“You, too.”
~~~~
When the sun begins to go down in the Northwest, even in August, it gets cool—especially if you’re on the water. Or in this case, above the water, since the house sat on a cliff fifty feet or so above the ocean. The sun was just above the horizon shortly after eight thirty, and all the warmth from it was gone. Gina and I sat huddled in a blanket outside at the fire pit and watched the end of the day. A large supply of split pine was stacked nearby, and we were working our way through it. The pine logs burned brightly and quickly and smelled wonderful.
Gina had arranged to have dinner served on the patio. We polished it off along with a bottle of Silver Oak cabernet. Later, she chose coffee while I worked on a bottle of Fiji water. I had my arm around her as we stared off across the water. The lights of Victoria were visible in the twilight on the northwest horizon.
A breeze filtered up the hill off the water. She shuddered and snuggled closer to me.
“You cold?” I asked.
“A little.”
“Big day tomorrow.”
“I know,” she answered.
“You nervous?” I asked.
“A little.”
“But you’re all set up?”
“Yes.”
It was quiet a moment, and then I said, “Tell me again why I’m here.”
“I told you. If you’re here, you’re not there.”
“Very funny.”
“If you’re already here, you can’t come barging in and blow my deal.”
“But you must know that I’d have never discovered this place by tomorrow morning.”
“I most certainly did not know that. You’ve surprised me throughout this ordeal. I couldn’t take that chance.”
“That’s it?” I asked. “That’s the only reason?”
Instead of answering, she reversed the conversation. “Let me ask you something,” she said. “You tell me. Why are you here? Why didn’t you tell me to go to hell and just leave? Why didn’t you turn me in?”
“Would you have let me leave?” I asked.
“Would it have mattered? Did you need my permission?”
“No, I suppose not.”
“You could have overcome poor Uncle Frankie.”
“Probably,” I said. “And the rest of your army here? Maybe. But okay. My first answer? I’ll be honest. I was intrigued.”
“About?”
“About you. We had something once. I remember it to this day. It was short, but it was intense and it was memorable. I was intrigued to find out if there was a chance to reopen that. To go there again. There. I suppose that’s why I came. I suppose that’s why I’m still here. And I’m damn sure not going to turn you in. You’re probably committing some kind of ‘conspiracy to misbehave’ offense that I can’t name at the moment. But I’m not thinking about that. That’s someone else’s job now.
“Second answer,” I continued. “I was curious about what the hell you were doing. Now I know.”
“You satisfied now?”
“As to the second answer? Yeah, I suppose so.”
“As to your first answer?”
“No. No resolution on that one yet.”
She looked at me, and then we kissed gently. “I’m afraid we might not be able to resolve that question tonight,” she said.
“I understand,” I said. “Tomorrow’s a big day.”
We watched silently as the sun began to set. Out on the water, a large freighter moved steadily eastward, Seattle-bound.
“Let me ask you something,” I said. “What are your feelings about the time we had together?”
“Same as you,” she answered. “I have very nice memories of those three weeks. Who knows where things might have gone?”
I kissed her again and hugged her tighter.
“What are you doing tomorrow night?” she asked, smiling. “Got plans?”
“I don’t know yet,” I said.
“Look,” she said, wriggling free and suddenly pointing to the western horizon. “Look at that.” The sun was dipping below the horizon.
“Beautiful,” I said.
“Do you remember what I wanted to do five years ago before you had to go off for training?”
“I do,” I said. “You wanted to go to Hawaii.”
“And?”
“And watch a sunset together.”
“And?” she asked again.
“As I recall, there was something about getting naked and making love so passionate that the building would fall down around us.”
She laughed. “I don’t remember it quite that way, but it sounds fun.”
It was quiet as we both relived the memory and contemplated the possibilities.
“Hawaii’s nice this time of year,” she said.
“So I hear.”
“Maybe we should think of finishing that date.”
“Really?”
“Tell you what,” she said. “My deal closes tomorrow. Let’s not wait. Tomorrow night, let’s go to the airport together. I’ll buy the tickets.”
I smiled.
“Was that a yes?”
Before I could answer one way or another, she said, “I’ll take that for a yes.” She stood up. “And,” she said, “on that happy note, I’m going to my room to finish getting ready for tomorrow. I’ll see you bright and early.”
~~~~
I lay in bed with the balcony door open and listened to the sound of the ocean crashing into the cliff below the house. My mind was a blur. I was well and truly under the intoxicating spell of Gina Fiore. I was tempted to run next door and seal the deal.
But I was having trouble visualizing a relationship between a private investigator who’d basically been a cop most of his adult life, and a woman who brokered deals between Mexican drug cartels and the Chicago mob. Something was fundamentally wrong with that picture. The part of me that recognized this wanted to get dressed and sneak out.
In the end, I did neither. I didn’t go next door—and she didn’t come over. Nor did I sneak out and go home in the middle of the night.
I listened to the sound of the ocean for about fifteen minutes. Then I fell into a deep, deep sleep. I dreamed again. More dancing angels.
Chapter 24
NEXT MORNING I woke up feeling uneasy. I’d tossed and turned to bad dreams all night long. I got out of bed at six thirty and went outside on the balcony. I took my phone, checked my e-mails, and looked at the news websites. I was showered and dressed by seven thirty. When I’d returned to my room after dinner the night before, the clothes I’d been wearing when I arrived had already been laundered, pressed, and placed at the end of my bed. I don’t know if the olive khakis and Hawaiian print shirt had ever been pressed—certainly not since I’d bought them. I looked at the reflection in the mirror and was impressed by what I saw. One used, somewhat conflicted, but still-in-good-condition private investigator, vintage 1982. Six one. One seventy-five, maybe 180 pounds. Sandy hair. Sharply turned out in well-pressed duds. As good as it gets. For me, anyway. Still, I had an uneasy feeling in my stomach.
I left my room and walked to the family room, where I smelled breakfast already in progress. I turned the corner and, to my surprise, found eight armed men seated at the twelve-person dining table, talking quietly among themselves and working on hearty breakfasts being served buffet-style from trays on the serving bar. It reminded me of pre-mission meals in Iraq, except the food looked better here.
Uncle Frankie was seated in the middle of the group. When he saw me, he said, “Hey fellas, listen up!” When he had everyone’s attention, he said, “This guy here—” he pointed at me, “this guy—” he paused and looked me up and down, “this guy who I’m thinking must think he’s in Hawaii or something, his name is Danny Logan. He’s a high school friend of Ms. Fiore’s, and he’s coming with us today. That means you can’t shoot him. Got that?”
The men nodded or grunted, and then returned to their breakfasts.
I looked for Gi
na, but she was not there yet, so I grabbed a plate and helped myself.
“Come sit over here,” Frankie said, pointing to an empty chair opposite him.
I sat down. “Thanks for the introduction.”
“Don’t think of it,” he said. “These are my boys. Say, you get a good night’s sleep? I always find it helps to get a good night’s sleep. I sleep like a baby.”
“I tossed and turned all night long,” I said. “Bad dreams.”
“That’s too bad. You okay? You ready to go?” he asked. “You don’t look too good.”
I laughed. “This is as good as it gets, man. Besides—what am I going to do? Sit on the sidelines and stay out of the way. I still don’t even know why she wants me there.”
“I’m sure she has her reasons,” Frankie said. “She’s keeping tabs on you.”
“So you’ve said.”
“Don’t sweat it, kid,” he said. “By lunchtime today, you’ll be on your way home.”
“Good,” I said. I meant it.
~~~~
After breakfast, I had thirty minutes to kill before our 8:45 departure time, so I walked outside and found a path that meandered down to the railing at the cliff’s edge. A hidden bench had seemingly been hewn from the stone. I sat down and looked out over the water. Last chance. I desperately needed to sort things out in my mind.
What was I doing here? Why was I going to an organizational kickoff meeting between a Mexican drug cartel and the Chicago mob? Was I being coerced or was I a willing participant? They didn’t take my gun, so I must be willing. But I’m a decent, moral, law-abiding citizen. I had no business being within ten miles of this shit, except to move in afterward and throw people in jail. But I wasn’t in the army anymore. I wasn’t a special agent anymore. I didn’t throw people in jail anymore. I was right when I told Gina it wasn’t my job.
But that didn’t mean I was cleared to sit happily back and watch a major illegal drug deal get structured right in front of me—as if I wasn’t even there? This couldn’t be right, even if it wasn’t my job, even if I didn’t particularly care whether people smoked pot or not. Even if I thought that the law enforcement efforts amounted to a waste of money on the one hand and the persecution of thousands of otherwise innocent Americans was ridiculous on the other—right was right. Wrong was wrong. The law was the law.
Or was it? Suddenly, it became clearer to me as two things sprang into focus, one right after the other. On the one hand, law enforcement officers have it easy. For them, the law really is the law. They’re compelled to enforce it to the letter. Black and white, no gray area, no room for interpretation. A law enforcement officer follows the law and doesn’t question its effects, its reasons, or its underlying morality. Those questions are left to the public and the politicians. Law enforcement pins on the badge; they do their job. Period. Because of my CID background, I’d been looking at things in this manner for a long time. Yet, since I was no longer a cop, perhaps it was time to change, or at least reexamine, my perspective.
On the other hand, for the public—people who aren’t cops, which now included me by the way—there’s an ocean of gray between black and white, or at least there can be, maybe even should be sometimes. Even the boundaries are fuzzier. Of course, the essentials are the same: right is still right, and wrong is still wrong; laws are still laws. But the picture expands to include a big hunk of gray that doesn’t exist for lawmen. Things like the effects of a given law—intentional and unintentional—and the underlying morality of the law are now open to examination. If the law is bad, is obsolete, has unintended negative consequences, then it needs to change, and it’s up to the general public—not the cops—to see that it gets done. Rational, thinking people understand this.
Finally, the fog began to lift. At least in regard to the nature of the problem, if not the solution. I was bumping into an internal conflict between the black-and-white perspective of the cop side of me and the gray-area perspective of the non-cop side that believed the federal pot laws were archaic, damaging, and would inevitably be changed. I’m not saying I had the answer to this conundrum, because I didn’t. My cop instincts were, and still are, strong. But at least I better understood the nature of my dilemma. And I was more comfortable with the reasons why I felt uneasy.
Of course, the second thing I figured out while sitting on the bench overlooking the ocean was that when I’m near Gina, it’s as if I’m intoxicated. I say and do stupid shit. When I’m able to back away from her and get to a point where I can think clearly, like now, then I realize that I’m actually saying and doing the stupid shit that I didn’t recognize I was saying and doing when she was around. It’s embarrassing. It’s like Gina comes around, and snap—brain short-circuits. Worse, I think it’s always been that way. It’s entirely possible that Gina has never even seen the real me. She’s only seem some sort of mind-numb roboton with stars in his eyes who does and says what he thinks will most impress her. I needed to suck it up and sort that shit out.
Conflict or no conflict, I needed to let somebody know where I was. That was just good procedure. Toni was already pissed at me, but I had to let her know what was up; otherwise, she’d have reason to be even more pissed. I dialed her number.
“Good morning,” she said when she answered the phone. She sounded okay maybe?
“Hi.”
“Did you find her?”
“Yes, I did. She’s alright. She’s up here in Port Townsend.”
“I imagine there must be a good story behind all this?”
“Oh yeah, I’ll tell you when I get back.”
“Okay. Are you still in Port Townsend then?”
“Yes. There’s a meeting I’m going to attend this morning at ten at the Jefferson County Airport. I’ll be coming home afterward, probably early afternoon.”
“What kind of meeting?”
“I can’t tell you over the phone,” I said. “I’ll explain it all this afternoon.”
It was quiet for a second. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Do you need backup?”
“No, I’m good.”
“I’m worried about you,” she said.
“I’m okay, really.”
Again, the line was silent for a second. Then she said, “Where’d you stay last night?”
“Let’s talk about that this afternoon, too.”
“Okay,” she said quietly. Then she added, “Your Aunt Thelma called.” I don’t actually have an Aunt Thelma, but no one knows this. It’s a secret code. The movie Thelma and Louise came out in 1991 when Toni was something like six years old. Still, it’s one of her favorites. She especially likes the character played by Susan Sarandon, Thelma Sawyer. Toni admires Thelma’s tough, no-nonsense qualities. Inspired by the character, Toni developed a coded emergency message she calls Aunt Thelma. The way it works is that if either of us mentions that Aunt Thelma called, it’s really our secret way of asking if the other person is under duress, such as might be the case if they were being held prisoner and not able to speak freely. If the answer is, “Tell her I’ll call her back,” it means yes, I’m in trouble—call out the cavalry. We’d never had reason to use it before now.
Fortunately, I was able to say, “I’m good. No problems. Still armed and dangerous.”
“Good,” she said. “Dwayne called. He wants you to call him.”
“I will. I’ll see you this afternoon.”
“Danny,” she said, “Be careful.”
I didn’t know what to tell Dwayne and I didn’t want to lie to him, so I decided to call him back after the airport meeting was over. That should be two hours or so. Is that a form of a lie? I hope not. I rationalized it by thinking that by then, I’d have a lot more information, and I’d be in a lot better position to know what to tell him.
~~~~
At 8:40, I returned to my room and grabbed my pack. My intention was to throw it in my Jeep so that all my stuff would be in one place. I walked over to the garage at 8:45
just in time to hear Frankie assemble his “boys.”
“Here’s the deal,” he said. “Philly and Mike, you two are going to stay here at the house. House guard. Stay at the gate, both of you. Got it?” The two men nodded.
“Berto, you’re inside the house. Don’t leave.”
“Francesco, you’re the roamer. You’re the boss in charge of the house.” Francesco nodded.
“Steve, Johnnie, Carmen, Salvador—you’re all going with us to the hangar. You’ll all be outside, playing footsies with the spics, got it?”
“Yeah,” they said.
“You’re armed with AKs, and they’re armed with AKs; but they’re all hidden in the car. I’m thinking anything goes down inside, or outside for that matter, you fuckers open up with your handguns and hose those motherfuckers. Then work your way to the car for the heavy iron. Beat ’em to the draw. Got it?”
They nodded.
“You’re Americans,” Frankie added. “You gotta’ be better than they are.”
“You gonna be inside, boss?” one of the four asked.
“You bet. John and Peter will do the meeting. Gina’s gonna be the MC. I’m gonna be inside with numbnuts, here.” He pointed. I was numbnuts.
“They got the same numbers, boss?”
“Yeah. Exact same numbers. Four outside guards—that’s you guys, plus two inside. That’s me and him,” he said, again pointing to me. “Two principals and one assistant each. Gina’s our assistant, even though she’s the one really puttin’ this thing together. They got that kid who Gina met with last week as their assistant. Bottom line—there’ll be five people inside and four outside from each party.”
“I’m thinking there shouldn’t be any trouble,” Frankie said. “Gina and the Mexican already worked out all the details. This here’s supposed to be just a meet and greet, shaky-shaky, and seal the deal. There ain’t no money here, and there ain’t no drugs, so there’s no reason for anybody to get all twitchy. Except that this is a high-level meeting between the highest-level bosses you’re ever gonna see. So stay the fuck awake! I don’t want no chitchat outside.”
“No problem, boss,” someone said. “We don’t speak Spanish.” Everyone laughed.
Angel Dance (Danny Logan Mystery #1) Page 29