“I can handle that too,” she said, not skipping a beat. “But if you want all that, you have to help me with something.”
I thought about it for a minute. I decided that she might be pulling my leg, but I decided it was worth a couple guns that might only buy us little more than half a vial of insulin to find out.
“Okay,” I said, hopeful, but not overly optimistic at the possibility of getting all that I’d asked for. “Name it.”
CHAPTER 12
Ava was feeling upbeat, almost giddy. They were emotions that she hadn’t felt for such a long time that they almost seemed foreign to her. One by one, the pieces of her well laid out puzzle just kept falling into place. It was as though everything that was happening was preordained by fate. Even when she wasn’t trying, the stars kept aligning. She had her lucky guns back, she had a new hired man, Bushy was on his way north to align the last star she needed in place, and this afternoon, she would be meeting with the heads of Little Havana to finalize everything.
The encounter at the Miami Beach apartment building – even though everything had worked out better than she herself could have planned – had made her a little jumpy and slightly more aware that she should be taking every precaution possible before involving herself in such meetings. The plan was too far along now to let one tiny slipup ruin everything. Therefore, she spent nearly 30 minutes driving the streets of Miami, ensuring that she wasn’t being tailed, before pulling up before the pure-white, art deco-style boutique hotel in which the heads of the Little Havana enclave worked and resided.
A beefy-looking Cuban in khaki pants and a tight-fitting blue polo shirt was there to greet her, opening her SUV’s door before she could even reach the handle. She wasn’t used to such service and chivalry these days, although she couldn’t help but notice how he ogled her glistening gams as she swept them out of the vehicle and stood. She gave a slight wriggle as she pulled the skin-tight, electric-blue skirt that had ridden up slightly during the drive, down to a more respectable – although still revealing – length.
Ava wore black peep-toe pumps, and a lose-fitting, sheer-armed white blouse to accent the skirt. Her only accessory was a mid-sized black-leather handbag in which she carried her lucky guns and two spare magazines.
She felt that her outfit provided her with the advantage of sex appeal while maintaining the attire befitting a businesswoman. The skirt screamed sex while the wispy-white blouse whimpered sweet little church girl, and the pumps gave her height, adding not only to those lengthy, yet shapely legs, but to the power and confidence she felt growing inside her by the day.
The incident at the apartment building the other day – and how she’d handled it – had only acted to solidify the poise with which she now carried herself and fortified the determination to see her arrangements through to fruition. Her belief that her path was the correct one was impenetrable now, and she was assured that with the help of her contacts in Little Havana, it was destined to be fulfilled.
Another man – similarly dressed but not so beefy – greeted her beside the entry steps to the building. “This way, please,” he gestured to her with a hand and then led her up a short flight of steps that took her inside the hotel’s lobby entrance.
He also looked to be of Cuban descent and was dressed in blue dress pants and a purple polo shirt. Ava followed him as he guided her through the stylishly-furnished lobby and over to a set of elevators. As she walked, she noticed a set of pocket doors at the far end of the lobby that opened into a small room. A blue neon sign above the doors and that matched the color of Ava’s skirt, read: “Lounge.” Inside, she could see several men and women sitting at the bar, talking, laughing, and drinking.
It was almost as if nothing had changed from years ago.
The rest of the lobby’s interior was dimly lit, the lights turned down for the evening. It was cool inside from the air conditioning; and for a moment, Ava lost herself, pretending that she was back in the Miami of her youth.
For all her confidence though, Ava felt the nerves in the pit of her stomach. They reminder her of that naive, foolish, sixteen-year-old girl she’d been when she’d walked these same streets nearly a decade ago. She hadn’t even eaten before coming, being too nervous to contemplate food. She kept reminding herself of how she’d matured and who she was now.
There was the soft ding of a bell and the elevator door slid open. She followed the man in the purple polo shirt inside the elevator and watched as he inserted a key into a slot on the elevator’s indicator panel beside which was located an engraved “P” – which Ava took to stand for “Penthouse” – and turned it.
The elevator began to move slowly, smoothly, almost imperceptibly upward. Ava watched the floor indicators light up and then darken as they reached and then passed each level. They rode in silence up past the fourth floor until the “P” illuminated on the panel and the elevator stopped. The doors slid open again and the man stepped out into a hallway and turned to face Ava, gesturing to an open door at the end of the hallway.
“They’re waiting for you inside,” was all he said.
She left him standing there before the now closed elevator as she walked steadily – trying not to rush her entrance in excited anticipation, but at the same time not wanting to dawdle – towards the end of the hallway, reminding herself the whole time to continue to breathe.
Ava hesitated only slightly as she reached the penthouse suite’s open door, largely out of habit. She was used to doing a quick, yet cautious scan of any room before entering it to look for signs of potential danger.
As she examined the room, she saw that doorway entered into the living room of the palatial penthouse suite. At the far end of the room, she noted floor to ceiling windows and closed French doors leading out to a rooftop landing where heavily-cushioned patio furniture sat in abundance.
Inside the living room, a huge mirrored bar was set near one wall, its top covered with an array of assorted cocktail glasses, a silver ice bucket, shakers, and mixing accessories. Behind it, the wall was lined with dozens of bottles of alcohol, mixes, and liqueurs. A large portion of the opposite wall contained a massive plasma screen television, beside which a wide arched doorway led to the rest of the suite.
The center of the room had largely been cleared of furniture and replaced with a large conference table. Comfortable black-leather office chairs ringed the table. A solitary silver urn, overflowing with fresh fruit, sat in its center.
Adjacent to the table, two men – both of Cuban descent, both in their early-30s – sat on a voluminous white sofa. Drinks were set before them on a glass coffee table.
Ava recognized them both.
They rose from the sofa and approached as she entered the room.
“Ava,” a tall man with cropped black hair and dressed in a khaki suit and sporting a nose that looked like it had been broken more than once, greeted her. “Good to see you.” He held his arms open wide.
“Good to see you, Rico,” Ava smiled.
They hugged and kissed both checks.
Then the other man – a shorter, stockier man who almost bordered on pudgy – who was wearing a mauve suit with blue shoes stepped up and the greeting was repeated.
“It’s been a long time, Ava. I’m sorry to hear about your father,” he smiled sadly at her. “He was a good man.”
“Thank you, Pepe,” Ava nodded.
“Would you care for a drink?” the first man, Rico, asked.
“No, thank you,” Ava shook her head.
“Then please…” he motioned to one of the leather chairs at the conference table, “…have a seat.”
They all sat down at the table, Rico and Pepe on one side, Ava on the other. They exchanged a few more pleasantries before Rico took a breath and said, “Okay, now down to business. Your boss…”
“He’s not my boss…he’s my partner.” Ava quickly corrected him. While Jake would certainly have disagreed with her interpretation of their relationship, Ava didn’t want the
re to be any misunderstandings with others about who was calling the shots or whether she had the ability to negotiate or make decisions that affected their organization.
“Well, whatever he is, he’s being unreasonable,” Rico continued. “He expects too much too fast.”
“Don’t get us wrong,” Pepe jumped in. Ava remembered Pepe as always the little peacemaker in the neighborhood, never wanting any trouble. But sometimes his willingness to please got in the way and he talked when he should have listened. “We’re willing to play ball here…because of you,” he smiled. “But this guy, he has to understand that he’s the new kid on the block here, and while we respect what he’s been able to do in the brief time he’s been here, we were also the ones who backed off to let him do it…and that was really only because of you and your long-term plan for things.”
Now it was Ava’s turn. She wasn’t the little girl across the street anymore, and she wanted these two to understand that before they began thinking that they could call the shots for her like they did in the old days.
“First of all, we were going to take Miami with or without your compliance,” Ava assured them. “Your willingness to go along with the process just made it easier, and it allowed us not to have to kill you…that’s all; and I appreciate that. But don’t deceive yourselves. Miami would have been ours eventually; it might just have taken us a little longer without your cooperation.”
The two men sat silently, surprised and maybe somewhat miffed that the little chicken-legged girl they once knew had not only grown up to become a beautiful woman, but an apparently intelligent, confident, and powerful one at that.
“It might have taken you longer than you think,” Rico eyed her.
“Maybe, but that’s not the point. The point is that we allowed you to retain control of your neighborhood, something we didn’t let anyone else do. And now you have to pay to keep it that way…at least for the time being. Just think of it as an investment in your future, a future that tends to look a hell of a lot brighter in a very short period of time if you play ball. Second of all, I don’t think you’re the ones calling the shots for Little Havana one way or the other. Am I correct?”
The two men looked at one another and then back at Ava. She stared at them patiently, unperturbed.
“We understand what you’re saying, Ava,” said Rico. “Don’t get us wrong, we appreciate what you’ve done for us so far, and we look forward to continuing our relationship with your outfit. You’re right though, we aren’t calling the shots. We help, and we advise; but the final decisions don’t fall to us. You’ll have to explain it to the boss.”
“Then may I?” Ava asked, the request tingling her with sensations she had forgotten lay within her.
“You may,” Rico said as he stood. Pepe stood as well. “Be aware though, he isn’t the biggest fan of your ‘partner’ as you refer to him, and he’d like to know what is going to be done to come to a…resolution to that issue.”
“I understand,” said Ava.
“We’ll inform him that you’re here,” Rico said as the two men prepared to leave. This time they shook hands with Ava, the respect on their side of the room having grown immensely during the brief conversation. Then they left together, disappearing through the arched doorway that led to the rest of the suite.
Ava rose from her chair and walked around the table to face the archway. As she stood waiting, she felt her shoulders push back and her chest grow tout beneath the white blouse. Her hands smoothed any possibility of wrinkles against the strained pull of her skirt’s material. Her back arched, pushing her supple rear out even further, and then she stood straight, adding an extra half inch to the four her heels already gave her.
Moments later, a man returned, alone. He stopped in the center of the archway when he saw Ava. They stood silently, eyeing one another head to toe.
He wore patent-leather dress shoes, loose but nicely-fitted khaki pants, and a long-sleeved white linen shirt. He wasn’t a big man, but not small either – around 6’1, 190 pounds – and his face held the sad sexual features of a Victor Mature type. He was just as Ava remembered him, but better now. He’d lost many of his more boyish physical characteristics and become more of a man. His face had thinned slightly and he’d picked up another dozen pounds or so that she admitted he wore well, but he was still the Gonzalo she remembered from years ago.
Their eyes locked for just a few seconds, but things were said in those moments of ocular telepathy that could never be articulated – expressions of sorrow, regret, passion, hatred, lust, love, hope, anticipation, and fear. If a picture could speak a thousand words, then the body language between Ava and Gonzalo could have filled a book.
“Ava,” was all he could muster.
She swallowed, and then uttered a soft “Hi.”
All that fire and confidence she’d felt while sitting at the table with Rico and Pepe suddenly melted away in Gonzalo’s presence.
He walked across the room and stopped just a foot from where she stood. Ava felt the pull – the force of gravity between them. It was as though he was wearing a magnetized vest and she was molded from solid steel. Suddenly, and before she could react, he stepped forward and reached around her, grabbing her by the waist and pulling her close in embrace. She fell into him; her bosom pushed against his strong chest, her head nestled in against his neck. She was sixteen again – safe, secure, happy in the arms of the only man she’d ever loved.
Nothing needed to be said. They let the ten years that had passed between them guide their bodies. But now it was different. As they tore away one another’s clothes and Gonzalo picked her up and laid her warm body upon the cool conference tabletop, Ava realized that they had learned much during those years. They had dispatched with the youthful selfishness with which they used to conduct their sexual encounters and in which each was ruthlessly concentrated upon taking their own pleasure. Now they directed their practiced energies towards gratifying one another. Ava was eager to show Gonzalo some of her new tricks, and he was willing to let her. And he was equally passionate about showing off a few new moves of his own that he’d perfected in her absence.
Afterward, he rolled off the table, peeled her still-naked body from its wood surface, and laid her atop him in the velvety folds of the milk-white sofa where he took her again. This time, he slowed things down, trying to squeeze every touch, every breath, every movement, every sensation from ten years of lost passion, into a single hour.
Once they were done, they lay together motionless, a tangle of arms and legs, Ava atop him, still gasping for breath, feeling the rapid pounding of one another’s hearts. It was as though they were one again. And Ava swore that it would stay that way. She’d lost Gonzalo once; she was not going to lose him again.
Finally they’d calmed enough to speak. They lay together and talked of the old days. They talked of mistakes they’d both made. They talked about the present, and then they talked about the future and the mistakes they wouldn’t make again.
“Let me take care of things, babe,” Gonzalo said, running his hand through her hair, and then down to rest upon the small of her back. “I screwed everything up before. I want to make things right. I want to take care of you.”
“I don’t need to be taken care of any more,” Ava breathed, her cheek pressed against his bare chest that was slick with sweat.
“I can see that,” he said. “But I’d like to try anyway.”
She nuzzled down into him. “I guess that’d be nice. But I don’t want to be a housewife,” she grinned, lifting her head to look at him.
“Hmm,” he smiled back at her, “I guess I can live with that. A working wife?” he pondered. “Yeah, that might be nice.” He reached down and squeezed her right butt cheek and then gave it a pinch, making her squirm even closer into him if that was possible.
“I want us to be a team,” Ava said dreamily. “The team we never got the chance to be before.”
“I like that,” he agreed.
�
��But promise me one thing,” she said.
“Anything,” he said back, rubbing his fingers lightly around her back, sending tingles up and down her spine.
“Don’t do anything until I contact you. I remember how you are. You used to do things…stupid things without thinking, especially when it came to me. You’d let your emotions take over. This time, just be patient; I’ve got things under control. You have to trust me.”
She looked at him. “You do trust me, don’t you?”
“Always and forever, babe,” he grinned.
“Good,” she laid her head back down. “Just let me handle this. I’ll contact you when the time is right. Just promise me that, okay?”
“Okay,” Gonzalo squeezed her tight, “I promise.”
* * *
Upon arriving home, Ava found the entry door to the condo penthouse blocked by something behind it. She was able to force the door open just far enough to peek around inside. On the floor, horizontally in front of the door, lay Jake in a pool of his own vomit. A smashed tequila bottle lay next to him, and blood oozed out onto the polished white-marble floor from a cut to his hand.
Ava pulled her head back, letting the door close gently, then she took a deep breath and rammed the door back open as hard as she could into Jake. She heard a groan as the door smashed into Jake’s side and slid him slightly so that she could squeeze her way around him and inside. She held her nose and stepped with distaste over Jake’s body. As she did so, she turned to look down at the still unconscious man. Starting at him, she hocked up as much phlegm as she could muster in her moisture depleted body and spit it down upon him. Then she walked to the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of wine and a glass off the counter, and headed for the fresh air of the balcony.
CHAPTER 13
We heard Bushy’s car pull up out back of the apartment building about an hour after sunrise. It’d been four days since my encounter in the third-floor apartment with him and his boss, Ava.
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