Dixon had not answered. He had turned his shoulders away, then his face, and last, his eyes, breaking contact just before he strode up the aisle and out of the auditorium.
She had surprised herself, asking that question. She had promised herself not to think about Los Pozos anymore. The only way to resolve the conflict between two versions of the story was to ask Anthony again. She didn't know how to do that without risking another blowup. Their reestablished relationship was still fragile. Gail had told herself that even if Anthony had shot Emily Davis, he'd been forced to do it. What possible good would it do to drag those bones to the surface yet another time? Felix had confessed, and Rebecca Dixon had been mistaken or lying.
Floating in the bathtub, Gail heard the front door slam in that way Karen had of doing it, then her high voice. "Mom! Mom, where are youuuuuu?" Gail called back, and the sound of clogs thumped down the hall. Then a backpack hit the floor in Karen's room. Gail had left her bathroom door open, and Karen came in wearing polyester bell-bottom pants and a tight little shirt with horizontal stripes, everything retro.
The night Gail had come home from the hospital Karen had slept with her, curled up like a kitten against her side. The next morning she wouldn't let go of her hand. And she made her promise not to leave her with the Perlmutters again. Every time you leave me with Molly's mother, you get hurt. Don't do it again!
Karen scooped up some bubbles and made herself a beard. She announced she was going to watch Comedy Central for a while. Gail asked her to take the steaks out of the freezer. "Anthony's coming over later. Is that okay with you?"
"I guess. Are you going to stay in there all day?"
"Till I turn into an albino prune." Gail pulled her down for a kiss and got bubbles on her cheek. "The hot water is good for my back, sweetie."
Karen went out, then spun around and held onto the door frame, leaning over as if she were a ballerina, one leg extended. Her head was sideways and her hair hung straight down. "If Anthony wants to move in, it's okay with me."
Gail laughed. "Where did that come from? We were talking about finding a new house and not moving till the summer."
With a shrug, Karen vanished, and Gail picked up her wine. They were conspiring against her, those two. Subtly but thoroughly, in his understated way, Anthony Quintana had won Karen's heart, and this kid was no pushover.
Gail was beginning to think that the only sure way to harmony in a family was not to ask too many questions.
She'd had another question for Lloyd Dixon, which had remained unasked, since he had cut off the conversation so abruptly. Lloyd, what were you and Thomas Nolan really doing in Costa Rica?
Gail's mind had spun out all sorts of scenarios. Thomas Nolan as drug dealer. Thief of pre-Columbian art. Hit man. Felix Castillo had suggested that there had been a sniper's rifle inside the suitcase, and that Dixon had taken Nolan down there to do a job.
Had the suitcase actually existed? She did not believe Tom Nolan's story that he had gone to pick it up for his former piano teacher. It was also becoming j more possible that the lady herself did not exist.
Gail had asked her secretary to find her. Yesterday, Monday, Miriam had come into Gail's office and announced she was giving up. There was no Wells in the telephone directory who had ever taught piano in 1979. Miriam held up a legal pad and flipped pages to show the phone calls she had made. Every music school and music store, every private school and college music department. The county school board, every church large enough to have a music director. Then the same routine in Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach, in case the woman had moved north. Miriam suggested that if she had a first name, she could do a search of the Bureau of Vital Statistics for birth records, or the county records for real estate and criminal justice. If this woman had so much as a speeding ticket, Miriam could find her. But a first name would help. Or even better: "Why don't you just ask Nolan where she lives?"
After the memorial service was over, Gail spotted blond hair in a halo of video camera lights, Tom Nolan being interviewed by TV reporters. He told them that his voice was improving, and he hoped to open in Don Giovanni at the end of next week.
Gail stood on the periphery of the little group. A reporter noticed her and one of the cameras spun around to record her reaction to the question, How do you feel a week after the bombing? She gave the expected reply—I'm feeling much better—then looked over at Tom Nolan. "Tom, someone just asked me and I was unable to tell them. What was the first name of your old piano teacher?"
He gave her an absolutely blank, hollow-cheeked stare.
Gail said, "Miss Wells's first name. You must have told me, but I forgot."
Nolan smiled slightly. "Elvira." He pronounced it El-vee-ra.
She said to one of the reporters, "That would be a great story. Thomas Nolan and Elvira Wells, the lady who inspired him to sing. She still lives in Miami."
The reporter asked Nolan how to get in touch with the woman.
Raising his hands, Tom Nolan shook his head and smiled, "No, she's retired now, a very private person. I won't allow her to be disturbed."
On the way home, Gail had put on Don Giovanni, her second go-through. The overture boomed out of the speakers, those ominous crashing chords, a foreshadowing of vengeance at the end. It had been the overture, oddly enough, that the Miami Opera orchestra had been playing as Gail entered the offices the night the bomb went off, and she could not hear it now without a shiver of premonitory fear.
After the overture came the comedic aria of the manservant, Leporello, as he waited for Giovanni to finish seducing Donna Anna. Gail had seen the cast rehearse that scene last week. In a swordfight, Giovanni killed Donna Anna's father, who had rushed to his daughter's defense.
Gail guided her car south on U.S. 1 in pre-rush afternoon traffic listening to Donna Anna's fiancé swear revenge on the culprit. After Giovanni and his servant congratulated themselves on their escape, another soprano came on, a stunningly emotional aria. Her voice quivered with rage. At a stoplight, Gail flipped through the libretto with its minuscule print to see what the woman was shrieking about. Gli vo' cavare il cor. She wanted to tear out Giovanni's heart. One of his spurned lovers. Then Gail remembered the name of this poor unfortunate. A noblewoman, Donna Elvira.
"Elvira," Gail had repeated aloud. "Son of a bitch."
The horns had blared behind her and she had squealed her tires taking off.
Elvira Wells didn't exist. If Miss Wells didn't exist, then her suitcase didn't exist, either. Maybe. Had Lloyd Dixon been lying about bringing it back from Costa Rica? What else had he lied about?
Gail had assumed strange goings-on between Dixon and Tom Nolan, possibly as far back as Dortmund, Germany. In her more imaginative versions, she saw Nolan and Dixon going to Costa Rica to check it out as a stepping-off point for an invasion of Cuba. Dixon was familiar with the country. It was next door to Nicaragua, where he had dropped weapons to the contras.
That theory was blown to hell now, because the businessmen at Lloyd Dixon's dinner were, after all, only businessmen.
Sipping her wine, trying to figure this out, Gail heard the murmur of voices. A child. Then the deeper voice of a man. A cabinet door closing. The grind of ice cubes from the refrigerator door.
"Drat." Gail rubbed under her eyes to clear off the mascara that she knew must have run from her eyelashes. She was wearing it extra heavy these days, filling in where her own lashes were still growing back.
She sank further into the bubbles and watched the door, through which she could see her dresser and the end of the bed. Heard footsteps on the carpet.
Anthony appeared. He leaned a shoulder against the door frame. In the soft light his image was repeated in the mirror, a slender, dark-eyed man in a tawny gold shirt. He had taken off his tie and rolled back his cuffs.
"Hi." She smiled at him across the bubbles. "You're early."
"You should have a bigger bathtub," he said. "Like the one at your house. You could come in with me."
"Lovely, really. But the sideshows were tedious. Be glad you missed it." With a swoosh of water, she sat up. Lifting her hair with both hands, she said, "Do my back, and I'll tell you about Elvira, the incredible disappearing woman."
Anthony was watching the bubbles sliding slowly toward the water, leaving wet, bare skin. He glanced at the door, then closed it and turned the lock. He sat on the edge of the bathtub and picked up the sponge. "Who is Elvira?"
Gail had already told him about the suitcase from Costa Rica that Thomas Nolan had allegedly picked up for Miss Wells. The suitcase full of flowered shirtwaist dresses and sensible shoes and large-size women's cotton underwear, no doubt. And Bibles, since the lady had gone down there to do missionary work. But now it appeared that Miss Wells, and maybe the suitcase, didn't exist.
"Where does that leave you?" Anthony asked.
"Bothered. Annoyed. I hate it when people play games, and that's what he's doing." She leaned her head on her knees as Anthony rinsed her back. "Oh, that feels wonderful." Her voice was muffled. "And in related news, Lloyd Dixon told me that he's given up his Cuba investment plans. He says he doesn't know what Octavio is doing."
Gail sat up straight. "I was looking over the copies from Dixon's appointment book today. There's an entry for this Thursday, Reyes. Then an address in south Hialeah. I looked it up. Sun Fashions. They make women's apparel. Since when does your brother-in-law have an interest in ladies' clothing—or maybe you know something about him I don't."
The sponge swept over her skin. "I saw the entry," Anthony said. "The owner is Cuban. Dixon's group was probably going to talk to him about investments. If Dixon isn't involved in that anymore, I'm going to forget about it. And you don't do anything on your own," he added firmly.
"Me? Like what?"
"Like driving to Hialeah to see what you could see."
"It hadn't crossed my mind. I was just mentioning it." Gail winced when Anthony hit a tender spot on her back.
"Sorry." He bent over and kissed it. "Your bruises look better."
"No, they don't. In the words of my daughter, they're yucky."
Anthony took a sip of his drink, then set it on the bath mat. "Did she say that?"
"Unfortunately, Karen has been taught not to lie." Gail scratched a fingernail down his right forearm, the muscle hard under pale golden skin and smooth, dark hair. There was a gold bracelet on his wrist. He wore a man's diamond ring, nothing feminine about it. "I have heard," she said, "that Cubans like jewelry because they never know when they might have to go into exile again, and you can always carry what's on your body."
He laughed. "No kidding. I didn't know that. You think it's too much?"
"Not at all." She held his hand and looked at the ring on his little finger. "It's perfect. It's you. I love it."
The diamond sparkled when he moved his hand over her breasts, making the points tight as rocks. Glittered for a brief instant in the water before it disappeared under the bubbles.
"Anthony—"
He laughed softly, an exhalation against the back of her neck. He closed his other hand around her hair' and eased her head back. His mouth opened, covering hers, more breath and heat than flesh. His tongue moved inside.
"Oh, God."
He pulled back. "Want me to stop?"
"No." She made a ragged laugh. "I could have sworn ... I wasn't in the mood for this." Her fingers tightened on his arm. "Oh, my God—"
"Shhhh."
Finally she sagged against his arm, her forehead on his shoulder. Anthony took off his ring. "Give me your hand. Let's see if it fits." He slid it onto her third finger.
Still languid and loose-limbed, she blinked and focused on it. "Too big. Anyway, it's a man's ring."
"But it's a nice stone." When she agreed that it was, he said, "What do you think? An engagement ring for you? A solitaire?"
"No! It's yours."
He held the ring up between them. "But this one will have memories."
She smiled and looked away.
He dropped the ring into his shirt pocket. "Marry me," he said. "This weekend. Tomorrow, if we could do it."
"What?"
"I'm afraid to let you out of my sight." He held her face. "I almost lost you."
If there was a better opening for her to suggest that he move in, Gail did not know what it could be. She kissed him. "We agreed it's better for Karen if we wait." Someone in the back of her brain screamed, Coward! She leaned over and lifted the drain to let the water out. "Help me up."
He held her terry-cloth robe for her, then picked up his scotch. Gail tied the sash and walked into her bedroom.
Anthony followed. "They found Felix's van today in a canal west of the airport. I heard it on the news driving here. His girlfriend was inside. Tied up. She was probably alive when it went in."
"Oh, no." Gail turned around, searching his face. She knew that Anthony had hoped, against all logic, that someone with a political agenda had planted evidence in Felix Castillo's house. That hope was fading. She said, "No sign of Felix?"
"No."
Gail sat on the end of the bed and pulled Anthony down to sit with her. "I remember, when I was talking to Felix on Fisher Island, how careful he was. He was smoking, and he held his cigarette so the ember wouldn't show. When he finished he buried it in the sand. So . . . why did he leave so much evidence in his house?"
"You're thinking like a defense lawyer," Anthony said.
Gail loosened his tie. "How was lunch with your grandfather today?" Over the weekend, the Reyes family had moved in. Anthony was pretending he didn't care, but he had made sure that Octavio was at work before going to the house.
He seemed to smile into his glass before he took another sip of scotch. "Well, we discussed Felix Castillo."
Gail said, "Oh, no. Octavio has been telling him what good friends you are with a Castro agent."
"He's probably more subtle than that. Ernesto asked me how I had met Felix Castillo, and didn't I know what he was." Anthony rolled his glass slowly between his hands. "I said Felix had fooled me. I said I'd met him in Camagiiey when I was a kid. It's what I told the family when Felix showed up in 1982 from Mariel, wanting a job. What else could I say?" Anthony leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "I don't know if he believed me or not."
Gail wondered how soon it would be before Anthony started believing in Felix's guilt, too, because it was easier that way. She pulled him around by his shoulder. "You have to tell your grandfather what happened. Everything. Everything you didn't tell him when you got back from Nicaragua twenty years ago."
As if she had pulled open a pit and expected him to jump in, Anthony rose to his feet and walked a few steps away. He drained his glass. "Go ahead and get dressed. I'll fix one more of these, then let's have dinner."
The door closed behind him.
She stood up to go to her closet, but her legs were too weak. Shaking, she sat back down on the bed, her hand clenched on her lap. A good effort, she thought. She had made a damned good effort to forget about Los Pozos, just as Anthony had. But it had failed. She knew that sooner or later she would ask him again. There was no choice. Even if Felix Castillo had done what he said, had put two bullets into Emily Davis's brain, Anthony was still carrying the burden of her death. The weight was starting to crush them both.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The last time Gail saw Felix Castillo, that night on Fisher Island, he had been using a miniature camera and zoom lens. With a few phone calls Gail located something similar downtown at the Spy Shop. After a hearing at the courthouse, she picked it up, a sophisticated little machine that set off warning bells on her MasterCard.
Anthony had gone back to his own place after a night at hers, so Gail had time to get familiar with the new toy. A couple of hours later she could aim and shoot without fumbling at the tiny controls.
At jus
t past three o'clock on Thursday, Gail looked through the viewfinder at Sun Fashions, Inc., and pressed the shutter. Click-whine. The building was like dozens of others in this part of Hialeah—a flat-roofed, windowless warehouse. Gail had been lucky to find a visitor's space at a business across the street, her view obscured only by the trucks and step-vans clattering past.
From this angle she could see both the side of Sun Fashions with its open loading bays and the front entrance, which sported a phony mansard roof that overhung a glass door decorated with a yellow sun. To judge from the thickness of the grass, the only spot of green on this narrow, dusty street, business at Sun Fashions was good. The monotony of the long white facade was broken by the name of the company and two flagpoles. One flew the U.S. flag, and the other the flag of Cuba.
A few drops of rain hit the windshield. The flags lifted in a sudden breeze. Gail prayed that the clouds would pass over.
The entry in Lloyd Dixon's appointment book had put Octavio Reyes's initials by this address in Hialeah at 3:30 p.m. She was not sure what it would mean, exactly, if he showed up, or what she would do about it. She had given herself several good reasons to stay away, but none could overcome her anger. Rebecca Dixon and Seth Greer were dead. Gail did not believe that Felix Castillo had killed them. They had died for something they knew. Something that Felix might have found out. Felix was probably dead, too. And in all her dreams the dark face of Octavio Reyes appeared.
She despised him for what he had done to Anthony. She had no fear, only a humming alertness. To reduce the possibility of being recognized, she had put on the brunette wig and a pair of her mother's reading glasses. She felt capable of anything.
As Gail held the camera in her lap, a lunch truck— a roach coach—turned off the road, its horn playing the first two lines of "La Cucaracha." The driver got out and raised a panel on the side, making a little roof. At the same time, a dozen or more women came out the side door of the building and down a short flight of concrete steps—seamstresses on break. Gail could hear their voices, the quick patter of Spanish, as they clustered around to buy sodas and snacks.
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