Powder Burn

by Carl Hiaasen

  For a day, Meadows did nothing but sleep, eat and wallow in a four-legged porcelain tub. He quickly discovered that the maternal care and breakfast were inventions of Sadie’s. “The management is not responsible for the contents,” Izzy proclaimed. Sadie chirped incessantly; Meadows endured it as a welcome shred of homeliness in universe-turned-alien.

  It was too easy, eyes closed, seeking sleep on impertinent springs, to slip back into the nightmare: to confront questions again for which there were no answers.

  Was Mono alive? He had to be. If he had moved his car, Mono could not be dead.

  And if he was alive, the word must now be out among his friends that it was the gringo patsy who had stabbed him.

  Or would Mono be too macho to confess to that? Maybe he could not bear the shame of it. Perhaps he would prefer to recover and to bide his time; to return himself one day to finish a job he had thrice botched.

  Maybe Mono’s thirst for revenge would dominate. Meadows could see Mono lying bandaged in some dark barrio apartment, a fellow shark bending close to hear his words. “It was the gringo. Get him for me, chico. Get him!”

  If Mono was alive, Chris Meadows was either a dead man or a fugitive. There were no other possibilities.

  Why hadn’t he died? Meadows tossed on the lumpy mattress.

  If nothing else, he was safe at the Buckingham. That afternoon, trailing a two-wheel shopping cart and lascivious winks from Izzy, Sadie had brought him food after a pilgrimage to the kosher supermarket.

  On the second morning she brought him a copy of the Miami Journal. When Meadows could find no mention of a stabbed body at the airport, he threw down the paper in disgust. Then he called Nelson and lied to him.

  “Do you think if I had gone to college, I too could be a globetrotting architect?” Nelson teased when Meadows said he was in New York and had been to see a play the night before.

  “I am here by necessity, not design,” Meadows replied testily. “What do you hear about el mono?”

  “Nothing. How about you?”

  Meadows was instantly defensive. “Why should I hear anything?”

  “Oh, I dunno. I thought maybe you bumped into him again. Maybe he went to haunt you along the Great White Way.”

  A weak joke, but too close to home for Meadows. “Listen,” he said sharply, “when you left my house the other night, I went right to the airport and got on a plane and came up here—just like you said I should. You find that murdering bastard and throw him in jail—don’t hassle me.”

  “No offense, amigo,” said Nelson. “Just hang on for a little while and things will blow over.”

  Fool, thought Meadows. Blow over! There was no way anything would blow over. Not while Mono lived. Meadows came close to blurting out the truth. He needed help. The Cuban cop was a slender reed, perhaps, but who else was there?

  “Listen, Nelson, there’s something…”

  “Just sit tight. Give me your number there, and I’ll call you if anything good happens.”

  “No,” Meadows said quickly, “I’m going out into the country with a friend. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “Bueno, save the taxpayers money if that’s what you want. I’ll be around.”

  Meadows had never felt so lonely. He was restless. Did he dare go for a walk? No, it was better to hide in the ruins at the Buckingham.

  Meadows called Stella, who cooed and cawed and read him about twenty messages. Eight of them were from Dana, each angrier than the last.

  “I’ll take care of these, Stella. If anybody else calls, tell them I’ve gone out of town for a few days.”

  “Very well, sir. But you really ought to call the ministers from Salvador, Mr. Meadows. They are very anxious to hear about their oil building.”

  “Ecuador, Stella. The building is for Ecuador.”

  “Why would they tell me Salvador?” she asked petulantly.

  Stella, Meadows reflected, was the only constant in his jumbled universe. He called his mother in Massachusetts and told her he was going to the Caribbean. He called a colleague in California who wanted help with a new government complex and put him off. Then he spent two hours trying to get through to CAN’s one-room headquarters in Asunción.

  “La Comandante no está. She flying,” a secretary told him.

  It was the same story with Arthur. No, Arthur was gone for a few days, a groggy voice explained when he called the jazz club downtown. Down to Jamaica. Wanna leave a message? Meadows hung up.

  He ventured into the overgrown garden to sit for a while in the sun. He was promptly ambushed by Sadie and two crone-friends. They chattered around him, and he nodded every now and then, like a bored husband who simultaneously reads the paper and talks with his wife.

  ON THE AFTERNOON of Meadows’s third day at the Buckingham, Sadie appeared with a request. He was glad of the interruption. For the first time in his life he had succumbed in ennui to television soap operas.

  “Mr. Meadows, it would be so nice if you could join us tonight for dinner. Once a week, you know, we sit down together and share what we have. Kind of potluck.”

  Meadows was touched.

  “Of course, I’d be glad to come. But I have nothing to bring.”

  “For that you shouldn’t worry. I bought some bologna for you.”

  Late in the afternoon Meadows called Nelson again. There was a long wait before he came to the phone.

  “Good news, amigo. Mono is dead.”

  “What!”

  “It happened a couple days ago, but nobody found him until early this morning. He was alone in his car in a vacant lot. Stabbed once, apparently, and bled to death.”

  “God!”

  Meadows felt the world turn, a queasy mix of despair and glee. He pressed Nelson for details. From what he knew and what he heard, Meadows was able to piece together Mono’s last agony.

  Somehow Domingo Sosa had managed to drive away from the airport. He’d made it only two miles, not far enough—obviously—to find help, but fortunately far enough to get into the city, away from the crime scene.

  Nelson admitted that the police had no leads to the killer. “It looks to me, amigo,” he said, “like it’s safe enough for you to come home.”

  “I can’t believe it,” Meadows said. “Now that the pressure is off, I may stay up here a few more days and really enjoy myself.”

  “Is she pretty?”

  “Out of this world,” Meadows said with forced enthusiasm. “When I come back, I’ll tell you all about it—and bring you a box of cigars.”

  “Adios,” Nelson said, chuckling. “Buena suerte.”

  Meadows set the phone down gingerly. Part of him wanted to weep, and part of him wanted to dance, bum leg and all. He had killed a man. It was no nightmare.

  The architect studied his hands. He could almost feel it, the knife, in a damp palm. The noise came back, too, the muffled shtup of the blade splitting fabric and then flesh. Then Sosa’s belly blooming red.

  Meadows had killed a man.

  And now he was safe.

  Where should he go? Anywhere. Anywhere at all.

  If Terry was flying, there was no prayer of finding her. New York? Why the hell not? He picked up the phone.

  “I shouldn’t even be talking to you,” Dana scolded.

  “Don’t get snooty. I am coming tonight, by midnight. I expect you to be there.”

  “At the airport?”

  “In bed. Leave the door unlocked.”

  “Have you been drinking, Chris?”

  “Not yet.”

  Meadows sang in the shower. He scrubbed his nails. He washed his hair. He shaved to within an inch of his life. He allowed himself the luxury of deciding what to wear.

  He wouldn’t even call for a reservation. He would just go to the airport—Fort Lauderdale. No way anybody would get him back to Miami International anytime soon.

  He emerged from the bathroom dripping wet, a skimpy white towel around his waist. He had decided to go classically: a fine white shi
rt, striped tie, light blue blazer, camel slacks and black loafers. Could he buy flowers at La Guardia?

  There was a knock on the door.

  “You can come in, Sadie, if you want to, but only at your own risk. I’m nearly naked,” Meadows sang out.

  The door opened quickly, and Octavio Nelson stepped through it.

  “You are under arrest, amigo,” Nelson said softly. Meadows caught a quick glimpse of Sadie in the passageway, an arthritic hand clutching a bony breast.

  “What?” Meadows croaked.

  “For the murder of Domingo Sosa.”

  Chapter 12

  MEADOWS FELT the room spin. Dots danced in front of his eyes. He tried to speak; could not. He clung grimly to the towel. It was all the defense he had. He felt naked, betrayed. His brain scratched for a fulcrum. It found none.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he managed finally. It was the hoarse whisper of an old man.

  “Do me a favor, amigo. Put some clothes on, and try not to sound stupid, OK?”

  Meadows grabbed his trousers and shirt off the bed and stumbled into the gloomy bathroom. He dressed mindlessly, slowly, willing away the implacable presence in the bedroom and the cheap cigars that had come with it.

  Fear and anger, the emotions that seemed to have dogged him like malaria since that afternoon in the Grove, played hot and cold along his spine. He was a fool. He was helpless. He was trapped. And he had to get away.

  The bathroom window. If he knocked out the cheap screen, he could squeeze through. Terry…Bahia…oh, God. Run.

  The bathroom door. Lock the door. Knock out the screen. Go through the window.

  Meadows’s hands reached for the open door.

  “If it’s the window you’re thinking about, amigo, I already checked,” came the mocking voice. “There’s only one way you can run in the alley outside. I’ll be waiting.”

  Meadows’s outstretched hand wilted lifelessly to his side. He leaned back against the cool tile wall. He could not run. He could not even fight. Senseless, so senseless.

  Nelson sarcastically recorded Meadows’s return. “Well, there he is, dressed to kill.”

  Meadows glowered silently.

  “You sure surprised me, amigo. I figured you were mad enough to kill Mono, but I never dreamed you could do it. Killed by some architect who doesn’t know coke from sugar. Jesus, that’s a laugh. Wait’ll his friends find out.”

  Meadows began to speak, to protest.

  “No, don’t say anything. You’d only make it worse. I’m supposed to tell you that you shouldn’t say anything without a lawyer. Get a good lawyer.”

  Nelson toyed with his cigar, rolling it in his fingers, watching the thick smoke dart in and out of the circle of light from a floor lamp. The silence grew. Finally Nelson sighed.

  “Shit, amigo, don’t think I like doing this. I know you got caught up in something you never wanted and don’t even understand. But facts are facts, carajo. Mono’s dead, you killed him and you left a trail so easy to follow that Pincus will probably write his dissertation about it.”

  Meadows silently gauged the distance to the door. He couldn’t make it in a straight shot, not with Nelson half in his path. Could he take Nelson? Probably, but it would have to be fast. But Nelson was a cop, and therefore, he had a gun. If Meadows sprang, would he have time to get it? Probably. Would he shoot? Yes, he would shoot. No way out.

  When Nelson spoke again, it was in a low monotone, as though he were reading from a telephone book or reciting from a macabre rosary.

  “You made a lot of mistakes. Mono would have done it better if he had killed you. Mono at least was a pro.”

  Meadows listened, disbelieving. He stared at a spot in the Buckingham ceiling where water had cracked and discolored the plaster. He said nothing, fascinated in spite of himself by Nelson’s recital.

  “A milkman found Mono in the car over by Lejeune. A milkman! I didn’t even know there were any milkmen left. Anyway, you remember those nice white seats in the Trans Am? Mono had a thing about white, I guess. The seats looked like they had been dipped in red paint. The cops who found him said they had never seen so much blood. Of course, it was dried. It looked like somebody spilled a can of red talcum powder, they said. Jesus, they’ll never get those seats clean.

  “Anyway, it’s pretty clear to us right off the bat that Mono wasn’t killed in the car: no sign of a struggle, and nobody could have stabbed Mono like that without a fight. The ME says he’d been dead about two days.

  “So he was stabbed someplace else and drove to where he died. About three blocks away there’s a Cuban clinic that never asks questions, so we know where Mono was going.

  “But where did he get stuck? That’s the first question, amigo, and it’s not hard to figure out. See, Mono’s a pro, and when he left that parking lot at the airport, he didn’t race away from the toll. He paid what he owed, and he took a little paper receipt that says, ‘Thank you. Have a nice day.’

  “Once we find that little piece of paper we call the airport cops, and they say, ‘Funny you should call because something strange must have happened in the parking garage the other night. We found a puddle of blood in a parking space, and we followed the trail into a stairwell, and lo and behold, there’s a whole lake of blood on the landing.’

  “We know Mono got it at the airport, so the next question is: Who else was at the airport that night? About a million people, that’s who.

  “But it’s not really as hard as that because I turn Pincus loose, and he’s a tiger on things like that.

  “Only one of the million people at the airport that night pays twenty bucks for a dollar’s worth of parking and leaves without his change, Pincus discovers. That toll collector lady is no dummy. When somebody with shaking hands passes her a twenty and doesn’t wait for change, she writes down his license plate number on the bill.

  “That’s really all Pincus needs, amigo. He cranks up the computers, and in about fifteen minutes he knows that the car belongs to one Meadows, Thaddeus Christopher. No wonder you call yourself Chris.

  “But where is Thaddeus Christopher Meadows? Well, that’s easy, too. He’s in New York. He must be in New York. He calls me up and says he’s in New York, doesn’t he?”

  “That might fool me, amigo, but it doesn’t fool Pincus. He calls up Eastern Airlines and talks to its computers. They say a Mr. Meadows, initial C, was a no-show on the last flight to New York the night Mono got killed.”

  Meadows knew what came next: the phone call.

  “We do a routine trace,” Nelson says. “Shocking! Meadows, initial C, is not calling from Manhattan. He’s calling from some fleabag hotel on Miami Beach.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” Meadows cried, tossing his head back and forth the way a quadriplegic might try to dislodge a leech.

  Nelson sucked on the dead cigar. “You’re not a totally stupid man,” he said after a moment. “I won’t tell you we’ve got a first-degree murder case against you, because we don’t.”

  “Why the hell would I buy an airline ticket if I was trying to set the guy up?” Meadows protested. “Why would I hand that lady a twenty? And why would I come here, for Chrissakes?”

  Nelson nodded. “Good points. Self-defense is what I suppose your big shot mouthpiece is going to argue. Then the prosecutor will ask: Why didn’t he call the cops? Why did he hide the knife? Why did he pretend he was in New York?” Nelson shrugged amiably. “We don’t have a first-degree murder case, amigo, but we do have a case.”

  Meadows stifled a moan.

  “Suppose we go for second-degree or, assuming we get a pussy prosecutor, manslaughter. What does a trial like that do for an architect’s career? Real lousy publicity, no? You might spend the rest of your life dreaming up pretty gymnasiums or bait-and-tackle shops.”

  Meadows closed his eyes and swallowed hard. Nelson spoke slowly, hammering every word.

  “That’s not the worst of it, my friend. The best lawyer in Miami can snow a j
ury, but he will never convince Mono’s friends that you were merely an innocent victim. Or that their brave compadre deserved such a death. So it boils down to this: Guilty, you go to jail, a very nasty place. Innocent, and you’re dead two days after you’re back on the streets.”

  Meadows was beyond shock. Heads you win, tails I lose. He wished his mother had taught him better how to pray.

  “As far as I’m concerned, the worst thing,” said Nelson, “is not that Mono is dead—who cares about that dirtbag?—but that you made him die at precisely the wrong time. I tried to tell you at your place the other night: Mono was never important as Mono. He was a fucking drone, Meadows. He interested me only because he worked directly for el Jefe, the ringmaster of the whole fucking cocaine circus.”

  “And that’s your prize? Your big promotion?” Meadows sneered.

  “I want him badly. Domingo Sosa would have led me to him eventually. It had to happen.”

  “Who was Sosa?”

  “A killer,” Nelson replied. “He moved down from Union City. He had steady work. You were just a little overtime. It must have been quite a fight.”

  Nelson watched Meadows’s eyes for an admission. The architect stared back, saying nothing. Nelson could see the fear. Intuition alerted him to the fury that underlay it.

  “Mono brought some helpers,” the detective said. “Charming fellows; like lobotomized linebackers. I almost eyeballed them myself a couple nights ago on a surveillance in Little Havana. I’d love to know who they are because I’ll bet they’re about to become el Jefe’s new enforcers now that Mono is dead.”

  “Newly promoted killers.”

  “Sure.” Nelson tapped ashes onto the threadbare carpet. “They stick together. In their line of work it’s not easy finding people you can trust. They are here, that much I know.” He began to stand up. “Well, my friend, time to go.”

  “I know who they are,” Meadows said dully.