Night of the Jaguar (19 page)

Surfacing around half past two, Paz looked down to see his little girl soliciting his attention. She was dressed in an ankle-length armless sheath of yellow silk patterned with large green tropical leaves, and tiny white strapped sandals with a modest heel. Her hair was braided and arranged in a shining crown around her head set off by a white gardenia behind her ear. Around her neck was a necklace of green and yellow glass beads.

“That’s quite an outfit. Been shopping with Abuela?”

“Yes. We went to a special store.” She fingered the necklace. “These beads are blessed. It’s not just a regular necklace, Daddy.”

“I bet. How’s the room? Everybody enjoying?”

“Yes. There’re millions of Japanese people all dressed the same. Why do they do that?”

“I don’t know. It’s a custom, I guess.”

“Anyway, the because I came in is there’s a man outside who wants to see you. He knew you were my daddy. Table three.”

“Thank you. What does he look like?”

She thought for a moment. “Like a football player, but bald, too.”

“Right. Tell him I’ll be out as soon as I finish these orders.”

Police Major Douglas Oliphant did look like a football player and had actually been one in college, a linebacker for Michigan. He was dark brown in color and calm in mien, and Paz liked him as well as any man he had ever worked for. Oliphant ran, among other things, the homicide and domestic violence unit of the Miami Police Department. He looked up from his nearly empty plate and nodded at Paz, indicating the seat opposite.

Paz sat and said, “You had the prawns.”

“I did. I’m almost ready to say you’re more valuable to humanity and the city cooking this stuff than you are catching murderers. Terrific food, Jimmy.”

“Thank you. The answer is still no.”

“You don’t know the question yet.”

“I bet I do. Tito was by the other day. You want me to advise on this big shot who got eaten up by the invisible voodoo tiger.”

A tight smile from Oliphant. “That would be nice. It would be a civic gesture and appreciated by all your friends in the Cuban community, especially in light of recent events.”

“Such as?”

“Last night the home of a man named Cayo D. Garza, a Cuban-American banker, was vandalized. His front door was clawed to ribbons and deposits of feces were left on his front walk. On examination, these feces proved to be that of a jaguar. According to the zoo. Our crime scene people don’t have much expertise with jaguar shit. It’s not something that comes up a lot. We took a look around his yard, and we found big-cat paw prints, not unlike the paw prints found at Fuentes’s place.”

“The partially devoured Fuentes.”

“Him. So we’re now real interested, and when Tito looks at the known associates of Mr. Garza, what does he find? The late Antonio
Fuentes. And upon further investigation of the K.A.s of Fuentes and Garza, we find Felipe Ibanez, an import-export fellow, and guess what? He had exactly the same vandalism two nights ago, although he thought so little of it that he declined to report it to the police. He was having someone replace his door when the Miami Beach cops showed up, and he’d already flushed the jaguar poo-poo, but we found paw prints there, too. They’re both out on Fisher Island, big estate-type places. Now, it seems that Fuentes, Garza, and Ibanez were partners in a venture, because when we ran their names through county business records, we found a little d.b.a. they set up last year called Consuela Holdings, LLC. Four equal partners. The fourth guy is Juan X. Calderón. You know him?”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because when I said his name, your face jumped.”

Paz shrugged. “He’s a mover and shaker in the Cuban community. Yoiyo Calderón. Everyone knows who he is.”

“What’s he like?”

“Ask Tito. He’s Cuban, too.”

“I’m asking you.”

“I’m the wrong guy. People like Yoiyo don’t associate with people like me.”

“He never eats here?”

“Never.”

“That was a very definite statement. You know what he looks like, then?”

Paz was about to say something angry but checked himself and grinned at his former boss. “Hey, that was pretty good. Interrogated in my own restaurant. Very classy, Major. Maybe we’ll put it on the menu.”

Oliphant allowed himself a tight grin. “Just a couple of old comrades shooting the shit.” He popped a yuca chip into his mouth and crunched. “Come on, Jimmy. Help me out here. These are big shots we’re talking about, and I’m getting incredible pressure from the pols on this Fuentes thing. If it’s some kind of Cubano vendetta I need to know about it. Especially the weird aspects…”

“Uh-uh. What, you suddenly have a dearth of Cubans in the P.D.? I’m the only one you can think of to ask?”

“I did ask. I’m getting mixed messages, shifty looks. Everybody’s got a second cousin works for these guys, and I get the feeling the Consuela trio are all informed about the investigation before I am. Which is why I came to see you. And I’m still getting shifty looks.”

Paz help up his arm and pulled back the sleeve of his tunic. “Look, man, you see the color of my skin? The kind of Cubans we’re talking about only want to see that color in the kitchen, or carrying a plate. They don’t hang with me or mine and tell me their secrets.”

“But you know Calderón.”

“To look at. I wouldn’t say I know him.”

“But he doesn’t eat here. I thought this was the best Cuban restaurant in Miami. What, he doesn’t eat out? He only likes Chinese?”

“Him and my mom had business dealings years ago. They had a falling-out. That’s the story.”

“What kind of dealings?”

“I don’t know the details. You could ask her.”

“Uh-huh. So what’s the book on Mr. Calderón? The reason I’m asking is we got a murder and two acts of what you have to call threatening vandalism against three out of four partners in a venture, of which Calderón is number four. We had someone call at the Calderón place. He claims he had no scratches, no cat prints, no jaguar shit, although his home sports a brand-new front door. I have to think it’s connected, a business thing. So…Juan Calderón. Good guy, bad guy, maybe capable of violence…?”

“Okay, Major, since you press me: he’s a typical
gusano
piece of shit. Him and his father came over with a pile of cash in the first wave and bought into a lot of businesses, and made another shitload putting money out on the street to Cuban entrepreneurs. Then he got into development and made a third shitload, which is what he does now. Capable of violence? Probably, as long as it wasn’t traceable back to him, or if he had a bad day he might kick a servant. But if you asked me would he murder his partner and eat a couple of chunks off him, or order it done, I’d say no. It’s not their style.”

Oliphant opened his mouth to respond, but at that moment Amelia, a sheaf of menus clutched to her chest, came by with a party of four and seated them at a nearby table. After she was done, she stopped in front of Oliphant.

“Is everything all right, sir?” she asked.

“Everything is just fine, miss,” said Oliphant, with a beaming expression on his face that Paz could not recall seeing there before.

“Except,” said Paz, “I would like a little girl to sit on my lap.”

“Daddy, I’m working,” she said severely. And to Oliphant, “May I send the waiter by with a dessert menu?”

“No, thank you,” said Oliphant. “You know I used to have a little girl who sat on
my
lap. It was better than dessert.”

“What happened to her?” asked Amelia.

“She grew up and moved away.”

Amelia took this in without comment, said, “I’ll bring your check,” and departed.

Oliphant laughed and shook his head. “That’s not cute or anything.”

“She’s not bad. I was about that age myself when I started in the business. Probably illegal as hell, but you’re not going to tell the cops. Look, Major…”

“You need to call me Doug. You don’t work for me anymore.”

“Doug. I wish I could help, but, honestly, I’m out of the loop with that crowd.”

“Okay,” said Oliphant. “But if you think of anything, you’ll let someone know, okay?” His tone and expression made it perfectly obvious, in a nice way, that he knew Paz was holding something back.

The three surviving partners of the Consuela company lunched in the Bankers’ Club that day as they did nearly every Wednesday. People expected to see them there, men in fine suits, and a few women stopped to speak, to smile, to touch hands, but it was difficult to tell whether this was a kind of grooming behavior, acknowledging membership in the pack, or the first probing tugs of the jackal at the belly of a dying animal. A little of both, was Yoiyo Calderón’s thought as he smiled back and extended his hand. He did not like the way Ibanez looked: old and tired and frightened. Even Garza, who normally presented the
slick and predatory face of a cruising shark to the observing world, appeared pasty, his movements lacking their accustomed vitality. He encouraged them to order a second round of cocktails. The liquor brightened them a little, like a cheap paint job on a clunker car, enough to show the room there was nothing wrong with their affairs. That was sufficient under the circumstances, Calderón thought. In business, especially business in the tightly knit Cuban community, appearance was 90 percent of the battle. The men ordered their usual lunches, too, all large lumps of costly protein, and appeared to eat. The service staff knew how little of it they consumed, but they did not count.

“So when does this start?” Garza asked.

“Today,” said Calderón. “Hurtado moves fast when he wants something done. That’s a good sign, I think.”

“Yes, marvelous,” said Ibanez bitterly. “He’s a credit to the human race. What will this entail, this protection he’s offering?”

“You won’t notice a thing. Some cars on the street, is all. The whole point is to move with discretion and remove whoever’s doing this.”

“I still can’t believe I’m involved in this,” said Ibanez, as if recounting a bad dream. “They came to my
home
! The maid found what they’d done when she went to walk the dogs in the morning, the door clawed…. She was hysterical, and the stupid bitch went tomy wife. Two hysterical women, Jesus Christ, what was I supposed to say?”

“Yes, Felipe, we’ve heard all about your hysterics,” said Calderón. “But let’s not turn into women ourselves, hey? A few days and all this will be over. They will make some other stupid move and then”—he snapped his fingers—“gone. The Puxto will come through and we’ll be fine.”

“How can you be sure it will be days?” asked Garza. “Why not months?”

Calderón had feared this very question. He cleared his throat and said, “Hurtado thinks the pressure is coming from Colombian interests. He’s put the word out that we are moving up the schedule for the cut, more crews on the road, accelerated delivery of equipment, and so on. They will be, let’s say, stimulated to increase the pressure.”

“You’re using us as
bait,
” said Ibanez in an outraged voice, rather higher in volume than was usual in the Bankers’ Club. A party at the next table looked over with interest. Calderón kept his own voice moderate, not without effort; he could feel the veins at the side of his head throb.

“Felipe, use your head. We’re all targets already. We’ve all been hit. Time is of the essence here, as is secrecy. There is a police investigation going on. Whoever these people are, it’s vital that we get them before the police do. Speaking of which, have they learned anything?”

This was directed to Garza, who had a nephew in the Miami P.D. and was their source of information in that quarter. Garza shrugged. “The usual stupidity. They’re planning to check out the local environmentalists, if you can imagine. Obviously, they know we’re all connected in a business way, and they’re curious about why Calderón wasn’t hit like we were. You cleaned up the mess too quickly, Yoiyo. You’re starting to look like their prime suspect.”

Calderón forced himself to laugh at this, and after a moment Garza joined him. Ibanez managed to move his face into a grimace that might have passed for jollity if the look in his eyes were ignored. Calderón felt a little better now. Laughing in the face of danger; it was what was expected of a man, after all. And the show of it had done some good, he thought. A table of Cuban businessmen at their ease and laughing; what could be more normal? They finished their coffee, speaking only of other, less contentious affairs. The waiter brought the check in its leather folder and laid it before Ibanez. Garza, however, reached across for it. “My turn,” he said.

But as his sleeve pulled back, Calderón saw to his shock that above his gold Piaget watch he had a thin bracelet of red and white beads. Like every Cuban, Calderón knew what this meant. It signified that the cool and ruthless Cayo Garza had solicited the protection of Shango,
orisha
of rage and war, and also that the man was a lot more frightened than he let on. Calderón wondered now if Garza knew something that he didn’t about the source of their troubles. A passing thought, this, serving only to lower his respect for the man and
convince him all the more that only he himself was in firm control of the situation.

Now it is night and all these people are asleep: Jennifer and Professor Cooksey, Kevin and Rupert, Paz and his family, the Cuban-American businessmen and their families and friends. Wakeful still is a man named Prudencio Rivera Martínez, together with a number of his colleagues. They wait in vans parked near the houses of the men of the Consuela company. They are from Colombia and are good at this sort of work, patient and relentless. Each van holds three men, one alert, the others dozing on pads in the rear compartment. Prudencio Rivera Martínez is their captain, and he is in a modest rental Taurus, driving from site to site and around the neighborhoods involved, so that he will know them if need arises. At irregular intervals, he checks his men via cell phone, but tonight there are no problems, no disturbances.

Moie is awake as well, in his hammock high in the boughs of the great ficus tree. He has a plastic bottle of water and a small package of Fritos given to him by the little girl. He has never eaten a Frito before but finds them good and finishes the whole package. He likes the salt and the flavor of the corn. When he is a man he enjoys foods other than meat. There is a remarkable amount of meat on the streets of Miami America, he has found, much more than he expected, considering how many dead people there are. If Miami was full of Runiya, they would long ago have eaten all this meat. He believes that the
wai’ichuranan
have forgotten how to hunt. This is because they have machines that make food like a bird makes eggs. He has seen this with his own eyes.