James Grippando - Hear No Evil

“Got you some lunch,” said Theo as he handed it to him.

“Thanks,” said Jack, unwrapping it. “What it is?”

“The Felipe Castillo special.”

Jack chewed off the corner of his Cuban sandwich-slices of ham, pork, cheese, and pickles on Cuban bread, pressed together with a sandwich iron. “Very funny, Theo.”

“How’d it go this morning?” asked Theo.

“I don’t know. I think it might have been a mistake to put him on the stand at all.”

“You’re probably right.”

“You think?”

“Oh, yeah. Bad mistake, Jacko. Right up up there with Napoleon charging into Waterloo, Hitler turning his tanks against Russia, Dustin Hoffman going to see Elaine’s portrait.”

“Dustin Hoffman what?”

“The Graduate, dumbshit. You know, when Mrs. Robinson asks Benji if he would like to go upstairs and see her daughter’s-”

“I saw the flick. You equate a movie with a military decision that was probably the turning point of World War Two?”

“No. But I don’t think a Cuban soldier in Miami is in the category of earth-shattering, either. So get some perspective.”

“Do you live to see me scratch my head? Is that what makes you tick?”

The car stopped at the traffic light. It was a ride to nowhere, just cruising around the block long enough to hold a completely private conversation before Jack returned to court. Theo looked at Jack and said, “I’m making some headway on your Mustang.”

Jack opened his bag of chips. “You kidding me?”

His expression was deadpan. “I kid about sex. I kid about death. I kid about everything. Except cars.”

“What’d you find out?”

“I found the guy who did it. Some little weasel. Not even Cuban. Couldn’t give a shit about Castro.”

“Then why did he burn my car and write ‘Castro lover’ on the pavement?”

“Because somebody told him to. Hired him to, I should say.”

“Who?”

“Don’t know yet.”

“He wouldn’t tell you?”

“He would have, if he knew. It was a very thorough interrogation. The guy still couldn’t give me a name.”

Jack winced at the thought of a “thorough” investigation. Better not to know. The traffic light changed, and Theo turned the corner back toward the courthouse.

“So what’s your take?” said Jack. “Some anti-Castro group hired him through a go-between? Tried to scare me into not bringing the Cuban soldier into the courtroom?”

“Not sure it was an anti-Castro group.”

Jack swallowed one last bite of sandwich. “What, then? You think the anti-Castro message was just window dressing? Something to make it look like the work of an exile group?”

Theo steered his car toward the curb. They were a half block from the courthouse, as close as any vehicle could get with the added security. “Maybe so.”

“Who else would even care if a Cuban soldier came into the courtroom or not?”

“Maybe that’s not the right question. Maybe the right question is: Who else would try to make the defense too scared to call its best witness?”

“Or even more to the point, who else would be perfectly happy to see Lindsey Hart take the fall for the murder of Oscar Pintado?” Jack thought about it, then crumpled his sandwich wrapper into a ball. “You got any leads?”

“One good one. The people who hired the little pyromaniac didn’t pay him in cash.”

“Don’t tell me they wrote a check.”

“No. They paid in cocaine.”

Jack was reaching for the door handle, then stopped cold. “A drug connection?”

“Maybe.”

“That could change everything.”

“Yup.”

“Stay on it, Theo.”

“What are you gonna do?”

Jack glanced out the windshield, then looked at Theo and said, “I’m thinking maybe it’s time for another face-to-face with Alejandro Pintado.”

Theo nodded once, no disagreement, and then gave Jack one of those closed-fist handshakes. Jack got out the car, closed the door, and started down the sidewalk to the courthouse, ready to face yet again that ever-present group of Pintado-family supporters.

The return of Alejandro Pintado to the witness stand brought the courtroom to a complete hush. Technically, the prosecutor could have objected to Jack’s attempted rematch with the government’s star witness, but Torres held his tongue, apparently pleased to have an encore performance from the victim’s father. The jurors watched with the same sympathy and respect they had shown earlier, their admiration perhaps even greater than before. The woman in the first row probably would have kissed his ring, had Pintado offered. Jack, too, approached with some level of respect.

Sometimes, even disembowelment had to be done politely.

“Mr. Pintado, isn’t it true that Brothers for Freedom has given serious consideration to shutting down its operations?”

The witness gave him a quizzical look. “What time period are you talking about?”

“Over the last two years.”

“We had some discussions,” said Pintado. “Nothing definite. And as of late, there has been no talk of that at all. As long as Cubans come across the Florida Straits in search of freedom, our planes will be out there looking for them.”

Jack let him have his moment, then checked his notes for the details. “Sir, would it surprise you to know that from January to December of last year the U.S. Coast Guard interdicted over one thousand undocumented Cuban migrants at sea?”

“That would not surprise me at all.”

“How many Cubans did Brothers for Freedom rescue in that same year?”

He looked away awkwardly and said, “Two.”

“The year before that, the Coast Guard interdicted nine hundred Cubans. How many did Brothers for Freedom rescue?”

“That year? I think none.”

“In fact, if we exclude the current year and go back five years, Brothers for Freedom rescued a grand total of just eleven rafters. Isn’t that true, sir?”

“Well, you have to remember, we spotted far more than that. Unfortunately, the Coast Guard got to them and returned them to Castro before we could help them. That’s my whole objection to the wet-feet/dry-feet interdiction policy.”

“By wet feet/dry feet, you mean that if the Coast Guard interdicts Cuban rafters at sea, they are returned to Cuba. But if-”

“If they make it to dry land, they make it to freedom. That’s all my organization is trying to do. Get people safely to freedom.”

“And that’s why you referred to the U.S. Coast Guard as ‘Castro’s border patrol.’ ”

“I think their actions speak for themselves.”

“Okay. Now let’s get back to my original question. In five years, Brothers for Freedom rescued eleven Cuban rafters, correct?”

“That’s correct.”

“This year, things have been different, have they not? Particularly in the first six months?”

“We’ve had more success, yes.”

“Much more success,” said Jack. “Through June of this year, a period of just six months, Brothers for Freedom rescued thirty-seven rafters.”

“Thirty-eight, actually. One of the women we rescued was eight months pregnant.”

“You must be proud of that.”

“I’m proud of all my people. We just keep getting better at what we do.”

“And more efficient, too,” said Jack. “Brothers for Freedom filed fewer FAA flight plans this year than in any previous year, has it not?”

“That’s true.”

“You purchased less fuel this year than in any previous year, correct?”

“That’s right,” said Pintado.

“And interestingly enough, according to INS estimates, the total number of rafters leaving Cuba is down by almost twenty percent this year when compared to previous years.”