La Brava

by Elmore Leonard

  "But you made money," Jean Shaw said.

  "I did okay. Till Kefauver, the son of a bitch... You know who this is? The bathing beauty. Sonja Henie. We used to call her Sonja Heinie. Here's another spot, the dog track, you used to see Meyer Lansky once in a while. This spot here, the Play House..."

  LaBrava looked over.

  "... used to be big with the dog-trackers. Also the fight fans. Fighter from I think Philly, Ice Cream Joe Savino, he used to sell Nutty Buddies in the park, he bought the place about twenty years ago. I don't know what it's like now. It's all changed down there."

  "But you'd never move," Jean Shaw said, "would you?"

  "Why should I move? I own the joint--most of it--I got the best beach in Florida..."

  "Maury, if I'm actually harder pressed than I've let on--"

  "Harder pressed how?"

  "If I get to the point I'm absolutely broke, would you consider buying me out?"

  "I told you, don't worry about money."

  LaBrava listened. Watched Maurice come back to his chair.

  "Maury, you know me." She was sitting up in the sofa now and seemed anxious. "I don't want to become dependent on anyone. I've always had my own money."

  "This whole area right in here, from Sixth Street up," Maurice said, "we're in the National Register of Historic Places. That impresses buyers, Jeanie. We hold the developers off, the value can only shoot up."

  "But if I need funds--"

  "If we see values start to go down, that's different."

  LaBrava listened. It didn't sound like Maurice, the old guy who loved the neighborhood and would never leave.

  "Five years ago the Cardozo sold for seven hundred thousand," Maurice said. "Way they've fixed it up I bet they could sell it, double their investment. Almost double, anyway."

  She was sitting back again, resigned. "What do you think the Della Robbia's worth?"

  "Four and a half, five hundred, around in there. But listen," Maurice said to her, "I don't want you to ever worry about dough. You hear me?"

  LaBrava listened. He heard Maurice talking like a man who had money, a lot of it.

  They reached her door. She said, "How about a nightcap? Or whatever might appeal to you."

  Was that from a movie?

  Maybe it was the way she said it, the subtle business with the eyes. How did you tell what was real and what was from pictures?

  She could surprise him, though--sitting close on the slip-covered sofa with their drinks, something to hold till they had to put them down--she could look vulnerable and come at him quietly with, "Tell me I'm pretty good for an old broad. I'll love you forever."

  And his answer to that--like a knee jerk, reflecting his yes-ma'am upbringing--"Come on. What're you, about three or four years older than I am?"

  She said, looking him right in the eye, "Joe, I'm forty-six years old and there's not a damn thing I can do about it."

  Shoving numbers into his mind that would have made her a teen-aged bride in Obituary in the black dress, coming onto Henry Silva, leading him on, the two of them conspiring to sting her husband.

  He pushed the numbers out of his mind by thinking: She isn't any age. She's Jean Shaw. And by looking at her face, at the little puff circles under her brown eyes that he loved to look at. If she wanted to play, what was wrong with that? Play. Maybe he could've been in the movies too if he hadn't gone to Beltsville, Maryland, learned how to shoot guns and taken an oath to protect the lives of Presidents and important people. Bob Hope, little Sammy Davis, Jr., Fidel Castro...

  He said, "Jean."

  Within the moment her eyes became misty, smiling but a little sad. "That's the first time you've said my name. Will you say it again?"

  "Jean?"

  "Yes, Joe."

  "You're gonna have to be very careful."

  "I am?"

  "I have a feeling you might be in danger."

  She said, "You're serious, aren't you?"

  Yes, he was serious. He was trying to be. But now even his own words were beginning to sound like lines from a movie.

  He said, "Jean. Let's go to bed."

  That sounded real.

  She said, "I'm hard to get, Joe. All you have to do is ask me."

  That didn't sound real.

  Chapter 13

  I HAVE A FEELING you might be in danger. All the next day he would hear himself saying it.

  The tone was all right, not overdone, and he believed it was true, she was in danger. But it didn't sound right. Because people who were into danger on an everyday basis didn't talk like that, they didn't use the word.

  He remembered the guy who wholesaled funny twenties standing up in federal court hand at his throat--the judge banging his gavel--and saying, "Joe, Jesus Christ, all my life I been in shit up to here, but never, never would I a thought you'd be the one'd push me under."

  The Miami street cop assigned to paperwork, typing memos, said, "I gotta get back out there, put it on the line with the fuckups, or I'm gonna be sniffing whiteout for my jags." A week later the Miami street cop, still doing paperwork, said, "Whatever happened to splitting heads, kicking the shit outta assholes? For the fun of it. Is the game still going on or what?"

  The Dade-Metro squad-car cop, drinking Pepsi out of a paper cup, said, "The guy had the piece, he was pressing it against me--into me, right here, under the rib. He pulls the trigger, click. He pulls the trigger, click. He pulls the fucking trigger and I come around like this, with the elbow, hard as I can. The piece goes off--no click this time--the fucking piece goes off and smokes the guy standing at the bar next to me with his hands up. We get him for attempted, we get him for second degree, both." The Dade-Metro squad-car cop said, "Did you know you rub a plastic-coated paper cup like this on the inside of the windshield it sounds just like a cricket? Listen."

  Buck Torres said, "Who is this guy? Do we know him from somewhere before?"

  "That's what I want to know," LaBrava said, "if he has a before. Put him on the computer and we'll find out. But I can't believe he hasn't."

  Buck Torres had been a uniformed Dade-Metro cop the time LaBrava was assigned to the Miami field office, United States Secret Service, taking pictures at work and play. Torres had showed him life on the street. They had finished off a few hundred beers together, too. Sgt. Hector Torres had transferred and was now supervisor of Crimes Against Persons, Miami Beach Police. He always wore a coat and tie--his men did too--because he would never speak to the relatives of a deceased person in shirt-sleeves.

  They left the Detective Bureau--the one-story, windowless, stucco annex on the corner of First and Meridian--walked across Meridian to MBPD headquarters--the official-looking brick building with the flag--punched "Richard Nobles" into the National Crime Information Center computer and drew a blank.

  "So, he's a good boy," Torres said.

  "No, he isn't," LaBrava said, "he's a sneaky kind of asshole who likes to come down on people." Hearing himself falling back into police patter.

  "Yeah, but he hasn't done nothing."

  "I think they pulled his sheet, gave him a clean bill. He was a federal snitch. You gotta have a diseased mind or your balls in somebody's hand to do that kind of work. Check the DEA in Jacksonville when you aren't doing anything."

  Torres said, "Should I care about this guy or what? What do you want me to do?"

  "Nothing. I'm gonna do it."

  "Let me see--then you want me to say nice things about you, you get picked up for impersonating a police officer."

  "Or pick the guy up, maybe. You still have 'Strolling without a destination' on the statutes? In case he sees me and becomes irritated. See, what I'm doing, I'm trying to stay ahead of the guy, be ready for it when it comes."

  "Be ready for what?"

  "I don't know, but all my training and experience tells me something's gonna happen."

  "Your experience--you guarded Mrs. Truman."

  "That's right, and nothing happened to her, did it?"

  "You'
re serious?"

  "I'm serious."

  "Then you better tell me more about the sneaky asshole," Torres said.

  Paco Boza said a wheelchair was better than a bike. You could do wheelies, all this shit, also build up your arms, give you nice shoulders, the girls go for that. Also, sometimes, it was safer to be sitting in a wheelchair than to be standing up with some people. They respect you sitting in a wheelchair, yes, and some people were even afraid, like they didn't want to look at you. He loved his Eastern Airlines wheelchair.

  Though it didn't seem to be doing much for his arms and shoulders. His arms became skinny cords as he collapsed the chair and strained to carry it up two steps from the sidewalk to the hotel porch. He said he wanted to leave it where it would be safe. He was going to Hialeah for a day or two.

  "I do you a favor," Paco said, "you do me one. Okay?" Grinning now, being sly.

  LaBrava caught on right away and grinned back at him. "You saw him, didn't you?"

  "Man, you can't miss him. He's twice as big as anyone I ever see before. Has that hair..."

  "Let's go inside," LaBrava said. He took the wheelchair and Paco followed him across the lobby to the main desk. LaBrava went around behind it, put the wheelchair down, telling Paco it would be safe here, and brought out a manila envelope sleeve from a shelf underneath.

  "Hey, my pictures."

  "I know why you fell in love with Lana."

  "That broad, I been looking all over for her too." He brought three eleven-by-fourteen prints out of the envelope, laid them on the marble countertop and began to grin. "Look at her, showing herself."

  "Where'd you see the guy?"

  "I saw him on Collins Avenue, I saw him on Washington Avenue. You can't miss him."

  "He likes to be seen," LaBrava said. "He's the Silver Kid."

  "No shit, is he?... I like this one of me. It's cute, uh? You like it?"

  "One of my favorites. You talk to anyone at the Play House?"

  "Yeah. Maybe he was in there, they don't know him. But that isn't the place. The place you want to go--a guy I talk to, he say check the Paramount Hotel on Collins."

  "Who was that?"

  "The guy? Name is Guilli, a Puerto Rican guy. He's ascared all the time, but he's okay, you can believe him."

  "I know who you mean. So you went over there?"

  "Yeah, but I didn't see him."

  "Where's the Paramount?"

  "Is up around Twentieth. I saw him on Washington, I saw him on Collins Avenue. Two days now. Three days--man, where does the time go?"

  "You doing all right?"

  "Sure, I make it. You kidding? Lana is going to like this one, showing herself. I hear she went over to Hialeah, see her mother. But I don't know where her mother lives no more, I got to look for her. Man, they give you a lot of trouble."

  "Dames are always pulling a switch on you," LaBrava said.

  Paco said, "What?"

  "Something a guy in a movie said."

  "He did?"

  "Listen--how about when you saw the guy, what was he doing?"

  "Nothing. Walking by the street. Go in a store, come out. Go in another store, come out."

  "You're not talking about drugstores."

  "No, regular stores, man. Grocery store--or he go in a hotel, he come out."

  "Has he bought any stuff off anybody?"

  "Nobody told me he did. Guilli thinks he's a cop. But you know Guilli. Guilli thinks the other guy is a cop too, guy drives the black Pontiac Trans Am. Shit, Guilli thinks everybody he don't know is a cop."

  "What other guy? Cubano?"

  "Yeah--how do you know that?"

  "I might've seen him. He's got a black Trans Am, uh?"

  "Yeah, he stay at the La Playa Hotel. You know it? Down the end of Collins Avenue. There's a guy live there--you know a guy name David Vega?"

  "I don't think so."

  "David Vega told Guilli he knows the guy, from the boat-lift. He told him, he's not a cop, man, he's a Marielito. He say the guy was with some convicts they put on a boat, from a prison. He say he remember him because the guy wore a safety pin in his ear."

  "That mean something?"

  "Like a punk. You know, be in fashion. Now David Vega say he's got a gold one, a real one he wears."

  "What's his name?"

  "He don't know his name, he jus' remember him."

  "Staying at the La Playa."

  "Listen, the first night he come there a guy live there was ripped off. The guy come back from the pier from doing some business, he got hit on the head and somebody robbed him, took four hundred dollars."

  "That happens all the time there, doesn't it?"

  "Yes, of course, with guys like this guy. Tha's what I mean."

  "Why does Guilli put the Cubano with the big blond guy?"

  "He saw them talking, that's all, it don't mean nothing. But maybe. Who knows?"

  "I'll see you in a couple days, uh?"

  "Yeah, I have to go to Hialeah. Talk to Guilli or David Vega if you want to know something. Also, you want to, you can drive my wheelchair. I think you like it."

  There weren't too many places had swimming pools around here. A pink and green place called the Sharon Apartment-Motel on Meridian and Twelfth, across from Flamingo Park, had a little bitty one out front, but nobody was in it. Nice-looking pool, too, real clean, sparkling with chlorine. There hadn't been anybody in it the other time either. This was Nobles' second visit to the Sharon Apartment-Motel office, the important one.

  He said to Mr. Fisk, little cigar-smoking Jew that owned the place, "Well sir, you think over my deal?"

  Mr. Fisk had skinny arms and round shoulders but a big stomach and was darker than many niggers Nobles had seen in his life. Mr. Fisk said, "Go out and turn left and keep walking. What do you come to, it don't even take you ten minutes and I'm talking about on foot?"

  Nobles said, "Let's see. Go out and turn left--"

  "The Miami Beach Police station," Mr. Fisk said. "Look, right here I got it written down. I even got it in my head written. Six-seven-three, seven-nine-oh-oh. I pick up the phone they're here before I can say goodby even."

  "Yeah, but see, by then it's already done." Nobles took out his wallet and held it open for Mr. Fisk. "What's 'at say there, under where it says Star Security?"

  Mr. Fisk leaned against the counter separating them, concentrating on the open wallet. " 'Private protection means crime prevention.' Is that suppose to be clever? I got a son in the advertising game could write you a better slogan than that one, free."

  "See, prevention," Nobles said, "that's what you have to think about here. See, you call the cops after something's done to you, right? Well, you call us before it happens and it don't."

  Mr. Fisk said, "Wait a minute, please. Tell me what you're not gonna let happen the cops one minute away from here down the street would?"

  "Well, shit, they could mess your place up all different kinds a ways."

  "Who is they?"

  "Well, shit, you got enough dagos living around here. You got your dagos, your dope junkies, your queers, this place's full a all kinds. But, see, five hundred dollars in advance, you don't have to worry about 'em none. It gives you protection all year, guaranteed."

  "Guaranteed," Mr. Fisk said. "I always like a guarantee. But tell me what in particular could happen to my place if I don't buy your protection?"

  "Well," Nobles said, "let's see..."

  Surveillance, the way LaBrava remembered it from his Miami field-office days, was sitting across the street from a high-rise on Brickell Avenue or some place like the Mutiny or the Bamboo Lounge on South Dixie. Sitting in a car that was as close as you could come to a plain brown wrapper with wheels, so unnoticeable around those places it was hard to miss. The afternoon the wholesaler came out of the Bamboo, walked across the street to the car and said, "Joe, the lady and I're going out to Calder, catch the last couple races, then we're going up to Palm Beach, have a nice dinner at Chuck & Harold's with some friends..." it
was time to move on, to Independence, as it turned out...

  But not anywhere near the kind of independence he was into now--protecting his movie star--standing in some bushes on the east side of Flamingo Park, catching Richard Nobles with a long lens coming out of a motel named Sharon:

  Richard Nobles walking over to the swimming pool. Snick. Nobles turning to say something to the little guy standing in front of the office. Snick. The little guy with his hands on his hips, feisty pose, extending his arm now to point at Nobles walking away. LaBrava saying, eye pressed to the Leica, "I see him." Snick.

  The guy turned to his office, then turned back again and yelled something at Nobles. Nobles stopped. He looked as though he might go back, and the little guy ran inside the office.

  LaBrava got in Maurice's car, crept along behind Nobles over Twelfth Street to Collins and parked again, got out with his camera and followed Nobles up Collins. Silver jacket and golden hair--you didn't have to worry about keeping him in sight. There he was, like he was lit up. The Silver Kid. The guy never looked around either; never even glanced over his shoulder.

  From the east side of Collins, LaBrava shot him going into Eli's Star Deli. About fifteen minutes later he got him coming out. He got him going in and coming out of a dry cleaner's. Finally he got him going into the Paramount Hotel, just above Twentieth Street. LaBrava hung around about an hour. The bad part. But better than sitting in a car full of empty styrofoam cups and crunched-up paper bags. At least he could move around.

  He walked to the taxi stand on the southwest corner of Collins and Twenty-first and waited nearly twenty minutes for a red Central cab to arrive with the Nigerian, Johnbull Obasanjo behind the wheel, scowling.

  "What's the matter?"

  "Notting is the mattah." With an accent that was both tribal and British.

  "You always look pissed off."

  "It is the way you see, not the way I look."

  There were parallel welts across his broad face, tracks laid by a knife decades ago that Johnbull, second cousin of a Nigerian general, told were Yoruba markings of the warrior caste. Why not?

  "You're disappointed."