Straits of Fortune

by Anthony Gagliano

  There were two interspersed paragraphs describing Patterson’s military and scientific careers by way of counterpoint: the Rhodes Scholarship, West Point, Vietnam and his heroism during the Tet Offensive back in ’68. There was mention of the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star he had won. Despite my having known him, it was hard not to envy his biography. In an age of myopic specialization, the Colonel had been a Renaissance man. He had walked out of obscurity with nothing but brains and a set of balls and had become a war hero and a millionaire. The gist and tone of the article were all too familiar: Someone who had achieved everything was on the verge of losing it all—another reassuring message for the mediocre who had never dared to reach beyond the meager possibilities of the next paycheck and a sure pension. Back in your place, Colonel Patterson. Who in the hell did you think you were? In the end, despite your genius (which, by the way, we always hated you for, even while we were applauding you), you turned out to be just another liar and another fraud, and we’ll all sleep the better for having known it.

  I finished the article and refolded the newspaper—slowly, as though it were a Christmas present opened prematurely. My head was so crowded with facts it felt like a holding cell after a riot. I closed my eyes and tried to think, but then my stomach grumbled and once again the only thing that made any sense was stale bread, tuna fish, and mustard. All the rest was babel. All the rest, including Pellucid Labs, could wait.

  Then the doorbell rang.

  I turned around. Susan was standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

  “Are you expecting someone?” I asked.

  “Not at this hour,” she said, frowning.

  She swept past me and opened the peephole. “Who is it?” she demanded. By that time I was standing beside the door with my back against the wall.

  “Susan Andrews? Agent Hackbart, FBI. Please, this will only take a moment.”

  Susan glanced at me angrily. All I could do was shrug my shoulders.

  “FBI?” Susan said. “What is it you want?”

  “Please, Miss Andrews. It won’t take long.”

  She glanced again at me. “I’ve got company,” she said to the door. “Come back tomorrow.”

  I gave her the thumbs-up, but the hand it was attached to was trembling again.

  The voice on the other side of the door sounded very solemn and full of foreboding. “We’re not going away, Miss Andrews. We’ll stay here all night if we have to. Let us in and we’ll be gone in twenty minutes.”

  “Tell him to hold on,” I whispered.

  Susan leaned closer. “What are you going to do?”

  “Hide the gun. Tell them to wait.”

  I ran back into the bedroom and stuffed the gun under one of the pillows on the bed. Then I came back into the living room, sat myself down on the sofa, crossed my legs, and tried to look like Cary Grant, as Cal had once suggested. We were six stories up, and I couldn’t fly. The only thing I could do was look nonchalant and hope that they didn’t recognize me. It was impossible to say what the odds of that were. I nodded at Susan, and she opened the door. My heart was doing its best to nail my back to the sofa.

  The door swung in as Susan stepped back, and I was looking at three men in three dark suits. Three pairs of eyes found me at the same moment, froze for an instant, then fanned the room before returning to me. I sensed confusion and even disappointment, but there was no recognition in the way they looked at me. Even so, it was a moment before they took their eyes from mine, and all the while I sat there with my leg crossed over my knee with my arm extended along the back of the couch. I waited until they holstered their guns before I moved, and then it was only to sit forward with both feet on the floor.

  “What’s this about?” Susan asked. “Don’t you know what time it is?”

  Two of them were rookies, both in their late twenties. One was black, and one was white, but the academy at Quantico had somehow made them into twins. I wasn’t worried about either of them, but the older man in the middle was something else. He was about fifty, the shortest of the three, and the first thing you would think when you saw him was that he was a cop.

  He had the permanent tan and seared-looking skin of a sailor in the tropics, or maybe of a tennis nut who plays long sets in the middle of the day. His brown hair was fading to gray, and he had a slight stoop, as though he’d spent a lifetime looking under things. It was his eyes, however, that gave him away, and he knew how to use them. He was using them on me now, gauging my reaction to his scrutiny. I had seen a lot of eyes like that when I was on the force in New York, especially among the homicide detectives. They were the kind of eyes that would remember you.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Andrews,” he said, “but this is important.”

  “In that case let me see some ID, gentlemen.”

  Hackbart glanced at me, but nothing in his eyes registered recognition. I met his gaze and held it, the way you do when you’ve got nothing to hide. The three of them fished out their wallets, but I knew they were legit. Susan was just buying time.

  Susan studied their badges. Hackbart smiled at me. It was the phoniest smile I had ever seen. “I see you have a guest after all,” Hackbart said.

  I stood up as they approached me, and I shook hands with all of them. It was clear that they didn’t know quite what to make of me. Hackbart was still doing his staring routine, trying to see if I had any reason to be nervous. I smiled back at him.

  “Are you guys really FBI?” I asked with false eagerness. No matter how dour and professional cops may like to appear, they love it when you act impressed by them. The rookies did their best to hide their smiles. Hackbart frowned, but at least now I had him thinking I was a simpleton, which is generally a good thing to do when you’re talking to the police. It relaxes them.

  “I’m sorry,” Hackbart said. “I didn’t catch your name.”

  “Jack Vaughn,” I said, hoping that my name—at least as of yet—would mean nothing to him.

  “I see. You’re…”

  “A friend. I just flew in from Rochester this afternoon. I didn’t think Sue would call the FBI on me so soon though.” I glanced over at Susan and grinned. “Say, you guys want a beer?”

  Hackbart looked at me with an expression that was nearly sympathetic.

  “None for me,” he said. I had succeeded in diluting his suspicions. He turned back to Susan.

  “May I sit down?” he asked.

  “Of course.”

  Hackbart told his men to wait downstairs. After they left, he sat in one of the wicker chairs that flanked the coffee table.

  “Would that be Rochester, New York?” he asked.

  “No, sir, Rochester, Minnesota. You know, where the clinic is.”

  “Clinic?”

  “Sure, the Mayo Clinic.”

  Susan came back and sat in the other wicker chair. Hackbart wanted me out of there, but he couldn’t think of a polite way to say so. He scanned my face as though trying to assess the exact degree of my stupidity, whether I in any way posed a risk to his investigation. Then he turned his attention back to Susan.

  “You know a DEA agent named Harry Duncan?” Hackbart asked.

  Susan almost glanced at me then but caught herself just in time. Still, I think Hackbart sensed something. He gave me the stare treatment again. I pretended not to notice.

  “We worked together when I was with the D.A.’s office,” Susan told him. “What of it?”

  “When was the last time you saw him?” Hackbart asked.

  “That’s not exactly an answer to my question.”

  Hackbart smiled. “I forgot. You’re an attorney. You’re the one who gets to ask all the questions, right? Okay, Duncan’s under investigation. Your name was in his Rolodex. He also sent you a half dozen or so e-mails asking you for a date. As far as we could tell from your replies, that never happened, but even so, we need to check you out. You understand that, don’t you?”

  Susan took a chocolate from a box on the table and began to unwrap it. She
looked over the nougat, then popped it into her mouth. She was still buying time, trying to get it together.

  “You must have seized his computer to know all this,” she said. “What kind of investigation are we talking about here?”

  Hackbart didn’t answer. He was back to giving me the once-over. The best cops are nearly psychic in their ability to catch even the slightest fluctuation in a person’s demeanor, and unfortunately for me, Hackbart was of them.

  “May I ask how long you’ll be in Miami, Mr. Vaughn?” Hackbart asked.

  “I head down to the Keys tomorrow. Gonna do a little snorkeling, a little fishing. Then I’m off to Costa Rica for some windsurfing.”

  “I see,” he said. “You understand that everything you hear tonight is confidential? Otherwise I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

  “Look, Hackbart,” Susan said, “you can’t come into my house and tell anybody what to do. Understand? You want to talk to me alone? Fine. I’ll come by the Bureau tomorrow. I know where it is. If you don’t know where Duncan is, then neither do I. In which case neither of us is of any use to the other. Now if you have something to ask, ask, but don’t be rude to my friends.”

  “Uh-oh,” I said, “now you’ve made her mad! Better get your gun out, sir!”

  Hackbart was silent for a moment. “All right, I apologize. Let’s start over. Did Mr. Duncan ever speak with you about his work?”

  “What else do feds talk about when they’re working together?”

  “How long have you known him?”

  “About a year. He testified in some of the cases back when I was with the D.A.”

  “Did he ever tell you where he was born?” Hackbart asked.

  “I think he mentioned New Jersey, Union City. Maybe Newark. Someplace like that.”

  “I don’t think that’s quite correct, Miss Andrews. May I call you Susan?”

  “Let’s keep it formal. It’s too late to make friends.”

  “Duncan was born in Cuba,” Hackbart said.

  “That’s insane!” Susan said. “Duncan’s no more Cuban than I am. Where are you getting this stuff from?”

  “His real name is Bernardo Reyes Díaz. Small detail. I guess he forgot to mention that,” Hackbart said.

  “He told me he was half Irish,” Susan said to no one in particular.

  “Well,” I said, “you know how the Irish lie.”

  Both of them glared at me.

  “Díaz—or Duncan, as you knew him—was a lieutenant in the Cuban army,” Hackbart continued. “He served in Angola during the seventies. After that he was an intelligence agent. He arrived in Miami via Spain a few years ago as far as we can tell. In other words, he’s a spy.”

  “So much for background checks,” Susan said.

  “And they let him into the DEA?” I said. “Wow!”

  “Not knowingly, no,” Hackbart said, scowling at me. “There was a real Harry Duncan, a student at the University of Miami who died in a motorcycle accident in 1985. Díaz stole his identity. It’s easy enough to do, and besides, he had help. This town is crawling with Cuban spies. They helped him set things up. The false employment records, the good references, credit history, the whole nine yards. Then he got into the Agency. You want to know how we found all this out? Well, every now and then we catch ourselves a spy, and, as is usually the case, he gives someone up to save himself.” He looked at Susan. “This time it was Duncan.”

  “Why’d he join the DEA?” I asked.

  Hackbart glared at me. “You ask a lot of questions for a fellow from Minnesota,” he said. “But the answer is, we don’t know. There have been rumors for years that Castro is involved in the drug trade. If they’re true, it may be he wanted someone on the inside to see if we were getting close to anything. Fidel is a first-class asshole, but he has an image to protect. He wouldn’t want it to get out that he was making money off of the narcotics trade through the Caribbean. That wouldn’t look too good to his friends at the United Nations.”

  “But Harry didn’t even speak Spanish,” Susan said hopelessly.

  “Not to you he didn’t. By the way, he also spoke Russian. Did you know that?”

  “So what now?” Susan asked. “You think maybe he went back to Cuba?”

  “It’s possible. His cover here is blown. All we know is that he stopped using his cell phone a few days ago. That much we do know, because we’ve been keeping an eye on him for a while now. He had two phones. Two cell phones, that is. One he used for work. The other he didn’t think anybody knew about, but we knew. By the way, do you know a man by the name of Randy Matson?”

  Susan hesitated, and once again she managed to keep from jerking her head in my direction.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. I let out a breath. “Who’s he?”

  “He was a friend of Duncan’s,” Hackbart said.

  “Don’t know the name. Should I?” Susan asked.

  “Matson makes stag movies. Pornography, but we think that may be a cover. We’ve been watching him, too. Matson had a yacht named The Carrousel. A very nice boat. You’d have to sell a hell of a lot of dirty movies to buy a boat like that. The last time we saw it, he was anchored off Sunset Beach. We haven’t figured out why it was there yet. The coast guard had it under surveillance, but the cutter assigned to the detail got called away on an emergency. They were tracking a boatload of illegals, and they didn’t figure the yacht would leave in the middle of the night, but they were wrong. They’re so underfunded over there it’s a wonder they make payroll, let alone help us out. Now the yacht is gone.”

  “Man,” I said, “this is just like the movies!”

  Hackbart grinned. “I hope I’m not ruining your vacation, though from the look of that burn, I’d say you’ve already had too much sun. You’ve been to Miami before, haven’t you?”

  “Sure, lots of times.”

  “I know. I’ve seen you.”

  “Really? Where?”

  “That I don’t recall, but I’ve seen you.” He stood up. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “You ever go to Spurs?” I asked.

  Hackbart frowned. “What’s that?”

  “Oh, nothing. Just a nightclub,” I told him. “It’s a gay place. I go there a lot. I thought maybe you had seen me there.”

  Hackbart looked at me in amazement and laughed. His white teeth flashed liked unmarked dice. “No, I don’t think it was there.” He turned to Susan, who was still sitting in the wicker chair, staring at the floor as though there were a movie playing on it.

  “I’m still trying to figure out where I know you from,” he said in a friendly tone of voice. I could tell it was really bugging him. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he ran a check on me the moment he got back to the office.

  “It’ll come back to you,” I said.

  “Say, you don’t have to answer this if you don’t want, but I was just wondering. You don’t by any chance have a criminal record, do you?”

  “Not yet,” I said, grinning. “But the night is young.”

  “Not for me,” Hackbart said. “Well, good night, folks. I’ll be in touch.”

  The agent gave me one last long, searching look and closed the door behind him. Neither Susan nor I said anything to one another for a few seconds. We were both enjoying the sudden pleasure of Hackbart’s absence. But not for long.

  “You going to tell me how you know Duncan?” Susan asked sternly. “Or should I just strangle you now?”

  “Maybe Matson introduced him to me someplace. I don’t remember,” I said. “In my business you meet a lot of people.”

  Susan put her head down for a moment, then looked up. “They’re not after you,” she said. “Not the FBI anyway. They’re a bit myopic when it comes to a case. If they do anything at all, they’ll turn it over to the local cops, unless they believe that crap about you being a smuggler. That’s a federal matter, but I don’t care about that right now. I just want you out of here before I lose my law license.”

  “It’s strange,
that stuff about Harry,” I said absentmindedly. “I mean him being a Cuban. Maybe Matson was, too. Shit, maybe we all are.”

  “Maybe you should leave. I’m not in the mood for you right now.”

  I stood up. “I need a lift to South Beach.”

  “The son of a bitch was a spy,” she said, more to herself than to me.

  “I could take a cab, but I’ll need transportation once I get there.”

  “You think I’m stupid, don’t you?” Susan asked.

  “Susan, I have to head out.”

  “What the hell is going on here, Jack? Why are you bullshitting me? You know Duncan. Tell the truth. You were staring at his picture in my bedroom. Why? Because he’s so cute? Come on! And Duncan knew Matson. Tell me you didn’t know that.”

  “Not until fairly recently,” I said. “But I can tell you this much: They’re both dead.”

  “What?”

  “They’re dead. Dead and buried.”

  “Tell me what’s going on here, Jack. Were they murdered?”

  “That’s right. Shot. Both of them.”

  Susan stared at me for a hard moment, her eyes full of doubt, perhaps even fear.

  “I didn’t kill them, if that’s what you’re thinking,” I said.

  “But you know who did.”

  “I thought I did, but now I’m not so sure. Listen to me, Susan. I was wrong to come here, but it’s too late to change that. You’re right: There is a lot I’m not telling you, but the less you know, the more you can deny without lying about it. Right now I just need one more favor, and then I’ll be out of here.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding, right?”

  “Do you still have that old BMW you used to drive? I need to borrow it.”

  To my surprise, Susan said nothing. She just stared at me searchingly, as though for the first time finally realizing how truly crazy I really was. Still without saying a word, she got up, fetched a set of keys from a rack by the front door, and tossed them to me.

  “Take it. I’m not sure if it will start,” she said. “I haven’t used it in a while. It’s parked way in the back of the garage with a gray plastic cover over it.”