Free Lonesome Point by Ian Vasquez

let’s talk straight. What you had in mind when you come ’round here, it ain’t no doctor visit. Might be for something else, but we’ll leaveit like that for the moment. Stick to the job I want done, my advice to you. Everything will go real fucking smooth you just do that.” He threw up a hand, thumb and little finger miming a phone. “Expect a call in the next twenty-four to forty-eight.” He swiveled his head to the front. “Do it, B. And Lee, enjoy your pastelitos . ”
    The car pulled out and gunned it north, leaving Leo breathing in exhaust fumes, in a black mood.

8
    T HEY WERE AT CASA GLORIA’S, Oscar’s favorite Cuban restaurant. Oscar said, “The man’s real name is Osvaldo Herman Massani. His father’s an Italian who settled in Cuba in the 1920s, owned a tobacco plantation. Herman came here in late ’59, after the fall of Batista. He’s been in South Florida ever since, supposedly has family in New Jersey. He’s one of those first-generation Cuban-Americans that came in droves and lived amongst each other and didn’t feel too compelled to assimilate. His family had money back in Pinar del Río but when Fidel took over he seized their lands, most of their assets, they fled. The Massani family is well connected. Herman’s father knew a certain developer’s father, this city commissioner’s uncle, his mother is cousin to the wife of the ex-mayor of Miami, and the relationships go down the line like that. So Herman is like a lot of Cubans in Miami, only, shall I say, further up the ladder than most.”
    Patrick said, “So what is he doing in a public hospital like Jefferson?”
    “That is what I’m coming to,” Oscar said. “Another drink?” He beckoned the waiter.
    “I’m good.” Patrick put a hand around his martini glass, nearly full, three olives in there the way he liked it. He didn’tfeel like drinking, had no appetite. The menu was still open in front of him.
    “Bistec de pollo, ” Oscar told the waiter. “Muchas cebollas, Ruben. Y hoy, no quiero arroz blanco, pero congri, okay?” He raised his empty martini glass. “Otro mas, por favor.”
    “You were saying about Massani?”
    “Massani, Massani,” Oscar said. “Eccentric. But well connected. And with all the people he knows he manages to make his political contribution. Which brings us here to you wanting to know who he is, and why he is so important to your campaign.”
    Patrick cocked his head. “You lost me there. My campaign? I don’t even know this man.”
    Oscar smiled patiently. “But he knows you, my friend.” He turned his head to the left. “You see that corridor over there, by the restrooms?”
    Patrick nodded, getting impatient with Oscar.
    “It leads to a back door. You take that door, walk a few paces and turn left, and you’re at the back door to El Rincon, one of the oldest Cuban barbershops in this city. That’s the place where Herman Massani used to work.”
    “That’s all well and good and quite charming, but who the hell is he? You still haven’t told me.”
    “He,” Oscar said, “is the man we’ve been searching for these past two weeks. Two nights before you called me, we found him.”
    “We?” Patrick shook his head. “Who is ‘we’? And why are ‘we’ searching for him?”
    “Mr. Massani, my anxious friend, is the man who at this moment is the biggest threat to your campaign.”
    Patrick tensed up, studied Oscar.
    Oscar returned a level gaze.
    Patrick reached for his martini and took a deep swallow. Set the glass down and wiped his lips with the cloth napkin, moving slowly and deliberately to conceal his impatience. He ranged the room, a group of men in ties two tables away, two dark-haired young ladies chattering at a center table, silverware clinking all around. A burst of laughter from a far-off table.
    Oscar said, “We won’t talk about it here. After we eat, we’ll go for a walk.”
    “You’ll explain to me about Massani.”
    “Everything, everything. But get