Rafael Gomez was on the floor playing dolls with his daughters when the telephone rang.
Rita picked it up on the third ring. She was in the kitchen making Gomez’s favorite Sunday supper, arroz con pollo.
“It’s for you, honey,” she said. He noticed she’d started calling him “honey” and “baby” again. Pretty good progress. He’d cut way back on the suds factor. Nada on the vodka. Came straight from duty to the house with no detours to the USO. No hanky-panky with Rita under the covers yet, but he was getting close. Second base maybe, rounding for third.
Life was good when you were a millionaire. Even if you couldn’t spend it, you knew it was there. “Who is it, sweetie?” Gomez asked. “We’re pretty busy with Barbie and Ken down here. They won’t put on their bathing suits and we’re all going to the beach.”
“Who is calling, please?” he heard Rita ask, the phone cradled under her ear, stirring something garlicky in a big pot.
“It’s Julio Iglesias,” she said, covering the mouthpiece and making a face.
“Oh, okay. Good. I’ll take it up in the bedroom. Thanks, hon.”
She gave him a look as he got up and left the kids on the living room floor. That was okay. Plenty of quality time on the way. He was going to make them all so rich it didn’t matter. In the bedroom, he plopped down on the bed and picked up the phone.
“This is Elvis,” he said.
“Hola, the king himself. I am honored.”
“What’s up, Julio?”
“It’s Iglesias.”
“Sorry. Listen, Iglesias, I’m kinda busy right now, so—”
“Oh. You’re busy. Well, in that case—”
“No, no. I just meant, well, it’s a little hard to talk now, you know?”
“It’s a little hard to talk to you anytime, Elvis. Is your wife giving you our messages? We haven’t heard shit from you in over a week.”
“Maybe because there’s nothing to say.”
“Everything is okay?”
“Everything is perfect.”
“You are ready?”
“Does a bear shit in the woods?”
“Perdуn? What?”
“It means of course I’m ready. The bear is ready.” Gomez, thinking about the big white teddy bear, couldn’t help laughing at his own bear joke.
“Well, good, really good. Because, to tell you the truth, Elvis, we’re getting kinda close here.”
“Close?”
“Sн,amigo, close.”
“Like, uh, how close are we getting?”
“I think the cockroaches should be all packed and ready to check out of the motel. You understand what I’m saying?”
“Yeah. I understand. It’s checkout time.”
“Sн. But not tonight. When I have the exact checkout time, Julio or I will call you. You have the RC?”
“Yeah, the RC, it’s out in the garage.”
“You remember what to do when you get the call?”
“I hit the little button on the left and when it starts to blink I put in thirty hours.”
“Perfecto. You are not so stupid as Julio thinks you are.”
“You tell Julio I’m happy to kick his sorry ass any time he’s ready.”
“I am kidding you, Elvis. Relax. You sound so tense.”
“Tense? Why should I be tense? I kill a coupla thousand people every day.”
“You sound like you have second thoughts, seсor. Perhaps we should talk about this. You know, the money, it is not released to you until we are satisfied you have accomplished your mission. You know that?”
“I don’t have the money? What the fuck are you—?”
“I didn’t say that. You have it. But you can’t get to it until I give you the account password. It’s a numeric code that allows you to withdraw. See what I mean, Elvis?”
That’s when Rita stuck her head in the door.
“Honey—dinner’s ready. Can you get off the phone, please?”
“Yeah, I’m just—gimme a sec, okay, sweetie? I’m just finishing up here.”
“As long as you’ve got him on the phone, tell Julio I loved that old album he did with Willie Nelson,” Rita said, and slammed the door.
Christ. This spy stuff was tough. He looked at the phone in his hand and saw that it was shaking again.
“Listen, Iglesias, I’ve done my part. Your bug bomb is hidden where nobody on earth could find it. You call me, say the word, and the bugs will vacate that fucking cockaroach motel like Chinamen with their pants on fire in a fuckin’ firecracker factory.”
“Bueno, bueno. I’m sure you will not let us down. After all, you have a lot to lose, seсor.”
“I ain’t jeopardizing a million bucks, pal, believe me.”
“I’m not only speaking of money, seсor.”
“What the hell—?”
“If you do not do exactly, I mean, exactly, as I say—if there is even a hint of stupidity or cowardice or duplicity, you will lose a lot more than money, Seсor Gomez.”
“You want to tell me what the fuck you’re talking about?”
“You have an Aunt Nina in Miami. She won’t suffer. A nine-millimeter to the back of the skull. They’ll find her someday, stuffed in a rental car trunk at the bottom of a canal somewhere in the Everglades.”
“Are you—”
“Then, of course, there is Rita. She will be last. Before she goes, she will witness the deaths of your two young daughters. Their names, let me look at my notes, yes, their names are Tiffany and Amber. First Tiffany, then Amber, then Rita. They will all die slowly. Have you got all that, Elvis?”
“I think you guys are smoking something, right? Just screwing around with me to—”
“Good luck, Elvis. I just want you to know what you’re dealing with here. We’re watching your every move. Be a good boy. We will be in touch very shortly.”
“Oh, man. Fuck me,” he said, and put down the phone. “Fuck me all to hell.”
Gomez went down the stairs and out to the garage. He reached up to a high shelf and pulled down a big old Maxwell House can half full of nails and stuff. There was a half-full pint of Stoli inside, too. He sat down at his workbench and tipped the bottle back.
Good old Vitamin V. Yeah, it helped. Steadied his nerves. If he was ever going to get the goddamn million dollars, staying steady was critical.
Not to mention keeping his goddamn family alive. God, you mind your own business, join the Navy, get married, and then wake up one day and find yourself mixed up in all kinds of shit. Everything goin’ along just fine and then, whammo.