La Brava (1983) (27 page)

He eased the barrel out and watched that all-American face, pale in moonlight, move from side to side.

"I can't hear you."

"No, I ain't dumb. Jesus."

"How do you know who I am?"

"I don't."

"You said, a minute ago, 'I know who you are.' "

Look at him thinking, trying to be careful. LaBrava moved the barrel along the curve of Nobles' chin. "They wire your mouth shut for a broken jaw. Talk while you can."

"You already broke my goddamn arm!"

"See what I mean?... How do you know who I am?"

"I heard, around."

"Where?"

"On the street. I heard you live at that ho-tel."

LaBrava drew the barrel down the bridge of his nose. Look at those eyes, trying to be sincere.

"I heard you was a secret agent of some kind with the gover'ment. Listen, I know some of those boys. Maybe're friends of yours. Up in Jacksonville."

"Who told you?"

"Nobody, I just heard. Was some guy, you know, in a bar."

"What's the surprise?"

"What?"

"You said, 'You're about to get the surprise of your life.' What's the surprise?"

"I was just, you know, talking. Jesus, my goddamn arm hurts something terrible."

"What's the surprise, Richard?"

"Nothing. I was talking is all."

See? It reached the point every time where you had to deliver or let the guy up. Tell him one time what you're going to do. Tell him twice, he knows you're full of shit. Once you started to lose it it was over. LaBrava leaned in closer, eye to eye, the gun barrel beneath Nobles' chin, raising it slightly.

"The surprise is how six hundred thousand dollars disappear. Look at me, Richard. The surprise--you see all the cops standing around scratching their head. You're undoing the baling wire, opening the garbage bag, taking out all that money. Look at me, Richard."

He did. Nobles met his eyes and said, "I ain't done nothing."

"What else do you see, Richard?"

"I ain't done nothing."

He was losing it.

"What movie did she show you?"

"What?"

"She said she showed you a movie."

He was getting it back. Maybe.

Nobles was thinking again. "She told you that?"

"What was the name of it?"

"I don't know, I forget."

"Who was in it?"

"You kidding me? Shit, I don't know."

"Where's your partner?"

"I don't know--I don't have no partner."

"The little Cuban."

"I met the booger one time, 'at's all."

"You came to meet him tonight."

"Shit, it was you. Goddamn, we're clever."

He felt tired knowing he was losing it. It was hard to keep it up unless you were honestly detached enough to go all the way and break the guy's jaw looking into his eyes. He could sit on the guy all night and threaten and never deliver and finally the guy would get tired of it. So who was full of shit?

He tried again, though, one more time. Said, "Richard, call it off."

Heard himself and knew it was over.

Nobles said, "Or what?"

See?

Nobles said, "I gotta go the hospital."

See?

"So get the fuck offa me."

Man, lost and gone forever. He would give anything to be able to bust the guy's jaw. He couldn't do it. So he reached out and hacked the gun barrel across that forearm--already broken--a gesture, for Uncle Miney if not his own peace of mind--and had to roll for his life as Nobles screamed and erupted beneath him, came up in a crouch holding his arm tight to his body, ran hunched into tree shadow a dozen yards away and must have felt protected. He took time to yell at LaBrava, back there on his knees, "You're crazy! You know it? You're fucking crazy!"

Chapter
22

BUCK TORRES THOUGHT he was crazy, too. He didn't say he was crazy, he said, "You broke the guy's arm?" and asked if he was crazy; it was the same thing. He came at 7:30 in the morning to say Nobles had left his hotel during the night and never returned.

Once LaBrava told him to check Sinai and Jackson Memorial Out-Patient and look for a guy walking around with his left arm in a cast, he had to tell it all. He wondered if Torres was going to comment. He was silent for so long after, staring at him in the kitchenette pouring coffee for them. Finally, that was when Torres said it.

"Are you crazy?"

"I don't think so."

"What's the matter with you?"

"Maybe I'm a little crazy. But maybe you have to be crazy to make something happen or make it hard for them," LaBrava said. "Look at it. A note comes asking for money. Jean goes to the bank, picks it up. Another note comes, it'll tell her to take the money to a certain place and she'll do it." LaBrava paused and said, "Is it that easy?"

"We're with her every step, Joe."

"They know you're gonna be with her."

"We have to wait and see." Torres sounded helpless. "What else can we do?"

"You ever had one like this or heard of one?"

"Only dope, dopers trying to score off each other. The Major called the Bureau and they never had one like this either. They said, what is this? Your suspect is practically wearing a sign."

"The Bureau's in it now?"

"Miami office. They're busy on some Castro spy stuff they didn't care to discuss, but they took the note for analysis. They give us their R.A. in West Palm, the resident agent, and some words of wisdom. 'Don't lose the woman or the money or it'll fuck up your day.' "

Jean Shaw came into LaBrava's mind in black and white and then in color and then in black and white again. He brought the color picture back, saw her eyes looking at him and wanted to be with her, talk to her. He saw Richard Nobles' face now, in moonlight, and said, "The guy can't wait for it to happen. He tells us we're about to get the surprise of our life."

"He had to say something like that," Torres said, "you're sitting on him. It's like what a kid would say."

"The whole thing is like a bunch of kids made it up," LaBrava said. "Gimme the money or I'll kill you. Are you gonna play with them? You say you have to. All you've got is this six-foot-three-and-a-half blond asshole in a silver jacket waving at you, trying to get your attention."

"Not anymore we don't."

"He could've left anytime. He stayed around long enough so you notice him. Jean says, 'This guy's been bothering me,' and there he is, right there. That one. What does that tell you?"

"If he's running it," Torres said, "he has to be pretty fucking dumb."

LaBrava smiled, because he could feel they were looking into the center of it. He blew on his coffee and took a sip.

"Or somebody else is running it and using Richard," LaBrava said, "I like to think because he is pretty fucking dumb."

"Using him--who, the boat-lifter?"

"The boat-lifter and somebody we don't know about who's smarter than both of them." LaBrava paused and said, "What about the old man's pickup?"

Torres shook his head. "No boat-lifter prints; I couldn't believe it. We found any the Bureau was ready to put out a fugitive warrant. But... the way it goes."

LaBrava said, "Think about the boat-lifter and somebody else we don't know about who's using Richard. If they're gonna stand him out in the open and hang a sign on him... what does that tell you?"

Torres said, "They make it they're not gonna cut him in. They'd be dumb as him if they did."

"That's right," LaBrava said, "Richard's a celebrity now. The first twenty he breaks he's in jail. If he does it around here, and I don't think he could wait. So if they don't give him a cut..."

"They have to dump him," Torres said.

"There you are," LaBrava said, and sipped his coffee. "Richard's a throw-away and doesn't know it."

"You tell him that?"

"I hadn't thought of it yet."

"You still have his gun?"

"He can get another one. I think he better."

"Joe, come on..."

"Don't ask, you won't have to worry about it."

"You don't carry a gun anymore, Joe, you're a civilian now. You and I can talk, I appreciate it; but you got to stay out of it when the time comes. You understand? It's not anything personal, it's the way it is."

"I know that."

"You don't want to get mad, do something dumb."

"I'm not mad at anybody."

"Yeah? How come you broke the guy's arm?"

"I didn't mean to. He raised it to protect his head."

Torres said, "Oh, Joe. Man, come on... You're kidding me, aren't you?"

LaBrava said, "Yeah, I'm kidding."

For a while last night he had become detached, able to respond impersonally rather than in a role with conditions. He felt this detachment again and liked the feeling, content to be a watcher, though not for too long.

Mrs. Heffel, the Della Robbia lady who picked up the envelope from the floor and placed it on the marble counter, said it was not so long ago that she found it. She put it there at once. She said she didn't open it and read it so don't accuse me. Maurice said, no one is accusing you; these gentlemen want to know what time it was and if you saw anybody in the lobby might have left it. Mrs. Heffel said, I put it over there, I minded my own business, so please don't accuse me, you don't know what you're talking about.

It was close to four o'clock by the time Jean and then Buck Torres read the note lying open on the marble counter. It was typed on the same kind of steno paper as the first one and said:

Here we go. Put the Hefty bag with the money in it in the front seat of your car and no place else. You are to drive ALONE north on I-95 to Atlantic Blvd, Pompano Beach. Go over to AIA and drive up to the market on the corner of Spring St. where you see the Coppertone sign (almost to the Hillsboro Inlet) and you will find 4 outside telephone booths. Wait at the second phone from the left as you face the street. Be there at exactly 6 PM ALONE. No cops. No tricks. Or you will be sorry. I am watching you.

LaBrava read the note and became an observer they let hang around.

He saw the plainclothes cops, Jean, Maurice, everyone in a hurry to do what was expected, hurrying to follow instructions. He wanted to talk to Jean, but it wasn't possible now. After he read the note, he went into the area of the hotel kitchen where the police had set up their telephones and recording equipment. A detective was talking to the resident FBI man in West Palm, requesting traps on the Hillsboro phones. Jean Shaw was unbuttoning her blouse. He watched Jean, he watched Torres, solemn, impassive, tape a GE body pack to her rib cage, close beneath the white bra cup covering her right breast. The pack was smaller than a package of cigarettes and contained microphone, battery and transmitter in one. She would be wired without wires. He saw her eyes gazing at him, solemn--everyone solemn--over Buck Torres' dark head bent close to her body, as though he might be listening to her heartbeat. She didn't say anything to him. She raised her eyebrows a little, resigned, that was all. She buttoned her blouse. Maurice came in with a detective carrying the Hefty trash bag that bulged out in a smooth round shape about half full; not heavy, the detective carrying it easily with one hand, holding it by the neck that was secured with a twist of baling wire. An I.D. technician came in and gave Jean and Torres each a handwritten copy of the second note. Jean went upstairs to get her purse. Torres spoke to the West Palm R.A. on the phone, giving him a description of Jean's Cadillac and the three surveillance cars they would be using. Another detective was talking to the Broward County sheriff's office. All of them serious, playing the game almost deadpan. The only evidence of emotion before they left: Torres wanted to get in the back seat of Jean's car, lie on the floor. She refused. He tried to insist and she said, then she wasn't going. She said, "It's my life, not yours." Torres gave in.

* * *

Maurice said, "Thank the Lord it's cocktail time," sounding more relieved than worried. He poured Scotch over ice at his credenza, brought one to LaBrava looking at a photograph on a wall of the living-room gallery, and climbed into his La-Z-Boy.

The photograph, a half century old, showed a bearded man in a dark business suit standing in sunlight at the brushy edge of a stream.

"Guy claims that's the site of the original Garden of Eden," Maurice said. "On the east bank of the Apalachicola River between Bristol and Chatahoochee, and you know the kind live up at Chatahoochee. Guy also said Noah built his ark right there, in Bristol. When the flood came he floated around about five months, landed on Mount Ararat and thought he was in West Tennessee. Kind a mistake people make all the time."

"Did you give her the money?"

"I loaned it to her. That would be ridiculous have to mortgage her condo. This guy, he don't know what he's doing, they'll pick him up. Guy's a clown."