Playing With Fuego Part 3

No, first I needed to pluck a gla.s.s of white wine off a c.o.c.ktail tray. No way was I going to pa.s.s up a chance to drink something besides Manischewitz.

I'd never seen so many movers and shakers in one place before. If food poisoning were to hit this party tonight, the stock market would fall a thousand points. It was an honor to be invited to a function like this. Still, I was sure I'd enjoy it a lot more if I were the one being schmoozed.

By the time I reached the center of the pool deck, the woman I wanted to see had drifted off with someone else.

"Daphne Maddox, I know that name." The voice belonged to a man with very dark skin, small black eyes and an island cadence. Obviously, he had noticed my nametag.

"You must be Guillame Pierre." Our Haitian city commissioner, representing the district of our current jobsite. I'd been calling his office to line up some city volunteers, but no one ever responded. "It's nice to finally meet you. I've been trying to get in touch but you're so busy."

"A thousand pardons. I must apologize for not returning your calls, but this has worked out wonderfully. I much prefer having these discussions in person." He took my hand in both of his and stroked it tenderly.

I smiled as amiably as I could, considering I'd been warned not to believe a word he said. Pierre has a reputation for being a master manipulator, someone in City Hall who gets most of what he wants because he knows where all the bodies are buried. Gisela once told me he thought himself a ladies' man, and then she'd burst out laughing. No doubt she'd get a s.a.d.i.s.tic kick out of seeing him stroke my hand.

"I was calling to let you know we have two more renovations scheduled this year for your district. Perhaps you and some folks from your office would like to come out on a Sat.u.r.day and work with us. It would be a wonderful opportunity to meet with your const.i.tuents."

"Oh, we're doing many things on behalf of the wonderful people in Little Haiti." He put his arm around my waist to steer me toward a cabana. "Perhaps we can relax away from this crowd while we discuss this in more detail."

Jenko. Jenko. Jenko.

My phone rang. It was Gisela. G.o.d bless her.

"h.e.l.lo."

She said nothing. Just her evil laugh.

"No, it's quite all right. I was hoping you'd call."

Now she was shrieking hysterically. I'd bet a hundred bucks tears were rolling down her cheeks.

"Yes, this qualifies as an emergency. I'll let her know at once." I stepped out of Pierre's reach. "Sorry, I have to find my boss immediately and give her some news."

I found Gisela standing in a cl.u.s.ter of men that included her husband Jorge, and three other men, two of whom were members of the Dolphins. The third was Marco Padilla, the man she was hoping to sway to the foundation's board. In his early sixties, Padilla was an enormous man. Not like the muscled athletes standing next to him. More like a heart attack waiting to happen.

I smiled politely through the introductions before whispering to her, "I'm glad you had your eye on Pierre. What a sleaze."

"It was Marco who pointed out that he had cornered some poor, unsuspecting woman. I couldn't believe it when I saw it was you."

"I owe him one. And now I'm going to Plan B, which is to swim across the pool so I won't have to walk by Pierre again."

I cut a wide circle around the cabanas and slipped back into the crowd to find Irene Sanchez, Mariner Cruise's VP for human resources. Given the recent uproar over the reef accident and fire, I wasn't surprised to see her belt back a c.o.c.ktail with gusto.

"Ms. Sanchez, nice to see you again."

Her puzzled look gave way to recognition. "Debbie!"

"Daphne. Daphne Maddox."

"I knew it was a D-something. How have you been?"

As I gave her the rundown on my job at the foundation, I couldn't help but notice how frazzled she was...bags under her eyes and very much in need of a visit to her hair colorist. Not that I could blame her. According to the Herald, the pending lawsuits against the cruise line had their stock in free fall, which meant the officers at her level were losing about a thousand dollars an hour.

After declining my request for volunteers-they were "spread too thin at the moment"-she made an offer of her own. "Any chance you'd still be interested in our HR department?"

"I thought you filled that position."

"Oh, we did. But we've grown so much over the past couple of years that we need more hands to deal with personnel issues."

Not true. The Herald article showed Mariner lagging the other cruise lines, and they'd just canceled their most recent order for a new ship. But the fact that they needed more HR staff meant something big was in the offing, like ma.s.sive severance packages or transfer of benefits if they sold the company. My guess was anyone jumping on board now would be out of a job soon because Mariner Cruise Lines was going under, and I had a strong hunch the officers knew it.

"I appreciate your interest, Ms. Sanchez, but I'm really happy at the foundation." To say nothing of my aversion to sinking ships. Time to drop Mariner like a cast iron anchor.

As I eased myself away I spotted a familiar face, Carlos Moya, the owner and CEO of a national trucking chain. Carlos oozed with Latin charm, and sent us a dozen volunteers two or three times a year. I didn't need to press Carlos for more help, but I wanted to say h.e.l.lo and thank him for all he'd already done.

As I got closer, I saw he was engaged in serious conversation with a woman whose back was toward me. I didn't have to see her face to know she was hot. Tall and shapely, she wore a clinging skin-colored c.o.c.ktail dress and stylish but reasonable two-inch heels. Her dark hair, accented with golden strands, hung freely about her shoulders.

"...and that's where the Iberican Fund comes in, Carlos. It's an extraordinary set of aggressive growth funds that outperformed last year's market by sixty percent. We've pulled back on bringing in new investors right now, but if you're really interested, I'll talk to Pepe. We'll have you and your wife out for dinner on the yacht."

I knew that voice. Come to think of it, I knew that hair...and that curvy behind was unmistakably the same one I'd seen in skinny jeans. I never forget a curvy behind.

"Hi, everyone."

Carlos lit up with a smile. Mari Tirado, not so much.

"Daphne, my favorite handyman...handywoman."

"Handyperson," I corrected, glancing at Mari for acknowledgment. She seemed to be checking the floor for a trapdoor.

"Excuse me," she said, hastily stepping away. "I need to catch someone before he leaves."

Carlos held a thumb and pinky to his ear in that universal talking-into-your-fingers gesture. "Call me, Mari. I'm interested."

I spent the next ten minutes making nice with Carlos, all the while wondering why Mari had taken off like her dress was on fire. Even more curious was why she was here at all. This was an invitation-only event for nonprofits and business executives from the top companies in Miami. Nonprofit staff didn't drive cars like hers or have "dinner on the yacht," so that meant she was someone important.

As I headed back toward Gisela, I spotted Mari sitting by herself on a wicker loveseat inside an open cabana. When I got closer, I saw she was on the phone, so I waited a few feet away where I knew she could see me.

This time she looked right at me and ended her call at once. The last thing I wanted was another confrontation like the icy ones we'd had at the house, but I couldn't get over her just walking off. One of us was going to have to be the grownup, and that was obviously me.

I said evenly, "I'll be the first to admit I don't understand much about Miami, but where I come from, people who know each other usually say h.e.l.lo."

She groaned and buried her face in her hands before straightening up and flipping her hair back over her shoulders. "Please tell me you didn't say anything to Carlos about me doing community service."

Of course. I should have realized she wanted to keep her brush with the courts on the down low. "Carlos has been very helpful to the foundation. He and I have much better things to talk about than you."

Though she was clearly relieved, she also appeared agitated. "Sorry...I just need to get my hours in and make this go away before anybody finds out about it. If I screw up, they'll yank my license."

I wanted to tell her actions have consequences, but since we left things last weekend in a pretty good place, I actually felt a little sorry for her. "I wouldn't worry about it too much. Even people who lose their license usually get waivers to drive to work."

She looked at me like I'd sprouted carrots out of my head. "Not my driver's license-my investment broker's license. For some reason, they frown on letting felons handle other people's money. Next time I break up with somebody, remind me to make sure her brother isn't a cop."

"Seriously. Give some people a badge and a gun and they-" She just said Her. As in breaking up with a Female Person. No way had I heard that right.

"It was either break up or kill her. Sometimes I wonder if I took the coward's way out."

It was a Her. Mari was a lesbian. Oh, mi dios.

She slid over and offered me half the loveseat, obviously not noticing she had rendered me mute. Cuban litterbug or not, being a lesbian put her in a whole different light. A bright, shining light.

I finally got my mouth to work. "What exactly did you do, Mari?"

"I had this girlfriend, Delores. She works with Morgan Stanley. We met at a seminar on estate planning and hit it off. We'd been living together for almost a year. Things were great until she committed the unforgivable sin."

"She cheated on you. Been there, done that."

"Worse. She stole one of my clients." She leaned back and crossed one of her gorgeous legs over the other one. "So I piled all her stuff onto her Jet Ski and dragged it on a trailer over to where she worked. Then I dumped the whole business behind her car in the parking garage."

I couldn't begin to count all the times I thought about doing something like that to Emily. So Mari wasn't a selfish pig after all. In my book, she was righteous. "And that got you felony littering."

"How did you know that? It wasn't on my paperwork."

Oops.

"I did a little research. I wasn't trying to be nosy but...okay, I was being nosy. Mostly we get drunk drivers and your sentence didn't match up, so I checked you out with the clerk of courts."

She looked away and shook her head with a laugh. "Figures."

"What?"

"I did a little research of my own. You realize, don't you, that property transactions are public record? Now I think I have a pretty good idea why you yelled Jenko when you fell off that ladder."

I could feel my face burning but getting upset about her invading my privacy would have been hypocritical in the extreme. "Why would you-"

"What I don't get, though, is why you discharged your ex's debt on the mortgage. You both should have walked away and let the bank eat it."

"I'll have you know I was raised to honor my debts." No matter how stupidly I acquired them.

"A mortgage isn't about honor. It's a business deal."

"Right, a deal in which I signed a contract that said I would pay."

"But the bank signed it too. They understood there was a risk involved in your loan, so they stuck a whole section in there spelling out what happens if you default. Basically, it says you don't pay-we take your house. So let them. That's business."

"And ruin my credit forever?"

"It's only temporary. First you buy a new car that will last you for seven or eight years and you take out a new lease on a rental apartment. By the time you need another loan, you'll have recovered."

"And I'll have kissed any new job prospects goodbye. n.o.body gets hired these days without a credit check." The more Mari talked, the more she reminded me of yet another cla.s.s of human beings that rubbed me the wrong way-people who did what they wanted and left the rest of us holding the bag. Except being a long-legged lesbian in a tight dress made her a lot more tolerable. "I just can't bring myself to do that. Walking away from our obligations is exactly what tanked all of our property values in the first place."

"Yes and no. The collapse came when more and more people found they couldn't make their payments once the adjustable rates kicked in, and they couldn't sell because so many other buyers were in the same boat trying to unload their houses. But the lenders weren't surprised by any of that. They knew a lot of these new homeowners were poor credit risks, but they'd already unloaded their loans onto other unsuspecting mortgage buyers without disclosing their lack of due diligence. That's like selling Ferraris at Ferrari prices when you know they have Chevrolet engines under the hood."

"Sounds like a pretty good racket if you're a banker."

"Exactly. And trust me, they didn't give a second thought to what they might be doing to your property value when they rubber stamped all those bad loans for your neighbors. So screw the banks. Do what's best for you."

"Is this the kind of advice you give your clients?"

"Always," she answered unflinchingly, "unless it's criminal. I'm a little more judicious about that."

"Good to know." We sat there smirking at one another until I kind of sort of smiled a little. "I'm sorry if we got off on the wrong foot at the worksite."

"If?"

"I have an issue with tardiness, okay?" She didn't need to know about my issues with Spanish speakers in America, flashy cars, prissy women on a construction site...or just Miami in general.

My phone went off again, a text message from Gisela telling me the Dolphins were interested in doing a media day on one of our upcoming projects.

"Duty calls."

She picked up her purse and eyed the exit. "Yeah, I should get out of here before somebody asks to see my invitation."

"You crashed the c.o.c.ktail party?"

"Why don't you just announce it to everybody?" she whispered through clenched teeth. At least she hadn't shushed me this time. "I had an earlier meeting with someone in the bar and he asked me to join him."

"You mean Carlos Moya?"

"No, Marco Padilla. He's my uncle."

Chapter Five.

I always like the days we put down the tile floor. Most of our big volunteer jobs-putting up block walls, painting, drywall-show off progress by the end of the day, but seeing the floor take shape gives the house an even more finished look, and the workers a sense of pride and accomplishment.

Not that we were wrapping up. We still had another week's work ahead, things like tiling the shower, attaching the baseboards, installing the appliances and working through the final punch list. We'd finish next Sat.u.r.day by laying sod. That was backbreaking work, so I'd lined up a dozen teenagers from Jesuit Prep.

Saraphine Delacourt, the Haitian mother of three who owned the house, smiled and clasped her hands with the kind of excitement I usually reserve for getting out of jury duty. "It is so beautiful, so wonderful! G.o.d blesses me a thousand times with so many gracious hands."

Today's group was from the Doral Resort, and while none of them struck me as overtly religious, they all seemed fine with giving G.o.d credit for their work. It was hard not to be happy at bringing Saraphine such joy.

My overall experience with Miami's Haitian community was favorable, minus the creepy episode with Guillame Pierre. Like many of the city's immigrants, Haitians arrived on our sh.o.r.es in rickety boats and makeshift rafts, but they had a much tougher time with US Immigration officials than Cubans, who were automatically granted political asylum if they reached land. There were no such "wet feet-dry feet" provisions for Haitians, even those who claimed they were persecuted by their government.

Mordy and Edith, in a rare show of agreement, believed the unequal treatment was due to the fact Haitians were black, while the moneyed Cubans who came in the early exile waves were white. I find Haitians to be hardworking, community-minded people who want to get ahead in life as much as the next person. It makes me feel good to see someone like Saraphine get a hand up.