LaBrava

by Elmore Leoanrd

  Jean said, "If Richie knew you had these--" She shook her head slowly and seemed almost to smile.

  "How about if he thought the police had a set? Would that shake him up?"

  She looked at LaBrava, brown eyes wide for a moment. "Are they after him?"

  "I haven't given them the pictures yet, but I think it might be a good idea. Before somebody gets hurt." He gathered the photos together, slipped them in the envelope. "So that's your friend Richie Nobles."

  "The all-American boy," Jean said. "Can I have them?" When LaBrava hesitated she said, "For my own protection. In case Richie ever comes around again." She looked over as they heard the elevator land, the door open. "Let's tell Maury about it later, okay? Or I'll never get out of here."

  Maurice was taking off his nubby silk jacket as he crossed the lobby. He wore a yellow sport shirt with long collar points, the top button fastened. "You think I need a coat?"

  Jean picked up the envelope with her straw bag. "If it makes you happy."

  "Nah, we're not going anyplace, are we?" He folded the jacket inside out and laid it on the counter. "Joe, lock it in the closet for me, will you? We're going up to Boca, get a few things of Jeanie's."

  LaBrava said to her, "What about the tapes? You said you have a couple of your movies?"

  She hesitated. "You really want to see them?"

  "You kidding? With the star?"

  "If you promise you won't fall asleep. We'll have to bring the VCR and plug it into Maury's TV."

  Maurice said, "What? What're we talking about?"

  "Jean's movies," LaBrava said and looked at her again. "What ones do you have?"

  "Just the two available on tape. Shadowland and Let It Ride."

  "I can hardly wait," LaBrava said, not sure if he had seen either of them. "It's been a long time."

  They'd crept past the Della Robbia, past the Cardozo to park across the street from the Cavalier, on the beach side of Ocean Drive. Nobles had curled his size into an almost fetal position in the front seat, face pressed against the inside edge of the backrest so he could stare out that smoky rear window and see the Della Robbia, the bunch of old ladies sitting lined up on the porch.

  Cundo Rey said, "Man, we don't have no air. How about I open it just a little?"

  Nobles didn't answer him. In a moment a draft of salt air touched his face and it felt pretty good. He reached behind him and opened the window on his side a few inches. Yeah, that was better.

  "I don't want to see her just yet. Till we're ready. You understand?"

  Cundo said, "Sure," even though he didn't. Why ask him questions? He was acting strange.

  "What I'm getting at, I walk in there I'm liable to see her. Or be seen with her, I mean. You follow me? Best we wait for him to come out."

  They had been parked here more than a half hour. Cundo couldn't believe it, Nobles becoming cautious, not wanting to go in there and get the guy's pictures, take the guy in his hands, throw him out a window if it was high enough. He would like to have a look at this guy in the light, see him good. The guy didn't seem to scare Nobles, no, but seeing the pictures of himself had changed him; he didn't seem to know what he was doing.

  Cundo said, "If the guy works, then why would he be there?" Nobles didn't answer. He didn't know anything, so why ask him?

  Cundo said, "I don't like that place I'm living, La Playa. I'm going to move." The reason they were at different hotels, Nobles had said they shouldn't be seen together too much. He had asked why and Nobles had said, because. That was his answer. Because.

  "I'm going to find a good place, move my things down from West Palm. What about you? You want to move your things?"

  Nobles wasn't listening, he was pushing up straight against the backrest, stretching his neck, saying, "Jesus Christ, there she is."

  Cundo had to press his face against the side window, his neck twisted, to see. He said, "Tha's the movie star? Man, she look pretty nice. Who's that old guy?"

  "Must be the one she's staying with, one picked her up." Nobles watched them cross the street like they were going to the beach in their good clothes, but now they stopped. He watched the old man pull open a car door and get in while Jean Shaw went around to the other side. They were going someplace. Just her and the old man.

  As soon as Nobles had his idea he said, "They go by, you get out. I'm own take the car, meet you later on."

  "You want to take this?"

  Nobles' head turned with the Mercedes going past them. "Okay, get out."

  "Man, this is my car."

  Nobles said, "You little booger--" Got that far.

  Cundo saw the look and stepped out of the car saying, "Sure, please take it." Stood in the road saying, "Go with God," and watched until the insane creature from the Big Scrub turned left on Fifteenth Street.

  Franny came out of the ocean like a commercial, body glistening in two strips of mauve material, Coppertone clean with an easy stride, letting her hips move on their own as she came up on the beach. It was empty in front of her, all the way to the park.

  Where was Joe LaBrava when she needed him?

  He was across the street, coming out of the Della Robbia with Paco's wheelchair, sitting in it now on the sidewalk, trying it out, talking to the old ladies leaning out of their chairs, reassuring them. By the time Franny reached the grass, he was wearing a plain, beachcomber Panama with a curvy, shapeless brim, a camera hanging from his neck, waving to the ladies as he wheeled off.

  Franny yelled his name. He looked over, made an awkward turn and stroked his wheels across the street.

  "How do you get up curbs?"

  She helped him, came around in front of him again and he was aiming a Nikon at her. Snick.

  "I wasn't ready."

  "Yes, you were. You look good. You're the first girl in a bathing suit I've ever shot."

  "None of that commercial stuff."

  He gave a shrug. "Maybe there's a way to do it."

  "The bathing suit in contrast to something. How about sitting on a TV set?"

  He smiled and she watched him reach around to the camera bag hanging behind him, watched him bring it to his lap, the hat brim hiding his face as he snapped off the wide-angle lens, put on a long one and aimed the camera down a line of palm trees to a group of elderly people sitting on a bench.

  "What're you gonna shoot, the regulars?"

  "Get 'em when they aren't looking."

  "Why don't you come up after... do me."

  She was serious or she was having fun. Either way, it didn't matter.

  He said, "I don't have any color."

  She said, "Whatever you want to use, Joe, is fine with me."

  He remembered sore feet from all that standing around steely-eyed in front of hotels and at rallies and fund-raisers, protecting important people. A numb butt from sitting in cars for days doing surveillance. Tired eyes from reading presidential pen-pal letters. Not even counting protective-detail duty in Mrs. Truman's living room, a life that sounded exciting was 80 percent boredom.

  It had certainly taken a turn lately.

  He cruised Lummus Park in the Eastern Airlines wheelchair, using the Nikon with a 250-mm lens now to shoot across Ocean Drive to get porch sitters: panning a gallery of weathered faces, stopping on permanent waves, glasses flashing sunlight, false teeth grinning--peeking into their lives as he picked them off one at a time. Later on he would see their faces appear in clear liquid, in amber darkroom light, and would be alone with them again and want to ask them questions about where they'd been and what they'd seen. Raped by Cossacks, Franny said, or mugged by...

  The Cuban-looking guy said, "What're you doing, taking pictures?"

  His hair was slicked down across his forehead and he wore a gold earring. But even without it LaBrava would have known him. The way he moved, for one thing, the way his hand drifted up to touch the wavy ends of his hair.

  LaBrava was happy to see him and gave him a smile and said, "Yep, that's what I'm doing, taking pictures."
/>   "You down here on your vacation?"

  "Just enjoying life," LaBrava said.

  "Tha's nice, you can do that."

  The guy wore a black shirt that might be silk and fit him loose. He was skinny under there, a welterweight with that high compact ass in his cream-colored slacks, the shoes white, perforated.

  "Tha's a nice camera you have."

  "Thanks. How about if I take a picture of you?"

  "No, tha's okay."

  "I like to get shots of the natives."

  "Man, you think I'm a native?"

  "I mean the people that live here, in Florida."

  The Cuban-looking guy said, "Tha's an expensive camera, uh?" He hadn't taken his eyes from it.

  "With the lens it runs about seven and a quarter."

  "Seven hundred dollars?"

  "The camera cost me five hundred."

  "Oh, man, is a nice one, uh? You let me see it?"

  "If you're careful." LaBrava had to take his hat off to lift the strap over his head.

  "No, I won't drop it. Is heavy, uh?"

  "Hang it around your neck."

  "Yeah, tha's better."

  LaBrava watched him raise the camera, almost as though he knew what he was doing, and sight toward the ocean, the breeze moving strands of the guy's raven hair.

  Lowering the camera, looking at it, the guy said, "Yeah, I like it. I think I'll take it."

  LaBrava watched the guy turn and walk off. Watched the easy, insolent movement of his hips.

  Watched him take four, five, six strides, almost another one before he stopped--knowing the guy was going to stop, because the guy would be thinking by now, Why isn't he yelling at me? Now the guy would be wondering whether or not he should turn around, wondering if he had missed something he should have noticed. LaBrava saw the guy's shoulders begin to hunch. Turn around and look--the guy would be thinking--or take off.

  But he had to look.

  So he had to turn around.

  LaBrava sat in the wheelchair waiting, his curvy-brimmed Panama shading his eyes, the guy fifteen to twenty feet away, staring at him now.

  "What's the matter?"

  Holding the camera like he was going to take LaBrava's picture.

  The guy said, "I have to ask you something."

  "Go ahead."

  "Can you walk?"

  "Yeah, I can walk."

  "There's nothing wrong with you?"

  "You mean, you want to know if you took off could I catch you and beat your head on the pavement? There is no doubt in my mind."

  "Listen--you think I was going to take this camera?"

  "Yeah, I did. You changed your mind, uh?"

  "No, man, I wasn't going to take it. I was kidding you."

  "You gonna give it back to me?"

  "Sure. Of course."

  "Well?"

  The guy lifted the strap, brought it over his head. "I could leave it right here." Stepping over to the low cement wall. "How would that be?"

  "I rather you hand it to me."

  "Sure. Of course." Coming carefully now, extending the camera. "Yeah, is a very nice one... Here you are," reaching sideways to put it in LaBrava's hand and stepping back quickly, edging away.

  "What's the matter?"

  "Nothing is the matter. No..."

  "I'd like to take your picture. What do you say?"

  "Well, I'm busy now. We see each other again sometime."

  "I mean in my studio." Motioning, thumb over his shoulder like a hitchhiker. "Up the street at the Della Robbia Hotel."

  The guy's reaction was slight, but it was there, in his eyes for part of a moment, then in his casual gesture, touching the curly ends of his hair.

  "Tha's where you live, uh?"

  "I've got like a studio right off the lobby. When you want to come?"

  He hesitated now. "Why you want to take my picture?"

  "I like your style," LaBrava said, not sure how many movies it was from. Ten? A hundred? "You ever do any acting?"

  The guy was saying something. It didn't matter. LaBrava raised the Nikon and snapped his picture. Snick.

  Chapter 15

  MAURICE STOOD ON THE BALCONY that ran the length of Jean Shaw's tenth-floor apartment. The Atlantic Ocean was right there. All of it, it seemed to Maurice, the whole ocean from right downstairs to as far as you could see. It was too close, like living on a ship. He said, "I sat out here at night with that surf making noise, I'd drink too. It drive you crazy."

  She said from the living room, "You know that isn't my problem."

  "Yeah? Well, I would a thought I drank more than you do," Maurice said, "but I never threw a glass at a cop car."

  "I didn't throw the glass. I explained that, I was in a funny mood."

  "They laugh? You were a guy the cops would a beat your head in, for showing disrespect. You know what your problem is? Living in a place like this. There's no atmosphere. All you got is a view." He moved to the doorway, looked into the silvery, mirrored living room. Jean stood with two hanging bags draped over a chair done in white satin. "You got to be careful not to confuse class with sterility. Clean can be classic. It can also bore the shit outta you."

  She said, "Well, you built the place."

  "I didn't build it."

  "You know what I mean. You've been into more developments like this than anyone I know... Living on South Beach like a janitor."

  "Manager's fine. Don't put me down."

  "What're you into now?"

  "I'm resting my money, mostly tax-free bonds. We get a Democrat in there, everything'll pick up again."

  "You still giving to the Seminoles?"

  "Miccosukis. Some of 'em with runaway nigger slave blood in 'em. They appealed to my imagination."

  "And your pocketbook."

  "I made some good friends. Buffalo Tiger, Sonny Billy, they taught me to drink corn beer. We had some laughs, I got some good shots... And I don't give money to 'em. It's a foundation--send a few Miccosukis to school every year 'stead of selling airboat rides and shooting the heads off frogs. What's wrong with that?"

  "Jerry thought you were crazy," Jean said. "I used to love to hear you argue. He couldn't believe it--all the money you were giving away."

  "Yeah, well, I'm giving some to the whales, too. What would Jerry say about that, uh? I'd started a foundation for used-up lawyers he'd a loved it."

  She said, "Well, Jerry wasn't the brightest guy I ever married." She sighed. "I thought he was going to be a winner, too."

  Maurice said, "He stayed with the wrong guys too long, Jeanie, you and I both know that. They ate him up--used him, used his dough, he had no recourse. Who's he gonna go to, the FBI? He hadn't died of a heart attack, he'd a died a much worse kind of way, even thinking about pulling out. Up to Kefauver everybody's having a ball, nothing to it, you could deal with those guys. Frank Erickson, Adonis, any of 'em. After Kefauver, no way, they don't trust nobody."

  She said, "Jerry was dumb. There's no other way to describe him."

  "May he rest in peace."

  "Yeah, wherever he is--died and gone to hell. But it doesn't help my situation."

  Maurice said, "Jeanie, any woman I know would trade places with you in a minute. You got the looks, guys're attracted to you--sometimes the wrong type, I'll grant you. You got a nice life..."

  "Go on."

  "What's your problem? I know--don't tell me. But outside a money, what? You want money? I'll give you money. Tell me what you need."

  She walked over to the television set, built into black formica shelves. "I don't want to forget the recorder." She picked up two tape cartridges in boxes. "Or the movies. You want to see them?"

  "Of course I do. You know that."

  She said, "Maury, I already owe you, what, sixty thousand."

  He said, "You want to get technical we're up to seventy-two-five. But have I asked you for it?"

  She said, "If I had money to invest, something working for me--"

  "Jeanie. Have I asked you for
it?"

  "Or if you'd buy me out. Maury, I could pay you back, get out from under it."

  "From under what? How many times have I said it? If you don't have it, you don't owe me. It's that simple. I buy you out, your share's worth about a hundred grand. Say a hundred and a quarter. You pay me back outta that, where are you? If I go, the hotel's yours. Don't worry about it, it's in the agreement. Until that happens--which is something I don't think about. I'm not afraid of going, it's gonna happen, but it's not something I sit down and think about. Until then, you need money, you let me know. It's that simple."

  "Like an allowance."

  Maurice said, "Sometimes--I don't know, Jeanie."

  She put the videotapes down and seemed restless, though she didn't move. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way. I'm not ungrateful, I'm frustrated. Maury, you're the best friend I've ever had. I love you, I love to be with you..."

  "But what?"

  "I feel useless, and it makes me mad."

  "Then do something. Get back into acting."

  "Maury, come on. I'm not going to play somebody's mother. And I'm not going to do the little-theater bit, work in a converted barn, wring my hands in Fiddler on the Roof. I've done all that."

  "Big screen or nothing," Maurice said. "You know what I think of that particular kind of pride--from eighty-years experience, from knowing all kinds of successful people with all kinds of dough who are now dead or else in jail? I think it's a bunch of shit. Money and success've got nothing to do with making it on a day to day basis, and that's all that counts."

  "I love rich old guys who say that--and don't have a worry in the world."

  "Aw, Jeanie, come on"--he sounded tired--"you're smarter than that. Quit thinking, start doing something. Girl with your intelligence, your talent... I'm telling you, money ain't it."

  "Joe thinks you're practically down and out."

  "Let him think it. Either way, it wouldn't matter to him, he's an artist. He doesn't know it yet, but he is. He's gonna be a name."

  She said, "Yeah, well, I wish him luck."

  "Quit worrying, you get lines in your forehead."

  "I always love your advice."