“I don’t. I mean I’m not right now. I’ve been doing some modeling jobs. That is, I’ve been testing a lot, but I don’t have adequate representation at the moment. What you need in my line of work is a good agent.”
“Do you own this house?”
“I rented it for the season. Which reminds me. The lease is about to expire. I’m gonna be looking for a new place to live.”
“Are you married?”
“Nope. Single all the way, baby.” Shit, error on Leo. She might be cute as hell, but she was still a cop.
“Kind of a big place for one person, isn’t it?”
“Let me tell you something. For a long time I lived in two rooms on Meridian Avenue. I promised myself that when I moved, it was gonna be into a house. But now look at me. I’ve gotta move again. Ain’t that a bitch?”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
Bullshit. How could she not understand what he meant? What was he speaking, Swahili? She was pulling his chain, but that was okay, because he could pull right back.
“Making plans,” Leo said. “You make plans, they jump up and bite you on the ass. Like in your mind, you expect things to go one way so you chart your course accordingly, but reality turns out to be something totally different.”
He wasn’t having such a bad time talking to the cop. But if she was going to be much longer, he needed to get himself squared away with some cigarettes and a pair of shades. Coffee’d be great, too.
“Would you excuse me a moment? I’d like to go put on a shirt.”
He didn’t ask her in, and she didn’t ask to come in, which was good. If only there was a way to get this chick to tip her hand, let him find out what she knew. Although it’d look bad for him, asking questions. Cops didn’t answer questions, anyway. Finally, he thought, fuck it, let her fire away. What could she do to him?
He took a piss in the upstairs toilet and let go of the fart that had been looming out on the steps. The flushing toilet stirred Jo Ann just enough for her to roll over and ask him what time it was. From the way the sun was blaring, Leo figured it had to be around noon, but Jo Ann went back to sleep before he could give her an answer.
The Armanis weren’t on the dresser where he swore he’d seen them last, and he wasn’t crazy about the way the Black Flys looked with this haircut. Not to mention they were the same frames everybody on South Beach was rocking the last couple seasons. But they beat staring into the glare of a South Florida afternoon.
His Marlboros were on the coffee table next to the plate. There was a nice-sized rock left. He shoved the plate into the refrigerator for safekeeping.
The cop was nosing around the Jag and scribbling something into her notebook, the license and serial numbers, probably, but that wasn’t much of a worry, because the ride was totally legal. Except now the law had a line on it. He’d have to go talk to that dealer, see what he could do about bailing out of his lease.
Leo sat down on the steps, as relaxed as he could be with a throbbing headache roaring back at him. The first few Marlboro drags triggered a coughing fit that brought tears to his eyes. Better think about giving up the smokes one of these days. Make a note.
The cop headed back up the gravel and turned an ankle, but she hardly broke her stride. Her lap-lines were eye-level, and he was staring right at her pussy. Underneath the linen and whatever kind of underwear she had on, Leo bet that pussy was sweet. He never fucked a cop, but he was young still. He wouldn’t mind starting right here.
“What year is that car?” the cop wanted to know.
Dumb bitch. She could’ve got it off the serial number. He got to his feet. “That’s a ’97,” Leo said. “You know what the factory calls that color? British Racing Green. Don’t you love that? British Racing Green.”
“Now that’s a rental, am I right? What’d you do, get that for the season, too?”
“They won’t let you do that,” he said. “I got a two-year lease on it.”
She peered over his left shoulder, like she was considering what to ask next. Leo thought she might be trying to look into the living room, but the curtains were drawn like they always were, and there was nothing to see anyway, not with the plate in the fridge. “I understand you’re very fond of entertaining, Mr. Hannah. People come and go all hours of the night, loud music, naked women in the back yard. You’re a regular party boy, aren’t you, a real good-time Charlie, with your house and your Jaguar and your hot tub.”
Now who the fuck told her that? Was this the cop getting tough with him?
“At the beginning of the season, when I was excited about having the place, I wanted to share my good fortune with my friends. We did have a few late nights, but I felt they were abusing my hospitality. You invite people over, open your home to them, and what do they do?”
“They suck up your booze and snort up your coke, and then you can’t get rid of them. Was Manfred Pfiser ever a guest at one of your parties?”
“We weren’t exactly what you’d call friends.”
“More like business associates.”
No mistaking it now. The cop was turning up the heat. “What business would I have had with Manfred?”
The cop said, “You tell me.”
“We were acquaintances, you know, I knew the guy a little bit. Hi and goodbye, that’s all. We didn’t exactly swim in the same pond.”
“What if I told you we have a witness who puts you with Manfred Pfiser on the day he was killed?”
“I’d say that witness had the wrong date, off the top of my head, but like I said, that was months ago. I could be wrong.”
“It was six weeks ago, and burnt-out brain cells or not, I’d say if I knew somebody who was murdered, I’d recollect pretty much to the second the last time I saw him. But that’s me. Can you remember where this meeting took place, on that vague last date two or three days before he was killed, that you saw him?”
This was turning into a complete buzz-kill. “One of those places on Ocean Drive. We sat down and had a drink.”
“You and your faulty memory, I don’t suppose you could tell me which place?”
Leo racked his brain for the name of one cafe, just one, any one, so he could give her an answer, but she wasn’t waiting for it.
“Now what if I told you we have another witness who not only puts you in the company of Manfred Pfiser on the afternoon of the day he was killed, this witness places you at his hotel. Right in the same room with him. On the day he was murdered. What would you say to that, Mr. Hannah?”
How? He’d be there, what, all of ten minutes? Fifteen? But that didn’t matter now.
“I know what it was. Now I remember. Manfred said he had a jacket for me, a sports coat my size. He wanted me to come up to his room and try it on. Manfred was queer, I don’t know if you knew that, and I figured he was gonna try and make a pass at me, but I went with him anyway, to humor him. That was the day he was killed?”
“Here’s what you’re telling me. You knew that he was gay, and you were expecting an advance of some kind you claim you weren’t interested in, but you accompanied him to his room.”
Leo said, “Yeah, well.”
“He was merely an acquaintance, right? That’s what you said? But he wanted to give you an article from his wardrobe.”
“One thing I will say for him, he was very generous.”
“And at five feet eight, and a hundred eighty pounds, he owned a jacket that would’ve fit you. I think you can do a little better than that, don’t you, Leo?”
The cop closed her notebook and put her shades back on, pair of cheap shit Persol knock-offs she probably bought in some drugstore. “What can you tell me about a man named Harry Healy?”
“Never heard of the guy,” Leo said, and instantly realized what a stupid lie he just told.
“You spent forty-eight hours with him in the same cell at Dade back in February.”
Of course she knew he knew Harry. What an idiot.
“I figured you two would’ve gotten the chance to chat.”
She drew a breath like she was going to say something else, but pulled up short, and left Leo standing on the steps, wobbly from the beating she’d dealt out. She turned around and Leo reflexively checked her out. Lotta junk in the trunk. This chick was like the Beach Police Department’s very own Trojan Horse. And they came for him while
