Cat Chaser

20

THE BAR JIGGS HAD PICKED OUT for Nolen was on the corner of Atlantic and SW Sixth Avenue on the west side of Pompano, about thirty seconds from the freeway.

Nolen was wearing sunglasses and an old raincoat, creased with wrinkles, his cowboy boots hooked in the rung of the barstool that was as close to the phone booth as he could get: sipping scotch with a twist, fooling with the swizzle stick that was like a little blue sword. Four swords on the bar plus the one he was playing with. The bartender had tried to take them and Nolen told him no, he needed the swords to keep score. He was allowing himself six, no more than that. Just enough to keep his motor responses lubricated, idling. He didn’t count the pitcher of sours; that was breakfast. It seemed a long time ago-still there in Moran’s house sipping when he got the emergency call from Jiggs, Jiggs saying he was in de Boya’s garage and the starting time had been moved up to right now, he’d call him at the bar when they got to Boca; only it might not be Boca, the general wasn’t being very cooperative. All that at once while Nolen was trying to ask him what he was doing in the garage, for Christ sake, and what were all the sirens.

The place was dark and had a nice smell of beer, the bartender down talking to the one other customer that looked like a retiree with his golf cap.

They both looked up as the phone rang in the booth and watched the weird-looking guy in the raincoat and sunglasses almost kill himself getting off his stool, the seat of the stool next to him spinning, throwing him as he leaned on it to get up. The bartender said, “I sure hope that’s your call.”

Nolen waved at him, went in the booth and closed the door. As soon as he heard Jiggs’s voice he said, “The hell’s going on?”

Jiggs’s voice sounded calm. Nolen listened, holding back on all his questions as Jiggs told him where to come, not Boca, but a place west of Lau-derdale and not too far.

“Just tell me how it went?”

Jiggs’s voice said it went fine, no problem.

“You got it?”

Jiggs’s voice said he was going to get it out of the car right now.

“Where’s de Boya?”

Jiggs’s voice said he was in the bathroom. The voice stopped Nolen then. It said, “Nolen, you want to talk on the phone, shoot the shit, or you want to get over here and help me count?”

Moran said to Jerry, “Mary’s gonna be staying with us maybe a few days. Oceanfront Number One.”

Jerry took a moment to adjust before coming on full of cordiality. “Why sure, that’s the one with the view. Except today. But the paper says it’s gonna clear up by tomorrow.” He got the key and said to Mary, “You like to register now? Or you can do it later if you want.”

Mary held back. Moran said, “Jerry, she’s not here. Okay?” He took the key and handed it to Mary. “If anybody asks.”

“I never saw this young lady before in my life,” Jerry said.

“I mean even if it’s the police. All right?”

Jerry sobered. He adjusted his golf cap, resetting it in the same position, cocked slightly to one side. “Yeah, well I don’t see any problem.”

“We won’t take any guests for a few days. Not that they’re breaking down the door.”

“Turn the No Vacancy on?”

“No, let’s not tell anybody a thing. I appreciate it, Jerry.”

“I know you do,” Jerry said. He gave Mary a wink, getting the feel of his new role.

Moran opened the door to the courtyard and closed it against the rain coming in. “Jerry, how about Nolen? Is he around?”

“Got a phone call about an hour ago and left right after. Smashed as usual. I hope he don’t get in a car wreck.”

Moran went out with the bags.

Mary said to Jerry, “Nice seeing you again.” Amazed at this natural response, her voice not giving her away. Outside, hurrying to keep up with Moran moving fast with the three bags, she said, “I don’t believe it.” Her voice raised in the wind. She said, “Remember how you kept saying that? When I called your room in Santo Domingo-‘I don’t believe it.’ Remember?” Talking out of a compulsion to hear herself and know she was in control. “ ‘Come on, I don’t believe it.’ You said it about five times.”

Moran said over his shoulder, “I believe it now,” not stopping till they got to the end apartment off the beach, Moran hunching his shoulders against the rain coming in sheets off the ocean, Mary trying to hold her tote out of the way and get the door open.

They were soaked by the time they got inside and Moran let the bags drop. Mary closed the door and came to him, pressed her wet face against his wet shoulder, felt the familiar comfort of his arms come around her. It seemed late, so dark for afternoon. She pressed against him, hearing the wind moan out of the gray mass of ocean and felt an excitement that was hard to keep down. She said, “I’ve done something else you’re not gonna believe,” raising her face to his.

Moran saw her expression, the grin she was trying to hold back. He looked at her with the innocence of a straight man waiting for it and said, “Are you serious?”

She said, “Wait till I show you,” and saw his expression change, starting to grin but not sure he wanted to.

Nolen found 84 and turned off the freeway at the peak of his whiskey rush, the glow carrying him along with a feeling of effortless control, gliding in the high excitement of a rainstorm, clouds hanging close enough to touch. (He had come out of the bar with his sunglasses on and thought it was midnight.) Now it was that colorless nothing kind of time, the eye of the storm. He found the New River Canal Road, not another car in sight and kept pressing, riding the wind, the black overcast his cover, until he saw the stand of pines off to the north. He touched the right-hand pocket of his raincoat and felt the hard bulk of the .45. Here we go… turned in and rode the Porsche through pools formed in the ruts, hearing the wake washing aside, saw the house and two cars in the yard now, the wipers giving him quick glimpses. He rolled to a stop on the off side of the Cadillac and now considered-in spite of the charm he felt-the tricky part. Walking from the car to the house. He felt his mouth dry and wondered why he hadn’t brought a bottle with him.

Well fuck it, he’d gone into houses on the east bank of the Ozama with cotton in his mouth and automatic weapon fire popping away and one place had found beer inside, not cold, but beer all the same and he hadn’t gotten even a scratch in anger during that war and was subject to serious gunfire nearly every day and you know why?, because his life was being spared for something big if not fame that would come to him with more money than he could count on a rainy afternoon in Florida. You’re goddamn right. He got out of the car and walked up to that house… saw the door open a crack… hesitated the moment he needed to clear the .45 and kicked the door in with a cowboy boot.

Jiggs sat in an easy chair that faced away from the front windows and the door, so that Nolen came in almost behind him. He saw Jiggs look him up and down, Jiggs just sitting there. Nolen looked past him at the two suitcases lying closed on a round card table. He turned and looked toward the hallway.

“Where’s the general?”

“In the bathroom.”

“Still?” Nolen looked at the suitcases again. “How come you haven’t opened ’em?”

“They’re open.”

“Well, why don’t you say something, for Christ sake?”

“I want to hear you,” Jiggs said.

Nolen went over to the card table. He reached up to switch on the hanging fixture that was like an oil lamp with a glass chimney. He saw the suitcases were unfastened, unzipped, and looked at Jiggs again.

“Go ahead,” Jiggs said.

Nolen lifted the flap of a suitcase and let it fall open. He saw newspapers. He saw the front page of the Miami Herald telling him Haitians had drowned in the surf at Hillsboro. He felt down under the papers. He threw back the flap of the other suitcase and saw more newspapers and felt through them all the way to the bottom. He looked at Jiggs, squinting at him.

“The general see us coming?”

“Nah, it wasn’t the general.”

“Well, did you have a talk with him? Christ!” Nolen whipped around, cocked his weapon as he stomped toward the hallway.

“I said it wasn’t him,” Jiggs said.

He waited, a clear picture of a rainy afternoon in his mind: Moran throwing the same kind of luggage into the back seat of a beat-up Mercedes, girlfriend who was way ahead of everybody behind the wheel of the getaway car. He heard Nolen scream:

“Jesus Christ!”

And waited for him to appear: barely moving in his shroud raincoat, gunhand hanging limp, like he’d been hit over the head and was now about to fall.

“It was your buddy,” Jiggs said. “Son of a gun beat us to it.”

“My settlement,” Mary said, on the floor next to the open suitcase. “Now do you love me?” She had taken off her wet clothes, chilled, and held a cotton bedspread around her like an Indian blanket; a young girl at a pajama party eager to have fun. She said, “What’s the matter, can’t you say anything? You’re looking at it, but you still can’t believe it, huh?”

“I believe it,” Moran said without emotion.

He sat in his shirt and Jockeys on the edge of the sofa, hunched over in lamplight to look at the stacks of currency, packets of brand-new hundred-dollar bills, rows of them filling the suitcase, remembering Scully telling him about the Igloo coolers and a hundred thousand stacking up to less than a foot high. He felt vulnerable and wished he had run across to his house to change first. He’d brought Mary here because of the three suitcases, because he thought she’d need more room for clothes than his house could offer.

He said, “All three are full of money?”

“No, two,” Mary said. “I brought a few things, but I didn’t want to load myself down.”

“How much’s in there?”

“I don’t know exactly. It looks like a million one hundred thousand in each bag. But anything over two million Andres gets back. I only want what I have coming.”

“You didn’t count it?”

“George, this’s the first time I’ve even seen it. I made the switch while Andres was downstairs in his den.”

“The switch-you sound like a pro.”

“No, it’s my first job. I was gonna call a cab and then I found out you were on the way. My hero.” She looked at him curiously, smile fading to a slight frown. “Does money make you nervous? What’s the matter?”

He was looking at the scene on Arvida, flashing lights reflecting in the rain. “Andres and Corky came out with two suitcases, just like these.”

“He has at least a dozen Louis Vuitton,” Mary said. “I think he must have stock in the company. He kept two bags packed with his traveling money, always ready.”

“Where’d he hide them?”

“You guessed it the other day and thought you were kidding. Under the bed.”

“Come on-just sitting there? Not locked up?”

“Under two hundred and fifty gallons of water and inside a marble safe that looks like the pedestal of his bed. There’s a tiny hole at the foot you can barely see. You slide in a magnetic key that’s like a long needle and part of the marble slides open.”

Moran said, “He trusted you?” and sounded surprised, thinking of her with Andres now rather than in the beginning.

“Why not?” Mary said, thinking of herself with Andres in that time before. “Something to impress the bride, a fortune under the marriage bed. Vanity, George. And if he hasn’t trusted me lately, well, a cheater isn’t necessarily a thief. He tends to sell women short.”

“But what’s in the bags Andres took? They weren’t empty, were they?”

“No, I pulled out the suitcases with the money and then I thought, What if he gets suspicious when he sees me leave and runs upstairs to check? So I packed two other suitcases with old newspapers and shoved them under the bed. The worst part was carrying an armload of papers upstairs. I thought sure he’d see me and I couldn’t think of a good story.”

“You planned this? How come you didn’t tell me?”

“I didn’t plan it, I just did it.”

Moran finally smiled; he couldn’t help it. And for a few moments felt better about the whole thing.

“I was mad. My mouth hurt.” Mary raised a hand to touch her face and the bedspread slipped from one shoulder. “Now, I can’t believe I did it… Do you see a problem?”

Moran said, “Do I see a problem?” He reached over as if reminded and turned off the lamp. He could still see the neat stacks of currency. “Mary, I don’t think problem’s the word.”

He was up now, moving to the window next to the door, parting the draperies to look out at the courtyard in a pale glow, a solemn stillness after the storm. It would be dark soon, dull light to dark without the color of sunset this evening.

She stared at his bare legs, shirttails hanging to cover the Jockey briefs. She thought about making a grab at him, get his attention.

“George, if Andres wants to fight about it, okay, we’ll go to court. I’ll bring the original prenuptial agreement-I hate that word-and the amendment he forced me to sign. It doesn’t even look like my signature.”

Moran didn’t seem to be listening.

He said, “We’ve got to get out of here. I’m gonna run over and get some clothes on.” He was still watching through the opening in the draperies. “We could hide the money… No, we’d better just go, quick.” He glanced at her now. “Get dressed. And bring the wet things, don’t leave ’em.”

She said, “George, if Andres comes it’s because he knows the money’s here. We won’t let him have it, that’s all. I’ll tell him to see me in court.”

Moran turned from the window now. “And if Jiggs Scully comes, what do you tell him?” He picked up his jeans from a chair, wet and stiff, and pulled them on as Mary watched, eyes staring wide now, holding the bedspread around her. He said, “I’ll be right back,” and went out the door.

It gave her time to think, to relive the act, the awful anxiety of carrying an armload of newspapers up that open stairway, finding the key in the medicine cabinet of Andres’s bathroom, down on the floor with her heart pounding pulling the suitcases out then retracing, replacing the key, taking the suitcases to her room, trying to compose herself, finally walking out past Andres… going through all that so she could give two million two hundred thousand dollars to Jiggs Scully? She thought, I’ve never even spoken to him.

It gave her a strange feeling because she could not think of a compelling reason to be afraid of Jiggs Scully, except that Moran was and Moran knew him.

She dressed in sweater and slacks and waited, sitting on the arm of a chair to look out through the draperies at the empty courtyard in the beginning of nighttime darkness, watching his house, waiting for some sign of him. Gone longer now than she’d expected. The door opened and she jumped.

Then let her breath out in relief. “God, you scared me. Where’d you come from?” He moved to the window without answering, parted the draperies to look out and she said, “We’re too late, aren’t we?”

“They’re out in front,” Moran said.

For several minutes they watched the courtyard in silence, until a figure in a long coat appeared out of shadow, walking toward the beach. He seemed uncertain, almost as though he were lost.

“It’s Nolen,” Moran said, but didn’t move from the window.