The Four Corners of the Sky_ A Novel - Michael Malone [142]
Annie moved to a booth where she ordered a salad and a bottle of flat water. The waiter looked disappointed by her Spartan choices. Above her head hung blue fish netting in which large neon blue plastic martini glasses tangled with starfish. Barbie dolls in bathing suits lay in the net against G.I. Joes and model cars.
She phoned Trevor in Maryland, describing her visit to her father at Golden Days, the strange call from the woman telling her to stay away, her surprise when Rafael Rook and she opened the case in which they’d found something that resembled the gold Queen of the Sea (which was now locked in her hotel room). She gave Trevor Sergeant Hart’s phone number and the license plate number of the black Mercedes she’d seen outside Golden Days: Was it in fact the racketeer Feliz Diaz’s car? Could Trevor also find out anything about Diaz’s girlfriend, Helen Clark?
Trevor grouchily told Annie that he didn’t work for her, he worked for the U.S. government.
“Support your troops,” she reminded him.
“Go to bed. I’ll call you in the morning,” he promised. “By morning I mean like ten, eleven o’clock.”
“Trevor, you’re sleeping your life away.”
He laughed. “How can I with you calling me all the time?”
A well-muscled man Annie’s age—with expensive beachy clothes—leaned in, took a crayon from a basket, and wrote a big green question mark on the paper tablecloth. “Waiting for a boyfriend?”
She didn’t reply. He grinned in what he clearly hoped was a winning way. He had better teeth than anyone could honestly come by; they were as white as a sink. “Tonight is ours, could be. How ’bout I sit down, buy you a drink?”
Glancing up, Annie said, “How ’bout you don’t?”
“Large mistake,” he told her.
“Chance I have to take.” She smiled with an insincerity he couldn’t miss.
He picked a tomato slice out of her guacamole salad and sucked it between his teeth in a belligerent reply. Annie grabbed his wrist, compressing nerves with an accuracy that the Navy had taught her. “Don’t put your hands in my food,” she advised him, her mouth tight. When she flicked his arm away, he cursed her but left.
A short voluptuous Latina woman wearing the requisite La Loca turquoise T-shirt with pedal pushers and stacked-heel sandals, strode through the crowd. As she approached the booth, Annie recognized her as Chamayra, Raffy’s helpful friend from Golden Days. She glared at Annie suspiciously. “Are you spying on me?”
Surprised, Annie asked, “Aren’t you the nurse at Golden Days?”
“Nurse technician. I fill in here late nights. I already told Raffy I can’t do nothing for you two till tomorrow.” Placing small strong hands on the table—Annie noticed a snake bracelet and a gimmick ring with a little pink blinking heart—she demanded to know, “You not trying to get Raffy in trouble, are you?”
“No, I’m doing everything I can to help him!”
Chamayra didn’t like this answer either. “Why? You know he’s seeing me, almost a year now?”
“He’s all yours.”
“He gave me this.” The waitress pulled an ornately worked heavy gold necklace out from under her tight La Loca T-shirt.
“That’s a lot of gold.” Annie made a whistling sound.
“His mama made it.” She slipped the necklace back under her shirt, shook herself so it would fall into place. “I want to help Raffy but your daddy is trouble for him. Me, too, if I lose my chance at Golden Days. I’m subbing.”
Annie nodded. “I understand. I just want to keep my father out of prison while I look for some decent health care for him.”
Chamayra made a face. “Don’t look in this country.”
“Listen, have you ever heard of a Sgt. Daniel Hart? Miami Police. I was told he comes in here every night.”
Overhearing the question, another waitress, African American, big, good-looking, thrust herself at the booth edge. “You Melissa? ’Cause if you are, you beat it, you hear me?”
Taken aback by the woman’s hostility, Annie stood up. “Excuse me?”
“You wasted a nice guy. Just leave the man alone.” She leaned sideways to get a better look. “Oh, you’re not Melissa. I saw her picture.