Franny turned from the ocean, her face still raised. 'Who's Jean Shaw?'
'You never heard of Jean Shaw?'
'Joe, would I lie to you?'
'She was a movie star. She was in pictures with Robert Mitchum.'
'Well, obviously I've heard of Robert Mitchum. I love him.'
'And some others. She was my favorite actress.'
'Wow, and she's a friend of yours, uh?'
'I met her today.'
'Is she the one, dark hair, middle-aged, she came out of the hotel this evening with you and Mr. Zola? We were in the van, we'd just pulled up.'
'We went out to dinner.' He thought about what he was going to say next and then said it, before he changed his mind. 'How old you think she is?'
Franny said, 'Well, let's see. She looks pretty good for her age. I'd say she's fifty-two.'
'You think she looks that old?'
'You asked me how old I think she is, not how old I think she looks. She's had a tuck and probably some work done around the eyes. She looks about forty-five. Or younger. Her bone structure helps, nice cheekbones. And her complexion's great, you can tell she stays out of the sun, and I'll bet she buys protein fiber replenishers by the case. But her actual age, I'd have to say fifty-two.'
'You think so?'
'Joe, you're talking to the Spring Song girl.'
'Okay, how old am I?'
'You're thirty-eight.'
He said, 'You're right.'
'But you don't look a day over thirty-seven.'
Cundo Rey was driving his black Pontiac Trans Am that he had bought, paid for, black with black windows that Nobles said you couldn't see for shit out of at night, lights looked real weak, yellowish and you couldn't read signs at all. Cundo Rey let him bitch. He loved his Trans Am, he loved going slow in it like they were doing now even better than letting it out, because you could hear the engine rumble and pop, all that power cooking under the hood. Cundo was wearing blue silk with a white silk neckerchief, one of his cruising outfits. Nobles was still wearing his uniform, blue on blue, both the shirt epaulets hanging, the buttons torn off. Nobles said somebody had tried to give him a hard time. Cundo said, 'It look like they did, too.'
They were creeping along south on Ocean Drive, the strip of Lummus Park and the beach on their left, the old hotels close on their right, the other side of the bumper-to-bumper parked cars. 'Netherland,' Cundo Rey said, hunched over the steering wheel, looking up at signs. 'Cavalier... There, the Cardozo. See? On that thing sticks out.'
'The awning,' Nobles said. 'Okay, slow down.'
'I'm going slow as this baby can go.' He pushed in the clutch and gave it some gas to hear that rumble, get a few pops out the ass end.
A man and a girl with strange electric hair, crossing the street in the headlight beams, looked this way.
'There it is, on the corner. Della Robbia. I don't see a number but that's it,' Nobles said, 'where her friend took her.' And then said, 'Jesus Christ--' turning in his bucket seat, both hands moving over the door. 'Where's the goddamn window thing?'
Cundo Rey glanced at him. 'What's your trouble now?'
'Open the goddamn window.'
'Man, I got the air on.'
'Open the fucking window, will you! Turn around.'
'Hey, what's the matter with you?' Cundo scowling.
Guy acting like he was going crazy, like he was trapped, clawing at the door.
'That's the guy, the fucker 'at hit me.'
'Where? That guy with the girl?'
'Turn the fuck around, now.'
They had to go down to Twelfth. Cundo backed into the street and came out to move north on Ocean Drive.
'Put your window down.'
'I can see okay. Be cool. Why you want to get excited for?'
'I don't see 'em.' Nobles hunched up close to the windshield.
'There,' Cundo Rey said. 'On the porch.'
Nobles turned to look past Cundo, and kept turning.
'Guy is opening the door with a key,' Cundo Rey said. 'So he must live there too, uh? Is that the guy?'
'That's the guy,' Nobles said, calm now, looking out the back as they crept past the Cardozo. 'That's him.' He didn't straighten around until they came to Fifteenth, where Ocean Drive ended and they had to go left over to Collins.
'I didn't see him too good in the dark,' Cundo Rey said. 'You sure is the guy?'
Nobles was sitting back now, looking straight ahead. He said, 'Yeah, that's him. That's the guy.'
'You want me to go back?'
'No, I don't want you to go back just yet.'
Looking at him Cundo Rey said, 'You sound different.'
Chapter 9
THERE WAS SUNLIGHT in the window. LaBrava picked up the phone next to his bed and the girl's voice said, 'I woke you up, didn't I? I'm sorry.' He recognized the voice now. She said, 'I don't know what time it is and the goddamn nurse won't come when I call...'
He drove past the hospital thinking it was a resort motel or it might be a car dealership with all the glass and had to U-turn and come back for another pass before he saw the sign, Bethesda Memorial.
Jill Wilkinson was alone in a semi-private room. She looked different, smaller and younger, out of character as victim. She had been diagnosed as having a slight concussion and was under twenty-four-hour observation, chewing on crushed ice when LaBrava came in.
'This is all I've had to eat since yesterday afternoon. You believe it? They won't give me anything else till I'm all better.'
'You look pretty good.'
'Thanks. I've always wanted to look pretty good.'
He leaned over the bed, close to her, looking into her face clean of makeup. Her eyes were brown looking at his, waiting. 'You look great. How's that?'
'Better.'
'You fish for compliments?'
'I don't have to, usually.'
'Your head hurt?'
'It's a little fuzzy. I feel dragged out. Used up.'
'That what he did, he used you?'
'He tried to. He had ideas. God, did he have ideas.'
'What stopped him?'
'I did. I said, 'You put that thing in my mouth I'll bite it off, I swear to God.' '
'Oh.'
'He had to think about that. I told him I might be dead, but he'd be squatting to take a leak for the rest of his life.'
'Oh.'
