Forget Me Not (Love in the Fleet) Page 9

  Sky leaned back in the booth and smiled. “I kind of like how Daisy calls me Brian. Makes me feel grown up.” He reached for another peanut. “Shit, I was hoping that would never happen. But it’s kind of cool.”

  Philip set his beer down, placed his forearms on the table, and looked seriously at his alpha male wingman. “Maybe growing up isn’t such a bad idea. Look at your squadron CO. He’s what? A commander? Married with a couple of kids, right? People admire him and you know he’s going to make captain. It’s very likely he behaved like you did in his twenties, but what if he was still out drinking every night and chasing skirts? One, he wouldn’t have made CO, and two, would you respect a boss who acted that way? You keep behaving the way you do and you’re going to end up like Mick Jagger. Pushing seventy and still acting like you’re twenty.”

  “Okay, you made your point. No, I swear, watching you and Hallie just now. I think maybe I want what you have. You know, wife, kids. Well, not like tomorrow.”

  “The way you were talking, it sounds like this Daisy could be The One.”

  “Maybe. She’s an amazing woman and I respect the hell out of her.”

  Philip’s mouth tipped up in a smile. “Sounds serious. I’ve never heard you use the words woman and respect in the same sentence before. So have you told her you’re in love with her?”

  “Nah. I’m not that far gone.” Sky picked at the label on his beer bottle and gave it a pensive look, while chewing on the inside of his cheek. “I’m not sure I ever will be.”

  “Why not? You told me a minute ago you’re thinking about maybe settling down.”

  “I don’t know.” Sky glanced around the bar, took in the other patrons, the bartender drying a glass with a green dishtowel, the waitress he would have noticed a week ago, and then back at Philip. “What if I, like, got married some day and…what if I died and left her behind? I don’t understand how a guy can do a dangerous job with a family waiting back home.”

  Philip set his beer down on the coaster and settled back into the red leather seat. “This is about Daniel, isn’t it?”

  Sky didn’t respond right away. He was too focused on rearranging peanut shells in the bowl.

  “You ever feel responsible for your guys who died in the attack on the Blanchard? Like, maybe there was something you could have done to save them?”

  “Every day—and every night—for a while,” Philip said. “I had some pretty bad dreams that first year. I mean, Bulldog was like my right-hand man. I kept trying to rescue him and Harris, but I was paralyzed. I couldn’t do a damn thing for them, which is exactly what happened when I got knocked out. But Hallie made me take advantage of all the rehab—and I mean all the rehab—even talking with a shrink.”

  “Oh, I did that too. You know, the required number of sessions with the squadron doc,” Sky said.

  “No, this went beyond the required number of sessions. See…” Now it was Philip’s turn to glance around the bar, his fingers finding their way into his hair before he turned back to Sky. “I was afraid if I stopped…you know…beating myself up for not saving them, that it meant they weren’t important. Like, if I went on with my life, then their deaths didn’t really matter. And that was so not true. Is this making any sense?”

  Sky’s fingers stilled on the table, frozen in rearranging the peanut shell puzzle pieces. Did it make any sense? Did the Navy have ships? “Yeah, it makes sense. It makes perfect sense.” So maybe Sky would focus on allowing himself to move on from Daniel’s death. And then he’d be fine. But a wave of dizziness washed over him at that thought. Sky squeezed the edge of the leather seat with both hands as if to anchor himself. The very idea of leaving Daniel behind and moving forward with his own life was just plain wrong.

  Philip rolled the bottom edge of his beer bottle around the coaster, before setting it back down again. He was as nervous dumping this emotional stuff on the table as Sky was picking it up.

  Philip found his voice again. “Until I was able to get past that, I went through this thing where I didn’t think I deserved to marry Hallie and be happy. I mean, Bulldog and Harris weren’t going to get that chance, so I felt guilty about everything.”

  Sky’s heart stutter-stepped. “Exactly. So, how did you get past it?”

  “Don’t forget, Hallie had her own demons to deal with from that night. So we went out of the system. Found some good civilian doctors and paid out of pocket, but it was worth it. We could have carried that shit around with us our whole lives. See, I still couldn’t wrap my brain around why they died and I didn’t.”

  “Bingo.” Sky replied, fingers rearranging peanut shells again.

  “But Hallie wasn’t afraid to say, ‘I need help.’ And she dragged my ass along for good measure. We stopped trying to figure out why it wasn’t us that died. Instead, we accepted that we’d been given a second chance at life, and therefore have an obligation to do good things in the world.” Philip grinned. “And what could be more positive than having a baby?”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Sky said, mulling it over but thinking it all sounded a little too touchy-feely for him.

  “Anyway, talking with someone really helped us. You might think about it.”

  “Yeah, maybe, but I pretty much got a handle on it.” Which was a blatant lie.

  “Beating myself up for not saving my men or not dying wasn’t going to do anybody any good. Least of all my wife or my kid. The bottom line was Hallie gave me an attitude adjustment by making me focus on what I can do instead of what I can’t—or couldn’t—do.”

  Sky ran his fingers through his hair. “Sounds great in theory, but tell it to my dreams.”

  “You still leaving chicks’ beds in the middle of the night?” Philip asked.

  Sky’s heart rate ratcheted up a notch. His eyes flickered to Philip. “You know about that?”

  “Yeah, you got drunk one night and told me. How you didn’t want to risk having a nightmare in some woman’s bed.”

  “Holy shit.” Sky huffed out a breath and leaned back in the booth. “So I have a bad dream now and then. It’s not a big deal. Can’t a man have a couple of secrets?”

  Philip’s mouth tipped up at the corner. “Not if he drinks beer, he can’t. So what are you going to do if this Daisy invites you into her bed? Leave after she’s asleep?”

  Sky’s bravado kicked in. “If? You mean when. This is the Skylark you’re talking to, bro. They all eventually invite me into their beds.”

  “Not to downplay your wealth of skills that are ineligible for your resume, Sky, but you said Daisy isn’t like the others. And I hate to tell you, buddy, but you become a different man at the mere mention of her name. I swear to God you get this dreamy-eyed, lovesick look on your face.”

  “Do not.”

  “Do too.” Philip chuckled. “Oh, you got it bad, man. I’ve never seen you like this over a woman before.”

  Sky glanced down at his phone to see if Daisy had responded to his call or his text. Nope. Not yet. He ignored the kick in his gut when he remembered how she’d left in a huff on Sunday. He covered with the dreamy-eyed, lovesick look he’d been accused of. “Well, she’s awesome with everyone: old people, kids, animals. And everybody loves her—except my cat. And you know what’s really amazing? She doesn’t fall for my bullshit. She stares it down and sees right through it.”

  “Ah, smart too,” Philip said. “I don’t know, Sky, sounds like she might be out of your league.”

  “Yeah, and you were in Hallie’s league when you first met her, right, nerd boy?”

  Philip chuckled. “Score one for the Skylark.”

  “Anyway, Daisy’s running from something. She’s a do-gooder, but she doesn’t leave any time for herself. What’s up with that?”

  “Maybe she’s got her own demons.”

  “Well, she is divorced. And I think t
he son-of-a-bitch did a number on her. Marine pilot. Guy had to be nuts to give up a woman like her.”

  “He’s a jarhead. What do you expect?”

  “And obviously stupid.”

  Philip smiled. “Same difference.”

  Sky scratched his head and perused the tavern again before settling his elbows on the table and leaning in. “I got something else that’s bothering me, Bill. What if I got past this thing with Daniel or whatever the hell it is.” Sky shrugged. “And what if Daisy got over the ex-husband. And, say we got serious. Say we got married or something. Can it really be good with just one woman?”

  The question brought a grin to Philip’s face.

  Sky leaned back, hands up in surrender. “Shit, I’m asking the wrong man. Hallie’s, like, the coolest person in the world. But still, this is for the rest of your life. That’s a hell of a long time with the same chick. How do you keep the rush from wearing off?”

  Philip laughed. “Well, it pretty much starts with thinking of her as a woman instead of a chick, Sky. And it’s got to be the right woman. Then it doesn’t wear off. You keep making the magic happen.”

  “I don’t know. That sounds easier said than done.” Sky drained his beer, set the bottle down, pushed it aside. “Okay, thanks for all the advice. I’ll think it over.”

  “And don’t forget about that growing up part while you’re thinking. You want to make squadron CO some day, it’s not going to happen in today’s Navy if you don’t clean up your act. Maybe this would be a good time to look at everything: your career, those dreams, the idea of a relationship. Come on, we’re almost thirty. Due to make lieutenant commander pretty soon. Maybe it is time to grow up. Settle down.”

  “You think so, huh?”

  “Yeah, if I were you, I’d think long and hard about it.”

  “Okay.” Sky dropped his chin to his chest for only a moment. Then he looked up, smiled confidently, and said, “All right, I’m ready.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Yup. Just like that.”

  Philip narrowed his eyes at him. “That’s all it took?”

  “Yeah. ’Cuz you said something that scared the piss out of me.”

  “What?”

  “I do not want anyone mistaking me for Mick Jagger.”

  Chapter 11

  Jorge Gutiérrez was a disappointment to his father. As the son of a wealthy man, life had bestowed many privileges on him: clothes, cars, travel, and the best education. He was handsome, bright, athletic, clever at conversation, and a natural with the ladies. He lacked nothing. So why was he a disappointment to Giovanni Gutiérrez? Because he possessed something no son of a drug lord dared to have.

  Jorge Gutiérrez had a conscience.

  From the age of ten, he’d understood at the gut level exactly how his father made his money. Since then, the guilt for his father’s transgressions had eaten away at his soul on a daily basis. He attended church and prayed for forgiveness, believing nothing else could wipe away the shame of his father’s livelihood. But now even that didn’t seem to cut the guilt.

  Although he’d felt uneasy about this for more than half his life, it had been his years away at college that really showed him how the world operated. Studying business in the United States had given him an education far beyond books and classrooms. Besides his courses, he studied the people: the other students, their families, their habits, and their morals. He observed constantly, taking mental notes of the people in the streets whenever he and his friends visited cities.

  When the topic of what one’s parents did for a living arose among his classmates, he’d replied simply: “My father is a businessman back home. He exports produce around the world.” Not a lie. Gutiérrez Exports did ship bananas, pineapples, and coffee, among other things.

  Like cocaine.

  Jorge read newspapers online, followed the news in the U.S., and learned about the scourge of drugs in the United States and Europe. Cocaine was no longer just a rich man’s drug, and Jorge was repulsed by the debauchery crack cocaine wreaked in the ghettos.

  And somehow, he felt personally responsible. Especially now that those four glorious years of escape were over. It was time to go home and face the music because now he would be expected to learn the trade. It would do no good to talk his father out of it, because no matter how much he’d complained or argued with him over the years, Gio Gutiérrez laughed at his son’s ranting. He’d brushed him off and reminded him that some day he would need to get off his high horse because he would take over the family business ventures. That was all there was to it. Although Jorge’s four sisters had already married men in the business, as the only son, Jorge was the golden boy.

  Whether he liked it or not.

  While he’d always understood his father’s intentions for him, Jorge had hoped to put it off for a few more years. Not going to happen. He would start his training right now at twenty-two years of age. His papa had told him, “You will learn the business from the ground up, like I learned it. On site. You will spend the next six months in the labs, learning how coca is processed into cocaine. Once you know all there is to know about processing, then I will teach you about the export trade and how to manage business associates. I will teach you techniques I doubt you learned in your business courses at that American college. You’ll learn how to deal with those who comply…” He paused and smiled. “And those who refuse to play by my rules.”

  The processing plants were a widespread cottage industry with thousands of individual operations located throughout the coca producing regions of South America. His father owned roughly fifty of them. Now the future drug lord would spend half a year living and working as el gerente, a manager, overseeing the daily operations in the plant by day and sleeping in the barracks-style housing in the jungle at night with the other gerentes. Sundays he would be free to attend church and visit the local village. There would be no rich-boy activities for this Ivy Leaguer. It would be blood, sweat, and more sweat until he was ready to move up the chain of command.

  Before he left for this internship, his father gave him strict orders to keep his eyes open and his mouth shut. His papa had closed with, “And none of your judgmental mierda about how the drug business is an evil force in the world. It has fed you and clothed you and put you through that fancy college of yours. Now show me some goddamn appreciation and respect.”

  So here he was, dockside in the jungle, as bundle after bundle of the dried coca leaves were delivered by the cocaleros. Manual laborers had chewed the innocuous leaf for centuries, but when mixed with a few chemicals, it would end up as white powder on the glass tables of rich patrons worlds away or in the pipes of their poverty-stricken brethren. And how could he argue with his father? It had put the clothes on his back, the food on his table, provided the fast cars he drove, and paid for his Ivy League education. He’d just never had it quite so shoved in his face before today.

  Despite the oppressive heat, Jorge shivered as the deliveries were loaded onto trucks bound for the lab. He understood the plight of the campesinos that grew the coca to feed their families. But at what level did guilt invade the souls of those higher up the food chain? Unfortunately, he was well aware that many a man would go against his own beliefs if money talked loud enough. And the louder money talked? The further those men would turn their backs on their principles.

  His father and the other drug lords owned upwards to ten percent of the arable land. They employed everyone from farmers to lab managers to chemists to pilots to government officials to lawyers to gerentes to the “mules” who would transport it over land and sea, and more recently under the sea in makeshift submarines that had become the latest rage. In many cases, even the priests had been known to turn their heads to improve the lives of their parishioners.

  “Come, I will show you around.” Jorge had been introduced earlier to the local man
ager, Juan Menendez, who escorted him from the docks to the main plant. “Of course the first step is to pay the farmers. Thousands of small farms are less suspect than if we grow the coca plants on large plantations. But coca is the primary crop in this country. You see? Believe it or not, we contribute a great deal to the economy.” Menendez grinned proudly, showing off a shiny gold cap on a top front tooth. He opened the door to the long, low cinder block building, which, thank God, was air conditioned, and ushered Jorge inside.

  Menendez was a stocky, deeply tanned man, with slicked back black hair and what appeared to be a perpetual five o’clock shadow. He was dressed in the khaki shirt and trousers of el gerente. He was well muscled, so Jorge appreciated that he did more than just manage the production plant. Obviously he was familiar with manual labor as well.

  He led Jorge into one of the extraction rooms and continued with his explanation. “This is where the cocaine base processors stomp the coca leaves to macerate them. It helps extract the desired alkaloids.”

  Jorge watched as ten men and women in shorts and T-shirts, all wearing earphones attached to some hidden musical accompaniment, stomped the coca leaves with their bare feet, mashing them into a thick paste. Then they scooped it up with flat shovels, like the ones people used for snow at his New England college, and deposited it into a second plastic lined pit where lime was added.

  “The paste will soak in the lime for six hours until it’s in its ‘free-base form’ before being scooped up and taken to the next station. We have four other extraction rooms, so leaves are either being macerated or the pasta is sitting in the lime twenty-four hours a day. We never stop. Once the lime has extracted the alkaloid, the pasta is transferred to the ‘gas station,’ as we call it. Come,” Menendez said, as he led Jorge into the next room, where the air smelled strongly of petrol.

  “Here, Señor.” He handed Jorge a surgical mask. “You may want to wear this.”