Powder Burn (24 page)

“It works the same way everywhere,” Meadows said casually. He had heard plenty of these stories from Octavio Nelson, bless his black heart.

“Hey, I wasn’t trying to scare you,” Manny said.

“Like hell,” Patti hissed.

“I just wanted you to know why Moe’s so…careful. He doesn’t trust many people. He’s a good influence on me. He’s saved my ass more than once.”

“Well, he’s not going to save your ass from Susan if you don’t call her,” Patti said. The phone rang, and she sprang up to get it. “That’s probably her now. What should I tell her?”

“You haven’t seen me.”

After Patti left the room, Manny leaned forward and motioned for Meadows to come closer. “What are you doing tonight?” he whispered.

“Nothing.”

“You want to make some money?”

“Yeah. How?”

“Me and Moe got a big errand to run. We got to pick up some goodies, and we need a helper. Guy we were counting on bugged out. Patti says you’re OK, you’re OK”

“How much?”

“Five thousand.”

“Are you kidding?” Meadows’s incredulity was genuine.

“It’s toilet paper to the people I work for,” Manny boasted. “My boss appreciates risk. We’re taking a small risk tonight. So you’re interested, huh?”

“Well, sure.”

“Don’t bring a gun, that’s one rule. And don’t get loaded before you come, that’s another. The third rule is the Joey Dent Rule. You know that one already.” Manny held Meadows’s gaze for a moment, then rose. “We’ll pick you up here at midnight.”

Patti walked back into the room. “You two getting along?”

“Sure,” Manny said. “Was that Susie?”

“Yeah, and I told her you were on your way home.”

Manny raised his hands and looked despairingly at Meadows. “You can’t trust ’em, Christopher. They stick together like nuns. See you tonight.” Manny swaggered out of the house, and Meadows heard the Magnum growl to life. When he looked out the window, all he saw was a frothy crease in the tea-colored water. The speedboat was already around the bend.

Meadows felt Patti’s arm around his waist. “He left out one,” she said softly.

“What?”

“Rule number four. Named after my husband. The Larry Atchison Rule.”

“What’s that?”

“Don’t get greedy.”

Chapter 20

THE HOUSE IN
Coconut Grove disturbed Octavio Nelson the most.

The deliberate savagery with which Meadows’s pursuers had destroyed the place was sobering. Nelson felt himself sicken as he and Pincus walked through the wreckage, touching nothing, marveling in breathless expletives at the thorough job.

“They must have got him, Captain,” Pincus said. “I’ll bet he’s dead.”

Nelson sat down in a slashed patio chair by the now-rancid pool, thinking back to the night of the lizard. “No,” he said to Pincus. “Meadows wasn’t here when they paid their visit. That is why they did all this.”

“For sport?” Pincus prodded a mangled stereo speaker with one of his shoes.

“A message, Wilbur. The sort you don’t forget. I think our friend Meadows knows what happened here. He won’t be back.”

“You sound awfully certain.”

Nelson’s eyes narrowed. Again the challenge, the edge of righteous doubt in the voice. It had been like this with Pincus for months, now, ever since the Cruz thing. Nelson was annoyed with it.

“What are we looking for?” Pincus asked.

“Drawings. Rough sketches.”

“Of buildings? Let’s check his studio—”

“No, not buildings,” Nelson said. “Men. Meadows once told me he was going to draw sketches of Mono’s bodyguards.”

“Yeah? When did he tell you that?”

“One day when you weren’t around,” Nelson said, peeling a stack of soggy papers off the carpet.

“Before the airport murder?”

“I guess so, yeah. Shit, look at this. These are letters from his girlfriend. Those dirtbags probably went through the whole stack before they trashed the place.”

Pincus peered over Nelson’s shoulder. “The ink’s all smeared now,” he remarked. “Can’t make out hardly anything.”

The detectives had been on their ghastly tour of the house for ten minutes when Arthur Prim stalked through the front door.

“Finally putting in an appearance, I see,” the black man growled.

“Hello, Prim,” Nelson said. “Where’s Meadows?”

“Don’t know.” Arthur kicked off his thongs. “I got a couple extra mops if you guys want to help clean up this shit. I been at it three days.”

Pincus said, “When was the last time you talked to Mr. Meadows?”

Arthur chuckled, trading glances with Octavio Nelson. “Hey, I’m just the maid. I don’t know jackshit.” He bent over and began tossing chunks of rotting food and fragments of glass into a plastic garbage sack.

“It’s OK,” Nelson said. “We’re not looking to bust your friend. We couldn’t.”

Pincus stared at his partner.

“If you see him, tell him it’s OK to come up now. Tell him I’ve closed the investigation into Sosa’s death.”

“That’s the airport thing, right?” Arthur asked warily.

“Yep.”

“Why’d you quit on it?” Arthur said.

“Yeah, why?” Pincus echoed.

Nelson stifled him with a scorching glare and faced Arthur. “Look, all we got is a body in a car, some blood at the airport and no goddamn eyewitnesses. Nobody mourns Mono, nobody that I care about. I need Meadows’s help.”

“Shit!” Arthur Prim said.

“If you see him or talk to him, tell him I got his ass off the chopping block. Tell him he’s got my word,” Nelson said.

“I’m sure he’ll be overwhelmed with gratitude, Captain. Could you move your foot? You’re standing on a Neiman print, I believe.”

Once they were alone again, in Nelson’s car, Pincus practically exploded.

“What was all that nonsense about Sosa?”

“Just the truth.”

“You aren’t trying to trick Meadows into turning himself in?”

“No, Wilbur. I give him a little more credit than you do.” Nelson relighted his cigar.

“You can’t just give up on the case,” Pincus protested. “We had good leads, good evidence. Meadows did it.”

“Can you take it to court?”

“Not yet.”

“Wilbur, I can’t find the top of my fucking desk for the homicide files that are stacked up there. This one’s about number one hundred and eighty-three on my list. Sosa was a slug. And if Meadows killed him, like you say, the guy deserves an oak cluster, not an indictment.”

“But what—”

“And don’t ever tell me I can’t just give up on a case,” Nelson snapped. “I think Meadows can be useful. He is a most uncommon witness, in case you hadn’t noticed. He may even teach us something before it’s over, so if I choose to misplace the Sosa file for a few days or a few years, that’s too fucking bad.”

“I didn’t mean to start an argument. I’m just confused,” Pincus said. “I don’t think Meadows can help us one bit. But that’s only my opinion.”

“Opinions are like assholes,” Nelson said. “Everybody’s got one, and they all stink.”

Back at the office, while Pincus carefully typed out a vandalism report about the Meadows residence, Nelson tried Stella one more time.

“Mr. Meadows will be out of the office for several weeks,” she repeated loyally.

“This is a police emergency, ma’am. Where can I reach him? It’s very urgent,” Nelson said ominously.

“God, I don’t know, really.” Stella cartwheeled like a gull in a hurricane. “Maybe his parents…no, his girlfriend. Try the girlfriend, Officer.”

“What is her name?”

“I don’t remember.”

“It’s vital, miss!”

There was a pause. “It starts with a T or M. She’s a pilot of some kind.”

Nelson adopted the tone of a patient kindergarten teacher. “Do you have a phone number for the lady?”

“Yes, yes,” she said. “Sometimes Mr. Meadows stays at her place. Here it is.” She read off a number.

Nelson hung up and dialed, hung up again when a man in a Seventy-ninth Street massage parlor answered the phone. Stella had screwed up.

The detective scribbled variations of the original number, until he could think of no more. Using the cross-indexed city directory, Nelson matched numbers with names: G. Stein, Abraham Jones, Mark M. Flanigan, M. C. Betancourt…

Nelson studied the last name. Latin. The use of initials usually indicated a single woman, alone. The phone company was very diligent about discouraging obscene calls; genderless initials instead of a name was one sure way.

What grabbed Nelson’s eye was the parenthetical business identification: (Pres., CAN Airways). The number was almost the same, 724 instead of 742. Stella’s error was one of simple transposition, if this was the right woman.

The phone number belonged to a condominium on Key Biscayne. Nelson slipped away without a word to Pincus, who was still perched studiously over one of the secretary’s typewriters.

The building superintendent at Terry’s condo told Nelson he had not seen the busy pilot or her thin, quiet boyfriend for some time. When Nelson asked to inspect the apartment, the manager reluctantly accompanied him up the elevator and as far as Terry’s front door.

“Listen, I don’t want no trouble. A lady died here last year.…”

“In this apartment?”

“No, no. In the building. We didn’t find her body for a week.”

“Terrific. Sorta hangs in the drapes, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, well, I just don’t want any commotion, OK?” said the super. “I mean, if there’s something in there, can you just call the ambulance and take care of it without a commotion?”

“Gimme the key,” Nelson said.

Inside, there was no trace of Christopher Meadows, no evidence that the architect had lived there recently or ever. Meadows had been meticulous in his flight, Nelson thought as he rummaged fruitlessly through the trash cans. The dishes were all in place in Terry’s linoleum kitchen; the beds were made; the counters were absent of crumbs, stains and other loose clues. Nelson even searched through the laundry hamper only to uncover a bra, three small T-shirts and two pairs of bikini panties. There was no sign a man had been in the apartment.

The super, a pale, bald little fellow with shoulders like a turkey vulture, was hanging nervously in the hallway while Nelson searched.

“Is everything OK?” he called finally.

“Yeah. You can go back downstairs. I’ll be down with the key in a few minutes.”

“I think I ought to stay just—”

“Get lost!” Nelson commanded. “I’m not gonna rip off the TV, for Chrissakes.”

By the time he worked his way to Terry’s sweet-smelling bedroom Nelson was sure the place was dry. He opened the top drawer of the bedstand and, without touching, took a brief visual inventory: a round, unopened packet of birth control pills, a bottle of Bayer aspirin, some Vaseline, the instruction manual and warranty card for a clock radio and a dark green cloth that looked like brushed felt. The drawer smelled familiar. Gun oil.

Octavio Nelson picked up the green cloth and laid it on the bedspread. He leaned back and put his head down to get a side-angle view. The grease marks were promising, but the imprint was even better. With a forefinger Nelson traced the shape of a gun, from grip to barrel, on the soft thick cloth. He folded it and slipped it into the inside pocket of his sport coat.

Meadows’s girlfriend obviously kept a pistol by the bed, but it was missing now. As Nelson rode the elevator down to the parking garage, he wondered somberly if T. Christopher Meadows was teaching himself how to shoot.

WINNIE LAINE
, a travel agent at Tropic Suncoast Tours on Biscayne Boulevard, met the stranger for the first time on a Monday. He mentioned South America, and she gave him some brochures. Winnie was curious. The man was tall and blond, very polite, and she would have bet a week’s pay he didn’t speak a word of Spanish.

He came back on Wednesday and asked about Barranquilla, and she could hardly suppress herself. Well, Bogotá is very nice this time of year, she said; what she meant was: Barranquilla is a snake pit, and you must be out of your mind to go there. And the man took some more brochures, asked about airline fares and said he couldn’t really make up his mind. As he left, Winnie wondered to herself what the young man would look like dressed in brown instead of gray.

She was surprised, pleasantly, when he returned on Friday. He apologized shyly for his indecision and then not-so-shyly asked her out for a drink after work. Winnie said no, but the man didn’t seem to hear it. He smiled and was about to walk out when she changed her mind.

They went to a dockside bar at the city marina. Winnie spent the better part of two hours answering the man’s quiet questions and not minding at all. When she finally asked a few of her own, the man told her he was an office supply salesman trying to unload a hundred used IBM typewriters in Colombia. The demand down there, he said brightly, was inexhaustible. He anticipated numerous trips, and he was merely shopping for the most economical way to get in and out from Miami. A good friend of his, Bobby Nelson, was a frequent traveler to South and Central America.

“Yes, he’s one of our clients,” Winnie exclaimed.

“No kidding?”

“Twice a month, like clockwork,” said Winnie. “Miami to Bogotá to Medellín to Miami.” She laughed. “I even got it memorized.”

“I’ll be darned,” the man said. “I know he’s on the road a lot.”

“The seventeenth and twenty-eighth of every month,” Winnie said. “He’s one of our best customers.”

“How long does he stay? Must be tough on his wife.”

“Naw, three days at a time. That’s all.”

“What airline?” asked the man.

“Avianca.”

“Bobby likes the service?”

“I guess so,” Winnie said. “Of course, you don’t have a big selection to choose from.”

The man finished off his rum-and-Coke. “That’s OK. It sounds like a good bet, right there. Tomorrow I’ll call my boss to get the OK, and then I’ll come downtown and buy the tickets. Maybe we can have lunch.”

“That would be nice,” Winnie said. Then the blond man drove her back to her town house and kissed her goodnight at the door. She never saw him again.

PEPE FALCÓN
did all his deals in Holiday Inns, so his customers started calling him
Botones,
or bellboy. Pepe liked the name. As he prospered, his style changed accordingly. Where once he was content to get a single room for twenty-eight bucks, he now always made sure to get a suite, near the top, with a view. Any view would do. And after he collected his money, Botones would escort the customer out the door, pick up the phone and call a hooker, sometimes two. Then they would all celebrate.