'That's what I want to know,' LaBrava said, 'if he has a before. Put him on the computer and we'll find out. But I can't believe he hasn't.'
Buck Torres had been a uniformed Dade-Metro cop the time LaBrava was assigned to the Miami field office, United States Secret Service, taking pictures at work and play. Torres had showed him life on the street. They had finished off a few hundred beers together, too. Sgt. Hector Torres had transferred and was now supervisor of Crimes Against Persons, Miami Beach Police. He always wore a coat and tie--his men did too--because he would never speak to the relatives of a deceased person in shirt-sleeves.
They left the Detective Bureau--the one-story, windowless, stucco annex on the corner of First and Meridian--walked across Meridian to MBPD headquarters--the official-looking brick building with the flag--punched 'Richard Nobles' into the National Crime Information Center computer and drew a blank.
'So, he's a good boy,' Torres said.
'No, he isn't,' LaBrava said, 'he's a sneaky kind of asshole who likes to come down on people.' Hearing himself falling back into police patter.
'Yeah, but he hasn't done nothing.'
'I think they pulled his sheet, gave him a clean bill. He was a federal snitch. You gotta have a diseased mind or your balls in somebody's hand to do that kind of work. Check the DEA in Jacksonville when you aren't doing anything.'
Torres said, 'Should I care about this guy or what? What do you want me to do?'
'Nothing. I'm gonna do it.'
'Let me see--then you want me to say nice things about you, you get picked up for impersonating a police officer.'
'Or pick the guy up, maybe. You still have 'Strolling without a destination' on the statutes? In case he sees me and becomes irritated. See, what I'm doing, I'm trying to stay ahead of the guy, be ready for it when it comes.'
'Be ready for what?'
'I don't know, but all my training and experience tells me something's gonna happen.'
'Your experience--you guarded Mrs. Truman.'
'That's right, and nothing happened to her, did it?'
'You're serious?'
'I'm serious.'
'Then you better tell me more about the sneaky asshole,' Torres said.
Paco Boza said a wheelchair was better than a bike. You could do wheelies, all this shit, also build up your arms, give you nice shoulders, the girls go for that. Also, sometimes, it was safer to be sitting in a wheelchair than to be standing up with some people. They respect you sitting in a wheelchair, yes, and some people were even afraid, like they didn't want to look at you. He loved his Eastern Airlines wheelchair.
Though it didn't seem to be doing much for his arms and shoulders. His arms became skinny cords as he collapsed the chair and strained to carry it up two steps from the sidewalk to the hotel porch. He said he wanted to leave it where it would be safe. He was going to Hialeah for a day or two.
'I do you a favor,' Paco said, 'you do me one. Okay?' Grinning now, being sly.
LaBrava caught on right away and grinned back at him. 'You saw him, didn't you?'
'Man, you can't miss him. He's twice as big as anyone I ever see before. Has that hair...'
'Let's go inside,' LaBrava said. He took the wheelchair and Paco followed him across the lobby to the main desk. LaBrava went around behind it, put the wheelchair down, telling Paco it would be safe here, and brought out a manila envelope sleeve from a shelf underneath.
'Hey, my pictures.'
'I know why you fell in love with Lana.'
'That broad, I been looking all over for her too.' He brought three eleven-by-fourteen prints out of the envelope, laid them on the marble countertop and began to grin. 'Look at her, showing herself.'
'Where'd you see the guy?'
'I saw him on Collins Avenue, I saw him on Washington Avenue. You can't miss him.'
'He likes to be seen,' LaBrava said. 'He's the Silver Kid.'
'No shit, is he?... I like this one of me. It's cute, uh? You like it?'
'One of my favorites. You talk to anyone at the Play House?'
'Yeah. Maybe he was in there, they don't know him. But that isn't the place. The place you want to go--a guy I talk to, he say check the Paramount Hotel on Collins.'
'Who was that?'
'The guy? Name is Guilli, a Puerto Rican guy. He's ascared all the time, but he's okay, you can believe him.'
'I know who you mean. So you went over there?'
'Yeah, but I didn't see him.'
'Where's the Paramount?'
'Is up around Twentieth. I saw him on Washington, I saw him on Collins Avenue. Two days now. Three days--man, where does the time go?'
'You doing all right?'
'Sure, I make it. You kidding? Lana is going to like this one, showing herself. I hear she went over to Hialeah, see her mother. But I don't know where her mother lives no more, I got to look for her. Man, they give you a lot of trouble.'
'Dames are always pulling a switch on you,' LaBrava said.
Paco said, 'What?'
'Something a guy in a movie said.'
'He did?'
'Listen--how about when you saw the guy, what was he doing?'
'Nothing. Walking by the street. Go in a store, come out. Go in another store, come out.'
'You're not talking about drugstores.'
'No, regular stores, man. Grocery store--or he go in a hotel, he come out.'
'Has he bought any stuff off anybody?'
'Nobody told me he did. Guilli thinks he's a cop. But you know Guilli. Guilli thinks the other guy is a cop too, guy drives the black Pontiac Trans Am. Shit, Guilli thinks everybody he don't know is a cop.'
'What other guy? Cubano?'
'Yeah--how do you know that?'
'I might've seen him. He's got a black Trans Am, uh?'
'Yeah, he stay at the La Playa Hotel. You know it? Down the end of Collins Avenue. There's a guy live there--you know a guy name David Vega?'
'I don't think so.'
'David Vega told Guilli he knows the guy, from the boat-lift. He told him, he's not a cop, man, he's a Marielito. He say the guy was with some convicts they put on a boat, from a prison. He say he remember him because the guy wore a safety pin in his ear.'
'That mean something?'
'Like a punk. You know, be in fashion. Now David Vega say he's got a gold one, a real one he wears.'
'What's his name?'
'He don't know his name, he jus' remember him.'
'Staying at the La Playa.'
'Listen, the first night he come there a guy live there was ripped off. The guy come back from the pier from doing some business, he got hit on the head and somebody robbed him, took four hundred dollars.'
'That happens all the time there, doesn't it?'
'Yes, of course, with guys like this guy. Tha's what I mean.'
'Why does Guilli put the Cubano with the big blond guy?'
'He saw them talking, that's all, it don't mean nothing. But maybe. Who knows?'
'I'll see you in a couple days, uh?'
