'Professional snitch,' LaBrava said.
'Kind you people love, huh?' Joe Stella said. 'Once he was in tight there, part of the deal, the feds wired him. Richie comes back with enough to bust all his new friends. Testified against 'em in Jacksonville federal court, change of venue to protect his ass, and put enough on his own rela-tive, some cracker name Buster something, to send him up to Ohio for thirty-five years. Second flop's the long one, the first time the guy only drew three.'
'What's Richard get out of it?'
'Enemies. He knows anything he knows how to piss people off.' Joe Stella hesitated, about to drink. He stared over the rim of his glass. 'None of that's familiar?'
'Why would it be?'
'You don't know an old guy name Miney, huh? Miney'--looking over his desk, picking up a scrap of notepaper--'Combs. Father of Buster Combs, the one was sent up.'
'Don't know 'em,' LaBrava said.
'See, you're not the first one come looking for Richie. He's a popular boy.'
'I can see why.'
'This old guy was in here, talk just like Richie. He's the one told me about Steinhatchee. I asked Richie--it was only like a week ago--if it was true. He says, 'Yeah, I done more'n one favor for my Uncle Sam.' '
LaBrava said, 'So he left the Big Scrub, came down here to work...'
'Came down to Dade with a federal recommendation, wanting to join the police. Miami and Dade-Metro he says wouldn't even talk to him. He was a gypsy cop for a while, worked for Opa-locka, Sweetwater, Hialeah Gardens, got fired for taking bribes, one thing or another, and came to work for me.'
'Where's he live?'
'Same thing the old guy asked. I don't know. I never was able to reach him on a number he gave me. A woman'd answer and say, 'No, he ain't here and I hope I never see the son of a bitch again.' Words to that effect, they'd say it different ways and hang up.'
'Any of the women sound... older or educated, like they were well off?'
'I don't know how well off, I know they were pissed off.'
'Why'd you keep him on?'
'I thought I explained it, Christ, try and get help aren't all misfits or retirees, old geezers... You want another drink? I think I'll have one.'
'No, I'm fine.'
Joe Stella pushed up to get himself another ice cube and the can of Fresca, stumbled against the desk as he came back and sat down again. 'I think you laid a smoke screen on me. You aren't with the IRS, are you?... Gimme that Windy City shit, I bet you never even been to Chicago.'
'I passed through it once,' LaBrava said, 'on my way to Independence, Missouri. It looked like a pretty nice town.'
'Passed through it... You know, I was thinking,' Joe Stella said, pouring. 'Guy like you--I could fire three of my dumbbells, pay you twelve bucks an hour and give you just the cream, supervisory type work. What would you say to that?'
Chapter 10
AGAIN HE EXPERIENCED the strange sense of time. Having lunch on the front porch of the Cardozo Hotel with a movie star out of his memory. She wore dark glasses, round black ones, and a wide-brimmed Panama straight across her eyes. He watched her.
He watched her take dainty bites of marinated conch, raising the fork in her left hand upside down, her moves unhurried. He watched her break off a piece of French bread, hold it close to her face, elbow resting on the table, wrist bent, staring out of shade at the ocean in sunlight, then slowly bring the piece of bread to her mouth, not looking at it, and he would see her lips part to receive the bread and then close and he would see the movie star's masseter begin to work, still unhurried. He wasn't sure where the masseter was located, Franny hadn't told him that. Franny said the movie star used some kind of secret cream, placenta tissue extract, and very likely said Q and X with exaggerated emphasis in front of mirrors and wore sunglasses till sundown so she wouldn't get squint wrinkles. His gaze would shift briefly from Jean Shaw and he would see:
Franny sitting on the wall in the strip of oceanfront park across the street, taking Polaroid shots of the hotels. Franny in cutoffs cut so high they must be choking her.
Della Robbia women in lawn chairs talking about Medicare and Social Security.
Maurice coming along Ocean Drive with a grocery sack, skinny legs, faded yellow shorts that reached almost to his knees.
Cars with tourists passing slowly, sightseeing.
A young Cuban guy talking to Franny now. The guy fooling with his ear, Franny laughing. The guy posing, hand on his hip, seductive, strange, as Franny aimed her Polaroid at him.
And his eyes, behind his own sunglasses, would slide back to the movie star's face, pale but in full color. The skin was smooth, without a trace of what might appear to be a tuck, a lift. He believed it didn't matter even if she'd had one. He believed he was in love with her face.
She would turn her head to him and seem to smile, used to being looked at. He wanted to see her eyes but would have to wait.
She said, 'You know, that's a lovely shirt.' Then surprised him, lowered her sunglasses to the slender tip of her nose, letting him see in daylight a line beneath each of her eyes, slightly puffed, a look that he liked, a slight imperfection. She replaced her glasses as she said, 'I don't believe I've ever called a man's shirt lovely before, but it is. I love hibiscus.' She said, 'I almost married a man who wore only dark brown shirts and always with a dark brown necktie. Odd?... Maybe not. He made three thousand dollars a week as a screen writer, he kept an apartment at the Chateau Marmont and died of malnutrition.' She said, 'I want to see more of your work, I think it's stunning. Will you show me?'
He said, 'I want to photograph you.'
'I've been photographed.'
'Maybe you have...'
Maurice said, 'Well well well,' on the street side of the stone-slab porch railing, stepping up on the base to look at their table. 'What're you having, conch? You ever see it they take it out of the shell? You wouldn't eat it. Gimme a bite.' He lowered the grocery sack to the railing and leaned over it, face raised waiting as Jean Shaw speared a piece of conch and offered it.
'Another? You can have the rest, I'm finished.'
'I don't want to wreck my appetite. We're eating in tonight, fried steak and onions, railroad-style. Gimme a sip--whatever it is.'
She offered her glass. 'Plain old Scotch.'
'How many you had?'
She looked at LaBrava. 'How many, six, seven?'
Maurice said, 'It's three o'clock in the afternoon!'
'We've had two, Maury. Don't have a heart attack.' In that quiet, unhurried tone. He left them and she said, 'Do you like his shorts? They have to be at least twenty years old. He may be the most eccentric guy I know. And I've known a few, I'll tell you.'
'Well, he's different,' LaBrava said.
He saw Franny, alone now, farther down the beach... Paco Boza coming along the sidewalk in his wheelchair, a ghetto blaster in his lap; it looked like an accordion.
'Joe, when you're as well off as Maury and you choose to live in a place like the Della Robbia, that's eccentric.'
'He said he used to have money, but I don't know that he has that much now.'
She said, 'Oh,' and paused.
He said, 'That was my understanding. Had it and spent it.' He could hear Paco's blaster now, turned up all
