La Brava

by Elmore Leonard

  He would go to the ground level and walk behind the stores to come out on Twenty-sixth Avenue where the new Buick Skylark, stolen this afternoon, waited on the street. Nothing to it. He wished he could take off in the Skylark, go to Georgia right now; but he had to go back to Miami Beach to get his car. Sure, he could buy a new one. But he loved that car too much. He felt good in that car. He said, "Yeah? Well, how does it feel to be rich?" He said, "You kidding me?"

  She couldn't afford to wait too long--twenty seconds from the time the Exit door closed. She concentrated a moment, worked up a feeling of agitated fear, careful to keep it just short of hysteria, and shouted, "He's got it! He broke the window!" She paused, opened her door and heard tires squealing, more than one car, and pulled the door closed. "Will you please hurry? He's getting away!" Without telling them the direction he'd taken. A lapse she would attribute later to fear, anxiety, so much happening at once--wring hands and look helpless. The black Mercedes was coming off the third level, up the ramp now, followed closely by another car, then another. She could hear sirens outside. Torres was in her rearview mirror, running toward her with a radio in his hand.

  She'd push the door open, come out with her big brown eyes glistening, pleading, and maybe even throw herself in his arms.

  Chapter 24

  IT WAS LATE NOW. Joe LaBrava sat alone on the porch of the Cardozo Hotel thinking about a zebra he had seen a few hours before. A zebra run to the ground by wild dogs, a dog with the zebra's upper lip clamped in its jaw, a dog hanging to its tail, dogs frisking, dying to join the dogs tearing open the zebra's loins from underneath, pulling out entrails. The voice of the narrator--an actor who played heavies but had hired on for this film as an animal behaviorist--said the zebra was in a state of deep shock and felt no pain. And LaBrava had thought, Oh, is that right? Look at the zebra's eyes and tell us what it's like to stand there and get your ass eaten out fucking alive.

  He couldn't stop thinking about the zebra and the actor who knew so much about zebra anxieties and pain thresholds. What was the zebra thinking through all that? Torres came over from the Della Robbia, sat down at the table in the edge of streetlight and popped open one of the six cans of beer the waiter had left saying goodnight. Torres placed a tape recorder on the table, said, "This is at Hillsboro," and turned it on.

  LaBrava listened to Jean Shaw's voice over the pictures he saw of her. He could see her very clearly, most of the pictures, new to him, composed in his mind in black and white.

  "This is at her apartment."

  LaBrava listened, seeing pictures of the zebra again among pictures of the movie actress, wondering what they were both thinking.

  "This is the West Palm R.A., McCormick."

  LaBrava listened.

  "This is at Galleria Mall."

  LaBrava listened, and when it ended he sat in silence looking at palm-tree silhouettes beyond the streetlights, stars over the ocean, the zebra gone. He picked up the recorder, pressed buttons and listened again to the last part, waiting for:

  "Will you please hurry? He's getting away!"

  Rewound, stopped and played it again.

  "Will you please hurry? He's getting away!"

  He could see her. Except that she wasn't in a white Cadillac in a parking structure. He saw an old picture of her in a black car, some kind of expensive long black car, at night. She looked scared as she called out, "He's getting away!" Then sat back and didn't look scared.

  He rewound to the middle part, searched, found what he wanted and heard her say, "Isn't someone supposed to be here?... I'm going to pick up my mail." There was a pause. He heard her say, "I'm entering the elevator--" and shut it off. McCormick was coming up on the porch. McCormick said, "One of those have my name on it? Christ, I hope so." Sturdy, compact, in Brooks Brothers khakis, blue button-down shirt, beige necktie, the West Palm R.A.

  "That is a very attractive, very intelligent lady," McCormick said. "I found out in about five minutes I wasn't gonna learn shit I didn't know or suspect going in, but I talked to her an hour and a half anyway. She is a sharp lady."

  Torres said, "You're the first Bureau guy--you actually admit you didn't learn anything?"

  "For two reasons," McCormick said. "One, it isn't my case, you poor bastard. Two, I'm gonna retire the end of the month and become a stockbroker, so either way I don't give a shit. It's all yours, man, and it's getting away from you by the minute. You've got nothing firm. No positive I.D. of the guy who grabbed the bag or the guy who waved to her to come in the garage. Never seen them before. I showed her the pictures of the two guys you like, Mutt and Jeff; wasn't either of them. I asked her why she went in there. She says she thought the guy who waved at her was a police officer, but even if he wasn't we were supposed to be right behind her. Where in the hell were we?... Outside of that there's only one part that bothers me." McCormick paused and then said to Torres, "You know what it is?"

  Torres thought about it, looking off at the ocean.

  McCormick poured a beer, began to drink.

  LaBrava said, "Why did she stop to pick up her mail?" If he didn't say it, McCormick would. Or he wanted to hear himself admit what he was beginning to feel.

  McCormick put his glass down. "You want a job? Uncle Sam can use you."

  "He already did," LaBrava said. "You ask her?"

  "She said habit. She comes in, she always checks the mail. I said even when you're carrying six hundred grand in a garbage bag?"

  Torres said, "Wait a minute--"

  "It probably doesn't mean shit," McCormick said. "It's like a reflex, she comes in, she checks the mail. Okay, she goes up to her apartment, she's in there a few minutes before I come from down the hall. She says to me, 'You think he'll call?' and starts looking through the mail. But what if she hadn't picked it up? The whole schmear falls apart. The other thing is the few minutes she's in there alone..."

  Torres said, "You're making her a suspect. She's the victim, for Christ sake."

  McCormick said, "At this point everybody's a suspect, I don't give a shit. I don't know for sure where she got the six hundred gees, do you? She said she cashed some bonds. Maybe she did. On the other hand maybe she borrowed it and she's gonna stiff the guy. I don't know this broad, but I'll tell you what you better do, to be safe. Tomorrow morning--in fact I'll do it for you, it's out of your jurisdiction. I'll go up to her apartment and take a casual look around for different items, trash bags, a typewriter... It happens all the time, you don't know shit till you open some drawers, feel under the undies, you can find things you didn't even know you were looking for." He glanced at LaBrava. "Am I right? I forgot there for a minute you used to be with Treasury."

  "Cover your ass at all times," LaBrava said.

  "Cover it first," McCormick said, "then worry about what people think of you, if you worry about such things. Next, get the Lauderdale cops to canvas the mall, see if they can get a lead on the two guys. They'll give you a lot of shit, but at least you tried. After that... what've you got? Nothing. I don't see the big blond guy in the picture anywhere."

  "Richard--" Torres began to say.

  "If those two guys have the balls to grab the bag, what do they want to cut Richard in for? What's he, their typist?"

  "Listen, Richard--I didn't tell you," Torres said to LaBrava, "we found out was treated early this morning at Bethesda Memorial, compound fracture. The nurse said a cop brought him in."

  LaBrava was wondering why he'd gone all the way up to Boynton Beach, fifty miles, as McCormick said, "Cop from where?"

  "She didn't know where the cop was from," Torres said, looking at LaBrava again. " 'But a real one,' she said, not a rent-a-cop. We called every town from West Palm down. Nobody's got him or has a record of him."

  "He has a friend who's a cop," LaBrava said, and could see Richard Nobles in the Delray Crisis Center flashing his badge and the slim girl standing up to him, Jill Wilkinson, and Richard saying he had a friend... either with the Delray or Boca police... the other girl, Pam
, saying yes, she knew him. "I'll see if I can get his name for you."

  He wondered if the slim girl was back from Key West.

  McCormick said, "Let me take a look in her apartment tomorrow, maybe give you a better idea what you have to do next."

  LaBrava said, "You gonna get her permission?"

  "I could do that," McCormick said. "Or I could take a peek first. See, then if it looks interesting, get a warrant. Why bother the lady?"

  "Get her permission," LaBrava said.

  McCormick stared, smiled a little. "Well, now, what have we here?"

  "Get her permission," LaBrava said.

  "You don't," Torres said, "I bet you could open the door and get your arm broke."

  Nobles could see without even trying there was no way he could get a uniform shirt on. The goddamn cast came all the way bent-arm to his shoulder. He ended up he had to cut the left arm out of his good silver jacket; put on uniform pants and the goddamn police hat to make him look at least semiofficial. No sense wearing the holster, empty.

  It was too late to get another gun. It was too late to get anything to eat and he was hungry for a Big Mac and some fries. He thought about the snake eating the bat--the lesson there, be patient. He thought about--the idea he liked best--walking up behind that blindsider and tapping him on the shoulder. " 'Scuse me." And as the blindsider comes around hit him in the face with the goddamn cast. Then say to him laying there on the ground...

  He'd have to think of something good.

  Going on 3:00 A.M. he hiked the two and a half miles from his dumpy place out Township, cut across the county airport past a lot of rich guys' planes, then over Lantana to Star Security, across from the state hospital. It was not luck he had kept a set of patrol car keys, it was using the old bean.

  Going on 4:00 A.M. Nobles was down on Ocean Drive, Boca Raton, slow-cruising the beach condos like a regular security service car, except now he was looking for the law instead of boogers. He did not expect any sign of them. Why would there be with the horse out of the barn? He rode up to the top floor in that goddamn pokey elevator, went into her place with the key she'd given him and right away could smell her. Taking a leak he began to feel horny. She had yelled at him one time, "Close the door, you sound like a horse." And he had yelled back, "Puss? Come in here and help me hold this hog, would you, please?" They'd had some times. In her bedroom he was tempted to poke through her drawers, but knew he'd best take it and get.

  It was in the walk-in closet. Lord have mercy, it actually was. Round fat garbage bag of money he and her had agreed to split two to one in her favor, which he believed was fair. Shit, $200,000 he could buy any goddamn thing he wanted, starting with a pair of lizard wingtip cowboy boots he'd seen on Burt Reynolds one time up in Jupiter. Buy the boots, buy a 'Vette, buy some guns, have 'em in glass cabinets in his knotty-pine den...

  He had to drive back to his place first, which had two rooms and not any kind of den, to store the loot. He had to drive back on over to Star Security and leave the car, shit, then hike the two and a half miles back home. It wasn't so bad though. He started out thinking of what he would say to the blindsider laying there on the ground.

  "You mess with me, boy--"

  "You fuck with me, boy--"

  "You fuck with the bull, boy--"

  He liked "bull" but he didn't like "bull, boy."

  How about, "Boy, you fuck with the bull... you see what you get."

  "You see what can befall you."

  Befall you? He sounded like a preacher.

  Saw the blindsider being struck by a bolt of lightning.

  Saw him through a car windshield as he ran over the son of a bitch.

  Then saw Cundo Rey, Lord have mercy, and felt tears come into his eyes it was so funny to imagine. The little booger opening that other Hefty bag. Sure, he would, set to skip with the whole load. The dink might even skip and then open the bag. Get to some motel up around Valdosta, open her up... The poor little fucker. He'd blame it on the law doing him a tricky turn, and there wouldn't be a goddamn thing he could do about it.

  Cundo Rey woke up the next morning, 6:00 A.M., he didn't sleep so good, he opened his eyes he had a headache. Ouuuuu, he had a good one. He believed it was from not using his anger.

  Anger was good if you could use it right away, let it pick you up and carry you. But if you didn't use it, then it passed and it left your brain sore. Like balls became sore if you were ready to make love but for some reason didn't do it. Like you had to get out of her house quick. Man, they ached. It was the same thing with the brain. He took aspirin and Pepsi-Cola. Pretty soon he was able to think. In time he began to wonder why he had got angry.

  The creature had told him to get a good place close by to hide. He had found a perfect place, Bonita Drive, a one-block curve of apartments, cheap, between Seventy-first Street and Indian Creek Drive. Ten minutes from the action down on South Beach. One minute from the North Bay Causeway, shoot over to Miami, you're on the freeway. He rented the first floor of a two-story place for a month; it even had a garage to hide the car in.

  He had given the address to the creature and the creature said good, here's what I do and here's what you do, and told him all the things he eventually did. Take the bag from the woman, who would follow a note to the car-park building. Run home and hide the bag. Get rid of the stolen car... Then after a week or so, when it was cool, the creature said he would come and pick up his half of the money and they would never see each other again.

  But the creature never told where he was going to be hiding. The creature never called him a name and said, don't try to take the money for yourself or I'll find you and kill you. That should have opened his eyes. But his own greed, thinking how easy it would be to take it all, had perhaps blinded him.

  So last night, 8:30, he came back from getting rid of the Skylark, a nice car; he opened the Hefty bag upside down, and for a long time he sat looking at the pile of cut-up newspaper on the floor, the Miami Herald and one called the Post.

  What made him angry was thinking the cops did this to him. The cops not caring if it endangered the woman. The dirty cops, like all cops, full of cop tricks. He drank a pint of rum and a liter of Pepsi-Cola to become tranquil, but it didn't do any good.

  This morning, a beautiful day outside, he looked at the pieces of newspaper he had kicked all over the living room, at the pieces of broken glass and dishes on the floor, and began to wonder different things.

  Why the creature hadn't tried to frighten him: take the money, you die.

  How the creature himself was able to put the note in the woman's car and in that hotel if the cops were watching. How he could do it, a man who always wished to be seen, and not be seen.

  Why there were no cops in the car-park building if the note told her to go there. He had been very careful entering, looked in cars, all over.

  Why, if the note didn't say to go there, she did.

  It was getting good.

  Why she seemed to be stopping the car--there was no sound of her car's tires--before he came out from behind the post.

  Why she looked at him so calm and did not appear frightened. Like she expected him to be there.

  He sat staring at the pieces of newspaper, thinking again of the notes the creature said he had written, wondering again how he could have given them to the woman, beginning to see the fucking creature was a liar--as a thought related to this lifted him out of the chair.

  He went through the kitchen to the garage that was part of the building, and looked in the trunk of his car. There it was in a case--which he opened to make sure--the typewriter he had forgot to drop into Biscayne Bay. He touched the typewriter and the carriage slid out to one side and locked there; he couldn't get it back. So he left the case and took the typewriter into the apartment.

  That typewriter got him thinking some more and he sat without moving, letting thoughts of Richard and the woman slide through his mind, seeing the two of them friends, good friends. Seeing the woman, again a
nd again, stopping her car as though she knew exactly where he would be, almost smiling at him, so calm, knowing he wasn't going to hurt her, knowing he was taking pieces of paper.

  He sat without moving and thought, Richard isn't coming. Of course not. It was Richard and the woman. He didn't know how. He didn't know why she would be stealing from herself, except that Richard was a liar and maybe she wasn't rich and it wasn't her money they were stealing. Richard was a liar and it was Richard and the woman.

  Cundo sat without moving for so long that finally when he moved he knew he would keep moving and get out of here. What was he hiding for? He didn't do nothing. What did he steal, some pieces of newspaper? He didn't have to stay here, he could go any place he wanted...

  Because if it was Richard and the woman they wouldn't want him to be caught and talk to the police. So she wouldn't look at pictures and identify him. Afraid he might tell the police about Richard. He would, too.

  Uh-oh. It made him think of something else he had forgot about just as he had forgot about the typewriter.

  What if it wasn't the woman and the creature stealing the money but the woman and the picture-taker?

  He had forgot about that fucking picture-taker.

  If he'd had the snubbie when the picture-taker sat in the wheelchair and took his picture... But he had bought the snubbie after, to use on the picture-taker, and then had become too busy preparing to steal a bag of newspapers cut in pieces. Oh, man... crazy.

  And thought of the time he walked in the crazy-place in Delray naked, to get information. He had to smile. There was always a way to find out what you need to know.

  Sure, call up the woman. Don't worry about the picture-taker, if he's in this or not. What difference does it make?