Chapter Fourteen

 

Blanche took the yellow Lincoln out of the condo lot and went to buy the fast food for the cop clerk. She hoped the guy could actually read this language or else she’d be out at least the $7 from the drive thru. The money didn’t really matter. She really wanted to know what was going on with this girl in her building. Al would be mad she hadn’t called him, but it could be a wild goose chase anyway, like Sharon said.

Martin was a portly short man in one of the vague uniforms the police department used for the non-officers. Martin was balding and friendly. He crossed the park behind Miser Plaza and joined Blanche on a bench.

“Hey, Mrs. Blanche, I’ve seen you in the newspapers.” He spoke good English with a slight accent.

“It’s nothing. Thanks,” in spite of the pish-posh attitude she gave everybody, Blanche loved the recognition. It sure beat being a secretary. Not flitting around the matter, she handed him the paper bag of food, and she unfolded the photocopy from her purse. “Here’s the letter. I’m going to take notes and you tell me what it says.” She had her stenographers pad ready. She felt more comfortable with real paper and real pens. The stage at one end of the park had drawn some toddlers, and parents were chasing them in circles.

Martin took a huge bite of chicken sandwich and started chewing and nodding. Blanche was concerned maybe he didn’t understand what she wanted. A car full of young men drove past with their car thumping to an unnaturally deep bass.

Martin frowned at the note and shook his head. He said between chews that it was a Daco-Romanian dialect, giving Blanche an inadvertent glimpse of chewed chicken.

“That’s good, ” Blanche said. “You can read it then?”

Martin mopped at his mouth with a paper napkin and said something in his native tongue. He took another bite chewing and reading. She wanted to rush him, but studied her notepad. A tingling in her stenograph hand made her think she must be close to finding the truth. She concentrated on how good the shade felt and the birds making a ruckus in the trees.

“Oh, no.” Martin’s brown eyes were riveted to the paper.

“What? What?”

“You write. I’ll translate best I can. Some of this dialect is hard to understand. Wow, poor woman. Okay, ‘Dear Vasile, this is all the money I could send. I’ll send more soon. I swear. Sergiu will get me another job. Please do not hurt Anca, don’t send her to a home.’ I think she means like an orphanage. Then she says, ‘Cosmin won’t talk and I will work harder. I promise. I will hurry. Please bring Anca now and I will take care of her. I will pay you all the fees for bringing her. Alina.’ You know,” Martin interjected his opinion, “I’ve heard of this happening. A person is an illegal immigrant or something and the mafie, the mafia, from home or some wanna-be that is state side threatens to kill the family if they don’t pay, or they offer to make them legal, but the fees add up and they can never get their papers without doing more and more work for no money. Then, the poor guy, what’d you call ‘em? Schmuck, yeah. The schmuck can’t save to buy his family’s way over, and it’s a vicious cycle.”

Blanche finished her notes. “This really happens? In America?”

Martin snorted, “Even in America.” He started on the sandwich again.

“But do they really have the family held up somewhere?”

“A real mafia might, but if it’s just an extortion person, he may just have pictures of them that imply he knows where they are, where they work, or go to school and can kill them off anytime.” A fist full of French fries went next.

“This is crazy. Are these extortionists legal citizens or illegal?”

“Mmm, probably not legal, but they could be.” He shrugged.

“So they’d probably just get deported if they got caught? So they make a little money and go home, big deal. Surely this can’t just go on in our country like that? That poor woman,” Blanche’s thoughts churned. International blackmail? What would you call this? She carefully capped her pen, thinking about Alina. It didn’t preclude her robbing places but what a motive for a robbery!

“Yeah, cuz how do you know your family isn’t going to get knocked off on a street somewhere if you don’t pay? It’s very scary. My uncle died mysteriously from street violence when my aunt came here to visit my mom. It’s not the same thing. No blackmail, like this, but weird stuff. People will do desperate things when they’re so poor.”

“Martin, thanks for your help, I need to think of a way I can help this girl get her child. I can’t stand the idea of a little girl suffering somehow in all of this.” Blanche shook her apricot mini-beehive do.

“I wish I knew something to help. Good luck, Mrs. Blanche. Let me know if I can help.” He pocketed the $20 she handed him. Blanche knew she was maybe harder on immigrants than she should be. She’d never imagined they could face something like this.

 

 

Al was surprised but regained his composure quickly, “I told you she was innocent. We saw things like this in the war.”

“Yeah, but if she’s robbing all the convenience stores or condos around here to get extra blackmail money that’s not completely innocent. I can’t just sit back and say, ‘Oh well she didn’t mean anything by it.’ She’s getting off to a bad start in the USA. We need to help her.”

“Here we go...”

“What’s that mean? Do you expect me to shrug my shoulders and say, ‘Oh, that’s too bad, she’s being blackmailed,’ and go on like I don’t know? Enough baddies get written up in the paper each day that I can’t do anything about. Maybe, in this case, I can do something useful to help this girl who is, after all, in our very own condo. Something in this has got to be illegal, besides the robberies. She’s not the real bad guy here. She shouldn’t be put away for trying to survive.” Blanche was on a roll. She started pacing Al’s small living room. The matted green carpet should have been replaced years ago, but since his wife was gone, Al didn’t bother.

“Okay, okay. Blanche. Uncle already. You know I didn’t mean you shouldn’t. I just meant like, here we go... on a campaign of sorts.”

Blanche paced silently for a while, then stopped to look out the window. What could be done? Southern Florida traffic coasted by with sparkly windshields in the bright afternoon sun. It looked inviting and innocent from the second floor. She needed a plan of action. Al coughed. She realized the silence was getting to Al because he started his awkward-silence throat clearing. Blanche smiled at the window and let it stretch on a while longer.