by Carl Hiaasen
“What!” Nelson sat down again quickly.
“They were at the dog track with Mono. It was pretty obvious who was boss.”
“Do you know their names?”
“No.”
“Could you describe them?”
“Yes.”
Nelson was excited now. “Madre de Dios, tell me what they look like!”
“Why should I?”
Nelson slapped his thigh in exasperation. He leaned back in the chair and made a ceremony of relighting his cigar.
“I don’t blame you, I guess. Use what you know when you need it most. Maybe you can talk to the state’s attorney.”
Nelson puffed the cigar. Meadows coughed. Neither spoke.
Meadows abandoned the idea of flight: too risky. There had to be some other way, some way out. He thought frantically.
Nelson, too, was thinking: To arrest Meadows would please only Pincus and the police department gnomes who assembled crime statistics. Pobre cabrón. The gnomes should give medals to citizens who kill killers.… He came to a decision. Screw Pincus and the gnomes. Meadows could recognize Mono’s companions. That mattered most.
“You know, amigo, you ruined a three-month investigation by killing that scumbag. If you could help me get things back on the track, maybe we could strike a deal.”
“I’m not interested,” Meadows said quickly, but Nelson saw the flash in the architect’s eye.
“Even if we could agree that Mono’s death goes into the books as one more unsolved drug murder?” Nelson said.
“I didn’t murder anybody,” Meadows replied stubbornly.
“Let’s say I believe you. And then let’s say as a token of good will you do me a favor.”
Nelson had Meadows’s attention now. He could almost see the gray cells churning back from the brink of despair.
“Then?”
“Then you go your way and I go mine. Mono’s dead. Nobody knows who did it. Too bad. Que descanse en paz.”
“Just like that,” Meadows said.
“Well, a few people in the department would have to know that while one of my sources was working for me, he happened to kill el Mono—and I’d have to sit on Pincus. But that’s all. Nobody in the department will weep for him.”
“Yeah, sure. And whose word would I have for all that?”
“Mine.”
“Yours!”
Nelson fought against the color that rose to his cheeks. He was close now. Patience.
“Maybe it’s not much.” Nelson contrived a shallow smile. “But then”—hard now, to the gut—“have you got anything better, amigo?”
Meadows stared at the yellowed ceiling. He could see himself in handcuffs and, later, as the star attraction in some pompous courtroom. He could see himself stuffed with cocaine and swinging from a varnished wooden beam. No, he had nothing better than the cocky Cuban cop, even if that meant he had nothing. Meadows was tired of being punched. Given a little rope, he might find a way to punch back.
“What do you want?”
“Tell me about those men you saw with Mono. Could you sketch them, like you did Mono?”
“No. It was Mono who interested me.”
“Would they recognize you?”
Meadows mentally reran the scene at the dog track. The lighting had not been good. There had been a crowd. The thugs were not likely to have picked him out. He meant nothing to them.
“They might, but I doubt it.”
Nelson sprang quickly from the chair.
“OK, you’ve got a deal. Get up. You’ve got a tie, haven’t you? Take a shower first; you stink of sweat.”
Cold water helped Meadows restore his equilibrium. Nelson wanted him to do something that was reckless. Surely he would not be content with a description of the junior killers or even a sketch. Nelson would want more, much more.
The architect in Meadows pleaded for caution. It was stupid to deal with the devil, even if he was not lying. Take your chances on the courts. It was self-defense.
And fatal not to deal with him, said the bruised and terrified man that was also Meadows. What difference can it make? A drowning man doesn’t care how deep the water is.
When Meadows emerged from the shower, there were no preliminaries.
“The deal is this. I will deposit you, tonight, in a public place where Mono’s friends will be among several hundred people. You will identify them. You will get to know them so well that your sketches of them would make their mothers swoon with delight. If possible, you will learn their names; your Spanish is good enough for that, right?”
Meadows snorted. “A couple of sketches.”
“There’s more,” Nelson said quickly. “I think the man I call el Jefe will also be there, somewhere in the crowd. He will surely make contact with Mono’s associates. He needs them now, badly. Watch and listen very closely. Get him for me, Meadows. Bring me a sketch of el Jefe, and Mono is forgotten. My word of honor.”
“How can you be sure he will be there?”
“I know my people.”
“Then why don’t you put one of your bushy-tailed narcs in there with a camera? Pincus would blend in about as smoothly as I would.”
Nelson raised a hand. “Let’s just say this is my investigation, OK? Where I am sending you tonight, I could never go myself. Why? Because I’ve probably arrested relatives of half the people there and shared dinner with the rest. Now I’m getting tired of this conversation. Let’s go.”
A hundred questions sprang into Meadows’s mind. What setting, how many people, what kind of light, how much freedom of movement—the kinds of questions an architect might ask a client before he sat down to draw.
“What kind of place is this?” Meadows said.
“You’ll see.”
Two other questions, both vital.
One was whether Nelson would keep his word. There was no sense asking that, so Meadows asked the other.
“Suppose I’m wrong? Suppose Mono’s goons do recognize me. What then?”
Nelson shrugged.
“Que sera, sera,” he said.
Chapter 13
WILBUR PINCUS did not show up at the Dade Community College for Police Management 202. Instead, he left his two-bedroom apartment about nine and drove his well-polished 1977 Mustang coupe toward Miami Beach. With Nelson out picking up the architect, there was something Pincus had to do.
As he crossed the MacArthur Causeway heading west, the young detective surveyed Biscayne Bay, glass calm under a brilliant summer night’s sky. The sight left him breathless; he wanted to stop just to watch the ivory white yachts rumble south in the Intracoastal.
A group of fishermen clustered on one of the bridges. As Pincus drove past, he noticed one of the rods bent double under the silver muscle of a terrific game fish. He fought the urge to pull over and enjoy the battle.
Pincus came to the turnoff for Hibiscus Island, an exclusive dollop of real estate halfway between the Miami mainland and the beach. A heavy-lidded security guard scuttled from a wooden gatehouse and waved him down.
“I’m going to see Mr. Nelson,” Pincus said.
The guard peered into the car and nodded. “Need your name,” he said, lifting a clipboard.
“Wilson. Gregory Wilson.”
The gate opened, and the Mustang cruised through.
Pincus already knew the address by heart. It was an easy one: 77 North Hibiscus. A quick call to a friendly clerk at the tax appraiser’s office had bought him more: five bedrooms, four and a half baths, a swimming pool on two acres, waterfront, of course. Purchased eighteen months ago for $195,500.
Pincus found it all very interesting, but nothing so much as the curious fact that Roberto Nelson was able to put down $100,000 on the house. Octavio Nelson never talked about his brother, and Wilbur Pincus was beginning to understand why.
The house at 77 North Hibiscus was ringed with an eight-foot sandstone wall. A red phone hung by the wrought-iron gate—nothing out of the ordinary for the sort of peo
ple who lived on these islands, but damn unusual, Pincus ruminated, for a cop’s brother.
Pincus eased off the accelerator as he passed the gate. A pair of headlights emerging from Nelson’s driveway caught him squarely in the eyes. Pincus sped off.
In the rear view he saw a car pull out. It was not a beige Mercedes, but a small sports car. Pincus pulled into another driveway and turned around. By the time he reached the gatehouse the other car was halfway across the bridge, heading for MacArthur. Pincus broke a few traffic laws catching up. He fumbled in the glove compartment for some eyeglasses. The car, in front of him now by only six lengths, was an orange Alfa Romeo. The tag was also orange, a dirty orange. Either New York or Pennsylvania: GDU 439.
The driver was a man. Pincus noticed the cut of the hair, the size of the head, the way the fingers drummed on the dash; the guy was playing his stereo. He wasn’t paying attention. The driver ran a red light at Bayshore Drive, and a Metro bus driver flicked him the finger.
Pincus got stuck behind the bus and lost the Alfa Romeo. At Biscayne Boulevard the young detective made a right turn and started hunting.
ROBERTO NELSON had been sitting at the bar of the Royal Palm Club for twenty minutes when the stranger came in. He was tall and muscular, and his radically short blond hair was damp with sweat. He wore small round glasses with tortoise-shell frames and he sat alone at the end of the bar farthest from the band.
“New talent, Joanie,” one of the barmaids said to her partner. “I’ll see what he wants to drink.”
Roberto Nelson paid no attention. He drummed on the bar, glancing occasionally at the pudgy lead singer with the gelatin breasts.
Soon a thin dark man sat next to him. Roberto grinned and leaned over to whisper. The two men rose together and threaded through the tables toward the rest room. When they came out, a full five minutes later, they were met by the stranger with blond hair.
“’Scuse me,” Wilbur Pincus said shyly, stepping aside to let the men by.
“It’s OK, bubba.” Roberto Nelson smiled.
Inside the rest room, Pincus entered the toilet stall and locked it behind him. He waited for half a minute, but no one else came. Then he crouched on one knee to examine the tile floor. Flecks of dried urine near the toilet bowl. Some hairs. Scuff marks. And there…
Pincus pressed the palm of his right hand to the tile. It came up spangled with tiny ivory crystals.
THE BATTERED DODGE swept across the MacArthur Causeway and threaded Douglas Road toward Little Havana. Meadows and Nelson rode in heavy silence. To Meadows, there seemed nothing to say. Nelson seemed preoccupied. Once the police radio squawked, and Nelson spoke briefly.
“Five-six-one-five,” summoned a metal voice.
“Five-six-one-five.”
“There’s suddenly a lot of movement on that Morningside surveillance. Can you come?”
“Negative. Can’t you handle it?”
“Yeah, I think so, except that I can’t seem to raise one-one-seven-eight.”
“Stern and Garcia,” Nelson muttered to himself. “That’s not like them.” He addressed the microphone again.
Meadows listened with half an ear, his head filled more with roller coaster reflection than radio traffic.
Nelson wheeled into a cluttered parking lot underneath a flickering red neon sign that said Guayabera Grocery. From the parking-lot side of what looked to Meadows like a cluttered general store, an off-balance, belt-high counter yawned drunkenly. A waitress with bottled red hair swayed in the window to the sounds of the born-in-Miami beat called salsa.
“Dos cafecitos, querida,” Nelson ordered. “Y bájame el radio. Tengo que usar el teléfono.”
The music shrank inside its green plastic box as Nelson went to the phone, and Meadows licked tentatively at the scalding brew. He felt resigned, as though all emotion had been purged from him. Nelson would not tell him where they were going; all he would say was that it was a public place that would allow Meadows to wander freely and inconspicuously and to leave quickly if necessary.
“How can you be sure all of them will be there?” Meadows had repeated.
“Because I am Cuban and they are Cuban. That’s how I know,” Nelson had replied enigmatically. “Relax. No one has ever had a softer chance to walk away from a murder charge.”
Nelson’s face was drawn when he returned to the counter, his lips a thin, tight line. He swallowed the coffee with a gulp and headed for the car behind a taut “¡Vamos!”
They drove deep into el Barrio, past a noisy bar that promised Chicas Topless; past a municipal ball field where wiry kids with olive skin backed up paunchy father-shortstops; past a vest-pocket park where keyed-up old men slapped dominoes on the smooth tops of square white tables. An old-fashioned butcher shop flashed by; a factory for hand-rolled cigars and a botánica, whose spotless display window offered prayerful saints and wizened cock claws, both guaranteed to ward off evil.
They stopped, finally, on the darkened apron of a gas station that obviously had been abandoned for a long time. Regular 52.9, said the twisted sign atop a rusting pump.
“This is the place,” said Nelson, gesturing to a well-lit one-story brick building across the street.
Meadows squinted to make out the lettering on the discreet black and white sign: Hidalgo & Sons.
“Jesus Christ!” Meadows said. “It’s a funeral parlor!”
“That’s right. Open all night. Best sandwiches in Little Havana.”
“I’m not walking into any damned funeral parlor.”
Nelson’s fist tapped impatiently on the steering wheel.
“We already played that scene, amigo. Either you walk into that place and do a little favor for me or somebody carries you into a place just like that much sooner than you would like. Think it through.”
Meadows did not have to ask whose corpse the Hidalgos were cosseting that night. He knew. He knew, too, that Nelson had maneuvered him with exquisite planning and logic.
“We gave back the body this afternoon. They’ll bury him tomorrow. Tonight is the velorio. The family will stay all night—it’s an old Cuban custom. Everybody who knew him will be here between now and about eleven o’clock. It would be an unforgivable insult not to come. Honor is foremost with these people. Remember that.”
“And will they be grieving and asking for the forgiveness of sins?” Meadows snapped.
“The grief will be genuine,” Nelson said. “Among both men and women. Latin men are not afraid to cry.”
“Then I’ll stand out like a sore thumb among all those sniffling machos, won’t I?”
“I worried about that, but it will not be too bad. That’s a big place. There are four bodies in there tonight. Four velorios. One of them is for an old Anglo-Cuban. Some of the mourners will look more gringo than Cuban. No one will pay any attention to you.”
“Christ!” said Meadows.
“I have two people inside; that’s standard procedure for scumbag velorios. They’re looking for the same thing you are, but they’re looking blind. That phone call I made was to tell them to keep an eye on you. Don’t try to find them. Don’t be obvious. Look around thoroughly, and get out. I’ll be waiting. I won’t move. Buena suerte.”
“Thanks a lot,” Meadows said. He wiped his hands on the soft fabric of his pants and walked around the car.
“Oye, amigo,” Nelson called. “If I knew who they were, I wouldn’t need you. And if I didn’t need you, you’d be in jail.”
Meadows’s first impression was that he had stumbled into the intermission of an off-Broadway play. A gust of chill air greeted him behind two gold metal doors that sighed open as he approached. In a hallway about thirty feet long and fifteen wide stood about a hundred well-dressed people. They all seemed to be speaking at once, and there was no mistaking them for Americans. They spoke with their eyes, their hands, their whole bodies. Mourners’ knots formed and dissolved in an almost stylized pattern of abrazo, besito and gossip.
If there was reverenc
e, it certainly was not hushed. In one corner, next to a gold papier-mâché fountain in the shape of a leaping dolphin, a woman of extraordinary beauty held court. Five, six, seven dark-suited young men swirled around her, knights beseeching favor. She was charming, imperious, untouchable.
From a doorway with marbled Formica lintels a dowager mourner emerged like a battleship under steam: broad of beam, black-clothed, white-haired, makeup streaked with tears, chattering nieces and nephews her darting escorts.
A child of about six, pigtails restrained by pink ribbons, wandered anxiously underfoot. “Mami, Mami!” she wailed. Two middle-aged men stood spread-legged, cigar to cigar, arguing loudly. Politics, Meadows’s rusty Spanish told him. The men’s wives turned away, as though on cue, to amuse one another with midwives’ tales they had recounted a thousand times.
A strikingly handsome man, elegant in a three-piece black suit, yellow rose at his lapel, an establishment mustache curried till it squealed, preened in macho counterpart to the beautiful dolphin girl. He bussed four cheeks, shared six abrazos and shook three hands with stiff formality in the minute Meadows spared him.
The smell of death assailed Meadows. Calla lilies, gladiolas, carnations, chrysanthemums peeked from the four rooms that opened off the hallway. Their aromas mingled with the scents of perfume, sweat, cigars and formaldehyde.
Meadows felt light-headed. Before him, through the haze, the smell and the noise, lay the centerpiece of the room: a white-robed plaster Virgin Mary with two lambs at her feet, praying above an electric candle. Two flags, one Cuban, one American, flanked the Virgin in drooping salute.
Meadows stood irresolute. Where to go? How to begin? He had to go in, but every fiber screamed at him to get out. Finally he turned left and headed for the first of the four body rooms.
It was a mistake. About twenty people sat in metal folding chairs with red plastic seats facing the coffin in a niche at the far wall. The mourners sat in quiet dignity, silent reproof to the cocktail chatter that followed Meadows through the door. No head turned when he entered. The flower stench was overwhelming.
Meadows took four paces into the room and stopped. Wrong one, dammit. The coffin sat in lonely eminence, two spotlights illuminating its closed lid. It was tiny, toylike. It could have belonged only to a child. Meadows fled.
