Malice In Miami

Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

I was so anxious to see my dad it was a miracle I didn't have an accident on the way. Although it's a straight shot down Federal Highway from Hollywood to the city of Hallandale and traffic was light, the twenty minute drive seemed unbearably long. All I wanted was to be by his side. I knew I couldn't make up for the time we had lost but I didn't want to waste a minute of what we had left. As a lawyer who relied on words for a living I knew their power to persuade, incite, or heal--but how would I find the right words to help him? This was the most important case I'd ever argue, yet I had no memorandum of law, no precedent to back me up. I was working blind, a magician conjuring spells from thin air.

Golden Beach Towers was a fifty-five and over community overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway and not nearly as luxurious as it sounded. In fact, it was a faded ten-story building in need of repairs with no gold and no beach. I parked my Mini Cooper in a guest spot to appease the condo commandos spying on me from their breakfast nooks. As self-appointed watchmen they lived to catch scofflaws tossing boxes into the dumpster or snagging a reserved parking space. Their motto was: We don't like you either.

Riding the slow, creaky elevator to the seventh floor I braced for the worst. Selfishly, I wondered why every crisis had to happen so damn early. There was a reason I avoided morning hearings and morning appointments--I hated morning. My brain refused to engage before ten a.m. no matter how many shots of espresso I downed. I was much sharper at noon. Or at midnight.

When the elevator door opened I saw Ana Maria pacing the hallway. It still amazed me how she had been the key to finding my father--and how without my friend Grace's intervention we never would have met. Had I seen Ana Maria around town we would have smiled politely like the strangers we were and kept on walking. How was I to know she was my step-mom? I didn't even know my dad's real name back then. Life was funny that way. What wasn't funny was what Ana Maria was currently dealing with. She had sacrificed so much for my dad and now that he was finally here her life was no better.

She wasn't dressed for work, a bad sign, and the closer I got the more haggard she looked. It wasn't just the lack of make-up--no, the poor woman was exhausted. Her wheat-blond hair, usually so fluffy, lay flat on her head, as if staging a protest, and the bags under her eyes could qualify as carry-on. She rallied when she saw me. After planting the requisite peck on each cheek Ana Maria rested her hands on my shoulders like an unsteady dance partner and gazed up, her dark eyes misty.

"Thank you for coming, Jamie. You're a wonderful daughter."

"You don't have to thank me," I said, a little teary-eyed myself. "I'll always come. Does he know I'm here?"

"Yes, he's waiting for you." Her kind face was creased with worry. "He says it's urgent, that he must speak with you right away."

"Did he say why?" I asked before she opened the door.

Ana Maria didn't reply as she led me into their apartment and gestured towards my dad in the bedroom. I'm not sure what I expected, maybe that he would be under the covers in the fetal position. Isn't that what depressed people usually did? On the contrary, he was a whirlwind of activity. As the TV in the living room blared out the local news and the laptop on the dining table bellowed out a different story he was frenetically pulling clothes from the closet and tossing them on the bed. He was clad in a white t-shirt dribbled with coffee stains, rumpled shorts, one sock, and a toothbrush tucked behind his ear like a pencil, an alarming ensemble to say the least. I walked over to the laptop, closing the lid to silence it, and then picked up the remote and pushed the mute button.

"Hola Papi," I said, walking into the bedroom. "Planning a trip?"

He stopped yanking clothes off hangers and turned as if he'd just realized I was there. His relief was palpable.

"Jamie, my only child, thank God you're here! What if I never saw you again?"

He pulled me into a hug that was a little too tight. With my face squished against his chest I discerned that the coffee stain was fresh. If nobody was going to offer me a cup, at least I had the fumes.

I gently disengaged. "Why all the melodrama?" I joked, studying his worried face for clues. "Are you still having nightmares?"

Ana Maria had told me that since returning to the U.S. he had been having flashbacks to his first visit thirty-five years earlier. I guess being arrested and deported tends to stick with you--especially when you wind up at Gitmo. He sat on the edge of the bed, no longer manic, body slumped in defeat. I sat down beside him and put my arm around his lean shoulders.

"Talk to me," I said, "maybe I can help. I'm smart, you know. They say I take after my dad."

With a low chuckle, he raised his silver head with its untamable hair so like my own. "Don't you believe it," he said. "Your mother was the genius. But I know one thing." His eyes crinkled at the corners as he touched my cheek.

"What?" I played along.

"You got your good looks from your papa."

I laughed, as did Ana Maria, hovering in the doorway. "I can't argue with that," I said. "So, what's going on here?" I fell backwards onto the pile of clothes, arms spread wide like I was making a snow angel.

He jumped up from the bed, agitated once more. "I have to be ready, Jamie," he said, his voice cracking. "They're coming for me and there's nowhere to hide."