia Unit. She came through the Atrezzo Salon and saw Frank spread out lengthways on a sofa napping. She’d love to talk to him maybe find out what had been going on around here besides hiding Shirley in the Dementia Unit and threatening AnaRosa. But Blanche decided it was best to pass through without anyone noticing. She pushed on down the hall toward Tonio’s room. She hoped he hadn’t killed anyone and she hoped they could talk in peace.
She slowed her pace as she saw Carlos up ahead pushing a wheel chair to a bathing room. She ducked in a room and emptied a trash can.
When she returned to the hall, a deep voice behind her said, “I thought that was you.”
She stiffened but didn’t turn. Frank’s hand grabbed her arm. Blanche expelled a breath she didn’t know she’d held inside her.
“You weren’t suppose to be able to recognize me.” She glanced around. “Or anyone else either.” She shook out a trash bag and pulled him into a room of a poor woman who seemed not to be conscious.
Blanche hissed, “What is going on around here?”
“Did you find anything out?” He said at the same time. He cracked his knuckles and said, “You first.”
“We got an auditor to look at Janice’s numbers and the pictures I got up in the office. We have a real Medicare fraud case now and a way to demonstrate it.”
“It’s good but the wheels of justice grind slowly which I always found useful but in this case, less so,” Frank said.
Blanche nodded feeling the odd sensation of the wig swing on her head and strings of synthetic hair grasping at her neck. “I need to find Antonio.”
She glanced toward the hall where she heard nurse aids talking loudly to inmates. The woman in the bed not seeing or noticing their conversation filled Blanche with dread. No one wanted that kind of end. That’s why she didn’t like to come to these places. It was like sitting down to tea with the grim reaper while everyone pretended all was well. She said a prayer for peace for the woman in her head. Blanche needed to keep moving.
The dread in the pit of her stomach felt like she’d awakened in darkness in the middle of the night, but sunlight still streamed through the window on the far wall of the room.
“Antonio has been camped out at various doors in a vain attempt to slip into Unit 2 and choke the life out of his Señor fellow. I’ve been helping him with some night watches, but we haven’t found a way in or found out any departure dates where we could catch him on the way out.”
“I have some ideas about that, but I need to find Antonio and convince him to cooperate.” Blanche fingered the keycard on the lanyard at her neck.
Frank’s dark brown creased eyes narrowed. “You haven’t asked me about my other project.”
“What? Oh. Well...”
“Greg seems to have disappeared when you did. Do you have anything to say for yourself?” His large hand circled her wrist squeezing her wristwatch into her skin.
She knew his background made him the wrong guy to be on the bad side of, but she hadn’t thought of him noticing anything when she told Greg to lay low. Even retired mob thugs st
ill wield power she realized and people don’t really change their personalities just because their exteriors weaken and sag.
“I, uhm, we can resolve that situation. I promise you I will be a neutral mediator as long as we can find a way for the father of two children with a terrifying mother not to die.”
“So you did know.” He let her wrist drop as his bushy gray eyebrows shot up. “Since I got religion new-like, I’m not so crazy to knock any body off anyway. If you stay clear with me, no more sneaky crap, I’m in.”
An aid came in with a tray of pills, and Blanche went into the bathroom to clean it though she hadn’t thought to bring supplies. She ran the water.
She heard Frank ask the aid, “How’s she doing?”
Blanche didn’t think he necessarily knew the poor woman in the bed, but he had a good bedside manner. She couldn’t hear any answers but the aid must have moved the woman who started groaning. Blanche shuddered and flushed the toilet trying not to hear her worst nightmares.
Chapter Seventy-One
Frank hustled off to get Antonio out of the office anteroom and bring him to a quiet place to sort things out. Somewhere they’d not be noticed especially by Carlos.
Blanche pushed her cart occasionally ducking into laundry areas or bathrooms as staff passed her. Finally she found her way to the secret smoking patio entrance and stepped outside with a breath of relief. It was temporary she knew.
She’d smoked half a cigarette when the men startled her opening the door into the humidity and bug sounds that had engulfed her.
“¡Madre mia! You look...”
“Let’s not talk about that. Please,” Blanche said patting the itchy wig. She’d take it off but it would be worse.
“I pushed your cart into a room around the corner, so it wouldn’t be on the security cameras in the hall for too long,” Frank said.
Blanche swallowed hard. She hadn’t been thinking about the security cameras just avoiding staff and especially Carlos. They needed to get this show rolling.
“Who is El Tigre?” She asked Tonio. She should ease into it but no time for finesse.
“¡Ostra!” Antonio said. He stroked his thin mustache and touched a saint medal nested in his chest hair.
Two lizards rattled through dried leaves in the landscaping nearby. Antonio’s eyes stayed on the shrubs. “He was a man who had a cause and followed it with all his heart.”
Frank seemed not to feel the intensity of the moment and interrupted, “Can I get a cig?”
Blanche dug them from the pocket in the front of the scrubs and gave Frank a hard look that she hoped said shut up.
Tonio continued, “He hated the things done to his country. He went to prison trying to set that right. To gain freedom for his people. His family’s campaign needed money to help those in Cuba and to sustain the fight. Slowly it became...different.” His eyes shifted to the tree tops and the blue sky. “El Tigre continued to speak for the cause and to help the family. His family gave him a helper, maybe a watcher. The young man didn’t do the research that El Tigre told him to do. Innocent people were hurt when only malísimos should have been eliminated.”
Frank blew smoke. He said with what Blanche thought must be insider insight, “The family set him up.”
Antonio, “Maybe or they wanted an opportunity, an excuse.” A fury of Spanish burst from him. Then, “If they had stayed with the cause, if they hadn’t lost sight of la razon ...”
After a pause, Blanche broached what she knew would be hard for him. “I believe you are El Tigre, but more important than that is a reporter believes you are and he’s hunting for you.”
Antonio finally met her eyes. It was not fear she saw. Menace?
She leaned back rubbing sweaty goose bumps on her arms. “I have not confirmed or denied your presence or who you might be or not be.”
Through clenched teeth he said, “Did he send you here? Madre de Dios, I trusted you.”
“Listen.” Blanche insisted and looked into his eyes until she felt him connect. “I’m not here to decide what justice is in your life. The reporter found out I was here. I came for Edna. I know this reporter. He’s very good and he won’t stop whether I help or not. He is also very interested in what has become of Señor Rafael Angel whatever his name is.”
She watched Antonio’s thin white eyebrows slide up his forehead. “But I have been sitting here or a week trying to...”
“What if,” Blanche proposed, “you take control of this story?”
The two men one short and wiry, one large and powerful looked at her with a new intensity.
“My clever little grandson was able to fix the photo I took of the bank transfer for One Mr. Smith332 with the dates of surgery where it is readable and a rough signature. If we can get into the records and get photos or something that confirms the dates of surgery with a Mr. Smith332 name attached, we can send this to the reporter.”
Antonio threw up his hands in Cuban fury and muttered in his native tongue some more. “I have been trying to get into Unit 2 and trying to confirm this since before you showed up with all your big hair and big ideas.” He gestured to her head.
“Listen. Listen to me,” Blanche said.
He turned his back, “Escuchame, escuchame, dices. Quiero la acción.”
He quieted and Blanche looked at Frank who shrugged. She could tell he didn’t have money on this one. He was along for the ride the face said.
She spoke to Antonio’s back. “What if El Tigre has been in hiding in order to bring Señor Rafael to justice? What if he is the hero of this story? What if rather than you being El Tigre, you are his spokesperson. He wants to remain in hiding and obscurity, but you tell what happened to him? How he was,” she used Frank’s phrase, “set up by others in the family.”
Frank said, “Say, that’s a pretty good angle. Could set things straight with the public. The police well...”
Blanche gestured for him to shut up again. He shrugged his shoulders under his black t-shirt and pulled on his cigarette.
She watched as Antonio’s back straightened and he slowly turned. “I see it now.” He nodded. “I do. I see but,” he spread his hands in supplication. “I cannot get into Unit 2. It is sealed as tight as death.”
Blanche held up the keycard around her neck. “AnaRosa got Shirley into the Dementia Unit to hide from Carlos.”
“I wondered where she went. Frank and I were planning to wait until he went for one of his evening assaults on her. We were going to drug him like he has done us, strip him nude, break his pene and duct tape him to a wheelchair and leave him in the Toscana dining room for the staff to find.”
Frank grunted.
Blanche blinked. That was rather creative. “I’m sure he deserves that and more, but I have to go in the Dementia Unit to talk to Shirley about a proposition to get her out of here long term. We need to see how we could get Janice out of the Dementia Unit too. With her chair, it’s more difficult. They’ll notice and I can’t roll her up in the cleaning cart.”
As the sun dipped lower in the sky, they formed a plan.
Frank would watch the office entry door to the Dementia Unit and give a whistle when the coast was clear. Antonio would roll up inside the cleaning cart where there should be towels and things and Blanche would shuffle along head down to use the keycard and push them in. She swallowed bile thinking of it. Frank and Edna would trade times in the office and try to run interference when they needed to come out again. Edna had volunteered to start down by the security office to see if they noticed anything.
Blanche thought of the office invasion day and she knew their chance of failure on an actuary chart landed quite high. None of them could go back and pretend this didn’t happen though. It was too late for that.
She tried to shore up her nerves as she pushed the cart down the hall. What was the worst that could happen?
The image of drugs and the poor woman in the bed came to her mind. She knew Bruce wasn’t above doping her in a bed until he co
uld get rid of her or Shirley or Edna. She tried to swallow but her throat felt like wood.
Chapter Seventy-Two
Sweat formed on her as Blanche waited in a laundry closet with the cart and Antonio. He seemed calm. She wondered if that was from years of intense life and death work. Do you get the hang of that kind of work?
They heard Frank go in the john next to them whistling. The sign. Antonio curled up in the towel compartment. It was a good thing she wasn’t trying to get Frank in there. No way he’d fit.
She pushed leisurely down the hall counting her steps. No one was in the office waiting area where the secure door stood. She slid the keycard and held her breath. She hoped it would work. The green light popped on doing her heart good.
Frank and Edna would remain on the free side and try to watch for problems.
Blanche fought getting the cart through and she knew anyone watching would realize she was new. She dared not look around for cameras or people coming out of offices. Trust Frank’s signal and keep going.
Finally the door clicked shut behind her. She pulled in a deep breath. The Dementia Unit halls had cameras, but the rooms did not. AnaRosa had mapped out for her where Janice’s room lay. Blanche hoped Shirley-Veda and Janice were at home. She’d had no way to announce her arrival.
The cart didn’t seem designed to fit into the patient rooms but it must be possible. Finally Blanche maneuvered it all the way in and opened the flap to let Antonio escape. No Janice. No Shirley.
“I’ll go find an entrance to Unit 2.” Antonio stretched himself.
“No, hide here. I’ll go find the girls first. They may have some insider tips before you go running around in front of the cameras.” Blanche pointed to the hall. “We cannot get caught. We have one shot at this. You want to get this Señor fellow or not?” Blanche spoke harshly trying to get through.
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