“Ask her yourself,” I said, turned to smile and nod at the patient, then stepped aside.
I took a chair in the corner while the two women talked for about five minutes. Nothing touched upon why I was here. Finally I called Bunny over and she pulled a chair around, so we were facing each other. I saw Theresa thumb her morphine button, and her eyes closed, and she drifted off early in my conversation with Bunny, which was whispered.
“You’re taking a chance, being here,” Bunny said to me.
“Not as big as it used to be. I’ve worked out a truce with that fed, Crowley, though I’m not sure the white flag extends to the local fuzz.”
“I can spread that word to my contacts on the Miami PD,” Bunny said, “if it’ll help.”
“Worth a try. What do those cop contacts have to say about Tango’s situation?”
“Nobody has any idea that Morgan the Raider was in that motel room. They think another guest at the Vincalla heard the scuffle, got involved, and one of Tango’s torturers got himself plugged with his own gun in the process. The fuzz figure this guest called it in and then made himself scarce.”
“And that’s as far as it goes?”
“No, they’re investigating. Questioning the other motel guests.”
“Good. That’ll keep ’em busy. Did they say anything about the Best killing? I understand cops from both Homicide and Burglary were here talking to Tango this morning.”
Her eyes and nostrils flared like a filly’s on its hind legs. “Damn, Morgan—you pick up information like blue serge does lint. As it happens, there’s an oddity about the Best killing that’s come up. Seems two neighbors at Best’s apartment house report hearing what might have been a scuffle next door, tallying with the approximate time of death.”
“That’s not surprising.”
“No, but these neighbors also heard noises
“Really? Interesting.”
“Interesting? That all you have to say, Morg? What’s it mean?”
“No idea,” I told her.
“Listen, there’s something that may or may not mean a damn thing. Gaita’s kind of...well, fallen off the map.”
“
“Morgan—easy. I probably overstated it. She took off early yesterday, without saying anything, which is unusual. Today’s her regular day off, but I don’t get any answer where she stays, when she isn’t at the Mandor.”
“I should check this.”
She held up a hand. “I already did. I stopped by on my way here. Her landlady was there and said Gaita hasn’t been around for several days. I asked to look in her room, but she wasn’t there.”
“Any sign of a struggle? Anything unusual?”
“No. Sometimes that girl just takes off, to be by herself. The only thing really unusual is, well...with what’s going on lately, I would think she would stick around. In case she was needed.”
“Did you check with her friends in Little Havana? Pedro and Maria...?”
“Yes. They haven’t heard from her either. Really, it’s probably nothing. Hasn’t even been twenty-four hours. But I figured you should know.”
I nodded, troubled but not sure if I needed to be, and not knowing what the hell I could do about it, if I did need to be.
Theresa was asleep as I headed out, so when Bunny called to stop me, her voice was hushed: “
I went over to her. She was getting in her purse.
“This came today,” she said, and handed me an opened envelope. It was addressed to Bunny at the Mandor Club, no return address, and inside was a kid’s birthday card with bunnies on it.
Tucked in the card was a thousand dollars in C-notes.
No signature.
“Best?” I said.
She shrugged and nodded at the same time. “I think it’s that late birthday present he promised me. Must have been forwarded by a lawyer or something.”
“Was there anything else in the envelope?”
“Yes...but not addressed to me.”
She got back in her purse and found a tiny manila envelope that said:
My fingers told me it was a key.
“I’m taking this,” I said.
She didn’t argue. “What is it?”
I tore open the envelope, shook the contents into my palm, showed her the key there. It said
Glancing over at the battered beauty, I said, “I think it’s what Tango got the hell beat out of her over.”
I gave the startled-looking Bunny a kiss on the cheek, slipped the key back in its little envelope, and dropped it in my sportcoat pocket.
On the way out I told the young cop at the door to stay sharp.
“Somebody may to try to kill that woman,” I told him, jerking a thumb at the hospital room door.
His eyes popped. “You really think so?”
“A possibility. One other thing.”
“Yeah?”
“Start checking I.D.”
He was nodding at the wisdom of that as I walked away.
The Union Bus Station on Northeast First Street was fairly dead just after lunch. I was all alone at the wall of lockers when I searched out number 117, tried the key, and found nestled within a black leather bag that resembled the sort of bag doctors carried, back when house calls were more common.
I admit to being surprised—I figured on finding an envelope, a much larger manila one than the little key had come in. Surely what Halaquez and his boss were after were the finished plans to that improved version of Best’s atomic divining rod.
How else could the crackpot inventor have expected to come up with the kind of loot he’d told Tango he could “shake out of them”?
I wandered into the men’s room. There were half a dozen sinks and as many stalls, but right now I had the place to myself. Taking no chances, I selected a stall, faced the toilet, put a foot on the stool, and propped the Gladstone bag against my leg—no lock on the thing, it just popped right open....
The money was stacked in there with a scientist’s precision. It was all kinds of bills, mostly small and well- used, and I wasn’t about to take the time and trouble to count it; but odds were this was the bulk of the seventy- five grand that my Little Havana employers had asked me to recover.
It should be at least $1000 short, because Bunny had earned her late birthday present for being the buffer between Tango and the hidden loot.
