“And what are we supposed to do? Just open the doors and see for ourselves?” This Hardy Boy fantasy was getting the best of me. Actually, the idea of looking inside didn’t sound bad.
No one answered.
“All right, we came to find Victor. If it wasn’t his body in the burned-out building, my guess is he’s inside one of these. I suggest we sit in the Jeep and wait. For maybe an hour. Let’s see if there’s any activity. It’s almost midnight. Let’s give it till one o’clock.”
We walked back to the Jeep and Angel parked it in the next lot. From there we could see the two metal buildings and just get a glimpse of the space between them. If the Buick or the Lexus left, it had to drive out the front.
We waited. Three amateur sleuths not knowing what we’d do if we found our evidence. The biggest fear was thinking we might not find it. We were silent for ten minutes. Across the street on the river was a beat-up ocean trawler, probably loaded with bicycles and used automobiles, ready to head down to South America, while up ahead was the gleaming tower that is the Four Seasons Hotel. Construction cranes sprouted up everywhere around the skyline, rising into the black sky like shadowy robots. Em called Miami “Crane Town.”
“I may be sick again tomorrow, pal.”
I laughed. “James, you pull it off better than I do. I try to sound sick and I come off like a bad actor in a high school play.”
“You were in the senior play, pardner. And if I remember, you weren’t convincing at all. Lieutenant Cable in South Pacific, right?”
“How about you, Angel?” I decided to probe.
“What? Was I in a high school play?”
“No. Do you work? Have a job?”
He didn’t answer.
We spent three or four minutes in embarrassing silence, the stifling heat and lack of a breeze closing in on us.
“Maybe we should call Fuentes,” James said. “We could ask him for some overtime.”
I thought about calling Emily. I needed to tell her that she didn’t need to go through this alone. So I was immature, I didn’t have a future, and hung around with questionable characters, but it didn’t make me a bad person. Deep inside you know who you are, you know what kind of a person you are or what you expect to become. I was going to be successful. Wildly successful. It just wasn’t something that I’d figured out yet. I don’t know if it’s age or experience that eventually gets you to that point in your life, but I knew, and I know now, that I will be successful. And in the back of my mind I believed I could be a good father. I would be a good father. No question.
“Self-employed.”
“What?” I’d been lost in thought.
“You asked what I did.” Angel reached for the binoculars, took them from their case, and trained them on the buildings.
Another ten minutes went by and I wiped the perspiration from my eyes.
“I wasn’t that bad an actor. Hell, I got an award for outstanding senior in the school play.”
“Yeah. However, if I remember, Heidi Moose was the only other senior who had a lead and her rendition of Bloody Mary was abysmal at best.”
“Abysmal?”
“She sucked.”
I checked my watch. If we left at one, were in bed by two, I could get about five hours of sleep.
I could deal with that. I had to hang on to the security sales job. At least till the next best thing came along or until I was wildly successful.
“James, if you call in sick-you’ll still have a job?”
“Shit. Lindsey isn’t going to fire me. The last time I was with her she told me I was the best thing that ever happened to her.”
“You and Lindsey?’
He shrugged his shoulders. “Something to pass the time, Skip.”
“Someone just stepped outside.”
Angel handed me the glasses. I strained to see in the dim light. I could make out a man carrying a briefcase. He stood by the forklift, looking around. Instinctively, I slid lower in my seat.
“What?” James leaned forward. I handed him the binoculars.
“Probably one of the men who picked up the mail.”
“I say we call Fuentes and let him come down here and check it out.” James didn’t sound as confident as he should have. “Really, Skip. Tell him we found the place and let’s get out of here.”
“You forget one thing, James. Fuentes told us to drop off the envelope and leave the entire thing alone. He was adamant about that.”
“Shit.”
A heavy cloudbank broke and for just a moment the moon lit up the area like daylight. I could see the guy with the briefcase motioning to someone inside the doorway and a second later the ribbed steel door in front of the building groaned and started rolling up. I reached back and retrieved the binoculars.
“That is one huge overhead door.” It was sliding up, exposing a massive opening. Now the clouds covered the moon, but lights burned inside and the glow spilled into the parking lot. I could see the white Lexus on the concrete floor, headlights on, ready to leave the building.
“What’s stacked up in there?” James pointed toward the opening.
I concentrated but could only tell they looked like wooden crates. “Boxes.”
Angel took the glasses and looked at the scene for a minute. Three men were standing around the car having an animated conversation. With our windows down we could hear voices but nothing specific.
Angel handed the glasses back to me. “Do you recognize anyone,” he said softly.
I concentrated. “The guy on the far left looks like one of our Cuban friends.”
“That’s what I thought. The one I didn’t shoot.” Angel chuckled.
I handed the glasses back to James.
“That’s him. Jesus, I wouldn’t forget that guy. He drove the car when they banged up the truck.”
He handed them back to me. I put them to my eyes and continued to watch.
“I don’t know that we’re going to figure anything out from back here.” James was ready to leave. I wasn’t going to argue. Other than finding the warehouse, I wasn’t sure what this trip was going to prove. The three men shook hands and stepped back.
“Shit. Wait a minute. The big guy was the driver. The tall guy on the right, sitting in the chair-” I handed the glasses back to James. “Look hard, James. Very hard.”
He took his time. “Yeah. Some tall-oh, fuck. That can’t be. Nah, we haven’t seen him in-”
“About five years? Hair’s a little longer, he looks a little heavier-I’m not sure, but I think that’s him, James. If it’s not him, the guy could be his brother.”
“Jesus. Vic Maitlin. We’ve found him.”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Of course I saw him for five more years-all during high school-but right after the sinkhole incident, he avoided me. If I was walking in the hall, Vic would stop and talk to someone else, making it obvious he didn’t want to have to converse with me. He seemed almost embarrassed about what had happened. I built scenarios in my head. I thought maybe the goon squad, Cramer and Stowe, had threatened him, telling him not to ever talk about it, and to make sure I didn’t. Or maybe he didn’t want to be known as the guy who saved Skip Moore’s life. But later, midway through the eighth grade, he made a point of stopping me after a class just to see how things were going. And from that point on we were okay. Not good friends, not social in any way, but okay. The last time I’d seen Vic was a couple of weeks after graduation. I ran into him at one of Jordan Trump’s parties. He walked up and nodded.
“Everything came out all right.”
I remember giving him a questioning glance.
He smiled. “Hey, we made it. We graduated. Everything came out all right.” He paused. “You know. Everything is good. I’m glad you’re around.”
I mumbled some response and he reached for my hand, the second time in his life. I offered it, and he squeezed it tight, shook, and walked away. I hadn’t seen him since.
“Can you tell if anything is missing?”