Angel: part VI - A Novel by Thomas A Hall - parts 1,2,3,4 and 5 at the bottom of the page
"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"…
Monday
The morning was hot, with a warning of the summer to come. Angel took a run through the neighborhood and, sweating in the sticky, humid weather, remembered how nice the morning jogs had been in Bogotá. There in the hills of Colombia, the morning temperature was nearly always cool and crisp. Stopping by the art deco house at the end of Van Buren Street, she sat on the seawall and watched the yachts and fishing boats go by on the Intracoastal Waterway. She thought of Diego’s “fishing boat” and pondered the massive wealth that allowed him to have a half million dollar boat waiting for his occasional visits to the USA. “Yep, I’ve been on the wrong side of the law,” she thought ruefully. Even as the thought came to her, she rejected it. “No, I am on the side of truth, justice and the American way,” she said to herself and laughed.
She remembered how determined she had been years before—determined to avenge her father’s death. She had joined the DEA with the single thought that she would stop drug dealers from ever depriving another family of their father. Years of fighting the good fight had worn on her, however. She saw the poor coca farmers in Colombia who struggled to feed their families and also saw the drug users in the US who cravenly sought to escape from their everyday lives into a world of fantasy. As time wore on, she came to view the entire “War on Drugs” as a waste of lives, money and time. She still thought the drug dealers were venal purveyors of death, profiting on the misery of others, but she also knew that human beings were ultimately responsible for their own choices and Americans were intent on feeding their drug habit—no matter the cost to their country, family and selves.
Thinking about this always brought her back to her last day on the job with the DEA. On the outskirts of Medellin, she had been part of a task force tracking a mid-level drug dealer. They had received a tip that the dealer was going to be visiting his mother in the small village where she lived and he grew up.
The task force staked out the mother’s house and waited. At the appointed time, a long, black Mercedes Benz drove up to the small home. As the passenger stepped out, the team leader’s voice barked in her earpiece, “Go, go, go. Take him down now!”
Angel and the rest of the task force converged on the Mercedes. When he saw what was happening, the man ran into the house with Angel following. As she ran through the front room, she glanced down a short hallway to the right and saw her prey disappearing around the corner at the end of the hallway. She shouted, “Alto! Policia!” but he kept running. She ran after him and, at the end of the hallway, cautiously peered around the corner, quickly pulling her head back. As she did so, there was a blast of gunfire echoing in the small space and bullets ricocheted off the wall behind her. She poked her pistol around the corner and fired in the direction of the wicker sofa she’d seen in her quick glance at the small room. Six shots later, she waited to hear any return fire. Instead, she heard a wail, a scream of such pain, that she chanced a look around the corner. The drug dealer was on his knees holding his mother’s body. One of Angel’s bullets had torn through her heart. She must have come through the back doorway to see what was going on just as Angel sprayed the room with bullets.
“Mami,” the dealer cried. He wept as he held her and said, “I’m so sorry, Mami,” over and over.
Angel entered the room with both hands gripping her Glock pistol in front of her, the barrel pointed at the dealer. She yelled, “Drop your weapon and lie on the ground.”
The dealer continued to weep and cling to his mother.
Angel repeated her command as she approached the dealer slowly across the small space between them. As she came closer, she radioed her colleagues, saying, “I’ve got him. Come in through the back door. I’ve got a situation here.”
As she heard “Roger that” in her earpiece, she stood three feet from the dealer. Again, she ordered him to drop his weapon and lie on the ground. Instead, with a sudden speed that surprised her, the dealer pulled his pistol from under his mother’s body and, instead of pointing it at her, raised it to his head. “You can’t hurt me now,” he said and, with that, pulled the trigger.
Angel thought again of the bloody, gaping wound and remembered how the left side of his head simply exploded as the bullet exited his skull. He fell backwards and, as he did so, his grip on his mother loosened and she slid from his lap onto the floor.
Other task force members came storming through the same back door that the dealer’s mother must have used only to find Angel standing over the two bodies crying. “I have killed a family,” she said.
Her team mates protested, “No, they brought about their own deaths with their choices.”
“I wanted to stop drug dealers and avenge my father’s death,” she said, “but I didn’t get into this to kill their mothers. This whole stupid drug war is a hopeless waste of lives.” She paused, staring at the bodies on the floor through tear-soaked eyes, and said, “I can’t do this anymore.”
She remembered looking around the small room—a typical room in a peasant farmer’s house— and thinking, “They just wanted to put food on the table and better themselves. I have destroyed them.”
She resigned the same day.
Shaking the memories away, Angel determined to change subjects. She contemplated the money she’d accepted from Victor Cruz. “That will come in handy,” she thought.
Standing up, Angel began to run back the way she’d come. As she ran, she thought about the last few days and considered next steps. “I need to hear more of what Diego learned from that guy, Evan.” she thought.
As she approached her house, Angel saw that a black Ford Explorer was sitting in her driveway. Looking towards the front door, she saw Don Wilson standing there. He turned as she ran up. Angel stopped, leaning forward, resting her hands on her knees and taking a couple of good, deep breaths before saying, “Hi, Don.”
Don smiled and said, “Hi, Angel.”
Angel asked, “What brings you by?”
Don answered, “Well, I have some news…and it’s not very good.”
Angel looked at Don more closely and said, “Come on in. We can talk inside.”
She unlocked the front door and invited Don in. He stood in the doorway awkwardly.
Angel said, “Hey, come on in! Can I get you something? I need to feed Oscar so let’s go into the kitchen.”
Don followed Angel through the living room and dining room towards the kitchen. Sitting on a stool at the counter while Angel got out Oscar’s food, he began to speak. “Angel, I’ve got some bad news. George’s body was found washed up near the Broad Causeway. It looks as though he was shot a couple of times and his body was thrown into the bay but, after two or three days in the water, it’s hard to be sure of anything else. One thing that was notable was this, while one bullet had clearly passed through his body, the other one appeared to be cut out. Someone wanted to make sure that no one else would be able to trace the bullet back to a weapon. The medical examiner has the body now and will give us his report soon.”
Angel had her back to Don while he spoke. Knowing that he would be measuring her reaction, she turned and said, ‘George is dead?” Her voice was quavering slightly. She hoped Don would interpret that as a sign of her shock at the news. In actuality, it was a sign of her shock that the body had been discovered so quickly. She realized now that Diego had not bothered to permanently dispose of the body.
Hearing the tone of her question, Don said, “I’m sorry to drop it on you this way, but I wanted you to know. I realize that you two weren’t together anymore but, still, I figured you’d want to know.”
Angel stooped to put the food bowl on the floor and stroked Oscar’s long hair. After a moment, she stood up and said, “Thanks for thinking of me, Don. I don’t know what George was into these days. I do know that he was getting increasingly weird years ago, when we were together. He was obsessed with finding Victor Cruz and other drug dealers and seemed less and less interested in abiding by the law to get them. Still, I don’t know what he was doing now.”
Don nodded and said, “Yes, George’s fanatical drive to stop drug dealers was becoming a matter of concern for a while. That’s why we had him here in the States for so long. He only went back to Colombia a few months ago…after he received a clean psych review.”
Angel was surprised by this news. She hadn’t realized that George’s hatred of drug dealers had been so extreme that it concerned the gung ho cowboys of the DEA! She said, “I wonder if the psychiatrist, psychologist, or whatever, got it right?”
Don said, “Yeah, I wondered about that myself. However, I guess it doesn’t matter now.”
Angel, suddenly inspired, said, “Don, it does matter. If George was flipping out, he could have simply messed with the wrong guy locally and ended up in the bay. On the other hand, if he wasn’t flipping out, it may be that he was simply the victim of a crime. In either case, knowing his mental condition could help you get some leads, right?”
Don answered, “Sure, I guess that’s true. However, it will be the Bay Harbor Islands Police Department that carries out the investigation. We’ll be advising them, of course, but those ideas should go to them.”
Angel nodded her agreement. Then she asked, “What can I do to help? I’m still trying to figure out what George meant when he told you “The virus would take care of everything.”
Don looked sharply at Angel, but she maintained a concerned, but innocent, air.
“I probably shouldn’t tell you this, and I only just found out myself, but the two agents that were killed in Colombia a little while ago died from some kind of viral infection.”
Angel looked at Don, thinking to herself, “Man! Was I as stiff as him when I was with the agency?” She had to admit, “Yeah, I probably was.” She knew Don Wilson was a good man, an earnest, caring man, but she also knew that he was another true believer in “The War on Drugs” and would never be able to accept her working with Diego.
She responded to his information with, “What? You mean there is a virus?”
Don looked uncomfortable, but answered, “It seems there is. Although they died weeks ago, I only just learned from an autopsy conducted in Washington, that this was the cause of their deaths. Since that is the case, and since George was talking about a virus, I think it’s too coincidental to be ignored.”
Angel said, “I don’t know, Don, but I do know that George was so focused on stopping drug dealers that anything he was into would be about stopping them.”
Don said, “I suppose that’s true, but I just don’t know how George would be connected to the virus he was talking about and, if he was, why Henderson and Allegre were killed. I mean, they were some of his closest friends!”
Angel thought to herself, “Henderson and Allegre?” She remembered them for their antics in Colombia. They were younger than George by a few years and looked up to him. He had been the guy who showed them the ropes “in country” and they remained loyal to him.
She replied, “I understand. Have you checked into his background? I mean, was he doing something on the side that would give you some clues as to his meaning?”
Don said, “Well, to be honest, up ‘til now I didn’t think it was my business to check into his private life. Obviously, we will be doing just that as we try to figure out how and why he was killed.”
Angel, although determined to keep her activities hidden from Don, found that she was feeling guilty about not telling him what she knew of the virus. As she thought about it, the phone rang. She glanced at the kitchen clock. Sure enough, it was 10:00 a.m. She said, “Excuse me,” and picked up the phone. “Ola, Mami,” she responded to Diego’s “Buenos Dias.” “Yes, Don Wilson stopped by.” She looked at Don and smiled, “Mami, says hello.”
Diego said, “Okay, call me when you can. I have some things to discuss with you.”
Angel replied, “Si, Mami. I’ll call you later.”
As she hung up, she turned back to Don and said, “Sorry, I didn’t want to tell her about George over the phone.”
Don said, “Of course. Well, I need to get going. Are you going to be okay?”
Angel smiled and said, “Don, George was my ex, but he and I both moved on. I hadn’t heard from him nor seen him in years. I’m sorry that he’s dead, but I’ll be fine.”
As she said the words, she realized that, in fact, she did feel sorrow for George. She now knew that he wasn’t trying to kill her in that hotel room. Obviously, he thought he was going to get a shot at Victor Cruz. Still, she couldn’t understand why he would have been in the air conditioning vent. While it gave him a hidden vantage point, it also trapped him in a spot with little or no mobility. “Why did he do that?” she wondered.
Don said, “I understand. Please keep that information about Henderson and Allegre to yourself and, if anything comes to mind that could help us solve George’s murder, you know the number to reach me.”
Angel nodded and said, “Will do. Give my best to everybody back at the office.”
She walked him to the door.
As Angel showed him out, Don turned to her, looked keenly at her and said, “You’re sure that you’re okay?”
Angel said, “Yes, really. I’ll be fine.”
“Okay, I’ll see you.”
He walked down the front steps and over to his car. Angel stood there at the door until he started the engine and backed out of the driveway. As she closed the door, she began thinking of Diego and wondered what he’d learned from Evan Rodriguez. She picked up the phone in the living room and plopped down on the sofa. Putting her feet on the coffee table, she dialed Diego’s number.
“Hola,” she said as Diego’s voice came on the phone. “How are you?” she asked.
“Muy bien.” answered Diego. “As I said last night, your friend confirmed that Juan Arvelo was working with Javier Carlos Rodriguez Blanco. He also told me that the woman was a liaison for Juan Arvelo and the others were his security.”
Angel answered, somewhat briskly, “Good to know. Now, why didn’t you dispose of George’s body more securely?”
Diego paused before responding. Obviously, he was calculating from her question that George’s body had been found. Finally, he said, “When you killed him, you were just a tool to be used by Victor in smoking out our adversaries. It didn’t seem important to hide your ex-husband’s body forever. Besides, I took the time to make sure there were no bullets to be traced back to you, and our hotel staff just thinks a young woman trashed a hotel room registered under Victor’s alias. They know nothing of the activities in the room.”
Angel allowed a trace of annoyance to creep into her voice as she replied, “Okay, but the DEA is now aware of one of their agent’s death. They are going to begin checking into George’s after-hours activities and will soon know about Halpan and the rest. I would think that it is only a matter of a day or two before they make the connection to the house in Golden Beach and our friend Evan Rodriguez.”
Diego said, “Then we need to find out more from Mr. Rodriguez. For instance, where is the virus? How much of it exists, and how can it be handled safely?”
Angel agreed, “You’re right about that. We need to know those things and he might have answers. However, what I want to know, as well, is where Blanco is in all of this? I mean, is he the leader or was he the follower of George? I know that George wanted to get Victor and hated drug dealers, but from what you say, Javier Carlos Rodriguez Blanco hates all of mankind. Could he have been using George while George thought he was using Blanco?”
Diego said, “Si, that makes sense. Why don’t you meet me at the Muvico in Pembroke Pines? We can meet there and then go visit Señor Rodriguez and ask him these questions.”
Angel agreed and said, “I can be there in an hour. Will that work?”
Diego said, “Make it an hour and a half.”
“Done.” said Angel and she hung up the phone. “Okay, Oscar, time for me to get going!”
Driving
Angel drove north on US 1, passing the old building on Cleveland Street where Jaco Pastorius, the great South Florida electric bassist lived in the early ‘70s before he became famous. She remembered how her father would mention the building every time they passed it when she was a girl. Her father had grown up in Cuba loving American jazz and when he managed to get to the States, indulged his love by listening to local musicians like Ira Sullivan, Jaco, Eddie Higgins and the great drummers Bobby Economou and Duffy Jackson. Before Angel was born, he met Jaco and was invited back to his apartment on Cleveland Street after a gig to hang out. Angel remembered how he would get excited every time he talked about the thrill of sitting in Jaco’s seedy apartment listening to the world’s best bass player jamming with a couple of other guys and then getting invited to play congas with the informal group. She smiled as she remembered her dad’s pride in that experience.
Turning west on Sheridan Street, she drove out of Hollywood and into the suburbs of Pembroke Pines, a sprawling community of shopping centers and single-family homes that had sprung up in the last twenty years. She scrolled through her midi files on the Blackberry, which she had plugged into the Mini’s sound system, and played Jaco’s first album. As the opening notes of “Donna Lee” came through the system, Angel smiled. She thought, as she often did when traveling through that part of the county, of the way the area had looked when she was a kid. “Cow pastures, orange groves and limerock mining operations,” she thought and wondered which was better, that or the suburbs. “Well, at least it’s friendlier than Boca Raton!” she said to herself out loud.
She was in a good mood. Passing through the intersection of Sheridan Street and Flamingo Road, she proceeded west. As she neared Volunteer Road, she idly noticed a large, Ford 350 pickup truck waiting at the stop sign. She glanced down at the speedometer while thinking that she needed to get some cat food and tea bags on her way home.
Wham! The pickup truck rammed the right, front side of the little Mini Cooper, sending it careening left into the median island where it was stopped abruptly when it ran into a palm tree.
The air bags had deployed when the truck hit the car. When the Mini hit the tree and suddenly stopped, the air bags were partially deflated and Angel smashed her head into the driver’s side window. Sitting in the car, she groggily tried to sort out the situation. She looked around and saw steam rising from the crushed front end of the car. The hood was pushed up so that it filled half of the view out the windshield in front of her. She heard a man’s voice saying, “Ma’am! Are you okay?”
She passed out.
Thomas A Hall
You can read parts 1 through 5, here, by following the links
1. http://www.weeklysouthernarts.com/angel-chapter-1---a-novel-by-thomas-a-hall.html
2. http://www.weeklysouthernarts.com/angel-part-ii.html
3. http://www.weeklysouthernarts.com/angel---pt-3.html
4. http://www.weeklysouthernarts.com/angel-part-four.html
5. http://www.weeklysouthernarts.com/angel-part-v.html
The morning was hot, with a warning of the summer to come. Angel took a run through the neighborhood and, sweating in the sticky, humid weather, remembered how nice the morning jogs had been in Bogotá. There in the hills of Colombia, the morning temperature was nearly always cool and crisp. Stopping by the art deco house at the end of Van Buren Street, she sat on the seawall and watched the yachts and fishing boats go by on the Intracoastal Waterway. She thought of Diego’s “fishing boat” and pondered the massive wealth that allowed him to have a half million dollar boat waiting for his occasional visits to the USA. “Yep, I’ve been on the wrong side of the law,” she thought ruefully. Even as the thought came to her, she rejected it. “No, I am on the side of truth, justice and the American way,” she said to herself and laughed.
She remembered how determined she had been years before—determined to avenge her father’s death. She had joined the DEA with the single thought that she would stop drug dealers from ever depriving another family of their father. Years of fighting the good fight had worn on her, however. She saw the poor coca farmers in Colombia who struggled to feed their families and also saw the drug users in the US who cravenly sought to escape from their everyday lives into a world of fantasy. As time wore on, she came to view the entire “War on Drugs” as a waste of lives, money and time. She still thought the drug dealers were venal purveyors of death, profiting on the misery of others, but she also knew that human beings were ultimately responsible for their own choices and Americans were intent on feeding their drug habit—no matter the cost to their country, family and selves.
Thinking about this always brought her back to her last day on the job with the DEA. On the outskirts of Medellin, she had been part of a task force tracking a mid-level drug dealer. They had received a tip that the dealer was going to be visiting his mother in the small village where she lived and he grew up.
The task force staked out the mother’s house and waited. At the appointed time, a long, black Mercedes Benz drove up to the small home. As the passenger stepped out, the team leader’s voice barked in her earpiece, “Go, go, go. Take him down now!”
Angel and the rest of the task force converged on the Mercedes. When he saw what was happening, the man ran into the house with Angel following. As she ran through the front room, she glanced down a short hallway to the right and saw her prey disappearing around the corner at the end of the hallway. She shouted, “Alto! Policia!” but he kept running. She ran after him and, at the end of the hallway, cautiously peered around the corner, quickly pulling her head back. As she did so, there was a blast of gunfire echoing in the small space and bullets ricocheted off the wall behind her. She poked her pistol around the corner and fired in the direction of the wicker sofa she’d seen in her quick glance at the small room. Six shots later, she waited to hear any return fire. Instead, she heard a wail, a scream of such pain, that she chanced a look around the corner. The drug dealer was on his knees holding his mother’s body. One of Angel’s bullets had torn through her heart. She must have come through the back doorway to see what was going on just as Angel sprayed the room with bullets.
“Mami,” the dealer cried. He wept as he held her and said, “I’m so sorry, Mami,” over and over.
Angel entered the room with both hands gripping her Glock pistol in front of her, the barrel pointed at the dealer. She yelled, “Drop your weapon and lie on the ground.”
The dealer continued to weep and cling to his mother.
Angel repeated her command as she approached the dealer slowly across the small space between them. As she came closer, she radioed her colleagues, saying, “I’ve got him. Come in through the back door. I’ve got a situation here.”
As she heard “Roger that” in her earpiece, she stood three feet from the dealer. Again, she ordered him to drop his weapon and lie on the ground. Instead, with a sudden speed that surprised her, the dealer pulled his pistol from under his mother’s body and, instead of pointing it at her, raised it to his head. “You can’t hurt me now,” he said and, with that, pulled the trigger.
Angel thought again of the bloody, gaping wound and remembered how the left side of his head simply exploded as the bullet exited his skull. He fell backwards and, as he did so, his grip on his mother loosened and she slid from his lap onto the floor.
Other task force members came storming through the same back door that the dealer’s mother must have used only to find Angel standing over the two bodies crying. “I have killed a family,” she said.
Her team mates protested, “No, they brought about their own deaths with their choices.”
“I wanted to stop drug dealers and avenge my father’s death,” she said, “but I didn’t get into this to kill their mothers. This whole stupid drug war is a hopeless waste of lives.” She paused, staring at the bodies on the floor through tear-soaked eyes, and said, “I can’t do this anymore.”
She remembered looking around the small room—a typical room in a peasant farmer’s house— and thinking, “They just wanted to put food on the table and better themselves. I have destroyed them.”
She resigned the same day.
Shaking the memories away, Angel determined to change subjects. She contemplated the money she’d accepted from Victor Cruz. “That will come in handy,” she thought.
Standing up, Angel began to run back the way she’d come. As she ran, she thought about the last few days and considered next steps. “I need to hear more of what Diego learned from that guy, Evan.” she thought.
As she approached her house, Angel saw that a black Ford Explorer was sitting in her driveway. Looking towards the front door, she saw Don Wilson standing there. He turned as she ran up. Angel stopped, leaning forward, resting her hands on her knees and taking a couple of good, deep breaths before saying, “Hi, Don.”
Don smiled and said, “Hi, Angel.”
Angel asked, “What brings you by?”
Don answered, “Well, I have some news…and it’s not very good.”
Angel looked at Don more closely and said, “Come on in. We can talk inside.”
She unlocked the front door and invited Don in. He stood in the doorway awkwardly.
Angel said, “Hey, come on in! Can I get you something? I need to feed Oscar so let’s go into the kitchen.”
Don followed Angel through the living room and dining room towards the kitchen. Sitting on a stool at the counter while Angel got out Oscar’s food, he began to speak. “Angel, I’ve got some bad news. George’s body was found washed up near the Broad Causeway. It looks as though he was shot a couple of times and his body was thrown into the bay but, after two or three days in the water, it’s hard to be sure of anything else. One thing that was notable was this, while one bullet had clearly passed through his body, the other one appeared to be cut out. Someone wanted to make sure that no one else would be able to trace the bullet back to a weapon. The medical examiner has the body now and will give us his report soon.”
Angel had her back to Don while he spoke. Knowing that he would be measuring her reaction, she turned and said, ‘George is dead?” Her voice was quavering slightly. She hoped Don would interpret that as a sign of her shock at the news. In actuality, it was a sign of her shock that the body had been discovered so quickly. She realized now that Diego had not bothered to permanently dispose of the body.
Hearing the tone of her question, Don said, “I’m sorry to drop it on you this way, but I wanted you to know. I realize that you two weren’t together anymore but, still, I figured you’d want to know.”
Angel stooped to put the food bowl on the floor and stroked Oscar’s long hair. After a moment, she stood up and said, “Thanks for thinking of me, Don. I don’t know what George was into these days. I do know that he was getting increasingly weird years ago, when we were together. He was obsessed with finding Victor Cruz and other drug dealers and seemed less and less interested in abiding by the law to get them. Still, I don’t know what he was doing now.”
Don nodded and said, “Yes, George’s fanatical drive to stop drug dealers was becoming a matter of concern for a while. That’s why we had him here in the States for so long. He only went back to Colombia a few months ago…after he received a clean psych review.”
Angel was surprised by this news. She hadn’t realized that George’s hatred of drug dealers had been so extreme that it concerned the gung ho cowboys of the DEA! She said, “I wonder if the psychiatrist, psychologist, or whatever, got it right?”
Don said, “Yeah, I wondered about that myself. However, I guess it doesn’t matter now.”
Angel, suddenly inspired, said, “Don, it does matter. If George was flipping out, he could have simply messed with the wrong guy locally and ended up in the bay. On the other hand, if he wasn’t flipping out, it may be that he was simply the victim of a crime. In either case, knowing his mental condition could help you get some leads, right?”
Don answered, “Sure, I guess that’s true. However, it will be the Bay Harbor Islands Police Department that carries out the investigation. We’ll be advising them, of course, but those ideas should go to them.”
Angel nodded her agreement. Then she asked, “What can I do to help? I’m still trying to figure out what George meant when he told you “The virus would take care of everything.”
Don looked sharply at Angel, but she maintained a concerned, but innocent, air.
“I probably shouldn’t tell you this, and I only just found out myself, but the two agents that were killed in Colombia a little while ago died from some kind of viral infection.”
Angel looked at Don, thinking to herself, “Man! Was I as stiff as him when I was with the agency?” She had to admit, “Yeah, I probably was.” She knew Don Wilson was a good man, an earnest, caring man, but she also knew that he was another true believer in “The War on Drugs” and would never be able to accept her working with Diego.
She responded to his information with, “What? You mean there is a virus?”
Don looked uncomfortable, but answered, “It seems there is. Although they died weeks ago, I only just learned from an autopsy conducted in Washington, that this was the cause of their deaths. Since that is the case, and since George was talking about a virus, I think it’s too coincidental to be ignored.”
Angel said, “I don’t know, Don, but I do know that George was so focused on stopping drug dealers that anything he was into would be about stopping them.”
Don said, “I suppose that’s true, but I just don’t know how George would be connected to the virus he was talking about and, if he was, why Henderson and Allegre were killed. I mean, they were some of his closest friends!”
Angel thought to herself, “Henderson and Allegre?” She remembered them for their antics in Colombia. They were younger than George by a few years and looked up to him. He had been the guy who showed them the ropes “in country” and they remained loyal to him.
She replied, “I understand. Have you checked into his background? I mean, was he doing something on the side that would give you some clues as to his meaning?”
Don said, “Well, to be honest, up ‘til now I didn’t think it was my business to check into his private life. Obviously, we will be doing just that as we try to figure out how and why he was killed.”
Angel, although determined to keep her activities hidden from Don, found that she was feeling guilty about not telling him what she knew of the virus. As she thought about it, the phone rang. She glanced at the kitchen clock. Sure enough, it was 10:00 a.m. She said, “Excuse me,” and picked up the phone. “Ola, Mami,” she responded to Diego’s “Buenos Dias.” “Yes, Don Wilson stopped by.” She looked at Don and smiled, “Mami, says hello.”
Diego said, “Okay, call me when you can. I have some things to discuss with you.”
Angel replied, “Si, Mami. I’ll call you later.”
As she hung up, she turned back to Don and said, “Sorry, I didn’t want to tell her about George over the phone.”
Don said, “Of course. Well, I need to get going. Are you going to be okay?”
Angel smiled and said, “Don, George was my ex, but he and I both moved on. I hadn’t heard from him nor seen him in years. I’m sorry that he’s dead, but I’ll be fine.”
As she said the words, she realized that, in fact, she did feel sorrow for George. She now knew that he wasn’t trying to kill her in that hotel room. Obviously, he thought he was going to get a shot at Victor Cruz. Still, she couldn’t understand why he would have been in the air conditioning vent. While it gave him a hidden vantage point, it also trapped him in a spot with little or no mobility. “Why did he do that?” she wondered.
Don said, “I understand. Please keep that information about Henderson and Allegre to yourself and, if anything comes to mind that could help us solve George’s murder, you know the number to reach me.”
Angel nodded and said, “Will do. Give my best to everybody back at the office.”
She walked him to the door.
As Angel showed him out, Don turned to her, looked keenly at her and said, “You’re sure that you’re okay?”
Angel said, “Yes, really. I’ll be fine.”
“Okay, I’ll see you.”
He walked down the front steps and over to his car. Angel stood there at the door until he started the engine and backed out of the driveway. As she closed the door, she began thinking of Diego and wondered what he’d learned from Evan Rodriguez. She picked up the phone in the living room and plopped down on the sofa. Putting her feet on the coffee table, she dialed Diego’s number.
“Hola,” she said as Diego’s voice came on the phone. “How are you?” she asked.
“Muy bien.” answered Diego. “As I said last night, your friend confirmed that Juan Arvelo was working with Javier Carlos Rodriguez Blanco. He also told me that the woman was a liaison for Juan Arvelo and the others were his security.”
Angel answered, somewhat briskly, “Good to know. Now, why didn’t you dispose of George’s body more securely?”
Diego paused before responding. Obviously, he was calculating from her question that George’s body had been found. Finally, he said, “When you killed him, you were just a tool to be used by Victor in smoking out our adversaries. It didn’t seem important to hide your ex-husband’s body forever. Besides, I took the time to make sure there were no bullets to be traced back to you, and our hotel staff just thinks a young woman trashed a hotel room registered under Victor’s alias. They know nothing of the activities in the room.”
Angel allowed a trace of annoyance to creep into her voice as she replied, “Okay, but the DEA is now aware of one of their agent’s death. They are going to begin checking into George’s after-hours activities and will soon know about Halpan and the rest. I would think that it is only a matter of a day or two before they make the connection to the house in Golden Beach and our friend Evan Rodriguez.”
Diego said, “Then we need to find out more from Mr. Rodriguez. For instance, where is the virus? How much of it exists, and how can it be handled safely?”
Angel agreed, “You’re right about that. We need to know those things and he might have answers. However, what I want to know, as well, is where Blanco is in all of this? I mean, is he the leader or was he the follower of George? I know that George wanted to get Victor and hated drug dealers, but from what you say, Javier Carlos Rodriguez Blanco hates all of mankind. Could he have been using George while George thought he was using Blanco?”
Diego said, “Si, that makes sense. Why don’t you meet me at the Muvico in Pembroke Pines? We can meet there and then go visit Señor Rodriguez and ask him these questions.”
Angel agreed and said, “I can be there in an hour. Will that work?”
Diego said, “Make it an hour and a half.”
“Done.” said Angel and she hung up the phone. “Okay, Oscar, time for me to get going!”
Driving
Angel drove north on US 1, passing the old building on Cleveland Street where Jaco Pastorius, the great South Florida electric bassist lived in the early ‘70s before he became famous. She remembered how her father would mention the building every time they passed it when she was a girl. Her father had grown up in Cuba loving American jazz and when he managed to get to the States, indulged his love by listening to local musicians like Ira Sullivan, Jaco, Eddie Higgins and the great drummers Bobby Economou and Duffy Jackson. Before Angel was born, he met Jaco and was invited back to his apartment on Cleveland Street after a gig to hang out. Angel remembered how he would get excited every time he talked about the thrill of sitting in Jaco’s seedy apartment listening to the world’s best bass player jamming with a couple of other guys and then getting invited to play congas with the informal group. She smiled as she remembered her dad’s pride in that experience.
Turning west on Sheridan Street, she drove out of Hollywood and into the suburbs of Pembroke Pines, a sprawling community of shopping centers and single-family homes that had sprung up in the last twenty years. She scrolled through her midi files on the Blackberry, which she had plugged into the Mini’s sound system, and played Jaco’s first album. As the opening notes of “Donna Lee” came through the system, Angel smiled. She thought, as she often did when traveling through that part of the county, of the way the area had looked when she was a kid. “Cow pastures, orange groves and limerock mining operations,” she thought and wondered which was better, that or the suburbs. “Well, at least it’s friendlier than Boca Raton!” she said to herself out loud.
She was in a good mood. Passing through the intersection of Sheridan Street and Flamingo Road, she proceeded west. As she neared Volunteer Road, she idly noticed a large, Ford 350 pickup truck waiting at the stop sign. She glanced down at the speedometer while thinking that she needed to get some cat food and tea bags on her way home.
Wham! The pickup truck rammed the right, front side of the little Mini Cooper, sending it careening left into the median island where it was stopped abruptly when it ran into a palm tree.
The air bags had deployed when the truck hit the car. When the Mini hit the tree and suddenly stopped, the air bags were partially deflated and Angel smashed her head into the driver’s side window. Sitting in the car, she groggily tried to sort out the situation. She looked around and saw steam rising from the crushed front end of the car. The hood was pushed up so that it filled half of the view out the windshield in front of her. She heard a man’s voice saying, “Ma’am! Are you okay?”
She passed out.
Thomas A Hall
You can read parts 1 through 5, here, by following the links
1. http://www.weeklysouthernarts.com/angel-chapter-1---a-novel-by-thomas-a-hall.html
2. http://www.weeklysouthernarts.com/angel-part-ii.html
3. http://www.weeklysouthernarts.com/angel---pt-3.html
4. http://www.weeklysouthernarts.com/angel-part-four.html
5. http://www.weeklysouthernarts.com/angel-part-v.html
