Suspicion of Deceit (15 page)

Hopkins had perfect white teeth, no doubt the handiwork of a very fine dentist. He flashed them at her as he offered her a seat before his desk. "I called you because I've also heard from one of the pinheads in the city of Miami permit department. They want to know what additional security arrangements we have planned for the run of
Don Giovanni."

"You hire off-duty officers, don't you?"

"Three for each performance," Hopkins replied, "but the city is concerned about demonstrations in the street. They're thinking about requiring us to erect barricades and hire enough policemen to keep us separated from the thousands—yes, he said thousands— of people in the Cuban community who might come to protest."

"Jeffrey. Tell me you're making this up."

"Oh, no. The permit department suggests, oh, a hundred or so extra officers to line the streets." Hopkins counted off some figures on his fingers. "Let's see. Sixty dollars per officer, a hundred officers ... six thousand dollars. That's for each show. Plus the barricades.
And
—how could I have forgotten?—they want us to pay to clean up the trash, eggshells, and broken glass, and to have paramedics on call, just in case it really gets out of hand." A tinge of red had crept into Hopkins's cheeks. "This doesn't count the money we lose on ticket sales because people are too afraid to show up."

Gail laughed. "Has the police department been abolished?"

"We live here. We pay taxes," Hopkins huffed. "We're a recognized cultural organization. It's
their
responsibility to protect the citizens. That's what I told the person who called me. He said he'd discuss it with staff—his phraseology was priceless—then get back to me. I have no desire to deal with these morons. Do you mind taking care of it?"

"Of course not," Gail said. "I'll call the city manager. I wouldn't worry too much. He knows they can't do this."

"Bare your teeth for us," Hopkins said. "We need to get this settled. Opening night is less than three weeks away. My God. Look at me. I never sweat, and my forehead is perspiring."

"Tell you what," Gail said. "I'll call the city manager before I leave and make an appointment to see him, all right? I'll say, The opera gonna kick yo butt." She grinned. "How's that, Jeffrey?"

"Perfect—or some variation thereof." Waggling his fingers like a broom, he shooed her toward the door. "I've got to get busy. See that stack of messages? They're from nervous nellie board members wondering if their lives are in danger."

Holding onto the doorknob, Gail leaned back in. "Jeffrey, have you heard of an English soprano named Jane Fyfield?"

He focussed on the ceiling, "Fyfield. Yes, I think so. Why do you ask?"

"She flew to Havana with Tom Nolan. He didn't tell me her name, only that he'd traveled with the woman who sang
Lucia
with him in Dortmund. I let my mother do some detective work for us. She tracked down Ms. Fyfield's manager, and he gave us the number where we can reach her. She's in her flat in London now, but she'll be leaving for Scotland in the next day or so to sing in Glasgow." Gail tilted her head toward his anteroom, where an extra telephone waited. "We should call her before speaking to the city manager."

"And why should we do that?" Hopkins was frowning.

"Wouldn't it help to have all the facts?"

"Aha. This is the investigation that Rebecca Dixon authorized in my absence, isn't it? Do we really need to pursue that?"

"We should know if he lied to us," Gail said.

"Well .... wouldn't
you?
If you came to Miami to debut in the title role in an opera, and suddenly you were told that a petty incident two years ago might get you kicked off the cast? Forget whether the opera has a
right
to do it—which we don't."

"Okay." Gail stepped back inside his office and closed the door. "I understand his reasons, but it doesn't change our position. What if you assure the press that he did nothing but sing for some college students, then we see a videotape on the nightly news—Nolan getting a big hug from Fidel Castro? I couldn't care less, and neither could you, but not everybody feels that way. Lawyers are paid to worry. I worry about what Nolan was doing in Cuba."

"I agree," Hopkins said, "but Tom does a great Don Giovanni, and I'm going to support him. Let it not be said that we would fire a singer for political reasons. Oh, all right. Look into it if you want, but be discreet."

Gail crossed her arms and tapped her fingers on the sleeves of her jacket. "I'm going to make a recommendation I hope you take seriously. Hire a bodyguard for him."

"What?"

"Not around the clock, just someone to escort him to and from home or wherever be has to go, if he's not with friends. Here's the thing, Jeffrey. If the next concrete block is aimed at his head, you'll have more damage than one broken door. Try explaining that to the press. Or worse, to our liability company. At least it would make Tom feel safe. If I were in his place right now, I'd be concerned. I might even say forget it, use the understudy, I'm out of here. And wouldn't that make certain radio commentators happy."

Jeffrey Hopkins chewed on a cuticle, then frowned at it and dropped his hand in his lap. "You've got a point, but we should see what Tom thinks. Would you like to talk to him? It's your idea."

"I'd be glad to."

"Who do we hire for this?" Hopkins asked. "A hulking ex-cop in a fedora?"

"I have someone in mind," Gail said.

The lobby had been cleaned up when Gail came back through, and two men were lifting a new sheet of smoky bronze plate glass off a carpeted dolly. A third man was unscrewing the door frame. Their truck was parked just down the walkway in the employee lot. Gail skirted around them through the open, and intact, twin door, then saw a Channel Four news van with a satellite dish on it turn in from the street. Two men got out—one in a suit, the other carrying a video camera.

"They're all yours, Jeffrey."

She was halfway to her car when a silver Jaguar came into the lot from the other direction. Rebecca Dixon. The Jaguar slowed, then the wheels cut toward Gail. The car parked next to Gail's Buick, and the door opened. Rebecca swiveled, hem up her thighs, one suede Prada pump hitting the pavement, then the other. Her chic little suit said she might be on her way to a charity luncheon, but had been detoured by the unpleasantness at the opera.

For a moment her tortoiseshell sunglasses pointed toward the broken door, then the news van. "What a mess." She looked back at Gail. "You've already talked to Jeffrey."

"Yes, a little while ago."

"Damn." Rebecca's perfectly lipsticked mouth tightened. "I told him to wait."

"If you want to know what we discussed, I'll tell you."

"He isn't happy with me," Rebecca said.

Gail said, "We didn't talk about you."

"I don't know what else I could've done." She put a hand on her forehead, mussing the neatly trimmed line of her brunette bangs. "We had a security guard."

"Rebecca, take it easy. I have an appointment with the city manager tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, Jeffrey is going to make a generic statement to the media, the opera will look heroic, and you'll have standing room only for the rest of the season." Gail walked her toward the rear of her car, closer to the trees at the edge of the parking lot. It seemed more private.

"He wants the investigation to stop, but we agreed to hire a bodyguard for Tom Nolan. What do you think?"

"Oh, God. Whatever." Rebecca exhaled heavily, apparently willing to let somebody else put shoulder to wheel.

"I'd like to use Felix Castillo. He's already familiar with what's going on here, and I trust him. But if you have any objections, please tell me. I'll find someone else." For a few seconds Gail stared into the little dots of sunlight on Rebecca's sunglasses.

Rebecca laughed, a single peal more of disbelief than humor.

"You won't have to talk to him," Gail said. "He can deal directly with me."

"Oh, my God," she said softly, smiling a little. "This is unbelievable."

"If you'd rather he didn't—"

"Do what you want. I don't care." Rebecca shook her heavy hair back from her face. She studied the progress of repairs on the door. The glass had been set into the frame, and now it was being caulked. "For two cents I'd resign. This job was Lloyd's idea. People say he bought it for me, and they're right. Mrs. Lloyd Dixon, society princess, doyenne of the arts. Oh, God. Wait'll he gets a load of this. I could laugh. He was so sure nothing would happen. Oh, baby, come on." Rebecca's voice grew deep, a mock imitation of Lloyd Dixon's growl. "The exiles don't give a shit. It's an act they gotta put on, prove they got balls. It's all talk."

Gail recalled standing in the rehearsal room talking to Lloyd Dixon. Dixon in his leather bomber jacket, so certain of everything. "Rebecca? Can I ask a dumb question? Do you know Octavio Reyes?" When Rebecca looked around at her, Gail added, "He's that pain-in-the-ass commentator on WRCL. Anthony's brother-in-law. You mentioned Reyes by name after Tom's recital, when you asked me for help, and it just occurred to me—How do you know him? Not from Anthony in college. Not that far back."

"I don't know him. He's a customer of Lloyd's." Rebecca leaned against the mirror-finish rear fender of her Jaguar. "Dixon Air handles all of King Furniture's air shipments to Latin America. Lloyd said he'd speak to Reyes if he got to be a problem, but he was so sure nothing would happen."

"They know each other."

As if finally focusing on what Gail was saying, Rebecca said, "They don't
know
each other. It's a business acquaintance. Dixon Air has a lot of customers." Then she smiled. "Maybe one less when I tell Lloyd about the door."

Gail kicked at some gravel with the toe of her shoe. "What do you mean? Lloyd will tell Octavio he won't ship his furniture unless he shuts up? It doesn't seem like much leverage to me. Dixon Air isn't the only freight airline in Miami."

Rebecca raised her hands in a gesture of surrender, then went back to get her purse out of her car, a sleek Fendi bag with a dangling gold clasp. She slammed her door, took a few steps toward the building, then stood there with her hands clenched at her sides. "This is pointless." She aimed her security key at her car, which chirped at her. The locks popped up. She jerked the door open and threw her purse across the seat. The gold clasp clattered against the window on the other side. "You and Jeffrey deal with it. I am obviously superfluous."

At a stoplight on Biscayne Boulevard, heading back to her office, Gail flipped open her phone and hit a speed dial button. "Miriam, it's me. Any messages?"

Felix Castillo had called, and Gail should beep him when she had time to talk.

"Oh, my God. The man must be psychic. No clue what he wanted? . . . Okay, we live in suspense. Do me a favor and call Thomas Nolan. Try his apartment and the School of the Arts, and leave a message if he's not in. Tell him I need to talk to him, and to give me a time when he's available. Did that noon appointment call to confirm?"

Miriam assured her that he had. At noon a new client would come to the office. The man had shipped 5,000 ladies shirts and dresses from his factory in Hialeah to a chain department store based in Georgia. They had stiffed him for the payment. This was more Gail's kind of case than arranging bodyguards for opera singers.

She turned the corner, heading for the ramp to the expressway. "Are you up for some research? ... See what you can find—articles, studies, books, whatever—on Cuban exiles in Miami. Also, get me information on terrorism going back, oh, to the mid-sixties. Try the
Miami Herald
archives as well as the library. If you need to buy any books, I'll reimburse you. . . . It was only one concrete block and lots of glass on the floor... . No, I'm not worried, I just want to know if I should be. Hang on a second."

She maneuvered up the ramp, then said, "Let me have Seth Greer's number." Keeping one eye on the road, she jotted it down on a notepad she kept in the console between the seats. "Thanks,
chica.
See you in fifteen minutes." After the disconnect she steered with her wrist while punching the buttons with the other hand. "It is people like you," she said to herself, "who drive up insurance rates."

She asked for Seth Greer and said who she was. As she waited, the expressway ended, dumping traffic onto South Dixie Highway.

When he came on the line, Gail said, "Your prediction came true. The city is thinking of sticking us with about a hundred extra off-duty police for security during the run of the opera. . . . Yes, Seth, you told me so. Are you busy? ... What I'd like are some cases to show the city manager when I go yell at him tomorrow morning. ... I don't
need
to have legal research with me, but it would be nice to keep in my holster. You know. Show them we're willing to take this to federal court if they try to push us around."

Profanity came over the line. Joyous profanity, the call to arms. Then Seth was asking to go with her to the meeting.

"Well ... I'd better go alone this time. Thanks a million." Gail made a smooch into the phone. "You're terrific."

And then Seth said he had to go. It was almost 10:55, time for Octavio Reyes's commentary, more gasoline on the flames. And by the way, the other Cuban stations were picking up on the issue. So tune in whichever she wanted, WQBA, WWFE, WRHC—

Gail tossed the phone to the passenger seat and turned on the radio, finding AM 870. She kept an eye on the road, slowing when brake lights came on ahead of her.

Octavio Reyes's recorded commentary had already started. She turned up the volume to drown out the road noise. Something about people suffering.
Ni
pan ni leche para darle comida a sus niños.
Gail translated slowly. Neither bread nor milk to feed their children. Nolan had been there. He must have seen the hunger,
la miseria, el terror, la destrucción,
how thousands and thousands of our countrymen live on
nuestra bella isla
—our beautiful island.

A horn blasted behind her. The light had turned green. Reyes was still talking. Nolan had performed for
el regimen del tirano
—the regime of the tyrant— and in singing for Ricardo Alarcón—