Cat Chaser

17

MORAN WALKED THE BEACH in a fine mist of rain, sky and ocean a blend of the same dismal gray, the day showing in faint streaks of light but not promising much. It was all right though. The solitude was like a vacuum, seamless; he could stand in the middle of gray nothingness with his mind at rest and soon a burst of revelation would come to him. Enlightenment. A cosmic reaction to his panting neurons. He waited, looking at nothing, trying hard to think of nothing. He waited and waited, calm. Still he waited. Then raised his face to the rain, to the murky wash of light, and yelled against the moan of the wind as loud as he could, “Fuck!”

After, he felt some relief but not much. It released maybe a few pounds of frustration and was better than slamming his fist into a wall, though the wall was still there and he’d be goddamned if he could see a way to get through it. All he wanted to do at this moment was talk to her.

He’d phoned at eight and the maid, Altagracia, had said, “I’m sorry, Mrs. de Boya is not here. She out for the day.” Moran had said, “Please, okay? She wants to talk to me.” And the maid had said again she was sorry…

His sweater and jeans were soaked through, hair matted to his head. He had been wet before. He had come up against walls before. Had learned patience, he believed, in the Marines and could wait sitting on his seabag when there was purpose in waiting. He had learned about frustration in his war in the D.R. trying to tell Friendlies from Unfriendlies and it had been, up to now, the most gut-twisting time of his life-yes-frustrated on the one hand and set up and sucked in on the other, just like now, and he’d hacked and stalked his way through it-that’s what you do. (Was it his revelation, the answer right there inside him all the time?) Yes-you don’t think, you do!

Moran left the beach and went in his bungalow tracking sticky sand to the counter and dialed Mary’s number. He felt pumped up. When the maid with the immutable tone said, “I’m sorry-”

Moran said, “Listen, you put her on the phone right now or I’m calling the police.” Which made no sense to him but maybe it would to her.

Altagracia said, “A moment, please.”

Moran said to himself, Do, don’t think. But when de Boya’s voice came on he was stopped. De Boya said, “Yes? Who is this?”

“Andres, it’s George Moran. I’d like to speak to Mary.”

“She’s busy,” Andres said.

“Would you ask her to call me?” Christ, saying it to her husband.

“You going to be busy too, very soon.” Andres hung up.

For the second time since waiting for his revelation Moran felt a slight lessening of pressure. Mary was home. At least for the time being. All right. All he had to do was go get her. Then wondered what de Boya meant: he was going to be busy, soon.

Jerry, the morning paper under his arm, got his key out and unlocked the door to the office. He noticed the trunk of Nolen’s car raised, then saw it go down and there was Nolen holding a grocery sack. Jerry watched in wonder because he had never seen Nolen up and about before 10:00 A.M. Jerry said, “I didn’t know the liquor stores were open this early.”

Nolen raised the sack. “Lemons.”

Jerry said, “You gonna make lemonade?”

“I’m gonna squeeze all the vitamins out of ’em,” Nolen said, “and make whiskey sours.”

Jerry made a face as though he might be sick. At this point he saw the two Latins get out of a car across the street and start this way, one of them carrying garden shears.

Nolen had already seen them. He was moving Jerry into the office. “Call George. Hurry.”

Jerry didn’t understand the note of urgency. “I can tell ’em,” he said, “we don’t need any trimming done. The hell they want to work in the rain for?”

Nolen said, “Goddamn it, gimme the phone. He dialed the number looking out the window and said, “George, run. I mean quick.”

Moran put the phone down. On an angle through a side window he saw the Mendoza brothers coming through the corner alcove past the icemaker and Coke machine, coming toward the bungalow. Both were wearing wool knit watch caps and leather jackets, one of them carrying a large pair of pruning shears with rubber grips. Moran got back to the phone. He said, “Call the cops.”

Now Jerry was on. He said, “What do they want, George?”

“They want me. Call the cops-tell ’em it’s an emergency.” He hung up. Christ-he had to get something on; he’d showered and dried himself but wasn’t dressed. Moran pulled on jeans, got a sweater out of the closet. He needed a weapon, a club. He didn’t want a knife, he didn’t know how to use a knife. Now they were banging on the door. He had to get out of here. They were banging on the door again. The side window was stuck, it was always stuck. But he strained and raised it enough to slip through the opening. He was walking away from the side of the house when the two Mendozas appeared, coming around from the front. They waved.

The one with the shears said something in Spanish. The other one said, “Come here. We want to go inside.”

Moran’s ears strained for the sound of a siren. He picked up the ten-foot aluminum pole that was used, with an attachment, for vacuuming the pool.

“Got to work, trabajo,” Moran said.

The Mendoza brother who had spoken English held his palms up to the rain. “You don’t work today, man. We go inside, out of this, the tiempo.”

“I work every day,” Moran said. “I love to work. Got to get it done.”

He glanced around, saw Nolen coming up on the other side of the pool. Nolen was looking at the Mendozas, saying, “Hey, you got the wrong guy. This is a friend of Jiggs Scully, his amigo.”

Moran said across the pool, “These guys work for Jiggs?”

Nolen gestured, minimizing. “I think so… Hey, we’re amigos of Jiggs. You sabe Jiggs? Go call him on the telefono, he’ll tell you. You got the wrong guy.”

The Mendozas didn’t seem to understand or didn’t want to. The one who spoke English had the end of Moran’s aluminum pole now. He tried to pull it hand over hand toward him, but Moran tightened his grip and they tugged back and forth for a moment about eight feet apart. The other one stood with the shears in both hands now, the blades pointing up.

“We go in the house,” the one holding the pole said. “You suppose to give us something for Señor de Boya.” He repeated it, Moran believed, in Spanish and the one with the shears laughed and continued to grin.

“You think I’m going in the house with you,” Moran said, “you’re outta your mind.” He raised one hand to indicate the motel units. “There people here, they’re all watching. You sabe witness? Shit, what was the word? Testigo. Muchos testigos in all the ventanas.”

“Come on, we go inside,” the Mendoza holding the end of the pole said, and gave it a quick jerk, almost pulling it away from Moran. But he got both hands on it and jerked back, his hands slipping on the wet metal, pulling, having a tug-of-war in the rain. When finally he heard the first high-low wails of a siren coming very faintly from Atlantic Boulevard, hearing it because he was listening for it, he let the Mendoza holding the pole pull him closer hand over hand until Moran was in reach, the Mendoza still gripping the pole when Moran let go and slammed a hard left hand into the astonished Mendoza’s face; the man sat down, stunned. With five feet of aluminum pole in front of him now, the rest dragging, Moran drove at the Mendoza with the shears and caught him in the belly-the siren wail much louder now-and jabbed at him until the shears came clanging against the pole; but Moran was going to get in and not let this man alter his life and when he caught the Mendoza’s throat with the pole it stopped him, brought him up, and Moran was able to step in and belt him with a left and another left that brought blood from his nose, the Mendoza wobbly but trying to stick him with the shears. Moran gave him a head fake and went in high, got inside those jabbing blades, grabbed hold and drove. They went over the cement wall to land in wet sand, Moran on top, getting a hand under the wool cap now to grab hair, twist the guy’s head facedown. He heard words snapped in Spanish above him. The other Mendoza had a knee on the cement wall, pointing a blue-steel revolver… But now a voice called out in hard Anglo-Saxon English telling the Mendoza to freeze, called him an obscene name and that was it for the Mendozas. The two Pompano Beach officers came hatless looking like young pro athletes with nickel-plated Smith & Wessons gleaming wet and it was clear they would use them.

Moran said yes, he would sign charges, assault with deadly weapons or assault to do great bodily harm, whichever was worse, and if the officers could think of anything else put it down. This kind of thing, Moran told them, was not good for the tourist business. He didn’t tell the police he knew the Mendozas or that he had seen them assist in murder last night; he’d save that and maybe tell them another time. One of the cops said, “Well, you sure handled these fellas.”

Moran said, “I was protecting something more valuable to me than I can tell you.”

From his bathroom-cleaning up, changing his clothes again-he heard a familiar voice in the front room and walked out through his bedroom to see Nolen talking on the phone. Nolen raised his hand. On the counter was a pitcher of what looked like French-vanilla ice cream, melted and watery.

“Jesus, make yourself at home,” Moran said and went back into the bedroom. Putting on a clean pair of jeans and a dark blue pullover sweater, he heard Nolen say “Jiggs” a couple times. When he went out again Nolen was off the phone, pouring the mixture in the pitcher into two glasses. He offered one of them as Moran came over.

“Breakfast,” Nolen said. “Fresh lemons, bourbon and four eggs. A little powdered sugar. You don’t provide a blender, I had to beat hell out of it by hand.”

Moran took the glass Nolen offered and drank it, not to be sociable but because he needed it. It wasn’t bad.

“So, they work for Jiggs.”

“Listen, he’s very apologetic,” Nolen said, seated at the counter now, cowboy boots hooked in the rungs of the stool, starched safari shirt hanging out. For a change Nolen didn’t appear sick this morning. “Jiggs sent ’em over to de Boya, like to help out with that piss-poor security he’s got, but actually to help Jiggs, get the master plan rolling.”

“You mean those guys are your partners?”

“Naw, they don’t know anything. You wind ’em up and pay ’em, they do whatever they’re told. Like yank out de Boya’s telephone line. Screw up his head, he thinks the terrorists are closing in.”

“Well, you know who they’re screwing up,” Moran said, “while I’m trying to get his wife out of there.”

Nolen poured a couple more sours. “You got time.”

“Is that right? Tell me about it.”

“That was Jiggs, I phoned him. He says de Boya sent the Mendozas over cause he found out about you and his wife and had a fit. Not from Scully, from somebody else.”

Moran said, “Wait a minute-put the goddamn glass down.” He gave himself a moment, Nolen telling him it was okay, take it easy, but he could feel his heart beating against his chest and he didn’t know how to slow it down or if he wanted to.

“He’s kicking her out of the house,” Nolen said. “You got no problem.”

“When?”

“Now, today. He told her to pack and get out.”

“How does Scully know? De Boya tell him?”

“Scully gets pieces and puts ’em together. The Mendozas hear something from one of the maids-they’re sitting around the kitchen-about the wife getting beat up and they call Scully-”

Moran stopped him. “Wait now. Andres beat her up?”

There was a look coming into his eyes Nolen had never seen before and hoped it wasn’t for him.

“Take it easy, okay? She’s fine.”

“He hit her?”

“They had a heavy argument with some pushing and shoving, that’s all. The Mendozas tell Scully and he goes over to check, feel his way around; he doesn’t want any surprises when the time comes. He get there-no Mendozas. De Boya’d sent them here. They’re suppose to bring your shlong back in a Baggie so he can give it to his wife. Weird, but it’s like what Rafi was telling us, they do it with shears, man. Jesus, I get goose bumps thinking about it. The Mendozas, they don’t give a shit they’re not actually working for de Boya, it sounds like fun. Scully says it was a misunderstanding and he says he hopes you’re okay. I told him the two guys’re in the Pompano city jail and Scully says that’s all right, he was through with them anyway.” Nolen raised his glass. “So here we are.” He drank down his sour. “And I might add, today’s the big day.”

Moran walked away, Nolen’s voice following him now into the bedroom. “You gonna ask me what’s happening?” From the dresser Moran got his wallet and car keys, returned to the front room and kept walking toward the door.

“Where you going?”

Moran said, “Where do you think.”

“Wait now, you don’t want to go over there. Let her come here. Call her up.”

“I’m through calling.”

“He sees you he’ll get a gun. Honest to God, I mean it. He’ll kill you.”

Moran was still doing rather than thinking, more pumped up now than he was earlier; but Nolen’s words and grown-up wisdom stopped him with his hand on the door. He looked back at Nolen.

“What happens today?”

“We hit de Boya. That’s what happens.”

Moran came back to the counter. Nolen seemed to straighten on the stool.

“Your idea-flush him, make him run.”

“How’re you gonna do that?”

“Bomb scare.”

“A real one?”

Nolen shook his head. He had Moran’s interest now and could take his time. “One was enough. He saw his dock blown to hell, the man’s a believer. Jiggs’ll ask him about the telephone line being cut and who came to fix it. Is he sure they were from Southern Bell? Give him doubts. So when he gets a call his house’s been wired to go up he grabs his money and runs.”

“How do you know he will?”

“Because he’s been looking over his shoulder for twenty years half-expecting something like this. I mean what’s getaway money for otherwise? The man doesn’t have to get hit over the head. He’s ready to jump.”

“Maybe,” Moran said, “but he could be way ahead of you, have an idea what you’re doing.”

Nolen was shaking his head.

“Why not?”

“What convinces him it’s real is who the call comes from.” Nolen winked, feeling frisky. “The Coral Gables Police.” He grinned at Moran. “Like it? I’d think you’d wish us luck anyway, clobbering the son of a bitch.”

“That a line from a movie?”

“This is real-life drama now, George.”

“You missed the big scene last night.”

“Well, that was unfortunate, but guys like Rafi, that can happen. He overreached and didn’t look where he was going.”

“You used him.”

“I had nothing to do with that.”

“Are you drunk?”

“This’s what I’ve had, right here. One beer when I got up.”

“You were drunk I could understand you,” Moran said. “Rafi was used and you’re next, you don’t even know it.”

“Unh-unh.”

“What’s your part in it?”

“I make the anonymous call to the cops. Ready to go off around seven this evening. We want to wait’ll the rush hour’s over on the freeway.”

“Then what?”

“I wait for Jiggs to call me. Bar out by Ninety-five.”

“Go on.”

“I meet him, wherever he’s got de Boya.”

“You mean wherever he’s killed de Boya. Nolen, you dumb shit, he’s not gonna let him live. You either. He’ll take the both of you, fifty miles over to the Everglades, you’re never seen again. Just tell me, is that a possibility?”

Nolen pretended to think about it, nodded once and took a drink.

“Well?”

“There’s a certain risk,” Nolen said, “I know that. But there’s no payoff in this kind of action without risk, is there? See, I’m aware of that. You think I’m dumb. Jiggs, he uses me, yeah, for what I can do. But you’re forgetting one thing.” Nolen reached around behind him, dug under his shirttail and from the waist of his trousers brought out a Colt .45 automatic, winked at Moran and laid it on the counter.

“I was Airborne.”

Moran saw Nolen’s gleam, wet and bloodshot but still a gleam. He said quietly, “Nolen, that was sixteen years ago.”

Nolen said, “I’ve jumped out of airplanes, George, and I’ve shot at the enemy. I’ve been to war. Tell me this is different.”

“I’m going,” Moran said. “I’ve got to get out of here.”

He was at the door, pushing it open when Nolen said, “George, tell me something else and be honest.”

Moran looked around. “What?”

“Tell me you don’t want to see the man dead.” When Moran didn’t speak Nolen said, “See? It’s why I can tell you about it and expect best wishes. I know where your heart is, buddy. I’ll tell you something else too and put money on it. Here…” He dug into his shirt pocket and laid a folded bill on the counter. “Here’s ten bucks says if you go to that man’s house you’re gonna get shot in the head way before I ever do… Come on, put up.”

For another few moments Moran stared at Nolen hunched over the counter, the morning drinker with his bloodshot gleam and his slick-combed hair. He said, “Nolen, you don’t have one chance of making it.”