Ted Bell - Hawke

Both of them badass, he could gather that much pretty quickly. Gooey hair. Big black sunglasses, heavy gold chains, Rolex watches with diamonds, all that Scarface shit.

“I used to be,” he said, trying to get it exactly right. “But now I root for the Yankees.”

The two Cuban badasses smiled and sat down across from him, and he knew he’d nailed the goddamn secret password thing. Nailed it. When you’re good, you’re good, that’s all there is to it.

“Your left hand. Show me,” Wideload said.

Gomez turned his palm up and showed him the two initials carved into his hand. Guy didn’t say anything, just nodded to the other guy.

“What does that stand for, anyway?” Gomez asked. “The MM? Is that Mao-Mao? Or is it, like, WW?”

They both looked at him like he was crazy.

“Why don’t you shut the fuck up and let us ask the questions, okay?” Wideload said. “We ask the questions. You answer the questions. Got that?”

“Okay, okay. Sorry. I was just wondering, you know, what it stood for. You guys have names, by any chance? Just curious.”

“Guy simply don’t understand English,” Wideload said, shaking his head.

“No. He speaks English okay. But he got the attention span of a fuckin’ moquito,” the tall guy said.

“Hey, wait a goddamn second,” Gomez said. “I don’t—”

“Shut up and listen. Okay?”

“Okay. Hey, I’m all ears.”

“That’s good. You want to do business? Shut your mouth for five seconds. It was us who spoke to you on the phone. I’m Julio. He’s Iglesias,” Tallboy said.

“Man,” Gomez said, slapping the table, “you guys are good. Code names and everything!”

“You believe this guy?” the tall one said.

“It’s not code, okay? Our names really are Julio and Iglesias,” the white guayabera said.

“Fine,” Gomez said, bobbing his head up and down. “Cool. Julio. Iglesias. Whatever. I’m down with that.”

“Give me a look at your newspaper,” Wideload said. Major Cuban accents here. Two heavy-duty hombres just off the boat from La Habana. A blind man could see that.

“All yours,” Gomez said, and slid the paper over to the guy.

The guy opened to the page where Gomez had stashed all the ID they’d asked for. His Navy papers, Florida driver’s license, Social Security. While one guy checked his ID, the other guy called the waitress over and ordered them all cafй con leches. Not that he’d do it, this was a business meeting, but a cold one at this point would really hit the spot.

She bent over to hand them all menus and gave everybody a perfect photo op of her lacy push-up Wonder Bra. Gomez almost came out of his seat. Perfect goddamn wonder breasts! Christ Jesus, he thought, how come this place was so empty? Forget the food, this waitress’s knockers alone ought to be packing them in. He was watching her rumba her ass on back to the kitchen when Wideload brought him back to reality.

“We were both saddened to hear of your mother’s passing,” the Cuban guy said, picking something out of his teeth with a gold toothpick.

“Yeah? How’d you know about that?” Gomez said. “Rodrigo tell you?”

“You’re smart, you never say that name again, seсor. You’re not smart … well …”

Gomez just nodded, looking from one to the other, making sure they knew that he got the picture.

“Rodrigo?” he said, grinning. “Who the hell is Rodrigo?”

“You just said it again, asshole,” Wideload said. “Twice.”

“Hey, I was just—”

“How about you shut the fuck up while we finish looking at your papers, okay?”

It was just after he got back to the base after the little episode at the Mao-Mao Club that he’d gotten the phone call from these two guys. Before he left Havana, he’d gone back to the hospital and said his goodbyes to his mother. She was still wailing in pain when he’d walked out the door. He’d immediately split for Gitmo.

His mother died an hour after he left the hospital, Rita told him when he walked in the door.

Headed home to Gitmo he’d been sad and pissed about his hand, which stung like crazy, but what he really was, goddammit, was scared shitless about coming up with a hundred large. On the other hand, what could they do? Way he had it figured, if he never left the base, how could they get to him? Fact was, it didn’t take long.

They’d called his house at the base. Late the same night he got home from Havana. He’d been sitting in the kitchen drinking Budweiser tallboys. Crying some, thinking about his mom. The kids were asleep and his wife was upstairs watching some stupid movie. Two Cuban guys on the phone. They wanted to know did he have the money and when he’d be coming to Miami next to visit his Aunt Nina.

Some truly unbelievable shit, man.

They’d known her name, where she lived, everything. They said they’d heard a lot of good things about him and they wanted to hook up with him somewhere. Soon. Before his deadline ran out.

He told them right up front he didn’t have the money. Didn’t see any way of getting it in a week. Could he, maybe, get an extension? He had friends in Miami. He’d done a little dealing before he joined the Navy. Maybe he could work something out with some of his old pals. Seeing Rodrigo’s colorless eyes as he said it. Getting that really sick feeling in his stomach.

Like he really had a chance to score a hundred large in three days. Make that three lifetimes.

Then, a miracle. The more they talked the more he began to understand that they weren’t going to whack him for a chickenshit hundred G’s, after all! No, they had some kind of weird-assed business proposition for him! A deal that would not only erase the unfortunate debt he had gotten into in Havana, but a deal that would make him rich!

They said they wanted to meet up in Miami. They were sure he would find they had a proposition that would interest him greatly.

“Yeah, how greatly?” he’d asked the guy on the phone. He’d heard of these phone scams before. These guys sounded legit, but he wasn’t stupid.

“Is one million dollars greatly enough?” the guy said.

“One million dollars?” he said, almost choking on the figure. “Yeah, I’d say that was greatly.”

So he agreed to meet them and wangled the family emergency leave. Took his family to Miami. He’d listen to what they had to say. Hopefully, it wasn’t some con to get him off the base so they could waste him. He was a pretty good judge of character, though, and these guys sounded okay to him.

So, here he was, Johnny-on-the-spot at the San Cristуbal on Calle Ocho just like they told him. A million bucks? For that kind of money, he’d meet anybody. Friggin’ Adolf and friggin’ Hitler, man. Friggin’ Frank and friggin’ Sinatra, much less Julio and Iglesias here.

Who wants to be a millionaire? Petty Officer Third Class Rafael Gomez, that’s who.

He was starting to think that the chance meeting with Ling-Ling was the beginning of a major shift in his luck. Luck that, frankly, hadn’t been all that hot lately. Hadn’t been that great since high school, if you wanted the truth.

Gomez noticed they still hadn’t bothered to properly introduce themselves. Because they knew his real name, it bothered him a little. Probably the way these kinds of things went down, though. Less he knew the better, he figured, when and if the fit hit the shan. But, still—

“So let me skip the chase and cut directly to the outcome,” Gomez said, liking the way that had come out. “What exactly does a guy have to do around here to make a million bucks? What’s the plan, guys? And, since we’re going to maybe be in business together, let’s cut the crap. You guys have any, like, real names?”