Raw Deal Page 10

  His mind had been wandering. He’d been thinking of the jefe he had killed, of the two he’d been with, of their bodies, and wondering if they were still down there in that green sea below. And then found himself thinking of all the men who had braved the waters between his country and this one, and of all those who had failed and rode beneath the waves now. Strange how one’s mind traveled, skimming and skipping like the breath of the wind on the fields of sugar below.

  “Yes,” Torreno said with a distracted smile. “It is an ocean of money.”

  ***

  “There’s a lot of folks hate to see this deal go through, Mr. Tor-in-o.” The attorney was sitting across an antique conference table, an ingratiating smile on his face as he Anglicized Torreno’s name. He was sitting with his back to the windows, which commanded an impressive view of Lake Worth.

  Coco had attended enough such meetings, however. He knew that Torreno had not been given the seat for the pleasure of the view. The afternoon sun was slanting in, and even though the glass was heavily treated, it was intended that he would have to squint uncomfortably at the porcine man who sat across from him. Coco had been consigned to a straight-backed chair in a corner of the room, and the attorney refused even a glance in his direction.

  “I’ve received a number of inquiries,” the attorney continued. “We could make you a nice piece of change, you’d never have to turn a hand upside down.”

  Torreno extended his hand out over the highly polished surface of the table, turned it over and back. He smiled briefly. “I do not mind a little work.”

  The attorney laughed, but Coco caught sight of a flush that had worked its way up from his collar. Although the two men had treated him as if he did not exist, he had listened carefully during the meetings. He was well aware that the attorney was not eager to make this deal for his employer.

  Carlos Carbonell, the jefe of the sugar, or so he had been until he sank beneath the waters. Carbonell had owned what Torreno was about to own. Carbonell’s family, Cubans of Spanish descent, had controlled far more vast sugar holdings in Cuba before Castro’s revolution. Carbonell had been wise enough to see what was coming and had transferred enough of the family fortune to the United States many years before the nationalization of his own fields.

  Carbonell had come to South Florida and had begun anew, although, even with his enormous fortune, it had not been easy. While most of South Florida might be seen as a Cuban colony, the sugar lands were held firmly by Anglos—big, florid-faced men who spoke in Deep South accents, like the attorney Torreno was sitting across from now.

  “They didn’t take kindly to some greaser—no offense, Mr. Tor-in-o,” the attorney had explained in an earlier meeting, “some Hispan-yo-le coming in and getting involved.”

  But Carbonell had become involved. He had bought a thousand acres of “Sand,” land on the fringes of the prime sugar-growing region, and had been among the first to make use of mechanized harvesting machinery, at a time when almost all the other growers used blacks imported from the Caribbean to cut the cane.

  “It’s hard work, Mr. Tor-in-o.” The attorney again. “None of your American blacks will touch it.”

  But Carbonell had persisted. One thousand acres led to two. Then to twenty. To a hundred thousand. And on and on, until, with the purchase of a multinational conglomerate’s holdings sometime in the 1970s, Carbonell became the largest of the South Florida growers.

  “The thing I don’t understand, Mr. Tor-in-o,” the attorney was saying. “A smart man like you taking a big chance like this, when you could cash in your option and make a killing, let me lay this off for you.”

  “A big chance?” Torreno said.

  The attorney rose, clearly summoning his energies for one last pitch. “Sugar’s hard work. You’re always one or two hard frosts away from the poorhouse, no matter how big you are. You got constant labor problems with these islanders you have to bring in to cut—look what happened to Carbonell.”

  Coco glanced at the attorney. So important, so certain of himself. What if he were to find himself in el jefe’s place, dragging himself up an embankment of slime, only Coco there to help?

  Torreno shook his head in sorrow. “I’m sorry that we cannot continue our negotiations face to face.”

  The attorney gave him a skeptical glance. “I don’t know why. He was as intent on keeping that land as you are to have it.”

  Torreno overlooked the comment. His eyes traveled briefly to Coco, who stared impassively out the windows.

  When Torreno did not reply, the attorney remembered his pitch. “That’s what you’ve got to look forward to. Riding herd on a bunch of crazy Jamaicans, not to mention the government hassling you about whether you paid by the piece or by the hour like you’re supposed to, and did you feed them all the jerk chicken they like and so forth. You try to use machines on most of this land, then you tear up half your fields, you got to go hire the same people back to replant for you. Then you got to worry about how long Uncle Sam’s going to maintain the price supports. It’s a neverending source of worry, I’m telling you.”

  Torreno shook his head sorrowfully, as if he were commiserating with the attorney. “You make it sound a distressing prospect.”

  The attorney hooded his eyes in a gesture of conspiratorial agreement. He glanced briefly at Coco, then leaned down, his palms splayed on the surface of the table. “You of all people, I don’t have to say this to, but Uncle Fiedel’s days are numbered.”

  Torreno nodded. “The victory nears,” he said.

  “Well, that’s what I’m talking about.” The attorney threw up his hands. “There’s not but one damn thing in the whole damn country worth fussing about and that’s the blessed sugar crop. That and what’s left of the tobacco is the only source of an economy. What’s going to happen is, whether Fiedel croaks or somebody croaks him, next thing some senator will stand up and give a speech: ‘My fellow Amercuns, we got a choice between giving our newly freed neighbors to the south about a gozillion dollars in foreign aid to get them off their backs, and ours, or we can shitcan the import tariff on Cuban sugar and let them earn their way into a capitalist society while the consumer enjoys a lower price on his Coca-Cola and Hershey bar.’”

  The attorney broke off, his face flushed as he played his trump card. “Which way do you think the boys in Washington are going to lean?”

  “Yes,” Torreno replied evenly. “I see your point.”

  “Then you’ll be sitting up there in Okeechobee, no tariff protection, with everything you’ve got sunk in one big albatross around your neck. You’re going to pay twenty-seven million dollars for a property that’ll net you less than five percent of that, in a good year. I don’t know how deep you’re into the banks for this purchase, but you’ll have a hell of a time just servicing your debt.” The attorney nodded and Torreno nodded solemnly in return.

  “As your adviser in this matter then…”

  Torreno held up his hand to cut him off. “Are we agreed that the option price is a good one?”

  The attorney nodded. “Sure. Carbonell’s kids don’t want anything to do with sugar. They think the old man was a throwback. Now that he’s gone, they’re happy to be rid of it. You’ve got a fair price, I’ll give you that much, Mr. Tor-in-o.”

  Torreno tapped his fingers on a sheaf of papers before him. “And the income projections for the current year are sound?”

  The attorney shrugged. “As long as the frost keeps coming when it ought to.”

  “Then schedule the closing, Mr. Taft,” Torreno said. “Let me worry about the money.” He stood up and gestured to Coco.

  “But these offers I was telling you about. I can turn you a quick two million, you’ll never see the first problem…”

  Torreno raised his chin and sighted in on the man as Coco joined him.

  “Tell your friends to consider it a disease, if it helps you, Mr. Taft. Call it the throwback disease of the Cubans. Say that suga
r runs in my people’s blood.”

  He gestured to Coco again, and then the two were gone.

  ***

  They were outside now, on the roof of the building that housed the attorney’s offices, moving through a stiff breeze toward a pad where the helicopter idled. The pilot stood down by the open door of the machine, his face impassive behind mirrored sunglasses, his hands folded before him in an undertaker’s pose. An irresistible curiosity had gripped Coco. Though he seldom questioned his employer, he couldn’t help doing so now. He placed a hand on Torreno’s arm, interrupting his stride. Torreno turned, his tie fluttering loose in the wind like a banner, his close-cropped hair going askew.

  “Something is wrong?” Torreno asked, his eyes scanning the rooftop.

  Coco shook his head. “I just wanted to know. What you told the man inside.” Coco gestured out over the buildings and the houses below, toward the west, where sixty miles inland the unseen cane fields sprawled beneath a towering bank of thunderheads. “That’s what we will do now, raise the sugar in this place?”

  Torreno laughed, a short, barking sound. He put his hand on Coco’s shoulder. “I told that man only what I wanted him to hear, Coco. This business today is only a necessary step. It may have taken every cent I can put my hands on, but it is nothing compared to what’s to come.” He smiled and squeezed the hard flesh of Coco’s shoulder. “All that land you saw today, Coco, conceive of it as a seed, a mere seed, from which a massive tree will grow.”

  “And all this will serve la revolución?” Coco asked.

  Torreno seemed surprised. “You would doubt me, Coco?”

  Coco dropped his gaze, shook his head slowly.

  Torreno laughed and circled his arm about Coco’s shoulders. “We must let nothing stop us now, Coco.” He had to raise his voice as he guided them toward the waiting helicopter. “We are far too close for that.”

  Chapter 16

  “Janice?” Deal spoke her name softly. He was sitting at the side of her hospital bed, had her unbandaged hand clasped in his. She’d been asleep since he’d come into the room. Now he felt a stirring in his grasp. He squeezed her hand again, gently.

  “Deal?” Her voice was faint, raspy with sleep. She ran her tongue along her lips. Her face was still covered with bandages, but they’d made new openings, tiny slits for her eyes.

  “You want some water?” he said.

  She nodded, took her hand away to fumble groggily for the control that raised her bed. He stood up, reached for the water pitcher, stopped. It was filled with flowers. Flowers he’d bought from a vendor on the corner outside. He drew the water from the bathroom sink and brought it to her. He didn’t mention the flowers.

  “How about some ice?”

  Janice shook her head weakly. He helped guide the water to her mouth. She drank, then settled back on the pillows.

  “Something new,” he said, pointing at the bandages on her face. “Can you see now?”

  She nodded. “I can see you.”

  He reached for her hand, felt her squeeze back, hard. He blinked at the tears that were forming in his eyes. She was still speaking, her voice a little more than a murmur.

  “I couldn’t hear,” he said, leaning closer.

  She cleared her throat, her voice just above a whisper. “I said, you look terrible.”

  Natural enough, given how he felt. Still, here was Janice, worrying about him.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “Isabel and me, we’re both fine. She’s having fun with Mrs. Suarez. She wants to come see Mommy.” He glanced around the room, feeling helpless. “I didn’t want to bring her until…” He trailed off. “I wanted you to be able to talk to her, so she wouldn’t be scared.…”

  “Her mommy’s…a mummy,” Janice said.

  Deal forced a laugh, but it left a silence in the room. A candy striper passed down the hallway by the open door, pushing a cart full of magazines and books.

  He raised Janice’s hand to his lips. A faint medicinal tang at her fingertips, but still, the familiar smell of her flesh, that good, wonderful Janice smell. “Jesus,” he said. His chest felt as if it would burst. “I was afraid we lost you.” He had to stop, afraid his voice would break. He kept his smile, though.

  “I had to go after her, Deal.” Janice was squeezing his hand again. “You know I had to, don’t you?”

  He nodded. He pressed his cheek against the back of her hand.

  “Isn’t this a mess,” she said finally. She broke off, coughing.

  “We’re going to be fine,” he said when she was resting quietly again. “You’re going to be fine.” He sat up, his eyes glittering, keeping that smile. Cut off his arm right now, he would smile all the way through it. “I talked to the doc. He says you’re going to do great…”

  “Don’t,” she said, squeezing his hand vehemently. Her voice was unexpectedly firm. He stared at her. “We’ve done without the bullshit for a lot of years, Deal. We don’t have to start with it now.”

  He cleared his throat. “Janice…” he began.

  “It’s going to take years,” she said, and he sensed that she was losing control, “and we may as well get used to it.” She was choking back the sobs now.

  “Janice, whatever it takes, we’ll do it.” His own eyes were wet now. “I love you, Janice.”

  She pulled her hand from his grip. Her head was rocking side to side on the pillow: No, no, no.

  “Janice…”

  “I have to go to sleep now, Deal.” Her voice was faint, barely audible in the quiet room. “I have to go to sleep.”

  Chapter 17

  “How could I buy something so expensive without knowing that it works?” Coco said to the man behind the counter.

  The man didn’t bother to look up at him. He was sitting in a lawn chair, staring off at nothing, running a string of worry beads in one hand, sipping from a cup of tea in the other. You’d never be able to see him from the doorway. When Coco walked in, he’d thought the shop was untended. Strange shop, strange town.

  “Works,” the man said, his gaze still fixed in front of him. “Turn on. Look.”

  Coco stared at him. He had finally registered that the man was blind. Arab guy in his sixties, bald, tufts of hair sprouting from his ears, his nose. How did a blind Arab end up in a place like this, selling television sets?

  Coco glanced at the tiny portable television the man had taken out of the display case for him. Except for the three-dot color logo painted on the front, the thing seemed identical to its black-and-white cousin still on the shelf. Coco was thinking, Imagine being blind, all the little things you would have to learn.

  “I have turned it on,” Coco said finally. He held the snow-filled screen out toward the Arab. He’d been about to say, “See for yourself,” but that wouldn’t help. Instead, he flicked the volume control wide open.

  A fine static hissed above the hum of a rotating table fan the Arab had placed on the floor behind him. It must have been ninety degrees in the closed-up shop. Coco found himself yearning for Miami, as if it were a place where things were sane.

  The Arab shrugged. “Too far,” he said. “Work in city. Or up high.” He jabbed his thumb toward the pressed tin of the ancient ceiling. “As good as Sony.” He sat back in his chair, apparently worn out by his sales pitch. He began to cough, great racking, growling hacks that sent the aluminum lawn chair into a squeaking dance.

  Coco thought he saw a shadow flit past the curtain that shrouded a passageway behind the counter. Pungent smells, lamb and spices possibly, drifted in from behind the curtain. A tiny apartment, maybe the Arab’s wife back there tending to life’s affairs.

  Coco considered things. It would be far more enjoyable to have a color image when he watched, even if it was the size of a postage stamp. And the price seemed more than reasonable. But he’d never heard of this brand. What if the set did not work?

  He glanced about the sparsely furnished shop again. Many of the shelves we
re empty, with squares and circles of dustless glass that showed where goods once had been. It looked like a place going out of business, but there were no signs to say so. In fact, he’d had to squint in the darkened windows, try the door, to be sure the place was open at all.

  Had this been Miami, one of the electronics shops near the downtown port, there would have been flashing lights, banners, music throbbing onto the sidewalks, a swarthy young man with many rings and necklaces to pull him inside. Here in Belle Vista, “The Sweetest Town in the World,” life seemed very odd.

  The Arab had stopped coughing and was wiping his mouth with a handkerchief. “You want Sony, maybe? Come back at night, my son has. At the camps right now.”

  Coco pondered the Arab’s meaning. It was a Saturday afternoon, payday. They’d passed a cane workers’ barracks on the way into this forlorn town. There were a number of vendors with their wares set out in a dusty roadside clearing. Brightly colored rugs, bins full of vegetables, racks of shining watches. Maybe that’s where all the goods from this place were. In the back of some battered station wagon, being haggled over by men risking a season’s wages.

  Had there even been a proprietor’s sign outside this shop? Coco had the sudden feeling that he had stumbled into a bedouin’s tent beside some watering hole in the desert. Were he to return here a week or a month from now, wanting to exchange the set—forget the warranty, Coco’s here and he wants it fixed—what would he find? No sparsely laden shelves, no blind man, no building at all. The black ashes of a campfire and piles of camel dung.