La Brava (1983) (23 page)

"Is nobody live there anymore," Cundo said. "Is all a wreck. People go in there and wreck it. One time the Biscaya Hotel, now is nothing."

They got out and Cundo led the way through an open gate in the fence, in close darkness through rubble--just like buildings he had seen in Cuba in the revolution--through overgrown bushes and weeds choking the walk that had once led through a garden along the side of the hotel. There were rusted beer cans and maybe rats. As they reached the open ground behind the hotel, Cundo watched the headlights on the MacArthur Causeway off to the left, not far, the cars coming out of darkness from the distant Miami skyline. The old man was missing it. His head was bent back to look up at all those dark windows--hotel this big and not one light showing. He should go inside and see the destruction, like it was in a war.

"How come nobody stays here?"

"It's all wrecked."

"Well, how come it closed up?"

Cundo said he didn't know, maybe the service was no good. He said, "Come on, we take a look. Be careful where you walk, you don't hurt yourself," leading the old man through weeds, out beyond the empty building that seemed to have eyes, following a walk now that led down to the seawall--the old man turning to look up at the nine stories of pale stone, black windows, staring, like he couldn't believe a place this size could be empty, not used for anything.

"Some bums stay there," Cundo said, "sometime."

"What's Richard do around here?"

"I tole you, didn't I? He has a boat," Cundo said. "See, he like to go out in his boat at night, be at peace. When he come back he come here. See? Tie it there by the dock."

"Richard drives a boat?"

"Yeah, a nice boat. Look out there in the water. You see a light moving?"

"They's about five, six of 'em."

"Those are boats. One of them I think is Richard."

"How you tell?"

"Well, he isn't no place we look and his boat isn't at the dock over there. Tha's how you can tell. Yeah, I think one of them is Richard. Watch those lights, see if one it comes here. He would be coming pretty soon."

Cundo pulled his silk shirt out of his pants, reached around to the small of his back and felt the grip of the snubbie, the pistol Javier had sold him for one hundred and fifty dollars. Man, that gun kept pressing into his spine, killing him.

Miney said, "That's Miami right there, is it?"

"Tha's a island right in front of you," Cundo said. "Way off over there, that's the famous city of Miami, Florida. Yes, where you see all those lights."

"There's an airplane," Miney said. "Look at it up there."

"Take you far away," Cundo said. He raised the .38 Special and from less than a foot away shot Miney in the back of the head. Man, that snubbie was loud. He didn't think it would be that loud. It caused him to hesitate and he had time to shoot Miney in the head only once more as he pitched forward into Biscayne Bay.

There was something he was supposed to throw in there, Richard had told him. He was right here looking at the water, but he couldn't think of what it was.

Chapter
19

BUCK TORRES SAID TO THE MAN who had waited in Mrs. Truman's living room for the mailman and in unmarked cars among empty paper containers, waited in Mrs. Truman's piano parlor watching movies and in more unmarked cars, "Wait while I talk to the Major."

So LaBrava waited. Holding the phone. Staring at a photograph of an elephant named Rosie pulling a cement roller over a Miami Beach polo field sometime in the 1920s.

Jean Shaw and Maurice waited, seated at Maurice's dining room table where the note waited, open, out of its envelope but creased twice so that it did not lie flat.

Buck Torres was talking to his superior, the major in charge of the Detective Bureau, Miami Beach Police. When Torres came back on he said, "It wasn't mailed, right? She found it in her car."

"This morning," LaBrava said. "The windows were broken last night at ten past ten, that's the exact time. But the note wasn't found till this morning."

"You went out to the car last night..."

"We heard it, glass breaking. We went out, but didn't see the note. It was on the front seat. The car was locked, the guy had to break the side window to drop the note inside. This morning, when the lady went out to her car, she found the note."

"Nothing came in the mail."

"I just told you," LaBrava said, "it was in the car."

"This's the first one."

"Right."

"Nothing in the mail, no out-of-state phone calls."

"Look, it's yours," LaBrava said. "You want to bring the FBI in that's up to you."

"The Major isn't sure."

LaBrava shifted his weight from one foot to the other, looking at the elephant named Rosie pulling the cement roller. There were small figures, men wearing blazers and white trousers in the background of the photograph. He said, "Well, it wouldn't be a bad idea if somebody looked at the note. You know what I mean? Got off their ass"--getting an edge in his tone--"since it's a murder threat if the money isn't paid." He had to take it easy, stay calm, but it was hard. He knew what Torres was up against.

Buck Torres said, "How much was it?"

"I told you, six hundred thousand."

"I thought you said six thousand," Buck Torres said, calm, and was silent.

"You gonna choke?" LaBrava said. "If you're gonna choke then get some help."

"Take it easy," Torres said. "I'll be over in a few minutes." He paused and said, "Joe, don't let anybody touch the note."

"I'm glad you mentioned that," LaBrava said and hung up. He was on edge, out of practice. Or on edge because he felt involved in this, a personal matter. But he shouldn't have said that about choking, or any of the dumb things he said. He said to Jean and Maurice, looking at Jean, "They don't know if they should call in the FBI."

Jean straightened. She said, "Well, I do."

"Or if they should come here or you should go there," LaBrava said, approaching the dining room table. "This's a big one and it caught them by surprise. I can understand that, they have to stop and think for a minute. But Hector Torres, I know him, he's very good; he's their star, he's closed homicides over a year old. He'll look it over and then decide about the Bureau, whether they should bring in the feds or not. But technically it's not their case--at least not yet. I think, the way Torres sees it, it would be better if he came here--and I mean without any show, no police cars--than if we went down to the station. In case the hotel's being watched."

Jean said, "Well, it's fairly obvious who to look for. It can't be anyone else."

"Last night," Maurice said, "I thought it was some kids got high on something. You see in the paper this morning, Beirut, they blew up a Mercedes this time with a car bomb. A white one. You wonder why they didn't use a Ford or a Chevy." He looked at LaBrava. "You didn't see anybody?"

"It was too dark."

"It's Richard Nobles," Jean said. "As soon as I read the note--I can hear him, the way he talks."

"The hay-baling wire," LaBrava said. "His uncle, Miney Combs, when I was talking to him yesterday he mentioned hay-baling wire. He said Richard's dad used to twist a few lengths of it together and beat him with it when he was a boy, to teach him humility."

"It didn't work," Jean said.

"I looked at the note, that word jumped right out at me," LaBrava said. "He doesn't know how to spell it though."

He leaned over the back of a chair to look down at the typewritten message, a man who had experienced a great deal of waiting, a man who had read several thousand threatening letters at a desk in the Protective Research Section, Washington, D.C. This one was typed single-spaced on ruled steno notebook paper, a vertical red line down the center of the sheet, the top serrated where it had been torn from a spiral binding. The type was elite in a common serif-ed face. There were typos, capital letters struck over lowercase letters, as in the words Hefty and Hay. Only the one word, baleing, was misspelled. The type was clear, without filled-in or broken letters, or irregularities; though the touch of whoever had typed the note was not consistent, there were dark letters and several very faint ones. The I.D. technicians would photograph the note, print blow-ups, then check for latents with an iodine solution that would stiffen the paper and turn it a tie-dyed purple.

LaBrava pictured Nobles hunched over a portable typewriter pecking the note out slowly, painfully, with two fingers. The message read:

Your Life is Worth $600,000

You have three days to get the money. It must be used money with nothing smaller than a 20 or bigger than a $100 bill and don't say you can't get it. You are worth a sight more than that. Get 4000 100s, 3000 50s and 2500 20s. You are to put the money in a Hefty 30 gallon 2-ply trash bag. Put this one into another Hefty trash bag of the same size and tie it closed with some type of wire. Hay baleing wire is good. You will be told where to take the money. If you do not do as you are told you will die. If you try any tricks you will die. Look at your car. You know this is not just a threat. You have 2 DAYS to get the money and your car fixed. I am watching you.

Buck Torres came with an I.D. technician, both of them in shirt sleeves, without ties, Torres with a jacket over his arm. The I.D. technician, young and respectful, brought their holstered revolvers out of a black athletic bag and they hooked them on--both at the point of the right hip--before approaching the note lying on the dining-room table, moving toward it almost cautiously.

LaBrava, waiting a few feet away, watched them read the note, neither of them touching it. Jean and Maurice watched from the living room. Torres--white Latin male, forty-three, with hard-boned, tough-guy features that made him almost handsome--appeared older today. Immobile, lit by the hanging dining-room fixture, his face was a wood carving for several minutes, a man looking into a casket. He brought a notebook out of his hip pocket, sat down at the table and copied the typed message word for word. Then said something to the I.D. technician who used the eraser end of a pencil to slide the note and envelope into a file folder. The I.D. technician opened his black leather bag and Torres said to Jean, "Miss Shaw, we have to fingerprint you, if you don't mind, for elimination prints." He said, "You understand, if you're the only person who's touched the note."

Jean said, "Joe made sure of that."

Torres looked at LaBrava, waiting. "I'm glad you were here."

LaBrava was glad too, about some things. He was glad he had felt this coming and had got the shots of Nobles and the boat-lifter. He was glad Torres was handling it; but he knew what was going to happen now and he wasn't glad about the waiting.

There was no way to hurry it. There was no way yet to pull Richard Nobles out of a hotel room and throw him into a police car. LaBrava thought only of Nobles at this point. He believed once they had Richard they would also have the boat-lifter, the Marielito.

The I.D. technician left. They waited for Jean to wash her hands, then waited again while she made coffee in Maurice's kitchen, LaBrava knowing he would keep his mouth shut through the next part and listen to things he already knew about.

For the good part of an hour then, Jean told Buck Torres about Richard Nobles, Torres waiting for long pauses before he asked questions, always quietly, never interrupting, taking only a few notes. She had the photographs of Nobles ready, the ones LaBrava had given her. Torres studied them and looked at LaBrava.

"The same guy?"

"He's at the Paramount Hotel on Collins," LaBrava said. "Or was."

While Torres was making a phone call LaBrava went downstairs to the darkroom. He came back with a black and white eight-by-ten of Cundo Rey standing on the beachfront sidewalk, one hand going up to his face, almost to his chin, his eyes alive, a startled expression, as he looked directly into the camera held by the guy in the curvy straw hat sitting in the wheelchair.

"He's at the La Playa on Collins," LaBrava said. "Or was. I almost made him last night busting windows, but I wouldn't tell it in court. You don't want him for busting windows anyway. I'll give you the negatives, both guys."

Buck Torres made another phone call. He came back and asked Jean about Cundo Rey. Jean shook her head. She stared at the photograph a long time but still shook her head. Finally Torres asked the question LaBrava had been waiting to hear:

"Why six hundred thousand?"

Jean didn't answer right away.

Maurice said, "What difference does it make? It's a nice round number with a lot of oughts."

Torres said, "So is five hundred thousand. So is a million."

Jean said, "I've been wondering about that. The only reason I can think of, my condominium is worth about six hundred." She paused, looked at Maurice as though for help, then back to Torres and said, "I hate to admit it, but I did tell him one time my apartment was paid for. Richard has a very... sort of homespun way about him."

He does? LaBrava thought.

"A country-boy charm."

He remembered her saying that, in this room, telling about Nobles that first time.

"He gives you the feeling you can confide in him, trust him," Jean said. "I think I told him the apartment was really the only thing I had, making a point that appearances can be misleading, that a lot of wealth down here is like a Hollywood set, a facade." She said, "Now that I think of it... I remember one day in the parking lot I ran into him. He mentioned a couple in the building had their condominium up for sale and were asking four hundred and fifty thousand. I told him they ran from about four to six hundred, as you go up. He knows, of course, I live on the top floor, oceanfront."