The Second Letter

by Robert Lane

  He stood up and made a line toward the house leaving Elvis and Natalie in the shade. Let them have their time together.

  Natalie had showed up to audition at the Welcome In a little over a month ago and triggered a phone call to Escobar. He had standing instructions to be notified when unusual talent presented itself. She fit the bill. She had the most beautiful chestnut eyes he had ever seen, and she only got better after that.

  They screwed in the cabana, the guest room, or his favorite spot, which was on the floor in the middle of his study. Escobar garnered a certain satisfaction as he repeatedly paced over that area of jatoba floor and remembered pounding her soft body into the hard wood. Sophia would come in the next day to place fresh yellow flowers—Christ, that woman was always bringing colored petals into the house—and walk over the very spot. Hell, she deserved it. All her dicking around with that builder Shramos had swelled the price to over $600 per square foot. The broad literally couldn’t make up her mind where to put a light fixture. Well, he thought with a smile, two of us can dick around, and I certainly got more than $600 out of those square feet in the middle of the study.

  But not last night.

  “Just this one time,” Natalie had pleaded as she took his hand and backed them into the master bedroom, her flannel shirt hanging unbuttoned on her thin shoulders, her breasts lifting the bottom of the shirt off her waist. No bra. Tight jeans holding those strong ripped thighs that she wrapped around him as if there was no one else in the world. “Just one time, let me believe that it’s all for me.” Escobar couldn’t withstand the effects of a cigar, three Cuban Manhattans, and that damn soft plaid brown-and-white flannel shirt. Afterward she talked of going places with him and spending more time together. She wanted to know if he could run his rug business from some Caribbean outpost. She kept bringing up his business and said she wanted to be more involved in his life. Said she could help him with the books.

  Lying in bed with Herb Alpert coming through the speakers, Escobar had thought how smooth it all was: Natalie, Herb’s trumpet, and the dark Cuban rum. What did he care if Sophia found out? But if she left, you could kiss away half the dough. Should have signed stuff when they got married, but how do you know that then?

  He entered his bedroom and thought of washing the sheets, but that would generate a whole new litany of suspicion. When had he ever washed the sheets? He picked up Sophia’s pillows from the floor. At least he’d remembered to use his two pillows and had chucked hers. He made his bed and made certain there was not a trace of Natalie Binelli to be found.

  He turned the water on hard and washed her scent off his body.

  Paulo Henriques stood under the shade of Escobar’s summer kitchen by the pool. He wore pleated summer wool beige pants that nearly touched the still damp pavers behind the heels of his leather loafers. His blue short sleeve silk shirt draped casually over his boney frame like a thin canvas on tent poles. His hair, Escobar noted, was fastidiously arranged to cover as much of his head as possible. Windy day, Escobar chuckled to himself. I bet he unloaded half a can of spray to keep it plastered like that. These East Coast guys, they’re all the same.

  “It’s a heck of a view you got here, Raydel. I’m sure you’d hate to lose it,” Henriques said.

  “I have no plans to lose anything,” Escobar said.

  Henriques wiped his hand across his brow but was careful not to touch his hair. “Good lord, it’s hotter than the underside of a witch’s tit in hell.”

  “You rather go inside?” Escobar asked, and instantly regretted giving Henriques a choice. He’d make certain it was his last conciliatory gesture.

  “No, Raydel, let’s be out here where it’s open. You got plenty of shade here,” he said as he moved out of the sun and took a seat at the large oak table under the high ceiling of the outdoor kitchen.

  Sophia’s kitchen, Escobar thought. She spent nearly three months planning a $100,000 outdoor kitchen and what do we do? We drop burgers on the grill and pop a few beers with people we call friends.

  “Walter wants to know how you’re dealing with this tax business,” Henriques said. “Seven million to the IRS isn’t chicken feed.”

  “You tell him I got it under control?”

  “I think he’s looking for something a little more substantial. We can help you out. Arrangements can be made. We can negotiate.”

  “Help me out? Tell Walter I’m pretty confident I can get it reduced.” Escobar thought Henriques and Walter Mendis might like to see his ass behind bars so they could take over his operations. The carpet and rug business proved to be a great cover to launder the cash from his clubs. Escobar assumed that laundering cash was a major challenge for Mendis. Damn Patriot Act. It corralled all-American criminals into the same corner as Arab fruitcakes, and that just wasn’t right.

  Henriques kept at it. “To what? Seven’s a fat nut. What if they knock half, where are you going to get that kind of dough?”

  “I’m not going for half; my attorneys tell me I got a good chance of having it all dropped. They said the IRS will work with me, give me time.”

  Henriques considered Escobar for a moment. “Your attorneys,” he said, and let it hang like a crooked picture.

  “That’s right, Paulo,” Escobar said, drawing it out and playing the game, “my at-tor-neys.”

  Paulo Henriques leaned in across the table. “We’ve known each other some time now; we do good business together ever since you brought us that first deal. What are you pinning your hopes on, because we both know it sure as fuck has nothing to do with your attorneys. You think the IRS is going to back down to nothing? Just forget the big note you owe them? Feed it to the fish, Raydel. I told you when you set those partnerships up that they were shit. Walter’s worried. I’m worried. We can’t risk the government sticking their fat finger in our business. You’re a scrappy and creative guy, Raydel. What do you want me to tell Mendis?”

  Tell him I got an envelope that Washington wants, Escobar thought. And that’s my ticket, East Coast boy. That’s my ticket.

  Raydel Escobar and Walter Mendis had met three times, two times in Palm Beach and once in a desolated field that hadn’t received rain in two months. The constant roar of nearby highway traffic sounded like a cash register to their ears. It was in that field where Escobar noticed the stark and unsettling difference between the two men; Henriques was concerned about getting dust on his shoes and Mendis could care less.

  At the time of their initial meeting, Escobar had built up several clubs starting with the Welcome In, his home base. A good night there was a few hundred tax-free, cigar, rum, music, and time to advance pawns in a game that dated back 1,500 years.

  It had always been thus.

  His father owned an old-world joint in Ybor City, and his only son was his constant companion. Young Escobar engaged his father’s friends, always in their best guayaberas, in chess matches to kill time in the smoke-filled room populated with laughs, loose hands, and music. His father was first generation and ran a tight ship. You never wanted to be in the room with the man when someone dropped a nickel on the floor. He would enviously point out “real money” when it walked through the door, and that is what Escobar yearned to be someday—real money walking through a door. Escobar knew that owning the bar was not the same as being the coveted subject of muted conversations.

  He religiously studied his schoolbooks, chess, and the anatomy of the barmaids who bent over to plant a kiss on his head. By age ten, little Escobar was sitting on his hands, not trusting them when the milky melons landed on either side of his nose. When career day came the counselor suggested engineering.

  Escobar just smiled.

  From the day he opened his own establishment he set the tone by playing ’60s easy listening music that separated him from his competition. His obsession with cleanliness coupled with girls—dancers—a cut above the industry standard, attracted and retained well-heeled libidos and blue-blood discreet money. He insisted his tux-wearing bouncers learn
chess so that he could enjoy rotating matches and further add to the atmosphere. The cops, when they came around, were never a serious threat, they just walked out with the few hundred tax-free. Escobar expanded to two more clubs, and the few hundred turned into a grand a night. He fulfilled his boyhood Freudian obligations. He no longer sat on his hands.

  He picked up a carpet and rug business, which catered to both retail and commercial clients, for ten cents on the dollar when the housing market collapsed. When the economy recovered, the business took off like a sailboat in a gale.

  But he wasn’t the man walking through the door. He did the math, and even with a few more clubs and conservative projected growth in the carpets and rugs, it would take years to accumulate serious dough. Making money was not the same as having money.

  He didn’t recognize the congressman when he stumbled in one morning around 1:00 a.m. But his bartender did and informed Escobar that he’d seen him a few other Saturdays around the same time. Escobar didn’t care; after all, discretion is what he peddled. But then the bartender told him the congressman was gay.

  “No way,” Escobar had blurted out. “How do you know?”

  “We know, trust me,” Bernie replied.

  “We?”

  “Why don’t you think I hit on the girls?”

  Escobar was a little taken back. How’d he miss that one?

  “What’s he doing here then?” Escobar asked.

  “Haven’t a clue. Maybe a ruse to dispel rumors. Happens more than you think.”

  Then, courtesy of the cops who were twisting his arm, he hatched an idea. He wasn’t sure what would come out of the egg, but if three hundred bucks bought Tampa’s best, just imagine the possibilities.

  “Can you get his tongue down your throat?” he asked Bernie one night.

  “Please, baby. Who do you think I am?” Bernie said.

  “Next time he’s in. Back room at one fifteen.”

  “And for me?”

  “One thousand dollars.”

  “Two.”

  “Fifteen hundred or look for another job and I’ll put the word on the street that you walk out with bottles.” He had surprised himself with his words and tone. Bernie would never steal a drop.

  Escobar about dropped his phone when he cracked the back door to take a peek. The congressman’s eyes were closed, the music was playing, and Escobar managed to snap a few photos before he felt his insides starting to come out of him. He knew his good part was leaving, and he told himself it would come back, but he knew that was a lie. When he walked away his heart was banging in mad syncopation against the music.

  Escobar sat on it for a few weeks while he performed his due diligence on the congressman. At least that is what he told himself. In truth, he wondered if he should just delete the photos. Such an effortless task. Two, three seconds, tops. Get rid of the damn thing and don’t go there. Every step he saw himself taking made him retch.

  He was watching a new girl perform one day when he casually glanced at the newspaper. The state of Florida was contemplating a new interchange on Interstate 75. His, and Bernie’s, political friend chaired the committee. Escobar was too naive to realize what a complicated and competitive process the interchange entailed. Countless power players had jostled behind the scene for years. But few things trump innocent creativity and enthusiasm.

  And absolutely nothing trumps a picture of a married, religious right congressman and father of kindergarten twin girls on his knees with another man’s cock buried deep in his mouth.

  Escobar needed a subtle way to approach the conflicted congressman and knew that while he had the leverage, he needed partners who had maneuvered before within the political arena. Associates introduced him to Paulo, who led him to Walter Mendis. All three grasped the endless possibilities presented by the picture. Clearly visible in the background of the photograph was a neon YOLO beer sign. “You Only Live Once.” Its bright red glow gave the photograph an artistic noir flair. Escobar could hardly bring himself to look at the picture. Walter Mendis could hardly tolerate not looking at it. He fondled it in his hands and couldn’t stop chuckling, as if it was the damndest thing he’d ever seen. “Unfuckin’ believable,” he said over and over. Then, “A real cocksucker,” and he laughed so hard he choked and coughed up phlegm.

  The picture, they agreed, provided mind-boggling possibilities.

  Mendis at first dismissed Escobar’s freeway play. But it made more sense—and money—than anything else he could come up with on his own. When the interchange’s location was announced, they owned the surrounding land as far as one could see with a mounted telescope. The location was a shock to others who had invested time and resources into the project. Several papers noted that the location was not one of the top three—actually not even on the list of FDOT’s $250,000 study of where to construct a new interchange. The general populace didn’t pay much attention as other headlines bore more weight; the state averaged close to three murders a day in addition to fifteen rapes. Furthermore, the Miami Hurricanes football team was facing NCAA sanctions and yet another dead manatee had washed up on the shores of Captiva. The football scandal received the most press, the rapes—collectively—the least, and the dead manatee garnered the most letters to the editor.

  Mendis admired Escobar for his balls and patience. An “unusual combination for a novice,” Mendis had commented.

  Walter Mendis became the congressman’s biggest donor. Congressman Michael Kittredge was of no use to him if he lost an election. Escobar was surprised to see a picture behind Mendis’s desk of Kittredge and Mendis posing in front of Mendis’s pool at a $5,000-a-plate fund-raiser that was kept hush-hush due to Mendis’s questionable business interest.

  Both men had their arms around each other as if they never wanted to let go.

  “Tell him I got it taken care of, Paulo,” Escobar said in response to Henriques’s question about what to tell Mendis. No damn way was he going to tell them about the letter he possessed. You get a card like that and you hold it tight.

  His accountant had structured an elaborate trust and assured Escobar that it was legitimate. He’d taken his portion from the interchange deal and deposited it in several Cayman accounts that the IRS had finally traced. Their opinion of legitimacy differed from his accountant’s, and they declared his cut to be ordinary income. He owed taxes plus interest penalties. Ordinary income. What a gas. As if there was anything even remotely “ordinary” about any income he had ever made.

  And now Mendis was nervous. Escobar figured Mendis was worried that he would squeal a deal with the IRS to lessen his obligation. He wanted to see if he could make Henriques come clean.

  “You know he’s worried about the strain—” Henriques said.

  “You think I’m cutting a deal?” Escobar whipped into him. “You think I’d sing to the IRS to save my ass and offer you guys up? You think that’s me, ratting on my partners? Listen, Paulo, tell Walter to give me one week. At the very least, they’re telling me that I can pay over several years. And I got enough put away to pay a chunk up front. Seven days and I should have it all settled.”

  Henriques leaned back in his chair and waited a few beats. “OK, Raydel, I’ll tell him. Seven days. Kittredge can’t really get involved, you know. Too visible, too obvious. Knowing what we got on him, you got to think he’s being up front. You can talk to him yourself this Saturday. How many people you got coming?”

  “Around fifty,” Escobar said, thinking, I know damn well I can talk to him. I’m the guy who brought him to you. “We’re keeping invitations open; if someone wants to bring cash to the door, they’re in.”

  “Hundred grand, not bad. What’s our bit?”

  “Ten. Band and food came to twenty. I’ll cover incidentals.”

  “Course, that’d only be twenty people at Walter’s house.” Henriques flashed a smile and kept it on his face to drive it in.

  “Yeah? Well, this ain’t Walter’s house, and thank God I don’t live in Palm Beach. I
t’s nothing but New York City with palm trees.”

  “I thought you told me you liked New York.”

  “Not with fucking palm trees.”

  “Whatever, Raydel. Give the congressman my best.”

  Escobar was not close with Congressman Michael Kittredge and realized his mistake too late. Mendis had taken over the relationship, the two of them becoming asshole golfing buddies. It never occurred to Escobar that Kittredge would actually embrace his blackmailers. But that was exactly what the congressman had done: keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Unbelievable, Escobar thought. And people think my clubs are a sleazy business.

  Escobar thought his partners would give him time to work with the IRS. He also realized that if he were dead, they wouldn’t worry about him cutting a deal and taking them down. He didn’t think they were those types of guys. But Raydel Escobar knew he was doing a piss-poor job of convincing himself.

  “You ready for the next shipment?” Henriques asked.

  “What’s that?”

  “Rugs,” Henriques said as he studied Escobar.

  “Yeah, we got it. Comes in a few days, same as before. Day before we get a twenty-four-hour call.”

  “Can Elvis handle it or do you need more help?”

  “He’s got it down.”

  “You sure?”

  “We got it. But I don’t like these. I—”

  “We know that. Listen, it’s just for a few times, to help Walter out. Where would you be without him?”

  “What’s a few?”

  “Two or three, tops. What the hell we listening to?” Henriques asked and glanced into the air.

  “Petula Clark.” Escobar noted Henriques’s reluctance to discuss exactly how many more shipments were coming by boat to his house. He decided not to push it.

  “She’s dead, isn’t she?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You and your music. I like it, though.”

  “It’s classic stuff.”

  “I’m sure it is,” Henriques said and stood up. “Sorry I can’t make your big dinner. Give my best to Sophia. She always has your place looking tops. She’s a good woman, Raydel. You moved up with that one.” Henriques let his eyes rest on Escobar for a few seconds. “I can see myself out.”