LaBrava (28 page)

“Get her permission,” LaBrava said.

“You don’t,” Torres said, “I bet you could open the door and get your arm broke.”

Nobles could see without even trying there was no way he could get a uniform shirt on. The goddamn cast came all the way bent-arm to his shoulder. He ended up he had to cut the left arm out of his good silver jacket; put on uniform pants and the goddamn police hat to make him look at least semiofficial. No sense wearing the holster, empty.

It was too late to get another gun. It was too late to get anything to eat and he was hungry for a Big Mac and some fries. He thought about the snake eating the bat—the lesson there, be patient. He thought about—the idea he liked best—walking up behind that blindsider and tapping him on the shoulder. “ ‘Scuse me.” And as the blindsider comes around hit him in the face with the goddamn cast. Then say to him laying there on the ground . . .

He’d have to think of something good.

Going on 3:00
A.M.
he hiked the two and a half miles from his dumpy place out Township, cut across the county airport past a lot of rich guys’ planes, then over Lantana to Star Security, across from the state hospital. It was not luck he had kept a set of patrol car keys, it was using the old bean.

Going on 4:00
A.M.
Nobles was down on Ocean Drive, Boca Raton, slow-cruising the beach condos like a regular security service car, except now he was looking for the law instead of boogers. He did not expect any sign of them. Why would there be with the horse out of the barn? He rode up to the top floor in that goddamn pokey elevator, went into her place with the key she’d given him and right away could smell her. Taking a leak he began to feel horny. She had yelled at him one time, “Close the door, you sound like a horse.” And he had yelled back, “Puss? Come in here and help me hold this hog, would you, please?” They’d had some times. In her bedroom he was tempted to poke through her drawers, but knew he’d best take it and get.

It was in the walk-in closet. Lord have mercy, it actually was. Round fat garbage bag of money he and her had agreed to split two to one in her favor, which he believed was fair. Shit, $200,000 he could buy any goddamn thing he wanted, starting with a pair of lizard wingtip cowboy boots he’d seen on Burt Reynolds one time up in Jupiter. Buy the boots, buy a ‘Vette, buy some guns, have ’em in glass cabinets in his knotty-pine den . . .

He had to drive back to his place first, which had two rooms and not any kind of den, to store the loot. He had to drive back on over to Star Security and leave the car, shit, then hike the two and a half miles back home. It wasn’t so bad though. He started out thinking of what he would say to the blindsider laying there on the ground.

“You mess with me, boy—”

“You fuck with me, boy—”

“You fuck with the bull, boy—”

He liked “bull” but he didn’t like “bull, boy.”

How about, “Boy, you fuck with the bull . . . you see what you get.”

“You see what can befall you.”

Be
fall
you? He sounded like a preacher.

Saw the blindsider being struck by a bolt of lightning.

Saw him through a car windshield as he ran over the son of a bitch.

Then saw Cundo Rey, Lord have mercy, and felt tears come into his eyes it was so funny to imagine. The little booger opening that other Hefty bag. Sure, he would, set to skip with the whole load. The dink might even skip and
then
open the bag. Get to some motel up around Valdosta, open her up . . . The poor little fucker. He’d blame it on the law doing him a tricky turn, and there wouldn’t be a goddamn thing he could do about it.

Cundo Rey woke up the next morning, 6:00
A.M.
, he didn’t sleep so good, he opened his eyes he had a headache. Ouuuuu, he had a good one. He believed it was from not using his anger.

Anger was good if you could use it right away, let it pick you up and carry you. But if you didn’t use it, then it passed and it left your brain sore. Like balls became sore if you were ready to make love but for some reason didn’t do it. Like you had to get out of her house quick. Man, they ached. It was the same thing with the brain. He took aspirin and Pepsi-Cola. Pretty soon he was able to think. In time he began to wonder why he had got angry.

The creature had told him to get a good place close by to hide. He had found a perfect place, Bonita Drive, a one-block curve of apartments, cheap, between Seventy-first Street and Indian Creek Drive. Ten minutes from the action down on South Beach. One minute from the North Bay Causeway, shoot over to Miami, you’re on the freeway. He rented the first floor of a two-story place for a month; it even had a garage to hide the car in.

He had given the address to the creature and the creature said good, here’s what I do and here’s what you do, and told him all the things he eventually did. Take the bag from the woman, who would follow a note to the car-park building. Run home and hide the bag. Get rid of the stolen car . . . Then after a week or so, when it was cool, the creature said he would come and pick up his half of the money and they would never see each other again.

But the creature never told where
he
was going to be hiding. The creature never called him a name and said, don’t try to take the money for yourself or I’ll find you and kill you. That should have opened his eyes. But his own greed, thinking how easy it would be to take it all, had perhaps blinded him.

So last night, 8:30, he came back from getting rid of the Skylark, a nice car; he opened the Hefty bag upside down, and for a long time he sat looking at the pile of cut-up newspaper on the floor, the
Miami Herald
and one called the
Post
.

What made him angry was thinking the cops did this to him. The cops not caring if it endangered the woman. The dirty cops, like all cops, full of cop tricks. He drank a pint of rum and a liter of Pepsi-Cola to become tranquil, but it didn’t do any good.

This morning, a beautiful day outside, he looked at the pieces of newspaper he had kicked all over the living room, at the pieces of broken glass and dishes on the floor, and began to wonder different things.

Why the creature hadn’t tried to frighten him: take the money, you die.

How the creature himself was able to put the note in the woman’s car and in that hotel if the cops were watching. How he could do it, a man who always wished to be seen, and
not
be seen.

Why there were no cops in the car-park building if the note told her to go there. He had been very careful entering, looked in cars, all over.

Why, if the note
didn’t
say to go there, she did.

It was getting good.

Why she seemed to be stopping the car—there was no sound of her car’s tires—before he came out from behind the post.

Why she looked at him so calm and did not appear frightened. Like she expected him to be there.

He sat staring at the pieces of newspaper, thinking again of the notes the creature said he had written, wondering again how he could have given them to the woman, beginning to see the fucking creature was a liar—as a thought related to this lifted him out of the chair.

He went through the kitchen to the garage that was part of the building, and looked in the trunk of his car. There it was in a case—which he opened to make sure—the typewriter he had forgot to drop into Biscayne Bay. He touched the typewriter and the carriage slid out to one side and locked there; he couldn’t get it back. So he left the case and took the typewriter into the apartment.

That typewriter got him thinking some more and he sat without moving, letting thoughts of Richard and the woman slide through his mind, seeing the two of them friends, good friends. Seeing the woman, again and again, stopping her car as though she knew exactly where he would be, almost smiling at him, so calm, knowing he wasn’t going to hurt her, knowing he was taking pieces of paper.

He sat without moving and thought, Richard isn’t coming. Of course not. It was Richard and the woman. He didn’t know how. He didn’t know why she would be stealing from herself, except that Richard was a liar and maybe she wasn’t rich and it wasn’t her money they were stealing. Richard was a liar and it was Richard and the woman.

Cundo sat without moving for so long that finally when he moved he knew he would keep moving and get out of here. What was he hiding for? He didn’t do nothing. What did he steal, some pieces of newspaper? He didn’t have to stay here, he could go any place he wanted . . .

Because if it was Richard and the woman they wouldn’t want him to be caught and talk to the police. So she wouldn’t look at pictures and identify him. Afraid he might tell the police about Richard. He would, too.

Uh-oh. It made him think of something else he had forgot about just as he had forgot about the typewriter.

What if it wasn’t the woman and the creature stealing the money but the woman and the picture-taker?

He had forgot about that fucking picture-taker.

If he’d had the snubbie when the picture-taker sat in the wheelchair and took his picture . . . But he had bought the snubbie
after
, to use on the picture-taker, and then had become too busy preparing to steal a bag of newspapers cut in pieces. Oh, man . . . crazy.

And thought of the time he walked in the crazy-place in Delray naked, to get information. He had to smile. There was always a way to find out what you need to know.

Sure, call up the woman. Don’t worry about the picture-taker, if he’s in this or not. What difference does it make?

Call up the woman and ask her she wants to buy a typewriter, cheap. Only six hundred thousand dollars.

See what she says.

McCORMICK SAID HE DIDN’T WANT
to bother her, he could get the manager, with her OK, to let them in. This was Bureau check-list routine, go over any area known to the suspect. Jean said no, it wasn’t a bother—immediately establishing an attitude—she’d be glad to drive up and meet them; not asking, which suspect? In the car she tried on several attitudes from wide-eyed innocence to cold resentment, cutting remarks, but decided she’d been instinctively right on the phone: victim with a passive respect for authority was still the way to play it.

They were waiting downstairs when she arrived, Mr. McCormick and two officers from the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Department with their evidence kits; McCormick explaining they would like to pull a good set of Nobles’ prints if they could, also look around in case he might’ve left something; Jean nodding, following every word, showing how fascinated she was; McCormick saying clues turned up in unexpected places; Jean saying yes, she imagined so; thinking, You sneaky FBI son of a bitch. Both sides buttoned up with respect.

Jean had to play it with a knot in her stomach at first—until McCormick came out of her closet; then, for a while, with mild apprehension. She could have overlooked something. A crumpled sheet of steno paper behind the desk, a scrap of newspaper in the closet. She had gone over the apartment thoroughly once the plan was set. There were no Hefty bags around. No Walther automatic to find unexpectedly. All old Miami and Palm Beach papers had been thrown out . . .

As apprehension eased, left her, McCormick became fun to watch. Neat but beefy in his seersucker suit, blue Oxford cloth button-down, beige and blue rep tie—he dressed like so many guys she used to know—glancing at his reflections in silver and glass, trying to remain offhand, polite. But losing it as he looked in or behind every closet, cabinet, piece of furniture and found nothing. He did come up with a pair of sunglasses she’d misplaced and her gratitude, at this time and somewhat overstated, apparently rubbed him. With suspicion in his eyes, quiet awareness in hers, he seemed bound to pull out something, if even remotely incriminating.

McCormick said, “I understand this place was bought for you.”

Jean said, “That’s right.” Nothing to hide.

“But not by your husband.”

“He died,” Jean said. “A friend bought me the place.”

“A boyfriend?”

“A benefactor.” She loved the word, the prim sound of it. “You know what he paid? Less than a hundred thousand, back when real estate was relatively sane.”

“I understand,” McCormick said, voice flat, eyes watchful, about to ambush her, “he was a member of organized crime.”

“A
mem
ber,” Jean said, smiling. “As opposed to what, an independent contractor?” Turning the smile then gradually from shy to off. “That was so long ago.” Getting a little sigh in her tone. “It was an exciting time and I’m afraid I was, well, impressionable, to say the least. If you will accept that, Mr. McCormick . . .”

“Jim—”

Wanting to add, Then you’ll accept anything.

“But I’m positive this doesn’t involve anyone I used to know, Jim . . . From out of the past.” Starring Bob Mitchum; she’d really wanted the Jane Greer part. Giving him her aware brown eyes straight on. “Aside from Mr. Zola, of course. He’s advised me all through this, suggested I cash in bonds rather than re-mortgage the apartment. I’m not left with much.” Chin up, resolute, but eyes beginning to mist. “I’ll make it though. I can always sell the place, move back to the Coast.” Wistful hint of a smile. “I know, this is a coast too. But once you’ve been in film, Jim”—tough line—“there’s really only one Coast.”

“I understand,” Jim said.

“I think you should put all your effort into finding Richard Nobles,” Jean said, “though he’s probably far away from here by now.” Looking off, coming back suddenly then to hold his gaze. “He did mention once he’d love to go out to the Coast, try the movies. Like several hundred others who look just like him try every year, and maybe a couple of them make it in television, wrecking cars. The only thing I can suggest”—sigh, tired but still willing to help—“alert your office on the Coast, send them Richard’s picture . . . and if I should think of anything else in the meantime, Jim . . .”

Jim told her that once Richard was established as a fugitive the entire Bureau would be on him from Seat of Government through every field office in the country, the case tagged a major.