Glitz

5

TEDDY PLAYED WITH VINCENT the next day. That was his plan, the way it started out.

He parked the Datsun at the beach so Vincent would be sure to see him. Not too close but sitting by itself in the shade of Australian pines. What a day-bright and fair as usual at the postcard beach. If Vincent came over he would take off: he didn’t want to talk to him, he wanted to worry him, get him worked up. But Vincent didn’t come over. He was alone sitting in his chair. Some of the girls would stop by and talk to him, but they didn’t stay long.

Next, later that afternoon, Teddy parked near the old Normandie Hotel and watched Vincent walk past with his cane and his chair on the other side of the street, not limping as much as he had the day before. Vincent looked over, was all he did. Teddy felt like yelling at him, “ ‘Ey, where’s your girlfriend? You go for that PR pussy, ‘ey? So do I, man, so do I.” But he didn’t.

Next, he trailed Vincent to the Carmen Apartments and parked across the street, near the entrance to the Hilton. He could sit out here as long as it might take, easy, after living in a Florida cellblock with the heat and smell of that place, the smell of cons. Different cons smelled different. The ones that put cologne on over their smell were the worst. Jesus, enough to make you gag. There were others smelled pretty good. He saw Vincent appear and go in the liquor store. He would’ve had trouble recognizing him from that time before, over seven years ago, with the beard he wore now. Though once he’d studied the pictures he took he knew he had his man. He’d learned at Raiford, just before he got his release, that Vincent had been shot. There were some happy boys in the yard that day, feeling they should have ice cream and cake. Cons at Raiford knew everything and liked to gossip. They said he got capped by a junkie; shit, but didn’t die. Teddy got out and learned on the streets of Miami Beach where Vincent lived, that he had once been married-a guy who sold dope out of the hospital saw Vincent there when his wife died-and so on. It was no problem to call the Detective Bureau and say he’d checked Vincent’s apartment, he wasn’t home; ask after him, how was he doing?, sounding like a friend of Vincent’s, sincere. Cops were dumb.

When Vincent came out of the liquor store he looked over and Teddy was ready to get out of there. But Vincent didn’t come over, he went back up to his apartment.

Next, Teddy thought he might have a refreshment himself. So he went over to the liquor store, bought a pint of light rum, a few cans of Fresca and some paper cups. When he got back to the car two PRs were standing there. Skinny guys, taller than most, taller than Teddy, with little thin mustaches. They looked like twin PRs, both wearing those PR shirts with pleats and pockets that hung outside the pants. They looked familiar.

One of them opened his wallet to show his I.D. and said, “Policia.” They were cops. They looked familiar because Teddy believed, from his observations, all PR cops looked alike. Skinny guys with little mustaches.

He said, “Officer, I parked in the wrong spot, ‘ey? I’ll move it right out.”

But one of the cops opened the door on the passenger side, pulled the seat up and motioned for him to get in, in back, while the other one went around to the driver’s side. As that one got in Teddy saw the bulge and the tip of the black holster sticking out from under his shirt. He said, “ ‘Ey, wait a minute. Where we going?” The one behind the wheel motioned for the key, asking for it, Teddy believed, in Spanish. “The hell you guys doing? I parked in the wrong spot, gimme a ticket, ‘ey? Christ, you take people in for illegal parking? Listen, why don’t I just pay the fine right now? Save us some time.” He pulled his shirt up to show his money belt, but they weren’t looking, both of them in the car now, in front. He tapped one of them on the shoulder and the guy looked around. “Officer, how about I give you guys some dollares? How much you need?”

No dice. They drove off and didn’t look back at him again, though the two chattered at each other in that machine-gun PR Spanish, clickety-clicking away as they drove through traffic east out of San Juan, Teddy thinking, Jesus Christ, thinking of that cab driver dead up in the rain forest. Had somebody found him? Except-wait a minute-it sure as hell didn’t look like they were going to a police station. And then he began to think, Are these birds really cops?

They drove along a beach road with no other cars in sight, empty beaches and the ocean seen through palm trees off to the left, beautiful, though the road was a bitch, full of potholes that had Teddy’s head bouncing off the roof. “Take it easy, asshole!” The driver looked hard at the rearview mirror. He knew what asshole meant. They drove, it must have been twenty miles out of San Juan, the light getting flat, dusk approaching, when they came to the end of the road.

Teddy looked through the windshield at the rear end of a gray car waiting. Beyond it was an inlet or the mouth of a river, mangrove along the banks, about a hundred yards across. All he could see over there was vegetation and a few shacks. They could be in Africa.

The gray car in front of them moved ahead and now Teddy saw the metal barge at the end of the road: a dirty flatbed raft, handrails on two sides, rusting out. The gray car eased aboard and they followed, creeping, bumping over the metal ramp and onto the barge that might hold six cars, but only the two today. A black guy stood on the outside of the rail holding onto a pair of thin ropes. Another black guy appeared from behind Teddy’s car to join the first black guy. The barge was moving now, drifting, Teddy could feel it, pushing through the mangrove leaves thick in the water. Now the two black guys began to pull on the pair of ropes and this jungle ferryboat eased out into clear water at about a half mile an hour. Jesus. He could see that not far upstream the river or inlet took a bend out of sight… toward those cloudy mountains where a cab driver lay dead.

The two PRs got out; the one pulled his seat forward and Teddy got out. He stood by the side of the car watching the two black guys pulling on the ropes, in unison, in no hurry-shit, not going anywhere. He watched them because he couldn’t believe it, these guys actually pulling on ropes, hauling cars that could roll off this thing and go close to a hundred miles an hour. When they were out in the middle of the stream the two rope pullers quit and lit up cigarettes, though they held onto the ropes. Teddy believed they were taking their break. Sure, they had been working at least ten minutes. The ferry began to drift a little toward the ocean. It was quiet out here. One of the PRs came over then and began talking to him.

Teddy squinted, watching the guy’s mouth, looking for a familiar word in that clickety-click Spanish, trying at least to catch the guy’s tone. Was he pissed off or what? Teddy looked over at one of the rope pullers. “You know what he’s saying?” The rope puller didn’t answer him.

Now the other PR started on him, sounding like he was asking questions. Teddy had forgot about the gray car ahead of them on the barge, some kind of Chevy. Until he noticed, looking past the PR talking to him, the door open.

Vincent Mora got out.

Teddy said, “Jesus Christ!” Experiencing a revelation. He saw Vincent look at him a moment, then come around to stand between the two cars. “Mr. Magic,” Vincent said to him. “How you doing, Teddy?” Then looked off, taking in the sights. Pretending to.

What were they pulling here? So he’d been made. Okay. The guy had finally remembered him or somehow had him checked out. Cops had all kinds of computer shit they used now… One of the PRs started talking to him again, asking a question, but Teddy kept his sunglasses on the bearded American English-speaking son of a bitch who had once put him away.

“You mind telling me what you’re doing?”

“I’m not doing anything.” Vincent motioned with his cane. “Looks like you’re in the hands of the Puerto Rican Police.”

“Okay.” Patient. “You mind telling me what they’re doing?”

“They’re harassing you. They’re giving you a hard time. What’d you think they were doing?”

“What for? I haven’t done nothing.”

“Yeah, well, they know about you. They want to ask you something.”

“Get me all the way out here, uh-huh, and what’re you, the interpreter?”

“That’s right.”

“Bullshit.”

One of the Puerto Rican cops said something to Teddy.

He saw Vincent listen, then begin to nod. “He says you should be careful where you go. Come out to a place like this…”

“Cut the shit, ‘ey? You think I asked to come here?”

The Puerto Rican cop spoke again, no expression on his face, reciting something.

Now Vincent said to him, “They want to know if you’ve ever been to Caguas.”

“The hell’s Caguas?”

“Take the freeway south out of San Juan through Hato Rey, it goes to Caguas.”

“Yeah? So?”

The Puerto Rican cop spoke again.

Vincent said to Teddy, “He says, on the way to Caguas you see Oso Blanco.”

“Is that right?” Teddy said. “The fuck’s Oso Blanco?”

“The joint,” Vincent said to him. “They call it the White Bear. You see it off to the left when you’re on Number One. It isn’t white, it’s sorta tan. Big place, twenty-foot double fences with barbed wire on top, gun towers all the way around. You can’t miss it.”

The Puerto Rican cop spoke again.

Vincent said to Teddy, “He says, you do time in Oso Blanco, it would make Raiford seem like Disneyworld.”

“Bullshit,” Teddy said. Guy was putting him on and he knew it.

“That’s what he said,” Vincent said to him.

“You bring me all the way out here to give me this shit?”

“They want you on a plane tomorrow.”

“Come on, ‘ey?”

“They know all about you and they don’t like you.” Vincent walked up to him now to stand face to face, less than a couple of feet separating them. “I don’t like you either. I can’t stand to look at you. They say they don’t want to see you again after four-thirty tomorrow.”

Teddy felt restless, wanting to hit him, give him a shove. He said, “Bullshit. I can stay here long as I want.”

“They say if you’re still here they’ll find some smack in your bag and you’ll stay ten to twenty. That long enough?”

“You guys, you cop assholes,” Teddy said, “you’re all alike, aren’t you?”

“No,” Vincent said to him, “we’re not. These guys see you again they’ll bring you up on something, dope, assault with intent, and throw you in the can. I see you again, well, that’s a different story.”

Teddy had to squint at that bearded face, stare hard through his sunglasses to read the guy’s cop eyes. He said, “Bullshit.” Because the guy’s eyes didn’t look mean, they looked sad, or tired. They were not the eyes he remembered from seven and a half years ago.

Vincent said to him, “Teddy, I know where you’ve been, what you learned in there, how to make a shiv, how you settle your differences. I know what a sly little back-sticking motherfucker you are and I know what you feel like doing.”

“You know everything, ‘ey?”

“I know I’m not gonna walk backwards the rest of my life,” Vincent said to him, “worry about a freak who wants to get even. You understand what I’m saying? Nod your head, I don’t want to hear any more from you.”

Teddy was about to speak, but the curved end of the cop’s cane came up to rest against the bridge of his nose.

“Don’t say it,” Vincent said to him.

Teddy didn’t move. Those eyes were different now. They still weren’t mean, they were calm. But they stared into him the way they had stared once before-when he had opened his own eyes to see the gun in his face in the hotel room in South Beach and the cop’s eyes staring. He wanted to say, Jesus, loud as he could, You don’t know anything! Yell it out. You don’t know shit! Scream it in that cop face.

But he clenched his jaw shut to keep from making even a sound and when the cop told him to nod his head, yes, he was leaving and would never come back, he nodded his head down and up, once. Because the cop’s eyes told him the cop was ready to kill him if he didn’t.