LaBrava (32 page)

A sound came from the front.

He ran into the living room, looked out through the blinds. The street was still empty. Right behind him then, a few feet away, someone knocked on the door and Cundo jumped. He moved to the door and listened. The knocks came again in his face.

“Who is it?”

“It’s me,” LaBrava said. “Guy with the money.”

Cundo opened the door, stood holding it for the picture-taker and right away could feel a difference in him. Like a different guy . . .

Coming in like a Brinks guard, holding the round Hefty bag in his left hand and Richard Nobles’ .357 Mag in his right, pointed down.

Cundo couldn’t believe it. He wanted to feel the snubbie pressing into his back; it would have felt good now, but that fucking snubbie was in the bathroom. He said, getting amazement in his voice, “Man, what do you have that gun for?”

“Respect,” LaBrava said. “You still have your cat whiskers on.”

Cundo didn’t like that big goddamn Mag. He said, “Listen, why don’t you put that thing away?”

“Pull my shirt out, stick it in my pants?” LaBrava said. “Where’ve you got yours, in back? I know you bought one off Javier, he’s a good friend of mine. Turn around.”

Cundo said, “What are you doing?” as he turned around, wanting to show he was a nice guy, cooperating. He felt LaBrava poke the barrel of the Mag against his spine and then run it along his belt.

“Where do you keep it?”

“Man, I don’t have no gun.”

“What’d you shoot Miney with?”

“You mean that old man? . . .”

“Why’d you shoot him in the back of the head like that?”

“Why?”
Cundo turned and stared at him, frowning, because he couldn’t believe this was the same guy. This guy didn’t sound simple and trusting. He was calm, but sounded like he didn’t care very much, without emotion. What he sounded like was a policeman. “Who said I killed him?”

“Where’s your gun?”

“I told you, I don’t have no gun.”

LaBrava was looking around the room. “You don’t keep a very neat house. What do you—you don’t like the news, you tear the paper up?” Still looking around. “Where’s the typewriter?”

“All right,” Cundo said, and motioned toward the kitchen.

LaBrava dropped the Hefty bag between the green arms of a vinyl living room chair and followed Cundo through the kitchen to the garage, where he got to the trunk of the Trans Am and said, “Oh, I got to go back in and get the key. I forgot it.”

LaBrava slid the barrel of the Mag over Cundo’s hip, over tight knit material to his right-hand pants pocket.

“What’s that?”

Cundo didn’t say anything. He brought his keys out and opened the trunk—a clean trunk, nothing in it but a typewriter case.

“Bring it inside.”

In the living room again LaBrava motioned and Cundo placed the typewriter case on the maple coffee table. LaBrava sat down on the sofa in front of the typewriter case and motioned again. Cundo moved back a few steps. LaBrava laid the Mag on the coffee table and opened the case. It was empty.

Cundo waited for LaBrava to look up. He said, “Somebody must have stole it.” He began to turn then, carefully, saying, “Excuse me, but I got to go pee-pee.”

He walked past the Hefty bag sitting on the vinyl chair, he walked through the short hall and into the bathroom, hand going out to that beautiful snubbie on the white tile of the toilet tank . . .

“Drop it in the toilet,” LaBrava said from the doorway, “and put the top down.”

Cundo turned enough to look over his shoulder. “Man, I just want to go pee-pee.”

“Drop it in the toilet, go pee-pee and then put the top down,” LaBrava said. “How’s that sound?”

He brought Cundo, hanging his head, back to the living room. He lifted Cundo’s face, the barrel of the Mag under his chin, stared at him with a deadpan eternal cop look and Cundo said, “Is in the closet.”

LaBrava found the typewriter. He stuck the Mag in his waist, carried the typewriter over to the coffee table and set it into the case, then had to bring the carriage in line so the top of the case would come down and snap closed. He looked over to see Cundo sitting in the vinyl chair now, the Hefty bag on the floor in front of him. LaBrava sat down on the sofa; he had not yet decided how he was going to handle the difficult part: how to get out of here with the typewriter and leave Cundo, with the money, for the cops.

The cops would wonder what was going on, because Cundo would tell them a story and LaBrava would have to say to Torres, “Oh, you believe that?” The cops would give the money back to Jean and she would have to return it to Maurice and then answer all the questions about Cundo’s story the cops would ask her at the station and all the questions the state attorney would ask her perhaps in a courtroom. He could protect her tonight; tomorrow she would be on her own.

LaBrava looked up as Cundo said, “Is this half or all the money?”

“All of it,” LaBrava said. “Six hundred thousand dollars.” The Mag was digging into his groin. He pulled it from his waist and laid it on the typewriter case.

“Something is telling me we not going to do business,” Cundo said.

He sounded tired, almost sad, and LaBrava said, “You can look at it if you want. Imagine what it would be like.”

“Why not?” Cundo said, and began unwinding the baling wire from the neck of the bag.

He could lock him in a closet, LaBrava was thinking, and call the cops. But he would have to stay here until just before they arrived or Cundo would bust out.

The boat-lifter was reaching into the bag now, feeling around. He brought out a handful of currency he looked at shaking his head very slowly. His hand went into the bag with the currency to stir it, feel it, sink his arm into it. His expression changed then, eyes opening a little wider. He drew his arm out and extended it toward LaBrava, his hand gripping a small bluesteel automatic.

“How do you think about this?” Cundo said. “You know, I say to St. Barbara I believe this is my day. Then I don’t think is my day. Then I have to think, yes, it is my day. How do you like this, uh?”

LaBrava nodded—not to say yes, he liked it, but to confirm what he felt. See? He wasn’t able to be detached, objective enough to take it all the way. When the boat-lifter reached for the gun in the bathroom that was the time to be detached and shoot the motherfucker and that would have been it; but he had even felt sorry for the guy, invited him to look in the bag . . . He had looked in the bag himself in Jean’s apartment when he picked it up and had brought out a handful of bills, but it hadn’t occurred to him to ask her what she did with the gun. He could pretend to think like a cop and he could put on a cop look with a gun in his hand, but he couldn’t take it all the way.

Now it was turned around and now it was all right to be subjective about staying alive and having to shoot the guy to do it,
if
you could do it . . . with the .357 Mag an arm’s length away on the typewriter case and the boat-lifter aiming the automatic from about eighteen feet away—LaBrava stepping the distance off with his eyes, less than six strides to the guy who had shot the old man in the back of the head, twice.

Cundo said, “You look at me like that . . . Now you don’t have nothing to say.”

“I got a question,” LaBrava said.

“Oh, you want to make a deal now?”

“No, I was gonna ask, how do you know the gun’s loaded?”

Cundo didn’t answer.

“What is it, a Beretta?”

Cundo didn’t answer.

“It’s probably a Walther. Pray to St. Barbara it isn’t a Saturday-night special and misfires on you. They always misfire.”

Cundo, one eye closed, was trying to look at the gun and keep LaBrava in his sights at the same time.

“If it’s a Walther you’ll see some writing on it, in German. Unless it’s a Czech seven-six-five.”

Cundo was squinting, one eye closed, extending his head now, leaning toward the gun and turning it slightly to read the inscription on the side of the barrel . . .

And LaBrava thought, Jesus Christ, knowing he was going to have to take it all the way right now, before he started to feel sorry for the guy aiming a gun at him, if that was possible—right now all the way—and reached for the .357 Mag on the typewriter case, concentrating on picking it up cleanly . . . Cundo firing . . . and coming around and putting the Mag on him . . . Cundo firing . . . and squeezing the grip . . . Cundo falling back in the chair firing at the ceiling . . . squeezing the grip, squeezing the grip, and shot him three times up the center groove of his rib cage. After that, in silence, the little Cuban with the cat whiskers stared dead at him in the green vinyl chair and then hung his head.

LaBrava locked the Hefty bag in the trunk of the Trans Am, called the Miami Beach Police to report gunfire on Bonita Drive, just to be sure, and left with only what he had come for, the typewriter.

NOW HE WOULD STAY OUT OF IT
as long as he could, or until it was settled.

He slept late. He didn’t answer his phone. He kept very still when there were footsteps in the hall and twice during the morning someone knocked on his door. He did not look out the window at the view that was all ocean views. He did look at his photos and decided he didn’t like any of them: all that black and white, all that same old stuff, characters trying to be characters. He said, Are you trying to be a character?

In the afternoon, which seemed like a long time after to him, there was a knock on the door and he opened it when he heard Franny’s voice.

Franny said, “Where’ve you been? . . . Don’t you know I miss you and hunger for you?”

He smiled because it didn’t matter what kind of a mood he was in. When he saw her he smiled and knew he would not have to bother choosing an attitude.

Franny said, “What’s going on? The cops were here again.”

He told her he didn’t know. He didn’t want to learn anything from Franny that might be misinformation or only part of it or speculation. He wanted it to be settled and then learn about it in some official way, facts in order.

She said, “
Some
thing’s going on and I’m dying to know what it is. I mean finally we get a little ac
tiv
ity around here. Live in a place like this, LaBrava, the high point of the day is some tourist comes in and asks where Joe’s Stone Crab is.”

“Or the mailman arrives,” LaBrava said. “Let me take you to Joe’s tonight, or Picciolo’s, any place you want to go.”

He put on the banana shirt after Franny left and looked at himself in the mirror. He liked that banana shirt. He looked at his photos again and began to like some of them again, the honest and dishonest faces, enough of them so that he could say to himself, You got promise, kid.

Who was it said that?

Who cares?

He took off the banana shirt, showered, shaved, rubbed in Aqua Velva—Maurice had told him, “Use that, you must have cheap skin”—put the banana shirt on again and picked up the typewriter case. It was now seven in the evening. It was time. So he went up the stairs to the third floor, walked past Maurice’s door to Jean Shaw’s, knocked and waited. There was no sound. He walked back to Maurice’s door.

Maurice said, “The hell you been?” Wearing a white-on-white shirt with long collar points, a black knit tie; his black silk suitcoat was draped over a dining room chair.

Jean Shaw, in a black sheath dress, pearls, stood at the credenza making drinks. She was saying—and it was like a background sound—“Orvis, Dinner Island, Neoga, Española, Bunnell, Dupont, Korona, Favorita, Harwood . . . Windle, Ormond, Flomich . . . Holly Hill, Daytona Beach. There. All the way to Daytona.”

“You left out National Gardens.” Maurice winked at LaBrava standing there holding the typewriter case.

She turned saying, “Where does National Gardens come in?” Her eyes resting on LaBrava.

“After Harwood,” Maurice said. “Look who’s here.”

“I see who’s here,” Jean said. “Is that my typewriter you’re returning?”

“Sit down, get comfortable,” Maurice said. “Jean, fix him one. He likes it on the rocks.”

“I know what he likes,” Jean said.

“Well, it’s all over,” Maurice said. “You missed Torres this morning. Go on, sit in my chair, it’s okay. In fact, I insist.” He waited as LaBrava curved himself, reluctantly, into the La-Z-Boy; being treated as a guest of honor. “There’s a couple a discrepancies they can’t figure out. Like Richard was killed with the Cuban’s gun and the Cuban was killed with Richard’s gun, only he was killed
after
Richard was killed,” Maurice said, moving to the sofa. “Which has got the cops scratching their heads. But that’s their problem.”

Jean came over with drinks on a silver tray.

“The cops found the money, we got it back,” Maurice said. “Far as I’m concerned the case is closed.”

She handed LaBrava his and he had to look up to see her eyes, those nice eyes so quietly aware.

“The cops can do what they want,” Maurice said.

She handed him his drink, Maurice on the sofa now, and sat down next to him, placing the tray with her drink on the cocktail table. LaBrava watched her light a cigarette, watched her eyes raise to his as she exhaled a slow stream of smoke.

“You can’t have everything,” Maurice said. “I told your friend Torres that, he agreed. You got the two guys you want, be satisfied.”

Her gaze dropped to the typewriter case on the floor next to the recliner, lingered, came up slowly to rest on him again.

“Torres said they always thought there was a third one. Only why didn’t he take the money? Unless he had to get out a there fast once he shot the Cuban and didn’t have time to look for it. Richard’s gun—you know where it was? In the toilet. Listen, there was even another gun in there, in the toilet, they find out shot somebody else. You imagine?”

LaBrava said, “Maybe the third one will walk in, clear everything up.”

Jean was still looking at him.

“I told the cops, be grateful for what you have,” Maurice said. “That third one, whoever, did you a favor. Any loose ends—well, you always got a few loose ends. Who needs to know everything? No, as far as I’m concerned—” He gave Jean a little nudge with his elbow. “What is it they say in the picture business?”