The Consummata

My mouth dropped and the words crawled out. “Not... Crowley.”

“Yes. Your own personal Inspector Gerard himself. I report directly to him, and he knows about us, so he’s been watching me like a hawk. That’s why I’ve waited for days to risk this. My love...we must be careful.”

I took her by the arms, firm, almost rough. Almost. “I want to see him.”

“What?”

“Crowley. Goddamnit, Kim, we’re working on the same case. I want Halaquez, and so, apparently, does he. I want a chance to sit down with him at a neutral place, and see if we can’t come up with a truce till this thing is over.”

“Morgan, I don’t really think that’s—”

“Kim, I am trying to conduct an investigation, a manhunt, from a goddamn whorehouse bedroom. I have something in common with the Cubans—I want some freedom. What do you say?”

Her eyes were slitted with worry. “If he knows we’ve had contact, I would be in a shitload of trouble.”

“Then make up a story. Say I tracked you down, and we talked just long enough for me to make this request.”

She thought about it.

Then she nodded, crisply. “All right. Is there a phone in here?”

“No, but Bunny has one.”

Bunny—who was learning not to ask too many questions—gave us the use of both her office and her phone.

Kim dialed the Raleigh, said, “Room 414, please,” and moments later had Crowley on the line, telling him she was sitting in an all-night diner near the City Curb Market, and that I’d come out of nowhere and braced her.

“Crowley wants to talk to you,” she said, putting just the right alarm and hesitancy in her voice.

She gave me the receiver.

“Hi, Walter. Long time no see.”

“Morgan,” Crowley said, giving it the inflection of a curse. “I guess I should have kept a tail on that wife of yours.”

“She’s not my wife. That was just a cover story, old buddy. I want a few minutes of your time. We have some mutual interests here in Miami that could be served.”

“...All right. You’ll want the meet in a neutral place.”

“Tomorrow morning, ten o’clock, Bayfront Park. Find yourself a seat in that amphitheater, and come alone. Keep in mind what happened to Mayor Cermak in that arena.”

“All right, Morgan. I’ll keep that in mind. And I’ll come alone.”

“I see any sign of agents backing you up, no meet. Got it?”

“Got it.”

I hung up.

Kim said, “He agreed to it?”

“Yeah.”

“He’ll have agents there, Morg.”

“Oh, I know. They’ll be hard to spot. They’ll be the assholes in dark suits and ties.”

That made her smile.

Then I walked her up to Gaita’s room and, before I could convince her that another half an hour would be worth risking, my bride had flown.

The cab dropped me under the front awning of the Raleigh Hotel, a 1930s-modern hotel dating to the pre-war boom, when that ten-mile sandbar called Miami Beach really took off. In a black sport jacket, charcoal sport shirt, and gray trousers, I looked like just another fairly well-off tourist, though my only baggage was the .45 under my arm.

I didn’t enter the lobby, instead skirting around the building to where a massive if oddly shaped swimming pool was alive with Latin-styled popular music, laughter, and splashing. A nice salty breeze was rolling in off the ocean, but it was still a warm night. Lots of pretty girls in bikinis sunning by Hawaiian-type torchlight were getting plied with mixed drinks by determined guys in bathing suits, who knew that at a little after one o’clock a.m., they better get lucky damn soon.

Avoiding the lobby probably hadn’t been a necessity—I wasn’t checking in, or even asking for information, so the desk having my photo probably didn’t come into play. Though I supposed it was possible that some security was lounging in the lobby.

But I didn’t think so. An advantage the hunted has over the hunter is that the hunter is seldom in hiding. The hunter never thinks about getting stalked himself.

So when I knocked on the door of room 414, it only took two knocks before it cracked open, without even a “Who is it?” Which meant I’d wasted time coming up with the “Telegram, Mr. Crowley” gag.

I pushed the door open, grabbing Crowley by the arm with one hand—he was in a terrycloth Raleigh bathrobe over blue silk pajamas—and with the other whipping the .45 out, kicking the door closed behind me.

I dragged him into the hotel room—not a suite, just a good-size room with sea-foam coloration and modern furnishings, if 1937 was your idea of modern. I dumped him on the bed, went over and double-locked the door, using the night latch, commenting, “You ought to try this thing—it’s the latest in security measures,” then came back, pulled up a rounded pink chair that was more comfortable than it looked and sat across from him. Pointing the .45 at him in a not terribly menacing way.

Just menacing enough.

“Hello, Walter.”

“You’re out of your goddamn mind!” Crowley spat.

That bland mug of his actually worked up some emotion, the tiny dark eyes dancing with outrage in the pale oval face under the thinning amber hair. His fists were clenched, and they looked small, like a child’s. He wasn’t a small man, but he was smaller than me, and fish-belly pale.

Bureaucrats can make your life a living hell, but they often don’t look like much in the flesh.

“I decided to move our meeting up a few hours,” I said. “And change the location. Last-minute changes for meets, there’s another security measure you Company boys may want to consider.”

“Morgan, there are half a dozen agents on this floor!”

“Yeah, all snug in their beds, or maybe down by the pool trying to get laid. Guys on your side of the fence never figure they need any protection. You’re big bad G-men, after all.”

“What the hell do you want?”

“Like I said on the phone—I want to talk. I just don’t want to get my ass hauled off to the slammer before we have the chance to confab.”

“I told you I’d come alone tomorrow.”

“Yeah, well, you were lying. But I don’t hold that against you. I already knew I wasn’t going to show up at that park.”

His upper lip curled back in outrage, exposing too much gum and tiny white teeth. “Where is Kim Stacy? What have you done with Kim Stacy!”

“I left her in that diner. She’s probably back in her room, by now, down the hall, if you’re to be believed. Why don’t you call her? But she might be cross, if you wake her up.”

His eyes tightened. “She doesn’t have anything to do with this?”

“No. But I did talk to her, and she did admit that you people are looking for Jaimie Halaquez, too.”

His eyes stayed tight and his chin crinkled. Should he talk to me? Finally he decided. “That’s right, Morgan. We are.”

I grinned at him. “You weren’t in Miami looking for me. You were already here on the Halaquez case. And I just walked into it.”

Crowley nodded. “But I think we gave you proper attention. I don’t think you need to feel neglected.”

“No, no complaints. You’ve kept me hopping. It’s tempting just to shoot you, so I can hijack that bed for a decent night’s sleep.”

He smiled a little. It bordered on a sneer. “But you’re not a killer, Morgan. You kill, but only in self-