what the old man said, but getting enough to hold his interest and want to keep the old man talking. Miney saying there was a time he himself was 'wilder'n a buck and went looking for women and to do some drinking,' but a man had to reach a point where he left that behind him. Richard's appetite was such he must be 'holler to his heels.' The old man said Richard--maybe what was wrong with him--had never looked up to nobody. He said to Cundo, 'Who's you all's hero? People like you.'
Cundo had to think. Fidel? No. Well, yes and no. Tony Perez? Of course. Roberto Ramos, if he was still playing in the big leagues. But he didn't know if the old man had ever heard of Tony Perez or Roberto Ramos, so he said, 'The President of the United States.'
Miney said, 'Shit, that scudder--they's people eating nothing better'n swamp cabbage, he don't give a shit.'
Cundo asked him what he wanted Richard for and Miney said, 'You shake him out of the tree and I'll take care of the rest.' Yes, as Nobles had said, it sounded like this old guy could make trouble for them. Cundo gave him directions. Take a left. Take another left. They were on Ocean Drive now coming up on the Della Robbia from the south.
Cundo touched the old man's arm. 'You see that white Cadillac there? That's Richard's car.'
Jean got up to turn the lights on. It was her show, she had insisted on turning them off. Maurice, trapped in his recliner, extended his empty glass, and LaBrava got up to make drinks, remembering a Bogart line to the question, 'How do you like your brandy?' Bogart, as Sam Spade: 'In a glass.' In that frame of mind after seeing Jean's picture. Hearing Franny say, 'Well. I loved it. I loved your part especially. Lila. She was neat. Wonderful situation, if she wins the money she loses the guy, but she has to go for it. Say the line again.'
Jean: Let it ride?
Franny: Yeah. Like you did in the movie.
Jean: Let it ride.
Franny: Perfect. I love it.
LaBrava poured drinks with his back to the room, listening to movie voices.
Franny: I wasn't sure, but I had the feeling Lila was getting a little psycho.
Jean: No, not at all. It's more an obsession. She's in a hopelessly corrupt situation, she's disillusioned, but you know she has to play the game.
Franny: It's the lighting and composition-GCo
Jean: That's part of it, the ominous mise en scene.
Franny: I mean if she's not psychotic then it's the look of the picture, the expressionistic realism that gives that feeling.
Maurice: You two know what you're talking about?
Jean: You do see a change. She's essentially content in the beginning, an ordinary young woman...
Franny: I don't know. I think subconsciously she's looking for action. Like in that other picture I saw of yours...
Jean (pause): Which one?
Franny: I only saw like the last half, but the character was a lot like Lila. Your husband's gonna die, he knows it and also knows about this shifty business you have going with the private eye-GCo
Jean: Oh, that one.
Franny: So he kills himself, commits suicide--shoots himself and makes it look like you did it. I mean, what a guy. He was a lot older than you.
LaBrava turned with Franny's and Maurice's drinks. In almost the same moment, with the sound of glass shattering outside, he was moving toward the nearest of the front windows.
Cundo Rey used the blunt side of the ax head, smashed the windshield of the Eldorado first, hitting it three times thinking the whole thing would shatter, fly apart, but it didn't; the ax punched holes and the windshield looked like it had frost on it, ice. He smashed the headlights, one swing for each, and remembered Richard saying the driver side window too, 'specially for some reason. He swung the ax like he was hitting a line drive and that window did shatter, fly all apart.
'Let's go, man. Come on.'
He had to shove the old man, still looking out the back window of the truck, to get him to drive off. 'Left. This street, left. Keep going... Go past Collins Avenue. Go on, keep going.' The old man didn't know what was happening.
'Somebody's gonna call the police.'
Listen to him. 'That's why we want to get away from here.'
'That was Richard's car?'
'Yeah, see, now you know he isn' going to leave. He has to get it fix.'
'But where's he at?'
'I'm going take you where I think he is.'
'Why's he leave his car there?'
'He has a girlfriend, you know, live by there.'
'Well, if his car's setting there--'
'No, he leave it on the street there.' Jesus Christ. 'See, is more safe for the car there than where he live. Yeah, he leave it there all the time.'
'We going back to the ho-tel?'
'We going to another place where I think he is.' Jesus, this old guy with his questions. 'You know, where he like to go sometime. We maybe have to look for him different places.'
The old man turned the snuff stick in his mouth as he drove. They went over Thirteenth Street to Alton Road, on the bay side of South Beach, turned left and drove in silence until Cundo told him to go slow, to turn right on Sixth Street and then left on West Avenue. 'Right here. Stop,' Cundo said. 'The Biscaya Hotel. Yes, this is good.'
The old man was looking up at the building enclosed behind a chainlink fence. 'I don't see no lights on in there.'
'Is nobody live there anymore,' Cundo said. 'Is all a wreck. People go in there and wreck it. One time the Biscaya Hotel, now is nothing.'
They got out and Cundo led the way through an open gate in the fence, in close darkness through rubble--just like buildings he had seen in Cuba in the revolution--through overgrown bushes and weeds choking the walk that had once led through a garden along the side of the hotel. There were rusted beer cans and maybe rats. As they reached the open ground behind the hotel, Cundo watched the headlights on the MacArthur Causeway off to the left, not far, the cars coming out of darkness from the distant Miami skyline. The old man was missing it. His head was bent back to look up at all those dark windows--hotel this big and not one light showing. He should go inside and see the destruction, like it was in a war.
'How come nobody stays here?'
'It's all wrecked.'
'Well, how come it closed up?'
Cundo said he didn't know, maybe the service was no good. He said, 'Come on, we take a look. Be careful where you walk, you don't hurt yourself,' leading the old man through weeds, out beyond the empty building that seemed to have eyes, following a walk now that led down to the seawall--the old man turning to look up at the nine stories of pale stone, black windows, staring, like he couldn't believe a place this size could be empty, not used for anything.
'Some bums stay there,' Cundo said, 'sometime.'
'What's Richard do around here?'
'I tole you, didn't I? He has a boat,' Cundo said. 'See, he like to go out in his boat at night, be at peace. When he come back he come here. See? Tie it there by the dock.'
'Richard drives a boat?'
'Yeah, a nice boat. Look out there in the water. You see a light moving?'
'They's about five, six of 'em.'
'Those are boats. One of them I think is Richard.'
'How you tell?'
