I went out the back door just in case they were watching the front. The old black man was sitting in a cheap aluminum chair on his slab reading a magazine. He nodded as I walked by, never looking up. The empty playpen had a new powder blue blanket draped over the side.
Angel was in the next lot, sitting in the Jeep Wrangler.
“Hey, man. Nice clear evening. We should be able to see everything.”
“Anybody watching me? Do you see anybody?”
“Nah. My feeling? They think you want to be done with all this. You pass on the mail, you’re done. The last thing in the world they gonna think is that you follow them.”
I slid in the passenger side. James could ride in the back. “My feeling? I should tell you this, Angel. I think that once they get the mail, they could kill us.”
“Why they gonna kill you? Huh? What did you do?”
“They think we know what’s going on.”
“Do you?”
“Yeah.”
“Then maybe you’re right.”
“You still want to go?” I looked him straight in the eye.
“Seems to me I’m the one who shot one of those boys. I’m in pretty deep already.”
James came around the corner, watching behind him as he sprinted for the Jeep.
“Hey, guys. I didn’t see anyone. Where do we go from here?”
Angel started the engine. “Spot up by the ditch has a gravel bed like a pullover. When they were digging it out I suppose they put the heavy equipment and dump trucks there. We can see Denny’s pretty well from there.” He pulled out of the parking lot and down the narrow road pulling into the gravel. He turned the Jeep around and we faced the back parking lot of the eatery.
“It’s going to be dark soon.” James leaned forward, staring intently ahead.
“Those lot lights stay on pretty late,” I said.
We sat there, at least one of us feeling pretty stupid. We were way out of our league, playing James Bond and not having a clue what we’d do if we did stumble on a hiding place. My gut reaction was that Vic was dead. The last time they found us stalking them, they warned us. This time they could do much worse.
“If we don’t do this, they may kill us.” James sounded like a continuation of my thoughts. “I mean, we all agree, right? The object is to find out if Vic Maitlin is alive or dead. Once we know, we’ll have to report this whole thing.” Pretty serious comment from a guy who hated the authorities.
“If we report it now, and Vic is alive, they may kill him. We know they’ve threatened to send more body parts to Fuentes.” I was embarrassed at how we were trying to justify this escapade. We were nervous and scared, but I believe all three of us were raring to go. We finally had some adventure in our lives, something a little out of the norm.
“Hell, we should have just walked away from the whole thing.” James lit up a cigarette.
“Five thousand dollars for a little stakeout, James. Remember? A simple little job. Sure, Mr. Fuentes, we can do that.”
He blew a stream of smoke at my head. “And Vic, Mr. Fuentes’s son, saved your life, pardner. Correct me if I’m wrong.”
Angel didn’t react, but reached across me and opened the glove compartment. He pulled out a black leather case and opened it. “Binoculars.”
The man had thought of everything.
“You said you wanted the complete package.”
James tapped an ash out the window. “It’s almost like you’ve done this before, amigo.”
Angel put the glasses to his eyes and surveyed the area. Windows down, there was no breeze.
A hot, sticky, humid Miami night. My T-shirt was already sticking to my skin and I hoped we’d be moving soon. Anything to get the air circulating.
A white Cadillac swung around the back and pulled up to the trash can.
“Here we go, boys. He’s getting out.” Angel kept his gaze fixed on the car. “He’s going up to it, standing there, looking both ways.. .” he paused.
We could see the guy on the far side of the car, but we couldn’t make out what he was doing.
Angel kept the glasses steady, the long seconds stretching out.
“… and he’s dumping an ashtray or something into it, and,” he paused, “now he’s pulling away.”
I let out a long breath.
We were quiet for a minute or more.
“Do you ever think about death, Angel?” James spoke softly, as if afraid the insects buzzing outside might hear.
“Death?”
“Yeah. Do you ever wonder when you’ll go. Or how? Skip and I have talked about it, and it never has really registered. My dad died at a relatively young age, and it took me a while to get over it, but my own demise just never computed. I always assumed I’d live forever, or damned close to it.” He let it hang out there.
Finally, Angel said, “And?”
“All of a sudden we’re in a situation where our lives are being threatened. I’m starting to wonder when it’s going to happen.”
“You miss your father?”
“I do. There is so much I wish I’d asked him.”
Angel stroked the steering wheel. “I never knew my father. And my mother walked out on my sister and me when I was fifteen. I’ve seen a lot of bad things. I’ve seen people die in a number of strange ways, and I’ve contemplated my own death. I have.”
I picked up a strange feeling. “Angel, have you ever killed anyone?”
He was quiet and I felt I’d gone too far.
“Not unless they needed to be killed.”
“I’m sorry I asked.”
James jumped on it. “Does it bother you?”
“No. Old and young, we are all on our last cruise.”
I finally had something to live for. Hell of a time to start contemplating death. I tried to avoid thinking about Angel killing people or my last cruise.
What looked like a black Ford Focus crept through the parking lot and Angel picked up his binoculars once again. The car slowed down and one of the kitchen help opened a rear door and walked out, her silhouette outlined by the light from the doorway. She appeared to lean down to the window of the car and converse with the driver for about thirty seconds. Finally she went back in and the car pulled out with a burst of speed and a squeal of tires. You could hear it from where we sat.
I could sense the tension in the Wrangler drop.
“Emily, the girl I met earlier, she’s your girlfriend?” Angel watched my face, maybe for confirmation.
“Yeah. Sort of. It’s a strange relationship.”
“I believe they all are.”
James tossed his cigarette out onto the gravel in a bright burst of spark and ash. “When this is over, I’m going to call Jackie again.”
“Oh, really? I thought she said she wasn’t interested.”
“She never said that, pardner. She said her lawyer told her not to get interested. She thought I was cute.”
“Yeah, well-oh, by the way, did you get the drift of the phone conversation I had with Fuentes?”
“I heard your half of it. Why?”
“He said something strange. He said that if Jackie had opened his mail, she would have found the finger, and we would have been off the hook.”
“What’s so strange about that. It’s true.”
“For a brief moment he sounded like he was pissed off she didn’t open his mail. He actually asked her to open it and call him if there was something important. She didn’t.”
“I’m pissed off she didn’t,” James said. “We’d be back at the apartment, drinking a beer and eating Fritos, blissfully ignorant of this entire mess.”
“This guy, Fuentes, he’s been caught cheating on his wife. He moves into this condo with his little girlfriend and then asks his wife, Jackie, to open any mail that might mistakenly come her way? Why would he do that?”
“Mail never stops, Skip. I mean, my family moved one time and for two years people mailed stuff to the old address.”
“Yeah, yeah. But Fuentes was begging his pissed-off ex-wife to open his personal mail. And he made a point to tell me that.”