Tampa Burn

EIGHT

Outside the federal building, after being cleared by security, Tattoo left us for ten minutes. When he came back, he said, “My people say you’re supposed to go pick up the package. They want me with you. So that’s the way we’ll work it. Any complaints?”

Pilar asked, “Did they tell you what we’re picking up?”

“Nope. Don’t you go tellin’ me nothin’ ’bout it neither, pretty lady.”

We got the Ford Taurus from the parking garage. Tattoo took the passenger seat. The car creaked beneath his weight, listing noticeably to starboard. Without asking, he changed the radio station to Willie Nelson, and then Tim McGraw, Cat Country Radio, 107 FM, radiating out from across central Florida.

I took Eighth Street through Little Havana-coffee shop bodegas, men smoking cigars over dominoes in Maximo Gomez Park-then turned south on LeJeune into Coral Gables.

The Masaguan and Guatemalan consulates were in adjoining buildings, both identified by ornate wall tiles, and next to Mitch Kaplan’s Books amp; Books. Before going inside with Pilar, I gave Tomlinson a warning look- Keep your mouth closed around this guy.

I sat leafing through a magazine in the waiting room once an aide, after greeting Pilar warmly, touched the keypad lock, opened a door, and guided her down a long hallway.

Twenty minutes later, she came out carrying a gray photographer’s equipment case that looked to be made of some kind of miracle resin, element-proof, but light.

“Is it all there?” I asked as we walked out onto the street.

Pilar told me, “It’s in fifties and hundreds. Can you believe a half-million dollars takes up so little space?”

Several steps later, sounding emotional, she added, “There was a note inside. Kahlil, my jeweler friend, he said he couldn’t get what he thought my stones were worth, so he added a little more than nineteen thousand dollars of his own money. How many people do you know who would do something so sweet and decent?”

“I’m paying half,” I reminded her.

She said it again: “That’s not necessary.”

The same tone.

Tattoo was getting his instructions from calls that he made from pay phones even though he had a Nokia cell phone clipped to his belt.

The cell phone rang often, playing some kind of show tune. Calliope music maybe, the sort I associate with merry-go-rounds-an odd choice for him. He answered occasionally, always after checking the caller I.D., but none of the calls seemed related to our business.

Once, driving on the East-West Expressway, I listened to him say, “Baby doll, you don’t talk nice to me, you ain’t gonna get no more a my good sugar. And I sure as hell ain’t gonna buy you no more play toys.”

Another time, I heard, “There’s a reason you need to visit your new lover boy. It’s ’cause where I live looks like the Florida you dreamed about before the first time you come down and saw what mosta this ol’ whore really looks like.”

That told me something. I made a mental note.

Three times we stopped at pay phones. Twice at 7-Elevens, once at a Walgreen’s. He’d drop in coins, say a few words, listen, then let the car settle beneath his weight before giving directions.

They had us drive across Biscayne Bay via MacArthur Causeway to A1A, Collins Avenue, onto South Beach, where Tattoo craned his neck at the girls in thong bikinis at Lummus Park.

He said, “Looky, looky, looky at all the nookie, nookie, nookie,” as I drove north in the slow traffic, bumper to bumper, patio restaurant tables full despite the heat, everyone outside to gawk and be seen in the postcard setting, 1950s hotels, pink flamingo Deco, palms, blue ocean, skaters, bikers, and joggers on sidewalks, oiled, silicon breasts on parade along with Porsches, Ferraris, Hummers.

Tattoo knew the area. He barked a steady flow of directions, but never all at once. Never offered a destination, or an explanation.

Once, when I asked, “I assume we’re going to meet someone,” he replied, “Don’t you go assumin’ nothin’, buster. I’m just doin’ what they’re tellin’ me to do. You’re gonna do the same.”

At the Howard Johnson’s north of Collins Park, he had me pull over and made another call. When he got back into the car, he checked his Rolex Submariner and said, “What you gonna do now is drive us back across the bay again. This time on the Tuttle Causeway, then we gonna take our time and drive north a piece.”

That’s when I realized what they were doing. And why.

I looked in the rearview mirror and caught Tomlinson’s eyes. They were bloodshot, watery blue-he’d gone to the Rum Bar late the night before, he’d told me, and gotten very drunk.

In his expression, though, I could see that he now understood as well.

The kidnappers were making us drive back and forth across Biscayne Bay for a purpose. There could only be one reason. Someone was almost certainly in a boat below, watching as we crossed. They were watching to see if cops in unmarked squad cars were keeping track of our movements, setting up a bust. Or to see if they were trailing us from above in a chopper.

Bridges are great isolators, perfect surveillance choke points. In city traffic, it can take three or four cars and a trained team to effectively tail someone. So they’d come up with an ingenious way to check us out, to see if we were double-crossing them.

It told me the people we were dealing with were professionals. I found that at once heartening and daunting. It meant they’d probably be businesslike in their dealings concerning Lake-something that didn’t mesh with the burn welt on my son’s arm. It also meant they probably wouldn’t hesitate to kill the boy if we somehow screwed up on our end.

As we crossed the Julia Tuttle Causeway, I saw several boats moving along the Intracoastal Waterway. I tried to take a fast mental snapshot, doing my best to remember individual boats.

One was a small white tri-hull outboard. It was idling in the distance, beam to the bridge, with what may have been block lettering on the side.

I associate such lettering with rental boats.

There looked to be one, possibly two people aboard, scrunched down behind the windshield.

I didn’t want to be obvious about staring. Plus, from that distance, and from a moving car, it was impossible to decipher details.

Twenty minutes later, though, crossing Biscayne Bay yet a third time via the North Bay Bridge, I saw the same boat, positioned to the north but not moving, at least one person hiding behind the windshield. I knew it was the one.

Which was O.K. Whoever was aboard the boat would watch us. They would convince themselves that we were being straight, we hadn’t tipped off law enforcement. After that, we’d be able to cut some kind of deal.

Or so I thought.

At Armando’s Service Station on North Shore, Tattoo made yet another telephone call. This time, though, he came back shaking his head, his expression stormy. “Deal’s off. My clients say y’all have really fucked this’n up. They say tell you the project’s screwed. You ain’t gonna be hearin’ from them or seein’ me ever again.”

He gave us a little two-finger salute. “So fare-thee-well, and fuck you very much. I’ll catch a ride.” Then he turned to walk away.

Behind me, Pilar gave a muffled scream and threw the car door open. She went running after him, calling, “You can’t do this! Why? We’ve done exactly what they told us to do.”

I was out of the car, too, and then Tomlinson was out. He got his arms around Pilar, who was sobbing, holding her back or supporting her, cars slowing on the busy highway, curious- See the tattooed giant and the crying woman.

Which is probably the only reason Tattoo came back to us, making a calming motion with his hands. He didn’t want a scene. Didn’t want cops arriving, demanding an explanation.

Now Pilar was pleading with him. “I’ll do anything they want. Anything. Whatever we did wrong, we’ll make it right. Just tell us.”

Tattoo looked from me to Pilar, then back to me, his brow furrowed, his piggish little eyes doing some calculating. Finally, he said, “She really don’t know why the deal’s gone south, does she?”

I said, “No. None of us knows. We have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He maintained eye contact, telling me he’d know if I was bullshitting, watched my reaction before he said, “You got somebody following you, pal. We was being followed from the time we crossed over onto South Beach. Maybe from the time we left Miami… or coulda been Coral Gables. Somebody driving a black Chevy, tinted windows. Every time we crossed a bridge, they crossed right behind us. Five or six cars behind. Sticking right on our tail.”

Pilar turned to scream at me, “Marion Ford, if you’ve gone behind my back and told someone, I’ll never forgive you-”

Still holding her, Tomlinson made her stop, saying, “Whoa, my dear, whoa. My man wouldn’t do that. It has to be someone else.”

To Tattoo, I said, “Call your clients. If we’re being followed, we don’t know who it is. Tell them we’re cooperating. We’ll do whatever they want.”

The giant was still staring at me, considering. Finally, he nodded. “I got no reason to believe you… but I guess I do. Besides, the longer you stay in business, the longer I stay in business. I’ll call my clients, see what kinda mood they’re in.”

We waited in the air-conditioned chill of the rental Ford. In the back seat, Tomlinson continued to hold Pilar and reassure her, stroking her hair, speaking softly, “It’s cool, it’s cool. Your son’s all right. I can feel it. I know these things. Ask Doc.”

She seemed on the brink of emotional collapse.

It was a miserable five minutes that seemed much, much longer.

Finally, Tattoo returned across the parking lot in his swaggering, weight-lifter’s gait, his expression showing nothing. When I started to open the door, he shook his head and held up both palms- Stay in the car.

Not a good sign.

But when I lowered the front passenger window so he could lean in, he surprised me by saying, “You got yourselves a second chance.”

Behind me, I heard Pilar whisper in Spanish, “Oh, thank you, dear mother of God.”

Tattoo added, “But, Miz Pretty Lady, your two doofus pals here need to understand somethin’. This is also your last chance. My clients say you ain’t gonna get another one. Don’t matter whose fault it is. They say this is it.

“I’m supposed to tell you they’ll be in touch in the next day or two. We’ll set up another meeting. If someone’s still tailing you next time, that’s all she wrote.”

Her tone wretched, Pilar said, “But we don’t know who’s following us. How are we supposed to stop them?”

Tattoo said, “That’s your problem, not ours. But you better figure it out. My advice though?” He looked at Tomlinson, then at me, and gave a little snort of derision. “Your two pals, Mr. Booky and Freaky Creepy here, they ain’t the best choices when it comes to a tighty-tight like this.”

Before Tattoo told us he’d find his own way home and banged twice on the car’s roof, cutting us loose, I told him to tell his clients that Pilar was going to have to dump the satellite phone they’d given her. If a lone car had managed to tail us for more than an hour through all that Miami traffic, the probability was that I’d been right. Some kind of GPS tracking device was involved-probably installed in the phone.

He said he’d tell ’em. But that didn’t mean it was O.K.

I drove us west away from the ocean, then south on I-95, keeping my eyes on the rearview mirror, watching for the black Chevy. As I drove, the three of us discussed the maybes. Who might be following us.

Pilar, still shaken, her voice trembling, said there were two possibilities: one or both of the federal investigators she’d spoken to in Masagua. It could be them, or it could be they’d leaked information to people who’d decided to come hunting for what sounded like an easy score.

“Marion’s already mentioned the other possibility, too,” she said. “It could be people associated with the kidnappers but who’re out for themselves. They know I picked up the money at the consulate, and they’re trying to take it before I make the exchange.”

Tomlinson had one more alternative: “It could be that the kidnappers are lying. Telling us we’re being followed just to soften us up, make us more eager to cooperate. If it’s one kidnapper, singular, not kidnappers, he was down there in the boat all alone, watching us.

“So, could be he was buying time because he’s doing everything by himself. First, he makes sure we’re not being followed, then later, he arranges a drop spot for the cash. But he tells us we’re being followed because he wants to keep us on the defensive. Scared and eager. He wants us to think he’s gonna kill Lake, that he can walk away from the deal, no problem.”

In my mind, I could see the video, the man in the mask doing everything himself, but telling us over and over that he wasn’t acting alone.

I hoped Tomlinson was right.

But what if he wasn’t?

Certain inferences could be made if a rogue group in a black Chevy was tracking the satellite phone that Pilar was carrying. Tomlinson was thinking the same thing, because he asked Pilar, “Does your ex-husband know about you and Doc? That he’s the father of your son?”

“Yes.”

Her flat tone said how uncomfortable she was with the subject.

“Does he know Doc by name, I mean? Where he lives?”

I said, “He knows who I am. Finding out where I live wouldn’t take much effort. So, if these people are insiders, we’re not going to lose them by just dumping the satellite phone. That’s where you’re heading with this. They’ll find us on Sanibel. Pick up our trail there.”

I was still thinking about who might be following us. Who it could be, or where they may have heard about Pilar and the cash. There was yet a third possibility that no one had mentioned. Pilar was mad at me anyway, so I decided to go ahead and risk offending her.

“There’s at least one other person who knows. The question is, how much does he know?”

Sounding puzzled, Pilar said, “Aside from the people we’ve mentioned, there’s no one else. Who?”

“Your friend Kahlil. He just sold nearly a half-million dollars’ worth of emeralds for you. Did you tell him the reason they had to be sold?”

“Of course. He deserved an explanation.”

“Then he’s someone else to consider. Maybe he’s a talker. Maybe he told a friend. Or a dozen friends.”

Oh yeah, she was offended.

“Kahlil is one of the most decent and generous men I know. A moral man. We are… Kahlil and I are close. Please don’t suggest that he has something to do with this.”

Turning to look out the window, she added, “Not coming from you.”