by Tom Lowe
She nodded, closed the door, slid the chain off and stood aside. I walked into a home where nothing seemed out of place. Architectural and home and garden magazines neatly displayed on the coffee table in the living room. Fresh-cut flowers filled the home with the scent of spring. The home was impeccably furnished. Telemundo flickered on the TV screen with the sound turned down.
Maria Fernandez was, without doubt, a striking woman. She had high cheekbones, eyes like liquid black onyx, full lips and thick dark hair. I guessed her to be about in her mid-thirties. She wore a business suit with a name tag that read Maria. In Spanish, I asked her if she was more comfortable speaking Spanish.
“I speak fluent English,” she said, her lips pursing once. “I only have a few minutes. I don’t want to be late for work.”
“I’ll be fast. Where do you work?”
“I’m in the concierge’s office at the Don Cesar Hotel.”
I smiled. “Something happened to you or someone in your family, something that involved the Gonzales family, didn’t it?”
“Yes, how do you know this?”
“Lucky guess. Tell me about it, please. What happened?”
She sat in a rocking chair opposite me, her eyes locked on a framed photograph of a pretty girl, a teenager with long black hair. Maria looked up at me. “The girl in the picture is my little sister. Izzy Gonzales took a liking to her, they dated then married. When Alondro tried to break it off, next I knew she was kidnapped by Pablo Gonzales’ men, the coyotes. They brought her to this country and kept her prisoner in Houston, Texas. Izzy was such a control freak. After a while, when she would no longer be the obedient wife, he forced her to do things with the men just to punish her… things that made her vomit. He said it was to teach her a lesson — to know her place. Then he accused her of being a whore. Bastard! She told me about it in a letter… a letter she managed to get out a few months before she died. I came to this country to take her back. But I was too late. Police found her body in a garbage dump outside the city. They say she died of aids and a beating, too. Alondro was a good girl, so if she had aids, those pigs gave it to her.” Her voice cracked, her dark eyes welled with tears. She blinked and looked away, reaching for a Kleenex.
“I’m very sorry. Izzy was cruel. And, Pablo Gonzales is a very sick man — like a dog filled with rabies. He rules a pretty demented empire and will continue to hurt people until he’s stopped. He’s killed people I knew, and he’ll kill again. I know he comes to Tampa. Where does he stay when he’s here?”
She was silent for a few seconds, glancing at the television and then back to me. “Izzy’s the reason I came to this area. Before her death, Alondro told me Izzy, using his uncle’s money, liked to throw parties in the Sarasota and Tampa area, and his favorite hotel was the Don Cesar. That’s why I got a job in concierge there. I was hoping to see him.”
I said nothing for a moment. “What were you going to do if you found him?”
“I was raised Catholic, and I’m a devout believer in Christ. But, God forgive me, I was going to do whatever I had to do if I found him asleep in his room.”
“Did you?”
“No. He checks in under aliases. The hotel has such a high occupancy it is difficult. But the law of averages will one day be on my side.”
“Not if you are trying to find Izzy. He’s dead. His uncle, though, is very much alive. And he’s the one I’m trying to find.”
“I might be able to help you.”
“How?”
“Because I speak Spanish well, I keep close communications with some maids working with the hotel’s housekeeping staff. One girl told me she knew Izzy had stayed in a penthouse suite for a weekend. He parties with expensive prostitutes. The maid found many condoms and evidence of cocaine use in the room after he left. I located an address the last time he was there, right before I saw his picture on the TV news. For whatever reason, he’d written it down on a piece of paper and put it in the phone book. The phone book was lying open near the bed. It was marking a page that advertises escort services.”
“What did you do with the address?”
“I copied it. And I’ve kept it in my purse for a while. I don’t know why.”
“May I see it?”
She nodded, opened her purse, digging and handing me a folded paper. Under the Don Caesar logo was written: 20001 Port Royal Lane, Siesta Key
I memorized the address and returned the paper. “Thank you, Miss Fernandez.” .
“You think this is the place where Pablo Gonzales stays when he comes here?”
“Might be. It’s a pretty exclusive area.”
“If you find him, what will you do?”
“I’ll do whatever I have to do.”
“And may God walk with you, Mr. O’Brien.” She lowered her eyes and made the sign of the cross.
ONE HUNDRED-FOUR
On the way to the Tampa Aquarium, I followed the back roads, drove fast, and took a lot of twist and turns. If I was being followed, I couldn’t see it. I called Dave and gave him the address on Port Royal Lane. “See if you can find out who owns the house. Can you send an aerial picture to me?”
“Maybe better than that. If I can access the right satellite, I might be able to stream live images of the house and its surroundings.”
“Excellent. Do what you can, and copy the signal to whatever mobile device Thorpe carries, too.”
“Already done.”
“How’s Max?”
“When she walked me this morning, all was fine. We had a slight preoccupation with a pet iguana that one of the boat captains was showing the tourists.”
“Talk later.”
* * *
Cal Thorpe arrived right on time — to the second. As he approached, I saw his reflection on the glass at the massive Tampa Aquarium. I turned and said, “It’s been awhile. Glad you could make it.”
“Sounds like the kind of international party I wouldn’t want to miss.” He smiled. Thorpe was my height, a little taller than 6’3”, muscular forearms and chest, tanned, and handsome, angular face with a cleft chin. He wore his hair short and combed straight back. Dark glasses. He was dressed in a blue Hawaiian print shirt hung loosely outside his pants.
“Coffee?” I asked
“I could use a cup.”
* * *
We took a back table in a softly lit coffee shop, and I told Thorpe everything I knew. I opened my iPhone and saw the real-time image of a mansion on the bay. “This is the signal Dave Collin’s feeding us.”
Thorpe looked closely at it. “I see three parked cars, one man at the gate… looks like one man at each corner of the property but could have a few others outside not visible. We don’t know how many are in the house.”
“I hope it’s less than what we see outside.”
Thorpe nodded.
I said, “It has to be Gonzales. Who else travels with that kind of security?”
“You want to call for any additional forces?”
“You’re all the back-up I need.”
“How do you want to approach the house?”
“From their least guarded spot… the bay. Let’s get Dave on the line.” I made the call and asked Dave who owned the home.
“County records indicate it was sold to a corporation eighteen months ago, the Fairmount Group. The same group owns a private jet that landed at Tampa International two days ago.”
I said, “And I’d bet you a tank of jet fuel that both are dummy corps and owned by Gonzales.”
“No doubt.”
Thorpe said, “Dave, I saw a dock and a large yacht in the feed you sent. I assume the yacht is owned by Gonzales. We’ll be approaching from the bay. That’s the Achilles heel.”
“Yacht — yes, Fairmont Group. Approaching when?” asked Dave.
“Tonight,” I said. “The bay is very wide at that point. We’ll need a small boat or an inflatable with an outboard on it. Two tanks, masks and fins.”
“I can make those arrangements,�
� Thorpe said.
“Make the most with your time,” Dave said. “The flight plan has the private jet flying to Trinidad in the morning.”
ONE HUNDRED-FIVE
There was a tiny sliver of a moon behind the moving clouds, the bay ink black. A breeze from the east brought the scent of mangroves and fish. We anchored the rubber inflatable raft in twenty feet of water, about one hundred yards off shore from the estate. I could see floodlights around the grounds. Lights running along the dock railing. The yacht was dark. “Maybe Pablo’s in the house,” I said.
Thorpe nodded and looked through a pair of binoculars. “I can’t see anyone on the yacht or in the immediate perimeter of the dock.”
“Gonzales might be on the mansion’s balcony, smoking a cigar and looking at us. Maybe we swim to opposite sides of the lot, circle back to the mansion as we take out each man. We enter the house, and if Gonzales is there, we take him out and make our way back down to the bay and the inflatable.”
Thorpe nodded. We saw a shooting star. He said, “I read that tonight’s supposed to be the Perseid meteor shower. Could be as many as eighty streaking up there half the night.”
“Maybe it’ll keep the hostiles looking up. Let’s go.” We slipped over the inflatable and into the water, making our way to the mansion on the bay. I came ashore on the far right side, Thorpe on the opposite. I could see his image as he melted into the dark of the royal palms and manicured shrubbery.
I took my Glock out of the waterproof case and slipped up to the first guard. He was speaking in Spanish on a cell phone. I heard him talking about a soccer game. I approached him from the rear, bamboo and palm fronds rustling in the breeze, the smell of steak and barbeque ribs coming from the grounds of an adjacent property. I hit the guard on the back of the head, caught his phone as he went down and pressed the disconnect button. “Sleep well,” I said taking his gun and tucking it in my belt.
I rounded the mansion, stayed in the dark of the canary palms trees and saw the next guard smoking a cigarette. I waited for him to turn toward the road before coming closer. When he turned, I approached. Within ten feet of him, in the dark, I stepped on a dead palm frond. The sound was loud. He spun around and reached for his gun. I caught him in the jaw with a hard punch. He dropped cold. I picked up his gun and tossed it.
When I got to the main gate, I knew that Thorpe had dispatched his hostiles faster than I had. The guard at the gate lay on the floor, his throat slit. I stepped under a mimosa tree and breathed deeply. From the shadows, Thorpe said, “Now the house.”
I nodded and stayed in the cover of darkness until we stepped up on the marble portico. We sprinted to the front door, turned the handle and entered the mansion. The hall led to a great room that was larger than most houses. Original oil paintings of Argentinean philosophers and history makers decorated the walls. The fireplace was large enough for a six foot tall man to stand inside.
We both extended our guns and opened the door to an adjacent room. This room was smaller, a library with a sunken floor, books a step up lining the perimeter, floor to ceiling on opposite sides. A chair was positioned in front of the largest privately owned saltwater aquarium I’d ever seen. It was at least thirty feet long, ten feet high, thousands of gallons. There was a small polished wooden table to the left of the chair. A lit cigar smoldered in an ashtray on the table, a dark drink sat in fresh ice, and a book was next to the drink. We could see the man’s shoes as he sat in the chair and gazed at the fish in the aquarium. Classical music played from hidden speakers.
I used hand signals to motion for Thorpe to approach the chair from the opposite side. We raised our pistols and stepped to both sides of the man in the chair.
I looked at the pasty face of the embalmed body of Izzy Gonzales, his stare vacant, the reflection of the swimming fish mirroring across his black glass eyes.
“Hold your hands up or you will die.” Thorpe and I turned around to see Pablo Gonzales standing with a drink in his hand. Two men, armed with Uzi machine guns, stood to his side, their guns trained on us. “Izel always loved the sea. Loved the fishes in the sea. I saw you two at the aquarium today, so I thought it only fitting to continue the theme if we met face-to-face.” He smiled, age near fifty. His mouth was soft, face pale. His bushy eyebrows did not rise or fall when he spoke. His dark hair was combed, parted on the left side, and he dressed in a steel-gray Armani tailored suit.
“You, O’Brien, are perhaps the most resourceful adversary I have ever faced. It’s unfortunate that you brought along a man, probably a good soldier, to sacrifice with you.”
I said nothing.
Gonzales said, “We’re taking my nephew back to his mother in the morning, to his resting place. When Izel was a little boy he had a few goldfish. That turned into a fascination with fish and the sea. He would travel the world to dive, always bringing back photographs he took underwater, and sharing his adventures with his family. He could swim like an Olympic champion.”
I looked at the book on the table next to Izzy’s body. One Hundred Years of Solitude. I knew if I could keep Gonzales talking, Thorpe might find the half second he’d need to fire at a guard. “Pablo, do you really suffer from such schizophrenia you think that’s the Bible sitting next to your dead nephew? Even Marquez, talking about his own novel, was quoted as saying some readers make much ado about nothing. It’s fiction. Are the lines blurry?”
“It’s an observation into humanity told in a fictionalized voice; however, it does not make the story any less real. And, you are a tragic figure, O’Brien.”
“And you believe in magic.”
“I believe in pulling weeds from the garden.”
“You can’t even plant the seeds.”
“Are you referring to a physical anomaly?”
“You’ve got a warped God complex, Pablo. You are so delusional that when you read a novel that mixes real events with a fictionalized story, you can’t even tell the difference.”
“I’m looking so forward to rendering you in a timeless state. Maybe you can suffer for all those idiots who will come after you.”
“None can come from a man whose balls have withered to the size of a pea.”
“Fuck you, O’Brien!” He stepped forward and down, catching his men off guard.
Thorpe got off a shot faster than I could blink. The man to Gonzales’ left fell across the hardwood floor. I dove behind Izzy’s chair as the second guard fired his Uzi. The trail of bullets ripped upward through the chair, shattering the aquarium. Thousands of gallons rushed into the sunken floor in a wave of flopping fish, one octopus, and a jellyfish with tentacles almost three feet long.
Thorpe took out the guard before he could aim the Uzi a second time. Pablo Gonzales stood with the drink in his hand and hundreds of fish swimming around his feet. He threw his crystal glass at my head and turned to run. I tackled him. The water was at least a foot deep. I grabbed Gonzales by the collar and held is head under the water. I could see his mouth make an O, see the eyes open wide in absolute fright. He struggled, clawing and kicking. I pushed harder, holding him under the saltwater, the jellyfish coming closer to his face. He stopped struggling, two bubbles erupted from his throat and his body began to relax.
I looked up at the sliver of moon through a skylight and caught a burst of meteors — like fireworks in the heavens. It was an instant reality check. I lifted Gonzales out of the water and used the palm of my hand to hit him hard between the shoulder blades. He burped and spit out water, his lungs coughing and wheezing as he sucked in air.
To Thorpe I said, “Tie him up. I’ll call Dave and let him send in the troops. The president has his most wanted man. We’re done.”
I called Dave as Thorpe secured Gonzales, tying him to a banister. Thorpe then checked the rest of the house. When I got off the phone, Gonzales sat on the steps of the grand spiral staircase, hands and feet tied. He watched his fish dying on the floor, the water receding as it seeped into the floor vent. His wet hair feathered down int
o his eyebrows. He said, “Your biggest mistake, O’Brien, is not killing me. Maybe it’s a flaw that your father would have suffered from as well. They haven’t built a prison that can hold me.”
ONE HUNDRED-SIX
Three weeks later, I drove my Jeep into the forest on a bright Sunday morning. I walked the last half mile, small shovel in one hand, Glock under my shirt. When I came to the tree, I looked up at the limb where they’d hung Luke Palmer. Although the rope was gone, the bruise on the limb was there, the bark rubbed smooth. I thought about him drawing the sketch, the smile on his face when he finished. I glanced up at the two hearts carved in the trunk, long since grown together in the shape of butterfly wings. ME & MA. The old tree carried this tattoo on its face for life.
It took me less than a minute to find the steel box under the stone. The money was there like it had been since 1936. Maybe old money could help a new cause.
* * *
The following Tuesday, Elizabeth and I stocked Sovereignty with provisions, eased away from Cedar Key and set sail southward to the Florida Keys. Along the way, we stopped at Boca Grande, Cabbage Key, Useppa Island, Captiva, Sanibel, and Marco Island as we wound our way around the tip of Florida. We didn’t discuss Pablo Gonzales or Frank Soto. Soto was facing trial as accessory to murder and attempted murder. Gonzales was being held in a maximum security prison awaiting trial for orchestrating multiple murders and the unlawful trafficking of illegal substances. I guessed he would spend the rest of his life in a federal super-max prison like the one in Colorado that hosted permanent guests, such as Zacarias Moussaoui and others.
I saw a side of Elizabeth I knew was there, slowly emerging out of the fear and shock from Molly’s death. We spent our days swimming in the clear waters of the gulf as I taught her how to sail. I caught and filleted fish for some of our dinners. In three days, she had tanned well, a trace of freckles dusting across her back. We anchored off Cayo Costa Island and explored the sugar white beaches, making love under the rustle of palm fronds, the breeze blowing in from the ocean.