Stuff to Die For

by Don Bruns

  “Whoa!” James shouted from the backseat. “Angel, man, he’s going the other way.”

  “I’m going to go up one block, then cut back in. Just in case he noticed us following him.”

  I looked at the black guy with admiration. “You have done this before, haven’t you?”

  He gave me a little smile. One block up he cut left to the main road, then right. Now the white car was two blocks up, but well in sight.

  James clapped his hands. “Bravo, Mario Andretti. Your driving skills are to be admired.”

  The buildings were now all concrete block or vinyl and metal siding. I could make out cranes and heavy construction equipment for almost an entire block, and I could smell the water. An iodine, rotting seaweed, and decaying fish odor mixed with an oily smell, the kind you associate with diesel engines.

  We drove three more blocks and I could see the end of the street. The Lexus’s headlights bounced off a metal guardrail with diagonal red-striped tape and Angel pulled over and killed the lights.

  “Too close. We’ll see if he goes right or left, then we’ll pick him up.”

  He turned right.

  The taillights had just cleared the corner when Angel pulled out from the curb. He flipped on the lights and raced to the dead end. As he eased out, we all three peered down the side street that ran along the water to the right. There was absolutely no sign of the Lexus.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  ANGEL INCHED DOWN THE STREET as we stared into the gloom, watching for driveways, entrances, or side streets. There was no Lexus in sight. Glancing to the left I saw the river, lights from the highway that ran above casting shimmering yellow and white snakes on the inky black surface. We could make out crumbling concrete curbs and a one-story stucco building with piles of weathered wooden lobster traps stacked next to it. On a warped piece of plywood someone had painted Miami River Lobster and Stone Crab. Dark clouds covered the moon and stars, and the entire atmosphere was claustrophobic.

  “Maybe he noticed us and pulled off up ahead.” James was concerned.

  “And maybe going down this street, we’re driving into an ambush.” Now there was something I never thought I’d say.

  “Gentlemen, be patient. I feel certain the two men had no idea they were being followed. And I feel confident that if they’re here, we’ll find them.”

  We were quiet, creeping through the deserted neighborhood, watching for some sign of activity. The moon broke through for a moment and I could see an old rusted fishing trawler rolling with the current. The Peggy Anne. Ghostly, gutted buildings on sagging frames threatened to collapse into the river at any moment, and dark shadows played along the bank.

  Five minutes at ten miles an hour and we were beyond the warehouse district. It was obvious we’d lost them.

  “Man, it would have been a great break.”

  “James, think about it. The last time we staked out a building we were warned. Now we know these guys play rough.”

  “I know, amigo, but remember, Angel brought the complete package.”

  “Jesus, let’s not get into shooting people again. All we want to do is find Vic, report the story, and go home.”

  Angel pulled into a drive, turned around, and we headed back the opposite way. “This Vic? He was a childhood friend?”

  “Sort of. We didn’t know him that well. He was the kind of kid everybody looked up to. President of student council, big shot football player, good student, and looks to kill. His dad is Rick Fuentes.”

  James chimed in. “You left out the part about his girlfriend. And the fact that he apparently is responsible for you being alive today.”

  I ignored part of the sentence. “Vic dated Emily when we were in school. For a very short time, I might add.”

  “And,” James continued, “we’re hoping he wasn’t killed in that fire.”

  We drove slowly down the street, still not believing that we’d lost them. Their car was going to pull out onto the street at any second.

  It didn’t happen. Angel kept it slow. The occasional halogen lamp spilled light into a deserted parking lot outside a small factory or warehouse, and then we were back to the street we had driven in on.

  “We can go back to Carol City and admit defeat. We can go back and hope that the Cubans will leave us alone, and maybe they will.” Angel took a deep breath. “Or we can try one more time.”

  “What are we going to see that we haven’t seen?”

  “Probably nothing. But we can try.”

  “Nah. We lost them, Angel.” James figured we’d given it a shot.

  Angel spun the Jeep around and headed back down the street one more time. No Lexus.

  “Give it up, man.” I was tired, and it wasn’t going to be a good idea to take tomorrow off from work. I’d already blown off several appointments and an entire day. The only good thing about my job was that losing it wasn’t the end of the world. And I was afraid it would come to that.

  Angel picked up the speed and we headed back the other way. Forty minutes later or less we’d be back at the apartment. I wondered if Em could sleep. She had to be thinking about the baby, and when things bothered her, they really bothered her.

  “Angel,” James called from the backseat. “Stop. Back up. About three properties.”

  Angel put it in reverse and eased it back.

  “Slow down. Right here.”

  Absolutely no Lexus.

  “Look down between the two buildings.”

  The two low-roofed buildings were blue corrugated metal, and a dim floodlight mounted on a pole highlighted a small parking area. Between the two buildings I could barely make out a forklift. “James, there’s no Lexus.”

  “Angel, do me a favor. Stop right here and kill the lights.”

  Angel pulled into a gravel parking lot and shut the engine off.

  “Let’s walk up there. Just humor me.”

  We walked slowly, no traffic or people in sight, just dim shadows.

  “What the hell did you see?” I couldn’t see anything.

  “Up ahead.”

  Angel looked back over his shoulder. The Jeep almost disappeared in the dark.

  “I thought I saw movement. Honest to God. Like someone going between buildings. I figured if there are people here at this hour of the night, maybe the car is here.”

  “Quite an imagination, James.”

  He shot me a look. “You got a better idea?”

  We walked down between the two buildings, about fifteen feet apart. The yellow forklift was parked close to the outside wall. It was old and beat up, the yellow paint chipped and faded, and the fork tines themselves looked worn and shiny.

  “There.” James walked up to the building. “A door, right here.” He was whispering. “And right over here, a door on the other building. I knew I saw something. Someone went from one building to the other.”

  We looked at each other. It meant nothing.

  “Ah, fuck it. I thought maybe—” He drifted off. I started back to the Jeep.

  “Skip!” A loud, course whisper. James was pointing wildly, beyond the forklift.

  I walked back and followed him. Seven car lengths from the forklift the dark sedan sat against the wall, passenger side out. The dark blue paint was scratched to the bare metal, and swatches of white streaked across the surface. The top of the car was severely dented and the windshield had a crack from top to bottom. It appeared that in the battle of the box truck versus the Buick, the truck had won.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  THE CUBANS’ BUICK sat there in plain sight and a line from The Pit and the Pendulum came to mind.

  A fearful idea now suddenly drove the blood in

  torrents upon my heart, and for a brief period, I once

  more relapsed into insensibility.

  There. I’d like to see James, Angel, or Em identify that line. But it was true. I lost all sensibility and felt my heart beating about triple speed.

  James rubbed his fingers over the white
scratches. “Sons of bitches.”

  Angel smiled and in a hoarse whisper said, “I recognize the car. The Cubans with the gun. So,” he looked around, “the white car must be in one of these buildings.”

  “And what are we supposed to do? Just open the doors and see for ourselves?” This Hardy Boy fantasy was getting the best of me. Actually, the idea of looking inside didn’t sound bad.

  No one answered.

  “All right, we came to find Victor. If it wasn’t his body in the burned-out building, my guess is he’s inside one of these. I suggest we sit in the Jeep and wait. For maybe an hour. Let’s see if there’s any activity. It’s almost midnight. Let’s give it till one o’clock.”

  We walked back to the Jeep and Angel parked it in the next lot. From there we could see the two metal buildings and just get a glimpse of the space between them. If the Buick or the Lexus left, it had to drive out the front.

  We waited. Three amateur sleuths not knowing what we’d do if we found our evidence. The biggest fear was thinking we might not find it. We were silent for ten minutes. Across the street on the river was a beat-up ocean trawler, probably loaded with bicycles and used automobiles, ready to head down to South America, while up ahead was the gleaming tower that is the Four Seasons Hotel. Construction cranes sprouted up everywhere around the skyline, rising into the black sky like shadowy robots. Em called Miami “Crane Town.”

  “I may be sick again tomorrow, pal.”

  I laughed. “James, you pull it off better than I do. I try to sound sick and I come off like a bad actor in a high school play.”

  “You were in the senior play, pardner. And if I remember, you weren’t convincing at all. Lieutenant Cable in South Pacific, right?”

  “How about you, Angel?” I decided to probe.

  “What? Was I in a high school play?”

  “No. Do you work? Have a job?”

  He didn’t answer.

  We spent three or four minutes in embarrassing silence, the stifling heat and lack of a breeze closing in on us.

  “Maybe we should call Fuentes,” James said. “We could ask him for some overtime.”

  I thought about calling Emily. I needed to tell her that she didn’t need to go through this alone. So I was immature, I didn’t have a future, and hung around with questionable characters, but it didn’t make me a bad person. Deep inside you know who you are, you know what kind of a person you are or what you expect to become. I was going to be successful. Wildly successful. It just wasn’t something that I’d figured out yet. I don’t know if it’s age or experience that eventually gets you to that point in your life, but I knew, and I know now, that I will be successful. And in the back of my mind I believed I could be a good father. I would be a good father. No question.

  “Self-employed.”

  “What?” I’d been lost in thought.

  “You asked what I did.” Angel reached for the binoculars, took them from their case, and trained them on the buildings.

  Another ten minutes went by and I wiped the perspiration from my eyes.

  “I wasn’t that bad an actor. Hell, I got an award for outstanding senior in the school play.”

  “Yeah. However, if I remember, Heidi Moose was the only other senior who had a lead and her rendition of Bloody Mary was abysmal at best.”

  “Abysmal?”

  “She sucked.”

  I checked my watch. If we left at one, were in bed by two, I could get about five hours of sleep.

  I could deal with that. I had to hang on to the security sales job. At least till the next best thing came along or until I was wildly successful.

  “James, if you call in sick—you’ll still have a job?”

  “Shit. Lindsey isn’t going to fire me. The last time I was with her she told me I was the best thing that ever happened to her.”

  “You and Lindsey?’

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Something to pass the time, Skip.”

  “Someone just stepped outside.”

  Angel handed me the glasses. I strained to see in the dim light. I could make out a man carrying a briefcase. He stood by the forklift, looking around. Instinctively, I slid lower in my seat.

  “What?” James leaned forward. I handed him the binoculars.

  “Probably one of the men who picked up the mail.”

  “I say we call Fuentes and let him come down here and check it out.” James didn’t sound as confident as he should have. “Really, Skip. Tell him we found the place and let’s get out of here.”

  “You forget one thing, James. Fuentes told us to drop off the envelope and leave the entire thing alone. He was adamant about that.”

  “Shit.”

  A heavy cloudbank broke and for just a moment the moon lit up the area like daylight. I could see the guy with the briefcase motioning to someone inside the doorway and a second later the ribbed steel door in front of the building groaned and started rolling up. I reached back and retrieved the binoculars.

  “That is one huge overhead door.” It was sliding up, exposing a massive opening. Now the clouds covered the moon, but lights burned inside and the glow spilled into the parking lot. I could see the white Lexus on the concrete floor, headlights on, ready to leave the building.

  “What’s stacked up in there?” James pointed toward the opening.

  I concentrated but could only tell they looked like wooden crates. “Boxes.”

  Angel took the glasses and looked at the scene for a minute. Three men were standing around the car having an animated conversation. With our windows down we could hear voices but nothing specific.

  Angel handed the glasses back to me. “Do you recognize anyone,” he said softly.

  I concentrated. “The guy on the far left looks like one of our Cuban friends.”

  “That’s what I thought. The one I didn’t shoot.” Angel chuckled.

  I handed the glasses back to James.

  “That’s him. Jesus, I wouldn’t forget that guy. He drove the car when they banged up the truck.”

  He handed them back to me. I put them to my eyes and continued to watch.

  “I don’t know that we’re going to figure anything out from back here.” James was ready to leave. I wasn’t going to argue. Other than finding the warehouse, I wasn’t sure what this trip was going to prove. The three men shook hands and stepped back.

  “Shit. Wait a minute. The big guy was the driver. The tall guy on the right, sitting in the chair—” I handed the glasses back to James. “Look hard, James. Very hard.”

  He took his time. “Yeah. Some tall—oh, fuck. That can’t be. Nah, we haven’t seen him in—”

  “About five years? Hair’s a little longer, he looks a little heavier—I’m not sure, but I think that’s him, James. If it’s not him, the guy could be his brother.”

  “Jesus. Vic Maitlin. We’ve found him.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  OF COURSE I SAW HIM for five more years—all during high school—but right after the sinkhole incident, he avoided me. If I was walking in the hall, Vic would stop and talk to someone else, making it obvious he didn’t want to have to converse with me. He seemed almost embarrassed about what had happened. I built scenarios in my head. I thought maybe the goon squad, Cramer and Stowe, had threatened him, telling him not to ever talk about it, and to make sure I didn’t. Or maybe he didn’t want to be known as the guy who saved Skip Moore’s life. But later, midway through the eighth grade, he made a point of stopping me after a class just to see how things were going. And from that point on we were okay. Not good friends, not social in any way, but okay. The last time I’d seen Vic was a couple of weeks after graduation. I ran into him at one of Jordan Trump’s parties. He walked up and nodded.

  “Everything came out all right.”

  I remember giving him a questioning glance.

  He smiled. “Hey, we made it. We graduated. Everything came out all right.” He paused. “You know. Everything is good. I’m glad you’re around.”
<
br />   I mumbled some response and he reached for my hand, the second time in his life. I offered it, and he squeezed it tight, shook, and walked away. I hadn’t seen him since.

  “Can you tell if anything is missing?”

  James handed the glases back to me. “Nah. Too far away. Now I’m not sure it’s him. It looks like he’s either sitting on his hands or they’re behind him. Could be tied up.”

  “Your friend doesn’t seem to be missing a finger?”

  I shook my head, having second thoughts. “We can’t tell. And maybe it’s not our friend.”

  “Damn, Skip, it sure looks like him.”

  The white car pulled away and the overhead door on the building rolled down. Clouds filtered across the moon and the parking lot was filled with eerie shadows and dim light. The three of us stayed low as the Lexus drove by us and made a turn down at the main street.

  “If Fuentes’s kid is alive, I think he’d like to know.”

  “It’s gonna be tough, James. We weren’t supposed to follow these guys.”

  “Well, shit. We did. Trouble is we don’t know for sure if the kid we saw was Vic Maitlin. If it was, he’s not the burned up body. If you had a kid, wouldn’t you—ah, I’m sorry, Skip, you’re about to have a kid. Shouldn’t we tell Fuentes there’s a chance his kid is alive?”

  Angel shook his head from side to side. “You know nothing. You both admitted you weren’t sure who it was. You’re not sure of anything. What are you going to tell his father? Something that calms him? Maybe something that upsets him?” Angel sounded disgusted. “You know nothing.”

  I felt chastised. He was right, we couldn’t call and tell him what we didn’t know.

  James tapped me on the shoulder. “I say we head back, pardner. It’s late and I think the party is over.”

  I hesitated. “I want to know.”

  James shook his head. “No, compadre. Let’s get away from this right now.”

  As long as this hung over our heads, we didn’t know what kind of trouble we might be in. I wanted an answer, and the worst part was I didn’t even know the question. I opened the door and stepped out. I started walking toward the building.