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  Joe tightened up when Cale made his demonstration. Showing how easily he could hurt somebody wasn’t exactly lighting a peace pipe. The conversation had taken a turn for the worse, so Cale slowed down and tried to correct.

  “Joe,” he said, taking a deep slow breath before continuing, “I was looking at a trimaran based out of Bermuda when I looked up and saw your nephew walking toward me. He took his shirt off, poured his PBR out but kept the bottle in his hand. He made some comment about beating me into barnacles.”

  Cale paused, looking at Joe to make sure he was listening to the story before he continued. “So I waited for him. I wanted to give him the chance to back out, like an elephant doing a false charge. But he didn’t, so I whooped his ass—plain and simple. Then I called the ambulance for him and went back to my friends. Thinking about it now, I should have just pushed him into the water. But at the time, the thought didn’t occur to me.”

  GINO WITH HIS shirt off. The PBR bottle in his hand. Even the barnacle comment. It all sounded like Gino. Somewhere between proud, a cowardly bully, and a blowhard. Analytically, the story made sense to Joe. Emotionally, he wasn’t cooling down. He did feel his fear slipping and pulled his finger off the trigger, but his temper was pulsing in a way it hadn’t in years.

  “So you beat him senseless and left him there? Aren’t you pushing the age envelope for this kind of hooliganism?” Joe looked at Cale’s left hand and then, before Cale could respond to the first set of inquiries, asked another set, “What did you tell your wife about this? Wait, more to the point, what did you tell her about having three young women spend the night with you?”

  Cale’s eyes looked dazed, like he had been brained with a two-by-four. He quietly repeated the last question, “What did I tell my wife?”

  The sad tone in Cale’s response began to take the edge off Joe’s temper. He felt a twinge of embarrassment at the tack he’d taken with the conversation but, with less heart in it, kept pushing forward. “Yeah, that question, it seems to speak to me. Bringing a beautiful woman and her friends back to your home while your wife is away. I think that behavior says a lot about a man’s honor, his trustworthiness.” Belatedly, without conviction, he added, “The kind of man who’d do that might be the kind of man who’d sneak up on somebody and whack them from behind.” Joe knew the connection between being a philanderer and a batterer was tenuous at best before the words even left his mouth.

  Despite Joe’s last throwaway comment, both he and Cale realized the shift the conversation had taken. It no longer focused on Gino. It wasn’t even the girls as a group. It was Ashley.

  WHAT WOULD I tell Maggie? Cale rolled the question around in his brain. He decided he was good with the truth, which was a cleansing confirmation. He confessed to himself first, then Maggie, that he was truly interested in Ashley but wasn’t going to track her down. Basically, his plan of non-attack was driven by the fact that he wouldn’t want a middle-aged guy chasing his daughters.

  Cale returned his attention to the man standing in front of him. “Joe, I understand you’ve only known Ashley for a couple days, so is the concern for her or my soul?”

  “Ashley was put in this situation because of my decision.”

  It was good they weren’t talking about souls. Cale no longer worried this would be a violent situation. Without the adrenaline, fatigue crept back in. It was time for his visitor to be shown out.

  “Joe, I don’t think Ashley felt too put out by the situation. Her friend, unfortunately, was romantically inclined toward one of the guys. Ashley helped me prepare the house for the storm, which I appreciated. We spent a couple of enjoyable hours talking while the others squeezed the rest of the life out of the party. When I came out of my room this morning, she was asleep on the couch.”

  Joe nodded his head. The extra blood in his cheeks was draining back to a normal state. He said, “OK.”

  In unison, the two men nodded their heads slightly toward each other. Joe turned and started to leave. As he reached the door, Cale remembered the original purpose of the visit. “Did you have any other questions about what happened with your nephew? I really wish I’d just pushed him in the water.”

  Joe turned back around. “He had his two friends back at the bar. If you pushed him in the water, it could have taken a turn for the worse.”

  “Thanks. Still, I wish I hadn’t hurt him so badly.”

  They uneasily shook hands. Without parting words, Joe returned to the rain and the four-speed.

  17

  THE GULFSTREAM DEPOSITED the three men at the North Carolina coast, then flew inland to avoid the approaching hurricane. Francisco and his men checked into a hotel built inside an upscale outdoor mall. Issued by a Swiss bank, his credit card’s digital information did not reveal his name. It would be very difficult for the United States government to get the bank to release the identity of the cardholder.

  The men rested during the worst part of the storm in the living room of Francisco’s suite.

  “Alberto, do we know Mr. Coleman’s home address?”

  “Sí. I beg your pardon. Yes. Let me get it for you. Do you want the little computer too, Mr. Escobar?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  Francisco flicked on his new tablet. He typed in the address. He clicked through various screens and looked at an aerial photo of the house. He noticed the distance between Coleman’s address and the neighboring homes. He saw the water and registered the massive size difference of the houses across the water from Coleman’s own home. He changed the view to look at the house from the street level. He drove up and down the street using his finger on the screen and then went back to the aerial view. He looked at routes for quick getaways. He also looked for hiding spots within a mile of the house. He found a long driveway cut-in where no home was ever built.

  “Alberto?”

  “Yes, Mr. Escobar?”

  “Please review the plan with me.”

  “We are told Mr. Coleman’s wife is dead and his children have moved out of the house. We should drive up to his home. He has no reason to think we are anything but someone he knows or someone who is lost. When he comes to the door, we will grab him. Then the Cuban and I will take him inside and tie him with wire until you are done.”

  “How will we dispose of his body, Alberto?”

  “However you wish.”

  “What would you suggest?”

  “We weight his body and drop it in the water behind his house.”

  Francisco didn’t respond. The half-thought-out answer showed why Alberto never rose above loyal and brutal guard. There would be blood and other evidence to indicate a crime had occurred even if there was no visible body. Francisco and Alberto had spent their lives in villas filled with servants who cleaned where they stepped; neither of them knew how or had any desire to clean. Why spend such effort on something for which they could not succeed? Francisco, just as Pablo would have done, was going to leave the mutilated body wired to the chair. It might be a day or a month before it was found. Either way, Francisco would be gone.

  Sadly for Francisco, Alberto never fully blossomed. Too many of his men were that way. They were powerful canopy trees casting long shadows, but they were not a forest. They had never nurtured the beauty and produce of the understory trees that flowered with fruit. They lacked the bushes near the ground, where coffee and chocolate flourished. Could they have become a forest yielding much more value to its owner? Francisco assumed so but did not take responsibility for their half-fulfilled potential because they were El Capo’s men, more than twenty years his senior. But he did take responsibility for the many undeveloped young men in his own employ. No one in Francisco’s orbit had dared tell him he had failed these men so far, but he understood that he had. And he understood that this failing limited his family’s operation at this moment of its greatest opportunity. He looked to the Cuban, “What do you think we should do to the body?”

  “I would leave it. Nobody knows we are here. We will be gone
by the time it is found. If you want, when we are gone, I can have the house robbed.”

  The Cuban’s suggestions resonated with Francisco, who nodded silently.

  He suddenly needed to understand what had stopped him from further developing his men. Had it been the setbacks from energy invested in so many men who were killed by the norteamericanos or the civil war? Was it because he purposely avoided the world’s largest market for his products and could thereby survive with men who were only half-realized? He had not even begun to groom a successor. Surely, one of his many nephews or cousins could be groomed to be the next boss. But each had grown up so wealthy and felt entitled to their wealth. Would they accept a leader rising among them, or would an outsider be easier? He would keep the Cuban close to him to see what role he could play.

  Just as each Argentinean opera star competed to play the lead role in an opera’s first production, so they could define how that role would be played for the opera’s life, be it one season or five hundred, Francisco thought he might be playing his role as Pablo defined it. Yes, he had his men’s love and fear more than El Capo ever did. But what had he done with that love and that fear? He had let too much time go by without building the skill sets that the present opportunity demanded they have. He had neglected something as simple as cultivating the ability to speak good English in his circle of bodyguards.

  To realize the change he needed to see in his men, Francisco needed to change how he ran his business. He needed to identify rising stars. Why did he keep coming back to the Cuban? He needed to stop spending his time on those who wilted in the heat and replace them with those who thrived in the sunlight. He would spend his time, as Pablo had done for him, teaching both the broad game and the small skills to let them succeed and grow the family’s operations.

  He would have to indulge himself less. Fewer starlets and car races. The new jet and Estella seemed suitable replacements that would fit into the flow of his new work life. He wished she’d stayed behind when the jet flew inland. Now would be a good time to send Alberto and the Cuban to their rooms and use the enjoyment of her treasures to stop the barrage of ideas bouncing around his brain.

  But Estella was not here, the wind and rain pounded outside, and his brain had no diversions to escape to. So he tried to target his thoughts on the big conquests to achieve.

  First, to grow the powder trade to exceed the global dominance it once held, he needed to identify and proceed with the new alliances he so feared. Past this fear was growth, where the pain and pleasure trade-offs lay. This was where the men in his family could reach out and begin to rely on each other as brothers-in-arms instead of looking at each other as adversaries competing for the rare promotion or infrequent new project. Without the distraction of the Colombian civil war, Francisco could sense that their destiny would be adversarial if they remained stagnant.

  To succeed, he needed more fully developed men—more forests than trees. He would invest his energy in developing his men to have complete skill sets, not just in enforcement or distribution or procurement. He would make his strongest men work in each of these areas and in different parts of the world. He would teach them the skills he himself possessed to keep them from making mistakes that, more than merely costing him money, could cost the men their lives and could cost him good manpower and large amounts of energy.

  Finally, he needed to put his fortune meaningfully into the world’s legitimate economy. This might prove the hardest and the most rewarding step. It was certainly the one he knew the least about. He had no knowledge of the stock and debt markets. He had never purchased operating businesses, but saw the value in owning them. Buying a chain of hotels like the one he now stayed in made sense to him—perhaps hotels with casinos attached. There was always profit in vice. He had never used a bank to borrow money but understood that when buying legitimate businesses, banks were willing to give the purchasers eighty percent of the money required to purchase the business. So if he put two hundred million into a business, a bank would give him eight hundred million more to use? There had to be an opportunity to simply pocket the eight hundred million or to split it with the owner of the business he would be buying. Would a banker have the courage to pursue him when the money disappeared? Yes, learning how to use legal money to grow his own was perhaps the biggest and scariest conquest Francisco saw for himself.

  Francisco was ready to be done with this trip’s myth-building and to turn to the task of capturing kings. It would take a year, perhaps even two or three. He tried not to let the long work period tire him out before it began. Could he stay focused for that long? He needed to transform himself again. He had transformed himself once twenty years before, going from enforcer and confidant to boss. He would succeed in transforming himself again.

  18

  HE FELT MORE old goat than old fool, and that was good. How many septuagenarians drove through a hurricane and accused a beast of throwing a sucker punch? Not too many. He liked the Ashley daydream he’d tried to deny he was having too.

  She had no idea the power she had. Her dancing—moving slightly, confidently, matching the beat’s rhythm. That flower tucked behind her ear yesterday. Her big smile. Most importantly, the smile. The smile that was always just below the surface. It was a gift opening when you caught her eyes. This stuff made men write poetry, fight wars. He should give it a shot. Not a war or poetry, but advancing the front with Ashley. Still, he didn’t know the best approach, what drove her.

  Pajama Hefner in his silk wardrobe knew what drove a class of women. Were the rest much different? Were men different? A middle-class widow he knew, pushing seventy, was hot and heavy with a thirty-year-old man. How did that fit with what the psychologists called a “hierarchy of needs?”

  As he played with the daydream and pondered it more, he suddenly fell back into reality. He dove into the math. There was a fifty-year age difference, give or take. That meant he’d lived 200 percent longer than she had. No, this was not a relationship likely to happen. But as that daydream died its sweet, sad death, he realized that he needed to thank Ashley. She rekindled the fire in his belly. There was a lot of life to live beyond being a grandfather and a reluctant boater. Life held a full range of emotions, and there was no reason for him to neglect half of them for the final twenty years of his life.

  As he eased down the road, an AM station played Chuck Berry, complete with 1950s static from the weather. A roadside bar’s neon lights blinked Open. The parking lot was busy. A hurricane party was in full swing. A lifetime ago, he’d caught a hurricane party on DeVaule Street. The bridge had been closed. A bar in town was as safe as the waterfront drive-in motel, so they had stopped in at Captain Tony’s. An hour into the afternoon, his wife had won a Hula-Hooping contest. Joe had won the arm wrestling contest. He’d heard their tattered Polaroid was still on the wall by the bar.

  Why not stop for a quick one? A chain looped through wooden posts split the gravel into parking aisles. Joe backed the small truck between an F350 and a Suburban. He flipped up the rain slicker’s hood and stepped into the elements. A non-native palm beside the walkway was bent forty-five degrees by the wind. An empty plastic bag blew past. He splashed through puddles, making his feet feel oily and sandy.

  The wood steps of the bar sagged between the stringers. The gray handrail was a pine two-by-six face-nailed onto four-by-four posts. Even in the rain, Joe could see the sun’s work on the board’s grain. They probably changed the boards every spring too. He avoided the splinters and took the steps without assistance. Stumble free—attaboy! One of the double doors was propped open, and he stepped inside.

  The hurricane suspended the no smoking ordinance. Joe’s nose registered the smell of stale beer and fresh cigarettes. The ceiling fan light kits and neon beer signs contrasted sharply with the gray storm light outside. A chalkboard stated today’s special: One-dollar Miller High Lifes. All carpenters drink dollar beers on rainy afternoons, at least before they become foremen. He thought to call Tony and rememb
ered his phone was in the truck.

  Two uniformed police officers entered the room, brushing past Joe. Their baseball caps and clear rain ponchos shed water as they walked to the bar. The bartender poured two mugs of coffee. Joe guessed that Krispy Kreme was closed for the storm. Nobody at the bar appeared to have any intention of leaving. The officers faded into the background, checking their phones and talking to each other.

  Joe acknowledged a group of dockhands he’d seen at the marina—young guys delaying school, families, and careers, and middle-aged guys who’d tied lines and rinsed boats for twenty years. Most of the young guys would return to the mainstream. The old guys would tie and rinse until alcoholism consumed their meager skills and they had to be chased from the docks before they scared the clients.

  The dockhand life looked romantic until it was closely inspected. The cash from tips would be enough for a decent rental house and a nightly bar visit. There was a steady stream of new girls, at least in the early years. It was an easy profession to pick up the gift of gab in, learn a few salty one-liners to impress the weekenders. Eventually, the booze damage accumulated. It kept your mouth from conveying thoughts, or maybe kept your mind from having coherent thoughts, and your mouth accurately relayed the jumble. You’d always have a good suntan until the dark spots and worse took over. Not a bad way to pass a year—if you could stop after a year.

  A through-the-wall air conditioner unit blasted Joe. It was cool outside, but the A/C ran to minimize the stickiness inside. But it was hard to stay ahead of 100 percent humidity; the shine on the customers’ faces wasn’t entirely attributable to alcohol. There were a hundred-plus guys in the bar. There were three women sitting in a group at the bar. They were in their late forties and all some shade of bleached blonde. One wore a wedding ring and had short hair, a sure sign of having given up, in Joe’s book, like she was more concerned with other ladies’ opinions than her husband’s desires. She’d brush off his complaints. “It’s so much easier to take care of.” Joe didn’t buy it. He figured she didn’t want to appear to compete with younger or fitter women for her husband’s or any man’s attention. The logic went if you don’t think you can win, play a different game. The other two appeared to be single. They fought the good fight: Their hair was below their shoulders, their clothing tailored to their strengths. He moved to an open barstool beside them.