Mike slid the dinghy alongside the dock in front of Joe’s boat and killed the engine. After all his shouting and the constant whine of the outboard, the quiet seemed almost unnatural. From up the canal somewhere, the smell of grilling meat mingled with the sound of children laughing and shouting.
Mike took a deep breath. “Hmm. Smells good. Didn’t realize just how hungry I am.” He smiled at me. “No lunch.” He held his stomach. “I’m doing Weight Watchers.”
“What? With all the piña coladas you drink?”
He grinned. “That’s what I like about Weight Watchers. I can drink all my points.”
I shook my head and hopped up onto the dock. “Do you think we should have tried to call again?”
“Nah. When you want information, you don’t let ’em know exactly when you’re coming. Much better to just drop in.”
Looking around at the elaborate pool and patio setup, I said, “Wow, this is some property. Joe didn’t do too bad as a DEA agent.”
“Like I said, he bought this place twenty years ago when they were affordable, and this particular property was a real dump, I heard. He says he did lots of the work himself.”
We were walking around the Jacuzzi when the sliding doors opened and a stunning, smiling black woman waved to Mike.
“Mister Mike. Hello.” Her head was wrapped in a bright blue headscarf, and she stood in the doorway with one hand at her hip, the other shading her eyes from the sun. The pose was casual, but a photograph of her at that moment could have sold any product. Although her English was almost unaccented, I detected a bit of Haiti in there.
“Hey, Celeste, is Joe around?” Mike asked as we rounded the pool.
“He is not here right now, but he’ll be home soon.” She stepped out of the opening in the sliding door and waved her hand toward the interior of the house. “Would you like to come in and wait?” Her movements were like those of a dancer. Though she was wearing a simple cotton dress and no makeup, her figure and face were striking.
Mike turned to me with raised eyebrows. “Your call, Sullivan. You got the time?”
I shrugged. “We can wait a while. If he doesn’t get here in twenty minutes, though, we’d better take off. I have to meet someone tonight.”
“Fair enough.” He waved his arm in the direction of Celeste. “After you.”
Celeste brought us glasses and bottles of St. Pauli’s Girl beer. She set us up at the indoor bar in the study that overlooked the pool. Clearly, Joe was into bars. I was trying to discern if Celeste was a housekeeper or girlfriend. Or both. When she disappeared and did not come back, I decided on housekeeper.
The decorating scheme for the house could only be called eclectic, but, somehow, it all worked. Along one wall, a narrow section of bookshelves stretched to the ceiling while the rest of the wall was covered with lighted nooks that held sculptures or photos or antiques. A wheeled library ladder reached up twenty feet to a rail that ran just below the ceiling. An antique barber’s chair was bolted to the floor just inside the window where it would have the best view of the river.
As promised, Joe was home in less than ten minutes. We heard the car, followed by a loud greeting, then the hushed tones as Celeste told him we were there. His whispers sounded loud and harsh, angry about something. I wondered if it was us. But when he came through the doors, he was all smiles.
“Mike. Seychelle.” He shook both our hands. “So good to see you both. What brings you by the old hacienda?”
In his white shorts and lime green polo shirt, Joe looked the part of the retiree. I doubted the ensemble was a biking outfit. Maybe golf?
“Hey, Joe. Sorry to barge in on you like this,” Mike said, “but I’m going to get straight to the point. Sey came by to visit me today, and she found some old photos among her dad’s things. She wanted to find out more about the history behind those pics.”
I had already retrieved the photos out of my shoulder bag, and I spread them out on the bar. “I’m more than a little confused, Joe,” I said. “Yesterday morning you said that you and Red used to work together when you were in the DEA, and he used to tow boats for you.”
Joe picked up the picture of the three of them. He had a peculiar little half-smile on his face.
“You never said anything about knowing Red over twenty years ago,” I added.
He didn’t say anything for over a minute. None of us did. We just sat there and watched the shadows in the room stretch out.
“I haven’t talked about that trip in years,” he began. He climbed onto a bar stool on the far side of me. Mike rested his hand on my shoulder. Joe looked up from the photo. “You have grown up to be such a beautiful young woman, Seychelle. I would never say or do anything to hurt you. I didn’t lie to you the other day, I just didn’t tell you everything. That was the way we always handled it. When Red and I began working together again in the eighties, we never discussed the past.” He looked back down at the photo. “Seychelle, I think this is something you should just forget. Destroy these photos, forget you ever saw them, and get on with your life. Trust me when I tell you there are some things you are better off not knowing.”
“I can’t do that, Joe.”
“Then you need to try to understand those times, Seychelle. Everyone was doing it, and your dad was in a bind, as I understand it. Financially.”
“But that doesn’t mean he would—”
He raised his hand palm up. “Hear me out, then, if you insist. I was there as the delivery skipper, already down in Cartagena, and some guys I knew up in Lauderdale recruited your dad. It was a long time ago. I was only, hell, what, twenty-seven, twenty-eight years old.”
“Were you working for the DEA then?” I asked.
Joe’s eyes flickered, sought out Mike, then looked across the room, out the window. He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. “You’re not making this easy. Yes. Yes, I was. I was pretty fresh, only nine months on the job when they asked me if I wanted to go undercover as a yacht delivery captain. Shit. Nobody’s even supposed to know we were doing that back then.”
Part of me wanted to stop him. If it was even remotely possible, I didn’t want to know about it. But it wasn’t possible. Not Red. No matter what Joe said.
“The guy who owned the boat had been under surveillance for quite some time. He had lots of toys and no identifiable means of support. Turned out it was easier than I thought getting hired on as the captain of his yacht. And, eventually, he brought me in on what was really happening. He had this crewman working for him. The guy’s still around.”
“You mean Gil Lynch?” Mike asked.
“Right. Of course, you’d know him, Mike. Forgot about that.” Joe pointed to Gil in the old photo. “That’s him there. This was the early days, before he was known much here in Lauderdale. He became a much bigger player after that trip.”
“You see much of Gil these days?”
Joe grunted a half-laugh. “I’d be surprised if he’s still alive.”
“Oh, he’s alive all right. Sey and I saw him just a few hours ago.”
“Really? Did you talk to him?”