Cinderella

11

Jimmy Legs showed Stagg the picture.

“Where’d you get this?” Stagg asked.

“I found it in somebody’s office,” Jimmy said.

“This is what she looks like, huh?”

“Yeah,” Jimmy said.

“Like to take a run at that sometime,” Stagg said.

“We find her,” Jimmy said, “nobody’s gonna wanna take a run at her no more, believe me. Some broads they gotta be taught you don’t steal a person’s watch.”

“Be a terrible waste, you mess her up,” Stagg said, looking at the picture and shaking his head.

“Maybe just bust her nose,” Jimmy said. “You break somebody’s nose in a coupla places, it hurts like hell. She’ll look terrific with a smashed nose like a gorilla’s, huh?” Jimmy laughed. “Squash it right into her face, we find her. Face like she’s gonna have, she’ll be lucky to get half a buck a blow job.” He laughed again. Stagg was still looking at the picture.

“The thing is,” Stagg said, “nobody heard nothing about this Rolex. I think I must’ve contacted every fence in town, none of them—”

“Whattya mean you think?” Jimmy said.

“What?” Stagg said.

“Did you contact every fence or didn’t you?”

“Well, I...”

“’Cause either you done the job right or you didn’t do it at all. You miss one fence you might as well not’ve talked to any of them.”

“I maybe missed one or two,” Stagg said.

“I’m surprised at you,” Jimmy said, shaking his head.

“I’ll see I can find them this afternoon. You gonna need this picture?”

“I got the picture especially for you,” Jimmy said.

“’Cause maybe it’ll help, I can show a picture.”

“Yeah, but take care of it. You come up blank, I’ll prolly have to make some prints, you know?”

“They can do that, huh? You don’t need the negative?”

“No, they can do it right from what you got in your hand there.”

“It’s amazing what they can do nowadays, ain’t it?” Stagg said.

He rose from where the men were sitting on the deck at Marina Lou’s, looking out over the sailboats on the water. Nobody in the place would have dreamt they’d been discussing the rearrangement of a beautiful girl’s features.

“I’ll get on this right away,” he said, putting the picture in the inside pocket of his “Miami Vice” sports jacket, “see what I can do, okay? I’ll give you a call later.”

“Yeah,” Jimmy said.

This was at eleven o’clock on the morning of June 17.

At exactly eleven-ten, May Hennessy called Matthew to say that every cloud had a silver lining.

What had happened was that she’d been trying to put together the shambles the burglar had made of the office — papers strewn everywhere, drawers overturned, books thrown helter-skelter — when she’d come upon a spiral-bound notebook of the sort Otto used when he was on surveillance. She figured he’d tucked the book into his desk drawer on the Friday before he was killed, intending to give his notes to her for typing on Monday morning.

There had been no Monday morning for Otto.

The notes were still where he’d left them, still in his handwriting.

They were the notes he’d made for the last week of activity on the Larkin case.

Did Matthew want to see them?

Matthew’s partner Frank believed that the best writers in the world wrote exactly the way they spoke, their style being a sort of voice-print. Which further meant, Frank said, that a great many highly acclaimed writers were boring conversationalists. Frank was probably wrong; he was wrong about a lot of things. In any event, Otto wasn’t writing for publication, and the prose style in his notes was indeed somewhat like his speaking style, condensed into a rapid shorthand and sounding far different from the typed reports Matthew had earlier read. Perhaps May Hennessy edited for client consumption as she went along.

The typed reports had been a chronicle of futility.

Small wonder that Larkin had been dismayed by the lack of progress on the case. Otto had first checked the telephone directories for Calusa and all the neighboring towns. No Angela West. He had checked every motel and hotel. Nothing. He had checked all the condominium rental offices. He had checked all the car rental companies. He had checked all the banks. Nothing anywhere. If Angela West was living in Calusa, Sarasota, or Bradenton, he did not know where.

But the handwritten notes...

On Monday afternoon, June 2, after more than a month on the case, Otto spent a harrowing morning with a supervisor from the telephone company, trying to learn whether or not Angela West might have an unlisted telephone. The supervisor was adamant in protecting the rights to privacy of any telephone company customer. Otto wanted to strangle her. Or so he had written in his notes for that day, a comment May undoubtedly would excise when later typing them.

On Tuesday, June 3, Otto had gone to see a friend of a friend who worked at the airport, and the friend’s friend was going to see what he could do about checking the various airline manifests for a possible Angela West traveling to or from the tri-city area. He was having lunch later in a hamburger joint in the South Dixie Mall on Smoke Ridge and 41...

Sitting at a table in a place across the corridor from a games arcade and a bookstore...

When a girl carrying a shopping bag walked out of the bookstore and...

Holy shit!

It was the girl in the picture Larkin had given him.

Long blonde hair trailing down her back, high heels clicking as she glided past him not four feet from where he was sitting, he almost jumped out of his socks.

He followed her out of the mall and into the parking lot where she got into a white Toyota Corolla with the license plate 201-ZHW and a yellow-and-black Hertz #1 sticker on the rear bumper. She made a right turn on 41, Otto on her tail, and continued north till she got to Egret Avenue where she made a left heading west and finally pulled into the parking lot of the Medical Arts Building on Egret and Pierce, a two-story, red-brick complex with what Otto figured had to be at least twenty or thirty doctors’ offices in it. Otto ran in after her, but she was already wherever she was going by the time he got into the lobby, and he had no way of knowing which of the doctors she was going there to see. He copied down the names of all the doctors listed on the lobby directory board — it turned out there were only sixteen — and then went out to wait for her in the parking lot.

She was in there about an hour.

In his notes at this point, Otto did a bit of editorializing on doctors in Florida, who figured everybody here was old and in no hurry and who overbooked more outrageously than the airlines did. You sometimes waited an hour and a half before a nurse led you into a little cubicle where you undressed and waited another half-hour, reading last year’s Sports Illustrated until a doctor walked in and said, Hello, how are we feeling today? We are feeling annoyed, Otto wrote in his notes. Matthew suspected that some of this was for May’s benefit, keep his assistant smiling and shaking her head as she excised any extraneous material from the typewritten report.

Anyway, Cinderella was in there for an hour, with Otto sitting in his car waiting for her to come out. When she finally did, he followed her out of the parking lot and across Egret to the traffic light on Sea Breeze. She made a left just as the light was turning. A traffic cop waved Otto down as he started to follow, so he was forced to stop at the light, and wait for it to change, by which time he’d lost her heading east on Sea Breeze.

He went back to the office, called Hertz, told the young girl who answered the phone that he was a private detective working for an insurance company, and that he was trying to trace a girl who’d been named beneficiary of a substantial policy. It was his belief that she may have rented a Toyota Corolla from Hertz, and he wondered if she could check her files for the license plate 201-ZHW and let him have the name and address of the renter.

The young girl — eager to help a working girl like herself inherit a zillion dollars — checked her files and came back five minutes later with the information that on April 3, at the tri-city airport, Hertz had rented the Toyota Corolla with the 201-ZHW license plate to a woman named Jenny Santoro who had since renewed the rental twice.

Otto asked how she was paying for the car.

The girl told him American Express.

Otto asked if that was the name on the card, Jenny Santoro.

The girl told him Yes.

Otto asked if Jenny Santoro had given an address here in Calusa.

The girl told him No, but that wasn’t unusual. Lots of people rented a car before they’d found a place to stay. She had given her home address, though, as 3914 Veteran Avenue in Los Angeles, California.

Jenny Santoro.

More editorializing here. Otto was astonished that she was Italian. That long blonde hair? Those blue eyes? Italian? Well, now he had a name, and now he had to start all over again with the new name.

By the end of the next day, Wednesday, June 4, Otto was beginning to think the Jenny Santoro was a phony, too, this despite the fact that you had to show a driver’s license before any rental company would let you drive off with a car. Otto noted gratuitously, however, that you could buy a phony driver’s license for a hundred bucks anyplace in America, and since the work he’d been doing all day long — the same routine checks he’d made for Angela West — were coming up blank for Jenny Santoro, there was a strong likelihood that the lady was carrying queer documents.

On Thursday, June 5, Otto went back to the South Dixie Mall.

He went back there because Cinderella (or Angela West or Jenny Santoro) had been carrying a shopping bag, and it was safe to assume there’d been something in that shopping bag and reasonable to expect she’d made a purchase in the mall, perhaps in the bookstore, perhaps in one of the other shops.

He showed the bookstore clerk the picture Larkin had given him and asked if this girl had made any purchases and if so how she had paid for them. He was praying for a check with a name and an address printed on it. He told the clerk, by the way, that he worked for a credit-card verification agency, whatever that was, and was trying to track down a stolen card.

The clerk recognized the photo, said Yes, this girl had bought a book just the other day, and then checked her receipts. The book was something entitled A New View of a Woman’s Body. It cost $8.95, and Cinderella had charged it to MasterCard. The name was another name entirely.

Jody Carmody.

Otto showed her picture in every store in the mall, using the same credit-card verification routine, wanting to know if she’d bought anything, and if so whether she’d used either a credit card or a check. He was still hoping she’d used a check in one of the stores. A saleswoman in a record shop recognized the picture, told Otto she’d bought some tapes and paid for them by credit card. Visa, this time.

The name on the card was Melissa Blair.

Otto went back to the bookstore, bought a copy of the book for himself, and drove to his office where he asked May to check all the tri-city phone directories for either a Jody Carmody or a Melissa Blair. May came up blank. Otto continued reading the book Cinderella had bought.

It was, he discovered, a sort of illustrated guide with chapter headings like “Self-Examination” and “A Woman’s Reproductive Anatomy” and “Universal Health Problems of Women” and “Feminist Abortion Care” and so on.

Otto wondered if the choice of this particular book had any connection with the visit Cinderella had made to the Medical Arts Building.

Had she gone to see an obstetrician/gynecologist?

On Friday, June 6 — two days before his murder — Otto went back to the Medical Arts Building, carrying with him the picture of Cinderella. He spoke to four OB-GYNs, the last of whom — a man named Dr. Schlemmer — identified the picture and said Yes, he had examined the girl, who had given her name as Mary Jane Hopkins and her address as 1237 Hacienda Road on Whisper Key. She had paid for the visit in cash. When Otto asked why she had come to see him, Dr. Schlemmer said that was privileged information.

Otto wondered if she was pregnant.

That same afternoon, Otto drove out to 1237 Hacienda Road, which turned out to be a place called Camelot Towers, which was a six-story condominium with ten apartments on each floor. He checked in the resident manager’s office for the name Mary Jane Hopkins. No such person living there. He showed the picture of Cinderella at the Jacaranda Ball, the one Larkin had given him. Ice-blue gown. Long blonde hair, bright blue eyes, wide smile on her face. The resident manager said she did not recognize the girl in the picture. By eight o’clock that night, he had knocked on the doors of seventeen apartments and showed Cinderella’s picture to eleven people.

Five of those people said she looked familiar but they hadn’t seen her around in a while.

Three of those people said they’d never seen her in their lives.

Two said they may have seen her, but they weren’t sure.

One said he’d seen her in the parking lot only yesterday, but he couldn’t remember which space she was parked in.

Otto got home at about eight-thirty.

He planned to go back to the condo on Saturday morning — and again on Sunday if necessary — to knock on more doors, showing the picture and trying to learn why she had given this particular address to Dr. Schlemmer.

That was the last of the handwritten notes.

Otto was killed on Sunday night.

“What are you talking about?” Larkin said, and leaned toward Matthew. “He found her? And he didn’t call me?”

“No, no, he—”

“You just said he spotted—”

“Yes, but—”

“So why didn’t he...?”

“What happened was—”

“Yeah, how about it? I’m the man was paying his bills, and I’m the last to—”

“The notes were still in his handwriting,” Matthew said. “They hadn’t been typed yet. I’m sure Otto planned—”

“So what’d the notes say?”

Matthew told him what the notes had said. They were sitting on the deck of Larkin’s house, looking out over the water. It was three o’clock in the afternoon, and thunderclouds were already massing.

“You’re kidding me,” Larkin said.

“No, I’m serious.”

“Cinderella?”

“Yes.”

“The picture I gave him?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t believe it,” Larkin said.

“It’s what happened.”

“I don’t believe in coincidences like that,” Larkin said, shaking his head.

“Well,” Matthew said.

“I just don’t believe it.”

“Anyway...” Matthew said, and began telling the rest of the story.

Every now and then, Larkin interrupted.

“Did he get the license plate?”

And...

“Italian, I can’t believe it. She looked like an Indiana wheatfield.”

And...

“Another name? What is she, a spy?”

But mostly he listened. And when Matthew finished telling him that Otto had planned to check out that condominium again on Monday, Larkin shook his head and said, “Fuckin’ bad break.”

“Mr. Larkin,” Matthew said, “the reason I’m here, I know you went to Otto because you considered this a confidential matter—”

“Very,” Larkin said.

“—and I assure you I’m well aware that I’ve already breached your privacy by reading Otto’s reports. I wouldn’t have done that if I didn’t feel so strongly about this. I don’t like the idea of someone killing him, Mr. Larkin. I don’t like it at all.”

“Neither do I.”

“The reason I’m here... is there anything you can add to what you already told Otto? Anything that might shed some light on why he was killed? Because you see—”

“I told him everything. The girl stole my watch, I wanted him to find her.”

“Because you see, in his notes, Otto seemed to think there might have been some significance to the girl’s visit to a doctor’s office and her purchase of a book about a woman’s body. What I’m asking... is there anything Otto didn’t know, anything you didn’t tell him, that might have had some bearing on his murder?”

“Like what?”

“Like... Mr. Larkin, was the girl pregnant?”

“What?”

“Was she pregnant? Angela West, Jenny Santoro, Jody Carmody, Melissa Blair... Cinderella? Was she pregnant?”

“How the hell would I know? I only saw her that one night.”

“Never saw her after that, is that right?”

“Never.”

“Do you have any reason to believe she might have become pregnant that night?”

“Why would I believe that?”

“Well... forgive me... but was any sort of contraception used?”

“What kind of question is that?” Larkin said angrily and rose suddenly and began pacing the deck. Beyond him, out over the water, there were distant flashes of lightning.

“I’m sorry I have to ask such a personal question, believe me,” Matthew said. “But in his notes Otto speculated that perhaps the girl’s visit to an OB-GYN’s office, coupled with her purchase of the body-book, might indicate she suspected she was pregnant. Otto’s intuitions were usually pretty sound, Mr. Larkin. And since this happened almost two months ago, it is possible, after all, that—”

“The girl was a pro,” Larkin said. “Pros don’t get pregnant.”

“Well, you don’t know for a fact that she was a professional.”

“Amateurs don’t fuck a guy’s brains out and then steal his watch,” Larkin said.

“Maybe not,” Matthew said.

“Anyway, what if she is pregnant, which I doubt. What does that have to do with Otto’s murder?”

“I don’t know,” Matthew said.

“I don’t see any connection at all. Even if she...”

He suddenly stopped pacing.

“Or is that it?” he said. “Is that why you’re here?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Matthew said.

Larkin was standing before him now, hands on his hips, looking down at him. Lightning streaked the distant sky again. “You think I might’ve killed Otto, don’t you?” he said. “Or had him killed.”

“No, I don’t,” Matthew said.

“You come here asking me did I knock her up...”

“You’re misunderstanding my—”

“Bullshit. What is it you’re thinking? That Otto was about to learn the fuckin’ bitch got herself pregnant? That it was me who decided to take him off the case? Permanently? Is that what you’re thinking?”

“No. But if she is pregnant...”

“Who gives a shit what she is?” Larkin said. “I hope she is, you want to know. With a fuckin’ Mongolian idiot!”

His vehemence startled Matthew. Out over the water, there was more lightning, and now the sound of distant thunder.

“I’m trying to say if Otto was close to making such a discovery, then it’s possible that someone — maybe even the girl herself — wasn’t too keen on having the information made public.”

“Well, the someone wasn’t me. And you know something? You’re right, you did breach my privacy by reading those reports and I’m starting to get a little bit pissed, okay? So maybe you oughta just get the fuck out of here, okay? Do me that favor.”

“I was hoping—”

“You were hoping wrong.”

“Sorry to’ve bothered you then,” Matthew said and rose, and started for the steps leading down to the side of the house.

“And let me tell you something else,” Larkin said. “I’ve already put somebody else onto finding little Cinderella, and he’s not the gentleman Otto was. So I don’t think he’d appreciate your snooping around.”

“Thanks, I’ll remember that,” Matthew said.

“I think you better,” Larkin said.

Lightning flashed far out over the water.

From where they sat on a deck overlooking Calusa Bay, Ernesto and Domingo and the two other men glanced up briefly at the jagged yellow streaks and then turned away from the water and continued talking. They were conversing in low, controlled voices because they were discussing dope.

The two men with Ernesto and Domingo took turns addressing Ernesto. They had figured the other one didn’t have any English at all. If they’d been a bit more astute, they’d have realized Domingo was listening to every word and not missing very much. Instead, they kept everything going to Ernesto.

The one who was talking now was a hefty man wearing a short-sleeved sports shirt, tan slacks, and loafers with no socks. He was something like thirty years old, Ernesto guessed, and he brought to the selling of his dope the intensity an IBM salesman might have brought to the selling of a typewriter or a computer. He enjoyed his job, this man. He enjoyed the big bucks to be made in his job. His name was Charlie Nubbs. Ernesto didn’t think that was his real last name, Nubbs. But that was how the man introduced himself, “Hello, I’m Charlie Nubbs, we hear you’re looking to buy some heavy machinery.”

Heavy machinery was cocaine, Ernesto guessed.

Ernesto and Domingo had spread the word around cautiously. Told a few people here and there that they had cash and were looking to spend it on choice blow. Let it be known they were looking for at least ninety-percent pure, which is what the girl had stolen from Amaros. Two, three keys, they said. Actually, the girl had stolen four keys, no wonder Amaros wanted to hang her from the ceiling. Four keys of nine-oh pure? Shit, man!

Nobody knew they were looking for Jenny Santoro, of course. All anybody knew was they were looking for dope. What they were hoping was somebody would say “Hey, there’s this chick in town she fell into some very good stuff and she’s looking for buyers.” That’s what they were hoping. So far, nobody knew such a chick.

Charlie Nubbs was telling them that this Friday night they were expecting a shipment of very good stuff. Charlie Nubbs didn’t know how many keys would be on the boat when they met it. They never knew until it arrived, it was different each shipment. What they had to do, he said, taking Ernesto into his confidence, was be prepared to pay cash on delivery for however many keys were on the boat. The price depended on how pure the coke was. It had been running a very high pure content lately, he was expecting the new shipment would be at least ninety-percent pure, which was about as good as you could get.

“I understand you’re looking for very rich stuff,” he said to Ernesto.

“That’s all we will accept, yes,” Ernesto said.

“And in what quantity?”

“Two, three keys.”

“That’s all, huh? ’Cause I was hoping you might want to take more than that. We sometimes get ten, twelve keys in a shipment, that’s a lot of cash to come up with. We could lay some of it off, you know, it’d be easier for us.”

Voices lowered. The men facing the water, looking out over the water. Women eating salads at a nearby table. Sailboats out there on the water. All tranquil and lovely, white sails against the pale blue sky and deeper blue water. Sea gulls hovering. Tuesday in Paradise.

The men continued talking dope.

“What we’re talking here,” the man with Charlie Nubbs said, “is seventy-five a key, something like that, if it’s as rich as it’s been running lately.”

The man with Charlie Nubbs was called Jimmy Largura. Ernesto thought he was Latino at first, he looked Latino. Turned out he was Italian, though. Jimmy Largura. Though Charlie Nubbs referred to him every now and then as Jimmy Legs. Jimmy Legs this, Jimmy Legs that. Jimmy Legs was now telling them how a speedboat, one of those cigarettes like the black one out there, would run out to meet the bigger boat this Friday night, take the shipment. It would be nice if Ernesto here could guarantee say the purchase of at least half a dozen keys, come up with say four-fifty for six keys, that would take a big load off their minds, knowing six keys were already committed.

“We could perhaps go to six keys,” Ernesto said. “But not at the price you’re talking.”

“That’s a fair price,” Charlie Nubbs said. “For ninety-pure? That’s a very fair price. Ain’t that a fair price, Jimmy?”

“For ninety-pure?” Jimmy said. “You gotta be kidding. It’s a steal. For ninety-pure, it’s a steal.”

“If it’s really ninety,” Ernesto said.

“Even if it’s only eighty-five,” Charlie Nubbs said.

“Or even eighty,” Jimmy said. “It’s a bargain even at eighty.”

“I can get ninety-percent pure for forty K,” Ernesto said, lying.

But he was thinking if he could come up with a good deal for Amaros... then if they couldn’t find the girl, which he was thinking might turn out to be the case, Amaros wouldn’t be so angry. If Ernesto could get him, say, six keys of ninety-pure at forty a key, that was very low.

If these men were that stupid.

“If that’s how much you’re talking,” Jimmy said, “there’s no sense talking. Forty K? You’re kidding. Tell me you’re kidding, please.”

“Forty sounds right,” Ernesto said.

“Say you paid seventy-five for it...” Jimmy said.

“That’s too high,” Ernesto said.

“I’m only sayin’ suppose you paid seventy-five...”

Ernesto was shaking his head.

“Suppose, okay?” Jimmy said. “It won’t kill you to suppose for a minute. You want another drink? Or you want to order some lunch?”

“Let’s have another round,” Charlie Nubbs said, and signaled to the waiter for drinks all around the table.

“I’m saying suppose you went in for seventy-five a key,” Jimmy said. “You give it a full hit, you already double your price. With ninety-pure it can stand a full hit, you know that. You could even step on it more, if you felt like it.”

“Well, I wouldn’t advise that,” Charlie Nubbs said. “You step on it too hard...”

“You’re right, you’re right,” Jimmy said. “So say just a full hit, okay? You pay seventy-five...”

The waiter was approaching the table. Jimmy immediately changed the subject.

“The one out there with the blue sails,” he said, “that’s got to run you at least seventy-five thousand, don’t you think?”

“Maybe even more,” Charlie Nubbs said.

The waiter put down the fresh drinks and asked if they’d care to see menus now. They told him to give them a few more minutes. The moment the waiter was gone, Jimmy lowered his voice again.

“Say seventy-five a key,” he said, “and you take six keys, you commit for six, okay. That comes to four hundred and fifty, you give the shit a full hit, you walk away with twice that. Nine hundred K. That ain’t bad on my block.”

Ernesto was thinking that in today’s market, seventy-five was in fact a fair price if the shit really was ninety-percent pure. But he wasn’t looking for fair, he was looking for a bargain. If he went to Amaros with a bargain, maybe he wouldn’t be too angry that they hadn’t found the girl.

“Forty is a fair price,” he said.

“Come on,” Charlie Nubbs said.

“You’re kidding,” Jimmy Legs said.

“Forty, forty-five tops,” Ernesto said. He turned to Domingo. “Cuarenta o cuaranta y cinco esta bien, no? Por noventa por ciento de pureza?”

Domingo nodded. “Sí, por supuesto,” he said.

“How does seventy sound to you?” Charlie Nubbs asked Jimmy.

“No, no, we can’t do it for that, that’s out of the question. Look,” he said, “let’s finish our drinks and go, okay? No hard feelings.”

He smiled to let them know he really meant there’d be no hard feelings.

What was going on here was the same kind of bargaining that went on in any business negotiation, except that the business here happened to be narcotics. Both Jimmy Legs and Charlie Nubbs knew exactly how many keys were coming in on that boat this Friday night, never mind the bullshit about the shipments varying. Twenty keys were coming in and they had agreed to pay a million flat for the twenty. That was fifty thousand a key. If they could get four hundred and fifty thousand for only six keys, that meant they’d be getting the remaining fourteen keys for only five-fifty, which came to something like thirty-nine, forty a key, which was dirt cheap.

Jimmy was sure the spics knew the going price for cocaine that was ninety-percent pure, which this actually was. Either they knew or they were amateurs. He knew for sure that they were jerking him around when they offered forty. Seventy-five was a good price, it really was. Well, not a good price — nobody was giving anything away at seventy-five — but a fair price. He and Charlie were getting a very good deal on the twenty keys because the South Americans they were dealing with were new people trying to establish a foothold in Florida. Fifty thousand a key was, in fact, a damn good deal. But in this business it was cash on the barrelhead, mister, and they were having a tough time coming up with the million. So they wouldn’t have minded laying off some of it on the spics. Not at forty a key, though. That was ridiculous.

Ernesto and Domingo both knew that forty was ridiculous. That was why Ernesto had immediately modified this to “forty, forty-five,” which was also ridiculous. A fair price was seventy-five. But Ernesto figured the wops were telling the truth (always a bad failing) when they said they wouldn’t mind laying some of the deal off on somebody else, which meant they weren’t about to lay it off at cost but were trying to make a little bit above cost for putting the deal together and so on. The question was how much they had agreed to pay for the dope. If they were paying sixty a key, for example, which is what it sounded like if they were asking seventy-five, then there was no way Ernesto was going to get a bargain here. He’d either have to find the girl or risk Amaros’s anger. Amaros might even hang him from the ceiling if he didn’t find the girl. He was thinking Ai, muchacho, it would be nice to get this shit for fifty a key, make Amaros very happy.

He didn’t have a chance of getting it for fifty; fifty was what they were paying for it. But he didn’t know that. Anyway, nobody was leaving just yet.

The waiter brought menus.

The men ordered.

Domingo kept eyeing the two women at the nearby table, both of whom were all dressed up for their Tuesday lunch.

“So what do you say?” Charlie Nubbs asked.

“I told you,” Ernesto said. “The highest I can go is forty-five. And even that, I’d have to check back with Miami.”

“Then we can’t talk business,” Jimmy said. “’Cause the lowest we can go is seventy.”

Ernesto noticed that a few minutes ago Jimmy had considered seventy out of the question. They were making progress.

“This snapper is delicious,” Charlie Nubbs said.

“Yeah, they get it fresh every morning in this place,” Jimmy said.

“You get good fish over in Miami, too, don’t you?” Charlie said.

“Oh, sure,” Ernesto said.

“How about sixty-five?” Jimmy said. “And you take eight keys. That’s we’re talking five-twenty, that’s a good deal.”

Ernesto suddenly knew they were paying fifty thousand a key.

“Sixty-five is too high,” he said. “I could never clear that with Miami.”

“Must be a real high roller there in Miami,” Jimmy said, “he can’t go to sixty-five.”

Ernesto said nothing. He looked at Domingo. Domingo shook his head. Jimmy suddenly wondered if the big guy with the slick little mustache wasn’t the real boss here.

“What could you go for?” Charlie Nubbs asked. “I mean, what do you think your man in Miami would okay?”

“I told you,” Ernesto said. “Forty-five.” He hesitated and then said, “Maybe fifty absolute tops.”

“Tell you what we’ll do,” Jimmy said. “You take ten keys for sixty a key, you’ve got a deal. That’s cost, amigo, believe me. That’s exactly what we’re paying for it.”

Ernesto knew he was lying.

The question was whether they’d be willing to come down to fifty-five. He was afraid that if he offered fifty-five they might become offended and walk. Italians had pride. At the same time, he wondered how desperate they were for cash.

“What we’re talking is six hundred thou,” Charlie Nubbs said.

Jimmy was doing arithmetic in his head. Sell off ten for six hundred, that meant they were paying only forty a key for the remaining ten keys. That was very good. If the spics went for it. If not, he didn’t know what he would do. They were probably looking to pay fifty-five a key, which was why they’d started at forty. Sell them ten keys for fifty-five, that meant the remaining ten keys were costing forty-five a key... no, that sucked. Sixty a key, he thought, take it or leave it.

“Take it or leave it,” he said aloud.

Ernesto knew he meant it.

So did Domingo.

“I have to call Miami,” Ernesto said.

“There’s a phone booth in the lobby,” Charlie said.

“I want to call from the motel,” Ernesto said.

Everybody understood the need for privacy. They would not be discussing soy beans or hog bellies on the phone.

“Okay,” Jimmy said, “get back to us tomorrow sometime. I don’t hear from you by three o’clock, I figure you’re out.”

“Good,” Ernesto said.

“Good,” Jimmy said.