In a Heartbeat - Elizabeth Adler [10]
“He didn’t know who was bidding against him?”
“He believed it must be an overseas entrepreneur, Hong Kong, or Saudi, perhaps. Anyhow”—he shrugged his elegant gray-jacketed shoulders—“the lawyers for the other side claim they don’t know the true identity of the buyer. But the fact is, there was a definite offer on the table before ours. Or at least that’s the way they are telling it.”
“You mean you think the sellers are lying?”
Estevez thought about it. “No, I don’t think they are lying about the anonymous buyer. They don’t know who he is. But I think somebody is lying about that offer being on the table before ours.”
Camelia refilled his cup. “So you believe the gunman might be a business rival?”
“He might.” Estevez was back in his usual position, hands folded on the steel desk, eyes fixed unwaveringly on Camelia. For a second Camelia wondered uncomfortably who was doing the interviewing here, then he pulled himself together and out of the blue said, “So who’s Zelda?”
Estevez’s heavy black eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Zelda? I’ve no idea.”
“You don’t know if she was a friend of Mr. Vincent’s?”
“I’ve never heard that name before. But wait a minute”—he held up his hand—“let’s check it out in Ed’s book.”
He removed a thick address book covered in green leather from the single central drawer in the steel slab, and flicked through the Zs.
“Zelda, Zelda, Zelda . . . mmmm, no, nothing here. Of course it could be listed under the last name. But that would mean going through the entire book.”
Camelia held out his hand. “I’ll take charge of the book, sir.”
“Well . . .” Estevez was hesitant.
“We are trying to find out who attempted to kill Mr. Vincent,” Camelia said curtly. He glanced at his watch. “In fact, who might already have killed him. He wasn’t looking too good last time I saw him.”
“Jesus.” Estevez shoved the address book hastily across the desk. “Jesus, man, don’t say that.” For a minute his slick facade seemed to crack and Camelia caught a flicker of what appeared to be genuine pain in his dark eyes.
“Ed Vincent’s a good guy,” Estevez said, and this time there was a definite tremor in his voice. “He took me, a Cuban refugee, an immigrant, off the streets of Miami. I didn’t have a dime in my pocket, but we happened to be sitting next to each other on a bench, looking out at the ocean. He bought me a cup of coffee and I told him my life story, how my father was a cigar manufacturer, that I had been well educated, gone to business college. How I stayed all those long, weary, impoverished years in Cuba because my family refused to move. Even after they took away his business, my father hung on, he insisted that one day they would give it back. He believed in God and honor and he refused to recognize that there was no honor among thieves.
“The day came when I knew I would have to leave. I had a wife by then, and two kids. I had to make a living, offer them something better.”
His dark gaze met Camelia’s. “Do you know what it is to leave your elderly parents behind, knowing you will never see them again?” A frown furrowed his brow and he shook his head. “The pain is indescribable, the guilt overwhelming. But I looked into the eyes of my sons, and my father saw that. Life belongs to the young, Ricardo, he told me. Go in peace.”
“We left on one of those terrible boats, not knowing whether we would make it across that treacherous strip of ocean. But we did, and America, God bless her, took us in. But work was not plentiful for a Cuban immigrant and I was in despair when I met Ed on that park bench.
“We sat in that coffee shop for a long time