Straits of Fortune - Anthony Gagliano [61]
I started to say that I knew that and to thank her for her trouble, but she had already turned her back and was closing the door to the bedroom behind her.
I showered with a soap that smelled of fresh-cut flowers and used two pink razors to scrape the hard days from my face and neck. I wiped the steam from the mirror and was glad to see I no longer looked quite as insane, but instead like a man who only needed a week or two of sleep. Then I went into the bedroom again and began to get dressed. Everything fit except for the pants, which were a little wide in the waist. Maybe the gun would take up the slack. I noticed a brush on the dresser and went over and had just begun brushing my hair with it when I glanced down at the framed photos I’d seen before.
There was one of Susan with her parents. It was in a gold frame, and she looked about five years old; a few more with an older boy who looked like her brother. There was one of her in a white cheerleader’s outfit complete with pompoms and a fresh-faced, sun-soaked beauty that even when you’re lucky enough to be born to it only visits for a while. There was another photo of her in cap and gown in front of a stately looking building with ivy clinging to its walls, her parents beaming proudly on either side of her.
They were nice pictures, and they took some of the coldness out of the room, and I was just scanning them when my eyes froze on a framed photo hanging on the wall in an array that included her diplomas from college and law school. It was a group photo taken at some kind of presentation or awards ceremony. The people in it were standing behind a table stacked with what appeared to be packages of heroin or cocaine—your standard big-bust photo. There were seven people in the shot besides Susan. One I recognized as the former chief of police of Miami-Dade County, now retired. Another was of the mayor. There were three others: two women and a man. I glanced casually at their grinning faces. Then something registered, and I scanned backward.
The hand doing the brushing stopped in midair. I set the brush down and eased the picture frame off its mounting to get a better look at it. There was no mistake. I was just about to replace it when I felt a presence behind me.
“What are you staring at?” Susan asked.
“I was just checking out the photo. Hope you don’t mind,” I said. My hands were trembling.
“That’s from when we busted the Falcone brothers,” Susan said. “You remember them, don’t you?”
“Big-time coke dealers,” I said, my eyes still riveted on the man at the far right of the photo. “I remember. They got deported to Colombia, didn’t they?”
“That’s right. Then they mysteriously escaped and went back into business again, bigger and better than ever.”
I was biding my time. I didn’t want to make her suspicious.
I pointed at the last man in the photo, the man I’d seen before but whom no one would ever see again. The other dead man on the white yacht.
“Who’s this guy?” I asked nonchalantly.
“Why? You know him?”
“I don’t know. I might have seen him somewhere.”
“His name is Duncan. Harry Duncan. He’s with the DEA.”
“The DEA?” I asked.
“Worked undercover. He asked me out once, but there was something about him I didn’t like. What’s wrong? You know him from someplace?”
“No, he just looks familiar, that’s all.”
She must have noticed something odd in my expression. I had a hard time looking her in the eye, but with a woman, avoiding that is the worst thing you can do. Ten years of listening to liars had sharpened her senses to an unpleasant acuteness.
“What are you not telling me, Jack?”
“Quite a bit. Anyway, I think I should be leaving now. I’ve been too much trouble already.”
“You should have thought of that before you got here,” she said.
“All right, but before I go, how about one last request?”
“Such as?”
“You wouldn’t happen to have an extra banana lying around, would you?” I asked. “I haven’t eaten much lately.”
“There