by Iris Chacon
Disability pension payments from the DHS were deposited electronically in his bank account on a regular basis, assuring Jean’s modest needs would always be covered.
Dubreau settled into a semblance of a normal life. He attended a daily tai chi workout in Peacock Park at dawn, painted at the Barnacle studio in the mornings, went to physical therapy in the afternoons, puttered around his boat in the evenings. Sometimes he called one of his friends—he never called Mitchell Oberon—and then he turned in early, so he could enjoy the woman in his dreams. That woman was not Carinne.
On Saturday mornings, Jean volunteered at St. Luke’s, performing any task set for him by Sister Elizabeth. The church, daycare center, and adjacent convent had never looked so fresh, their landscaping had never looked so healthy. Sometimes, Dan Kavanaugh, or other parents of St. Luke’s Daycare students, came to help groom flowerbeds or paint buildings.
Saturday afternoons, Jean swam, showered and dressed, and then rowed ashore to meet his ride for Saturday night mass at St. Luke’s Catholic Church.
It was a pleasant routine, a good life, except that he always felt that a part of him was missing. He had promised himself he would not approach Mitchell until he began phase two of his plan. He had taken to calling it Operation Pirate Ship in his mind, and it couldn’t come soon enough, to Jean’s way of thinking.
Mitchell, too, had established a schedule. Morning rounds at the hospital were less exciting after Jean’s discharge, but she still derived a great deal of satisfaction from her work, and hardly anyone noticed if her smile had dimmed by a few watts. She went to a Zumba class three afternoons a week, after work. She volunteered at St. Luke’s neighborhood clinic on Thursday afternoons. She attended mass at St. Luke’s on Sunday mornings.
Sometimes, Mitchell drove by the Dinner Key Marina, which was almost on her way home. And, sometimes she saw a man on the deck of a distant sailboat, and she was tempted to park her car, just to sit and watch those familiar muscles for a while. But, she almost never did.
Sometimes, she took a long walk from her house to the Barnacle Gallery and looked at the latest Jean Deaux painting in the display window. It wasn’t too far, really, and everybody walked in Coconut Grove. It was practically a requirement for residency.
The first time Nurse Erskine offered Mitchell a free kitten, Mitchell turned her down flat. “How pathetic would that be?” Mitchell said. “I refuse to be that stereotypical old maid with all the cats!”
“It’s not ‘cats,’ it’s just one very little cat,” Erskine responded. “You have to have at least six of ‘em before the stereotype kicks in.”
But, Mitchell would not be persuaded.
Nurse Erskine asked again three weeks later, and on her cellphone showed Mitchell a picture of the adorable kittens. Mitchell was a goner.
A day later she had a new, furry roommate—someone to cuddle with on the couch, during the nights she stayed awake being un-lonely. Because she was definitely not lonely. She had a good life. Except that part of her always seemed to be missing, somehow.
In the small South American country of Mirador, the citizens were establishing a new normalcy as well. A new, democratically elected government was daily becoming more organized and efficient. Citizens were hopeful for the future, after several years of civil strife—strife that had ended when the CIA-backed rebels achieved victory over the man who liked to call himself His Excellency.
A colleague of His late Excellency, the man named Iglesias, was seeking a new life, and a new identity, in the United States. And, he was seeking revenge upon Carinne Averell and her bodyguard, the man who had humiliated Iglesias under a midnight moon on the beach at Mathieson Hammock nearly two years ago.
In Iglesias’ mind, that night was the beginning of the end for him. After that night, it was just a matter of time before the Averell arms deal was broken up by the DHS. Those weapons would have turned the tide in Mirador and defeated the rebels, and their CIA helpers. His Excellency’s wedding to Carinne had been ignominiously thwarted as well—not that Iglesias particularly cared who or what might have shared His Excellency’s love nest. The girl, Carinne, had undoubtedly laughed at His Excellency’s failures, and, if she had laughed at His Excellency, she had laughed all the more at Iglesias.
For a while, Iglesias had at least been gratified to know that the insolent bodyguard had been executed by Averell for his part in Iglesias’ degradation on the Mathieson Hammock beach. Since then, however, news had reached him that the bodyguard somehow survived. This was unacceptable. No low-level thug would be permitted to insult and attack Señor Iturralde Iglesias and live.
So, while he had long-range plans to retire to the South of Spain, Iglesias temporarily resided—under another name—in Coconut Grove, Florida, USA. There, he kept watch on the mansion compound where Carinne ran her new business empire, and he frequently observed the sailboat where the surviving ex-bodyguard lived.
Often, after mass on Saturday night, Mandy Stone would pick Jean up at the church and drive them to a restaurant, where they enjoyed dinner together. Neither of them mentioned former-agent Frank Stone. Occasionally, Mandy would ask if Jean had seen or spoken to Mitchell Oberon. The answer was always no.
One Saturday night, when they had finished their entrees, Jean was surprised by a sudden parade of waiters, singing “Happy Birthday” and carrying an absurd ice cream concoction the size of a football, with fiery sparklers fizzling on its top. Even though the waiters sang “Happy Birthday, dear Duby,” Jean was very pleased with the spectacle.
He stood and circled the table to give Mandy a kiss on the cheek.
“Is it really my birthday today?” he asked, resuming his seat behind the ice cream mountain.
“Didn’t you know, dear?”
“I looked at the papers Captain Crockett—”
“Boone,” she corrected.
“Oui, Captain Boone. I looked at the papers he gave me, but I did not care about the day. I only wanted to know the year. It said I was thirty-one this year.” He had only looked that far because knowing his age was important to Mitchell.
“You turned thirty-one years old today,” Mandy said. “Happy birthday, dear.”
“Merci, Maman. Merci beaucoup. Here, there’s an extra spoon.” He pushed the ice cream monolith closer to her and handed her a spoon.
Mandy spooned up her first taste of the dessert and looked at Jean with a “Hmmmm” of delight. “German chocolate,” she said. “Your favorite.”
“It is?” he said. “I have very good taste, don’t I.”
“Indeed you do. Oh, I almost forgot. I hope you won’t be angry, dear.” She leaned down to the tote bag beside her chair and pulled out a silvery metal box. “Francis sent you a present. He said he had always planned to hand it down to you when he retired, so....”
She trailed off. There was no need to say that the retirement had not been voluntary, and there was no need to remind themselves that Frank’s abuse of Duby (and others) had devastated many lives and forced Frank’s resignation from the DHS.
Quietly, Jean accepted the metal box, set it on the table, and raised the lid. It contained Frank Stone’s service revolver.
“I know this gun,” Jean murmured. “He brought it to Michel’s house that night. The night he brought the pictures.” He looked up and met her eyes. “When he told me about Dubreau. About who I was.”
“You don’t have to use it, dear. Frank wanted you to have it, because it’s the kind of thing he would have passed down to ... a son, ... if we had one. Just put it away where it can’t harm anyone. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
Jean nodded, closing the box securely. “Dubreau would thank him,” he said. “Dubreau would understand the importance of such a gift.”
He took a deep breath and let it out. He looked at Mandy with half a smile. “Tell him ‘thank you’ from Dubreau. You and I will know that I am not Dubreau, and I do not deal in death the way he did.”
“Thank God,” she sa
id.
“Oui,” he said. “Hurry up and eat! If this thing melts, we will all be washed away in a chocolate tsunami!”
Between bites of German chocolate ice cream, Mandy said, “Speaking of ‘washed away,’ did you ever finish reading The Pirate’s Flaming Heart?”
“Oh, yes,” he said, grinning. “Nurse Erskine gave me another book after that one. I’m learning a lot. Reading is a good way to learn things.”
“I’ll bet!” Mandy said with a chuckle. “Dare I ask the title of the one you’re reading now?”
“Oui, it’s called A Pirate’s Kiss.”
“Ah!” said Mandy, her eyes twinkling with mirth. “I believe I sense a theme developing here. Does Nurse Erskine read only books about piracy?”
Jean winked at her. “I’m sorry to tell you, Maman, but these books are not really about pirates.”
Mandy laughed. “I thought not,” she said. “I expect that’s why you find them so ... educational. And, please do not tell me anything more specific about them.”
“I will not tell you exactly what I am learning, Maman. But, I can tell you that this learning will be very helpful to me when I begin phase two.”
“Phase two?”
“Oui. Doctor Goldberg calls it ‘phase two.’ I call it ‘winning Michel.’”
She nodded, and they spent the next few minutes enjoying one another’s company and quietly devouring a melting mound of German chocolate ice cream.
Eventually, Mandy asked quietly, in French, “Do you think you will ever forgive Francis?”
He remained silent so long that she thought perhaps he had been daydreaming and had not heard the question. Finally, he answered her in their native tongue, “Sister Elizabeth says I have been forgiven by God, and so I must forgive others. Even Frank Stone. I told her I do not remember most of the bad things I did that God has forgiven me for doing. But I remember the bad things Frank Stone did to Michel and me.”
“Maybe if you forgive Francis, you won’t have to remember the bad things so much any more.”
He nodded. “Like the Sea of Forgetfulness.”
“Is that from a pirate book?”
He smiled and wagged his head, no. “Sister Elizabeth said that when God forgave me, he threw all my bad stuff into the Sea of Forgetfulness, and He does not remember what I did, anymore.”
Mandy smiled, too. “Then, perhaps there is hope that one day you will forgive and forget Francis’ mistakes?”
“I don’t know, Maman. It still hurts when I remember the things Frank Stone did. He could have gotten Michel killed, and me, too.”
“Yes, my love, I know. But, the more you remember those wrongs, the more you will hurt. It is for your wellbeing that you must forgive, not for his. Let Francis deal with the pain of his memories; he deserves to suffer for what he did. You do not. Don’t let his evil fester and sicken your heart. Forgive. And, then you can forget.”
“We’ll see, Maman,” he murmured, in English now. “We’ll see.”
“Let me see your cellphone for a minute.”
“My cellphone?” he asked, even while he was pulling it from it pocket and handing it over.
“Thank you,” she said, and she tapped a number into his contacts list. When she was finished entering the name to go with the number, she handed the phone back to Jean. “There,” she said. “Now you have Francis’ number. When you feel like it, you can talk to him.”
“I do not promise, Maman.”
“I know, I know. I just want you to have the number ready if the day comes when you want to use it, cher.”
Mandy lifted her round posterior from her chair just enough to lean forward and plant a kiss on Jean’s cheek.
Over the coming days and weeks, Jean sometimes looked at his contacts list and tapped Frank Stone’s name. Then, he would look at the number, and sometimes even lift his finger over the phone’s screen as if he were going to tap the number and make the call.
Early one morning, after a restless night spent thinking too much, instead of sleeping, Jean actually tapped the number and listened to the ringing at the other end.
He listened to Frank Stone’s gruff voice answer the phone.
And then, Jean hung up.
A moment later, his phone rang; Frank Stone was trying to find out who had hung up on him.
Jean didn’t answer.
Later that day, Iturralde Iglesias stepped back into Dubreau’s life.
CHAPTER 26 – RECONNECTION
Iturralde Iglesias had been biding his time and fighting boredom for nearly three months. He had determined that Carinne Averell now ran a legitimate corporation and that she was far too well guarded to be an easy target for his revenge.
Very well. He was an adult; he could learn to overlook a mere childish display of disrespect from Carinne. What else was to be expected from the coddled daughter of a rich man. She was a product of her upbringing. Iglesias could be magnanimous and forgive her for laughing at him.
He never considered that the mental image he had formed of Carinne ridiculing him had been constructed wholly in his own mind. At any rate, revenge against the girl was off the table, especially since she was completely out of his reach.
The ex-bodyguard was a different story. The man who lived aboard the Do Bee 2 had once actually laid hands on Iturralde Iglesias! The lout had blindsided Iglesias in an unguarded moment and taken advantage of him in a shameful way, leaving him soaking in Biscayne Bay in an expensive hand-tailored suit, miles from home, in the middle of the night! In Mirador, bigger men had died for smaller offenses, simply because Iturralde Iglesias gave the order.
Yes, the bodyguard would die for his disrespect. As soon as Iglesias could catch the man on dry land and unawares, the man’s death was guaranteed. Iglesias would execute the offender with his own hands – since he no longer had an army taking his orders. Iglesias was no marksman, but he would be close enough to his victim that his aim would not matter at all.
Before murdering the rude oaf, however, Iglesias had a use for him. Many afternoons playing dominoes in the parks of Little Havana, with Cuban ex-patriots, had provided Iglesias with some information and many ideas.
Mirador had been on friendly terms with Cuba. Iturralde Iglesias would not have to use a false name there, as he did in the United States. And, Cuban authorities would not stop him at the airport when he boarded a plane to sunny Spain and a happy retirement.
Iturralde Iglesias needed to get to Cuba, and he knew someone with a boat that could get him there.
At mid-morning on a weekday, only a small number of people strolled Coconut Grove’s sidewalks. Sidewalk cafes served eggs benedict, croissants, pastelitos con guava y queso, and Cuban coffee to a modest clientele. Shops had not been open long, and there were still parking spaces available in the main shopping district around Commodore Plaza.
Iturralde Iglesias pulled his rental car into a space directly in front of the Barnacle Gallery. This was his second day of visiting area art galleries in search of Carinne Averell’s ex-bodyguard. He didn’t have a name yet, but he knew the man was some sort of artist. He cursed himself for wasting yesterday on a wild goose chase, but until he searched the Internet on his phone this morning, he had not realized there was a gallery so close to the marina where the bodyguard lived.
As soon as he stepped out of the heat and humidity into the gallery’s chilly climate-controlled showroom, he knew he had hit paydirt. On the wall opposite the door hung a portrait of the very man he sought. He smiled.
“Good morning! Welcome to the Barnacle Gallery,” chirped a woman, coming out from behind an elegant desk that served as an understated checkout counter. “Would you care for coffee or tea?” She waved vaguely in the direction of a coffee service placed discreetly in a corner.
“Good morning,” he answered, smiling toward her. “Nothing for me, thanks. I’ve just come from breakfast.” He turned his attention toward the portrait. “What can you tell me about this painting?”
“Th
at’s new, from one of our most popular young artists. He signs his work ‘Jean Deaux.’ This is the first time he has painted a self-portrait. I’m afraid it’s not for sale, but we have several other works by the same artist.”
Iglesias’ smile narrowed a little. “Why is it not for sale?”
“I believe the artist intends it as a gift for a special patron. He was good enough to allow us to display it until after his one-man show next month.”
The clerk kept up a steady patter about the paintings on the walls as she escorted her aristocratic-looking customer around the gallery. Iglesias asked careful questions designed to distract her from his real goal: to find the artist known as Jean Deaux.
When the moment seemed right, he asked casually if the artist’s studio was nearby.
The clerk seemed amused. “Oh, yes, you could say it’s very near.” She smiled as she barely lifted one finger to point at the ceiling. Iglesias responded with a smile and a wink, as though they were close friends sharing a delicious secret. “I would love to introduce you but, of course, he cannot be disturbed when he is working. The gallery owner is very strict about that.”
“I understand completely,” said Iglesias, then he glanced at the front of the shop to be sure no pedestrians or motorists were in sight. He withdrew a pistol from beneath his suit jacket and pointed it at the clerk, still smiling cordially. “Now, if you will please lock the door, draw the drapes, and place the ‘closed’ sign in the window.”
Minutes later, after quietly securing the gallery and whacking the clerk unconscious with the butt of his pistol, Iglesias almost whistled to himself as he climbed the stairs to the artist’s studio. At the top of the steps, he knocked once on the closed wooden door and then let himself in.
Jean looked up from his easel in mild surprise. “Bonjour?”