Cat Chaser

15

MARY DIDN’T CALL BACK during the night.

Moran phoned her in the morning. The maid with the accent said Mrs. de Boya was not at home. It was only nine o’clock; Moran didn’t know what to say next. He asked what time she was expected. The maid said she didn’t know. He asked then, “Is Mrs. de Boya all right?”

The maid, Altagracia, said, “Yes? I think so.”

He took a chance and said, “What was all that noise last night?”

The maid hesitated. She said, “I don’t hear any noise.”

He tried again a little after ten.

A recorded voice answered to say, “The number you are calling is temporarily out of service. Please try again later.” He dialed again to be sure and heard the message repeated.

What in the hell was going on?

He got the number of the Coral Gables Police from Information, 442-2300, dialed and a male voice answered. Moran said, “Hey, what was all the noise over on Arvida last night? Up at the end of the street.”

The male voice said, “Who is this speaking, please?” Moran said he lived in the neighborhood and was just wondering… The male voice said, “Could I have that address and your name, please?” Moran hung up.

He knocked on the door to oceanfront Number One, waited and banged on it. Then got the key from Jerry, Jerry in a lighthearted mood whistling “I’m Going to Live Till I Die,” and went back to let himself in.

The apartment was empty, still a mess from the night before: the bottles standing on the coffeetable, the bowl of water, bits of potato chips all over. The bed Rafi had slept in was unmade, the light spread and sheet in a tangle on the floor.

Nolen, in Number Five, was popping open a can of beer. He said, “Stand back. Don’t say anything yet.”

Moran waited in the doorway to watch.

Nolen poured a good four or five ounces of Budweiser down his throat. When he lowered the can and looked at Moran with grateful wet eyes he said, “Oh Jesus. Oh my God Almighty.” He raised the can again and finished it in two tries.

“I’m gonna live.”

“Till you die,” Moran said. “Jerry’ll whistle it for you while you’re going down the tube.”

“Fuck you,” Nolen said.

“If you know you’re gonna be hung over-”

“And if you know I’m gonna be,” Nolen said, going to the gas range where a saucepan of chili with beans was starting to bubble, “what’re you asking me for? You want to be useful, open a couple of beers.”

Moran sat with Nolen while he ate his breakfast, chili laced with catsup to sweeten it and drank several ice-cold beers, the sorrow in his watery eyes giving way to a bleary expression of contentment.

Moran commented. “You having fun? You dumb shit.”

“Don’t judge,” Nolen said, “till you walked a mile in my moccasins.”

“Few weeks you’ll be down to Thunderbird.”

“Or Chivas. I’m making my run.”

“Bullshit, you’ll be down making love to the toilet bowl.”

“I never throw up, George. I value my nutrition.”

“What time’d you go to bed?”

“I watched black and white TV, you cheap fuck, and hit the sack early.”

“Where’s your pal Ché?”

“Who?”

“Rafi, your spray painter.”

“He borrowed my car to go look for Loret.”

“He expect to find her, Miami Beach?”

“Rafi expects-Jesus, this hits the spot, you know it? I doubt Rafi’s expectations have anything to do with the real world. He’s a twinkie.”

“You finally realize that?”

“I’ve always known it. But he’s got to learn on his own, right? I’m not gonna lead him by the hand.”

“You bring him into the deep end, now it’s up to him to get out, huh?”

“It’s hard out there,” Nolen said. “You can strike it rich or break your pick. It’s up to you.”

“That from a play or a movie?”

“It’s an outtake. I’m on cutting-room floors at all the major studios. So I’m going into a different field.”

“You remember anything I said last night?”

“Every word. I never experience blackouts.”

“But you don’t want to talk about it.”

“I don’t care. Get me a beer, I’ll listen.”

“Jiggs was at de Boya’s last night.” Moran waited.

Nolen spooned in bright red chili, his face down close to the bowl. “Yeah?”

“Why do you think he went there?”

“I think to tell de Boya some dirty Comminists want to kill him. Also set the stage for what’s coming up in the next couple of days. Time’s getting short, George. Then you know what I think he did?”

Moran had to ask because he didn’t expect all this.

“What?”

“Then I think he gave this crazy Cuban-the one drives his Donzi at night with sunglasses on? I think he gave the Cuban five bills and a twenty-two rifle and told him to take a run past de Boya’s house and see if he can bust a few windows, then throw the twenty-two over the side, deep-six it, whether anybody comes after him or not. That’s what I think, George. What do you think?”

He thought of Mary, little else. He went back to his house, called Leucadendra and had her paged in the grill and at the tennis courts, knowing she wouldn’t be there. He thought about calling the Holiday Inn in Coral Gables; but would that make sense? He tried anyway. There was no Delaney or Moran registered. In the afternoon he tried her home again and listened to the recorded voice tell him the number he was calling was temporarily out of service. He thought about driving over there but knew he’d better wait. Mary would get in touch with him when she could.

It was a dismal, overcast day. The surf came roaring in making a spectacle of itself, but failed to interest him. Grocery-shopping at Oceanside didn’t either. Until he was putting a six-pack of Bud in his cart and remembered something Nolen had said. Something about setting the stage for the next couple of days… time getting short. Christ, were they ready to move? He’d better put Nolen against the wall and get some facts.

But by the time Moran got home Rafi had returned and Nolen was gone.

Rafi said, “No, I didn’t find her. But I went in the Fountainebleu and let my eyes see the most beautiful hotel in the world. I think I like to stay there before I go home.”

Moran said, “There’s a Miami to Santo Domingo at one tomorrow afternoon, they give you your lunch. Why don’t you get on it?”

Rafi said, “Oh, am I being ask to leave? You have so many people staying you don’t have room for me? Certainly, I’ll be happy to leave a place where they don’t want me.”

Moran said, “Rafi, you’re full of shit, you know it?… Where’d Nolen go?”

Rafi said he didn’t ask him and if this was the way Moran felt he would leave as soon as he made arrangements to move to a resort that suited him. In the meantime, because Loret had taken his money, could he borrow a few dollars for something to eat? Moran gave him a ten and checked with Jerry, just before Jerry left for the day, to see if he’d had any calls.

None. He tried Mary and got the recorded message again. All right, he’d wait until later tonight-after the maid was in bed and hope de Boya didn’t answer-and if the phone still wasn’t working he’d drive over there, or drive past at least; he wasn’t sure what he’d do. He fixed half of a yellowtail with tomatoes, onions and a touch of garlic for dinner, sautéed it, trying to keep busy, looking at the clock. He read. He watched a little TV. He read the latest on Stevie Nicks and an interview with Lee Marvin, former U.S. Marine, in Rolling Stone. Still looking at the clock. Anxious. Looking at it a few times each half-hour, waiting to call about eleven. It was the reason he would remember Jiggs Scully came at exactly 9:40.

Moran opened the door and Jiggs said, “You not doing anything I’d like you to come see somebody.” Moran stood with his shirt hanging out, barefoot. When he didn’t say anything Jiggs said, “Mr. de Boya wants to have a word with you.”

Moran said, “You serious?”

“Put your shoes on. I’ll take you, bring you back.”

Moran said, “What about?”

Jiggs said, “George, come on. We get there you can play it any way you like. But don’t try and shit a shitter, okay?”

Moran put on his sneakers and stuck his Hawaiian shirt into his jeans. He walked with Scully in silence across the patio and through the dark office to the street. Corky was waiting by Jiggs’s two-tone Cadillac. Corky got in back as he saw them coming.

Walking around the front of the car, Jiggs said, “Sit in front.”

Moran had the door open before he saw Rafi in the back seat with Corky, Rafi hunched forward. He said, “George? I don’t want to go nowhere.” Trying to sound calm but scared to death. “George? Tell them, please.”

Jiggs said to Moran, “It’s okay. Get in the car.”

The servants would be speaking to each other in Spanish and stop when Mary entered the room. They always did this; but today, for some reason, it had an air of conspiracy. The phone would ring. Altagracia would tell Mary it was someone for Mr. de Boya. Only once did she call Mary to the phone. She spoke to a man from the company replacing the window panes, half-listened to an involved tale of glass availability, why they couldn’t come out until later in the day. Twice she tried Moran’s number and got no answer.

And after that, for no apparent reason, the phone went dead. She called the telephone company on Andres’s private line, in his den, with Corky standing by. Several times she returned to the den to try Moran again and each time there would be Corky. Finally she said, “Excuse me, will you? I have to make a call.” But he didn’t move.

Corky said, “I have to stay here if Mr. de Boya wants me. He say not to leave for any reason.”

She said, “It’ll take me two minutes.”

He said, “Yes, please,” offering the phone. “But I have to stay here until the other phone is fixed.”

She said drily, “Mr. Corcovado, if he can’t reach you while the line’s busy, why do you have to stay here?”

Corky said, “It’s what he told me.”

Is this your house? Mary thought. She said, “Well, in that case I’m going out. Do you stay by the phone or do you have to drive me?”

He said, “I’m sorry, Señora. Mr. de Boya say we not suppose to go out. Because what happen last night.”

She said, “That’s not the reason.”

Mary went into the kitchen to speak to the cook about dinner, tell her not to bother, and came face to face with two men she had never seen before. They sat at the butcher-block table having coffee. Hispanic, confident, shirts open beneath summer jackets, both wearing strings of red and white beads. They looked her over but did not get up. Mary left the kitchen.

She felt she was in someone else’s house. Corky, sitting behind Andres’s desk now, told her the two were the Mendoza brothers, Chino and Nassin. They had been hired to replace the two Mr. de Boya fired after the boat dock was exploded. He told her the Mendoza brothers were Cuban and only one of them spoke English, but not very much.

Mary said, “Do they know who I am?”

Corky said, “Yes, of course.”

“Who was it shot at the house last night?”

“We don’t know that. It happens.”

“And cut the telephone line?”

“The repairman tell the Mendozas he think it was a storm.”

“There was no storm.”

“Yes, then maybe it broke itself.”

“Why can’t I make a phone call in private?”

“I don’t know.” Corky shrugged; he seemed to be getting used to her. “Why don’t you ask your husband?”

She mixed a vodka and tonic and took it out to the sundeck, in the early evening, the sky clearing now that the day was almost past, the wind down to a mild breeze stirring the acacia trees. The two new ones, the Mendozas, watched her from the seawall, where the dock had been. They moved off in opposite directions still looking toward the house. Mary felt a knot of anger. She wanted to scream something as she sat ladylike, yell at the Mendozas, “What’re you looking at!”

And waste it, she thought, on bodyguards who wouldn’t understand or care if they did. Save it for Andres. The hell with writing down what she wanted to say-writing neatly in her precise up-and-down script. Let him have it with simple truth, you’re leaving and that’s it. Tell him right out, face to face. If he asks if it’s because of Moran say yes. Absolutely. She was in love with Moran. She was so in love with him it didn’t matter what other reasons there might be. Right now Moran was the reason. And Andres would say… The hell with what he’d say! Tell him and get it over with. Andres would think what he wanted to think anyway.

Which was pretty much what she had done six years ago. Talked herself out of all her misgivings, talked fast with the lure of everlasting security in the back of her mind and rationalized up front, telling herself marriage to Andres would be-God help her-fun. If she had known Moran then-if they’d been simply good friends, which would have been impossible, but just say they were-and she had announced she was going to marry Andres, Moran would have said…

With a straight face he would have said, “You’re gonna marry a general, uh?” That’s all.

And that would have done it.

She wanted to keep her anger intact, ready to level it at Andres when he got home. But she couldn’t think of Moran and stay mad. She smiled to herself for a time. She looked out at darkness smothering the sunset and felt the smile dry up within her.

Fear was something else.

She’d have to ask him: Can you be afraid of something you think is absurd? No, she wouldn’t have to ask, she knew the answer. If the thing that’s scaring you doesn’t know it’s absurd you can laugh all you want, that won’t make it go away.

Mary was upstairs when she heard the double horn beeps: Andres’s way of announcing, when he drove himself, he was home. She went into Andres’s bedroom, the lights off, and looked out a front window to see his immaculate white Rolls in the drive below. Andres was already out of the car talking to the two Mendoza brothers. She didn’t see Corky with them. After a few moments they walked off toward the side of the house. It surprised her at first; then decided Andres was showing them around the property. But where was Corky? She hadn’t seen him in some time.

Sitting in darkness her gaze moved to the massive shape of Andres’s king-size bed mounted on a marble pedestal and remembered her reaction, the first time, sitting on the edge-a waterbed?-trying not to smile. And Andres’s serious expression, Andres saying to her, “It’s more than a bed…”

The bed delighted him without altering his expression. He came to her sitting on the bed, raised a knee awkwardly and pushed her back. His face close to hers he murmured, “We make love on millions of dollars,” and finally smiled. But it was morning before he explained what he meant. Making love on millions … talking to his new bride in a boastful way, playful for Andres, but not failing to impress it was their secret, uh? His lidded gaze staring into her eyes. “No one else must know.” She wondered now if his words had implied a threat. Or if making love on millions was still possible to do.

She would make love to Moran on cement. On nails.

And began to think of another bed not so large… the lights going out in her hotel suite, Moran calling to her in the dark, finding her as she slipped into his outstretched arms. She thought of them falling into the bed together, Moran trying to get their clothes off as she held onto him…

She saw the beam of headlights in the trees and moments later Jiggs Scully’s Cadillac rolled up the drive toward the house. It came to a stop behind Andres’s car and the inside light went on as the doors opened.

Her breath caught as she saw Moran get out.

Now the others came out of the car. She recognized Rafi. The car doors slammed and they were in darkness. As Mary watched, the four figures moved off toward the north side of the house. But why? The gravel path on that side led through the garden to the swimming pool.

“He asks you,” Moran said, close to Rafi, “you don’t know anything, what he’s talking about.”

“All I did,” Rafi said, his whisper hoarse, straining, “I write something, that’s all.”

“No, you didn’t. You don’t know anything.”

Corky was waiting for them at an opening in the hedge and Moran shut up. He could hear Jiggs Scully behind them on the gravel. He wasn’t worried about Jiggs. It had been a quiet ride all the way and there was no reason to start talking now. Past the hedge they followed patio lights that were hooded and eerie in the close darkness, dull spots of yellow, misty in the tropical growth. The path brought them to the swimming pool, illuminated pale green among ledge rock and palm trees, the man-made filtered lagoon that looked to Moran like a movie set. Though the figure standing at the end of the pool were real enough, de Boya and two men Moran had never seen before. The two, the Mendoza brothers, came this way as Corky turned and gestured to Rafi, saying something to him in Spanish. Rafi didn’t move.

Scully was next to Moran now. He said to Rafi, “I think Mr. de Boya wants to ask you something; that’s all.”

Rafi looked around, helpless, as though in pain.

One of the Mendoza brothers gestured now, pointing, and Rafi moved away from Moran to the edge of a curved section of the free-form pool, the water clearly illuminated to its tiled depths. Rafi looked down, then across the curved corner to de Boya who stood with his hands in the deep side pockets of a linen jacket.

His voice low Moran said, “Giving us the stare.”

“That’s what it is,” Jiggs said, barely moving his mouth, “the old Santo Domingo stare. Suppose to, you look at it long enough, shrivel up your balls.”

Twenty feet away de Boya stood without moving, the pale reflection of the pool lights shimmering on his white jacket, part of his face in shadow.

It began to look like the village players to Moran. Were they serious? He said, “Hey, Andres, what’s going on?”

De Boya didn’t answer.

If he gave a nod Moran didn’t see it. He was looking at de Boya in the same moment one of the Mendozas stepped in behind Rafi, gave him a hip and Rafi went into the pool screaming a sound or a word in Spanish. He came up flailing the water, gasping, trying to scream, his eyes stretched open. Moran was yelling now, “He can’t swim,” trying to get to the edge of the pool, but both the Mendozas turned to hold him off. He yelled again, “He can’t swim, goddamn it!” and tried to get through the two Mendozas with shoulders and elbows, grabbing at a shirt and feeling a string of beads come apart in his hand. As he tried to lunge past the other one stuck a gun in Moran’s stomach. He felt the barrel dig in as he saw Rafi struggling with his head thrown back, helpless, going under and coming up, going under again. Moran saw Andres watching, Corky watching, the two Mendozas turned from him watching. None of them moved. When Rafi’s arms stopped flailing and he began to sink deeper they continued to watch in silence, without moving, staring at the string of bubbles coming out of Rafi’s mouth, his body settling to the bottom now, rolling gently from side to side, eyes sparkling in the pool lights, eyes looking up at them sightless as the last air bubbles rose from his open mouth.

Moran listened to the sound of a single-engine plane in the night sky, the sound taking forever to fade. He didn’t try to think of anything to say. He felt a hand touch his arm. He saw de Boya staring at him. He heard Scully’s voice very quietly say, “Come on.”

He saw de Boya staring at him.

He felt the hand grip his arm tighter. “George? Let’s go.” Still looking at de Boya staring at him. He was thinking now, Yes, he’d better go; turned and walked off with Scully, Scully saying, still quietly, “Let’s take it easy now, George, not do anything you be sorry for, okay? Let’s just get out of here before you say anything. Then you can say anything you want, that’ll be fine, George, but not right at the moment…” Scully’s voice soothing him, talking him all the way out to the car.

They were on Interstate 95, heading north to Pompano before Scully spoke again. He said, “That little spic makes a point he makes it, don’t he?”

Moran was thinking of things he might have done or tried to have done. He was thinking of Mary in that house. He was thinking of what he would say when he called the police. He remembered the number, 442-2300. He wondered if the same impersonal voice would answer and if the voice would change, indicate a person inside, when he said he wanted to report a murder.

Jiggs said, “George, don’t do what you’re thinking. They get those funny calls all the time. Sergeant puts his hand over the phone. ‘Who knows a guy name Moran? Got a swimming pool murder.’ No, George, our friend Rafi Amado’s on his way to the Gulf Stream right now and I don’t mean the racetrack. The cops go to Seven hunner Arvida Parkway, nobody knows what you’re talking about there. ‘Somebody drown in the pool? Well, the pool’s right outside here, officer, you want to take a look.’ “

Moran said, “Tell me something.”

“What’s that, George?”

“How’d he know Rafi couldn’t swim?”

Jiggs took a few moments. He said, “George, in the light of eternity, what difference’s it make? The guy comes flying in from Santo Domingo with the hot setup, he’s gonna try to make a score, right? It’s called to my attention and I think to myself, What is this? This guy know what he’s doing?”

“And you hired him,” Moran said.

“Well, actually I never met the guy in my life till tonight. He was Nolen’s boy.”

“You’re using Nolen,” Moran said. “What’s the difference?”

“George, you got a suspicious mind and now you’re getting off on something else,” Jiggs said. “What we’re talking about here, all the guy does is spray-paint some bullshit on de Boya’s gatepost. It doesn’t matter the guy can swim or not, what I want you to look at here is the way de Boya handled it. He call the cops? It’s an act of vandalism, you get a fine, maybe ninety days chopping weeds for the county-uh-unh, de Boya believes in capital punishment.”

“You delivered him,” Moran said.

“You want to look at it that way,” Jiggs said, “I offered him up, like a sacrifice so you can see where we’re at here.”

Moran opened the car door.

“George, just a minute. Let’s consider the documented fact you got something going with the guy’s wife.”

Moran slammed the door closed and Jiggs raised his hand, a peace sign.

“I’m not questioning your intentions, George. Where I live down on the South Beach-Hotel Lamont, sounds like class, uh? You should see it-down there you fall in love with some old Jewish broad on food stamps or you go uptown a mile and find a hooker. No, true love is beautiful, George; but in seeking it you got to be sure and keep your nuts outta the wringer.” Jiggs paused and the inside of the car was quiet except for a faint ticking sound, the engine cooling down. “I’ll bet you asked his wife-I’ll bet it came up in conversation and you asked her where the general keeps his going-away money. Am I right?”

Moran opened the car door again.

“The only point I want to make about this evening, George-de Boya does that to a spray-painter, what’s he gonna do to a guy he finds out’s been jazzing his wife, room one sixty-seven the Holiday Inn? He’s already pretty sure. The man’ll believe anything I tell him.”

Moran got out of the car this time. He said, looking in at Scully, “You want to tell him, Jiggs? Tell him.” He swung the door closed and walked off toward the motel office.

Maybe it was the only way. Let it happen.