The old lady immediately launched into a very rapid stream of Spanish. I speak some Spanish, and often I can even understand Cuban, but I was getting only one word in ten of Ariel’s harangue. Deborah looked at me helplessly; for whatever quixotic reasons, she had chosen to study French in school, and as far as she was concerned the woman might as well have been speaking ancient Etruscan.
“Por favor, Señora,” I said. “Mi hermana no habla español.”
“Ah?” Ariel looked at Deborah with a little less enthusiasm and shook her head. “Lázaro!” Her son stepped forward, and as she resumed her monologue with barely a pause, he began to translate for her. “I came here from Santiago de Cuba in 1962,” Lázaro said for his mother. “Under Batista I saw some terrible things. People disappeared. Then Castro came and for a while I had hope.” She shook her head and spread her hands. “Believe it or not, but this is what we thought at the time. Things would be different. But soon it was the same thing again. Worse. So I came here. To the United States. Because here, people don’t disappear. People are not shot in the street or tortured. That’s what I thought. And now this.” She waved an arm toward the house next door.
“I need to ask you a few questions,” Deborah said, and Lázaro translated.
Ariel simply nodded and went right on with her riveting tale. “Even with Castro, they would never do a thing like that,” she said. “Yes, they kill people. Or they put you in the Isle of Pines. But never a thing like this. Not in Cuba. Only in America,” she said.
“Did you ever see the man next door?” Deborah interrupted. “The man who did this?” Ariel studied Deborah for a 1 3 4
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moment. “I need to know,” Deb said. “There’s going to be another one if we can’t find him.”
“Why is it you who asks me?” Ariel said through her son.
“This is no job for you. A pretty woman like you, you should have a husband. A family.”
“El victimo proximo es el novio de mi hermana,” I said. The next victim is my sister’s sweetheart. Deborah glared at me, but Ariel said, “Aaahhh,” clucked her tongue, and nodded her head. “Well, I don’t know what I can tell you. I did see the man, maybe two times.” She shrugged and Deborah leaned forward impatiently. “Always at night, never very close. I can say, the man was small, very short. And skinny as well. With big glasses. More than this, I don’t know. He never came out, he was very quiet. Sometimes we would hear music.” She smiled just a little and added, “Tito Puente.” And Lázaro echoed unnecessarily, “Tito Puente.”
“Ah,” I said, and they all looked at me. “It would hide the noise,” I said, a little embarrassed at all the attention.
“Did he have a car?” Deborah asked, and Ariel frowned.
“A van,” she said. “He drove an old white van with no windows. It was very clean, but had many rust spots and dents. I saw it a few times, but he usually kept it in his garage.”
“I don’t suppose you saw the license plate?” I asked her, and she looked at me.
“But I did,” she said through her son, and held up one hand, palm outward. “Not to get the number, that only happens in the old movies. But I know it was a Florida license plate. The yellow one with the cartoon of a child,” she said, and she stopped talking and glared at me, because I was giggling. It’s not at all dignified, and certainly not something I D E A R LY D E V O T E D D E X T E R
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practice on a regular basis, but I was actually giggling and I could not help myself.
Deborah glared at me, too. “What is so goddamned funny?” she demanded.
“The license plate,” I said. “I’m sorry, Debs, but my God, don’t you know what the yellow Florida plate is? And for this guy to have one and do what he does . . .” I swallowed hard to keep from laughing again, but it took all my self-control.
“All right, damn it, what’s so funny about the yellow license plate?”
“It’s a specialty plate, Deb,” I said. “The one that says, choose life.”
And then, picturing Dr. Danco carting around his wrig-gling victims, filling them with chemicals and cutting so very perfectly to keep them alive through it all, I’m afraid I giggled again. “Choose life,” I said.
I really wanted to meet this guy.
We walked back to the car in silence. Deborah got in and called in the description of the van to Captain Matthews, and he agreed that he could probably put out an APB. While she talked to the captain, I looked around. Neatly manicured yards, mostly consisting of colored rocks. A few children’s bicycles chained to the front porch, and the Orange Bowl looming in the background. A nice little neighborhood to live in, work in, raise a family in—or chop off somebody’s arms and legs.
“Get in,” said Deborah, interrupting my rustic reverie. I got in and we drove off. At one point, stopped at a red light, 1 3 6
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Deb glanced at me and said, “You pic
k a funny time to start laughing.”
“Really, Deb,” I said. “This is the first hint of personality we’ve got from the guy. We know he has a sense of humor. I think that’s a big step forward.”