Angel: Part 3 - A Novel By Thomas A. Hall - Parts 1 and 2 can be found in the archives

"She used to work for the government. She just killed her husband. She’s in bed with drug dealers—and she may be the only person left who can save the world"…

Angel - Part Three (See the Archive for Parts One and two)

Diego 
DiegoTomás Portillo Garcia drove east from Charlie’s along SE 17th Street toward Ft. Lauderdale’s beach.  He stopped for the enormous bascule bridge to go up over the Intracoastal Waterway by Port Everglades and thought of Victor.  His Mayan features crumpled as he began to weep.  He angrily brushed his eyes with his stubby fingers and swore.  He slammed a fist into the steering wheel and said out loud, “I will kill them all.”

He thought back over his years of service to Victor, remembering how they met as kids.  He arrived at school for first grade wearing the only good clothes he owned.  His parents had determined to send him to school for an education even though neither of them could read nor write.  He had stared at the kids in the small school classroom.  They all seemed to be taller and fairer than he.  One, in particular, was tall and lean, with what he later learned, was Castilian features.  It was, of course, Victor.

As the teacher introduced him to the class, some smiled and others snickered.  Victor, however, just looked at him impassively.  Later that day during recess, some of the boys began to wrestle with one another.  One of them jumped on Diego and knocked him to the ground.  Diego remembered how embarrassed he was and concerned that his only good clothes would get torn.  He angrily shoved the boy who had jumped him and, to his surprise, sent him sprawling.  The other boys looked up and began to approach him menacingly.  As Diego prepared to defend himself, he heard a laugh.  There beside him was Victor!  When the other boys saw that Victor was standing with Diego, they suddenly lost interest in the attack and turned away.

Diego turned to Victor and said, “Gracias.”

Victor replied, “De nada.  My name is Victor.  You’re Diego Tomás, right?” 

Diego said, “Si.”

Victor laughed again and said, “Well, you and I should be friends!”

Diego thought, just like that, they were.  As the bridge opened for traffic, he accelerated, remembering how Victor’s family had opened their home to him, how they had even employed his father as a foreman on their farm and his mother as a seamstress in their clothing business.  Just meeting Victor had changed his family’s future and set them apart from the field hands with whom they had lived in the small village outside Medellin.

Diego thought of all the fun he and Victor had had growing up—the time they had spent roaming the fields and hunting and fishing.  They had come to be inseparable in the eyes of the villagers.  Wherever Victor was, there was Diego.

He remembered when Victor met Maria Elena and how he knew before Victor did that Victor would marry her.  He thought of how he had watched them and wished a similar happy romance for himself.  Then he thought, as he had so often thought, that his squat Indios features made him ill suited for such a woman as the graceful Maria Elena.

He thought of the day when Victor told him they should try their hands at the drug trade.  As he explained it, they had the farm on which to grow the coca.  Now they needed a distribution network to sell it.  He told Diego that he was going to leave Colombia and attend college in the United States of America and he would make connections there for their business.

Diego remembered that all he could think at the time was that his best friend would be gone and what would he do?

Victor, perhaps sensing Diego’s alarm, said, “Diego, you will run the farm and I will return with connections so that we can sell our coca.  The Americans are crazy.  They will pay us lots of money and we will never have to worry about our families again.”

Diego remembered how he surprised himself when he said, “No, I will join the military.  While you are at college, I will be learning the ways of the policía and seguridad militares.  We will know their ways and we will know your distributors.  We will know everything we need to prevail.”

He thought of how Victor looked at him that day, so proud and appreciative.  “Diego, you are right.  We will not be like those idiots in Cali, so crude and stupid.  We will rule with a velvet glove!”

He said to himself, “Si, Victor.  We ruled, and what did it get us?  Your family dead—and now you.”  He sighed, “I will stop these idiotas.  The world will go on and you will be remembered.”

Diego turned the car into the driveway of Victor’s house in the Las Olas Isles.  He pulled around to the side and waited for the garage door to open.  Parking inside the garage, he closed the door and opened the Bentley’s trunk.  He lifted Victor’s body out of the car and carried it to the patio by the pool.  Looking around with the lights off, he proceeded to the dock and placed Victor’s body in the boat moored there.  Turning the air conditioning in the boat down low, he locked the cabin doors as he left, noting that he would bury Victor at sea the next day.  He didn’t intend to let the police have the satisfaction of knowing Victor was dead.

He returned to the house and poured a shot of rum.  He thought, ruefully, of how often he had forgone liquor to remain clear headed and ready for a fight.  Now there seemed no need.  He tossed back the shot of rum, felt it sting his throat, considered for a brief moment, and picked up the bottle.  He walked to his bedroom, dropping his coat on the floor as he proceeded down the hallway.  There was no need to forego a drink tonight, he thought, as he took another swig from the bottle.

Saturday

Angel awoke at 7:00 a.m.  She had intended to sleep later, but Oscar jumped on her face and began pawing her.  She pushed him away and stretched.  It was then that she remembered Victor being shot the night before.

She flipped back the covers, got out of bed and looked at the nightstand.  There was the dossier Victor had given her.  She had read it last night.  While sitting up in bed, she had gone through the entire file looking for the connections she suspected were there.

As Oscar meowed and wrapped around her feet, Angel walked to the kitchen.  She cooed at Oscar and said, “Yes, yes, I know you are hungry.  You’re always hungry!”

Oscar merely looked balefully at her and began meowing again.

She laughed and, opening the pantry, grabbed the dry cat food and poured it into a stainless steel bowl.  Setting the new bowl on the floor and picking up Oscar’s dinner bowl from the night before, she turned to the sink and dumped the leftover food in the garbage disposal.  Turning on the faucet and flipping the wall switch, the garbage disposal roared to life.  Oscar jumped at the sound and ran into the living room.  “Fraidy cat!” she yelled after him.

As Angel showered and dressed, she thought about the events of the past evening.  She wondered about this Diego character and what she would find out from him.  She was sure that he was a capable man, but she reasoned, he might be too emotional over the loss of Victor Cruz to be useful.  Thinking about that for a moment, she realized that it was hard to conceive of Diego ever being too emotional to be effective.  The short, sparkplug of a man was obviously tougher than nails and ready for anything.

She dried her hair, made the bed and put on her makeup.  She picked up the dossier and thumbed through it.  The pictures of Maria Elena and her sons fell out onto her vanity.  She stared at them.  Whether their dad was a drug dealer or not, these kids shouldn’t have died this way, she thought.  She turned to look at the various documents again.  Two that she’d pulled out the night before stood out.  One was on Halpan letterhead and was a letter from “Juan Arvelo” to Javier Blanco informing him that testing of Halpan’s newest technology was successful.  Angel had highlighted the date of this letter.  It was three years previous.  The second document was an unsigned white paper on a “synthetic virus.”   The paper described the virus and noted its improved performance over previous versions that tended to die within 24 hours of exposure to the elements.  The paper went on to declare, approvingly, that the new virus was also more efficient in attacking the immune system and had no known antibodies. 

Angel sat down on the corner of the bed and thought about the events of the night before.  In spite of herself, she felt sorry for Victor Cruz.  She knew that he was responsible for the deaths of many people, including at least two American DEA agents, but she also had been moved by his genuine concern for stopping the inventors of this killer virus.  Whether his goal was revenge or the good of mankind, Victor had been on the right side of this effort. 

Even with the proof in her hands, she found it hard to believe that anyone would consider making so insidious a weapon.  Even more difficult to believe was Victor’s contention that the virus was created expressly to exterminate mankind.  She thought, “It isn’t that people aren’t horrible, I know they can be, but how could anyone rationalize the destruction of every person on the planet?  Who would conceive of such a thing and why would they wish to kill everybody?  Wouldn’t a rational actor want to save themselves and their fellow believers?”

She thought of the religious zealots who, throughout the centuries, had caused the deaths of millions.  She thought of Jim Jones, the charismatic preacher who brought his flock to Guyana and, when feeling threatened, led them to mass suicide.  She still remembered seeing the photos when she was a little girl of the randomly scattered bodies.  With a start, she realized that the Jonestown massacre looked very much like the photos of the bodies piled around Victor’s clinic.  She winced as she imagined a world filled with such scenes.  This had to be stopped!

As she thought these terrible thoughts, she became aware of the angel trumpet vine flowers outside her bedroom window.  The spicy sweet smell reminded her of the beauty in this world that so often was overlooked.  She remembered the way her father had taken pleasure in gardening and had always kept these same flowers in their yard when she was a girl.  She thought of his pride in seeing plants grow where a sunburned yard of weeds had been when they moved into the house. 

Thinking of her Dad, she thought, always made her miss him.  She couldn’t forget how she had been doing homework during her senior year of high school while watching the news and had heard the report of a drug-related shooting at a shopping center in Hialeah.  The reporter said that a drug buy between two dealers had gone bad and they had shot it out in the parking lot of the shopping center.  Several people, mostly bystanders, had been caught in the crossfire.  She remembered how she had looked up only to see that the parking lot was that of the shopping center where her Dad’s business had been.  She remembered how the fear leaped into her heart as she realized that he might have been caught in the melee.  Then she thought of how she and her Mom, unable to reach him by phone, waited to see him drive up in his little Toyota sedan and, instead, how they saw a police car arrive and park outside their house.  Her Mom began to cry and Angel fell into a chair in the corner of their living room, sobbing.  She remembered how the policeman had tried to be kind while telling them that her Dad wasn’t coming home—he’d been killed while trying to help a woman who had been shot when leaving his insurance office.

Angel sat there on the corner of her bed, smelling the beautiful fragrance of the flowers and feeling nothing but grief.  Thirteen years had passed, but the aching sorrow, the longing for her Dad, was as viscerally real as the day he died.  She thought about her vow, made the same day he died, that she would make drug dealers pay for their sorry ways.  A single tear ran down her cheek as she thought of how she had steeled herself to feel nothing, merely to seek vengeance wherever she found it, and wondered at the fact that she would soon meet a man, a drug dealer, and work with him against an even greater evil.  She looked up through teary eyes and said, “Papi, are you telling me something?” 

Just as Angel uttered her query, the phone rang.  She glanced at the alarm clock by the bed and, sure enough, it was 10:00 a.m.  She picked up the phone and said, “Hello?”

“Angel?  Buenos dias.  Can you join me for a fishing trip today?  I hear the seas are pretty calm and grouper and dolphin are a good bet.”

Angel recognized Diego’s voice and, realizing that he didn’t want to identify himself over the phone, said, “Hey, that would be great.  What time and location do you want to meet and what should I bring?”

Diego answered, “You don’t need to bring anything but your fishing gear and sunscreen.  Meet me at the 15th Street dock at two o’clock and we’ll head out for some late afternoon fishing in the Gulf Stream.  Look for the Maria Elena.”

Fishing

Angel drove into the parking lot of the 15th Street dock in Ft. Lauderdale.  Parking the Mini, she strolled past the bait and tackle store and out to the dock where she saw two small skiffs and one large fishing boat.  Angel, correctly, assumed the larger boat was the Maria Elena.  As she approached the bow, she saw Diego emerge from the adjacent restaurant with a Corona in his hand.  In spite of the grim purpose for their meeting, Angel laughed as she saw the squat, powerful Diego in his version of sport fisherman’s clothing.  Billowy, knee-length, bright yellow and green bathing trunks, a neatly starched white guyabera and brown loafers made for a slightly incongruous appearance.

Diego saw her laughing and blushed.  He looked down at his shoes and up again, smiling.  Then he turned serious and said, “Hello.  Are you ready to go?”

Angel replied, “Sure but, before we head out, how about telling me the plan?”

Diego shrugged and said, “Okay. Come aboard.”

Angel climbed the short ladder and clambered onto the boat.  As she looked around, she said, “Is this an Henriques?  It looks like a forty-two-footer.”

Diego said, “Yes, Victor likes,” he caught himself, “Victor liked them.”

Angel was, once again, reminded of the immense wealth that drug dealing could bring.  She looked at the teak decking, the gleaming captain’s chairs and the command console and estimated the boat to be worth well over a half million dollars. 

Diego said, “It’s just a fishing boat.”

Angel thought, “Just a fishing boat?” but said, “Okay, but it’s very nice.”

Diego just grunted as he opened the cabin door and invited her inside.

They sat down in the galley and she said, “What are we doing today?”

Diego sighed and answered, “We are burying Victor at sea.  Then we are figuring out how to find his killer.  After that, we need to find whoever is producing this virus and stop them.”

Angel could see that Diego was heavy hearted and so she simply asked, “Do you have another one of those?” and motioned towards the Corona. 

Diego nodded and pointed at the refrigerator. 

Angel stood up and strolled over to the fridge.  Opening it, she grabbed a beer and returned to the table.  “Do you have Victor’s body aboard?”

Again, Diego nodded.  He said, “Yes, Victor is in the forward stateroom.”  He cleared his throat and continued, “Victor seemed to like you so I thought it appropriate that you be there when I bury him.”

Angel thought about that for a moment.  The man who knowingly sent her into an ambush liked her?  In spite of the sarcasm she felt, she responded in an even tone while opening her beer, “Well, that’s very nice.”

Diego looked at her sharply and then said, “So, are we ready to go?”

Angel said, “Sure.”

Diego got up, walked out to the console and started the engines.  As the twin diesels roared to life, he walked over to the bow and asked one of the guys lounging on the dock to unmoor the boat and throw him the lines.  The guy did so and in short order they were rumbling south towards the Port Everglades inlet, passing under the massive 17th Street Causeway Bridge. 

As they headed out to sea, Angel walked on deck.  In spite of the grim proceedings, it was a beautiful day to be on the water and the wide-beamed Henriques was, she thought, the kind of boat to be on the water with.  She moved forward and took off her windbreaker, revealing the bikini top beneath.  “Time for a tan,” she said to herself.

Burial

When they were an hour underway, Diego backed off the throttle and let the boat idle.  Angel got up and padded back to join him.  She looked around and saw nothing but open sea.

Diego said, “This will do.” and headed into the cabin.  He soon reappeared carrying Victor’s body and laid it on the deck.  He grabbed a length of rope and tied one end to Victor’s legs.  Working quickly and efficiently, he tied the other end to a five-gallon bucket filled with concrete.  He looked at Angel and motioned her towards the stern.  With a grunt, he lifted Victor’s body and, pausing long enough to look down at his rigid face, dropped the body overboard.  Using both hands, he picked up the bucket of concrete and heaved it over the side.

Angel looked at Diego’s impassive face and, turning towards the water, watched as Victor’s body disappeared.  As she stared at the water, she muttered, “May God have mercy on your soul.”

Diego looked at her.  “Thank you,” he said, and abruptly turned away.  He strode to the console and revved the engines.  With a low rumble, they headed back to port.

As the boat cut through the water in the late afternoon light, Angel and Diego compared notes.  Angel told Diego about the mansion in Golden Beach and Diego told her of the GAP enforcers that he and Victor had found in South Florida.  According to Diego, the local GAP chapter had an “action arm” that was comprised of those members who started out as protesters but had moved on to vandalism and, more recently, violence towards those they considered a threat to animals.  He told her of a farmer in the Redlands area of south Miami-Dade County who had kept some animals in cages on his property as a kind of informal petting zoo.  After refusing to release the animals, the farmer was attacked one evening and beaten so severely that he was in the hospital for nearly a month.  The GAP members bragged about the beating to other local farmers and warned them to “be respectful of the animals or else.”

Angel pointed out to Diego that having thugs as members didn’t mean that the local GAP chapter was responsible for shooting Victor.

Diego nodded, but looked irritated.  He asked, “Who else would do this?  They knew we were trying to stop the virus from being developed and spread.”

Angel answered, “That may be true, but local thugs aren’t likely to pull off a hit as clean as that one.  Besides, George, my ex-husband, was too much the professional to deal with those kinds of idiots.”

Diego pondered this for a moment.  “Okay, then what do you suggest?”

Angel said, “Let’s follow up on that house in Golden Beach.  I’m sure it’s connected to this whole deal.”

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