Outside, the sun was out. By the standards of southern Florida, it was cool, but not so cool that the humidity, and the state of his nerves, kept him from perspiring. The pigeons had gathered on the granite immediately surrounding the bronze statue of Simon Bolivar. He had brought his brown paper bag of breadcrumbs for the pigeons. He was sitting on the park bench feeding the pigeons when Mr. Rosario appeared. Precise and punctual. Driving the black Ford LTD was a large stocky man, who, though, undoubtedly packing, had the least need of having a gun to appear intimidating. The pigeons scattered as soon as Rosario stepped out of the car. Hewlett stood up as Rosario came over to speak to him.
“Mr. Rosario, I told you didn’t have to bring any of your business associates.”
“Good morning, Mr. Hewlett. He’s not my business associate. His name is Gus Richmond. He’s a personal assistant.”
“Personal assistant at what? Breaking legs? He looks like he played defensive end for the Dolphins.” Richmond glared at him like a police officer might look just before pulling a piece on him.
“Ah, Mr. Hewlett, it’s good to see that you haven’t lost your sense of humor.” As he said this, he did not so much as smile.
This morning, Rosario extended his hand in greeting. Mr. Hewlett hesitated for just a moment. Shaking hands with Rosario was like shaking hands with a sixth grader; it was soft, dry, almost effeminate. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?” said Rosario, as they both sat down side-by-side on the park bench.
“Townsend and I have had many a discussion about our operations on this very park bench since we opened the firm.”
They watched the pigeons in the distance still hopeful of a free lunch.
“Mr. Rosario, just how can Mr. Townsend and I expect protection from the people you represent when you approach us in such an adversarial way?”
“You do get to the point, don’t you, Mr. Hewlett?”
“That is the point, Mr. Rosario. It kept me awake most of the night wondering about it. See, I’m a little paranoid about your business associates. I don’t want to wash up on some beach in south Florida.”
“Ah, Mr. Hewlett, I am not a man of violence. Violence, I find completely repugnant. At times, in my universe, it cannot be avoided. But there are things I can’t countenance. Nor can the people I work with.”
“Mr. Hewlett — may I call you Paul — people are warned before we take any physical recourse. They are no longer children. They know what they are getting into. When they fail to listen, when they fail to abide by the rules of my organization, well, only then do we send in people like Newell and Spade. Again, that’s as a last resort. No the ones who’ve crossed the line, crossed it knowingly, leave us no choice but to seek physical recourse. At that point, my organization sends in people who are more difficult to reason with, those with really mean, truly tormented souls. For instance, so far, you’ve done nothing to earn a visit from one of them. Let’s just keep it that way.”
“Yes, let’s.”
“You will find doing business with us has its own rewards, Paul.”
“And you still won’t let me go my separate way?”
“No. I’ll be honest with you. It’s you we want, not your cousin. He’s too much of a loose cannon. I personally guarantee his safety while you are with us.”
“But I don’t want to deal anymore. I really don’t. It’s just time to go. It has nothing to do with you or the money.”
“Mr. Hewlett, you made yourself a player many years ago. The first time you charged another person for a joint or for a gram of coke, you became a player. You are a player now, whether you like it or not. You will always be a player.”
“What about Jake?”
“We’ll afford him the same protection that we do you, so long as he works for us and does nothing from which there’s no going back.”
“And you guarantee protection from the law.”
“One can only offer someone so much protection from the law. Nothing is foolproof, but the organization I work for is as close as you’re going to find to it. Were you to keep on dealing, Paul, you’d find that sooner or later you’d be busted. Either the DEA would nail you, or more likely they would nail your cousin, and he’d bring you down. In your heart, you know I’m right.”
“That’s part of why I said I wanted out.”
“Paul, you’re too good at what you do. Way too good. It would be a waste of talent to quit at this unique opportunity.”
“Not if what I’m good at is breaking the law.”
“Ah, but you see, we can almost certainly provide just the protection that would prevent that.”
“I still want out.”
“Mr. Hewlett…Paul… that is out of the question. Should you leave before I can find a man of you stature, I will feed Mr. Townsend to the lions.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Come, come, Paul, I wasn’t being cryptic.”
Once his father remarked that Mr. Simmons, who lived two doors down from them, was a broken man after his wife died. Hewlett had no idea what his father had met until he stood up from the park bench and proceeded to go back into his office. He was, for all intents and purposes, a broken man, himself.
Chapter Six
The park was a triangular patch of grass and flowers surrounded by a ring of palm trees in a resurrected section of gentrified downtown Miami. Forming the park’s perimeter were newly built apartment buildings and office towers. The park bench where he’d been sitting with Townsend was at the base of the triangle.
A teenage Hispanic couple took their place. When they sat down, they were holding hands, but progressed to thigh stroking, neck nibbling and full tilt French-kissing. It never occurred to them people or watching or if it did, they didn’t care. They progressed to heavy petting. Jake kept watching the show to see how far they’d go. But Paul was watching a young man throwing a frisbee to his pet Border Collie. The collie was festooned with a red handkerchief about its neck. When he was but a child growing up in Miami he had one, too. Never had he tied a red kerchief about the Clancy’s neck.
Evidently the couple had limits because Townsend was now strutting back to the office. Townsend walked as though he was on the dusty, dangerous streets of Dodge as an extra on the movie set of a Western. He felt a little bit like the Border Collie when it came to Jake; he felt as though he was constantly herding Jake, herding him and keeping him out of harm’s way.
Located at the apex of the triangle of the park was a payphone that he always used for his less than legal activities. This is the one from which he called Rosario. The phone would ring four, five and then six times. Before Rosario’s secretary and bodyguard finally picked up the receiver.
There was simply a “herro” in a gravelly voice. It always came out as “herro” because the present secretary, factotum and bodyguard for Rosario was Mr. Li Xiaoping, a former member of the triads of Guangxi Province on the mainland of China. As Rosario told him late one night, when they were putting a deal together, Li killed the wrong man — wrong in the sense that the victim was in the upper echelon of a competing triad — in a barroom fight in Shenzhen. He killed the man with his bare hands. Since then, he’d been in hiding. He’d killed the first man who came to kill him, again using just his bare