The Second Letter

by Robert Lane

  “You a cop?”

  “No, I’m just—”

  “What the hell do you want with me?”

  It was hard to hear and I didn’t want to be shouting at him. I was getting more tired by the second and wanted to wrap up whatever Bernie’s involvement was. For all I knew he was a dead end, and I was giving up precious time when Kathleen’s head could be sleeping on my chest. Pure oxygen. There are not enough nights in the universe to saturate my appetite for that. I leaned in across the bar.

  “Bernie, I work for the United States government, and I need to talk to you about your relationship with Raydel Escobar. Right now. Outside.” I palmed my Florida PI license and withdrew it just as fast. For all he knew I just found it at the bottom of a Cracker Jack box. I stood up. Bernie hesitated.

  “Back room. Follow me,” he said and walked away before my feet hit the floor.

  Bernie must have assumed that I came in with far more knowledge than I possessed, because he ran his mouth before the door closed behind me. He confessed like a pious schoolboy who got caught spying in the girl’s locker room and just knew hell was waiting unless he came clean. He spilled the whole story and insisted that if he knew Escobar would use the picture as blackmail that he never would have consented.

  “What picture?” I asked. He went a deeper shade of red, and a thin stream of sweat rolled down his forehead. He realized too late that he’d given me something that I didn’t even know to inquire about.

  “What picture, Bernie?” I repeated and took a step toward him.

  He told me and then rattled some more, trying to extradite himself from the situation, but I wasn’t listening. I had leverage on Escobar. I would hold Kittredge hostage and trade his relationship for the letter. I checked my watch—279 minutes to sunrise. Kittredge said he was catching a government plane back to DC and that he had a meeting in his office the following morning, or in about seven hours. I would wait for him in his office. Like a wrecking ball, I would tear it all down until the dust settled and the letter floated free. I checked flights on my phone, secured a “we got one seat left for your late planning, sorry piece of ass, so we’re going to charge you the nonrefundable GDP of Kenya to fly with us” ticket, and headed to the airport.

  I landed a middle seat between an aisle-seat businessman who pounded his keyboard for life’s answers and a fat guy squeezed against the window who made the near fatal mistake of attempting to talk to me while on a plane. Just as I had gone for a run a day ago while Kathleen slept, my random seat-mates were showered, energized, dressed for work, and already in tomorrow, while I dragged the previous night like a plow through a dry field.

  Fat guy finally sensed my latent hostility and stuck music in his ears, although he kept adjusting his earplugs until I almost shoved them in myself. Sleep batted me around like a mouse in a cat’s paws. I finally gave up and jotted on a napkin notes and diagrams on how it all could play out. When the flight attendant came down the aisle for the last time wearing gloves and holding the little white trash bag, I tossed it.

  I stashed the peanuts.

  CHAPTER 12

  Donald Barnsworth sat erect as if an oak tree grew up his spine. I assumed that was his name as the massive desk that he sat behind held a small plaque with those two words on it. Donny had cherry cheeks that would make a seventh-grade girl jealous and a zit high on his forehead that looked like he spent an hour trying to conceal.

  For the record, there is a greater chance of me wearing a nametag around my neck than sitting behind a desk with my name on a plaque.

  “And you are who?” he asked when my feet were planted firmly in front of the desk. It was 8:39 a.m. and I was standing in Congressman Kittredge’s anteroom sipping a Starbuck’s dark verona. The ceiling was close to fourteen feet, and large windows gave the space natural light. I wondered what blue-blooded family tree Donald Barnsworth had dropped from.

  “Jake Travis and—”

  “You do not have an appointment with the congressman,” Barnsworth announced. He hadn’t blinked since I entered the room, nor did he glance at a computer screen before his statement.

  “That is correct. I do not have an appointment with the congressman, but he has one with me. We chatted at a party last night and he has a meeting this morning at nine regarding the World Fairness Bill. I need to review some items he has concerns with.”

  “Yes. But the congressman was in Florida until late last evening. You saw him last night?”

  “I did. Not even time to change clothes.”

  “But I don’t see, Mr. Travis, how you could beat him back. He took—”

  “Donald, right?” I said and leaned over his desk, slipping into his personal space. “Do I—”

  “It’s Mr. Barnsworth.”

  “What grade are you in?” Little shit.

  Barnsworth shifted in his seat, and his hand was halfway up to his zit before he called it back.

  “If you don’t have an appointment with the congressman—”

  “Do I look like someone who got a good eight hours last night?” You interrupt me, I interrupt you. “The congressman’s office?” I asked and nodded toward a tall door before he had the chance to answer.

  “Yes, but—”

  “I’ll take a seat. He’ll be glad I’m here. Trust me, Donald.”

  I sat, stuck the Post in front of my face, and hoped that Donny ended up with a girl who was a wildcat in bed. He needed to loosen up. There was an article about a family of seven in the Bronx who were driving to their grandchild’s confirmation when their car flipped off a bridge. Grandma had just come up from Puerto Rico for the big event. They died with their best clothes on. I flipped the page and saw that evidently there were still issues to be resolved in the Middle East. Who knew? I sipped my coffee, found the weather page, scanned temperature ranges of foreign cities, and noted the time of sunrise and sunset for the cradle of democracy. Something wasn’t right.

  Kittredge burst through the door at 8:52. He verbally assaulted my new friend Donny with a litany of questions and abruptly stopped when he spotted me.

  “Mr. Travis?” He pronounced each of the four syllables progressively higher like a primitive four-note tetratonic scale.

  “Congressman,” I said as I stood and extended my hand. He took it out of habit. Politicians. If a raghead wrapped in dynamite stuck out his hand, a politician would take it and ask questions later. His eyes narrowed in confusion.

  “What a pleasant surprise. You didn’t mention last night that you’d be in Washington, did you?”

  “No, I did not. May I have just five minutes of your time before your meeting on the World Fairness Bill?”

  “Well, I’ve got a staff meeting before and—”

  “And I’ve got a plane to catch and need to scoot out of here real fast. Five minutes, Congressman. I think you’ll find it well worth your time.” I looked at him hard as we stood toe to toe. His office phone rang and Barnsworth picked up the call. Time to bring it home. I touched him lightly on the shoulder. It’s a new move I copied from Sophia. I’m always trying to improve my craft. “Let’s go to your office and talk about Raydel Escobar, shall we?” He hesitated a second and then showed me his back.

  I followed him into his office. Kittredge dropped his briefcase and settled in the black chair behind his desk. On the bookshelf off to his right was a picture of him and his wife and two young girls standing with their backs to water, feet in the sand, and smiling faces attacking the camera. More pictures of golf foursomes. Everybody smiling. A signed football rested on the bookcase behind him. He was home now, in his comfort zone and surrounded by his power.

  And in the final minutes of life as it used to be.

  “Now, Mr. Travis, what can I do for you and Raydel?”

  “I want you to convince Walter Mendis to buy out Escobar’s business, whatever that business may be.”

  Kittredge viewed me with a blank expression. He took the cautious approach and his words came out thick and measure
d.

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  “Are you aware of Escobar’s due notice with the IRS?”

  He hesitated and then spit it out rapidly. “I don’t know what you are referring to.”

  “I think you do.” I’d been connecting the dots to give myself some direction.

  “I’m here to broker a deal: Raydel Escobar has a document that the US government wants back. He gives me the document. Mendis, your big donor, advances him a little cash and takes over his business. The IRS liquidates Escobar’s estate and recovers the money he owes. Escobar avoids jail time. Maybe Escobar has the cash, or some combination of the aforementioned. I don’t really care.” What I omitted was my belief that Mendis, once he felt the heat, might pressure Escobar with any means at his disposal.

  I assumed that Walter Mendis had all means at his disposal.

  Kittredge took measure of me. “You don’t import and export?” It started as a question, but by the time he finished, it was a statement. My silence confirmed his answer.

  He leaned across his desk, shoved some papers aside, and said, “Who the hell are you?”

  “I represent interested parties. The same fine organization you work for.”

  “What would possess me to pressure Walter Mendis or Raydel Escobar? I have no desire, no reason, to help you by stepping on my supporters. I don’t care who you represent.”

  I didn’t know if it was necessary at that point to take it downtown, but I did. I retrieved my cell phone, brought up the picture, and passed the image over the desk with the same gentle hand I had just touched him with. Kittredge grabbed it without taking his eyes off me.

  Bernie had sent me the picture after I promised him that I would keep him out of it. That’s not entirely true. I told him he was an accomplice to blackmailing a congressman and that if he shared, I wouldn’t press charges. He asked to see my identification again. I told him I would flush his head down the shit bowl if he didn’t share.

  He didn’t take that chance.

  Kittredge was tougher than I thought; I’ll give him credit for that. He viewed it without expression and calmly handed it back to me. His eyes were cast down at his desk, but when my hand touched the phone he glanced up at me and held my stare with a sadness and contempt that reminded me that this blackmail business was a nasty game. Little late for that. He rose, turned his back to me, and faced the window. The sun had climbed high enough to start its invasion of the room. I let him have some time.

  “Who are you?” he asked in a variation of his first pass.

  “I’m you, Congressman. The same round table. We are just different layers within layers. My layer doesn’t officially exist, but I was the one waiting for you this morning.”

  “Rules?”

  “No, sir. There are none.”

  “You’re fucking despicable.”

  “If it makes you feel better.”

  We observed a moment of silence, and then Barnsworth’s even voice came over the intercom inquiring if he was ready for the staff meeting and jerked him back to his other world. He replied tartly that he would get back to him and returned to the solace of his window. I could see his pain in his reflection on the windowpane. His face, like his life, was distorted by the white grids that tried to make simple and structured someone who wallowed in complexity. He spoke again while I observed him in the window.

  “What do I have to do to keep what you see? How, and why, should I trust you?”

  Maybe if he kept his back to me long enough he would turn, and I, like the bad dream I was, would be gone. Maybe yesterday’s world was still waiting for him if he just kept his back to me.

  “You have no choice but to trust me, and if everyone follows their best interest, we should all be fine. I have no desire to harm you in any manner or disrupt what you have.”

  His shoulder shuddered. He turned. “You have no desire to harm. Did you really say that? Where do they even get people like you?”

  For a moment, neither of us spoke. While on the plane I had calculated the sunrise equation based on how many miles north DC was of my home. When I looked it up in the Post, I was off by four minutes. I thought one of those might be due to rounding, but was vexed by my error. I thought that I should be calculating the dilemma I placed Kittredge in, but at that moment, the four-minute miscalculation disturbed me more.

  Kittredge continued, “How do you live with yourself? You think I’d be in this squeeze if I had followed my best interest? You think Escobar will go without spilling it all? Everyone’s got that picture. What document are you even talking about?”

  “That’s not your concern.”

  “The hell it isn’t.”

  I let his anger dissipate from the room and then said, “This is what is going to happen.”

  I laid out the plan, marched out of his office, and caught a flight back to Florida. I remember the takeoff and landing. In between Santa served me drinks at a Christmas party and herds of ruffian children darted around. They were all mad at me and I had no clue why, and Kathleen kept bouncing off walls and asking who she was. Then I noticed that Santa only had one arm and thought no wonder the jolly guy’s so busy. There was someone else with only one arm, but I couldn’t recall who or where, and it bothered the hell out of me, and I hoped that whoever he was would forgive me for only remembering what he didn’t have.

  CHAPTER 13

  “Think it will work?” Garrett asked over the phone.

  “My other option is to blow up the bay and strangle Escobar until he coughs up the letter.”

  “That a problem?”

  “We’ll float this first.”

  I was on my screened porch nursing a margarita: a shot of Camarena Reposado Tequila, Grand Marnier, and lime juice mixed with freshly squeezed limes to taste. Add three large ice cubes and gently swirl. Drink. Repeat.

  It was late afternoon and Kathleen and I planned to swing by her condo before dinner, but I first wanted to cue Garrett in on the plan. A hunter green sailboat towing a white dinghy passed at the end of my dock heading in from the Gulf. I heard the canvas flapping against the wind.

  “What makes you think Kittredge will call Mendis?” Garrett asked.

  “I was going to impress upon him how Mendis could turn up the heat on Escobar more than anyone else, but it wasn’t necessary. Kittredge practically volunteered to call Mendis.”

  “So Kittredge tells Mendis that Escobar is blackmailing Uncle Sam, and unless he backs down, the government will have a sudden and intense interest in Walter Mendis’s finances. Mendis tells Escobar to liquidate, pay Uncle, and cough up the letter. And why does Escobar go along with this?”

  “I’m betting that Escobar fears Walter Mendis more than the IRS. Mendis could put a bullet in Escobar.”

  “We’d still have to find the letter.”

  “I realize that.”

  “You think Mendis knows that Escobar owes taxes?” Garrett asked.

  “Most likely. But I doubt Escobar divulged the bargaining power that he feels the letter affords him. If Mendis knew Escobar was that desperate he just might eliminate him. Mendis can’t afford to have Escobar sing about the interchange deal or threaten his relationship with a powerful congressman. We need Walter Mendis to know that his days as an uncontested man are dependent upon Escobar handing over the letter. We stand aside and let the chips fall.”

  “When does Kittredge talk to Mendis?”

  I glanced at my watch. “About four hours ago.”

  “And you haven’t heard anything yet?”

  “No, but it’s only—”

  “A busted plan,” Garrett said. I hate it when he does that.

  I crossed the three bridges to Kathleen’s house.

  I brought along my margarita. Florida has a little-known law that states if you live on an island, you are permitted to have open containers and drinks in your vehicle if you do not travel farther than three miles from any beach. It’s the “For God’s Sake They Live on an Island” la
w.

  She said to give her five minutes. I waited for her under the covered part of her veranda that overlooked her pool and the channel. My island was to the right and the open waters of the Gulf to the left. It was hell of a spot. I couldn’t believe she was chucking it for a downtown condo, but a new name necessitated a new home. I was nervous about her glacier pace of moving, but hadn’t mentioned it to her for fear of escalating her anxiety. A man and woman each in their own kayak came by close to the shore. They were battling to make miniscule headway against the running tide and chose the thickest part of the day in which to engage in their struggle. I wondered if they were novices or had embarked on their challenging trip with foreknowledge and intent. I wondered, as I often do, why anyone would desire to exercise during the part of the day that was reserved for margaritas. Twenty-nine minutes later I sensed her behind me.

  It had been as fine a use of twenty-nine minutes that one could imagine.

  “Stunning. Now I need to buy an expensive cab and sit up straight all night. You know how hard that is for me.” I went to her and gave her a light kiss on the lips.

  “Thank you. I felt like dressing up tonight. Before dinner, though, I’d like to drop by the condo and show you color samples for my walls.”

  “Color and I don’t get along.”

  “I know. That’s why Sophia and I spent the day together.”

  “But you’re not going to dinner with her.”

  “You have other attributes that compensate for your lack of color coordination.”

  “Let’s hear the top ten.”

  “That’s a big number.”

  “Top five?”

  “Bring it down, babe.”

  “Do you have any interest in me outside of the physical?” Not that I had an issue with a negative reply.

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “You’re buying me dinner tonight.”

  “Food and passion—grunt evolutionary needs, is that right?”