Duby's Doctor

by Iris Chacon

  Carinne Averell, looking innocently pretty and naively young, emerged from the first limousine behind the hearse. In her exquisitely tailored black mini-dress and Jimmy Choo shoes, she walked carefully across damp grass to the top of the knoll, where pallbearers would set a casket in place over an open, new grave.

  Thirty feet below the sea’s surface, a spearfishing diver swam through a wall of rainbow-colored parrotfish. Around him the living reef was a fairyland of waving, pastel pink fan coral and spring green fernlike plants dancing in the current. Before he could find and spear the massive grouper he sought, the diver would displace from his path many orange clownfish, with their black and white stripes, as well as a dozen species of yellow, blue, green, and even red, finny reef denizens.

  Two impressive bodyguards followed close behind Carinne as she trekked to the grave. One was Rico, whose huge, muscled body was as hard as his charcoal heart. The second was Yves Dubreau, seemingly emotionless behind mirrored sunglasses. The men were evenly matched physically, though they were opposites in every other way. Rico was dark inside and out, swarthy, raven haired, morose, amoral. Duby was lighter in coloring and hid a sunny disposition beneath a marble-cool facade.

  On the reef off Key Largo, a spearfishing diver swam past two mean-looking, extremely toothy barracuda circling one another.

  At the cemetery, the second limousine had parked behind the first. No one got out of the second limousine.

  On the opposite side of the grassy knoll, a homely couple in their late fifties, Frank and Mandy Stone, walked toward the grave. At the base of the knoll, they had parked their nondescript old sedan.

  A spearfishing diver stopped a moment and hovered beneath the waves, observing two heavy, green sea turtles lumbering across the reef.

  When the dowdy couple arrived at the graveside, Frank Stone comforted a weeping Carinne, and the casket was lowered without ceremony into the grave. Mandy Stone exchanged an enigmatic look with the bodyguard, Dubreau. Rainwater plopped from the tree limbs around them. No one spoke. Rico turned and looked at the second limousine as if for instructions.

  A shark cruised the coral reef slowly and deliberately, fearing nothing, hungry for anything. His hide was dull gray in color, sandpaper rough in texture, and his black eyes were soulless. His slightly open, massive mouth created the illusion of a surly scowl.

  Out of nowhere, WHACK, a spear zapped through his body. The shark thrashed, dying, and painted the water with his blood.

  With the casket out of sight, and no further ritual to be observed, Mandy Stone trudged alone back down the knoll toward her old car. Frank Stone escorted Carinne toward the first limousine on the opposite side of the knoll. Carinne leaned on Stone’s arm and wept as she walked. Stoically, Rico and Dubreau walked behind them down the hill.

  The foursome was halfway to Carinne’s limo when the passenger rear window of the second limo whirred down. A man’s arm beckoned to Rico and Dubreau, both of whom responded instantly. The two bodyguards stepped forward to flank Carinne and Stone. Rico took Carinne’s elbow; Dubreau walked close beside Stone, forcing him to turn with them toward the second limo.

  When they reached the second limo, Rico opened the rear passenger door and nudged Carinne. Before she could enter the car, Stone stepped in front of her, placing his back toward the passenger waiting inside the car.

  “You drop me a line when you get back to school, okay, honey?” Stone told her.

  “I ... Uncle Francis, it’s not that I don’t love you and Aunt Mandy ... you know that, don’t you?” Carinne’s eyes begged for understanding – communicating much more to Frank Stone than did her words.

  Before Carinne could say more, her father, Kyle Averell, leaned forward from the interior of the car and, reaching around Stone, took Carinne’s hand. Averell began to pull Carinne into the car. Where Stone was perpetually common and rumpled, Averell was elegant and smooth. Stone was nearly bald, with beard stubble blurring his jawline, while Averell sported a carefully coiffed silver mane and cosmopolitan goatee.

  “Carinne will not be returning to the university,” Averell said, without bothering to look at Stone. “Her services will be needed at home, henceforth, as I find myself without a hostess now that her mother has passed away.”

  “You mean, now that you’ve killed her mother, you greasy snake!” Stone growled and launched himself at Averell.

  Dubreau moved like lightning, pulling Stone away from Averell while at the same time placing himself between Stone and Rico, who had drawn a pistol from beneath his black linen suit jacket.

  Sarcasm dripped from Averell’s lips: “Control! Control, Agent Stone! Suicide is scandalous enough without your getting arrested at your poor sister’s funeral! Such unfortunate publicity; very bad for the family honor.” Averell gestured to Dubreau and commanded, “Duby, escort the nice agent to his vehicle.”

  Stone struggled against Dubreau, determined to harm Averell.

  A cry from Carinne stopped him.

  “Duby! Don’t hurt him!” she called. “Uncle Francis, I know you’re upset, but Mother was sick. Daddy did the best he could. At least she’s at peace now. Please, just go home. Please.”

  Stone subsided and allowed himself to be turned around and marched away by Dubreau.

  When they had crossed the top of the knoll and started down the other side, now many yards away from the limousines, Dubreau walked shoulder-to-shoulder with Stone toward the vintage sedan. They talked without turning their heads toward one another, but faced straight ahead all the way.

  “I should have shot him when I had the chance,” muttered Frank Stone.

  “You know you can’t hit anything with that old bent sight, anyway,” said Duby. “Should get that thing fixed.”

  After a few more steps, Stone said, “With her mother gone, Carinne’s going to need a friend on the inside.”

  “Maybe.”

  “The original cold fish, aren’t ya. Y’know, a good Do Bee would put that camera you call a brain in gear and get me what I need for the grand jury, okay?”

  “Workin’ on it.”

  They reached Stone’s car. Duby opened the driver’s door and ushered Stone inside – from a distance it looked rough. Inside the car, Mandy Stone sat stiffly and looked straight out the windshield.

  Stone turned to look into Duby’s mirrored sunglasses.

  “Even E.T. phoned home once in a while,” Stone quipped.

  “Soon. When I’ve got everything you need.”

  “Watch your back,” said Stone, then started his car and pulled away.

  Duby jogged back toward the waiting limousine. The empty hearse and extra limo were already gone.

  Inside Frank and Mandy Stone’s car, the only sound was the laboring old engine and the squeaky springs of the seats. The second sound was exacerbated by the ineffectual shock absorbers. When they left the pitted cemetery road behind them, the bump-squeak, bump-squeak was replaced by a steady hum of tires on smooth pavement.

  Mandy Stone was not happy with her husband. “You said he was on vacation,” she snapped.

  “I said he was fishing. He is fishing,” Stone said.

  “I hope your superiors at Homeland Security will find that amusing, because I sure don’t. And, on top of everything else, it’s your fault he’s missing the spearfishing rodeo.”

  “Don’t start.”

  “One flounder left in the freezer. One measly flounder. And, now he may not live long enough to get us more.”

  Stone raised his voice, indicating the end of this discussion. “I can’t pull him out! We’re too close. We’ll never get this close again.”

  Mandy blew her nose loudly into a flowered handkerchief.

  At the impressive Mediterranean-style mansion on the edge of Coconut Grove, the security guard named Lazaro accompanied his attack dog on patrol inside the surrounding wall. From the castle-like tower, an armed sentry looked down onto the electrified gates, the swimming pool, and the tennis courts.

  In t
he pool, Carinne swam laps, dimly aware of four men approaching from the house, across the vast lawn. Her father and his two bodyguards, Rico and Dubreau, were, of course, familiar to her. She did not yet personally know the man named Iglesias, but she knew his name and his history as a negotiator and paramilitary leader for a South American dictator.

  Carinne had finished her laps and was climbing out of the pool when the four men arrived at poolside and greeted her.

  Her father introduced her with a gracious gesture. “Señor Iglesias: my daughter, Carinne.”

  Carinne would have wrapped herself in her beach towel, but Rico stepped between her hand and the chair on which the towel rested.

  Iglesias leered at her. Her father merely seemed pleased by his guest’s reaction. She wanted to cover herself with her hands, but such an obvious gesture would certainly bring her father’s displeasure down upon her.

  Carinne heard a welcome voice say, “Mademoiselle ....” Then Dubreau stepped from behind Rico and wrapped her beach towel around her shoulders. It covered her like a tent, from neck to ankles.

  Dubreau’s face was expressionless. His mirrored glasses reflected the wall of three dark-suited men staring at her. She said nothing, but her heart swelled with gratitude for that towel.

  Averell invited Iglesias to settle with him in upholstered patio chairs near the rose bushes. Averell motioned at Carinne to stay, and he had Dubreau bring a chaise from across the patio to the rose garden. Carinne was to sunbathe before Iglesias’ greedy eyes.

  Dubreau placed the chaise, lifted the adjustable backrest so that Carinne could sit rather than lie down, and handed her the book she had been reading and had left near the pool. He patted her shoulder reassuringly while blocking the view of Averell and Iglesias. When Duby would have stationed himself near the chaise, Carinne pretended to fuss with her hair – using small gestures to warn him away. He went to stand behind Averell and Iglesias.

  Averell and Iglesias talked business. It was the kind of business that results in bloody civil war and desperately oppressed people in small, third world countries. Rico stood nearby, motionless as a statue. Dubreau picked a single rose from the nearest bush, and while the men talked, he idly stripped the long stem of its thorns. No one would have guessed that he even heard – much less remembered – every word spoken.

  Lazaro and his dog continued their patrol. The tower sentry remained alert.

  “So, general-ly – if you’ll pardon the pun – how are things going in Mirador?” Averell said.

  Iglesias crossed one leg over the opposite knee. He exhaled, indicating he had concerns but was not in great distress. “The rebel pockets in the hills are always the problem. The CIA keeps them too well supplied. Too well ‘advised.’”

  Averell nodded. “Anything they have, I can get for you. Perhaps it would be mutually beneficial for His Excellency and me to enter into a long-term arrangement.”

  Averell produced two cigars from his breast pocket and gave one to Iglesias, who seemed delighted. Averell continued, “Let me make some calls and arrange for you to see what I can offer you: a solid network and a bottomless inventory. State of the art.”

  Iglesias was enjoying his cigar and leering at Carinne while listening to Averell.

  Averell saw this and used it. “But, all work and no play, eh?” he said. “I had tickets to the theater for this weekend, but I will be busy making His Excellency’s arrangements. Would you consent to accompany my daughter to the performance?”

  Iglesias grinned. “But of course,” he said.

  A half-hour later, Averell and Iglesias adjourned to the house with the two bodyguards, leaving Carinne to read in her chaise. Rico walked ahead of the two businessmen. Dubreau, trailing behind them, dropped the, now thornless, rose beside Carinne’s chaise and kept walking. He did not look toward her until the men crossing the grass were a long way from the pool.

  Carinne did not look toward the bodyguard or the other three men at all. She kept her eyes upon her open book even while one hand reached down to lift the rose from the grass. She brought the delicate bloom to her nose and inhaled its sweetness. Then she closed the rose inside her book.

  At dawn the following morning, Dubreau jogged down the driveway toward the electric gates. He was out for his standard dawn constitutional.

  At the gate, he punched a security code into a wall-mounted keypad. The gate glided open. Duby jogged out onto the street, and the gate closed slowly behind him.

  He jogged along the residential streets of Coconut Grove, winding his way past stunning architecture, Bohemian cottages and lush tropical plants. The sun was still behind the eastern horizon, the sky still dark in the west, and few vehicles traveled the tangled narrow lanes that served as streets.

  After passing Peacock Park, he jogged into the parking lot of the Dinner Key Marina. He circled the seafood restaurant adjacent to the marina, and when he came to the metal-fenced trash dumpster behind the building, he leapt for the top of the seven-foot opaque gate and heaved himself effortlessly over it. Catlike he landed in the narrow space between the dumpster and the concealing fence. He reached into a hollow atop a corner post of the fence and pulled out a cellular telephone in a weatherproof case.

  Running in place, he punched numbers into the phone, waited, and then responded to someone’s answer. “It’s me, E.T.,” he said. “Be ready to move in a week. Ten days at the most.”

  He listened to the other party for a moment, then said, “I promise I’ll have a head full of specific names, dates, and places. He’s going down. No way out for him this time.”

  The other party said something emphatically. Duby placated them with, “Just be ready. I’ll call.”

  Still running in place, he disconnected the call, replaced the phone in its case, and replaced the case in its hideaway. Then, he vaulted over the gates as quietly and easily as before, landed softly on the pavement, and continued his regular morning jogging route, satisfied that he was unobserved.

  Mid-morning saw Carinne on the tennis court, beneath the watchful eye of the tower sentry, slamming a winning serve past an aging tennis pro named Jerry. She and her opponent approached the net, shook hands, and went their separate ways – Jerry to the equipment building, Carinne to the main house.

  Inside the mansion, Carinne strode through long, marble corridors carrying her warm-up jacket, towel, and water bottle. Determination hardened her face. She walked past two employees in business suits who were sweeping an electronic detecting device across the wall hangings, paintings, and other furnishings in the corridor. At the main entrance to the house, two dark-suited men were erecting and troubleshooting a metal detector worthy of any major airport.

  Through a distant open door, she saw white-coated kitchen staff setting up a buffet table as long as a fishing pier. One man in a dark suit stood by and watched their progress.

  Carinne stopped at a closed door and knocked.

  “Come!” her father shouted from beyond the door.

  She entered her father’s office to see him at his ornate desk, so large that she secretly thought of it as a mahogany ping-pong table. As a little girl, she would beg her mother to bring a ball and paddles and sneak into the room for a game of table tennis, but Mother never would. Daddy’s office was forbidden territory, even to his wife and daughter. Especially to his wife and daughter. And her mother was careful to avoid the Wrath Of Dad whenever possible.

  Averell had spread detailed drawings of the estate upon the desk and was discussing strategic security points with Rico and Dubreau, who flanked him. Carinne flopped into a chair across the desk from them and let her jacket and water bottle tumble to the floor beside her.

  Averell and Rico took no notice of her. Dubreau removed his sunglasses from his shirt pocket, turned to get a tissue from a nearby dispenser, and, while he wiped the lenses, sent Carinne a wink he knew the other men would not see.

  When Averell finished what he had been saying to Rico and Duby, he spared a glance for Carinne w
hile he turned the huge blueprint pages. “Did you win today, sweetheart?” he asked, obviously disinterested.

  “Of course,” said Carinne. “Jerry’s getting old. Plus, over the years, he’s taught me all his tricks. Daddy, why can’t I just go to one of the clubs to play – and meet some new people?”

  “Nonsense. If Jerry is too old, we’ll get you a new coach.”

  Carinne quietly exhaled and seem to deflate into the depths of the luxuriously upholstered chair. She looked around Averell’s office. Nothing had changed since the last time she had been here. Nothing ever changed, at least not for her.

  A new idea blinked into her mind and she sat up straighter in the chair. “I know you’re going to be busy this afternoon – getting ready for your big meeting and all – so, I thought I could just drive myself to the dentist. Then, you won’t have to spare someone to go with me.”

  “No.” Her father didn’t even look up from his papers.

  “I’ll go straight there and straight back, I promise.”

  “You are far more important to me than any meeting.” His body language said she was less important than the blueprints on his desk. “Dubreau will drive you. Rico can handle the guests.”

  Dubreau and Rico looked at one another. No love lost there.

  “I should stay,” said Duby. He couldn't gather information if he wasn't on site.

  “You go. Rico stays this time. That’s all.” Averell’s tone closed the conversation.

  Rico smirked as if he had just been confirmed as teacher’s pet.

  Carinne stood and moved wordlessly toward the door.