The Consummata

“That simple. If I escaped from the trap at the Amherst—and that’s what I’m known for, doll, escaping— they’d know you’d be the first person I asked. They’d probably expect me to torture the truth out of you.”

“Then they have not paid attention to the legend.”

“What legend?”

“Your legend, Morgan. The legend of the Raider—a man of light who lives in the darkness.”

I gave that the snort it deserved. “Maybe Disney will make a TV show out of it.”

She smiled then, a lovely, full-lipped smile that was less in response to my little gag than to my belief in her honesty. It was a lovely thank you in an elegant manner, and the tension went out of her like the receding of a wave.

Yet her eyes still held that intense look, probing for answers. “I did not expect it would be like this, Morgan.”

“Like how?”

“Filled with such complication. At first, the mission was only for you to find for us Jaimie Halaquez, and recover our missing funds. Now Bunny has told me of what else has happened— the dead assassin at her apartment building. Even now, she waits for you to call her, sitting there in the office, drinking champagne.”

“What’s she celebrating?”

“Nothing, senor. Quite the reverse. She only does this when she is very much upset.”

“Get her up here.”

“At once.” She stood up, pulled the belt of the negligee tight and went to the door. “Keep it locked behind me, Morgan. I have the key. I’ll let myself back in.”

“Don’t worry about me, kid.”

“Con su permiso, I will worry about us all.”

Then she was gone like a lovely wraith and I lay back on the oversize bed, and folded my hands behind my head, staring at myself in the mirror on the ceiling. If that thing had been a television screen, it would have some wild reruns to play.

Right now I looked like a rerun of myself—on a distant channel that was coming in fuzzy as hell. I looked like ten miles of bad road.

Twenty.

My sport coat and sport shirt and slacks were of high quality, but I’d been in them so long, they were a wrinkled mess and needed a wash. Me, too. Plus a shave.

I closed my eyes for just a moment, and never even heard them come back. When Bunny shook me, I woke up swearing at myself, because nodding off like that could get me killed.

“Morgan,” Bunny said, almost a snarl, “will you please be quiet!”

“Sorry, baby.” I didn’t realize the .45 was in my hand until I saw them both gaping at it, then I stuck it back in its berth under my left arm.

Bunny shoved me back onto the bed. “Take it easy, cowboy.” She gave me an appraising look and let out a disgusted sigh. “You look like hell.”

“I feel like hell.” I wiped my hand across my face and the bristles damn near hurt my tender little palm. I looked at the hostess of the Mandor Club. “You don’t exactly look your best either, kiddo.”

“Thanks a bunch,” she said. “Like they say, with friends like you who needs enemies.”

This little adventure was taking its toll on her. Worry lines creased her face, showing through the makeup, and her hair was straggling loose from its formerly artful styling. With those purple streaks, she had a Bride of Frankenstein look as she clutched a handful of note papers, fidgeting with the clips that bound them.

I sat up with a couple of plump pillows propped behind me. “What have you got there, Bunny?”

“First things first.” She sat on the edge of the bed. Lithe legs crossed, Gaita was seated at the makeup mirror, but had her back to it, facing us.

“I did what you told me, Morg,” Bunny said. “I made inquiries about that murdered client of mine, Dick Best. There was no next of kin and nobody to claim the body. The cops thought it was goddamn big-hearted of me to contribute toward a decent burial, and it didn’t seem funny to them at all, when I asked how he was killed.”

“How was he killed?”

“The usual unidentified blunt instrument that broke his neck. Or it could have a blow from a hand, if the killer was skilled enough.”

“A karate chop, you mean?”

She nodded. “They said it was a common mugging technique.”

I smirked in disgust. “It really isn’t. But that helps the Miami fuzz close the file and not have to look into the matter.”

She was nodding again. “Which they didn’t, and aren’t. They wrote it off as homicide during a burglary gone wrong. They figured Best surprised the robber and got himself killed in the struggle.”

“How did the thief get in and out?”

Bunny shrugged. “Either picked the lock or had a skeleton key. There was a fire escape in the hall. Morg, it really is pretty standard stuff.”

“Is it? I’d say we’re seeing a pattern.”

“How so?” Her forehead knitted.

“Somebody likes those single-handed blows. That’s how the old porter got it at the Amherst hotel, after he screwed up a certain simple assignment an old amigo of yours hired him to do.”

Gaita whispered, “Jaimie Halaquez....”

“At least he’s consistent,” I said. “Give him that much.”

Bunny, still on the edge of the bed near me, said, “But the Cuban boys that were tracking him—in Missouri, Arkansas and Mississippi...they didn’t die that way.”

Gaita said, “Halaquez used a blade. They die slow and painful, those boys, with their insides in their hands.”

“Two different kinds of kills,” I said, clinically. “Those brave kids were made to suffer—to make them examples, and to send a message back to Little Havana. And they may not have been killed by Halaquez at all.”

“What?” Gaita snapped.

It was Gaita’s question, but I aimed the answer at Bunny. “They may have been killed for him by the Cuban assassin who died in your apartment house lobby. Fitting, he died by the blade.”

“You’re a cold-blooded bastard,” Bunny said with a shiver.

“A breathing one,” I said, then went on: “The old man and this Richard Best required efficient kills, not so messy, not so noisy.”

The Mandor’s madam had a glazed, dazed expression. “So he’s still around, our Jaimie....”

“Well,” I said, “more like he’s back. Bunny, you said first things first. First, was finding out from the cops how Dick Best bought it. What’s second?”

Now she smiled; now her eyes took on a twinkle. “Finding out who Dick Best really was.”

I leaned forward. “Who, Bunny?”

“A businessman I was introduced to years ago...but not as Richard Best—different last name...Parvain.”

Meant nothing to me.

She continued: “Now this goes back a good twenty years, Morg. I thought Dick Best looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him—and he looked more than twenty years older. Anyway, after seeing the poor S.O.B. stretched out on the morgue tray, well, I came back here and sat down for a good think. Best and I had talked lots of times, in the last year or so—had anything of it meant anything, I wondered?”

“Had it?”

“Maybe. It came back to me that one day, a couple years ago—Best and I were sitting in the bar downstairs,