Tod Goldberg - The Reformed

“How did you learn to blow things up, Fi?”

Fi started to turn over-well, she actually gave a half turn, to the delight of the tourists, which I suspect was her plan all along-and then remembered her undone top, which she retied before sitting up so she could see me. “I love it when you ask me personal questions,” she said. “I think my brother taught me. Or maybe some kids down the way, but probably my brother. It was so much fun growing up back then. You could play outside all day and no one complained if you accidentally incinerated an empty shack or three.”

“What did you use?”

“Whatever we could find. Bleach seemed to work well when mixed with other things. Pools of hairspray proved quite flammable, too.”

“What could you have done with a book like The Revolutionary’s Cookbook?”

Fiona thought for a moment. “Personally? I think I could have brought England to its knees, but then I was always a very active child.”

Anyone with an Internet connection can figure out how to build an atomic bomb, or at least procure the steps needed to put it all together, but not everybody has access to enriched plutonium. And anyone with an Internet connection can order The Revolutionary’s Cookbook, but that doesn’t make him capable of actually creating a device that can do anything more than maim himself, but the mere idea that Junior was pondering this was cause for some concern, particularly since he was apparently receiving the list of visitors Father Eduardo was seeing each day.

I couldn’t imagine a reason why he’d want those names unless he planned to shake them down, send them materials related to his blackmail scheme or to stick a pipe bomb in their mailboxes. None of the options were particularly appealing.

“You know what I wonder?” I said. “Just how much Junior really wants to run through Honrado, and how much he might just want to be respected like Father Eduardo. If he really wanted to bring him down, why not just kill him already? There must be easier businesses to run his money through.”

“You said he hasn’t read The Art of War yet,” Fiona said.

She had a point, but it still didn’t quite make sense to me. But, then, revenge isn’t always about the quick fix. Sometimes it’s about torture. Junior had spent twenty-five years in prison. That’s a long time to spend pondering someone else’s suffering.

And if anyone knew about suffering, it was Sam… or at least that’s what his general countenance suggested when he walked up to where we were sitting, tore off his shirt and essentially beached himself facedown on the chaise longue we’d held for him. He had a manila envelope stuffed into his back pocket, which made him look like a delivery man who’d been murdered.

“Always so graceful,” Fiona said.

“Sweetheart,” Sam said, not bothering to turn over, “I’m doing battle with some demons today. Unless you have a pocket exorcism kit with you, I’d appreciate a bit more tenderness from you.”

“Can I get you a drink?” Fiona said.

Sam lifted his head and turned it to face Fiona. “Now, that’s my girl,” he said. “How about a Jim Jones?”

Fiona slapped Sam’s flank. It sounded wet. “You’re fine,” she said.

“I could do without the kidney slaps,” he said.

“This is a great hotel,” I said.

“Isn’t it?” Sam said.

“There a reason we’re here?”

“Blue skies and pretty girls aren’t enough for you, Mikey?”

“No,” I said, though it wasn’t a bad place to scroll through someone else’s BlackBerry. I told Sam what we’d learned.

“You think Junior is working with THRUSH on this to finally get Solo and Kuryakin in their crosshairs?”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“You think it was the girl with the handsome scar who sent in the list?”

“It could be anyone,” I said, because the truth was that I didn’t want it to be her. “Can you turn over? I feel weird speaking to the hair on your back.”

“Your true colors always shine through, Mikey,” Sam said. “Here’s what I learned while you two were out here enjoying the free vitamin D from the sun, the reason for which shall be made clear as soon as I can move my torso.” He rolled himself-which took some effort-until he was mostly flat on his back, and then pulled the envelope out of his back pocket and handed it to me.

“Are you having some kind of problem?” Fiona asked.

“I think I injured myself last night,” Sam said.

I opened up the envelope and pulled out several pages of telephone records. “Quick turnaround,” I said.

“Have I ever mentioned my friend Yvonne before?”

“Last night, actually,” I said. “And in more detail than I was comfortable with.”

“I did?”

“You did.”

Sam shook his head like he was trying to dislodge his brain from a fork. “Well, anyway, she works for the phone company. She’s a good source in times of trouble, and a good friend in times when you just want to be alone, but don’t really want to be alone.”

“More information than I’m comfortable with, too,” Fiona said.

“No one wearing that much oil and that little clothing can have an opinion on what constitutes too much information,” Sam said.

Junior’s phone was registered to someone named Julia Pistell. “Any idea who this Pistell woman is?” I asked.

“According to Yvonne, there’s exactly one person in the United States named Julia Pistell with another phone record,” Sam said. “And she’s a college student in Vermont.”

“So she’s not a Cuban gangster?”

“Doesn’t appear so,” Sam said. “I’m going to guess she’s been the victim of identity theft, particularly since I ran her credit and she’s now the proud owner of ten credit cards, all in good standing, mind you, so that’s good for her.”

There was one number that appeared at least twice a day for a week; some days, it appeared close to a dozen times. There was another number that appeared five times in one day and then not once after that. Sam had circled the most frequent number in red pen, the other number in blue. It was far more organization on Sam’s part than I was used to. “Who’s this in red?” I asked.

“You’re looking at him.”

“He called you?” Fiona said.

“No,” Sam said. He waved his arms about. “This him. The Ace Hotel.”

“This isn’t a him. It’s an it,” Fiona said.

“Sister, I’m not real strong on the pronouns right now,” Sam said. “You’re lucky I’m not speaking in tongues anymore.”

“Why is he calling this hotel?” I said.

“He’s got a villa here, or his friend Julia does,” Sam said. “It’s been rented for a month.”

“I want to say, Michael, that I am liking this man more now than I did yesterday,” Fiona said. “He does have good taste in kitsch resorts.”

Renting a villa at the Ace Hotel for a month would cost upwards of ten thousand dollars, but that’s not what had me wondering what his motive was.

“Who is in it?” I said.

“No one answered when I called,” Sam said.

“You get a room number?” I asked.

“I managed to make sweet eyes at the girl behind the counter,” Sam said, “and when that didn’t work, I gave a bartender a hundred bucks and told him to meet us out here when he had the information, and that you’d compensate him then, as well.”

Sam was always happy to spend someone else’s money. “What about this other number?” I said.

“Ah, yes,” Sam said, “the plot thickens. Seems your friend Barry took a few calls from Junior, as well.”

Barry is a friend to a lot of people in Miami, particularly people with money to launder. If you want the best man in the business, he’s the man to go to. But I had a hard time believing Barry was working directly with an organization like the Latin Emperors. He tended to prefer to work with sole proprietors. Less chance of getting snitched out by someone… or getting shot. Barry could get you what you needed, but he wasn’t the kind of guy to consort too much with the more violent members of his profession, mainly because he wasn’t exactly handy around a gun, or a fist, for that matter.