'I want him to come to the park tonight, 1:00 A.M., across from the Play House Bar.'
'Sign your name?'
'No, sign it C.R.'
'Just C.R.'
'That's the Marielito, the one with the earring.'
'Oh,' Paco said, 'yes, I remember.'
'But I have to make sure the big blond guy gets the message and not the police.'
Paco said, 'Man, you got something going on.'
'If I can, I'd like to get hold of a baseball bat,' LaBrava said. 'But I think the stores are closed.'
'You and this guy going to play ball? In the dark? Never mind, don't tell me,' Paco said. 'I got one for softball, you can use.'
'I'll take good care of it,' LaBrava said.
Nobles wished he had a car; he'd take the cops on a tour of Dade County, see if they were any good at tailing. Man, he would love to get them up in the Big Scrub, lose their ass in two minutes. This walking the streets, stopping at bars, was getting to be a bunch of shit. One more day he could take off. Tomorrow night sometime.
When he got back to the hotel, about ten, the desk clerk waved and held out a plain white envelope with his name printed on it in pencil. It was not only sealed, there was a hunk of pink chewing gum stuck to the flap. The desk clerk worked his eyebrows up and down as he said a girl delivered it, a little Latin mama. Nobles said, a girl uh? He took the envelope across the lobby, looking at his name that some kid or halfwit might've printed. The message inside, on plain white paper, printed in pencil, said for him to come to the park tonight... and Do not bring police and Do not phone. Signed, C.R.
It didn't make sense. Cundo was supposed to be long gone, hiding somewhere until it was his turn again. Unless something had happened to him or they were watching him.
But the cops didn't know anything about Cundo. How could they?
Maybe the little booger was sick.
What Nobles finally decided, he'd slip out of the hotel and go have a look. It would be like a dry run, disappear in the night. Then do it the same way tomorrow when he'd take off for good. He wondered if he should pay his hotel bill before he left. Shit, he needed money. The idea came to him then: long as he was out, going over to the park anyway, he could mug a queer and pick up some change. Queers--he couldn't imagine why--always had jobs that paid good money. Slip out like old Zorro used to do it with his mask and sword. Zip, zip, zip, mark a big fucking Z on the wall. Soldiers come busting in, old Zorro he's back sitting by the fire, pretending he's queer. There were enough real ones out there, hanging around the south end of the park, he ought to be able to cut a straggler. He wondered why he hadn't thought of it before. Man, he needed something to do.
At 1:05 A.M. Buck Torres got a call at home from one of his guys on the Paramount Hotel surveillance detail. Nobles had temporarily disappeared. Torres, lying in bed in the dark, said, 'Temporarily. Oh, that means he told you he was coming back?' No, it meant he didn't have anything with him, any luggage. Torres said, 'Oh, did he check in with luggage?' Then said, 'Forget it, tell me what happened.' Resigned himself and listened to the flat, boring tone of the guy's story: how Richard had walked out of the hotel at 12:32 giving them the same old shit, looking back every once in a while, walked south on Collins to Sixteenth, over Sixteenth to the St. Moritz, walked through the hotel to the beach and that was the last they saw of him. There was no way two guys could keep a subject under surveillance out on that beach, a beach that big, at night. You would have to stay within twenty feet of the subject and even then it would be almost impossible with just two guys. There was a moon but also clouds; it was supposed to rain tomorrow, intermittent showers until sometime in the afternoon. Torres listened to the weather report, his guy trying to give him at least some predictable information. Torres suggested they go back to the Paramount and wait. He called the Della Robbia command post and told them to keep their eyes open, Richard was loose.
Hell, he just waited till there was cloud cover, ducked over that hump of sand that was like a low hogback down the length of the beach near the water, kept to the smooth hardpack where the surf was washing in and headed south. Nothing to it. Around Tenth Street he came up, crossed the beach to Lummus Park and had it made. From here down there was more vegetation--lot of screw pine and what looked like pitchapple, but was probably seagrape trimmed back; kind of dark, creepy place he was used to. Hardly any people. Pairs here and there on benches he'd pass and leave be. First rule of fairy-hawking, pick a stray. Let the sweet boy have the first word. H'ar you tonight? Just fine, h'ar you? Beautiful night, ain't it? Ain't it though. Are you tired? Would you like me to give you a back rub? No, but you can do old Hank the shank if you've a mind. Let the boy get down there and gobble, then as you feel the juice commence to flow, club that sucker with a right hook to put him away. Pick him clean as he whimpers and moans. Then walk, don't run. Only thing queers don't blow is a whistle.
There was one.
Sweet boy sitting on the wall with his hands folded.
But he'd better check on Cundo first. So Nobles walked out to the street. The Play House Bar was almost right across the way. There didn't seem to be any little Cubans hanging around anyplace. Well, it wasn't one o'clock yet. He'd make a quick score and then look for him. So he cut back through the trees to where that boy was waiting, sitting on the low cement wall, waiting for a lover. Shit, guy like that, anybody'd do.
Sucker had designs--like big flowers, Nobles saw as he got closer--all over his shirt. No, they weren't flowers, they were palm trees and sailboats. Guy had trees and boats for Christ sake all over his sport shirt.
The guy looked up at him, just a few feet away, and said, 'Richie, how you doing?'
Nobles had to take a moment. He said, 'Je-sus Christ, look-it who's here. I been wondering what in the hell ever become of you, you know it? It's something, meeting like this again, ain't it?' Nobles glanced around, both ways. It was nice and quiet here.
He had time. He couldn't think of the guy's name now. Joe something, like a dago name. He sure did not look like any government agent Nobles had ever seen. It was in his mind to make a remark about that when he remembered just in time, shit no, he wasn't suppose to know anything about the guy or even he was the guy'd been taking his picture and was a friend of the cops. He had to realize all that at once now, try to play dumb and not make any mistakes.
What shook him was, thinking that, right as he was thinking that, the guy saying, 'Are you dumb, Richard?'
He didn't know how to answer. The guy wasn't calling him dumb, he was asking him if he was, like he wanted to know. Then the guy was confusing him some more, saying, 'Hay-baling wire is good.'
Je-sus Christ.
'Your Uncle Miney said your dad used to whip you with it. Teach you humility.'
Nobles stared at him.
'But that isn't something you need for extortion, is it? And if you're any good and get the six hundred grand, the last thing you're gonna be is humble, huh?'
'Oh my,' Nobles said, 'we sure think we're clever, don't we?'
'You're not supposed to know what I'm talking about.'
Nobles said, 'Mister, I'm gonna run my hands over you. I feel a wire, me and you are gonna say nighty-night. I don't, well, we can see where it goes. Stand up and turn around.'
LaBrava got up slowly, raising his arms straight out to the sides as he turned, and Nobles moved in close to run his hands up to LaBrava's shoulders, took hold of the muscles close to his neck and began to pinch hard. LaBrava tried to hunch and twist free and Nobles grabbed him by the hair with one hand and punched him in the back of the neck with the other, jabbed him hard with the knuckles you use to knock on a door.
'So you're the blindsider,' Nobles said, and rabbit-punched him again. 'Huh, is that right?' Pulled up on his hair and drove those knuckles in again. 'You the blindsider?' Rabbit-punched him again. Then punched him with shoulder behind it, letting go of the hair. LaBrava fell forward to hit the low wall made of cement and coral and had to catch himself, hold on with his thighs to keep from going over. He hung there, moving his head carefully from side to side, feeling pain, throbs of it up through his skull, and seeing black objects crawling around the edges of his vision. Nobles, behind him, kept at it. 'Yeah, blindsider, they like to sneak up on you, hit you when you're not
