I wiped my hands one last time on the clean corner of a rag and dug my car keys out of my paint-covered pocket. “Make sure all the paperwork gets back to the office, will you?”
Just in case the whole sideshow wasn’t enough, I discovered I could only walk in baby steps because the cloth was wrapped all the way down past my knees. I felt like a geisha.
In a ridiculous coup de grâce, Mari picked up my train and followed along like my freaking maid of honor.
“Daphne, if this was my fault, I’m really sorry.”
“Your fault? Why would you think that?”
“I should have just come down when you told me to.”
She had a point. If I hadn’t been so distracted by thoughts of her dropping dead on the roof, I probably wouldn’t have fallen in the first place. My conscientious concerns for her safety had caused this. I liked that.
But then it occurred to me that she might like it too. A little sweet revenge.
“It wasn’t you at all. Got a little fleck of dust in my eye and I took my hand off the ladder at the wrong time. Just one of those things.”
“Okay, well…I guess I’ll see you next week.”
I wasn’t buying her phony concern. I knew she’d be laughing her butt off the second I drove away, and so would everybody else.
I would have if this had happened to her.
Chapter Four
Another Miami parking adventure, this one courtesy of the Four Seasons Hotel. There would have been plenty of room for everyone in the parking garage had the Jenko heads not taken up two spaces each for their Mercedes S80s or their Cadillac SUVs. One of them left just enough space for me to squeeze in and I made sure he’d have a hell of a time getting back into his car on the driver’s side. That’s what living in Miami does to you.
Fancy cocktail parties like this one were a rare treat. It was invitation only, a chance for us nonprofits to put our causes in front of the top brass from some of the biggest corporations in the county. Tonight’s event, the Community-Business Partnership for a Better Miami, was sponsored by the Miami Dolphins, and Gisela scored our tickets through her husband, who happens to be their orthopedic consultant. Yes, I hate how things are done in this town, but I don’t mind it so much when we’re the ones taking advantage of the connections.
This is the best part of my job at the foundation, getting the chance to rub shoulders with other business professionals. It’s a given I’m on the lookout for other job opportunities—even Gisela knows that and accepts it for what it is—but my first priority is always to win support for our foundation. All the companies represented tonight want the image of being good corporate citizens, so they’re ripe for our pleas. Gisela and I had put together a double-barreled pitch, where I gauge their interest in volunteering and she hits them up for money. More times than not this approach helps us come away with something beneficial for the foundation.
I slithered out between my car and the next, careful not to wipe either of the fenders with my slacks. I’d worn a dark green silk pantsuit, dressing it up with a scarf in hopes of appealing to the conservative values we found in most of our corporate sponsors. I’m not exactly a fashion plate. My goal is to look nice enough so they don’t talk about me after I leave the room.
I got into the elevator with an older couple who were speaking Spanish, or maybe Italian or Portuguese. They reminded me of Ronaldo and Tandra, the couple whose condo was below mine, or rather what I thought they would look like in about twenty-five years. He was dapper with his silver hair and perfectly tailored pinstripe suit, and she, though easily in her fifties, had the lithe body and style of a teenager. Unlike my Latin neighbors, who always seem to be simmering with passion for one another, these two were clearly in the midst of an argument, and I held my breath waiting for the door to open so I could get the hell out of there before one of them hit the other.
Why are so many Hispanics such hotheads? And worse, why is it a license to act like a jackass?
“Oh, he’s Venezuelan. That’s just how they are.” Or Argentinean, or Cuban. Fill in the blank with whatever. It all works.
I’d been to events at this hotel before so I knew my way to the seventh-floor lobby. Tonight’s cocktail party was poolside, and I have to admit a rooftop pool on a balmy night in May does not suck. Too bad I don’t get to see this side of Miami very often. But then I don’t have five hundred dollars a night to stay in a place like this.
Gisela emerged from the crowd gathered around the open bar and took my hand. “There you are, Daphne. I was starting to wonder if you’d fallen into another paint bucket.”
“You guys are all so funny,” I answered drolly. They’d gotten a lot of mileage out of my weekend debacle. “The Brickell Bridge was stuck in the up position. Traffic was backed up all the way to Bayside.”
“Did you bring the brochures?”
I had everything—brochures, business cards and nametags. “How do you want to do this?”
“You’re not going to like it,” she said, leaning back and wincing like she was afraid I’d hit her.
I hate it when she says that because she’s always right. “I hate it when you say that because you’re always right.”
“The HR director from Mariner Cruise Lines is here. I was hoping you’d go make nice with her.”
Just fabulous…the woman who’d passed me over for the international studies kid.
“We could really use their support, Daphne. And they’re probably looking for a PR boost right now.”
“Yeah, nothing spoils your corporate image like running aground on one of the world’s most beautiful and endangered reefs.” Especially on the heels of a fire that had forced two thousand passengers into lifeboats off Cozumel. I had a feeling they’d be making pledges all over the room tonight. “What about you?”
“Marco Padilla is here, and I happen to know he’s a football fan. I plan to pull all the strings I can to land him on our Board of Directors.”
One of the first exiles to leave Cuba, he was the head of a financial investment firm, and among the most powerful men in Miami. Getting his support could keep us solvent for years to come.
“Okay, I’ll work my way over to Mariner Cruises, but first I see someone I need to talk to from American Airlines. We’ve been playing phone tag all week.”
No, first I needed to pluck a glass of white wine off a cocktail tray. No way was I going to pass up a chance to drink something besides Manischewitz.
I’d never seen so many movers and shakers in one place before. If food poisoning were to hit this party tonight, the stock market would fall a thousand points. It was an honor to be invited to a function like this. Still, I was sure I’d enjoy it a lot more if I were the one being schmoozed.
By the time I reached the center of the pool deck, the woman I wanted to see had drifted off with someone else.
“Daphne Maddox, I know that name.” The voice belonged to a man with very dark skin, small black eyes and an island cadence. Obviously, he had noticed my nametag.
“You must be Guillame Pierre.” Our Haitian city commissioner, representing the district of our current jobsite. I’d been calling his office to line up some city volunteers, but no one ever responded. “It’s nice to finally meet you. I’ve been trying to get in touch but you’re so busy.”
“A thousand pardons. I must apologize for not returning your calls, but this has worked out wonderfully. I much prefer having these discussions in person.” He took my hand in both of his and stroked it tenderly.
I smiled as amiably as I could, considering I’d been warned not to believe a word he said. Pierre has a reputation for being a master manipulator, someone in City Hall who gets most of what he wants because he knows where all the bodies are buried. Gisela once told me he thought himself a ladies’ man, and then she’d burst out laughing. No doubt she’d get a sadistic kick out of seeing him stroke my hand.
“I was calling to let you know we have two more renovations scheduled this year for your district. Perhaps y
ou and some folks from your office would like to come out on a Saturday and work with us. It would be a wonderful opportunity to meet with your constituents.”
“Oh, we’re doing many things on behalf of the wonderful people in Little Haiti.” He put his arm around my waist to steer me toward a cabana. “Perhaps we can relax away from this crowd while we discuss this in more detail.”
Jenko. Jenko. Jenko.
My phone rang. It was Gisela. God bless her.
“Hello.”
She said nothing. Just her evil laugh.
“No, it’s quite all right. I was hoping you’d call.”
Now she was shrieking hysterically. I’d bet a hundred bucks tears were rolling down her cheeks.
“Yes, this qualifies as an emergency. I’ll let her know at once.” I stepped out of Pierre’s reach. “Sorry, I have to find my boss immediately and give her some news.”
I found Gisela standing in a cluster of men that included her husband Jorge, and three other men, two of whom were members of the Dolphins. The third was Marco Padilla, the man she was hoping to sway to the foundation’s board. In his early sixties, Padilla was an enormous man. Not like the muscled athletes standing next to him. More like a heart attack waiting to happen.
I smiled politely through the introductions before whispering to her, “I’m glad you had your eye on Pierre. What a sleaze.”
“It was Marco who pointed out that he had cornered some poor, unsuspecting woman. I couldn’t believe it when I saw it was you.”
“I owe him one. And now I’m going to Plan B, which is to swim across the pool so I won’t have to walk by Pierre again.”
I cut a wide circle around the cabanas and slipped back into the crowd to find Irene Sanchez, Mariner Cruise’s VP for human resources. Given the recent uproar over the reef accident and fire, I wasn’t surprised to see her belt back a cocktail with gusto.
“Ms. Sanchez, nice to see you again.”
Her puzzled look gave way to recognition. “Debbie!”
“Daphne. Daphne Maddox.”
“I knew it was a D-something. How have you been?”
As I gave her the rundown on my job at the foundation, I couldn’t help but notice how frazzled she was…bags under her eyes and very much in need of a visit to her hair colorist. Not that I could blame her. According to the Herald, the pending lawsuits against the cruise line had their stock in free fall, which meant the officers at her level were losing about a thousand dollars an hour.
After declining my request for volunteers—they were “spread too thin at the moment”—she made an offer of her own. “Any chance you’d still be interested in our HR department?”
“I thought you filled that position.”
“Oh, we did. But we’ve grown so much over the past couple of years that we need more hands to deal with personnel issues.”
Not true. The Herald article showed Mariner lagging the other cruise lines, and they’d just canceled their most recent order for a new ship. But the fact that they needed more HR staff meant something big was in the offing, like massive severance packages or transfer of benefits if they sold the company. My guess was anyone jumping on board now would be out of a job soon because Mariner Cruise Lines was going under, and I had a strong hunch the officers knew it.
“I appreciate your interest, Ms. Sanchez, but I’m really happy at the foundation.” To say nothing of my aversion to sinking ships. Time to drop Mariner like a cast iron anchor.
As I eased myself away I spotted a familiar face, Carlos Moya, the owner and CEO of a national trucking chain. Carlos oozed with Latin charm, and sent us a dozen volunteers two or three times a year. I didn’t need to press Carlos for more help, but I wanted to say hello and thank him for all he’d already done.
As I got closer, I saw he was engaged in serious conversation with a woman whose back was toward me. I didn’t have to see her face to know she was hot. Tall and shapely, she wore a clinging skin-colored cocktail dress and stylish but reasonable two-inch heels. Her dark hair, accented with golden strands, hung freely about her shoulders.
“…and that’s where the Iberican Fund comes in, Carlos. It’s an extraordinary set of aggressive growth funds that outperformed last year’s market by sixty percent. We’ve pulled back on bringing in new investors right now, but if you’re really interested, I’ll talk to Pepe. We’ll have you and your wife out for dinner on the yacht.”
I knew that voice. Come to think of it, I knew that hair…and that curvy behind was unmistakably the same one I’d seen in skinny jeans. I never forget a curvy behind.
“Hi, everyone.”
Carlos lit up with a smile. Mari Tirado, not so much.
“Daphne, my favorite handyman…handywoman.”
“Handyperson,” I corrected, glancing at Mari for acknowledgment. She seemed to be checking the floor for a trapdoor.
“Excuse me,” she said, hastily stepping away. “I need to catch someone before he leaves.”
Carlos held a thumb and pinky to his ear in that universal talking-into-your-fingers gesture. “Call me, Mari. I’m interested.”
I spent the next ten minutes making nice with Carlos, all the while wondering why Mari had taken off like her dress was on fire. Even more curious was why she was here at all. This was an invitation-only event for nonprofits and business executives from the top companies in Miami. Nonprofit staff didn’t drive cars like hers or have “dinner on the yacht,” so that meant she was someone important.
As I headed back toward Gisela, I spotted Mari sitting by herself on a wicker loveseat inside an open cabana. When I got closer, I saw she was on the phone, so I waited a few feet away where I knew she could see me.
This time she looked right at me and ended her call at once. The last thing I wanted was another confrontation like the icy ones we’d had at the house, but I couldn’t get over her just walking off. One of us was going to have to be the grownup, and that was obviously me.
I said evenly, “I’ll be the first to admit I don’t understand much about Miami, but where I come from, people who know each other usually say hello.”
She groaned and buried her face in her hands before straightening up and flipping her hair back over her shoulders. “Please tell me you didn’t say anything to Carlos about me doing community service.”
Of course. I should have realized she wanted to keep her brush with the courts on the down low. “Carlos has been very helpful to the foundation. He and I have much better things to talk about than you.”
Though she was clearly relieved, she also appeared agitated. “Sorry…I just need to get my hours in and make this go away before anybody finds out about it. If I screw up, they’ll yank my license.”
I wanted to tell her actions have consequences, but since we left things last weekend in a pretty good place, I actually felt a little sorry for her. “I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Even people who lose their license usually get waivers to drive to work.”
She looked at me like I’d sprouted carrots out of my head. “Not my driver’s license—my investment broker’s license. For some reason, they frown on letting felons handle other people’s money. Next time I break up with somebody, remind me to make sure her brother isn’t a cop.”
“Seriously. Give some people a badge and a gun and they—” She just said Her. As in breaking up with a Female Person. No way had I heard that right.
“It was either break up or kill her. Sometimes I wonder if I took the coward’s way out.”
It was a Her. Mari was a lesbian. Oh, mi dios.
She slid over and offered me half the loveseat, obviously not noticing she had rendered me mute. Cuban litterbug or not, being a lesbian put her in a whole different light. A bright, shining light.
I finally got my mouth to work. “What exactly did you do, Mari?”
“I had this girlfriend, Delores. She works with Morgan Stanley. We met at a seminar on estate planning and hit it off. We’d been living together for almost a year. Things
were great until she committed the unforgivable sin.”
“She cheated on you. Been there, done that.”
“Worse. She stole one of my clients.” She leaned back and crossed one of her gorgeous legs over the other one. “So I piled all her stuff onto her Jet Ski and dragged it on a trailer over to where she worked. Then I dumped the whole business behind her car in the parking garage.”
I couldn’t begin to count all the times I thought about doing something like that to Emily. So Mari wasn’t a selfish pig after all. In my book, she was righteous. “And that got you felony littering.”
“How did you know that? It wasn’t on my paperwork.”
Oops.
“I did a little research. I wasn’t trying to be nosy but…okay, I was being nosy. Mostly we get drunk drivers and your sentence didn’t match up, so I checked you out with the clerk of courts.”
She looked away and shook her head with a laugh. “Figures.”
“What?”
“I did a little research of my own. You realize, don’t you, that property transactions are public record? Now I think I have a pretty good idea why you yelled Jenko when you fell off that ladder.”
I could feel my face burning but getting upset about her invading my privacy would have been hypocritical in the extreme. “Why would you—”
“What I don’t get, though, is why you discharged your ex’s debt on the mortgage. You both should have walked away and let the bank eat it.”
“I’ll have you know I was raised to honor my debts.” No matter how stupidly I acquired them.
“A mortgage isn’t about honor. It’s a business deal.”
“Right, a deal in which I signed a contract that said I would pay.”
“But the bank signed it too. They understood there was a risk involved in your loan, so they stuck a whole section in there spelling out what happens if you default. Basically, it says you don’t pay—we take your house. So let them. That’s business.”
“And ruin my credit forever?”
“It’s only temporary. First you buy a new car that will last you for seven or eight years and you take out a new lease on a rental apartment. By the time you need another loan, you’ll have recovered.”
Playing With Fuego Page 4