The Mango Opera (16 page)

15

Black crows on a veranda jammed with seagulls: the three men stood as I neared their table on the crowded open porch bordering the Hyatt dining room. Each wore a business suit with a dark tie and hard shoes. Men dressed that way in Key West tended to be bank examiners, attorneys scheduled for court, con artists, or out-of-town FBI agents. Raoul Balbuena introduced himself, then his burly son Carlos and Emilio Palguta, a gnarled character I guessed to be in his mid-fifties. Palguta shook my hand as if unaccustomed to the gesture. At five-ten and two-thirty or so, he had a neck too large for his collar and the build and movements of an ex-fighter or weight lifter. I guessed that Carlos had been one of the muscle boys in the Coral Gables church parking lot. His handshake was rough, his swagger controlled in deference to his father.

A bulky man himself, Raoul looked near seventy, with a full head of salt-and-pepper hair. He possessed a sternness born either of his years in Cuban jails or repeated studies of Brando’s Don Corleone. Judging from the kowtow of the son and the mouth-breathing associate, Raoul Balbuena came off more as thug than civic leader. I don’t know what I expected Julia’s father to look like, but this wasn’t it. In his attempt to dress like an executive, he’d wound up looking like a mob boss.

He motioned for me to sit in the rattan chair with the most expansive view. I’d removed my sunglasses for the introductions, but replaced them to counter the glare off the Gulf of Mexico. A waiter cleared away a used cup. Several sugar bags had been torn to shreds. Billy Fernandez, minutes earlier, in this position. Another waiter appeared above me with a tray. Coffee, pastries, and orange juice. I asked for an Amstel beer.

“You are welcome to anything on the menu, Mr. Rutledge.” Raoul made it sound like an order rather than an invitation.

I declined. The men had finished their meal. But they were in no hurry to discuss matters at hand. One never knows if slow motion is a facet of Old World custom or a test of nervousness for the odd man out. I rolled with it. Living in the Keys had taught me patience. This was suddenly looking like a tough-guy showdown, and I felt the need for some kind of weapon. Patience would do. I settled into my seat and took a reading. Palguta had the mottled taupe skin of a recent prisoner. His fifty-dollar haircut did not fit his rheumy, wary eyes and angular face. He stared at me with an expression of disinterest that I took to be a sample of how he viewed life, or death.

I began with an honest expression of sympathy. “Your daughter and I knew each other a short time. I have never forgotten her.”

Raoul looked me straight in the eye. “Thank you. Were you in love with my daughter?”

“She found her way into my heart. A part of me died yesterday.”

Raoul nodded. “She told me about your coming to Mariel, the bad weather and the evil people. She said she could never know for certain, but she thought you had saved her life. She mentioned your name in recent years.”

“But she never came to visit.”

“That’s true. She never did. Are you comfortable in that chair?”

I nodded, knowing that they’d arranged for the glare in my face. The waiter arrived with my Amstel and more coffee for the others. No one spoke until he had left. I let the beer sit untouched.

“She was independent, as was her mother,” continued Raoul. “In the years since I arrived in Florida, she has been a great friend to me, much more than her mother, as well as a respectful daughter.” He gestured to his son. “Carlos?”

The brother extracted a folded manila envelope from his inside pocket. He removed several photographs and slid them across the table toward me. The picture on top was a rear view of my Mustang parked in the church lot, its license plate clearly legible.

The no-necked goon with the leather pouch under his arm. It hadn’t been a gun or a cellular phone. He’d had a camera.

The next photograph was a long-lens shot of Ray Kemp talking to me in the church parking lot, Ray facing and my back to the camera. A different angle. There’d been more than one photographer.

Raoul continued. “You were kind enough to sign the small book inside the church. And your name was on the police report because you identified Julia. But this man did not sign the book. Do you know his name?”

“Ray Kemp. He and Julia—”

“Yes,” he interrupted. “Another name from Julia’s past that we recognize. The captain of the boat you took to Mariel. But we never have met this man.” He took the photo from me, and stared at it. “We want to talk to him. Did you know that Ray Kemp was in trouble with the police?”

“I know that he was involved in smuggling marijuana. My impression has been that he was never caught.”

Raoul’s expression turned grim. He motioned for Carlos to continue.

The next photograph showed a rear view of the maroon rental car as Ray drove away from the church. The next was the Pontiac’s license tag, enlarged from the same negative as the previous shot. Good darkroom work. The print was as clear as a close-up: HV2-74G.

“It’s a renter, from East Coast,” mumbled Carlos. His first words, with more of an accent than his father. It had been Carlos who’d called me “Rootleg.”

I was still amazed that Ray had used a fake identity to come to Julia’s funeral.

“You know where to find Mr. Kemp?” said Raoul.

“Kemp rented the car using a false identity.”

“Yes. Johnson, of Saginaw, Michigan.”

“I called directory information last night. No such name in Saginaw.”

Raoul nodded. “No Stockton Street either.”

They had been as successful as I with East Coast. “Ray told me he’s been living in Port Angeles, Washington, for years.”

Carlos began to write in a small notebook.

I continued. “He didn’t say much else except that he’s been a commercial fisherman and a repo man specializing in motor homes. This was the first time I’ve seen him since … I don’t know…’81, ’82.”

Raoul shifted his chair and leaned closer to me. “I want to find the man or the people who killed my daughter. The police believe that it was one of my political enemies. We have been talking to a detective with the Sheriff’s Department, and I will quote what he said: ‘Murders are murders. They happen all the time.’ In my life, Mr. Rutledge, I have learned not to trust the police to do a good job. In Cuba they did not work for the people, the citizens. They worked for the people in power. In the United States the police are overworked. They are not paid enough money. No one can do a good job with those conditions.”

I agreed.

“I am involved in political talks which anger many of my shortsighted former countrymen. I am aware of threats made against me. But that is not what happened to my daughter. No one wanting to hurt me would dress up the dead body of my daughter like a television murder victim and deposit her remains a hundred miles away from Miami. My political enemies are too powerful to bother with theatrics. They would begin by ruining me at the bank. They would have me arrested for any one of a dozen false reasons. They are too busy to drive down the Keys. Even the most evil of them would only have beaten her and left her in a Calle Ocho sandwich shop, propped at a table, playing dominoes with the broken, drooling, stubborn old men who despise the past and cannot understand the future.”

Carlos shook his head. “They would not have killed her. We are Cubans. Not Colombians, not Peruvian animals.”

Raoul aimed a glare at his son, then relented and nodded.

There was one more photograph. Ray stood at the Pontiac’s open trunk. He held his undersized sport coat over an open piece of luggage, what we used to call an AWOL bag. The trunk appeared full of large duffels and boxes.

I studied the print. “A lot of luggage for a quick trip to Florida.”

Emilio reached into the pocket of his suit jacket and another envelope appeared on the table.

“We want to find the person who killed my daughter.”

I ignored the envelope. “As do I.”

“We want to locate Ray Kemp, to clear his name in this regard.”

Punch his ticket, too, I thought.

“We would like your help, here in Key West.”

“I’m not on a jam-packed schedule.”

“We would not ask for your time without compensation.”

“Forget it.”

Raoul took the notepad from Carlos and flipped a page. “Please excuse our snooping. You have a six-hundred-and-fifty-dollar mortgage payment due the sixth of every month. You have been late in mailing three payments in the past twelve months. Your telephone bill averages over seventy-five dollars per month. Your utility bills exceed two hundred dollars per month. You have been overdue twice since January on payment to the city of Key West.”

“Bad planning,” I said. “I’m okay with money. Sometimes I forget to mail checks. Look, I’ll help you find Ray Kemp. I’ll do anything to help find Julia’s murderer.”

Raoul took a new tack. “We will offer a five-thousand-dollar reward for the person who finds the brutal monster responsible for this death.”

Why fight? “We’ll talk about it later.”

“Is there anything you know right now that might help us?”

“Nothing,” I said. “But let me ask two things. You said you saw the police report on Julia’s death. Which police officer signed the report?”

Raoul cleared his throat to stall, then said, “Detective Billy Fernandez was the officer of record.”

“Did you show these photographs to Fernandez?”

“No.” He pushed himself out of his chair and extended his hand. “We will give you three telephone numbers to call and a credit-card number to use.”

I stood and shook his hand. “Fine.”

“We’ll keep you informed of our progress as well.”

It did not look all that fine to Emilio Palguta. I reached down for the bottle of beer and took my first sip. “Sounds great. Why does this man look like he wants to shoot me?”

Raoul glanced at Palguta. “I don’t pay this man for charm. He sees the reflection from one tooth, he bites the neck below it.”

“I promise not to smile at him.”

I took the Amstel with me.

16

Eleven
A.M.
by the clock atop old City Hall. I had been awake four hours and it felt like twelve and I wished I’d taken the Balbuenas’ offer of food from the menu. The beer helped fill the void where my stomach used to be.

I needed to reach Laura Tate, wispy blonde, ex-lover. No privacy at the Hyatt breezeway phone, but I used it to call home to my message machine:

“This is Marnie Dunwoody at the
Key West Citizen.
It’s nine-forty on Saturday. I would like to talk to Ann Minnette about the death of her former roommate and the theft of her car. Please call me at 291-1241.”

As Sam had predicted, someone had done her homework. A pleasant voice. The same woman who was checking out Monty Aghajanian’s certification flap with the state of Florida.

“Robert Osborn, Sunstate Insurance. I need to meet with Miss Minnette regarding the accident involving her 1975 Volkswagen. My number in Marathon is 744-7400. The best time to call back is Monday morning before ten. Thanks.”

“Ann, Marnie Dunwoody again, calling from the
Key West Citizen.
If it’s possible, I’d like to talk to you this afternoon, before four o’clock. Please call me at 291-1241. Thanks again.”

Can’t happen. Should I call?

“If you would like to place a call, please hang up and dial again.”

Phantom messages. All the time.

“Alex, this is Bob Bernier, a friend of Monty Aghajanian. If you could give me a call sometime this weekend, I’d appreciate it. 291-5501. Thanks.” Monty’s buddy in the FBI.

I chugged the Amstel, tossed the bottle in a trash can, unlocked my bicycle from the Hyatt employees’ rack. Over at the Pier House the phone booth in the hall, just inside the south parking lot entrance, would give me privacy. On Front Street clouds of dust tumbled behind turtle-paced minivans and convertible rentals. The midday heat put a clammy sheen on my skin, trapping airborne dirt in a thin paste that only five showers would remove. Or an hour’s swim in the salt waters of the back country.

No such privacy. I’d never noticed that the booth had been removed from the Pier House hallway. Another chunk of history gone. From that small cubicle people had cut deals, lied to bosses and mates, confirmed assignations. I walked past it one night in the eighties and found a middle-aged couple, nude below the waist, making love in the booth. The man was talking into the phone, the woman sobbing as she bobbed up and down …

Outside the Chart Room I found a new pay phone where the garbage cans used to be kept. No eavesdroppers around. What the hell.

“Laura, Alex Rutledge.”

“Oh, God, Alex, it’s been … God, it’s been years. Wait a minute. Is this the call every woman in Key West dreads?”

“What is it?” I said. “Old boyfriends are the gong show of life? I’m not calling about a disease, I’m calling about a threat. Can we continue?”

“Have you gotten weird on us, Alex?”

I realized this would be easier face-to-face. “No, but the world around us is getting weirder by the minute.”

“I know. I gave some Lithuanian tourist a sympathy fuck until five-thirty this morning. I’m tired and sore. I smell like Third World BO. Where are you?”

“Down by the Chart Room.”

“I need a Bloody Mary. Would you bring me one? What’s it like at the Pier House?”

“The place is full of tourists, lathered up and broiling. The place smells like a big vat of piña colada and baby oil.”

“Let’s do something we haven’t done in years.”

“I thought you were sore.”

“You haven’t changed. Let’s meet for a Bloody Mary at Sloppy Joe’s.”

“Any day but today. Look, I have to explain something to you.”

“Will it wait until you bring me the drink? Stoli with extra Tabasco, two limes, no celery. I still live on Amelia.”

“You really need it?”

“It’s the only thing that will put me to sleep. I have to get up at sundown to go to work. I’m back to hostessing.”

“One of the new restaurants?”

“The Packet Inn. It’s an all-you-can-eat. I’ve got an application at Kyushu.”