42
The farther Jack’s rental car carried him away from downtown, the more convinced he was that Hector Torres was hiding something about his mother. But he had to put it out of his mind. For now.
The rented sedan provided ample distraction. Each time he pushed the clutch that wasn’t there, reached in vain for the stick shift, anticipated the growl of the engine that was gone for good-it all made him wish that he could have been there for Theo’s “thorough interrogation” of the slug who’d set his Mustang afire. As Jack left the business district and reached the residential high rises on glitzy Brickell Avenue, he switched on the radio. It was preset to a Spanish-language talk station, courtesy of the previous renter. Jack’s latest courtroom “attack” on Alejandro Pintado had set off a new round of Cuban talk-show fireworks, and the name Swyteck was at the center of it. He was glad that he and Abuela didn’t share a surname.
“The Pintados are the victims here,” said one caller in Spanish. “Not that jinetera who married him.”
Jinetera. Jack couldn’t translate it. Then he remembered his trip to Cuba, the teenage girl who’d called his room at the Hotel Nacional and told him she could be anyone and do anything he wanted, all he had to do was ask-and pay. Jinetera.
Prostitute.
Talk radio brought out the extremists in any language. But Jack was beginning to think that, when all was said and done, the mood wasn’t going to be much different in the jury room. He had to turn things around.
He checked the clock in the dashboard: four forty-four P.M. Tomorrow would be show time for Lindsey, and it was going to take a lot of work to get her ready. Still, Jack had some time to kill before meeting Sofia at the jail for their client’s all-important prep session. He reached for the missing stick shift, cursed his inability to downshift his rental, and pulled a U-turn just before the entrance to Key Biscayne.
In ten minutes he was outside the home of Alejandro Pintado.
He parked the car on the grass beside the sidewalk, but he didn’t get out. At the cul-de-sac at the end of the street, a boy was riding his bicycle. Around and around in circles he went, laughing each time he jerked back on the handlebars. He was trying to pull wheelies. Jack smiled. He had been the king of wheelies when he was ten years old.
The boy was Brian.
He was playing the way Jack used to play, like any other ten-year-old kid, even if the diamond-shaped road sign on the opposite side of the street did announce to the world, DEAF CHILD PLAYING. Jack could certainly see the good in warning passing motorists, but he couldn’t deny his own sense of sadness as he wondered how it must have made Brian feel, each time he rode his bike, walked his dog, played in the yard, or simply looked out his bedroom window, to see that big, black-and-yellow reminder of the cruel hand his own birth had dealt him. The blame game was always pointless, especially so in the case of birth defects, but Jack suddenly found himself hoping and praying that if he’d given Brian this weakness, that he’d given him his every strength, too.
A security guard tapped on the glass, ending the reflective moment. Jack rolled down the driver’s-side window.
“You can’t park here,” the guard said in Spanish.
“I’m here to see Alejandro Pintado.”
“He didn’t tell me about any meetings.”
“Tell him that the lawyer for his daughter-in-law would like to speak to him. Off the record.” He glanced down the street again, spotted the boy. “Tell him I want to do everything I can to keep his grandson off the witness stand.”
The guard considered it. “Wait here,” he said, then walked up the sidewalk. Jack waited for him to disappear inside the house, then dialed up Theo on his cell phone.
“Hey, it’s me, Jack. You got any more information on our drug connection?” Jack immediately cringed. He couldn’t believe he’d just said that on a nonsecure cell phone, but Theo was one step ahead of him.
“Uh, yeah, pal. I’ll have that aspirin to you by tomorrow morning.”
“Sorry, man.”
“It’s okay. Dumbshit.”
“Seriously, you got any more leads on what we talked about yesterday?”
“Nothing. Why?”
“I’m about to have a little chat with Alejandro Pintado.”
“Wish I could help you.”
“It’s okay. I think we got enough.”
“Enough to what?”
The front door to the house opened, and Alejandro stepped onto the porch. “Bluff,” said Jack into the phone, and then he disconnected.
Jack watched as Pintado crossed the lawn, headed up the driveway, and then climbed into the back of his Mercedes. The security guard came for Jack and led him to Pintado’s car.
“What? Does Mr. Pintado think I bugged my car?”
“No,” the guard said dryly. “But he knows you didn’t bug his.”
The guard opened the car door. Jack got inside and sank into the black leather seat. The door closed and the locks clicked shut automatically. Pintado shot him a cool expression from the other side of the car. He still had a distinguished air about him, even if he did seem to have aged just a bit since the commencement of trial.
Pintado said, “Pardon me for not inviting you inside the house, but after the way you treated me in court, my wife probably would have sicced the Dobermans on you.”
“I was afraid you might feel the same way.”
“Oh, I do. I came out only because you said it was about my grandson. Protecting him from this circus is very important to me.”
“To Lindsey as well.”
Pintado shot a look, as if he didn’t quite believe it.
Jack said, “I don’t like getting children involved if I don’t have to.”
“I respect that,” said Pintado.
“How is Brian doing?”
He gave Jack a long look, as if wondering whether he really cared. “Brian’s happy here. Happy as any kid can be who just lost his father. His grandmother and I are doing the best we can. As soon as this trial’s over, we’re sending him up to a camp in Dunedin for a week or so. It’ll be good for him to be around other hearing-impaired kids who live with parents who can hear. For now, we just try to explain things as they happen.”
“That has to be tough.”
Pintado glanced out the window toward the guard in the driveway. “I’ve had to triple my security since this trial started. It’s one thing for people to dog me all over town, but when they start after my grandson, I feel like cracking some heads.”
“Brian’s being hassled?”
“Last week. Don’t know if it was an overzealous reporter or some pervert who followed Brian to school the other day. Snatched his backpack while he was out on the soccer field. Scared the hell out of us.”
“People get crazy with any big trial. It’s good that you’re taking precautions, but it was probably just a souvenir hunter looking for stuff to sell on eBay.”
“What kind of sicko would want a child’s backpack?”
“The same idiot who hangs out at South Miami restaurants hoping to get his picture taken with O. J. Simpson and his latest girlfriend.”
Pintado shook his head, then showed mild irritation in his tone. “I don’t dislike you personally, but I don’t appreciate the way you came after me on the witness stand.”
“For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t think Lindsey was innocent.”
“That’s mostly a Cuban American jury. Attacking me and my family like that, I’d say you pretty much sealed Lindsey’s fate.”
“You’re forgetting that I don’t have to convince the whole jury. I have to give only one of them reasonable doubt.”
“Trust me. That entire jury is ready to ride you and your client out of town on a rail.”