LaBrava (27 page)

“It’s not clear,” Torres said.

“Then write it down,” the West Palm R.A. said.

“I did write it down. What else does it say?”

“ ‘I am watching you.’ “

She liked the idea of leading a procession of law-enforcement officers—city, county, federal, losing some, picking up others as she left Palm Beach County and entered Broward—and not a soul through miles of freeway traffic knew it . . . all these people poking along, heading for their little stucco ranch homes and an evening of real-life nothing. She liked the idea of reaching Sunrise with the sun poetically down, to drive east toward a darkening sky, still in traffic, taking her time, wanting the light down fairly low for the last act.

She wasn’t sure, at first, if she liked having the West Palm FBI guy along. Then decided she liked it, because he added a little class without being much more than an observer. She liked him for the same reason she liked Torres—good casting, big-city cop type with ethnic color—and liked having Joe LaBrava involved. Though she was just as glad he wasn’t in the procession, noticing every detail; he could be scary. She liked them because working with professionals brought out the best in you; you could count on them for cues, sometimes inspiration. Whereas amateurs could ruin your concentration and timing, make you look awkward. She guessed she liked Joe LaBrava for a lot of reasons. He was imaginative. He acted without acting. Played a street character with marvelous restraint, a natural innocence. He was agreeable, understanding, sensitive. He liked Maurice a lot, a big plus. Seemed to have an open mind. A fairly keen one. He certainly had a sense of the dramatic; look at his pictures. Finally, and it could be worth putting at the top of the list, he was a fan.

True fans understood and were willing to make excuses. If they had to. Joe was a fan for the right reason, he recognized her as an actress.

But, my God, he didn’t miss a thing. Had even identified and photographed Richard’s little helper—whom she was about to meet for the first time and had better get mentally prepared. She hoped he would have something heavy enough to break the glass. She hoped he would be reasonably calm but quick and, please, wouldn’t have a gun.

The shopping center was coming up on the right. She had to assume there would be Lauderdale or Broward Sheriff’s cops around somewhere. There was Burdine’s, the name against the rising wall of the store. Just beyond were Neiman-Marcus and Saks. She approached the light at Northwest Twenty-fourth.

The instructions were intentionally vague from here, Twenty-fourth to Ninth Street to the end, because she wasn’t going that far.

She would turn right onto Twenty-fourth, follow the street-level underpass to the rear of the mall and be out of sight of the surveillance cars for about fifteen seconds. No more than that.

The light was green. She turned, passed beneath the drive-through to Ninth and turned left. She was now approaching the only weak sequence in the script. Later, she would have to explain in detail why she suddenly left Ninth and turned into the parking structure instead of proceeding to the end of the street, according to instructions.

For the time being, she said to the mike beneath her breast, “There’s someone waving!” Got some urgency in her tone, then doubt, fear, saying, “Is he one of ours?” and let it go at that.

They heard it in the Mercedes approaching Twenty-fourth. Torres said, “Go—” and the detective driving mashed the accelerator, then had to brake hard to make the turn. “Where are you?” Torres said, as they came out of the underpass and did not see the Eldorado. “Say something.” But there would be nothing for the next minute or so, until they heard the sound of breaking glass.

Cundo Rey watched the Cadillac come out of the underpass, dull white car way down there. Yes, the same one, the windows fixed now. He turned and moved down the nearly empty aisle to the ramp, where cars turned off at this level, and stood against the column with a brick in his left hand, a red brick with some mortar stuck to it. He wore white work gloves, new ones. He could hear the Cadillac, inside now, somewhere below him.

Richard said he didn’t need to have a gun, she would be so scared she would let him have the money and not give him any trouble. He had the gun anyway, under his shirt hanging out. He didn’t know this woman; what if
she
had a gun? He knew what he was going to do. Step out, raise his right hand . . .

Richard said don’t say anything because the woman would have a wire on her. Richard, the creature, knew a few things, but not too many.

The car sounded like it was in a hurry, tires squealing in the turns. It reached the third level. Now it was coming, he saw the front end, coming up the ramp. The car got louder. He stepped out, extending his right hand, stopping the car like Superman, the fender coming to touch his hand gently, without a sound. There she was looking at him. He took the brick in his right hand, saw her turn away, bringing up her arm, as he smashed the brick through the passenger-side window, unlocked the door, opened it. Yes, she was a beautiful woman and very calm, her eyes looking at him. Taking the trash bag by the neck he had to say something to her, so he said, “Thank you very much, lady—” and ran for the exit sign above the door to the stairway.

He would go to the ground level and walk behind the stores to come out on Twenty-sixth Avenue where the new Buick Skylark, stolen this afternoon, waited on the street. Nothing to it. He wished he could take off in the Skylark, go to Georgia right now; but he had to go back to Miami Beach to get his car. Sure, he could buy a new one. But he loved that car too much. He felt good in that car. He said, “Yeah? Well, how does it feel to be rich?” He said, “You kidding me?”

She couldn’t afford to wait too long—twenty seconds from the time the Exit door closed. She concentrated a moment, worked up a feeling of agitated fear, careful to keep it just short of hysteria, and shouted, “He’s got it! He broke the window!” She paused, opened her door and heard tires squealing, more than one car, and pulled the door closed. “Will you please hurry? He’s getting away!” Without telling them the direction he’d taken. A lapse she would attribute later to fear, anxiety, so much happening at once—wring hands and look helpless. The black Mercedes was coming off the third level, up the ramp now, followed closely by another car, then another. She could hear sirens outside. Torres was in her rearview mirror, running toward her with a radio in his hand.

She’d push the door open, come out with her big brown eyes glistening, pleading, and maybe even throw herself in his arms.

IT WAS LATE NOW.
Joe LaBrava sat alone on the porch of the Cardozo Hotel thinking about a zebra he had seen a few hours before. A zebra run to the ground by wild dogs, a dog with the zebra’s upper lip clamped in its jaw, a dog hanging to its tail, dogs frisking, dying to join the dogs tearing open the zebra’s loins from underneath, pulling out entrails. The voice of the narrator—an actor who played heavies but had hired on for this film as an animal behaviorist—said the zebra was in a state of deep shock and felt no pain. And LaBrava had thought, Oh, is that right? Look at the zebra’s eyes and tell us what it’s like to stand there and get your ass eaten out fucking alive.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the zebra and the actor who knew so much about zebra anxieties and pain thresholds. What was the zebra thinking through all that? Torres came over from the Della Robbia, sat down at the table in the edge of streetlight and popped open one of the six cans of beer the waiter had left saying goodnight. Torres placed a tape recorder on the table, said, “This is at Hillsboro,” and turned it on.

LaBrava listened to Jean Shaw’s voice over the pictures he saw of her. He could see her very clearly, most of the pictures, new to him, composed in his mind in black and white.

“This is at her apartment.”

LaBrava listened, seeing pictures of the zebra again among pictures of the movie actress, wondering what they were both thinking.

“This is the West Palm R.A., McCormick.”

LaBrava listened.

“This is at Galleria Mall.”

LaBrava listened, and when it ended he sat in silence looking at palm-tree silhouettes beyond the streetlights, stars over the ocean, the zebra gone. He picked up the recorder, pressed buttons and listened again to the last part, waiting for:

“Will you please hurry? He’s getting away!”

Rewound, stopped and played it again.

“Will you please hurry? He’s getting away!”

He could see her. Except that she wasn’t in a white Cadillac in a parking structure. He saw an old picture of her in a black car, some kind of expensive long black car, at night. She looked scared as she called out, “He’s getting away!” Then sat back and didn’t look scared.

He rewound to the middle part, searched, found what he wanted and heard her say, “Isn’t someone supposed to be here? . . . I’m going to pick up my mail.” There was a pause. He heard her say, “I’m entering the elevator—” and shut it off. McCormick was coming up on the porch. McCormick said, “One of those have my name on it? Christ, I hope so.” Sturdy, compact, in Brooks Brothers khakis, blue button-down shirt, beige necktie, the West Palm R.A.

“That is a very attractive, very intelligent lady,” McCormick said. “I found out in about five minutes I wasn’t gonna learn shit I didn’t know or suspect going in, but I talked to her an hour and a half anyway. She is a sharp lady.”

Torres said, “You’re the first Bureau guy—you actually admit you didn’t learn anything?”

“For two reasons,” McCormick said. “One, it isn’t my case, you poor bastard. Two, I’m gonna retire the end of the month and become a stockbroker, so either way I don’t give a shit. It’s all yours, man, and it’s getting away from you by the minute. You’ve got nothing firm. No positive I.D. of the guy who grabbed the bag or the guy who waved to her to come in the garage. Never seen them before. I showed her the pictures of the two guys you like, Mutt and Jeff; wasn’t either of them. I asked her why she went in there. She says she thought the guy who waved at her was a police officer, but even if he wasn’t we were supposed to be right behind her. Where in the hell were we? . . . Outside of that there’s only one part that bothers me.” McCormick paused and then said to Torres, “You know what it is?”

Torres thought about it, looking off at the ocean.

McCormick poured a beer, began to drink.

LaBrava said, “Why did she stop to pick up her mail?” If he didn’t say it, McCormick would. Or he wanted to hear himself admit what he was beginning to feel.

McCormick put his glass down. “You want a job? Uncle Sam can use you.”

“He already did,” LaBrava said. “You ask her?”

“She said habit. She comes in, she always checks the mail. I said even when you’re carrying six hundred grand in a garbage bag?”

Torres said, “Wait a minute—”

“It probably doesn’t mean shit,” McCormick said. “It’s like a reflex, she comes in, she checks the mail. Okay, she goes up to her apartment, she’s in there a few minutes before I come from down the hall. She says to me, ‘You think he’ll call?’ and starts looking through the mail. But what if she hadn’t picked it up? The whole schmear falls apart. The other thing is the few minutes she’s in there alone . . .”

Torres said, “You’re making her a suspect. She’s the victim, for Christ sake.”

McCormick said, “At this point everybody’s a suspect, I don’t give a shit. I don’t know for sure where she got the six hundred gees, do you? She said she cashed some bonds. Maybe she did. On the other hand maybe she borrowed it and she’s gonna stiff the guy. I don’t know this broad, but I’ll tell you what you better do, to be safe. Tomorrow morning—in fact I’ll do it for you, it’s out of your jurisdiction. I’ll go up to her apartment and take a casual look around for different items, trash bags, a typewriter . . . It happens all the time, you don’t know shit till you open some drawers, feel under the undies, you can find things you didn’t even know you were looking for.” He glanced at LaBrava. “Am I right? I forgot there for a minute you used to be with Treasury.”

“Cover your ass at all times,” LaBrava said.

“Cover it first,” McCormick said, “then worry about what people think of you, if you worry about such things. Next, get the Lauderdale cops to canvas the mall, see if they can get a lead on the two guys. They’ll give you a lot of shit, but at least you tried. After that . . . what’ve you got? Nothing. I don’t see the big blond guy in the picture anywhere.”

“Richard—” Torres began to say.

“If those two guys have the balls to grab the bag, what do they want to cut Richard in for? What’s he, their typist?”

“Listen, Richard—I didn’t tell you,” Torres said to LaBrava, “we found out was treated early this morning at Bethesda Memorial, compound fracture. The nurse said a cop brought him in.”

LaBrava was wondering why he’d gone all the way up to Boynton Beach, fifty miles, as McCormick said, “Cop from where?”

“She didn’t know where the cop was from,” Torres said, looking at LaBrava again. “ ‘But a real one,’ she said, not a rent-a-cop. We called every town from West Palm down. Nobody’s got him or has a record of him.”

“He has a friend who’s a cop,” LaBrava said, and could see Richard Nobles in the Delray Crisis Center flashing his badge and the slim girl standing up to him, Jill Wilkinson, and Richard saying he had a friend . . . either with the Delray or Boca police . . . the other girl, Pam, saying yes, she knew him. “I’ll see if I can get his name for you.”

He wondered if the slim girl was back from Key West.

McCormick said, “Let me take a look in her apartment tomorrow, maybe give you a better idea what you have to do next.”

LaBrava said, “You gonna get her permission?”

“I could do that,” McCormick said. “Or I could take a peek first. See, then if it looks interesting, get a warrant. Why bother the lady?”

“Get her permission,” LaBrava said.

McCormick stared, smiled a little. “Well, now, what have we here?”