Beyond Suspicion

“Don’t have fears control life. You and Cindy want children. House is better, no?”

He wasn’t thinking that far ahead, but her optimism warmed him. “I should at least see the rest of the house.”

“Okay.” Abuela took El Rodeo’s arm and led him out the door. “We give you time to look around more on your own. You decide quick.”

Jack hadn’t intended to kick them out, but they were out the French doors before he could protest. He drifted toward the kitchen.

The window was open, and he could hear his abuela and El Rodeo outside on the patio talking about the busloads of tourists that cruised through Little Havana, where El Rodeo and his friends played dominoes in the park. It bothered El Rodeo to be treated as a spectacle, an ethnic oddity that these tourists only thought they understood. Not even Jack had understood until Abuela had moved to Miami. The evening newscasts had a way of conveying the impression that the only thing fueling the Cuban-American passion was hatred-hatred for Castro, hatred for any politician who wasn’t staunchly opposed to Castro, hatred of yet another Hollywood star who thought it was cool to shake hands and smoke cigars with the despot who’d murdered their parents, siblings, aunts, and uncles. That emotion was real, to be sure. But there were neighborhoods filled with people like El Rodeo, a man who’d quietly tended bar in Miami for the past four decades, a photograph of the restaurant he’d once owned hanging on the wall behind him, the keys from his old house in Havana resting in a jar atop the cash register. He just refused to give up on something he loved, refused to admit he’d never get it back.

Tonight, as Jack wandered through a house that might be his, without a wife for the foreseeable future, he could relate more than ever.

“Hello, Jack.”

He turned, startled by the sound of her voice. “Cindy? How’d you-”

“Same way you got here. Abuela invited me.”

“She has a way.”

“She definitely does. We had a nice talk in my studio. She got me to thinking.” Her voice quaked, not with anger but emotion. “Maybe I overreacted.”

“You believe me, then? That the tape of me and Jessie is B.C.? Before Cindy?”

She gave him a little smile, seeming to appreciate the humor. “Now that I’ve had time to think about it, yes, I believe you.”

“We’re going to prove it, if we have to.”

“I’m sure you will.”

“We hired an audio expert. It could still be tough, since we’re working from a copy.”

“The police won’t give you the original?”

“From what Clara Pierce tells me, there is no original. It was destroyed, which tells me that Jessie went the extra mile to make it look as if she and I were having a recent affair. I think she was getting ready to blackmail me into staying quiet about her viatical scam.”

“You don’t have to convince me. Once I sobered up, I realized that the tape couldn’t have been what it appeared to be. If you two were having an affair, I would have known it. I’m not that blind.”

He went to her and held her tightly.

“I’m sorry I doubted you,” she said.

“I understand. I mean, the way her body was found in our bathtub-”

“Let’s not recount the details, okay? Let’s just… be happy. Happy we have each other. That’s all I want, is to be happy.”

“Me, too,” he said, still holding her tight.

A squeal of delight emerged from the patio. They turned and saw Abuela standing at the French door and peering in through the glass, blowing them kisses.

Jack smiled and mouthed the word “Gracias.”

“Let’s go,” Cindy said softly. “It’s time to start packing.”

“I’m right behind you.”

In less than five minutes Jack was in his convertible following Cindy back to Pinecrest. It would take at least a couple of days to arrange for a mover to bring their furniture to the new house, so they would have a few more nights with his mother-in-law. The plan was for Cindy to arrive ten minutes ahead of Jack and break the news that Jack was moving back in until the rental was ready. Apparently, her mother was less convinced of Jack’s fidelity than Cindy was. Jack waited in his car in the driveway until Cindy came out to give him the all-clear.

His car phone rang, startling him. After the cellular swap, the car phone was his only wireless number. He answered. It was Mike Campbell.

“How’d you make out?” asked Jack.

“Well, there was a time in my life when it would have bothered me to follow a woman around for almost two hours and not even be noticed, but I guess in this context, that’s a success.”

“Nice work. Where’d she lead you?”

“Some pretty bad neighborhoods. She likes to mingle with the homeless. Especially if they’re junkies.”

“Damn. Sounds to me like she knew she was being followed. Took you on a wild goose chase.”

“Except that she didn’t seem to be wandering around aimlessly. She stopped at two places, and both times it looked to me as though it was her intended destination. As if she had some kind of business there.”

“You mean drug business?”

“No. Blood business.”

“Blood?”

“Yeah. She visited a couple of mobile blood units. You know, those big RV-looking things where people come in, let a nurse stick them in the arm, and walk out with cash.”

“What the hell’s that all about?”

“I didn’t want to give myself away by asking any questions. I was hoping it would mean something to you.”

“No,” said Jack. “Not yet.”

“The first truck was parked just off Martin Luther King Boulevard and Seventy-ninth Street. The other one was about a mile west. Both had gift of life painted on the side with a phone number underneath. You want it?”

“Yeah,” he said, then wrote it down as Mike rattled off the numbers.

“I got a name for you, too. I asked one of donors who came out of the bloodmobile after she left. Said he thinks her name’s Katrina. Didn’t get a last name.”

“That’s a good start.”

“You want me to follow up?”

“No, thanks. You go back to practicing law.”

“Aw, this is so much more fun.”

“Sorry. I’ll take it from here.”

“Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”

“Thanks.”

Jack noticed Cindy standing on the front porch. She was smiling and waving him inside.

“And Jack?” said Mike.

“Yeah?”

“Be careful with this woman, all right? Anyone who beats up my friend by night and deals with blood by day kind of worries me.”

Me too, thought Jack. He thanked him once more and said good night.

32

•

Yuri Chesnokov was in his favorite getaway on earth, a city of two hundred thousand thieves, swindlers, whores, hit men, gangsters, kidnappers, drug ru

Or who was looking for you.

Ciudad del Este is a festering urban sore in the jungle on the Paraguay side of the Paraná River. It’s difficult to get there, unless you really want to get there. Amazingly, people come in droves. More than a hundred landing strips have been cut into the forests and grasslands in the “Tri-border Region,” as the area is known. All are in constant use by small airplanes, not a single flight regulated by authorities. The two-lane bridge from the Brazilian border town of Foz do Iguacu brings in thirty thousand visitors a day, serving as the principal passageway for convoys of buses, trucks, and private cars entering from neighboring Brazil and Argentina. It’s a daily ritual, shoppers leaving Rio de Janeiro and other cities late at night and arriving the next morning in the midst of the noisy, fume-filled traffic jam that is the center of Ciudad del Este. Most of the scruffy, bazaarlike shopping centers are on Avenida Monseñor Rodriguez, the main drag from which another five thousand shops fan out in all directions for a twenty-block area. Cheap electronic equipment and cigarettes are big sellers, but only to the truly unimaginative buyers. Behind the scenes is where the real money exchanges hands-cash for weapons, sex, sex slaves, pirated software, counterfeit goods, cocaine by the ton, murder for hire, and just about everything else from phony passports to human body parts for medical transplants. Miami and Hong Kong are the only two cities in the world that see a higher volume of cash transactions. In a country that boasts an official GDP of just $9 billion, Ciudad del Este has risen to a $14 billion a