'How come he's looking for Guel?' asked Lorrimer.
'Pure coincidence,' Karp lied. 'We got a tip that he was, is all.'
'Uh-huh. And this Guel figures in the Kennedy investigation? What, as the umbrella man?' He used the tone that the FBI adopts when citizens offer accounts of being abducted by flying saucers.
Karp ignored this. 'Timing is the thing. We need to get to him before Tony does. I want to be at the tap site.'
After some meaningless argument-meaningless because in the FBI, New York swings a deal more weight than Miami, and both of them knew that Karp was going to get what he wanted anyway-Lorrimer made a couple of phone calls, and half an hour later Fulton and Karp were sitting in a room in a house on Sixty-third Street in North Miami Beach, across from the La Gorce Golf Course, off of which Tony Bones had his spacious home.
The observation house was vacant and unfurnished except for some camp beds and folding chairs and tables. The Feds had rented it because it afforded a good view of the front of the target dwelling and because it was convenient to the phone lines that served the gangster. In an upstairs room, several agents took turns looking through an immense tripod-mounted telescope, while in the back, another set of agents manned the tap.
'What about the phone at the Bal Harbour?' asked Karp when the agent at the tap had explained the layout.
'We got that too,' the man replied. 'The material from that line is fed into that machine over there. When the sun goes down, they'll break from the hotel, fart around at a couple of clubs, and get home about eleven, twelve. We got bugs on his usual tables, and a couple trucks that follow them around and pick up the radio feed from the bugs and send them to this radio here. That gets taped too. This is Tony Central.'
They spent the next day there, Fulton and Karp sleeping on the camp beds in shifts, listening to Mafia talk over the taps, growing bored and seedy. Each of them went out once to get toilet things and a change of clothes.
At eleven-thirty on the afternoon of the second day, the home phone rang and was answered by a man the tap agent identified as Joey Cuccia. The caller said, 'This is Vince. Tony there?'
'No, he ain't. Vince who?'
'Vince Malafredo. Who's this, Joey?'
'Yeah. What you got, Vince?'
'Yeah, that picture? Jimmy Ace and a couple of the fellas was by couple nights ago showin' it around. I know the guy. I thought I knew him, but like, I wasn't sure, you know. Now I know. He came in the joint and placed a bet on the dogs.'
'So? He got a name?'
'Yeah.' A pause. 'This is for a yard, right?'
'Yeah, yeah, a yard. What, you don't think we're good for it? Who's the scumbag and where can we find him?'
'Right. He calls himself Angie Cruz. Runs a bunch of those Cubano coffee stands, sandwich joints. Lives here in Hialeah.' The man gave an address on Fifty-fourth Street. 'It's off Flamingo Way.'
Karp and Fulton were in the Pontiac forty seconds later, tearing off east on Sixty-third, Karp flapping through a street map, calling out directions.
It took them forty minutes to get to Hialeah via the Seventy-ninth Street Causeway and 823, and twenty minutes more to find the lime green house among the numberless others on the identical streets.
Karp leaped out of the car and trotted up the path and rang the bell.
'He's not home,' Karp said after five minutes of ringing.
'Maybe he's at work,' said Fulton. 'I mean, it's the middle of the day.'
'We'll wait.'
'Let's get something to eat. Then we'll wait.'
'Takeout,' said Karp. 'We'll eat in the car.'
Fulton sighed. 'Man, you ever done a stakeout before?'
'No. Why, is it hard?'
'With you in the car, it's gonna be a bitch,' said Fulton, and stalked off down the path.
They bought a couple of Cuban sandwiches each, two six-packs of Coke and a bag of ice and a styro box to keep the ice and the Coke in, and called Al Sangredo to come and relieve them at eleven that evening.
They waited, watching the breeze shift the crotons, watching the shadows change on the street. It was not too warm, about seventy-five; they kept the windows open. Karp learned how to pee into a can.
Around two-thirty, a green Plymouth rolled down the street slowly and pulled into a space opposite Guel's house. The driver kept the motor running. This attracted the attention of the two men in the Pontiac.
'Crap, it's Tony's guys,' said Karp in a pained voice.
'Nah, no way!' Fulton scoffed. 'Wrong car. You ever see wise guys in a Plymouth?'
'Not touring, but who knows what they use when they whack people? What should we do?'
'Just wait,' said Fulton. They waited, watching the blue exhaust from the Plymouth curl up into the air. 'Uh- oh, he's getting out.'
The man in the green car had turned off his engine at last and now stood on the curb, slowly looking both ways.
'It's Guel,' said Fulton between his teeth when the man looked their way. He had gained some weight since his guerrilla days, and was now a tubby man, with a higher hairline and a thicker mustache. He wore heavy sunglasses, a white guayabera shirt, and rumpled gray slacks. He hadn't shaved in a while.
Karp doubted he had just returned from gainful employment. 'What's he so nervous about?'
'You'd be nervous too, if the word was out on the street that a Mafia don wanted a personal interview, plus a hood you knew in the old days had just been whacked. Okay, he's decided the coast is clear, he's crossing the street. What I think we sh-Hey, Butch, what the fuck!'
Karp had flung open his door and was heading at a good clip down the street after Guel.
'Ah, excuse me, Mr. Guel?' he called out. 'Could I talk to you a-'
Guel whirled, his eyes wide.
Karp stopped talking as something big and heavy struck him in the small of the back. He saw the pavement rise up at him and he threw his hands forward to protect his face. He heard several loud sounds as he crashed into the asphalt.
There was a devastating pain in his midsection, and he struggled to bring air into his lungs. His hands stung from road burn and a weight was bearing down on his back. He was strangling. Another explosion, much louder. His ears rang. There was a brown forearm braced in front of his face. Fulton.
'Clay, goddamn it…,' Karp choked out. He could barely hear his own voice above the ringing in his ears.
'Stay there!' Fulton ordered. Karp felt the weight leave his back. He lifted his head and saw Fulton dash, crouched, gun in hand, across the street to Guel's house, kneel behind the croton hedge, and look cautiously around it. A door slammed, sounding very far away.
Karp rose painfully to his feet, took a few deep breaths, and inspected his scraped and bleeding hands. He walked to where Fulton knelt. Fulton motioned him down with an abrupt gesture. 'Christ, Butch! Didn't you see he had a gun?'
Karp shook his head.
'You gotta be blind! It was in his belt under that shirt. He could've had a fuckin' sign on him, armed and dangerous. And antsy. Didn't you see him go for it?'
Karp cleared his throat and took several deep breaths. 'Hell, no! All I saw was him walking away and then he turned and then you sacked me. I guess you had to do that, right?'
'Unless you wanted another eyehole. Goddamn, Butch! Talk about dumb-ass stupid…' He flapped his mouth soundlessly, as if unable to find words adequate to the stupidity.
'Hey, what do I know? I'm not a cop,' objected Karp weakly, flushing now with embarrassment.
'You sure the fuck ain't. And speaking of which, Counselor, neither am I anymore, and especially not in this fucking municipality which we is now in. What the fuck're we supposed to do now?'
Inside the darkened house, Caballo stood flat against the kitchen wall, barely breathing, his little pistol cocked in his hand. He had been awakened from a light doze by the ringing of the doorbell some hours since. He had no idea who had rung the bell or where they were now. Obviously it was not Guel, and just as obviously
