Heart of the World

by Linda Barnes

  Roz had walked me through the do’s and don’ts of slutty tropical evening wear, starting with how to properly tie my top so I didn’t pop out. I’d been planning to wear my hair up, but she’d vetoed that, voting for wild and curly, which was easier anyway. Bend at the waist, hands through the hair, then makeup, the light base that blurs rather than hides my few freckles, exaggerated eyeliner, shadow, and mascara. Rose-colored lip gloss.

  Vandenburg seemed to approve.

  He did tourist chitchat as we drove eastward toward the ocean, trying to sound like this was some kind of old-fashioned date while I tried to quell the rising sense of urgency in the pit of my stomach. What if Naylor proved as devastating a dead end as Diego?

  The air conditioning felt cool on my bare arms as we drove past low tile-roofed office parks and self-serve gas stations. Vandenburg handled the car well, but didn’t push the speed limit. If I’d been driving, I’d have let the Jaguar rip on the freeway, but he held it to a careful sixty-five. When we turned off the freeway onto a narrow two-lane road bordered by a drainage ditch on one side and skinny palms on the other, the tourist patter ended as abruptly as it had begun.

  “I’m taking a risk, bringing you here,” he said.

  “Drop me a block away and I’ll wander in without you.”

  He braked and we coasted to a stop at the side of the road. The Oldsmobile behind us honked and swerved as the lawyer swiveled to face me.

  “I have to know; did someone send you?”

  “I told you. I’m working for myself, looking for Roldan’s daughter.” “Are you wired?” In spite of the AC, beads of sweat stood out on his forehead.

  “In this?” I held up my arms. “Are you kidding?” I’d considered the possibility of concealing a weapon and given it up, figuring that if worse came to worse, I could use the thin spike of a high heel. They’re not called stilettos for nothing.

  “They have small recorders,” he said.

  “You’re too suspicious. Probably comes with being a lawyer.”

  He pressed his lips together and stared at the steering wheel.

  “What else can you tell me about Naylor?” I asked.

  “Like I said, produces movie shorts for big companies.”

  According to Roz, Naylor didn’t belong to any of the professional motion picture organizations. She’d come up with a big fat zero on Drew or Andrew Naylor.

  “But he makes his money from drugs,” I ventured.

  “You didn’t hear that from me.”

  “Are you his lawyer?”

  “I’ve represented him in several matters dealing with divorce and, um, matters of paternity. I can tell you this: He doesn’t deal well with women like you.”

  What the hell did that mean, women like me? Tall women? Uppity insubordinate women? I didn’t ask because Vandenburg was on a roll.

  “Look, it’ll work better if you keep to the background, play the girlfriend role, let me do business with Naylor.”

  “What are you planning to tell him?”

  “Nothing fancy. I need the man’s number. Old business.” He pulled back onto the road without so much as a glance in the rearview mirror. He must have considered the conversation finished. I didn’t.

  The streets got wider, the palms statelier, the lawns more expansive. The houses grew larger, too, like well-tended hothouse plants. The Jaguar turned down a narrow lane, passed through high iron gates, and came to a halt at the rear of a parade of high-rent vehicles. Instead of waiting his turn in the parking queue, Vandenburg left his keys in the ignition, shrugged into his jacket, and abandoned his ride. I followed suit, accompanying him up a winding shell-paved path. One of the red-vested car parkers chased us down and handed him a ticket stub.

  The distant shoreline curved to the left, midnight ocean melting into pale sand. To the right, white fairy lights hung over the portico and pillars of a pseudo-Southern plantation-style Colonial. Urns of red and orange bougainvillea framed the rose-colored double doors, and windowboxes underscored enough windows for a small hotel. On a shaded patio, waitresses in micro-skirts plied guests with drinks in frosted glasses.

  Vandenburg stopped halfway up the walk and I was glad to take a moment to steady myself on my heels. Chatter and music drowned out the sounds of the ocean.

  “Maybe this isn’t such a great idea,” he said.

  “I’ll handle Naylor myself. You don’t need to be part of it.”

  For a moment, he seemed to weigh his options. Then he glanced at the drinkers on the patio and shrugged regretfully.

  “They’ve already seen us together.”

  Dozens of full-blown roses crowded a teak sideboard in the entry-way. The house was airy, the paintings abstract, the furnishings modern. We made our way past a pair of leather sofas in the living room, through a mirror-lined hallway into a dining room with a high, vaulted ceiling, but it was the guests that grabbed the eye, especially the women, glossy, poised, and clad like women in a European fashion magazine. With shoulders bare and inches of midriff on display, I was modestly covered, my outfit a burkha compared to party standards. Roz was right: I could have worn underwear if I’d had the foresight to pack sexier gear. I wasn’t the tallest woman in the gathering and that was unusual enough, but some of these women made me feel large, a middleweight among sylphs, and believe me, I’m thin enough that people use the word skinny.

  Models, I thought. Or actresses for commercial films.

  “Where’s our host?” I murmured as we moved through the dining area into a crowded room beyond. I had to slide close to Vandenburg’s ear to whisper because this new room featured a movie-screen-sized TV loudly tuned to basketball. I could smell his musky cologne. In addition to the TV blare, a rhythmic bass came from the back of the house, loud enough to be live. Vandenburg shook hands with one man, slapped backs with a couple others. He didn’t introduce me; none of the men mentioned the women clinging to their arms. I was starting to think my nose, broken three times in the line of duty, was too big. None of the other women had noses to speak of.

  Vandenburg was checking out the guests, his eyes roving quickly across the crowd, but whether he was looking for Naylor or searching for more agreeable female companionship, I couldn’t tell. I repeated my query.

  “I don’t see him. We ought to mingle for a while, have a drink or two. It’ll look funny if I race over and beg for information.”

  He was right. He might fare better if Naylor were slightly soused by question-and-answer time, but I was impatient. This didn’t look like my kind of gathering. Too many capped teeth and dazzling white smiles. Too much lacquered hair, like a Hollywood movie where nobody looks like a real person you might see on the street.

  I bit my lip. Vandenburg could see his answer didn’t please me.

  “Okay, okay,” he said irritably. “Let me grab a martini first. Why don’t you wait by the pool?”

  “Tell Naylor whatever you want. But if he won’t talk to you, I’m taking a shot.”

  “I thought we agreed—”

  “You agreed.”

  We stared bullets at each other till he dropped his eyes.

  “Yeah, sure, whatever.” He gave me a leer. “Right. Well, come to think of it, dressed the way you are, he might tell you a lot of things he wouldn’t tell me.”

  Some compliment, I thought.

  “But no threats,” he said.

  Within ten seconds of Vandenburg’s departure, a waiter stuck a champagne flute in my hand. A man to my left spoke melodious Portuguese. An Asian woman wore an ice-blue sarong. Cigarette smoke hung like fog over the room. As I moved through an adjacent corridor, it joined and blended with the pungent fug of marijuana. If Naylor owned this house, he was minting money. Hell, even if he rented, he was paying big bucks.

  A tray of hors d’oeuvres sailed by just out of reach and I realized I was starving. The champagne was fine, icy and dry, but it needed a food foundation. I followed the tray toward French doors, hoping they opened out onto the pool.

/>   In spite of the crush in the house, the pool was clearly the hub of the party. I made my way through a field of round tables lit by flaring torches, skirting a group of men speaking fluent Colombian Spanish, wishing I still smoked, so I could hesitate and light up, the perfect excuse for eavesdropping. I overheard the word “extradition.” Further along, a man’s bored voice, in English: “You do the math; no way he’ll refuse.”

  The smell of barbecue made my mouth water. I found the source and piled a plate with skewers of grilled shrimp. The tables were full, so I perched on top of a cement wall separating the pool area from a stretch of sandy beach, settled my plate on my lap, and ate hungrily. A passing waiter replaced my champagne flute with an icy Margarita rimmed in salt.

  The pool, a kidney-shaped turquoise basin with a diving board, was backed by a low cabana. The men wore European-cut Speedos to show off tanned, fit bodies; several of the bodies hardly meshed with seamed fiftyish faces. The women, much younger, wore postage-stamp bikinis or Brazilian thongs. Not the sort of thing you see on Massachusetts beaches, where folks jump into a fifty-degree ocean wearing bike shorts over tank suits.

  “Do you swim?”

  I nodded through a mouthful of shrimp. The man to my left was young and deeply tanned, with a lifeguard build.

  “Plenty of suits in the cabana. Bet you could find one that fits.”

  “Maybe later.”

  “I’m Jerry.” He gave me a dentist’s-dream smile. “You need a refill on that Margarita?”

  I didn’t, but Jerry brought one anyway. He didn’t know Naylor, was a friend of a friend who’d worked on a film. “What kind of film?”

  “You been to a car show? You know how they use those models to sell the cars? That’s what he does on film, uses pretty girls to promote whatever the company sells. Nice line of work, I’m telling you.”

  Jerry was low maintenance, the kind of guy who talks and talks and only expects you to nod occasionally. It was easy to do that and watch the crowd.

  Everywhere, evidence of wealth, on the men more than the women. Pinkie rings and gold chains, diamond stud earrings. Stuff that could be readily sold. The men at the tables weren’t dressed as skimpily as the women. Quite a few wore jackets and with the temperature in the eighties, several of those jackets probably hid shoulder holsters. I’d been to parties like this when I’d first started going with Sam Gianelli. Mob deals, a lot of guests carry.

  Sam would fit right in. He’d appreciate the way the men talked in sentences that were almost incomprehensible because they assumed a certain knowledge. This thing, that stuff, this business—terms that could be recorded and played back without the cops learning a thing. I wished he were here, standing where the vacuous Jerry stood, holding a glass, grinning at me with his eyes over the tilted rim.

  He hadn’t called. I didn’t know where he was staying in Las Vegas. I was worried about him, the worry a dull tattoo underneath the more pressing anxiety about Paolina.

  The band, a Caribbean group with a heavy-handed approach to percussion, took a break to scattered applause. A knot of men strolled by, discussing the future of the Miami Dolphins. I felt a hand close on my bare shoulder. Vandenburg.

  Jerry made tracks. Margaritas and high heels made standing a minor challenge.

  “He didn’t bite,” Vandenburg said. “Wouldn’t give me the man’s number. But he’ll talk to you.”

  I drained my Margarita; the connection between rubbery legs and drink hadn’t quite clicked in my head. “What did you say about me?”

  “Nothing. When he wouldn’t cooperate, I admitted I was acting as an intermediary. He said he’d prefer to deal with the principal.”

  Damn. I’d had more to drink than I’d realized. Should have poured the rest of the Margarita in the pool. “Where is he?”

  “I’ll show you.”

  As we glided through the TV room, a man who’d had more than a few drinks himself lurched into my path. “You one of Drew’s girls?” he asked loudly. I kept walking. We passed a room where couples shook their bodies to a different band than the Caribbean group on the patio. A couple slid discreetly up a curving staircase, possibly headed for bedroom frolics. Drew’s girls. Maybe Naylor had a sideline in pimping. Maybe this shindig was some sort of businessman’s special, a free-for-all escort service.

  I followed Vandenburg through a vast kitchen teeming with white-aproned caterers and bustling waiters, then through a low doorway into a quieter section of the vast house.

  “No threats,” the lawyer reminded me outside a paneled door. “Knock. You want me to come with you?”

  I shook my head.

  “Come to the pool afterward.”

  I waited till Vandenburg disappeared, gave a perfunctory cop knock, turned the knob, and walked in. Cops are always hoping to catch somebody doing something they shouldn’t.

  My quick entry was wasted. Naylor, if the man on the chaise was Naylor, was doing nothing except reclining with closed eyes in a room that looked more gilded than decorated. The heavy drapes were gold, the walls covered in a gold Chinese paper that added touches of scarlet. The carpet was beige, flecked with gold. A walking stick with a carved head leaned against a desk made of pale wood with gilded scrollwork. The color made me feel lucky; maybe the little golden birdman, the spirit guide, was signaling that I’d come to the right place. More likely I was really starting to feel the alcohol.

  “Shut the door.” The man opened his eyes, but other than that, he didn’t move.

  He was heavy at first glance, but it was more a heaviness of shoulders, arms, and chest, like a wrestler. His face seemed long, and while he wasn’t old, maybe forty, he had jowls that pulled the corners of his mouth down. I couldn’t estimate his height very well because he was lying down. He wore a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. Even after he opened them, I couldn’t distinguish their color.

  “You’re missing the party,” I said lightly, not wanting to start with demands before I got a sense of the man. He didn’t look drop-dead attractive to women, yet women heavily outnumbered men at the party. Even a commercial film producer was a man with casting power. He probably had a lot of pop in Miami.

  “So you’re making Vandenburg jump though hoops, eh?” he said, a smile tickling the corners of his droopy mouth.

  “I do what I can.”

  “You wish to find the notorious Roldan.” “I do.”

  “Are you perhaps a ‘journalist’ looking to make some money?” His voice had a hint of generic accent. He wasn’t American-born. Possibly South American, but that’s about all I could tell.

  I shook my head.

  “Then what?”

  What indeed? I was feeling more than a little queasy. A light sweat glistened on my forehead. Too much alcohol too fast.

  Naylor gave me the eye, staring like he could see through my halter, like he knew all about girls like me. But if Vandenburg had told me the truth, all Naylor actually knew was that I was searching for Roldan. The reclining man’s assumption that I was looking to make money was his own.

  When you work undercover you learn a few helpful rules. One of the best is this: Use what the perp brings to the table. Another good one: Be who the perp supposes you to be. What Naylor brought to the table was lechery. What he assumed I brought was greed.

  With hardly a moment’s hesitation, I placed a hand lightly on my stomach and said, “It’s like this: I need to talk to my baby’s father.”

  “Ah.”

  I could read in his satisfied expression that I’d blurted an explanation he could easily believe, and for a moment I believed it, too. It had the advantage of truth; Roldan was my baby’s father, Paolina’s father. Plus it seemed to me a reason that Naylor, plagued with paternity problems of his own, would understand, a strong and urgent reason to find Roldan.

  He looked like he’d enjoyed the revelation. I wondered about his relationship to Roldan. If he held any sort of grudge against him, maybe I could spin that in my favor.

  “I
see.” He blinked, something he didn’t do often. I wasn’t sure, but it seemed to me that one of his eyes was slightly different than the other, a narrower slit in the long face. “May I offer my congratulations?”

  “You could offer me a seat.”

  His mouth twitched, and he nodded toward a brocade-covered chair. For a while we were both silent, but I didn’t mind. I like silence. The room was soundproofed, the loud party no more than a distant repetitive bass.

  He said, “And where did you meet El Martillo?”

  “Panama.” One of the packages of long-ago cash had arrived with a Panamanian coin stuck underneath a layer of bubble wrap.

  “What took you there?”

  “Sometimes I crew on boats.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I see. I knew you weren’t a model. A model looks like a model. She can’t help it. She cants her hips just so when she stands. The training becomes automatic. An athlete, also she stands a certain way. You play tennis, yes?”

  I nodded to make him feel smart. I play volleyball and the arm motion for a spiker is pretty much the same as that of a server. If he was really smart he’d have questioned my lack of a tan.

  “Sometimes the people I crew for invite me to parties,” I said.

  “I would certainly invite you.” His stillness was creepy, lizard-like. His mouth opened and shut, but the rest of his face was a mask. His ears were small and close to his head.

  “Thank you,” I said, “but I don’t need party invitations. What I need is the man’s phone number so I can find out how he treats women after he sleeps with them.”

  “He didn’t feel it necessary to advise you how to get in touch when you parted?”

  “Things have changed.”

  “You learned he was a wealthy man?”

  “I learned I was pregnant,” I said flatly.”

  You’re after money, I suppose.”

  “You giving it away?”

  His head lolled to one side and he laughed, a harsh, grating sound, like the caw of a large crow. “Yes, yes, I see. Well, you have an interesting problem. You like older men?”