The Consummata

When she got there, she was out of breath, and I cracked open the storage closet door enough for the light to bathe the body on the floor nearby.

She saw the doorman and the dead guy at the same time, turned wide eyes on me and whispered softly, “Your handiwork, Morgan?”

“Just this one.” I nudged the corpse with my toe. “You know him? Maybe it’s another dead patron you can identify.”

“Morgan....”

“Take a good close look, doll.”

She didn’t like it, yet she did it. She would have pulled away almost at once, but something stopped her and she looked again.

When she stood up, she was frowning. “I have seen him, I think.”

“Mandor patron?”

Bunny shook her head. “No, if that were the case, I really would be able to make an I.D. With this one, I can’t be sure.”

Deliberately, drawing in breath as if it were courage, she bent down, studied the dead features carefully, then pulled herself up.

“Morg, I’m not positive, but I think he used to do something for Jaimie Halaquez. A driver, maybe. General gofer.” The broader implication of that got to her then, and her hand went to her mouth. “But...why here, Morgan? Where I live?”

“Somebody’s worked out the connection between you and me. They figured I might make a contact with you, after the business at the hotel, to see if there was a leak at your place of business. In other words, we both did exactly as was expected of us. And somebody, probably Halaquez, set a trap.”

Her eyes were wild. “But...nobody knew I was going to see you tonight. We were careful on the phone, I checked for bugs, what the hell could—”

I gave her half a grin. “Honey, all they had to do was wait and watch until I showed up. The logical place to contact you would be here. If I’d shown up at the club, somebody would have tipped them from there.”

“Who, Morgan?”

“I don’t know...but I’ll sure as hell find out.”

Bunny shook her head, obviously rattled. “What about...” She pointed at the dead guy on the floor. “...him?”

“I’ll take care of that. There’s no phone down here, so he probably didn’t tip anybody about my presence. As far as the world is concerned, doll, this was just a burglary attempt that went nowhere. So the doorman got himself slugged.”

“His name is George. He’s a very nice man.”

“Swell. Pay him enough to keep his mouth shut, would you? To limit your exposure with the cops on this thing?”

“Somebody will find George, and...”

“You’ll find George, Bunny,” I said, taking her by the shoulders, firmly. “Georgie Porgie’s going to sleep until morning, and your excuse for finding him is...are you getting this?”

“Yes. Yes.”

“Your excuse is that you were checking on a package that was supposed to be delivered here. You faked him out with that story tonight, right?”

“Right....”

“So he’ll probably buy it, and let it go like that. Particularly if there’s a nice tip involved. Besides, attempted break-ins around here aren’t all that unusual. Now, let’s have your car keys. I need to borrow your wheels.”

This was all moving a little fast for her. “Well, okay....”

“Tomorrow I’ll tell you where to pick your buggy up. Cool?”

But she didn’t say, “Cool.” She just handed over the keys silently, watched me a moment, then said, “It’s more than just Jaimie Halaquez, isn’t it, Morgan?”

She was right, but she didn’t need to know that.

So I just shrugged and said, “I don’t know what the hell else it could be.”

“It could be that forty million bucks they say you hijacked.”

“Is that all you girls think about?” I asked. “Money?”

I reached out, gave a half-turn to the bulb in the wall bracket that had been unscrewed and let light flood the area.

The dead guy seemed to look up at me, eyes half open. The knife was in so hard, there was no blood showing around the wound at all. He looked a little silly like that. Death can be so goddamned undignified. The saving grace is, when you’re dead, you don’t really give much of a shit.

I heard Bunny suck her breath in, then she turned toward the stairway.

I called out to her: “Two things!”

She looked back at me like she was risking getting turned into a pillar of salt. “Yes?”

“I want you to call our mutual friend Pedro over in Little Havana for me, and give him a message.”

She listened, then nodded and said, “What’s the other thing?”

“Bring me down an old sheet, would you? I have to wrap this boy up. Might not be necessary if you didn’t drive a station wagon, but I don’t have a trunk to stuff him in, so....”

She shivered as she nodded, then ran up the stairs, came back quickly with a sheet, and without a word ran back up again.

Leaving me to do what I had to do.

CHAPTER SEVEN

They say criminals return to the scene of the crime, if for no other reason than to check for evidence left in the sloppy heat of the moment.

But there’s another reason, too—sometimes the scene of the crime is the one place nobody thinks to look for you.

Little Havana wasn’t the scene of any crime of mine, not exactly; but nobody figures you’ll go back to somewhere you fled. The sprawling neighborhood just west of downtown stretched west from the Miami River for a mile or more. Near midnight, bustling Calle Ocho—Eighth Street, the area between Seventeenth and Twenty- seventh Avenues—lacked some of its robust flavor, though enough coffee shops and cigar stores remained open after midnight for their pungent aromas to add even more spice to the rhythmic sounds of Latin music pulsing behind barroom windows.

The block where I wound up wasn’t lively, not right now, no packs of muchachos on the loose, to help or hinder, the restaurants and other mom-and-pop shops closed. Still, I only had to knock once at the doorway next to the bodega before I got service—Pedro Navarro was right there, waiting.

If he’d been sleeping when Bunny called to tell him I was coming, he was wide awake and alert now, still just a funny little guy with a bandito mustache. He looked stiff and proper in his pale yellow pleated button-down shirt and loose tan trousers and leather sandals, his smile forced as it fought back worry.

Soon we were all at the kitchen table in the Navarro living quarters above the grocery store, sharing small cups of hot black Cuban coffee—Pedro, his wife Maria, and Luis Saladar—the latter summoned by the man of the house, at my request.

They sat across the table from me, their faces drawn in concentration, the nervous movement of their hands the only evidence of their fear.

I’d already filled them in about the now-deceased visitor who’d come looking for me at Bunny’s apartment house.

Pedro said, “Senor Morgan, what of the...the remains of this asesino? Do you require help in his...its...disposal?”

I waved that off. “Naw, buddy, but thanks. I dumped him in Domino Park on my way here.”

All of their eyes widened, even those of Saladar, who had been around such things.

“Don’t worry, amigos,” I said, and sipped at the little cup. Strong as it was hot.