Cash Landing (11 page)

R
uban drove straight home. Before heading to his mother-in-law's place and letting Beatriz see her son in this condition, he wanted Savannah to clean him up. But first he laid down some ground rules.

“Jeffrey, wake up.”

Jeffrey was curled up in the backseat. Ruban shook him gently, trying to wake him. “Listen to me,” said Ruban.

He grunted but seemed to be reasonably alert.

“Savannah has no idea I was part of the heist. She thinks it was just you, your uncle, and one of his friends. You got that?”

“Uh-huh.”

“If you say anything to make her think I was part of this, you are going to wish the kidnappers had never let you go. Understand?”

“Yeah, whatever you say, bro.”

“Good. Come on,” Ruban said, pulling him from the seat. Jeffrey was a complete load, absolutely no help in getting out of the car. His arms hung limply over Ruban's shoulders, and Ruban managed to pull him from the backseat piggyback style. Jeffrey would have fallen flat on his face in the driveway if he hadn't draped his body over Ruban's back. Ruban struggled to put one foot in front of the other, Jeffrey's feet dragging behind him like disc plows. Savannah hurried out to meet them in the driveway.

“Oh, you poor boy. What did they do to your face?”

Jeffrey grumbled something unintelligible, drooling on the back of Ruban's neck as he tried to speak.

“We should take him to the emergency room,” said Savannah.

Ruban could barely stand beneath the weight. “
I
need the emergency room.”

The front steps were a challenge, but they finally got Jeffrey inside and laid him on the couch. His battered face looked even worse in the light. Savannah raided the medicine cabinet and brought out everything from painkillers to cotton balls. Ruban acted as his own chiropractor, arching and twisting his spine until it popped back into place. He watched from the armchair as Savannah tended to her brother's face.

“Open your mouth, Jeffrey.” She dabbed his gums with a wet washcloth, but even a gentle touch made him scream. “Thank God it's just the bottom teeth,” she said.

“They only took the gold,” said Ruban.

“He needs a dentist.”

“They have really good ones in Thailand. Cheap.”

“Please be serious.”

“I'm totally serious,” said Ruban. “That's where I'm sending him. Your mother, too. Jeffrey told his kidnappers that his cash was in your mother's house. They both need to get out of Miami. Out of the country is even better.”

“We'll talk about that later.” She put two Tylenol in Jeffrey's mouth and told him to swallow.

“Let's talk now,” said Ruban. “We got a major problem. Don't forget that these guys started out asking for a million dollars. They settled for four hundred thousand, but now they know Jeffrey's an easy mark. If we don't get him the hell out of Miami, they'll come back.”

Savannah looked at her husband with concern. “What about you and me? Are we easy marks? What if they kidnap one of us?”

Ruban caught his brother-in-law's eye, reminding him
about the ground rules they'd established in the car. “What about it, Jeffrey? What'd you tell them about Savannah and me?”

“Nothing, bro. I told them the money was mine, nobody else's. They wanted to know who could find it, and I said my uncle or my sister. That's it.”

Good dog.
Ruban sat forward in his chair, his interrogation mode. “Did you tell them how you got your money?”

“I said I cashed in a lottery ticket.”

That jibed with what El Padrino had told him at the Holy Santería Church of Our Lady of the New Cadillac.

“Did they believe you?” asked Savannah.

“They didn't say they didn't,” said Jeffrey.

“It was a good try,” said Ruban. “But I'm pretty sure they know it didn't come from a lottery ticket. Ramsey basically dared me to call the cops and report the kidnapping. He knows I can't, which means he knows that Jeffrey's money isn't legit.”

“That doesn't mean they know it's from the heist,” Savannah said. “What'd you tell Ramsey when you hired him to watch Jeffrey?”

Jeffrey tried to sit up, but he was in too much pain. “What?” he asked, grimacing. “Hired?”

Ruban shot his wife a look that said “
Shut it
.” Savannah shoved two more Tylenol in Jeffrey's mouth. “Here, baby. Take your medicine.”

He spat out the pills. “What did you say about hiring Ramsey to watch me?”

“I misspoke,” said Savannah.

“No, I heard you.”

The cat was out of the bag. “I did it for your own good,” said Ruban.

“So you hired Ramsey, and Ramsey got me kidnapped?”

That was Ruban's take, but he saw no upside in agreeing with Jeffrey. “We don't know what happened.”

“Bull
shit
,” said Jeffrey. “That's exactly what happened. I'm not going to Thailand. I'm not going nowhere.”

“Oh, you're going, all right,” said Ruban.

“No, I'm not. You just tell your friend Ramsey to leave me alone.”

“What for? So you can shove more coke up your nose and throw money at the Gold Rush whores?”

“Fuck you, Ruban.”

“Fuck
me
?” Ruban said, rising. “Who's going to protect you next time?”

“Nobody asked you to protect me.”

“Your
sister
did.”

“Yeah, like you protected her when you knocked her off your motorcycle?”

Ruban went at him, but Savannah jumped between them before he could take a swing. “Stop it!”

Ruban froze. Jeffrey peered up through his fingers, instinctively having brought his hands up to cover his face.

“I can't have you fighting each other,” she said.

“You're lucky I don't knock the rest of your teeth out,” said Ruban.

“You're lucky I don't tell—”

“That's enough,” said Savannah, stopping Jeffrey in mid-sentence. And it was a good thing she had. Ruban was pretty sure he was on the verge of outing his role in the heist.

“Both of you—listen to me,” said Savannah.

Ruban stepped back. Jeffrey was breathless from the excitement, his belly heaving.

“We are going to work through this,” she said. “It doesn't matter who kidnapped Jeffrey. If they think he had only four hundred thousand dollars, this should be the end of it.”

“That's exactly what they think,” said Jeffrey. “I told Bambi that's all I had left, and she believed me.”

“Who's
Bambi
?” asked Ruban.

“She's the woman who brought me to the parking lot. She's my friend.”

Ruban groaned. “Bro, she made you walk alone to my car so I couldn't see her face. She ain't your
friend
.”

“Yes, she—”

“It doesn't matter!” Savannah shouted. It was loud enough to startle both men into silence. She caught her breath and kept talking. “Listen to me. Thanks to Ruban, we paid less than half the ransom they asked for. So even if you had a right to this money—which you don't—you have no right to hold a grudge against us.”

“Fine. Just so long as I can spend what's left.”

“You have more money here in Mom's house?”

“No. I gave some to El Padrino to hold for me.”

“How much?” asked Ruban.

“None of your business.”

Ruban shook his head. “You're never gonna see that money again, Jeffrey. I already talked to him. He won't give it up.”

“Not to you. But to me he will.”

“Quiet,” said Savannah. “No more blowing through money. Jeffrey, if and when you get back anything from your godfather, you give it to Ruban, and we straighten this out. Maybe we hire a lawyer.”

“NO!
” they shouted in unison.

“Okay, maybe not a lawyer. But no more spending sprees.”

“It's my money.”

“You can't touch it, and the only way to make sure you don't is for Ruban to take control.”

“But I need my money, Savannah.”

“No. You told this Bambi that the ransom was every last cent you had. As long as we all keep acting like we don't have any money, then they have no reason to kidnap any of us. Once upon a time, you had four hundred thousand dollars. It doesn't matter if you cashed in a lottery ticket or stole it from a drug dealer. Now it's gone, and there's no more. End of story. Am I right, Ruban?”

Ruban was still reeling from her “hire a lawyer” comment,
but otherwise Savannah was making sense. “I can act broke for as long as it takes,” he said. “I'm not sure Jeffrey can.”

“He can if he doesn't know where his money is.”

“This sucks,” said Jeffrey.

“Jeffrey, do you want me to tell Mom you've been practically living at the Gold Rush?”

She was playing on Jeffrey's worst fear: daughter forces Mom to see the truth; Mom goes into instant cardiac arrest—or, worse, kicks her deadbeat son out of the house.

“Shit,” he said softly.

“Do you promise to play by the rules this time?” she asked.

He made a face, but it was more tooth pain than an expression of disagreement. “I guess so,” he said, wincing.

“Good,” said Savannah. “It's settled. Next problem. I'm going to see if I can get a dentist on the phone. You boys behave yourselves.”

She left the room to get her phone. Ruban fell into the armchair. Jeffrey tried to find a more comfortable position on the couch, but he was like a beached whale, and his butt sank even deeper into the crack between the cushions. Both men avoided eye contact, and the silence was getting awkward.

“Ruban?”

He didn't answer. His anger was still smoldering, and starting a conversation without Savannah in the room to referee was a risky proposition.

“I'm sorry I brought up the motorcycle,” said Jeffrey. “And I know you didn't knock Savannah off it.”

Ruban sighed. He hadn't expected an apology, and it was decent of Jeffrey to try and remove the sting from words spoken in anger. But it didn't really matter that he hadn't knocked Savannah off of his motorcycle. He might as well have.

“Thanks, bro,” he said without heart. “I appreciate that.”

“Even when those guys ripped out my caps, I never said nothin' about you having any of the money or being part of the
heist. I stuck to my guns and told them I had only four hundred thousand. That's why they asked for that much ransom.”

It rang true, and Ruban had figured as much.

“And I won't tell Savannah you were part of the you-know-what. So, are we cool?”

Ruban glanced over. Jeffrey's face was a swollen mess, and the loss of his gold caps had left his lower mouth misshapen. He was such a pain in the ass, but he was clearly reaching out for Ruban's approval, which made it hard to stay angry. All he seemed to want was someone to say “You done good, Jeffrey.”

“Yeah, we're cool,” said Ruban, but he didn't feel it. “For now.”

S
avannah stayed behind and watched television, alone, while Ruban drove Jeffrey home.

She'd cleaned him up as best she could, but she didn't want to be there for the wailing when her mother laid eyes on his battered face. The dentist would see him first thing in the morning. It was up to Ruban to decide how much cash to give Jeffrey to fix his teeth.

“Yuck,” Savannah said. Jeffrey had left a spot of blood on the arm of their couch. She got a rag to clean it up, which took only a few minutes, but that was long enough for her to lose the storyline on the TV drama she was watching. She channel-surfed for more mindless entertainment, but nothing captured her interest. It wasn't the networks' fault: there was more than enough “so bad, it's good” programming to distract the average viewer. It was Savannah's lack of focus. Her mind was elsewhere.

The trip to their old house in Kendall had been an unexpected setback. Jeffrey's mention of the motorcycle accident had completed the emotional double whammy. It had taken the doctors a while to assess the full extent of the injuries to her fallopian tubes, and after six long months of depression, she'd made it a point not to dwell on “the situation.” But tonight was like a punch in the gut, going back to the place where they'd planned to raise children coupled with the blunt reminder that she couldn't have them.

Ruban, you can't buy back what's lost.

The only person ever to say it was fixable was Jeffrey's godfather—El Padrino
—
who'd told her that she would remain barren only so long as she lived a sinful life. She'd told him and his Santería beliefs to get lost, not even bothering to point out that she was no more of a sinner than millions of women who seemed to have no trouble at all popping out babies. But now she wondered. In hindsight, maybe it was punishment for the multimillion-dollar sin she had not yet committed, the biggest sin of her life: letting her brother and uncle hide all that money, telling the police nothing. Until this, she'd never really stolen anything. Never concealed anything so big. Well, maybe
one thing
.

It had to do with her dream job. The one that had slipped through her fingers.

Miami had its share of distinguished private schools, but for anyone who wanted the one-stop option of “pre-K through 12,” Grove Academy was of singular distinction. The wooded five-acre campus was in Coconut Grove, right on Biscayne Bay, and students who didn't come to school each morning in a Lexus or BMW might arrive by boat. No class had more than twelve students. Mandarin Chinese was mandatory beginning at age three. Classrooms had the latest SMART Board technology, and any student who didn't have a brand-new laptop every September was living in the Dark Ages. About once every decade, someone made it through the fifth grade without being named a “Duke TIP kid,” but the best of the best weren't aiming for Duke, or any other college south of Cambridge, with the possible exception of the one in New Haven.

Savannah would never forget the day she'd landed the job in the art department.

Or the day she'd lost it.

“Headmaster Burns wishes to see you in her office, Savannah.”

She looked up from the desk in her tiny office. Savannah was
one of two apprentices who worked under the Grove's perennial art teacher, who was standing in the open doorway. The school day had not yet begun, but in forty-five minutes a dozen seventh-graders would flood into the art room, expecting to work with acrylics.

“Now?”

“Yes. Right away.”

Savannah glanced nervously at the clock on the wall, concerned that she wouldn't be ready for class. But when the headmaster called, the newest teacher's assistant at the Academy didn't say “Later.” She laid her work aside and hurried downstairs to the administrative offices.

“Please have a seat,” said the headmaster.

Headmaster Burns wasn't smiling, which Savannah took as a very bad sign. Burns was the consummate administrator who had the ability to smile through the most difficult of circumstances, whether she was telling you that your house was on fire or, far worse, that your child wasn't going to be in the honors Singapore Math program. No smile meant something serious indeed, which was only confirmed by the fact that the assistant headmaster was also in the office.

“Is something wrong?”

“Let me get straight to the point,” said the headmaster. “We are here to educate our students, but nothing at Grove Academy is more important than the safety of our children.”

“Of course.”

“That's why our hiring process is so selective.”

“I'm honored to work here.”

That was an understatement. For five years, Savannah had been an art instructor at West Miami Middle School, where 80 percent of the students spoke English as a second language. The principal had put in a word for her at Grove Academy, and Savannah had impressed them enough to land an apprenticeship. It was actually a pay cut, but the point was that the position had
become available only because the Academy had sent Savannah's predecessor to earn his M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago—on full salary, all tuition paid. This was Savannah's chance to earn the same distinction, to be somebody, to beat down the joke that she'd heard since high school: you can take
la niña
out of Hialeah, but you can't take Hialeah out of
la niña
.

“Your employment here is exactly what this meeting is about,” said the headmaster.

It was suddenly difficult to breathe. “What do you mean?”

“We don't require teachers' assistants to complete job applications under oath, but we take any misrepresentations or omissions on the application very seriously.”

“As you should.”

“We have zero tolerance for misrepresentations and omissions when it comes to criminal history.”

Savannah's throat tightened, but she knew exactly what the headmaster was talking about. “I can explain—”

“Please, don't make it worse by lying to my face. We've dug all the way back to the arrest record on this.”

“But—”

“Ms. Betancourt, your services are no longer required here. Return to your office immediately, pack up your personal belongings, and be gone before first period.”

A pair of headlights flashed through the venetian blinds. Savannah went to the front window and checked the driveway. Ruban was back.

Other than her, Ruban was the only person who knew the story behind her firing—
both sides
of the story. He knew how devastating it had been for her. He knew the timing couldn't have been worse. She'd lost her job five days before they'd lost their house. Five days before the repo men had come for the car and they'd ridden off on Ruban's motorcycle. They'd had each other
in those times, only each other, and she'd told him everything she was thinking and feeling. But there was one thing she would never tell him.

The car lights went out. She heard the car door close.

It was hard for her to describe what had been going through her mind on that night, when she'd climbed onto the back of that motorcycle, the last thing of value they owned, even though they didn't actually own it anymore; they possessed it only as long as they could hide it from the bank. She'd wrapped her arms around Ruban's waist, and they'd sped down the interstate, the engine roaring, the vibration rattling her bones. She remembered that urge to jump, but what came later was fuzzy. Later, the doctor in the hospital would call it a phobia, an uncontrollable sensation that had taken over and made it impossible for Savannah to spend another moment on that speeding machine. Ruban had accepted the diagnosis. Savannah had, too, for a while, but only because she'd wanted to believe that the experts were right. Deep down, she knew differently. What had made her jump from that motorcycle was no phobia. It wasn't a panic attack. It had been a split-second decision, but in the blurry moment it had seemed like an answer. Her broken heart was beyond repair. Behind the tinted shield of her helmet, tears were pouring down her face.

She'd just jumped.

The front door opened and Ruban came inside. She went to him, wrapping her arms around him as tightly as she should have on the night that had changed their lives.

“What's that for?” he asked.

She couldn't let go of him. “Nothing,” she whispered, holding back tears. “It's just . . . nothing.”