Native Tongue (40 page)

“After today, you can retire,” Bud Schwartz said. “No more b-and-e’s. Man, we should throw us a party tonight.”

Danny Pogue said, “I ain’t in the mood.”

They stepped onto the moving sidewalk and rode in silence to the Delta Airlines concourse. The plane had arrived on time, so the visitor already was waiting outside the gate. As promised, he was carrying a blue umbrella; otherwise Bud Schwartz would never have known that he was the hit man. He stood barely five feet tall and weighed at least two hundred pounds. He had thinning brown hair, small black eyes and skin that was the color of day-old lard. Under a herringbone sport coat he wore a striped polyester shirt, open at the neck, with a braided gold chain. The hit man seemed fond of gold; a bracelet rattled on his wrist when he shook Bud Schwartz’s hand.

“Hello,” said the burglar.

“You call me Lou.” The hit man spoke in a granite baritone that didn’t match the soft roly-polyness of his figure.

“Hi, Lou,” said Danny Pogue. “I’m Bud’s partner.”

“How nice for you. Where’s the car?” He pointed to a Macy’s shopping bag near his feet. “That’s yours. Now, where’s the car?”

On the drive south, Danny Pogue peeked in the Macy’s bag and saw that it was full of cash. Lou was up in the front seat next to Bud Schwartz.

“I wanna do this tomorrow,” he was saying. “I gotta get home
for my wife’s birthday. She’s forty.” Then he farted loudly and pretended not to hear it.

“Forty? No kidding?” said Bud Schwartz. He had been expecting something quite different in the way of a mob assassin. Perhaps it wasn’t fair, but Bud Schwartz was disappointed in Lou’s appearance. For Francis Kingsbury’s killer, he had envisioned someone taut, snake-eyed and menacing—not fat, balding and flatulent.

Just goes to show, thought Bud Schwartz, these days everything’s hype. Even the damn Mafia.

From the back seat, Danny Pogue asked: “How’re you gonna do it? What kinda gun?”

Lou puffed out his cheeks and said, “Brand X. The fuck do you care, what kinda gun?”

“Danny,” Bud Schwartz said, “let’s stay out of the man’s private business, okay?”

“I didn’t mean nothin.”

“You usually don’t.”

The man named Lou said, “This is the neighborhood?”

“We’re almost there,” said Bud Schwartz.

“I can’t get over all these trees,” Lou said. “Parts a Jersey look like this. My wife’s mother lives in Jersey, a terrific old lady. Seventy-seven years old, she bowls twice a week! In a league!”

Bud Schwartz smiled weakly. Perfect. A hit man who loves his mother-in-law. What next—he collects for the United Way?

The burglar said to Lou: “Maybe it’s better if you rent a car. For tomorrow, I mean.”

“Sure. Usually I do my own driving.”

Danny Pogue tapped his partner on the shoulder and said, “Slow down, Bud, it’s up here on the right.”

Kingsbury’s estate was bathed in pale orange lights. Gray sedans with green bubble lights were parked to block both ends of the driveway. Three men sat in each sedan; two more, in
security-guard uniforms, were posted at the front door. It was, essentially, the complete private security force of the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills—except for Pedro Luz, who was inside the house, his wheelchair parked vigilantly at Francis Kingsbury’s bedroom door.

Bud Schwartz drove by slowly. “Look at this shit,” he muttered. Once they had passed the house, he put some muscle into the accelerator.

“An army,” Lou said, “that’s what it was.”

Danny Pogue sank low in the back seat. With both hands he clutched the Macy’s bag to his chest. “Let’s just go,” he said. “Bud, let’s just haul ass.”

On the morning of August 2, Jake Harp crawled into the back of a white limousine and rode in a dismal gin-soaked stupor to the construction site on North Key Largo. There he was met by Charles Chelsea, Francis X. Kingsbury and a phalanx of armed security men whose crisp blue uniforms failed to mitigate their shifty felonious smirks. The entourage moved briskly across a recently bulldozed plateau, barren except for a bright green hillock that was cordoned with rope and ringed by reporters, photographers and television cameramen. Kingsbury took Jake Harp by the elbow and, ascending the grassy knob, waved mechanically; it reminded Charles Chelsea of the rigidly determined
way that Richard Nixon had saluted before boarding the presidential chopper for the final time. Except that, compared to Francis Kingsbury, Nixon was about as tense as Pee Wee Herman.

Jake Harp heard himself pleading for coffee, please God, even decaf, but Kingsbury seemed not to hear him. Jake Harp blinked amphibiously and struggled to focus on the scene. It was early. He was outdoors. The sun was intensely bright. The Atlantic Ocean murmured at his back. And somebody had dressed him: Izod shirt, Sansibelt slacks, tasseled Footjoy golf shoes. What could this be! Then he heard the scratchy click of a portable microphone and the oily voice of Charles Chelsea.

“Welcome, everybody. We’re standing on what will soon by the first tee of the Falcon Trace Championship Golf Course. As you can see, we’ve got a little work ahead of us. …”

Laughter. These numbnuts are laughing, thought Jake Harp. He squinted at the white upturned faces and recognized one or two as sportswriters.

More from Chelsea: “… and we thought it would be fun to inaugurate the construction of this magnificent golfing layout with a hitting clinic.”

Jake Harp’s stomach clenched as somebody folded a three-wood into his fingers. The golf pro stared in disgust: a graphite head. They expect me to hit with metal!

Charles Chelsea’s well-tanned paw settled amiably on Jake Harp’s shoulder; the stench of Old Spice was overpowering.

“This familiar fellow needs no introduction,” Chelsea was saying. “He’s graciously agreed to christen the new course by hitting a few balls into the ocean—since we don’t actually have a fairway yet.”

Laughter again. Mysterious, inexplicable laughter. Jake Harp swayed, bracing himself with the three-wood. What had he been drinking last night? Vodka sours? Tanqueray martinis? Possibly
both. He remembered dancing with a banker’s wife. He remembered telling her how he’d triple-bogeyed the Road Hole and missed the cut at the British Open; missed the damn cut, all because some fat Scotsman booted the ball. …

Jake Harp also remembered the banker’s wife whispering something about a blowjob—but did it happen? He hoped so, but he truly couldn’t recall. One thing was certain: today he was physically incapable of swinging a golf club. It was simply out of the question. He wondered how he would break the news to Francis Kingsbury, who was bowing to the photographers in acknowledgment of Charles Chelsea’s effusive introduction.

“Frank,” said Jake Harp. “Where am I?”

With a frozen smile, Kingsbury remarked that Jake Harp looked about as healthy as dog barf.

“A bad night,” the golfer rasped. “I’d like to go home and lie down.”

Then came an acrid gust of cologne as Chelsea leaned in: “Hit a few, Jake, okay? No interviews, just a photo op.”

“But I can’t use a fucking graphite wood. This is Jap voo-doo, Frank, I need my MacGregors.”

Francis Kingsbury gripped Jake Harp by the shoulders and turned him toward the ocean. “And would you please, for Christ’s sake, try not to miss the goddamn ball?”

Chelsea cautioned Kingsbury to keep his voice down. The sportswriters were picking up on the fact that Jake Harp was seriously under the weather.

“Coffee’s on the way,” Chelsea chirped lightly.

“You want me to hit it in the ocean?” Jake Harp said. “This is nuts.”

One of the news photographers shouted for the security officers to get out of the way, they were blocking the picture. Kingsbury commanded the troops of Pedro Luz to move to one side; Pedro Luz himself was not present, having refused with vague
mutterings to exit the storage room and join the phony golf clinic at Falcon Trace. His men, however, embraced with gusto and amusement the task of guarding Francis X. Kingsbury from assailants unknown.

Having cleared the security force to make an opening for Jake Harp, Kingsbury ordered the golfer to swing away.

“I can’t, Frank.”

“What?”

“I’m hung over. I can’t lift the bloody club.”

“Assume the position, Jake. You’re starting to piss me off.”

Tottering slightly, Jake Harp slowly arranged himself in the familiar stance that
Golf Digest
once hailed as “part Hogan, part Nicklaus, part Baryshnikov”—chin down, feet apart, shoulders square, left arm straight, hands interlocked loosely on the shaft of the club.

“There,” Jake Harp said gamely.

Charles Chelsea cleared his throat. Francis Kingsbury said, “A golf ball would help, Jake.”

“Oh Jesus, you’re right.”

“You got everything but a goddamn ball.”

Under his breath, Jake Harp said, “Frank, would you do me a favor? Tee it up?”

“What?”

“I can’t bend down. I’m too hung over, Frank. If I try to bend, I’ll fall on my face. I swear to God.”

Francis Kingsbury dug in his pocket and pulled out a scuffed Maxfli and a plastic tee that was shaped like a naked woman. “You’re quite an athlete, Jake. A regular Jim Fucking Thorpe.”

Gratefully Jake Harp watched Kingsbury drop to one knee and plant the tee. Then suddenly the sun exploded, and a molten splinter tore a hole in the golfer’s belly, spinning him like a tenpin and knocking him flat. A darkening puddle formed as he lay there and floundered, gulping for breath through a mouthful of fresh
Bermuda sod. Jake Harp was not too hung over to realize he could be dying, and it bitterly occurred to him that he would rather leave his mortal guts on the fairways of Augusta or Muirfield or Pebble Beach.

Anywhere but here.

Bud Schwartz and Danny Pogue had driven up to Kendall to break into a house. The house belonged to FBI Agent Billy Hawkins, who was still tied up as Molly McNamara’s prisoner.

“Think he’s got a dog?” said Danny Pogue.

Bud Schwartz said probably not. “Guys like that, they think dogs are for pussies. It’s a cop mentality.”

But Bud Schwartz was wrong. Bill Hawkins owned a German shepherd. The burglars could see the animal prowling the fence in the backyard.

“Guess we gotta do the front-door routine,” said Bud Schwartz. What a way to end a career: breaking into an FBI man’s house in broad daylight. “I thought we retired,” Bud Schwartz complained. “All that dough we got, tell me what’s the point if we’re still pullin’ these jobs.”

Danny Pogue said, “Just this one more. And besides, what if Lou takes the money back?”

“No way.”

“If he can’t get to the guy, he might. Already he thinks we tipped Kingsbury off, on account of all those rent-a-cops.”

Bud Schwartz said he wasn’t worried about Lou going back on the deal. “These people are pros, Danny. Now gimme the scroogie.” They were poised at Billy Hawkins’s front door. Danny Pogue checked the street for cars or pedestrians; then he handed Bud Schwartz a nine-inch screwdriver.

Skeptically Danny Pogue said, “Guy’s gotta have a deadbolt.
Anybody works for the FBI, probably he’s got an alarm, too. Maybe even lasers.”

But there was no alarm system. Bud Schwartz pried the doorjamb easily. He put his shoulder to the wood and pushed it open. “You believe that?” he said to his partner. “See what I mean about cop mentality. They think they’re immune.”

“Yeah,” said Danny Pogue. “Immune.” Later he’d ask Molly McNamara what it meant.

They closed the door and entered the empty house. Bud Schwartz would never have guessed that a federal agent lived there. It was a typical suburban Miami home: three bedrooms, two baths, nothing special. Once they got used to the idea, the burglars moved through the rooms with casual confidence—wife at work, kids at school, no sweat.

“Too bad we’re not stealin’ anything,” Bud Schwartz mused.

“Want to?” said his partner. “Just for old times’ sake.”

“What’s the point?”

“I saw one of the kids has a CD player.”

“Wow,” said Bud Schwartz acidly. “What’s that, like, thirty bucks. Maybe forty?”

“No, man, it’s a Sony.”

“Forget it. Now gimme the papers.”

In captivity Billy Hawkins had agreed to notify his family that he was out of town on a top-secret assignment. However, the agent had displayed a growing reluctance to call the FBI office and lie about being sick. To motivate him, Molly McNamara had composed a series of cryptic notes and murky correspondence suggesting that Hawkins was not the most loyal of government servants. Prominently included in the odd jottings were the telephone numbers of the Soviet Embassy and the Cuban Special Interest Section in Washington, D.C. For good measure, Molly had included a bank slip showing a suspicious $25,000 deposit to Agent Billy Hawkins’s personal savings account—a deposit that
Molly herself had made at the South Miami branch of Unity National Savings & Loan. The purpose of these maneuvers was to create a shady portfolio that, despite its sloppiness, Billy Hawkins would not wish to try to explain to his colleagues at the FBI.

Who would definitely come to the house in search of clues, if Agent Hawkins failed to check in.

Molly McNamara had entrusted the bank receipt, phone numbers and other manufactured evidence to Bud Schwartz and Danny Pogue, whose mission was to conceal the material in a semi-obvious location in Billy Hawkins’s bedroom.

Bud Schwartz chose the second drawer of the nightstand. He placed the envelope under two unopened boxes of condoms. “Raspberry-colored,” he marveled. “FBI man uses raspberry rubbers” Another stereotype shattered.

Danny Pogue was admiring a twelve-inch portable television as if it were a rare artifact. “Jesus, Bud, you won’t believe this.”

“Don’t tell me it’s a black-and-white.”

“Yep. You know the last time I saw one?”

“Little Havana,” said Bud Schwartz, “that duplex off Twelfth Avenue. I remember.”

“Remember what we got for it.”

“Yeah. Thirteen goddamn dollars.” The fence was a man named Fat Jack on Seventy-ninth Street, near the Boulevard. Bud Schwartz couldn’t stand Fat Jack, not only because he was cheap but because he smelled like dirty socks. One day Bud Schwartz had boosted a case of Ban Extra Dry Roll-on Deodorant sticks from the back of a Publix truck, and given it to Fat Jack as a hint. Fat Jack had handed him eight bucks and said that nobody should ever use roll-ons because they cause cancer of the armpits.