The one thing about Miami was that one never needed a coat, even when it was raining. You just needed an umbrella. It was eleven-fifteen. Nanette greeted them at the door. “You fellas look like you could use a cup of coffee on a miserable day like this,” she said. “You look a little pale, Paul. Not like your cousin. He looks as chipper as ever.”
“Thank you, kind lady,” said Townsend.
“Do you have a quiet booth at the back?” inquired Hewlett.
“For you, Paul, anything,” she said smiling. She ushered them to the corner booth against the back wall. Still early for the lunch crowd, the tables at either side were empty. “So two coffees?”
"Two coffees. And make them Irish. Don’t hold back on the whiskey.” For the downtown neighborhood, Nanette’s was a cardinal landmark where people met and caught up on their life. Though it had a strong breakfast and lunch crowd, most of the people in the area hit the more modern restaurants for dinner, particularly if they were not in the mood for anything but a steak. The steaks at Nanette’s were outstanding. Serving the neighborhood, it was a special place often reserved for weddings and wakes. Was there any difference?
Chapter Five
Hewlett had rose long before the sun. Sleep had eluded him. He had followed his clock on its rounds at 15 minute intervals. He had tried reading The New Yorker but could only manage the cartoons. Around two, he gave up, got up and went to the living room in the two bedroom apartment that sat perched above the beach on the thirty-fifth floor of the structure. From the living room, he went into the kitchen where he kept a bottle of Courvoisier. He poured himself a cocktail glass half full. He had a corner unit, and while the main part of the apartment faced the Atlantic, the smaller side of the unit faced north. Like fireflies losing their luminescence, the lights gradually extinguished in the apartments to the north.
He sipped and thought about his class in abnormal psychology at Dartmouth and Professor Zimbardo’s class on paranoia. William Burroughs remarked that paranoia was having “all the facts.” He didn’t have them all, but he had enough to know his was going to change and not for the better.
He sat there wondering; things might have been different if he’d never dealt cocaine. But it was too late now. He had been surprised at how well Jake took the news. It confirmed his feeling that Jake always wanted to play in the big leagues. He hadn’t even been bothered by the sixty/forty split. Jake immediately grasped the fact that they would make that up in increased revenue. Hewlett wanted to tell him to get it together because he wanted out. But it was pointless: Jake was Jake. By nature, he was who he was. He would never be buttoned down enough to inspire the confidence on the level Hewlett did.
Watching the lights come on and go off, he thought of how many permutations life provided us if we were lucky. But Paul Hewlett had been lucky enough. He had been given more than his fair share of chances in this world. Looking back on it, looking back on all of it, he felt that he had really blown it. Still in his late thirties, he was coming off a failed marriage, and his successful brokerage business was just a front to sell cocaine and now a stranger would alter his world. What galled him the most was there was no one to blame but himself.
At three-thirty in the morning, still unable to sleep, he took two Xanax. Wanting his wits about him, he didn’t take anything stronger lingering in his system when he went to meet Roland Rosario at Simon Bolivar Park later in the morning. Turning the television on, Hewlett turned it to the Turner Classic Movie channel. They were showing an old Robert Mitchum movie, a film noir, in which he plays a private detective who plays both sides of the law. As he watched the old movie, he could still feel the palpitations that accrued after his surprise visitor. Though the movie was filmed in black-and-white, the picture had been colorized, somehow making it all seem less real, less dramatic. Robert Mitchum had always been his hero; what would he do in this situation? At some point past three in the morning, he nodded off for about a half hour, only to wake up startled by the howling of some semi-feral canine patrolling the alleyway. At some point after five, he got up and went to the kitchen. He ground a pot of Kenyan decaf and plugged it in to percolate. Fear was a better stimulant than caffeine. As the coffee did its job, he made himself an omelet, using three types of cheeses, elk sausage that a client had given him after a canned hunting trip to Cody, Wyoming, and onions, scallions and green peppers. Once the coffee was ready and the omelet had been cooked, he sat down at the kitchen table. Whereas he normally liked cooking, and he normally liked what he cooked, it was all he could do to finish the omelet.
Like a cat in the darkness, he sat on a chair next to the east-facing balcony waiting for the sun. Though he disdained the loss of sleep, he still loved greeting the day — the scent of oleander drifting up from the garden of the apartment; the fishing boats heading out, their trailing wakes looking like contrails in the sky; the silence of the street before rush hour, their horns pouting with impatience. So it was that he embraced the promise of a new day, even if it was a world where people like Rosario roamed the earth. Gradually, the beach, the buildings on the beach and the streets bordering the beach all became crowded took on one new pastel hue blending into another, as the blinding fire of the new day’s sun rose higher and higher in the firmament of the Sunshine State’s clear, blue atmosphere. Now the prospect loomed that he could very well find himself at the penitentiary in Starke, where he’d know nothing more than a cold, grey cell. Was he in any less of a prison now? He felt like an animal caught in a trap trying to chew the caught paw off.
By a quarter of nine, Paul Hewlett was at work. Never being the type of boss requiring that his employees be on time, he’d just let them sort out what needed to be done and do it. His only demands were that they be cheerful to the clients and that they didn’t share information with anyone outside the firm. Beyond that, he could care less if they were playing volleyball down on the beach. Though some were undone by this unfettered routine, most of the secretaries, managers and other staff appreciated the freedom that working for Hewlett afforded. The stockbrokers, however, were judged not by the hours they put in the firm, but by how much money they brought in. For them, Hewlett used another strategy, preferring to use the carrot and not the stick. So far, the strategy had worked well, with the stockbrokers increasing business at the new investment firm by at least ten percent each year since the doors were open. Now he and Jake had put them in jeopardy as well. Now, there was no carrot for the two of them, only the stick.
This morning, as Hewlett and Townsend drank coffee in the conference room, they stared out the glass pane wall made of glass so that the stockbrokers in their offices could keep an eye on a financial ticker tape, giving all the associates a quick way to check their customer’s stock. Hewlett watched the employees enter for the day, one-by-one. He knew them all by name. That was a trick passed down by Fauci when he worked at Hauser, Longo and Fauci. “Know your employees,” Fauci told him. “Know their names, their spouse’s name, whether they have children. Know what makes them tick. You never know when it could come in handy. They’ll work for a boss they think cares.” Though he had run into one or two employees who acted as though he was being too intrusive, most appreciated the friendly, almost paternal feeling that Fauci taught him to convey to his employees. At most investment firms, the employees were simply bodies attached to faces.
From the desk in the conference room, he watched the electronic ticker tape as it ran high along the walls. General Electric was doing well; Alcoa was up. In his mind, the electronic ticker tape continued to play out. When he closed his eyes, he could see the companies that a particular patron had in his portfolio. Then he would see Rosario sitting there in his office telling him that he couldn’t just quit.
There were many things to be said during his meeting with Rosario. Though he had a lot to say, he had to be careful just what he said, and how he said it. No less important was that he listen to what Rosario had to say. Nor could he