Spiral

again.

    I’d never flown into Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport before, but I had flown over it on the case in the Keys. The view of Lauderdale from the air is more than a little disorienting as to the scale of the snaking Intracoastal canal system that gives thousands of people postage-stamp lots and deep-water moorings for boats bigger than their houses.
    I was pretty sure of the perspective issue, since I’d decided after my plane took off that I was going to watch out the windows when—and if—we landed safely.
    Which, as luck would have it, this particular aircraft did.

    ”Hey, Mr. John Francis.”
    The slight alias I’d used when he’d met me before. ”Pepe.”
    I watched the slim, six-foot-tall man come off his leaning position against the wall opposite my arrival gate. Pepe had gotten a little more bald since I’d seen him last, the black hair receding from front to back. The mustache was black, too, but trimmed down from the bandit-style he’d favored back in September. His current outfit more than compensated for the conservative cut, though. Pepe was wearing clothes of enough different colors to pass for an Easter egg.
    He began walking toward me. ”How you doing, man?” His words came out, ”How chew dune, mahn.” I said, ”Fine, Pepe. Just fine.”
    When he drew close enough to study my eyes, his own went a little off. ”You sure you okay?”
    ”Just a rough flight.”
    A bit more study, then a shrug. ”Okay, Mr. John Francis, I suppose to pick you up, take you where Mr. Vega at.”
    As he turned away, I said, ”Pepe?”
    He turned back to me. ”Yeah, I figure you got the luggage. We pick that up down the stairs.”
    ”Not what I meant.”
    The study look again. ‘You don’t got no luggage?”
    ”I’ve got luggage. What I wanted to tell you is, I’m not sure which name I’ll be using down here.”
    A cocky grin. ”I remember that about you, man. Always somebody you are not, huh?”

    Grunting as he hoisted my suitcase into the trunk of the older Ford Escort in the parking garage, Pepe said, ”You ain’t gonna need all this clothes down here in the sunshine.”
    I watched him as he looked around at the other cars quickly, then unfastened the shirt button just above his belt buckle with the thumb and middle finger of his right hand. Pepe used the same fingers to lift up the trunk mat next to my suitcase, his left hand pulling a Glock ten-millimeter semiautomatic from underneath. After another look around, he slipped the gun into the gap in his shirt and under his belt, leaving the button above the buckle undone for a left-handed cross-draw.
    ”I guess some things don’t change,” I said.
    Pepe’s right hand closed the trunk lid while he patted the bulge his Glock made in his clothes. ‘You mean the piece, man?”
    I waved at the Escort. ”And the two-door stick-shift, so you don’t get taken for a rent-a-car tourist by the bad guys.”
    ”Hey, Mr. Whatever, you up in Broward now. Not like Miami in the quiet suburbs.”
    ”Then why the gun?”
    ”I still maybe got to drive to Miami after Mr. Vega see you.”
    ”See me about what?”
    ”I don’t know, man.” Pepe shook his head as he moved to open my door. ”I just your driver.”
    Not from what I remembered of him.
    * * *

    Windows closed and air-conditioning on against an almost eighty-degree, muggy day, we bumped along a service road before Pepe turned us north onto Andrews Avenue. ”Most times, you want to take ninety-five.”
    ”Interstate 95?”
    ”Right, be faster. But Mr. Vega say he want you to get ‘ori- ent -ed’ on this town.”
    The first thing I noticed about Fort Lauderdale was that its airport was a snap to negotiate, especially compared to Miami’s.
    ”Anything special I should be ‘orienting’ myself about?”
    ”Mr. Vega, he tell you that.”
    Okay. Trying to make small talk, I said, ”Things still bad back in Cuba?”
    ”Worser than when you here last time. They got these old American cars—like a Packard, a fifty-seven Chevy with the big tail’s fin—but they don’t got no gas for putting in them. They got old women volunteer to serve the meals in the hospitals, but they don’t got no food for the patients. Then the Pope, he supposed to come this month, so Fidel let everybody have Christmas couple weeks ago, like the first time since ‘la Revolución.”‘ Pepe slewed toward the curb. ”Only gonna take more than some fiestas and church candles, change things