by PJ Parrish
You can screw upward. You can screw sideways. But you never screw down.
“Mr. Kincaid.”
Louis turned to Green, who had come up next to him. “I just remembered something,” Green said. “Don’t know if it will help or not, but there was one time Emilio asked if he could work the Emerald Dunes golf course in West Palm instead of the island.”
“Did he say why?”
“No. Just came to me one day and asked real politely if he could transfer crews.”
“Did you reassign him?”
“I couldn’t right then,” Green said. “Landscaping those places over there takes a special kind of talent, and Emilio had that artist’s eye. I couldn’t just stick anyone over there, so I told him it would be a few weeks.”
“How long after did he stop showing up?”
Green scratched his chin. “Now that I think about it, it was only a few days later. He wasn’t the type to get mad, so now I’m wondering if someone over there was giving him a hard time and he was afraid to say something.”
“Afraid he’d be discovered and deported?”
“Yeah,” Green said. “These guys live in fear of that. That’s why they slink around here, taking whatever shit people heap on ’em. They got no choice. They speak up, and they’re gone.” Green snapped his fingers. “Just like that.”
The idea that Labastide was back in Mexico was depressing. He was the only solid lead he and Mel had at this point, maybe the only person who could firm up the sex connection to Mark Durand.
The question was too big to ignore: Why had Labastide wanted a transfer away from the work—and the easy sex—of Palm Beach? It had to have been quite a powerful drug for a young guy like Labastide.
Had he been threatened by a jealous husband, as Margery had said? Or had he gotten himself in too deep, maybe fallen in love with one of the women? Or had he gotten himself mixed up with a man?
Green interrupted Louis’s thoughts.
“If you find him, you let him know he’s welcome back to work here anytime,” Green said. “He was a real nice kid. Real nice.”
It was late afternoon by the time Louis got to the Farm Workers Village. It was just a few miles outside Immokalee, set in the vegetable fields, just off the sun-bleached main highway that ran through town.
Louis parked next to a rickety pickup and got out of the Mustang. He had the feeling he had stepped back in time, onto an abandoned military base where everything had been torn down but the concrete barracks.
There were six two-story, boxy buildings with peeling paint, stairwells littered with plastic toys, and balcony railings draped with laundry. Children with dirty feet and long black hair played in the yard. A few men had found shelter from the sun under a mango tree, hats pulled down over their eyes, fingers wrapped around Tecate beers.
Like in the nursery in West Palm, there was a peppy tune playing somewhere. Faded numbers painted on the buildings led Louis to the farthest building in the compound. He was acutely aware of the attention he was drawing from the folks on the second-floor balcony as he approached.
Building six stood in the shade of a gumbo-limbo tree. Apartment eight was on the second floor, last in a line of four doors, three of which were open to capture the cool air. But as Louis passed, the doors slammed shut, followed by the hurried closing of curtains.
At the last door, Louis ducked under a hanging red-flowering plant and knocked softly on the freshly painted blue door. From inside, he could hear a baby crying but no indication that anyone was coming to the door. He knocked again. A pair of beautiful brown eyes appeared suddenly in the gap of the yellow curtains. Louis had no reason to think Labastide’s sister still might live here, but he tried.
“Rosa Labastide?” Louis called.
To Louis’s surprise, the door opened. A lovely woman with flowing dark hair stood in front of him, a baby propped on her plump hip and a bold tilt tipping her chin upward. She and the baby were dressed in bright orange cotton dresses.
“¿Porqué usted busca a Rosa?”
Louis shook his head. “Do you speak English?”
She pursed her lips and shifted the baby to the other hip. He caught a glimpse of the inside of the apartment: blue sofa, brown throw rug, a gold-framed picture of Jesus dominating a wall of family pictures. A female voice, from a radio or TV, murmured softly in Spanish.
“I am Rosa,” the woman said. “And I am not afraid of you. I am Rosa Díaz now. All legal.”
“I’m not Immigration,” Louis said. “I’m looking—”
The door of the apartment next to Rosa Díaz’s opened. An older woman stuck her head out and spoke excitedly to Rosa in Spanish. Louis was sure she was asking Rosa if everything was okay. Rosa barked back at her, and the other woman quickly retreated. Rosa turned back to Louis, her eyes still wary.
“What you want, then?” Rosa asked.
“I’m looking for your brother, Emilio,” he said.
“Who are you?”
“I’m a private detective,” Louis said.
Rosa put a protective hand on her baby’s head and reached for the door. Louis gently held it open.
“Not policía,” he said. “A different kind of detective. Private, like…”
“Like Mr. Magnum PI?” Rosa asked.
Louis smiled. “Yeah.”
Rosa returned his smile with a small one of her own, but still, she kept her hand on the door.
“I mean Emilio no harm,” Louis said. “I’m not going to arrest him. I just want to talk to him.”
Rosa glanced behind her, then motioned for him to come inside. A portable fan stirred the air, which was thick with the smell of baking cheese and baby powder. The blue sofa was draped with cream-colored things that looked like big doilies. A tiny TV sat under the picture of Jesus, its screen filled with the snowy image of that Latina talk show lady, Cristina something.
“I not know where Emilio is,” Rosa said. “I not see my brother for long time. Almost five years now.”
“Fall 1984?”
Rosa laid the baby down on the sofa and lowered her head. The bodice of her cotton dress rose and fell. “Sí. Eight-four. It was Halloween. I remember because I give out candy to the little ones. Since then I have no word. No letters. Nada.”
“Can you tell me what happened?” Louis asked. “Did he just stop coming home? Did he say anything about leaving?”
Rosa dropped to the edge of the sofa and placed a hand on the baby’s back. Its eyes closed at the touch.
“One time, he just not come home,” Rosa said. “He never speak of going away. He would not do that. We come here to this place from Santa Teresa, Mexico. I sixteen, he twenty. He not want to work here, so he get job in Palm Beach, for Mr. Green, working on pretty houses.”
“When was this?” Louis asked.
“That summer before he go away,” Rosa said. “He only work for Mr. Green short time before he got new trabajo.”
“A new job?”
“Sí.”
The baby drifted off to sleep. Rosa brushed a few strands of hair from her eyes and looked up at Louis. It was obvious that she had gone on with her life, marrying and having a baby, but in her soft brown eyes, he saw a profound sadness, the kind that came with being suddenly abandoned and not knowing why.
“Did he tell you what this new job was?” Louis asked.
“No,” Rosa said. “But he… ganó mucho dinero.”
Louis shook his head and raised his hand to indicate he didn’t understand.
“He make much money,” Rosa said. “I show you.”
Rosa pushed from the sofa and disappeared into the bedroom. She returned with a gold chain and crucifix and held it out to Louis.
“Emilio give me this before he stopped coming home,” she said. “My friend, Juan, he… mi amigo Juan me dijo que vale más que cien dólares.”
Louis guessed she was saying that the friend told her it was expensive. He took the necklace and held it up to the light. The chain and crucifix g
limmered in the sunlight. It was impossible to guess its value with an untrained eye, but it did not look cheap.
“Did he tell you what his new job was?” Louis asked.
Rosa took the necklace back, folding it in her fist. “He say it good job but maybe not one he want to do for long time. Say it is… muy degradante.”
“Excuse me?”
Rosa sighed in frustration. “Oh, how you say… not so good.”
“Did he say why?”
Rosa moved away from him and sat down on the sofa. Her hand went back to the baby’s head, smoothing its black, sweat-soaked curls.
“He not talk about it,” she said.
Rosa hung her head, her face hidden behind the veil of dark hair as she began to cry. Louis was quiet, looking absently around the small apartment and wondering what else there was to say to this woman. Emilio was her brother, her partner in what had to be a frightening journey to a new place and a new life. And all she had now was a wall full of pictures.
Louis stepped over to them.
The insolent face he had seen stapled to the index card did not look like the same man Louis saw here. This man—with his brightly colored shirts, funny hats, and engaging smile—this was a man who had found joy not only inside himself but in this place.
Louis took a close look at the other pictures. Most of them had been taken at festivals, at picnics, or in the courtyard below. Most had Labastide as the centerpiece of a happy group, often men. But none offered a clue to what Labastide’s sexual orientation was. And that was something Louis needed to know if he was going to connect Labastide to Mark Durand.
“Mrs. Díaz,” he said, facing her, “can you tell me if your brother had a girlfriend?”
Rosa looked up. “No. No tenía novia. No girl.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sí, he would tell me,” she said. “We share everything we feel.”
“Did he have a best friend?” Louis asked. “A guy I could talk to?”
Again, Rosa shook her head. “His only friend, Manuel, go back to Mexico three years ago. No one else close.”
Louis looked back at a photo of Labastide with two other men about his age. They were lounging around a picnic table, holding beers and apparently sharing a joke. He could read nothing in the body language or gazes. And he could not ask Rosa that kind of question.
Louis took one of the smaller photos off the wall and studied it. It was of Emilio and Rosa, standing under the gumbo-limbo tree down in the courtyard. His arm was around her waist. Her head was against his shoulder.
“Mrs. Díaz, may I take this?” Louis asked. “I’ll make sure you get it back.”
Rosa nodded. “I have others.”
Louis turned the frame over and started pushing back the clips that kept the photo in place. Rosa turned back to her baby and started humming softly.
It was good that she had a family of her own, but he had been an investigator long enough to understand that when a loved one simply vanished, it left a special emptiness that could maybe be eased but never filled.
There was no doubt in Louis’s mind now that Emilio Labastide was dead. If he had been deported, or even imprisoned, he would have found some way to contact his sister.
“Thank you for your time, Mrs. Díaz,” he said, setting the empty frame down. “Could I leave you my phone number, just in case you hear from him or remember anything else?”
Rosa waited while Louis wrote his home phone and the hotel’s phone number on the back of one of his business cards.
“You are more nice than the man on the beach,” she said.
“The man on the beach?” Louis asked. “What man?”
“When Emilio not come home for three days, I ask Juan to drive me to the beach, and I speak to policía about Emilio.”
“The police on the island, near the ocean?”
“Sí,” Rosa said. “I try to make complaint about Emilio missing, but policía not listen. He tell me Emilio probably go home to Mexico, but I know he didn’t.”
“This policeman, do you remember his name?”
“His name was… Cisne.”
“Cease-nay?”
Rosa raked her hair. “In English is… like white bird. I know… is swan. Yes, swan.”
“Tall guy with blond hair?”
“Sí.”
“Thank you,” Louis said.
Rosa nodded and retreated again to her sleeping baby. Louis had learned not to offer false hope to someone who was in the process of moving on, since in some ways that was crueler than never knowing. But he could give her one thing.
“I know Officer Swann, Mrs. Díaz,” he said. “I’ll talk to him about your brother. I promise.”
“You will find Emilio for me?” she asked softly.
Find him. How was he supposed to answer that?
Rosa didn’t wait for his answer. “Usted es muy amable. I know you find Emilio for me. I look for you to come back soon. ¿Sí?”
Louis gave her an uncertain nod. “Sí,” he said. “I will come back.”
Chapter Twelve
The choice was simple: Domino’s pizza or Captain D’s seafood. Louis couldn’t imagine how a hook-’em-and-cook-’em fry shack like Captain D’s stayed in business in a place like Florida. But he did know that once you ate fresh grouper at Timmy’s Nook, you just didn’t—as the folks in Palm Beach would say—lower yourself to beer-batter fish in a bag.
Mel would just have to eat pizza and like it.
The sky was pink and lavender as he parked the Mustang in the lot of their hotel. Louis grabbed the pizza box, the Styrofoam cooler he had filled with beer back at the 7-Eleven in West Palm, and the photograph of Emilio that Rosa had given him. As he hurried upstairs to the room, he wondered if Mel was feeling better and hoped he had forced himself to get out for a walk.
Mel didn’t look as if he’d gone anywhere. He was sprawled on his bed, one knee up, arms behind his head, eyes closed. He wore only a pair of baggy jogging shorts and a set of headphones. His cherished CD player sat on the bed next to him.
Louis set the pizza and cooler down and nudged him. Deep in either sleep or Coltrane’s jazz, Mel jumped. He propped himself on one elbow and reached for his glasses. It took him a moment to focus.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“Almost eight. You been asleep all day?”
Mel pushed to a sitting position and discarded the headphones. His chest, arms, and face were so sunburnt the color looked painted on. And it looked painful.
“You go down to the beach?” Louis asked.
“Just for a few minutes.”
“Must’ve been longer than a few minutes,” Louis said. “You look like a lobster.”
“I am a sensitive man with sensitive skin,” Mel said.
“You’re a stale, pale male who lives like one of those underground creatures in that movie The Time Machine.”
“Morlocks.”
Louis snagged a beer from the cooler. “Why didn’t you buy some sunscreen?” he asked.
“Why are you nagging me?”
“Well, don’t bitch to me all night when you can’t sleep.”
“I won’t have any trouble sleeping.”
Louis flipped open the pizza box. There were no plates in the room, so he grabbed a couple of Domino’s napkins.
“How many slices you want?” Louis asked.
“Not hungry,” Mel said.
Louis started to ask where he’d eaten but paused when he saw a plate sitting on the nightstand between the beds. He picked up the linen napkin that lay on top. The food was a partially eaten bacon cheeseburger. The plate had the Ta-boo logo on the edge.
“You’re getting takeout from Ta-boo?” Louis asked.
“Sure, why not?”
Louis threw the napkin down. “A little pricy, isn’t it?”
Mel shrugged and started to put his headphones back on. Louis reached down to stop him.
“What’s your problem?” Mel asked.
“Have you gotten any money from Kent?”
“He says he’ll have some in a few weeks.”
“How much?” Louis asked.
“He didn’t say.”
Louis went back to the pizza box. “I don’t know how you expect us to get by here,” he said. “Eighty-five a night for the room, a couple hundred for tuxedo rentals, and now you’re laying around here eating takeout from the most expensive place in town.”
“It’s not the most expensive place,” Mel said.
“That’s not the point,” Louis said. “We haven’t even decided if we’re going to take this case yet, and we’re already five hundred bucks in the hole.”
Mel swung his feet to the floor. “You going to bail on me here?”
Louis had a slice of pizza to his mouth, but he stopped and lowered it. Despite his increasing blindness, Mel was the most independent and get-out-of-my-face guy Louis knew. But his voice now had an edge of panic, a don’t-quit-on-me kind of panic.
“I’m not walking away,” Louis said, “but I’d like to know if it’s going to be worth our while. This isn’t going to be an easy investigation.”
“There are no easy investigations, you know that,” Mel said. “It’s just a lot of begging and digging, and if you’re lucky, you sniff out a lead that cracks things open.”
Louis sat down on the edge of his bed and bit into the pizza. Mel started to pick at the cold French fries on the plate. For a couple of minutes, there was nothing but the soft crunch of their chewing.
“So, what did you find out today?” Mel finally asked. “Does this Emilio fellow exist?”
Louis nodded. “Yeah. His last name is Labastide. He’s a Mexican illegal who worked for the lawn company in 1984.”
“You found him?”
Louis rose, grabbed Rosa’s photo off the dresser, and tossed it to Mel. Mel turned on the lamp and held the picture under the bright light.
“I found his sister, Rosa,” Louis said. “She hasn’t seen him since October of eighty-four. Says one night he just didn’t come home.”
“Does she think he went back to Mexico?”
Louis was chewing, and he shook his head as he mumbled an answer. “No. They came to this country together, when she was sixteen. She says no way would he desert her.”