Heart of the World

by Linda Barnes

  She bit her lip and decided to remain in the stall a little longer to see whether Ana would leave without her. Not that she wanted to stay in the smelly bathroom. Honestly, why couldn’t they stop at a Mickey D’s or a Burger King or any of the other roadside places with decent bathrooms and familiar food? This dead-end cafe might be cheaper, but the floor hadn’t been mopped in weeks. The unmoving fly in the corner wasn’t a recent corpse.

  She could hear the tap-tap of heels on linoleum. Then a stream of water cascaded into a sink, then silence. The door didn’t creak or slam; Ana was waiting. Paolina doubted she was simply standing by the tiny mirror, applying lipstick in the yellow light. Ana didn’t wear makeup, not that Paolina could see. She had nice skin, a small, slightly crooked nose, and tiny pearly teeth, like a doll’s. She wore her dark hair pulled back and knotted behind her neck. Paolina wondered if Jorge and Ana were sleeping together. She wondered if Jorge thought she was just some little kid, or if he thought she was pretty like Ana.

  Ana was defintely older than Jorge; maybe Ana was so strict with her because she thought Jorge might be falling for her. The idea tickled Paolina for a moment, but it wasn’t just Ana who was strict. It was Jorge, too, Jorge even more, locking doors, unplugging the phones, almost like she was a prisoner, as trapped as she’d been at home. I mean, she could understand why it had to be a secret and all, but they were treating her like some kid who didn’t even understand the swear words on the toilet-stall door.

  She was old enough to help nurse her father back to health. Everyone would see what a good nurse she was. There would be soldiers, young, good-looking, her father’s troops—

  “Paolina, honey, you okay in there?”

  She didn’t even have a chance to think her own thoughts in peace. That was the problem. It was all happening too fast. They should have put more detail in the letter, let her know there was the possibility of helping her dad, the possibility of leaving town. Not that she regretted anything, but why couldn’t she ever do stuff the way she wanted to do it? Say goodbye, not to her mother, but to the friends who’d understand and keep their mouths shut.

  Ana’s heels tapped to the front of the stall.

  “Paolina?”

  “I have a stomachache.”

  “That’s too bad, honey.”

  She hated it when Ana called her honey. The woman was always patting her, touching her arms, smoothing her hair. “You don’t need to wait in here.”

  The heels tapped, the door banged, and Paolina felt a surge of relief.

  Alone. Time to think. She held a wad of rough toilet paper to her nose to block out the smell. She thought somebody might have thrown up in the stall. The thought almost made her gag so she switched mental gears, but when she did she remembered Julio. She touched the pouch of her sweatshirt thoughtfully as though she expected to find him, even though she knew he wasn’t there.

  That was the worst. Worse than the stinky bathrooms and fleabag motels, worse than the long bumpy miles shut in the back of the truck and the icky shapeless clothes they made her wear as a disguise. She hadn’t brought Julio, hadn’t had a clue she’d have to go abruptly or not at all, and they absolutely wouldn’t let her go back for him. Nothing she said made a difference, nothing penetrated; it was like they didn’t even hear her. Julio, the first gift her father had sent her in her whole life. Julio, the little gold statue who watched over her, who seemed to know when she was sad or happy or when kids were mean to her. He must still be in her locker. He had to be. She couldn’t have dropped him.

  She expected Ana to rush in while she washed her hands in the stained basin, but the door stayed shut, and she let the warm water drizzle onto her hands in blissful solitude. Her skin was good, too, she decided, even better than Ana’s. Oh, she wasn’t model-pretty, but who’d want to do something dumb like pose for pictures all day, anyway? If she couldn’t make it as a drummer, couldn’t find the right band, she was going to be a nurse, or a cop, or even join the army and train to be a pilot. Maybe she’d get married first.

  Who knew? Who cared? It was just grownups who always wanted you to have a plan, and plan ahead, and go to college. Carlotta was always harping on that, go to college, go to college, like it was some kind of holy obligation. Maybe it would be a good thing, when she was older, when she had her life sorted out and had done more stuff, but what could you do in a classroom for your whole life? What could you really learn there that you couldn’t learn better by doing, by living? When she got back, she’d know so much more, she’d be a way better student. She wouldn’t be as restless. She’d be able to concentrate better. She’d be different, somebody who’d lived through a real adventure. All the kids would want to know where she’d been and what she’d done; they’d crowd around to listen.

  If she came back.

  That was it. That was the problem. What if she really liked it there and decided not to come back. She needed to have Julio with her. She could almost feel his solid warmth in her palm.

  There was a pay phone outside. She’d noticed the sign when they’d walked in from the van, one of those public phone signs, like the one in Central Square, on the next building over, near an alley. The sign was near a drug store and on the other side of the alley was a small liquor store. It would depend on whether Ana was waiting smack outside the door or whether she’d given up and gone back to the van. If she was in the van, Paolina could make a quick right instead of a left and get to the alley unobserved.

  If she couldn’t have Julio with her, at least she’d know he was safe.

  She searched her pockets and found a quarter, another quarter, and two dimes. She wasn’t sure what the phone would take. She wished she had a cell. Using a pay phone was definitely uncool, but a phone was a phone, really. She thought you put the money in first, but maybe if you were dialing collect, it didn’t matter. Maybe she had to dial an operator to dial collect. She knew what to do with a cell phone. You just called, duh.

  Paolina considered the phone. She’d given her word she wouldn’t tell anyone where she was. And she’d keep her word. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t ask Aurelia to check her locker and find Julio and take care of him. That would be okay. Later, she’d write and tell Aurelia where to send him, and that would be okay, too.

  She half expected to find Ana lurking outside the restroom, but the area was deserted. A smile broke out on Paolina’s face, an upside-down rainbow of happiness. They trusted her now. They’d decided to treat her more like a grownup, and that was cool. Maybe Jorge was secretly in love with her. Guys liked younger girls. Jorge wasn’t that old. Ana was probably ten years older than he was.

  She turned speedily to the right, hoping the phone would be in working order. The phones on the streets of Cambridge were usually broken and Marta thought the phone company was vandalizing their own phones, or refusing to repair them, so people would have to buy cells. Paolina thought it was just kids messing with the phones, and as for why, well, it was because it was something to do, that was all, just something to do that wasn’t boring for a change.

  It wasn’t boring because you might get caught. Making the phone call was exciting, too, just because she wasn’t supposed to do it. She quickened her pace.

  By the time she made the right turn into the alley, the two quarters and the two dimes were already moist in her palm. Without reading the instructions, because in spite of her bravado she was really worried Ana would show up, she shoved them into the slot and dialed. She knew Aurelia’s number by heart. She hardly knew the phone numbers of any of the friends she’d made this year. She didn’t care about her new friends, but the thought that she might never see Aurelia again made something funny happen inside her throat. She hoped she’d be able to say hello without choking. She wondered whether she ought to disguise her voice in case somebody else answered the phone.

  The phone rang once, twice, then a hand snaked around the corner, grabbed the receiver out of her hand, and slammed it back in the cradle.

  Jorge had
a weird look on his face and a hand clamped like a vise around Ana’s thin arm.

  “Yeah, you leave her for a minute, right, this happens. I told you—”

  “Let go of me.”

  “Yeah, let go of her,” Paolina said.

  She could hardly believe it when he slapped her, slapped her hard, across the mouth. The pain made her eyes water and sting. She raised her hand to her cheek.

  “You’ll be sorry,” she said. “When my dad finds out—”

  “Yeah, sure I will,” Jorge said. “Get in the fucking van.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Muggy. My gray silk jacket and wool slacks, too light for the Boston freeze, clung damply to my body as I wrestled my duffel bag into the cab line at the Miami—Dade airport. I shaded my eyes against sunshine so bright it seemed phony, like a late-night-TV ad for some lurid tropical paradise. Ahead of me, a man’s floral-print shirt gaped over his belly; he carried a stuffed alligator in one hand and a box of pecan fudge in the other. I folded my jacket over my arm and fumbled in my backpack for sunglasses. By the time I found them, a cab beckoned.

  I gave the driver the address and settled into the back seat. The cab was faintly air conditioned, the hum like a lullaby, but I was too wound up to doze.

  If I was wrong, I’d waste time and money, but I wouldn’t jeopardize Paolina’s recovery. Mooney would handle the cop routine, finesse the FBI. Roz had promised to monitor the phones. Gloria would ride herd on Moon and Roz both.

  Clients who paid me to retrieve runaways said they felt better once they’d hired me. Once they’d signed responsibility for finding their missing child over to me, they felt somehow released, freed to go on with some skeletal semblance of their lives. No way could I sign this case over to someone else. I had to go with my gut, and my gut said Miami. It said Thurman W. Vandenburg.

  Years ago, when I’d gotten a mysterious package of cash in the mail—special delivery from Paolina’s real father to my little sister— Thurman W. Vandenburg, Esquire, had served as go-between. I’d refused to accept it at first, on the grounds that it was drug money, dirty money. But the more I pondered, the more it seemed that money was money, that the cocaine had been paid for and consumed, that Roldan’s money, dirty or not, could buy Paolina and her family out of the projects.

  I stared out the window at streets lined with low shops and stucco houses, the signs in Spanish as often as English, the colors—bright reds, hot pinks, shades of orange—hothouse and exotic. I cranked the window and the cabbie glared. I was spoiling the AC, but I didn’t care. I wanted to smell a breeze that floated in over a blue ocean instead of an icy gray-green sea. After this is cleared up, after it’s over, I promised myself, Paolina and I will come here and soak up the sun on a sandy beach. I’ll buy her the best strawberry ice cream cone in town.

  When the cab pulled up in front of a three-story cement-and tinted-glass structure, I hauled my duffel out onto hot pavement, tipped the driver, and checked my watch. Twenty minutes to spare.

  The landscaping was elegant; the palms and colorful broadleafed plants meticulously pruned and groomed. Entering the lobby felt like entering a cold-storage locker. Inside the frosted-glass doors, the parquet flooring and wide stairway were guarded by a grandfatherly rent-a-cop. I threw him a smile and asked to use a bathroom. He grinned back like I’d made his day and ushered me toward a corner door.

  I splashed cold water on my face and made an attempt to tame my hair. The humidity had done its work, making it wilder than usual. I found a clip in my backpack, wound my hair into a curly mass, and plunked it on top of my head. As I held a damp paper towel to the back of my neck, the eyes of a woman who hadn’t slept in days stared at me from the mirror.

  I signed “Janice Ford” in the logbook at the desk. Grandpa beamed and asked whether I’d like to leave my duffel with him. When I declined he said fine and nodded me toward the stairs without bothering to search my belongings. He didn’t check my name against any list of appointments or phone to see whether a Ms. Ford was expected.

  Haley, Briggs, and Associates, on the second floor, was the formal name of Vandenburg’s firm. As I climbed the steps, I wondered how many associates worked there and what the nature of that work might be. If they all labored for drug cartels, I’d have expected more than Gramps in the way of security.

  The waiting room smelled like money—spacious, with fresh flowers and plush gray carpet. I gave my phony name to the tanned receptionist. When I use an alias I often pick a last name suggestive of family wealth.

  “He’ll be with you as soon as he’s available,” she said automatically. She was a little too young, a bit too flashily dressed for the surroundings.

  The oil paintings on the walls didn’t look like reproductions, misty sea scenes with romantic sails in the distance, hints of tropical lushness echoed by gleaming plants and polished mahogany. Architectural Digest and Travel and Leisure sat on the coffee table like invitations to a never-never land of the idle rich.

  There were two squishy blue sofas and three print chairs, but I was the only one waiting. Five minutes passed. Ten. A famous actor I’d never heard of owned a massive house in Malibu constucted of sheet metal, old rubber tires, and blue glass. Twenty. I was contemplating breaking in on Vandenburg and ousting his client or tossing his lunch out the window when the receptionist approached, apologizing for the delay. I followed her through a paneled doorway and down a long cool corridor. She knocked at a door on the right, waited for a low, “Come in,” before turning the brass knob.

  The receptionist gave my phony name, nodded, and closed the door.

  I’d never met Vandenburg, but we’d spoken on the phone and I recalled his unctuous voice. A smooth operator, a genial shark, that’s how I’d envisioned him. Now he rose from behind his imposing desk, a man who’d probably played a little college ball, a good-old-boy, go-along-get-along guy with the easy smile that would get him into the right fraternity, the polish to impress the right people. A fall of blond hair drooped boyishly across his forehead. His suit was charcoal, his smile dazzling, his handclasp firm. The airy office was filled with sleek furniture, healthy plants, and photos of blond children so perfect they might have been issued along with the silver frames. No wife in evidence.

  He indicated a plush armchair and waited for me to sit before resuming his throne. His desk was the size of a substantial dining table.

  “What can I do for you, Miss Ford?” I wondered whether he’d been in a meeting or on the phone; no client had been ushered out through the waiting room, but his office had a second door that could be used as an escape hatch. I let my eyes wander slowly over his diplomas and awards. There was a collection of framed non-family photographs, men in suits shaking each other by the hand. The place looked like a respectable lawyer’s office. No bulletproof vests, no metal detector.

  “I thought you might recognize my voice,” I said.

  He smiled his brilliant smile, not flirtatious, but well on the way. “I’m sorry. I’m sure if we’d met before I’d remember.”

  “We have a mutual friend. Carlos Roldan Gonzales.”

  Underneath the golfer’s tan, he might have turned a shade paler. He’d never used his client’s name when we’d spoken on the phone, always said “the man” or “our friend.”

  “My name isn’t Ford. It’s Carlyle.”

  “Boston,” he said. “No, I’m lying. Cambridge.”

  “Good for you; good memory. What the hell does Roldan think he’s doing?”

  Vandenburg flashed his shark smile. “No idea what you’re talking about.”

  “You’ve been at it again, forwarding letters, sending packages. Directly to the daughter this time.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I don’t do that sort of thing anymore. I mean, I never—” He stopped himself and grinned to cover his lapse. “What I’m saying is, I never involve myself in such matters.”

  I’d brooded about the best way to approach Vandenburg through two airline baggies of sal
ty peanuts, a Pepsi, and a Bloody Mary. Asking for the information was definitely my first choice. I glanced around, but unless someone had an ear to one of the doors, no one was listening. Vandenburg didn’t point at a painting or a potted plant to indicate that his office might be bugged. He hadn’t lowered his voice.

  Neither did I. “I need to talk to Roldan. If you don’t help me find him, you may have a long time to regret it.”

  “Excuse me? Are you threatening me?”

  “I’m assuming that before you got in touch with me about that first package, you checked me out. You know I used to be a cop. You know I’m still in the cop business.”

  “I know you were.”

  “I try to stay in touch. For example, DEA’s Group 26 works out of Miami, right? Jerry Hillier still in charge?”

  “No. Uh, no, he’s not.” His right hand touched the knot of his pink-flecked tie.

  The man kept up to date on who ran 26. Why bother if he no longer had any drug connections?

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said. “It’s not about individuals once you get those guys involved. They love getting their hands on Americans who stooge for the cartel players. Lawyers are their favorite snack food.”

  “I am no longer in communication with that man. I never knew what his business was.”

  “Tell it to Hillier’s replacement,” I said, “or tell me how to reach him.”

  “You working for DEA?”

  I explained about Paolina because I thought it might work; he had pictures of his kids on his desk. While I spoke, Vandenburg’s eyes settled on the door as though he’d like to use it.

  I said, “You’ve built a nice practice here. Shame to bring it tumbling down.”