Die Smiling (24 page)

“Down on the floor, Vasquez. On your belly.” Unfortunately, I didn't have my handcuffs with me. Great.

He got down on his knees, back to me, then twisted around to look up at me. When he spoke, I detected a mild Hispanic accent. “Who the hell are you? You're trespassing.”

“Wrong. I'm here with permission from the owner, and you're in deep shit because I'm turning you in to the Miami PD for breaking and entering, not to mention trespassing. You happen to know their number?”

“Wait, no, listen, please, don't do that. You don't understand. Please, wait just a second. I'm just out here to find out where Hilde is. She's supposed to be home by now, but hasn't shown up and I can't get ahold of her anywhere. I've been calling this condo up in Missouri where she's supposed to be staying, but can't get an answer. I called the hotel where they're having the pageant and tried to get ahold of her sister, but nobody's telling me anything. I'm worried out of my mind about her.”

“Okay, just shut up a minute, and we'll sort this out. Get up. Slowly.”

He struggled to his feet, then suddenly dodged right and knocked up my gun arm. A shot went off, the slug hit the ceiling, and then he was out of there, darting down the hall and out through the open front door. I gave chase up the beach, firing a warning shot in the air, which he didn't heed. I cursed and sprinted after him and was gaining ground when I heard heavy footfalls thudding on the packed sand behind me. I tried to turn, saw a huge black guy with long Jamaican dreadlocks, but before I could level my weapon on him, he tackled me around the waist. We went down hard together, him on top of me, and I wheezed for breath as the air was knocked out of my lungs. A second later I had my gun pressing into his cheekbone. Problem was, his .45 was pressed against my right breast. We stared into each other's eyes, then said together, “Police officer. Drop the gun.”

The same breathless growl, almost in tandem, too. Quite a team we were already. His face looked almost as surprised as mine did, I'm sure.

“You first,” I suggested politely.

“Don't think so. Ladies, first,” he insisted. He spoke with some kind of accent, too, Jamaican maybe, had said
don't tink so
in a singsongy way, like in calypso ballads. He had on a black linen shirt with bloodred orchids all over it, like the kind steel drum band members wear, and the scowl on his face was the same color as the orchids.

“Take your left hand and slowly show me your badge, and maybe you could get the hell off me, too,” I suggested, not quite so politely this time.

The guy kept me pinned in the sand with his chest while he pulled his badge case from the back pocket of his jeans and flipped it open right in front of my eyes. His gun didn't waver and neither did the intensity in his caramel-tan eyes.

“Okay, put the gun down, now,” he said.

He pronounced that
de gun
, but since I was definitely at a disadvantage here, I put de gun down in the sand and felt for the badge hanging around my neck. I pulled it out of my T-shirt, and said, “Okay, I believe you. Here's mine.” I held it up for him to see. He didn't sheath his gun and barely took a glance at the badge. Instead, he tossed my weapon a few feet away into the sand and kept his gun aligned with my head.

“Turn over, lady. I'm cuffin' you, then I'm takin' you in.”

“I guess you didn't notice this badge I'm holding in front of your eyes?”

“Every pawnshop in Florida carries fake badges. Hit men make them look real au'tentic, too, just like yours.”

“Hit men? Is that what you think?” I laughed, and yes, it was hale, hearty, and highly contemptuous. “Oh, that's brilliant, Officer. And thanks a lot, you just let my murder suspect get away. Job well done.”

“Shut up and turn over. Put your hands behind your back, mon, and don't try anything stupid.”

“Sorry,
mon
, but you've cornered the market on stupid, all by yourself. I can prove I'm a detective, down here from Missouri on a murder investigation. Check downtown, if you don't believe me.”

“Oh, yeah? Long way from home, huh? Funny thing, nobody downtown told me you was droppin' by to visit. Sorry, you're just shit outta luck wit' that lame a story.”

“Believe it, you asshole. And get the hell off me.”

He moved slightly off me, until I could breathe again, then he said. “Turn over or I'll do it for you.”

“Don't be stupid, I'm a cop.” Yes, I am now repeating myself because I have run out of words any more descriptive than stupid. I started to turn over, mainly because of the weapon jammed into my face and the fact I wasn't in a position to get a good knee into his groin, but Jamaican Americans were impatient, I guess. He grabbed the front of my shirt and roughly jerked me up, then flipped me facedown. I groaned when his knee dug into my back and ground me roughly into the sand while he snapped cuffs on my wrists. So much for professional courtesy.

He jerked me up and onto my back again, frisked me, quickly and efficiently and in an ungentlemanly fashion, at which time he came across the .38 strapped to my ankle.

“Guess you have a coupla hand grenades in your bra, too,” he muttered, tossing the second weapon toward the first. Satisfied that I was truly disarmed at last, he got to his feet slowly and glared down at me. I expected him to plant a hobnailed boot on my stomach and pose for pictures like some kind of safari hunter over a dead rhino, except that he had on size-nineteen leather sandals. He'd probably ride me around on the hood of his car, too, with a
hey-look-what-I-got-me-everybody-a-trussed-up-detective
sign. Instead, he stared down at me in unfriendly fashion, while he sheathed his weapon in a holster hidden underneath his loose, and yes, garish, tropical print shirt. He retrieved my two weapons and thrust them into the waistband of his black jeans. “Looks like Vasquez got in a few punches before he took off runnin'.”

“We exchanged fists, yes.”

I was truly hacked off, yes sir, I was. I knew because I was trying to talk while my teeth were clenched tighter than a oyster shell protecting its pearl. I inquired, “Where the hell did you come from? You're making one big mistake letting that guy get away.”

“Yeah, sure, you can tell me all about it on the way downtown.”

So he was a wise ass, too. I probably would've loved him any other time. Jeez, the guy had to be at least six-nine and two hundred fifty pounds, and he jerked me up like a rag doll and dragged me along, one fist caught in the back of my shirt like I was some recalcitrant kid held by the scruff of his neck all the way to detention hall. Humiliated and still spitting sand out of my teeth, I got my feet going in the deep sand and trudged beside him, up a grassy dune, then down the other side, where a red Jeep Cherokee was waiting. It sure as hell didn't have any police markings. I said, “Want to tell me why you're out here watching Vasquez on the sly?”

“Nope.”

The giant idiot opened the passenger's door, thrust me inside, then rounded the front and got in the other side. He was so big and broad, his shoulders barely fit into the seat. He was built a lot like an NBA player, Shaq's younger brother, maybe. The Heat should've recruited him, believe you me. But he looked more like a larger, more ripped Denzel Washington, which I and most other women would agree wasn't exactly a bad thing. He turned the key and fired up the ignition, then glanced sidelong at me. His lilting singsong just sounded pissed now.

“You jus' screwed up an important surveillance, lady, and my boss ain't gonna like it one bit.”

“Back at you, big time, mon.”

He suddenly smiled and showed me some very big white teeth. “You think you're a tough little lady, don't you?”

Oh, God, please, not a macho man, that would be the last straw. “Yeah, I'm tough. That's why I carry all these weapons. A little lady I'm not.”

“I'll give you that.”

“Thanks.”

“Your face is bleedin'.”

“Thanks again, for your concern. Not to mention the big bruise on my back in the shape of your bony kneecap.”

He grunted and started the engine, and then the ride downtown was pretty much along horrendously uncomfortable lines. I sat hunched in the seat, my arms bound behind me, my hands aching in too-tight cuffs, my previously wounded shoulder screaming, and blood oozing out of a cut on my left cheekbone. He didn't even put the seat belt on me. Needless to say, there wasn't much sociable chitchat going on. About three minutes into the drive, he switched on a blaring station straight out of the Bahamas, if I was any judge. Unfortunately he sang along with the calypso music like he was Harry Belafonte on a banana boat but without the mellow voice. I sat livid, listening to a helluva lot of off-key day-os, imagining ways to kill the Goliath Mon and counting all the horrible things I was going to do to this creep the minute he took off the cuffs.

Kelly, their hit-and-run victim and Sissy's competitor, did not die, but her spine was injured so badly that she had to use a wheelchair. The older one was sick about it, but Sissy was ecstatic because the boy said he wouldn't let his sisters enter so Sissy could win the next pageant. The boy's dad had decided to do some plastic surgery on Sissy's scars, some kind of new technique done with a laser beam. Soon the scars were invisible, and Sissy was beautiful again and she did win! But the older one felt sad, and she didn't like the way the boy was treating the others. He was calling them his slaves and minions now and telling them daily they'd do whatever he wanted or he'd show the murder video to the police.

Once, the older one searched and tried to find the incriminating tapes so she could burn them, but he'd hidden them too well. Every time she got angry and stood up to him, he would sweet-talk her and reach up under her blouse and then kiss her breasts until she could not think clearly. She loved him so much, and she couldn't stop, no matter how hard she tried.

Life went on in the boy's house for a long time. They all were growing up and getting big, but the boy's quests continued and so did his threats. But then a catastrophe happened, one that no one had expected. The woman from the Child Protective Services showed up at the front door one morning and said that she'd found the older one's real father. That he lived in Florida and that he wanted custody of his daughter. The older one could only stare in disbelief, and the boy's parents said no and that they wanted to adopt her, adopt all three of the kids, but the social worker shook her head and said that was wonderful for Sissy and Bubby, but now impossible for the older one. She said that she was taking the older one in the morning and that she needed to pack what she wanted to carry on the plane and that the rest could be mailed.

That night the older one lay in the boy's arms and wept hard against his chest.

“But he hates me. Momma said he hates me and didn't ever want to see me again. I don't want to go.”

“Ssh, sweetie, it's okay. I'll kill him and then you can come back to live with us.”

The older one shook her head against his chest, but realized that maybe that was the only thing to do, after all. She didn't like the killing quests, but this was different. He was taking her away from the boy and all the people she loved. She was even fond of Sissy now, too.

They talked through the night, and the boy told her that he would tell his parents he'd changed his mind about Vanderbilt University and wanted to go to school in Miami. They had a beach house down there, anyway, he told her, one his grandparents had owned and he could live in it and so could she, after he'd killed her father and she was in college. It sounded good, but she cried when the boy's mom and dad hugged her good-bye and told her they'd come visit her often with the other children.

The social worker took her on a plane to Miami International, and the older one was terrified to meet her real dad. She had only seen a picture of him, that was all, but her Momma had told her terrible tales of his awful temper and drunken rages. She felt her hands shaking and her stomach quivering when she and the social worker left the plane tunnel and walked onto the concourse. Then she saw him. He looked a lot like she did, and he was standing with a blond-haired woman and little boy around eight years old. The little boy held a sign that read,
WELCOME HOME
.
WE LOVE YOU
. There was a rainbow and lots of smiley faces painted on it.

The man came forward and looked down at her. He smiled and said, “I've waited so many years for this moment. I'm so glad you're here.”

The older one only stared at him, not sure what to say or what to think. “Thank you, I guess.”

The man laughed, and then he introduced his wife and son. The social worker sat down and spoke to them a long time about the procedures, but she had to catch a flight back in one hour so she bid the older one good-bye. “You're going to be fine. I know you're probably scared to death, but we've checked them out completely and they'll both be good to you. But here's my card and cell phone number if you should ever need help or just want to talk. Are you going to be all right?”

“I guess so.”

The girl took the card and listened as her father told her about where they lived and how she would have her own room. They all got into his Mercedes and drove to his house up the coast. She felt strange, as if she were in some kind of weird dream, but she wasn't afraid. She just didn't know what to do or say or how to act, and she missed the boy dreadfully.

They ate outside on a screened-in back patio they called a Florida room, which also had a swimming pool inside, but not one as big as the boy's was. She sat in a padded deck chair and watched her little half brother put on goggles and dive after dimes and nickels her daddy threw into the water. She smiled, but still felt overwhelmed and like crying, because she didn't know these people at all and she was going to have to live with them.

After a while the mother took the little boy to bed, and the older one sat in the chair and looked out over the long, grassy backyard. Her father came outside later and sat down in the chair beside her. He was very polite.

“Do you mind if I sit here with you?”

She shook her head. He brought her an ice-cold can of Pepsi, but he had a mixed drink in his hand, and she wondered if he would sit for hours and get dead drunk like her stepdaddy used to. But he only drank about half of it and then placed it on the table between them.

“I want you to know that I searched for you. For years I looked everywhere, but your mother took you so far away that I couldn't find you.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I hired private detectives, everything, but you seemed to just vanish.”

“Momma said you remarried and didn't want me.”

“She was lying. I was awarded custody by the Florida courts, that's why she ran with you.” He was quiet for a couple of minutes, then he said, “I know this is going to be hard on you. They told me you were happy with your foster parents.”

“Yes. I love them, and their kids.”

“I don't want you to be unhappy, but I need a chance to get to know you. I've missed all the years watching you grow up, and now look at you. You're a young woman now and a very beautiful one.”

She looked at him and saw the tears in his eyes. He meant it, she could tell. She was shocked. “I always wondered why you didn't want me.”

“I did want you. Please believe that. I can show you report after report from my investigators, but they never could turn up a lead on you. That's why I stayed here instead of going back to Europe. It's a miracle the social worker somehow put two and two together when they searched for your birth certificate. That's how they found my name. I feel like God finally heard my prayers.”

The older one stared silently at him and realized his emotion was for real. She believed him, but he was still a stranger and she felt abandoned on some alien planet. “Will you let me call home and talk to my brothers and sisters sometimes?”

“Of course. I'll get you your own personal cell phone and you can call them anytime you want. I know how much you're going to miss them. And I'll take you up there to visit whenever I can.”

He smiled, and she smiled back because she truly did believe him. That night he gave her his own cell phone, and she lay in bed and dialed the boy's number. He answered at once and said, “How is it? He hasn't hurt you, has he?”

“No, they're okay so far. I got a really nice room with its own bathroom.”

The boy got quiet. “So you already like it there better than here, is that it?”

The older one was startled by his angry tone. “No, of course not. It's just not as bad as I thought it'd be. My daddy says he's always wanted me with him, that my mom was lying about him hating me.”

“Don't believe him. He probably just wants to get in your pants like your stepdad.”

“I don't think so. He and his wife are both really nice, and I've got another little brother.”

“Don't be stupid. You belong here with me, and you know it.”

“Yeah, I miss you.”

His voice softened. “I miss you, too. That's all I've been thinking about since you left. And you should've seen my mom after you drove off. She bawled for an hour, and so did Bubby. He's taking it harder than anybody.”

“I wish I was there in bed with you.”

“Me, too. And you will be. I'll see to it.”

“When?”

“I haven't figured it all out yet. I already told Dad I thought I'd go to college in Florida, so I could see you now and then, and he said that was okay with him. He said I could live in the beach house, too. See, that's just a few months away, and I'll be down there with you and we can be together again.”

 

One day when the older one was particularly unhappy and missing the boy and his family, she walked down to the end of the backyard where there was a little goldfish pond. She sat there in a swing under an flower-covered arbor and wept into her palms. She had not started school yet, so she hadn't met anybody her own age, and although her daddy and his wife were very nice to her, she was lonely. Sometimes she couldn't get the boy on the phone when she called, and she was afraid he had forgotten all about her.

“I hate seeing you so unhappy,” her father said from nearby.

Alarmed, she looked up at him, and he came and sat down beside her. “Is it that you're missing your other family?”

The older one nodded, unable to speak but was stunned by what he said next.

“I've been thinking about this and I've talked to my wife, and we realize it wasn't fair to drag you down here the way we did. I was just so anxious to have you back, sweetheart, and I'd looked for you so long. I was really afraid something would go wrong and I'd lose you again.”

“I know. It's not you. You've been very good to me. It's just that, I'm, I guess, just sort of depressed. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah, I do.” He glanced up at the house. “Like I said, I've been thinking about all this, and I thought, well, I thought I'd take you back there to visit, if you want. Just the two of us, we'll get a plane up there this weekend. We can make it a surprise, if you think that's a good idea. But I want you to come back here with me after you visit them. Will you do that?”

The older one smiled and for the first time, really, truly wanted to hug him. She did so, and she could hear how he let out a pleased breath. “Yes, I'll come back. Thank you, thank you. And I do want to surprise them. They'll like that.”

“Okay, we'll go tomorrow, as soon as I can book a flight.”

The plane trip seemed interminable, but she and her real father talked all the way and she told him about what it had been like with her mother and how she had been treated and tears had come into her daddy's eyes. He told her how sorry he was that he hadn't been able to find her, that she'd had to suffer and that she'd never, ever have to suffer like that in the future. Then they had hugged and he had kissed her forehead and she believed that he really did mean all of it.

They rented a white Toyota Camry at the airport and the closer they got to the boy's house, the more excited she became. When they arrived early that morning, she ran to the front door, and when the boy's mother greeted her with surprise and pleasure and hugged her warmly, she cried again and asked where the boy was.

“He's still asleep out in the Winnebago, but he'll be so excited. Let me call him.”

“No, no, I want to surprise him.”

“He's missed you so much these past few months. Hurry, he'll be so happy to see you.”

The older one left her real daddy drinking coffee at the kitchen table with the boy's mother and ran down the backyard. The door to the camper was locked, but she still had her key, and she knew the boy would probably still be in bed this early on a Saturday morning. She sneaked inside, smiling, and headed for the back bedroom where he always slept. She threw open the door and cried, “Surprise!”

The boy sat up with a start, and she laughed happily, but then she saw that he wasn't alone, that Sissy was in bed with him. Both were naked, and the boy's face was so guilty, so shocked to see her that he only stared speechlessly at her.

“Wait, please,” he cried, jumping out of the bed and grabbing his jeans. “You don't understand, let me explain.”

The older one was so stunned herself that she just stood there, staring stupidly at them. Sissy held the sheets up over her breasts and looked scared. Somehow, the older one got out, “Go ahead then, explain.”

“I just missed you so, that's all. And Sissy looks like you, and she said she wanted to, and I didn't think you'd mind…”

The older one had heard enough, and she ran out of the camper and up the backyard to where her daddy was chatting in the kitchen. She told him she wanted to leave, that she never wanted to come back again, and he looked relieved and said that was good, that he was glad she felt that way, and then they got into the car and went back to Florida. She cried the whole way, and her real daddy patted her hand and handed her tissues until she was finally exhausted and fell asleep on the plane.