LaBrava

by Elmore Leoanrd

  "I'll put 'em in a paper sack, in the bushes back there where they park. Then you come on over the public beach, nobody'll think you're strange."

  "Okay. I see you."

  Jesus. Nobles couldn't believe it. He watched Cundo walk around past the front of the car--bareass as the day he was born back of some sugarmill, except for his tan socks and white shoes--watched him cross the street and walk up to the mental health place, cheeks of his ass pale moons, lighter than his dusky skin and it surprised Nobles. Look at the son of a bitch, like he was out for a stroll. As Cundo turned half around and waved Nobles mashed the gas pedal and got out of there.

  Chapter 6

  HE FOUND MAURICE IN 304, the guest suite facing the ocean, the room filled with sunlight and old slipcovered furniture. Maurice took the prints without comment, began studying them as he moved toward the closed door to the bedroom. LaBrava came in, followed him part way. He was anxious, but remembered to keep his voice low.

  "Why didn't you tell me who she is?"

  "I did tell you."

  "That's Jean Shaw."

  "I know it's Jean Shaw. I told you that last night."

  "She's supposed to be an old friend--you couldn't even think of her name."

  "I like this one, the expression. She doesn't know where the hell she is." Maurice looked up from the prints, eyes wide behind his glasses. "What're you talking about, I couldn't think of her name? Twenty years she's been Jeanie Breen. I told you she left the picture business to marry Jerry Breen, her husband. I remember distinctly telling you that."

  "How is she?"

  "Not suffering as much as I hoped."

  "You bring her some breakfast?"

  "What do you think this is, a hotel?" Maurice turned to the bedroom, paused and glanced back with his hand on the door. "Wait here." He went in and all LaBrava saw was the salmon-colored spread hanging off the end of the bed. The door closed again.

  Wait. He moved to one of the front windows, stood with his hands resting on the air-conditioning unit. He thought he knew everything there was to know about time. Time as it related to waiting. Waiting on surveillance. Waiting in Mrs. Truman's living room. But time was doing strange things to him now. Trying to confuse him.

  What he saw from the window was timeless, a Florida post card. The strip of park across the street. The palm trees in place, the sea grape. The low wall you could sit on made of coral rock and gray cement. And the beach. What a beach. A desert full of people resting, it was so wide. People out there with blankets and umbrellas. People in the green part of the ocean, before it turned deep blue. People so small they could be from any time. Turn the view around. Sit on the coral wall and look this way at the hotels on Ocean Drive and see back into the thirties. He could look at the hotels, or he could look at Maurice's photographs all over his apartment, be reminded of pictures in old issues of Life his dad had saved, and feel what it was like to have lived in that time, the decade before he was born, when times were bad but the trend, the look, was to be "modern."

  Now another time frame was presenting pictures, from real life and from memory. A 1950s movie star with dark hair parted in the middle, pale pure skin, black pupils, eyes that stared with cool expressions, knowing something, never smiling except with dark secrets. The pictures brought back feelings from his early teens, when he believed the good guy in the movie was out of his mind to choose the other girl, the sappy one who cried and dried her eyes with her apron, when he could have had Jean Shaw.

  There were no sounds from the other room. No warning.

  The door opened before he was ready. Maurice came out and a moment later there she was in a navy blue robe, dark hair, the same dark hair parted in the middle though not as long as she used to wear it and he wasn't prepared. He hadn't thought of anything to say that would work as a simple act of recognition, acknowledgment.

  Maurice was no help. Maurice said, "I'll be right back," and walked out, leaving him alone in the same room with Jean Shaw.

  She moved past the floral slipcovered sofa to the other front window, not paying any attention to him. Like he wasn't there. He saw her profile again, the same one, the same slender nose, remembering its delicate outline, the soft, misty profile as she stood at the window in San Francisco staring at the Bay. Foghorn moaning in the background. Deadfall. The guy goes off the bridge in the opening scene and everybody thinks it's suicide except the guy's buddy, Robert Mitchum. Robert Mitchum finds out somebody else was on the bridge that night, at the exact same time. A girl...

  He saw the movie--it had to have been twenty-five years ago, because he was in the ninth grade at Holy Redeemer, he was playing American Legion ball and he went to see the movie downtown after a game, a bunch of them went. She did look older. Not much though. She was still thin and her features, with that clean delicate look, always a little bored, they were the same. He remembered the way she would toss her hair, a gesture, and stare at the guy very calmly, lips slightly parted. Robert Mitchum was no dummy, he grabbed her every chance he had in Deadfall, before he ended up with the dead guy's wife. That was the only trouble with her movies. She was only grabbed once or twice before the good guy went back to Arleen Whalen or Joan Leslie. She would have to be at least fifty. Twelve years older than he was. Or maybe a little more.

  He didn't want to sound dumb. Like the president of a fan club. Miss Shaw, I think I saw every picture you were ever in.

  She said, without looking at him, "You don't happen to have a cigarette, do you?"

  It was her voice. Soft but husky, with that relaxed, off-hand tone. A little like Patricia Neal's voice. Jean Shaw reminded him a little of Patricia Neal, except Jean Shaw was more the mystery-woman type. In movies you saw Jean Shaw at night, hardly ever outside during the day. Jean Shaw could not have played that part in Hud Patricia Neal played. Still, they were somewhat alike.

  "I can get you a pack," LaBrava said. He remembered the way she held a cigarette and the way she would stab it into an ashtray, one stab, and leave it.

  "Maury said he'll bring some. We'll see."

  "I understand you're old friends."

  "We were. It remains to be seen if we still are. I don't know what I'm suppose to do here, besides stare at the ocean." She came away from the window to the sofa, finally looking at him as she said, "I can do that at home. I think it's the same ocean I've been looking at for the past... I don't know, round it off, say a hundred years."

  Dramatic. But not too. With that soft husky sound, her trademark.

  He said, "You were always staring at the ocean in Deadfall. I thought maybe it was like your conscience bothering you. Wondering where the guy was out there, in the water."

  Jean Shaw was seated now, with the Miami Herald on her lap. She brought a pair of round, wire-framed glasses out of the robe and slipped them on. "That was Nightshade."

  "You sound just like her, the part you played."

  "Why wouldn't I?"

  "I think in Deadfall you lured the guy out on the bridge. You were having an affair, then you tried to blackmail him... In Nightshade you poisoned your husband."

  She hesitated, looking up at him, and said very slowly, "You know, I think you're right. Who was the guy in the bridge picture?"

  "Robert Mitchum."

  "Yes, you're right. Mitchum was in Deadfall. Let me think. Gig Young was in Nightshade."

  "He was the insurance investigator," LaBrava said. "But I think he grew flowers, too, as a hobby."

  "Everybody in the picture grew flowers. The dialogue, at times it sounded like we were reading seed catalogues." She began looking at the front page of the Herald. Within a few moments her eyes raised to him again.

  "You remember those pictures?"

  "I bet I've seen every picture you were in." There. It didn't sound too bad. She was still looking at him.

  She said, "Really?" and slipped her glasses off to study him, maybe wondering if he was putting her on. "On television? The late show?"

  "No, in movie theaters, th
e first time." He didn't want to get into ages, how old he had been, and said, "Then I saw some of them again later. I'm pretty sure about Deadfall and Nightshade because I saw 'em both in Independence, Missouri, just last year."

  "What were you doing in Independence, Missouri?" With that quiet, easy delivery.

  "It's a long story--I'll tell you sometime if you want. What I could never figure out was why you never ended up with the guy in the movie, the star."

  She said, "I was the spider woman, why do you think? My role was to come between the lead and the professional virgin. But in the end he goes back to little June Allyson and I say, 'Swell.' If I'm not dead."

  "In Deadfall," LaBrava said, "I remember I kept thinking if I was Robert Mitchum I still would've gone for you instead of the guy's wife, the widow."

  "But I was in on the murder. I lured what's his name out on the bridge. Was it Tom Drake?"

  "It might've been. The thing is, your part was always a downer. At least once in a while you should've ended up with the star."

  "You can't have it both ways. I played Woman as Destroyer, and that gave me the lines. And I'd rather have the lines any day than end up with the star."

  "Yeah, I can understand that."

  "Someone said that the character I played never felt for a moment that love could overcome greed. The only time, I think, I was ever in a kitchen was in Nightshade, to make the cookies. You remember the kitchen, the mess? That was the tip-off I'm putting belladonna in the cookie batter. Good wives and virgins keep their kitchens neat."

  "It was a nice touch," LaBrava said. "I remember he takes the cookies and a glass of milk out to the greenhouse and practically wipes out all of his plants in the death scene, grabbing something to hold onto. Gig Young was good in that. Another one, Obituary, I remember the opening scene was in a cemetery."

  She looked up as he said it and stared at him for a moment. "When did you see Obituary?"

  "Long time ago. I remember the opening and I remember, I think Henry Silva was in it, he was your boyfriend."

  She was still watching him. She seemed mildly amazed.

  "You were married to a distinguished looking gray-haired guy. I can sorta picture him, but I don't remember his name."

  "Go on."

  "And I remember--I don't know if it was that picture or another one--you shot the bad guy. He looks at the blood on his hand, looks down at his shirt. He still can't believe it. But I don't remember what it was about. I can't think who the detective was either, I mean in Obituary. It wasn't Robert Mitchum, was it?"

  She shook her head, thoughtful. "I'm not sure myself who was in it."

  "He seems like a nice guy. Robert Mitchum."

  She said, "I haven't seen him in years. I think the last time was at Harry Cohn's funeral." She paused and said, "Now there was a rotten son of a bitch, Harry Cohn, but I loved him. He ran Columbia. God, did he run it." She looked up at LaBrava. "I haven't been interviewed in years, either."

  "Is that what this is like?"

  "It reminds me. Sitting in a hotel room in a bathrobe, doing the tour. Harry would advise you how to act. 'Be polite, don't say shit, keep your fucking knees together and don't accept any drink offers from reporters--all they want is to get in your pants.' Where in the hell is Maurice?"

  LaBrava glanced toward the door. "He said he'd be right back."

  There was a silence. He had been in the presence of political celebrities and world figures. He had stood alone, from a few seconds to a few minutes, with Jimmy Carter, Nancy Reagan, George Bush's wife Barbara, Rosalynn Carter and Amy, not Sadat but Menachem Begin at Camp David, Teddy Kennedy a number of times, nameless Congressmen, Tip O'Neill was one, Fidel Castro in New York, Bob Hope... but he had never felt as aware of himself as he did now, in front of Jean Shaw in her blue bathrobe.

  "I was trying to think," LaBrava said, "what your last movie was."

  She looked up from the paper. "Let's see, I made Let It Ride at Columbia. Went to RKO for one called Moon Dance. A disaster..."

  "The insane asylum."

  "I quit right after that. I tested for a picture that was shot right around here, a lot of it at the Cardozo Hotel. I thought sure I was going to get the part. Rich widow professional virgin, my first good girl. But they gave it to Eleanor Parker. It didn't turn out to be that much of a part."

  "Frank Sinatra and Edward G. Robinson," LaBrava said, impressing the movie star.

  She said, "That's right, A Hole in the Head. Frank Capra, his first picture in I think seven years. I really wanted to work with him. I even came here on my own to find out what rich Miami Beach widows were like."

  "I think you would've been too young."

  "That's why Frank gave it to Eleanor Parker. Before that, half the scripts I read had Jane Greer's prints all over them." She said then, "No, the last one wasn't Moon Dance. I went back to Columbia-- oh my God, yeah--to do Treasure of the Aztecs."

  "Treasure of the Aztecs," LaBrava said, nodding. He had never heard of it.

  "Farley Granger was Montezuma's bastard son. In the last reel I'm about to be offered up to the gods on top of a pyramid, have my heart torn out, but I'm rescued by Cortez's younger brother. Remember?"

  "The star," LaBrava said. "I can't think who it was."

  "Audie Murphy. I took the first flight I could get out of Durango and haven't made a picture since."

  "I imagine a lot of people liked it though."

  "You didn't see it, did you?"

  "I guess that's one I missed. How many pictures did you make?"

  "Sixteen. From '55 to '63."

  He could think of four titles. Maybe five. "I might've missed a couple of the early ones too," LaBrava said, "but I saw all the rest. I have to tell you, whether it means anything to you or not, you were good."

  Jean Shaw raised her eyes to his, giving him that cool, familiar look. "Which one was your favorite?"

  Chapter 7

  AT 8:10 P.M. JILL WILKINSON told Pam and Rob, the crisis center night staff, she was getting out before anything else happened. Three consecutive shifts without sleep was about it for hanging in and being a loyal South County employee. She said if she didn't go home to bed within the next hour, they'd be admitting her to Bethesda Memorial for intensive rehabilitation due to social-service burnout. South County would have to scrounge around for another wide-eyed, dedicated supervisor willing to work a seventy-hour week. Good luck. They didn't stay wide-eyed long. During the past twenty-four hours:

  First there was the big blond creep with the Mickey Mouse badge and the very real gun. (The Delray cops were good guys; they did think it was sort of funny, but only after informing Mr. Richard Nobles that if he ever came in here and bothered Jill again they would fucking break his jaw on both sides of his you-all mouth and that was a promise.) Then Earl, smoking, had set fire to a mattress during the night--after they were absolutely sure he had no cigarettes or matches on him. Walter continued to drive them nuts asking if they'd ever seen an eagle, until he was finally shipped off to Crisis Stabilization. A girl who had shaved her hair back to the top of her head, shaved off her eyebrows too, locked herself in the john most of the morning while two alcoholics threw up in wastepaper baskets. A consumer waiting to be interviewed got into the case of john paper stored in the counseling office (there was no room for it anywhere else) and streamed several rolls of it around the office. And then there was the smiling Cuban who gave his name as Geraldo Rivera and walked into the center naked except for sporty perforated shoes and tan silk socks. He was sort of cute.

  At first he said he had no English. Jill picked up the phone to request a bilingual Delray Police officer and he said wait, some English was coming back to him. He said perhaps he was suffering from amnesia. He remembered dressing to go to the jai alai, but must have forgotten to put his clothes on. He said this is the fronton where they play, isn't it? Jill told him they played just about everything in here except jai alai. She left him for a minute and he wandered through the offices, God, w
ith his limp dong hanging free. The new girl, Mary Elizabeth, said wow, she had never seen one like that before, so dark compared to the rest of him. The drunks opened watery eyes to watch without comment. What else was new? Walter, who had not yet been shipped off when Geraldo arrived, asked him if he had ever seen an eagle. The Cuban said yes, in fact his mother was an eagle. He said he had been stolen by an eagle when he was a small baby, taken to its nest and fed the regurgitated meat of rabbits. They wrapped the Cuban in a sheet, which he seemed to like, rewrapping himself different ways until he settled on leaving one arm free, toga-fashion. He seemed to quiet down.

  Then their twenty-year-old potential suicide, manic depressive, climbed up on a file cabinet and punched through the screen to shatter the glass of the ceiling-high window in the main office. They brought him down bloody, blood smearing the wall, an arm gashed from wrist to elbow. Sometime while the paramedics were taking him out to the van, the naked Cuban disappeared.

  They called Delray Police to report a missing consumer who might or might not be running around their catchment area wrapped in a South County bed sheet and might or might not answer to the name Geraldo. They would take him back whoever he claimed to be.

  There was no positive response from the police.

  About five o'clock, when first Jill fantasized going home at a normal hour, seeing herself barefoot, alone, sipping chilled Piesporter, she discovered her wallet and ring of something like a dozen keys missing from her bag. The only person she could think of responsible was the naked Cuban.

  Mary Elizabeth left about 6:45. She came back in with Jill's ring of keys and wallet, the wallet empty. Found them, she said, right out in the middle of the parking lot. She had kicked the keys, in fact, walking to her car.

  Something was strange. Jill had looked outside earlier, front and rear. If the keys and wallet weren't there a few hours ago, how could they be there now?

  Well, if the guy was chronically undifferentiated enough to walk naked into South County thinking it was a jai alai fronton... yes?... play with a bed sheet, rip off her wallet and keys... who knows, he could have sneaked back during a lucid period, basically a nice guy, thoughtful, knowing she would need her keys, her driver's license...