Stuff to Die For (12 page)

She broke out laughing. “No. Well, if you say so. I think they had other things on their mind.”

I saw James perk up. He thought the same thing I did.
They
referred to
us
.

“No, seriously. They had something to deliver to you.”

Silence while Jackie apparently talked.

“Uh-huh. Jackie, please listen to me. I’m going to explain what happened and it’s sort of complicated. Just listen, and when I’m done with this story we can talk, okay?

Silence for a half-minute.

“Okay. Now please, no interruptions.”

She proceeded to tell the story. There were no interruptions that we were aware of, no pauses. Em told her about the finger and Rick’s reaction. She told her about the stakeout and the fire and the two Cuban guys who visited us just an hour or so ago. When her litany was delivered, Em drew a deep breath and sat back on the sofa. She listened for a moment, then nodded, as if Jackie could see her.

“Well, we thought you should know.”

Em was silent for another minute and I wished to hell we had an extension. Every damned outlet cost a ton of money. We both had cell phones, and my guess is that in ten years a landline will be a thing of the past, but right now I just wanted an extension. Finally, Em hung up.

“Jackie isn’t surprised.”

“Well, I figured she’d be stunned.”

“She said it doesn’t surprise her because she knew something was going on. She thought Rick was involved with terrorists. What surprised her was that we’ve gotten into this so deep. She also said that she hoped and prayed that Vic wasn’t in any more serious trouble. She’s only his stepmother, but she really liked him and she really took the finger thing hard. That’s the part that just confused her. She didn’t realize this was a life and death situation.”

“So did she mention anything about a Cuban connection?” James was chomping at the bit. I wondered why he hadn’t been this anxious when the two bozos who visited us had been camped in front of our apartment.

“She told me again about the Spanish-speaking men that hung around her husband. They apparently stopped by the house frequently. That was it. You heard my half of the conversation. It didn’t last that long.” She paused. “Oh, and James, it pains me to tell you this, but she said to tell you she still thinks you’re cute.”

He grinned.

“No ideas?” I was looking for a solution.

“I think she’s going to sleep on it. I agreed to talk to her in the morning.”

“Morning. Shit!” James stood up. “I’ve got to be at work at 10 a.m. tomorrow.”

“I can do you one better. I’m supposed to be at the office at nine and on the road by nine-thirty.”

“Skip,” she looked at me with disdain. “Why don’t you ask Daddy for a job. You’d work out fine, and this job you have—” She trailed off.

“What? This job I have what?” My dander was up—whatever the hell dander is.

“This job you have is not going to last! You’ve got to actually sell a security system now and then, and you’ve got the worst territory anywhere!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

I
COULDN’T FOCUS. There were hazy dreams that had me up every twenty minutes, cold sweats that had me up every ten minutes, and a sense of dread that had me up almost every five minutes. I don’t remember ever having a night with as much turmoil. When the alarm went off, I was just drifting off into a really good sleep.

I slammed the off button with my fist, not really worried about damaging the clock. After two minutes of twisting and turning and feeling the Florida humidity clogging my pours, I got out of bed and walked into the bathroom. I pissed, brushed my teeth, and stepped on the scales. 168. I’d graduated at 155. This was not a good sign. I stepped into the shower, wondering if a covering of moisture would increase the weight factor by half a pound.

I drove my ’96 Geo Prism five miles to the office, past several lots with deserted block houses, their roofs caved in, past empty lots covered in weeds and trash, and past rows of bleached-out stucco homes that were far from the Florida lifestyle so many people dreamed of. I parked in the reserved-for-employees spot. There wasn’t a mall, restaurant, drugstore, or anything else within half a mile of Jaystone Security so I can’t imagine who else would have parked in one of our spots.

Sammy was in his office and motioned me in.

“Skipper,” he smiled a toothy smile, “you’ve had a couple of really good sales these last six months.”

He nodded his head up and down as he always did.

“And, Skipper, we admire your work ethic. You’re here almost every morning”—there were a couple of Tuesdays that I’d missed and last Thursday—“but as you know, we have to put you on commission first of the month. Based on your sales to date, you’ll make—” he paused and figured on a paper—“maybe a couple of hundred dollars a month.”

He looked at me and gave me that ugly, nasty, phony toothy smile. “Hard to live on that, eh, Skipper?”

I wanted to shove those teeth down his throat. I’d been threatened, thought I’d lost my best friend, almost caught in the fire, and offered a sizeable sum of money all in the last thirty-six hours. For this little asshole to tell me my job was on the line, well, I was almost ready to—

“I don’t want to sound negative, Skipper. No, not negative. However, if we don’t see some improvement here—”

“What?”

It took him aback.

“What the fuck are you going to do? Fire me? Jesus, Sammy. Do you really believe this is the best job in the world? Maybe you can’t get beyond this, but as far as I’m concerned, Carol City and this security business can go to hell.”

“Wait a minute, Skip. I’m not suggesting you quit.”

Sammy glared at me. He was ten years older than I was, dressed beyond my means, and as far as I was concerned, he was stuck in his job and his ego.

“Why? Because you’d have to hire someone else, string them on for six months, and have them quit too?”

“You’ve got till the end of the month. Do me a favor and make something happen, okay?”

I hoped the company hadn’t spent a lot of money to teach Sammy how to motivate. I had five appointments lined up for the day. People signed up for appointments at convenience marts, gas stations, and Esther’s. They didn’t really sign up for an appointment or because they wanted a security system. They signed up because we told them they’d be entered in a drawing. This month I think it was a hot tub. Sammy would get a cheap plastic hot tub and put a drawing of it on a pad of slips.

When people signed up, they got a phone call. A lot of the poor suckers figured they’d better let a salesman call on them if they wanted to up the chance of winning, so we got appointments. When they realized what we were selling, they’d go into the kitchen to discuss it with their spouse and sometimes never come back. Seriously. I had one couple who went to the kitchen, snuck outside, started up the family car, and left. I was alone in the house with a schnauzer and a glass of ice water they’d poured for me. If they weren’t concerned about me being in the house alone, they certainly didn’t need a security system.

My first call was on Mrs. Mosely, a white-haired lady in her late sixties who lived by herself in a rundown row house, and while I was there she had three neighbors stop in to make sure she was all right. Talk about security. Before I left she asked if she was going to win the hot tub. I told her no.

My cell phone rang while I was driving to the second appointment.

“Skip, I had visitors.”

“The two Cubans?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re sure?”

“The guy with the mouth? The last time I saw a mouth like that it had a hook in it.”

I paused. “
Caddy Shack
, Rodney Dangerfield.” I saw most of those movies with him. “Did these guys threaten you?”

“They ordered food. No conversation. I know it was them, and I can’t figure out if they came in to intimidate me or they really don’t know who I am.”

I thought about it. It could have been a coincidence. “James, Sammy’s got a computer in his office. When you get off work, let’s get online and see if we can scare up some information on Rick Fuentes. I’d like to get a whole lot more information on exactly what it is he does.”

“Good thought, Amigo. I’ve got a better one. We still have a truckload of merchandise.”

He was right. His truck was loaded with the belongings and mail of Rick Fuentes.

“I say we unload it,
then
see if we want to check things out on the Net. Maybe we’ll find out what this guy is up to.”

If you’re knee deep in something, I guess the best thing to do is see what it is you’re knee deep in.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

G
AS AND GROCERY was about three minutes from our pink stucco apartment. I had no idea where Angel lived, but there were very few times I stopped by for a six-pack or cold cuts that Angel wasn’t there. This time I was not disappointed. For all I knew he might have slept in the back room. Actually, that would have been impossible. The squat cement block building wasn’t big enough to have a back room.

“Angel!” He was speaking with a customer in the gravel sixcar parking lot in front. He turned and nodded, his shaved head glistening in the afternoon sun. The man he was talking to ducked his head and quickly walked away, headed up the street.

“Hey, man.” Angel gave me a vacant stare.

Angel was black. Coal black. His sleeveless pullover showed off his bicep tattoos, a marijuana plant on his massive left arm and what probably was the Ethiopian flag on his right arm. I assumed it was the flag because I’d seen pictures of Bob Marley posing with the national flag. Angel’s colors were faded, but the same colors nonetheless.

“Sup?”

“James and I are unloading a truckload of stuff into a storage unit in about an hour. If you’re free—” Angel seemed to be free his entire life, “we’d like you to give us a hand. It’s worth fifty bucks.”

“I thought you didn’t want any money comin’ out of the kitty.”

“There was a little more money than we anticipated.”

“I’m there.”

“I’ll pick you up in about fifteen minutes.

Angel nodded. “Should I bring something for the journey?”

I didn’t know what he had in mind, but the last thing we needed was an illegal substance. Somebody was already running our plates and checking out James and Em. We didn’t need to encourage them.

“No. Thanks anyway. We’ll be by with the truck. Pick you up here?”

He nodded again.

Fifty bucks would save us maybe an hour. I guess the thought of $1,500 for the load and the $5,000 we hoped to be paid by Fuentes was making me feel like I could spare a little of that to shorten the job time.

I drove the green Prism back to the apartment and waited for James. He rolled in ten minutes later, and ten minutes later Angel, James, and I were squeezed into the cab of our one-ton moneymaker, rolling down I-95 to the storage units.

Billboards whizzed by, advertising everything from retirement communities to radio stations.

PALM ESTATES STARTING AT $189,000
Z92! CLASSIC HITS FROM
THE ’70S, ’80S AND ’90S

Then there would be a couple of miles of gleaming white shopping malls, factories, and clustered housing developments with small pale houses and orange-tile roofs.

We passed my favorite billboard.

MR. BIDET
FOR A CLEAN, HEALTHY TUSHY

Em has one. I mean, she has a bidet. But I assume her tushy is healthy and clean too.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

J
AMES WHEELED INTO THE LOT, stopping at the locked gate. I took out the private key that only about 150 other people had, jumped out, and opened the padlock. We pulled in and drove down the dusty gravel drive.

“Which one was it?”

“The one with the crunched side, remember? You ran into it.”

He found it and parked in front.

“Man, would be much easier to unload if you backed it into the opening.” Angel studied the position from inside the truck.

James and I both gave him a frown and he backed down.

We got out and opened the back.

“Let’s keep the mail separate.” I took a box of letters to the side and James and Angel followed.

We started hauling boxes and items to the back of the unit and two hours later we’d reached the front.

James surveyed the rear of the truck, empty now except for Rick Fuentes’s mail. “If we’d get rid of that false wall and the storage space, we could haul a lot more.”

“Let’s get this finished and we’ll consider it.” I pulled the unit door shut.

“Guy had a lot of stuff.” Angel wiped his brow.

“Stuff.” James smiled.