bearing his photograph on the other. 'See what it says there? Palm Beach County.'
The slim girl took a half step, extending her hand and he flipped the wallet closed. She said, 'Palm Beach County what? If the Boca Police said it was okay, they'd have called to let us know. That's how it works.'
Nobles shook his head, weary. 'Look, I'm doing you a favor. Lemme have the lady and we'll say nighty-night, let you all go on back play with your nuts.'
'No one leaves without authorization,' the slim girl said, standing right up to him.
'I'm giving you authorization. Jesus Christ, I just now showed it to you.'
LaBrava said, 'Excuse me. Would somebody like to open the front door?'
Nobles gave him a look, cold, with no expression, and the slim girl said, 'Show me identification or get out. That's the way it is. Okay?'
LaBrava watched Nobles sigh, shake his head--not so drunk that he couldn't put on an act--and flip open the wallet again. 'What's that say? Right there? Palm Beach County authorization.' Giving her a flash of official wording and flipped the wallet closed.
He's not a cop.
LaBrava would bet on it. He heard the girl say, 'That's not PBSO or any badge I've ever seen before.'
Nobles shook his head again. 'Some reason you got your ass up in the air. Did I say I was with the Palm Beach sheriff's office? You don't listen good, do you? See, long as I got credentials as to who I am and Boca PD says it's fine with them, then tell me what your problem is, puss, cause I sure as hell don't see it.'
Sounding drunk, but with a swagger that was part the guy's brute nature and would not be contained for long; his size, his eighteen-inch neck giving him permission to do as he pleased. LaBrava had known a few Richard Nobles.
The guy was no cop.
He might've been at one time; he had a service revolver and the official off-duty look of a small-town cop taken with himself, but he wasn't one now.
The slim girl had already assumed as much. She was looking at Pam, telling her, 'Get Delray Police, 276- 4141.'
Nobles said, 'Hey, come on,' watching Pam dial. 'Look, this lady you got happens to be a friend of mine. Officer at Boca name of Glenn Hicks says they brought her in here. See, I was even with her earlier tonight, having some drinks.' He watched the slim girl step to the side of the desk and take the phone from Pam. 'Ask her. Go on...'
The slim girl said into the phone, 'This is South County on Fourth Street. There's a gentleman here who's been asked to leave and refuses. I'd like you to send somebody to escort him the fuck out of here, right now... Thank you very much.' She looked at Pam again. 'Unlock the back door.'
Pam edged around the desk, all eyes as she looked at Nobles standing in front of her, in the way. She said, 'There is a Boca officer named Glenn Hicks. He's been here before.'
The slim girl said, 'I don't care who he knows or if he's with the FBI. This guy's got no business being here.'
LaBrava was falling in love with her. He watched her look directly at Nobles again.
'You've got about two minutes to get out of here or you're gonna be in deep shit.'
Nobles said, 'All I need, puss.' He reached for her. The slim girl pulled her arm away without giving ground, glaring at him.
LaBrava said, 'Let's take it easy, okay?' Trying to sound reasonable, an observer, but knowing he was getting into it.
Nobles, close to where the drunk and the rigid man sat watching, turned to LaBrava, raised a fist with a finger pointing out of it. A clot of blond hair hung down in his eyes. He said, 'I'll put you through the wall you fuck with me, you little son of a bitch.'
An ugly drunk. Look at the eyes. Ugly--used to people backing down, buying him another drink to shut him up. Look at the shoulders stretching satin, the arms on him--Jesus--hands that looked like they could pound fence posts. LaBrava, with the camera hanging from his neck, did not see anything close by to hit him with.
The slim girl picked up the phone again. Nobles reached for it as she started to dial, yanked the phone out of her hands and gave her a shove. The slim girl yelled out. Nobles raised the phone over his head, as a threat or to club her with it, LaBrava wasn't sure.
He stepped in, said, 'Hey--' as he raised the camera with the flash attached, put it in Nobles' face and fired about a hundred thousand candles in the guy's eyes, blinding him, straightening him for the moment LaBrava needed to hit him in the ribs with a shoulder, drive him into clattering metal chairs, close to the drunk and the rigid man. LaBrava got Nobles down on his spine, head hard against the wall to straddle his legs. Worked free the bluesteel revolver stuck in his jeans, a familiar feel, a .357 Smith. Held him by the hair with one hand and slipped the blunt end of the barrel into his open mouth. Nobles gagged, trying to twist free.
LaBrava said, 'Suck it. It'll calm you down.'
They got him into a room, Nobles rubbing the back of his neck, looking around before they pulled the door closed, saying, 'Hey, who the hell you suppose to be?'
LaBrava said, 'The asshole photographer,' and locked the door.
They locked the gun in the desk. He told the slim girl he hoped the guy didn't try to bust the place up before the cops came; he'd stay if she wanted him to. She said it had been busted up before, look at it. God. She said thanks, really, but he'd better get out of here or he might be hanging around all night, the cops playing games with him. They might be the guy's buddies. She said she wouldn't be surprised if they let the guy out and all laughed their ass off. Cops really thought they were funny. Some of them anyway. Talking, nervous now that it was over. She was some girl. Supervisor here, but forced to work all hours, the slim girl's name was Jill Wilkinson.
He asked her what she thought Nobles did. She said he was probably a rent-a-cop, he acted like one.
That's what he was, too. LaBrava checked the dark-blue Plymouth sedan parked out in back before going to the Mercedes. There was a gold star on the door and the inscription STAR SECURITY SERVICE, PALM BEACH COUNTY, FLORIDA.
He drove around front to see Pam and Maurice coming out with the woman, Jeanie Breen, the woman with her head lowered but as tall as Maurice and as pale as her dress, letting him help her with his arm around her waist. They got in back, Maurice saying to him, 'What were you doing, shooting the drunks?'
Maurice told him they were going to stop in Boca, pick up some of Mrs. Breen's things. Mrs. Breen was coming back to South Beach with them, stay at the hotel a while.
After that Maurice's tone was soft, soothing, and LaBrava would look at the mirror to be sure it was Maurice back there. The little bald-headed guy, his glasses catching reflections, the woman a pale figure curled up in his arms. Maurice calling her sweetheart, telling her a change would be good... talk to your old pal... whatever's bothering you. Get a new outlook. LaBrava heard the woman say, 'Oh, shit, Maury. What's happening to me?' Worn out. Still, there was an edge to her tone. Life in there. Anger trying to break through the self-pity.
What was her problem--living in a luxury condominium on the ocean--if her hair wasn't falling out or she didn't have an incurable disease?
Maybe living in the luxury condominium on the ocean. By herself.
It did not occur to LaBrava until later--cruising at seventy, the dark car interior silent--that the woman in the back seat could be the same one Nobles had tried to take out of there. A woman he'd been drinking with earlier in the evening.
Chapter 4
LaBRAVA DID HIS PORTRAIT WORK in an alcove off the Della Robbia lobby that Maurice said had originally been a bar: the area hidden now by a wall of cane screening nailed to a frame and clay baskets of hanging fern.
This morning he was working with the Leica, wide-angle lens and strobes, shooting the young Cuban couple, Paco Boza and Lana Mendoza, against a sheet of old, stiff canvas that gave him a nothing background. Paco sat in his wheelchair wearing a straw hat cocked on the side of his head, one side of the brim up, the other down, cane-
