Water from My Heart (26 page)

We were starting to get a little close to home. Where I'd always been rather good at reading people's weakness, Paulina was good at reading people's pain. The difference between the two of us was glaring.

We spent all the next morning on the ATVs. We rode miles up the coast, returning through the trees and then out onto the beach and up and down the dunes. Paulo had never ridden an ATV, but he took to it quickly and with great fervor. And while Paulo feared no hill, Paulina—prodded by Isabella—was the speed demon.

We returned for lunch, a dip in the pool, and then I took them out on the Bertram for an afternoon on the Pacific. The seas were glass, and we stayed well within sight of the coastline, which kept their dizziness at bay. I threw the cast net and caught some baitfish, dropped a few baits in the water, and helped Paulo catch a few wahoo and several tuna. Throughout the afternoon, he'd set the hook, and then he and Isabella would reel them in accompanied by much high-pitched squealing from an exuberant Isabella, who desperately desired to see the fish but not necessarily touch them. Paulina sat up top smelling of coconut oil, wearing Marguerite's bathing suit and my Costas, and laughing at the festivities below.

Toward evening, Paulo filleted the fish with a speed and proficiency that would have rivaled Hack, and then we grilled the fish on the pool deck along with some vegetables that Paulina picked up at a market down the road. As the sun went down, we reclined at the table with full stomachs and easy smiles. Isabella stood in the shallow end of the pool, testing her newfound boldness. Paulo finished his third serving of fish, scraped his plate, and wiped his mouth. His satisfaction was palpable. He patted me on the shoulder, then tapped himself on the chest and said,
“Mi corazón está lleno.”

He knew I didn't understand, but I got the feeling that he said it in Spanish for emphasis.

I shrugged and he said the words again.

When they still didn't make sense, Paulina translated, “He said, ‘My heart is full.'”

It was quite possibly the most fun I'd had in recent memory.

Sometime after 9:00 p.m., Isabella fell asleep and Paulo carried her upstairs to bed. Paulina followed, giving me a chance to check in with Colin. I told him about the day, the house, the progress of the cleanup, and that we'd still found no sign of Zaul. I explained how now that Zaul was separated from his friends we were looking for the proverbial needle and—as difficult as it was—our best bet was to wait right here. He agreed and then fell quiet. Heavy, not saying much. Finally, he said, “You remember that favor you asked of me?”

“Yes.”

“I've got some information for you…” I listened while Colin reported on what he'd found.

And the news was not good.

We hung up and I sat staring at the moon on the water. After a few minutes, Paulina returned and sat. Closer this time. “Where were we?” There was a childlike playfulness in her voice and an innocence in her eyes that told me she was enjoying her time here and, more important, me. I also got the impression that it wasn't something she did with every guy she met. I admit, I was drawn to her. Maybe a lot. Well, okay, more than a lot. But I had a track record of hurting people, and something in me did not want her to be one more. I wanted to spare her from me.

Sitting on that pool deck, I was staring back over the wake of my life and the thing that struck me was how the churn and chop was littered with relationships. With people I'd used to get what I wanted. I didn't know much about my present life or where I was going or what would happen to me when we found Zaul and I returned him to his folks, but whatever happened, I knew I didn't want Paulina to be one more casualty in the war that had become my life. Maybe pain does that, and while I tried to mask it and pretend that I couldn't or didn't feel it, I was in pain. My pain painted me and was the source of what made me feel dirty. I was rarely self-aware, but somehow at that moment, bathing in the smell of coconuts and sweat and the utter delight of a woman in full bloom, I was lucid enough to know that Leena deserved better than me, and while I might not be able to get clean, I didn't have to drag her down in the mud with me.

I turned to her. “When I came here, looking for Zaul, I didn't expect you. This. I am having some trouble wondering what I'm going to do when I or we find Zaul and I have to leave here. I've enjoyed the last several days with you, but before I go any further and make you feel I'm one kind of person, I want to tell you exactly what kind I am. And if you'll let me, I'd like to get it all out before you walk away. Because you'll want to; you should, and when you do, you'll be showing good sense.” I swallowed. “When I said I'd made an art of lying, I was actually telling the truth.” I took a breath and tried to figure a way in. Not finding one, I came right at it. “Paulina, I'm a drug dealer. Or I was.” She didn't flinch, so I continued, “I've dealt and delivered more cocaine than most any one individual in South Florida save the Mafia and cartels. My partner and I run, or ran, a boutique purchase and delivery service. It was easy money and we've made a good bit. A few years back, I got up one night to go to the bathroom and stumbled over several hundred thousand dollars in plastic bags in my house in Bimini and had to figure out where to hide it because I couldn't just walk up and deposit it in the bank.” I turned one thumb over the other. “I've never considered myself an evil man, but I'm not a good man, either. Good men don't live life as I do. A couple of weeks ago, on what was to be the night before my wedding to a woman who loved me—or what she knew of me—I made a delivery. Same type I'd been making for a decade. A few kilos to a party in Miami. Zaul got mixed up in it, and as a result, his sister—the closest thing I have to a niece and maybe the only female on this planet who loves me with any real sincerity—got between him and a pit bull.” Paulina winced. “The dog attacked her face and neck, severing the nerve that allows her to smile. My former fiancée was the doctor that patched her back together, and until that moment, she had no idea that I did what I did. I'd lived two lives and she never knew of the second. I have no family, one friend, no real occupation, and I've contributed nothing to this earth other than broken businesses, shattered relationships, increased addictions, and greater pain.” I shook my head. “The other night I stood in the hospital room while the nurses pulled the bandages off Maria's face and realized I don't know how to make good on a life like mine—I doubt it's possible—but if I could, I'd find Zaul and return him in one piece to his mom and dad and sister. And if that takes every penny I've ever made, and I've made millions, then—” I pulled a wad of cash totaling several thousand dollars from my pocket and placed it in her palm. “I'd gladly give it all and steal ten times more.” The suspicion drained out of her face and something akin to compassion took its place. I sat back. “At night, when I get angry, I think about the man who released the dog, but in my mind it's my hands I see on the leash. I try to shower, to get clean, but I can't.” I palmed my face. “Right now, out there is a kid trying to act tough and mimic all the gangster icons of the silver screen, and he's in a really bad place. He's hurt, scared, and angry. I don't want to sugarcoat this—Maria's face. I did that. And I did this to Zaul. So, when you look at me and we talk, you need to know who you're looking at, where he's come from, and what he's brought with him.”

She leaned back and crossed her arms, but she didn't look scared or concerned. She looked thoughtful. After a moment, she asked, “What's one thing you're proud of?”

“Did you hear anything I just said?”

“Answer my question.”

I shrugged.

A smile. “Just one.”

“You sure you want to go here?”

“Yes.”

“About six, no, seven years ago, I was picking up a load in Cuba. A day run. Down and back. I was literally pulling my boat out of the dock when a man wearing a dirty suit showed up at the docks with a bag of cash, his wife, and three kids. He waved the cash in my face and told me in broken English that they needed to get out right then. I asked if he had papers and he shook his head. Ninety miles away, in Florida, my partner Colin had a ‘friend' who made papers for people. For the right amount of money, he could make you well established as a citizen of the United States. So, I looked at this scared woman, these frightened kids and this sweating man, and I asked the man, ‘What'd you do?' He looked at his wife, then at me, and shook his head. He said, ‘I didn't give in.' So, I pointed to my boat, wherein they immediately disappeared below. I had no idea what I was going to do with them, but I got on the phone and talked to Colin, who met us with his friend. Last I heard, Juan—as he is now called—was selling Oriental rugs in South Florida. Doing quite well, too. Every now and then, when I'm buying my coffee at this Cuban bakery in south Miami, I bump into him. He smiles, buys my coffee, and tells me how his daughter is studying to be a doctor at UM. Every time we part, he holds my hand just a second longer and his eyes well up.” I nodded. “I'm proud of that.”

“And the worst thing?”

I sipped from our water bottle. “Paulina, you're talking to a professional dealer.”

“Pick one.”

“Colin was having trouble getting a load in from Argentina through customs. So I flew down and bought a hundred head of Argentinian beef cattle headed to the U.S. for slaughter. Paid a premium for the beef, but it was nothing compared to what we stood to make on the drugs. So before we shipped them over, I wrapped the drugs in heavy plastic and then inserted the drugs into the females and placed them on a barge. We took delivery of the cows, retrieved the drugs, and sold the cows to a Florida cowboy who owned a chain of steak houses throughout the southeast.”

“Other than the whole delivering drugs part of that, what's the bad part?”

“During transit, a couple of my bags burst so the deckhands fed the sharks…I'm not real proud of that.”

“You're okay with people sucking that stuff up their nose, but you feel guilty when a few cows die who were weeks from dying anyway?”

“I don't feel particularly good about either one, I'm just telling you the first thing that stood out in my mind when you asked me what I wasn't real proud of. I want you to know that, until recently, I have viewed what we do as simply providing a recreational drug to recreational users. In order to protect myself from the ripple effects of what we do, I routinely—and with great numbness—turned a blind eye to those whose indulgence surpassed recreation. If they couldn't handle it, that was their problem. Not mine. I've viewed our business as a couple of bootleggers outrunning ‘the man.' Truth is, we're peddling strychnine. And it poisons everyone but us. Somehow, we're immune. Or were.”

Sweat beaded across her top lip. “Charlie Finn, you don't scare me. Who you see in the mirror and who I see are not the same man. There's a disconnect. A contradiction. Several times in the last few days, I've watched my daughter slip her hand in yours as she walks downhill or climb onto your shoulders like a human jungle gym. I watched you pay a man for damage at his resort with no plans of ever staying there.”

“I didn't know you saw that.”

“I told you before. I'm poor. Not ignorant. His face told me when he walked out. I've watched you hang from a rope and dig a well with no intention of ever drinking the water when for more than the last decade not a man around here has been willing to do that. And every day I watch you scour a country for a kid that's not your own. And then I watch you stare at me and wonder if a girl like me could ever fall for a boy like you. So you'll forgive me if what I see disagrees with what you tell me.”

I eyed my watch, loosening and fastening the band. The proof of my skill as a liar and deceiver was evident in her innocent belief in me and my innate goodness. The fact that she was still standing there. The truth of me—of my role in the failure of Cinco Padres Café Compañía—sat on the tip of my tongue, and yet for reasons I cannot articulate, I could not spit it out of my mouth. I guess maybe I didn't tell her the truth because I couldn't stand the thought of losing one more woman to the truth of my life. Maybe I could change. Maybe the truth would hurt too much, and it'd be better to hold it. Keep it where it couldn't hurt her, as she'd already suffered enough. No need to go picking off the scab. So many times I'd wanted to look back at my relationships and ask, “What's wrong with them?” but every time I did, the only common denominator between me, Amanda, Shelly, and now Leena was me. Sooner or later, the problem is not them.

I kept my mouth shut.

She stood, leaned across the space between us, and kissed me. First on the cheek, then she stepped back, cradled my cheek in her palm, and kissed me on the side of my lips, and then on my lips. She held there. Tender. Soft. And inviting. While her lips were pressed to mine, the argument inside my head was raging. Some part of me wanted to save her from me.

I knew better and she didn't—which was the growing source of ache in me.

Slowly, she pulled away, wiped her thumb across my lips. A satisfied smile. She whispered, “I want you to know I haven't kissed a man since my husband died. For years, I didn't want to, and for several more I couldn't find anyone worth it. I've been holding that a long time.”

When she turned and began walking inside, I watched her—her shoulders, the vein throbbing on the side of her neck, the small of her back, the angle of her hips, the lines of her calves. She wasn't inviting me to follow her, but she wasn't wishing I'd look away, either. In her own way, she was allowing me to look—to soak in the sight of her, appreciate her as a woman, and I was pretty certain she'd not allowed that in a decade, either.