La Brava (1983) (14 page)

Nobles said, "Well, you little squirt, you surprise the hell outta me."

Cundo was staring back at him, giving Nobles his nothing-to-it sleepy look.

"Why you think I was in Cambinado del Este?"

"You said you stole a suitcase, belonged to a Russian."

Cundo had Nobles' attention now, Nobles hooked, hanging on, wanting to know more.

"I took it out of his room, yes."

"And the Russian got a good look at you, huh?"

"Yes, of course. Why else would I have to kill him?"

The little Cuban dude kept staring right at him, playing with his earring in his girlish way, nose stuck up in the air like he was the prize.

It took Nobles a few moments to adjust--wait a sec here, what's this shit he's pulling?--and think to say, "Well, you shoot one of those fellas up here you don't even need a per-mit. Now you want me to tell you my idea? How me and you can make some quick bucks while we're waiting on the big one?"

Chapter
12

HE WAS SMILING before Franny reached the porch with her sack of groceries and saw him, holding the door open.

She said, "What do you do, just hang out?"

"I'm locking up."

"This early?"

It was twenty past seven. He closed the glass door and set the lock, Franny inside now looking around the empty lobby, the last of daylight dull on the terrazzo floor that was like the floor, to LaBrava, of a government building. He turned on the cut glass chandelier and Franny looked up at it, not impressed.

"The place needs more than that, Joe."

"Color? Some paintings?"

She waited as he turned on lamps and came back. "It needs bodies, warm ones. I'm not knocking the old broads..."

"Bless their hearts," LaBrava said.

"Listen," Franny said, "I'm gonna be an old broad myself someday, if I make it. But we could use a little more life around here. So far we've got you and me and the movie star and things haven't improved that much. Joe, there's a carton behind the desk with my name on it UPS dropped off. Would you mind grabbing it for me? I've got my hands full." She waited and said, "Let's see," when he brought it out and said, "Oh, shit, I was afraid of that. Another case of Bio-Energetic Breast Cream. Apply with a gentle, circular massaging motion to add bounce and resiliency." Into the elevator and up. "Do you know how much bounce and resiliency it's gonna add to the dugs around here? Contains collagen and extract of roses, but not nearly enough, I'm afraid, for South Beach bazooms. They've served their purpose, we hope. Right?" And down the hall to 204. "Maybe I can sell a couple bottles to your movie star... You're not talking, uh? I saw you having lunch, it looked like you were giving each other bites. When you were in there close, Joe, did you notice any little hairline scars?"

He said, "That's not nice," and was surprised he didn't feel protective or take offense. He was with Franny and they were old pals.

"But you looked, didn't you? Come on in. Don't lie to me, Joe." She went to the kitchen and he looked around the room, surprised at its lived-in appearance after only two days. It was all the color that gave the effect. The colors in the unframed canvases on the walls--bold abstract designs in shimmering gold, blues and tans--and the pillows in striking colors and shapes, on the floor and piled on the daybed she used as a sofa. Wicker chairs held stacks of books and magazines. Her voice remained with him as he looked around. "I'm jealous, if you want to know the truth." The venetian blinds were pulled up, out of the way, the evening blue in the windows faded, pale next to the paintings. "You asked me to lunch, sorta, and I see you over there with your movie star." There were cartons stenciled SPRING SONG, a portable television. She came out of the kitchen with white wine in stem glasses.

"Sit down and look at my Polaroids."

"You take pictures you don't fool around."

"I got about forty today. This bunch is sorta in order, starting at First Street and working up. But I don't like it around there; so I came up to Fifteenth, decided to work down, get the good stuff first." She sat next to him among pillows on the floor, their wine on a glass cocktail table. "I want consecutive views. Maybe do the whole street on a canvas about thirty feet wide. The face of South Beach."

He looked up at her paintings. "Like those?"

"That was my Jerusalem spacy period. I wanted to get the spirit, you know, the energy of the sabras, but what stands out? The Mosque of Omar, the part that's gold. Now I'm into echo-deco, pink and green, flamingoes and palm trees, curvy corners, speed lines. I'm gonna pop my colors, get it looking so good you'll want to eat it. Hey, how about staying for dinner?"

"Maurice asked me."

"And that star of the silver screen--here she is, Jean Shaw!... She gonna be there? I'll get you yet, Joe."

"Will you sell me one of your new paintings?"

"I'll trade you one for that shot of Lana showing her depressing tits. That poor girl, I keep thinking about her."

LaBrava held up a Polaroid. "She lives right around the corner from here, the Chicken Shack." He began looking at storefronts and bars along the south end of Ocean Drive. The Turf Pub. The Play House, an old-time bar with photos of Jack Dempsey and Joe Louis on the walls. There were bikers outside this afternoon, in the Polaroid shots. He saw people he knew. A drunk named Wimpy. A pretty-boy Puerto Rican dealer named Guilli. He looked at figures standing, moving in suspended motion. Another one, in shadow, who seemed familiar and he studied the shot for several moments. Another figure, in the sunlit foreground, stood facing the camera with an arm raised.

"Is he waving at you?"

"Let's see. Yeah, I ran into him a couple of times."

"This the guy you were talking to, you were sitting on the wall?"

"You noticed me. I thought you'd be too busy with your movie star."

"Is it the same guy?"

"Yeah, very friendly. A little swishy maybe. He gets into a goof"--she snapped her fingers--"like that. It's hard to tell when he's serious."

"What's he do?"

"He sells real estate. What do you mean what does he do? He's looking for some kind of hustle, like all the rest of 'em. They deal or they break and enter."

He was looking at a hotel now on the north end of the street. "Here we are, the Elysian Fields."

He passed it to Franny and she said, "Ten million cockroaches down in the basement holding it up, straining their little backs."

He looked at several more hotels, then went back through the shots he'd already seen till he found the one he wanted, a view of the south end.

"There's a guy going in the Play House--you can only see part of him, he's right behind your friend."

"The guy in the doorway?"

"The other one. He's got on, it looks like a white silk shirt."

Franny said, "Oh, the lifeguard. Yeah, I remember him. I don't know if he's a lifeguard, but he sure is a hunk."

"Was he with your friend, the goof?"

"Gee, I don't know. Let me see those again." She went through the prints saying, "I think he's in one other one... Yeah, here. See the guy I was talking to? He's got his back turned, but I know it's him. Standing with the biker. That's the hunk right behind him."

"I didn't notice him in this one."

"No, the biker catches your eye. The beer gut."

"His shirt doesn't look white here. It looks silver."

"You're right. I remember now, it is silver. But it's not a shirt, it's a jacket, like the kind jocks wear. Yeah, I remember him now--real blond hair, the guy's a standout, Joe, you oughta shoot him."

"Not a bad idea," LaBrava said. "Where's the one you took of your friend? You were sitting on the wall."

"You don't miss a thing, do you?" Franny found it, handed it to him. "This one."

LaBrava studied the pose, the Cuban-looking guy fooling with his ear. "What's he doing?"

"I don't know--he uses his hands a lot. Let's see... Oh, yeah. He's playing with his earring. That's why I thought he might be gay, but you can't tell."

"What's his name?"

"I don't think he told me. He talked all the time, but really didn't say anything. Asked me where I live, if it's a nice place, would I like to have a drink with him--no, thank you--all that."

"Did he tell you, by any chance, he's Geraldo Rivera?"

Franny paused, about to raise her glass from the table. "Are you putting me on, Joe?"

"I just wondered. He looks familiar."

"You think he looks like Geraldo Rivera? He doesn't look anything like him. Joe, tell me what your game is? Are you a narc?"

Dinner at Maurice's, the picture gallery; fried sirloin and onions in candlelight with a '69 Margaux. Jean Shaw said, "If this is railroad-style it must be the Orient Express." Maurice said it was the pan, the cast-iron frying pan that was at least 100 years old he'd swiped out of a Florida East Coast caboose.

After dinner, sitting in the living room with cognac, Maurice said, "It's a fact, they go in threes. You want the latest ones? Arthur Godfrey, Meyer Lansky and Shepperd Strudwick, the actor. Jeanie, you remember him? Seventy-five when he died."

"Yeah, I read that," Jean said. "Died in New York. We did one picture together."

LaBrava knew the name, he could picture the actor and caught a glimpse of his snow-white hair, a scene in a cemetery. "Shepperd Strudwick, he was your husband in Obituary. Remember? We were trying to think who it was."

She looked surprised, or was trying to recall the picture. She said, "You're right, he was my husband."

"Shepperd Strudwick," LaBrava said. "You wanted to dump him. You got together with Henry Silva... Didn't you hire him to kill your husband?"

"Something like that."

"I know Henry Silva was the bad guy," LaBrava said. "I remember him because he was in a Western just about the same time and I saw it again in Independence. The Tall T, with Richard Boone and, what's his name, Randolph Scott. But I can't remember the good guy in Obituary."

"Arthur Godfrey's on the front page of every paper in the country," Maurice said. "Meyer Lansky gets two columns in the New York Times, he could a bought Godfrey. Arthur Godfrey gets a street named after him. What's Meyer Lansky get? A guy, I remember with the FBI, he said Meyer Lansky could a been chairman of the board of General Motors if he'd gone into legitimate business." Getting out of his La-Z-Boy, going over to a wall of photographs, Maurice said, "I'll tell you something. I bet Meyer Lansky had a hell of a lot more fun in his life than Alfred P. Sloan or any of those GM guys."

LaBrava said to Jean, "I don't think the plan was to kill Shepperd Strudwick. It was something else. I remember he kept getting newspaper clippings that announced his death. To scare him..."

"Maier Suchowljansky, born in Russia," Maurice said, "that was Meyer Lansky's real name." He traced his finger over a photograph of the Miami Beach skyline.

LaBrava said, "I can't remember who played the good guy."

Jean said, "Maybe there weren't any good guys."

"Right here," Maurice said, "this is where he lived for years, the Imperial House. His wife's probably still there. That's Thelma, his second wife. She used to be a manicurist, some hotel in New York. Met Lansky, they fell in love..."

"Victor Mature," LaBrava said.

But Jean was watching Maurice. "Did you know Lansky?"

"Did I know him?" Maurice said, moving to another photograph. "MacFadden-Deauville... Lansky used to come in there. They all used to come in there. You know what I paid for a cabana, by the swimming pool, so I could run a horse book right there, for the guests? Woman'd send her kid over to place a bet. Forty-five grand for the season, three months. And that doesn't count what I had to pay S & G for the wire service, Christ."

"But you made money," Jean Shaw said.

"I did okay. Till Kefauver, the son of a bitch... You know who this is? The bathing beauty. Sonja Henie. We used to call her Sonja Heinie. Here's another spot, the dog track, you used to see Meyer Lansky once in a while. This spot here, the Play House..."

LaBrava looked over.

"... used to be big with the dog-trackers. Also the fight fans. Fighter from I think Philly, Ice Cream Joe Savino, he used to sell Nutty Buddies in the park, he bought the place about twenty years ago. I don't know what it's like now. It's all changed down there."

"But you'd never move," Jean Shaw said, "would you?"

"Why should I move? I own the joint--most of it--I got the best beach in Florida..."

"Maury, if I'm actually harder pressed than I've let on--"

"Harder pressed how?"

"If I get to the point I'm absolutely broke, would you consider buying me out?"

"I told you, don't worry about money."

LaBrava listened. Watched Maurice come back to his chair.

"Maury, you know me." She was sitting up in the sofa now and seemed anxious. "I don't want to become dependent on anyone. I've always had my own money."

"This whole area right in here, from Sixth Street up," Maurice said, "we're in the National Register of Historic Places. That impresses buyers, Jeanie. We hold the developers off, the value can only shoot up."