by C I Dennis
Tanzi’s Game
C.I. Dennis
Copyright © 2015 C.I. Dennis.
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This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
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For Isabel
Table of Contents
1. Tuesday
2. Wednesday
3. Thursday
4. Friday
5. Saturday
6. Sunday
7. Monday
8. Tuesday
9. Wednesday
10. Thursday
11. Friday
12. Saturday
13. Sunday
14. Monday
15. Sunday
About The Author
Acknowledgements
TUESDAY
Royal finally went down for his nap, and I flopped into my chair, totally exhausted from carrying him around, singing made-up songs, stroking the impossibly soft skin of his back and trying every trick I knew to get him to conk out. He had put up an epic struggle, but he was no match for me, Vince Tanzi, former deputy, retired private investigator, all-around tough guy and now stay-at-home dad. I’d spent my whole career dealing with badasses—taking care of my nine-month-old boy should be a lark.
Ha.
I was more tired and sleep-deprived than I’d ever been in my life. I could barely keep my eyes open. I needed my own nap, or a beer, or both, but I had a shitload of laundry to do, and Barbara would be home in a couple of hours. Wait—did I just say that?
Yes, I did. That was the deal now, whether I liked it or not.
I took five minutes to lay back in my recliner, which was one of the few pieces of my furniture that had survived the Great Purge when Barbara and I had combined our belongings. Everything else she had sold or given away. I wondered if she was trying to exorcise the ghost of my deceased wife by getting rid of all the stuff that Glory and I had accumulated during twenty years of marriage. “You need a reboot,” Barbara had said, and she was right. It felt good to have a fresh start, and to be a new husband, and a new dad. Considering everything that had happened to me I was lucky to be alive at all, and I wanted to stay that way because I had a family to care for now.
I couldn’t relax. There was still too much to do, and precious little Royal-napping time to do it in. I got up, padded quietly down the hall over the cool floor tiles and put a load of clothes into the washing machine, carefully measuring the detergent. I was becoming a whiz at laundry after learning about stains, shrinkage, color bleeding, over bleaching and other washday calamities, mostly the hard way.
Royal made a peeping sound, but it was a sleep noise, not a nap’s-over-come-get-me noise. There was no other sound except for the whooshing of the laundry and the crunch of the mail truck’s tires on the crushed-shell driveway outside. I decided to go out and pick up the bills and circulars.
The afternoon heat greeted me at the door. It was only May, but it was already sticky out, like midsummer when the tropical storms materialize out of nowhere. I don’t mind the Florida weather as long as it’s not a hurricane, but the greying sky and rustling palm fronds were hinting that something substantial was on the way. If it started to rain, I would back my car out of the garage and let the storm wash off the haze from the salt air—a free car wash for those of us getting by on a cop’s pension.
I collected a clutch of magazines for Barbara, retirement planning flyers, hearing aid come-ons, and an invitation to a bra-fitting event that was addressed to me, not my wife. How did I end up on that mailing list? OK, in all honesty, I had put on a few pounds since my accident. A year’s worth of physical therapy had gotten me back on my feet, but it might be another year before I could truly work out again, and in the meantime I was developing something approaching a B-cup. Maybe I should accept the invitation.
Roberto Arguelles was riding his bike down the street toward me. I waited while he pulled into the driveway and leaned it on its kickstand. He still wore his school clothes; it was our custom to hang out after school for a while before his folks got home and he had to knuckle down to his chores and homework. Roberto was crazy about Royal, and my little son was similarly enraptured with my teenaged friend and technology consultant.
“He’s sleeping,” I said, as Roberto entered after me and went directly to the fridge for a Coke. “I’ll take one of those. The little guy wore me out.”
“Heads up,” he said. He tossed a can through the air, which I managed to catch.
“Thanks. Now I’ll have to wait an hour to open this.”
“Vince,” he said, not smiling, “have you heard anything from my mom?”
“Your mom?” I could see the look in his face. He was scared.
“She took off. My dad won’t talk about it. He’s like, totally freaked out.”
“Roberto,” I said. “Sit. Tell me what’s going on.” I motioned to a chair across from me at the kitchen table. I cleared the mail away and set down my unopened can of soda. My young friend shrugged and took the chair.
“She was gone when I woke up on Sunday,” Roberto said. “Dad said that she went down to Miami. You know, her family lives there.”
“You guys stay at her sister’s sometimes.”
“My aunt is the only one she keeps in touch with,” he said. “My mom and dad don’t do much family stuff.”
Lilian and Gustavo Arguelles had moved into my neighborhood in Vero Beach about ten years ago, back when Roberto was a tot. There weren’t many Cuban Americans in Vero, and his parents had always said that that was how they liked it. Both of them had jobs at the hospital, they kept to themselves, and they accepted the close bond that had developed over the years between their brilliant, nerdy son and a washed-up ex-deputy and private investigator who was in the slow lane after taking a nine-millimeter slug to the head.
“So she’s at your aunt’s house?”
“No. She’s on a boat. Or at least she was. I lost the signal.”
“You tracked her? How?”
Roberto rolled his eyes.
“Sorry,” I said. Of course he could track her. Adults with smartphones no longer had any secrets from their tech-savvy kids. “On a boat going where?”
“My dad said not to worry. He said married people need a break sometimes.”
“But you think that he was blowing smoke.”
“Yes,” he said. “My mom would never do that.”
“So where was this boat?”
“Key West.” He was tracing a fingertip through the condensation that had formed on his can. “It was headed south, and then I lost it. She’s bad about charging her phone. Or she could be out of range.”
“South from Key West is Cuba.”
“I know,” he said. “But she can’t go there.”
“No one can just go there. You have to get a special visa.”
“It’s not that,” Roberto said. “Her family was, like—they’d put her
in jail.”
“Where’s your father?”
“I don’t know. Probably still at work.”
Royal began to howl in the background. “I think I have a diaper to change,” I said. “And after that we’re going to go find your dad.”
*
I left a Post-It note for Barbara on the fridge and packed Royal into the backseat of the BMW. He had graduated to a forward-facing car seat, and we played little smiley games in the rearview mirror while Roberto sat motionless beside me. It was not like Roberto to be so worried, and his unease was contagious. Lilian Arguelles was one of those people where everything was on the surface. The idea of her just going off somewhere for whatever reason was a stretch. She was a dedicated mother to Roberto, and I’d never sensed any real friction between her and Gustavo, although there are people who can hide those things, even from me.
Like my first wife, Glory, who had become involved with somebody and had paid with her life.
So, it’s possible that I’m a little quick to assume that pretty much everyone has a few dark secrets stashed away. Uncovering them had been my former business, before Royal had arrived and Barbara said no more snooping around. Not with a baby in the mix.
I’d had to dash through a torrential downpour to get across the parking lot of the Indian River Medical Center, and I was soaked by the time I got to the lobby. The heavy rain was an excuse to leave Roberto and Royal in the car, which was good, because I figured that I could get the full story out of Gustavo more easily without his son around if there was more to this than Lilian simply needing a “break”.
I navigated through the hospital’s halls to the accounting section where Gustavo sat in a windowless office. He glanced up from a desk that was covered in papers. His graying hair needed combing, and his eyes sagged. He didn’t look very happy to see me.
“What are you doing here, Vince?”
“Roberto’s out in the car. He told me that Lilian left. What’s going on?”
“It’s nothing.” He turned away from my gaze.
“Do you know where she is?”
“No.”
“Or who she’s with?”
He hesitated. “Not really.”
“Meaning what?” I took a molded plastic chair across from him and sat. The office was featureless except for a wall calendar and a photo of Roberto that was taped to the side of his computer.
“Meaning I don’t know, Vince. I really don’t. She left me a text. It said that she was going away for a few days, and that she needed a break. But she didn’t take her car, or any of her stuff that I could see. I checked all the suitcases and none of them are missing. She even forgot her wallet.”
Her wallet? I didn’t like the sound of that. “Roberto said she has her phone with her.”
“Yes, and I’ve tried calling, but she won’t pick up.”
“Gustavo…have you considered contacting the police? I don’t want to frighten you, but this doesn’t sound very good.”
“There’s no reason to,” he said. “No police.”
“Listen—”
“Vince,” he interrupted, “I don’t want to go all the way into this, OK? You’d just tell Roberto. Leave it alone.” He looked back at me, his dark eyes pleading.
“I’m not moving from here until you explain,” I said. “And everything stays between you and me. No Roberto, I promise.”
Gustavo sighed and pulled his phone from his pocket. He tapped at it and handed it to me. “This is from yesterday.”
On the screen was a text conversation. He had written: Where are you Lil? Help me. I’m beside myself with worry.
Please to not worry, the reply said. I have met someone.
“Please to not worry?” I said, looking up at him.
“Typo,” Gustavo said. “Her English is perfect.”
“So she’s having an affair?”
“I guess so. Totally blindsided me.”
“I’m going to call this in, Gustavo. I really don’t like it.”
“No, Vince. I don’t want the police rousting her out of some hotel. No way.”
“I—”
“You promised me.”
“That was about Roberto.”
“Take him home,” Gustavo said. “I’m out of here in half an hour. And leave this alone. I can handle it, one way or the other.”
Gustavo Arguelles is about five-five and is maybe two-thirds my weight. He’s not an imposing guy. But he stood up from behind his desk and gave me a look that I’d seen before, back when I was a cop, on much tougher guys. The look right before they lose it that says: Get out of my face.
“Call me if you change your mind,” I said, but I’d pushed him enough for now. If Lilian Arguelles had run off with some dickhead Romeo, I could find out on my own. I had the tools and the skills. I just wouldn’t say anything to Gustavo. And I would definitely not say anything to Barbara, unless I wanted all hell to break loose.
*
“You’re not going anywhere, Vince. And certainly not with our child.” Barbara was carrying Royal in one arm and was trying to operate the blender with the other hand. The top had come off, and the machine was spraying gloppy red beetroot-and-fish-oil goo all over the counter and the walls. The kitchen looked like a set from a slasher movie. Royal had his mouth open so wide that I could see his tonsils, and his screaming was louder than the racket from the blender’s blades.
“Just for a couple of days,” I said. I had to yell, but my wife had already stopped listening. She said nothing and stomped off with the baby into his nursery. I grabbed a roll of paper towels and began to dab up blotches of Barbara’s so-called health drink. Halfway through cleaning up the mess I decided to take a break for my own health drink, and I got a cold Negra Modelo out of the fridge. Our little discussion hadn’t gone so well.
I had been on the phone and the computer since we’d returned from the hospital. Roberto had logged me in to his parents’ Verizon account, and I’d gone back several months and had cross-referenced a few numbers, but I hadn’t turned up anything suspicious. I could have had Roberto go through the family computer, but Lilian never used it, and as far as her son knew, she didn’t even have an email account. I hadn’t directly let on to Roberto about Lilian’s possible romance because I’d promised Gustavo that I wouldn’t, but my young friend no doubt knew what I was doing—he’d been helping me go through the digital equivalent of people’s sock drawers since he was thirteen. Finally, I had called Bobby Bove at the Indian River County Sheriff’s office and had asked a favor. Half an hour later Bobby emailed me the location records for Lilian’s cellphone, which had made it as far south as Hialeah on Sunday, stayed the night, and then moved on through southernmost Florida and the Keys until the signal had abruptly terminated on Monday afternoon. The last known location was at an address in Key West on the Palm Avenue Causeway called Charter Boat Row. A quick look on the satellite map showed a marina full of boats. I had decided that it was time for a road trip.
I would take Royal with me, which might be good anyway, because this was Barbara’s exam week at nursing school and she could concentrate better without the guys around. I would pack a load of frozen breast milk in a cooler. I’d tell her that the boys were going to have a little one-on-one time, no big deal. I had everything worked out perfectly, and it had all made complete sense until Barbara had come home, and I’d laid out the plan, and she had asked: OK, Vince. Exactly what is going on here?
I’d swallowed hard and told her about Lilian, and about the text that Gustavo had shown me. I wasn’t going to lie to my wife, not even if all hell broke loose, which of course it did. You have to allow some hell to break loose now and then if you’re going to be married.
You promised that you would retire, she’d said. For the baby’s sake. No more investigating. You almost got us all killed that time, and you promised me, and now you want to take a nine-month-old child with you to the Keys on some case?
This is Lilian, I’d said. Not just some case
. Roberto’s mother.
Roberto is not your son, Barbara had said. Royal is your son.
I would have kept up my side of the argument, but she was right. In fact, she was more than right. I wasn’t at all convinced that I would find Lilian Arguelles shacked up in a hotel, drinking champagne and running around in the sweet altogether with some loser. I had no idea what was going on, and until I did it would be foolish to have Royal anywhere near me.
It took me fifteen more minutes to finish cleaning up the mess from the blender. The house had gone silent by the time that I was done. I crept down the hall and peered through the partially open door to the baby’s room. The shades were open, and the dying light of the early evening gently illuminated their motionless forms on the cot next to his crib. Barbara had one arm around Royal, who was asleep at her breast. A few strands of blonde hair were draped over her open mouth, and they fluttered each time she exhaled. Goddamn—I had a beautiful family. I gently closed the door and returned to the kitchen.
Between the demands of my physical therapy, Barbara’s nursing school schedule, and Royal’s needs, there wasn’t much time left over for her and me. In fact, there was almost no time at all for just the two of us. Barbara and I had only been together for a few months before the baby was born. We didn’t yet have the tightly knit intimacy of long-married couples, and you had to watch out, or the yarn could quickly come unraveled. I would need to do something about that, or one of these days I might be getting a text, too.
Please to not worry, Vince. I have met someone.
WEDNESDAY
Megan, my physical therapist, always ended our routine with a massage, and today she had gone on for longer than the customary ten minutes. She mostly worked on my back, and then went deep into the muscles of my left leg. The left side was my bad side. I still had a noticeable limp, which my wife had dubbed the Vinny Shuffle.
“Are you going to charge me extra for this?” I asked her, my face buried in a padded ring. “Or maybe you just can’t keep your hands off me?”
“Oh yeah, you hairy old guys are so hot.”