The Day I Died

by Lawrence Lariar

  And Bruck said: “It could be that Moran is on a job for Diaz.”

  “The little louse,” Coyle said. He was angrier than he had been in a long time, tightened and rocked by the speculation about Barney Diaz. It was time to get back to the Carrillon and have a talk with Barney. It could be time for something worse. He reached for the ignition key and started the motor.

  “Get out, Bruck,” he said. “I’ve got work to do.”

  “Relax,” Bruck said. “You don’t figure you’re going to tangle with Barney?”

  “I’ll let you know about it.”

  “Take it easy,” Bruck insisted. He didn’t move from Coyle. “You don’t want to get into any trouble, Coyle.”

  “I’m going to ask the little louse a few questions.”

  “Nuts. Kepper will kill you if you touch Barney Diaz.”

  “I’ll worry about Kepper when I meet him.”

  “Worry now,” Bruck said. He was shifting his body and reaching for something in his jacket. He found the pearl-handled automatic and slowly showed it to Coyle. He slipped the gun into Coyle’s hand and tapped his wrist and watched Coyle carefully. “This is what you need for a real heart-to-heart talk with Barney Diaz. You want to talk his lingo, don’t you?”

  Coyle said nothing. He stared at the gun, wondering why the feel of the metal disturbed him so much. The automatic seemed a living thing in his hand. His finger curled around the trigger in a reflex gesture. How long ago had he handled a gun? Was he repeating a pattern set up in early childhood? Cops and robbers? Cowboys and Indians? This was the background of his experience with guns, and yet the feel of this one and the size of it and the way it fit his hand, all these things, set up a deep and powerful disturbance in him and he found himself panicked as he handled the gun. This was death that he held in his hand. This was the mouth of death, the little spitting muzzle that could kill.

  Coyle handed Bruck the gun.

  And his hand was sweating when he said: “I don’t need it.”

  “You’re the boss,” Bruck said. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “Thanks.” Coyle revved the motor, sending the sound of its roar and cough spluttering into the night. He felt Bruck ease his weight through the door and then the door slammed and Coyle backed the convertible quickly into the road, shot into gear and put his foot down hard, all the way to the floor, aware that the dashboard clock stood at 3:17 now and that he might catch Barney Diaz if he hurried.

  Behind him, Nick Bruck watched the taillights fade and die in the distance. He was chuckling deep in his throat as he faced the disappearing convertible. He held the gun tenderly, as delicately as a jeweler displaying a precious gem. His pose was incongruous. The automatic lay on Bruck’s handkerchief.

  Bruck folded the handkerchief carefully around the gun.

  And with strange care, he carried the automatic back to his car and placed it tenderly in the small compartment on his dashboard.

  He was whistling a thin and meaningless tune through his teeth as he backed and turned his car toward Miami Beach …

  CHAPTER 22

  No matter what the hour, night or day, the Carrillon never slept. Coyle could remember times when he had swung the We Two toward shore, after a long night of fishing and dreaming on the bay, sliding through the graying seas toward the beach and then running alongside the docks at the Carrillon to find the big hotel still throbbing with life; small parties on the sand, close to the cabañas—and on the terrace, near the Marine Room, the inevitable group of late drinkers and roisterers gathered around Chico, the accordionist from the combine.

  It was much the same tonight. Somebody had paid for two of the musicians, the skinny kid with the guitar and the pianist who always seemed half asleep, even when playing during working hours. They had pulled a few tables into the clearing near the dock, on the section of boardwalk reserved for boatmen only. There were two men in yachting caps who seemed to be hosts. The lights on the big yacht near the rim of the pier were blazing, and quite a few people sang and danced on the boat. A few of the girls were dressed in shorts and halters, and one of them much less. Beyond the boarded floor, the rim of a terraced wall skirted the party, so that some of the noise was dulled and lost in the wind. Coyle didn’t really hear the bedlam until he came around the brick wall and walked into it.

  Some of the people in the crowd recognized him and invited him to the party. He accepted a drink, but continued to search the crowd for Barney Diaz. The man at the desk had said that Barney would be here. But Coyle could not enjoy his pause among these people. This kind of bedlam had soured for him a long time ago. It seemed to him that everything changed beginning with the day he had found Ellen. Before that, this sort of ruckus might have been interesting. Before Ellen, he would have thrown himself into the spirit of the group, drinking and roistering with them, choosing a partner from among the many free girls put here for the purpose of pleasing the guests. Yet, all this was stale and dull to him now. The girls, too, seemed purposely gay, sloppy and sluttish from the liquor. His entire attitude about gaiety and good spirits had been phony and foolish. What had happened to him in the past few weeks? Would it be better to join these idiots in their abandonment? Coyle deliberated; it would be easy to forget his purpose now. What difference did it make whether he found Barney Diaz and faced up to him? There would be an end to everything, soon.

  Coyle put down his glass. The vision of doom froze him and he tried to measure its source at this moment, among these stupid people, amid the noise and confusion and mad music. What had reminded him of Masterson? The girls? There was a slender beauty who could have been Sue Welch because Sue was a standard type at parties of this sort. Was this why his mind rocked backward to Florian’s now? He stood against the brick wall, feeling himself tighten and sicken. This was a scene he had lived before, and often, in his early day at the Carrillon. He was being lifted and carried back to an estimate of his original yearnings, the brittle silly ideas that had transported him to Florida by way of the great Masterson.

  Was the game worth the candle?

  And was he ready to die, soon, for all these fripperies?

  In the pause, Coyle knew that he had changed. He was coming around to the fact that life was full of new meaning for him, not this shallow existence, not the sham and the easy pleasures, but something of a greater depth and solidity.

  Ellen!

  Standing in the circle of noise and nonsense, Coyle felt suddenly alone and apart from these people; an observer, a reporter, a stranger who could never again abandon himself to such meaningless hilarity. Part of the new mood was clear to him. The sadness, the deep and cloying melancholy, the tired and hopeless sickness he had felt before, all that part of the unrest was gone.

  And in its place, Coyle knew another mood. It had happened before, a long way back. It had come to him in his youth, in the almost forgotten days—a lifting of the spirits, a brightening of his personal horizon. It resembled hope. It was compounded of a new perspective, a sobriety and sensitivity that made his breathe deeply and hold tight to the moment.

  Because he did not want to lose this mood. Not ever.

  Coyle stood without moving, afraid that it might all leave him if he abandoned this spot. It was important to respond to the feeling that he might be a whole man soon. He allowed his mind to soar and lift itself beyond the sick sounds of the party around him. And he knew where his brain would take him. He felt himself transported to Ellen’s side again, knowing that her presence was his strength, that her love for him was his link to normalcy and self-respect. He would be free and optimistic just as long as he had Ellen. He knew now that his love of death, his ingrown bondage, his emotional insecurity; all these things could be wiped away, rubbed out and buried because he had a goal and a burning purpose.

  He had Ellen; that was it. And he must never lose her …

  “You were looking for me,
Tom?” Barney Diaz rose up out of the crowd, the inevitable glass of milk in his hand. “The desk man said you wanted to see me. In a big hurry.”

  “The desk man was right.” Coyle did not smile. It was difficult to stare down the cordial Barney Diaz, to answer his softness and his pleasant grin with a stiff and mirthless stare. “I want to talk to you, Barney.”

  “So? Right now?”

  “Right now.”

  Barney pointed to a wicker couch. “Then let’s talk, Tom.”

  “Not here,” Coyle said.

  “Of course.” Barney put down his glass. “Just let me say good night to the nice people. I don’t want to get them mad at me. They invited me to their party.”

  Coyle watched him thread his way among the dancers, pausing to shake a hand here and there, to smile and apologize for leaving so early. Early? It was almost four when they entered Barney’s apartment on the first floor of the Carrillon, above the Marine Bar. He had a complete suite of rooms here, a living room on a grand scale, yet decorated with masculine simplicity, tastefully schemed in blacks and grays, with colored accents on the smaller pieces of furniture. A dramatic drape hid the huge picture window from its intricate design of line and form: a thousand mystical interpretations of wine and cutlery and the shapes of food and drink. Barney pulled aside the giant curtain and exposed the wealth of sky and sea beyond; still black and deep out there, but brightening slightly on the horizon where the vague shore of Florida would soon blossom into buildings and skyline.

  “I never get tired of this,” Barney said softly. He proved it by staring out over the water as though lost in its gray shadows. “Help yourself to a drink, Tom. The bar is over there.”

  “Not now, thanks.”

  “Coffee, maybe? I can get you some from the restaurant, if you like.”

  “Don’t bother,” Coyle said.

  Barney surveyed him with a quiet smile. “It would be a pleasure, if you want it. But I can see you have something on your mind, Tom.”

  “Last night, Barney.”

  “Last night?’

  “I should say ‘this morning,’” Coyle corrected himself. There was no reason to soften now, but it was becoming difficult to preserve the full weight of his anger. Barney Diaz didn’t make it easy for a man to hate him. “Something happened to me on the road back from Miramar.”

  “What was that?”

  “A little trouble with a man named Luke Moran.”

  Barney turned away from the window now. “I’ve heard of him.”

  “You don’t know him?”

  “I’ve met him, I guess.”

  “How recently?”

  “A few weeks ago,” Barney said. He eased himself into a soft chair across the room, looking pathetically tired and sad now. “But why do you ask me?”

  “Because you sent him out after me,” Coyle said.

  Up and out of the chair, Barney moved now, back to the big window. He examined the end of his cigarette, as though he might find an appropriate answer there. He found nothing.

  “And if I did?”

  “I want to know why.”

  “You don’t know?” Barney asked. He had a softness and sincerity that made a man repress all rage and meet him on his own terms, in quiet battle.

  “I’m just stupid, Barney. Tell me all about it,” Coyle said. The anger in Coyle came through now, sparked and fed by the sad calm of his unwilling adversary. Coyle crossed the room and stood over him and began to shout. “Tell me why you sent two goons out to slap me around, Barney.”

  “I didn’t tell them to hurt you,” Barney said softly. “That wasn’t part of the deal, Tom, believe me.”

  “Part of what deal?”

  “They were supposed to scare you, not hit you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of Masterson,” Barney said. “I had to know whether you were Masterson’s man down here. I still have to know.”

  “How many times must I tell you I don’t know Masterson?”

  “Until I begin to believe you.”

  Coyle began to laugh, his anger gone. Watching Barney Diaz at the window now could only stimulate one reaction, a feeling inspired by the sight of a very little man in a lot of trouble, his hands gripped hard behind his back and his head jerked forward, staring at the lightening bay with wet and unseeing eyes, the perpetual cigarette burning in his lips, quivering under the pressure of his personal torment. Coyle found himself suddenly dry-throated and tense. He joined Barney Diaz at the window and gently swung the little man around to face him.

  And Coyle said: “Forget it, Barney. I give you my word I’m not Masterson’s man. Is that enough? I’m just a run of the mill jerk, down here for a good time, that’s all.”

  Barney Diaz waited for a long time before he spoke. “I’m beginning to believe you now, Tom. I’m beginning to feel better. What can I say to you? I’m sorry as hell I sent those two boys out after you tonight. I made a mistake, but I had to find out about you. It’s something very important to me, this business about Masterson.”

  “Was that why you had Kepper search my room?”

  “It was the start of it. I was hearing rumors about Masterson owning a piece of International in New York. I figured, if this was on the level, why anybody from International might be a stooge for him. The thing to remember is this: that a man from Masterson could mean trouble for me down here.”

  “What does Masterson want?”

  “Ha.” Barney’s little laugh was a bitter sigh. He spread his hands and seemed to embrace the full vista of the picture window, the beach on the bay and the docks and the very edges of the Carrillon itself. “All this is what Masterson wants. Everything I own in Florida, my hotel and my two gambling spots, the whole deal. He made up his mind a few years ago that this would be his. He shot off his mouth about it, don’t you see? And when Masterson makes up his mind, a man has to be on the lookout for trouble. Ever since I heard about his ideas, exactly three years ago it was, ever since that day, I’ve been worried. When will the bastard come down? I asked myself. When will he start to move? Who will he send down for the operation? And when I found out Bruck was here in Miami Beach, when I saw you talking to Bruck, what was I to figure? Can you blame me for putting two and two together?”

  Barney paused. He was waiting for an explanation of Nick Bruck.

  “I met Bruck on the plane, coming down,” Coyle said.

  “You didn’t know he was Masterson’s man?”

  “I never asked him. Why should I?”

  “He’s Masterson’s man,” Barney said. “He’s something new in Masterson’s league. There used to be a young louse named Bader who did the crazy things for Masterson. But Bader got killed, and now Bruck’s got his job.”

  Through the window, the sun was tinting the sky with a dullish pink. The bay sparkled and shone. Coyle saw nothing of all this. He was turned away from the window now. The mention of Joey Bader had shocked him and stirred him up. The inevitable horror of recollection stabbed at him. More than ever before, he was forced to face the reality of this moment, to set the time straight in his reckoning of everything and anything that might happen to him from now on. The flood of memories rushed through his mind and again he found himself reliving the confusion of the days that led him to Masterson. Death was whispering to him here. Death was with him in this scene, and he would have to battle mightily to recapture his optimism of yesterday, the brighter moments, the good thoughts that had been born with Ellen and kept alive by her. The mention of Joey Bader was long since past. Barney had brought his story up to date and he was talking now about his personal empire, his stake in Florida. Coyle forced himself to listen.

  “… and Masterson wants it all,” Barney was saying. His voice had dropped to a hard and purposeful monotone. He was seated again, pounding a fist in his palm. “Masterson thinks I’m going to hand it
over to him, the bastard. But that’s where he’s making a big mistake. You don’t give up what it took your life to build up. You don’t give away your blood and sweat, do you? No man can take what belongs to Barney Diaz, not without a fight. He’s going to get a fight.”

  “He wants it all?” Coyle asked.

  “A partnership.” Barney laughed mirthlessly. “He wants to make me a partner of his. He’d make me a junior partner, in charge of the crappers. That was the offer three years ago. And I told him to shove his offer. And I’m going to tell him to shove it again. Can you imagine the look on his face when I tell him? Can you just imagine the way he’ll take it?”

  “You’re going to see him?”

  “Sooner than I expect, much sooner.”

  “How do you know?” Coyle asked.

  “Because I know he’s in Miami Beach,” Barney said. “He came in yesterday, to his own hotel.”

  “His own hotel?” Coyle fought to bury the shock of this news, fumbling for some way to release his anxiety. But Barney did not see him now. Barney still sat with his head down, still pounded his palm in the steady beat. “Which hotel is that, Barney?”

  “The Torrington,” Barney said, with a sour and salted face. “He bought it last year, and it was supposed to be a big, big secret. But I have ways of finding out these secrets. Maybe I have a couple of my own Brucks, a few guys who work on my side.”

  “Like Kepper?”

  Barney nodded at the rug. “Even better than Kepper. Smart enough to know when Masterson came in yesterday, the exact time, even though he made the trip by car, from New York. Is that smart? Have I got good boys on my side?”

  “They must be clever,” Coyle said.

  “We’re going to hold off the big bastard,” Barney said sharply. “We’re going to send him back to New York.”