Hialeah was a blue-collar grid of small streets on a relentlessly flat landscape. Its garment factories provided jobs where new immigrants could sit at sewing machines eight hours a day at cheap wages. As Gail watched, more seamstresses came out of the building and walked through the gate. She noticed a pickup truck waiting for them to move out of the way. Gail stared at it, a dark blue Ford 250 with tinted windows and a CB antenna. There was a small American flag on the bumper sticker. The pickup backed toward the loading bays and vanished, blocked by the women and the lunch truck.
Without hesitation Gail locked her car and walked across the street with her jacket draped over the camera. She had noticed the bus route sign attached to a concrete utility pole. A heavy middle-aged woman sat on the bus bench, arms crossed. She watched without much interest as Gail set the camera on the back of the bench, checked the viewfinder, then draped an arm over it and put her finger on the shutter.
The man getting out of the truck was not Lloyd Dixon. She was surprised by this, then recognized him as an employee, the mechanic she had seen on the scaffold at the Dixon Air hangar. Hispanic, around forty, brown slacks, windbreaker. She got him stepping up to the loading dock, then speaking to a man in a suit who came out of the building. The second man was older, mid-fifties, the type who would drive the Mercedes in the reserved spot by the front door.
Then a dark red Lexus with gold trim turned in from the street. The women were going back through the gate, and the car moved slowly, nosing up to the building. Gail rechecked the focus and pulled back the lens for a wider angle. She pretended to look in another direction and pressed the shutter, hearing the soft click-whine of the advance. Got Octavio Reyes coming out of the car. Straightening the jacket of his gray suit. Reaching back in for a small black gym bag. Up the stairs. Handshake with the man who had come out earlier. The driver of the pickup truck lighting a cigarette, not really part of this. But his eyes watched the street.
Seven seconds. Gail had already calculated how long it would take to walk casually across the street, get back into the car, and start the engine. Less time than it would take any of those men to spot a camera lens, jump off the loading dock, and come over to ask her what she was doing.
Reyes walked inside with the older man. Drops of rain hit the sidewalk, making dark circles in the dust. The last of the seamstresses hurried inside, and the driver of the lunch truck closed the side panel, got back in, and went on down the block. The woman on the other end of the bus bench popped open an umbrella.
Gail stayed where she was. Counted off four minutes on her watch. Five. Rain was coming a little faster, but not enough to send her running.
A forklift appeared in the open bay door, its metal arms holding a pallet with a blue plastic tarp wrapped tightly around a rectangular shape underneath. The driver from Dixon Air jumped off the dock and lowered the gate on the pickup truck. Reyes and the other man came back out. Watched the forklift roll forward and place the pallet in the bed of the truck, which rocked, then settled on its springs.
Gail wrapped her jacket around the camera and ran for the car as the rain started falling in ragged gray sheets.
Dixon Air Transport shared a parking lot with a neighboring hangar. Gail found an empty space near the other building and put the VISITOR sign on the dashboard. The guard at the gate had given it to her when she showed her business card and said she had an appointment with Lloyd Dixon. She had noticed, last time she was here, that the guard had not called to get an okay. The main terminal entrance was through a gate some half-mile distant, where most of the private airplanes came and went on runways not shared by the cargo carriers on this side of the field.
Gail turned off the engine and sat for a few minutes listening to the rain tick on the roof. She had escaped Hialeah just before four o'clock, when workers started pouring out of the factories, locking up traffic. The pickup truck couldn't have been so lucky, but it would arrive soon enough. She had no doubt of its destination. And as for what was under the blue tarpaulin— not ladies' dresses, not the way that truck had settled under the weight. She didn't believe it was sewing machine parts, either. A routine pickup of cargo would not have been jotted down in the CEO's personal appointment book. She guessed that the CEO himself would be the pilot. Dixon in his leather bomber jacket. He had winked at her on his way out of the rehearsal hall after speaking with Tom Nolan. Some fun, huh?
The words DIXON AIR TRANSPORT marched across the side of the hangar in huge red letters. Her position gave her an angled view of the front. The door had been pulled halfway across the wide opening.
On the way here, she had thought about what to do next. There were no personal matters to handle. She had rescheduled an appointment with a client. Karen had soccer practice, but Irene had agreed to take her. With the rain, they would probably stay home and play cards. Anthony had a trial this afternoon, but if he finished early, Miriam would say that Ms. Connor was in court. A lie. She intended to apologize later, if he found out.
People came and went, hurrying with umbrellas held close or coats thrown over their heads. A jet took off, thundering overhead. Gail felt the first stirring of unease. No danger sitting here in her car, but if she went inside, then what?
She shivered, suddenly aware of how foolish this was. Insane, sitting here in the rain-faded light of late afternoon, the parking lot slowly emptying out.
If those weapons made it to Cuba—where else would they be going?—then maybe Ernesto Pedrosa's prediction would come true. Cuba free within a year. But Anthony had said it couldn't happen. Nobody there wanted a bloody counterrevolution.
Rain slid down the windshield, making the hangar's red letters move. She noticed a small sign on the wall indicating a reserved parking place, DIXON. The space was empty. A metal exit door opened, and a thin fiftyish woman came through it, her skirt fluttering as she ran toward her car. Windshield wipers went on. She drove away. A minute later two men in dark blue jumpsuits came out—mechanics, Gail assumed. Quitting time.
The apprehension passed. No one knew what she was doing here. No one would give a flip if the opera's lawyer came in looking for Lloyd Dixon. Gail tore off the wig and stuffed it under the seat. Combed her hair and put on lipstick. A salon had done a good job cutting off the singed parts, giving her a short blond layered look. In her navy-and-tan tweed jacket, even with jeans, she was a lawyer taking an afternoon away from the office.
The camera fitted in separate pieces—lens and body—inside an inner pocket of her shoulder bag. She did not expect to use it. She expected to snap a mental picture of what was on the other side of the hangar door. If the pickup truck arrived—and if Octavio Reyes followed close behind—so much the better. She wanted to see his reaction. Wanted him to know that if he trashed Anthony, she would ask him, in front of Ernesto Pedrosa, what he'd been doing at Lloyd Dixon's place of business. Dixon, the opera donor who supported the commie singer, Thomas Nolan.
Smiling with anticipated triumph, Gail strode toward the hangar, entering on the near side, where the hangar door was open. She brushed the drizzle off her sleeves. The wet soles of her shoes squeaked on the concrete. There were three airplanes inside, one of them Dixon's own jet, the white Citation, then two cargo jets, both in stages of repair. The planes had been turned at an angle so their wings would fit, and a scaffold was in place beside one of them. With the heavy overcast, the skylights gave little illumination. Big work lights hung from trusses in the high ceiling, but they were turned off. The gloom was relieved only by what light came through the door. There was a fluorescent glow from the glassed-in office on the far side of the hangar.
Coming closer, she saw three men standing inside talking. They did not look like office workers. Her steps slowed. Unobserved from ten yards away, she studied the faces of these men, trying to decide if she had seen them before. Perhaps in the shadows on Ernesto Pedrosa's front porch, talking to Octavio Reyes.
The implications of what she was doing suddenly hit her like a cold wind, a
nd a shudder ran across her chest. Very bad, to be caught here without a reasonable explanation. Gail Connor, lawyer for the opera, engaged to Anthony Quintana, whose friend Felix Castillo was accused of being an agent for the regime. Caught here with a miniature camera, which already held shots of a pallet being loaded onto a pickup truck. She took a step backward.
From behind her she heard the growl of an engine, the squeal of tires on slick concrete. Gail hurried to hide behind the landing gear of the middle cargo plane. Huddled on the floor, she could see under the belly of Dixon's personal jet. A Ford pickup braked to a stop beyond the tail. Then a Lexus appeared in the open hangar door and stopped near the cockpit. Headlights went off. A car door slammed. Reyes's gray trouser legs appeared.
Voices came from behind her. Gail spun around. If they walked this way, they would see her immediately. She glanced through the scaffold toward the darkness at the rear of the hangar, fifty yards away. Too far. If she ran, they would hear her.
Crouched behind the big wheels under the wing, she swiveled as the men passed by. Her wet footprints were directly in their path, but they hurried by without noticing. Her heart pulsed wildly in her chest.
She came out far enough to look up at the scaffolding. One side gave access to the engine, the other to the cockpit. The door was open. Gail put the strap of her shoulder bag crossways over her chest and began to climb, stealthily as a cat. The fuselage protected her from view. Octavio Reyes and the other men were on the far side of the hangar, talking so loudly they would not hear the hollow shift of pipe or squeak of metal. Shaking, she pulled herself up the bars, then to the metal mesh floor, and then, at last, she crept into the airplane.
Her legs gave out and she sat on the floor trembling, able to see nothing but dim shapes. The door to the cockpit was closed. The windows admitted pale gray light. There were only six seats before the cabin ended at another door, beyond which she assumed was cargo space. Silently she felt for a seat and pulled herself into it. She dared not sit next to a window.
Forcing herself to breathe slowly, she said over and over, They don't know you're here. You're perfectly safe. When they leave, you can go.
Rain beat down harder on the high metal roof. A diesel engine started. A high-pitched beep-beep-beep told her it was probably a forklift backing up. The noises went on for a few minutes, then the engine shut off. Men's voices again. A few minutes later, the restrained purr of a car engine. That would be Reyes's Lexus. Tires squeaking, then the engine fading. Gone. There would be four men left in the hangar. She waited for the pickup truck to leave. It didn't.
An electric motor cut on, and at the same time the hangar door began to shut with a squeal of metal and rattle of wheels and pulleys. "Oh, damn," Gail breathed. The light faded further.
Footsteps and voices came nearer, then passed by. Inside the airplane, she could not make out the words. She crept across the aisle and stood up far enough to see out the window. Four men walked past the nose of the other cargo plane, going toward the office.
Gail heard the sound of a push bar on a metal door, voices getting fainter, then cutting off as the door swung solidly shut behind them. She waited, wondering how many had left. At least two. They had probably parked just outside the office, not in the lot where she had left her car.
A minute later she heard the other two men start a discussion about what to eat. "¿Qué quieres comer?"
"No me importa." He didn't care. Gail cursed silently. Were they staying all night? They argued the quality of Pollo Tropical versus KFC. They agreed on pizza. And bring some beer. Footsteps to the side door. The push bar. Then the door clicking shut. That left one man. She heard the murmur of his voice, then realized he was making a phone call.
Unable to see her watch, she guessed the time at six o'clock. Panic gradually subsided, and Gail considered the alternatives. It would be no difficult matter to sit in this airplane all night, except that her absence would not go unnoticed. Her mother might get Karen put to bed, but after that, she would call Anthony. He would be beyond frantic. She had to find a way to get the hell out of here before the other man came back.
She heard conversation in Spanish, then music. A commercial. He was watching television. Gail slowly stood up. Panic danced down her spine, but she forced herself to be calm. This would be simple. Go down the scaffolding, walk to the door in the far corner. She had seen people coming out that way going to the parking lot. Three airplanes blocked his view. With the television on, he wasn't likely to hear her. If he did hear the door shut and ran across the hangar, he'd see nothing but taillights.
Over the muffled sound of the television she heard the drone of a small plane going over. Rain on the metal roof. Water splattering in a downspout. She slowly stood up. Her eyes were adjusted to the darkness in the cabin, and she could see her way. At the door she looked out. Nothing moved. Light gleamed faintly on the wings and fuselages of the aircraft. A bright glow came from the direction of the office. She could not see, but visualized, the door in the far corner of the hangar, a red exit sign glowing like a beacon. She slid her purse around so it was on her back, out of the way, then stepped carefully onto the mesh floor of the scaffolding.
Lightning flickered faintly through the skylights, sharpening her vision. Thunder rolled a few seconds later. She grasped the frame and felt with her foot for the next horizontal bar. Then heard an odd click of metal. Not from the scaffold but from the office area. She waited. Heard a soft squeak. Then another metallic click, as if someone had come in through the door. But no one called out. The television was still on, same volume.
Several long seconds passed. Her arms were starting to quiver. The noise might have been the dripping of rain. She went down another step. Then another.
She heard an electronic ringing noise, then another. Then two more. Her portable phone. It seemed as loud as a fire bell, and there was no way to reach it. She hooked an elbow around one of the bars and fumbled her purse around. Opened the flap. The ringing was louder. She pulled out the telephone, hit the off button, and the thing spun out of her hands. She grabbed, missed. It dropped ten feet, the sound echoing on concrete and metal.
The television went off.
Silence, except for the light patter of rain.
Gail clung to the scaffold, every muscle tense. Footsteps came out of the office. Paused. He had to be standing in the doorway listening. If he came around the front of the other cargo plane he would see her.
Thunder grumbled in the distance. No, not thunder. A jet taking off, the noise coming closer. Quickly Gail came down off the scaffold, picked up her telephone, which had cracked into pieces. She ran alongside the fuselage, her pace spurred by raw fear.
A shout boomed out behind her. "Hey! ¿Quién es? ¡Parate!”
Feet pounding, Gail sped under the tail of the cargo plane. Past the Citation. Swerved around Dixon's pickup truck. Only a few more yards to go.
Conscious thought vanished under the will to escape. Her eyes fixed on the exit door. Steel-caged storage areas to one side, stacks of wooden boxes on the other. The red glow. As she opened her hands to push through the door, the pieces of her telephone dropped. Then she saw the heavy chain wrapped around the push bar, securing it to a ring in the block wall.
With a cry of panic she spun around, calculating the distance to the other door, realizing immediately it was too far. Her eyes darted about, looking for a way to defend herself. Boxes, crates stacked against the wall. Vast cabinets of tools. She would grab a wrench, anything—
Footsteps thudded closer. The man appeared. There was enough light for her to see the gun. He was screaming at her to stop. She launched herself toward the shadows. The gun fired, creating a flare of light and sharp explosion of noise. Wood cracked just over her head. She dove behind the boxes.
Then heard a thud, a grunt, a great clatter of something tipping over. Metal crashed to the floor.
Two voices, not one.
Gail peered out. Saw dark figures struggling on the flo
or. A gun a few feet away. They rolled toward it. An arm came out, reaching. The man on top clubbed the other with something in his hand. Then again.
There was a moan. The arm went still.
Breathing hard, the other man braced himself on a knee. Slowly stood up. He was holding a pistol.
He turned around and came toward the boxes.
In the gloom of the hangar, and on the edge of panic, it took Gail a while to arrange his features into a recognizable face.
"Gail, come out of there."
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
She stared at him, unable to move, hearing the rasping of her own breath.
Anthony put his pistol inside his black zippered jacket. He walked around the boxes and reached down to grasp her arm. His voice was low and insistent. "We have to go. Now."
Numbly she said, "How did you—"
"I took the keys from a guy leaving. He's in the trunk of his car."
"But what—"
He caught her when her legs went weak. He walked backward, dragging her along. "Gail, stand up! Jesucristo, ¿qué me haces?"
She regained her balance, then saw the body on the floor. "Oh, my God. Is he dead?"
"No, but he won't be out forever." Anthony kicked the man's gun into the shadows.
"My telephone," Gail whispered. "Over there."
He stared at her. "That was yours? You left your telephone on?" He spun around and spotted the pieces near an oil drum.
Gail followed him, whispering, "Anthony, I had no idea these people were in here, and then Octavio came, and I had to hide—"
"I don't want to hear it."
"Octavio was at Sun Fashions," she said, "He gave the owner a gym bag, then a forklift loaded some boxes onto Lloyd Dixon's pickup truck. Dixon wasn't there. I guessed that they were coming to the hangar, so I got here first—"
He grabbed her wrist and pulled her along. "Amazing to be in two places at once. Your secretary said you were with a client. You who value truth so highly."
Suspicion of Deceit Page 30