Duarte froze for a moment, staring at her. She didn't seem at all self-conscious. Finally she said, "Are you done?"
Despite his Latin coloring and dark hair, he felt himself blush. "Sorry," he said, looking down. "Are you all right?"
She mumbled something.
"Excuse me?"
She mumbled and then said, "Look at me again."
He slowly raised his eyes, but the woman was still unclothed. Now he noticed her eyes kept shifting to the shelf next to her. Then she cocked her head that way and he realized what she was trying to say. He pushed her out of the closet, then knocked out the shelf's support beam in a smooth motion, heard a yell and saw the tubby shape of B. L. Gastlin, former drug dealer, plop hard onto the ground.
Duarte dropped to his knee and threw a quick elbow into the dealer's face to incapacitate him for a second, then quickly patted him down for weapons. As he was about to call for help, the woman appeared again in the closet doorway.
Still nearly naked, she said, "Look what this asshole did to my house," and delivered a vicious stomp to the dazed man's face. If Duarte hadn't stopped her, she would've done it again.
She stepped back and said, "He shoved me in the closet and then balanced that roof beam so he could come in and let it hit the door behind him. He didn't think you'd check a room that was already blocked in from the outside."
Duarte nodded and pulled the now bloody man to a sitting position.
The woman threw in another kick to the man's ribs.
"Ma'am," Duarte said in a clear loud voice. "You'll have to stop that." He looked up at her and added, "Please tell the others where I am."
She disappeared, and a few seconds later Chuck and a DEA guy appeared at the closet.
Chuck looked down and said, "Man, Rocket, you really fucked that guy up." He looked at the DEA agent next to him and added. "Did you hear what the problem at the deal was?"
Duarte shook his head.
Chuck smiled. "He tried to play with Félix's dick."
Duarte could tell by the way the prisoner moaned it was true.
Chuck laughed and said, "Félix is old-school Cuban. It didn't go over too well."
Duarte shook his head. Some people were too stupid to live.
The DEA guy smiled. "He tell you anything?"
Duarte helped the stunned man to his feet. "Yeah. He said the Jaguar is a rental."
2
THE HEADQUARTERS FOR THE DEA IN WEST PALM BEACH SAT IN an office building not far from the Publix parking lot. In an interview room that had its own entrance so prisoners wouldn't be brought through the office and see the agents' faces, Alex Duarte sat and listened while Byron Gastlin stared at his cell phone and contemplated his future.
Félix Baez just kept a steady stare on the man. Duarte knew the DEA man had more experience than he did turning guys like Gastlin against their suppliers. It had taken them almost two hours to get him to make the call to Panama in the first place. He had already given up all he knew about the shadowy Panamanian smuggler known as Mr. Ortíz.
When Félix asked him Ortíz's first name, Gastlin had shrugged and said, "I don't know. I just call him 'Mister.'"
Duarte had thought the response might earn the dealer a smack, but Félix was professional. He'd dealt with guys like this a thousand times before.
Now Gastlin looked up. Sweat ran down his face like a waterfall. A pile of damp, wadded-up paper towels covered the table next to his phone.
"Just a call?" said the portly dealer.
Baez nodded. "For now. Prove you can actually talk to someone in Panama."
"And this little thing I stick in my ear will record it?" He jiggled the wire to the tiny microphone, which connected to a small recorder.
Félix nodded silently, keeping his stare on Gastlin.
The drug dealer picked up the phone and flipped the cover. His hands were shaking so badly, Duarte didn't think he'd be able to hit the proper buttons.
Gatlin looked up. "What if I can't reach Ortíz himself?"
"Will someone answer?"
He nodded, jiggling tiny jowls.
"Then talk to them."
"Sometimes I talk to his assistant, Pelly. Sometimes someone else. It depends on how busy they are."
"Would it be odd to ask to speak to Ortíz?"
"Yeah. I never have before."
"Then stick with the plan, and we'll see what shakes out. Now make the call." Félix leaned in to make sure the dealer knew how serious he was.
"Look, I only ran a few loads for the guy. Just business. I don't know how his outfit works or how big it is or nothin'."
Félix and Duarte both remained quiet and kept their eyes on Gastlin.
The man picked up the phone again and this time slowly started to dial.
Pelly wiped the sweat from his broad, rough face and swore. The stubble was only two hours old, but still it scratched his hand. He had long since given up worrying about the hair on his back and shoulders, and just tried to keep his face and neck clear-he even used an electric razor on his eyebrows every night-and still he felt people's eyes on him. The scar on his cheek didn't help either.
He didn't wince at the sound of the whip. His boss was flailing a woman he had tied over a picnic table, Pelly wasn't even sure what her offense was. Here in this village on the west coast of Panama, his boss decided what was right and what was wrong. By the size of the woman's swaying breasts, Pelly guessed it was all merely an excuse for him to terrorize a well-built middle-aged woman. He didn't know why, but he had seen it enough for him to conclude that somewhere in his employer's life he had had a bad experience with a woman who wore a large bra.
The woman let out a yelp as the short leather whip bit into her back. A thin line of blood dribbled out of an earlier lash. Pelly's only concern about these events was that they didn't do anything for their bottom line. He understood pleasure and letting off steam, even if this wasn't exactly his idea of fun, but if his boss was busy beating women he wasn't thinking about sales, shipment and secrecy, the three elements vital to any smuggling operation.
His boss had a decent sweat going from the heat, the effort and the rage which surfaced whenever he had a woman in a similar situation. Pelly had never noticed him show much interest in men, unless he was really torturing them. He seemed to have a fascination with severing parts off them. That, and beating women. Who could figure out such personal issues?
The cell phone sitting on the corner of the picnic table rang with a tone like a European police siren.
He looked at his boss, who froze, set down the whip and looked at the small phone's screen. He quickly looked at Pelly and nodded, then answered.
He started to speak English, so Pelly knew it was a customer from the U.S. His own English was okay, but he didn't have the flair of his boss.
The boss smiled as he said, "Good afternoon, Byron. I was hoping you might call soon."
The woman moaned and turned her drooping head toward Pelly, who put his finger to his mouth to shush her while the boss was on the phone.
"Por favor" was all she said, tugging her arms, which were bound at the wrists to the legs of the table.
Pelly shrugged. Maybe the boss would forget.
As if on cue, the boss started to wander off, engrossed in the call. Pelly drew a heavy Benchmade knife from his front pocket, thumbed open the blade and cut the woman loose. She immediately sprang upright and crossed her arms to cover her breasts. He nodded, and she scampered back into the house, one of several buildings owned and operated by their corporation. She had been in charge of ensuring the workers got enough food and occasional medical attention.