The Lonely Silver Rain Part 13

Seventeen.

WHEN I walked into the lounge of the Busted Flush my phone was ringing.

Millis said, "Trav? My G.o.d, I bet I've called you thirty times. A friend of mine is here and he would like you to talk to him."

"Put him on."

"No. He wants you to come here."

"Who is he?"

"He goes sailing in the mornings."

"Oh. Well, sure. Give me a half hour."

When she let me into the duplex, the sea through the great windows was a soft shade of gray and there were streaks of rose and pink in the eastern sky the afterglow of the unseen sunset behind us. They had not yet turned on the lights. Jornalero struggled up from a deep chair to shake my hand. He seemed to have lost the flavor of confidence and authority. His voice was softer, subdued. Millis brought drinks and turned on a low lamp on the table between our chairs. Our chairs were at right angles to each other. The light winked on the ice in his drink as he raised it to his lips. It left his face in shadow. Millis sat off to my left in darkness, sat yoga-fashion on a low square table surfaced in squares of ornamental tile. I had the feeling that she sat off to the side like that when Jornalero was keeping her, when he had asked men to come to the place he rented for her, to talk their business in safety.

"Was it what you hoped would happen?" he asked.

"I didn't know what would happen."

"A craziness," he said. "Madness. Hatred. I have lost valued friends. Friends of many years. I've sent my wife far away, just in case. There isn't any meaning to it anymore. t.i.t for tat. That's all it is. You kill my friend, I kill your friend, you kill me, my brother kills you. Did you know it would be like this, McGee, when you told me about Ruffino's boy?"

"I didn't. Browder did."

"Who is Browder?"

"An undercover agent with the DEA. He hoped it would be like this. He's dead."

"Why would anybody hope for this? Fathers and sons. Husbands."

"He said that if you shake the tree, the ripe fruit falls out. He told me the law can't touch you, Mr. Jornalero. He said you might possibly be indicted for violating laws about foreign currency exchange, but probably never convicted in any way that would stick."

"Then he is the one who told you about the mules?"

"That's right."

"I wondered. That was a long time ago. I am three and four times removed from any of that. I am a legitimate businessman."

"But you launder the cash."

He didn't answer directly. He seemed to be looking off into the distance, into the final fading streak of rose. "Sometimes it comes in cardboard boxes," he said. "Thirty and forty at a time. Supermarket boxes. Lux soap. Shredded wheat. Grapefruit juice. Sealed with silver duct tape. Fives, tens, twenties, fifties, hundreds. Just thrown in and packed down and they had no idea how much was there. They take my word. My word is always good. I've got two girls who do nothing but sort it, count it and band it. They won't have much to do, for a while. Not for very long, though. Then it will start flowing again. It has to come somewhere. It has to come to a safe place."

"Three percent?" I asked.

He sighed. "Three to some. Four to others." He turned toward me and his tone changed. "My d.a.m.ned fool countrymen did a number on Tom Beccali last night."

"Who is he?"

"A prominent area businessman. Like me. Like Ruffino. I told them enough was enough. It's over. Forget it. But they thought the scales were out of balance. He won't be missed for some time. He travels a great deal. He is at the bottom of the ocean. The police don't know that, and the news people don't know it, but they know it. And I'm the logical response. Millis said I have to have your permission."

"For what?"

"He wants to be my house guest for a few days, maybe longer."

"I have no say in the matter. It's up to you."

"It was the only place I could think of," he said.

"Why my permission?" I asked Millis.

"Arturo used the wrong word," she said. "I meant more like advice. Could it be a bad idea?"

"Who knows you're here?" I asked him.

"No one outside this room. And two men downstairs."

"But there are people who know you two used to be friends?"

"Yes. Quite a few."

She broke in. "But the security here is good. I can tell anybody I'm alone here. He'll stay out of sight. What do you think, Travis?"

"It's up to you. But don't the security people downstairs know his name?"

"I used a different name."

She stirred uneasily. "Fortez," she said. "One h.e.l.l of a shock."

He leaned toward me, putting his empty gla.s.s down. "Mr. McGee, even if I had known it would all go this far, I still would have had to pa.s.s along your information about young Ruffi. There were some doubts about it for a time. But not after his friend Bobby Dermon was... interrogated. They flew down to the Keys in a float plane Ruffi borrowed from a friend. They both boarded that boat. The man who'd made the buy had hidden the money and the product and he tried to negotiate a better deal. They tied him up and questioned him. Dermon kept the women from trying to leave. Once they found the money and the shipment, they raped the women. Ruffi killed both the women. Dermon suffocated the man by jamming the money into his mouth. Her uncle in Lima now has the full story. I wanted to talk to you to tell you n.o.body wants you dead, not anymore."

"How about Ruffi?"

"He will be found. Sooner or later. There is a reward. A big one. And so the interest is high. He is the rabbit in the forest with ten thousand wolves."

"Nothing that happens is going to resurrect Billy Ingraham," I said.

"Or many, many others," Jornalero said.

"But Billy was an innocent bystander," I told him.

"Innocent people and guilty people are killed every day Stray bullets in small wars. Fog on the Interstates. If innocence could keep us alive, my friend, we'd all be saints."

"I'm sure Billy would be very comforted to hear that, Jornalero, especially from the lips of a man who's made it big in the world's dirtiest business, an unctuous, well-dressed, high-living son of a b.i.t.c.h who may have even convinced himself he isn't doing anything rotten. All you do is make all the rest of it possible by keeping it profitable."

"Trav!" Millis said sharply.

"I do a lot of good in the world," Arturo said. "The rest of it is a small favor for old friends."

I grinned at him. "I know. Somebody has to do it. Right? Now your hide is at risk too, Artie. I hope they find you."

"G.o.dd.a.m.n it!" Millis said. "Who are you to get so Christly? From stuff Billy told me about you..."

"I never told you I was perfect. Have a happy reunion, kids."

After I was back aboard my refuge, drinking by a single low light, with Edye singing along with the Tres Panchos in the background, I mourned the sappiness of my exit lines. I had used old Arturo to get myself off the hook, and then took some swings at him. Somewhere there are in telligent and highly skilled design engineers working the bugs out of ever more deadly weapons-lasers to blind armies, multiple multiple warheads, flames that stick to flesh and can't be extinguished, heat beams to fry the crews inside their tanks. And they pack up the printouts and turn off the computers and have a knock with the guys on the way home to the kiddies. Somebody has to do it. Right?

Night and gin and music-the right setting for peeling off the thin clinging layers of bulls.h.i.t and finding one's way down closer to the essential self. I had let loose on Jornalero because I had been disturbed by the feeling of the relationship between him and Millis. A residual fondness, a product of years shared. And that of course could be peeled back to reveal a dissatisfaction with myself for having sought out s.e.x with her. That first time was by her invitation. From then on by my design. The proceedings had been very skillful, o.r.g.a.s.ms noteworthy, pleasure intense. But I had not gotten one millimeter past the surface gloss of those tilted green eyes. Though our actions had elicited a wide range of sounds and responses from her, from little yelps to earthy groans, she was just about as real to me as would have been one of those blowup pneumatic ladies j.a.panese sailors tote aboard for the long freighter trips and stow in little satchels under the bunk until needed. They now make them with microprocessors, little motors, long-life batteries and voice boxes: Crever people.

So, as Edye sings of her corazn, peel back another leaf. I had wanted the curiously impersonal relationship with Millis because I did not want to set up any new emotional debts or obligations. I wanted no involvement in any significant dimensions. I wanted Millis as a receptacle.

So, recharge the gla.s.s with more ice and Boodles, change the tape and go back and peer under the next leaf. Why no emotional involvement? Because there was nothing left in the inventory. Nothing left to give. I had said "forever" too many times to too many people. I had spent my stock. I was bankrupt.

With the next leaf pulled back I discovered that the bankruptcy was what was souring the look of my world. That led me back to w.i.l.l.y Nucci's concern and advice.

But, for G.o.d's sake, you can't suddenly spring up and clap your hands and say, "Hey, what a wonderful world!" p.i.s.s and vinegar can't be summoned on command. The muted colors of a muted life will not suddenly brighten because you think it a good idea they should. What could I look forward to otherwise? To a winding down? To becoming a sour, peevish old b.a.s.t.a.r.d, too stubborn to admit loneliness. Long ago I had been unable to commit myself totally when I should have. And later, when I wanted to, the timing was tragic. But as Jornalero had pointed out, the bad things happen to the innocent and to the guilty without reference to their desires or merit.

The answer, of course, would be under the next leaf. So I peeled it back and there it was. Nothing! Just a little hole in the middle, protected by all the folded leaves of self-deception. McGee, the empty vessel. The orifice had at one time been packed full of juice and dreams. Promises. Now there was a little dust at the bottom of it. Some webs across it. It is to moan, beat the breast, tear the hair. I had no smart retort, nothing witty to say to myself. I was ten thousand times better off than w.i.l.l.y Nucci physically. But in spirit, he was laps ahead.

So I pulled myself away from the dubious pleasures of introspection and self-a.n.a.lysis. Think about Ruffino Marino the Second. A smart-a.s.s. Vain. Tricky. Violent. What would he be thinking now? I could a.s.sume he had sense enough to be terrified. They had gotten into the old man's fortress and slit his fat throat in bed as he slept. He had awakened, dying, unable to make a sound, able to thrash a little but not enough to awaken his wife.

He would probably know Bobby Dermon was gone too. To run and to hide takes the motivation of terror. To run and hide well takes money. Lots of it. a.s.sume he was able to grab it before he started running.

Okay, even though he couldn't act, he probably thought of himself as an actor. Out of his vanity he would think his face would be recognized anywhere. I got out the publicity shot of him and studied it. Take off most of that glossy black hair, down to a boot camp cut. Dye it pale blonde. Dye the brows too. Pad out those flat cheeks with some cotton behind the side teeth. Gla.s.ses with gold rims. New ID, Nordic name, fake address, a history easy to memorize. To trace somebody, you have to know their habits, their tastes. In time they slip up. A man cannot change himself into somebody else. When there is no great urge to find a man, he can stay lost. No problem there. The countryside is full of men with new ident.i.ties.

I decided it would be stupid romanticism to believe for an instant that I could find him. I believed also that young Marino did not have the discipline or control to get lost and stay lost. He couldn't let himself fade into the woodwork. Too much ego. Too much restlessness and recklessness.

I was startled by the bong of someone stepping on the mat on the aft deck next to the small gangplank. When there was no knock at my door, I took the little Airweight from its temporary resting place in the back of the yellow couch, wedged into the springs and padding behind an inconspicuous slit in the fabric, and went to the door, staying well off to one side as I flicked the switch for the outside light. I looked out cautiously and saw nothing.

After five minutes of listening and waiting, I went forward, up into the bow, released the hatch, lifted it a few inches and listened, then folded it back silently, eeled out and squatted in half darkness. Nothing. Nothing on the side decks or up on the sun deck. Nothing on the bow or stern.

I went down through the bow hatch, dogged it from below and went back through the lounge to turn out the aft deck light. Then it occurred to me that maybe someone had left a note.

It was not exactly a note. It was three more pipe-cleaner cats arranged in a row at the edge of the mat. A black one, a white one and a gray one. If it was some kind of kid trick, the point eluded me. Now I had five of the beasts. Again there was the tiny tug at memory. It was like trying to remember the name of a place you had visited long ago. All I knew was that if I could retrieve the memory, it would be saddening somehow. I had not liked that place.

I picked them up to flip them into the trash tin, then changed my mind and brought them in. I locked the door, turned out the light and put the cats with their prior visitors-the two colorful ones-on a shelf with a raised lip near my bed. I put them in the order of delivery. The red one shortly after New Year's Day, the blue one a week later. And now, on the thirtieth, in order-black, gray, white. A code of some kind? R-B-B-G-W. Someone was trying to tell me something, but the message wasn't clear. Cat, kitten, feline, tomcat, puss, p.u.s.s.ycat. Nothing there to remind me of anything except a woman I had known once, who died long ago.

The last day of January was warm and gentle, with a breeze from the southwest moving the kind of air that makes the s...o...b..rds get off the airplanes and say, "Ah!"

I walked to the hotel and bought a morning paper to go with a stunted breakfast of juice and coffee. Nothing about any Tom Beccali. The murders looked ordinary. A Haitian had drowned his crippled sister in a bathtub. A drunk pa.s.sed out in his own driveway and his wife ran over him with a Ford station wagon-seven or eight times. A naked secretarial trainee had shoved an ice pick into her supervisor. A crazy had burst into the bus terminal at a full gallop, firing at random blacks with a.22 target pistol, killed one, slightly wounded four. A thirteen-year-old girl had shot a fourteen-year-old boy to death in a dispute about whose turn it was to ride a bicycle. Everyday stuff the kind of thing you read about in every urban paper in the land. Minor characters in the play buying lifetime regret. People scuffling around, trying to make sense out of the mismatched parts of their lives.

I walked over to see Meyer, but he was out and the Veblen was locked up. The chairs had been taken in off the c.o.c.kpit deck, so it looked as if he would be gone a while. And he hadn't even mentioned going anywhere. So I had not been mentioning where I was going lately. The h.e.l.l with him. The h.e.l.l with everybody on every vessel in the whole d.a.m.n yacht basin and every other yacht basin and boat dock within a forty-mile radius.

When I got back there was a man up on my sun deck. He looked down at me over the stern rail and smiled a- merry smile. "Welcome aboard," he said. He was a brown man with a lantern jaw, blue eyes, dingy teeth. He wore a white shirt open to the belly to show a good rippling of the kind of chest muscles you get from weights. He had three gold strands around his neck. His ears stood straight out like Mortimer Snerd's. He had on blue shorts and running shoes. He had a brown purse on a long narrow shoulder strap. He had a pale brown brush cut and bushy sideburns that came down past his ears. I guessed they were to draw attention from the ears, but instead they seemed to highlight them. When I climbed up to the sun deck and saw him at closer range I could see how the weights had built his arm and leg muscles. He stood about five ten, a very solid five ten.

"And you would be..."

"Let me get a look at you. I been interested in you."

"That's nice. I can't think of anything I want to buy today. What are you selling? Muscle building?"

He kept his smile. "Hey, that's pretty good. My hobby is the old bod. Treat it right and it treats you right. Where can we talk?"

"Right here."

"McGee, let's at least get a little bit under cover. Like over there where you steer this thing. Suppose somebody took a shot at me and hit you instead, after all you've been through."

"Who are you?"

"I'm the Foreman, pal. I'm the Capataz." And as he pa.s.sed me on the way toward the wheel, he whacked me on the arm. He sat in the pilot seat and left the copilot seat to me. He swiveled around toward me.

"You sent those three clowns after me?" I asked.

"Listen, Rick, Louie and Dean are not the very best in the world, but they're pretty good. I mean, they were pretty good. You did a h.e.l.l of a job on Sullivan. The bone guy says it was a twisting impact, and the legs were turning as you went over them. So all he could do was freeze both knee joints. Rick is going to walk like one of those electric people, you know."

"Like a robot."

"That's it."

"He happened to get in the way."

"You see a robot coming, duck. He wants you so bad he can taste it. You don't need to worry about Dean Matan. He got taken out in the troubles."

"Why did you come here?"

Still smiling, he said, "There aren't too many places left I can go, you want to know the truth. A lot of things are over for good. Over and done. Browder was a plant. It didn't take too long to figure that out. But what he turned in didn't do much damage. They just change the routes around a little, zig instead of zag. They lose a little that's coming in, and they lose a little in transshipment. But there you are. For the little guys like me, it's nothing much, right? But the boss men, they've gone crazy. There they were, tucked back out of sight, no way to pin a thing on any of them, and they go nuts. I don't know what it is. Why should it make so much difference that Ruffi the actor killed the Reyes kid? Maybe it's because there's been too much money for too long. Or things have been easy for too long. What we got here, you'd think it was Jews and Palestinians. All of a sudden everybody hates everybody. My boss ends up in the back of a car, fried. I get orders to take out the boss of the people who took my boss out, so I did. Now they are working their way down the list. So I hang around, my head is going to roll. I got warned day before yesterday. What is it, something in the air down here? I can't even get to my safety-deposit box. I've got a little over forty dollars. Think of that! Cappy, who had it all made. Who'd believe it?"

"Why did you come here? What do you want with me?"

He didn't seem to hear the question. "The big ha.s.sle is over. Annoyed the s.h.i.t out of the politicians and the developers. Tourism is down already, and all of a sudden all over the country there's news pictures of dead bodies. It has to hurt. So the pressure is on to stop it, but it won't stop it. I mean, it will be a lot more quiet. But it will keep happening for a while. You have to get the scales dead even. After that happens the money machine gets cranked up to full speed again, and the payoffs get made and the product comes in and gets shipped out, and dollars get turned into pesos and sent south. The c.o.ke base will come in by ship and they'll keep cooking it into white lady out in those garages in the suburbs, and the money will roll." He turned to look directly at me. "And I need twenty thousand dollars. I think six months will clear things up. I've got a place I can go. When I can come back and get to my box, I'll pay you back thirty."

"I don't have that kind of cash money."

"I think you do."

"If I did, why would I give it to you?"

"It would be a loan, like I told you."

"Absolutely no way."

"You haven't heard about the sweetener. As a kind of bonus, I'll give you young Ruffi. You can sell him to the Latinos. I can't get close enough to them to make a deal without getting myself hurt."

"How would I go about getting close?"

"I can give you a name. You could come out of this in real good shape. Invest twenty and you get back thirty from me plus what you can sell him for."