High Lie Read online

  “Can I help you?” the man said in accented English.

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “We are looking for a boy called Desi. He lost some money and we wanted to make sure he got it back.”

  “You want to give Desi money?”

  “Yes. It’s his money. We sort of found it, and we wanted to return it.”

  “Who are you?” said the man. He didn’t appear to be buying our story at all. Come look everyone, yumas with free money!

  “My name is Miami Jones, sir. This is Lucas.”

  “What did you do to Desi?”

  “Do? Nothing. We just have his money. We can give it to him and leave.”

  The man gave the beginnings of what I figured was a pretty good snarl as he looked between Lucas and me, sizing us up. “You should go,” he finally said.

  “But, sir—”

  “Go.” He didn’t raise his voice, but he was firm, and we didn’t want to cause these folks any trouble. Then Lucas broke into Spanish.

  “Some bad men took Desi and threw him in the ocean for his money. I jumped in and saved him. We just want to make sure he is okay.”

  “Which men?” asked the man in English.

  “Bad men.” Lucas looked at me, then back to the man. “We took care of them.”

  The man nodded as he considered this. Then his face relaxed.

  “Please,” he said. “Come inside.”

  The inside of the trailer didn’t match the exterior. It was spotlessly clean and the old furniture, limited as it was, well cared for. Faux-wood paneled walls had been recently dusted, as had a picture of Jesus on the crucifix, and a small kitchen had none of the detritus of cooking that was a regular feature at my place. The man offered us a seat on an old sofa that was covered in a floral print bed sheet, similar to the old woman’s dress, just red. We sat and the man took a wooden chair opposite us.

  “Agua? Cerveza?” he said.

  “No, gracias,” we both replied.

  The man introduced himself as Miguel, and we introduced ourselves to him.

  “So, Desi,” he said. “I knew he had found trouble. He was away all last night, then he missed school today. The school calls Mrs. Lopez—she has a cell phone.”

  “Is he home?” said Lucas.

  “Si. He has not spoken since he returned. He was very tired and my wife is very worried. You say he was with bad men.”

  I nodded.

  “Where is Desi’s father?” I asked.

  “Desi’s father is my wife’s brother. He is in Cuba.”

  “How did Desi get here alone?”

  “On the boats. It is very risky, you understand? Many people are lost. But we want to be in the United States.”

  “Why? Hasn’t the US stopped sanctions and opened up relations with Cuba again?” I asked.

  “In theory, Sénor. But there is no much work in Cuba. Children are educated, but then cannot find jobs. There is no opportunity for a nice life, you see?”

  We nodded in unison.

  “So we risk everything to come here. My wife’s brother sends his boy because he is young and small and speaks some English. But he can only afford to send one child. The boat owners, they charge very much. Passage is expensive.”

  “Doesn’t the United States offer emigration now?” I said.

  Miguel shrugged. “It is very difficult. And more expensive. They require fees, and money in the bank, and a sponsor in the US. Many people cannot meet the criteria. And the Cuban government will not always give the visa to leave. So people still look for other ways. We know that if you get to the US, you can stay. After one year, you can become a residente.”

  “How did you get here, Miguel?” said Lucas.

  “This way. But I was lucky, had some money. I could pay for me, my wife, two children. But that took all our money. We start from nothing. I find work on construction, and we come to West Palm.”

  “When was this?”

  “Four years ago. Soon I hope we can save to move into an apartment.”

  I nodded and leaned forward on my thighs. “Was Desi trying to earn money to pay for his family to come over?”

  Miguel nodded. “I know he collected cans, bottles, these things, for recycling. He went to the beach, to the picnics, to festivals. He worked hard. But it takes up to five thousand American dollars to pay for one passage.”

  “Five thousand bucks?” said Lucas.

  “Si. If you want to get to land. For five hundred, smugglers will drop you off the Cuba coast, in international water, with only a tire tube. Most people who do this do not make it.”

  We were all silent for a moment, processing the image of people floating in the Florida Straits, grasping inner tubes, still eighty-odd miles from the United States.

  “Miguel, we think that Desi tried to make some more money by betting on jai alai,” I said.

  Miguel’s face dropped, and he rubbed his hands through his thick, dark hair. “He lose?”

  “Yes, he lost.”

  “And these bad men, they want their money.”

  “Yes. But they didn’t just take the money he owed. They took it all. Then to cover their tracks . . .” I looked up at Miguel’s wife, standing behind her husband, concern written across her face. “To cover their tracks, they threw him in the ocean.”

  Miguel’s wife gasped, and Miguel looked to the ceiling with a set jaw. Then he looked me in the eye. “And you saved him.”

  “Lucas here, he was . . . well . . . Fishing, and he saw it. He pulled Desi from the water and brought him to my house. My girlfriend, she is a sheriff. She looked after him. Then we asked him what happened, and Lucas and I went and got his money back. But when we got back to my house, Desi was gone.”

  Miguel’s eyes darted between Lucas and me, and I saw tears gather in the corners. “And the bad men?”

  “Don’t worry about them,” said Lucas.

  “But I must,” said Miguel.

  “Why?” I asked.

  Miguel shook his head. “Because there are many such men. There is one young man who comes here. We tell the kids to stay away, but you know kids. He’s into drugs, and all sorts of bad things. Gambling, too. He doesn’t live in the park, but he is here a lot. He knows there are many desperate people here.”

  “Who is this guy?” I said.

  “He goes by the name El Tiburon.”

  “The Shark?” said Lucas.

  Miguel nodded, then turned and spoke to his wife in rapid fire Spanish. She whispered to a young girl, who dashed out of the trailer.

  “We owe you our lives,” said Miguel.

  “No,” I said. “We just want to make sure the boy is all right.”

  The door flew open and the girl stepped back inside, followed by Desi, pushed in through the door by the nosy woman who had brought us. She retreated back out the door, and Desi stood before us, eyes glued to the floor. He was small for his age, and he seemed to have shrunk a couple inches from his ordeal.

  “Hi Desi,” I said.

  The boy didn’t respond, which was pretty much status quo for our relationship.

  “Mr. Lucas is here. He has your money. He got it back.”

  “G’day, Desi,” said Lucas, standing and moving to the boy. He pulled the wad of cash from his pocket and crouched over, hands on knees, to look Desi in the eye. “Here’s your money, Desi.”

  Desi looked up a little, at the money.

  “Now I am going to give this back to you, okay?” said Lucas. “Your uncle will hold it for you. As long as you promise me you won’t go near those bad men again.”

  The color washed from Desi’s face, looking as it did when he’d first arrived at my door in Lucas’s arms.

  “What is this money for?” said Lucas.

  Desi lifted his head and looked at Lucas. “Papa.”

  “Right. So let’s not waste it. Okay?”

  Desi nodded gently, then retreated into the arms of his aunt.

  Lucas handed the cash to Miguel.

  “You’ll see
it’s kept safe and used to get the boy’s family back?” Lucas had an easy manner about him, but in that one sentence it evaporated. There was subtext dripping from the words, and we all got his meaning. Don’t you be keeping it for yourself, uncle.

  “Si. Some of his earnings must go to our living expenses, you understand. He is another mouth to feed. But most will be kept to get my wife’s brother and his family here. We all save as much as we can for this.”

  Lucas nodded.

  “How long will it take to save enough to bring the family over?” I said.

  Miguel shook his head slowly. “Many years, señor. For the whole family, many years.”

  “They can’t send another child?”

  Miguel shook his head, with more vigor. “No. Desi has two sisters. We do not send the girls alone. Many bad things can happen to girls between there and here.”

  I got his meaning. I couldn’t imagine the desperation a father must feel to put his only son on a woven raft with smugglers and set him out to sea.

  Lucas and I made our farewells, and Miguel thanked us and showed us out. As we stepped through the door, Miguel’s wife gave each of us a kiss on the cheek. Reward enough, that’s for sure. Desi hovered behind his aunt but offered Lucas a tight little smile. Lucas beamed and ruffled the boy’s hair.

  We wandered back to our car in the cool evening air, content that our good deed was done. But as I slipped into my SUV, I couldn’t shake an uncomfortable feeling. Lucas strapped in and turned to me.

  “Those mongrels are just gonna do that to another kid. You know that, right?”

  And there it was. Thank you, Dr. Lucas. “I do.”

  “I think it’s time you earned your biscuits, Mr. Private Eye. Find out who those goons work for.”

  “Yeah, I can do that.”

  “I gotta get back to Miami,” he said as I pulled out of the trailer park. “I left the kid in charge of the marina today, but two days in a row is way risky.”

  “I’ll do some digging,” I said. “I find something, I’ll call.”

  “Do that.”

  I pulled out of the trailer park and headed back to drop Lucas at his truck. I watched him as I drove. He seemed relaxed, like he’d spent the day at the beach. He didn’t waste any energy. Once a thing was done, it was done, then it was time to wait for the next thing. As I headed back to Singer Island I formulated a plan to track down this El Tiburon, and I tried to keep my own energy in reserve, so it was all saved up and ready to go when I found him.

  Chapter Five

  HAVANA WASN’T THE most imaginative name for a restaurant, but it was accurate. Stepping through the potted palms surrounding the door was like stepping into Cuba circa 1950. There were black-and-white pictures of musicians and classic cars and all that Buena Vista Social Club stuff. It looked like a hell of a time, like Palm Springs with Sinatra. The tables in the place were dark wood and the drapes red velvet. A waiter in a white shirt and black bow tie gave me a welcoming smile.

  “Julio,” I said, by way of explanation.

  The waiter nodded like I’d dropped the secret password and led me through the back of the dining room, past the bathrooms, and out into a small courtyard. Plush sofas and rattan armchairs sat under white canvas drapes, and soft jazz seemed to emanate from the palms that surrounded the whole area. There were twelve men in the courtyard, all dressed in shirt-sleeves and trousers. Most had their sleeves rolled up, and some were partaking of cigars. They all shared a common dark feature set, like their lineage hit a common point in Spain around the time of the conquistadors. It was a classy-looking group, and I was glad it was winter and I had chosen khakis over shorts. One of the men turned to me, and I saw it was Julio. He looked like he had at the fronton, clean-cut and athletic, of slim build and strong right side. I glanced around the courtyard and noticed that the other men shared the look.

  Julio smiled. “Señor Miami.” He swapped his beer into his left hand and shook mine.

  “It’s just Miami, Julio.”

  “Of course, señor. Would you care for cerveza?” he said.

  “Sure,” I said. This was my kind of crowd.

  Julio gave the waiter a nod and he did a half bow and trotted away. “Come, meet the pelotari.”

  “The what?”

  “The pelotari,” he said, waving his hand theatrically across the group of men, who all responded with smiles and nods.

  “This is what we call the players of jai alai, the pelotari.”

  I nodded as the waiter returned with my beer, complete with lime wedge. I’m not one for fruit with my beer, but when in Rome . . . I held my drink up to the group and they returned the gesture.

  “This is Roto,” said Julio, pointing to a guy in an armchair, who stood and shook my hand.

  “And this is Domingo. This here is Perez, and this is Benicio.”

  Julio made the rounds of the entire group, introducing each by the one name.

  “It’s like the Brazilian football team,” I smiled.

  Julio frowned.

  “Everyone has just one name.”

  “Si,” he nodded. “This also is jai alai tradition. The game is originally from the Basque region of Espana, Spain, and it is tradition when a pelotari begins his career, he chooses a single name by which he is known for the rest of his life. Some, it is their family name, some their hometown. Others simply choose a name, like as you say, a famous football player or musician.”

  Julio offered me a rattan chair and sat himself.

  “So Julio, you mentioned that you were in danger, that someone wanted to harm you?”

  “Si, someone has made threats,” he said.

  The man called Roto said something in Spanish, too rapidly for me to pick anything up.

  “With your permission, Roto will translate into Spanish for the rest of the men,” said Julio. “Most of us speak English okay, but some not so much. And we are all brothers in this together.”

  “Sure, that’s fine.”

  Roto did his thing, and Julio kept going.

  “It began recently. I received a note in my locker in the fronton. Some of the others did also. The notes said to stop promoting the jai alai—to leave it be.”

  “Promoting it?”

  “Si, I should go back. Jai alai is a dying game, Señor Miami. When I was a boy, jai alai was the biggest game in town. The fronton was a popular destination. Many thousands of people came to see the performances.”

  “Performances?”

  “Si, this is what we call the session of games; a performance. In the seventies and early eighties the jai alai was a social scene. In Miami fronton, over fifteen thousand people would watch, up here in West Palm as many as ten thousand. Everyone dressed up, suits and dresses. The box at the back of our fronton held corporate suites and a dining room. It was the most popular game in South Florida.”

  Roto translated, and the group all nodded as one.

  “So what happened?” I said.

  “Many things, señor. Back at this time, South Florida had no NBA team, no baseball. Outside of the Miami Dolphins football, jai alai was the main professional sport. Then the NBA came—the Heat—and the ice hockey and the Marlins baseball. And at the same time, jai alai did not promote so well. There was a player strike, and the crowds went away. Now you see what it has become. We play for maybe fifty people on a good night, a Saturday evening performance. There is no dress code, and most people just come for the betting.”

  I nodded and sipped my beer, as did everyone else. Then Julio continued.

  “We see the future, Señor Miami. It is not so good for the professional pelotari. The game dies. The casino is more interested in promoting card games and the seafood buffet. So we take things into our own hands. We collect together to promote jai alai. I am elected by my colleagues to create a plan, to promote our game in the area. To bring more people to the performances, to recruit more players. Maybe the great days are gone, but we do not believe that our game should die.”

 
“I understand,” I said, and I did. Old traditions die hard. But I also knew that, more often than not, die they eventually did. Croquet was pretty big once, or so I hear. Polo too. Thing was, polo was still a niche product, and attracted a pretty wealthy crowd. I supposed that jai alai could keep on, with a bit of work, and these men didn’t look shy of work.

  “Okay, Julio. Tell me what happened, with the threats.”

  “Yes, the threats. Letters in our lockers, they tell us to stop promoting the game. You see, our efforts were working. One weekend we have ten people in the audience, then the next week we have twenty, then fifty. We get on the local news and attract over one hundred people to a matinee. Then the notes say to stop it.”

  “And did you?”

  Several of the group snorted, as if it were a preposterous thought.

  “No,” said Julio. “We kept on with our efforts.”

  “And what happened?”

  “Last week, I received a message. Written in, how do you say it? The water from your breath?” Julio huffed into his palm to illustrate.

  “Condensation?”

  “Si, condensation. The letters were written in the condensation on the window of my car.”

  “How do you know it wasn’t just a prank—someone walking by?”

  “No señor, you misunderstand. The writing, the condensation was on the inside of the car. And the car was locked.”

  That changed things some. “And what did the message say this time?”

  “Stop jai alai or die.”

  “Well at least it’s poetic.”

  “Señor?”