by Fiona Quinn
“I know. I saw the pictures, Playtex glove girl,” Deep said.
Chris poked his head in. “Hey, time to get cleaned up, pills, and bed.”
I looked over at Deep.
“You’ll see Randy in the morning. No telling how long he’ll be held up at the airport,” he said.
Nineteen
Randy sat at the table, across from Deep, with a coffee mug in front of him, reading the paper. I clomped down the hall with Beetle and Bella beside me, their nails clickety-clacking on the wooden floor, calling attention to our approach. Randy stood to greet me. I saw the surprise that crossed his face quickly and intentionally replaced with a warm smile. This was the first time he’d seen me since I was taken hostage.
“Randy!” I shouted as I ran forward at the speed of a snail.
“Hey, Lynx. Long time no see.”
Randy leaned over to give me a kiss on the cheek. “I take it that your being here isn’t a social call. Where did you come in from?” I asked Randy.
“Honduras.”
My eyebrows went up. “At the prison?”
“The capital, Tegucigalpa. I went to visit Julio’s family. Since he’s not talking, Axel and I figured we might be able to get something to put some pressure on him. We thought with enough background, we could convince Julio he was putting his family in danger,” he said.
“Did Axel get authorization to interrogate Julio?” Deep asked.
“Still in the works. He’s down there with his ATF buddy waiting for the okay; they think it might be tomorrow morning.”
“And you’re here.” I put my hand on the table so I could move my walker out of the way.
Randy pulled out my chair and helped me to sit down. “Striker said you’re scripting the interview. I thought you should get the background.”
It was Sunday. No Laura. And Cookie got to make whatever he wanted, since that was my free day with no Kitchen Grandmothers. This morning, Cookie chose scrambled eggs, fruit salad, bran muffins, and (sigh) a peanut butter smoothie.
“Thank you. Was the family willing to talk?” I asked, taking a bite of my eggs.
“They’ve been worried about Julio. They haven’t heard anything from him since last September. By that I mean they haven’t had any money come in since last September. Julio had been sending them checks, very sizable checks, up until that point. They would like to have their income restored.”
“I’ll bet. So what’s his story?” I chugged the peanut butter smoothie to get it finished.
“Julio came from a poor background. His dad had been a day laborer. When he was growing up, His family lived in a cement house with a latrine and access to a community water pump. There were three kids: an older sister, Flora, Julio and a younger brother Henrique. The other two kids were average where Julio stood out. The sister grew up, got married young, and lived the same life as her mom. The brother went to prison for a while on theft charges. After his release, he moved with his parents and does nothing but hang around, play cards, and drink.”
“You’d think the dad wouldn’t put up with that.” I took a bite of I don’t know what. I was too focused on Randy to care.
“He’s okay with it. See, Julio bought his family a house in a middle class neighborhood and furnished it. His dad retired, and they’ve been living off Julio’s monthly support checks. No real reason for the brother to go dig ditches”
“Ah.” Well then, they’d definitely want to get those checks back in their mailbox.
“His story goes like this: when Julio was a little boy he was very bright. He taught himself to read from his sister’s schoolbooks when he was three-years-old — very studious — and learned everything he could from every resource he could. Everyone thought that he was headed for something big. American missionaries spent a summer working with the Rodriguez’s church when Julio was a teenager. One of the missionaries arranged for Julio to go back to the States with him to finish his high school education and go to college on a Catholic scholarship. Julio jumped at the chance.”
“Wow. There was a piece of good luck,” I smiled.
“He didn’t squander that luck. He worked hard in school. The Rodríguezes showed me their album with the letters from Julio and his report cards. He deserved the scholarships he received. He went to grad school, got a Master’s in software design, and headed to Google for his first job.”
“It sounds like a Cinderella story. That’s when he bought the house for his parents?” I pushed my plate away from me. My stomach still wouldn’t hold much, and right now it was full of smoothie.
“On his first vacation, he went down to visit them and surprised them with the money for the house. Julio spent his trip helping his parents find the place they wanted. That’s also the visit when he met Maria Castillo. Consuela Hervas being her alias.”
“Dun. Dah. Dun. And so the story turns.” I grimaced.
“You’ve got that right.” Randy put his arm on the table and leaned in. “Julio and Maria fell in love. Julio’s family didn’t like her. She wasn’t Catholic. She was a loose kind of girl, and they thought she only wanted to marry Julio because of his job in the US. They warned him against her, but didn’t press too hard. They thought the relationship would end when Julio went back up to the States. They showed me pictures of young Maria. She was very beautiful. Have you seen Julio?”
“Early Julio? No. He was in a picture I saw with Beth Sylanos, but he was turned to the side and in a shadow,” I said. “I have seen footage of him at the prison.”
“In the pictures the Hernandez family showed me, Julio seemed scrawny and awkward. Not exactly what you’d call a babe magnet. When you see a picture of the two of them side by side, there’s a disconnect. It doesn’t look like they belong together at all.”
I leaned my head back, gathering my hair into a ponytail to get it out of my face. “Maria must have loving feelings for Julio, or why would she go to the trouble of kidnapping me to get him out of prison?”
“The whole thing has me baffled,” Randy said.
“Did Julio go back to Honduras to see Maria?” Deep asked.
“After Julio went back to the US, Maria went up to California within the month to visit him. They got married while she was there.”
Deep snorted. “Much to the joy of Julio’s momma.”
Randy shook his head. “Momma didn’t know. The family wasn’t told until almost a year later when Julio and Maria took their belated honeymoon. They stopped in to see the folks for a few days, on their way to the beach in Costa Rica. By this point, Julio had sent them enough money that the dad had stopped working and got medical attention for his knees. They had a secondhand car. They had plenty of clothes and food for the first time in their lives. Henrique was released from jail and back living with them. Things were looking good.”
I angled my chair to get better eye-to-eye with Randy. “Are they doing okay now that they don’t have money coming in?” I asked.
“The house and car are paid in full. The family lived frugally, so most of Julio’s money went into the bank. I got the impression that they were so used to being impoverished, that having this relative wealth made them feel uncomfortable. . .fearful. From the stories they told, I think they knew Julio was doing something wrong, and the money was somehow tainted. His parents didn’t like that much, but never asked questions, either.”
“They had no idea what he was up to?” Darn it.
“None,” Randy said. “But what they did remember was that on their honeymoon trip, Maria and Julio planned to meet with friends in Costa Rica, Amando and Beth Sylanos.”
“That’s when they took the picture. Wow.”
“Wow is right. Something big happened on that trip. When Julio went back up to the States, he quit his Google job and took a job somewhere else. The family didn’t know where. They thought his job had to do with writing software applications for a shipping company.”
“And so Julio starts his life of crime. That must be when he signed on with
Amando’s cousin, Markos Sylanos,” Deep’s voice was excited.
“I think so,” Randy said. “The Rodriguez family checks almost doubled after that.”
“How long ago did the checks double?” I asked.
“Nine years,” Randy said.
“Julio visited with them? Brought them up to see him in the States?” I drummed my fingers on the table.
“Nope. They never saw him after the honeymoon trip. You want to know something even more curious?” Randy leaned in and dropped his voice.
I held my breath.
“The checks came from a CPA in Sacramento. The Rodriguez family didn’t know where Julio was living. The letters that they addressed to the house Julio lived in before his honeymoon came back stamped ‘undeliverable.’”
Oh, interesting. “He thought they might be in danger? That someone might use his family as leverage?” I asked.
“It wasn’t easy to find them. Someone would have to be motivated and have the right resources. We traced the family through Henrique and the courts.”
“Julio’s family is a soft spot,” I nodded as my thoughts came together. “Julio might like to know how they’re doing. We might even be able to convince him that his family is suffering now that the checks aren’t coming in, losing the house, illness. . .we could intervene in exchange for information. Offer to give his family money and protection.” The men nodded as I thought out loud.
“I’m not sure, though,” I said. “I have to think this through. Julio might have been fulfilling his filial obligations and that’s all. He could have stayed on the straight and narrow path with a beautiful wife, an excellent job, a loving proud family. He traded in his relationship with his family for his work with Sylanos. If only I knew what drove him to make that choice.”
Twenty
“Lynx, you’re a girl,” Blaze set his elbows on the table at our Sunday night family-style dinner and looked over at me.
“Blaze, your powers of observation amaze me.” I said, taking a sip of water.
“What I mean is you might be able to interpret Faith for me.”
“Like a foreign language?” I quirked a brow.
“It’s foreign to me. I don’t know what her problem’s all about.” Blaze shifted some food around on his plate.
“I don’t know, Blaze. When I was a teenager, my mom was terminally ill, and I was working with Spyder. Those two things took up all my time. I didn’t socialize the way most girls did. My experience with dating relationships is definitely limited. I can give it a shot, though.” I doubted I’d be helpful, but curiosity tickled me.
“Things have changed with Faith and me. She seems angry all the time. We were doing fine until Gater and Amy broke up and then boom. I could do no right.”
“You and Gater used to go on double dates from time to time. Did the girls get close?”
“Faith got along okay with Amy, but they didn’t have a lot in common. Faith sort of put up with Amy – she thought Amy was self-centered and princess-y.”
“Yeah. You know, I could never figure out the whole Gater-Amy dynamic,” I said.
Deep snorted. “You saw her, right?”
“She was beautiful, and she had enormous boobs. I get that. But this is swamp Gater and the Barbie doll we’re talking about. What in the world did they talk about?”
“Uh, Lynx, do you really think their relationship was about deep conversation?” Blaze asked, and the men laughed as if that were the best joke ever told.
I waited for them to get it back together. “Amy wanted to marry Gater.”
“Amy’s a shallow piece of work who liked how she looked walking around with her G.I. Joe.” Blaze’s disdain was more than apparent.
“Barbie and G.I. Joe? That’s a whole lot of plastic and make believe,” I said.
“Exactly. Gater had it in the right perspective. He wasn’t in the relationship for the long term. He wanted a little affection and a lot of. . .” Deep caught himself before he finished.
“Physical satisfaction?” I asked.
Deep choked on his drink. “That would be a way to put it.”
I turned back to Blaze. “Faith got angry with you after Gater broke up with Amy. She knew that Gater was dating Amy for the thrill ride, and she knew that Amy wanted Gater to marry her, even if it were for superficial reasons. So let me ask you this: why are you dating Faith?”
“I like her. We have fun together. Had. We had fun together.”
“Is she the one?”
“I’m not in the market for the one.”
“And you told her that?”
“Yup.” Blaze had his fork in one hand and his knife in the other, holding them like reins on a horse. Braced.
My gaze fell off to the side while I thought this through. “Gater told Amy that he wasn’t going to marry her because he was married to his job.”
I was thinking aloud, but Blaze answered, “That’s my understanding.”
“I would guess this girl sees herself going the way of Amy. Used and discarded. I would say she’s sending you the signal, ‘shit or get off the pot.’”
“Damn, Lynx, your language.” Deep’s face was comically shocked.
I gave him a wink. “I’ve been hanging around you guys way too much. You’re rubbing off.”
“Shit or get off the pot?” Blaze asked. Lost.
“Yeah. Look, she’s what, twenty-five-years old?” I squirmed in my seat to relieve my back.
“Twenty-six. She had a birthday while you were gone.”
“I’m not saying that her biological clock is ticking, and I’m not saying she’s even looking for a ring. I think she might be looking for the grand gesture that tells her you see her and your relationship as having more value than what Gater had with Amy. She wants to know the direction you’re headed together so she can make some decisions.” I paused. “Do you see a possible future with her?” I asked.
Blaze shrugged. “She’s a cool girl. Smart, pretty, kind. I could see her being a great wife and mom. I don’t see me being a husband and a dad right now.”
“But later, can you see the possibility of you two together or no?”
“Later? Yes.”
“Then you need to tell her that, and you need to do a grand gesture that makes her know she’s on your priority list.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Blaze said.
“You guys take your girls to chick flicks from time to time, right?” I swear to god, if these guys could take out a pad and paper, they’d be taking notes. They all looked at me as if I was about to disclose the holy grail of womanhood. If they only realized how pathetic it was they were turning to me on this subject. “Look, they make those movies to appeal to women, and it’s a simple formula. The guy sees a girl and wants her to be his. The girl cooperates or doesn’t, but something always gets in the way. There are hurt feelings and a lot of misery. How does the guy win the girl in the end and make everything all right? He makes some grand gesture – he does the thing that it is counter intuitive to his spirit, but speaks to hers. He has to overcome himself to get to her. The girl in the movies wants the guy to swim through fire to be with her.” I stalled and pointed an emphatic finger at Blaze, suddenly feeling like I should protect Faith. “But if you make the grand gesture, you have to make sure you mean it.”
Blaze nodded gravely.
Deep cut a bite of chicken. “So Lynx, what was Striker’s grand gesture?”
“Striker’s grand gesture?” I scanned the men’s faces. “Since I’ve known you guys, I’ve been a woman on the precipice. I’ve needed a whole team of men making the grand gesture in my direction.” Deep, Randy, and Blaze nodded.
“And I know, without a doubt in my mind, that you would dive in front of the bullet to save me. And that, according to the movies, is exactly what every girl wants to know. When push comes to shove, is she safe with you?”
“From bullets?” Chris asked.
“From a broken heart,” I said.
&nbs
p; “Shit.” Blaze looked down at his plate. “A grand gesture.”
The table went quiet as we ate. I had obviously given the guys something to chew on beyond their dinners. I was in lala land myself, studying a piece of yam dangling from my fork, when Blaze caught my attention.
“What are you stewing over, Lynx?”
“Oh, I was thinking about yams.” I popped the bite into my mouth.
“Yams don’t take a whole lot of thought,” he said, looking down at his plate, carving a bite of steak.
“Well, I was really thinking about a story that I used to read when I was a little girl. It’s an Anansi tale that Mrs. Shelack used to tell during story hour in the library.” I let a little smile slide over my mouth. “I always think of Spyder McGraw as Anansi. He’s such a trickster. It’s a good thing for everyone he puts his mind to work for the good of humanity. He would be a formidable villain if he ever decided to turn his brain to self-serving exploits.”
“Amen to that,” Deep said. “How does the story go?”
“So the name of this story is called Anansi is Dead. I was trying to remember – it goes something like this:
In Africa the monsoon had not come. Several moons had passed since the rains were expected. The plants had withered and died. There was almost no food left. The animals were hungry. Anansi was hungry. He decided to fill his belly by playing a trick on his family. He told them he had gone to see the sorcerer. The sorcerer had seen a clear vision and told Anansi he was about to die. The sorcerer instructed Anansi on what should follow in the way of burial. If the family followed the instructions, they would be spared from the famine. Anansi said that when he died, they should bury him in the sweet potato patch.
‘Yes. Yes. Anansi,’ they promised, ‘we will do as you ask.’
‘And when I die and you bury me in the sweet potato patch you must bury me with a pot and some matches.’
‘Yes, oh yes, Anansi; we will do as you ask.’ Then Anansi died. The family was in mourning. He was a trickster, but he was still family. Everyone gathered and spoke kind words about him and buried him in the garden near their last surviving sweet potato plant.