Suspicion of Deceit (19 page)

Gail said, "Maybe you should talk to Rebecca. It's not too late for either of you, Seth. People can start over."

"Sho nuff?" He laughed. He was angry, but not, Gail was certain, angry at her. "No, I think Los Pozos might've done us in. We were okay—more or less— before that. What we had is buried right along with Emily Davis." He patted Gail's shoulder. "That's what Becky thinks, and if she thinks, therefore it is. I can't get her to accept that Emily's death wasn't her fault."

"Why would she blame herself?"

"Because she's the one who reported her. She saw her with the American agent. We were friends with some of the men who died, so Rebecca was furious. She talked to the other nurse in the clinic, and then the rebels heard about it." Seth's glasses lifted when he rubbed his eyes. "Can I say this? The problem was, and is, that Emily should never have gone with us. She was a dumb, sweet kid. She couldn't take it, she wanted out, and Quintana wouldn't let her go."

Gail frowned. "He said there wasn't money to pay her airfare back to Miami."

"Oh, bullshit. All he had to do was phone home from La Vigia. Eat a little crow, beg a little bread to get her out of there. What happened to her, I blame Anthony Quintana. She was a toy to him. He didn't care."

"That's not true." Gail could remember clearly what Anthony had told her about Los Pozos. He had not mentioned Felix, but his anguish over Emily Davis had been real.

Seth was smiling again, that thin cover for anger. "Why do you think he brought her along?"

"He isn't like that at all."

"You did not know the man then, Gail. I did. Here's how he met Emily Davis. We saw her jogging on campus. She was a cute girl with a great body. A nice girl, you know? She had long blond hair and loads of freckles. He had a thing about American women, his little joke. He said it was his way of screwing the U.S. We had a standard bet, twenty bucks if he could get the girl into bed within two days. He lost with Emily. It took him a week."

Turning away, Gail leaned on her car. "All right. As a young man he was generally pissed off about everything—"

"Yeah, Gail, I'm sure that's what it was. Rebecca and I were living together over on Elizabeth Street. I was practicing law, she was in pre-med. We had a nice little apartment. When Tony got into trouble with his granddad, I let him stay with us. One day I came home early, they're going at it in the bedroom. I tried to be cool about it. In the seventies, people weren't as uptight as now. We never heard of AIDS, and sex was actually fun. Anyway. He moved out, she went with him, and I said, Becky, when it's over, call me. Tony had no guilt about it. He dumped her inside a month. She came back, and Tony and I made up. We were fairly progressive in those days."

Struggling not to show a reaction, Gail stared straight into Seth's face.

He seemed to crumple. "Jesus, what am I doing? I'm sorry, I'm sorry, sorry, sorry." With each word he hit his forehead lightly with the heel of his hand. "You didn't need to hear that. I swear to you, I don't mean to bash the man. He saved my life, mine and Becky's. He got us out of there, and God knows I couldn't have done it." Hands on his hips, his face ragged with fatigue, he looked back at the house. "I should go check on her."

Seth opened Gail's door and made sure she knew which way to turn at the end of the driveway. "Good night, kid."

On the field behind Biscayne Academy, blazing lights made an island of color and motion. Children raced across the field in their yellow or red jerseys. Cleated shoes thundered over the ground and kicked up bits of grass, and the soccer ball shot ahead, a dizzy spin of black and white.

Biscayne made the goal and the parents whistled and cheered. Gail waited for Karen to look her way, then waved and gave a thumbs-up. Karen grinned, bounced up and down excitedly in her big yellow jersey, then spun around to line up with the rest of her team. She had fallen down a few times. Her knees were scraped.

Dressed in jeans and sneakers, Gail walked along the sidelines, avoiding conversations with other parents. She was waiting for Anthony to return her call. Five minutes ago she had left a message on his beeper. He might be at dinner with a client or another lawyer in his firm. He would feel the beeper at his belt, glance at the number, then excuse himself to find a phone. And Gail would say,
Anthony, I'm so sorry. This isn't a good night for you to come over. The soccer game started late, and Karen just told me she has a book report to do. A
lie, but she didn't particularly care if he believed her or not, the mood she was in.

On the field the children ran past in a huffing mass of arms and legs. Karen played halfback, and she was poised, shifting foot to foot, arms out for balance. When the ball got within range she rushed at it, and Gail heard the thump of a shoe hitting a shin guard and high-pitched yells to kick it here, kick it here.

As she kept an eye on the action—trying to—she heard piano music in the back of her mind. Mozart, played by the accompanist from Tom Nolan's master class. Nolan had walked slowly around the young soprano, who blushed as he held out his hand and sang in that incredibly rich voice. But it wasn't Nolan she was seeing. It was Anthony.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Sometimes after a game, team parents let themselves be talked into going by the Pizza Hut near the soccer field. Gail often said
no
for any of several good reasons: it's a school night, you have homework, I have a trial to prepare for—But tonight she gave in. Biscayne had won. But more than that, Gail needed the babble and laughter of a room full of fifth-graders. Anthony had accepted without question her flimsy excuse for not seeing him tonight, and his understanding had made her feel even worse.

On the way to the car Karen skipped, still buoyant from victory. She wanted to know if Gail had seen her make the assist on the winning goal. The coach had said he would put her in the starting lineup for the next game. They followed the other cars out of the parking lot, and Karen scooted down in the seat with her leg in the air to pull off cleats and shin pads, then lace up her sneakers.

Karen had made it known that wherever they moved to, it had better be close to their present neighborhood so she wouldn't lose her friends. Anthony had talked about looking at more houses this weekend with that in mind.

Pacing up and down the sidelines at the soccer field, Gail had felt sick with the realization that there was no point in looking at houses this weekend; their marriage was sure to fail if Anthony was the kind of man Seth had portrayed. Then her thoughts whirled in the other direction: Seth had lied. Holding a grudge for twenty years, Seth wanted revenge.

Or maybe not. Maybe the facts were right, but Seth's conclusions had been wrong.

Maybe Anthony had slept with Rebecca, and he had made bets on seducing American girls—but so what? He had been so young, living in another era, as Seth had said. The late seventies. Gail had come of age in the eighties, with its own way of looking at things.

Facts and conclusions. In her law practice Gail had heard different witnesses interpret the same set of facts and reach wildly diverging conclusions. Each had sworn to tell the truth, and each appeared to be sincere. According to Seth, Anthony had taken Emily Davis along for sex. She'd been a sweet, dumb kid. Anthony had said Emily wanted to go along, then when she got there, she turned into a complainer.

Gail's blinker ticked as she waited for a light to turn green. She thought of her mother's bridge games, the endless stories about the people they knew, how the truth went round and round. What was true? And who was Anthony? Why had he gone to Nicaragua? For justice? To prove his manhood? Or to recover what he had lost—his idyllic life in Camaguey? Whether it had actually been so idyllic didn't matter. The image mattered. For whatever reason he had gone to Nicaragua, he had come back injured in his soul. Seth had said his and Rebecca's love had died with Emily Davis. Something in Anthony had died as well: his certainty. There were no good guys anymore. No good, no bad. Everyone equally lost.

Turning into the lot at the Pizza Hut, she heard a muffled jangle and at the same time, Karen's voice. "Mom! Mom, aren't you going to answer it?"

Gail glanced at her purse. She hesitated, then flipped open the phone. "Hello."

"Hey, counselor!" It was Seth Greer, sounding strangely upbeat. "I tried your house, then I remembered you had a game to go to. Are you in your car? Turn on your radio to AM eight-seventy."

"WRCL? What's up?" Gail punched the preset button and heard an orchestra with a Latin beat, probably pre-revolution. "What am I supposed to be listening to?"

"They'll announce it any minute now. Seth Greer live at nine o'clock. I'm going to do it, Gail. I'm getting into the ring with
el rey del comentario,
the King of Crap."

"Oh, my God." Gail quickly found a parking space. A nasal-voiced ballad singer crooned along in Spanish with the orchestra.

"Mom, what's that stuff?"

Gail waved her quiet. "Seth? What the hell are you telling me?"

"Does that mean you disapprove? Well, Gail, that's too bad. Sorry if that sounds uppity. They've already announced my appearance. In fact, they've already broadcast some of the comments I made when I called up the station and said I was going to take Reyes on."

As Seth talked, the song ended and a Toyota ad began.

"Mom!" Karen was on her knees looking through the back window. "They're going in!"

Glancing around, Gail said, "Go ahead, honey. I'll be there in a minute. Seth, the executive committee will have a fit if they hear about this—and they will. You could get kicked off the board."

"Not to worry. How many of them listen to Cuban radio?"

Karen's door slammed.

"Seth, don't do this. You have not been authorized by the opera—"

"I'm not going as a representative of the opera. Quiet, it's coming on. Listen!"

A man's voice, an announcer. Gail heard Thomas Nolan's name, then the words
el regimen de Castro.
He had sung for the regime—Then the voice of a man speaking Spanish with an American accent.

"Seth, what did you say? I didn't understand—"

"Let's see. How would I translate that? It's like . . . the battle is over, folks. Fidel won. Deal with it."

She yelled into the phone, "Are you crazy?"

"Listen, Gail, I have to get ready to go. They want me there by eight-forty-five."

"Stop. Are we working together or not? You're not helping if you run off and do stupid things like this."

"Well, I haven't been much help so far, have I?"

"Wait. There's something you have to know."

A moment of silence. Then he said, "What is it?"

Her mind spun, grabbing for anything plausible. If she could talk to him for five minutes—Grab his arm. Beg him.

"Gail?"

Her engine was still idling. She said, "It's too sensitive to discuss on a cell phone. I'll come by your house."

"There's no time. It's eight-fifteen. Meet me outside the station, Coral Way and Twentieth. In fact, you should join me in the studio."

"Wait for me," she said. "Promise you won't go on the air till we talk."

"Well, you'd better hurry."

Gail tossed the phone to the passenger seat. "Dammit!" She put the car in reverse, accelerated, then hit the brakes, went forward, and parked again. She rushed inside the restaurant and found Karen at a table with her best friend, Molly Perlmutter. Gail smiled at the girls, then went around to speak to Molly's mother. They lived down the street.

So sorry. An emergency with a client. An hour or so, not more than that. She would pick Karen up at Molly's house. She gave Karen ten dollars, kissed her, and was out the door. It would take fifteen minutes to get there. Gail gunned the car up U.S. 1. The station would be just east of Coral Gables.

With the interior light on, she flipped through her address book for Felix Castillo's pager, the only way to contact him. "Felix, this is Gail Connor. We have a loose cannon from the opera on his way to WRCL— Seth Greer. I'm going to try to persuade him not to go on the air, but just in case, would you please be available for Tom Nolan? He might need you later on tonight or tomorrow. I'm going to tell him to contact you. Thanks."

Next she punched in Tom Nolan's number in Miami Beach. Five rings, then his voice mail. Gail took a breath to sound completely relaxed. "Hi, Tom. This is Gail Connor. Don't worry, it's probably fine, but Octavio Reyes is on the warpath again tonight. I've left a message with Felix Castillo to expect your call, so go ahead and beep him."

She stopped herself before mentioning Seth Greer. Instead she signed off with Castillo's pager number and a cheerful "Talk to you soon. Bye."

Coral Way was an old street, two lanes divided by banyan trees, with small shops on either side. Traffic was not heavy at this time of night. Through the trees, then more clearly, she saw a blue backlit outline of Cuba, then across that at an angle the letters WRCL in white neon.

The building rested on concrete pillars and a small cube that contained a lobby, a guard's desk, and elevators. Gail got a glimpse inside as she turned into the parking lot. A tile walkway between low hedges led to the street. Gail parked in one of the visitors' spaces at the side. The antique shop next door was closed, as were the other small businesses in the strip. Beauty shop, pet store—

Seth's BMW was nowhere in sight. A chain-link fence and electronic gate protected the parking lot behind the building, but he wouldn't have the gate opener to get in there. Apparently she had arrived first.

This was not a dangerous area, she reminded herself. A couple strolled along the sidewalk. Gail got out of her car. There was an all-night restaurant across the street with plenty of people inside. She glanced over her shoulder at the studios of WRCL. On the second floor, light came weakly through tinted glass and closed miniblinds. Octavio Reyes was up there preparing to eviscerate Seth Greer.

With a shiver that came more from nerves than the chilly night air, Gail got back inside her car and hit the locks. A minute later a BMW turned off the street and parked next to the sidewalk. Its headlights went off. With a little sigh of relief, Gail watched Seth Greer get out, buttoning his suit jacket over his tie, smoothing his hair. Dressed for battle. He walked around the rear of Gail's car. She pressed the button to lower her window.