LaBrava

'Where is it, the money?'

She paused. 'In my apartment.'

'You think the place is safe now because they tossed it?'

She said, 'Joe, if you'll help me...'

He waited and she seemed to start over. She said, 'You have to understand something. I love Maury in a very special way. I know him better than you or anyone else ever will, and he knows me, he understands me.' She said, 'Joe, I promise you, I would never do anything in the world to hurt him.'

Something she had said before, but in real life, not in a movie that he remembered. He said, 'That's nice but we're past that. Torres called. They found Richard.'

She stared straight ahead.

'It wasn't a cabin up in the mountains. It wasn't even that far from other houses...' He gave her a moment, but she said nothing. 'I told Torres to have a talk with Richard's pal, Glenn Hicks.' She turned again to stare at him and he said, 'You get the feeling I know more about it than you do?'

After a moment she looked at the view again and said, 'Joe, you have to believe how I feel about Maury...'

'I thought we were on Richard now.'

She said, quietly, 'There is no way anyone can prove I killed him.'

'I didn't even say he was dead. But I'm not gonna tell on you. You're grown up enough to do it yourself.'

She said, 'Does he really matter?'

'Not to me, no. But the state attorney, you hear him you're gonna think Richard was his kid brother. See, you shoot and kill somebody you have to have a better reason than for money.'

She said, 'You broke his arm. What if you had hit him in the head?'

'I had a chance to and I didn't. That's the difference. Richard could've brought me up if he wanted to, I accepted that possibility. You're trying, as they say, to get away with murder.' He realized he was at ease because he was in control and it didn't matter what role she tried on him. The poor lady didn't know who to be, so she was playing a straight part for a change and not coming off anything like a star. She was beginning to look older to him.

The view was the same. It didn't change.

She started to get up and he said, 'Where you going?'

'To buy a typewriter.'

Good line. He liked the way she said it; it gave him a feeling for her again.

He said, 'Put your bra on and relax. I'll go talk to him, see if he wants to turn himself in.'

'Why would he?'

'It's better than getting shot... I'll need the key to your apartment, to pick up the money.'

'Swell,' Jean said.

'Save that one,' LaBrava said. 'It's not over yet.'

Chapter 27

IT WAS LADIES' NIGHT at Skippy's Lounge. Ladies Only. Drinks two for one till 9 P.M.

So LaBrava hung a Leica and a camera bag on him and told the manager he was doing a photo story for the Herald's Sunday magazine, 'Tropic,' and the manager said to be his guest--but don't shoot any housewives supposed to be at K-mart shopping and a movie after unless you get a release. There were about a hundred of them, all ages, crowded around the circular stage watching the all-male go-go show. LaBrava said, 'Let me get one of you while we're standing here, Skip.' The manager said, 'I look like a Skip to you? Those assholes up there with the razor cuts and the baby oil all over 'em are the Skips.'

Five of them plus Cundo Rey doing their show opener.

The five Debonaires wore wing collars with little black bow ties, cuffs with sparkly cuff links and black bikinis. Cundo Rey wore a leopard jock and cat whiskers painted on his face, streaked out from his nose to his ears. He was the one and only Cat Prince, extra added attraction, who hung back in the opening number and did not new-wave-it the way the serious all-white Debonaires did. It was their set, repetitious, robotic, each Debonaire dancing with his own ego, three of the five in front of the beat, stepping all over it; they ducked and hopped to I Do coming out of the sound system and set J. Geils back ten years.

Cundo Rey came on for his solo with his raven hair, his earring, his painted-on whiskers, with West African riffs out of a Havana whorehouse, and Cundo was the show, man turned on with flake and blood into the cat-stud prince come to set the ladies free; his body glistened, his moves purred with promise, said stuff a five into my polyester leopard-skin, ladies, and we'll all be richer for it.

Many of them did and Cundo followed the waitress to LaBrava's table counting his sweaty wet take. He eyed LaBrava, smiled at the camera, blinked in the flash.

'So, the picture-taker.'

LaBrava lowered the camera. 'The boat-lifter.'

Cundo ordered a sugar-free soft drink from the waitress, slipped into a chair still glistening, smelling of cologne, cat whiskers waved by his smile. 'So, you and the woman. Is all the same to me. I sell you the typewriter, a nice one. I think you have to give me the camera, too. Is it the same one?'

'A better one,' LaBrava said. 'Older but more expensive.'

'That's okay, I'll take it.'

'Why didn't you try to take the other one?'

'I didn't know it would be so easy like this.'

LaBrava said, 'Is it?' He pushed the camera bag toward Cundo, who leaned over the table to look inside. As he looked up, LaBrava pulled the bag back, closer to him.

'Tha's Richard's gun?'

LaBrava nodded.

'What happen to him?'

'He got shot.'

'I believe it,' Cundo Rey said. 'Guy like him, he would get shot. Did it kill him?'

LaBrava nodded.

'That guy, he don't know what he was doing. I don't know what he was doing either. Or you, or the woman. But I know what I'm doing, man, I'm going to sell you a typewriter or that woman is going to jail. Maybe you going too.'

LaBrava said, 'What would you think--you give me the typewriter, then give yourself up?'

Cundo said, 'Give myself to the police?' He sat back as the waitress, with dollar bills folded through her fingers, placed a glass in front of him and filled it from a can of Tab. She walked away and Cundo leaned in, frowning. 'I look crazy to you?'

'I don't know you,' LaBrava said. 'You could be some broke dick going from failure to failure, never gonna make it. See, if you're like that maybe you ought to turn yourself in, they'll take off a few years. You go up to Raiford and do your go-go number they'll make you Homecoming Queen.'

'Man, I don't steal nothing. Why do I want to go to jail?'

'For killing that old man, Richard's Uncle Miney.'

'Man, what is this? Some shit you telling me. What we have to talk about--you like to see that woman go to jail?'

'No, I wouldn't,' LaBrava said, 'and I'll tell you why. I don't trust her. I think just for a kick she could put the stuff on us. I mean the whole thing with her is for fun. She doesn't need the money, it's for thrills.'

'For thrills...'

'You understand what I mean? She's a very emotional person.'

'Yes, I understand.'

'She borrows the money from the old guy that owns the hotel...'