Stuff to Die For (5 page)

James finally got his voice. I’d never seen him so awed. By the house, by the ocean view, and by Mrs. Jackie Fuentes. “Mrs. Fuentes, we’ll move whatever you have.”

She stopped and looked back at him, smiling a delicious smile. “It’s James?”

“It is.”

“And I’m Jackie. Not Mrs. Fuentes. I never want to be called Mrs. Fuentes again.”

“I never meant to offend you.”

“You’re cute, you know that?”

Em rolled her eyes.

At the end of the hall we entered a large room with boxes piled eight feet high. Clothing hung on wheeled aluminum racks, and in the far corner someone had set out his weights, a bench, and several barbells. I hadn’t lifted weights in six years. I’d like to think that I’m still in shape, but I don’t condition anymore, my diet isn’t exactly the best, and the number of beers consumed each week seems to increase at an alarming rate. What the hell, there were two of us. We could lift them.

I had a brief flirtation with the idea of buying them from her. We’d set them up on our patio and work out every afternoon after work. I weighed the two options. Lift weights, drink beer. As I said, it was a brief flirtation.

James, on the other hand, seemed to have more than a brief flirtation with Jackie Fuentes. She laughed at something he’d said and I could see the old James Lessor confidence oozing from him.

“Jackie?” Em broke in. She didn’t seem to like where this was going. “Why don’t you tell the guys what goes and if you have any specific packing instructions.”

“Sure.” She shook that pretty head and pulled the robe around her. “There’s a back entrance just at the end of the next hall. You can back your truck up there and just load it all in. I’ve got the address you’ll be taking it to.”

James touched her hand. “Leave it to us, Jackie. We’ll take care of everything.”

James was being a total idiot. For a minute I thought he might offer to do it for free, or for the chance to see her without that swimsuit. No, this was our future. You can’t screw up your first job because of a good-looking lady. I mean, it’s conceivable you’d find a good-looking lady at a number of your jobs. But, as I said, if I’d known what was in store, I would have stopped the whole project then and there.

I looked at Jackie Fuentes, and
imagined
her without the robe or bikini. It was cheaper that way.

CHAPTER SEVEN

J
AMES MANEUVERED THE TRUCK up to the door. Em had been right. Backing up was a bitch. He swerved this way and that trying to get a feel for what he was seeing in the side mirrors. I stood by the door, yelling when he was in danger of hitting some of the landscaping, the small porch, or the house itself. There were several moments when I thought he might.

Finally, he had the rear of our Chevy somewhat lined up with the back door. He jumped out and surveyed the angle of the truck much like a painter or brick mason might step back to admire his work.

“Not too bad.”

“It took you fifteen minutes.”

“I’ll get better, Skip. You want to try?”

I didn’t.

“How should we do this? One of us could stand in the back of the truck and take the stuff to the rear after the other brings it down the hall—how does that sound?”

“Doable. We’ll take turns. You do truck duty for the first half and I’ll do it the second half.” I wanted it to be fair for all concerned.

We went at it for two hours, taking turns bringing boxes down the hall, lifting them into the back of the truck, and repeating the process dozens and dozens of times.

“The first thing we’re investing in when we get paid is a dolly.” I mopped my brow with the sopping wet T-shirt that I’d removed over an hour ago. If this became a steady gig, I wouldn’t need the weights. Thank God Jackie remembered she had a dolly about halfway through the job.

Light, heavy, the boxes kept coming. Some of them were open and we could peer into corners of Rick Fuentes’s life. There were desk items like pen sets and a crystal globe. Another open box had dozens of videotapes with titles like
Tax Audits Involving Business Travel
or
Setting Up Your Own Off-shore Bank
.

“It’s shit like this that is the difference between the haves and the have-nots,” James said.

Em walked in and pointed to the last pile of envelopes and boxes by the door. “Jackie says that’s all the mail he’s received in the last four weeks.”

“She hasn’t even opened his mail?” If I went four weeks without opening my mail the power and water would be shut off.

“Apparently he called her and asked her to open it. He said if there was anything important he needed her to call him, but she didn’t. I don’t think she wanted to know what he was involved in. I told you, she was scared.”

We each grabbed a load and carried it out, shoving everything into the truck.

“Long Island Ice Tea, boys?” Jackie came out of the house in a loose-flowing, long peach-colored summer dress. I could see through it, and she didn’t wear a bra. She carried a tray with these very fancy glasses, napkins, and glass stirrers topped with miniature pink flamingos.

I grabbed one as she offered the tray. It appeared we weren’t going to drink on the front porch by the pool, but at this point it made no difference. An iced alcoholic beverage was a beverage from heaven no matter where we drank it.

Em came out the door sipping hers. She’d kept Jackie company while we did our dirty work. James and I sat down on the small concrete porch and the girls joined us. I closed my eyes and tilted the glass, draining a quarter of it in one gulp. Sweet syrup with a bite. I could immediately feel the relaxing warmth in my veins. I would have settled for just this drink. James seemed interested in more than the drink or the money.

“I don’t want to sound like I’m coming on to you, but—”

Jackie smiled. “But you are?”

“Skip and I can keep this in the truck overnight and unload it tomorrow.”

Which was new to me. I’d thought we were going to unload it tonight at the storage unit and be done with it.

“So,” he continued, “would you like to grab a bite to eat after I get cleaned up?”

“You’re cute.”

“You said that already.”

“Yeah. It hasn’t changed. However, I really don’t think going out with you works.”

James was in his selling game. “Jackie. Is it a class thing? You’re rich, I’m poor? Or is it an age thing? Because you can’t be more than a year older than I am and—”

She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “You’re a charmer. However, I really don’t want to be seen with someone new at this point. My attorney cautioned against it. It’s that simple.”

And that was it. We finished our drinks with some mild banter and hopped in the truck.

James had the address for the storage building and we drove away.

“So that’s the line. ‘Want to grab a bite to eat?’”

“She has some class, and some money, bro. I couldn’t use my standard line, ‘Wanna fuck?’”

The storage unit was in a small industrial park about seven miles from Indian Creek by the map and about ten million miles from Indian Creek by the status of the community. What the hell, it reminded me of Carol City. We drove through the narrow drives dividing the single story units until we saw number 352.

“Are you going to back it in?”

“We could just park it alongside.”

“It’s going to be a lot easier if you back it in.”

“All right. Get out and guide me.”

I didn’t envy him. The space between the two buildings was narrow and I would guess even an experienced driver would have a tough time. He stuck his head out and surveyed the concrete area in front of the unit.

“How close am I?”

“Cut the wheel, more.”

“It only cuts so far, pardner.”

Now he was wedged. The truck was cockeyed in the space.

“Straighten it out and start over.”

He hit the gas, still in reverse. If I hadn’t jumped about four feet sideways I would have been smashed. Instead, I landed hard on my ass as I heard him yell, “Shit.”

The truck rammed the building and I heard a thud and a crunch as the side of the building and the back of the truck buckled.

“Skip, are you all right?” He jumped from the driver’s seat and jogged to the rear as I picked myself up. I patted myself down, checking to see if anything was broken.

“Oh, shit.” James covered his eyes with his hand.

I walked over to the truck and surveyed the building. “Man, you caved in the side of the unit.”

“I don’t give a damn about that. Look at the truck.”

“We’ll get it fixed, James. What about the building?”

He gave it a quick glance. “We’ll unload and take off. Nobody can prove we did the damage.”

Of course, he was right. The aluminum siding was damaged, but it could be repaired as well.

James reached into his pocket and took out the key. He turned it and gave a tug as the garage door opened into the cavernous storage space.

I fought with the heavy metal latch on the truck, finally forcing it open. The sliding back door eased up as dozens of boxes and envelopes spilled out onto the concrete apron.

“Shit.” James stared at the four weeks’ worth of mail strewn across the front of the unit.

“Help me pick this up.” I gathered an armful of envelopes and put them back into an open box.

“What the—” James picked up a manila envelope.

“We’re not going to make much progress one envelope at a time,” I said.

“Something is wet and sticky here.”

“Did you break something?” I didn’t see how that could matter. Someone was probably going to haul this stuff away in a couple of months and sell it or take it to a dump.

James examined the envelope, then tore it open. He peered into the opening and froze.

“What?”

He didn’t speak, just kept staring.

“What is it?”

“Oh, shit. Oh, shit.” He dropped the envelope and shuttered.

“James.”

I picked up the envelope and glanced inside.

“Take it out.”

“Oh, God. You take it out.”

“No, man. It’s gross. It can’t be—”

I shook it out of the red-stained envelope and it fell to the concrete. Coagulated blood covered the stub of the severed finger. A blue-stoned class ring circled the knuckle. I shook the brown envelope again and a smaller gray envelope fell out. I stared at the finger, wanting to believe it was something else. Wanting to believe it was a magicians trick or a joke that James was playing. But deep in my stomach I knew it was real. Someone in Miami was missing a finger and we were the lucky guys who had found it.

I lost my Long Island Ice Tea on the cement.

CHAPTER EIGHT

T
HERE’S A LINE IN THE MOVIE
The Mexican
that says, “Guns don’t kill people, postal workers do.” Despite James’ affinity for that quote, he had a belief that bank tellers would be the next group of employees to go ballistic.

“Seriously, Skip,” he had said one afternoon on the patio. “Tellers stand there for six or eight hours and watch people come up to their windows. Some of these people have nothing, and the teller feels sorry for them. They’re taking out every last cent they’ve got and the teller knows they have nothing left. After a while they start to feel really bad.” He sucked on his green bottle and puffed on a cigarette. With Psychology 101 behind me, I’ve always felt he has an obsessive personality.

“Then, they get all these rich assholes who come in and deposit hundreds of thousands of dollars. Or take that much out. They tell the teller that they’re making a down payment on a yacht or a cottage in the South of France, or whatever. After a while, these bank employees
should
go nuts. They’re making what? Ten bucks an hour. More than the poor people and a whole lot less than the rich.”

“What’s your point?” I asked.

“Bank tellers are going to start to kill people out of frustration.”

“Who? Which class?”

“The rich people. They’re going to start shooting the wealthy.”

I got to thinking about that. In a way, Rick Fuentes was a banker. He arranged financing for business people. He’d raise the money, make the loan, and collect the interest. Maybe the people who gave him the cash weren’t happy with the way he was lending it. Or maybe a client who had borrowed money from Fuentes wasn’t happy with the terms. Seriously, maybe this was a banker thing.

We’d found a neighborhood bar about a mile from the unit. In a back corner booth we nursed our drafts. I hoped that this drink would stay down.

“Read it again.” I waved at the bartender and he pulled two more Buds from the tap.

James pulled the letter from the small gray envelope.

“
We ask you to reconsider your decision. If you agree with us, we will give you the rest in relatively good shape
. Jesus, Skip, what the hell does it mean?”