him almost handsome--appeared older today. Immobile, lit by the hanging dining-room fixture, his face was a wood carving for several minutes, a man looking into a casket. He brought a notebook out of his hip pocket, sat down at the table and copied the typed message word for word. Then said something to the I.D. technician who used the eraser end of a pencil to slide the note and envelope into a file folder. The I.D. technician opened his black leather bag and Torres said to Jean, 'Miss Shaw, we have to fingerprint you, if you don't mind, for elimination prints.' He said, 'You understand, if you're the only person who's touched the note.'
Jean said, 'Joe made sure of that.'
Torres looked at LaBrava, waiting. 'I'm glad you were here.'
LaBrava was glad too, about some things. He was glad he had felt this coming and had got the shots of Nobles and the boat-lifter. He was glad Torres was handling it; but he knew what was going to happen now and he wasn't glad about the waiting.
There was no way to hurry it. There was no way yet to pull Richard Nobles out of a hotel room and throw him into a police car. LaBrava thought only of Nobles at this point. He believed once they had Richard they would also have the boat-lifter, the Marielito.
The I.D. technician left. They waited for Jean to wash her hands, then waited again while she made coffee in Maurice's kitchen, LaBrava knowing he would keep his mouth shut through the next part and listen to things he already knew about.
For the good part of an hour then, Jean told Buck Torres about Richard Nobles, Torres waiting for long pauses before he asked questions, always quietly, never interrupting, taking only a few notes. She had the photographs of Nobles ready, the ones LaBrava had given her. Torres studied them and looked at LaBrava.
'The same guy?'
'He's at the Paramount Hotel on Collins,' LaBrava said. 'Or was.'
While Torres was making a phone call LaBrava went downstairs to the darkroom. He came back with a black and white eight-by-ten of Cundo Rey standing on the beachfront sidewalk, one hand going up to his face, almost to his chin, his eyes alive, a startled expression, as he looked directly into the camera held by the guy in the curvy straw hat sitting in the wheelchair.
'He's at the La Playa on Collins,' LaBrava said. 'Or was. I almost made him last night busting windows, but I wouldn't tell it in court. You don't want him for busting windows anyway. I'll give you the negatives, both guys.'
Buck Torres made another phone call. He came back and asked Jean about Cundo Rey. Jean shook her head. She stared at the photograph a long time but still shook her head. Finally Torres asked the question LaBrava had been waiting to hear:
'Why six hundred thousand?'
Jean didn't answer right away.
Maurice said, 'What difference does it make? It's a nice round number with a lot of oughts.'
Torres said, 'So is five hundred thousand. So is a million.'
Jean said, 'I've been wondering about that. The only reason I can think of, my condominium is worth about six hundred.' She paused, looked at Maurice as though for help, then back to Torres and said, 'I hate to admit it, but I did tell him one time my apartment was paid for. Richard has a very... sort of homespun way about him.'
He does? LaBrava thought.
'A country-boy charm.'
He remembered her saying that, in this room, telling about Nobles that first time.
'He gives you the feeling you can confide in him, trust him,' Jean said. 'I think I told him the apartment was really the only thing I had, making a point that appearances can be misleading, that a lot of wealth down here is like a Hollywood set, a facade.' She said, 'Now that I think of it... I remember one day in the parking lot I ran into him. He mentioned a couple in the building had their condominium up for sale and were asking four hundred and fifty thousand. I told him they ran from about four to six hundred, as you go up. He knows, of course, I live on the top floor, oceanfront.'
LaBrava listened to her quiet delivery, Jean Shaw being contrite, owning up. He wondered if it was hard for her to tell it.
'Obviously I misjudged him. As I told Maury, and Joe, you were there'--looking at him for a moment--'Richard comes on as a friendly, honest guy; so I was nice to him, I didn't treat him like one of the help.'
'But he intimidated you,' Maurice said. 'Kind a guy, you give him a hand he grabs it, he wants more. What'd I tell you you first mentioned the guy? I said he's out for something, he's gonna take you for all he can get.'
'You did,' Jean said, 'I know.'
'I told you, guys like that, they been working Miami Beach since the day they built the bridge. Now they hop on the freeway, go up to Boca, Palm Beach.'
Torres said, 'Did he ever come right out and ask for anything?'
Jean said no. 'But he seemed to take for granted he could stop by whenever he felt like it. After a while he became--the only word I can think of is possessive.'
LaBrava remembered her saying, that first night, when she had told them about Nobles, The way he walks around the apartment, looks at my things.
But she didn't say it this time.
Torres said, 'Have you seen him since you've been staying here at the hotel?'
'No.'
'But he knows you're here.'
She said, 'That's fairly obvious, isn't it?'
Torres was thoughtful, arranging information in his mind and coming down to: 'Six hundred thousand, it's a lot of money.'
And LaBrava remembered her saying that first night, Then there's nothing to worry about, because I don't have any.
But this time she didn't mention that either.
In the afternoon LaBrava took Maurice's car and drove past the Paramount Hotel and the La Playa. The Miami Beach detectives were hard to spot using confiscated cars rather than the plain unmarked Dodge and Plymouth models they drove on duty. He made one cop doing surveillance in a red Chevy cab, No. 208, knowing that official Central Cab numbers were in the 1100s or higher. When he returned to the Della Robbia a Southern Bell truck was parked in front.
Torres was going according to the handbook: he'd got State Attorney OK for a wire tap on Maurice's line and was letting the telephone company do the installation. They would put a second phone in Maurice's apartment along with the tap. If a call came for Jean Shaw Maurice would use the second phone to call Southern Bell security and they'd trap Maurice's line to get the source of the incoming call. At the telephone switching office they would install Pen Registers on the lines of both the Paramount and La Playa hotels to record the numbers of all out-going calls; no court approval required. A police command post, with phones and a recorder, was located in an area that used to be part of the Della Robbia kitchen, next to the darkroom. LaBrava believed the taps and traps would prove to be a waste of time.
Torres knocked on his door a few minutes past six. Torres said they had the Eldorado towed to a Cadillac dealership, dusted it for prints and left it to have the glass replaced. For a while then they sat with cans of beer, Torres quiet, tired; LaBrava patient, still in his waiting period. He had resolved, as a civilian, not to ask questions or offer opinions unless asked. But when Torres said, 'Well, all we can do now is wait.'
LaBrava said, 'For how long?'
'There you are,' Torres said. 'Do it right I need almost half the Detective Bureau, pull three shifts a day at three locations. They're sitting in cars, hotel lobbies--all the bad guys hanging out would love to hear about it. See, if it goes down soon, right away--get the money in two days, deliver on the third--we're all set. Otherwise I have to bring in the federales.'
'He's not gonna call,' LaBrava said.
'You don't think so.'
'He was a cop. He knows about traps and voice prints.'
'Yeah, but he's strange,' Torres said. 'You ever hear of one like this? The guy wants a garbage bag full of
